Customer Reviews

Bag the Elephant!: How to Win and Keep Big Customers

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a business owner for nearly two decades, I am always on the hunt for a great new business book. Many hit narrow points, but few encompass a concept and wrap it with sound writing skills communicating the concept clearly and succinctly. In BAG THE ELEPHANT, Steve Kaplan has quite successfully captured the latter.

For those not oriented toward this type of jargon, an "Elephant" has, for many years, been the synonym for a large client/customer. In my field, consulting, obtaining an elephant client is daunting, difficult, exciting, and more than anything else, a helluva challenge. However, the potential rewards are incredible. (NOTE: I am not a major proponent of a business built around a couple of elephants or a handful of smaller elephants. The simple reason is attrition; it happens to everyone and if your clientele numbers are few, the departure of one elephant can cause extreme hardship on the basic operations of one's business. My advice is to build a client base with many small-to-medium size clients and sprinkle in an elephant or two once your foundation is established. Attrition is much more palatable under these circumstances.)

As noted, Kaplan has effectively and succinctly described his concept of bagging an elephant. His basic premise outlines various strategies for business owners seeking to enter the realm of the larger client/customer (i.e. the elephants). Kaplan divides the book into five parts, which effectively and humorously, describes the process of bagging the elephant:

Part I - "Your Elephant is Waiting" - Kaplan describes various strategies for aligning your business with elephants, and how to gauge success in obtaining an elephant.

Part II - "What to know about Elephants" - Kaplan compares and contrasts the characteristics and attributes of small and large businesses, and describes the challenges of bridging the gap between the two (i.e. cutting through the bureaucratic red tape).

Part III - "Romancing your Elephant" - Kaplan describes various methods of getting one's foot in the corporate door. This is handled quite effectively with a graphical flow chart of procedural "to dos."

Part IV - "Leveraging your Elephant's Power" - Kaplan lays out a conceptual plan to keep your elephant once you've gotten it. This is probably one of the more important sections (concepts) in the book as this is the final litmus test of your business's ability to handle, on an ongoing basis, the daily trials of dealing with a larger business. Inasmuch as the corporate cultures will be disparate, the small business owner must become a chameleon.

Part V - "Five Killer Mistakes" - Read this section very carefully. If you've been in business long enough, you may know each of these personally.

All in all, Kaplan has successfully captured the essence and nuances of being David in a Goliath arena. This is quite simply daunting however, simple reminders of why one decided upon entrepreneurship vs. the corporate life will present a grounding effect for the seemingly insurmountable task of bagging an elephant. This is a great book for any business owner. Highly recommended.

Steve Kaplan has successfully intertwined his vast experiences with a set of sensible protocols, giving business tools to companies on a long term vision for success -- real success -- big success -- well planned success.

He has tried to eliminate the intimidation factor, opening the way to aggressive but cautious solicitation of larger companies for more substantial orders. He goes explaining in detail, how to approach contacts despite the bureaucratic red tape, using business psychology, as well as knowledge in procuring deals. He advises learning to live with established obstacles and work around them -- by mail, telephone calls, visits, etc., and repeating the steps as necessary but judicously.

He outlines the art of being confident in indentifing targets, knocking doors, and getting access to the "elephant dealer", and all the time focusing on coming face to face with the REAL ELEPHANT. The description of the different personalaties of salesmen (The sage, the pal, the pit bull) are appropriately analyzed in dealing with them.

And what happens after negotiating with the "elephant" and even making the big deals? The process in the aftermath of success...and how to avoid problems? The book describes, step by step, issues that could derail a successful operation, as he considers the following measures:
>Biting more than you can chew.
>Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
>Remember your champions(people who have helped)
>Calculate profit margins accurately (its what you keep and not what you sell that counts)
>Partnership is a two-way street.
>The budget (Review, objectives, strategy, tactics, implimentation)
>Killer mistakes and fumbling a client crises.

The book is smoothly integrated and easy to read. It is very much like an algorithm that can be followed on a chart.

I recommend it highly for anyone interested in improving a business operation, with a bold and long-term vision for success.

The over-the-top positive reviews here astound me because while this book has some merit it is certainly not the best book on the topic and offers very little for the labor of reading it. The book's format is a classic sizzle over the steak sales technique: colors, pictures and odd printing over content, verbosity over wisdom. This book has little to offer field salespeople and nothing to offer non-B2B companies.

Certain ideas are useful for managers, such as: execute flawlessly, one mistake you're out, excellent customer service will keep the business, and team selling is critical even necessary for winning big accounts. Much of the wisdom is common sense: selling to a big company results in substantial growth; be careful about putting all your eggs in one basket; and mismanaging customer expectations can cost you the business and all the hard work that went into getting it.

On the positive side this author is clearly a sales professional. If you need to learn how professionals act in corporate sales there are tips and insights here. Large account selling is very different than the kind of selling say Brian Tracey or Tom Hopkins teach about. Planning, targeting, clarity of message and pricing, flawless execution and relentless follow-through and documentation are all needed. If you're new to corporate sales start with "Strategic Selling" and then perhaps this book. If you're in corporate sales and you don't already know this material, or act and look like Kaplan, you're in for a tough slog.

For overcoming the real challenges of prospecting and B2B selling that every salesperson can use I recommend "Selling to Big Companies" and "Value Forward Selling." As Sandler pointed out in his selling methodology, most systems will work if they are applied consistently and well. Getting in the door to develop the relationship and the sale is the critical step. Both of those books specialize in that, as does "Selling against the goal."

Steve Kaplan does an awesome job illustrating the do's and dont's when dealing with a big company.

Instead of complaining about the "red tape" inside big organizations, he shows you how you to use it to your advantage....a crucial difference between success and failure.

Using real life examples it is in an easy to read format, I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to grow their business.

At just over 200 pages, Bag the Elephant took me a considerable amount of time to actually finish. While the principles are presented quite simply, it's jam packed with tips and strategies that take some time to digest.

The elephant in questions is the large corporate client. The one that brings in the big money. Bag the Elephant walks you through the process of first understanding the elephant, to "Romancing" them and then on to leveraging them for even more gain for you. While focusing primarily on the Big accounts, the principles here can easily be applied to small and medium size accounts, if that is where your target audience is.

Kaplan also dives into common mistakes many people make with their clients and teaches you how to avoid them. I found the fifth mistake most enlightening. Many feel that if they just had that one elephant, then they would be rolling in the dough. But what many forget is that with big elephants come big expenses, and often times, if cards have been misplayed, you'll find profits decreasing rather than increasing after bagging your elephant.

This book is a must read for anybody hoping to hit it big by snagging an elephant of their own. And if you're just a small guy, maybe it's time you start thinking bigger.

I purchased this book for my husband. When I got home I started to flip through the pages before I knew it I was reading and actually understanding this amazing book. I normally would not read a book about business, However this book was unique. It had humor and real stories about people just like me who were able to turn their business around by simply thinking big. I know you need to work hard at anything to make it successful, but with this book and the wonderful way it is worded anyone can understand and achieve success. Anyone who wants to further their career can start by reading this book. I would like to thank the author for writing a book that was so well written that even I understood it! This book made my holiday shopping so much easier. All my friends and family will be learning how to bag the elephant this year.

This is a sound bit of writing and advice and having spent twenty years of my life in Fortune 50 companies he outlines exactly how they work and what you can do to win business. Some of it seemed a little basic in the end but overall a very good book with very good direction to win more business from the big guys from a guy who has obviously done it ... worth the price

I am the owner of a 6 doctor group, and I greatly enjoyed reading this book. It offered me an unique insight to the business world that I have not seen in any of my usual medical-business journals or books. It is to Steve's credit for him to share so much of his knowledge and experiences and allow others to learn from his mistakes and benefit from his triumphs. I have already implemented several ideas that I got from his book into my practice, and anticipate significant financial rewards from these changes.

The book is a good rendition on how to go after and secure business contracts with large corporations and business institutions. The author advises us to get the customer and ratchet the operations infrastructure to provide superior service and customer feedback.

The methodology for providing customers with strategic advice and
tactical expertise is explained in considerable detail. The author advises us to build an organization chart for each client in order to market to the entity and all of its strategic components. This is a good idea.

Overall, the book will assist in securing large corporate business customers. It is not a cure-all; however, the advice
provided will help with marketing to the customer base.
The author advises us to think big and hire additional staff
to service the success which will follow with some considerable
degree of certainty.

There's a well known quote by Donald Trump where "The Donald" says, " As long as you're going to be thinking, you should be thinking big." The idea of thinking big is the thrust behind sales virtuoso Steve Kaplan's book - Bag the Elephant. The author states that rather than expending energy towards a lot of little accounts, there is a lot of wisdom in applying that energy towards a single, potentially big account - which he refers to as "The Elephant." Despite critics who claim today's businesses need to diversify their customer base, Kaplan counters that "The Elephant" is worth the pursuit since it holds the possibility of deeper revenue streams and larger margins over the life of the relationship. The author goes on to explain how to identify the right elephant for you; how to navigate its corporate bureaucracy; tips to enlist the help of insiders as well as other critical steps to ensure you maximize your elephantine efforts. Soundview recommends this book because it goes beyond merely selling to "The Elephant," but spends a great deal of time on the proper care and feeding - if you will - of that type of account to solidify a mutually beneficial relationship that will endure. So don't call on "The Elephant" (or "The Donald" for that matter) until you've gotten this book!