One of the most frequently asked questions from business owners, I find, is how their sales force should be structured. Usually the question goes something like this: “Troy, what do you think of having ‘hunters’ and ‘farmers’ in your sales force, where the ‘hunter’ sells the account and the ‘farmer’ then manages it?” It’s a common question.

My answer is always the same. I dislike it. A lot. Whenever I see that arrangement in place, I see numerous problems. Low customer retention, high customer complaints, and higher than normal sales turnover always accompany this arrangement, and I’ll tell you why.

Think back to when you were a small child, and your parents left you somewhere for the first time (not with a close relative). Maybe it was a babysitter, maybe it was school, maybe it was a day camp, maybe it was day care. Think hard about how you felt. You probably felt a little abandoned, didn’t you? Sure you did. And it felt pretty bad.

Feelings of abandonment are one of the worst emotions we can undergo, yet that’s how customers feel anytime a salesperson ‘hands them off’ to a customer service person or account manager. “But wait, Troy,” some of you are saying. “Not at my company! My company does a clean handoff and my customers don’t feel that way.” No, you don’t – and yes, they do. Your ‘hunter’ has gone through whatever steps were necessary to build a relationship, trust, and commitment – and having done enough of that to get the deal, he sends the message that the customer really wasn’t all that important, after all; he needs to go sell someone else to keep making a living.

Buyer’s remorse is also a very powerful emotion – and the ‘handoff’ causes it to set in, many times before the first delivery is made. Is that the way you want your customer relationships to start? “That’s OK,” you’re saying, “My account managers can make up for it.” Maybe – but probably not. That’s because your account managers seldom have the quantity and quality of contact that the original ‘hunter’ had. For instance, many of these arrangements have a face-to-face ‘hunter’ and a phone-based ‘account manager.’

The second problem is the customer service issues that always arise during the handoff period. “But, but, but…your salesperson promised….” is a constant refrain from customers after the ‘handoff.’ I’ve seen many, many companies that operate this way and sales and service are seldom on the same page. That’s because sales and service are separate and not accountable to each other. I’ll never forget what a service manager said to me once: “The salesperson’s job is to sell the fantasy. The service person’s job is to sell reality.”

That kind of disconnect wouldn’t be possible if the original salesperson stayed in contact. First of all, if the problem is that salespeople have made inappropriate promises, they wouldn’t do it if they knew that they had to look the customer in the eye afterward. If the problem is that the service experience isn’t living up to the sales approach, that wouldn’t happen if the sales and service operations were under the same umbrella and the same person’s responsibility. Hence, you get high customer complaints and low customer retention.

High sales turnover also seems to be part and parcel of sales forces with this approach. Typically, I like to see annual sales turnover in the 10-20% range. Lower than this, and the company might be holding onto underperforming reps for too long; higher than this, the company is wasting money on churning salespeople.

Companies with the hunter/farmer system typically experience turnover in the 30-50% range or even higher (I know of one national Fortune 500 company that had 82% sales turnover last year with this model). That’s incredibly expensive – worse, it’s a waste of sales talent. The worst part is that both the hunters and farmers turn too much.

The Hunters turn because, eventually, nearly every salesperson burns out on a constant diet of prospecting. Yes, I’m a fan of prospecting – but if that’s all you’re doing, it gets tiresome. Worse, two ways that salespeople find gratification are eliminated if you’re a hunter. First, you never get to see the fruits of your labors; the long term relationship belongs to someone else. Second, referrals and testimonials aren’t part of your business development strategy. By the time the company earns a referral or testimonial, you’re forgotten and the Farmer is in charge.

Ironically, Farmers turn at a high rate as well. You might think that the farmer has the gravy train; being able to sell without prospecting sounds like fun, right? Not so much. The biggest reason for this is that the farmer has much less of an opportunity to grow his/her income; that’s in the Hunter’s bailiwick. Too, the service issues we discussed above fall into the farmer’s lap – and they become disenchanted, seek a better income elsewhere, and leave.

What I like to see is salespeople who are all-around players. The salesperson who can bring on new business, take care of it, and build relationships is a valuable salesperson indeed. My experience has shown me that there’s little difference, trait-wise, between the “hunter” and “farmer.” The difference is in the training and company culture. If your culture and training aren’t aligned with this reality of selling, maybe it’s time to take a new look at what you’re doing.

I honestly don’t enjoy writing about social networking. That’s not because there aren’t lessons to be taught and learned (hence this article), but because social networking is one of those things that’s written about so much these days, any article can get lost in the white noise (much like the white noise of social networking itself). But, as you’ve probably learned, my life and experiences pretty much tell me what to write and when, and so it is with today’s article.

You see, in the last month, I’ve seen numerous instances of how not to use professional social networking, or how social networking can unintentionally shine a negative light on you and on your career.

We all know that social networking can create your ‘image.’ That’s a good thing, right? Maybe. One thing that social networking does, that other methods of image creation do not, is give immediate transparency. Social networking is like ringing a bell; once it’s rung, it can’t be un-rung. From time to time, when I read posts, I’m certain that some people wish that they could un-ring bells. So, here are some issues that I see in social networking:

Don’t post items that make you look crazy. You’re laughing right now – and so am I – but I’m serious. A few weeks ago, I granted an interview to a website that focuses on marketing and sales issues for car dealers. I’ll be the first to say that I’m pretty critical of car dealers and their sales practices. I earned the right to do so; I sold cars. I didn’t like their practices even when I sold cars, and unfortunately, experience has told me that my criticisms are still right on target.

In the interview, I referred to one practice as ‘idiotic and customer-unfriendly.’ Harsh, maybe, but it’s a remark that I stand by. Well, one used car dealer in Kentucky went NUTS. I began getting alerts from Twitter saying, “You have been mentioned in….” and I took a look. At first, there were several mentions of the interview – mostly positive. This, however, was not (You can follow me at @salesnuggets).

This guy went off the rails. He said that I must have failed at car sales, because no one ever leaves the car business unless they failed, that I myself must be an idiot (every time he mentioned that comment, he capitalized IDIOT), that I should be retrained, etc. Seriously, I was starting to wonder if he was going to be outside my front door some morning; we’re talking Fatal Attraction stuff. I actually ended up with some new followers because of what he posted.

So, what was my response? Nothing. When people are going nuts on social networking, the best response is no response, which brings up another tip. Don’t get in arguments and defend yourself. If someone posts a blatant lie about you (for instance, a customer says that you didn’t fulfill a promise when you did), it’s okay to post factual information – but don’t get dragged into a contest of opinions. I offended one car dealer. No big deal. Others were helped by what I said.

LinkedIn, in particular, offers a window into your professional soul. I just got one of those “Congratulations, your contact so-and-so has a new job!” Well, great…except. I’ve known this person since 2005. This is the eighth new job that this person has had since I’ve known him, and they’ve all been lateral moves. This is one final dark side to social networking: Social networking reflects the reality of your career over the long term, so your career had better be good. Of course, I know this person would have a story about every move. Everyone has a story. Instead of a story, seek stability.

I could, of course, post numerous other examples (such as the ‘professional writer’ who posted a LinkedIn article that was so full of spelling and grammatical errors to be nearly unreadable), but if I were going to give one piece of advice, it would be this: Think before you post. That won’t help my friend in the third example – but it would have greatly helped the one in the first. To be honest, it helped me to stay above the fray when he started posting, because my instinct was to respond.

The immediacy and the transparency of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn allow us to do and post things that are unbecoming and sometimes damaging to us; don’t be that person.