When you decide what kind of car you want to buy.....

....don't you start to see them everywhere as you drive to work each day.  I know that happened to me when I last purchased a car.  Mercedes C Class.  When I decided to buy a used one, I suddenly saw them everywhere.  The exact year and model and color. 

Apply this phenomena to your business in two separate ways.

When hiring a key position.  Write a complete job description in a scorecard format.  Start with the outcomes you desire of the position, work back to activities needed to be accomplished to achieve the outcomes, and then detail the experience needed to do well doing those activities.  Then add in the personal characteristics that candidates would have that qualify.  Review the scorecard regularly and pretty soon you will see potential candidates everywhere.

Same goes for your target market.  Go beyond the demographics of the client or customer you are targeting.  Think very specifically about the persons in the positions who you are selling to or serving.  What background, what cars would they typically drive, what skills would they have, what hobbies, etc.  as Bob Bloom (author of The Inside Advantage and The New Experts) would say, put a face on that typical client. Then create your marketing message and uncommon offering around those specifics. 

Doing this makes both job candidates and prospects more real.  And your efforts to obtain them will be more effective. 

Seth Godin has an insight into this as well in his post today.  Click Here to read it.

The best know what they are looking for before they get it. 

Give "Graphically Explicit" Names to Iniatives and Rocks

Worked with a client today on brushing up and refining his newly completed, first time One Page Strategic Plan.  In the goals column, he had listed an initiative for the new year titled "Develop and Implement XXXXXXX Division Strategy."  I asked him to explain what that meant.

He started meandering through an explanation of the division's operational problems that made it a break even proposition. Revenue was excellent, but operational inefficiency eliminated any profitability.  Part way through, his second in command said, "We need 'Drop 'n Go' profitability on this product line!"

"Why don't you make that the title of your initiative?"

He replied, in a somewhat questioning tone, "They'll know exactly what we want to accomplish."

"And you don't want the team to know exactly what needs to be done?" I asked.  

He quickly changed the name of his initiative, and his first quarter rock and his first quarter theme.

Need I say more about giving Graphically Explicit names to your Initiatives and Rocks?