Conrey is for Closers

Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company
is a book that I picked up after attending the Whale Hunters’ first seminar in Phoenix. The company was put together with the assistance of a local marketing agency to capitalize on the book and provide consulting to sales people and companies looking for big deals. Both authors are well known in the sales field for focusing on big deals – I’ve quoted Tom Searcy here before – and I had read things from them before.

The book starts off with an analogy tying the sales team to an Inuit Village. The conclusion is that you can fish every day to eat or you can catch a whale and eat for a year. The analogy is carried throughout the process they lay out to go about hunting these bigger deals. Over all a solid book for a salesman or team in a smaller company who is looking to take things to the next level.

Things I like: Easy to follow analogy, the book flows well and has practical examples.
Things I didn’t like: Too many specific examples from author’s previous consulting (feels overly self-congratulatory), too many forms and tables that spill over multiple pages.

4 out of 5

I’ve been doing a good bit of reading and thinking lately about targeting bigger clients for Integrum. Bigger names, bigger contract amounts, bigger recognition. I was reminded though in this blog post from Tom Searcy:

Money doesn’t care where it came from. The best way to measure your business success is not by the logos, but by the zeros.”

Its not about the names, the logos, the recognition. Its not about chasing the big names to make a difference for your company. At the end of the day your company doesn’t know the difference between the Nike logo or the Reebok logo, but they’ll notice the size of the check that comes in from your work with them.

Work to close the big deal, not the big name.

If you have a goal and no one knows about it – do you think you’ll get it done? Odds are you won’t. I know that my publicly announced goals are far more likely to be accomplished than ones I keep in my head. In that vein, and in the spirt of Bully‘s and Tyler‘s posts – here are five of my goals for the rest of 2010:

I will close a deal that generates $250,000 or more revenue for Integrum.
I will read 50 books this year.
I will continue to provide volunteer time to help shape and assist community powers like Gangplank, Fractal, Dojo, and PIF.
I will start a podcast to run alongside this blog to continue my creative growth and development.
I will help at least one other business besides Integrum by helping to implement a sales process to continue my professional development.

What’s on your list this year?