Background sales styles

Easily improve the overall success of a sales team by

Identify the sales team’s strengths;
allowing each salesperson to discover their individual sales style;
Learn how to successfully improve one’s own sales style to meet customer needs;
Discover how to best connect and “mirror” from one’s own style with a wide range of personality types (clients);
ascertain at the team level where strengths and blind spots or pitfalls lie.

The Company Stars profiles can help sales teams develop effective sales strategies to build a larger customer base. Make Company Stars part of your business model and improve your sales and marketing. By strengthening one’s own style and adapting it to the client, more effective communication can be achieved while also efficiently discussing client needs. After all, a good salesperson must be able to adopt an attitude and/or offer things the customer needs.

Sales is generally defined as: identifying sales opportunities, coming up with ideas on how to exploit those sales opportunities to achieve commercial returns. Know how to generate business through acquisition or relationship management and responsibly take risks in executing plans made. At the end of this report you will find a more detailed explanation of the styles mentioned.

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Understanding sales and management styles

Type sales functions

There are different types of sales positions, in which the emphasis may be (more) on acquisition (hunting) or relationship building (farming). We also distinguish Business Development positions.

Sales: Hunter – Prospector of leads

The salesperson with Hunter’s style is a typical extroverted personality who is rarely if ever in the office and is constantly focused on finding new customers. He easily makes contact, chats with everyone, and always has a sharp quip ready. The thrill for the Hunter lies in making new connections, getting potential customers interested in services or products, and regularly “scoring” a new client. In addition, he attends LinkedIn and networking events with the goal of generating leads and effectively acquiring new clients. Having turned a cold lead into a warm lead, an excellent Sales Hunter knows how to persuade without coming across as “pusillanimous. However, too often a Hunter is seen as someone who just quickly talks a client in and then walks away. That is not reality, and they will more often go through more complex sales cycles and (have to) build relationships with many different people within that customer organization.

While ideally salespeople should possess high motivation and determination, it is not about pressuring, prodding and prodding a potential customer into signing a sales order that he does not have absolute confidence in completing. Demonstrating (learning) compassion so that the customer feels understood can help refine the overall sales approach.

To connect with the customer, it is helpful to present and communicate in a way the customer wants and not in the way the salesperson would like. For example, if the customer is thoughtful, analytical and deliberate and the salesperson is very direct, dynamic and impatient in nature, there will be a certain amount of misunderstanding and stress. The Company Stars behavioral models provide insight into how the salesperson delivers the message based on their own style and provides tips on how to adapt their behavior to the customer (mirroring).

In addition to motivation and determination, Company Stars looks at Hunters for how people interact with the world based on affinity for seeking social contact, interest in establishing social relationships and results orientation.

Hunters primarily exhibit red characteristics, with some yellow or green traits, and fewer blue and brown ones.

Account Management: Farmer – Guardian of customers

A Farmer is a relationship manager, someone who has a portfolio with a number of customers and is tasked with retaining this number of customers and increasing the overall sales of the portfolio. So a Farmer ensures that existing customers remain customers and start bringing in more sales. The duties of a Farmer include maintaining and nurturing existing customer relationships. He will not easily lose a customer by giving him too little attention, but do not ask him to continuously find new customers by cold calling. A Farmer thinks service-oriented. Sales figures do matter to him, but they should not take precedence over customer satisfaction. People who predominantly have this style prefer to maintain relationships with customers in order to obtain sales. They are open to customers’ wishes, proposals and views and work with them as much as possible to find the best service or product for their requirements. These sales people prefer to form long-term (cooperative) relationships based on trust, mutual understanding and goodwill. They also have an extensive network within their own client base; they know everyone from high to low who matters. The thrill of the sales profession is in maintaining and expanding the relationships he has often done business with for years. These people are highly social, supportive and accommodating and fit well in work environments where sales cycles are quite long and long-term sales relationships are important. They are likely to cope well with stress and tension and can deal with difficult customers in a calm and balanced manner. Company Stars looks at Farmers for affinity for seeking social contact, interest in establishing social relationships, social engagement, planning & thinking ahead and wanting to see end results. Farmers primarily exhibit green and blue characteristics, occasionally with some brown traits, and fewer red and yellow ones.

Business Developer

A Business Developer (also called a Business Development Manager) is someone within a company who expands the sales market for the product and/or service in which the company specializes. This puts the Business Developer under the field of sales. The Business Developer is responsible, following the company vision translated into a sales plan, for expanding the current sales market and tapping into any new markets to which the company supplies its goods and/or services. The Business Developer closely monitors market trends and developments in order to identify new opportunities and respond strategically. To concretely achieve business expansion, Business Developers have direct contact with existing customers, business associates and potential new customers (also called “leads”). The Business Developer’s responsibilities often include the following work:

Identify new opportunities and markets;
Spotting market trends (and translating them into new propositions);
Expand sales activities at the customer and/or regional level;
Drafting strategy to approach new markets;
Develop concrete sales plans for the target market(s);
Generate and follow up on new leads (potential customers);
Converting standard products and services to a customer-tailored solution.

A Business Developer plays a particularly important role in the company, as he must set the strategy for the coming years, with the goal of expanding the company’s business. For this, he must have vision, a desire to research and analyze, be highly motivated and results-oriented, show determination and have an affinity for establishing 1-on-1 relationships and social contacts in general. This means that he must also work under high pressure and face stress. These elements are essential for any company seeking to strengthen its competitiveness and market presence. Company Stars looks at Business Developers for affinity for seeking social contact, social engagement, preparing & arranging, planning & thinking ahead, intellectual challenge, wanting to see end results and interest in world news, history and politics. The Business Developer incorporates elements of both the Hunter and the Farmer complemented by other qualities. Business Developers primarily exhibit yellow and blue characteristics, along with some green and possibly a bit of red, but score low on brown.

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