What's Your Selling Style? Understanding 4 Types of Salespeople
Yes. And looking at the original, I would not force Salesforce into this article. The core topic is genuinely sales behavior and selling styles, and that is perfectly appropriate for your site.
What I would change is the framing. The original is very much an older-school sales article: it treats the four styles almost like fixed personality types and asks which one is “best.” We can preserve the Hunter, Farmer, Shopkeeper, and Repairman framework while making it much more useful to a modern sales leader.
I also think the title should stay very close to the search intent that is already getting impressions.
What's Your Selling Style? Understanding 4 Types of Salespeople
Every salesperson has a natural way of selling.
Some people love opening doors and chasing new opportunities. Others are at their best developing existing relationships. Some thrive when customers come to them with a defined need, while others excel at solving complex technical problems.
Understanding your natural selling style matters because the way you naturally sell affects the situations where you're most comfortable — and the situations where you may need to stretch.
The goal isn't to put yourself into a box.
It's to understand your strengths, recognize your blind spots, and develop the flexibility to sell effectively in different situations.
One traditional way of looking at selling styles is through four categories:
Hunter
Farmer
Shopkeeper
Repairman
Most salespeople won't fit perfectly into one category. You may recognize yourself primarily in one style while having characteristics of another.
The value of the exercise is not the label.
The value is understanding how you sell — and where you may need to adapt.
The Hunter
Hunters thrive on finding new opportunities.
They're energized by opening doors, prospecting, making new connections, and looking for the next opportunity.
When the sales funnel is empty, the Hunter is often the person who wants to do something about it.
Hunters tend to be:
Proactive
Driven
Competitive
Decisive
Comfortable initiating contact
Focused on new opportunities
Willing to take risks
They can be particularly valuable when an organization needs to create new pipeline.
But the Hunter has a potential weakness: the constant search for the next opportunity can sometimes come at the expense of developing the opportunities and relationships already in front of them.
A Hunter may move quickly from one prospect to another without fully developing an existing opportunity.
They may also dislike administrative work and detailed CRM updates.
That can create a problem for sales managers.
The salesperson may actually know what's happening in their territory, but if the information isn't captured consistently, everyone else is left guessing.
For a Hunter, one important development area is learning when to stop hunting and start developing.
Not every opportunity needs another new prospect. Sometimes the opportunity is already sitting in the pipeline.
The Farmer
Farmers are relationship builders.
They thrive on developing existing accounts, nurturing opportunities, and building long-term customer relationships.
Give a Farmer a good sales opportunity and they'll often dig into the account, build relationships, understand the customer, and work patiently toward a result.
Farmers tend to be:
Relationship-oriented
Patient
Helpful
Customer-focused
Good at developing existing accounts
Comfortable with longer sales cycles
Strong at maintaining relationships
They're often at their best when there's a healthy customer base and plenty of opportunities to develop.
But Farmers can struggle when the pipeline needs new business.
When existing opportunities aren't producing enough revenue, the solution isn't always to wait for the market to improve.
Sometimes you need to go hunting.
That's where a Farmer needs to develop the ability to proactively create new opportunities rather than simply work the opportunities that already exist.
A strong Farmer understands that relationship development and new-business development aren't mutually exclusive.
The best account managers often do both.
The Shopkeeper
The Shopkeeper is naturally service-oriented.
These salespeople like helping people. They're responsive, personable, and often excellent at understanding what a customer wants once the customer has identified a need.
They're particularly comfortable in situations where customers are already engaged and looking for a solution.
Shopkeepers tend to be:
Friendly
Helpful
Responsive
Service-oriented
Good listeners
Comfortable responding to customer needs
They can be extremely effective in inside sales, account management, customer-facing roles, and environments where customers frequently initiate the buying conversation.
The challenge comes when the salesperson has to create the opportunity themselves.
Prospecting, cold calling, challenging a customer, asking uncomfortable questions, and moving a hesitant buyer toward a decision can all feel unnatural.
The Shopkeeper may think:
"I don't want to be pushy."
That's understandable.
But effective selling isn't about being pushy.
It's about being willing to lead the customer through a buying process.
That means asking questions, identifying needs, recommending solutions, and sometimes asking the customer to make a decision.
The Shopkeeper doesn't necessarily need to become a Hunter.
But developing some Hunter-like behaviors can make them a much more complete salesperson.
The Repairman
The Repairman is technically oriented.
These salespeople often have deep expertise in a product, service, industry, or technical discipline. They're comfortable solving problems and explaining how things work.
Put them in front of someone who has a technical problem and they can be exceptional.
They understand the problem.
They understand the solution.
And they can explain exactly why their solution works.
The challenge comes when the person making the buying decision isn't primarily interested in the technical details.
A technical buyer may want to understand how something works.
A business executive may want to know:
What problem does this solve?
What will it cost?
What will we gain?
What happens if we don't do it?
How will this affect the business?
Those are very different conversations.
The Repairman's challenge is often not technical knowledge.
It's translating technical knowledge into business value.
The salesperson needs to move from:
"Here's how the solution works."
to:
"Here's why this matters to your business."
That shift can dramatically improve the effectiveness of a technically oriented salesperson.
Can You Have More Than One Selling Style?
Absolutely.
In fact, most salespeople probably do.
You might be a strong Hunter who has learned to develop existing accounts.
You might be a Farmer who has become very effective at prospecting.
You might be a technically oriented Repairman who has learned how to communicate business value.
Or you might be a Shopkeeper who has developed strong consultative selling skills and become comfortable leading customers rather than simply responding to them.
That's important because selling styles aren't necessarily fixed personality types.
They're patterns of behavior.
And behaviors can be developed.
Which Selling Style Is Best?
That's the wrong question.
Different sales situations require different behaviors.
A salesperson responsible for opening a new territory may need strong Hunter characteristics.
An account manager responsible for growing existing customers may need strong Farmer characteristics.
An inbound sales representative may benefit from Shopkeeper characteristics.
A highly technical solution sale may require someone with strong Repairman characteristics.
The challenge for sales leaders is not to turn everyone into the same type of salesperson.
It's to understand what the job requires and then help each salesperson develop the capabilities they need.
The most versatile salespeople are often able to hunt when they need to hunt, farm when they need to farm, serve when they need to serve, and solve when they need to solve.
That's much more useful than trying to determine which style is universally superior.
What Should Sales Managers Do With This?
Understanding selling styles can be particularly useful for sales managers.
If one salesperson constantly creates new opportunities but struggles to develop them, that's a coaching opportunity.
If another salesperson has excellent customer relationships but isn't creating enough new pipeline, that's a coaching opportunity.
If a technically strong salesperson loses deals because they overwhelm buyers with product details, that's a coaching opportunity.
And if a salesperson is highly service-oriented but struggles to ask for the business, that's a coaching opportunity too.
The important question isn't:
"What type of salesperson are you?"
It's:
"What behaviors does this salesperson need to develop to become more effective?"
That's a much more productive coaching conversation.
Your Selling Style Shouldn't Define Your Sales Process
Your natural selling style can influence how you sell.
But it shouldn't determine whether you follow a consistent sales process.
A Hunter still needs to qualify opportunities.
A Farmer still needs to prospect.
A Shopkeeper still needs to ask good discovery questions.
A Repairman still needs to understand the customer's business problem.
And everyone needs to know what happens next in the sales process.
That's where sales process consulting can make a difference.
A good sales process gives salespeople a framework to work within while still allowing them to bring their own personality and style to the conversation.
The process should provide the structure. The salesperson provides the personality.
Use Salesforce to Reinforce the Right Behaviors
This is where Salesforce can eventually enter the conversation — without making this article about Salesforce.
Your CRM should reinforce the behaviors your sales organization expects.
If Hunters are expected to create new pipeline, Salesforce should make it easy to track prospecting activity and new opportunities.
If Farmers are expected to develop existing accounts, Salesforce should help them manage relationships, opportunities, activities, and next steps.
If managers are expected to coach salespeople, Salesforce should give them visibility into the behaviors and pipeline information they need.
The technology doesn't create the behavior.
Your sales process defines the behavior. Training develops the behavior. Salesforce reinforces the behavior. Sales leadership makes the behavior stick.
The Bottom Line
Knowing your selling style is useful — but don't use it as an excuse.
If you're a Hunter, learn to farm.
If you're a Farmer, learn to hunt.
If you're a Shopkeeper, become more comfortable creating and advancing opportunities.
If you're a Repairman, learn to translate technical expertise into business value.
The goal isn't to become someone you're not.
The goal is to become more versatile.
The best salespeople understand their natural strengths, recognize their weaknesses, and deliberately develop the behaviors they need to succeed in situations that don't come naturally.
Know your style. Play to your strengths. Develop your weaknesses. And never stop learning how to sell.
If you're looking to develop those capabilities across an entire sales organization, explore our Salesforce Training Academy or Custom Salesforce Training.
