Buying teams don’t find you on social media. They verify you there. Forrester counts 22 people in a typical B2B buying decision, and 6sense reports buyers now contact vendors after 61% of their journey is already done. Here’s what those people look for when they check you out, and what to put in front of them.
Should salespeople stop prospecting? In large account sales, salespeople need a deep understanding of a prospect before they make a call or schedule a meeting. But sales reps spend 72% of their time on non-selling tasks, and prospecting is one of the most time-consuming. (Salesforce). Prospecting work should be completed by Scouts, not Sellers. And AI may be your next best Scout.
Big company buyers weigh risk before advantages. Four fears drive most of that risk. Gartner found 74% of buyer teams show unhealthy conflict during the decision, and groups that reach consensus are 2.5 times more likely to call the deal high quality. Here’s how to answer each fear with something tangible.
Recently I was reviewing current whale opportunities with a client team when the CEO interrupted his group: “We keep talking about opportunities we’re “tracking.” Shouldn’t we be leading them, not following them?” He was so right! Remember in the Whale Hunting Story, that if the scouts see the whales breaching it is too late to […]
As they grow and hire sales people, many CEOs become fearful of their sales team. They don’t know how to manage them, don’t understand how they do what they do, worry that a key sales person will leave and take business along, don’t know how to compensate them, and worry whether they are paying too […]
It’s always been hard for small and midsize companies to win large account business against large competitors. Big corporations have big marketing budgets, professional capture teams, and compatible ways of working. But smaller companies have always had the edge in innovation. What if that is no longer true? Historically, smaller companies have been the leaders […]
Whale Hunting is about landing the kinds of deals that change a company’s trajectory—big sales to big companies. And many small and midsize B2B firms have the capacity to play in this arena, even if they haven’t realized it yet. Among our Whale Hunting clients, here are just a few recent wins: A $600M construction […]
Whale Hunting debuted as a business development model for small and midsize B2B companies in 2006. I co-authored the definitive guide in 2008 with Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company and expanded the scope in 2017 with Whale Hunting with Global Accounts: Four Critical Sales Strategies to Win Global Customers. […]
I am extremely pleased and very proud to announce The Whale Hunters new partnership with Membrain, the company behind a complete Sales Enablement CRM that can replace or plug into your existing CRM. We are creating a version of the Membrain platform that makes it easy for companies to implement and execute a Whale Hunting sales…...
Does your big customer want to see your process–but you don’t actually have one yet?
As you may know, Whale Hunting is based on two concepts: (1) the best, safest way to grow a B2B company is to consistently land bigger contracts with bigger customers, and (2) the best way to land bigger customers is to make your whole team responsible for sales in one role or another. Business owners […]
In my article on the major disruptions in large account selling in the last decade, I identified disruptions of the selling systems and disruptions of the seller’s practices. Perhaps the major disruption to the system, which of course also disrupted the seller, was the phenomenon first labeled “sales 2.0.” I’m introducing a pattern here that […]