Can your small company hunt whales?
GUEST POST BY Barbara Weaver Smith
People ask us, how big does my company have to be to hunt whales? Or, do The Whale Hunters have anything to offer a really small company? Those are good questions.
Many companies start out as whale hunters, their first customer being a government subcontract, a former employer, a franchiser, or a grant-making agency supporting R&D. Even our smallest clients do business with whales such as Dell, Eli Lilly, Cisco, and Sears.
So the answer to the size question is that any-sized company can hunt whales as a strategy for growth. But you have to follow some important principles in order to be successful.
Implement Process
Whale Hunting is 90% process and only 10% magic. The size of your company matters less than your commitment to building disciplined, replicable processes. Entrepreneurs are often long on passion but short on follow-through. If you are not the process person, build a process-oriented team. Designing and managing a rigorous sales and delivery process is your first order of business.
Seek Clarity
To hunt whales, you need a simple, clear message to the market. Decide who you are and what you do for whales and build your message around that. Entrepreneurs like to meet all the needs of all the prospective customers. It won’t work with whales. As you grow, you can diversify, but clarity is key to whale hunting.
Ask for Help
Whales buy as a team and prefer to buy from a team. They want to know the people who will deliver services to them-the subject matter experts. What if you are too small to “launch a boat?” Here are some people to recruit:
- Your banker can reassure the whale that you will have the necessary capital and cash flow to deliver on the deal.
- Your accountant can attest to your ability to manage the financial arrangements at a high level of credibility.
- A member of your board of advisors can reassure the whale that you professional counsel to grow your business and other successful entrepreneurs are backing you.
- You may be outsourcing many IT functions such as accounting, communications, training platforms, etc. An IT provider can reassure the whale that you have selected high quality, scalable services.
- A current customer, who believes in you and wants to help, adds huge credibility to your team.
Prepare to Deliver
Even if what you sold is a product that is already on your shelf or in your warehouse, the sale of a very big order to a whale will challenge your production capabilities, distribution, accounting, and customer service. Be ready! This will require preparation, investment, and commitment.
Manage Risk
Whale hunting is a strategic decision. We advocate a balanced portfolio of accounts in which whales occupy a special place, but not the only place. You cannot safely build your business with only one whale.
Whale hunting combines vision, strategy, and execution. No matter how small you are, you can think and behave like a whale hunter.
About Barbara Weaver Smith
Barbara Weaver Smith, president and CEO of The Whale Hunters, is an author, consultant, speaker, and coach. Barbara held positions as an English professor, a college dean, and a nonprofit organization president before founding her first company in 1996. Informed by her leadership experiences in all economic sectors, Barbara’s mission is to support women to achieve exceptional growth in their companies and organizations by doing bigger deals with bigger customers and partners.
About Whale Hunting Women
Whale Hunting Women-how women do big deals in business and community. For inspiration, motivation, and direction, this book celebrates women as deal-makers and includes how to “break the minnow mindset” and how to create a fast-growth culture. It documents three cultural transformations that favor women’s leadership styles: the trend to replace competition with collaboration; the need to transform bureaucracy to entrepreneurship; and the value of perceiving a world of abundance rather than a culture of scarcity. The book offers advice on how small companies or organizations can manage their public presence to generate the whales’ confidence that they have the capabilities and professionalism to complete big deals with big customers and partners. The book incorporates a deal-maker’s journal; each chapter includes worksheets to prompt reflections and action plans.
Thank you for visiting this post about Barbara Weaver Smith and Whale Hunting Women. We are offering a free giveaway to two people who comment during the tour. It is simple to be entered in the giveaway - just post a comment on any post about the tour and you will be entered. But, an interesting post is more likely to get our attention. To see the tour schedule visit http://virtualblogtour.blogspot.com/2009/04/whale-hunting-with-barbara-weaver-smith.html
Barbara Weaver Smith’s website - http://www.thewhalehunters.com
Barbara Weaver Smith’s blog - http://blog.thewhalehunters.com
Order your copy of Whale Hunting Women - http://cli.gs/WHWEbook
