Despite centuries of discovery, salespeople are still cast in ancient agrarian terms as “hunters” or “farmers.” Organizations value aggressive hunters who dote on Big Corporate Game, compete for new major accounts, and ink million-dollar-plus deals. Hunt. Kill. Carve. Eat. Drool! Farmers, on the other hand, are installed-account focused. They’re patient, nurturing, and empathetic. Vision, without as much saliva. Even still, farmers are expected to grow cash crops, not weeds. Could any sales organization survive without them? The better question is can they survive with them, because these metaphors are dying. Today, such simplification no more reflects sales than it does food production.
 
In the context of socially-empowered customers, thinking “hunters and farmers” jams salespeople into roles they can’t adequately fill, and forces processes that don’t match how customers buy. Why? Because social media that fuels socially-empowered customers has fragmented communication into many pieces, and selling responsibilities have fragmented along with it. Just twenty years ago, holding conversations with customers was an almost-inviolable domain of the sales force. Not anymore. And we’re just beginning to understand that buying processes are in fact, complex social processes. Social buying needs social selling, and vice-versa.
 
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