What is the difference between a hunter and a farmer?

Sales and marketing has long suffered from a split personality. This is often described in terms of the hunter and farmer.

The hunter persona generally typifies the traditional view of the sales professional that aggressively seeks out customers in a proactive manner and rules supreme when there is buoyant growth in the economy.

The farmer on the other hand is a more subordinate personality compared to the dominant hunter. The farmer’s focus is on keeping and growing existing customers and is often undervalued within organizations. However, when times get tough farmers often become the savior of the sales department.

Most sales organizations are better at hunting than farming. This is generally because this has been where most emphasis has been placed. In the past it has not been a problem. Indeed, for the greater part of a decade ‘hunters’ have been celebrated, while their ‘farmer’ colleagues have often been berated for not generating enough new business.

With new customers now in scarce supply, the hunter often returns bloodied and empty handed. This is at a time when organizations are battling to maintain their existing client base as customer poaching reaches new levels. Those organizations that are great hunters, but poor farmers are struggling to meet their numbers.

Posted by Ray Collis on Nov 16 2010. Filed under 1. Fire Half Your Sales Force. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry