The spotlight of scrutiny shines brightest and constantly on salespeople. The future of any company is banking on their salespeople delivering against their goals. The larger a company grows, the larger everything gets, including the pool of underachieving sales staff. The growth of mediocrity isn’t limited to individual sales staff–it infiltrates management, too. Once this scourge takes hold, it can wreck an organization’s ability to grow. When sales don’t deliver, everyone in the company has an opinion on a remedy including ways to group their sales staff for improved sales.
Maybe it’s during that convoluted and political process of allocating accounts to the sales team where the idea of classifying the sales staff into hunters and farmers got started. A hunter is any sales staff that goes after new business. Farmer is the term often applied to salespeople who only work on existing client accounts. Certain sales managers will argue that some of their staff are better farmers than hunters and thus the company would be better served by assigning them existing client accounts only. The result of these decisions is an ugly, smelly dog blanket of excuses unwittingly being thrown over moderately successful to unsuccessful salespeople.
Given the choice, call me a farmer, a rancher or a frigging beaver for that matter, I’ll take the existing client accounts. One thing I know for sure about selling: I’d rather be selling to an existing client, even one who currently isn’t enamored (or worse!) with the company’s product or service than go after greenfield accounts. Hunters of game and farmers of the land are two separate terms describing two totally separate activities. But please don’t use the terms to categorize your sales staff.
Company Growth Through Sales
The growth of a company depends on breaking into new client accounts as well as expanding existing client relationships. Someone has to draw the short straw and call on the greenfield patch. Most companies delegate the new target accounts to the new hires, putting the growth of the company in the hands of the newest and least experienced people at the company. I don’t necessarily disagree with this approach because most of these new sellers feel a greater sense of urgency to succeed. The reality of this situation is the existing sales team should always feel a similar sense of urgency. Sales management is on a never-ending journey to determine the right formula to lift its sales staff’s effectiveness.
Let me interpret: Sales is separated into those who sell and those who don’t or can’t. The same poor sales practices preventing a salesperson from being a top tier sales hunter will impede them from being an exceptional farmer too. Whether you’re breaking into new accounts or expanding a relationship with existing clients, competent salespeople are required for long-term success regardless of what activity or account type they’re pursuing. Sometimes the titles we apply to people seem to create an unintended ceiling to their achievement potential and predetermine their outcomes.
The Painful View of Selling
Sales is a high-risk and high-reward profession, and that’s the painful truth. It has to be this way because the future of the company depends on selling. The only categories a company’s sellers need to be grouped into are those who are selling, those who aren’t, and those who need to go.
The most important next step after sorting the sellers is the sales manager’s responsibility. What can they do to lead their team to perform more effectively? This is where most sales organizations fail and fail miserably.
Pick your favorite sport and you’ll find a team who made a coaching change that totally turned the team around. Look no further than the basketball team of my beloved Red Raiders of Texas Tech. Chris Beard, Tech’s coach, inherited a mediocre team and in just three years has taken them to the top of the college basketball mountain. He’s built and continues to build a program based on strong leadership, focused and disciplined practice and a team commitment to winning every part of the game. I’m certain the same thing can happen with sales teams. It seems obvious that a salesperson would understand they’re not performing. Just look at the sales numbers. The numbers don’t lie. No one wants to fail but even the best salespeople need strong leadership to help correct course and get a new plan in place.
What Can Sales Management Do?
Leadership, the right players and a plan are what’s needed to execute well. Please know that I’ve taken a huge topic and distilled it down to a few words. I’m not delusional that what I’m proposing below is the only answer to improving your sales teams effectiveness. But I’m speaking from a seller’s position. These are things that I need and have needed at different points in my career.
- Review on Friday each seller’s plans for next week
- Require each seller to regularly do a sales presentation or pitch to their peers – If the sellers aren’t naturally comfortable with all that the company offers, then how will they be able to apply it to their client’s needs? Yep, no one wants to fail in front of their teammates either.
- Require extensive preparation for any client meeting. Especially presentations and/or demonstrations. Peer review is a compelling way to avoid failing in front of clients.
- Regularly prompt the salespeople for the company’s elevator pitch (please, in less than 20 seconds). How often are we asked, so what does your company do? The answer should flow like fine wine, instead, it often gurgles out like sludgy old oil.
You’ve probably noted a theme here. Everyone needs to be held accountable. Everyone wants to win.
Not Everyone Wants to Plan to Win
Working hard is a given, but without a plan and endless practice, your success will be ephemeral at best. It’s management’s responsibility to be that coach who leads and makes the difference to deliver consistent winners.
One Final Recommendation for the Company
Clearly, the level of accountability will vary depending on the seller. Just because someone has 20+ years of selling experience doesn’t mean they’re doing all the right things all the time to be successful. The challenge of adherence to high standards through continuous practice and accountability creates a fun and desirous team environment and superior results. Those sellers who push back are likely good candidates to consider pushing out.
Is the company really embracing winning and really rewarding salespeople’s success? Is your compensation program really attractive to the best salespeople? Are your top sellers recognized during a grand celebration of winning?
Everyone wants to win. It’s up to you — winning and losing are both infectious, but top performers don’t want to work where a stinky dog blanket of excuses is allowed. Winners are icons of success… and everybody wants to play for a winner.
