As CEO of a rapidly growing start-up, there’s one key trait I’ve learned is critical to foster in employees of all levels to be the most happy and productive in the workplace: the “hunter” mentality. For my company, which operates in the sales engagement space, we’re all about creating a workflow that equips and enables sales reps to achieve success through adopting a hunter approach to their prospect pipeline, but this is not something unique to sales specifically. The hunter mentality translates to businesses across verticals, it’s the difference between creating an atmosphere of go-getters, versus those going mundanely through the motions with the hope of getting the job done.
To get the most out of your employees, you should be creating a hunter culture across your business. The good news is, along with being effective, it’s really quite simple to implement.
Here’s what it looks like:
Hunters don’t wait for things to come to them
The first rule of being a hunter is not expecting things to fall into your lap. In the sales space, this means coaching reps that they need to be sourcing their own pipeline, versus waiting for marketing to drop leads on their desk. In the more general sense, this mean drilling the point home with employees that being passive is not enough. In fact, it’s not even an option. In a hunter culture, if you’re not active, you’re not going to last. A tip for encouraging this is making employees “hungry” from the get-go, as motivation doesn’t come when you’re fat and happy–it comes when you’re lean and hungry.
You may think spoon feeding employees will encourage them to eventually pick skills up on their own, but in fact, the opposite ends up happening. Give them freedom and encourage autonomy in setting and reaching goals.
Hunters are proactive problem solvers
One great trait of a hunter is their knack for problem solving. Now this isn’t something that needs to be expected from employees overnight, at least not successfully, but practice makes perfect and that’s the key here. Coach your employees to seek out problems at the root, before they have time to spread to critical status, and empower them to find creative solutions to the problems and bring them to the table. By making employees feel accountable for the company as a whole, and also respected in their ideas, you encourage them to take a proactive role in solving problems that benefit the company holistically.
A great way to instill this trust is an open door policy, where employees have access to the high level supervisors and feel their voice is encouraged to be heard. While they won’t be right all the time, the important thing is their seeding out issues at an early stage and thinking outside the box to help solve them as a team.
Celebrate Every Victory
Everyone gets told “no” sometimes, but for hunters it’s a regular part of life. When you are constantly chasing down new ideas and goals it’s inevitable that you are going to hit roadblocks. Without consistent positive reinforcement, even the most persistent hunters are prone to losing motivation, which is why it’s important to take the time recognize and celebrate goals as employees meet them, no matter how small. Whether it’s as simple as company shout-out or a monetary bonus, harnessing that positive energy and acknowledging employee accomplishments helps instills the continued drive to wake up everyday and get back to the hunt.
Hunter cultures are not born–they’re made. And now you have a blueprint for what it takes to get your team engaged, motivated and filled with positive energy. Good luck on the hunt!