In sales terms, a whale is a prospect that is significantly larger than an organization’s average customer.
Whales are large and extremely
difficult to close. Due to their immense size, they are highly sought-after.
A whale is typically identified at first by a whale
hunter on the sales team, but often requires
cross-discipline participation in order to close; this includes assistance from operations, engineering, creative, client success, and business development teams.
"Shit...the
sales director chewed me out on the sales call this morning. He's totally pissed that I have nothing in my
pipeline. I've been focused on this one whale for so
long that I haven't had time to prospect for normal-sized deals."