Based on our study of the Inuit whale hunt, and refining the processes through work with clients, we developed The Whale Hunters Process™, a cross-functional marketing and sales process for small and midsize companies that want to grow through bigger deals to bigger customers.
I call the process a Metaphor, Model, and Map. It’s a metaphor because it represents the three major stages and the nine phases of the actual Inuit whale hunt. It’s a model because it works for all B2B companies in all industries. It does not have to be customized or put into a different order or cannibalized in any way in order to work. And it’s a map, because each company will develop its own versions of the phases depending on what they sell and to whom. Every company has different whales, different markets, different marketing and sales materials, different steps in their capture phase or their onboarding from “sew” to “beach,” for example. But although they have surface level differences, they all operate under the same model.
The model begins in the Scout stage, in the Phase of “Know.” It rotates clockwise, somewhat like gears, through the nine phases as the stylized arrows indicate within the graphic.
