Sales Hunters vs. Farmers: Understanding Which Sales Roles Are Right For Your Business?

When it comes to owning a business and building a sales team, you might be seeing or hearing a lot of conflicting information about the roles and skills you need to see sales success quickly.

On concept, the hunter and farmer model of sales has been around for decades and is still very much in use today. In order to understand these different but complementary roles, we looked at the personas and pros and cons of this model so you can determine if and how you should implement this in your business.

Sales hunters vs. farmers:

When it comes to building a sales team, both hunters and farmers have a role in helping you grow your business. Hunters are usually defined as those who go out and seek out new business. This may be through prospecting, cold calling, and other outbound means.

The farmers, on the other hand, grow their businesses by upselling existing customers and growing key accounts. In some organizations, the farming aspect of sales is left up to customer retention pros like customer success or account managers and not the sales team.

Having both hunters and farmers on your team works well in a complex sales environment and when you are looking to do more proactive sales.

What are the responsibilities of sales hunters?

The primary responsibility of a sales hunter is to go out and hunt for new business. These sales professionals spend their time on outbound activities and look to introduce new customers to the products and services they sell.

Some may argue that this role is more challenging than being a sales farmer in that conventional sales wisdom says it's often easier (and less expensive) to grow an existing customer than it is to find a brand new one. But sales hunters thrive on the challenge.

The Hunter Sales Persona

When thinking about the hunter sales persona there are many attributes and qualities that shape this role. These go well beyond just having a keen understanding of outbound sales tactics and include:

Extraversion

While being an extrovert is not a requirement to be successful in sales, it sure can be helpful when you're in a hunter role. This role requires constantly seeking out new potential customers as part of the sales process, so if a person who is more naturally introverted gets drained by this, it can be super hard to be consistent.

Self-Motivation

Sales hunting requires a high level of self-motivation. Hunters need to be driven and internally motivated to constantly seek out new opportunities and overcome rejection. They need to have a burning desire to succeed and meet their targets. While self-motivation is important, sales hunters will also thrive when chasing their quota and ultimately, that commission. For many of them, high ticket selling and the commissions that come with it are the motivation.

Competitiveness

Hunters thrive in a competitive environment. They are motivated by the challenge of outperforming their peers and achieving their goals. They are willing to put in the extra effort and go the extra mile to exceed expectations. If you are managing a team of sales hunters, a leaderboard that updates in real-time can be an excellent source of motivation and promote healthy competition.

Problem-Solving Skills

A hunter needs to be able to identify potential customers, understand their pain points, and offer solutions that address their needs. They need to approach each prospect with a problem-solving mindset and be able to articulate how their product or service can solve their challenges.

What attributes and skills are important for hunters?

Sales hunters need to be able to build trust and kick off a strong relationship quickly. This means they need to establish themselves as trustworthy and solid partners in early conversation.

Skills like speaking confidently and active listening are important for sales hunters. But they also need to qualify potential clients and assess them for solution fit while initiating the relationship. This way, they avoid investing too much time and energy in building relationships with prospects who aren't a good fit.

Another skill that can mean the difference between an average salesperson and a skilled hunter is time management. Being strategic and efficient with their time allows sales hunters to spend more time with potential customers and in spaces where their target audience congregates.

What are the responsibilities of sales farmers?

Sales farmers tend to stick closer to home and 'grow' additional business from existing accounts. This could look like moving a large business client from a business tier to an enterprise tier of a piece of software or adding custom fields. It could also look like upselling new features or even additional products. For example, if your business sells accounting, marketing, and human resources software, maybe you add the HR software to a client who has been an accounting software customer for many years.

This can help companies increase the lifetime value of clients as well as the monthly or annual recurring revenue.

The Farmer Sales Persona

While the farmer persona isn't exactly the opposite of a hunter, the farmer has some very different attributes. In order to be successful and thrive in the sales farmer role, a person should have these attributes.

Strategic thinking

Unlike being a hunter, being a farmer requires thinking strategically and being able to play the long game. The hunter has brought in a customer, and now it is the farmer's job to tend to that customer and help them grow.

Coming in with a sales pitch for more products and services or an expanded relationship can be pretty off putting. So, the farmer needs to think strategically about when is the right time to start talking about growth and what products or services would make the most sense.

Tenacity

Farming is a long game, unlike hunting, which is about getting people in the door quickly. So, to that end, farmers need tenacity to keep going when it feels like nothing is going to happen.

In order to see long-term success in the role, patience and persistence are also required.

Relationship building

Farmers should feel like old friends to their customers. In fact, they may also serve in more helping roles within the organization. This might look like customer success, customer service, or an account management role. From these vantage points, the farmer is able to really focus on relationship building and learning about how their customers use the products. They can also leverage their relationships to see what gaps still exist and what potential solutions they may be able to sell to these existing customer accounts because they have these strong relationships in place.

Superior communication & active listening skills

Farmers thrive where they can use their superior communication and active listening skills. Sharing stories with customers about best practices for using the products or getting the most out of services, and hearing questions, concerns, or even frustration from a customer and then taking action on it is part of the farmer's role.

A great farmer can hear the question behind the question or find the true solution in an angry customer's ranting in a way that others can't. These skills can help businesses keep and grow customers even when the experience starts out a little rocky.

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What attributes and skills are important for sales farmers?

One of the most critical skills for a farmer to have is to be able to show customers the true value of the product or service they've purchased. This sets the stage for additional growth conversations and years of customer loyalty.

Another skill that someone should cultivate if they are looking to grow a career in farming is problem-solving. This can help them guide customers to stay with a product even when they have an issue, or share how a change in workflow, even with some initial investment could transform a customer's business.

Hunter-Farmer Sales Model Pros & Cons

While the split between hunters and farmers feels very clear, the way you implement hunter vs. farmer sales may not be as clear-cut. There are definitely some pros and cons to keeping this model as cut and dried as some people are hunters and others are farmers.

Pros

Role clarity

In a well run hunter-farmer sales approach, there should be role clarity between the hunters and the farmers. The hunters are spending their time looking for prospects that meet the ideal customer profile and closing as many of those potential deals as possible.

Meanwhile, the farmers are working with these customers to grow the relationship and bring more revenue into the business.

Everyone knows what role they have in the sales org and the wider company's growth strategy.

Good support for customers

When using the hunter and farmer sales approach, customers are well supported. They have a trusted advisor to guide them through the initial sales process and then they have dedicated support as they onboard and get acclimated to the product or service they've purchased. This support doesn't stop after the first six months or a year either. These customers are regularly check in with, offered resources and told about new products, services and features.

Prevention of Churn

Since customers have so much support in this sales model, its less likely that they will churn when farmers are there to tend to their needs. In addition to helping to grow the business, farmers can also support customer retention by providing support for your customers as they learn to use the product and troubleshoot issues that arise. Having a skilled partner to work with can prevent a customer from getting frustrated when they can't make a feature work and seeing other solutions.

Cons

Oversimplification of roles

While it's true that this is a sales model that can provide great role clarity for sales organizations, this may be oversimplifying things a bit. For example, what happens if a customer leaves your company and goes somewhere else for anywhere from six months to two years? Who's customer is it? Does it go through a hunter because it's new business or should it be handled by a farmer because its technically part of the customer base already?

You also need to consider where upselling falls. Does the farmer fully handle it when it's a new product, or do they pull a hunter in to close that part of the deal? How does this impact both the hunter and the farmer's progress to their sales goals and ultimately commissions or compensation?

Having the answer to what happens in each of these scenarios is critical to implementing this sales model correctly.

Creation of silos

When not managed well, the hunter-farmer sales model can easily create silos between the two teams. Hunters and farmers should be in regular communication about what is working, otherwise issues could arise.

For example, if the hunters are selling something that the farmers (and broader organization) are struggling to deliver on - this could lead to both churn and frustration on the part of the farmers, as they will be looking at poor customer retention scores and fewer opportunities to grow the business (and their compensation).

Tension between team members

For many reasons (including the example above) the hunter and farmer sales model can create tension between team members, but also within the broader sales organization. This can happen for a few reasons.

First, hunters may feel that farmers have the "easier" job. And based on the often cited saying that it is easier and less expensive to grow an existing customer than find a new one this may be true. It also may be reflected in compensation models where salaries and commissions for hunter jobs are higher paying than those for farmer roles.

Another place tension may arise is when the hunter or farmer feels the other one isn't performing well in their role, or they question decisions the other has made. While there needs to be a symbiotic relationship between the two, this can be a source of tension if there isn't mutual respect and trust.

Finally, it is also important for the sales organization and the business at large to ensure there are career development opportunities and defined career paths for both hunters and farmers. If the organization is large enough consider where these talented professionals could go next, whether into a sales leadership or more senior customer success role, a bigger individual contributor role or even sales training or enablement.

Implementation of the hunter-farmer sales model

If you're looking to implement the hunter-farmer sales model in your organization here is how we would split responsibilities over the lifecycle of the customer's relationship with your organization:

Prospecting and Initial Outreach: This is handled by the hunter, potentially with some support from a sales coordinator. The coordinator can help with prospecting and research, where the hunter shines when doing the initial outreach.

Lead Qualification: Again, this is a job for your sales hunter. Give them tools, frameworks, or even sales methodologies to help them qualify (or disqualify) prospects based on specific criteria. The farmers may have some good insight into the qualities that make the best customers, so don't let your hunters forget to tap into them regularly.

Formal Sales Presentations & Product Demos: This is still led by your sales hunters. Equip them with collaboration and presentation tools, best practices and a smooth demo script to start from. They should be tailoring these materials to the specific needs of each prospect.

Follow Ups: Once the presentation(s) and demos wrap up, and a formal proposal has been sent, it's up to the hunter to continue following up regularly until the prospect has made their decision.

Negotiation and Contracting: If the prospect has agreed to move forward, the hunter will prepare the contract and lead any negotiation conversations until the deal is signed and ready for kickoff.

New customer onboarding: This is where the account will transfer ownership to the farmer. The hunter and farmer should meet so the hunter can share what they've learned through the sales process to ensure the farmer is set up for success.

Quarterly business reviews and proactive check-ins: This is where the responsibilities might need to be split up. While the farmer should lead any business or ops reviews, the hunter may start popping back in to keep the relationship. This is only necessary if the hunter will also handle upselling or renewals. Otherwise, check-ins, business reviews, and any other communication should fall to the farmer.

Renewals and upselling: This is another place the business will need to make a decision. It seems pretty split on whether the hunter or farmer will actually handle any additional sales. To keep the division of labor clearer it may make sense to have the farmer handle (and be compensated for) renewals and upsales as the relationship could live fully with them at this point while the hunter focuses on new business.

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