Org and hiring sequenceReviewed by Adroit Staffing editorial reviewPractice guidance, no data claims8 min read
The short answer
Split new business from account management when account work is visibly crowding out prospecting, and keep ownership blended when renewal and expansion depend more on the original relationship than on process. The split only holds if you decide explicitly who owns expansion and make the compensation plan agree — where two roles both own it, the comp plan settles the argument, usually badly.
Key facts
- Split protects
- New business from urgent account work
- Blended protects
- Continuity for the customer
- Decide explicitly
- Who owns expansion
- Failure point
- The handover at signature
Hunter and farmer structures: the decision toolkit
Decide what the split is for. If it is about protecting new business from the pull of existing accounts, say so plainly — the structure only holds if the compensation plan agrees with it.
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Hunter and farmer structures: decision toolkit
Adroit Staffing — adroitstaffing.co.uk
Sources: No ratios, headcount thresholds or timing benchmarks appear in this toolkit. Figures like SDRs per Account Executive or reps per manager vary enormously by deal size, cycle length, segment and motion, and we will not publish a number we cannot cite. Everything here is tied instead to an observable trigger inside your own business.
A workable split structure
Where a split is the right answer, this shape keeps the handover under one leader so disputes have somewhere to go.
Leadership
Head of Sales
- Both new business and account teams
- The handover standard at signature
- How expansion revenue is credited
Reports to Head of Sales
Selling
New business Account Executives
- Net new logos
- Pipeline generation alongside any SDR support
- A clean handover into the account team
Reports to Head of Sales
Post-sale
Account managers
- Renewal and retention in a defined book
- Expansion within existing accounts
- Relationship depth beyond the original buyer
Reports to Head of Sales
Post-sale
Customer Success
- Adoption and value realisation
- Early warning on churn risk
- Expansion signals passed to the account team
Allocating the revenue a customer produces over time
The split fails at the boundaries. Decide who owns each of these before you design the comp plan, not after.
| Role | New business | Onboarding | Renewal | Expansion | Win-back |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New business seller (hunter) | Owns | Supports | Not involved | Supports | Owns |
| Account manager (farmer) | Not involved | Supports | Owns | Owns | Supports |
| Customer Success | Kept informed | Owns | Supports | Supports | Kept informed |
| Sales leadership | Supports | Kept informed | Kept informed | Supports | Supports |
Expansion is the row that decides whether the split works. If two roles both own it, the comp plan will settle the argument for you — usually badly.
Split, blended, or account-based
The hunter and farmer language is old, but the underlying decision — whether new business and existing accounts share an owner — is still live.
Split hunters and farmers
Best when: new business is being crowded out by account management work
Advantages
- New business is protected from urgent account demands
- Each side can be coached on a distinct skill
- Clearer measurement of new versus existing revenue
Disadvantages
- Handover at signature is a permanent risk point
- Customers meet a new face just after buying
- Expansion can fall between the two
Blended full-cycle ownership
Best when: relationships drive renewal and expansion more than process does
Advantages
- Continuity for the customer
- The seller lives with the promises they made
- Simpler comp and simpler structure
Disadvantages
- New business consistently loses to existing-account firefighting
- Rewards different skills unevenly
- Harder to scale prospecting
Account-based teams
Best when: a small number of large accounts carry most of the revenue
Advantages
- Deep account knowledge across a team
- Expansion planned rather than reactive
- Executive relationships survive individual departures
Disadvantages
- Expensive coverage model
- Needs clear decision rights within the team
- Poor fit for high-volume motions
No ratios, headcount thresholds or timing benchmarks appear in this toolkit. Figures like SDRs per Account Executive or reps per manager vary enormously by deal size, cycle length, segment and motion, and we will not publish a number we cannot cite. Everything here is tied instead to an observable trigger inside your own business.
The language is dated, the decision is not
"Hunter" and "farmer" flatten people into types, and good sellers rarely sit neatly in either. Treat them as descriptions of work rather than personalities: some work is winning something new, some is growing something existing, and the question is whether the same person should own both. Framing it as work also makes for a better job advert, because candidates can recognise the job rather than the stereotype.
Making a split survive contact with reality
- Define the moment of handover precisely — signature, kick-off, or first value milestone.
- Give the new business seller a reason to hand over well, not just to close.
- Write the rule for which expansion opportunities go to which team.
- Review win-back separately: it usually belongs with new business, not the account team.
Common questions
- Are hunters and farmers different kinds of people?
- Less than the language suggests. Some people clearly prefer one kind of work, but treating it as a fixed personality type leads to poor hiring decisions and unnecessarily narrow job adverts.
- Who should own expansion revenue?
- Whoever is best placed to see and run the opportunity — Customer Success where expansion follows adoption, sales where it is competitive or executive-level. What matters most is that only one function owns it, with the comp plan aligned.
Sources and review
- Written by
- Adroit Staffing
- Reviewed by
- Adroit Staffing editorial review
- First published
- Last reviewed
This page is practice guidance from our own Sales and GTM recruitment work. It makes no claims about current market data, so it cites no external figures.