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Being different gives businesses the edge

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

By Anna Grimes
Venue: The Fairmont Hotel Vancouver

Photo: A.Grimes

Osing began by setting the context in which most companies find themselves these days: customers are demanding and fickle, competitors are plentiful, advertising is ‘mind-cluttering,’ and regulations can be restrictive. “It’s a perfect storm of sorts, where you have all these factors influencing business,” he said.

Successful businesses today have figured out that in order to attract and retain customers, they need to be viewed uniquely in the marketplace. In other words, a thriving company creates special reasons for customers to buy from it over and over again. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. An organization that can’t offer unique reasons for people to do business with it has difficulty surviving in the long term; it suffers a painful decline and eventual failure. Osing’s key piece of advice to break free of this perfect storm is to “be different, not necessarily better.”

“If you can compose a statement that begins ‘We are the only company that…’, you are well on your way to being different,” he said.

In this session, Osing covered the importance of creating your business to ‘be different’: how to distinguish yourself from your competition and thus immunize yourself to failure.

1. Simplify your plan: Try and create your business plan in three-four days. Set your financial goals first, choose your customer and create your differences immediately.

2. Focus, focus focus: Multitasking can be deadly; find three or four things that will contribute to 80 per cent of your success.

3. Cut the non-strategic stuff: Walk away from the elements that do not relate to your strategy, and beware of those people who guard the past.

4. Execute, execute, execute: Spend 20 per cent of your time planning, and 80 per cent of your time executing. “Get your plan ‘just about right,’ then execute it flawlessly.”

5. Plan running: Your plan needs to be organic and change with the ‘ebb and flow’ of business.

6. Institutionalize customer learning: Continuously probe your customers, and segment your customer groups to serve them better.

7. Discover customer ‘secrets’: Gain a detailed level of understanding of single customers, rather than groups of customers. Needs are product-based, while ‘secrets’ are based on the individual.

8. Deliver holistic ‘offers’: Design your product based on the needs and secrets of your customers.

9. It’s all about relationships: Focus on the relationship, not the product and trust that sales will follow.

10.  Brand your warriors: Your uniqueness must be articulated and integrated into the company’s brand, which is ultimately shared by your employees. Make your ‘warriors’ different from the competition.

11.  Lose the sale, but save the customer: ‘Own’ the customer forever by building relationships and earning trust. Don’t try to force a sale that is not the best fit for the customer.

12.  Mine customer ‘secrets’: Train your sales team to gather customer ‘secrets,’ and hold them accountable.

13.  Get addicted to ‘recovery’: If there is a service breakdown, fix the problem AND do the unexpected. Make recovery a part of your sales plan; it creates loyalty.

14. Core service and the service experience: Satisfy the customer with your core service and dazzle them with their service experience with you. They will come back, and they will tell others about their experience with you.

15.  Create your service strategy: Define the required behaviors for every department in your organization and provide a focus for your whole team.

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