I love analogies like the hunting or farming one in recruitment and we I love predications (we’ve got some in the newsletter this week). This guest article from Paul Dewick of Boomerang gives us them both..
Achieving growth through a balanced approach to customer management
Over the last few months we have been planning Boomerang Funding’s growth for 2014 and beyond. This has led to some interesting discussions about the strategic approach our sales team should take and how they balance account management with new business development.
Given that it costs seven times more to win a new customer than to keep an existing one, my view is that you need to get out your spear and go hunting – but also make sure you tend your crops too.
In other words it is as important for us to focus our sales team on maintaining strong relationships with our existing customers as it is on tasking them to chase new business.
Who’s on your team?
Taking an approach that balances hunting with farming necessitates what a sales team should look like and what roles are best suited to the task.
Do you need a business development dynamo or a robust account manager?
What’s the difference?
Can they be the same person?
Having worked in both job roles over the years, in my opinion I believe there is a clear distinction between the two.
Hunters and farmers have distinct core responsibilities and goals – and so are roles that require different skillsets and strengths. Only the most talented of people can do both jobs effectively and it is our challenge as recruitment professionals is to find them and recruit them into our businesses.
Account Management – ‘The Farmer’
Producing a bountiful harvest for your business requires an informed and trusted account manager; someone who maintains and develops existing customer relationships, introducing the right solution at the right time to enable you to do more business with them.
They manage the entire client relationship, looking after all commercial communications with existing customer; getting to know them – literally nurturing and tending the crop.
They also:-
· ‘up sell’ and ‘cross sell’ other services to clients
· understand and anticipate the customers current and future needs
· give a fresh insight into their customers business facilitating a competitive advantage that will increase sales with their customers
· hold overall responsibility for the growth of the account as well as being responsible for retaining the customer in the longer term
It’s easy to take customers for granted and risk losing them. A great account manager will avoid your crop getting spoiled by investing time to sit down with long-standing customers, make sure they are happy, understand their challenges and ambitions and work out how your business can help them to achieve their goals; building your own revenue in the process.
This means you need team members who are process as well as people-focused, who can create long-term relationships and nurture accounts to deliver year on year.
Business Development – “The Hunter”
A business development manager is focused on the kill. Creating something from nothing they introduce a product in a compelling, more directed manner – sometimes when the customer is not even aware they need it. They are out hunting for the leads, meeting prospective customers and doing the deals that will make the difference to your business.
Business development managers:-
· create – rather than develop – relationships
· deal with acquisitions
· make the sale and move on to the next potential
Once the sale has been done and the customer is connected and secure with your brand, the relationship should move into the farming phase to ensure it is nurtured into producing a bountiful harvest year after year.
A business development manager is the hot-blooded sales person who is there to sell hard to the customer, irrespective of where they are in their buying cycle. It’s a different skillset to the account manager and a different mind-set too.
Can the same person fulfil both these roles?
Both the hunter and the farmer have an important role to play in your business and it’s important to realise that they compete for the same results, but in different ways.
Can the same person do both roles?
In short, yes. A talented and well balanced individual that can switch between the two skillsets can deliver the balanced approach you need.
However the success of the individual in the role will be compromised if they are not completely suited to hunting or farming in terms of behaviours, skills, and motivators and so getting your recruitment right is key.
Balance is essential. An overly aggressive hunter or overly passive farmer can do significant harm to your business by overplaying their core strengths.
Generally speaking I think that hunters can also be farmers, but that few farmers can be hunters. I would suggest that 95% of the required skill set and aptitude is shared by successful hunters and farmers and then it is down to how suitable individuals are for the role in question. I believe that a balanced and experienced professional should be capable of fulfilling either role.
What does your business need?
As recruiters and recruitment business owners you need to decide what you want from your sales people and sales team as a whole.
My recommendation is to either focus on identifying candidates with that balanced ability to hunt and farm – or treat the roles as separate ones and find excellent hunters and farmers who can communicate and work well together.
Once you have made that decision, then you must create a job role or roles which secures the goals and objectives of your business.
Whether you need hunter/farmers or can recruit for separate roles can depend greatly on the size of your recruitment organisation. Smaller recruitment agencies often have to combine the roles as they simply cannot afford the cost of both a dedicated new business development manager and an account manager.
The reward and management structure also contributes to this discussion. The higher the guaranteed component of a sales person’s package – and whether they have to build their own portfolio of customers – defines whether they are more naturally hunters or farmers. The needs of your business for one skill over the other may of course change as the portfolio becomes financially sustainable.
If you do choose to recruit separate farmers and hunters, ideally any farmers in your team will have some level of hunter instinct as it is essential that they have the ability to identify, qualify and “chase” an opportunity within an existing customer. Equally, the hunter must have some farming skills such as the ability to stabilise a new account before handing to the farmer to develop and grow.
Ultimately you must use your natural strengths as a recruitment professional to identify the characteristics that will best support your business strategy. Get your brief right for your sales/customer team and then let your own hunting instincts guide you in finding them.
After all, who else could possibly be better at hunting down talent and then nurturing it to ensure it delivers for your business?
You can find Paul at @pauldewick and www.boomerangfunding.co.uk
Image courtesy of the fascinating http://www.survivopedia.com site
