B2B Sales Hunters vs Farmers: The Differences that Matter

The B2B Sales Hunters vs Farmers Sales Model: The Differences that Matter for Profitable, Sustainable Growth

The B2B sales hunters vs. farmers model has been discussed in business sales training for decades — and for good reason. Hunters and farmers represent two distinct, but complementary, approaches to generating revenue. Both can play a critical role in achieving sustainable sales growth.

The fundamental difference is where they focus their energy.

• B2B sales hunters pursue and win new customers.
• B2B sales farmers retain, deepen, and grow current accounts.

The strategic question is not whether hunters or farmers are better. It is whether you have the right balance of both to execute your sales strategy and hit your growth targets.

What Makes a Great B2B Sales Hunter?
Sales rep assessment simulation data tells us that effective B2B sales hunters thrive on the pursuit of new business. They are energized by identifying opportunities, opening doors, getting meetings, and converting prospects into customers. Rejection does not derail them — it fuels the next pursuit.

In general, the best B2B sales hunters:

• Prospect willingly, frequently, and consistently
• Demonstrate strong sales conviction in the company’s unique value proposition
• Proactively cold call, network, and create new relationships
• Recover quickly from sales rejection
• Effectively use social selling and consultative selling tools and techniques
• Maintain a healthy and active sales pipeline
• Identify and qualify the right ideal target clients
• Consistently generate referrals from customers and their networks
• Create urgency without becoming overly transactional
• Deliver customer-centric and compelling sales pitches
• Take action without waiting for perfect scripts, collateral, or market conditions

Simply put, hunters create opportunities where none existed before.

What Makes a Great B2B Sales Farmer?
Great B2B sales farmers are about far more than providing excellent customer service. Their job is to transform existing customer relationships into deeper partnerships that create greater value for both sides.

High-performing B2B sales farmers retain and grow current accounts profitably. They typically:

• Build trusted advisor relationships with critical stakeholders
• Understand how decisions are really made within each account
• Know their clients’ business priorities, challenges, and success metrics
• Understand their clients’ personal and professional goals
• Build relationships across functions and organizational levels
• Develop sufficient industry and business expertise to become difficult to replace
• Consistently deliver on commitments and exceed expectations
• Confidently engage senior decision makers
• Understand customer budgets, spending patterns, and future priorities
• Identify opportunities to expand solutions based on genuine customer needs
• Successfully navigate internal and external workplace politics
• Prioritize the activities that create the greatest customer and business value
• Follow through relentlessly

Hunters open doors. Farmers make customers want to keep those doors open — and expand the relationship.

Which B2B Sales Model Works Best?
Most B2B sales organizations need some combination of hunting and farming. Effective sales managers deliberately structure roles, expectations, metrics, and incentives around their sales strategy rather than assuming every salesperson should excel equally at both.

The right mix depends on factors such as:

• The aggressiveness of your growth targets
• The expansion potential within current accounts
• The size and maturity of your sales organization
• The size of your addressable market
• Customer acquisition costs and account lifetime value
• The complexity and length of your sales process

Some solution selling teams separate hunting and farming into specialized roles. Others expect individual salespeople to acquire new customers while simultaneously expanding existing accounts.

Specialization has clear advantages. It allows sales leaders to match roles with different strengths, motivations, behaviors, and performance metrics.

But specialization also creates risk. Smaller teams may not have enough scale to separate the roles effectively. And poorly managed hunter-to-farmer handoffs can leave new customers feeling like they experienced a bait-and-switch — especially when the salesperson who built the original relationship suddenly disappears.

The best structure is the one that creates a seamless customer experience while maximizing profitable revenue growth.

The Bottom Line
The B2B sales hunters vs. farmers model should not be viewed as an either-or choice. Sustainable growth typically requires the ability to win the right new customers and systematically expand the right existing relationships. Done right, hunters create new sources of revenue while farmers compound their value over time. The key is aligning roles, capabilities, handoffs, metrics, and rewards with your unique sales strategy, customer buying journey, and culture. Do you have the right balance of hunters and farmers to achieve your growth targets?

When sales reps miss their targets, the real question is whether they have what it takes to turn performance around. Discover the four attributes that can help you distinguish a temporary slump from a deeper performance problem. Download When Sales Reps Miss Their Targets — 4 Attributes That Separate Top Performers from the Rest

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.