Hunt Big Sales has had the privilege of working with companies that run the gamut—no matter the industry at hand, we offer tried and true techniques with a tight focus on the importance of market capitalization and strategies to grow business. See how our work reshapes businesses’ trajectories by providing the blueprint toward increased sales.
Case Study: BMWC
BUSINESS SUMMARY
BMWC was founded in 1955. It had new leadership with lofty growth goals, but knew that with its current business development process, internal resources, and lower conversion rates, those numbers were going to be a long shot. They recognized that they needed to become laser-focused on how they attracted, engaged, and converted opportunities. They sought out Hunt Big Sales to understand how to develop and leverage larger accounts. They learned which opportunities were worth pursuing and which were not—and why. In
that process, they were able to go from being a regional construction player to a national construction player, known in the market as having very specific and unique skill sets, landing them more ‘’sweet spot accounts’’.
CHALLENGES
BMWC suffered from an undefined approach to sales, a poor vetting process, an inconsistent value proposition and messaging, and a lack of clarity around what was a target account or deal size. This was coupled with an unpredictable pipeline and piecemeal dashboards. Leadership sought more transparency, predictability for strategic planning, and a higher conversion rate.
BUSINESS GOALS
Within a 2-year time frame, BMWC wanted to:
- Grow revenues by $20-30MM per year
- Land a minimum of two $50MM size accounts each year
- Define clear roles and responsibilities in the sales structure for growth
- Install a repeatable, predictable and successful sales process to land big deals
- Develop a data-driven decision-making model for sales operations for large deals
SOLUTION
Through the Hunt Big Sales system, BMWC implemented a complete business and sales culture shift across the organization. They implemented a:
- Clear value proposition to attract new and ideal senior-level buyers
- Replicable sales system and lexicon within the organization to land big new accounts
- New dashboard with key leading and lagging indicators to make the sales management process transparent and predictable
- A systematic approach for management and growth of current clients
- Organizational sales structure to support growth and large peer-to-peer sales opportunities
- Sales leadership development program internally
IMPACT
Overall impact of the engagement with Hunt Big Sales resulted in the following for BMWC. They:
- Now have consistent and predictable sales tools/playbook/process
- Have fewer, but bigger, customers
- Are vetting their prospects and customers better
- Have greater internal ‘’buy-in’’ from across the organization
- Stay committed to pursuing only ‘’sweet spot’’ opportunities (size, sector, capabilities)
- Saw a big improvement in conversions
And most importantly,
- Exponentially increased the size of the average project to about 2-3x larger than previous years!
- Achieved their revenue objectives!
Case Study: number8
BUSINESS SUMMARY
number8 has been a steadily growing company for years. Responding to market conditions and customer needs, they have continued to hire new and better their talent in the software development space, and needed to differentiate their offerings in the industry. They also knew that to truly scale their business, they needed to focus on the development of larger accounts, which led them to reach out to Hunt Big Sales.
Understanding that executive management, as well as their direct sellers, should be involved in the HBS coaching, they put 12 people through the process, inclusive of five direct sellers. They started the program in March of 2021, hired a new Sales Director aligned with the strategy, and achieved results in under nine months.
CHALLENGE
When number8 came to HBS, they had no clearly defined sales process, an inconsistent value proposition and sales messaging, no clear definition of an account target, the focus of sales was headcount and activity versus a comprehensive solution-based sales offering, and their pipeline and dashboards were unclear and unpredictable.
BUSINESS GOALS
- Increase top line revenues by 1-3 deals of $3MM or greater in the next year
- Install a repeatable, predictable and successful sales process to land bigger deals
- Develop a data-driven decision-making model for sales operations
SOLUTION
Through the Hunt Big Sales system, number8 implemented a complete business and sales culture shift across executive management, salesforce, account managers, and marketing teams. They implemented a:
- Replicable system to land new bigger accounts
- Single sales process and lexicon within the organization
- Sales management process through a dashboard available to all stakeholders
IMPACT
Overall impact of the engagement with Hunt Big Sales resulted in the following for number8. They:
- Were able to land deals at a higher level, and larger deals overall, on a consistent basis
- Understood how to effectively use data, better identify target customers and follow a consistent sales process
- Landed three deals at $3 Million++ in the first nine months
Case Study: Crown Partners
BUSINESS SUMMARY
Founded in 2001, Crown Partners is a software and professional services firm focused exclusively on enterprise information management.
CHALLENGE
When Crown Partners came to Hunt Big Sales, they were experiencing 18 months of shrinking sales by losing contracts to larger, better-known companies. The market did not seem to grasp the full range of services they offered, and they had not yet found a solution to communicating those services to the marketplace.
SOLUTION
Through the Hunt Big Sales system, Crown Partners implemented culture change across the executive management, sales force, account mangers, and marketing teams. By the end of the work with Hunt Big Sales, Crown Partners had landed $25M in new contracts, doubling their average sale, including three sales that were bigger than the previous biggest deal. They were also able to develop tools to analyze and manage existing relationships and opportunities. By the end of the program, Crown Partners had reached $60M in sales volume.
IMPACT
Overall impact of the engagement with Hunt Big Sales was more than doubling sales production within 15 months. Crown Partners was able to develop replicable and measurable tools that removed inefficiencies and enabled them to close the contracts that eluded them in the past.
Case Study: Henny Penny
BUSINESS SUMMARY
Henny Penny is a leading foodservice equipment innovator and manufacturer serving the casual dining market, primarily fast food. As a family-owned business since 1957, they are cautious about change and growth. When they became a client of Hunt Big Sales, Henny Penny had not added any new, big clients in the last several years. Their existing big clients were expanding rapidly in emerging markets like China and India, fueling Henny Penny’s growth. The downside: the top four accounts represented over 40% of their client portfolio.
CHALLENGE
In order to mitigate risk, leadership knew they needed to add new customers; reducing the percentage of business any one client had in their portfolio. The strategy was straightforward, but execution was complicated because they operated mainly in a two-step distribution model. In their model, the distributors owned the client relationships and Henny Penny sales reps primarily served the distributors.
Henny Penny business was too dependent on a small number of end clients and their distributors did not have the access, ambition or capabilities to hunt other big accounts to offset this risk. Henny Penny needed to go direct – they needed to land new, big accounts now – and they had very little experience do this. In addition, their global business was growing but their US business was shrinking. It was imperative they grow their US business and expand their portfolio in the states.
Company leadership sought Hunt Big Sales’ expertise to address the risk of overdependence on a few, big clients and to change their approach and expectations around growth.
SOLUTION
Although Henny Penny has enjoyed years of growth, they were inexperienced at bringing in new accounts. Through the Hunt Big Sales system, a formal sales process to hunt global restaurant chains was designed. Hunt Big Sales provided their organization with:
- Definition of a big account
- Target filter for new opportunities to focus their efforts
- Messaging that captured the attention of the senior executive
- Tools to demonstrate their authority in the marketplace
- Stage-gate system with measurements for each step in their sales process
- Management model to provide transparency into the pipeline
- System to capture all the prospect information throughout the hunt cycle
Implementation is the key to success. Hunt Big Sales coached Henny Penny executives through the change management effort needed to implement the new process and systems. As a part of the implementation, a Fry Operations Assessment tool was developed that is instrumental in building the business case for their prospects. Hunt Big Sales created messaging for corporate presentations that is authoritative, effective and replicable. Lastly, by actively leading the strategy and hunt process on several opportunities in their pipeline, Hunt Big Sales demonstrated and transferred executive level language and knowledge so Henny Penny could lead their own hunts in the future.
New acquisitions were the focus of this engagement; however, it also become clear there was more business opportunity within Henny Penny’s second tier clients. Using the Hunt Big Sales system, we installed a road map, messaging and data capture tool to systematically assess their current accounts for growth potential. These tools enabled Henny Penny to hunt the additional opportunities within those accounts intentionally and effectively.
IMPACT
By engaging with Hunt Big Sales, Henny Penny has been able to go direct to the global chains without disrupting the distributor channel. The target filter narrowed their focus and moved the sales cycle forward. Through the Hunt Big Sales system, senior management has transparency in the pipeline to provide clear production projections for new clients. The messaging created, as well as the Fry Operations Assessment tool, positions Henny Penny at the right level in the prospect organization, speaking to the right people about the right problems.
In the first 18 months, the process, tools, coaching and implementation yielded a new client worth $20M in new revenue and a pipeline of five more accounts all in the process running smoothly to reach Henny Penny’s goal of 8-10 new big accounts in 3 years.
Case Study: Military Aircraft Component Manufacturer
BUSINESS SUMMARY
A five-year old aerospace and military aircraft component manufacturer was successful in achieving over $30M in annual revenue as well as notoriety for innovation in this market segment. Because of their relative size as compared to most of the players in the market, they were frequently dismissed in the buying process.
CHALLENGE
This company was one of five manufacturers being considered for a particular set of components for the landing gear of a specific military jet. This company knew that they were the smallest of the bidding providers. The contract size was for $100M in size to be performed over ten years.
Strategy, RFI, RFP and RFQ coaching was necessary, development and coaching of final presentation including peer-to-peer meeting skills were all a part of securing this contract.
This small company lacked any of the necessary processes to sell a contract this large and with so many steps in the customer’s buying process.
SOLUTION
Because of the unique nature of this opportunity, Hunt Big Sales™ provided a strategic role in mentoring the company owner through the strategic approach to this opportunity. Design, authoring and reviewing the RFI, RFP, RFQ and sales presentations was provided by Hunt Big Sales™. Extensive training was provided for the delivery of the presentation meeting materials. This included all the subject matter experts, the senior executives and the owner.
IMPACT
This company was successful in landing the $100M contract.
Because of the successful presentation and securing of the contract, additional work was secured within six months in excess of $10M with ongoing opportunities within the purchasing group.
Case Study: Domestic U.S. Military Logistics Application Development Company
BUSINESS SUMMARY
This $20M company provides logistics application development, technology training and platform with its primary customer base being the various Special Operations Command (SOC) groups within the U.S. military. Highly classified development work has been financially a roller-coaster because of the shifting needs of the customers. The various groups are also concerned about referring the company to other internal groups for fear that the resources provided by this company might be limited when the internal group’s needs increase.
Almost all its work is project based. In all cases there is a constant pressure to accomplish goals more quickly than the SOC plan. Once completed, the project sales cycle begins again. The sales cycle and procurement cycles are more rapid than traditional military work, however, still slower than commercial work.
The owner of this firm believes there is available capacity within the organization and within the marketplace to double the size of the company in less than three years. As this engagement began, there was a 20% variance in revenue from year to year for nearly three years.
CHALLENGE
A variety of challenges faced this company from different elements of a sales process:
- Retirement or reassignment of key contacts within the SOC groups interrupted current work and put the securing of new opportunities at risk
- Receiving security clearance for key labor when projects ramped up slowed down the ability to perform the work for customers
- A lack of sales process required all sales to be dependent on the relationships of one or two salespeople within a decreasing circle of contacts
- Commercial sales efforts were nonexistent for lack of process, tools and oversight
The owner of this firm implemented the Hunt Big Sales system to provide a process for identifying new opportunities within new commercial markets, increasing the speed and success rate of securing new customers, as well as developing a culture for effective peer-to-peer selling inside of new markets.
SOLUTION
Although this military contractor has enjoyed success, they were without targeted commercial market, necessary message, sales process and sales management. Through the Hunt Big Sales’ system, a formal sales process to hunt government and commercial opportunities was developed. Hunt Big Sales provided their organization with:
- Definition of a big account
- Target filter for new opportunities to focus their efforts
- Messaging that captured the attention of the senior executive
- Tools to demonstrate their authority in the marketplace
- Stage-gate system with measurements for each step in their sales process
- Management model to provide transparency into the pipeline
- System to capture all the prospect information throughout the hunt cycle
The Hunt Big Sales system was used, in conjunction with extensive coaching, for the installation and execution of a successful sales process. This included training for the subject matter experts in their roles within sales presentations to accomplish peer-to-peer sales effectiveness. A roadmap was created for navigating the RFI, RFP, RFQ sequence of purchasing steps within government agencies and as importantly, within large commercial operations. Messaging and presentation skills were trained and coached for use in big sales presentation meetings.
IMPACT
Through working with Hunt Big Sales, this company was able to secure its first two commercial contracts. These contracts were for three years each, providing a stabilization of the labor base and revenue cycles. Revenue of each contract, measured over the length of the contract, was in excess of $3M.
Additional work within non-SOC customers was sold to one more agency with a standardized contract with one-year length with subsequent annual roll-overs. This contract for annual revenue was in excess of $600K.
These results occurred within 15 months of completion of the installation phase of the program.
Case Study: Middle-East U.S. Military Staffing Contractor
BUSINESS SUMMARY
This $40M company provides programming, technology training and platform assistance, operates as a staff augmentation and skills development contractor primarily to U.S. military and governmental agencies. Working within a small number of possible agency customers, this company has distinguished itself as a top-quality vendor with several awards and letters of recommendation.
Much of its work is project based. There are several contract relationships with ongoing revenue opportunity, however, each of these must be re-signed each year.
The owner of this firm believes there is available capacity within the organization and within the marketplace to double the size of the company in less than three years. At the time of engagement, annual growth for the past two years was ~10% and the growth only came from the expansion of current contracts. There were no new contracts and very few prospects within the pipeline.
CHALLENGE
Achieving the desired growth by the owner would require new customers as well as new engagements within current customers. Government contracts have a very long sales cycle as well as a long negotiation period to secure a contract. The owner identified that there was no process for achieving these results using the current approach. All growth in the past had been achieved through personal relationships and past success of the owner with a small number of contacts. Those contacts were retiring or being re-assigned resulting in increased risk of not retaining current engagements.
The owner of this firm implemented the Hunt Big Sales system to provide a process for identifying new opportunities within its target markets, increasing the speed and success rate of securing new customers as well as developing a culture for effective peer-to-peer selling.
SOLUTION
Although this military contractor has enjoyed years of growth, they were inexperienced at bringing in new accounts. Through working with Hunt Big Sales, a formal sales process to hunt government and military opportunities was developed specifically for their market and implemented. Hunt Big Sales provided their organization with:
- Definition of a big account
- Target filter for new opportunities to focus their efforts
- Messaging that captured the attention of the senior executive
- Tools to demonstrate their authority in the marketplace
- Stage-gate system with measurements for each step in their sales process
- Management model to provide transparency into the pipeline
- System to capture all the prospect information throughout the hunt cycle
The Hunt Big Sales system was used, in conjunction with extensive coaching, for the installation and execution of a successful sales process. This included training for the subject matter experts in their roles within sales presentations to accomplish peer-to-peer sales effectiveness. A roadmap was created for navigating the RFI, RFP, RFQ sequence of purchasing steps within government agencies. Messaging and presentation skills were trained and coached for use in big sales presentation meetings.
IMPACT
Through working with Hunt Big Sales, this company was able to secure three new agreements with government agencies with which there was no prior relationship. These agreements grew to over $10M of new business within 18 months of initial contact.
Additional work within current agencies was increased by 17% through the selling of new and unique contracts with those buyers.
These results occurred within nine months of completion of the Installation phase of the program.
