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This is the Advanced Selling Podcast, giving you the best sales advice from the top performers in the industry.
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Handpicked by Brian and Bill.
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Well, hey, in this episode of The Best Sales Advice I Ever Got for the Advanced Selling Podcast listening crew, we have a wonderful guest.
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Bill, will you please introduce our featured guest?
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Well, he probably needs no introduction to most of our listeners.
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No, he won t.
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Mark Hunter is with us today.
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He hosts a weekly podcast called Sales Logic.
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with Meredith Elliott Powell.
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You can find Mark at thesaleshunter.com.
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Does a lot of videos on LinkedIn.
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New book called A Mind for Sales.
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Got several other books, High Profit Prospecting and High Profit Selling.
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And Mark is here today to kick off our series on what is the best sales advice you ve ever gotten.
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So Mark, welcome.
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Welcome, Mark.
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Hey, thank you for having me.
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I can sum it up.
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You guys have been doing it.
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It s stay focused, stay consistent.
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How s that?
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That s it.
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Are we done?
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That s it.
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Are we done?
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It was that easy.
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You got other things to do, huh?
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Exactly.
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He s got four other interviews.
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He s on CNBC at 9, 10.
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That s right.
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Hey, we got to go, man.
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Yeah, exactly.
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From what we paid him, I can understand why.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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So tell us about that.
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Because we were just talking about this, kind of riffing on it in the pre-show about consistency and persistence.
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And I don t think people sometimes understand what that means.
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I really don t.
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People don t.
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And let s go right back to prospecting.
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People make a couple of dials.
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Oh, there s an old term.
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People try to reach out to somebody a couple of times.
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They don t get a response.
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Oh, they must not be interested.
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And they move on.
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Focus, consistency plays in virtually every part of the sales process.
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And let s break this down.
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Focus, it s making the number of connections.
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It s going through the repetitions.
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You know, prospecting and sales is a muscle.
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You got to exercise it.
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You have to be doing it daily.
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Focus.
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It s listening.
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Listening to the customer.
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Really, what are they saying?
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Focus.
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Staying true to who are you prospecting, your ideal customer.
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Focus.
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Staying always in the lane of knowing what are the outcomes you can achieve.
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Focus.
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Staying motivated.
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Focus.
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hanging out with the right people.
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I mean, focus and consistency are literally the foundation of everything.
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I mean, I could riff on this for hours.
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But that s the key.
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That s what s made Advanced Selling Podcast so successful, because you two have stayed absolutely focused and consistent.
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Yeah.
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I appreciate you saying that.
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That s true.
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And I think I wonder, do either of you think that,
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One, is this a one plus one equals three cliche?
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Sorry, I know.
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Cause I can be consistent, but I can be consistently out of focus and it doesn t do me any good.
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Does that make sense?
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Like I can keep doing prospecting, but I can change the way I m doing it all the time.
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And it just, I just sputter, right?
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It s treadmill.
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Well, that s the whole thing because you ve got to be focused on your plan.
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What is your plan and work your plan and stay absolutely rock solid in that plan.
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The challenge with sales is we become victims of shiny object.
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Oh, squirrel, squirrel.
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You know, we chase every new idea.
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Somebody, you know, we get this inbound lead and we think it s the hottest thing in the world.
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And really all they want is a price quote because they want to use our price to get a better price from their existing vendor.
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What?
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That doesn t happen.
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Excuse me.
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I m sorry.
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That would never happen.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And yet, we fall over.
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Or we fall over because the person says, oh, wow, they said they d call us back tomorrow.
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Oh, yeah, right.
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Give me a break.
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Yeah, that s not going to happen.
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Or, hey, if you cut me a deal on this price, and you know what?
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I ll be able to give you a whole lot more business.
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Yeah, a whole lot more business.
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Yeah, that s my favorite.
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See, but this is because we fall victim
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to trying to take the easy path.
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Jeff Bezos said it well.
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Amazon was a 20-year overnight success.
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Stop and think about that for a moment.
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We have to do the repetitions.
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And very few salespeople are really willing to do that.
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Yeah, that s a great question, that willingness.
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Yeah, and I think you also brought up something at the very beginning of that, and that is the plan.
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Work the plan.
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But if I don t have a plan and I can t work it, so that s when I think we get a little shiny object-ish.
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So what...
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I don t want to go into another piece of information, because you ve already answered the question, but tell us how important a plan is, like a prospecting plan or a business plan.
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I just find people don t do enough planning.
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They might do it once at the beginning of the year, and then they put it on the shelf.
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How important is just the plan, the plan, whatever that is?
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Well, having the right plan is absolutely key.
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And how do you get that?
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Because you re focused, because you re reading the right material.
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You re hanging out with the right people.
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You re learning from it.
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In other words, you re focused on your learning.
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So you ve crafted your plan.
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And let s not kid ourselves.
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You re continuously revising your plan.
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Not daily, but at the six-month period, you re saying, OK, what do I need to tweak?
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What do I need to change?
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What am I hearing different from customers?
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But you re still staying focused on what that plan is.
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And remember what the plan is.
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Here s what the plan.
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The plan is the outcome that your customers create.
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That s your ultimate goal.
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That is your ultimate goal, to create outcomes.
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See, I say the definition of sales is the same definition as leadership.
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It s to help others see and achieve what they didn t think was possible.
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Oh, drop the mic.
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That s so lost.
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That s really good.
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That s so lost today.
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It is.
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Yeah.
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Especially from a management standpoint, because managers don t talk about that.
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They talk about the numbers and what are we going to accomplish, or what are we going to achieve our quotas, and when are you going to close that sale.
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And is it 80% or 60% or 90%?
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We ve lost sight of, wait a minute, why in the hell are we doing all this?
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Aren t we doing it to transform our customers  business?
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Isn t that really what we re trying to do?
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And yes, but it doesn t really get much play.
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Yeah.
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So true, because we attempt to numerically quantify an emotional event.
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Sales is emotional.
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Sales is without a doubt.
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For everybody.
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For everybody.
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For everybody.
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For the buyer and the seller.
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And yet, we try to numerically quantify it.
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And that s where the breakdown comes in.
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Yeah.
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That s so good.
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That s really good.
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I ve noticed that.
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So my other job, my refereeing job, and I watch NFL teams practice.
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One of the things that any NFL, any NFL player will tell you is that as the season goes, the practices are really boring because they re the same every single day.
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And I think salespeople need to understand that prospecting focus and consistency can become and feel boring to you.
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But the moment you stop, you re going to start in the NFL losing games and sales start going down the leaderboard.
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Right.
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And I think we have to sort of embrace the fact that it s the same.
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It is a rinse repeat.
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cycle, you have to do it.
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It is rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.
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It s like going to the gym.
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I mean, you go to the gym day in and day out, and you may feel like you re not making progress, but you are making progress.
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And the moment you stop, it is amazing how those muscles begin to deteriorate.
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Yes.
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It happens.
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Your whole adrenaline.
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Yeah.
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I m kind of looking at a couple of people right now who have, no, I won t say that.
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No, it s true.
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That s why we film from the waist up, right?
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That s right.
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Yeah.
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I have a sign down here that says this used to be my chest.
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It s down here below the fold.
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That s a little weird.
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It s pretty serious.
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Yeah.
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Well, Mark, we really enjoyed this, and we d love to do it maybe longer next time.
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But I know we wanted to get your best piece of advice.
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I think you ve just thrilled our audience, because I think all the things you ve said are just spot on.
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So thank you.
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Focus, consistency.
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We got it.
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Mark Conner, how do we get a hold of you?
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How do our listeners find you?
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Hey, TheSalesHunter.com.
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That s the website.
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And hey, don t go stealing the name because it is trademarked.
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OK, well, TheSalesHunter.com.
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And that s where we park all the stuff and tons of content out there, out there on social media.
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I m like, I m like you guys.
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I try to be everywhere.
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You are.
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With a focus, with a plan.
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Yeah, I love it.
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I love it.
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And what a great last name for someone who s doing prospecting and coaching in the sales world.
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I just couldn t thank my dad every day, as you should.
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All right, man.
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It s been awesome.
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Thanks, Mark.
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Thanks, Mark Hunter, everybody.
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Cheers.