The French Open Tennis Tournament is on in Paris at Roland Garros. We attended the family day event. I haven’t been to a professional tennis tournament since 1975 when I was a ball girl for Billy Jean King at the Virginia Slims Tennis Tournament in San Francisco. Pretty awesome!

As my daughter and I watched Lim and Gavrilova compete, one characteristic that was so evident during the play was the intense focus of the players on the ball. All of the spectators and noise and heat were irrelevant as the players focused on the little green (or is it yellow?) ball. Intense focus. Singular focus– serve the ball, hit the ball, smash the ball, etc.

It is this high level of focus that we need to succeed business. As Gary Keller said in The One Thing, we need our one thing. When we have more than one thing, our ability to focus is divided and that leads to an obvious lack of focus… but it is not always obvious to the person involved!

I listened to a woman  describe her avatar, her client profile, to me. She gave very specific details. It was clear that she really knew her target client. Except that she had 4 different target clients, each of whom she knew well. How is she suppose to focus her marketing to speak directly to each group? This is exactly the lack of focus that can derail all of our marketing efforts. When we speak to everyone, we speak to no one.

Focus on your one thing and get it done. Game. Set. Match.