Ten years ago, in January 2008, Wiley published Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company, the book about large account sales I co-authored with Tom Searcy. For several years prior, Tom and I had been building out The Whale Hunters Process™, which we laid out in that book, and testing it […]
This article summarizes the philosophy and key tenets of the whale hunting metaphor for large account selling. It distinguishes how Whale Hunting differs from other methods of selling and growing large customers.
Let me ask you this: have you ever felt that in order to get in the door at a big company you should offer to do a test or a trial run or a very small project in order to prove yourself to them? I actually had an experience like this only a few years […]
Almost every RFP asks you to define or explain your business process for something or other. Here are a few of the recent ones that I’ve seen: What is your business resumption plan? How do you monitor the performance of subcontractors? What is your approach to streamlining? Describe your staffing plan. Summarize your plan to […]
Hunting for those big customers and big deals requires a skill set all to itself, with a coordinated, trained team–much like the Inuit people in the ancient practice of actual whale hunting. Join host John Golden as he interviews sales consultant, expert and author Barbara Smith about this vital topic. https://youtu.be/cUUt6hb_EJQ
Whale hunting is not about killing. What a bad analogy that would be! It’s actually about serving. Honoring the whale. Celebrating the whale. Doing your best work in service to the whale. That’s why the Inuit whale hunting story is at the heart of our practice. I call it ancient wisdom for modern business. […]
Better than most whale hunters, my friend Jeb Blount has mastered the art of winning complex large account sales and teaching sales teams how to do that. I’m pleased to introduce him as guest author today, marking the launch of his exceptional new book: Sales EQ: How Ultra High Performers Leverage Sales-Specific Emotional Intelligence to Close the Complex […]
“What global account buyers are saying is: we are tired of sellers who are shallow. Who are focused on their products and solutions and what they can do. We want sellers who will help us devise and achieve strategic outcomes.” (Barbara Weaver Smith. Whale Hunting with Global Accounts: Four Critical Sales Strategies to Win Global…...
Thanks to Connie Kadansky, the Sales Call Reluctance Coach, for a great interview on Blog Talk Radio about how to know more to sell more. Connie says, “Even with the recent Brexit vote, you cannot deny that we are a global economy. Keep your chin up and be the visionary!” We talk about my new…...
If you’ve been a whale hunter for awhile, chances are you have a few global accounts– big customers who do business all over the world. Almost all of my whale hunting clients have business with global companies. The list of their customers includes Verizon, Proctor and Gamble, Novartis, Capital One, Coca Cola, Red Bull, Ricoh, Luxottica,…...
So excited to have my own track on the awesome Driving Ambition album produced by the inimitable Roy Smoothe in his Smoothe Mixx of words set to music. It’s an audio collection of motivational, inspirational business and life messages from an engaging and inspiring group of people who populate Kyle Wilson‘s “Lessons From Experts Network.” I represent Lessons from Large Account…...
You and your team are making a critical presentation to the buyers representing the company you hope to sign as your next big customer. You’ve been working on this deal for quite a while. They finally invited you to submit a written proposal–and you’ve made the cut! Now you’re in the top two or three […]