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In this insightful episode, Wendy Coulter and Roy Osing discuss the essential steps to building a strong brand and unlocking unprecedented business results. Wendy, a brand expert, introduces Roy, a disruptor who took a startup to $1 billion in sales. Together, they unpack Roy's unique 'Be Different or Be Dead' approach, the importance of strategic game planning, hiring for goosebumps, and executing innovative processes. Learn the keys to creating gas-worthy experiences, transforming cultures, and achieving remarkable growth by embracing audacious, unheard-of ways.
00:00 Introduction to Wendy Coulter and Branding
01:04 Meet Hannah: Fun Facts and Snow Outfits
02:24 Introducing Guest Roy Osing: Be Different or Be Dead
03:40 Roy's Journey: From Startup to Billion-Dollar Sales
04:30 The Importance of Differentiation and Innovation
08:47 Creating a Strategic Game Plan
10:53 Innovative Approaches to Customer Engagement
18:30 Eliminating Dumb Rules for Better Customer Experience
20:47 Roy Osing's Company and Its Evolution
23:04 Hiring for Goosebumps: Building a Caring Team
32:11 The Goosebumps Story and Hummingbird Effect
32:34 Measuring Customer Perception
33:54 Creating a Caring Culture
36:33 Challenges in Small and Large Businesses
37:48 Leadership and Execution
39:53 Strategic Game Plan and Execution
41:40 Innovation and Simplification
41:59 Case Study: Lawn Cutting Business
43:51 Setting Growth Targets
44:54 Differentiation and Customer Focus
51:34 The Importance of Deletion in Innovation
52:50 Startup Growth and Challenges
01:00:57 Be Different or Be Dead
01:01:29 Conclusion and Contact Information
Creators and Guests
Host
Guest
Roy Osing
Roy Osing is a former president, CMO and entrepreneur with over 40 years of successful and unmatched executive leadership experience in every aspect of business. As President of a major data and internet company, his leadership and audacious ‘unheard-of ways’ took the company from its early stage to $1 Billion in annual sales.
What is The Hummingbird Effect with Wendy Coulter?
Welcome to "The Hummingbird Effect," a podcast dedicated to uncovering the subtle yet powerful ways that small innovations can transform your business. Hosted by Wendy Coulter, CEO of Hummingbird Creative Group, this show delves into the stories and strategies behind successful brand building.
For over 25 years, Wendy has helped CEOs and business leaders redefine their brands through innovation and compelling narratives. In this podcast, she shares the insights and lessons learned from her extensive experience, exploring how a strong brand orientation can significantly increase the value of your business.
Each episode features engaging conversations with industry leaders, business advisors, and innovators who have harnessed the power of branding to make a substantial impact. Discover how focusing on core values, mission, and vision can drive your brand beyond mere marketing tactics, fostering a culture that resonates with your audience and enhances your business's reputation.
Inspired by the concept of the Hummingbird Effect—where small, adaptive changes lead to remarkable outcomes—this podcast aims to help you understand and implement the incremental innovations that can elevate your brand and business.
Join Wendy Coulter on "The Hummingbird Effect" and learn how to evolve your brand, attract more customers, and ultimately enhance the value of your business through strategic branding.
[00:00:00]
Wendy: Hi everyone. I'm Wendy Coulter and I help CEOs and marketing leaders unlock the hidden power of their brands.
For years, business leaders have focused on marketing tactics, but what's more important and truly matters is building a strong brand. Think of it like the Hummingbird Effect. Small innovations in branding can lead to un unprecedented results in other areas of the business that are completely unexpected, that can be increased valuation, stronger culture and [00:01:00] marketing messaging that resonates.
Welcome to the show today, everybody. I'm here today with -Hannah from my office at Hummingbird Creative Group. She's my marketing strategist. Good morning Hannah. Good to see you today.
Hanna: Good morning, Wendy.
Wendy: So sometimes we start off with fun facts. Um, I'd love another fun fact from you 'cause I learn new things about you all the time.
So what you got going on today?
Hanna: Me a fun fact. Oh, what else is going on? Dang,
Wendy: Does your dog have a cute outfit for the snow? Because that would be my guess at a fun fact about Hannah.
Hanna: she does, she has about four or five different snows and for anyone that's listening, it's North Carolina snowing here. So we can see a few, few flakes. So we'll take advantage of it. But yes, she has snow boots, she has snow jackets, snow sweaters, so we look real cute.[00:02:00]
Wendy: Are they all pink?
Hanna: Yes,
Wendy: Yes.
Hanna: Yes they are
Wendy: Yes. So that's the fun fact about Hannah that I just dug out. Pink is her favorite color. Um, and another fun fact, Hannah and I both went to NC State and the original color for NC State was pink. Correct.
Hanna: Pink and blue. Mm-hmm
Wendy: was red. So, um, fun, fun fact. Um, well I am so excited today about our guest Roy Sing and we're gonna see what his fun fact is today too.
But before I do that, um, I just wanna say, Roy, I was on your LinkedIn, um, and first of all, there are these words. Be different or be dead. Um, and I'm a big fan of differentiation and so I'm excited to hear what you have to say about that today. Um, but the other thing that's on your LinkedIn that I'm just gonna use as the quick intro to our guest today, um, is that you took [00:03:00] a startup internet company to a billion dollars in sales.
That is so amazing. I bow down to you as a owner of a business for 30 years. I cannot imagine what that took. It's something different than what I have in my DNA. And so I am just so excited, um, about your practical and proven audacious unheard of ways to produce high performing businesses and successful careers.
I know I'm gonna learn a lot from you today. Um, so I'm going to toss it over to you to do a better introduction of yourself. Give us a little bit of your background and tell us a fun fact, please.
Roy Osing: Well, I mean, I, I, I, I guess all I can say is, um, I'm kind of like your classic disruptor. I think I've been this way. I think I got it from my mother a hundred years ago. And she was a a, a member of 12 in a family. And, and the only way she could get what she [00:04:00] wanted is to kind of like, fight for it be different, to attract attention and to move forward.
And this is all reflective on my part. I mean, I, I didn't really realize this until I had started, started to get the question that you, you asked me. And when I think about it, yeah, I've, I'm, I've always been the person that has had utter disdain for the status quo, if I can put it that way. It's not comfortable for me.
I mean, what's comfortable for me is uncomfortableness. That's all there is to it. And so I tend to disrupt, I. sometimes from a personal point of view that can get a rather get rather challenging, but nevertheless, um, and we can talk about this, the, the, the sort of disruption, um, that, that is driven me has led me to this whole notion of be different or be dead.
And just to frame that for you, it's not just about being different for the sake of being different. Okay? Like what I will say to you is, I really don't care about the color [00:05:00] of your skin. I don't care about your sexual preferences. I don't care about your pronouns. I don't care about any of that, right?
What I care about is the way that you are trying to be unique to satisfy what others care about. And so it's all about serving, but serving with a purpose. To differentiate, to be different, right? To wow. To attract, to surprise, to blow them away, to create gas worthiness, rave worthiness. And so that's the whole notion.
And that's kind of like what I've been doing. And, and in business, um, at one point as the internet was just coming, coming in, in IP technology, 'cause I sat in a telephone company at the time, right? Remember the days when telephone companies were a monopoly? Well, I was in that world and the internet came and I was asked to lead a company to take advantage of the opportunities that the internet presented.
And that's kind of what got me going. So the but the same mindset, [00:06:00] okay, in terms of being different and looking for ways to differentiate, drove me. But what I discovered is, um, existing textbook traditional approaches were not helpful to me. . Okay. 'cause they, they assumed so many things that were wrong.
They assumed that the world was predictable. They assumed that, that the linear equations right could, could actually drive a meaningful forecast. They assumed that you could formalize human behavior, which of course are all fricking nonsense, okay? In my world, that never happened. And so I had to recreate, this is why I resonated with the Hummingbird effect.
I had to recreate ourselves with a series of innovations that lit fires in people. And we had this army of advocates, and I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. We had this army of ad advocates marching, okay? Within this whole framework of being different and [00:07:00] innovating and innovating to, to eventually, yeah, we got to a billion in annual sales.
Di we didn't start out we that as a target, but we just ended up there. And you know, today. That business is $18 billion a year. And I like to think that my team had a very, very small role, right, in terms of establishing the traction that eventually realized that that sort of situation. And so yeah, Roy disrupts, Roy tries to get people to be different. Roy doesn't like herds. Roy likes standing out, getting noticed in the way that people care about. That's who I am. And that's what kind of like drove me to be a small innovator, which resonates with the hummingbird effect. Sorry to carry on, but that's who I am.
Wendy: No, that's fabulous Roy. Thank you so much for sharing. Um, so talk to us about a specific instance where you saw what seemed to be a small change in [00:08:00] a marketing initiative or a branding initiative. Um, turn into something that had a really significant effect in the business in another area.
Roy Osing: Well, I'm gonna come at it a different way because I'm not a kind of a tactical guy. Yeah. I'm gonna come at it in a different way. I'm not a tactical guy. I don't, I hate tactics without understanding context. And so, like, I have people calling me all the time say, well, what do you think? How do you think AI will apply to business?
What do you think about my social media strategy and all that stuff? And I say, I have no idea, because what I need to understand is what you're trying to be when you grow up. I'm trying to understand your strategic context within which we can then have a conversation about AI and, and all the other tactics.
And so what I would say to you is, is, is my innovative process was all based and started with the fact that I had to create my own planning process, and I called [00:09:00] it a strategic game plan. Okay? It's called a game plan because the intent is to execute, not to pontificate. Alright. The, the, the intent is to get your feet moving, not to consider a whole bunch of theoretical possibilities.
So you're, what you're gonna hear me say quite often is kind of like, you gotta put the textbook down guys, if you're really want to grow your business. So anyways, it started out, I created as an innovation this this game planning process. Okay. Which can be done in 48 hours, right? And has created your strategy by answering three questions.
How big do you want to be? Which is really a question about top line revenue growth over the next 24 hours. Five year plans do not exist because everybody puts everything off to the fourth year, and that's where the hockey stick comes from. Okay? So forget about it. So it's 24 months. I look at it as 24 periods of 30 [00:10:00] days.
And it's important when it's important because that puts the focus on what. On execution, right? Success doesn't come from the plan, it comes from execution, So how big do you want to be? The second question is, who do you wanna serve and what do they crave? Who do you wanna serve? Is basically saying where are you gonna get the money?
Right? And so the process tries to minimize the number of customer groups you target, right? 'cause you don't have unlimited resources. You just don't have that. I mean, ideally, you know, if you're looking for $5 million, ideally you, you think you've got one customer group that has the latent potential to get you there.
It doesn't happen that often, but I start out that way because if you end up at three, it's a lot better than assuming it's 20. Okay? Says all that does is spread you too thin, you don't have the bandwidth, et cetera. The cravings piece, is exceedingly important, and this is a hummingbird in every, [00:11:00] every respect.
Okay? Because what it basically says is people do not buy on needs these days, and yet marketing 1 0 1 and everything else talks about things like what you need. Well, the reality is today most people's needs, quote unquote, are satisfied. Right? They want more than that. Okay? And so what I've come up with is this notion called craving, and what is a craving?
Wow. A craving is something you desire. A craving is something you covet. A craving is something you lust for. And so it's got absolutely nothing with the fact, due to the fact that you need internet and you may need 350 megabits down that, that stream, it's much more than that. And it's a very emotional side of, of the kind of like customer engagement process.
And so what I had to do, my reasoning was I think if we do this right, we're gonna get a lot of people paying me lots of money [00:12:00] because people pay premium prices on cravings and they're also gonna stay with me 'cause there's nobody else playing in that space, right? Everybody's in the need space. Roy's gonna be disrupting that.
Gonna go to the craving space. So the cravings piece was a huge innovation and we actually had cravings manuals, we had people, okay, who are, who were compensated as part of their performance plan. Show me your cravings, especially sales, right? So we got the top 10 customers. I'd say, okay, show me your cravings file.
And I don't care whether it's electronic or paper, I don't care. Show me that you're trying to discover cravings because that was the source, okay? Of the engagement process that eventually led to what? Oh gee, transactions. Oh gee, revenue. Oh gee, getting me closer to a billion. Right? So that was the second piece.
The third part was how you gonna win? And this is where with the differentiation piece, you know, I had to really work at this. [00:13:00] It basically says, given the customer groups that you've just identified, okay? Because how to win isn't about the market, it's about the customer groups that you've just identified.
'cause that's where you're trying to focus your marketing activity. How are you gonna compete and win? Now here's where I ran into a whole lot of of issues and, and I gotta tell you, nothing has changed. I'm talking like three decades later and it hasn't changed. Right? Maybe that's a failure on my part. In any event, why, how do people try to get at the differentiating differentiation piece today? Well they use what I call clap trap to do it. A clap trap expression is we are the best at, we are better than we are the market leader at we. And it goes on and on and on, right? So that's not only clap drop, it's aspirational. 'cause it can't be proven. Um, and it's narcissistic. [00:14:00] It's your view of you, it's not the customer's view of you.
Right? And so I said, well, how are we going to, how on earth? And by the way, I didn't tag him narcissistic when I was working, but I knew, I knew it was, you know, it's not until later that I try and package all of this stuff together that it occurred to me, wow, we got some pretty meaningful labels here. So I came up with what I call the only statement. The only statement isn't trying to be better or best, it's you need to find a way to be the only one that does what you do, satisfying the cravings of the people you've chosen to serve, who you think have the latent potential to deliver your growth goals. So you see the sequence, that's the innovation.
Nobody uses that. Now, what does an only statement look like? Well, what it, what it does is it, it, it, it focuses you on trying to be the only one that does what you do. In there, it's binary, it's black and white. [00:15:00] You can measure it, you can feel it. And so what you do is come up with a draft, you test it to make sure that you're not blowing smoke and you're not hallucinating.
That this is an actual real statement that addresses compelling customer demand. And so the answer to those three questions gives you your strategy. So that was the very first innovation, okay. That I had to create. In order to get this, this company moving. Okay? Now, there was a lot of people, particularly in the academic world, 'cause at the time I was, I was teaching MBA students.
When I started talking to 'em about, about this, they just went apoplectic. And so did the professors, um, , like you can't find it in a textbook except this one. Okay? This one you can find it in. This is my latest book. You can find it in there. So I started doing this and it was really, really hard because there's such momentum and inertia out there built on [00:16:00] applying traditional academic principles.
Okay? So I, here comes Roy disrupting all that says, look at the efficacy is not in the plan. It's in doing something with the plan. So why are we so spending so much time on the plan? You know, people generally would spend 20, 80% of their time on the plan, 20% on execution. And I flipped that. I said, no, that's not what we're gonna do.
We're gonna spend 20% on the plan, 80% on an on the execution elements, loosen up on the plan, tighten up on execution. And so that planning process I just described can be done in 48 hours. It can be done meaningfully in 48 hours. And I used it right? And people were really uncomfortable because don't forget, we're all taught to get it perfect.
So here's my question. How can you come up with a perfect plan in a world that is imperfect? In a world that is unpredictable, stochastic, [00:17:00] right? It, it, it delivers body blows on businesses every 30 hours for heaven's sake. And so get real. So this, this process gets the plan just about right, and we learn through execution whether we were close to getting it right or not.
Yeah. All right. And so we iterated along the way. So that was kind of like the first hummingbird that I, and I tell you, it had just such a cool effect because it allowed us to have the bandwidth to start to explore execution elements, which really were the fun things. Okay. Like cut the crap, like kill dumb rules, like line of sight leadership, light hiring for goosebumps.
Oh, that's a fun one. Like, you know, fingerprint leadership. And so all of these, all of these innovations which were really predicated on lighting, people's fires, came from that [00:18:00] basic planning notion of heading west, learning where you're gonna end up as a function of execution. And, and you know, there's a, there's a just a, a, a wealth of fun involved in every one of the smaller innovations because it really does address what your theme is all about.
You know, about, about adding people to your journey. And I would always say, tell me if this works, guys, tell me, you told me you wanted to have some fun doing this. Okay, let's go kill some dumb rules. What do you think about that? Now, a dumb rule is a rule that customers hate because it was made from, by auditors, by inside people to control the customer engagement process.
Is this resonating with you? Oh, yeah. Go into any store and I'll bet you any money you will run head on into a rule that you hate. And it may be about, um, payment, it may be about returns, it may be about anything. [00:19:00] The fact of the matter is every time you run into those, you feel less loyal. In fact, you're pissed off and you tell a lot of people about it.
Right. So I reasoned if you could cleanse the inside, get rid of the dumb rules, what's gonna happen? Oh gee, we're gonna have better engagements. We're gonna have better customer experiences. They will continue to transact with us. And guess what? OG revenues continue to flow. And so we had, we had dumb rules committees, we had dumb rules contests, we had dumb rules, everything.
And I would show up in a workplace with a long sleeve white t-shirt with dumb rules written on it, and a big circle and an X threw it. Well, let tell you, my executive colleagues had a lot of questions about , about why we were doing these sorts of things. But, um, yeah, that was one of my favorites, I gotta tell you.
It was a great one. 'cause I, my background's Scandinavian, so anything to do with, you [00:20:00] know, I. The pillaging and stuff like that is just like, so we pillaged rules that didn't make any fricking sense to customers and we got rid, you know what? We probably got rid of 35%. Can you imagine any business that was able to reduce the rules and internal policies and procedures by 30%?
Just think about what happens to that internal delivery machine in terms of viscosity. It goes through the roof, and so the value delivery system, right, is made more efficient. And guess what? That translates into more sales, more revenue and a happier Roy.
Wendy: Roy, can you share with us what you were selling or what the company sells today? What kind of
Roy Osing: yeah, I mean the, the particular company that I ran was in the, was a data company. And so it was a data and internet. So we, we basically did is we pioneered, um our entry [00:21:00] into taking advantage of the, of IP technology for both consumers and for business. And so we had that B2B and B2C kind of bifurcation, if you will.
But the advantage we had was we came out of a telephone company, we still owned customers who used our voice services. And let me tell you, did we ever leverage that? So what we did is of course created value packages. So integrated, voice data, and actually the data company, we morphed into the television company as well using IP technology.
Okay? And so basically it now has, and it had then as we, as we did it voice services, which was declining. Data services with the internet, which was increasing and optic, um, television services, which was also growing as well. And so it was all based on [00:22:00] a fundamental precept called Let's Unleash the Power of the Internet.
And that was kind of our guiding, you can call it a, I guess it is a brand statement. So we, because we came up with this notion called The Future is Friendly, that was a brand that we introduced. I gotta tell you, we introduced this in 2002. That brand, if you, if you Google tell us advertising, guess what you'll see, you'll see animals. Okay? Which is the personification of love and friendliness, et cetera, which was we used as part of the Future is friendly advertising campaign and branding campaign. And today, and this is unbelievable. That campaign is Rock. And I introduced it, introduced it in oh, too.
Wendy: That's awesome.
Roy Osing: two. How many campaigns do you know of that are going strong?
You know, after 23 years, not
Wendy: Yep. Yeah, that's fantastic. Okay, so you started, [00:23:00] um, talking about innovations and I think you named four of them. And I think Hannah and my eyebrows both raised when you said hire for goosebumps. So I wanna take you back to that one for a, I I just wanna learn a little bit more about that innovation 'cause that's around, I'm assuming that's around people and hr.
And so talk to us a little bit about that culture
Roy Osing: Yeah, it's funny. That's, that's, that's one that, that people actually, they, they scratched their head at as to what the hell, and they really think it's like, so here the, okay, so again, what, what is the context? Like we didn't do it just to do it. We didn't do it because it was a cool thing to think about.
The point I want to make to you, it was not, it was a tactic that was informed by strategy. And the strategy was, um, in this new world, how are we going to create gas worthy experiences? How are we gonna create rave worthy experiences for customers? People speak about it differently than I do. [00:24:00] They talk about exceeding expectations and all that kind of textbook language.
Well, I don't talk that way because gas worthy. Actually, think about that. Close your eyes and think about somebody who can't breathe. Who's, who's had their breath taken away, I imagine the euphoria of a moment when that particular thing happens, right? That was the vision. So how do we do that? Well, it occurred to me that you can't do that unless you have people who like human beings, because typically in the service business, right?
That's pretty fundamental, right? If, if you don't like a homo sapien, it's not likely that you're gonna be able to create a gas worthy experience with them because they will figure you out. They know that you're phony, that you'd rather be doing programming, you're taking inventory, and, and there's nothing wrong with that.
That's probably your fit. the notion is, do we find these people? How do we find these people that have [00:25:00] this natural god-given innate desire to take care of other people? 'cause my reasoning was, I'm gonna get, if I can do this, I'm gonna get two hits on it, right? I'm gonna get all of that warmth, right?
And strategic caring with cu the customer, eng through the customer engagement process that will lead to not just buying it will lead to loyalty, sustainability, referrals, and yes, transactions. Okay. But the going in was to make him go, oh my God, I can't believe I just got goosebumps again. Oh my God, I can't believe what has happened to me.
That's, and by the way, we measured, did you get an, oh my god. We, we, we measured all that stuff.
Wendy: So talk about that. Talk about the measuring a little bit,
Roy Osing: Well, I'm gonna, I haven't finished the, I haven't finished the process, Wendy. I know, I know this is long, but I gotta take you through the process. So the process of how do I do that, [00:26:00] right? So we changed, and I actually did this on the run. 'cause I tried it one day and it worked. And so we tagged it. And so what we did is we would have a panel.
I as president would be part of the interview panel with my direct, with the, with the direct report. Okay. In whose department, you know, the, the recruitment was, was being done, the job opening existed. And so here you have, and let's choose customer service. 'cause we did this with everything. We did it with marketing people, we did it with salespeople, we did it with audit people because really caring for people is not just a customer service requirement, right?
If you wanna make your business a human business and have humanity injected into what you do, you need an environment with that kind of person. So here you have this poor little person sitting across the table who wants to be a customer service rep, the president of the companies on the other side with a, with a manager.[00:27:00]
So it's pretty intimidating, but it also shows that person how important the position is. If you can get that sort of level of interest. And so what I would do is we'd have nice lease, blah, blah, blah, but, but the, the interview was not about skills and competencies. Okay. 'cause we'd already read that, and if we had any issues, we already would've cleared that.
I didn't care about that. I wanted to get inside the person's head and figure out if they could be part of this caring team. So I had two questions. First question. Wendy, do you love people? what Wendy does, first of all, her eyes kind of like light up. She's never had that question asked before, and she sort of sits back a little bit and, and reasons that I think he wants me to say yes.
So , so I better say yes. And so she says, yes. Yes. Mr. Ing, you would t typically call, yes, Mr. Ing, I, I love people. And I go, that's [00:28:00] terrific. So what I want you to do, Wendy, is I want you to tell me a story now. Okay. That would show me and prove to me that you love homo sapiens. This was the question that separated the ones who kind of like logically were trying to figure out where I was going, et cetera, and, and it gave me a story that was pretty superficial and didn't, didn't pump me at all.
And it just kind of left me, you know, cold like a fish and they didn't do so well. But then there was the other person who would give me a story that was so rich with emotion and passion and empathy and truth and integrity that my jaw would drop. And it gave me what
goosebumps. I got goosebumps from that story, that person I would take in a heartbeat.
I would hire that person and if they had any [00:29:00] issues around, you know, the specific competencies and skills for the job. I would teach them that. We had training programs for that. What we didn't have is a training program that says, I'm gonna train Wendy to love people. 'cause you can't do it. You can train Roy to smile and have a smile on his voice, but secretly hates you.
Right? You can train him to do that, but you can't train him to love you. You have to be born with it. At least. That was my thesis. So we started doing this, and I have to tell you, it was remarkable because what we, and it took a while, of course, you can imagine, right? Because it was a large organization.
After a while the culture started to feel different. It started to look different. Our loyalty results, customer loyalty results went through the roof. Our customer service results, in terms of measurement, went [00:30:00] through the roof and basically the referral. System that we had really, really succeeded. And it translated in the long run into two things, right?
Revenue growth, customer share, growth, and the employment engagement, employee engagement in the business to the HR piece was just skyrocketed. All, all because we tried to find a way, a gimmick to hire people that loved humans. And the goosebump approach worked. Like you have no belief. No. No. No. You have no idea. I remember sitting on a podcast with this, with this HR specialist from New York City about, I'd say about a year ago. And I remember it because it was, it just surprised me. I took her through what we're just discussing and I'm looking at her and I'm seeing her facial expressions and her body language just Really tightening [00:31:00] up, right? Like, she just was having a terrible time with this. And because she would say things, well, there's no proof, there's no proof, there's hasn't, there's no scientific evidence that blah, blah, blah. And I said to her, I said, you're really having difficulty with this, aren't you? And she says, yeah, I, I can't believe it.
She says, I've never heard. I mean, she was really pissed off, okay. And I said to her, I said, you know what? How about we just call it a day? I, I, I don't really think we can continue doing this because you're, you're never gonna be convinced. And I'm not trying to convince you. I'm just simply telling you what worked for me.
And if you're having trouble with that information, that's on you, it's not on me. So why don't you have a good day? And we left. And I've had, she was the only one that's ever reacted to this notion of trying to hire people with this caring gene. I just had a different way of coming at it. You cannot get that from filling out a fricking questionnaire.
Okay. and all of these, [00:32:00] all of these recruitment tools, online recruitment tools, I mean, they may be okay if you're focused on competencies and background, but they're not really helpful. Okay. In terms of what you and I are just discussing. So that's the goosebumps story.
Wendy: And that is such a hummingbird effect. I mean, you know, just asking this very, very simple question in the job interview led you to build what sounds like an amazing culture. Um, so I think, um, I think that is a fabulous, fabulous example. Now, Roy, please tell us how you measured that.
Roy Osing: Well, we did a lot of, of customer perception research. Okay. So you have two sort of forms of measurement. You have internal statistics that you can measure, like, you know, length of engagement and, and numbers of customers and revenue and all that kind of stuff. . That's fine. But the, but if you really wanna find [00:33:00] out, um, the, the sort of human attitude and caring attitude of people of employees, you basically have to ask the customer because it's a, it's a behavioral question. And so our customer perception surveys were done basically based on a transaction much as like, like is done today. So we'd follow up with the person and, and we would ask them questions and I can't remember the exact questions. Um, but they would be questions like, how did, how did Roy make you feel? How did you feel about that? And it was an open-ended question. It wasn't, you know, gimme a 1, 2, 3, 4. It was just, tell me how you felt. And we trained the people doing the surveys to basically try and follow up on that. Right? Like, like, be aware. By the way, . The outsourced customer service company, they were also hired for goosebumps.[00:34:00]
We didn't, we didn't hire people that didn't have goosebump effect. If you didn't have a goosebump effect, you couldn't be a subcontractor, you couldn't be an outsourcer, you couldn't be a market researcher or customer research. So we asked a bunch of questions like that, that, that, that got at, um, the feeling imparted, um, the, the, the integrity, the of, of the individual.
How did you feel about that? Did you trust them? Um, um, did, did they, did they talk about what, what is going on with you? Okay. 'cause we didn't want pushers, right? This is not a pushing business about pushing on what we supply. It was about creating demand and having people demand what we created completely different mindset in terms of how you run the business, right?
And so, yeah, we did it on a regular basis. And the interesting thing. Is the people that we, we involved in the survey, they loved it. In fact, they started spreading the word that we are [00:35:00] actually doing this. And can you imagine this large quote X telephone company? We all know how we felt about the telephone company back in the day.
We didn't trust the telephone company. You know, they pushed that. And so to actually have a phone call to ask people about these sorts of things was mind blowing. And they told their friends. And again, that helped us create this kind of like, um, organism that was there to serve as opposed to a hard rock that was pushing things.
Roy Osing: And that was a huge transformation that we had to make.
Wendy: I just love the idea, Roy, in, um, the business world, I think a lot of consumers. are in the place of, oh, these big companies don't care about me. They don't ask about me, they don't care. They're just all about profit and all about, you know, revenue. But the reason your culture [00:36:00] and your company was successful with the big numbers comes down to caring and creating a place of care.
And, um, I think it's really neat to hear that because it's not the perception that many people have of what's going on in these large organizations. And um, that's just a really neat thing to hear from you. Um, and it sounds like they've continued that with the culture today. Would you agree with that?
Roy Osing: Absolutely. But the other thing I would say is it, it, it exists in every size of business. Like, I'd love to say that the small business. A retailer, you know, kind of gets it. Some of them do, but unfortunately I would say many of them don't. And in fact, I'm involved with a lot of them because I do a lot of consulting for small businesses and, and when we go through this, [00:37:00] you, I can tell, right?
I can just see the eyes light up with the people that get it and are already doing it. So it's nothing that we have to have to do anything with. But there are others that we have to, we have to work through. I find that you get into the large, medium and higher businesses. The problem that we have here creating, an army of advocates for goosebumps is those large companies are driven by textbook thinking and they don't think they need any help.
So you have this natural arrogance, and I will call that arrogance 'cause I was a president of a large company. Um, it is bloody arrogance and it is also traditional leadership, like I talk about audacious leadership, which boils down to one principle. It's called leadership by serving around. Okay? It's about, it's about engaging with people asking how can I help the, how can I help?
Question [00:38:00] is all based on getting rid of the grunge and the crap and the barriers that do what prevent them from executing my strategy. Execution drives numbers, and one way to get at that is you say, all right, what's going on? Now, the interesting two by the, the, the two benefits to this is when you solve one of the, how can I help problems for the individual, they're happier, they're more productive, and they love you better to the company that translates into, guess what? transactions and revenue and the billion dollars. And so to me it's a win-win. And it lights, fires, and people talk about, oh my God, Roy was in here for an hour today, and he was asking me what I cared about, what I wanted, what I, what was bothering me. I mean, what's up
[00:39:00]
Hanna: Roy, your intentionality for what you're doing is evident in everything that you've talked about. And Wendy, your question kind of sparked this, but how do you, or what advice can you give someone that's looking to make this change to be intentional and not just, of course, everyone wants the outcome to be more transactional and to improve their bottom line, but how do they get to that intentional starting point to make a good decision that their company cares about and their customers will care about?
Roy Osing: So you, so you have to, you have to employ, grandpa Roy's model. Okay. [00:40:00] And Grandpa Roy's model is really simple. We've already been through how to create a strategy that's built to execute. Okay? Because there's no sense talking about innovation unless you have, unless you have that strategic context.
Build your strategic game plan. Go to my website and my blogs. I've been working on this since 2002. Subscribe to my blogs, go search it up. It'll tell you exactly how to build the plan, right? You have to do the strategic game plan that we talked about earlier, and there's lots of information around that you can do it. Um, the second thing is you look at the execution element of that, and that's where the gold comes from.
For example, that's where we hit on the notion of hiring for goosebumps. It was a recruitment piece, right? That's where we hit on the notion of, of, um cleansing the inside of the operations, trying to get rid of the crap and the grunge, and we came up. That's where the cut the crap and the, and the dumb rules thing came from, [00:41:00] right?
And so you have to get to that level. Don't start out with just doing it for the sake of doing it. It has to have strategic meaning. It has to be simple. And my process is really simple. I mean, that's why a lot of people have trouble with it, because they'll say to me, you know, that, did that really work? Well, what they're really saying is it didn't follow a textbook and it's not complicated enough. So do the work. Okay. There's a lot more that we could talk about in this, but the process is simple and that's the feedback. It's fun to do and it's absolutely a necessity. Innovation must have a purpose.
The purpose is your strategic game plan. So do the work. It's only 48 hours. Come on. You can gimme 48 hours, do the work, and that will lead to incredible things. And, and it, I it works in prac in practice. I mean, I've [00:42:00] had, I've had a, I had a guy a few weeks ago who was in the lawn cutting business, come to me and said, Roy, you gotta help me.
I don't know what to do. I, I really don't know what to do. I, I want to build my business. I. I want to be creative, but I don't know what to do. And when I, when I had a conversation with him and basic reason that he didn't know what to do is he didn't have a strategic game plan. And so we went back, I helped him develop it, and overnight you could just see him, you go, the weight just went away.
And now he's no longer in the lawn cutting business because the only statement that we came up with put him in the business of being the only service partner who created and delivered property management development decisions or services for strata companies. You call 'em homeowner associations. So he chose homeowner associations as his target and decided that to [00:43:00] be the only one he needs to be in the business development business, not in the traditional sense.
But in the sense where he could reach out to subcontractors for painting and lawns and all this sort of stuff, bring them together as a single point of contact for the strata president. And you have no idea. I mean, he's innovating within that every day, but it's, it's that function. And he is getting a hummingbird effect because everything he touches is now viewed as innovative just because of the way he's taken it to the, to the client.
Um, and he's reaping the benefits. The translation is his top line is looking really, really good. But he, he's not motivated to do top line. He's motivated to do the work get to the top line, and that's a big difference.
Wendy: So when someone is working through that plan, [00:44:00] um, how do you. Work through the, how big do you want to be in 24 months piece, Roy? Because I see a lot of people spending the time that they need to spend on target market, um, under trying to understand how they're going to meet their cravings. Um, working on only statements.
I see only statements called unique sales propositions. I see only statements being called a lot of different things, but trying to find that like differentiation. I see people spending time on this. I think, however, the, how big do you want to be in 24 months? How do you work people through that piece?
Roy Osing: The first comment I have to say is, is you never look at, [00:45:00] what your differentiation strategy should be. You never look at your target markets and which a brand should be unless you understand the answer to the first question, which is how big do you want to be? Look at strategy is a function of growth, okay?
It's, it's a function of choice. And so the, the how big is a really interesting, um, exercise because it's based on declaration without knowing, because I'm a firm believer that innovation comes from ignorance. It doesn't come from knowing how to do it. If you know how to do it, what motivation do you have to be creative?
You don't have any. . Okay. And the fun I have with groups is that, I'll give you an example. Say you're run, you're doing a million a year, and I'm running you through the how big, and I'm gonna press you. If you're not perspiring, we're not doing a good job. You need to be sweating over this, okay? 'cause you're gonna come up with something you [00:46:00] have no idea how to get to, and I want to take you there.
And so we go through, I say, okay let, what do you think? Can you do five, 5 million? And the first thing most of them will say, particularly the leader goes, Yeah. Because 24 months out, figure out what the run rate on that is, right? It's a
Wendy: Oh yeah, it's a big number.
Roy Osing: So, so we go through that and we talk about, well, what is the art of the possible in order to get there?
Without knowing the details, it gets down to me saying to the leader, okay, in the middle of the night, when you think about your business, where would you like it to be? In two years. Why don't we just think about that and make that real, okay? Because unfortunately, most people will answer the question by, while I don't have a trend line, we don't have any past history that would indicate, you know, all the academic stuff that goes on, I'm not denigrating it, it just doesn't do the job right?[00:47:00]
And so it's done in collaboration and in the final analysis, the leader says, let's do five. And I go around the room because everybody in that room is gonna be held accountable for delivering that. So each of them has to quote, I call understand and agree. So I will say to everybody around the table, do you understand and agree?
If you say, yes, Roy, I understand and agree, we go to the next person. If you say, if you, even, if you even pause, right? I'm just all over you. And say, what is it? Is it, is it that you don't understand it? Or that you don't agree with it. We have that conversation. It's the rest of the team's job to convince that individual that 5 million is the right goal.
And so that's the process I use. So, right, so at the end of the day, 5 million, that's the target. And everybody's gasping and they want to go to the washroom [00:48:00] and all that kind of stuff. 'cause that, that was, that was, that was a pretty interesting exercise. And I, I, I, I say, well done. Okay, now, now we got something to work on.
Now we have a number. Now look at, this is exactly the opposite of every other planning process. You understand that, right? Every other planning process develops the plan and then the numbers, and they don't like the numbers, so they change the assumptions that got the numbers without changing the strategy, which is. Insane. You can't change assumptions, alright? And expect that the strategy is gonna be the same. It won't. And so my process is really simple. Get the kids off the street. The number drives the character and the risk factor associated with the strategy. That's why we start with how big. So now we have 5 million as a target. question, [00:49:00] where do you get it? That was who do you intend to serve and what do they crave? So you can see what's happening here. You don't have the right to talk about brand. You don't have the right to talk about any marketing program because we aren't there yet. It's a sequential process and it works.
It will get you there. Like I don't care what the mass market craves, all right? I don't care. Because what we're doing is coming up with a focus number of customer groups that we believe. have the potential to deliver the 5 million. That's all who we care about, right? That's all it is. And so I disagree with you, Wendy.
People don't talk about cravings that way. They talk about cravings outside of the context of growth.
Wendy: No,
Roy Osing: So that's, so the next step is how are you gonna complete, compete and win? I disagree with you, Wendy. There's [00:50:00] nobody out there that gets it, right. They start talking about differentiation and being the only, and by the way, I see very, very few people use only, um, they'll use clap trap, but they won't use only.
But they start talking about that completely outta context of the first two questions. And that's where the problem is. And so you have to be sequentially minded in this process if you care about getting to an answer that actually. Works that you can innovate within, get high employee engagement within, because differentiation depends on the customers you're trying to attract.
Correct?
Wendy: Yes.
Roy Osing: It just does. So you wanna be the only one that does what you do to those customers that you've chosen to serve and the cravings of those people that you've identified. Because you believe if you do that, you'll be able to achieve the 5 million. So you can see the connection. And one of the [00:51:00] things that I do really, really well, 'cause I'm an old guy and I got what?
You can't bullshit me. You just can't, is I can spot you a mile away if you're trying to be a tactical queen as opposed to a strategic one. I can spot and I will not let you get away with it. I mean, I don't care what you're doing with AI today. I don't care about any of that. I don't care about your marketing programs.
Put 'em aside, let's do the work and let's make the ones that you are doing relevant. Within a strategic plan and let's delete the ones that aren't. I mean, you know, we never talk about innovation as being deleting things and yet it is alright, it innova deletion is probably more important in terms of financial impact on a company than doing new things.
And why is it important? It's important 'cause you're opening up bandwidth when you remove work to do the [00:52:00] relevant things you should be doing because you just identified it in your game plan. Now the problem with deletion is a lot of the custodians of the past, my phrase, who have got those programs, they don't want you to take them away from them,
Hanna: Right.
Roy Osing: And so you have two choices. You know, either they go with the program which is or they, I don't know, they accept the wisdom of the plan. And they decide to go and do the relevant things. Yesterday's relevance is today's irrelevance. You just need to think about it that way. And deletion is the only way to be innovative within that construct.
And nobody talks about this sort of stuff. Nobody talks about it, guys.
Hanna: How
Wendy: Roy, what was your, um, runway from startup to a billion. What was your timeline for that?
Roy Osing: oh, [00:53:00] I mean the timeline. Because the growth, because the growth rate early on of the internet was, was very, was a steep curve. And the fact that we had a lot of voice customers, right. Um, we were able to, to capitalize on that relatively quickly. But I would, I would think that we were probably, I. When we started out like this wasn't a a zero revenue company 'cause it was a data company in the early stages.
So, so we were doing probably 500 million at the time. Okay. So getting from 500 to a billion, you know, was literally, oh gee, I don't know, I'd, wanna say eight or nine years.
Wendy: Okay.
Roy Osing: You know, so you gotta think about,
Wendy: good
Roy Osing: a decade kind of thing, right? And, and that's, that's why most people, companies unfortunately don't achieve that sort of [00:54:00] growth is because they give up on it.
Because it's hard work. I mean, I learned early on that pain is a strategic concept. It is. Right?
Wendy: Absolutely,
Roy Osing: I mean, I, I had non-believers, I had people trying to make us fail. Uh, I had people who thought we were crazy and wouldn't give us any support. I mean, it was, it was horrific. Um, but, but you have to fight through it.
And so like, I, I'm giving you the timeframes. I don't know if that's exactly right, to be honest,
Wendy: No, but I like the context of that. It puts it in perspective 'cause you doubled sales. Um, but it took time and I think, um, I think a lot of people think that the startup can just. Go from day one and it, and it does take hard work.
Roy Osing: So,
Wendy: I certainly understand that.
Roy Osing: so, so the, the, the statistics I [00:55:00] read for startups 'cause I agree with you a hundred percent. I mean, 20% die in the first year. 50% of them are done in five years. Now, the interesting thing to me is this happens. Okay, stay with me on this. This happens in a, despite the fact I. That we have experts promulgating how to run a successful startup using all the academic principles in the kit bag.
Now, if those principles were so good and resulted in such amazing things, why do we still have a mortality rate of 50% in startups? You see, that's what I say to people that say, well, yeah, how come we're not doing blah, blah, blah? And I say, well, 'cause first of all, I mean we're still dying using those. So shouldn't we try something else? And so I've come up with this thing [00:56:00] because I'm not against education. This isn't about that. It's about knowing when to put the textbook down. So I've came up with that notion of putting the textbook down. It says, look it, I know you're smart. I know you can do all that stuff. I think university has taught you to think, and it's taught you to solve problems.
That's all I care about. Out. Right? And it's probably taught you to be adaptable and responsible and all those kind of things. Probably me. Maybe a bit more social. Oh wait, wait a minute. It could be a goosebump. Who knows? And I get that. But what I'd like you to do is explore some new simple hummingbird innovations that work in the real world. Okay? I say the real world and they're proven. How can I talk to you like that? 'cause I took an early stage data company to a billion in sales. That's the proof point. Now, you may not believe me, and that's fair enough, but trust me, this stuff works. And if it works for an or old Norwegian, it [00:57:00] will work for anybody.
Right? And so, but, but you know what? That's a major stumbling block for me is the momentum of the past, right? The framework of academia that's been that, that people stick to. The social norms that want people to fit in and not fit out. All that stuff works against exactly who I'm all about and what the message I'm trying to to spread. 'cause I've seen the results of doing things differently and it's a wonderful world. You know what? I wake up in the middle of the night, you guys, right? And I think of a bail distribution curve, right? So you get the, it goes like this, right? We all know what the binomial distribution curve looks like, 'cause my degree's in math.
So just show off a little bit so it goes like that, right? So I wake up thinking, um, the people on the right hand side of that distribution curve, they're superstars. They always will [00:58:00] be. You probably don't have to do a lot with them. And the ones on the left, they're people that don't require any investment either 'cause they've chose, chosen to opt out. So let's now think about the majority of people. In the glut around the y axis and the X axis, right? That's where the majority of the people think. And I think, with myself, I tease myself and I say, can you imagine if we could move everybody in that portion of the distribution curve? Five points to the right, four points to the, can you imagine?
Now, what does that mean? That means, that means people adopting the kinds of things that we're talking about, being creative and open and human and caring and loving, and results oriented and performance driven. Don't ever forget that Roy was not a pushover. He got the billion, not by being your friend, although I was, [00:59:00] but we did it a different way.
But can you imagine what would happen to society? To our personal lives? To business, right. It would just be. I would think miraculous and remarkable. And so that is the sort of thing that I think about. And I'm disappointed quite frankly, that the traction and, and it's gotta be on me 'cause I'm the guy out there would be different or be dead.
The trans, the, the traction has been difficult. It's just because of the stickiness of the past and the current processes that people follow and so forth. So I admire you putting the Hummingbird Effect tag out there, you guys. But I want you to be on my team. We can do more with this,
right?
Wendy: love it.
Roy Osing: We do a hummingbird, goosebump thing, right?
We can do more. I mean, I don't know.
Wendy: It's funny 'cause we've been in culture world this morning and um, did a [01:00:00] internal survey and looked at the results this morning and, um, talked about 16 personalities and all of that. So it was neat that you brought up the goosebump thing. It's leading me, it's leading me down a path with my team for next week's
Roy Osing: Good for you.
Wendy: meeting.
Roy Osing: You know, just on that, I'm, I'm sorry, just on that. Just try it so the next time you're hiring somebody, ask them, Hannah, do you love humans?
Actually stick or give Yeah. And then I would know you're telling the truth. So I would go to the next.
Wendy: it might be a dinner conversation in the house tonight.
Roy Osing: don't, you can't bullshit
me,
Wendy: ask my family, So leave us with your number one piece of advice for, um, a business owner or president, um, that comes out of your learnings throughout the years.
Roy Osing: Be different or be dead. [01:01:00] It's as simple as that. But realize that there's so much behind that and being different again, is doing things uniquely that people care about. It's not about yourself, it's about other people. Find a way to be that special person or that special organization out there that delivers incredible value that nobody else does. Be that person, be that organization, be that culture.
Wendy: Thank you Roy. Now will you please share with everyone where they can find out more about you and all of these wonderful things you've talked about, including your blog and um, your book.
Roy Osing: Sure, well come visit me. I'm on Be Different or be dead.com. Um, and, um, I've got a blog on, on that. You can, that's, I've written nine books or seven books. So there's a page that talk about talks about the books. And my latest one that you mentioned, the audacious unheard of Ways I [01:02:00] Took a Startup to A Billion is in There.
And it's organized in kind of a cool way. I think it, like, you don't have to read it, you know, front to back because there's a, there's a section on careers, there's a section on strategy, there's a section on marketing and sales and business planning kind of thing. And so you can go in and outta that. So you've got that.
I've got a quiz on my website. Hannah, you're on it now. Go to the quiz.
Hanna: I am.
Roy Osing: Go to the quiz, and it's a fun little thing to determine where are you on the, be different or be dead continuum, right? Are you starting, are you mature? Are you moving to that right hand side of that, that normal distribution curve? And it's a fun way of you just doing a self-assessment.
And at the end of the quiz it will give you a, a, a printout, right, of your results. And, and my intent was pick the one that's read because that means you're behind the others. And go focus on that and try and do, do some, [01:03:00] or be dead things. The quiz is laden with links, so if you don't understand the language, click the link and it goes to a couple of blog posts that explain it.
So there's a lot, a lot of, of content there. Please subscribe to my blog. I blog every, I've been blogging since oh two on this stuff. It's rich and it, I learn about it all the time and it changes. And I blog, blog every week. So there's lots of good content material there. But the, I guess the last thing I would just like to say, I also have a an email and it's roy dot sing@gmail.com.
And I'm really happy to have a one-on-one conversation with anybody. I mean, I get, I get emails after a podcast like this, for example, where say, Hey, I listened to you and blah, blah, blah, and I've done my only statement. Here's what it is. What do you think? What a wonderful opportunity to have a conversation and make a difference.
And I go, okay, I got one. [01:04:00] I got one. Let's do a few more of those. Right? And so join me. Join me and Wendy and Hannah in our journey. 'cause it is a journey, okay. To figure out ways of standing out, not fitting in, in a way that matters to other people. you do that for me? I'd appreciate it.
Wendy: Roy, thank you so much for your time today. This has been amazing. I know the listeners are going to take so many nuggets from what you've said I know I have today. So thank you so much. Listeners, thank you so much for being with us today and giving us your time and take Roy's, um, many, many nuggets and go out and find your hummingbird effect.[01:05:00]