The $0 solution that will change the future of your background check company

I love innovation. I think about it a lot. One of my oldest friends, Aaron Proietti, just wrote an entire book on it. Two of my former colleagues, Nick Fishman and Jason Morris, are working on some cool concepts right now. These aren’t plugs. I’m just surrounded by it. It’s never far from my mind. 

But when my mind thinks of innovation, it takes me to a different place than most. Many think Product or Technology, and they’re not wrong. 

But I mostly think about…how we think. 

See to me, the most underutilized business weapon we have…is our brain. How we see the world. How we question it. How we act upon it. The angles. The opportunities. 

To me, how we think makes a monumental difference. I recently presented a NAPBS webinar on how thinking differently can improve your business. (membership required). This post highlights one of those ideas, which I believe is the best way to inexpensively and fundamentally improve your business. 

Require your direct reports to come up with 2 ideas every single month to improve the business. 

It may be a broad-based improvement to the organization. It may be something pertaining to them or their team. 

And then what happens?

Let’s say you have 6 direct reports. The first month, you’re going to get 12 ideas. You’ll pick up some easy wins, which will embolden the team. 

The second month you’re going to get 12 more ideas,. But it’s going to be a little harder.

By the third month, your team will be in open revolt. Why are you making me do this?!?!

And that’s when the magic happens. See, our mental muscles need to be trained.  But like at the gym, when we first start exercising, our muscles don’t thank us. They bark at us.

But when you ask your leaders to constantly think of ideas, you’re building their muscles. You’re creating a culture of innovation. You’re asking them to think “what if, and why not?” They begin thinking, “What could be, instead of what is?”

Because if YOU are the only one thinking about this, the business is limited to YOUR ability to solve these problems. And you have other things to do, like sales calls, dispute calls, and client complaints. Sometimes, you just need to get through the day. 

When you enlist others, you create an army of thinkers. 

If you implement this, over the course of a year, you’ll get about 150 ideas. And you know what? 80% of them will stink. Either they won’t make sense, or they were tried before, or, well, they just stink. 

That takes us down to about 30 ideas to look deeper into. But 50% of those ideas you’ll throw in the trash can too!

So why is this still a good idea?

Because at the end of the year, you’ll have implemented 15 ideas that improved your business. 

And I’m betting you didn’t implement 15 really good business ideas in the last 12 months. 

Ideas that made you money. Ideas that saved you money. Ideas that kept a key client or helped acquire a new one.

That’s what this does. It’s a $0 cost way to fundamentally alter and improve your business. This works whether you’re the CEO, a department manager, or somewhere in between.

And your new army of thinkers doesn't just punch in when it's time to come up with their 2 new ideas. This new way of thinking becomes infused into their day to day lives. They become more creative, more flexible, more solutions driven.

Now, you could say, “why don’t we just find the 15 ideas that matter?” 

Well, it doesn’t work that way. Much like background checks, you know on 5% of them you’ll find something, but you don’t know which 5%. That’s why you screen 100%. 

Your team needs to generate 150 ideas in order to find the 15 that work. 

And when you’ve done this for a few years and are legitimately out of ideas? Imagine how improved your company will be then. More profitable. More compliant. More accurate. 

When that happens, call and tell me the story. I can’t wait to hear it!

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Kevin Bachman is The CRA Doctor, a background check executive providing financial, strategic and operational counsel to owners and senior management. He also helps employers create optimal screening programs and find the right CRA to fit their needs and budget. He is also available for speaking engagements and onsite training sessions. Kevin can be reached at [email protected] or 216-509-2108.