A Mind for Sales with Mark Hunter – 49 ep

Mostafa Hosseini  0:02 

And looks like we’re live. Welcome to daily confidence for entrepreneurs. My name is Mostafa Hosseini, and I’m your host for the show. I have a great guest today, Mark Hunter we’re talking about in mind for sales today. Welcome, Mark, how are you?

Mark Hunter  0:17 

I’m doing great. I’m excited to talk about sales. And I’m excited to talk with you. So it’s great.

Mostafa Hosseini  0:23 

Love it. So again, if you’re watching or listening, we share tips, actionable, actionable advice and strategies for you to boost your confidence in different areas of business. Today, we’re talking about sales, which is one of the most important areas of business to boost your confidence in. And that’s one area that a lot of people actually lack confidence.

And so this is going to be a fun conversation. And we also do draws and we give away gifts and for you to enter to draw if you like, subscribe to our channel, whichever channel you’re watching through. As comment, ask a question live from Mark as we’re talking about sales and boosting confidence in sales at tag a friend who could benefit from this conversation.

By doing all of that you would enter your name for the drop. And let me do Mark’s proper introduction. And we’re going to dive into a very interesting conversation that hopefully would be beneficial to you whether you’re you’ve been around for a long time. 

As a business owner, or salesperson, or you’re just starting from scratch, there’s going to be something in there for you to boost your confidence when it comes to sales.

So, Mark Hunter, The Sales Hunter is recognized as one of the top 50 Most Influential sales and marketing leaders in the world. He’s the author of a mind for sales. He and his other books include high profit prospecting, and high profit selling. 

The focus of his work is helping to influence and impact others to help them see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible. He has been quoted in Forbes Inc, entrepreneur, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, and other places.

Clients he had the breeze had the privilege of working with include and wrench from numerous fortune 500 companies to start and small startups. Mark travels the world more than 200 days a year and has spoken on five continents and 28 countries. welcome Mark.

Mark Hunter  2:33 

Hey, thank you for having me. Look, looking forward to a great conversation. A lot of

Mostafa Hosseini  2:37 

you, and gang if you’re watching or listening, if you have any questions about sales and boosting your confidence in sales, just pop into the chat box, and we’re gonna do our best to answer those questions. So let’s start with this mark, what is your story? And how did you become a sales coach or a sales guru?

Mark Hunter  2:56 

Well, I didn’t set out to have a career in sales. You know, people say, hey, with the last name Hunter, you’re known as The Sales Hunter, you were probably a born salesperson. No, I wasn’t. I was not. I only got into sales because I couldn’t afford car insurance. Okay, that’s a long story won’t go, I won’t go into that road. But let’s just put this I got 20 speeding tickets.

So I actually had to find a job that supplied me with a car. That’s how I wound up in sales. But I was so bad. I got fired from my first two sales jobs. 

Now think about that for a moment. So don’t think for a moment that Oh, I can’t do sales. What I finally learned is that customers are not bowling pins, where you just knock them down and move on to No, no customers. It’s about relationships. It’s about communicating.

Sales is really nothing more than a conversation. And when we put it in that term, it’s amazing how many doors open up. And when I began putting it into that light, it’s amazing how my sales results began to change. And ever since then, it’s been a rocket ship straight up.

Mostafa Hosseini  4:00 

Interesting. Give us a little a little more details about what was going on. Like were you did you have too many tickets? You couldn’t afford it? Or like I need I need a second job to the for my tickets?

Mark Hunter  4:11 

No. Well, what it was was I went to college to get a degree in marketing. And basically, because that was an easy, easy thing to get a degree in. And my senior year of college, just really briefly about this time of year, I got like four speeding tickets in the course of about eight weeks. And what happened was my insurance rate went up so high.

I had apartment rent, a car payment, and insurance, I could only afford to a two out of the three. So what I realized was I can have a better life if I just get a job that sublime with a car that way I won’t pay insurance and I won’t pay for a car. That’s how I wound up in sales.

Mostafa Hosseini  4:54 

Interesting. So what was your first sales job? What was this?

Mark Hunter  4:58 

Okay, are you ready for This, my first my first sales job was selling sides of beef to restaurants. Now, let me tell you something that is not a real sexy, cool job. That’s not something you run home and tell mom and dad, you know, you paid for my college education. 

And now I’m selling cows, to restaurants. But you know what, it was the only type of job I could get where they didn’t do a background check on driving, see, because you know, and I needed a car.

Mostafa Hosseini  5:31 

Interesting.

Mark Hunter  5:32 

And of course, I got fired from that job, too. So hey,

Mostafa Hosseini  5:36 

so what are you doing these days? And who do you serve?

Mark Hunter  5:39 

Well, what I do today is, is I help individuals like everybody who is on this show, listening right now, and helping them really what I say see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible. What I do is I help people understand that, if you want to close more sales, well, it starts with prospecting. But here’s here’s the deal.

Prospecting doesn’t have to be this. scary, creepy thing. Prospecting is a very targeted, focused approach, when you know who your ideal customer is. Or when you know who your perfect prospect is, it suddenly is just a conversation. 

And it also changes because now what you’re doing is you’re saying, Hmm, wait, I have the ability to help you. So why would I not want to reach out and talk to you? Why would I not want to connect with you?

Why would I not want to help you because I know I can help you. That’s what I help business owners and salespeople see. And it’s amazing. It’s, it’s a light bulb, boom, as it goes off, and it changes results dramatically, because you can’t close what you don’t first prospect and be like the farmer going into their field at harvest time. And there’s nothing to harvest because they plant the seed in the spring.

Mostafa Hosseini  6:57 

Fantastic gang, if you’re watching or listening, or you’ve just recently joined us, Mark and I are talking about sales, if you have any questions about sales in general confidence in sales, or how to become confident as a business owner or salesperson, pop in in the chat in the chat box, and we’ll address it. 

Some business owners have an wake up call or an aha moment when they realize that they have to sell, especially startups, when you know they start a business. And then they reach a point when they’re like, oh, they need to meet with a product. Well, they have to find a prospect. And now when I meet with a prospect, I actually have to sell and they get surprised, then they and they’re like, Oh, that’s not me. I don’t want to do that. How do you how do you deal with that? What’s the best way to approach that?

Mark Hunter  7:51 

Yeah, what this comes down to is, is I got this great idea, I got this great thing. But your customers didn’t wake up this morning, screaming Oh, I hope I hear from you. You know, nobody woke up this morning, say, man, maybe you did. I hope I hear from our country today. 

You know, I mean, it just it what it comes down to is, you have to first be able to have that conversation. And so you first have to know what is the outcome I may have, I may be an entrepreneur, I’ve created this great product, I’ve created this great service. What I have to do is I have to say it’s not the product or the service that the customer is looking for.

It’s the outcome, what’s the outcome? I have to think first, what is the outcome? How is this person? How is this company I want to sell to going to be different? I focus in on that. And then I come back. And it’s just simply about having a conversation. Nobody cares about your story. The only story people care about is they’re all.

So what I have to do is I have to sit there and say, how do I engage you? Because what I when I show an interest in you. It is amazing how you now think I’m pretty smart. When all I’m doing is just I’m just listening to you. 

I’m showing an interest in you. And I’m listening to you. So the new business owner, the new startup person, what you have to do is you have to go through three steps. One, identify who is the perfect audience who is the perfect market that you want to be going after. Okay, to develop the process.

What is the process look like? Is it’s going to be a combination of online advertising. Is it going to be social media? Is this going to be telephone? Is this going to be email and oh, by the way, you’re going to have to use multiple tools. Don’t think for a moment that you can do it all through Facebook ads, or you know all through this.

When I call a plumber to my house, I don’t want the plumber showing up with just a screwdriver. I want the plumber showing up with a big tool chest with a whole bunch of tools. That’s what you have to so you put together these tools you determine how you want to use them. And the third one is simply starting the engagement.

But here’s where too many startups. Here’s where too many people fail. Well, I reached out to that person once They didn’t respond, so they must not be interested. The best advice I tell entrepreneurs is tomorrow when you’re in the shower, look at that bottle of shampoo, there’s gonna be a couple words in that bottle of shampoo.

take it to heart, rinse, and repeat, rinse and repeat. Now, let’s break these words apart, rinse, rinse, okay, I got to put shampoo in my hair a couple times. Right? You’re right. It’s not the same shampoo. It’s different shampoo. But it’s repeat. I got to repeat the process. And this is the whole thing, I have to be prepared. If you’re my perfect audience, I may have to get in touch with you 510 1520 times through a variety of mediums.

But when I’m bugging them, No, you’re not bugging them. If you’re bringing them value, if you’re bringing them a key message, key information about what it is that is going to help them. It’s not about you. It’s about them. It’s amazing, they will eventually come around and they will engage with you. Now, is it a perfect one to one relationship?

No. But you know what, that’s okay. I keep going. I keep the biggest problem. Entrepreneurs and not just entrepreneurs, what salespeople have is they give up too soon on sales, they give up too soon, keep got my biggest failures in life have been when I have given up on things. And it’s like, Ah, why did I give up, you keep going, you keep going prospecting sales, it’s a muscle. It’s a muscle, and it’s best exercised daily.

Mostafa Hosseini  11:40 

And it and it takes a bit of patience, I guess to it, that we’re gonna keep going and the the persistence, I guess,

Mark Hunter  11:50 

it does take persistence. And what you have to do is you have to be motivated everyone, this is what I tell what I tell people, the way you get into this whole sales mindset is you take a piece of paper, and you write down all of the outcomes that you can create all the outcomes. Now, maybe maybe you haven’t sold anything yet, but you write down all the outcomes, what this is what my product is going to do. And then you give yourself a big hug.

I love myself, I love myself. Yeah, if you’ve been in business, for any amount of time, you take your existing customers, and you write down the outcomes. And you look at that piece of paper every morning, you look at that every morning.

And your objective, your objective for the day, don’t set the objective of saying, oh, I want to make three calls, or I want to do this, I want to close three sales. No, your objective with each conversation is to earn the right, the privilege, the honor and the respect, to be able to reach out to that person again. And when you do that, you kind of go it’s just a conversation. All I’m doing is I’m having a conversation,

Mostafa Hosseini  12:54 

to build a relationship that allows you to call that person again,

Mark Hunter  12:58 

bingo, bingo. See, what happens is people themselves out over prospecting people freak themselves out over selling, because they set the bar too high. Now, I’m not saying I’m not setting the bar high, I want to set the bar high. But it’s steps it’s one step at a time, one step at a time. And what happens is I earned the right the privilege honor spectacular, reached out to you again than I do.

And I just keep repeat, rinse and repeat. And I keep this prospect. And then it’s amazing, it becomes a natural step for them doing business with you.

Mostafa Hosseini  13:36 

So so what I got so far is you’ve got to have patience, you’ve got to be persistent and have consistency in what you do. And in the first call, you want to earn the respect and build a relationship that allows you to get on a second call, or have a second touch with that person.

Mark Hunter  13:56 

Yeah, now let me let me build on that first call, there are three steps, three things that you want to be able to achieve in this first call. And if you can achieve all three of these man, you have hit the homerun. Okay, number one, you want to learn one piece of information about them. Now, learning one piece of information about them is critical.

Because if they share with me something, I can pick up the phone and call them a couple of days later and say, Hey, you mentioned this to me. I’d love to get your thoughts on this. I love to understand more. What I love is when you share with me something and I call you back maybe i’ll leave it in a voicemail or an email. And I repeat back to you exactly what you shared with me like, wow, that person was listening. They actually cared what I had to say.

You talk about a connection, great connection. Step number two, I want to learn what might be a potential need, that I can help you solve. If I can, if I can begin to understand what’s that need that you can share with me. 

Then I go wow, now I’m really into something. And step three is call to action. What’s the CTA now if I’m calling You and you don’t know I’m calling, I’m catching you off guard, I get it. I understand you’re busy. So it might be, hey, what’s your calendar look like tomorrow morning at 10am? Can we can we get back together on the phone?

And I want to create that next step, the easiest CTA call to action is get a date for the next phone call. What you don’t want them to do is you don’t want them to sit there and say, Well, you know what? Why don’t you just email me some information? That is code for? They’re not interested? Because let’s not kid ourselves. We have all done that to salespeople, right?

Yeah, we have. So I have to say is this, somebody says what, just send me some information and go, Hey, you know what? There’s so much information I could send you. Let me ask you two questions. 

And you know, what’s interesting? Most people sit there and say, okay, and then you can ask two questions. What does this do? This gives you two more opportunities to try to keep that conversation going to learn one piece, one piece, they may not agree to next step, it’s okay.

But at least they shared with you a piece of information. So now I can call them back or email them back or, or whatever. But I’ve got an ability to follow up. So those are the three steps for any great prospecting call.

Mostafa Hosseini  16:16 

Could you really quickly review the three steps? Three steps,

Mark Hunter  16:19 

I want to learn one piece of information about you, you share with me anything to I want to learn what a need might be that I can help you with? And three, I want to create the CTA, the call to action, I want to get you to commit to a next step.

Mostafa Hosseini  16:37 

Fantastic. Now, Mark, Rosemary says I have 40 years of sales experience, but none in the field I’m going into what would you suggest is the first thing you’d suggest to do to reset my mindset.

Mark Hunter  16:51 

Don’t worry about what you don’t know, whoa, he just dropped the mic on that one. Here’s what I find very interesting. It is easy for us to sit there and say I don’t know enough about my product. So I can’t make the call. 

I’m gonna say make the call. Because it’s it’s a conversation, I’m going to immerse myself, I tell people going into a new industry, what you want to do is you want to spend 30 minutes a day, basically two months to learn your industry.

But don’t wait until you’ve immersed yourself. Just spend 30 minutes a day for two months. And you know what, you’re not going to know everything about your industry, you’re not going to know everything about your product, but you’re sure going to know enough to really hold your own. But here’s what I found.

If I just do this for 30 minutes a day for just a couple days, I’m going to begin to get enough to be able to be making phone calls, making phone calls.

And when people ask you questions, you say, You know what? I? I don’t know. It’s okay, say, Yeah, I don’t know. But you know what I’m going to find out and I’m going to get back to you now what have you done? 

You are actually honest, you are authentic, and you are transparent. And boy, in this pandemic crazed world that we’re in right now, that’s what people want more than ever, they want to be able to deal with people that are real, genuine humans.

So when somebody says ask you a question, you don’t know you go, am I just I don’t know, I’m relatively new. And you know what I’m going to find out, and I’m going to get back to you. They will respect you for that.

Mostafa Hosseini  18:28 

Fantastic, fantastic. And gang if you’re watching or listening to me other questions about sales or mindset pompom in the chat box, and we’ll answer them as we go forward. So what does it mean to have a mind for sales? Well, what

Mark Hunter  18:47 

does it mean to have a mind for sales is because you’re viewing sales, not as a science, but as an art. Now think about this rolling, it is very easy fact a lot of entrepreneurs startup, you know, they will sit there and say, Oh, we’re gonna hire a salesperson. And as soon as I hire a salesperson, then boom, they’re gonna they’re gonna take care of it.

You know, this is not like hiring a driver. This is not I hire in janitorial services. No, no, sales is an emotional experience. It is emotional. And what you have to do is if you don’t believe in how you can help somebody, if you don’t believe in your own mind, how in the world will they ever believe in you? 

I mean, what I what I take this and what I paint the picture of is that I never know what each day is going to unfold for me. I have no idea. I have no idea.

But I do know this. I’m going to earn the right the privilege, honor and respect, like I said earlier, to come back and talk to you again with each person I talked to, but my goal is this. 

I want to be able to influence and impact as many people as possible. influence and impact people. Now stop and think about this for a moment, think about people in your life who have influenced and impacted you in a positive manner. You think pretty highly of them, right?

You think pretty highly of them? Yeah, you do. And this is what I want to do. This is what, and what’s going to happen is I’m going to be laying little seeds, I come back to this farmer analogy. 

I’m flying seeds along the way. And I’m creating this. So when I talk about having a mindset, it’s about realizing that everything is not a straight line. It’s not straight line to sales success. But it’s a straight line to being able to influence and impact people.

Now, let me add a couple more pieces on this. One of the things that I want to do every day in terms of having a mind for sales, is to know that I have to be incredibly disciplined with my time. And you know, this, you know, this as well as anybody. It’s about how you segment your time. I mentioned earlier about how sales and prospecting is a muscle.

I fundamentally set aside time each day and I block my day for very specific activities around sales. I have a prospecting window. Every day, I have a sales when prospecting people at the top of the funnel sales more than middle and I have a quote I, I segment my day, and I stay very focused in this. What does it do? It keeps me in the repetition.

It keeps me going. It keeps me going. But here’s where it gets really good. And this is where sales really takes off. I asked myself this question every morning at 10am. What am I accomplished so far? What have I accomplished? And I set my day up to or I have accomplished something significant by 10am. Now, what does this allow me to do?

It allows me to look at 10am ago, man. I’m doing a good job. I’m making it this is happening. And I can hug myself. And what’s interesting. Because I’ve done that by 10am It’s amazing how much more I get done the rest of the day. Yeah. The whole day.

You still you still have the whole day in front of you. Yes, this is what’s crazy. I mean, I get up every morning at 430. And I met a gentleman this morning at 7am or at 7:30am. And by time 730 had rolled around, I had already processed a couple new customers.

I had already shot some videos, I had already responded to a couple of clients on things I had already done.

And plus I had worked out spent time with my wife. By time I met with this gentleman for breakfast at 730. By the time 10 o’clock rolled around, I’d had breakfast got back my office got more. It was like this. I’m on fire.

Mostafa Hosseini  22:53 

And you could probably call it a day at 10am. I could have called

Mark Hunter  22:56 

it a day at 10am. And you know what? It would have been a very successful day.

Mostafa Hosseini  23:01 

Hey here, start golfing at 1030. Yeah, but

Mark Hunter  23:05 

but top performers, top performers. No, that’s not the case. There keep growing. This is how top performers become. See, it doesn’t come down to time management is priority management. In when do I put those in critical, important activities? I put them early in the morning. So I can I can have success.

Mostafa Hosseini  23:27 

I have a couple of questions for you. You talked about planting a seed and think of it as a farming process. What do you have to say to people who are looking for customers and sales now? Sure. Yours? Yeah. What do you say that?

Mark Hunter  23:44 

Yeah. I’m good. I first of all, what I want to do is I’m going to ask them a question, relative what I believe is going to be their critical need. Okay, so we’ll say that we’ll say that I ice. Let’s use something very basic. You’re a business you reopened, okay?

This is post pandemic, okay. And, and you I sell janitorial services. This is really, really basic. I’m going to call you up and I’m going to sit there and say, Hey, what’s the quality of the janitorial service you’ve been receiving? Oh, it’s Oh, it’s great. Oh, really?

Well, who is? Who is it that you’re using? What is it that you like about them? And all I’m gonna do is I’m going to ask them a question relative to what I feel is their most critical need what is their most critical issue? Don’t sit there and say Hi, how’s the weather?

I want to get you talking to me about your critical need your critical issue, the faster I get to that?

Yeah. Here’s the other piece though. Don’t make it complicated. Too many new entrepreneurs too many business owners what they do is they want to they want to close the big sale the big sale. No. I believe in land and expand. Make it Simple make it easy for the customer to do business with you. I land I come in with one item. And then guess what?

I can expand, expand, expand. And oh, by the way, when I expand expanding happens two ways. You either choose to buy more from me, or you refer me to other people. But my measurement of success is how much expansion?

Do I get off of each sale that I land? Keep it simple, make it easy. And one final piece. Customers today, more than ever, are really only concerned with their top one or two priorities. That’s it. That’s it. If you can’t help them solve the number one or number two priority, guess it, it may be important, it may be important what?

Oh, yeah, this is really important, but it’s not the most critical need. They just don’t have time for you right now. So what does this mean? You got to make sure that you’re spending all of your sales time all of your prospecting effort, just going after your perfect customer, what I call your ICP, ideal customer profile. 

Don’t waste your time going anywhere else. Because all you’re doing is just, you know what it’s like, I mean, I’ve got a dog and my dog has a heartbeat.

Just like customers, customers have a heartbeat. But my dog isn’t buying anything for me. Just because somebody has a heartbeat doesn’t mean you should you should spend time with them.

Mostafa Hosseini  26:27 

Tell us about some some Prof. What would be your process about finding the ideal customer?

Mark Hunter  26:35 

Yeah, the easiest way is to take your current list of customers, and when all don’t have a list. Right, right. Okay, we’ll say you don’t have a list. So then go back to those outcomes. Okay, the outcomes that my business is going to create? What is the outcomes? Who is going to benefit best from those outcomes? Who is it? Is it a person? Is it a company?

What type of person what type of companies? Where are they located? What are some of their needs, what I want to get as narrow in as specific as I possibly can, with the ICP? Because what does this do? This allows me to focus all of my efforts against just that one, I was working with a company, they had come out with a really cool little piece of software.

And, and it was cool. And they were in to try to sell it to everybody. We created the outcomes. And I said you know who’s going to work best for this. It’s going to be universities. And oh, by the way, it’s going to be private universities. Oh, it’s going to be small, private universities. Well, you start narrowing down is was really only a few 100,000 in the US and Canada.

But I said you know what, that’s our target audience. Don’t try to go after all 50,000 universities out there, just quit 4000 And we put all our effort in, you know what it was successful. So you take that ICP, you’re successful, then you begin to move on. And it just, it keeps your head from spinning in circles, because you never have the ability to get focused.

Mostafa Hosseini  28:10 

Absolutely. Absolutely. What’s your opinion about people that say they serve everybody in anybody like to bottom line two people that have a pulse?

Mark Hunter  28:24 

They’re liars. Okay, now, here’s all the okay. I mean, okay, you know, your cell pencils, or you sell, you know, you sell water. Everybody can drink water. I get that. But you know what, though? Think about this? Do you want to compete in such a broad, you know, we’ll say you sell water, oh, everybody drinks water him. 

But you know what, I want to sell a very specialized type of water. I want to sell a very specialized type of water in a special container that’s going to be used for a special type of needs special type of this, the more I can segment.

See, this was interesting. The more I segment, the more I can charge. Let me let me give you an example that I think most of your listeners, listeners, viewers can relate to. Walmart. Okay, that’s a massive retailer right there. I don’t know. They’re probably all over the world. I don’t know. But what’s very interesting is is Walmart serves anybody and everybody.

Then there’s Nordstrom, a very high end department store, pretty much in the US a few stores in Canada, but it’s a very high end department store. Yeah, what I like to say is I can’t take a Walmart shopper and make them a Nordstrom customer. Mm hmm. See, what I want to do is I want to know who is my audience? There’s nothing wrong with Walmart.

Nothing wrong with Nordstrom. But a Walmart person is not going to become a Nordstrom person in Nordstrom person that can become a Walmart person. Exactly. segment, the more you segment, the more value you will be able to deliver.

Mostafa Hosseini  29:55 

Yeah, I mean, my experience has been it makes it easier to find them. It makes it easy for them to find you makes it easier to get referrals. And you’ll like you said, you can even charge more, it automatically qualifies you to charge double because you specialize in that group of people. Right?

Mark Hunter  30:12 

It’s It’s not rocket science, when you really begin to take a step back, but see for new entrepreneurs for for new, they’re desperate to get business See, so they want to go anywhere in everywhere. And I go, wow, it just doesn’t work that way. Mm hmm.

Know your audience zero in and be absent because then everything you do from social media, everything you do anything marketing is going to be much have a much greater impact. Because you’re zero, you’re zeroing in on a very small segment.

Mostafa Hosseini  30:48 

Absolutely. Do you have a story about maybe at some point you were trying to serve everybody? And then you you got hit and hard in the face? And you realize maybe you need to pick a niche? Yes. Something you experienced?

Mark Hunter  31:03 

Yes. Early on, early on, Mike. I’ve been doing this for 21 years. Early on my career, I would pretty much I was doing, you know, training and consulting and speaking and I can do anything and everything. And, you know, I like oh, I can do that. I can do that. And I’m in the midst of delivering some consulting. And I’m thinking to myself, I am way over my head.

I am way, and I was spending so much time and effort, trying to get knowledgeable, trying to get smart to take care of one customer one project. And yeah, I was I was paying the bills. But I wasn’t getting ahead. This problem. Too many small business owners what they do, is they they they price themselves just to sustain themselves. That’s not a business model. That is not a business model. They take work just to sustain themselves.

No, I today I turned down work that doesn’t fit my perfect audience my perfect niche. And what I do is I referred to somebody else, and you know what happens? Then they get work that doesn’t fit them, and they refer to me

Mostafa Hosseini  32:12 

works? Absolutely, it does work does work? What are some of the mistakes that business owners make? Around sales? Some top two or three mistakes that you usually see?

Mark Hunter  32:27 

Yes, I think the biggest two is they start talking about themselves too soon. They talk about themselves, either in their marketing materials, their their, their social media, or just on the phone, hey, we’ve been in business for this. And we’ve done this, we’ve done this, who really cares, they don’t care.

Second big piece that they do, is they think they can take clicks and likes to the bank. You know, yeah, wow, we put this out on social media. And we get all these clicks, we get all these likes. I don’t know where you bank, but we’re where I bank. They don’t take clicks and likes, they take money. I love doing stuff. I love doing stuff on social media.

But what happens is I see too many business owners become fixated on it. Just because you can measure it doesn’t mean it’s worth measuring. Think about that for a moment. Just because you can measure it doesn’t make it worth measuring.

So that’s the second biggest mistake. And the third biggest mistake is not being consistent enough with their sales efforts. Because what they do is they say, Well, I’m desperate for business.

And then what happens is they get a little piece of business and they go we’re good we’re good we’re good we don’t we don’t need to prospect anymore. And then what happens is that business goes away gets on and there is peak and valley peak in Valley. That’s not a way to grow a business. That’s it makes for a good roller coaster if you want to throw up but it’s not a way to run a business

Mostafa Hosseini  33:54 

Interesting huh I really liked what you said about you cannot really cash out likes and engagement on social media.

Mark Hunter  34:11 

Because I had a lady call me yesterday small business owner. And she said Man, Mark, we have spent all this money on marketing. And she walked through everything she’d done. This was everything from direct mailing gifts to potential customers and all this stuff on social media and all this newsletter and all this other stuff.

And she showed she shared me great open rates on our newsletters on as a but what we’re not getting in business. I said well yeah, see what you’ve done is you’ve made this investment over here on the marketing side. 

And it’s great, these people, but they’re still just not you need to call them. You see, marketing works best with sales, sales works best with marketing. You got to be doing both. And this is what too many small business because marketing Sexy Social Media Sexy, it’s fun, it’s cool. I’m going to create this, I’m gonna do this.

And this is going to be really, really, really, really cool. But they never augmented. With SEO, when I mean sales, the best way to look at social media, my objective is to take the online connection and turn it into the offline conversation.

Mostafa Hosseini  35:21 

Think about that for a moment. Absolutely.

Mark Hunter  35:24 

That’s when I begin to monetize because what this lady had done with her business, they were they were spending a tremendous amount of money.

And she called me in desperation, because their business is one where a customer is going to make their decisions to buy here in about three months. I said, Man, you don’t have time, you don’t have time to waste.

He, I’ve got to get you on the phone right now. And she had a very tight list only 200 people. It’s like, hey, we can do this, we can make this happen. But if you fail to get on the phone, all this money you spent on marketing, all this money on stuff is going to be lost.

Mostafa Hosseini  36:00 

So 200 People in list right? Yeah,

Mark Hunter  36:03 

she only had and get she had done her homework. It was very segmented. It was she had very much segmented very well, that would be

Mostafa Hosseini  36:11 

like 10 calls a day. Exactly. It’s should be done.

Mark Hunter  36:15 

It’s not hard. Now it’s going to take more than 10 calls a day because I’ve got to be able to convert these people to customers pretty quickly. So I might be doing 20 or 30 calls a day, but right but what’s the right sequencing? What are the right messages?

What are the right? What how do I engage? So I’m building out with her tomorrow, what her decision tree is going to look like, in terms of when you begin to put people in?

What happens if I get the gatekeeper what happens if I get this? What’s my next step? What’s my next step? Because I got to make it as a logical for because she’s also got to stay motivated? Because if she doesn’t stay motivated, she’s gonna drop back. Oh, let me just put some more stuff out on Facebook. Oh, you’re killing me. You’re killing me.

Mostafa Hosseini  36:56 

Interesting. Some people say that they don’t want to be salesy or appear salesy or do anything salesy. And I’m sure you’ve heard heard that a million times. How do we overcome that mindset?

Mark Hunter  37:15 

I don’t, I don’t want to be salesy. I don’t want to, but here’s what I firmly believe. That is a perception and a belief that yeah, is is out there in movies. You know, we’ve all seen the movies, we’ve all seen the stuff and and and what happens is we wind up allowing ourselves to believe that because we’re looking for an excuse as to why we don’t need to pick up the phone.

Let me let me you let me use this example. My whole premise is, is if I have the ability to help you, it’s my obligation to reach out and talk to you. Okay, so we’ll say that you step, you will say that you had some new neighbors that moved into the neighborhood a few weeks ago, and they live right across the street for you, you haven’t had chance to meet them yet.

You don’t know who they are, you step outside your front door, and you see their houses on fire? Would you say? Well, I don’t know them, you know what I think maybe what I’ll do is I’ll send them some Facebook messages.

Maybe I’ll post some pictures on Pinterest or Instagram, and maybe I’ll try to connect with them sometime. And then I’ll let them know that their house on fire, no, you’re going to run right over there. And immediately make sure that they’re out of the house. 

Now, wait a minute, I don’t know how to put out house fire, you don’t have to the outcome that that person is looking for is just to make sure that they’re out of the house safely.

You’re focused on the outcome. And you know, you can help them. This is what this is the approach. This is the attitude that you want to have with people. And I’ll tell you what, when you provide people information and insight of interest, it is amazing.

What kind of response what kind of engagement you’ll create. I’ll share with you a very simple example. There was a CEO of a business, not a big business that I wanted to do some business with. I had had one conversation with him. 

Hmm, how am I getting good back and I tried to reach him several times was not successful. I put together a list of just 10 Questions 10 Questions that really, really kind of comes out of Rockefeller habits and, and various business pieces.

And I tailor them for his industry for his business. And I sent them over to him and I said, Hey, these are some questions that I know you might find of interest. He sent me back about 30 minutes later, an email and said thank you. 

Okay, well, it wasn’t like he’s picked up the phone and bought. But then what I did was I called him a couple days later I said hey, have you had a chance to take a look at this and I had to leave it as a voicemail. He then email me back.

Yeah, I did. Thanks for sending them over to you. We need to arrange a time to talk. Now, was I telling him about what I do know, I was sharing with him questions and insights, that he could find a value to himself. When you help the other person, what happens? 

They begin to have a level of trust in you, and they’ll engage with you. So all my pushing to him try to get him to respond. It took me sending to him. And then he responded back, not not right away, had to go through five, six steps in there. It’s okay. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  40:40 

I like that like a question. Or maybe they could write themselves on it or answer a bunch of questions that kind of shed some light on what might be missing and what they need to work on. That’s a lot easier to get themselves to convert versus you go in and be like, here’s the buy my stuff program, right? Yeah. So

Mark Hunter  41:02 

I’ll share with you a really cool trick now, depending on what you sell, depending on what you do. But in my business where I sell, basically consulting, training, it’s high margin. So it’s got it’s got room to work with, I’ll take a CEO. And I might have one, I might send them an email, I might have a conversation with them. And then just doesn’t go anywhere.

And what I’ll do is I’ll send them an email or a note, Hey, have you had a chance to read X book? Not my book, somebody else’s book. And then what I’ll do is all send them the book. I’ll send them book, hey, I read this book really liked it, I thought you would like it too. And you know what happens? It’s amazing. The response you get back right now.

But right now the book that I’m doing is atomic habits. It’s a book on really having good habits. It’s a it’s a best seller. And I’ve sent out I don’t know, four or five copies. I’ve got one kind of in the mail right now to somebody. And I’m hoping that CEO gets it the next day, I actually happen to be a president of a small company, not a big company.

But see, I’m willing to invest the 20 $25. Because think about that, if this gets me in front of a person. Is it worth it? You bet it is.

Mostafa Hosseini  42:17 

Yeah, I guess. And I love that idea. Because first of all, you’re sending something physical mail at a box, like an Amazon box, up on the porch or on the front door, and they’re like, oh, what’s in it, I really have to open that thing up, then they open it with a note they see something and you only spent 20 bucks to find and generate a prospect with you know, is already qualified. Right?

And then they, they are very likely to call you back and thank you and or if you call them back in two or three days and say, Hey, I was just wondering, did you get the book? You know, how is it going and the rest of it. 

And my other point I want to add is that you could go on a whole bunch of different platforms and spend money on advertising, right.

But I’m willing to bet as a guy who’s been in marketing and advertising for 10 years or so it won’t be nearly as effective as what Mark just shared. You got it, you got your was you grab your favorite book that you think will help them gank put them in a box buying on Amazon and gift it to them. 

And you can follow it up with an email or a phone call. A few days after they’ve received the gift and bam. It’s gonna was that was a million dollars. That was a highlight of the show. For me.

Mark Hunter  43:41 

Yeah, it’s a very high response rate. It’s very high response rate. I did this one time. And the person didn’t email me back sent me a video message. sent me a video message back. He’s holding the phone up, you know, he’s doing a selfie video. And it’s like, Whoa, man. Wow. Yeah.

Mostafa Hosseini  44:02 

So think of it. sick of this. You buy a book on Amazon like, what? 1015 20 bucks these days. Shipping and handling included $25. Let’s say you have $100 and you want to create four prospects. 

You identify four people, you send this to them four people. What would you say is the conversion rate and something like that is that you’re gonna have people that you sent, how many of them do you think you’re gonna have a chance to talk to her?

Mark Hunter  44:33 

I wind up with at least a 75% rate look

Mostafa Hosseini  44:39 

at him and say 50% Right, right. Let’s say you spend $100 And you get in front of two people. You have a conversation with two very qualified prospects. Would you be willing to spend 50 bucks on that? I have my leg up. And my hands right. Wow, I love it. Good stuff. There.

Mark Hunter  45:00 

See you think about that, what do we do we shorten the length of time to make the sale process happen. See that? This is why I love this approach. Because you know how many Facebook messages how many, you know, again, I mean, I love marketing, how many how many phone calls, how long might this take. But when I can do that, it’s immediate.

And it’s amazing how much how much response I get. Because now they also view you as a peer. See, they don’t view you as a vendor. They don’t view you as a seller, they view you as a peer, because you’re helping them.

Mostafa Hosseini  45:37 

Love it. What would you say in the letter that you would include in there?

Mark Hunter  45:40 

I just say, Hey, I read this book, and I loved it. And I thought you might enjoy it too. That’s it. That’s it. I don’t sit there. It’s not. It’s not a sales pitch. It’s not it’s no, no, no. It’s just hey, I read this book. I really liked it got a lot out of it and thought you would to like I said atomic habits happens to be the book I’m sending out now.

A couple years ago it was I was sending out a principles the book by Ray Dalio and also Vern Harnish scaling up. Yeah, I have sent out. I think they kidded Vern Harnish. Right. I believe you know, Vern, I, I’ve kidded Vern Harnish. And I have probably sent out 100 copies of scaling up to people. Very interesting. Why not? Why not?

Mostafa Hosseini  46:32 

I love that strategy. That’s a really good one. So share with us some actionable tips and advice that listeners and people that are watching could practice. And within the next two to three days boost their confidence when it comes to sales. Well, just yesterday should do.

Mark Hunter  46:52 

First of all, write that list of outcomes. It’s either your existing customers and what the outcomes you created. Or if you don’t have customers write down the outcomes. To identify who is that perfect customer who’s that perfect customer, spend some time zero zeroing in on that every day to help yourself get motivated, do two things. One, set yourself an easy goal.

If you’ve ever seen the movie, Tommy, boy, there’s a there’s a scene in there with a meat lovers pizza, I won’t go into it. But it’s set yourself a very easy goal, your goal might be to make two phone calls before eight o’clock or two phone calls before nine o’clock. That’s it. And you celebrate the success and making those two phone calls.

The other piece is this, you start off the day by calling one of your existing customers. If you don’t have any existing customers, you call one of your peers you call but you want to call somebody who is going to help motivate you never look at sales as a solo activity. 

Sales is a team sport. And what I want to do is I want to have people who are on my team. I’ve been in sales for years.

And I’ll tell you what, almost every morning, there is a text message that goes back and forth between myself and three other salespeople that we’re in a mastermind together. And what are we doing? We’re just picking each other up, we’re lifting each other up, hey, what do you got going on? Here’s what I’m doing, here’s what I’m doing.

And it’s amazing how it changes my mood and my focus. And remember, you’re not selling, what you’re doing is you’re helping others see and achieve what they did not think was possible. 

Think about what I just said. That’s the definition of sales. But you know what, that’s also the definition of leadership. And it’s also the definition of marketing. Yes, it’s helping others see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible. That’s what we get to do every day that Jazz’s me, that excites me.

Mostafa Hosseini  48:50 

So what I wrote down was write down the outcome. Identify your ideal customers, set an easy goal, and reach out to a few people. You got yours or existing customers and the intention is to help them and help them reach their goals. Yes, love it. So I’m Mark, you’re sharing a resource and a gift with our audience. Can you tell us about it, please?

Mark Hunter  49:19 

Yeah, it’s it’s 50 prospecting truths. Really, what I try to do is in this in this ebook, it just breaks down all of these myths that people have around prospecting. And it’s quick bullet points, quick bullet points as to how you know, I find this people respond best when it’s fast.

So boom, I love this little source that people can just go into and just well, how do I do this? How do I do this? How do I do this? And yeah, that’s what I want to share with people. That’s what it’s all about. It’s just giving you quick tools because sales is an emotional game.

Mostafa Hosseini  49:56 

Fantastic. So, gang if you’re watching are listening at the to get access to Mark’s gift his 50 prospecting truth you need to know as an e book, you could go to the Sales Hunter calm for slash, five zero 50 Dash, prospecting dash truth dash e book.

Okay, the link is in the show notes. And it is in the, in the comments of the show if you’re on social media and and or if you’re on the podcast on Apple or Google or anywhere else, it’s going to be in there as well. So that’s very generous. 50 prospecting throughs, you need to know, because sales is like oxygen to a business. Without it, you don’t have a business. Right?

Mark Hunter  50:48 

It’s hard for him. It’s hard for a business to survive without sales. Yeah. And and this is, this is why I love it right now. Because if you think about it more than ever, where businesses are in this, you know, depending on the industry, tough times, sales is more important than ever. And you’re not gonna have sales unless you have a mind for sales.

Mostafa Hosseini  51:09  

Absolutely. Without sales. It’s just like, even if you’re a non for profit, you’re still you’re still selling something. Right? Yeah. Anyway, so in interest of time, I’m move on to my next question, what are two or three books that have made a massive impact in your life for your business?

Mark Hunter  51:32 

Well, I would say one of them is a scaling up by Vern Harnish. Again, I don’t recommend I don’t give away books unless I really think highly of them. A second book that I really it’s another book, it’s principles by Ray Dalio. 

Again, that’s book and I’m gonna come back to atomic habits, which I just I, I, my daughter gave it to me for Christmas.

And I fell in love with the book. So I mean, those are all kind of current books. But I’ll tell you what, that’s what I’ve been reading right now. And here’s the whole thing. We all have to be reading more. And I say long form reading. It’s not short forms, not blog posts on social media, but long form reading. I read I read at least two to three books a month.

Mostafa Hosseini  52:29 

Good for you. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Now, Mark, if you had a an ad on Facebook, or Google, where you had a message for people of Earth, everyone could see the message on the internet? What would your message be?

Mark Hunter  52:47 

Are you discounting your price? Always simply say, Are you discounting your price? Because I focus in on this, if you know who your target audience is, and you know the need that you can help them with, there’s no reason for you to discount your price.

Mostafa Hosseini  53:08 

Love it. Love it. Love it. What’s one piece of advice that you received? That made a massive difference for you

Mark Hunter  53:18 

have mentors in your life. Early on, I was too slow to grasp that. I thought I thought I had it all. Later in life, I realized it’s having mentors, having coaches, having people who will come alongside you and you can look to and you can learn from and in turn, they can help coach you.

Mostafa Hosseini  53:41 

Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. Now, what advice would you give your 20 year old self

Mark Hunter  53:50 

shut up and listen? Because again, I mean, you know, I I got I got fired from my first two sales jobs because I thought I knew at all. I mean, I was cashing commission checks. But I was creating chaos behind me because I was setting expectations that our company couldn’t deliver on and and because I wasn’t willing to listen.

I, the older I get the more the importance of value of just listening and hearing what other people are saying go to school another opium opium I love opium, opium, opium other people’s minds. Tap into other people’s minds. It’s not that dry like what you do is so valuable. Because what do you do? You are helping people see into your mind.

Mostafa Hosseini  54:47 

Absolutely. Just to be clear, it’s not OPM the drug it’s other people’s money.

Mark Hunter  54:55 

Yes, it is OPM, other people’s money other people’s mind. However, however, You want to phrase it but, you know, I just I just use love using the term OPM because then it Wow. Sure wakes everybody up.

Mostafa Hosseini  55:08 

Absolutely. Mark, this has been an amazing conversation. Is there anything that you’d like to add? That we haven’t talked about?

Mark Hunter  55:15 

You know, it’s just one simple thing. Sales is the greatest gift. And it is a gift. And when you view it not as a job, not as a profession, but as a lifestyle, and it’s a gift where you’re giving to other people, you’re helping them.

And in so doing, you’re helping your own employees, you’re helping you know, in other words, sales is at the cornerstone of making it happen. And when you do it with integrity and trust. It is amazing what result you’ll achieve. You may not be successful overnight, but long term you will be successful.

Mostafa Hosseini  55:54 

Absolutely. I really like what you said earlier about what once you identify who you’re helping and they have a need for your product or service. You’re not being salesy, you know, you’re not being pushy, they need to they need you, they would love to pay for your product and service.

And you don’t have to be pushy and and all that this was a really good conversation, there was a lot of value. If you want to even go back and listen to or watch this episode again, it would be well worth the time.

And if you want to reach out to mark and tap into his expertise or and or having help your company get better at sales, we go to the Sales Hunter calm. And I’m sure there is a Contact Us button or some sort of mechanism to reach out and get it and or go to set the sales hunter.com forward slash 50 Dash prospecting dash truth dash ebook and download his ebook, Mark, thank you very much.

I really appreciate it. And look forward chatting again gang gang. If you again have any questions about this topic or anything else that we talked about popping into the chat box and or leave a comment in a form of a review for the podcast. 

I would greatly appreciate it if you could rate and review our podcast about what we share here.

And that helps us get the word out there. And if you have any question, put it out there and by doing liking, commenting, tagging friends and doing a review on the show. You enter your name into the draw for gifts that we share. 

Thank you again on my behalf and thank you Mark. I really appreciate it. And we’ll see you on our next episode.