So it is with effective lead generation. Generating leads for new business isn't just a combination of behaviors and skills. As a sales leader, make sure that your salespeople are growing their business using the solid practice management strategy called Selling to Zebras. This concept came from Chad Kozier, the author of the book Selling to Zebras, and here are a few key concepts to implement with your team:

Three Simple Lead Generation Steps to Selling to Zebras

1. Segment your book into thirds.
Take a look at the top third of your business. If your business is like most, that top third represents over 90% of your revenue. These are your best clients. The idea behind Selling to Zebras is to ensure your lead generation strategy focuses on attracting more active buyers who resemble those top-tier clients.

2. Identify common traits and demographics.
What do your top clients have in common? Consider factors like industry, point of contact, how you made the connection, volume of sales or size of the organization, and key trigger points that signal they’re ready to buy.

3. Focus your time wisely.
Commit at least two-thirds of your lead generation time to looking for or attracting only those companies or individuals who resemble your top third. Avoid wasting time on unqualified or mismatched leads.

Bonus Tip for Your Salespeople

Chances are, the top third of each salesperson’s clients know at least five other companies like them. They should ask them for introductions. It’s a powerful way to leverage their existing network for growth.

Of equal importance is for every salesperson to know and be able to clearly articulate what isn’t a Zebra for them. This helps to bring clarity to their network and prospecting efforts. Here are some reasons why knowing what isn’t a Zebra is so important for salespeople:

It Eliminates Ambiguity

• If you aren’t specific about who you serve best, it’s hard to get introductions. If you are vague in your prospect description, it will be more difficult to ask your advocates for introductions. Introductions have been proven to be the #1 lead generation strategy for top producers to grow their business. You must be specific and clear about what type of Zebra you serve best.

It Reduces Your Opportunity Cost

• Every salesperson’s opportunity cost is simply this: if you called on Company ABC, that means you aren’t working on Company XYZ. Your opportunity cost is what you aren’t working on that might be more viable for you and your organization.

If you know what you don’t want and the reasons why, it might reduce the quantity of opportunities in your pipeline, but the quality will increase dramatically. As a sales leader, take some time in your next team meeting to help your sales team improve their lead generation efforts and success with Selling to Zebras.

Here is the approach I use when calling on executives that fit our ideal prospect profile:

Hi John, this is Tony Cole. (Wait until they respond.)

I’m not sure it makes sense to call, but can I share with you why I’m calling?

Our clients are those that recognize a bigger opportunity in the marketplace and need help to leverage the talent and resources they have to initiate more conversations, provide consultative guidance, and deliver best-fit business solutions in order to close more business.

Can I ask you a question?

In a word, how would you describe the overall results of your company as it relates to taking full advantage of the opportunity in your markets? (Assume the prospect says, “pretty good.”)

Why just pretty good? What is missing?

The goal, of course, is getting the prospect engaged right from the start. Now let’s talk about the sales coaching of the value prop.

Years ago, one of the lead execs from a client shared an article called “What it Takes to Be a Coach.” It began with: You must understand the game.

At the time, most didn’t understand that the “game” is the game of selling. Managers and internal trainers must really understand the game of selling. Unless internal coaches and trainers have strapped on a headset, made hundreds of dials, asked for introductions, gotten rejected, sold big cases, and started with small sales, they can’t fully understand the game. It would be like taking flying lessons from a trainer who did all their learning in a simulator. Would you want that person as your flying coach?

Most sales managers end up in that role because they were good to great salespeople and the company was looking to:

1. Replace a manager

2. Find a path for professional advancement

3. Retain a salesperson who’s slowing down but has a strong book of business

Rarely, if ever, does that person go through an intense, fully integrated sales training development program to help them effectively execute the required skills of an effective coach.

As an example, in the script above, an effective coach will teach their salespeople to get a prospect involved in the conversation as quickly as possible. This is done by executing two steps:

1. Say your name, then pause

2. Inform the listener that the call may not make sense and ask for permission to proceed

In real selling, the prospect gets involved in the conversation within three seconds and then gives the salesperson permission to deliver their value proposition or elevator pitch. That takes coaching knowledge and skill. You must know the game.

Peter Jensen, an Olympic coach from Canada and author of The Third Factor, states that the first two factors for success in anything are nature and nurture. The third factor, specific to coaching, is: You must have a coaching bias.

I have the coaching bias. I love to coach. I love the game of selling. I love seeing and hearing people develop into the best versions of themselves. That is what it takes to be successful at coaching. It must be about helping others gain the spotlight, achieve success and financial rewards, or simply experience a job well done. It requires sacrificing ego and the need to be right so the other person can discover their path, develop their skills, and become the expert.

The challenge for most sales leaders is that they must have and execute the skills of being a strong leader: strong identity, self-assurance, credible authority, knowledge, and a clear vision, mission, and goal orientation. Strong leaders don’t need to be in the spotlight, don’t act like they know it all, and ask questions instead of always providing answers. This is key when sales coaching their team on their value prop and other sales skills—gaining their input and listening to their experiences.

There are assessments in the marketplace to help people identify if they have what it takes. We use Objective Management Group’s Sales Manager Evaluation. Three key findings are identified and scored:

1. The Will to be successful specifically in the role of manager or sales leader

2. The Manager DNA

3. The Manager Competencies

The evaluation provides an index percentage that tells the evaluated sales manager how they rank against others who have taken the evaluation. If their percentage is 80%, that tells them they are better than 80% of the managers who have taken the evaluation. Our 20+ year history has verified that most sales managers have less than 10% of the skills needed to be an effective sales coach.

Learn How to STOP Hiring Mistakes at our 30-Min Webinar on June 16th!

Using a Pre-Hire Sales Assessment is a Must

For consistent success, you must evaluate all candidates using a sales candidate pre-hire screen before the interview. Many companies pick and choose which candidates to evaluate. Sometimes, if the candidate has come highly recommended or has a great sales pedigree, or if a placement firm has recommended them, the company may choose not to evaluate. This is a mistake. Evaluating candidates before you interview has several benefits:

1. The sales evaluation we recommend is by Objective Management Group and tells you if the candidate is hirable or not (with 95% predictive validity). If they are not hirable, then there is no need for an interview.

2. Evaluating prior to interviewing helps you pinpoint your interview questions based on information that you won't find in the resume. This allows you to conduct a better, more informative interview.

How the Sales Interview Process Begins

As you begin your phone screening process, consider how much time your salespeople normally spend on the phone for either prospecting or selling. It’s important to have a clear idea of how important phone skills are to their success. If effective phone skills are critical, then evaluating a candidate’s ability on the phone must be part of your screening process.

When a candidate’s resume is received, the recruiting coordinator should contact the potential candidate, let them know that the first step is a phone interview, and schedule it. Keep this same process even if you meet a potential candidate in person. Give their information to the recruiting coordinator and let them follow the same, consistent process.

Conducting the Initial Phone Interview

Consider the challenges your salespeople regularly face when making phone calls. Recreate this same environment for your candidate. If your salespeople must get past gatekeepers to reach decision-makers, then make candidates do the same.

The best way to implement this is to email candidates after interviews are scheduled. Instruct them to contact you as if they are making a prospecting call. Their goal is to get past your gatekeeper and reach you. Instruct your gatekeeper to make this somewhat difficult but to eventually let them through if they are persistent. After each interview, ask how the candidate approached your gatekeeper.

Once you begin the phone interview, treat the candidate as if they are a typical salesperson trying to sell you something. Be brief. Be abrupt. Ask questions. Challenge each candidate. Make them sell you on why they should be considered for a face-to-face interview.

There are three factors that determine whether the candidate will progress to a face-to-face interview. Ask yourself if the candidate:

1. Attempted to control the interview

2. Asked questions

3. “Closed” for the face-to-face interview

Did the candidate take control of the interview by slowing it down and establishing rapport? Did they get flustered when answering your questions or intimidated by your demeanor? Look for a salesperson who can handle pressure and have a conversation—not one who simply answers questions.

Did the candidate ask good questions to uncover what you are looking for, what it takes to be successful, and what’s needed to move to the next step? Don’t get too hung up on the exact questions asked. This interview reflects how they will perform on actual sales calls.

As you finish the interview, instruct the candidate about the next step and let them know that, if they qualify, someone will follow up. This mirrors the common “think-it-over” response from a prospect. If the candidate doesn’t try to close you at this point, they probably won’t try to close a prospect either.

Conclusion

In this series on hiring and retaining top sales talent, we’ve looked at three steps that are key to building an exceptional sales force that will help drive consistent sales growth:

1. Prepare: Establish the right candidate profile for your specific situation. Use this standard to compare. Challenge candidates to meet your expectations.

2. Pipeline: Build a pipeline of potential candidates by using time-tested sales prospecting techniques instead of relying solely on internet job boards.

3. Screen: Use a properly constructed telephone pre-interview to identify the most qualified candidates for a face-to-face interview and improve your sales interview process.

Learn How to STOP Hiring Mistakes at our 30-Min Webinar on June 16th!

After you have established a profile, the next step is to build a sales candidate pipeline. Let’s first talk about online job boards. It’s fair to say that in today's environment, most of our communications are done online. At first glance, when it comes to recruiting, the Web seems to be a simple and relatively painless solution for finding new employees. Post a job profile on a myriad of available job search engines, and responses come flooding in:

• Monster

• Indeed

• Jobs - whatever city

• Ladder

• Snagajob

• LinkedIn

While this approach may work for some positions, I am unconvinced that it is wildly effective when attempting to hire good salespeople. In my experience, the best method for recruiting quality sales candidates is by introduction—the same method that works for the salespeople when prospecting for new business.

Finding sales talent candidates by introduction can be time-consuming and painful. However, it forces YOU to own the process, and that is the key. The mistake that many financial firms make is relying solely on the names and resumes they receive from recruiting services and online job posts. Finding new talent for your organization should not be left entirely up to the recruiters. They have a vested interest in placing people in positions and not necessarily in the success of the salesperson you hire. Remember: recruiters get paid when they place someone. That individual may not be (and often is not) the best fit for your organization.

Recently, I read that 75% of replacement hires are as bad as or worse than the employees that were replaced! If you have an open position for someone who is making $50,000 a year, you need to find the best $50,000-a-year person in your industry/marketplace to fill it. Don’t settle for a B or C player just because that’s what you had before.

So, what does taking ownership during the process of building a candidate pipeline look like? Here’s what needs to happen:

• Create your hiring profile (as discussed in Step 1)

• Create a process of getting introductions

• Build your team of candidate prospectors

• Identify candidate sourcing activities

• Identify monthly goals for the activities

• Build an inspection process – and consider using “huddles” to have prompt, productive, and painless meetings as you conduct that process (See Verne Harnish)

• Hold people accountable for reaching candidate sourcing goals

• Throughout the process – reward success, discipline failure

Once you start this process, you will begin to fill your candidate pipeline just like your salespeople fill their prospect pipelines! When you take ownership of this effort and you have a pipeline of potential hires that are better than your current underperformers, you will be more likely to:

• Replace under-performers

• Not be “held hostage” by prima donna salespeople

• Not settle for mediocrity

• See improvements in your current sales team

Finally, keep in mind that driving sales growth isn't always about more disciplined accountability, sales force automation, or sales training. Those things will help only if you have the talent on hand that will respond to these investments. Start with good talent, create an environment where people can succeed, and see what happens next.

Stay tuned for Part 3 of Hiring & Retaining Top Sales Talent!

Some of the factors that are limiting success in hiring & retaining top sales talent for many financial firms include:

• You are reactive in your recruiting – you only recruit when you need someone

• You transfer the entire responsibility of finding candidates to a search firm

• You don’t have a candidate pipeline

• You aren’t getting enough of the right candidates to interview

• The candidates that you interview and fall in love with fail to pass your evaluation process

• You interview quality candidates, but cannot attract them to join your company

• Candidates use you to improve their current position after you make an offer

• Your evaluation process is inconsistent

• You don't have a way to compare one hirable candidate against another

• You don’t have multiple candidates to choose from

• You pay “A” compensation to “B” hires

• Your new hires are failing to succeed quickly enough due to weak onboarding

There are three key steps to ensure that your bank or insurance firm recruits quality candidates that will maximize your organization’s revenue potential. Step 1 focuses on preparation. Step 2 will focus on building a candidate pipeline, and Step 3 will conclude with recommendations for screening those candidates.

Step 1: Define Your Sales Candidate Profile & Hiring Standard

The first step in your sales force recruiting process is to establish a profile of the ideal candidate for your specific position. Do not settle for a candidate who fails the criteria. And when you are evaluating resumes, pre-hire evaluations, and your interview notes, ensure that you are consistently comparing potential candidates to the hiring profile that you have established. This is the first step to help your organization refrain from hiring your next “average” salesperson.

Here are some questions to consider to avoid settling for average in the hiring process:

• Do you describe the job… or do you detail what it takes to be extraordinary in the sales role?

• Do you describe what your candidates will be selling… or do you detail what kind of competition they must be successful against?

• Do you make it clear that your organization puts high pressure on someone to perform? And do you find out if your candidate can survive in that kind of environment?

• Do you create the same environment when interviewing candidates that they will encounter when they are in the field? For example, do you challenge candidates by being difficult on the phone? Do you make them establish rapport with you in the initial interview? Do you make them try to close you in order to reach the next step of your hiring process?

Here is a sample outline for establishing your ideal hiring profile. Customize this to your objectives:

If you are committed to hiring & retaining top sales talent, your first step is to define your sales candidate profile & hiring standard by:

• establishing the right candidate profile for your specific situation,

• making sure that your screening process is consistent with identifying the right candidate profile, and

• preparing to challenge your prospects to meet exceptional standards rather than settling on “adequate.”

Stay tuned for Part 2 and 3 of Hiring & Retaining Top Sales Talent!