Some of you will have seen my post on LinkedIn talking about a great meeting I had with Trevor Lever of TLC.

Trevor has been a great supporter of my business over the years and is a terrific sales effectiveness coach. Although Trevor is now looking to take a bit of a back seat these days he has been kind enough to share his brilliance with me.

I am very pleased to say that he has given me care of his cats as he doesn’t have as much use for them as he did! I am sure he won’t mind me sharing them with you.

There are four sales cat types: trader cat, poacher cat, farmer cat and hunter cat. As business owners we will often have an affinity for one particular cat but need to be able to ‘play’ at being any cat.

Trader cats are the classic networkers who work hard to develop advocates they can trade referrals with. Reciprocation is the name of their game.

Farmer cats spend most of their time working with existing clients to increase the value of goods and services they can ‘sell’ to them – they concentrate on cultivation.

Poacher cats stalk businesses with the types of clients they want and their clients away. They will use differentiation to make themselves appealing to customers.

Hunter cats are excited by finding new opportunities and new customers who have never used their type of service before. Hunters use education to help new clients understand what they have to offer.

I have to say that of all these types of cat I myself have been least comfortable with being a hunter – and I expect most accountants would feel the same way.

However, I have had to become much more brave in approaching brand new customers since I have started my new venture providing workshops and mentoring for members in practice.

I have had to become more of a “hunter”. It really has not been enough to stay in my corner of the forest waiting for people to come to me!

Although it has been a challenge I am becoming braver by the day!

Fiona 🙂