| Sales executives are often characterized as either | | | | dollars uncovering new prospect customers that a |
| hunters or harvesters. "Hunters" are those that | | | | hunter can go after. However, in most small |
| develop new relationships and open new doors for a | | | | companies, the hunter sales person is expected to |
| company. "Harvesters", on the other hand are those | | | | generate and replenish his or her own lead pool. |
| that nurture an existing relationship and milk it as | | | | There are number of such tools available in the |
| much as possible to maximize the sales of the | | | | industry - some from large information services |
| company's products and services. Both are equally | | | | companies such as Dun and Bradstreet, InfoUSA and |
| important to the growth of a company's business. | | | | others from startups such as Walker's Research, |
| Arguably, however, it is the hunters that are in | | | | JigSaw, and Spoke. |
| greater demand and hard to find. | | | | The Incumbents |
| What makes a hunter sales person successful? Well | | | | The two big gorillas in the industry are InfoUSA ( and |
| for a start they have a different personality than the | | | | Dun and Bradstreet ( These two have created the |
| harvester. They have greater confidence in their | | | | category of business information products for b-to-b |
| ability. They can quickly strike a rapport with | | | | marketing and b-to-c marketing. Both claim to have |
| someone. They are not afraid to make cold calls. | | | | millions of companies in their database and millions of |
| They work well under pressure. They get bored | | | | executives that a sales person can prospect. While |
| doing the same old stuff again and again, and look | | | | this is true, there is no assurance of the quality of |
| for challenges. | | | | the data that these companies supply. The reason is |
| While personality traits are important, a hunter sales | | | | simple. The cost of verifying and updating millions of |
| person also needs tools to replenish the source of | | | | records of information is prohibitive. So typically these |
| leads that can work on. Large companies such as IBM | | | | companies can in a given year update only a finite |
| and Microsoft have lead generation programs such | | | | number of records and as a consequence the quality |
| direct marketing, telemarketing and spend billions of | | | | of information is somewhat questionable. |