Hunters and Farmers
Build a sales team from both closers who kill and relationship-builders who cultivate.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 80%
Liniger distinguishes two sales temperaments you need on a team: hunters and farmers. Hunters live for the kill, want to bag the deal, drop it at the tent, and go hunt again. Farmers are slow and methodical, building lifetime relationships over years. A healthy sales organization needs both: farmers for the patience to nurture long relationships and hunters to go out and score. The framework is a simple hiring lens for balancing a sales force rather than defaulting to one style.
Origin
Liniger draws this from decades of building RE/MAX's sales force and selling franchises, distilling the observed temperaments of top salespeople into two archetypes.
Core principles
- 01Sales has two types: hunters and farmers.
- 02Hunters live for the kill and the next hunt.
- 03Farmers are methodical and build lifetime relationships.
- 04You need both types on a sales team.
How to run it
- 1
Diagnose the temperament
Assess whether a salesperson is a hunter driven by the kill or a farmer driven by relationship-building.
- 2
Hire for both roles
Recruit hunters to close new business and farmers to patiently cultivate long-term relationships.
- 3
Balance the team
Compose the sales force so both immediate closing power and multi-year relationship depth are covered.
Watch out Overloading on one type leaves you either without new deals or without durable relationships.
In the wild
Liniger describes hunters going out to kill something, carrying it back to the tent, dropping it, and immediately wanting to hunt again, versus farmers who methodically build a lifetime experience with each client.
→ Illustrates the two complementary temperaments a balanced sales team requires.
Common mistakes
Hiring only one type
Staffing solely hunters or solely farmers leaves the team missing either new-deal momentum or long-term relationship cultivation.
Is it for you?
Best for
Sales managers composing a balanced sales force.
Not ideal for
Solo sellers or contexts where only one motion (pure hunting or pure farming) is needed.
From the transcript
“in the sales field there are hunters and Farmers the hunters live for the kill”
“you need both sales people you need Farm that will have the patience to build relationships”
From the episode
Dave Liniger: Top Leadership Principles to Achieve Extraordinary Entrepreneurship Success
Dave Liniger