An Introduction to the Quantum Leap Theorems      

Recruiting (Selling) to YOUR Zebra

In a block buster business best seller that came out a few years ago “Selling to Zebras: How to Close 90% of the Business You Pursue Faster, More Easily, and More Profitably” , Jeff and Chad Koser go on to explain that 86% of all sales people AND recruiters sell to the wrong people or type of prospect – virtually wasting most of their time, money and resources working on the WRONG projects with the WRONG people.   I couldn’t agree more.  Refining your Zebra is a Quantum Leap Theorem.

To better understand the concept of Selling to Zebra’s – you really need to focus on the Lion – that is until the end of the story.   As the Koser brothers explain it, when Lion prides are young and immature – they chase after every animal they can get for food.  Wildebeasts, Rhinos, Gazelles, Squirrels, etc.  Everything.   When a lion pride becomes mature, they focus on one Animal.   That’s right – the Zebra.  Why?  Because the Zebra – for a Lion – provides the greatest amount of return, for the amount of energy expended pursuing.  Graphic I know.  

What specific Clients and Candidates give YOU the greatest return for the energy spent?  In my workshops, the first thing we tackle is narrowing down your client and candidate Zebra with the understanding the better we target the perfect client and candidate – the more synergies we will gain.  In recruiting if you are a generalist – yesterday could have been a secretary for a defense contractor,  today may have been and engineer for a manufacturing firm and tomorrow could be a sales person for a pharma company.  With all those searches,  there is limited chance for synergies where we reuse the efforts from previous or future searches. 

Before December of last year, we spent 4 months filling sales roles in different geographical areas all over North America for a large firm aggressively scaling in Supply Chain Technology.  We had multiple candidates in each location – that did not get selected that were “A-B” players.   We put a plan to add new clients in the industry and took these candidate to all of their competitors. Through our efforts – my team made almost a placement a day to end the year with a bang!   If we were working with the wrong clients or focused on different positions – no way could we have done that.

Here are the critical questions to ask, to narrow down YOUR Zebra for Clients and Candidates.

Client Zebra Questions:

• Industry you most successful in?

• Industry you enjoy the most?

• Type of Relationship with Hiring Manager?

• Hiring Process that works best for you?

• Clients who have strong Employer Value Proposition (Why work for Employer versus all others)?

• Compensation Range?

• Culture at the organization?

• What is in your database?

Candidate Zebra Questions: 

• Positions that you are most successful in placing?

• What is in your database?

• What is the easiest positions and types of candidates?

• What type of candidate relationships work best for you?

• What candidates are in the highest demand currently?

By narrowing both your Candidate and Client Zebras, you will have the opportunity to gain incredible synergies and in turn you can offer them increased value.  All of which end up in significantly more billings.  More Return for the Energy you expend.   Next month we will tackle the Quantum Leap Theorem of Job Order to Placement Ratio and how to improving your search quality overnight.

Join Jon at his industry disruptive workshop “Making it Rain: How to Increase your Billings from 2-10x without Working Harder!     October 3-5, 2018.

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