Tell me about your vision so others can hear.
Yeah, so my vision in a real simple way
is to help business owners, particularly,
or anybody in business or concerned with their careers,
help them grow.
So I'm all about growth.
My vision is to present practical, simple, proven ways
to help people grow in whatever context that growth is.
And so whether you're a CEO of a startup
looking to get going and monetize
this great idea you've had,
whether you're an employee sitting in the middle
of a corporation saying, I'm done, I'm stuck,
I need to get unstuck, anything that's related to growth,
I can help because my world has been a how-to world.
I know how to do it because I've done it.
I'm not one of these textbook-driven theoreticians
that says, well, in theory, no, no, no, no, no.
Theory is useless if you can't translate it
and prove that it actually proves results.
So I'm a results visionary looking to help people grow
in whatever context that makes sense for them.
Yes, yes.
What's the most important leadership lesson you've learned
in the last 40 years of your experience?
Wow, so there's no silver bullets, first of all.
Okay, and I wanna make that point.
It's a really great question
and I've been asked it a million times and I cannot.
It's all about doing a whole bunch of little things
that add up to being this great big vortex of action,
to move forward.
And so it's okay to do a goose bump, a dumb rules,
a line of sight, a service strategy,
a dazzling, a rave-worthy moment.
It's okay to do a bunch of those things
because as long as they're all aligned
and ending to go to the same end,
it's okay to do that.
In fact, it's a must because as I say,
the Hail Mary doesn't exist.
Okay, from a purely personal point of view,
I think the big breakthrough for me was coming up
with this notion of line of sight as a leader.
Like one of the biggest things from an execution point
of view is that if you don't clearly articulate
everybody's role in the organization
in terms of the new strategy you've got,
normally you get dysfunction
because you leave it up to people
to invent their own definition of what they should do.
And it's not that they're crazy, whatever,
it's just that they lack the perspective
that the leader has.
And so what I would do is translate the strategy
for every employee in the organization.
And I had thousands of people in the organization.
This was not a five person organization.
It was five, 6,000 people that we built it to, it's huge.
And so the translation process was extremely arduous
and I did it.
Over time, my direct reports got it
and I trusted that they would do
the right kind of thing with it, but initially it was me.
And the whole idea was if everybody got direct line of sight
from what their role was into that growth strategy,
then wonderful things would happen.
And it did, okay.
And so for you leaders out there
who think your job is to sit in your office
and pontificate on strategy, get out of it.
Get out of your office, right?
Get in the execution mode, go get dirty,
get dirt in your fingernails
because that's where results are
and start getting involved, embed yourself
with your organization, help people understand
what their role is, ask the simple question,
how can I help?
How can I help?
People would often say, well, yeah,
that sounds kind of flimsy.
I go, no, it's not.
Cause this isn't about how are you feeling today.
This is about how can I help remove the barriers
that are preventing you from executing
our strategy even better?
And so it's extremely strategic,
but it would be that notion line of sight,
embed yourself, ask the question, how can I help?
Subordinate yourself to your people.
There's a quote and I've never used that before.
You need to subordinate yourself.
You need to suck it up
cause it's not about you leader.
It's about the people who choose to follow you
and you need as many as you can get.
Absolutely.
One other question, what's your why?
What's my why?
My why is, why is it taking so long
to get people on the be different or be dead bandwagon?
And I know what the answer is.
The answer is that we are so driven by an education system
and a traditional business planning system
that it's hard to break away.
We are bound by traditional practices.
We shun being different.
You said earlier, it's okay to be different.
I would go one step further.
It's absolutely essential to be different.
If we're to have a society, right?
And a business environment where we growth
and we all prosper,
that's not gonna happen when we're part of tribes
unless they're different tribes.
It's not gonna happen.
Sameness gets you nothing.
It may make you feel good, right?
It may make you feel good
but it really doesn't contribute
what it is we need as an environment
and a society to survive.
And so the biggest why for me is that
and my days are spent trying to knock down
those barriers of tradition
and momentum management created by textbooks
that promulgate stuff that doesn't work
in today's environment
and promulgated by people
that have never run a billion dollar a year business.
Why do people listen to people
with three or six letters after their name
and they've never run a business?
Why do they trust them to give them business advice?
I know I'm getting a bit passionate on this
but it really pisses me off, okay?
It does.
So that brings me to my most favorite question.
What are the greatest joys of what you do?
Having conversations like this
and watching you smile when I give you a crazy answer
and watching your face light up over hiring for goosebumps
and being able to relate to that
and tell your version of the story.
I mean, that's what it's all about.
I mean, look at growth is a function of relationships.
It just is.
And so we need to build more of those.
And so, like I said earlier,
I've done well over a hundred podcasts as a guest
and every one of them is based fundamentally
on the kind of thing that we're talking about now.
And it's an opportunity for me
to kind of like change the conversation a lot with why,
right?
And I just love them.
I just love them because I get pushback in certain areas
which makes me think even more about my context
and would be different.
I mean, the whole notion of narcissism
and a conversation around that
didn't come until I started podcasting.
Or I realized there's a story here that I haven't told.
I need to tell a story about this is not narcissism.
Being different is not about the color of your hair.
And that was a huge breakthrough for me.
And so that's what I enjoy about these conversations.
It makes me do a better job in terms of what I do.
And hopefully I don't have that many years left,
I guess to keep doing this,
but hopefully I'll see some more progress
as more and more people join me
in that be different or be dead journey.
That would be it.
Yes.
And it's crucial because I realized the more and more
I speak to individuals on my podcast.
And that question is asked, how are you different
from X, Y and Z company or not even mentioning a company?
There's so many entrepreneurs or business owners
I believe they're already different.
And so I'm sure that's like there's a wake up call
to those that are owned businesses
to really see if they are truly doing things differently
and maybe scaling as to why they're not making it
to where they desire to be
because they really aren't much different.
Yeah.
So like I presented the problem of differentiation
but I also have the solution of course, you knew that.
Cause I had to develop my own process
or my own planning process that would allow people
to create their, what I call the only statement
which is basically we are the only ones who
because that is the ultimate manifestation
of differentiation.
If you can claim and truthfully deliver
on being the only one
then you have established differentiation.
So I've had to create my own process of taking people there.
And so I do a lot of consulting
with small business owners and CEOs.
After our first meeting, what you said is obvious.
They aren't different.
They're relying on technology, et cetera
and blah, blah, blah.
And you know, unique selling propositions
as read in marketing 101, which means absolutely nothing.
And I have to, I tell them, I said, stop spending money.
I built a process, a 48 hour process
that will allow people to develop a strategic game plan
from them.
You can read that in my books and it's so simple.
It's based on answering three questions.
How big do you wanna be?
Who do you wanna serve?
How are you gonna compete and win?
You will have a strategy in 48 hours
that will establish you as the only one
that does what you do.
And I try and get people into that.
Now with small business, as you know,
trying to convince them to take time off their business
to do some planning is a challenge.
But given that it's only 48 hours
and it's not a three week commitment,
I've been pretty successful getting people
leaning into that.
And so I've had real estate companies.
I've had landscaping companies, small businesses go through
and trust me to help them on this.
And you should see the kind of planning
that they've come up with
and the kind of results that they're producing.
30 to 40% annual growth and top line revenue.
And they can't believe it, cause it's so simple.
In fact, that's their typical responses.
Roy, I can't believe how simple that is.
Why isn't everybody doing it?
And then I go back to my why.
Absolutely.
I love that.
Roy, how can the guests or the audience get ahold of you
and what are your social media handles?
Yeah, so I've got, just Google me at Roy Osing
and you'll get all my social media,
but my website come visit me is be different or bedead.com.
And I've tried to put as much resource in there as I can.
Look at, I've been blogging on this stuff since 2009.
So there's a ton of content.
If you wanna find out more about goosebumps
or killing down rules,
you can search my blogs on my site
and you'll get all the content.
So visit me there.
I've also got a page that talks about my seven books.
There's also what I'm calling a be different quiz.
And so if you're ever wondering where you sit
on the be different or be dead scale,
in terms of how different you really are
in your business or career, go take my quiz.
It's fun.
It will show you where you need to do a little more work
and it will also show you where you've really got
some good traction going in achieving
some of the be different stuff that I talk about.
And lastly, my email address is roy.osing at gmail.com.
And I'm really happy to have a conversation
one-on-one.
I have people emailing me their draft only statements.
Roy, hey, I did this, check it out.
What do you think?
And I've done some planning work online
with people that are interested in,
wow, what is this strategic game plan all about?
And so take advantage of me, use me.
I'm here to be you.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is gonna get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well
and invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.