A leading executive in the Canadian telecommunication industry and a recognized business consultant and educator, Roy Osing’s career spans over three decades of singular achievement.
During his distinguished tenure with TELUS, Osing served as chief marketing officer, senior vice president for Strategic Alliance Management, and executive vice president and president of TELUS Advanced Communications. Osing developed multiple strategic partnerships and alliances with major corporations over the years, and was responsible for exponentially growth in emerging data and internet businesses, successfully positioning TELUS as a global leader in the industry.
Roy Osing was senior vice president marketing of the former BC TELECOM. Under his leadership, the company received the 1998 American Marketing Association’s “Marketer of the Year Award” in British Columbia.
A graduate of the University of British Columbia with degrees in mathematics and computer science, Osing is founding chair and president of the British Columbia Quality Council. He is a former member of the board of directors of the Vancouver Board of Trade, the British Columbia Technology Industry Association, the British Columbia Cancer Foundation, and the British Columbia & Yukon Heart and Stroke Foundation.
Roy Osing is founder, president and chief executive officer of Brilliance for Business, an organization dedicated to providing practical and proven ways to improve both business and personal performance.
He has incorporated his career’s experience and learning into the groundbreaking new book BE DiFFERENT or be dead: Your Business Survival Guide.
What are you working on right now?
Consulting and promoting my new groundbreaking book “BE DiFFERENT or be dead: Your Business Survival Guide”, a practical and proven Guide to help organizations achieve true sustainable competitive differentiation to thrive and survive these challenging times.
3 Trends that excite you?
Trend #1 – Competition is going nuts out there! There are more competitors now than ever before and they are forming faster than ever before, making it critical that businesses find a way to stand out in the crowd to attract customers. If a business can’t create unique value for the customers they choose to serve they will not survive. BE DiFFERENT or be dead shows organizations how to grow their business and dominate competitors by leveraging the critical functions of Strategy, Marketing, Sales and Customer Service.
Trend #2 – Successful businesses are moving away from the traditional marketing approach of flogging products to mass markets; they are moving to what I have coined a “customerized” marketing discipline that created value-based Holistic Offers for small groups of customers in order to enhance their relevance to their target audience. BE DiFFERENT or be dead shows how to build an Offer Creation Marketing Capability.
Trend # 3 – The key driver of Customer loyalty to any business is the Service Experience (SE). The SE is the feeling a customer gets when they transact with an organization. If a person is “dazzled” in their service experience they will not only tell others, they stay and be a raving fan and advocate. BE DiFFERENT or be dead explores how organizations can build a Dazzling Service Experience Culture.
How do you bring ideas to life?
My way of “breathing life” into an idea is to first, simplify it so that people can understand it. “Never try to impress yourself with your own words!” is my mantra and it always works for any audience I have been in front of.
Second, tell stories that transforms the idea into observable behaviors so people can “see” the idea in action.
Third, an idea “walks the land of the living” from people who believe in it and are passionate about it. If you don’t love your idea, why should anyone else?
What is one mistake that you’ve made that our readers can learn from?:
This is a tough one to learn, but try desperately not to overreact when things are not going your way. Try this method: pause, breathe, think,then respond thoughtfully. This allows you to get control over your emotions before opening your mouth and blurting something out that you may regret later.
What is one idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?
To quote the theme of my book “If you’re not DiFFERENT, You’re Dead (or soon will be).” This applies equally in life as it does in business. You absolutely must covet uniqueness in order to be heard, seen, and be paid attention to in this amazing world of zealots all seeking success and fame in whatever they do.
What motivated you to write your new book?
I was motivated to write my book because my ‘customers’ asked me to.
I had been doing Seminars and Workshops on my BE DiFFERENT Practices for a year or so, and finally my audience asked me if I had considered putting my stuff into a formal repository. Sounded like a good idea so I wrote the book literally from my presentation Power Point slides.
In addition, I have always been driven to provide assistance to organizations looking for ways to improve their performance and a formal book in a ‘How to’ Guide format seemed to fit the bill.
What advice would you give someone aspiring to be an executive in an organization?
In point form here are the things that I did that worked:
- Develop your personal brand that is different from others and that addresses a critical business need.
- Work on your communications skills. You need to be an excellent communicator.
- Every time you go through a ‘change’ in your organization (new boss, new strategy, organizational change, new role for example) ask yourself “The Magic Question: ” “What will I do differently now that things have changed?”
- Serve people don’t ‘Command and Control’ them.
- Be passionate about what you do. Your energy will infect others.
Connect:
book website www.bedifferentorbedead.com
book blog: www.bedifferentorbedead.com/blog
twitter @royosing
e-mail [email protected]
Mario Schulzke is the Founder of ideamensch, which he started a decade ago to learn from entrepreneurs and give them a platform for their ideas.