[00:00:27] Jay: Hi everyone, welcome to The First Customer Podcast. My name is Jay Aigner. Today I am lucky enough to be joined by Roy Osing, as in Osing a song. Probably my favorite way to remember somebody's last name. Roy, thank you for joining me.
[00:00:41] Roy: My pleasure. My pleasure.
[00:00:43] Jay: So you're up in Canada. where did you start your journey? And, did that have an impact on you being an entrepreneur?
[00:00:49] Roy: Well, I started my journey in a place called Kimberley, B. C., where I was born and raised, which is about, you know, a day, half a day's flight from here, from Vancouver, and I say that it probably started because I grew up there and my mother was a very, very, aggressive, insistent, demanding person. And I often think that she was kind of like the person that lit the fire. That eventually got me going in my life and in business. And as I look back, I sort of suspect my mother, may she rest in peace, had something to do with my entrepreneurial drive and insistence upon superlative results.
[00:01:31] Jay: Insistence upon superlative results.
That's A hell of a quote. You must be an author. so what was the first business you actually started?
[00:01:40] Roy: Well, this is the irony, okay? I've had one employer and many jobs, right? So I started off as a very young man working for the telephone company in Vancouver. Okay. In the days where the telco was a monopoly and straight and sort of stodgy old company and, had the opportunity, but it was a larger company had the opportunity to what I call kind of like strategically meander through the company, looking for opportunities and eventually, I found one and was asked to be the president of a early stage Internet company when the Internet was just coming to fruition and, got involved in that.
And we basically grew it to a billion in annual sales. I get goosebumps every time I say that. But it's to me almost amazing feat that we were able to achieve. So I'm not you're kind of like classic, you know, entrepreneur from the point of view that comes up with this amazing idea and somehow lights gets things going. I was asked to basically change a culture, change a company, become market focused, become customer focused, and get as much as we could in terms of growth. And, from early stage to a billion in sales, we achieved a lot in my view. And only did it because of the entrepreneurial spirit that we all have.
[00:03:04] Jay: Makes sense. Now, did that lead directly to you writing about your experience in the book, or how did that come about?
[00:03:13] Roy: Yeah, so the book, I've actually written seven in what I'm calling the Be Different or Be Dead book series. And the whole notion there was, is around differentiation. Because I'm a believer that businesses generally, never have done a great job at, in differentiating themselves from their competition. You know, they use words like better and best and great and number one and market leader. Which quite frankly. It may be a great way for you to view yourself, but it's not a great way to answer the question to a customer or prospective client, why should I do business with you? What they want to hear is, how are you different? How are you special from everybody else out there? Andso, the differentiation theme, I've been playing with for a long time. I wrote my first book called Be Different or Be Dead, Your Business Survival Guide in 2009. And I've been playing with that concept and developing the concept. Ever since.
And my latest, which is the seventh, is basically around audacious, unheard of ways that took a startup to a billion in sales, but it's within that umbrella of differentiation. I mean, the way you achieve anything, and listen up you entrepreneurs, it's not about having a product that's the same as anybody else. It's you need to be the only ones who do what you do. They are not, it's not about being best and better. It's being the only. And so the differentiation piece has been with me a long time. Once I quit my day job, Jay, I had an opportunity then to sit down and start working more with my content, writing, coaching, advising businesses, et cetera, to try and help them do essentially what I was able to do or we were able to do. In my quote, formal, real career,
[00:04:55] Jay: Very interesting. I would say, you know, maybe you didn't have the entrepreneurial start or rise that you kind of described earlier as being atypical of, some guy who makes a product and does whatever, but it almost feels like your entrepreneurial journey, in its truest sense, began when you started writing books, right?
Like, I mean, you kind of created a product, which was your book, and you started selling it. did you have a publisher back in 2009, you said? Is it, or is it kind of a self published thing? How did you figure that process out?
[00:05:31] Roy: no, I had a publisher and a small publisher in Vancouver and we did it, but just one thing, the books are nothing more than a compendium of what I did right to basically be successful in business. So if you want to think about this, it's actually, they're actually a series of how to books
[00:05:49] Jay: Mm
[00:05:50] Roy: not what textbooks say, but reflect what Roy did. And that's a big difference, okay, because they're not a theoretical blue ocean treaties or anything else. They're basically a roadmap of stuff that worked for me, simple things that worked for me, that will work for anyone who trusts them. Okay, and people say, well, you know, how do I know they work? And I say, well, Because we actually grew a business to a billion in annual sales.
That's pretty powerful proof point that this stuff works, right? You just need to trust it and have a goal because it's not for the faint of heart. Very early on in my career, it just manifested itself, you know, as I strategically meandered through a larger organization to try and create change. That's basically what happened. And the books are nothing more than kind of like the documentation of my journey, if you want to think about it that way, and what I've learned. Along the way.
[00:06:45] Jay: If that's what you're doing now, though, isn't that a
[00:06:47] Roy: Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I would say yes. I guess it is in the classic sense. but to be honest with you, I'm not doing what I'm doing to sell books. I'm doing what I do and do it. I'm doing what I'm doing to try and change the conversation in the world around being different. and migrating away from kind of like traditional business 101 stuff, okay, that I
discovered is woefully inadequate in terms of making people successful. And for one simple reason, if everybody does the same thing, if everybody reads the same stuff, then everybody's the same. And it's not really leading to, you know, kind of like creating. organizations and people that are special in a way that customers care about, right? They're not doing anything that way.
So, you know, my content, is intended, I hope, to get people interested in stepping out of the box, creating new boxes, not conforming, not complying, but stepping out and doing something different in a way people care about. And that's the point I want to make. This isn't about narcissism. This isn't about the color of your hair.
This isn't about the color of your skin. This isn't about your sexual orientation. It's about figuring out what people care about and satisfying that craving in a way that only you do. That's the quest to be different. And I'm finding that it's really hard, Jay, because people have basically been taught to comply. Education system teaches us to conform. Follow the rules, apply the formula, and in brackets, you shall succeed, which of course is absolute hogwash. never worked for me.
[00:08:36] Jay: So how have you found Yeah, the reception to be, for people that the book didn't work for, what did they say? What did they, were they conformists of the old kind of methodologies and they just weren't willing to kind of trust the process of what your experience kind of proved?
what was your, the experience of people who didn't, kind of get out of what you, what
you were
[00:08:55] Roy: it's kind of like, you know, a number of things. First of all, there are people that, feel really uncomfortable with stepping out, right? That's just part of their makeup. And so they didn't want to do the journey because it was way too uncomfortable. There are people that want to stay in the conformist herd because it's comfortable for them, right, to break out as there are other people who, quite frankly, didn't have the energy. I mean, when you undertake a future that is based on doing what other people don't do, you had better, first of all, accept that pain is a strategic concept, because this is painful. This isn't a walk in the park, right? You can't formularize how to be different. Right? So you're breaking new ground and you're fighting against tradition. You're fighting against inertia and that requires a great deal of energy. And there are people who simply didn't want to put in the time, didn't want to put in the energy. And there are other people who said it's too simple. The kind of things that you say worked are too simple. So these are people who have been taught that if it's not complicated, it can't be right. Again, a misgiving that's manifested and promulgated, if you will, by the education system, right? I mean, if you can't formularize it and have a differential equation to explain what you did, then you can't be doing the right thing. Well, that's hogwash too. And so it's kind of like a variety of things. It's not that people didn't understand it.
Intellectually, this be different or be dead thing is quite simple. But actually breathing life into that puppy. Is challenging. And I think there's a mixture of people that felt uncomfortable, risk averse, didn't want to do the work, didn't want to put in the work, and that's, those are probably the main reasons why, you know, people aren't jumping on and doing something. And don't forget, we live in a world where academics have a great deal of influence. Okay, well, academics don't understand nor will they ever support goose bump hiring that Roy preaches. All right. Killing dumb rules and using language that is really cutting to make a point, they'll never be on board. So you can forget about getting those guys as advocates.
I don't want them anyways, but they'll never, but they have such a great amount of influence that if they're not on board, you know, you're kind of fighting a little bit of the time. So it is, but I got more energy than a 30 year old mate. I'll tell you right now. So I'm keeping pushing.
[00:11:31] Jay: what would you do differently? Or if you had to go back and write your first book over again from scratch? What would kind of be step one and maybe not it's maybe I never phrased that as a what would you differently question But what would be step one if somebody was gonna go out and write a book?
Maybe not like yours, but just a book in general about their experience. What would you
suggest
[00:11:52] Roy: first of all, you have to be an expert in what you're going to talk about. Okay. Like you, you can't create content. That isn't running through your veins. If it's, if the content isn't running through your veins, you will be caught out. You will be a fake. You will be a phony and people will see it. Okay, so you have to have that thing going through you. So I, I always call it, if you're not an expert in your content, don't write anything down. You need to achieve that. And when I use the word expert, I'm talking about, you know, it's, it's part of your DNA or not. Like you, you, you, it's part of your soul. Right. And so writing about it comes through if you really believe it. Right. So it's not an academic thing. So, I would say that, like, first of all, don't start out to be an author. That's not what I did. And I'm not saying I'm not being prescriptive to say you need to be be what I was. But I started out trying to do the right thing to win, trying to do the right thing to be a superlative performance for performer in an organization that really needed different leadership. The writing piece came after, right? That's just a documentation process. A lot of people say, you're an author. I go, no, I'm just a business guy that figured it out. And I happen to be able to communicate, fortunately. And so I translated, you know, my performance, if you will, into written and spoken, kinds of content. So that's kind of what I did. And it worked. I see too many writers, too many people start out saying, I want to be an author. And I would always say, well, what do you believe in? What's running through your veins, dude? Tell me. And the problem is, it's not running through their veins. It's in the left side of their head, right, which is the cerebral cortex.
It's the intellect that's talking. Well, you don't sell stuff. You don't convince people, you don't light fires by appealing to the intellect, you appeal to the emotion, the right hand side of the brain, the passionate side. That's what drives people to do something, and that's what drives them to feel and that's what drives them to buy. Talk about The First Customer. They don't buy on the basis of intelligence. They base, they buy on the basis of how they feel. No difference to a in, in an author sense. That's why people do what they do.
[00:14:07] Jay: Very interesting How do you market your book today? What's your kind of your veins of getting it out there other than obviously being on shows like this? I mean, what's what some of your avenues to market your book?
[00:14:19] Roy: Well, it's varied over
[00:14:21] Jay: or series
[00:14:21] Roy: I mean, there was a time where I did a whole lot of, marketing through bookstores and in the early days and so forth. But basically now, it's based on social media and it's faith based on, consulting with clients as a way to kind of get it, get the information seeded, et cetera. And I'm also doing work with some not for profits, and using my book, giving it away, as a way to get people's interest. And so, for me, it's, it's more about seeding as many, areas as I can with the content, hoping that it will pick up. I don't have an objective to sell books. That's not what I'm trying to do. And nor do I have a way to measure... Whether I'm actually changing the conversation, even, although I've done an awful lot of podcasts, people seem to be interested in what my content is all about. And I read that as an affirmation of the fact that it's resonating with people. And basically that's what I'm doing. But do I have a marketing strategy? Yeah, kind of, kinda, but I'm not working too hard at it, Jay.
[00:15:28] Jay: Right. No, I hear you. so are you driving towards anything? Is it to be more in the business coaching, consulting kind of space? Is that where you want to be? Or are you kind of just happy
[00:15:40] Roy: And to
pay
[00:15:41] Jay: the space you're in right now?
[00:15:43] Roy: in the sense that I want to, hopefully help people, be successful in their personal life, in their career and in their business by using the stuff that worked for me. So it's a bit of an altruistic goal, if you will, but it's one that, excites me and at one, it's one that helps me meet people and helping people. is a good feel for me and it's time in my life that I want to do more of that because I had a lot of help when I was struggling when I was growing when I was doing everything. I could have used a mentor like me is a way I would put it. So now I try and mentor other people and it's so satisfying. And so I give the books away and say, hey, try this, try this, try this. And it works.
[00:16:31] Jay: What are some of your hobbies outside
of business?
[00:16:34] Roy: My wife and I, we've been married 57 years. So We've been around a long time and we love to travel and traveling is kind of interesting for me because I write a lot when I travel, like I blog every week and so I've been blogging since 2009. So I'm always looking for subject matter.
Traveling is an excellent way for me to get, material that I actually blog about around this whole concept of Be Different or Be Dead. You know, I find customer experiences have been delightful and take my breath away, or I find that they suck and blah, blah, blah. And there's learning in there, et cetera.
So traveling, I guess, feeds the creative process that I have to continue to write. and we do an awful lot of that. We ski. We have a place in Whistler where they had the 2010 Olympics. So we do a lot of skiing and I got four grandkids. So I spent an awful lot of time. I'm to be different, Papa, right?
Because I use my stuff in my personal life. So I do things their parents might not appreciate, but my grandkids love it because it's so different. They're in school, right? They don't, when they see me do the sorts of things that I do, they go, what? And when they do that, I go, ha ha. Okay, I'm winning. I'm winning with them.
So that's the sort of thing that we do. And you know, the days are wonderful. And I have opportunities to meet guys like you.
Awesome.
[00:17:59] Jay: Love it. All right. Last question. If, and I'm always curious for people who do so much and have seen so much. What's your answer to this
question would be? Non business related. If you could do anything on earth, and you knew you couldn't fail,
[00:18:17] Roy: I'd probably take the foot off my foot off the gas pedal. I've been driving hard my whole life. I mean, I've sacrificed a lot of things that in retrospect, you know, from a personal point of view, I don't regret, but there probably was another way had I just been a little more patient. And so, yeah, I would take my foot off the gas pedal.
Having said that, you've got to realize that when you're involved in stuff that is different than what people are used to, if you're not dedicated, if you don't care about work life imbalance, right? Or if you do care about it, it tends not to move on you. you have to devote yourself.
You have to have it run into your veins and do it. but I honestly think in retrospect, and I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. that had I, just, you know, decelerated a little bit from time to time, things still would have worked out and I would have achieved my goals.
[00:19:16] Jay: Interesting. That's the first time I've heard that answer and I love it. Alright. How do they find Roy? How do they find your book series? I'm sure it's everywhere. but how do they contact you if they want to meet a very, energetic, fun, smart guy?
[00:19:29] Roy: Well, I have a website,
[00:19:30] Jay: do they do that?
[00:19:32] Roy: com. And so I've tried to equip it with as many resources as I could, to support this Be Different or Be Dead journey. I blog every week, so you can check out the blog. So I've been writing about my stuff since 09, since I told you, my first book. and I also have, a couple of pages there on my book, so you can check it out and do what you want with that. and I've got an email. roy. osing at gmail. com. And I'm really happy, Jay, to have a conversation with anybody on, Be Different or Be Dead, writing. How do you write an only statement, right? What are the sorts of things you need to do personally to be different? What is that all about? And I have people asking those kinds of questions. I want to be different, Roy. How do I do, what do you mean by that? What do, we have wonderful conversations and I'm happy to continue to do that. So reach out to me and I won't let you down. I will return your email. We'll have a conversation. Trust me,
[00:20:28] Jay: Beautiful. I love that very much. All right, Roy, you've been fantastic. definitely be different. Don't be dead, next time I see you. And, I'll definitely, I'll definitely share your contact and hopefully people reach out if they want to learn how to be different from a guy like Ron.
very cool guy. enjoy the weather up there, brother. And, thank you for being on. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks Roy. See ya.