Stop Hunting and Start Farming Customers

Have you ever thought about the expression a “hunter sales profile”? Have you wondered why companies look for hunters to get new customers and farmers to keep them?

I have – big time!

Honestly, I can´t understand why. To me selling is farming – it has nothing to do with hunting. Who wants to get dead customers? And who wants to be hunted down?

Selling is a beautiful art where you make life better for others – you make them grow.

I pick the perfect seeds – the seeds I can picture become a beautiful field, and I farm them to grow and thrive. My field is precious to me, and I enjoy working in it.

I don´t see the point in passing the responsibility for my seeds to someone else – we can share the farming job, but it is still my responsibility to make the field grow into that beautiful field I could picture, when I picked the seeds. I know about their needs, because I have been there from the very beginning – it is dangerous to leave them all behind just hoping new people will pick up from where I left. It is an unnecessary risk.  

Working In the field and see it grow and thrive motivates me – not the commission but the value created. That is what makes me excited about a new working day. No value is created, if you have just hunted the customer into the fold. You should not be needing a fold, but create value to make them stay. I believe we need that attitude in our sales departments if we want loyal customers growing into partners, instead of dead customers hunted down.

A new customer is a beginning – it is hopefully NOT a closure. Therefore you don´t want to close the deal – you want to open it. You need farmers to do that – farmers to find the right seeds and farmers to make them grow.

Happy farming :)