Tweet

THE RAINMAKER - HUNTER – FARMER SALES ROLE

Written by: Colly Graham

Article Overview: Discover your sales role: Are you a Rainmaker, a Hunter or a Farmer, perhaps you are all three. Discover how you can increase your sales by becoming a Rainmaker, a Hunter and a Farmer

THE RAINMAKER - HUNTER – FARMER SALES ROLE

The most valuable resource in a sales team is to make things happen to be “a rainmaker” The role of the rainmaker is to find a dormant business problem and then create a vision of what life could be like if it were solved.
What dormant business problems can you find?
What is the vision you can create to solve this business problem?

Once the rainmaker has discovered the business problem it takes the skill of hunter. The hunter requires aggressiveness, confidence, and the capacity to make an impressive impact.

The Woolly Mammoth Hunter
The hunter is responsible for killing fresh meat and bringing it back to the tribe. Woolly Mammoth hunters use a four-step process in their quest for being effective and efficient. These four steps are:
1. Identification - Here the Woolly Mammoth sales hunter is seeking to identify the right animal. He/she will come across many types of prospects in their hunt. The successful hunter learns to identify the right opportunity before engaging the next step: pursuit. How do they know the difference between a Woolly Mammoth and other large animals? Simple, they train hard to become efficient in the identification process.
They do not allow other large prospects to take (waste) their time.

2. Pursuit - After identifying the right prospect, the Mammoth hunter then begins the second phase; the pursuit. Here, they engage with the prospect, asking the right questions to profile the account, understand what the needs and pain factors are, determine where they are in the selling cycle, and insert themselves as value added partners. Depending on the size of the Woolly Mammoth and the terrain, good hunters close the gaps to quickly move onto step three; the kill.

3. The Kill - In the sales vernacular, closing the deal.
Serious Mammoth hunters have all the tools in their arsenal that cover all the bases for the kill. Wherever they corner the Mammoth, they have the right tool to finish the job. In sales, here is where you have identified the need/problem, gathered the right data, matched that data with the product/service you represent, and have skilfully presented a passionate presentation.

4. Drag To Cave - Novice Mammoth hunters are identified here. They drag their kill into the cave, then organize and assemble the party to clean it. Often, they decide to do this themselves or hold classes on the subject. Once cleaned, the novice hunter continues to linger inside the cave, further removing him/her from ever getting back out and killing another Woolly Mammoth. Senior hunters know that their job ends at the foot of the cave. They go back out and capture the next one and not linger longer than required to exchange data, gather the latest cave updates on new tools, products or services, and go hunting again.
The Farmer Sales Person

Once the hunter has initiated the first piece of business a different set of skills is required and these are the role of the farmer. Some existing accounts require as much active selling as the new business to develop and grow the business within that account. Many sales people wrongfully assume that there is more business to be had from new rather than existing customers. Value-creating businesses recognise that the bulk of their present and future revenues come from the accounts you already have.

The skills of the farmer are not all that far removed from the hunter, they both require equal skills in questioning and problem solving.

With the farmer concept, you look upon your accounts the way a farmer would look at his land. The farmer cultivates, prepares, plants, seeds, waters, fertilizes, weeds, protects, grows, develops crops, harvests and then starts the cycle all over again.

1. Cultivating – learning as much about your customer as possible to discover opportunities to see what you need to plant so that you can harvest the results.

2. Preparation – putting yourself in a better position to service the customer, building your relationship to understand his business at depth, asking questions to uncover and discover further opportunities.


3. Planting - using your skills as a problem solver to offer solutions for the further problems you have uncovered within the account. Helping the customer realise that he has further problems that you can solve.

4. Seeding – demonstrating how you can solve this problem.


5. Watering and Fertilizing– showing how other customers have benefited by placing further business with you

6. Weeding – keeping your competitors out of your accounts.

7. Harvesting - requires that you get further business from the existing customer – you get more sales!

8. Continuous Harvesting - requires that you maintain excellent customer relations



Identify which of the top accounts you have hunted and brought back to the cave, which can now be farmed?

Related Articles
  Do You Want To Become A Rainmaker
  The Hunter, The Farmer and the Farmer's Wife
  If something is getting you down, find out what you can learn from an old donkey!
  Hunter-Gatherers Weren't Acquisitive? Pshaw
  Joint Ventures - What Goes Around, Comes Around

Article Tags: aggressiveness, arsenal, asking the right questions, business problem, business problems, closing the deal, four steps, fresh meat, gaps, impressive impact, mammoth hunter, mammoth hunters, prospects, rainmaker, sales hunter, second phase, time 2, tribe, value added partners, vernacular



Related Forum Posts
Where I want WSI to be in Dec 31 2007 - Here are my goals for end of 2007 Employees - SEO specialist - admin assistant - sales rep - designer/data entry - copy writer (may be outsourced) Target market (client base) manufacturers 10-50 million in revenue looking for integrated marketing solution ranging from 10k - 30k Systems - crm fully utilized - project management smooth process - sales and marketing to continuously generate leads SALES (My big Goal to focus on ) Last years sales revenue was $220K This year we want to hit $500K - approx 40k per month
label signs jackson thriller executive/seeks investor - ismael records has just signed one of the marketing and promotions executives of MICHAEL JACKSONS THRILLER, BAD and OFF THE WALL ALBUMS as its new president of marketing and promotions. we want to embark on an AMERICAN IDOL TYPE CROSS COUNTRY TALENT SEARCH. winners will have their own CD marketed, promoted , nationally distributed, with radio airplay. our venues will be PAID VENUES with TICKET SALES, along with any investor getting a percentage of all venue and ticket sales , any investor will also receive a percentage of all of our winners CD sales which will again, be distributed nationally, any investor will also receive a percentage of the ISMAEL RECORDS LABEL. PLEASE! NO OFFERS OF LOANS OR BANK LOANS OF ANY KIND!. we will also NOT! PAY ANY UPFRONT FEES. ONLY THE ABOVE PERCENTAGES WILL BE PLACED ON THE TABLE. ISMAEL RECORDS has been up for only 3 years, besides being a recording label it is also an entertainment label. working on the entertainment side the label has been doing a series of talent shows. tyrone ismael ceo/president of ismael records has been networking and steady building alliances for the label. until recently mr ismael has himself refused to take on any artist to the recording part of ismael records, simpley because the label did not really have the sources to push an artist the way a label should. we have seen so many labels with tons of artist but nothing to do with them, the artist are just sitting there. with the contracting of our new marketing and promotions president , ismael records now has sources of manufacturing ,radio airplay, national distribution plus over 25,000 storefronts in which we can now place our artist CDS into besides distributing to the top of the line internet retailers. besides MICHAEL JACKSONS, THRILLER, BAD and OFF THE WALL ALBUMS, our new marketing and promotions president has also marketed and promoted the CDS/ALBUMS of such other great recording stars as LUTHER VANDROSS, TYRESE, ALICIA KEYS, SANTANA, EARTH WIND AND FIRE, BIG MIKE, THE GHETTO BOYS, BOY GEORGE, SADE, THE OJAYS and this is only to name the few, he also has written refrences from such greats as MR QUINCY JONES, SADE, and mr POLLY ANTHONEY of SONY MUSIC, he himself is also former acting vice president of marketing and promotions for EPIC RECORDS. i can not bring myself to ask this executive to bring all that he is already bringing to the table as well as ask him to finance this venture, this is why i am now seeking investors. we are seeking no less than $25,000 in order to get this project out of the starting gate. the TV SHOW AMERICAN IDOL has been one of the top shows for years now, each year you can see the thousands and thousands of hopeful new artist trying to become the next star, there is no other entity out there right now besides AMERICAN IDOL that has the resume of our new executive thats doing what we are now trying to do. this project has LEGS and if pushed out of the starting gate with the proper advertising and promotions it will generate its own capital. any investor will also be receiving the above percentages well after they have received their original investment return, as long as we can keep this project running our investors will receive the above percentages.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Think Time

BUILDING A HIGH PERFORMING TEAM

Purchasing Real Estate using the SBA 504 Loan

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.