Today I’m embarking on a “virtual blog tour” on behalf of The Whale Hunters. Our purpose is to connect with a larger audience of small business owners and sales representatives worldwide. I engaged Nikki Leigh, founder of Promo 101, to conduct this tour for me. It’s like a book tour, only it all takes place […]
Here we are on October 15. It feels like the “Ides of October” or something. Everybody’s talking about how there’s only one more month to do business before the holidays set in and nobody’s available. I’m always just a little suspicious of “everybody” and “nobody” but they certainly influence our mind set. Rationally, of course, […]
The “brand promise audit” is a key feature of the scouting process, designed to position your company to land big sales. It’s a mandatory feature of your business development strategy! The brand promise audit focuses on how a small company can hone its message to market so as to be distinctive. In far too many […]
Business incubators offer attractive services to early stage companies seeking to grow.
We had an outstanding interview with Sitewire president Greg Chapman on last week’s Expert Series Call. Greg offered compelling insights into how executives in large companies approach and complete their buying decisions. Two highlights: Purchasing Agents. Greg explained that the decision-making processes for buying goods or services inside of big companies are changing dramatically. Although […]
The fourth quarter of the business year begins on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Finally, everyone is home from vacation. Kids are back in school. The bookends of summer–Memorial Day and Labor Day–are now closed. People will return your phone calls, meetings can be scheduled, and work can move on. What business development plans do […]
One of The Whale Hunters’ new Certified Partners, Roslyn Courtney, blogs at Leadership Pundit: Success in the New Economy. Her new article Whale Hunter Leaders is about the role of small business in growing the economy and how Whale Hunting can help. Roslyn writes, “Early into my Whale Hunting boot camp (I’m now certified), I knew […]
For a long time, I’ve been exhorting clients to be certain that the sales team is selling what the operations or implementation team plans to deliver. In the past couple of weeks, The Whale Hunters team has been on the receiving end of that potential mismatch, which compels me to write about it again. Here’s […]
I am very pleased to have a guest blog post published at Venture Beat in the Entrepreneur Corner. It’s all about how to refocus your team. If you have been taking whatever business comes your way in order to survive, you have changed your company culture. To capitalize on the economic recovery, you’ll need to […]
I circulated a new newsletter article today focused on how small companies can greatly improve their proposals–whether in response to RFPs or simply in their normal sales process–if they invest some time into documenting processes. My all-too-real world example comes from a current RFP that I am working on with a client. $900 million of […]
The current Whale Hunters Wisdom newsletter features our new article, “How to Audit Your Brand Promise”. We present our method to help your team clearly differentiate your company’s message to market. Most brand promises are not differentiators at all, but rather standard assertions that every competitor makes in its sales and marketing materials and on its website. Here’s […]
Larry and I have recently moved to Scottsdale, AZ, into a leased fully furnished condo. We have great landlords, who are friends of ours, but who live in Indiana. Several weeks ago we had trouble with a stackable washer/dryer. The washer did not shut off at the end of the cycle; rather, it restarted and […]