Prospecting For Whales: 3 keys to increasing the number of high revenue larger profit type accounts you close.
They are out there. Large high revenue bigger profit accounts. Whales.
“We have plenty of business, are growing rapidly and our profits are more than OK… but we seem shut out of the next level premier type business we desire. What can we do?”
Well, you use the same appointment setting system that generated the growth, revenue and profits you have now. Same system… same steps… but with a few twists.
You will still need to highly target your calls.
You will still comply with the rule of 7.
You will use the same appointment setting script formats.
You will be prepared for the same forms of resistance.
You will use a “Plan B.”
To land more whales you will use the same system and steps… but you will give more emphasis and apply more pressure at different leverage points of the process.
Prospecting for whales requires more focus at 3 leverage points.
1. Your Suspect Pool.
Your typical suspect pool to call may theoretically be businesses of $2+ million in revenue… you might consider a “whale” to have $50+ million in revenue. If 5% of your typical suspect pool might be a whale — you need to change that percentage.
You must take actions so that 20%, 33%, 50% or more of your prospecting time is focused on possible whales.
CAUTION. When you “re-aim the gun” like this you reduce the non-whale type business you generate. Be ready to accept this or add resources so that you numerically increase the number of whales you target without decreasing your non-whale prospecting.
2. Your Scripts and Inquiry Offer.
There are reasons why whales are whales and non-whales are non-whales. It’s not an accident. At one time whales were non-whales. They think and act differently.
So the credibility statements you deliver, the names you drop, the offer you make to get a whale to “raise their hand” from the crowd, must be altered to impact whales.
You will use the same “set the appointment” and “respond to objections” script formats, but change the words for more impact among whales.
3. Your Plan B and The Time Reality.
Alas, most people who successfully change at the first two leverage points will drop the ball here. They fail to adjust to the whale time reality.
Whales take longer to reel in. There is much more noise surrounding whales that you must penetrate to get their serious attention.
That means your currently successful Plan B will typically not be effective enough to catch whales. You will need to double or triple the number of touches, alter the frequency of those touches and create new reports and “touches” of special interest to whales.
Most people have unrealistic expectations as to the cycle time to convert a whale inquiry to a closed whale account. This is particularly unfortunate because these time reality changes are actually the simplest and easiest to make.
Happy fishing!!
Scott Channell
