Kilian Jornet is the greatest athlete you’ve never heard of. He competes in niche sports that require enormous effort and endurance: ski mountaineering, sky running, and ultramarathons. When I say “competes in”, I mean he acquires championships the way you and I acquire gas bills: so regularly and with such certainty that they become almost […]
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…....
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 […]
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 […]
I’m pleased to introduce my good friend Joanne Black, referral selling expert and author of No More Cold Calling™ and Pick Up the Damn Phone with today’s guest blog. You know how much Whale Hunters reject cold calling to whales–so here’s one great alternative. Why does anyone pay for a trainer at the gym? All the equipment is there, […]
You probably know a few business people in your community who “everybody knows.” They’re so visible, so involved, so active in doing good things that others are drawn to them. Not everyone is their client or customer, but they make a friend of everyone they meet. And they meet a lot of people. For […]
Today’s post is a bi-weekly article delivered via the free Whale Hunters Wisdom newsletter. If you’re not already a subscriber, I invite you to sign up–just click here. New subscribers will receive a free download of my book Riding the Whale: Adapt Your Sales Strategies to Close Big Deals. You’ll get a download offer 24 hours after […]
Your customers want to know why you are able to do what you do, how or where your learned to do it, how have your industry and your peers recognized your accomplishments, and other measures of fitness we call “credentials.” Credentials come in a wide variety of forms. There are the basic ones like […]
Testimonials from customers or supply-chain partners can serve as powerful differentiators. Building your brand on testimonials means you stand out from your competitors in customer loyalty and customer delight. Doing business with you makes people happy, or solves a big problem, or gives them new opportunities–or all of the above and more. And whatever product […]
I’ve been working on a series of blog posts about ways to differentiate from your competitors, focused on 31 ways that you might choose to define brand promise. One way is to highlight your method of getting the results your customers want. I don’t mean process (I’ll talk about that next) but rather the way you […]