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.

The Experience – Are Your Clients Satisfied or Engaged in the Customer Experience in Banking?

Many companies have a team of people that are held accountable for measuring and ensuring a positive client experience. For example, have you talked to a service company recently that didn’t ask you to take a 3-question survey at the end of the call? In the past, the focus was on gauging customer satisfaction. But in recent years, in light of direct and non-bank competitors, the focus has evolved to discovering clients’ engagement levels as a score for the customer experience in banking.

In fact, a recent Gallup survey discovered that:

• 48% of consumers who were satisfied with their banking relationship also said they would consider their institution for their next product or service.

• When they said they were both “satisfied and fully engaged,” the ratio rose to 83%.

Engagement can occur across all the various channels in banking: online, chat, customer service, in-branch, and social media. At times, these impersonal, multi-step digital avenues can work against the bank as well. So how does a bank turn a satisfied banking client into a more engaged client?

Meaningful Engagement Involves People-Powered Conversations

Equipping and training your customer-facing people is the silver bullet to creating and increasing customer engagement in banking. Consumers and business managers alike have been emailed, texted, pinged, and surveyed to the point of apathy. But when a need arises or a financial goal must be attained, there is no greater opportunity to drive engagement than when the phone rings or the customer walks into the bank.

When that happens, are your people prepared to ask enough of the right questions to truly understand and consult with the client? Are they capable of creating a conversation so impactful that the client is not only satisfied but wowed — ready to tell their family and friends about the experience and looking forward to the next one? That’s engagement. And when clients are that engaged, they have no interest in talking to other financial providers because their needs have been met and exceeded. Only adept, people-powered conversations can achieve that.

Helping Your Team Have More Powerful Conversations

Our sales evaluation partner, Objective Management Group (OMG), has identified 21 Core Sales Competencies that are critical for success in sales, business development, and relationship building. These competencies fall into three categories:

1. Tactical Competencies

2. Mindset Competencies (Sales DNA)

3. Grit Competencies (Will to Sell)

Want to improve conversations? Evaluating your bankers’ competencies is fundamental to predicting a team’s overall success. In fact, bankers with high competency scores on the 21 Core skills are 50% more likely to be top performers. Bankers and sellers with higher competency scores perform better on win rate, new opportunity finding, and relationship building. By identifying and training the right competencies, bank leaders can give their teams the tools and training they need to succeed in their specific roles and to drive more engaged and enduring relationships.

Steve Jobs was a masterful storyteller. Just go back and watch any of his presentations where Apple was releasing a new product. Storytelling in sales is a trait great salespeople have mastered. Peter Guber said this in his book Tell to Win: “stories provide emotional transportation.” The key takeaway from that quote is that stories are capable of moving people. Stories are capable of inspiring people. If you are good at storytelling, you can move people from where they are today (presumably dealing with a problem or a villain) to where they might be in the future after they have overcome that problem or villain. And when that happens, your prospect becomes their own hero.

The Power of Emotion in Storytelling in Sales

The key to storytelling in sales is to harness the power of emotion. At Anthony Cole Training Group, we have known for quite some time that people buy emotionally and justify with logic. I completely agree that your technical skills need to be excellent and that you need to be a subject matter expert. But that is not what moves people to the point of taking action to solve their problems. What makes that happen is when emotion enters the equation and your prospect self-discovers that they must act. Fear, disappointment, and frustration are examples of just a few of the more powerful emotions that your prospect might be facing.

Probably the most powerful emotion in life (after the emotion of love) is the emotion of hate. And to be clear, there is too much hate in the world. For my money, I believe there are only three things that are okay to hate:

1. Cancer

2. Racism

3. Alzheimer’s

These are villains that everyone is against and for good reasons. Steve Jobs was a believer that the best storytellers always give their prospect a villain to root against or a problem to hate so much that the prospect feels compelled to fight for a better future.

Stop talking about things your prospects don’t care about. Give them a villain to conquer. Some prospects are just waiting to become a hero. They just need something to root against. That is a conversation worth having.