Vision Pros Live Podcast
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What's your vision? Roy Osing. Podcast Session 1.
2,171 words · 3 speakers
Tell me about your vision, so others can hear.
Yeah, so, so, so my vision in a, in a real simple way is, is to um help business owners particularly, or anybody in business or concerned with their careers, help them grow. So I'm all about growth. My, my vision is to present practical, simple, proven ways to help people grow in whatever context that growth is. And so whether you're a CEO of a startup looking to get going and monetize this great idea you've had, whether you're an employee sitting in the middle of a corporation saying, I'm done, I'm, I'm stuck, I need to get unstuck.
Anything that's related to growth, I can help because my world has been a how-to world. I know how to do it because I've done it. I'm not one of these textbook-driven theoreticians that says, you know, well, in theory, no, no, no, no. Theory is useless if you can't translate it and prove that it actually proves results. So I'm a, I'm a results visionary looking to help people grow in whatever context that makes sense for them.
Yes, yes. What's the most important leadership lesson you've learned in the last forty years of your experience?
Wow, you know, so like, there's no silver bullets, first of all, okay? And I want to make that point. It's a really great question, and I've been asked it a million times, and I cannot. It's all about doing a whole bunch of little things that add up to being this great big vortex of action, right, to move forward. And so it's okay to do a goosebump, a dumb rules, a line of sight, right, a service strategy, a dazzling, a rave-worthy moment. It's okay to do a bunch of those things because as long as they're all aligned and, and ending to go to the same per, same end.
There, it's okay to do that. In fact, it's a, it's a must because, as I say, the Hail Mary doesn't exist. Okay, from a purely personal point of view, I think the big breakthrough for me was, was coming up with this notion. Of line of sight as a leader. Like, one of the biggest things from an execution point of view is that if you don't clearly articulate everybody's role in the organization in terms of the new strategy you've got, normally you get dysfunction. Because you you leave it up to people to invent their own definition of what they should do. And it's not that they're they're crazy, whatever, it's just that they lack the perspective that the leader has.
And so what I would do is translate the strategy for every employee in the organization. And I had thousands of people in the organization. This was not a five-person organization, it was five, six thousand people. Okay, that we built it to, it's huge. And so the translation process was extremely arduous, and I did it. Over time, my direct reports got it, and I trusted that they would do the right kind of thing with it. But initially, it was me. And the whole idea was if everybody got direct line of sight from what their role was into that growth strategy, then wonderful things would happen. And it did, okay?
And so for you leaders out there who think your job is to sit in your office and pontificate on strategy, get out of it. Get out of your office, right? Get in the execution mode, go get dirty, get dirt in your fingernails, because that's where results are. And start getting involved, embed yourself with your organization, help people understand what their role is. Ask the simple question, "How can I help? How can I help?" People would often say, "Well, yeah, that sounds kind of flimsy." I go, "No, it's not, because this isn't about how are you feeling today. This is about how can I help remove the barriers that are preventing you from executing our strategy even better?"
And so it's extremely strategic. But it would be that notion, line of sight, embed yourself, ask the question, "How can I help?" Subordinate yourself to your people. There's a quote, and I've never used that before. You need to subordinate yourself, you need to suck it up, because it's not about you, leader. It's about the people who choose to follow you, and you need as many as you can get.
Absolutely. One other question, what's your why?
What's my why? My why is, why is it taking so long to get people on the be different or be dead bandwagon? And I know what the answer is. The answer is that we are so driven by an education system and a traditional business planning system that it's hard to break away. We are bound by traditional practices. We shun being different. You said earlier, it's okay to be different. I would go one step further. It's absolutely essential to be different. If we're to have a society, right, and a business environment where we grow and we all prosper, that's not going to happen when we're part of tribes, unless they're different
tribes. It's not going to happen. Sane this gets you nothing. It may make you feel good, right? It may make you feel good, but it really doesn't contribute what it is we need as an environment and a society to survive. And so, the biggest why for me is that and my days are spent trying to knock down those barriers of tradition and momentum management created by textbooks that promulgate stuff that doesn't work in today's environment and promulgated by people that have never run a billion dollar a year business. Why do people listen to people with three or six letters after their name and they've never run a business? Why do they trust them to give them business advice?
I know I'm getting a bit passionate on this, but it really pisses me off, okay?
So that brings me to my most favorite question. What are the greatest joys of what you do?
Having conversations like this and watching you smile when I give you a crazy answer and watching your face light up over hiring for Goosebumps and being able to relate to that and tell your version of the story. I mean, that's what it's all about. I mean, look at... Growth is a function of relationships.
Yeah.
It just is. And so we need to build more of those. And so like I said earlier, I've done well over a hundred podcasts as a guest. And every one of them is based fundamentally on the kind of thing that we're talking about now. And it's an opportunity for me to kind of like change the conversation à la with my why, right?
Yes.
And I just love them. I just love them because I get I get pushback in certain areas, which makes me think even more about my my my context and would be different. I mean, the whole notion of narcissism and a conversation around that didn't come until I started podcasting.
Or I realized there's a story here that I haven't told. I need to tell the story about this is not narcissism. Being different is not about the color of your hair. And that was a huge breakthrough for me. And so
That's what I enjoy about these conversations. It makes me do a better job in terms of what I do. And hopefully, I don't have that many years left, I guess, to keep doing this, but hopefully I'll see some more progress as more and more people join me in that be different or be dead journey. That would be it.
Yes. And it it's um, it's crucial because I realize the more and more I speak to individuals on my podcast. And that question is asked, how are you different? From, you know, X, Y, and Z company, or not even mentioning a company. There's so many entrepreneurs or business owners, I believe they're already different. And so I'm sure that's like this wake up uh call to those that are own businesses to to really see if they are truly doing things differently. And maybe scaling as to why they're not making it to where they desire to be because they really aren't much different.
Yeah, so like I presented the problem of differentiation, but I also have the solution, of course, you knew that, because I had to develop my own process, okay, my own planning process that would allow people to create their, what I call the only statement, which is basically, we are the only ones who, because that is the ultimate manifestation of differentiation. If you can claim and truthfully deliver on being the only one, then you have established differentiation. So I've had to create my own process of taking people there. And so I do a lot of consulting with small business owners and CEOs. After our first meeting, what you said is obvious. They aren't different. They're relying on technology, et cetera,
and blah, blah, blah, and, you know, unique selling propositions as read in Marketing 101, which means absolutely nothing. And I have to, I tell them, I said, stop spending money. I built a process, a 48-hour process, that will allow people to develop a strategic game plan from them. You can read that in my books, and it's so simple. It's based on answering three questions. How big do you want to be? Who do you want to serve? How are you going to compete and win? You will have a strategy in 48 hours that will establish you as the only one that does what you do. And I try and get people into that. Now, with small businesses, as you know, trying to convince them to take time off their business to do some planning is a challenge. But given that it's only 48 hours, and it's
not a three-week commitment, I've been pretty successful getting people leaning into that. And so I had, I've had real estate companies, I had landscaping companies. Small businesses go through and trust me to help them on this, and you should see the kind of planning that they've come up with and the kind of results that they're producing. 30% to 40% annual growth in top-line revenue, and they can't believe it because it's so simple. In fact, that's their typical response is, Roy, I can't believe how simple that is. Why isn't everybody doing it? And then I go back to my why.
Absolutely. I love that. Roy, how can the guest or the audience get ahold of you? And what are your social media handles?
Yeah, so I've got, just Google me at Roy Osing and you'll get all my social media. But my website, come visit me, is be different or be dead dot com. And I've would, I've tried to put as much resource in there as I can. Look, and I've been blogging on this stuff since 2009, okay? So there's a ton of content. If you want to find out more about goosebumps or killing dumb rules, you can, you can search my blogs on my site and you'll get all the content. So visit me there. I've also got a page that talks about my seven books. There's also what I'm calling a be, a be different quiz. And so if you're ever wondering where you sit on the be different or be dead scale, in terms of how, how different you really are in your business or career, go take my quiz. It's fun.
It will show you where you need to do a little more work. And it will also show, show you where you've, you've really got some good traction going and achieving some of the be different stuff that, that I talk about. And lastly, my email address is roy dot osing at gmail dot com. And I'm really happy to have a conversation one on one. I have people emailing me their draft only statements. Roy, hey, I did this. Check it out. What do you think? And I've done some planning work online with people that are interested in, wow, what is this strategic game plan all about? And so take advantage of me. Use me. I'm here to be you.
Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to participate in the show. And thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.
Page updated November 13, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
