Sales Development

Whale Hunting Practice #4: Create Target Filter Categories

By October 19, 2009December 29th, 2015No Comments
The Whale Hunters believe that companies should decide deliberately which large companies they want to do business with and are well-suited to serve.  Rather than sending a message to the entire market and waiting for leads, whale hunting helps you develop a list of companies that you can research, follow, and learn how to approach.  This work begins with developing a Target Filter, a set of criteria for your ideal customers.  Download a free copy of this Whale Hunting tool.

The first step in building your Target Filter is to determine the categories of your criteria–not the metrics (they come next) but the criteria themselves.  That is, categories like

  • Size of the company
  • Geographic Location
  • Annual Revenue
  • Incumbent Provider of What We Sell
  • Reputation
  • Financial Stability
  • Leadership Team
  • Source of our Lead
  • Budget for our Product/Service

Every whale hunting company will have a different set of categories that are important to you.  Sit down with your leadership team and a whiteboard to define the categories that matter to you.  Argue about them!  Test them against your current or past customers.  Then get ready to set target metrics as the basis for your research.

Learn more about building a Target filter in Whale Hunting: Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company.

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