In the sales community, at least here in the United States, we talk a lot about hunters and farmers. The traditional viewpoint is that hunters find new customers, while farmers maintain and service existing accounts. It is generally assumed that one salesperson cannot be great at both things.

And that is often true, because hunting and farming do require different skillsets and attitudes. Of course, it is also true that hunting is really more like fishing, but let me come back to that in just a moment.

Birth, health and growth

I have a problem with the whole hunter vs farmer analogy in the first place, starting with the idea that hunters kill and farmers grow. What would be a better analogy? How about obstetricians and pediatricians? One is responsible for the birth of a relationship, the other is responsible for its continued health. Growth is really another story.

In my experience, most of the salespeople who are categorised as farmers do not really do much growing. Sure, sometimes the accounts grow because the salesperson does a good job of nurturing the relationship (see maintain and service above), but I seldom see significant effort going into cross-selling or account penetration. In fact, I see very few salespeople selling a wide range of products to their current customers, or getting to all of the right people in the customer’s organisation. In other words, there is order-taking and customer service going on, but not real selling.

In agriculture, farmers plant seeds and cultivate them. That is what we want them to do in selling too. So I would like for us to reset the terminology and hopefully agree that hunting is about developing new customers, farming is about maximising those customers, and the whole service-and-maintenance thing is really not a sales activity.

Fishing vs Hunting

As noted, hunting is really more like fishing. It is all about reeling ‘em in, not shooting ‘em dead. Think about that. Sure, I get the part about the thrill of the hunt. In fact, that is one of the things I like best about selling. I love the process of identifying a target and pursuing it, overcoming all of the obstacles and objections and eventually winning – although to be perfectly accurate, I think of all of this more as a game than a hunt.

The fact remains, though, that most buying decisions are made on the buyer’s timetable, not the seller’s. A new business developer is better served by the patience of a fisherman than the aggression of a hunter. And remember, new business development is not limited to gaining new customers. It also includes gaining new business from established customers. So maybe we should be talking about fishermen to reel ‘em in and farmers to maximise ‘em, and leave hunting as its own separate sport.

Missionaries

It turns out there is another kind of salesperson, and this kind is especially important to today’s printing industry. I call this one the missionary, and the expanded job definition of a missionary is to convince customers and prospects to come along with us on the transition from print provider to marketing services provider.

The skillset requirement for a missionary is very similar to that of a fisherman or farmer — questioning, listening and negotiating skills. But the missionary skillset also includes an intellectual component that not all salespeople have. To put it bluntly, a missionary has to be smart enough to understand both the technical aspects and the communications potential of what he or she is selling. And then, a missionary must have both the patience and the creativity to develop and sell a programme, not just a relationship or a product.

The attitude requirement for a missionary includes that patience, and also a commitment to the concept of return on investment. A printing missionary is almost always selling something that costs more than the status quo. That means his or her negotiation position will almost always be: Yes it costs more, but it will work better, and therefore be a better investment.

Bottom Line

The bottom line for today is that all salespeople are not created equal. Some are better suited to a particular kind of selling than others. If you need a fisherman, you are not going to get the results you need with a hunter or a farmer. If you need a real farmer, you are not going to get the results you are looking for with a service/maintenance type. And if you need a missionary, obviously you need someone with that expanded capability and mindset.

If you are not getting the results you are looking for from your salespeople, please give some thought to whether they might be miscast as hunters or farmers or fishermen, or obstetricians, pediatricians or missionaries.

Of course, it is also possible that your poor performers are just chronic underachievers. Sadly we have plenty of those in the industry. But that is a conversation for another day.

Dave Fellman is the president of David Fellman & Associates, a graphic arts industry consulting firm based in Cary, NC, USA. He is a popular speaker who has delivered keynotes and seminars at industry events across Australia, the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, and New Zealand. He is the author of “Sell More Printing” (2009) and “Listen To The Dinosaur” (2010). Visit his website at www.davefellman.com.

Comment below to have your say on this story.

If you have a news story or tip-off, get in touch at editorial@sprinter.com.au.  

Sign up to the Sprinter newsletter