Hunters and Farmers: Two Important Components Of Your Sales Team

Some people have a head for numbers and thrive with analytical thinking. Others are full of creativity, communication, and building relationships. Most fall somewhere in the middle, albeit closer to one end than the other.

Salespeople are no different. Just as each person has different strengths and interests, some sales professionals gravitate towards finding new business while others would rather work to expand the footprint of their existing customers.

We call this “hunters and farmers.”

The confident hunters are motivated by the thrill of finding and converting new business. Meanwhile, relationship-focused farmers are more concerned with expanding accounts that already exist.

Each persona has distinct personality traits that allow them to grow your business - just in different ways. One of these isn’t better than the other. In fact, both are integral members of your sales team and the right combination of these personalities is what allows your business to grow most effectively.

Hunters

Think about the typical salesperson persona. Confident. Quick on their feet. Charming. Outgoing. Assertive. Comfortable building new connections. What you’re picturing is a textbook hunter.

These salespeople enjoy walking into a room of strangers and walking away with a host of new friends. They love the challenge of turning strangers into customers. They thrive at new business development. Hunters are in their element, and most effective members of your team, when they’re able to focus on converting new business.

Farmers

The strengths of farmers lie in their ability to grow relationships. Unlike the assertive hunters who love the competitive aspects of selling, farmers are service oriented. They pride themselves on their ability to find new ways to add value for their customers. They’re experts at not only managing accounts to keep customers happy, but at expanding accounts, enabling the company to increase revenue without signing new customers.

Why It Matters

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do about my sales team. When I first hired Lisa, I was really excited about what she’d bring to the team, but she clearly hates going to networking events and dreads cold calling clients. She’d spend her whole day talking to existing clients if she could. I’m not sure it’s going to work out. Bob, on the other hand, seems sporadic in the fact that all he wants to do is go to networking events, meet new people, and leave the office to find new opportunities. If you were to ask Bob which of his current clients he thinks he could grow, he could probably tell you, but it’s not where he puts his focus. His focus is always outward. He’ll miss a meeting if it means landing the newest, shiniest client. How do I get Lisa to start being more proactive with new business? And how can I get Bob to work a regular 9-5 schedule?”

This question may seem like an extreme example, but it’s exactly why hunters and farmers matter.

In this example, Lisa, a clear farmer, loves working with existing clients, expanding their business, and protecting the base - and yet, her manager resents that she doesn’t want to hunt for fresh business. Meanwhile, Bob would love nothing more than to spend all his time on the go, signing new clients each day - but his reluctance to farm frustrates his manager as well.

Lisa and Bob are both important members of the sales team fulfilling vital functions. The manager simply has them in the wrong roles. Instead of playing to their strengths, the sales team is forced to work in a way that they don’t like and won’t excel at.

While it’s true that most members of your team won’t align 100% with one camp or the other, they will fall closer to one end of the continuum. A farmer may enjoy certain types of new business opportunities. A hunter may want to continue growing specific legacy or large accounts. The hunters and farmers framework isn’t to say that salespeople can only hunt or farm - but it’s a great tool for determining where most of their time and energy should be focused.

This is where a sales assessment is incredibly useful in hiring the right kind of person for the right role. Tools like Sales Achiever can help you determine if the person you’re interviewing is a hunter or a farmer - so you can make sure you’re not hiring one when you’re really looking for the other.
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A healthy relationship between sales and marketing is vital to an organization’s success. Dive deep into this effective strategy in our book  Sales & Marketing Alignment. If you'd like more insights on how you can improve your sales leadership, contact us.