Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company - Hardcover

by Tom Searcy (Author), Barbara Weaver Smith (Author)

Using the ancient Inuit whale hunt as a metaphor for big sales, Whale Hunting gives you a clear nine-phase model for successfully finding, landing, and harvesting whale-sized sales accounts--the kind of sales that transform your business. Here, you'll learn how to turn the dangerous endeavor of selling to large companies and big contracts into a strategy for continued success and growth. Stop wasting time with little accounts and start landing monster accounts.

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For thousands of years, the Inuit people of thefrozen North have risked life and limb to hunt thebiggest game on earth--the mighty whale. They endure treacherous seas, frigid temperatures, and deadly ice floes for days at a time in order to catch these elusive and massive mammals. Why risk so much when they could have fish and caribou so much more easily?Because a single whale can provide a village with food and oil to last an entire year.

Would you hunt small game day-in and day-out, when you could hunt the biggest prize of them all every year?

It's the same in the sales business; small fish will keep you fed, but landing each whale-size account can fill your corporate belly for years. Hunting the biggest, most profitable deals is no easy task, and if your targetescapes, you'll lose time and resources. But the payoff is almost always worth your risk and effort.

Whale Hunting provides a clear, step-based model for successfully finding, landing, and harvesting whale-size accounts--the kinds of accounts that transform your business. For small and mid-market companies especially, whale hunting can mean the differencebetween merely surviving and thriving spectacularly. But you have to be smart, and you have to be prepared. This revolutionary, one-of-a-kind sales guide will show you how to:

• Scout your best prospects, learn all you can about them, and get their attention

• Hunt your whale using a cross-functional team ofexperts throughout the process of selling and closing the deal

• Harvest new accounts by delivering superior service and setting the stage for future long-term business

Whale Hunting isn't a theoretical or experimental take on sales, but a proven, practical system that has earned $2 billion in new sales for the authors and their clients. The secret to success in today's fast-moving corporate environment is to find and land the biggest creatures in the sea. Why spend all your time reeling in smallaccounts, when you could land big accounts regularly and predictably?

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Praise for Whale Hunting

"Whale Hunting is required reading for anyone who is going after the big fish in a market. Engaging, practical, and well organized, it is simply the best book on major account selling out there. Someone once said that confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and bringing the mayonnaise. Whale Hunting gives you the tools to pursue big deals with that kind of confidence."
--Keith R. McFarland, author of The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers

"I meet with the leaders of thousands of entrepreneurial companies every year from around the world. Every one of them is looking for ways to grow faster, smarter. The straightforward Whale Hunting system gives companies a road map for landing the elusive anchor accounts--the big accounts that let them get to the next level of people, services, and revenue. Searcy and Smith have put the key principles together to learn how, with the power of the remarkable story of the Inuit whale hunt. This is an entrepreneur's must-read!"
--Dr. Tom Hill, coauthor of the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Entrepreneur's Soul

Author Biography

Tom Searcy and Dr. Barbara Weaver Smith are founders of The Whale Hunters, a sales and business process development company dedicated to strategies for rapid business growth. Building on Searcy's experience in leading four companies through accelerated growth in sales and revenue and Smith's background in managing the culture of growth, they help their clients grow quickly by engaging their entire company in selling and delivering big deals with large companies.