Mark Hunter, CSP, “The Sales Hunter,” is recognized as one of the top 50 most influential sales and marketing leaders in the world.
He is the author of “A Mind for Sales” and “High-Profit Prospecting.”
His goal is to influence and impact others to help them see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible.

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Resources Mentioned in this Episode:

Free Gift: Go to www.TheSalesHunter.com for more resources.

A Mind for Sales: Daily Habits and Practical Strategies for Sales Success by Mark Hunter

High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results by Mark Hunter

High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price by Mark Hunter

Books that impacted Mark:

How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio

Sales Assessment Call: A 30-minute free call to evaluate your sales skills strengths, as well as identify the skills that need some refining so you can take your next best step forward in your business.

Empowerment Notes, Join the Empowerment Notes our weekly newsletter and I’ll make sure you have all the info you need to be empowered.

Get 40 Strategies to fill your pipeline with amazing clients with the Heart-Centered Lead Generation Summit Experience

3 Key Points:

• Your goal today is to help someone see and achieve what they did not think was possible and believe that every conversation you have is to earn the right, the privilege, the honor, and respect to be able to talk with that person again
• Great salespeople share their success because they want to have others participating in their success.
• Sales are the first step to putting your customer on the journey to success. What you do is you help people and they will never be able to take advantage of what you have to offer unless you reach out and contact them.

Show Notes:

[6:23] Your objective is to understand from your customer, what’s their critical need and how can you help them with that?

[7:23] Our success as a salesperson is derived when our customers have success. My objective is I want my customers to succeed. When they succeed, I succeed. That makes me feel good.

[9:26] At the end of every day, I say what you want to do is you want to journal, what was the most significant impact that you made today and you write that down.

[9:54] When you go through this process on a daily basis and a weekly basis, when you find yourself a little low on motivation, look back through your journal, look back through, and you’re going to see successes that you’ve had. And it’s amazing how your own successes are going to pick you up, in this journal not only drives you forward, but it helps you bounce back and go to the next level.

[11:12] Take an inventory and really understand who is your ideal customer because many times what happens is you’re hearing no’s because you’re not trying to sell to the right people?

[11:24] How to deal with Getting No’s:
– look at the right people to sell to, look at your current customers
– what are the questions I’m asking to engage, what am I doing to help them understand the value? And am I truly creating trust and confidence with the prospect?

[13:07] I’m going to keep coming at you if I believe that I can fundamentally help you I’m not going to allow a single note to stand in the way.

[13:27] What you do on bad days:
– pick up the phone and call your favorite customer, your favorite customer will pick you up
– go back and make a list of all of the outcomes you’ve helped your customers create.

[16:12] People want to know that they’re dealing with people who are transparent, and authentic, and have values that line up with theirs.

[17:46] The only good sale is when that leads to the next sale. It means that you’ve delighted a customer, you’ve created value, you’re going to get that referral, you’re going to get more sales from them.

Hi Gorgeous. This is episode number 322. And we have the wonderful Sales Hunter, Mark Hunter back on the show today.

Hey, this is Mark Hunter, you’re listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy

Well, I am super, super excited to have Mark back today, I found our first conversation already so so inspiring. Mark is known as The Sales Hunter and he’s recognized as one of The Top 50 Most Influential Sales and Marketing Leaders in the world. His goal is to influence and impact others to help them see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible. Mark is also the author of beautiful books, “A Mind Of Sales” and “High-Profit Prospecting”, that we already talked about, and we’ll talk about in this episode. And today, the topic is all about “Work With People Who Care”. In case we have not met yet. I’m Christine Schlonski, the host of Heart Sells! Podcast, where I talk with inspirational, successful, heart-centered entrepreneurs and business leaders about how they have built a wildly successful business and in many cases had to overcome their own challenges in selling their products and services. Past guests include the wonderful Bob Burg, John Lee Dumas, Ian Altman, Andrea Waltz, Anthony Iannarino, just to name a few. And this episode is actually brought to you by Heart Sells! Academy, where we support heart-centered ambitious entrepreneurs just like you to redefine sales, in case you do not feel comfortable and selling just, doesn’t feel natural to you, you probably want to book a Sales Assessment Call to allow us during the call to evaluate your sales skill strength, as well as to identify the skills that need redefining, so you can take your next best step forward in your business. So hop on over to christineschlonski.com to book that call. And let’s dive right in with the wonderful Mark Hunter. Well, I am so excited you are back on the show today. Mark, welcome.

Mark Hunter [2:25]
Hey, thank you for having me back for another show. It’s great talking with you.

Christine Schlonski [2:29]
I loved our first episode and I love how you really were able to distill from all your experiences, the sales mindset, which I just love to talk about, but you already put it into an amazing, amazing book “A Mind Of Sales”, where people really can dive deep on the way of thinking and what supports them in the sales conversation and what maybe not so they can, they can be more strategic, but they also can come from the heart, and they can have amazing conversations. So I would love to know, like really going back in time. What was the very first thing you’ve ever sold in your life?

Mark Hunter [3:13]
Wow, the very first thing that I do is going to be crazy. I actually sold dirt.

Christine Schlonski [3:19]
Dirt?

Mark Hunter [3:20]
Yes, I sold dirt. The neighborhood I was in, this is absolutely crazy. I was probably not more than 10 years old. And it was, we literally sold dirt. And we would sift it through some screens and so forth. And the neighbor kids, myself we all got together and we sold dirt to two people in the neighborhood so they could have nice topsoil to plant. That was a crazy business. I don’t know if we ever made any money but I guess that was the entrepreneurial start in me. And I don’t think I was more than 10 years old at the time.

Christine Schlonski [3:55]
That’s pretty cool. I’ve never had such a cool story. So you don’t remember receiving money?

Mark Hunter [4:02]
Yeah, no, we made money. We basically sold most of the dirt to all of our respective moms and dads let’s put it out that way. Because I mean we can only ride our bikes about a block away from where we live. So it wasn’t like we could get very far away but we had what we thought was really good dirt. It was, I still remember that as one of the most unusual things and I guess we probably made a couple of dollars, I don’t know but back then you thought that was big money right?

Christine Schlonski [4:36]
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I’m always interested in those stories like when you receive money for the first time for something you came up with. Right. What did this do like, on what kind of path did that put you and what kind of consequences maybe did that have for some people they got into trouble with their parents so their sales mindset is not influenced in a positive way, other people got totally encouraged. And I just love the idea that you came up with selling dirt.

Mark Hunter [5:07]
And I don’t know how we came up with the idea of selling her who knows, I have no idea. But I still remember there’s about four or five of us boys, we all hung out together. And we wanted money, basically for candy, you know, money to go to the store to buy it. And, you know, let’s sell dirt. Totally, totally random.

Christine Schlonski [5:29]
So, so cool. Awesome. Thank you for sharing.

Mark Hunter [5:32]
Yeah,

Christine Schlonski [5:33]
So, where we now go back to all the success you’re having not selling dirt. But having a sales mindset and helping people really to perform better to have a bigger impact in the world. What do you see, when you look at all of your clients? What is their biggest challenge? And how do you help them to overcome this?

Mark Hunter [5:53]
Well, one of the biggest challenges, and I’ve had a chance to work with every type of company and industry imaginable around the world. And people always ask me, How is it? How is it that you can know something about this product versus that service, whatever? And I go, I’m not focused on that. I’m focused on the outcome. I’m focused on how you help people. And when I begin to share this with salespeople and I say, look, your objective, your objective is to understand from your customer, what’s their critical need? What is the critical need that they have? And how can you help them with that? And if they have a critical need, that you can help them with, and that need might be a, to prevent a problem, you know, to stop a problem, it might be a game, it might be any number of different things. But when you understand that, and you can help them, that just makes things go amazingly well.

Mark Hunter [6:56]
I’m working with a company right now. And they’re going through some major issues. And I’m working with them in terms of helping them understand new channels that they can sell into. And we’re making real progress. And I didn’t know anything about their product before I began working with them. I didn’t know anything about their customers. But we go through this process. And it’s a man, I get tremendous satisfaction. When I see salespeople having success. You see, our success as a salesperson is derived when our customers have success? And this is whether it be b2b or b2c? My objective is I want my customers to succeed. When they succeed, I succeed. That makes me feel good.

Christine Schlonski [7:40]
Yeah. What do you remember one of those success stories to share?

Mark Hunter [7:46]
Yeah, there are so many success stories that all, that I can share in terms of companies that well, I’m working with another company right now that the industry that they sell into has been stopped because of the situations around us. And we’ve had to complete work with them to change to a new industry. So we had to really rethink the selling process, rethink everything. And now, they are going to end this year. With sales, yes, down a little bit from the year before, but not nearly what they expected. And more importantly, their sales are going to grow significantly for next year. Because this industry that stopped is actually starting to come back. So to me, that’s kind of cool. Because what did I do? I helped my customer, my client, see and achieve what they did not think was possible. If you’re a salesperson, I want you to write this down. I want you to write this down. I want you to put it as a screensaver. My goal today is to help someone see and achieve what they did not think was possible. Make that your mantra every day. And when you do, you know what it’s going to change every conversation that you have.

Christine Schlonski [9:11]
Yeah, that’s so beautiful. You should have a journal where you give people that guidance so they can write down how they changed other people’s lives.

Mark Hunter [9:19]
Well, I actually walk people why walk people through an exercise because here, in fact, we’ll go ahead and tell you a little bit about him. At the end of every day, I say what you want to do is you want to journal, what was the most significant impact that you made today. And you write that down? And you just write that down. There’s something about writing now. Just take two minutes, what was the most. And then what’s interesting is at the end of the week, you kind of go through the process again and you look back at the week, and this now begins to help you frame up what you’re going to do next week.

Mark Hunter [9:51]
Here’s something I will add to this. What is very interesting is when you go through this process on a daily basis and a weekly basis, when you find yourself a little low on motivation, look back through your journal, look back through, and you’re going to see successes that you’ve had. And it’s amazing how your own successes are going to pick you up, in this journal not only drives you forward, but it helps you bounce back and go to the next level. Because here’s something very interesting. Don’t think anybody can motivate you. Nobody can motivate you. Only you can motivate yourself. And this process that I just described is one of the best processes to motivate yourself.

Christine Schlonski [10:33]
Yeah, that’s, that’s really an amazing process. What would you then say to people who get like, a no after? No after? No. And they really have a hard time, even the successes to motivate them? Maybe they feel like, Hmm, maybe it’s not for me, maybe it’s over? Maybe I lost that special something? What advice would you give them?

Mark Hunter [10:55]
Well, there’s two things you first have to look at. But let me back up to one and say, first of all, if I hear a No, it’s okay. Because no is only a moment in time. But let’s deal with this. You’re getting his house, I got to stop and ask myself, do I really understand who is my ideal customer profile? Now? Am I prospecting the right people to take an inventory and really understand who is it because many times what happens is you’re hearing no’s because you’re not trying to sell to the right people? How do you find out the right people to sell to, look at your current customers? What is the makeup of them? That’s going to be very similar to what you need to go after? So that’s the first thing. The second thing is this, got to stop and ask yourself, what are the questions I’m asking to engage, what am I doing to help them understand the value? And am I truly creating trust and confidence with the prospect? Because many times what happens is they’re telling you No, because they don’t have trust, and they don’t have confidence in you. So when I go through, and I do those two things, your ICP ideal customer profile, and the questions in the conversation, I have to create trust and confidence. When I get those two things lined up. Things happen, things will happen. I guarantee it, I guarantee it.

Christine Schlonski [12:10]
So basically just keep going?

Mark Hunter [12:12]
It keeps going. It keeps going. But knowing that you may have to do some wiggles and shakes because again, you’re here No, no, no, no, no. But again, am I dealing with the right ideal customer profile? But here’s the whole thing. Just because somebody tells you no today, if you have the fundamental belief that you can help them, you owe it to them to keep coming back to them. Some of the best sales advice is found in your shower. In your shower, you probably have a bottle of shampoo. And there are a couple of words on every bottle of shampoo, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

Mark Hunter [12:48]
That is magic when it comes to sales. Now rinse is key because it doesn’t say to put the same shampoo back in your hair. No, you put new shampoo in your hair. See every message, every time I prospect, every time I try to reach out to you, I want to have a new message. But I repeat the process. It’s a new message, I repeat new messages. So I’m going to keep coming at you if I believe that I can fundamentally help you. I’m not going to allow a single note to stand in the way.

Christine Schlonski [13:16]
Beautiful. So do you have bad days? Does that exist for you? And if so what do you do to make yourself feel better and to kind of get over that?

Mark Hunter [13:27]
We all have bad days? Yes, there are days that I have, that is bad. Let me give you a couple of quick tips. If you’re having a bad day, here’s what you want to do. And yeah, and I hear this from salespeople. And it’s just not going, right? Pick up the phone and call your favorite customer. Call your favorite customer. And your favorite customer will say, Christine, thanks for calling, hey, it’s great. Hey, here’s, you know what’s interesting, your favorite customer will pick you up, they will begin to pick you up. So that is one technique. Second, you go back and make a list of all of the outcomes you’ve helped your customers create. And you go through and you review that list, you review that list and go, you know what I’m pretty successful. Earlier in the show, we talked about the journal and you go back and you look at, look at past days and you say oh, this is what I did. This is what I did. And again, that picks you up. Don’t look to others to help pick you up. Only you can pick yourself up.

Christine Schlonski [14:27]
Yeah, I think that’s so important to understand. Oftentimes I see people waiting for someone to pick them up and it’s obviously not happening. So yeah.

Mark Hunter [14:38]
Unless you’re waiting on Uber, you know, you know, then somebody will pick you up.

Christine Schlonski [14:43]
Awesome. What do you have a favorite mantra inspiration, a quote that you can share with us?

Mark Hunter [14:49]
Well, yes, it’s really what I have shared earlier and that is my goal is to help others see and achieve what they did not think was possible. To me, that absolutely excites me. And to go along with that, I fundamentally believe that every conversation I have my goal is to earn the right, the privilege, the honor, and respect to be able to talk with that person again. And how do I do that, you know what? I’ve had a pretty good day, I may not close any sales. But if I’ve been able to move people in that direction, on both those, hey, I’m going to come back and do it again.

Christine Schlonski [15:25]
Yeah, I believe that money follows success. So when you really can serve your clients, or what even the people haven’t bought, serve them in some way, shape, or form? What you are doing so beautifully on your page, the sales hunter.com, where you have a ton of stuff people can go to, I think that leaves that impression that people understand this person cares. And we want to work with people who care.

Mark Hunter [15:54]
That is so key because there’s so much fakeness out there. And in this world that we’re in right now, we’re seeing transparency, authenticity, and values, really playing a bigger and bigger role. People want to know that they’re dealing with people who are transparent, and authentic, and have values that line up with theirs. And it’s amazing when you do that, it’s amazing how trust and confidence naturally flow from that. And, and that really has to be our goal every day. Because there’s plenty of fakenesses out there. There’s plenty of it, but it is getting exposed faster and faster.

Christine Schlonski [16:41]
Yeah, totally agree. And if you know if everyone can become the better version of themselves, while all of a sudden we all have a transformation, and the world is a better place. And they are really products and services that support people instead of wasting time or resources.

Mark Hunter [16:59]
Yeah, you know, you bring up an interesting point there, because so many times what happens is salespeople you were talking about money follows success, and it does and success comes from who you are. Success really becomes who you are in the mindset that you have. And are you looking to contain the success in your mind, or you’re looking to share this success? And the great salespeople are the ones that engage. They share their success because they want to have others participating in their success. That to me, in turn, creates more opportunities, because here’s something very interesting. The only good sale is when that leads to the next sale. When we talk about the only good sales, when that leads to the next sale, think about what that does to your business. Because it means that you’ve delighted a customer, you’ve created value. And what’s going to happen is that your intern is going to get that reference, you’re going to get that referral, you’re going to get more sales from them. But to me, that’s the mark of a great salesperson. Getting that next sale.

Christine Schlonski [18:14]
Yeah, yeah. And then it’s like rinse and repeat. Right? Let’s be the same customer because they love you. They trust you, you deliver value, and they want to come back and most of the time they want to bring their friends.

Mark Hunter [18:27]
You got your material, for instance, repeated for the shampoo bottle. You’re right. It is, I love it. Love it.

Christine Schlonski [18:34]
I’m a pretty good listener. I love the story with the shampoo? Right? So you can

Mark Hunter [18:40]
It is. Because we can see now what is very interesting if you stop and think about that, in sales, we create memorable moments when we create a visual image with it.

Christine Schlonski [18:53]
Yes.

Mark Hunter [18:54]
And the visual image is the shampoo bottle. I’ve had people come up to me years and years later after they’ve heard me speak and they say, Mark, every time I take a shower, I think of you okay, that’s a little creepy. That’s a little weird, but you know, because of that visual image.

Christine Schlonski [19:09]
Yeah, I mean, what great marketing, right?

Mark Hunter [19:13]
It is it?

Christine Schlonski [19:14]
It’s pretty awesome. So, we talked about your amazing books “A Mind Of Sales” and “High-Profit Prospecting”. What are books that have influenced you? And I know there are probably a lot but if you had to pick one, which book would you like to share?

Mark Hunter [19:32]
Wow, that is really hard. I was just talking about “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. You know, that came out years and years ago. But boy, that book is still just as relevant today. You know, the the words might have changed and the media is gonna change but the concept is still the same. It’s still people. It’s still people. The other book I like and I can’t think of the name of the book. But it’s written by Ray Dalio. It’s a business book that came out about three years ago, I strongly suggest buying it. I wish I could remember. And look, I’m visioning it right now. It’s a black book. But that is equally good.

Christine Schlonski [20:13]
I’m gonna put it in the notes as well.

Mark Hunter [20:16]
Terrific.

Christine Schlonski [20:18]
So we already said in the last episode, that it’s really difficult to decide, kind of which of the two books that you have written to read first. And so you said like, if I’m like a more seasoned salesperson, I want to dive into the strategies and concepts, then “High-Profit Prospecting” would be a good choice to start with, why when I’m maybe newer in the field, and I really need to work on my mindset and “A Mind Of Sales” would be a good starting point. So when you would, kind of give people with two sentences, what do they get in the book, what would you say?

Mark Hunter [21:00]
“A Mind Of Sales” is going to shift how you think about sales and how you think about your day to set up your day, to be able to spend more time customer-facing because that’s ultimately what it is customer-facing time.

Christine Schlonski [21:17]
That money is.

Mark Hunter [21:19]
You got it. “High-Profit Prospecting” is going to show you what to do, when you do have that more customer-facing time. Because it’s going to show you, it’s going to help you understand exactly what you should be doing when you’re in front of that customer.

Christine Schlonski [21:34]
Awesome. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna put those in the resource section of the show notes as well, so people can check it out. And obviously, all the links that connect to you. And I highly recommend you check out Mark’s page, which is thesaleshunter.com, where you find amazing, amazing resources, and you can get to know him and his work more if you don’t know him already. And you can fill that, that space with someone who has managed to get fired from his first two sales jobs to now be in one of the Top 50 Most Influential Sales Influencers on this planet.

Mark Hunter [22:17]
I would have to bring you, would have to bring up the fact that I got fired from my first 2 sales jobs. Thank you, Christine.

Christine Schlonski [22:22]
You’re so welcome. Because I want people to see that journey.

Mark Hunter [22:26]
Right. Yes.

Christine Schlonski [22:27]
So I still, you know, I didn’t. I never wanted to be in sales. Well, guess where? Yeah.

Mark Hunter [22:31]
Right.

Christine Schlonski [22:33]
You know, people have to overcome that fear, which can be so beautiful to serve other people when you turn that focus from you to the other person. And you can totally do that. With love and excitement. And it can be fun. And once you figure that out, and you are an entrepreneur, you are in the game for yourself. So you really have to master that sales game. Because otherwise, you don’t have a business you have a hobby. Hence, the people you want to influence.

Mark Hunter [23:09]
That is well said, yeah. Excellent.

Christine Schlonski [23:12]
Leave it, leave us with a parting piece of guidance for those heart-centered ambitious entrepreneurs, to really take that next step on that journey and to basically sell more because that means they get to serve more.

Mark Hunter [23:27]
Sure. Don’t look at what you do is selling something, what you do is you help people this morning, there are at least 100 people, 1000 people 10,000 people that woke up this morning, that need what you have to offer. But they will never be able to take advantage of what you have to offer unless you reach out and contact them. Sales are the first step to putting your customer on the journey to success.

Christine Schlonski [23:53]
Oh, I love that. Well, thank you so so much for having been on Heart Sells! I really really love talking to you. And I love your work and all the positive influence you have on people all around the globe. So thank you for your time and for all the nuggets of wisdom. And yeah, hope you’re going out today to positively influence more people.

Mark Hunter [24:18]
I sure am.

Christine Schlonski [24:19]
Well talking to mark time just flies. I had such a wonderful time and I hope you too. I hope you have some really great action steps you can take in your business so yet you can get your sales game to the next level. Hop on over to christineschlonski.com. Find the podcast tab and Episode Number 322 there you will have the transcripts, the show notes, all the links that connect to Mark as well as the links to his wonderful books and the books he has mentioned in this episode that have made a huge impact in his life. Once you’re over at christineshlonsky.com make sure you sign up for the Empowerment Notes. That’s empowerment right into your inbox, where she has some updates on Heart Sells! Podcast, some amazing resources, and some insights. And also, if you feel like sales is just not natural to you, and you are ready to take it to the next level, I want to invite you to sign up for a Sales Assessment Session with me, where we will go into your sales skills strengths. And we’ll also identify the skill set that needs some redefining, so you can take your business to the next level. That’s what Berger did. Obviously, she did not just book the Sales Assessment Session, but that’s where we started out. And she went from 3K to 20,000. And only three short months while taking off four weeks to travel last year. So if that’s his inspiration enough to share your gifts with the world, then you are invited to take me up on the Sales Assessment Call. And I’m happy to support you in whatever you need support within your sales game. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for being here. Have a wonderful day, wherever you are in this beautiful world. And I’m saying bye for now.

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• https://twitter.com/TheSalesHunterlinkedin.com/in/markhunter

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