Are you a hunter or a farmer?
For companies and salespeople it is important that the right talent is matched to the right sales job.
One of our listeners named Claire wrote us with this week with this question:
What do you think is the optimal mix of hunters and farmers on a sales team? Are there circumstances or conditions that affect what the best mix should be?
I’ve been around the sales profession for twenty-five years and as long as I can remember the question of hunter and famer ratio has been an issue of debate at most companies. The reason for the ongoing debate is sales and service organizations must remain flexible as markets and corporate strategy change. So, Claire, yes there is an optimal mix of hunters and farmers on a sales team but that optimal mix is specific to each company at a specific point in time. As things change so does this mix.
I actually believe that most companies to a good job of allocating hunter and farmer resources based on their need for growth and client retention. Business leaders tend to look closely at what is required to acquire new customers (hunt), and retain and grow current customers (farm). And though the ratio of hunters to farmers may from time to time get out of wack, revenue and profit demands generally bring things back into balance quickly.
Where the vast majority of sales organizations fail is in hiring the right salesperson to fill the role ofhunter or farmer. There are clear differences in the responsibilities for hunters and farmers and each role requires a specific skill set and talents.
Hunters focus on landing new accounts and closing deals. They get their thrill from going out into the jungle, killing something, and bringing it back home. Then going out and doing it again. Farmers focus on retaining and growing existing accounts. Farmers truly enjoy building deep, long-term relationships and solving customer problems.
It is rare that a sales professional is proficient as both a hunter and a farmer. Most have the talent for one or the other. For instance, I’m a hunter. I love to prospect and close deals. As a farmer I typically become bored and frustrated dealing with customer complaints and demands. Farming makes me miserable.
A hunter placed in a farmer role will fail to manage details and will often ruin client relationships. Farmers placed in hunter roles will fail to a achieve activity targets and have difficulty closing. In either case the long-term result is failure and misery.
This is a critically important concept to understand if you recruit, hire, or manage salespeople. You must closely evaluate salespeople during the hiring process and on the job to ensure you are placing the right talent into the right position. To help you make the right decision be sure to have a defined job description, a standard interview process, and pre-hire behavioral assessments which are calibrated to your sales job requirements. Failure to do so will hurt you and your company.
As a Sales Professional it is also very important to know where you fit. In other words, “to thine own self be true.” If you accept a job where you will be required to perform a sales role that does not match your talent you are doing your employer and yourself a disservice. Think about it. If you love building long-term relationships and working with a consistent set of customers, consider how utterly miserable and ineffective you would be in a sales job that requires you to cold call strangers all day? How long would it take for your new employer to catch on and eventually fire you?
The way I look at, life is too short to do something you hate – especially in sales. So go yourself and your employer a favor and do what you do best. In the long-run you’ll be happier and your paycheck will be bigger.
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