Prolific Quality Indicators – Our 2025 Guide

My 2025 CastleHR Prolific Quality Indicators

If you’re like me, you started the year strong. 🔥
Big goals, clear priorities, and if you follow EOS, a fresh set of Rocks to keep you on track.

But let’s be real—how often do those Rocks start feeling… off? 🤔
Not necessarily wrong, but underwhelming or not as relevant as you thought.

That’s exactly where we were at Castle HR.

• Some of our Rocks didn’t feel impactful enough.
• Some were too broad or too narrow.
• Some didn’t truly capture what drives success.

So this year, we switched things up: Enter the PQO Method.

PQO (Prolific Quality Output) is a blend of High Performance Habits and a method my coach at CEO Global taught me. The goal? Absolute clarity on what moves the needle.

My first draft was 29 pages (yep, really). But here’s the thing—it only took me 4 hours to build, and it’s already saved me days of wasted effort. More importantly, it made it crystal clear what NOT to focus on.

Then I ran this process with four team members.
It took some iterations, but once we nailed it, it was obvious—this is how we’re setting goals in 2025.

And the best part? Next quarter, it’ll take even less time.

What I’ll Share Today:

✅ Breaking down one of my PQOs so you see how it works
✅ A ChatGPT prompt you can use to develop PQOs super fast
✅ An update on how it’s going after one month

If your quarterly goals already feel shaky, this is for you. 🚀

PQO Breakdown: Turning Big Goals Into Execution

Here’s where we take a big, ambitious goal and turn it into something you can actually execute. I’ll walk you through one section of my PQO: Partnerships.

🎯 Big Goal: Drive more leads
📌 Tactic to achieve it: Build a strong partnership network
🔍 Plan to make it happen:

Step 1: Define the Objective

Every PQO starts with a clear, specific objective. For partnerships, it’s:

Establish high-value partnerships with accounting firms and other service providers that cater to 15-75 person software, professional service firms, and non-profits.
The goal is to create a consistent referral pipeline by the end of Q1.

A fancy way of saying: Let’s make sure the right people are sending us great leads.

Step 2: Identify the Right Partners

Not all partnerships are created equal. We needed to be strategic about who we target—so we focused on:

✅ Accounting Firms (with clients in our target size range)
✅ SR&ED Consultants (who help businesses get tax credits)
✅ Business Insurance Brokers
✅ Corporate Lawyers
✅ CFO Advisory Services
✅ HRIS Vendors
✅ Benefits Providers
✅ Sales Coaches
✅ EOS Implementers
✅ CEO Groups
✅ Marketing Agencies
✅ Other Fractional Service Providers (Frac Pack, etc.)

Translation? People who are already talking to our ideal clients.

Step 3: Build the Outreach Plan

Knowing who to talk to is step one. Actually getting them to the table? Different story.

Here’s the game plan:

🔹 Personalized email outreach:

“Hi [Partner Name], we’ve had great success working with [Client Name], who speaks highly of you.
I’d love to explore ways we could collaborate to better serve clients like [Client Industry/Type].
Do you have 15 minutes for a quick chat this week?”

🔹 Make the value clear:

• Show how we complement their services
• Offer testimonials/case studies to prove impact
• Keep it short & human—nobody likes a sales pitch disguised as “collaboration”

🔹 Tracking every interaction:

• We set up a referral tracking spreadsheet to monitor every outreach, response, and follow-up.

Step 4: Prepare Creative Partnership Ideas

We didn’t want to show up and say, “Hey, wanna partner?” That’s weak.

Instead, we built real, valuable partnership structures so there’s an immediate reason to say yes.

💡 Collaboration ideas:
🔄 Referral Exchange: A simple “you refer to us, we refer to you” model
📢 Co-Branded Content: Blogs, whitepapers, or webinars
🤝 Client Introductions: Warm intros between our clients and theirs
🎁 Bundled Offers: Packaging our services together for shared clients

When we got on calls, we weren’t asking. We were offering.

Step 5: Track & Scale

Partnerships don’t work if you don’t track progress.

✅ Referral tracking system: Every potential partner’s status + follow-up plan
✅ Follow-up cadence: 7-day touchpoints to keep conversations warm
✅ Monthly leadership check-ins: Review progress, optimize approach

Step 6: Automate the Monthly Breakdown & Resource Allocation

To finalize the plan, I asked ChatGPT to:

1. Create a monthly action breakdown (what happens in Month 1, 2, and 3)
2. List out the resources needed (team involvement, tools, and marketing assets)

Update: How It’s Going After One Month

I smashed my PQOs—except for one.

The only one that got delayed? This newsletter. 😅

We originally planned to send it out earlier, but we switched from a “Castle HR” tone to a “Tom shares” approach. That shift set us back.

But everything else? On track, moving fast, and delivering results.

Lesson learned: Even the best plans need flexibility. Now we’re rolling.

Want the ChatGPT Prompt That Makes This Stupid Simple?

I’m refining a ChatGPT prompt that helps me build PQOs in hours, not days—happy to share if you’re interested. Get in touch!