Successful Lead Generating Part 2: Hunting or how do I get new leads?
In addition to the misconception that pure cold calling is still successful today, the “hunter-farmer approach” has become increasingly popular among sales managers in recent years.
„He who shoots a lot is not yet a hunter, he who shoots little is not therefore a gamekeeper.”
hunter’s proverb
Digression: The story of the Hunter and Farmer or the 7 biggest mistakes and errors that cost a lot of sales.
It is quite surprising that an approach to explaining ADHD symptoms in children (by the American author Thom Hartmann) has now become the leading model in sales:
The Hunter-Farmer model, which divides people into these two groups according to a presumed genetic predisposition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Hartmann
The ideal “hunter” is a “hunter” who very successfully acquires new customers, generates targeted and efficient deals and quickly turns to new, potential customers.
He is the star salesman. His key performance indicator (KPI) is turnover, his drive is commission.
Follow-up business, complaints and customer care only slow him down and he leaves this to either the customer support/ service or the “farmer” in the sales department.
The successful “farmer” is rather reluctant to acquire new customers. He prefers to successfully take care of existing customers, increase their loyalty to the company or expand it. Up- and cross-selling or contract extensions are clearly more to his liking. Increasing the turnover of existing customers is his key performance indicator.
So much for the grey theory. In reality, the problem begins. It is difficult to find pure hunters or farmers and a successful sales team consists of both types in varying degrees.
In the past, and even today in small structures, the successful salesperson was even both in one person.
Unfortunately, the Hunter/ Farmer model is often used indiscriminately and too schematically in sales, without corresponding to the character traits of the existing personnel.
However, if you subordinate your sales team to the Hunter/ Farmer model, you should at least avoid these seven mistakes and errors:
- growth is only possible through new customer turnover – use Hunter exclusively for new customer acquisition!
In principle, more direct activity in addressing new customers is desirable. Often, after analysing the current sales figures, one realises “we need more turnover” – and therefore all sales managers should immediately and mostly hastily acquire new customers as “real” hunters (while delegating after-sales and existing customer management to the supposedly less important farmers or account managers).
Whether motivated or talented doesn’t matter. “Selling can be learned” is the motto.
But this is only partly true. The expensive sales coach is booked and failure is pre-programmed. Acquiring new customers is almost always the most expensive way to increase sales.
- Turning a Farmer into a Hunter
In this situation, it is better to first try to increase existing customer sales and exploit further sales channels. This important upselling potential is often left solely in the hands of the farmers, whose focus is usually more on customer satisfaction and relationship management and who are not necessarily trained to spot sales opportunities.
It helps the Head of Sales, if he is able to do so, to create profiles of his employees according to their Hunter or Farmer aptitude so that he can deploy them adequately.
Nevertheless, a farmer should also have or acquire at least some hunter qualities in the search for additional business.
Conversely, it is often underestimated that acquiring new customers is a difficult business.
It requires well-trained sales experts who can quickly identify potential and convincingly approach new customers. “Selling can’t be that difficult and you can learn that in a seminar.”
Those who have never sold in real life, preferably to new customers, often think this way.
So, from now on, the farmer should also sell actively.
With an experienced Head of Sales and appropriate training, it is certainly possible to increase the sales success of farmers in the customer business as well.
A complete “repolling” in one direction or the other will fail and only leave behind demotivated employees.
Tip: Instead, it is better to spend a lot of time identifying the individual sales profile together with the employee and deploy him/ her accordingly.
- Good sales managers are always hunters and extroverts
This opinion is also often found among decision-makers who have no sales experience.
As a result, you often find a monoculture of self-confident extroverted hunters in their teams.
In my sales practice, I have led many successful sales managers in my teams who had more of a farmer mentality and were somewhat introverted.
The secret of their success was an excellent sense of the customer’s needs and often a corporate view of the customer. For example, is the customer profitable for us?
Overzealous hunters here often only work “on mass” and also conclude contracts with clients who are little to no profitable. Mixed teams are more successful.
- Hunter vs. farmer instead of team thinking
Another disadvantage of the hunter-farmer approach is that both groups are often played off against each other instead of forming a powerful sales team.
A wrong commission system, a lack of business analysis of the closed orders and preferential treatment of supposed stars are only a few examples that bring unrest and frustration into the team.
- Cheap is not always best
Good sales managers are in short supply and know their market value. Or as one of my favourite quotes says: “If you pay peanuts, you only get monkeys”.
If the application documents are not thoroughly read in advance by the Head of Sales and obviously weak, cheap candidates are invited for interview out of necessity, failure is certain.
Tips:
- Formulate the job advertisement precisely and be critical in the pre-selection of the applications received and in the job interviews. If you can’t sell yourself well, you’re also a bad salesperson to the customer.
- But don’t fall for the other extreme either: the phoney. Or the former sales admin who has never sold operationally.
- Give people from outside the industry or older people a chance. You will be positively surprised.
- poor customer service due to lack of coordination
If the processes in the customer journey are not clearly defined and communication between the hunter and the farmer in charge is inadequate, the customer often falls by the wayside.
A precise definition and distribution of tasks between hunter and farmer helps to avoid unnecessary duplication of contact.
The contact persons and their respective topics should also be precisely communicated to the customer. “Hunter AB is responsible for all topics related to her contract, Farmer XY looks after her as Account Manager and takes care of the onboarding”.
- Only the Hunter-Farmer approach brings success
Even though the Hunter-Farmer approach has become more popular in recent years, ultimately the approach has to be implemented successfully. It is the result that counts.
There are other approaches, such as Challenger Sales, One-Face-to-the-Customer or consultative selling, which may be a better fit for your organisation or industry.
Conclusion: Whether Hunter or Farmer, successful sales organisations hire the right people and deploy them according to their talents.
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