I‘ve been getting a lot of questions on the road lately about how The Whale Hunters’ clients are doing under these economic conditions. So, I asked a few of them and their responses were very positive.

Whale hunters like nasty weather because of what it does to their competitors. The big competitors’ reactions to tough economic times seems to create lots of opportunities. Here’s what they do…

• Hunker down: Freeze hiring, travel budgets and capital expenditures. Push out product release dates and new version releases. All of this says to customers that they are going to receive less for the same money.

• Cut back: Reduce hours of service, cut headcount, close facilities. This tells customers that the long-term viability of their provider is at risk.

• Re-organize: Change leadership, move key contacts around, shuffle work loads so that the whale’s support team is now burdened with more responsibility and can spend less time on its account.

All of these approaches scare whales and create opportunities for smaller companies to hunt. What to do?

1. Focus your scouts on the competitors – Using your scouting resources, look at your biggest competitors and determine if they are doing any of the things described earlier. Using that information, go back through your Whale Chart of prospects who are in Baja, and see which ones are using those competitors.

2. Have Harpooners re-contact all vulnerable whales – A call to the key contact in the whale that says; “We have been hearing about some dramatic changes in service levels for companies like yours because of cutbacks, changes in policy and reorganizations in some of the major providers. If you are experiencing this or anticipating this, maybe now is a good time for us to re-connect.”

3. Surgical strikes – Just as big competitors are scared, so are whales. Entire program shifts may be outside of what is possible at this time. Focus on pieces of business that you can move quickly and relatively independently from the larger contract. The market pressure will continue to move work to you once you have established yourself as a strong alternative.

To win in whale hunting, you need to do the opposite of your competitors- don’t hunker down, HUNT!