-
Start Landing Bigger Deals with Bigger Customers Now! Join Free!
Get advice and toolkits to engage your whole team in sales and business development for bigger deals. Sample with free Basic Membership.
Social Networking
- RSS
-
Popular Topics
Popular Categories
- Big Deals
- Business Deals
- Business Development Strategy
- business development tactics
- Case Studies
- content strategy
- Fatal Sales Failures
- Key Account Management
- Link Recommendations
- News & Events
- RFP
- Sales Development
- Sales Management
- Sales Process
- Sales Tips
- Small Business Advice
- Small Business Growth
- Social Media for Businesses
- The Whale Hunters
- trust
- Uncategorized
- Women in Business
Category Archives: Business Deals
Revive the Spirit in Entrepreneurial Spirit
Let’s talk about being hungry. You want this. You want to be successful. Grow your company. Close that deal. Are you motivated? Yes. Inspired? If you’re like most entrepreneurs, some days are better than others. Many entrepreneurs work so hard for so long, soon the “spirit” part of their entrepreneurial spirit is gone. In order to keep it real, sometimes you need a break. A breather. Renew the sense of purpose with which you started this endeavor. Even taking the smallest moment to get re-energized will help you bring more to the table in your conversations, partnerships and strategy. Continue reading
Posted in Business Deals, Link Recommendations, Sales Development
Tagged business, companies, entrepreneurial spirit, inspiration, motivation, owners, purpose, sales
Five Key Elements of an Initial Sales Call
Here are five key points to consider in preparation to make your initial call on a prospective customer. No, they’re not about putting brochures in a folder or loading up the power point!
Posted in Big Deals, Business Deals, Sales Process, Sales Tips, Women in Business
Tagged B2B sales, meetings, pitch, sales, selling
Learn How Big Companies Buy Like Women
This month’s Expert Series call features guest Expert Holly Buchanan, co-author of The Soccer Mom Myth, owner of the Marketing to Women Online blog, and leading expert on marketing to women.
Continue reading
Fear Trumps Advantage–Every Time!
We had a great whale hunting session working with the Asia/Pacific sales team of an international company. This company specializes in “spend management.” They help their customers significantly reduce their purchasing costs for many goods and services.
In the course of the workshop, this team reached a very interesting and unexpected insight about their most promising business deals, which was this:
We are not closing the proposals that demonstrate the very best ROI for our prospects. In fact, on our very best proposals, where we believe we can have the biggest positive impact for our customers, we are only closing 20%.
How would we explain that apparent anomaly? Something’s going on that they don’t understand.
Continue reading
On Boarding Your New Client Smoothly
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? Continue reading
Posted in Big Deals, Business Development Strategy, Sales Management, Sales Process
Tagged handoff, new client, process, team, The Whale Hunters Process, whale
Who is at the RFP Buyers’ Table?
When you are engaged in a complex sales process in which you are meeting face-to-face with the potential buyers, you know how to interpret what The Whale Hunters calls “The Buyers’ Table”–the literal and figurative table around which your team interacts with people from the whale’s team who will influence the final decision of whether or not to buy from your company.
But when you are engaged in responding to an RFP or RFQ, are you still paying as much attention to the buyers?
Continue reading
Posted in Big Deals, RFP, Sales Process, Women in Business
Tagged B2B sales, RFI, RFP, RFQ, selling
The Pleasant Comfort of Trust
There is nothing more enjoyable than being in comfortable surroundings. In the show Cheers, I am quite certain it wasn’t the just beer that brought Norm to the bar—though it was a nice bonus. Rather, it was the comfort and comradery that he felt at the bar. Norm could be himself and not really give a care. If you remember, the entire group in that bar was extremely open, frank, and much braver within the group than outside of it. Continue reading
My First Whale – Fund Seeking For a College Entrepreneur
When I entered my junior year at Arizona State University, the last thing I thought I’d be doing was starting an entrepreneurial venture. But, when a friend of mine, Tyler Eltringham, came up with an idea, OneShot, and needed someone to help him execute it, I was eager to help apply my skills as a marketing and sustainability major and move forward with this endeavor. Continue reading