Designing Your Appeal

There are three levels at which you can shape your background to appeal to your target market:

1. Direct experience: This is when you have an accomplishment that matched what they’re looking for (they want someone who has sold copiers and you have sold copiers)
2. Similar experience: This is when you have an accomplishment that is comparable to what they seek even if it is not precisely what they are describing (they want someone who has sold copiers and ou have sold personal computers; the equipment is different but are in the same category of “office equipment”, so they target the same customer)
3. Causational skills: This is when you have neither a direct nor a similar accomplishment, yet you can make the care that a skill set you have would help you achieve their desired result. (They want someone who has sold copiers, you haven’t, but you’ve successfully pitched people to buy your services as a consultant. Here you would make the case that your selling skills would allow you to sell copiers as well.)

IMPORTANT: Remember that your appeal should be designed to demonstrate that you can achieve the result your target seeks!

Coaching Action Steps

Designing your appeal

Take a moment to write down what it is your target market wants, focusing on skills, experience and qualities. To identify these traits, review job postings in your desired market or speak to networking contacts in your target industry.

What my target wants:

SKILLS _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________
QUALITIES _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________
EXPERIENCE _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________

Now, take a moment to identify examples from your background experience that you can use to demonstrate that you have the above skills, experience and qualities:

JOB #1:
1. _____________________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________________________

JOB #2:
1. _____________________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________________________

JOB #3:
1. _____________________________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________________________

Click on this link to download the Building Your Reinvention Toolkit for more exercises on Designing your appeal.