Like many companies in this current economic cycle, I am repositioning my business to offer fewer services to a smaller market. It’s all about focus, right?

I will no longer overwhelm every prospect with dozens of best practice tools for every business owner or manager ‘under the sun’. Instead, the new Get Better Sales will focus on how people and process power business growth in companies selling products and services to other businesses.

Throughout the process of achieving my Target Teams Strategic Talent Advisor certification , we have been able to help different clients align their talent strategy with business strategy. This is a critical success step for every business hoping to survive and/or thrive through this economic cycle. Not only should a person be the right fit for the job; the job should be the right fit for the person, and these Target Teams solutions help ensure the perfect fit through their ’spot on’ accuracy.

The power behind these employee engagement tools has provided a positive growth experience for every single one of more than 100 different individuals. In addition to displaying the natural performance styles of each person completing the questionnaire, the results identify how each individual modifies their natural styles to fit within the confines of their job.

Employees who modify their natural styles in at least two categories, easily identify with the additional stress in their work lives. This allows managers to make immediate changes by providing necessary support or reassigning people to a different position that is a more natural ‘fit’. The closer the job fit to the natural styles, the happier the employee, the more productive the team, the more profitable the company.

Mr. Jake Jacobs, Executive Vice-President of Sales and Marketing for ABnote North America wrote last month, “To a person these discussions were most positive and gave everyone great insight into each of our styles and ambitions and why we do the things we do…I can tell you that in my 25 years of sales management I have never known my staff and their potential better and understand what gets them motivated for the cause.”

Because the graphic designer who put together the old GBS logo identity was not available to enhance our brand identity, I posted an ad on Craig’s List. I was implicit in stating that this was an initial project from which I would build a long-term relationship with the right person who most closely ‘fit’ my expectations.

The variety of responses was intriguing. Everything from professionally designed resumes to formal boiler plate responses, to generic RFPs complete with links to online samples, to some who only replied with a cryptic text E-mail message.

I took the five strongest proposals and invited each designer to complete the Target Teams questionnaire. Their familiarity with these important new service offerings would both help them create a truer identity for Get Better Sales, and give each of us comprehensive guides to manage our mutual expectations, as I would share mine with him/her.

Incredibly, three of the final five did not have creativity as one of their top three hidden ambitions. That suggests each of them are working in a field that is not a good fit for how they naturally align themselves with success. The two strongest remaining applicants had almost identical natural styles and hidden ambitions. The final decision was easy: our new designer showed almost a complete absence of modifications. (I’m not sure anyone in the world has a complete absence of modifications.)

Perfect Fit

This illustration shows how he modified by just -2 in three of the four different categories, and by just +1 in the other. His work as a designer was such a wonderful fit with his natural styles, it would be very difficult for him to find any other line of work that was more rewarding.

Who on your team has the performance styles that naturally fit the expectations of their current role? What changes might you make that could make them more productive and easier to manage?