Towards the end of the 1970s, the commercial approach known as ‘hunters and farmers’ emerged. Both IBM and XEROX had observed that, to acquire new clients, some salespeople had suitable abilities while others did not. In response, they segmented their executives into ‘hunters’ and ‘farmers’ – prospectors and developers, respectively.

It’s not a focus problem, but a skills problem

Several investigations have been carried out and concluded that the problem wasn’t the the ability or personality of the different sellers, but rather a factor of commercial management, who allowed these differences to deepen and did not know how to prepare everyone both to acquire and to develop clients.

At present, there are still companies grappling with this dilemma. At the same time, I observe a growing need to acquire new customers, accelerated significantly by the pandemic.

Nevertheless, the paradigm of placing more focus on existing customers persists, distracting them, pulling them like a magnet, and at the end of the day, they are gaining fewer new customers than their business needs.

The other reality I observe is in commercial executives who find numerous reasons and excuses not to dedicate time and focus to acquiring new clients. And the issue worsens: ask most salespeople how they sell, and they will say, ‘I sell by being a trusted advisor.’

“Buyers now want sellers who tell them what they should want.”

This mindset is partial and only usable when expanding existing clients, but it’s the antithesis for acquiring new ones. Acquiring new accounts means it is no longer enough to say: ‘Tell me what you want and I bring it to you.‘ Buyers now want sellers who tell them what they should want.

Decision-makers want you to do the heavy lifting of filtering all available information and provide a perspective on what they are missing out on or the change they need to undergo to improve their business performance.
This new reality involves mastering situational conversational skills because what is beneficial to say to acquire new accounts is radically different from what is valuable to say when negotiating or expanding with existing clients.