In his best selling book “Selling to Zebras”, Jeff Koser puts forth the idea that sales organizations must become more discerning in the customers and opportunities they pursue. I couldn’t agree more. His research, supported by organizations like Accenture, CSO Insights, ClearSlide, and CEB (now a Gartner company) all back up the fact that a huge percentage (up to 85%) of the opportunities in the sales pipeline will never end up in a sale. And I don’t mean that your company won’t make the sale. I mean that the customer/prospect will never actually make the purchase. Our biggest competitor is not ‘the other guy.’ It’s ‘No Decision.’
What’s the connection to a Zebra? From the time we were kids, once a zebra was pointed out to us, we could always identify it, with certainty. Well, it’s 2017, we’re adults in the business word, and recognizing zebras is still critical. I mean Business Zebras. A Business Zebra is that company that, because of some core attributes, will buy from you.
As I reflect on my sales career, I can’t count the number of times that I was told to pursue, or I chose to pursue, a prospect because they were a well known company, or maybe they weren’t well known but they were pretty big and surely they had a need for what I was selling. So I went after them with gusto. I found someone that would listen to what I had to say and I’d start to make progress. Many months later I was still having what I thought were fruitful conversations but nothing was happening. You could say I was trying to sell lion food to a zebra. There was no way they were ever going to buy from me. Luckily, as I grew in my career I saw the error of my ways and changed my strategy (and tactics). I didn’t know I started selling to zebras, but that’s what I was doing.
When I talk to clients, and sales leaders in general, almost to a person they agree that their company pursues too many opportunities that will never close. How do you keep this from happening?
At a very high level, you need to identify your Zebra, your ideal customer, and target your sales efforts toward them. Once you identify your Zebra – you do this by examining your best customers and understanding key attributes that are consistent across all of them – you are in a position to evaluate future customers against that profile to determine if they are right for you. The subtitle of Jeff’s book is “How to Close 90% of the Business You Pursue Faster, More Easily, and More Profitably.” If that sounds good to you, message me.
