One of the most frequently asked questions from business owners, I find, is how their sales force should be structured. Usually the question goes something like this: “Troy, what do you think of having ‘hunters’ and ‘farmers’ in your sales force, where the ‘hunter’ sells the account and the ‘farmer’ then manages it?” It’s a common question.
My answer is always the same. I dislike it. A lot. Whenever I see that arrangement in place, I see numerous problems. Low customer retention, high customer complaints, and higher than normal sales turnover always accompany this arrangement, and I’ll tell you why.
Think back to when you were a small child, and your parents left you somewhere for the first time (not with a close relative). Maybe it was a babysitter, maybe it was school, maybe it was a day camp, maybe it was day care. Think hard about how you felt. You probably felt a little abandoned, didn’t you? Sure you did. And it felt pretty bad.
Feelings of abandonment are one of the worst emotions we can undergo, yet that’s how customers feel anytime a salesperson ‘hands them off’ to a customer service person or account manager. “But wait, Troy,” some of you are saying. “Not at my company! My company does a clean handoff and my customers don’t feel that way.” No, you don’t – and yes, they do. Your ‘hunter’ has gone through whatever steps were necessary to build a relationship, trust, and commitment – and having done enough of that to get the deal, he sends the message that the customer really wasn’t all that important, after all; he needs to go sell someone else to keep making a living.
Buyer’s remorse is also a very powerful emotion – and the ‘handoff’ causes it to set in, many times before the first delivery is made. Is that the way you want your customer relationships to start? “That’s OK,” you’re saying, “My account managers can make up for it.” Maybe – but probably not. That’s because your account managers seldom have the quantity and quality of contact that the original ‘hunter’ had. For instance, many of these arrangements have a face-to-face ‘hunter’ and a phone-based ‘account manager.’
The second problem is the customer service issues that always arise during the handoff period. “But, but, but…your salesperson promised….” is a constant refrain from customers after the ‘handoff.’ I’ve seen many, many companies that operate this way and sales and service are seldom on the same page. That’s because sales and service are separate and not accountable to each other. I’ll never forget what a service manager said to me once: “The salesperson’s job is to sell the fantasy. The service person’s job is to sell reality.”
That kind of disconnect wouldn’t be possible if the original salesperson stayed in contact. First of all, if the problem is that salespeople have made inappropriate promises, they wouldn’t do it if they knew that they had to look the customer in the eye afterward. If the problem is that the service experience isn’t living up to the sales approach, that wouldn’t happen if the sales and service operations were under the same umbrella and the same person’s responsibility. Hence, you get high customer complaints and low customer retention.
High sales turnover also seems to be part and parcel of sales forces with this approach. Typically, I like to see annual sales turnover in the 10-20% range. Lower than this, and the company might be holding onto underperforming reps for too long; higher than this, the company is wasting money on churning salespeople.
Companies with the hunter/farmer system typically experience turnover in the 30-50% range or even higher (I know of one national Fortune 500 company that had 82% sales turnover last year with this model). That’s incredibly expensive – worse, it’s a waste of sales talent. The worst part is that both the hunters and farmers turn too much.
The Hunters turn because, eventually, nearly every salesperson burns out on a constant diet of prospecting. Yes, I’m a fan of prospecting – but if that’s all you’re doing, it gets tiresome. Worse, two ways that salespeople find gratification are eliminated if you’re a hunter. First, you never get to see the fruits of your labors; the long term relationship belongs to someone else. Second, referrals and testimonials aren’t part of your business development strategy. By the time the company earns a referral or testimonial, you’re forgotten and the Farmer is in charge.
Ironically, Farmers turn at a high rate as well. You might think that the farmer has the gravy train; being able to sell without prospecting sounds like fun, right? Not so much. The biggest reason for this is that the farmer has much less of an opportunity to grow his/her income; that’s in the Hunter’s bailiwick. Too, the service issues we discussed above fall into the farmer’s lap – and they become disenchanted, seek a better income elsewhere, and leave.
What I like to see is salespeople who are all-around players. The salesperson who can bring on new business, take care of it, and build relationships is a valuable salesperson indeed. My experience has shown me that there’s little difference, trait-wise, between the “hunter” and “farmer.” The difference is in the training and company culture. If your culture and training aren’t aligned with this reality of selling, maybe it’s time to take a new look at what you’re doing.
