The Deal of the Month Podcast Series

The Deal of the Month Podcast Series features interviews with company heads who have recently landed the kind of deals we all covet and crave. The series is designed to give you insight into the inner-workings of the big deals being sold and closed out there every day. More importantly, the story will come directly from the people responsible for closing these deals and they’ll tell you exactly how they did it.

Find out what worked and what didn’t, and pick up key ideas that you might use in your next big sale. These are unscripted and will hopefully add some fun to our exploration of the world of big sale hunts.

Selling Behind Enemy Lines
Featuring: Peter Farrow, CEO/General Manager
Company: Health Cooperative of Eau Claire
Group Health Cooperative of Eau Claire just closed a $22 million piece of business pitching in tough circumstances. They were selling against an entrenched incumbent in a process that was being managed by an outside consultant who was clearly favoring the incumbent. Listen to my interview with CEO Peter Farrow to learn more about the strategy they employed and how they turned this deal around to win it once and for all.

Pitching Steve Ballmer
Featuring: Simon Kelly, COO.
Company: Story Worldwide
Simon Kelly is the COO of Story Worldwide, a brand storytelling company that creates loyal consumer audiences for some of the world’s most-recognized brands, including Lexus, Unilever, Coty, and UPS. In this animated interview, Simon tells me the one about pitching a deal to Steve Ballmer — one of the toughest customers around. This story includes preparation for the big presentation, “the tough question” and being called “stupid” by the man himself. It also includes winning Microsoft’s magazine, moving to the states from England, and some tips to take into consideration when the nicest thing you can say about the prospect is that he’s a "hostile witness."

Old Company; New Market
Featuring: Dan Kemper, President.
Company: Schur Packaging Systems, Inc.
Dan Kemper is the President of Shur Packaging Systems. As the "new" brand on the block in a very mature industry (equipment for the newspaper industry), Dan has had to work through some serious challenges:

• Multi-generational brand loyalty to competitors


• Long sales cycles


• Shrinking market

In this interview, he talks about how he has not only been able to survive, but grow, in the face of these very real challenges.

Being the Expert Among Experts
Featuring: Steve Swanson, COO & VP.
Company: Imperial CRS
Steve Swanson, Chief Operating Officer of Imperial CRS, sells complex pharmaceutical testing support materials globally using the principles we teach in Hunt Big Sales. Recently he returned from a very successful trip to Europe during which his team landed a sale with an important global company. In this interview, Steve discusses the differences between selling domestic and internationally, how to sell to high-level experts from a position of expertise, and what things can make you stand out as a company when doing so.

Print Isn't Dead, But
It Sure Ain't Easy
Featuring: Gina Danner, CEO.
Company: Mail Print
This month's "Deal of the Month” Profile features Gina Danner from Mail Print. Printing is one tough business. Statistics say that there between 3-6% of U.S. printers are going out of business each year. However, Gina's company is growing by focusing on landing large deals. In this interview, she talks about how they changed their message in order to get better access, as well as re-shaped their value proposition to win.

Social Networking for Big Hunters
Featuring: Steve Hershberger, ComBlu Principal.
Company: ComBlu
Steve Hershberger is a visionary in the social networking space. As President of ComBlu, Steve creates the social networking architecture for companies like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Best Buy and many others. He also serves as a chief advisor to LinkedIn, one of the most popular executive social networking sites out there. I was able to get a little bit of his time and have him illuminate the future of social networking and how sales professionals are shaping that future, as well as best practices that lead to social networking successes.

Landing the $20M Account
Featuring: Sean Carney, CEO.
Company: Specialized Services Group
Our first podcast features the story of a $20M deal recently closed by Specialized Services Group. The CEO, Sean Carney, discusses the mistakes he used to make, the missteps that his competitors made this time around, and how he ultimately scored an “easy win.”