What is a Sales Hunter v.s. Farmer?

Article Summary:

• Breaks down the real‑world difference between a sales hunter vs farmer, showing how quick‑win selling and long‑term nurturing each play a role in growth.
• Uses the familiar rhythm of farming to show how steady outreach, trust‑building, and patience can create a stronger, more reliable sales pipeline.
• Reveals why shifting from pure hunting to thoughtful farming can transform future revenue—and why most teams overlook this powerful process.

According to Mahtab Rasheed in his Farming Life Cycle article, the steps of growing crops are crop selection, land preparation, seed selection, seed sowing, irrigation, crop growth, and harvesting. After investigating these stages a bit, it became increasingly obvious to me that there are strong analogies to the process of business growth. Now, I am not the first to make this connection; after all, a few generations of sales trainers have referred to sales personalities as hunters or farmers.

We need hunters. They thrive on the “hunt” – identify, pitch and close. The faster they can get the order and move to the next, the better. They are often extroverted, active, distracted, independent, competitive, and adrenaline driven. Hunters work the trade show booths, they network, and they negotiate and close the deal. Sure, they work more than one deal at a time, but not too many. They typically want to focus on the one that is closest to closing. Again, we need hunters.

So, what is it about the sales farmer that gains our attention? Doesn’t farming take a while? Can we afford farmers… why not just enjoy the prize of each hunt?

A farmer patiently awaits the day of the harvest. There are periods of concern, but most of those concerns are things out of his control, like the weather and insect infestation. Even then, he often has a remedy to mitigate the damage to his harvest. Otherwise, he goes about the daily execution of his farming process. Hundreds of years of experience in the fields are evidence of the success of the farming process.

So, why don’t our sales systems more closely replicate that of the farmer’s process? If I had to venture a guess, it would have to do with the need for attention to detail and perseverance. Each discrete step of farming isn’t complex, but the structures, analysis, processes, learning, and adjustments across the system require higher-level thinking. Economic swings, competitive attacks, ill-informed ROI formulas, and low yield, cause many to doubt or disbelieve in the sales farming process. They pause or abandon the process… the sales farming process, shockingly without considering that they have just eliminated their future harvest, sales diversification, and growth. 

I was a hunter for many years… a good one, if I do say so. Whereas in the day, I was keenly aware of anything that moved, I now work to plant my future firmly in the ground… farming style.  

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