Hi All,

It occurred to me recently that we have a TON of free sales resources scattered throughout our site. From e-books to podcasts, and webinars to essays, we’ve definitely taken this thought leadership stuff to heart. And now we’ve gone one step further and wrapped it all up nicely into one lovely package we’ve aptly named our “Resource Center.”

So now, instead of registering for every e-book or download, you will simply register once for the Resource Center (it’s still free, of course), and you’ll never have to fill out another form again. (Registration is only required for e-books, webinars and podcasts.) Your email address will become your login, although our center should recognize you if you enter from a computer that you’ve previously used to login. I’m not one to brag (which is a trait that my marketing agency cites as a fatal weakness), but it is pretty snazzy…

In all seriousness, though, I invite you to check it out and take advantage of all of our free tools, including a brand NEW e-book that we just introduced today. (I’ll write about that separately later.) “How to Get into Big Companies for Big Sales… and What to Do Once You Get There” details a variety of new challenges that big sale hunters face and then provides extensive pointers, tips and insight that will allow them to greet those challenges head on.

I would love your feedback on the new resource center and e-book, so please feel free to email me or leave a comment if you have a chance.

Now, let’s hunt!
Tom

An edge… that’s what we’re looking for. The odds are in our favor, now more than ever. Let me help with three resolutions for 2009—different resolutions than I would have written in 2008 and hopefully different than what I will write for 2010.

1. Up Your Digital Touch – Your Rolodex life-expectancy is going to drop from its traditional 21 months to about 7 months in 2009. That means your contact-database is deteriorating at an accelerating rate. Get on and start inviting at an aggressive rate—people change jobs, cities and spouses. Make sure to follow them; it gives you a way to stay in touch through all of the changes.

2. Keep Your Clients Closer – Your best accounts are being stalked, hunted, poached—you get the idea—like never before. Even if you have long-relationships and strong contracts, clients are looking for every opportunity to free themselves of commitments. Nothing is to be taken for granted. Spend more time with your current clients, or they will change in unpleasant ways.

3. 3 Taps and Out – Change your prospecting approach to a “3 Taps and Out” strategy. The economy is changing at such a fast rate that your prospecting model needs to be just as fast. Reach out to your top prospects 3 times. If you don’t get any traction, leave them alone for 60-90 days and then go back. It’s very possible that their worlds will have changed and the opportunity door will be open.

What are some resolutions you think hunters should make for 2009?

Nobody really uses gift lists to shop for other people–we look for the cool stuff we would want to receive and hope that the giftee has similar tastes. Because I know that your favorite recipient of gifts this year is you, and that you are a big sale hunter like me, I’m going to help you by assembling a little list of self-gifts (all of which I would want to receive)…

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*A small town in southern Indiana. What did you think I meant?

The power of words…

Grab attention, communicate an idea, provoke, engage, energize… If you hunt large sales, you know that the turn of a phrase or the capturing of a concept hinge on powerful words. I just read Frank Luntz’ article “Words That Pack Power” in the November 3rd issue of BusinessWeek. He picks out five words from the executive lexicon that should be used regularly in the current business world…

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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… (more…)

I was sitting with someone I consider to be a “master” Shaman. She is responsible for a sales organization that produces hundreds of millions of dollars in sales per year. We were discussing the challenges of big hunting boats – This occurs when you have a large whale with many different relationships and lots of sales opportunities. With so much opportunity on the table, so many different touch points and mini-buyer’s tables and ongoing activity, how do you make certain that things do not slip through the cracks and that your boats are operating efficiently? (more…)

I see that Jack Welch just body slammed his hand-picked successor at GE, Jeff Immelt, in the media. Immelt broke sacred trust- he predicted he would hit earnings for the quarter and then surprised his investors by missing the projection.

Whales really don’t like surprises – not that any one else does either. But the stock markets have become ruthless about it, even if the news is better than it was projected to be. It comes down to this: no surprises. Period. However, we forget this cardinal rule a lot when we use the following approaches… (more…)

IN the past few years, during elections candidates have spent millions of dollars getting their persuasive message out to the public in the hopes of being elected. However, polls show that the vast majority of the voting public had already made their decisions early in the race- they were not going to change their votes regardless of what the candidates said or did. Often times, these decisions were down party lines- This meant that the entire race- all the money, debates, advertising and endless media coverage was related to moving a very small number of people from the category of “undecided” to voting for that candidate.
I think about how this is really the same thing for selling and whale hunting- so often in the marketplace we are trying to sell our products, services and solutions to companies who are not going to change- it’s not because of party lines or single-issue voting- but other criteria make parts of the market unmoveable- contracts, reciprocal purchasing practices between companies, procurement processes that are exclusionary and so on. Our job is then to figure out early whether or not a target prospect fits into one of five categories:

1. Loyal customers of ours
2. Loyal/unmoveable customers of our prospects
3. Current customers of our who are open to changing to a different provider
4. Current customers of our competitor’s open to changing to a different provider (hopefully us)
5. Open prospects in the marketplace