May 7, 2025 • 36 mins
Episode 93 Frederick Dudek (Freddy D) Copyright 2025 Prosperous Ventures, LLC
Be Different or Be Dead: Unlocking Business Success with Roy Osing
Roy Osing, a true titan in the entrepreneurial world, shares some killer insights on building high-performance businesses that really resonate. He takes us through his journey of scaling a startup to a whopping billion in sales and emphasizes that the key to success is all about differentiation. His mantra, “Be different or be dead,” isn’t just catchy; it’s a call to action for anyone looking to stand out in today’s crowded marketplace.
We dive deep into how emotional engagement and a caring culture can turn regular customers into superfans, ultimately driving growth and loyalty. Get ready to absorb some serious wisdom from a leader who’s walked the walk and transformed the business landscape along the way.
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In a world where many businesses blend into the background, Roy Osing's insights stand out like a beacon. He talks about the necessity of emotional engagement and simplicity in strategy, arguing that if a strategy isn't relatable and easy to grasp, it will fail to be executed effectively. Ozing emphasizes that creating superfans – customers who are deeply invested in the brand – starts from within the organization.
By fostering a culture of appreciation and recognition, teams become more cohesive and motivated. This episode is not just about the big picture; it delves into the nitty-gritty of how to implement these ideas practically. Ozing shares anecdotes from his extensive career, illustrating how small changes can lead to monumental shifts in employee engagement and customer loyalty. It's a compelling reminder that success hinges on understanding and responding to human emotions, both within our teams and in our customer interactions.
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Takeaways:
- In this episode, we dive into Roy Osing's unique approach to differentiation, emphasizing that without it, businesses risk facing dire consequences, hence the mantra, 'Be different or be dead.'
- Roy shares his belief that traditional best practices hold businesses back, advocating instead for a mindset that constantly questions norms and seeks innovative solutions.
- A key insight from the discussion is that genuine care for employees and customers fosters super fans, which is essential for long-term success in any business.
- Roy stresses the importance of emotional engagement and simplicity in strategy, arguing that complex plans are doomed to fail if they don't resonate on a personal level.
- The podcast highlights that creating a culture of appreciation and recognition within teams can lead to remarkable transformations in performance and morale.
- Finally, we explore the idea that leadership requires a hands-on approach, as leaders must connect with their teams to identify and remove barriers to success.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:59):
Hey, Freddy D. Here. In thisepisode, we're joined by Roy Osing,
a powerhouse entrepreneur andexecutive leader who took a startup
Internet company all the wayto a billion dollars in annual sales.
Roy isn't just anotherbusiness voice. He's the only author,
advisor and mentor deliveringpractical, proven and truly audacious
strategies to build highperformance businesses and careers.
(02:24):
With over 40 years ofunmatched leadership experience as
a President, CMO andentrepreneur, Roy brings no nonsense
edge to everything he does,including his bold book series, Be
different or Be Dead and hisown podcast, Audacious Moves to a
Billion. Get ready for anenergized insight packed conversation
(02:45):
with the leader who walks thetalk all the way to a billion. Welcome,
Roy, to the Business Superfans podcast.
Hey, thanks very much forhaving me here. I'm grateful.
Well, we're super excited tohave you. So, Roy, tell us a little
bit about the backstory andthen how you came about with this
book. Be different or Be Dead.
(03:07):
Yeah, so Be different or BeDead is actually a book series. I
wrote my first book in 2009and I've written several sins. The
latest one is Be different orBe. The Audacious unheard of ways
we took a start up to abillion is all about differentiation.
I don't believe it's beingdone very well these days. The ultimate
consequence of anundifferentiated strategy is not
(03:30):
very pleasant. Hence, Bedifferent or be dead. But more than
that, it's kind of who I'vebeen my life. I'm basically a guy
that doesn't like tradition,always looking for ways of doing
things differently. I don'tlike best practices. I don't like
copying. And so basically mywhole career has been spent questioning
the way we do things andcoming up with different approaches.
(03:52):
The be different or be deadmantra encapsulates that whole premise.
I think I got it from mymother. She was one of 12. She had
to fight for every meal. Shegrew up as a feisty woman who just
wanted to get stuff done in away that nobody else did. I never
realized it until one of myhosts asked me that and I went, huh,
(04:13):
I guess it was my mom. She gotthat in my DNA and it served me very
well. Be different or be deadis a mantra that's trying to call
for people to look for ways tobe different in a way that other
people care about. And that'sa point I want to make. It's not
about narcissism. It's notabout what you think of you. It's
about doing things in a veryspecial way or doing special things
(04:35):
that serve others. So it'sanything but narcissism. And I have
to clarify that because a lotof people think it's like the color
of their hair or theirpronouns or their sex. Sexual preferences.
I don't care about any ofthat. I want to know what you're
doing special in a way thatserves other people. Be different
or be dead.
That aligns perfectly with mycreating business super fans. Because
(04:56):
you've got to take care ofother people and help them accomplish
their goals, dreams andaspirations. You don't have to worry
about yourself. It'll comeback tenfold and you'll be successful
as well. We're just calling ita little different, but similar concept.
Yeah, It's a matter ofsubordinating yourself to the people
you're actually trying totarget in your business. This is
(05:18):
not a mass market thingeither. It's a process of defining
who you want to serve,figuring out what they crave, and
then satisfying those cravingsin a way nobody else does. If you
can do that consistently, thenthe super fan thing will happen.
It's a consequence of actions.It isn't the intent. Because if you
(05:39):
start out considering it atactic, you're doomed. You need to
do the work. You need astrategic context, and you need to
be really focused on peopleand just go from there. Be consistent
in the way you deliver value.Be consistent in the way you hire
people that a lot ofbusinesses don't pay attention to.
The small, audacious stuffthat got us to a billion in annual
(06:00):
sales. It wasn't thetheoretical, complex stuff, which
nobody can understand. Becausehow you convince somebody to execute
on a strategic direction. Ifit's complicated, it's an impossible
task. But you got to dumb itdown. You got to make it relevant,
you got to make it compelling.You got to make it emotionally stimulating.
There's no emotional triggersin what you do with employees. You
(06:22):
get zero engagement and youcan't execute and you don't make
any progress. And so it's alot of hard work. It's not a tactic
that you look up in marketing101. Not there, no.
Totally agree. When I was incharge of global sales, I set up
a global reseller channel. Weused to call them value added resellers
around the world. They'reseparate agencies. So we're one of
(06:46):
12 different products thatthey're marketing. How do I get mind
share of those people and getthem to sell my product in a different
country, in a differentCulture. It was all about building
those relationships and havingthe objectives and working with everybody
in that organization, being onthe same page and recognizing the
(07:09):
people in the organizationthat were contributing to the success
of our product.
Yeah. And there's a hugeleadership piece in here that I worked
really hard on. People wouldsay, you want to grow your business,
but we're so dysfunctional.Everybody's doing their own thing.
So I came up with this notionand tagged it Line of Sight. I believe
that the reason people aredysfunctional is they are left their
(07:32):
own to create whatever actionsthey think are appropriate to live
the strategy. And that's afailure of leadership for explaining
it.
Absolutely.
So. So we had a translation. Ipersonally did this. My organization
was like 5,000 people. So notsmall. We created alignment plans
for every department and everyperson in the organization that says,
(07:53):
these are the things that youneed to do and these are the things
that you need to give up tohave direct line of sight to the
strategy. When we were able toinculcate that as part of the culture,
incredible things happen.Right. All of the noise disappeared.
Everybody was focused onrelevant things as opposed to things
(08:13):
that may have been relevantyesterday but are no longer relevant
today. And that aidedexecution, which is the other big
element that drives superfans. They want you to keep your
promises. It's a hugelyemotional thing. They just want you
to be trustworthy. Putemployees in front of them that actually
like humans. I had to come upwith this thing called hirings for
(08:36):
goosebumps. Relationships areall about emotion. They expect my
Internet stream to work, butwhat makes them buy from me is a
whole other layer of stuff. Ifyou have employees that don't really
like Homo sapiens, then that'spretty hard to do. The recruitment
piece in terms of super fansis huge because if you don't have
(08:58):
everything going on behind thescenes that's leaning into people
and their humanity and theirneeds, then you can forget about
fans. You just end up to be aclinical stereotypical product pusher.
Great, great future.
Right? Because people cansense whether it's a transactional
perspective or genuine care inhelping them accomplish their needs.
(09:21):
The thing you mentioned that Iwant to reemphasize for our listeners
is alignment. Think of aracing rowing team. You have eight
people in the rowboat, eachwith one oar. They are going into
a race and must besynchronized in one direction to
win that race.
(09:43):
Yeah, the analogy soundspretty simple, and it is okay. But
the problem is, in anorganization, most leaders don't
take the time to do this.Translating your direction in terms
of what it means to individualemployees normally gets delegated,
right? Because we've beentaught as leaders to delegate everything,
which is absolute frickinghogwash. I'm a fingerprint leader.
(10:06):
I put my fingerprints on thethings that I needed to be engaged
in. There are some things thatI didn't. But when it came to selling
the strategy, talking aboutthe brand, talking about retention,
talking about hiring humanbeing lovers, there was only one
person that can do that, andthat was me.
That's your job, really?
That's what else. Right.
(10:28):
You got to sell the vision well.
And also sell what it takes toexecute the vision without execution.
I don't pay much attention tothat either. In order to get people
to execute and driveperformance, you had to do those
things and make it simple.What I discovered is that's all it
took, you know, that was thelock. Once it was unlocked, execution
(10:50):
went crazy. Top line startedgoing. Employee engagement went through
the roof. And to your pointearlier, all of our relationships
with suppliers, marketingcommunications companies, et cetera,
they improved as well becausethe nature of the engagement with
those people took on a caringattitude. And I talk a lot about
creating a caring culture. Theultimate way of creating super fans
(11:14):
is you need a caring culture.The inside needs to give a shit.
The inside gives shit, you getnothing. Right?
Right.
Too many people think aboutthis as a tactic. Wow, the Superfan.
This is a real cool name.That's exceeding expectations and
all kinds of. You got to dothe work right. You got to contextualize
what you're doing. And it'stime consuming, but at the end of
(11:36):
the day, it's so important, itpays off in spades.
Explode. You know, one of myquotes in my book is people will
crawl through broken glass forappreciation and recognition, and
you got to give it. That's howyou build that momentum, that's how
you create that energy.Because all of a sudden you turn
around and say, hey, you know,Johnny over here did this particular
project. I want to take amoment to recognize Johnny. Everybody
(11:59):
is excited for Johnny, butthey're also going in their heads.
I want that to be me. And soeverybody elevates their game a whole
nother level, right? And itbecomes contagious. You look at a
sports team, a sports team ishaving fun on the field. They're
destined to win becausethey're relaxed, they're having fun,
(12:20):
they're camaraderie, they'rehigh fiving, they're chest bumping,
et cetera. And a team that'sfrustrated Struggling. You can see
the look on their face. Youcan tell who's going to win and who's
going to lose right at thebeginning of the game.
A lot of times, passion is astrategic concept. Emotion is part
of a strategy. And most peopledon't think about it that way. They
(12:43):
think about what's ourmarketing plan, what's our product
development strategy, what'sour systems engineering approach,
as opposed to saying, how arewe going to inject the stuff that
comes out of the right side ofthe brain into everything that we
do? The reason they don'tthink about that is it is hard work
changing and creating aculture that spawns superfans. If
(13:04):
you think about this box, thisbox is the converter between a target
customer and a superfan. Inthat box, there's a ton of stuff
that's dirty and most leadersdon't want to get dirty. And it's
hard work. It's all about whatare the cultural things that we need
to do, the strategic things.Reality. That's the easy part. The
(13:27):
difficult is, it really iswell and yet why. Okay, I agree with
you. Why do we spend 80% ofour time on the strategy and 20%
on execution? Like, we got itall wrong? My work shows I spend
20% on the plan. I get it justabout right, and I, through execution,
change it and revise it on thego. I call it let's head west. So
(13:48):
I'm sitting in New York. Mystrategy is going to be I'm heading
west. I have no idea, quitefrankly, if I'm going to end up in
San Francisco, Phoenix orVancouver. All I know is I'm going
west. I'm going to execute.I'm going to keep my feet moving.
I'm going to learn on the runand tweak and eventually the strategy
will show itself to me. It'snot that I'm stupid, but as I start
(14:11):
out, there's just too manyvariables. This is a problem I have
with education. They think youcan formularize everything. Give
me a linear regressionanalysis and I'll tell you what your
forecast is going to be. Everheard that before? My degree is in
math. Right. I've never solveda business problem with a differential
equation in my life, and Inever will. I'm pretty sure you've
(14:33):
been involved with youngprofessionals that are struggling.
One of the reasons they'restruggling, they got this academics
jacket on them as opposed to apractical lens. Think outside the
box well and just accept thefact. But you know what? We don't
let them Academia doesn't letthem, the MBA program doesn't let
them. Don't try and tell methat if I do a case study I'm going
(14:55):
to suddenly be creativebecause another 10,000 people have
done the same case study. Howthat being different. So the whole
model is a problem, especiallyfor young people starting out. One
of the axioms is you need toget the strategy perfect. Help me
understand how that makes anysense in an imperfect world.
Right?
It makes zero sense. Hence getit just about right. Execute, learn,
(15:19):
plan on the run and eventuallyyou end up where you should be. But
you didn't know that when youbegan. It's as simple as that. It's
a messy way to look at it. AndI get people going, what, you didn't
spend $50,000 with KPMG andblah blah, getting your strategy?
And I'd say it doesn't matter.Okay, I'm going to take five people
who run that lead thebusiness. We're going into a room
(15:42):
and I can do this with you in48 hours you'll have your strategy.
And it's just amazing how thisworks. They don't believe it because
they've been taught to thinkthat success is complicated, expensive
and it takes a lot.
Right. It goes back to when Iwas working with international distributors.
I would spend time with theactual sales guys and to make sure
(16:03):
that they understood ourproduct and how it could help them
sell for the awards for topreseller. I didn't just give the
plaques and awards to theagency because the agency wasn't
necessarily the people doingthe work, it was the actual sales
team and the tech team. So Irecognized them as well. One of the
sales guys and the tech guygot recognized. They felt appreciated
(16:27):
and other resellers saw thatcreating momentum. And I took a simple
product. In 1997, I startedwith the company and it was like,
here's a product, go do whatyou do. I grew it to 3 million net
to the company in $5,000chunks, to a brand new product in
a three year window. Allbecause of the approach that I did,
(16:49):
which was non traditional. Itwas just basically going out there
and getting other people tobelieve in it and start promoting
it and know what the directionwas that they needed to go.
Well, part of the problem isthe people who are promulgating these
theoretical, principled,academic approaches have never run
a business. So they don't knowwhat you just said. They don't know.
(17:12):
By embedding yourself with thefront line, understanding what they
do, helping them, I call itleadership. By serving around, it's
like, how can I help you tomake you feel good? What I know is,
what are the barriers, whatare the challenges to execution that
you're facing that I can helpyou with? Because if we can cleanse
that environment a little bit,then I know where my performance
(17:33):
and my top line are going to.Straight through the roof. And so,
yeah, I spent probably 20% ofevery week embedded figuring out
what systemic issues we had,responding to individuals, et cetera.
And it was really wellreceived. People talked about that,
and the passion and thecommitment and the advocacy to the
(17:56):
journey we were on justcontinued to get larger and larger.
I had this program calledKilling Dumb Rules. A dumb rule is
a rule that we have for somereason in the organization that does
nothing but piss customersoff. You can imagine in your own
personal life, you go into astore and they give you a policy,
you kind of go, what? And allit does is infuriate you, right?
(18:18):
So we had these things, andthey were d. Dazzling events. They
were not events consistentwith building superfans. I labeled
them dumb rules. And so Ilaunched this program called Killing
Dumb Rules. My CEO at the timewasn't happy with my language. He
says, well, come on, Roy, youcan't call them dumb rules because
obviously that's going tooffend somebody that actually originated
(18:38):
the rules. And I said, okay,I'll tell you what, we're going to
call them stupid policies. Thefront line love the notion because
they knew it was stupid. Andso we launched the program and we
had contests. My managementteam had only one responsibility
when they were presented witha dumb rule. You either kill it or.
Or you fix it or you dosomething. Because there were legal
(18:59):
issues, obviously, that we'regoing to. And so what I would do
is I would show up in theworkplace with a white long sleeve
T shirt on it, and I'd havedumb rules written on the front,
written on the back, with abig circle and an X through it. And
it was just unbelievable. Roygot another one. Roy got another.
We had a process forprioritizing, but as a trigger for
(19:20):
moving the culture in adifferent way, in a way that was
customer focused. It wasamazing. It was so simple. All you
had to do was suck it up andlose your ego.
You just said it right therebecause you got yourself out of your
own way. You let the team comeup with ways. So you empowered the
team to be able to say, hey,that's a dumb rule, and here's why,
(19:45):
and here's what we should do.Now they've got ownership, and it
changes the whole dynamics.
Yep, absolutely.
You remind me of Sir RichardBranson. You don't see him cleaning
the windshield on theairplane. He's out there playing
flight attendant once in awhile or on his virgin voyages, he's
out there playing bingo withthe people. He's not piloting the
(20:07):
ship. He's empowered his teamto do it. But they've got an alignment,
a vision and direction.
It's really curious to me thatthere are so many good examples of
leaders that don't takethemselves seriously in a certain
dimension of the job. Yetleadership, in terms of its effectiveness
has changed very little in thelast decades. That's momentum management
(20:31):
from the past, adhering totraditional leadership principles
promulgated by people with allthese initials attached to their
name. They have this impliedcredibility, and I think it's disingenuous.
I think it's intellectuallydishonest to have the future leaders
of tomorrow infected by thiskind of thinking. You and I, we should
(20:53):
be the ones doing theinfecting. We try to infect as many
people as we can. But thereality is I'm pretty disappointed
in the amount of change I'vebeen able to see is such a big problem.
I'm just not seeing anychange. I don't get invited to go
talk to MBA graduating classesat university anymore. And there's
(21:15):
a reason for that, because Itell them that basically you're here
to learn how to solveproblems. Once you get your degree,
good for you. There's otherstuff you need to take on. The profs
don't like that they feelthreatened. And I'm thinking, why
would you feel threatened? Whywouldn't you be opening yourself
to other points of view thatmay help your students, Especially
(21:36):
coming from somebody that'staken a startup to a billion dollars
in sales. What other proofpoint do you want?
Well, Roy, you make some greatpoints there. Because I had a mentor.
Years ago, in my late teens, Iworked at a gas station and I met
a guy that pulled up with aLincoln Continental, had a phone
(21:57):
in the car. We're talking a1975. I'm still friends with the
guy today, and he's verysuccessful. We just hit it off. I
don't know how, we justconnected. He invited me to drive
his second car that wasgetting repaired at the gas station.
I didn't realize it. He askedthe owner to have me drive the second
car. And I went and he hadthis really cool bachelor pad, water
(22:18):
bed, and all this kind ofcrazy stuff. And he Gave me a pamphlet
that I actually still have. Hewas stunned that I still have it.
It gave me a list of bookslike Think and Grow Rich, the Magic
of Believing, PsychoCybernetics, all that stuff. I read
all those things and thatcompletely changed my perception
of things. At 19 years old Ibought myself a 1976 Corvette. So
(22:43):
I'm a 19 year old kid drivinga 74 Corvette that was pumping gas
before that. All because heopened up my mind to other things
and other possibilities andtaught me to dream big. I've had
successes, I've had massivefailures, but I get up, put a band
(23:04):
aid on and continue. You'reabsolutely correct. Sometimes you
just gotta think withimagination and possibilities are
there.
Well, I absolutely agree.Michael Jordan said it best when
he's lost more basketballgames than anybody in the game. But
he took more shots and hefailed more. It sure makes the point.
(23:26):
And yet we're taught to seekperfection according to somebody's
standards. People are taughtthat you need to get it perfect according
to a set of rules thatsomebody else has created. The problem
with that is the world is socomplicated these days and unpredictable.
It's impossible to predictanything. It's like I want to be
perfectly imperfect. And bythat I mean I want to be able to
(23:50):
move and shake and be able tobe agile.
You gotta be agile today.
You gotta just keep doing thatright? And have the confidence that
as long as you don't make thesame mistake twice, but the more
mistakes you make, you're onthe right track. Because if you're
not making mistakes, you'renot doing nothing. Let's get real.
And yet that is viewed aslaissez faire. When you start talking,
(24:10):
especially academics. And Iknow I'm being tough on academics
and I don't mean todenigrating what they do. I'm just
saying there's an alternativethat you and I have lived and created
value from. Why doesn't thatscenario get the attention that deserves?
I don't get it. It's not fromproof points. You have proof points,
(24:31):
I have proof points. There's alot of guys out there like us that
have been very successful inbusiness that have secrets to share,
but nobody cares.
Yeah, you hit a point. I can'tsay anything because you just took
the hammer and smashed it.Because that's true. You know, I
talk about changing the wholeperception and in my book I talk
(24:56):
about doing the unexpectedextra something that's above and
beyond. And nobody expects itbecause it's transformative. The
recipient is blown Away by thetransaction. One of my other quotes
is, the little things arereally the big things.
No question. No question aboutit. It's because the little things
(25:19):
are part of the engagementprocess. And those are the things
that are sticky to people thatyou want as either customers, friends,
or lovers or whatever. Thoseare the things that stick. It's actually
the translation of intent fromthose little things. Tom. Peter said
it. He wrote a book called theLittle Big Things, and he nailed
it. And that was a long timeago. So you and I know this stuff.
(25:40):
They don't teach about killingdumb rules. They don't teach about
hiring for goosebumps. Theydon't teach about creating a strategic
game plan in 48 hours. Theydon't teach about how to create a
library of cravings for yourtop fans. They don't talk about cleaning
the inside. And yet all ofthose notions were so important to
my team in moving our businessaround. It's depressing. Stuff that
(26:05):
has been proven to work is noteven valued as an idea in a value
set that people areconsidering, especially as a new
CEO starting up. I can'tbelieve it. I work a lot with startup
CEOs, and the biggest problemthey have is they haven't put the
textbook down yet.
You gotta get into thetrenches. I was managing a company
a year and a half ago, and Ihad a person on the team with depression.
(26:31):
There were days she didn'tcome into the office because she
just couldn't handle it. Andthis was an example of the little
things or the big things. Istarted empowering her more and giving
her four responsibilities andsaid, hey, I understand these things
are going to happen, but I gotyour back. And she started to feel
(26:55):
better about herself becauseeverybody else kicks her to the side.
He's doing the opposite. He'sempowering her. So she started going
out of her way. She starteddressing up nicer. She started feeling
better about herself, hercustomer or prospective customer
engagement improved. Hercommunications with her customer
(27:15):
transformed. And she helpedgrow the department, which was under
$100,000. And this was doingdocument translations in different
languages to over 225,000. Sogrew by more than 100% with the person,
had some challenges. Thosechallenges became minimized, marginalized,
(27:37):
because they felt worthy andempowered to come up with ideas.
They came up with ideas andsystems in place and everything else
completely transformed. Andjust like we're talking about, that
was a little thing that reallybecame a big thing.
Well, you know, it's a greatstory as you're describing it. What
I get in my mind is youbasically allowed her to take a deep
(28:00):
breath. And when you'reallowed to oxygenate the physiology,
magic happens. She wasbreathing up here. You allowed her
to take a deep breath, fullbody cavity, full body breath, and
look what she was able to dowith that. Good for you. I wish more
people could actually look atit that way. Allow your people to.
(28:21):
To take a deep breath. We talka lot about empowerment, and I know
we all know what it is. Thenotion the tag has been around. I
think part of our challenge asleaders is to find new ways of talking
about old stuff. Becauseeverybody learns in different ways.
Right.
I mean, if you can imagine intoday's world, there's so much going
on in terms of holistictreatment and yoga and everything
(28:44):
else. My wife is alwaystelling me to breathe through my
back, Freddie. And I have noidea what that means. But when I
take a deep breath and when Isee somebody else take a deep breath,
I kind of want to. And I gottaadmit, I feel better afterwards.
And that's what you gave her.That's what you gave her, the ability
to breathe again. You are amagician. You are a doctor. Well
(29:07):
done.
Well, thank you. I'm not adoctor. It was something that. And
we're still friends today. Andshe's helping me with some of the
stuff because she's a superfan of who I am.
Yep.
And that's where it allstarts, is you start creating super
fans internally. That energytranscends to people they're talking
with. And you recognize asupplier for going above and beyond
(29:32):
versus the other guy that isall systems and says, you were late,
product was delivered, we'resupposed to get it there, blah, blah,
blah, don't do that stuff. Andall of a sudden you get two companies
asking you, the supplier todeliver something right away. Who's
going to get favored?
Yeah. Well, I think part ofthe problem is the language. Organizations
(29:53):
that view themselves assuppliers are actually pushers. You
don't create superfans bybeing a pusher. You create super
fans by being a friend. Right.Respected friend you can trust and
you're willing to go with. Butit's all about the emotional component
of the connection and theemotional triggers that go on in
(30:17):
conversion from a targetcustomer to a super fan. They're
life sustaining. Is the otherbeauty of. Because once they happen,
it's hard to break them. Okay.When you're a super fan of something,
it's hard to ever break that because.
You feel, yeah, look at theChicago Cubs in baseball. There's
A perfect example of superfans. They finally won one World
(30:37):
Series after 5,000 years, butthe bottom line was they were super
fans of the team, even thoughthey were in a doghouse.
Yeah. Yeah, that's good.That's a great example. Who would
have thought, right?Leadership, emotional triggers and
all that kind of stuff. Theydon't teach that stuff. You'll learn
it through being in thetrenches, watching the pupils of
(31:00):
their eyes dilate. It's a hardleadership path to go on, and yet
it's so worthwhile at the end.But I don't see too many people doing
what you and I are justtalking about.
Oh, absolutely. People canshortcut it and buy books that you
and I have written that tell20 years or whatever worth of experience
that you can read in a weekand shortcut that whole process by
(31:24):
just stepping out of your ownbox. Absolutely right as we come
towards the end here, Roy, howcan people find you?
So I have a website and it'sof course Be different or be dead
dot com. Come and visit me.I've put as many resources on that
website as I can. I blog everyweek, so please subscribe to my blog.
(31:45):
I got content on this sitesince 2009 about goosebumps. You
want to know about killingdumb rules. In terms of successes,
failures, check out my blog.My books, the seven books I've written
are available there. There's apage on there so you can check them
out. I've imported my ownpodcast. It's called Audacious Moves
to a Billion and repurposingpodcasts with the host's permission
(32:07):
of course. Like this that I'vedone. It's another avenue for the
host to get exposure. It's onmy homepage of my website and I clip
it into smaller bite sizeaccording to certain subjects. It's
just another way to consumethe content. My favorite part of
my website is my quiz. It'scalled the Be different or be Dead
quiz. And the whole idea isit's a fun thing. You can determine
(32:30):
by filling out a questionnairewhere you fit on the be different
or be dead continuum. Are youdifferent or leaning towards the
ultimate consequence of notbeing different, which is a truncation
of mortality. It's a funthing. You can fill it out and it
shows you where you might wantto address some aspects of being
(32:51):
different that you hadn'tthought of before. My email is roy.osingmail.com
I'm happy to have aconversation with anybody about any
part of my work. It's actuallyinteresting. I have people who will
come back to me and say, okay,this blog is all about the only statement,
which is something I had tocreate to differentiate. And I've
(33:11):
created it, Roy, I've draftedit. What do you think? And that leads
to a awesome conversation. Andit leads to a friend that I help.
And it's all pro bono as faras I'm concerned, because I'm not
doing this for any otherreason than to try and change the
conversation out there. Socome and visit me, subscribe to my
blog, have a conversation withme, and come on the journey with
(33:31):
me.
Fun. We'll make sure that allthat stuff is in the show Notes Roy,
it's been a pleasure havingyou on the Business Superfans podcast
show. We could probably talkfor hours on this stuff and we look
forward to having you on theshow again down the road.
Oh, I'd love to. And thanksfor inviting me. I really appreciate
it.
Appreciate it. Thank you. HeySuperfan superstar Freddie D. Here.
(33:54):
Before we wrap, here's yourthree A playbook power move to attract
ideal clients, turn them intoadvocates, and accelerate your business
success. So here's the topinsight out of today's episode. If
your strategy isn'temotionally engaging and wildly simple,
it will never get executed.And with that execution, your vision
dies in the dark. So here'syour business growth action step.
(34:18):
Create a one sentencestrategic direction. Your entire
team can understand that.Aligned every department's daily
actions to that statement. Noexceptions. If today's conversation
sparked an idea for you, oryou know of a fellow business leader
who could benefit, share itwith them and grab the full breakdown
(34:38):
in the show notes. Let'saccelerate together and start creating
business superfans whochampion your brand.
Hey, Freddy D. Here. In thisepisode, we're joined by Roy Osing,
a powerhouse entrepreneur andexecutive leader who took a startup
Internet company all the wayto a billion dollars in annual sales.
Roy isn't just anotherbusiness voice. He's the only author,
advisor and mentor deliveringpractical, proven and truly audacious
strategies to build highperformance businesses and careers.
(02:24):
With over 40 years ofunmatched leadership experience as
a President, CMO andentrepreneur, Roy brings no nonsense
edge to everything he does,including his bold book series, Be
different or Be Dead and hisown podcast, Audacious Moves to a
Billion. Get ready for anenergized insight packed conversation
(02:45):
with the leader who walks thetalk all the way to a billion. Welcome,
Roy, to the Business Superfans podcast.
Hey, thanks very much forhaving me here. I'm grateful.
Well, we're super excited tohave you. So, Roy, tell us a little
bit about the backstory andthen how you came about with this
book. Be different or Be Dead.
(03:07):
Yeah, so Be different or BeDead is actually a book series. I
wrote my first book in 2009and I've written several sins. The
latest one is Be different orBe. The Audacious unheard of ways
we took a start up to abillion is all about differentiation.
I don't believe it's beingdone very well these days. The ultimate
consequence of anundifferentiated strategy is not
(03:30):
very pleasant. Hence, Bedifferent or be dead. But more than
that, it's kind of who I'vebeen my life. I'm basically a guy
that doesn't like tradition,always looking for ways of doing
things differently. I don'tlike best practices. I don't like
copying. And so basically mywhole career has been spent questioning
the way we do things andcoming up with different approaches.
(03:52):
The be different or be deadmantra encapsulates that whole premise.
I think I got it from mymother. She was one of 12. She had
to fight for every meal. Shegrew up as a feisty woman who just
wanted to get stuff done in away that nobody else did. I never
realized it until one of myhosts asked me that and I went, huh,
(04:13):
I guess it was my mom. She gotthat in my DNA and it served me very
well. Be different or be deadis a mantra that's trying to call
for people to look for ways tobe different in a way that other
people care about. And that'sa point I want to make. It's not
about narcissism. It's notabout what you think of you. It's
about doing things in a veryspecial way or doing special things
(04:35):
that serve others. So it'sanything but narcissism. And I have
to clarify that because a lotof people think it's like the color
of their hair or theirpronouns or their sex. Sexual preferences.
I don't care about any ofthat. I want to know what you're
doing special in a way thatserves other people. Be different
or be dead.
That aligns perfectly with mycreating business super fans. Because
(04:56):
you've got to take care ofother people and help them accomplish
their goals, dreams andaspirations. You don't have to worry
about yourself. It'll comeback tenfold and you'll be successful
as well. We're just calling ita little different, but similar concept.
Yeah, It's a matter ofsubordinating yourself to the people
you're actually trying totarget in your business. This is
(05:18):
not a mass market thingeither. It's a process of defining
who you want to serve,figuring out what they crave, and
then satisfying those cravingsin a way nobody else does. If you
can do that consistently, thenthe super fan thing will happen.
It's a consequence of actions.It isn't the intent. Because if you
(05:39):
start out considering it atactic, you're doomed. You need to
do the work. You need astrategic context, and you need to
be really focused on peopleand just go from there. Be consistent
in the way you deliver value.Be consistent in the way you hire
people that a lot ofbusinesses don't pay attention to.
The small, audacious stuffthat got us to a billion in annual
(06:00):
sales. It wasn't thetheoretical, complex stuff, which
nobody can understand. Becausehow you convince somebody to execute
on a strategic direction. Ifit's complicated, it's an impossible
task. But you got to dumb itdown. You got to make it relevant,
you got to make it compelling.You got to make it emotionally stimulating.
There's no emotional triggersin what you do with employees. You
(06:22):
get zero engagement and youcan't execute and you don't make
any progress. And so it's alot of hard work. It's not a tactic
that you look up in marketing101. Not there, no.
Totally agree. When I was incharge of global sales, I set up
a global reseller channel. Weused to call them value added resellers
around the world. They'reseparate agencies. So we're one of
(06:46):
12 different products thatthey're marketing. How do I get mind
share of those people and getthem to sell my product in a different
country, in a differentCulture. It was all about building
those relationships and havingthe objectives and working with everybody
in that organization, being onthe same page and recognizing the
(07:09):
people in the organizationthat were contributing to the success
of our product.
Yeah. And there's a hugeleadership piece in here that I worked
really hard on. People wouldsay, you want to grow your business,
but we're so dysfunctional.Everybody's doing their own thing.
So I came up with this notionand tagged it Line of Sight. I believe
that the reason people aredysfunctional is they are left their
(07:32):
own to create whatever actionsthey think are appropriate to live
the strategy. And that's afailure of leadership for explaining
it.
Absolutely.
So. So we had a translation. Ipersonally did this. My organization
was like 5,000 people. So notsmall. We created alignment plans
for every department and everyperson in the organization that says,
(07:53):
these are the things that youneed to do and these are the things
that you need to give up tohave direct line of sight to the
strategy. When we were able toinculcate that as part of the culture,
incredible things happen.Right. All of the noise disappeared.
Everybody was focused onrelevant things as opposed to things
(08:13):
that may have been relevantyesterday but are no longer relevant
today. And that aidedexecution, which is the other big
element that drives superfans. They want you to keep your
promises. It's a hugelyemotional thing. They just want you
to be trustworthy. Putemployees in front of them that actually
like humans. I had to come upwith this thing called hirings for
(08:36):
goosebumps. Relationships areall about emotion. They expect my
Internet stream to work, butwhat makes them buy from me is a
whole other layer of stuff. Ifyou have employees that don't really
like Homo sapiens, then that'spretty hard to do. The recruitment
piece in terms of super fansis huge because if you don't have
(08:58):
everything going on behind thescenes that's leaning into people
and their humanity and theirneeds, then you can forget about
fans. You just end up to be aclinical stereotypical product pusher.
Great, great future.
Right? Because people cansense whether it's a transactional
perspective or genuine care inhelping them accomplish their needs.
(09:21):
The thing you mentioned that Iwant to reemphasize for our listeners
is alignment. Think of aracing rowing team. You have eight
people in the rowboat, eachwith one oar. They are going into
a race and must besynchronized in one direction to
win that race.
(09:43):
Yeah, the analogy soundspretty simple, and it is okay. But
the problem is, in anorganization, most leaders don't
take the time to do this.Translating your direction in terms
of what it means to individualemployees normally gets delegated,
right? Because we've beentaught as leaders to delegate everything,
which is absolute frickinghogwash. I'm a fingerprint leader.
(10:06):
I put my fingerprints on thethings that I needed to be engaged
in. There are some things thatI didn't. But when it came to selling
the strategy, talking aboutthe brand, talking about retention,
talking about hiring humanbeing lovers, there was only one
person that can do that, andthat was me.
That's your job, really?
That's what else. Right.
(10:28):
You got to sell the vision well.
And also sell what it takes toexecute the vision without execution.
I don't pay much attention tothat either. In order to get people
to execute and driveperformance, you had to do those
things and make it simple.What I discovered is that's all it
took, you know, that was thelock. Once it was unlocked, execution
(10:50):
went crazy. Top line startedgoing. Employee engagement went through
the roof. And to your pointearlier, all of our relationships
with suppliers, marketingcommunications companies, et cetera,
they improved as well becausethe nature of the engagement with
those people took on a caringattitude. And I talk a lot about
creating a caring culture. Theultimate way of creating super fans
(11:14):
is you need a caring culture.The inside needs to give a shit.
The inside gives shit, you getnothing. Right?
Right.
Too many people think aboutthis as a tactic. Wow, the Superfan.
This is a real cool name.That's exceeding expectations and
all kinds of. You got to dothe work right. You got to contextualize
what you're doing. And it'stime consuming, but at the end of
(11:36):
the day, it's so important, itpays off in spades.
Explode. You know, one of myquotes in my book is people will
crawl through broken glass forappreciation and recognition, and
you got to give it. That's howyou build that momentum, that's how
you create that energy.Because all of a sudden you turn
around and say, hey, you know,Johnny over here did this particular
project. I want to take amoment to recognize Johnny. Everybody
(11:59):
is excited for Johnny, butthey're also going in their heads.
I want that to be me. And soeverybody elevates their game a whole
nother level, right? And itbecomes contagious. You look at a
sports team, a sports team ishaving fun on the field. They're
destined to win becausethey're relaxed, they're having fun,
(12:20):
they're camaraderie, they'rehigh fiving, they're chest bumping,
et cetera. And a team that'sfrustrated Struggling. You can see
the look on their face. Youcan tell who's going to win and who's
going to lose right at thebeginning of the game.
A lot of times, passion is astrategic concept. Emotion is part
of a strategy. And most peopledon't think about it that way. They
(12:43):
think about what's ourmarketing plan, what's our product
development strategy, what'sour systems engineering approach,
as opposed to saying, how arewe going to inject the stuff that
comes out of the right side ofthe brain into everything that we
do? The reason they don'tthink about that is it is hard work
changing and creating aculture that spawns superfans. If
(13:04):
you think about this box, thisbox is the converter between a target
customer and a superfan. Inthat box, there's a ton of stuff
that's dirty and most leadersdon't want to get dirty. And it's
hard work. It's all about whatare the cultural things that we need
to do, the strategic things.Reality. That's the easy part. The
(13:27):
difficult is, it really iswell and yet why. Okay, I agree with
you. Why do we spend 80% ofour time on the strategy and 20%
on execution? Like, we got itall wrong? My work shows I spend
20% on the plan. I get it justabout right, and I, through execution,
change it and revise it on thego. I call it let's head west. So
(13:48):
I'm sitting in New York. Mystrategy is going to be I'm heading
west. I have no idea, quitefrankly, if I'm going to end up in
San Francisco, Phoenix orVancouver. All I know is I'm going
west. I'm going to execute.I'm going to keep my feet moving.
I'm going to learn on the runand tweak and eventually the strategy
will show itself to me. It'snot that I'm stupid, but as I start
(14:11):
out, there's just too manyvariables. This is a problem I have
with education. They think youcan formularize everything. Give
me a linear regressionanalysis and I'll tell you what your
forecast is going to be. Everheard that before? My degree is in
math. Right. I've never solveda business problem with a differential
equation in my life, and Inever will. I'm pretty sure you've
(14:33):
been involved with youngprofessionals that are struggling.
One of the reasons they'restruggling, they got this academics
jacket on them as opposed to apractical lens. Think outside the
box well and just accept thefact. But you know what? We don't
let them Academia doesn't letthem, the MBA program doesn't let
them. Don't try and tell methat if I do a case study I'm going
(14:55):
to suddenly be creativebecause another 10,000 people have
done the same case study. Howthat being different. So the whole
model is a problem, especiallyfor young people starting out. One
of the axioms is you need toget the strategy perfect. Help me
understand how that makes anysense in an imperfect world.
Right?
It makes zero sense. Hence getit just about right. Execute, learn,
(15:19):
plan on the run and eventuallyyou end up where you should be. But
you didn't know that when youbegan. It's as simple as that. It's
a messy way to look at it. AndI get people going, what, you didn't
spend $50,000 with KPMG andblah blah, getting your strategy?
And I'd say it doesn't matter.Okay, I'm going to take five people
who run that lead thebusiness. We're going into a room
(15:42):
and I can do this with you in48 hours you'll have your strategy.
And it's just amazing how thisworks. They don't believe it because
they've been taught to thinkthat success is complicated, expensive
and it takes a lot.
Right. It goes back to when Iwas working with international distributors.
I would spend time with theactual sales guys and to make sure
(16:03):
that they understood ourproduct and how it could help them
sell for the awards for topreseller. I didn't just give the
plaques and awards to theagency because the agency wasn't
necessarily the people doingthe work, it was the actual sales
team and the tech team. So Irecognized them as well. One of the
sales guys and the tech guygot recognized. They felt appreciated
(16:27):
and other resellers saw thatcreating momentum. And I took a simple
product. In 1997, I startedwith the company and it was like,
here's a product, go do whatyou do. I grew it to 3 million net
to the company in $5,000chunks, to a brand new product in
a three year window. Allbecause of the approach that I did,
(16:49):
which was non traditional. Itwas just basically going out there
and getting other people tobelieve in it and start promoting
it and know what the directionwas that they needed to go.
Well, part of the problem isthe people who are promulgating these
theoretical, principled,academic approaches have never run
a business. So they don't knowwhat you just said. They don't know.
(17:12):
By embedding yourself with thefront line, understanding what they
do, helping them, I call itleadership. By serving around, it's
like, how can I help you tomake you feel good? What I know is,
what are the barriers, whatare the challenges to execution that
you're facing that I can helpyou with? Because if we can cleanse
that environment a little bit,then I know where my performance
(17:33):
and my top line are going to.Straight through the roof. And so,
yeah, I spent probably 20% ofevery week embedded figuring out
what systemic issues we had,responding to individuals, et cetera.
And it was really wellreceived. People talked about that,
and the passion and thecommitment and the advocacy to the
(17:56):
journey we were on justcontinued to get larger and larger.
I had this program calledKilling Dumb Rules. A dumb rule is
a rule that we have for somereason in the organization that does
nothing but piss customersoff. You can imagine in your own
personal life, you go into astore and they give you a policy,
you kind of go, what? And allit does is infuriate you, right?
(18:18):
So we had these things, andthey were d. Dazzling events. They
were not events consistentwith building superfans. I labeled
them dumb rules. And so Ilaunched this program called Killing
Dumb Rules. My CEO at the timewasn't happy with my language. He
says, well, come on, Roy, youcan't call them dumb rules because
obviously that's going tooffend somebody that actually originated
(18:38):
the rules. And I said, okay,I'll tell you what, we're going to
call them stupid policies. Thefront line love the notion because
they knew it was stupid. Andso we launched the program and we
had contests. My managementteam had only one responsibility
when they were presented witha dumb rule. You either kill it or.
Or you fix it or you dosomething. Because there were legal
(18:59):
issues, obviously, that we'regoing to. And so what I would do
is I would show up in theworkplace with a white long sleeve
T shirt on it, and I'd havedumb rules written on the front,
written on the back, with abig circle and an X through it. And
it was just unbelievable. Roygot another one. Roy got another.
We had a process forprioritizing, but as a trigger for
(19:20):
moving the culture in adifferent way, in a way that was
customer focused. It wasamazing. It was so simple. All you
had to do was suck it up andlose your ego.
You just said it right therebecause you got yourself out of your
own way. You let the team comeup with ways. So you empowered the
team to be able to say, hey,that's a dumb rule, and here's why,
(19:45):
and here's what we should do.Now they've got ownership, and it
changes the whole dynamics.
Yep, absolutely.
You remind me of Sir RichardBranson. You don't see him cleaning
the windshield on theairplane. He's out there playing
flight attendant once in awhile or on his virgin voyages, he's
out there playing bingo withthe people. He's not piloting the
(20:07):
ship. He's empowered his teamto do it. But they've got an alignment,
a vision and direction.
It's really curious to me thatthere are so many good examples of
leaders that don't takethemselves seriously in a certain
dimension of the job. Yetleadership, in terms of its effectiveness
has changed very little in thelast decades. That's momentum management
(20:31):
from the past, adhering totraditional leadership principles
promulgated by people with allthese initials attached to their
name. They have this impliedcredibility, and I think it's disingenuous.
I think it's intellectuallydishonest to have the future leaders
of tomorrow infected by thiskind of thinking. You and I, we should
(20:53):
be the ones doing theinfecting. We try to infect as many
people as we can. But thereality is I'm pretty disappointed
in the amount of change I'vebeen able to see is such a big problem.
I'm just not seeing anychange. I don't get invited to go
talk to MBA graduating classesat university anymore. And there's
(21:15):
a reason for that, because Itell them that basically you're here
to learn how to solveproblems. Once you get your degree,
good for you. There's otherstuff you need to take on. The profs
don't like that they feelthreatened. And I'm thinking, why
would you feel threatened? Whywouldn't you be opening yourself
to other points of view thatmay help your students, Especially
(21:36):
coming from somebody that'staken a startup to a billion dollars
in sales. What other proofpoint do you want?
Well, Roy, you make some greatpoints there. Because I had a mentor.
Years ago, in my late teens, Iworked at a gas station and I met
a guy that pulled up with aLincoln Continental, had a phone
(21:57):
in the car. We're talking a1975. I'm still friends with the
guy today, and he's verysuccessful. We just hit it off. I
don't know how, we justconnected. He invited me to drive
his second car that wasgetting repaired at the gas station.
I didn't realize it. He askedthe owner to have me drive the second
car. And I went and he hadthis really cool bachelor pad, water
(22:18):
bed, and all this kind ofcrazy stuff. And he Gave me a pamphlet
that I actually still have. Hewas stunned that I still have it.
It gave me a list of bookslike Think and Grow Rich, the Magic
of Believing, PsychoCybernetics, all that stuff. I read
all those things and thatcompletely changed my perception
of things. At 19 years old Ibought myself a 1976 Corvette. So
(22:43):
I'm a 19 year old kid drivinga 74 Corvette that was pumping gas
before that. All because heopened up my mind to other things
and other possibilities andtaught me to dream big. I've had
successes, I've had massivefailures, but I get up, put a band
(23:04):
aid on and continue. You'reabsolutely correct. Sometimes you
just gotta think withimagination and possibilities are
there.
Well, I absolutely agree.Michael Jordan said it best when
he's lost more basketballgames than anybody in the game. But
he took more shots and hefailed more. It sure makes the point.
(23:26):
And yet we're taught to seekperfection according to somebody's
standards. People are taughtthat you need to get it perfect according
to a set of rules thatsomebody else has created. The problem
with that is the world is socomplicated these days and unpredictable.
It's impossible to predictanything. It's like I want to be
perfectly imperfect. And bythat I mean I want to be able to
(23:50):
move and shake and be able tobe agile.
You gotta be agile today.
You gotta just keep doing thatright? And have the confidence that
as long as you don't make thesame mistake twice, but the more
mistakes you make, you're onthe right track. Because if you're
not making mistakes, you'renot doing nothing. Let's get real.
And yet that is viewed aslaissez faire. When you start talking,
(24:10):
especially academics. And Iknow I'm being tough on academics
and I don't mean todenigrating what they do. I'm just
saying there's an alternativethat you and I have lived and created
value from. Why doesn't thatscenario get the attention that deserves?
I don't get it. It's not fromproof points. You have proof points,
(24:31):
I have proof points. There's alot of guys out there like us that
have been very successful inbusiness that have secrets to share,
but nobody cares.
Yeah, you hit a point. I can'tsay anything because you just took
the hammer and smashed it.Because that's true. You know, I
talk about changing the wholeperception and in my book I talk
(24:56):
about doing the unexpectedextra something that's above and
beyond. And nobody expects itbecause it's transformative. The
recipient is blown Away by thetransaction. One of my other quotes
is, the little things arereally the big things.
No question. No question aboutit. It's because the little things
(25:19):
are part of the engagementprocess. And those are the things
that are sticky to people thatyou want as either customers, friends,
or lovers or whatever. Thoseare the things that stick. It's actually
the translation of intent fromthose little things. Tom. Peter said
it. He wrote a book called theLittle Big Things, and he nailed
it. And that was a long timeago. So you and I know this stuff.
(25:40):
They don't teach about killingdumb rules. They don't teach about
hiring for goosebumps. Theydon't teach about creating a strategic
game plan in 48 hours. Theydon't teach about how to create a
library of cravings for yourtop fans. They don't talk about cleaning
the inside. And yet all ofthose notions were so important to
my team in moving our businessaround. It's depressing. Stuff that
(26:05):
has been proven to work is noteven valued as an idea in a value
set that people areconsidering, especially as a new
CEO starting up. I can'tbelieve it. I work a lot with startup
CEOs, and the biggest problemthey have is they haven't put the
textbook down yet.
You gotta get into thetrenches. I was managing a company
a year and a half ago, and Ihad a person on the team with depression.
(26:31):
There were days she didn'tcome into the office because she
just couldn't handle it. Andthis was an example of the little
things or the big things. Istarted empowering her more and giving
her four responsibilities andsaid, hey, I understand these things
are going to happen, but I gotyour back. And she started to feel
(26:55):
better about herself becauseeverybody else kicks her to the side.
He's doing the opposite. He'sempowering her. So she started going
out of her way. She starteddressing up nicer. She started feeling
better about herself, hercustomer or prospective customer
engagement improved. Hercommunications with her customer
(27:15):
transformed. And she helpedgrow the department, which was under
$100,000. And this was doingdocument translations in different
languages to over 225,000. Sogrew by more than 100% with the person,
had some challenges. Thosechallenges became minimized, marginalized,
(27:37):
because they felt worthy andempowered to come up with ideas.
They came up with ideas andsystems in place and everything else
completely transformed. Andjust like we're talking about, that
was a little thing that reallybecame a big thing.
Well, you know, it's a greatstory as you're describing it. What
I get in my mind is youbasically allowed her to take a deep
(28:00):
breath. And when you'reallowed to oxygenate the physiology,
magic happens. She wasbreathing up here. You allowed her
to take a deep breath, fullbody cavity, full body breath, and
look what she was able to dowith that. Good for you. I wish more
people could actually look atit that way. Allow your people to.
(28:21):
To take a deep breath. We talka lot about empowerment, and I know
we all know what it is. Thenotion the tag has been around. I
think part of our challenge asleaders is to find new ways of talking
about old stuff. Becauseeverybody learns in different ways.
Right.
I mean, if you can imagine intoday's world, there's so much going
on in terms of holistictreatment and yoga and everything
(28:44):
else. My wife is alwaystelling me to breathe through my
back, Freddie. And I have noidea what that means. But when I
take a deep breath and when Isee somebody else take a deep breath,
I kind of want to. And I gottaadmit, I feel better afterwards.
And that's what you gave her.That's what you gave her, the ability
to breathe again. You are amagician. You are a doctor. Well
(29:07):
done.
Well, thank you. I'm not adoctor. It was something that. And
we're still friends today. Andshe's helping me with some of the
stuff because she's a superfan of who I am.
Yep.
And that's where it allstarts, is you start creating super
fans internally. That energytranscends to people they're talking
with. And you recognize asupplier for going above and beyond
(29:32):
versus the other guy that isall systems and says, you were late,
product was delivered, we'resupposed to get it there, blah, blah,
blah, don't do that stuff. Andall of a sudden you get two companies
asking you, the supplier todeliver something right away. Who's
going to get favored?
Yeah. Well, I think part ofthe problem is the language. Organizations
(29:53):
that view themselves assuppliers are actually pushers. You
don't create superfans bybeing a pusher. You create super
fans by being a friend. Right.Respected friend you can trust and
you're willing to go with. Butit's all about the emotional component
of the connection and theemotional triggers that go on in
(30:17):
conversion from a targetcustomer to a super fan. They're
life sustaining. Is the otherbeauty of. Because once they happen,
it's hard to break them. Okay.When you're a super fan of something,
it's hard to ever break that because.
You feel, yeah, look at theChicago Cubs in baseball. There's
A perfect example of superfans. They finally won one World
(30:37):
Series after 5,000 years, butthe bottom line was they were super
fans of the team, even thoughthey were in a doghouse.
Yeah. Yeah, that's good.That's a great example. Who would
have thought, right?Leadership, emotional triggers and
all that kind of stuff. Theydon't teach that stuff. You'll learn
it through being in thetrenches, watching the pupils of
(31:00):
their eyes dilate. It's a hardleadership path to go on, and yet
it's so worthwhile at the end.But I don't see too many people doing
what you and I are justtalking about.
Oh, absolutely. People canshortcut it and buy books that you
and I have written that tell20 years or whatever worth of experience
that you can read in a weekand shortcut that whole process by
(31:24):
just stepping out of your ownbox. Absolutely right as we come
towards the end here, Roy, howcan people find you?
So I have a website and it'sof course Be different or be dead
dot com. Come and visit me.I've put as many resources on that
website as I can. I blog everyweek, so please subscribe to my blog.
(31:45):
I got content on this sitesince 2009 about goosebumps. You
want to know about killingdumb rules. In terms of successes,
failures, check out my blog.My books, the seven books I've written
are available there. There's apage on there so you can check them
out. I've imported my ownpodcast. It's called Audacious Moves
to a Billion and repurposingpodcasts with the host's permission
(32:07):
of course. Like this that I'vedone. It's another avenue for the
host to get exposure. It's onmy homepage of my website and I clip
it into smaller bite sizeaccording to certain subjects. It's
just another way to consumethe content. My favorite part of
my website is my quiz. It'scalled the Be different or be Dead
quiz. And the whole idea isit's a fun thing. You can determine
(32:30):
by filling out a questionnairewhere you fit on the be different
or be dead continuum. Are youdifferent or leaning towards the
ultimate consequence of notbeing different, which is a truncation
of mortality. It's a funthing. You can fill it out and it
shows you where you might wantto address some aspects of being
(32:51):
different that you hadn'tthought of before. My email is roy.osingmail.com
I'm happy to have aconversation with anybody about any
part of my work. It's actuallyinteresting. I have people who will
come back to me and say, okay,this blog is all about the only statement,
which is something I had tocreate to differentiate. And I've
(33:11):
created it, Roy, I've draftedit. What do you think? And that leads
to a awesome conversation. Andit leads to a friend that I help.
And it's all pro bono as faras I'm concerned, because I'm not
doing this for any otherreason than to try and change the
conversation out there. Socome and visit me, subscribe to my
blog, have a conversation withme, and come on the journey with
(33:31):
me.
Fun. We'll make sure that allthat stuff is in the show Notes Roy,
it's been a pleasure havingyou on the Business Superfans podcast
show. We could probably talkfor hours on this stuff and we look
forward to having you on theshow again down the road.
Oh, I'd love to. And thanksfor inviting me. I really appreciate
it.
Appreciate it. Thank you. HeySuperfan superstar Freddie D. Here.
(33:54):
Before we wrap, here's yourthree A playbook power move to attract
ideal clients, turn them intoadvocates, and accelerate your business
success. So here's the topinsight out of today's episode. If
your strategy isn'temotionally engaging and wildly simple,
it will never get executed.And with that execution, your vision
dies in the dark. So here'syour business growth action step.
(34:18):
Create a one sentencestrategic direction. Your entire
team can understand that.Aligned every department's daily
actions to that statement. Noexceptions. If today's conversation
sparked an idea for you, oryou know of a fellow business leader
who could benefit, share itwith them and grab the full breakdown
(34:38):
in the show notes. Let'saccelerate together and start creating
business superfans whochampion your brand.
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