Get in the Loop
Get in the Loop
In sales, what you know is as important as who. Build your knowledge base with regular updates from Tom and the other pros at Hunt Big Sales, and watch your successes grow along with your grey matter.
Full Name:
Email Address:
Please add my name to your free email newsletter subscription.
Please let me know when the new book is released.
Please send me a brief email when the blog is updated.
Maybe Later  |  No Thanks



Secrets of a 40-Hour Week Harpooner 1

Villages, boats and chiefs celebrate the harpooner who gets them close to the whale opportunity- and that is it. These groups may be grateful for the participation in the company's meetings and pleased about your "work ethic" and team player attitude, but the true gratitude goes to the harpooner who brings them a whale to hunt. So, the harpooner's job is to leverage every minute that he or she has for this effort alone and get out of every other activity that he or she can.

As a $10 million dollar+ harpooner, I have learned a few things along the way about being successful in this role that I want to share.
  • Networking events are a waste - The vast majority of networking events are attended by mid to low-level management in organizations. Those people are there to find new contacts and are starting out lower in the prospect companies out of fear with the hope of making new friends and working their way up. The fact is that "players" avoid these events. They send their people to the events so that they can maximize their own time in meaningful conversation with people with whom they are going to do business or with whom they are already doing business. Cocktail hours, breakfasts, and sessions that are called "networking" are decent for general scouting and information gathering, but are very rarely helpful in hunting whales. There are some notable exceptions - Galas, black-tie events, awards ceremonies and so on. The simple rule is that if you don't have a senior person from the buyer's table identified to meet at the event before the event, it is probably a waste of time.

  • Trade show floors are for farmers - Notice that I said trade show floors- Trade shows themselves can be awesome for hunting whales- but very little whale hunting happens on the floor. Decision-makers are booked for meals and meetings off of the trade show floor. Great harpooners book their meetings at the trade show weeks in advance with the buyer's table members that they want to connect with. The purpose of the meeting, the location and attendees for your session are all identified before the trade show. Working a booth waiting for big business to walk in and ask, "so what do you guys do?" is a fool's errand. Sure, every one has the story of the one time when this happened and it is legendary in the company sales lore. But the truth is that this is a rarity- if you want to up your odds of success, spend all of your trade show time off of the floor with whales.

  • Turn internal meetings into phone calls and internal phone calls into emails - Rarely have I found a greater waste of time than meetings. They are most often information exchanges that could be better handled through e-mail and better designed reports that provide the necessary information to all parties. "Keeping people in the loop" and "management by walking around" are concepts of a different era- An era that was thicker in management time and thinner in digital tools. Now the key is to use meetings for decisions and digital tools for communication. For harpooners, productivity is measured in movement towards whales. This is the focus of your time and the measurement of your success.

  • Hunt in the morning, serve in the afternoon, rest and plan at night - Control of your time is the issue. If you start your day by opening your e-mail, you have already given up control of the first 2 hours if not the first half of your day. A simple rule for yourself is - no email in the morning. If you clean out your email by the end of the day, then you can leave it unopened in the morning and drive your own agenda- The same can be said for phone calls. You have caller I.D., use it. Just because the phone rings does not mean that you have to answer it. To hunt whales, you have to set the time aside and do only that. I know that you have responsibilities to your current clients and those responsibilities include responsiveness. That is why I am recommending that you leave your afternoons open for serving clients and responding to requests.

    I have to admit that I am not always great at "rest at night." I get sucked into email- but the more productive efforts for the evening when you are on the road are in planning the next day's and week's hunting work.

  • Aim small, miss small - Finally, pick your targets through the Target Filter and Whale Chart processes. Your role is not to paddle around in the ocean hoping to find a whale. Your job is to target a specific identified whale in the market for which you know your company is a near-perfect fit. Connect with the Buyer's Table, generate interest and bring the boat up along side. This requires the discipline of working a very small number of whales at a time.

  • Reports are for you, and not just the Shaman - Lots of Harpooners see reports as a necessary evil. In the worst scenario, Harpooners feel threatened that the transparency of reports creates a risk that the parent firm will be able to "steal" the information, and the Harpooner's value will be reduced. Great Harpooners understand that keeping score is how we measure movement level success, and provides personal accountability for making things happen.

These few simple rules have helped me and other successful harpooners to guide boats to better whales faster.


— Tom Searcy





Tom Searcy, The Whale Hunters Company, Large Account Sales, Business Growth, Sales Process Development, Fast Growth Strategies, RFPs, Key Account Management, Current Account Growth, Sales Management, Breaking Business Growth Plateau's, Prospecting System, Business Acceptance Process, Sales Management Development, Big Sales, Big Deals, Deal Coaching, Transform your company, Explosive Growth, Whale Hunting

FOOTNOTE: 1 COPYRIGHT 2006-2008, THE WHALE HUNTERS, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.