As I talk with companies that are hiring sales reps a common refrain is “we need a hunter”. That shouldn’t surprise anyone because if you look at sales jobs through the years that concept always stands out. Question is what is a hunter?
In the past it was that great sales rep that always managed to get involved in sales cycle before the competition. That was important because that rep got to set the expectations and began to educate the prospect as to what could be expected from the solution. The hunter was on the scene first and put themselves in position to drive the process and as a result won the most new business.
Another trait of this traditional hunter was the drive for immediacy. When they engaged a client the objective was singular…sell something now. If that objective can’t be met for some reason that lead is discarded and the traditional hunter is on to the next hunt.
Problem is that over the last few years the hunting dynamic has changed. The old style hunter that’s out in the market trying to insert themselves into the process as early as possible will likely find a cool if not downright cold reception. Customers today have access to information and like to do their research independently of the sales rep. I have seen studies that indicate that sales cycles can be 60% to 80% complete BEFORE the prospect is ready to engage a sales rep and that changes the whole dynamic of hunting.
That means that a vital part of hunting today is content focused. It’s the same concept as before. Get your information in front of the prospect and drive the process. In the past that was done exclusively via face to face sales calls. Today you have to create compelling content then use and manage a variety of information channels to accomplish the task. Now I know that when I say compelling content most of you are thinking that’s expensive, but it does not have to be. Content can be anything from a text message to an email message to a YouTube video. Compelling content is valuable not necessarily expensive.
In most larger organizations the Marketing Department creates some content and can even manage a lot of the pre-engagement information flow and lead nurturing. In an organization where there is not a Marketing Department does that performs this function it is now up to the rep to manage that process. In both cases that means changes to the traditional sales paradigm that I will talk more about in subsequent posts.
For now we will end with this thought…the trick for successful hunting in todays market is for the hunter to use content and a lead nurturing process to pave the way and then insert themselves into the process at the RIGHT time not just the earliest possible time.