You remember the old commercials – when you were asked to make a forced choice between two good options? In syncing up with your prospect, I say you need both – good rhythm and good timing. A successful sales person almost instinctively knows that a winning process includes getting into the customer’s sales cycle as early as possible and at a time when you can still prepare your team to deliver – especially, when hunting whales.
The Whale Hunters constantly preach about the The Buyers’ Table and the whale’s fears. Understanding fear is a sales breakthrough. We have detailed processes to help your company’s cross-functional team identify all of the reasons that buyers might be afraid of you, and then detailed methods for creating the fear-busters that will help to put the fears at rest. The bottom line is this: the whales (big company buyers) will not buy your advantages unless you can alleviate their fears.
Many people don’t understand the distinctions between strategy, process and tactics.
A strategy is an overall plan to achieve specific, generally long-term, goals. It’s an approach, a broad, general roadmap, a way to go about doing business. A strategy defines how an organization intends to get from where it is now to where it wants to be in the future, perhaps three to five years out. Pursuing Whales to grow revenue is a strategy. Going global is a strategy. Penetrating a specific industry is a strategy. Increasing visibility to raise awareness about a product or service is a strategy. A strategy may include time frames but typically they are ‘end point’ dates.
Instead of randomly shooting messages out into the market and waiting for leads to come in, smart companies on a fast-growth path need a way to identify the specific prospective customers that ought to be their best candidates. What if you could make a list of the companies that are best for you to go after instead of simply following up on leads or cold calling?
[KelleyRobertson] Today’s blog post is brought to you by Kelley Robertson of Robertson Training Group in Canada. Thanks for contributing today Kelley!
Navigating and negotiating a standard sale can be challenging at the best of times. However, when you add a team dynamic to the equation, it can be downright frustrating not to mention difficult. Here are a few guidelines to consider when several people on your team are involved in a particular deal.
How many of you have worked for leaders that implement culture based on the last book they have read? If you are lucky, you may get to experience six different cultures during any fiscal year!
Fortunately, The Whale Hunters Process™, when implemented by a leader and his or her team can alleviate this experience for your workforce! How? In my experience, implementing The Whale Hunters Process™ has helped our team build, be clear and save time.
Don’t think for a second that you’ll keep this whale-client because you landed the big, initial sale. Your team needs to be accessible, reliable, and flexible. Business is about people, relationships. An authentic email. Thoughtful phone call. Focusing on them. All of these things will go a long way to building trust and growing your revenue potential.
In today’s world “instant gratification” is a very strong mindset. It seems we may not have learned enough from the economic collapse of the past few years. “Instant gratification” is especially prevalent in the sales world these days, as well. It seems that the teachings of “getting to no” in conjunction with management pressures to close deals today have created a sales professional that is only interested in spending their time with prospects who are ready to buy now. Effective prospecting in sales has become what day trading is to the stock market – no one is investing for the long term.
Today’s prospecting behaviors involve finding someone who is ready to buy, submitting piles of proposals, or responding to RFQ’s (Request for Quote) that have little chance of being won.
Vhange your paradigm about sales and grow your company.
Making a commitment to hunt whales is the beginning of a dramatic cultural shift. It’s more than just a new business development strategy. Embarking on this process successfully requires vision, planning, implementation and personal development from everyone involved, particularly the CEO.
Of all the problems with company silos, the one hardest for me to imagine is a marketing silo and a sales silo. Yet I see these divisions all the time, even in small companies. Marketing complains that the sales team will not share information or fill out CRM reports. Sales complains that marketing is wasting time and wasting money and not delivering the right kinds of leads.
I’ve talked to so many company leaders and sales execs lately who are facing the same problem: before the recession, they acquired all of their new business through referrals. But ever since the economy weakened, the referral “pipeline” has dried up. They are frankly terrified because they have no processes in place to develop new business. This phenomenon […]