Our Blog: where do you stand?

I'm reading "Whale Hunting: How to Land Big Sales and Transform Your Company" by Tom Searcy and Barbara Weaver Smith.

Our CEO, Cathy Dunkin, has seen Tom Searcy speak, has purchased several copies of the book to share, and is leading our team in discussions about the book's whale-hunting process and what it means for Standing. Below are my reflections on the first section of the book.

As the title implies, the book draws upon the experiences of the Inuit culture and their whale hunting techniques to provide an analogy (and the processes necessary) to help companies learn how to successfully hunt and catch whale-sized business opportunities. Searcy and Smith admit that "whale hunting" is not for everyone, but for the right company and culture it can make good business sense. They give three reasons paraphrased here:

• 1. Whales (i.e., big accounts) offer economies of scale;
• 2. The prestige of landing a whale helps attract other large accounts; and
• 3. Landing whales enables business transformation via increased market share, enhanced reputation and greater resources and expands a company's realm of influence.

OK, so all that sounds good. But what prevents so many small- to-mid-sized companies from growing into successful whale hunters? Here's what I consider to be one of the many gems in the book: The authors state that "Many, if not most, of the practices that have propelled your [company's] growth thus far represent the practices that will keep [your company] at the level you have achieved."

I read that statement as resistance to change. How do we shed the practices, processes and culture that got us to where we are today, in order to break through to the next level? Surely it must start with employees.

Searcy and Smith say companies should invest at least a year to change their culture into successful whale-hunters. One year sounds long. Why not just hire a whale hunter?

As I thought about that, I remembered the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) Super Bowl commercial. In which they state, "Your most important business assets walk out the door every night. Our job is to help make sure they come back every morning."

Hmm. That's every employee - a company's most important business asset. So if this is true (and I'd like to think it is) then it makes sense to retrain employees in order to reframe how the company goes after new business. (After all, you'll still need those who know how to deliver your product.)

What we're talking about is cultural shift. Let's face it. People are generally most comfortable with what's familiar. Change can be unsettling. It's obvious to me that successful whale hunting requires clear, frequent employee communications. Scratch that. Employee dialog.

At Standing, we help organizations and companies engage with their various audiences - employees being one of the most important - after all, if they don't believe in what you sell, who will? One of our clients, Maritz, handles internal communications remarkably well. A few years ago they benchmarked employee attitudes, communications vehicles and overall corporate culture. They identified opportunities for improvement, eliminated programs that were underperforming and added or revamped those with potential. Today, Maritz uses two-way dialog to engage its employees and build understanding of how individual employees can impact the organization.

While most of "Whale Hunting" deals with the process of hunting, capturing and celebrating the success of landing large new business accounts (and I intend to share more on the book later), clearly communicating with, training, motivating and rewarding employees must be foundational. So before the hunt begins, let's make sure everyone understands and can perform their roles.