Tag Archives: Career Advancement

By Greta Roberts, CEO, Target Teams

Treeline, Inc. specializes in bringing together top sales talent to meet the needs of businesses.  They understand the business goals of their clients and help them to compose sales teams that help them meet their organizational needs.

Different business goals require different candidate characteristics.  If a business is focusing on increasing renewals to their services – they may wish to focus on hiring more sales “farmers” – sales teams that will naturally want to service an account for long-term account loyalty.

At times, when interviewing sales candidates, Treeline can “feel” a disconnect between how the candidate is “selling themselves” and their natural characteristics who they “really are”.

As a sales candidate it’s important to know yourself.  What are your best characteristics?  What are your strengths?  What is an ideal environment to show off those strengths?  When you posture and pretend, Treeline can tell and potential employers can tell.

• Do you prefer a strategic sale or an activity-driven sale?
• Do you” live” to uncover and seize new opportunities or are you better suited to cultivate and develop loyalty within an existing client base?
• Do you prefer selling in person or behind the scenes?
• Do you prefer selling with a team quota or as an individual performer?
• Do you prefer selling “direct” and to the end user customer or to a “channel” in an indirect model?

Target Teams has spent close to a decade learning to know businesses and their needs for a variety of sales candidates that help them accomplish their strategy.   Of the variety of sales professionals, our extensive research has resulted in the following common traits of Sales Hunters and Sales Farmers.

Both are critical for business success.  Be honest. Which one “fits” you more closely?

Extraordinary Sales “Farmer”

• Farmers tend to prefer a more team collaborative approach. The collaborative sales person wants to get a full picture of an opportunity prior to attacking it.
• Farmers like and are good at getting directives on priorities. Farmers enjoy collaboration and input from a manager, other team members or their client teams.
• Farmers prefer working on a few, longer-term, key projects. They excel at greater patience with the time it takes for some leads to close. They are comfortable working with situations that require nurturing.
• Farmers may excel at being more patient when it comes to deals that may have longer sales cycles.
• Farmers work well with more predictability in their accounts and their goals. They excel at creating bridges to help customers embrace change. Farmers have a longer-range approach.
• Farmers want to be paid well for their performance but they may enjoy more of a team quota, team approach or overlay position.
• They may recognize and appreciate the greater benefits provided by an organization and may be less focused exclusively on a financial compensation plan.
• Farmers enjoy understanding the needs of the customer and work to help them achieve their goals. These characteristics help the farmer create long-term, extremely loyal client relationships that extend into the future.
• Farmers love to help and support others. They enjoy taking the time to support clients and prospects even if pieces of that support do not directly impact their own personal sale – they see this as a long-term investment of time and resources.
• Farmers may sometimes be a little offended at the lengths the sales hunter needs to go to achieve their own goals. They may sometimes feel as if the sales hunter is a little selfish.
• Sales farmers may sometimes prefer selling using an indirect or “channel model”.

Extraordinary Sales “Hunter”

• Hunters like to solve problems on their own and on the fly. The autonomous sales hunter wants to close deals with little outside collaboration.
• Hunters like to lead (by themselves) whatever projects are on their plates. They will successfully direct, lead and execute sales initiatives.
• They will want to direct a team of people to help them achieve their own goals.
• Hunters like working on a lot of different projects at the same time. They can tend to be more comfortable working on a greater volume of leads, territories and clients.
• Hunters have a very strong sense of urgency in everything they do. They want sales to close quickly (no prodding required from their management team to move more quickly).
• Hunters thirst for change. They immediately adapt to change whether it’s ushered in by internal or external forces. They are spontaneous and don’t mind if priorities shift as long as it benefits them in the end.
• Hunters want to be paid well financially for their individual, high performance. They would prefer to have their own quota and not a team quota or an overlay position.
• Hunters are naturally very competitive and politically savvy. They are superb at recognizing power players inside of an organization and winning them over in the pursuit of their career as well as closing the deal.
• Hunters love the game of competition.
• Hunters tend to focus on achieving their own goals.
• Hunters are systematic problem solvers. They are curious and ask questions making them an ideal consultative sales person.
• Hunters are thirsty to learn information. This information helps them as they sell – they are consultative sales professionals.
• Sales hunters are highly useful to colleagues, prospects and clients in breaking down and explaining complex topics and ensuring that the team and client has the information to either succeed in their job and/or make an informed purchasing decision.
• Sales hunters may sometimes feel as if the sales farmer gives too much away or over services the client.

By Greta Roberts, CEO, Target Teams

Every sales executive dreams of having a stable of hunters – especially during a recession – yet how do you identify, motivate and keep them on board?

When it comes to sales reps, you could say there are two kinds of employees – hunters and farmers. Hunters live to uncover and seize new opportunities while farmers are better suited to up selling and cross selling to an existing client base.

While both are invaluable to a company, when it comes to surviving in lean times, the hunters are being hunted more than ever because of their ability to create new opportunities and see them through to profitability.

As a sales executive, you know you need to cultivate an environment that will enable the hunter to thrive, despite a challenging economic climate that presents fewer leads and has created slower sales cycles.

While experience and instinct has taught you what makes a good sales rep, it’s not always easy to identify the characteristics that differentiate the hunter from the farmer.

Based on extensive research conducted with sales professionals over close to a decade, what follows are the 12 traits Target Teams has uncovered of the sales hunter.

Along with outlining the pros and cons of each characteristic, you’ll also find helpful tips on how to manage and retain the hunter so that they are working to their full potential for their careers and your bottom line.

1. Hunters like to solve problems on their own and on the fly.

• Pro: the autonomous sales rep will close the deal with little handholding.
• Con: team collaboration can present a challenge.
• Tip: break down the responsibilities of the team to ensure the hunter is still able to own and drive part of the effort.

2. Hunters like to lead whatever projects are on their plates.

• Pro: they will successfully lead and execute sales initiatives.
• Con: they can present a challenge to the manager who is trying to lead the team.
• Tip: provide opportunities for the hunter to independently manage projects and ask them to demonstrate the results in a public forum to the manager and the executive team. This will allow the hunter to gain public recognition without usurping the role of the manager.

3. Hunters want (and need) to be around people because they thrive on the energy of others.

• Pro: they naturally gravitate toward meeting new people and initiating cold calls and are comfortable addressing a larger audience at the prospect’s site.
• Con: if this hunter works from home or is based in a small regional sales office, they will feel disconnected and are more likely to disengage.
• Tip: Find a reason to bring them into corporate headquarters several times a quarter and arrange for meetings and other interactions with colleagues and executive personnel. Also, be sure to regularly check in with them on a personal level as hunters appreciate and come to rely on their 1:1 personal connection with their manager.

4. Hunters like working on a lot of different projects at the same time.

• Pro: they can successfully manage more territories and service more clients.
• Con: they may interrupt existing processes and defined roles in their pursuit of juggling lots of activities simultaneously.
• Tip: provide a wider, well-defined territory so that the hunter can tackle lots of projects without negatively impacting other staff.

5. Hunters like change.

• Pro: they’ll easily adapt to change whether it’s ushered in by internal or external forces.
• Con: they will get bored with routine.
• Tip: include changes in the hunter’s role every 12-18 months for renewed enthusiasm.

6. Hunters have a strong sense of urgency.

• Pro: they want sales to close quickly. No prodding required from their management team.
• Con: their patience is tested when it comes to deals that may require longer sales cycles.
• Tip: consider matching the length of the sales cycle with the “sense of urgency” of the rep – i.e. small account sales rep with sales cycle of 2 weeks vs. global account sales rep with a sales cycle of a year and a half.

7. Hunters tend to bend the rules.

• Pro: hunters will creatively solve problems (and potentially bend some rules) to creatively progress with prospects –typically leading to an increase in sales.
• Con: this trait can frustrate those responsible for enforcing the company’s administrative and business processes.
• Tip: provide flexibility in the sales process — require process requirements if they are absolutely critical.

8. Hunters dislike entering sales forecast data.

• Pro: they have an innate ability to hold a great many facts in their head and this helps to support their primary focus on active selling.
• Con: lack of accurate rep forecast data can impede management’s ability to accurately forecast for the executive team and make critical business decisions.
• Tip: require only critical forecast data — potentially sales operations or administrative support to capture and document rep conversations with regard to sales status and forecasts.

9. Hunters want to be paid — and paid well — for their high performance.

• Pro: greater profitability for everybody involved.
• Con: reps are highly motivated when paid immediately. If not paid well, they will leave and chase compensation elsewhere. A reps loyalty is to results and top compensation.
• Tip: work with your finance department and CEO to create easy to understand compensation plans that are tied exclusively to performance.

10. Hunters are naturally politically savvy.

• Pro: they are superb at recognizing power players inside of an organization and winning them over in the pursuit of their career as well as closing the deal. They love the game of competition.
• Con: they will thrive with visibility with senior leaders within their own company that may not always be available.
• Tip: establish mechanisms for the hunter to connect with senior leaders in your organization so that they are recognized publicly and privately for their efforts.

11. Hunters are systematic problem solvers.

• Pro: they are curious and ask questions making them the ideal consultative sales person.
• Con: they don’t like to be told how to do something, even if they or the processes are new because they love the challenge of figuring something out on their own.
• Tip: encourage and reward questions from reps – as well as challenges from them when they seem to act as if they know everything.

12. Hunters love to learn and to teach others.

• Pro: they are highly useful to colleagues, prospects and clients in breaking down and explaining complex topics and ensuring that the team and client has the information to either succeed in their job and/or make an informed purchasing decision.
• Con: they can sometimes come off as a “know it all”
• Tip: provide an opportunity for the hunter to share their knowledge with their peers or with other departments (i.e. customer service, product development, marketing, executive team).

Certainly, there are many variables that contribute to sales hunters being successful. Yet, more often than not many of these 12 traits appear consistently in sales teams of many sizes and industries.

Businesses spend money, time and effort training, coaching, changing compensation plans, redefining territories, changing sales management — often without examining the most critical element of sales success — the sales professionals themselves.

Greta Roberts is CEO and founder of Target Teams, a recognized leader in creating solutions to help businesses align their Talent Strategy with Business Strategy.
http://blog.treeline-inc.com/blog/bid/31565/Tracking-the-Sales-Hunter

It is forever the goal of every type of professional to grow and advance your career. In this economy, those desires are still present but the challenges of doing so are great. Professionals are now considering drastic ways to advance their careers such as relocation. However, before you pack your bags and uproot your existing life, consider the risks and the real implications of moving.

First, let’s establish the greatest reason to relocate: you relocate because you want to move to a specific geographic region for the environment, climate, family, etc.; you have no ties or plans to move back from where you are coming; you truly love the new destination and plan to establish a long lasting life and career there. If this is the motivation behind making a move then relocating is the right decision for you and your family. Pack up the U-Haul and enjoy the excitement and thrill of moving to a new state, city and town. Congratulations on your new venture and I wish you the best of luck.

However, for those of you considering relocation based on job opportunity, please consider some serious draw backs. I have experienced all of this not personally but through years of consultation with many great professionals.

When relocating for a new opportunity or a promotion with your existing company, the logistics of relocation are easy. Companies intentionally make it that way because once you leave the life you’re used to, you are trapped. Let use Boston as a location for example. If you are currently a professional residing in Boston and have a wonderful opportunity to advance your career but the advancement requires relocation, take into account some major factors: your family, extended family, friends, house, kid’s friends, classmates, etc. are in and around Boston. Now think about the opportunity for advancement and where it will lead you both professionally and geographically. Are you going to be moving to a place you like? If the answer is “no” and your main goal is to eventually land a better opportunity in Boston after a couple of years of experience you should strongly reconsider your relocation.

When you get the new promotion that requires you to move, there is typically a relocation package and emotionally it is all very exciting. Everything is in order to expand your career and your financial horizons. Your company helps sell your home, move your belongings and find a new house to purchase. All very exciting and once the wheels are moving you are gone. You say goodbye to your home and look forward to coming back in a few years with a promotion.

What unfortunately happens after the dust settles is not always what you may have dreamed of. A myriad of different unknowns pop up. You realize the job isn’t exactly what you thought it would be. Perhaps there is a personality conflict with your new boss or the division you moved to is struggling and you may loose your job. Also, if you have a family, you may discover that after uprooting them, your spouse and children are having a difficult time adapting to the new environment, the new school system or the general way of life. You may find that your support system was taken for granted or that building new relationships and finding dear friends takes many many years to establish. There are thousands of unknowns and many of these challenges way heavily on you and the family unit.

So what happens next? You tough it out and make it work. Even though the division you moved to had layoffs and no security, you make it through. Your two year plan to gain more experience is a success and you have advanced your career. You now have the experience you needed and can finally move back home to Boston to land the dream job you’ve been waiting for. You have a lengthy discussion with your family and it is unanimous. You are moving back home!

The problem is the next step in your career is not available. The position within your company that you are aiming for is currently filled by a competent executive and already has a future replacement being groomed for the role. So you start to search for a new opportunity. You find a handful of opportunities in Boston but get no calls back. There are no calls because all hiring managers will look at the candidates in their location first and then consider people who have to relocate. They do this because of the burden and challenges that comes with a move.

The good news is that your credentials are worth an interview with one of the companies. The hiring manager is doing interviews next Monday. You charge the flight on your credit card, take the day off, and fly to Boston. The interview is a success and the feedback is great. You make the cut. Second interviews will be held on the following Tuesday. You take the day off, charge the flight and again a huge success. You have now made the short list. The hiring authority asks you back the following Wednesday. You take the day off, charge the flight and make the shortlist to visit corporate the following Thursday. They are flying you and one other to corporate. This time the interviewing company pays for the flight. What a relief, but when you go to take another day off your boss gets suspicious. You are worried because now your current job could be in jeopardy. You have no choice but to move forward and start to think about what needs to get down to make this a success.

You start to set expectations with your spouse, you start thinking about putting the house on the market, hoping you make money on the sale and hoping it will not take too long to sell. You are mid way through the school year and need to figure out if you are going to take the kids out of school or keep them in school and move to Boston without your family. You start to think about buying a home in Boston and paying two mortgages until your current home sells and realize very quickly that moving back is going to take some serious sacrifice, some large financial concessions and many geographic challenges. All of which were not present when your company relocated you the first time. You decide it can be done, so you go on the final interview and things go very well. The hiring authority qualifies you and mentions that you will need to start in one and a half weeks. You agree on the start date, and to move without your family. You find out that a decision will be made within two days. Two days go by and you get the call. The company has decided to move forward with the other candidate that currently resides in Boston. You were the second runner up. You are thanked for going through the process and it is over.

To some degree you are thankful because you realize that you were not ready to make the move and you need time to get your ducks in a row. So you are faced with starting the process all over again. You think about the cost just to interview, the time off it will take to get a new job, selling your current house, finding a new house, the prospect of starting your new job in Boston without your family, etc. The list goes on and on. Finally you realize that if you are going to advance your career it is best to be where you are. That is when you realize that moving back is not an option. You and your family debate some really harsh realities and wonder if you will ever make it back. Therefore, when considering relocation for an advancement in your career, look at all the angles. It may be an extremely exciting prospect at this point in time, but what are your ultimate goals?

If you are setting your expectations that this role is temporary, I would reassess your thought process and consider your priorities. Remember: your career is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Don’t just think about the immediate situation, consider the journey ahead. Good luck!