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They are hosting an Intro to Whale Hunting at 12:00 - 1:00 pm.  This is a free event with light refreshments served.  You can register for this event here: Open Registration--Free Event

Later in the same day you are invited to cocktails and hors d'oeuves at Capital Grille from 4:30-5:30 pm.  This event requires a $30 registration fee for food and beverages.  You can register here: Open Registration

 

Rosemary Brehm, president of turningpoints2results, is an entrepreneur and expert in helping organizations accelerate their potential into profitable results by focusing on five key shifts in their businesses: strategic business performance; leadership alignment; team dynamics; customer intimacy, and competitive positioning.   In addition to her consulting services, Rosemary is certified as a Professional Facilitator (CPF) through the International Association of Facilitators.

Rosemary was founding Chair of the Tampa Bay Women President’s Organization and served that group from 2003-2009. She is a member of the International Association of Facilitators; the Senior HRD Forum; ASTD; and the Organizational Development SIG.  She holds a Certificate in Training and Development from New York University and a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the State University of New York at Geneseo.

With over 22 years of experience in leading business development and sales efforts for Technology, Software, and Outsourcing solutions, Brian Zaas has a background in business operations optimization, systems integration, custom application development and technology leadership.  He has been responsible for driving global business development and professional service efforts for leading Fortune 500 corporations including Fujitsu, CA, and MCI-Worldcom as well as start-up growth for Pilgrim Software, Best Programs Telcordia, and most recently is leading efforts for Enterprise Solutions with Avineon.

He has led strategic and innovative solution areas for Fortune 500 and emerging growth customers in need of IT, technology, outsourcing and the infrastructure management.  Brian has also consulted with market leaders across a number of industries on leadership, pipeline development, innovation, and sales in new product development and market penetration focusing on large, complex deals. 

The Whale Hunters are proud to introduce these new Certified Whale Hunters Patners who will provide services to the Tampa business community.

 

Would you like to join our team?

The Whale Hunters needs Chapter Chairs in several metropolitan markets.   The Whale Hunters provides a turnkey program that has the potential for immediate income. When you become a certified Whale Hunters Partner, you become a member of an elite team that may chair one or more local chapters of business leaders, deliver workshops, consult or coach. The Whale Hunters is a scalable, flexible opportunity with a low cost of entry and high return.

Qualified candidates are entrepreneurial, well-connected in the small business community, excellent in sales, and able to facilitate a group of strong-minded business leaders.

If you or someone you know would be interested in learning more about opening a Whale Hunters chapter in metropolitan area, please contact us at chapters@thewhalehunters.com or call 480-239-6902.

The trickiest part of whale hunting for small and midsize companies is to capture your sale: deliver your products and services as promised once you’ve made the sale. Big contracts with big customers are not business as usual for many companies. Smaller companies are often long on energy and enthusiasm but short on operational processes, policies, and rules. And big customers have higher expectations than many of your smaller customers have.

So, how do you bring a new whale on board smoothly?

·         Collaborate. You need a seamless handoff from the sales and contract negotiation team to the delivery team(s). The more complex the sale, the more people need to be involved in the on-boarding process. Depending on your size, it’s an individual, a team leader, or an area head that needs to be represented on the intake team.

·         Document. If you don’t have a detailed intake process, create one as you are serving this new whale. Assign someone to assist the project manager by capturing all the details of what your teams are doing, what the whale team is asking for, and how things are moving forward. Document any pitfalls or unforeseen problems.

·         Communicate. Share progress on at least a weekly basis; daily if necessary in the earliest stages. Communicate internally with your team and externally with the whale’s team. Implement a formal process of communication and document all of your interactions.

·         Escalate. If anyone or any team runs into problems, these need to be brought to the attention of higher management immediately. Leaders need to cultivate a culture in which people are encouraged to report problems rather than fearful of being criticized or worse. If a serious problem occurs, such as a serious lapse in your ability to deliver at the next step, your CEO should address it promptly and honestly with the whale while the team sets about to rectify.

·         Debrief. Regularly discuss your progress with an eye to improving for the next time. Note problems and successes. Pay attention to deficiencies on the whale team as well as problems and opportunities on your own side. If the whale team is hard to pin down, for example, that may indicate a typical problem that you will encounter for which you need to devise more effective tactics. Include everyone who touches the whale in the debrief sessions.

When you master your intake process for new large accounts, your whales will be happy and give you repeat business, your team will gain confidence and poise, and your company will grow.

One of my long-time business friends called recently with a whale hunting problem. He is in the software development and training business and has had several whale-sized clients over the years.

This time, however, the prospect refused to sign his company’s standard contract in favor of their own. And this contract was onerous. In particular, it stated that the whale company would own all rights to any materials created for them or modified for them. The seller would technically no longer have the right to re-sell templates or standard software that had been customized in any way for this customer. They would also lose the right to include this customer’s bugs and fixes, anonymously, in their ongoing FAQ materials available to all customers.

Furthermore, the small company’s hesitancy on this contract was making the whale angry and the deal seemed about to slip away.

He asked what I thought he should do? Here are a few ideas I offered:

1.    It’s very common for a big company to have a very different view of contracts than the small company does. Sometimes you will have requirements in your standard contract that no large company is going to sign, period. Other times, you will be faced as my friend was with a contract that frightens you. If you want to complete your big sales, you’ll have to find a way to come to terms quickly.

2.    Big companies have staff lawyers; maybe you don’t. If not, be sure that you consult regularly with an attorney who specializes in entrepreneurial ventures and will come to understand your business. Have your attorney review the contract with an eye to any pitfalls. Now is not the time to save money—invest in some good advice.

3.    If the attorney’s advice is ambiguous, you’ll just have to decide how much you want this business. Is it likely that the customer could or would cause you real trouble down the road contractually, or are they just using boilerplate language to protect their own interests? If there seems to be real danger, now is the time to say no. But if any danger is remote and unlikely, and otherwise you want to do the business, get the contract signed.

4.    Once you begin doing the work, be scrupulous about following the rules of the contract. If issues arise that are not clear-cut, negotiate them and get agreement in writing.

Contracts between big and small companies are tedious because each faces different kinds and levels of risk, regulation, and responsibility. If you routinely have problems negotiating a contract with a large customer, work on your own contract to make it more familiar to the whales.

Have you ever lost a job through contract negotiations? Have you signed a contract that proved to be a mistake? Post your comments below.

 

• you can beat the field on unique past experience (and don't kid yourself!)
• you can beat the field on a unique plan of work (which will save money)
• you know what the current provider is being paid (and you can beat it)
• you are the incumbent (and you can leverage the relationship)

• Explore your bidding history.  What are the proposals in which you have lost out on price?  Do you have detailed feedback on pricing and other elements of your proposal?  If so, use them going forward.
   
• Find and use data.  Be certain that you understand standard pricing for sales in your industry, especially pricing among your large competitors.
   
• Hire a consultant.  Use a pricing expert to help you consider options and to understand the competition.
   
• Take more training.  For government contracts especially, many training programs are available for your team to learn more about costs and pricing for government business at the local, state, and federal levels.
   
• Match your deliverables to the requirements.  When you must compete on price, don't add any frills or "nice to haves."  Stick with the minimum requirements and price aggressively.

• First, Frances Hesselbein spent years at the Peter Drucker Institute, helping to translate Drucker's business principles into leadership strategies for nonprofit and public organizations.  I believe that leadership lessons for your company are best derived from lessons learned in each economic sector--from the private sector we learn best about markets and competition, from the public sector we learn best about national interests and service, and from the nonprofit sector we learn best about social responsibility.  The better we can become at aligning these lessons, the more powerful and successful we will be as leaders in every sector.
   
• Second, it is very good to see the US Armed Forces continuing on their path to a broader definition of "leadership" -- one that goes beyond military strategy to embrace a deep understanding of language, culture, and place as key elements in a military engagement.  Increasingly, these are key elements of a business engagement in the global economy.  We should expect lessons learned from this alliance that will enlighten business leaders in new ways.
   
• Finally, I am pleased to see Frances Hesselbein recognized in this way for her phenomenal career's work.  Formerly head of the Girl Scouts of America, she has been a beacon for leadership education that embraces women and girls yet is not exclusive to women and girls.  She is a powerful role model for women business owners and entrepreneurs, demonstrating that collaborative, team-based strategies have their own source of power and can supersede top-down directive strategies.

• First thing you need to know is how the government defines "small business."  In most industries, the category includes businesses with as many as 500 employees.  So if you are much smaller, and much newer, than the competition, the odds are heavily stacked against you unless you have a product or service that the government wants and no one else offers yet.
   
• The idea of presenting yourself as a subcontractor rather than prime is especially relevant.  Prime contractors need to demonstrate their inclusion of small businesses including women-owned and minority-owned firms.  Companies in those categories that are professional, reliable, and knowledgeable about government contracting are at a premium.  Rather than working directly for a local, state, or federal government, you work for the contractor.
   
• If the subcontractor route interests you, build a sales process that targets prime contractors, not government agencies.  You will need a completely different approach and message.
   
• If you have not done business deals with public agencies, understand that there is a great deal to learn.  Everything from how to respond to the RFP to how to invoice and track expenses will be new and foreign.  If you are not ready, the requirements can  undermine your company seriously.  Even as a subcontractor, you will need to contribute meaningfully to the proposal.

An excellent article in the Sunday, July 12 Washington Post called Fixing the Economy?  It's Women's Work.

It's a good one because it references a number of responsible studies, and because it is more about why companies need a leadership team that includes women than it is about women taking over.  I have been observing and saying for a long time that women often demonstrate superior skills and talents that are required for the 21st century economy.  Nice to be pointed to more research supporting that observation.

In my whale hunting practice, companies with women owners and/or CEOs have been especially successful in implementing the collaborative, team-based process that we promote.  I have also had very successful engagements in which women and men are both represented at the management table.

Conversely, I have been involved in very frustrating engagements in which there were no women in leadership--no women on the executive team, no women on the board, no women with serious P&L responsibility, no women in sales management, no women or only one or two women on the sales team.  It was also the case that these leadership teams had no other kind of diversity, either--no people of color, no international people, few people who were born or raised or educated in different parts of the country. In some cases there was a diverse employee group, but it didn't extend to the leadership/management team.

What characterized the all-male teams was a top-down view of leadership--the view that only a few people in the company had the knowledge, experience, and wisdom to lead.

What characterized the more diverse teams was a desire to embrace more collaborative, team-oriented process to draw on all their employees' talents for business development and sales.

Now I want to pay attention to what it's like when the entire leadership team is female.  Haven't had that engagement yet, but I suspect that if there is insufficient diversity of experience and opinion and gender, it would be a flawed team--just flawed in different ways.  Today's business needs, however, will certainly favor an all-female team over a team that is all male.

So all you small and mid size business leaders who are whale hunting--read this article and consider how your company can accelerate its growth through a more diverse management and governance team.

Has the recession affected your spending habits?

These are not questions that affect my business life or even my "balanced" life.  Ladies Home Journal cornered that market a long time ago, and People covers the dirt on public figures.  If these are questions of interest related to business, they are not gender-specific.  Could you possibly imagine an invitation to male business owners based upon questions like these?

The Forbes Fiasco comes right on the heels of Dell's incredible faux pas in launching the "Della."

But this blog is about sales and business development, so I need a link from my real anger at Forbes to some positive ideas or actions for business owners and sales leaders.  Especially women, but this is equally important for men.

In the jargon of my business, Forbes is a whale--a big company with a big reach, a big media reach.  It matters when major businesses screw up like this.   Business people around the world--owners, entrepreneurs, executives, employees, students, wannabe's--they look to Forbes for insight, support, advice, and current events, and not incidentally, the current business environment in the United States.   What is the message?  The message is that in the midst of a very difficult global economic climate, the American business women are busy standing by their men who cheat and lie, focusing on their office outfits, buying make-up and shoes, and making their daughters rich.  That is not a good message or a remotely true message!

I am an advisor to small and midsized business about how to grow by doing bigger deals with bigger clients.  It is ALL about understanding your target customer and presenting yourself in a way that is attractive to them, meets their needs, does not annoy them, and does not frighten them.  This offer I received from Forbes violates all of those criteria.

So before you make the Forbes mistake, my advice is to consult with your target audience about their business interests, their business needs, their business challenges and their perceived opportunities. 

The people at Forbes are obviously trying to get on the very popular and lucrative women-in-business bandwagon.  I applaud their motives and hope they will find a way to be successful.  But here's just a quick laundry list of topics that would be oh-so-much more interesting to business women:
 

• who are the lenders and investment bankers targeting women-owned businesses?
• how can your company get involved in the federal stimulus package?
• How are female leaders and employees responding to downsizing and outsourcing? 
• What can you do when you are downsized or outsourced?
• How can business owners mitigate the recession influence on their employees?
• what are the most promising new business fields or opportunities of particular interest to women?

• "Creative Class" cities with lots of entrepreneurial activity, well-networked, open to new ideas and hungry for economic development, business growth, and community engagement.
   
• Local representatives/Chapter Chairs.  Key people with good community connections, strong sales and business development experience, entrepreneurial spirit, to assist in convening the Whale Hunters Launch in your region and to populate and lead one or more local chapters of 12-15 members.  You may be an independent consultant, a coach, a trainer, an entrepreneur? 
   
• Members of local chapters and prospective attendees at local workshops.  You don't want to lead but would like to see Whale Hunters services delivered close to you at prices you can afford. 
   
• Sponsors.  National and local business owners, executives, and marketers who want to be in front of The Whale Hunters target audience of small to mid-size business owners, sales executives, and development officers.  We are grateful to Bose McKinney & Evans for sponsoring the Indianapolis summit  and delighted to announce the National Bank of Arizona as our lead sponsor for the Phoenix launch.
   
• Communication Partners.  National and local organizations that can help us market Whale Hunters events and related opportunities.  Chambers of Commerce, TV and radio, digital broadcast programs, business journals, for sure.  Also local/regional businesses willing to co-sponsor and share their digital database in a mutually beneficial fashion.

The Whale Hunting Women Summit in Indianapolis was a great success on Thursday June 4.  More than 175 awesome business and professional women attended, with some very self-assured men in our midst!

In a new format this year, we had two sessions of "voices and vignettes," each featuring three women talking about one or more big deals in their lives and how they handled both the adversity and the opportunity.  We also had two keynote speakers (plus me!).

I wanted to share my most memorable take-aways from these women, who spoke from their hearts and their experiences about how they've done deals in big business and small business and sales and community, as entrepreneurs, philanthropists, sales professionals, speakers, and educators.

The deals they've done are very diverse--taking on new careers, launching new businesses, building and turning around nonprofit community organizations--building things, raising money, creating powerful partnerships.

These are five themes that I heard over and over, from the lives of whale hunting women:

1.  "Can't" is a catalyst

When someone else says "you can't" -- whale hunting women have transformed that negative feedback into a fierce motivation to complete a goal.  The closer to you that person is, perhaps the stronger is your motivation to prove the prophecy wrong.

2.  "Shouldn't" is a spark

Often the people closest to you are afraid of what will happen to them if you succeed; hence they encourage you not to try.  Whale hunting women have transformed the "should not" into a powerful "must."

3.  "Boat" is a blessing

The Whale Hunters use the metaphor of "the boat" to indicate those co-workers, friends, and supporters who are on board to support you in landing a big deal.  Whale hunting women populate and launch their boats.  You cannot hunt whales alone!

4.  Learning is Leverage

Our speakers have a very wide range of formal education, from almost none to a whole lot.  Most of them have changed careers several times.  In every case, they sought out new learning opportunities, applied to their needs, and self-directed--including formal and informal learning and training.

5.  Despair breeds determination.

We heard some stories of times of true despair--women who faced physical danger, who dealt with economic ruin, who were betrayed by people they trusted.  In these stories of survival, women were able to channel their despair into a determination to change their circumstances.

As I look back at these lessons, I am struck by how often there was a very negative event or circumstance that inspired a woman to take a bold new step, regardless of her fear or negative feedback.

So in these scary economic times, if you are grappling with any  demons or big-stretch opportunities,  take heart from the whale hunting women who shared their stories to inspire others.

Soon we will have video and still photos of the Summit to share with you. 

I'll use the blog forum one more time to announce the Whale Hunting Women Summit in Indianapolis next week.  Thursday, June 4, 8:00 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.  45 minutes of networking prior to the 8:45 program start, with plenty of time during the morning to interact with more than 150 other local and regional women.  In fact, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio are also represented!

There's lots more info at The Whale Hunters website as well as a link to online registration.

The Summit offers inspiration, motivation, and practical advice on how to do bigger deals in your business or in community affairs.

Awesome speakers--Angie's list founder Angie Hicks; Indiana Fever coach Lin Dunn; Ultimate Sales Chick Brooke Green; Referral Institute CEO Hazel Walker, and several more.

The Whale Hunters will present four "Big Deal" awards to women in business, education, community, and .  Say tuned for announcement of the wnners. 

Indiana University announced yesterday the biggest technology transfer deal in its history: the sale of Angel Learning to Blackboard for $100 million.

This is a great example of what I define as a "whale hunt" that starts out as a collaborative project rather than a sale, per se.  Here's briefly how it happened.  A professor and student team at IUPUI (Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis) developed a technology named OnCourse to enable faculty to provide online courses and other learning experiences.  That system enabled IU to become one of the national leaders in online courses and degree programs. 

As part of the university's technology transfer programs--designed to commercialize promising inventions by university faculty through university/industry collaborations--Angel Learning was founded less than 10 years ago.  It was nurtured in the university's first incubator in Bloomington, IN, and currently resides at the Emerging Technology Center that houses the Indiana University Research and Technology Corporation in Indianapolis.

Indiana University stands to gain $23 million from the sale, funds that will be reinvested in research and commercial development or promising technologies invented by its faculty.

I was very fortunate to have a role in this story along the way.  In 2001, Bill Plater, who was then Vice Chancellor for Academics and Dean of the Faculties at IUPUI, engaged my company Smith Weaver Smith to guide a faculty team to create a 10-year educational technology plan for the campus.  We involved faculty from many campus departments to participate in collaborative planning sessions, and we invited industry leaders and training coordinators to bring their perspective to the faculty's ideas.  A major component of the resulting plan was the recommendation to continue investing in the fledgling OnCourse technology to support teaching and learning.

Whale Hunting is sometimes much bigger than a sale or a business development opportunity.  This is community and economic development from the ground up, involving not just one company but a community of educators, business development specialists, industry leaders, end users, and researchers.  It is complex.  It is collaborative.  It requires that people with very different skill sets and perspectives learn how to understand one another and undertake a common goal.  It works when supported by great process and planning and a commitment to long-term investment.

Congratulations to IU and the IUPUI team for getting this right.  This has been a big week for technology in Indiana--Exact Target's $70 million funding and IU's $100 million sale!

This was the week Susan Boyle captivated the world in her first appearance on Britain’s Got Talent.  She’s a great illustration of a whale hunter—going after the biggest deal she can imagine, despite being nervous and unsure of how she would be received. She’s a perfectly lovely woman, natural as can be, dressed in her Sunday best and ready to perform. But since she doesn't’t fit the mold of what we’ve come to think of as star quality, no one took her seriously until she sang.

I say Susan Boyle is a perfect whale hunter because when her opportunity finally came, she was ready! She has as beautiful a natural voice as I’ve ever heard. But when she took the stage, it was clear that she has practiced and honed her talent, as she said “since I was twelve.” Her delivery, elocution, timing, crescendo—all facets of her performance were impeccable. During all the years of her “ordinary” life—caring for her mother, doing charity, living with her cat—she was educating her voice and preparing for a day when she could land a whale with it.

We say that whale hunting is 90% process and 10% magic. There is no question that Susan Boyle had some magic—the magic of her voice, the magic of her simplicity, the magic of confounding people's expectations. But what really put her there was process, and what gave her the bravery to sing before an audience of 3000 people in Glasgow was the knowledge that she was prepared. Just before her appearance, she told the host “I’m going to make that audience rock!”

Susan Boyle is not a business woman or a professional speaker or an entrepreneur.  She most likely did not think of her performance as a sale or the audience as a Buyers' Table.

She does prove that small fish can hunt whales with perseverance, preparation, and guts. More than 26 million views on YouTube last I checked.  Every one waiting for her first recording!

• This book, written by a woman, about women's business successes, attracted a predominantly female network of support (kudos to men who helped as well!).
• MGM and her publicity team supported viral media with many personal contacts via telephone, email, blog visits, etc.  They were engaged and generous.
• Value proposition was delivered for supporters--to date I have had 33 downloads of the book I offered [coming soon at The Whale Hunters] with names/email addresses for each.
• MGM "celebrated the whale" -- thank you notes delivered very promptly and warmly to all who helped.

Today I’m starting a blog series on The Whale Hunters Process. It's a how-to process for landing big sales with customers that are much bigger than you! It consists of three stages—scout, hunt, and harvest—and nine phases, illustrated below.

• It is a strategic business development methodology for explosive growth.
• It meets the needs of entrepreneurs and small business owners and executives who want to have fewer, larger sales to increasingly larger customers. 
• It assumes that you have a complex sale, not a simple transaction.  You are selling a service, a system, or a combination of products and support, training, or consulting.
• It includes subject matter experts as part of the sales team.
• It assumes that the sales process is not complete until the contract has been fulfilled.
• It provides everyone in your company with a defined role in selling and delivering your products and services.