Why Zebras?
No - this is not a book about how to sell something to a camouflaged horse! It is not to be taken literally.
The use of the Zebra as metaphor is an apt one. A Zebra is unique. It cannot be mistaken for any other animal. Once you see it, it is obvious. So what has this got to do with selling? A lot. Think of a Zebra as the description of the ideal customer you want to sell to. It has certain characteristics - Business Characteristics, Company, Operational, Technology, and Service Characteristics. Once you can identify these characteristics, you have identified a Zebra. Once you have identified a Zebra, you can try to sell to it with confidence - knowing that it is an ideal match to the product you are selling.
Zebra selling is about how and where to focus your sales effort. Many selling systems rely on the fact that sales is, and always will be, a "e;numbers game". The more effort goes in, the more likely you are to sell something. However, this approach can be misunderstood. One misunderstanding is the pure "activity-based selling" where the emphasis is on just reaching the numbers, without considering the quality of the leads.
Zebra selling is about concentrating on high quality prospects - those that are a perfect match to the solution you are selling. If you focus on these Zebras - even to the exclusion of other "interesting" leads - you will be focusing on prospects with a far higher likelihood of closure. And, having closed the deal, you can be certain that the deal will be successful, because you have already proved that the customer's needs are being addressed by your solution.
One of the valuable lessons of this books is Opportunity Cost. Put simply, if you chase the wrong type of prospect, you are wasting time that should be used to focus on the valuable customer.
Zebras are not easy to catch
Having established the idea that there is an ideal customer profile, the next step is to establish the key criteria that make up your own company Zebra. You can then score all prospects based on this definition.
But Zebra Selling is not just about how to chose a suitable prospect. The selling part of the cycle itself is based on the premise that you identify the key Pain Points felt by your target contact in your Zebra - the Pain Points felt by Power. Power is the person you sell to. And you sell a total solution that is customized individually to Power's needs.
This is not the same as commodity selling. This approach is more suitable for large-ticket services (ideally products, since I don't think you would approach it quite the same way for professional services).
There is a lot of background work and hard work involved in Zebra selling. It is focused on the prospect, on identifying their needs, and on creating a "Wow" proposition that they will have little chance of missing or rejecting.
This will not make selling any easier. It moves from being a description of features to a focus on customer requirements, mapped to the solution. For some sales people, this will probably be a very uncomfortable change in culture. However, in my view, this approach is far more likely to lead to a successful conclusion.
There is a risk in Zebra selling. You are abandoning your reliance on Numbers, to concentrate on high-value winnings from selective customers you have very carefully qualified. This is not something that you just try for a few weeks. It needs massive effort, or it will not work. But the potential rewards are massive.
Zebra University
As is common with many professional publications these days, this book is not just a hardware reference book. It is also backed up with a whole load of supporting materials from "Zebra University", including the web site Selling to Zebras.Com http://www.sellingtozebras.com. In fact, there seems to be a whole "University" movement here.
It is tempting to believe that this is just hype; just another fad to motivate sales people to greater efforts. I disagree. I think this is a significant contribution to the science of selling. It is certainly something that my own company will be putting into practice.
"Selling to Zebras" is a real eye-opener.
My grateful thanks to Steve Tucker of Hubwoo for drawing this book to my attention. Steve has not just read the book, his sales success has strong echos from the Zebra selling approach.
You can buy this book from Amazon by clicking on the cover picture on the right.
Read and Implement.
