Career Advice For Young Professional With Roy Osing

Roy Osing: They’re all the same. They’re all boilerplate off Google. They all use the same context. And in my eyes glaze over when I read these things because you could take the names off, right? And the resumes look the same. They got the same headings. They basically look the same in every respect. People don’t realize that the resume is is the first impression. However, it’s submitted.

[Music]

Zeke: I like to welcome everyone to another episode of the Let’s Gather Podcast. I’m your host Zeke, in this episode I have Roy Osing to speak about business and helpful tips for young professionals. You can find his book “Be Different or be Dead”by clicking the link in the description below. I like to give a content warning for any strong language used in this episode and hope you have nice day and enjoy the show.

Okay, so the first question is what would your origin story be and how would be like to represent? 

Roy Osing: Well, I guess that my life story is all about the challenges that I face. Very, very young coming into the business world and and and basically finding my way through it to to working over 33 years with a company doing many, many, many different things and ending up having a very rewarding career.

I was I joined a company as a as an analyst with a mathematics degree way back in the day when computers were like batch processing and all that kind of stuff. And I would that was my thing. And I basically adhere to a game plan. I had that, that I ended up running an Internet startup business and, and as my as I’ve written in my seventh book, taking it to $1,000,000,000 in sales.

So that was an interesting journey. And when I reflected upon it, it was a journey of juxtapositions where rather than doing the common traditional stuff, I tended to want to do more on the other end of the spectrum, the different, the audacious right, the the weird, the bold, the crazy things that that were shunned upon, quite frankly, because they were different.

They weren’t normal according to somebody’s norms. And that normally involved people who wrote textbooks and and experts and professors that gave, you know, thought classes unfortunately didn’t run businesses. And so when I when I sort of think about my journey, it’s all about going from, yeah, a math degree to a president going from traditional ways of looking to things to sort of a different spin on the world, always having that thing in mind and question in mind saying, how can I do things differently was something that it really guided me and it was very useful sort of going from textbook approaches to practical real world solutions.

And they’re very, very different at times. One’s very helpful to a certain degree, but there’s no substitute for finding out what works in a messy real world, because at the end of the day, that’s where results are achieved. And I kind of hit on that in my my career pretty early. I moved from using standard formula to to learning on the run in the trenches, which is kind of interesting, especially when you’re a president of a company and you’re able to relate to people on the front line in the way that I fortunately was able to do so and get them to do things that were out of their comfort zone.

It was amazing and it was all based on, Hey, I’ve been in the messy stuff, I’ve got dirty, my hands are filthy, all that kind of stuff as a leader. And that that sort of got me a lot of currency. So I’ve gone from neat and tidy to messy and inelegant. So like really because and it was strategic.

Zeke It was strategic because that’s where the results were. The results were not in the neat and tidy. They weren’t in the textbooks, they weren’t in the in the papers or the or the case studies. They were in the real world and stuff. So my story is all about that journey from a goalpost that is rooted in tradition in common to the other goal post that doesn’t have any roots, man.

It doesn’t. It’s just like floating because it can be what it has to be. Given the current situation one finds itself and it’s been yeah, it’s been, it’s been quite a ride. And I’m finding now that I’m a little older, I apply the principles to different things. I apply them to the relationships I have with my grandkids and my friends and so on and so forth.

And of course writing keeps me busy and that’s a very big, big part of my journey, trying to give people a handout on what worked for me and hope with the hopes that people will try some of my stuff and it will work for them too. So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 

Zeke: Nice and since you like writing, I’m guessing you will write a books to um reflect your story?

Roy Osing: Sorry. 

Since. Since you wrote before I guess you write a book telling your story. 

Roy Osing: Yeah. Yes. 

Zeke: Nice. So let’s get into this. So you have a book on the way? 

Roy Osing: Yeah. Very, very exciting times. I, I started writing about this whole concept of being different. Very, very. I’m also 2009 is when I wrote my first book.

It was called Be Different because you can see it on the back there. It’s on there, it’s on the right in a different color. It’s called Be Different or Be Dead. Your Business Survival Guide. And it was all about the principles of differentiation at a time when we were really suffering financially. The world was in tough financial circumstances, hence the title Your Business Survival Guide.

And what I, what I try to do is, is explain how important it is that businesses and individuals be able to differentiate themselves from people around them. Otherwise they they get lost in the herd, They don’t get noticed. They’re not viewed as special and they’re ignored. And the worst thing to do is to be ignored in whatever aspect or or irrelevant, just, you know, in whatever, whatever you’re doing.

So I started writing Be Different or Be dead. And it was all about how can you differentiate? And we can talk about some of that stuff if you like. And it was interesting because and it’s still the case today, people today find that whole concept of be different or be dead new. Now what that means is one or two things.

One, either I didn’t get the message across in the last 13 years or two people don’t want to hear it. And I think probably it’s a combination of both. I mean, it’s hard to change people and it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s hard to keep people’s attention. However, that’s my thing. That’s my journey. So I started out with that one.

It and only took slivers of marketing and execution and leadership and careers. And I wrote individual books about each of those subjects within the context of Be Different or Be Dead, which led me to the latest one, which which is already out in e-book format and will come out in print on May the 31st, and it’s Be Different Or Be Dead the audacious and unheard of ways. I took a startup to a billion in sales. It’s all about an updated version of the original Look at the world of differentiation. Only this time it’s I’ve got a lot more experience, a lot more experience with my own material. I’ve learned more about my own material. And so it’s it’s an updated, hopefully more focused, more poignant version of the original and speaks to the critical elements of of being different hopefully in a in a in in a contemporary context.

But I’m finding that some of the concepts are resonate with people as being wow, I mean, that’s new. Well, no, you know, I’ve been talking about this stuff for 13 years. It’s not new. And I honestly do get the impression that it’s really hard for people to to grab onto things that are kind of out there. You know, it’s not just in my thing.

You can see it in the world, right? I mean, really kind of an edgy things that are pretty cool. Sometimes people kind of go, Whoa, hang on. I’m not sure whether they’re for me or not. So yeah, I’m excited about it. The e-book. So I’m actually I’ve got some material on my blog that talks about the book and for people that want to email me and give me their email, I’ll send them a free download if they want.

It’s called Pay Audacious Forward. I’m happy to do that. There’s only one condition. You got to buy one for a friend, and if you do that, then I will send you one from me. Complimentary. But it’s it’s a way to kind of get people to to to move the book in the concepts around within their own circle. And with course, with when it hits the bookstores, that’ll be another, another phase, which is a very, very, very busy phase.

And hey, we’ll see how it goes. I mean, my objective isn’t to sell books. My objective is to change the conversation out there from being one that’s kind of like traditional and commonplace and talks about benchmarking best in class to talking about what do we have to do differently to be to be special in the world and therefore earning the right to win in that world by being different.

And so that’s what I’m trying to do. And interesting it it applies to so many. It applies to so, so many aspects of of life, not just business, but it applies so specifically to careers. In fact, we can talk about that if you want. I mean, I, I call it eating my own dog food. I listen to my own stuff.

I apply my own stuff to me. Otherwise, I have no right to ask you to apply it to you. Right. So, yeah, I do that. And it’s been it’s been an interesting journey. And as we have a long way to go and we’ll just keep banging away as long as I wake up in the morning. 

Zeke: Yeah, I definitely agree about being different because that’s pretty much every time something new comes out that’s like that brings, that catches all the attention, all the eyes and ears, and then people come  to it.

But I feel like with that people, the new thing become standard and then everybody. And then that just comes asunder to the ordinary and then people forget. Well, I guess either people perfect what they already know, and then some may forget to be different. 

Roy Osing: Yeah, I mean, I mean, the point you raise is a good one. In fact, you know, the whole world of competitive differentiation looks that way.

As soon as an organization has got an edge, somebody copies that edge. So it’s not an edge anymore. And now what they have to do is they have to run out and discover something else. And I’ve had people say to me, Oh, my goodness, that’s hard work. Yeah, it’s hard work. But the consequences of not doing it is that you die, your organization dies.

But yeah, it’s just it’s just constant acting, observing, learning, acting is, is that job that loop that just keeps going and going and going and going. And so you’re absolutely right. I’ve had a lot of people say, well, yeah, okay, once you got that statement, that competitive statement, you know, what’s to say? Somebody won’t copy what you’re doing and I say, well yeah, they will you know, you have to count on it.

And it’s no different than in your own career. You can do something. It’s really cool and people notice and you get rewarded for that. Well, guess what happens to 100 people watching you? They go, Well, Roy did that. I think I’m going to do that. So now Roy’s got to do something different. You always got to stay up on that.

Otherwise you fall behind. And if you fall behind, you’re in the herd. And by the way, the view never changes. You’ll always see the back of somebody in front of you. Not a great place to be in my in my humble opinion. Yeah, 

Zeke: Definitely. And so now you get to a career how that has a shaped of you over the years. Being in different positions. 

Roy Osing: Yeah. I mean, career. I do a lot of work with, with young people, young professional guys and kind of coaching them and, and, and I would say most people are having a tough time of it or having a tough time finding their way in the working world. And and there’s a number of things that that I’ve learned are really, really important to to actually get moving in a positive direction and keep that momentum going.

One of them is don’t don’t make your academic pedigree who you are. There’s so many people that say, well, I would say, well, so what? What? Why should I hire you? And the first thing comes out of the mouth is I’ve got an MBA and I actually I don’t care because successful people are basically smart anyways. That’s not what differentiates them in the real world to be successful.

I mean, I can I can be smart people can learn knowledge that they need to know to do their jobs. But there’s other things that really make a difference in terms of whether they advance. And I learned that very, very early in my career. For example, I would say, Do you have a career plan? I call it a career game plan.

And there’s a specific process that I actually developed in order to do this. And it’s very, very deliberate. It talks about where do you want to be specifically in 24 months? Who are the foxes? I call them. Who are the people that actually are going to be influential in making that decision. And the third piece is how are you going to win?

How are you going to win with, you know, in the herd of 100 other candidates, all looking for the same job? See, it’s not good enough to say my strengths are I deal with people really well or I, I have great conflict management skills or I’m a good communicator. The reality is everybody can say that. Everybody can say that.

And it becomes what I call career language claptrap. That’s all it is. It’s meaningless mumbo jumbo. And so I created this. This this concept called the only statement which applies to businesses for competitive advantage. And it also applies to individuals who are looking for a way to communicate with their special lot. And the only statement goes like this I’m the only one that and you fill in the blanks.

Okay, it sounds easy. It’s really hard to do because you really have to understand where your places in the world, particularly relative to people around you. So when somebody says, Zeke, why should I give you the job and not the 150 other people that have applied? That’s the moment of truth. The only statement, in my view, is the best answer to that, right?

I’m the only one here with a proven experience in marketing and sales overseas, blah, blah, blah, all that and all that comes and and it’s it can be measured. You can prove it one way or the other. Right. And it’s kind of like an elevator pitch on what you are about, what your brand is about. Right. Very few people actually do this and I’m just blown away because it’s such an easy thing to do and to incorporate that into a career plan to actually start.

So if you don’t have that anchor, it’s pretty hard to evaluate whether you’re making any progress at all. And it’s for sure difficult to understand whether you win anything because your career plan or your approach to the world becomes the same as everybody else’s whole. Hum, Right. So I say to people, All right, I’ll help you with this.

It’s it’s relatively straightforward to put together, but you need a career plan. You need a place to start, and that person will only statement is your brand. And that’s a huge piece of the work because it’s not about who you think you are. It’s it’s how how do you need to be thought about in order to get you where you need to go?

What is the outcome that you are expecting from your brand to actually get you to a successful position? A brand is strategic. It’s not descriptive. Roy’s a nice guy who cares? Roy’s legacy or ancestors are Norwegian who care. I want to know what this guy is all about and how he can help me. That’s the key. And the brand piece is huge, and it’s not being very well done, my friend.

It isn’t. I read a lot of the stuff that is being promulgated by schools. It doesn’t work in the real world. It may be academically pristine and have have all of those theoretical concepts down, but it doesn’t work. They don’t work. And now it’s like it’s like how many businesses espouse to be the best at something right in print.

And that’s that’s they’re kind of like brand. We are the best customer service provider in in Brooklyn. We have the we have the best people we have we are the leader in this technology and all this sort of stuff. The reason it doesn’t work is it’s unbelievable. People don’t believe that because they have no sense as to how to measure it, even just kind of like intellectually.

And so my only statement is intended to cut through that, cut through that clutter, make it clear not to say that it won’t it shouldn’t be changed. I mean, once you have it, you have to live with it and you revise, modify it as you go based on on the experience that you get. So that’s one example of, I think, a big gap in young professionals or young people.

And I don’t know how young young is, but they’re sure as heck not me, but people who are struggling with careers, they don’t have a plan and it’s not the plan you read about in textbook. It’s my plan because I’ve done it. It works, right? So people can trust that. But there’s other aspects of a lot of successful careers that that I’ve discovered that are kind of interesting.

And it one is all about what happens when people get screwed over and we all get screwed over. Everybody gets screwed over. And in their career, right? Everybody has setbacks. The key thing is very few people treat a setback as an opportunity to show their stuff and actually get it to work in their advantage to their advantage. And I call it recovery.

What do you do when things go wrong? What’s your backup plan then? How are you going to recover fast and surprise people around you? That applies to careers like I’ve had several missteps in my career because I’ve lived long enough to have a few. If I was 20 years younger, I would have had less. But that’s the way it goes, right?

So, I mean, you know, you get passed over for a job, which happened to me as president of a company. I didn’t I didn’t get selected. What was important is what I did when that decision to select somebody else was announced to our board and all of our executive team. And what I did is I got up, I walked around the board table, I gave the guy who won, who happened to be a good friend of mine.

I gave him a warm congratulatory hug. That’s what people noticed. That did a lot for my brand. Even though I lost the job, I benefited from that little recovery piece so significantly in my career. It was just like people went, Wow, I didn’t expect that. Roy surprised us. So the surprise element in recovery, when I talk to young folks, they just don’t get it because it’s never been talked to them about it.

It’s just like when they run into a brick wall, they kind of fall back and go, Now what do I do? You’ve got to kind of know what to do. You have to plan that. So the recovery is a huge piece in in, in careers. The only the other thing I would like to to say to you is is about resumes.

I am so disappointed about resumes these days. You know why they’re all the same? They’re all boilerplate it off Google. They all use the same context and in my eyes glaze over when I read these things because you could take the names off, right? And the resumes look the same. They got the same headings. They basically look the same in every respect.

People don’t realize that the resume is is the first impression. However it’s submitted where they’re especially these days because it’s all electronic anyways, which I think gives tremendous opportunities that that aren’t really taken advantage of. But resumes unfortunately are viewed by people of a as a oh, I have to do one as opposed to a strategic career opportunity if you do it right.

Like, for example, everyone every resume needs to be customized right for the individual employer that they’re going after. You can’t take you can’t take a shrink wrap boiler, a shrink wrap resume that’s made and just apply it to a whole bunch of different employers because each employer has different needs and different wants. It’s kind of like a marketing thing.

So why don’t we have if you’re applying for ten jobs, you need ten different resumes and two, which I get. Wow, that’s a lot of work. Yeah, it’s it is. But, you know, how do you judge the the result is the judge on the basis of whether you got the job or how much energy you expended? I think it’s in the job.

But that simple little thing is like, no. Typically the way people are taught by is you create the image of yourself that you want portrayed. That’s your resume and you take it everywhere. You shop it around crap, absolute crap. It’s got to be customized because that’s the document that will show the prospective employer, whether you understand them or not.

Which brings me to the second point. If you haven’t if you haven’t sprinkled into your resume information on the company’s strategy that you’re interested in getting hired from, then you’re missing a huge opportunity because a lot of people want to know, okay, I get what you think your skills are, but how do they apply to me? And that application is all done through.

Do you understand my strategy? And I don’t know about you, but I have not seen too many resumes that are robust in terms of an understanding of what that company’s strategy all about. And generally the information’s public anyways. Public companies are, if not, show some initiative, go find the information, bake it into the resume and and go from there.

And of course, the other pieces refers to what our only or only discussion you have to express how your you’re unique relative to everybody else. You can’t just say you’ve got interpersonal skills. You can’t just say that, you know, you’re good at handling people claptrap. So the next time you see that, Zeke, I want you to write down over claptrap.

It’s Roy’s claptrap. We’re not to use that ever, because it’s just mediocrity living. So there’s a whole lot that can be done on resumes. There’s a whole lot that can be done in terms of creating a brand that works for you. And there’s a whole lot of people can do around this whole notion of what happens when I get hit with a setback.

Right? It’s called recovery, career recovery. And then the career game plan. Those four elements I talk an awful lot about and they’re practical. They work because they worked for me and I’ve fortunately had other people and they’ve worked for them and I’d be happy if people would just grab one of those ideas, you know, and then go, go try it.

Because at the end of the day, that’s all we can do, right? Is just try to stop. Sorry, that’s a long winded dissertation on careers, but it’s a complicated subject, you know, and it’s a difficult one. It’s a really difficult one. 

Zeke: I can relate to Some of the things. For like the setback. I remember in sixth grade in that after-school program playing a game.

I lost, my friend one and I congratulate him off of instinct. And then the leader. She was like, she was surprised. She gave me a joy star as a reward for congratulating my friend, for winning. Because she was like, 

Roy Osing: Yeah, 

Zeke: Somebody congratulates somebody else for winning the game.

Roy Osing: I mean, it’s pretty it’s you know what it is. I think it made it pretty human stuff, right?

Zeke: Yeah. 

Roy Osing: Like maybe that’s why people think it’s people tend to look for the complicated, I find. And and that’s a problem. I mean, most most successes are built on the backs of common sense and human nature, right? Especially in the business world. Like customer service is nothing more than emotion and feelings going on. How people feel about the moment when a retail clerk deals with their purchase course.

We’ve all been through good ones and we’ve all been through bad know that. But when you dissect it, it’s about how you feel, how you feel about things. And somehow we need to get the world behaving in a way that’s feelings oriented as opposed to 100% intellectually oriented, which is a big problem because unfortunately, the intellect doesn’t drive action.

The gut and feelings is what drives action. So why don’t we fuss more about feelings? Well, I can tell you why, because there’s no formula for those things that are not in textbooks. And people from that point of view can’t teach them because there’s no theory, although psychologists will disagree. But in the real world business, it’s so much more complicated than that.

People never behave the way they should. They don’t. And of course, leadership’s job is to figure that out and to use that imperfection and that level of inconsistencies to drive out superlative performance of the organization. That’s our job. And yeah, I’ve I’ve learned that I’ve had to create most of my own road map because the existing road maps just didn’t do it for me.

Zeke: Definitely remember in all my management class, Professor asked us are we logical thinkers or emotional thinkers, and then he went to like the whole thing about having how the brain can’t process all the information at once. And we really more and more so thinkers who believe that we’re logical thinkers. 

Roy Osing: Yep. I mean, there are there are. I’m not suggesting you can’t you can’t do without the left side of your of your brain.

Okay. But I think what I, what I’ve my experience is, is the successful people have figured out how to balance it right. It’s like you need a you need an academic pedigree to get a job you do from for the most part, but you can’t rely on it to win it for you. It gets you in, but you have to do other things.

It’s almost like the pedigree just it’s it’s worthwhile, but it’s not enough. The logic is absolutely necessary, but it’s not enough. And it’s the but it’s not enough side that I feel needs to get more attention. And that’s kind of like what I do. That’s just the place, the space that I play in because I believe in Contrarianism.

I believe in going against the flow because my in my experience, they are so excellent sources of innovation and creativity where guess what the logic side is all about. Let’s find a best practice and copy it. How can that be innovative? How can copying be innovative? How can being a fast follower be innovative? All that’s as you can’t be quicker, that’s all.

And yet that’s where the attention is. That’s where the attention is. That’s where the resources are. I mean, there’s a reason I don’t get invited to talk to MBA classes anymore. You’ve never figured that out. I remember I remember one MBA class. I was invited in to talk about planning and and the the prof that invited me. And I’m pretty sure thought that I would be kind of like promulgating the basic, you know, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, kind of all that traditional planning stuff.

And I said to the MBA costs, I said, okay, the first thing you need to do is forget about what you’ve learned. Okay? Life is not about case studies. What you’ve learned is the process. You haven’t. I mean, the knowledge. Yeah, I could care less because there’s a lot of people that I can go to to get to knowledge.

The process of solving problems is what you got to focus on, because that’s a true benefit. Okay. I think of of of a postgraduate post-secondary education. Is that just that you are immersed in solving problems? And that’s what business is all about. It’s not about the right answer, right? It’s about what works in your particular set of circumstances, and that that solution might be viewed by a lot of people as imperfect, flawed, nonsensical.

And guess what? It doesn’t matter if it works, it’s a right solution. And that’s a tough one for people to get their heads around, too. It’s like always looking for the perfect solution, which doesn’t exist. And and as a result, you don’t move. You don’t do anything. When you’re in that mode of pondering and looking for perfection, it’s just crazy.

So there’s a lot of there’s a lot of characteristics around today’s way of doing things that actually cause a lot of problems. And they’re generally they’re generally because there’s a gap between theory, textbook and reality and practical, which which is so imperfect and messy that people just don’t like to play in there. Right? I’m one of those guys where, yeah, I jump in there and I want to understand how people are feeling because if they feel right, then they do things and we’re successful with differing wrong.

They don’t do them, then we’re not successful. Pretty simple. 

Zeke: Definitely remember a tiktok a creator. was like how he went to get his masters and he paid all this money and they went back to his boss can get a raise. And the bosses like, how does that make you better at your job? 

Roy Osing: Exactly. Show me the results.

You know? Yeah, that’s it’s a really good story because, I mean, it happens like so often. I think the question is why is that it? Why was that individual’s expectations that by achieving the degree or that that milestone he or she they were deserving of a raise? How do they reach that conclusion? I’ll tell you why, because that’s the way we talk and that’s the way we make people feel when we pitch them that they need to get another degree.

You need your MBA because when you get your MBA, you’re entitled to six figures. Okay? That’s it. So that individual had that in his left side in his mind and unfortunately ran into somebody that asked the right question, I call it. So what? And who cares? Show me, show me, show me. Right. Which is I mean, I’d gladly pay you if you can earn for the company ten times what it’s costing me to keep you here.

Then I’m your best friend. I am your best friend. But don’t lay the expectation thing on me because that’s unfair. Yeah, that means actually, I take it one step further. How many? How many marks? Below 70% did you get? And for every one, I’m going to take $10,000 off your salary. How would you like me so far? Pretty quick.

They’d start talking about their marks, don’t you think? Oh, yeah. Got to have fun doing this. It’s late in the afternoon. What time is it there? Oh, God. 7:00. 

Zeke: Yeah. 

Roy Osing: You’ve had a long day, my friend.

Zeke: Mm hmm. Work. And then this. 

Roy Osing: Where do you work? 

Zeke: GroupM. 

Roy Osing: Yeah. You like it? 

Zeke: Nice entry level. It’s a good start.

Hey, I. My first job as a systems analyst in the data processor they call the data processing department. Right. And I. I did time in motion studies and work processing studies. Right. To to figure out different systems. And it was a great job because it got me to to learn basically every part of the business. And this it was a telecommunications company so it was pretty complicated.

It was a great job. Great job. But that’s when I started looking at this world thinking, hmm, I got I got a different lens here that I got to look at things through. What does that mean? And I had fortunately had some some pretty cool bosses that that understood it and encouraged me and mentored me and helped me along the way.

And that’s the other thing right? Like everybody needs a mentor or everybody needs a mentor and they don’t have to be somebody that you can go physically see. Like one of the best mentors I ever had was a guy by the name of Seth Gordon. I don’t know if you know Seth. He’s a writer. He’s a marketing genius.

He’s written many, many, many marketing books. If you Google, he’s a very practical dude. I don’t know him personally, I know him professionally and and he has influenced me significantly in terms of how I approach the marketing function. So there’s an example of, you know, you can find mentors everywhere. And the thing that I like about him is he’s done stuff.

It’s not about it’s not about the number of letters after his name. It’s like he’s a master, he’s an MBA, but it’s a master in business achievement. That’s what he is. And he’s got books and, and, and knowledge to, to, to, to prove it. And so I encourage young people, find a mentor or find a somebody who’s done stuff.

Don’t don’t be attracted to the number of degrees they have. Please go find somebody that’s been in the trenches. That’s messy. That’s a Yoda in disguise. Just find somebody like that and listen to them and they’ll they’ll they’ll be they’ll they’ll treat you wonderfully and they’ll teach you like nobody else can teach you stuff that actually works. Do you have a mentor?

Zeke: I believe so. I have to right now reevaluate everything, because I when I was in college, I had like a bunch of people I went to see and a um model myself of of but right now I have to like reevaluate everything and rebuild everything. 

Roy Osing: Well, that that’s that’s good in a way as well. Because, you know, you can you can take what worked for you and incorporate it into your new journey.

And just I mean, that’s all it is anyways, right? Like, I never thought I would write anything. I never had any aspirations to be an author. Never even occurred to me. The only thing that was even related to that is when I worked, when I had a real job, I did a lot of communicating of to our employee groups because our my organization had 10,000 people in it, right?

So spend a lot of time explaining strategy and getting their views and all that kind of stuff. So I did a lot of communicating, but I never, ever considered that that might be applicable after I left. But it did. And I thought, well, why not give it a whirl? And so that worked out nicely and take what you’re like.

I took communications and just applied it to writing. You take what worked for you and what you liked and you apply it to your new journey and and it’ll keep going like that. Yeah. Hey, pay yourself forward. Yeah, 

Zeke: Definitely. 

Roy Osing: Yeah. 

Zeke: And then the thing on a resume is I remember somebody when I went to do graphic design. They would say, to change the resume to be more creative to represent graphic design instead of being like a standard business resume.

Roy Osing: So, yeah, I mean, I think you got to look at every, every way to create some, some sort of sort of cutting edge about it. Um, in, in, in today’s, you know, electronic world, it’s a lot easier because you can, you can embed stuff and videos and stuff and like in the day you can never do that. You know, you’re dealing with your day with this and that’s you got but even there you could, you could do some pretty neat things in but today there’s a lot of there’s more potential I just find it there are some people that do it but there’s not enough in order to to get to get more people in the bell curve moving towards the right side of more successful, more content with work, etc., etc.. We’ve got to get more of that innovation and creativity going. And I don’t know how it’s going to work if we keep going on a trend where we have more and more people working from home and not being in an office, I mean, it’s it’s a it’s an interesting environment.

I think it’s just going to require us to look at, again, doing things differently, right? Not trying to to carry the baggage from an office environment into a remote environment. Some of it may be applicable, but a lot of it won’t. And we’re just going to have to figure that out. And we will. Yeah, we will.

Zeke: Definitely. 

Roy Osing: So how are the how is the podcast going? Gets lots of lets listeners?

Zeke: Last year, are they better than my first year, which is great but like 150% in terms of downloads and then

Roy Osing: Well that’s good. 

Zeke: Yeah. 

Roy Osing: What do they like? What do people like about it?

Zeke: People say that it’s comparability of it, like it’s just like a comfortable environment and then the variety of it.

Roy Osing: That’s that’s really good. I think for you. It’s I mean, it is a comfortable environment. It’s getting the right people in front of with the right subjects, right in front of you, in front of your listeners. And that’s always a challenge. I’m telling you, I’m really impressed with Podmatch. So, 

Zeke: Yeah, 

Roy Osing: I mean, you’ve probably been fussing with this for a long time.

Roy Osing: I haven’t. I’ve been fussing with it for about, I want to say three weeks because I asked my publisher, By the way, Morgan James is my publisher in New York. And I asked them, I said, I want to I want to do some podcasts. It’s a really cool environment. I like it. I have fun doing it. It’s a great way to talk about my book.

Roy Osing: They put me on the Podmatch. Well, what a ride. I mean, I’m so busy now. My wife’s getting upset with me. You know, Zeke, got to tell you, I got to stop doing this. It’s great, though, isn’t it? I mean, you do get how many? Like, how many guests do you get applying per week? Like you get ten or 12 or how proactive is it for you? 

Zeke: It’s pretty it’s pretty calm. Most of this when you when you apply, it’s more like the most active. It was like four or five like with my guests. To be able to access pretty sporadically sometimes is a calm for couple of weeks and then sometimes it’s like four or five, maybe more. 

Roy Osing: Awesome.

Roy Osing: Yeah, that’s that’s I mean, for me, it would be almost impossible to get to get connected with people like you any other way. I mean, how could I do that? And so it’s, you know, the downstream piece is really interesting because you develop relationships and who knows at some point will connect again and will do something else and wonder why we’ve got all of this stuff to kind of look back and rely on.

And of course, I’m going to be interested in it in your journey just by virtue of what you told me. So that’s that’s good. That’s a nice connection. Yeah. So from that point of view, that’s an added benefit, I think. Forget about the business side of it, whatever it’s going to be, whatever it’s going to be. But think it’s a great service.

Zeke: Definitely. They emailed me like this make sense. 

Roy Osing: Yeah, it’s a marketplace for people who want to talk and people want to listen. 

Zeke: Yeah, it’s simple. 

Roy Osing: Wish I had a thought of it, 

Zeke: Good ideas makes you want to, makes you want to believe when you want to time travel so you I made it first 

Roy Osing: Yeah well that’s therein lies the challenge Therein lies the challenge.

Roy Osing: But you know what I’ll, I’ll say to you that you don’t have to be first at anything, but you have to be different. I mean, one of the one of the I deal a lot with startups and some of these some of these startup presidents, or they scare me because they come up with this super sexy technology and they want to focus just on flogging the technology.

Okay? So they don’t think about benefits and value of the product that that technology delivers. They just want to flog the sexy technology and they don’t think about whether the product or the value they’re creating is unique at all. And that’s where most of them go wrong. I force them into that only statement I talked to you about before.

If if you’re not different in some way, don’t waste your money. And unfortunately, a lot of them don’t do that. And of course, as we know, what’s the stat like, 50% of startups fail within the first 36 months or something? I mean, and I’ll tell you, one of the big reasons, not every not the whole reason, but one of the big ones is they’re not unique.

So you don’t have you can be a first failure, quite frankly, and you can be a 50 different winner. So there’s a challenge is to figure out how your idea can be different. And then you will see you will absolutely slay the first one out if they’re not different. Trust me, it works. 

Zeke: Definitely. The famous example of MySpace and Facebook, how Facebook pretty much took over MySpace.

Roy Osing: Absolutely. While in the end and the other one that that I that hits me personally was a whole battle that started between BlackBerry and iPhone where BlackBerry had a very specific application set. They didn’t even consider that an iPhone would have any applicability. You know why? Because they didn’t think that the carriers would be able to afford the bandwidth that was required for an iPhone versus a scientific application device like a BlackBerry.

Did they ask anybody? No, just somebody in the back. Their engineer said the carriers are not going to pay for that to support a handheld environment like an iPhone that required a lot of benefits. They’re not going to play. Boy, did they get that. So they were first. And guess what happened? They’re no longer with us for an obvious reason.

Those iPhone Jobs got it right. Very few guys around like him. He was. But he got that one right. And it was a simple thing. Northern Telecom, this is before your time, a big telecom supplier. They were number one in the world and they let themselves get complacent. And they were big, big, big, big, big, irrelevant, big, irrelevant, irrelevant boom.

And they just died because the young ones came in. Younger companies, they just they were niche suppliers with specific value propositions that catered to specific market segments. And they were unique and they killed no other. So, I mean, there’s and you can see large corporations around the world these days are in trouble. And that’s why they’re became they’re becoming irrelevant to the people that they serve.

The worst thing to do right is irrelevant.

Zeke: Yeah, it’s better to be hated or loved and not be in de in the middle. 

Roy Osing: Yeah, for sure. 

Zeke: So with like a president would you? How is that like the experience and everything? Like, 

Roy Osing: Well, it was. It was. It was how shall I say it was it was a bunch of things at the same time. It for me it was it was amazing to, to have have the trust of people to to to launch a market that at that time was really new.

This was the Internet space. I mean, this is the world were where we thought one and a half megabit. This was really super fast. Just after public dial up. Right. You remember those days. You’re not that young. I know, but but you know, to be able to mobilize resources to take advantage of that was extremely exciting. Something like I never had before.

It was hugely stressful, but in a positive way, because there were so many things to do. And it it required me to basically use my own stuff. And I learned so much about the whole be different space by having to do that, because when we started, we were part of a a monopoly telephone company, right? And now we were going data in Internet space and carving that piece out, right?

So we were going from a voice world to a data world, right? Well, that transition required different skill sets, different culture, different people. I mean, literally had to had to morph the company away from traditional services into into the into a new world. And I found that extremely exciting but extremely challenging because, you know, you had people, you know, installing telephones and now you’re asking them to to run server first.

And some of them could and they love to change. Others they didn’t want to change. And so we had to exit them. So the company went through a huge change, had to start building a new culture. And that was good in a way, because it allowed us to to sort of flex their muscles around this be different thing because there weren’t any traditions in the data world.

This is a new world we’re building right? So as a leader, I mean, it was very empowering, very empowering to be able to do that. The people that were coming with you wanted to be there. That was the thing right? And so mobilizing them was was hard work, but it was super rewarding to actually see a group grow.

And and no kidding. I mean, yes, the market was growing quick, but we actually we actually built this business to a billion and sales within. I can’t tell you it was within a very short period time. I don’t think I can’t even tell you how long. And that was amazing. I mean, that kind of growth did start out with as objective.

We started I was saying, Wow, this market’s huge. We need to take advantage of it. We need to build a loyal customer base that trusts us. We need to give them what they want and we want them to grow with us. So that’s how we started out. New customer acquisition was never a big strategy of mine because my belief is you can build a business with the existing customers you have and if you do that, others will come.

You don’t have to give them special, you know, give them a free TV to join you. Dumbest strategy in the world, because what does that say to the existing customers? It’s been with you for ten years. You don’t get anything for free, right? So it’s kind of like a slap in the face. So we went there. We had to build it, build a build it.

And we we we had annual revenues that were growing order of magnitude, I mean, triple digits for a while. It was just like, we go, what the hell? Where is this going to stop? While it’s never stopped? I mean, that business today is over $15 billion since I left it. Wow. So. So being a part of that, being a leader of a group of professionals like that, I mean, what can I say?

Yeah, it was it was the most remarkable, satisfying, delightful thing I’ve ever done. And I’m so grateful to having having had the opportunity and to have had the group of people that we’re part of of the advanced communications team that basically took us there. And I’m thankful that it’s continued because now I’m retired, you see. And yes, and I need that company to keep.

But yeah, but the other thing the other part of it as a leader is like I was kind of like now identified with the new growing business. And so I had to be very, very careful because my executive colleagues weren’t in that space. So I had to be very respectful of what they were doing because I needed their help.

I needed to build a data network. I needed to convince the guy that was responsible for technology to spend more on the data in that work than on the voice network. So I can’t do that if if he’s my enemy. Right? So there’s a lot of issues around there that I had to deal with, but at the end of the day, we managed to get it done.

Is that as a dysfunctional team? Because every team is dysfunctional. Zeke Right. No such thing as a perfect team. We managed to get it done and I think laid the foundation as my as as the existing CEO said in this. He wrote the foreword for my new book. He basically said that we were successful in setting the groundwork for that.

The business that is has carried on and has delivered incredible shareholder value. This. So first for him, Darren Entwistle and tell us I’m extremely grateful. 

Zeke: Nice, nice. So you didn’t really play much as a total tone shift for everything. It was just that early, early 2000, late 90’s shift of everything. 

Roy Osing: Yeah. Yeah. That was yeah, it was an interesting time because I remember talking about the strategy for data and there was when we first started thinking about this, there was a thought that said that we should only be in the carrier business, right?

So that the actual Internet service providers, ISPs should be our customers, that we shouldn’t be in the business of supplying data solutions to end users like, like, like businesses or consumers that we should only deal with, with the kind of wholesalers that that line of thought existed for about six or seven months until people realized that it was growing so fast that that people expected us as the telco to be in that space.

They wanted to do business with us. They didn’t want to do business with a reseller. And so when you have your customers clamoring for you to be the supplier, I say be the supplier and set the prices right. And so once we had made that shift, but you know what? Just like getting into the TV business, there was a time when people didn’t think that our company should be in the IPTV business because what did that have to do with being a communications supplier?

Well, it had a lot. It’s just that the definition of the business had changed and so you end up going through these kind of like tipping points where you know you’re going to, you’re faced with a decision to move in a different direction. And of course I was always on the side of, let’s do it, let’s figure it out, let’s get it going.

Don’t tell me about yesterday’s philosophy, don’t care, let’s get going. And of course, there’s a lot of people who did care about yesterday’s philosophy. So we had a lot of fun. But the good triumphed over evil. And in fact, we went in the new directions, which was good. Yeah. You always got to keep growing, right? You know, even in one’s personal life.

I mean, if you’re not growing, what are you doing? Going to be pretty boring, not exploring. Do you realize I now Snapchat with my grandkids? I know, right? Sounds silly, but I have to. I have to because I don’t want to be irrelevant to them and they communicate that way. So guess what? And this, by the way, this is flashing news.

This is this is like two weeks old. And I got to tell you, I’m still struggling, but I’m learning it. And when my grandkids get snaps Snapchats from Papa, they are super impressed. That’s all I need. If they’re impressed, I’m good. In fact, my grandson says to me the other day, he says, Papa, you know, for an old person, you’re actually pretty good at technology.

I thought, I have arrived. That is the coolest thing that anybody will ever say. But I’m still I’m not good at Snapchat, but it’ll come. I just figured out how to save a Snapchat and God knows what I’ll learn tomorrow. 

Zeke: Yeah, 

Roy Osing: Something. And that’s what we all have to do, right? 

Zeke: Mm hmm. 

Roy Osing: Learn something tomorrow, something new, 

Zeke: Always changing.

Roy Osing: Well that’s the point. You’re either with it or you get left behind. I used to like people that drove change. Like I create dis discontinuities in the business, and it’s important to have people like that around to say, you know, we need to do this. Why not? It’s like you need to intervene on yourself because you get complacent. You’re complacent with where you are, where you’ve been.

You need somebody to kind of go bang, slap you and say, no, What about that? Yes, let’s let’s do this. Let’s let’s have an intervention on ourselves and cause us to go in a different direction. You need that’s healthy. If you look at most businesses that fail, that’s one of the reasons, A, they become irrelevant because they haven’t intervened and ask the question, how can we reinvent ourselves to be different, to be something different than we are and more meaningful to people?

They may be different people, but we need to be more meaningful. How can we do that? What’s required? Why don’t we do that simple little question like, Well, then why don’t we do that? If it’s the right thing to do, why don’t we? And the the disconcerting part is when there’s a silent room after that, you know, you’re in trouble because you got more people that are really comfortable sitting in the warm comfort of the herd, then stepping out, coloring outside the lines and doing stuff differently because it takes risk.

But there’s joy at the end of that tunnel, I guarantee you. I want to see more people doing this stuff. I want to see people looking at your podcast and say, You know what? I can do that. Like I challenge everybody out there, okay, tomorrow do one thing differently. Just one. Just one. But make it weird. Okay? Now, I don’t want you to get arrested.

Just do something where it’s got to be legal. Weird, but do something weird. Something that. That put you outside your comfort zone. Just do one thing. And if you feel uncomfortable, that’s good, because the next day, do something else and just keep doing things differently until it becomes normal. And it will after a while. And when you look around, right, you’re going to see people who are traditional and you’ll go, That’s boring.

So it’s a simple place to start. So that’s the challenge. Zeke every one of your listeners, everybody’s watching do something different tomorrow and get rid of something that’s common, something that you do that everybody else does. I want you to drop that and adopt something that’s different. Let’s see how that feels for you. And then Zeke’s going to let me know how well you do, because he’s going to text me or snapchat me.

I don’t know how he’s going to do it. Well, I’ll do it some way.

Zeke: And then it’s a good time to end it. Thank you again for joining the podcast,

Roy Osing: Zeke. Thank You so much for inviting me. I’m grateful to have an opportunity to talk about stuff like this because I think it’s so important that that your listeners receive of a different view, I hope.

And also my my hope is that that you out there will do something different tomorrow and keep doing it. So many thanks for having me and hopefully we’ll have a chance to talk again next. 

Zeke: And lastly, what would you name your origin story?

Roy Osing: My what?

Zeke: What your name, your origin story like? If you give your story a name, what would you name it?

Roy Osing: Oh, if I would call it my my story is is all about juxtaposition from the old to the bold and audacious you can call me audacious. I’ll be okay with that. 

Roy Osing: All right. Thank you again. Okay. I hope that worked for you. It was fun. Thank you. 

Zeke: No problem. Any time 

Zeke: That brings another episode of the Let’s Gather Podcast to a close. Again you can find Roy Osing book “Be Different, or Be Dead” by clicking the link in the description below. For next week I have John to speak about his story in business. I hope you continue to have a nice day and hope to see you there.

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