Many of our clients have never invited their prospective whale customers to their place of business for a presentation. Yet for those who do, they close almost 100% of the business represented by prospects who pay them a site visit. We call it “The Big Show.” Like all whale hunters activity, this one needs to be […]
In The Whale Hunters parlance, the Polar Bear is the one buyer with the authority to say “Yes” to a deal. All of the caribou (technical buyers) can influence the ultimate decision, but they are relegated to saying NO or urging the Polar Bear to say Yes. Sometimes the Polar Bear does not appear at […]
I wrote yesterday that your early meetings with the Buyers should be all about them and what you need to learn. But the more you learn, the more you need to begin to disclose to them about your products, services, unique value proposition, your team, etc. A strong sales process will identify what you intend […]
When you play Texas Hold ‘Em, you have to be really good at understanding the odds based on your first two cards. Good players don’t kid themselves about their hole cards and play lousy hole cards only in certain specific situations. More often, they fold, preserving their resources until the odds improve. In fact, the […]
You’ve refined your sales Target Filter and all of your criteria. Now you are ready for some very important parts of your whale hunting business development process–all related to research! And if your company is small, that probably strikes terror in your heart. It sounds hard, and it sounds time-consuming, and it sounds expensive, right? Well […]
In The Whale Hunters Process, the last phase of the Hunt is called “sew the mouth shut.” After the whale was dead, the Inuit whale hunters sent someone overboard to sew the whale’s mouth closed so that the whale would not fill with water and sink to the bottom. Clearly that’s a terrible task, and “sewing the […]
You feel the earth move, under your feet . . . and it’s not love. It’s a whole new world of selling to whales–those big companies, large accounts that are 10 or 20 times your average. Big company behavior changes radically when times get tough. Especially now, because many big companies have never experienced a […]
Back to my review of The Whale Hunters Process. Stage Two–Hunt–includes the phases ride, capture, and sew the mouth shut. This is the heart of the complex sale, that series of activities that occurs from when you have the whale’s attention through getting your first invoice paid. “Riding the whale” is defined as “progressive discovery, progressive disclosure” — […]
In this series of blog posts about The Whale Hunters Process for rapid business development and growth, harpooning is the last phase of Scouting. It’s also the first true phase of Hunting–sort of the transition between advanced research and reconnaissance and actually venturing out to meet the whale. You may think of harpooning as the actual step […]
In The Whale Hunters Process(tm), we define “harpooning” as “getting close” to the whale. The Harpooner is not the only one involved in completing a sale, but he or she is the one who gets in the door and gets the whale’s attention. We’ve also explained that in whale hunting, the harpooner couldn’t simply hurl […]
A colleague recently pointed out to me the importance of the Whale Hunters concept that we call “launch the boat.” That’s the critical management decision to go or not go in pursuit of a particular whale or whale deal. In The Whale Hunters Process three key components–Scout, Hunt, Harvest–launching comes between Scout and Hunt. It’s not […]
We had a great whale hunting session in Scottsdale last week working with the Asia/Pacific sales team of an international company. In the course of the workshop, they reached a very interesting and unexpected insight about their most promising business deals, which was this: We are not closing the proposals that demonstrate the very best ROI…...