• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

SpenceCo

We Find Sales Superstars

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Candidates
  • Clients
  • Contact Us
  • Blog

September 26, 2015 By Bruce Spence 11 Comments

A Hunter! A Hunter! My Kingdom for a Hunter! (with Apologies to William Shakespeare Richard 111)

When I started my life in Sales Recruiting I had just spent over 20 years in various Sales Management roles in the Telecommunications Industry. My specific area of expertise was fixing broken or building new sales teams.

The Telecom sector in the 90’s was very competitive, deregulation had been introduced for Long Distance and Data services and even local access was open to competition. There was host of new entrants into the marketplace all providing the same type of service offerings and very similar prices.

In short it was a gunfight. And nowhere was the competition more intense than in the mid-market. Sales cycles were 90 days and success was based on the competence and aggressiveness of the sales team  In short you needed to be a Sales Hunter to survive. This is where I lived and worked for over a decade.

So when I started recruiting and a client told me that they needed a Hunter and only a Hunter I knew what they wanted. Or so I thought!

On my first assignment looking for a sales hunter for a client I was very excited I had found 4 candidates that I knew were hunters and sent them all to meet the client. Imagine my disappointment when at a debriefing after the interviews I was told that none of the candidates were acceptable.

Why? I asked. After some hemming and hawing, and a battle with political correctness, the client said;

Well they all were just too aggressive; they seemed pushy, arrogant and sometimes almost abrasive. We just couldn’t have someone like that working for us.

I realized that the client had never worked with real sales hunters. Managing a team of sales hunters in not a task for the faint of heart. The very things that make them successful sales hunters make them a nightmare to manage. They are aggressive, they are driven, they have egos, they are tenacious and they have no problem stating their opinion on any matter. Often they view the company’s internal departments as lesser beings and treat them accordingly. They create any number of problems and internal issues for their sales managers that are unique to the sales hunter.

At this point I should add a disclaimer: I am writing from my experience and I am sure that there are many, many successful sales hunters with the personality of Mother Teresa and I am sure that there are sales hunters with the diplomatic skills of Henry Kissinger. It is just in my experience I haven’t met these people. I am only relating my experience with sales hunters.

I realized that I had not really qualified my client when he told me he was looking for a hunter. I assumed that I understood what a hunter was. A Hunter has a different meaning to different clients.  Although many companies say they want a sales hunter often that is not totally true. What they want is someone who is NOT a paper pusher, someone who does NOT spend all day in the office, someone who is not afraid to develop new accounts. While these are all part of a true hunters’ makeup, a hunter is much much more than this.

The lesson I learned is that while companies may cry out that they want a hunter and only a hunter you need to make very sure you understand what they really want and need. That is the value a professional sales recruiter can bring. They get to understand the client and make sure that they deliver to the client what they really wants.

 

So Ends Blog #4

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Blog

Previous Post: « Recruiter Memory Lapse … so sad!
Next Post: Business Platitudes – Do as I Say Not as I Do »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. dig this says

    September 7, 2016 at 3:58 am

    I simply want to tell you that I am just all new to blogs and certainly liked you’re website. More than likely I’m want to bookmark your site . You certainly have exceptional writings. Cheers for sharing with us your blog.

    Reply
  2. Teresa says

    September 8, 2016 at 4:08 am

    I was just looking at your A Hunter! A Hunter! My Kingdom for a Hunter! (with Apologies to William Shakespeare Richard 111) site and see that your website has the potential to become very popular. I just want to tell you, In case you don’t already know… There is a website service which already has more than 16 million users, and the majority of the users are looking for topics like yours. By getting your website on this network you have a chance to get your site more visitors than you can imagine. It is free to sign up and you can read more about it here: http://v-doc.co/nm/txxrz – Now, let me ask you… Do you need your website to be successful to maintain your business? Do you need targeted visitors who are interested in the services and products you offer? Are looking for exposure, to increase sales, and to quickly develop awareness for your site? If your answer is YES, you can achieve these things only if you get your site on the network I am talking about. This traffic service advertises you to thousands, while also giving you a chance to test the network before paying anything at all. All the popular sites are using this network to boost their readership and ad revenue! Why aren’t you? And what is better than traffic? It’s recurring traffic! That’s how running a successful site works… Here’s to your success! Read more here: http://www.v-diagram.com/2sv1p

    Reply
  3. Lita Eaglin says

    October 26, 2016 at 6:19 am

    Great line up. We will be linking to this great article on our site. Keep up the good writing.

    Reply
  4. Liza88 says

    November 2, 2016 at 4:27 am

    Reading your website is pure pleasure for me, it deserves to
    go viral, you need some initial traffic only. If you want to know how to get it search for:
    blackhatworren’s strategies

    Reply
  5. homepage says

    November 2, 2016 at 12:43 pm

    say thanks to so a lota lot for your web site it assists a great deal

    Reply
  6. Stacey Wormwood says

    November 4, 2016 at 8:23 am

    Glad to be one of several visitants on this awing internet site : D.

    Reply
  7. ToneyVWirt says

    November 18, 2016 at 6:35 am

    This article will help the web viewers for strengthening new weblog or possibly a weblog from commence to end.

    Reply
    • admin says

      November 18, 2016 at 4:32 pm

      Glad you like it

      Reply
  8. StantonONeis says

    November 19, 2016 at 9:15 am

    I’m impressed, I must say. Seldom should i find a blog that’s both equally educative
    and engaging, and undoubtedly, you possess hit the nail about the head.

    The catch is an issue that too few men and women are speaking intelligently about.
    I am just thrilled I found this in my hunt for something in regards to this.

    Reply
  9. TulaLZollman says

    December 1, 2016 at 11:37 pm

    This is really interesting, You are a very skilled blogger.
    I have joined your feed and look forward to seeking more of your great post.
    Also, I’ve shared your website in my social networks!

    Reply
  10. madden mobile says

    December 22, 2016 at 4:33 am

    Hello! I could have sworn I’ve been to this website before but
    after reading through some of the post I realzed it’s new to me.
    Nonetheless, I’m definitely delightewd I found it and I’ll bbe bookmaeking and checking backk often!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

RSS Latest Opportunities

  • Business Development Ocean Freight
  • Technical Sales Representative Pumps
  • Outside Sales Concrete

RSS Latest Blog Post

  • Recruiting Vegas Style – A Cautionary Tale
  • Business Platitudes – Do as I Say Not as I Do
  • A Hunter! A Hunter! My Kingdom for a Hunter! (with Apologies to William Shakespeare Richard 111)
  • Recruiter Memory Lapse … so sad!
  • Left Handed Blue Eyed Plumber Syndrome
  • Recruiters vs Internet
Copyright © 2021 SpenceCo . Website by Hiring Hook . Designed by OnSite Geeks