Selling As a Team Sport. Podcast With Mark Hunter

Sell Like A Leader – Episode 2

In this episode, we dive into:

– Sales as a collaborative effort: the concept of viewing sales as a team activity involving both colleagues and customers and how Mark’s experience shaped his views on team-based sales strategies.

– Support systems for sales leaders: the importance of support systems like mastermind groups and how tools like LinkedIn can enhance networking and support for sales leaders.

– Multithreading, and relationship-building: strategies for sales teams to create value through internal and external relationships, and why building multiple relationships with large accounts is critical.

– Mindset over product knowledge in sales training: focusing on mindset training over product knowledge for sales excellence and actionable activities that sales leaders can implement with their teams.

– Rapid Fire Q&A

About Mark Hunter

In episode #2, David Kreiger chats with Mark Hunter, CSP, “The Sales Hunter,” a recognized top influential sales and marketing leader who is also the author of A Mind for Sales, High-Profit Prospecting, and High-Profit Selling. Mark helps companies identify better prospects, close more sales, and profitably build long-term customer relationships.

Podcast Key Takeaways

• Transform how you use LinkedIn from a mere prospecting tool to a powerful platform for learning and networking globally.

• Embrace “carpool selling” by involving multiple team members in client interactions, fostering a richer, more collaborative sales process.

• Establish a robust metric for relationship building that includes creating multiple contacts within customer and your organization, and prioritizing a team-oriented strategy over a solo approach.

Connects

Connect with Mark Hunter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhunter/

Connect with David Kreiger:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidkreiger

Subscribe to the podcast and follow our Podcast LinkedIn page so you don’t miss any episodes!

Transcript

David: Hello, and welcome to episode two of the Sell Like a Leader podcast. I'm David, your host and founder of SalesRoads, America's most trusted sales outsourcing and appointment setting firm. And today, I am super excited for our inaugural guest, Mark.

I'm sure all of you guys know Mark as the Sales Hunter. He is recognized as one of the most influential sales and thought leaders in the world. He is a highly sought-after keynote speaker and sales trainer, and the author of several bestselling books, many of which hopefully you guys have read. If not, please check them out.

A Mind for Sales, High Profit Prospecting, and High Profit Selling. I have been fortunate to get to know Mark over the past year. I've learned from him through his books throughout my career. And Mark, thank you so much for being our first guest here on the podcast.

Mark: Hey, this is a kick. I didn't [00:01:00] know until we started the show that I was your first guest. We're going to have a good time. We're going to set the bar high right from the start.

David: I know we are and super excited for it. We have a lot to get to. And so, what I'd love to do is just, you know, jump right in and get a chance to just pick your brain. I mean, we get to read your books, we get to, you know, see your LinkedIn, but I want to dive into some of the amazing concepts that you go over and you help your clients with, sales leaders across the world with, and let's start with your most recent book, A Mind for Sales. 

You have a chapter in that book that is titled, "Sales is not a Solo Activity," which I love. You know, it's a team sport, something that is near and dear to my heart. And so, what I would love for you to do is, could you just introduce that concept of why thinking through that prism is so important for sales leaders?

Mark: I'll tell you something. If something we learned through COVID, it's like we as a society do not play well solo. We're design, we're human [00:02:00] nature, want to be with people. And sales is just that. And when I talk about sales as a team sport, it's sales as a team sport in two ways. One, you, the customer, are on my team.

I want to treat you as on my team because I want the best for you. Cause when I'm able to help you achieve your best, guess what? I'm going to achieve my best too. 

Second, I want to have a sales team in terms of people around me supporting me. I'm a big proponent of mastermind groups and peer groups and so forth because there's many, many times that you and I both know this in sales, you can get kind of down in a funk.

And you need people to kind of help lift you up. You also need people to help bounce ideas off of and strategies. And it's amazing. Last week, I spent three days with my very tight mastermind group, four other people, and we were able to dive deep into our business. 

That was my sales team. I love it. I love it. And so, you've got to surround yourself. Jim Rohn used the line years ago, "You [00:03:00] become the sum of the five people you associate with the most." Okay, I may have missed a couple of words in that quote, but the idea is that be careful who your friends are. 

Yeah, you know, our moms were right when they said, "Hey, be careful of who you play with on the playground at school." It's so valuable.

That's this whole sales team. And I'll tell you what? It makes every day go a whole lot better.

David: That's beautiful. And I think that speaks to a lot of sales leaders. I mean, being a sales leader is a stressful, lonely job, right? You've got pressure from the top. You've got pressure from the folks that you are managing. 

And sometimes you feel like you're out there on an island. And I think that type of guidance for sales leaders to think through that prism that they need to look at sales as being a team sport, because a lot of times, they feel like everything is on their shoulders. 

And so, there's a lot to unpack there. What I'd love to start with maybe, is just some tangible ideas. If you are a sales leader and you feel like you're kind of on your own, how [00:04:00] do you coach some of the sales leaders you work with to find mastermind groups, find peers that they can speak to incorporate on their team so they're not feeling so isolated?

Mark: Yeah. Let's talk directly to the sales leader right now. So you're leading a sales team. You may be leading 5, 10, 15, 20 people, and it's lonely. I get it. And here's what happens. Many times, the sales leader winds up kind of a coming alongside one salesperson. 

And they wind up being, they kind of be the dumping ground.

So we're like, guess what? You are setting your organization up for a real pitfall because what happens is this person then becomes the hallowed saint, you know, the one who everybody know. 

If I go to this person, I know that they know what you want to do as a sales leader is find two or three other sales leaders.

Don't have to be in your industry. In fact, I'd suggest not in your industry. This morning, I had a 45-minute phone call with a sales leader. He leads 11 salespeople in an industry totally unconnected to anything I've ever worked with, but we [00:05:00] talk every couple of months. And what is it? It's just bouncing ideas, bouncing strategies.

So you want to find those. How do you find them? Look at who's out there on LinkedIn. Look at people out on LinkedIn who are commenting or whatever, get to know them, reach out to them and say, "Hey, let's grab a call. Let's grab a phone call." 

And you just kind of begin organically. Now, if you're doing it by way of LinkedIn, chances are the person doesn't live in your city.

That's great. Now, if you can find a couple of people in your city, in your community and you can get together every month or so for coffee or breakfast or lunch or something. 

Great! But the idea being is that you need to have a safe space. This is critical. It's gonna be a safe space. In other words, what's shared there does not get spread elsewhere.

Last week I, you know, said I was with my mastermind group. We talked about a lot of different topics. Not sharing any of those with anybody, because again, it's got to feel safe that people can share ideas. And here's what, here's what's interesting. 

As you [00:06:00] share your challenges, your problems, people are going to share with you ideas.

You know what? They're going to gain ideas. Same thing that when they're sharing strategies or problems they're dealing with, you're going to share ideas and you're going to get. It's amazing how everybody gets lifted up because of this commonality, this desire to achieve a higher level of success.

That's what makes having a peer group, mastermind group, whatever you want to call it, a community, tight, not more than three or four people that you can connect with, incredibly powerful.

David: That is fantastic. And in a few things on that one, you know, I think when you have those, those peers, and you feel that you're creating a safe space, and it takes a little bit of time to nurture that, right? 

You've got it, you've got to build it and put time into it. I think thinking about the whole concept of mindset because it is so important.

When you are going through the things you are going through, the stressors, and you have people to talk to about it, you start to realize that [00:07:00] your issues are not unique. Everybody goes through them, both from an emotional standpoint, which is important to understand and know that there are other people.

A lot of sales leaders are feeling the exact same things, but learn from them as to how they tackle those things. And so, that's amazing, Mark. And the other thing that I love that you brought up is leveraging LinkedIn for this, because I think a lot of sales leaders and salespeople look at LinkedIn as a prospecting tool.

They look at it, unfortunately, as a vanity tool. I think, you know, all of us do, we want to see all the likes and the impressions and things like that, but really at its core, it's a networking tool. And you've got to bring those conversations, those comments, offline and start talking to people. 

And I think that's really powerful wisdom for sales leaders to reframe how they think about LinkedIn and to make it a really, truly powerful tool for them.

Mark: I love what you just said there in terms of not using LinkedIn just as a prospecting tool because I think that's what typically salespeople do. I use it not only as a [00:08:00] prospecting tool, but as a learning tool. 

Because I'm continuously reading other people's content and sharing, and so forth. But this is what it's, I'm creating these relationships.

And I've been able to develop relationships with a lot of people all over the world. Just through this, you know, commenting back and forth, and you say, "Hey, let's grab some time. Let's, let's, you know, grab time on the phone." 

And it's amazing. This is, this is creating the community. I always say sales is not a solo activity. Sales is a team sport. I'll tell you what, thank goodness it's a team sport because I tried, I tried initially when I first got into sales, selling for, you know, big brother, when I was a salesperson for a company. 

I thought I could do it myself. It failed miserably. I got fired from my first two sales jobs. I move up the food chain, become a director of sales, 700 salespeople, yadda, yadda, yadda. 

And then I go out on my own. And again, I reverted right back to my childhood behavior, [00:09:00] thinking I could do it on my own. Big mistake. I drowned the first several years because I thought I was better than everybody.

No, uh, uh, uh, uh. We all learn from each other.

David: Amazing, amazing perspective for sales leaders knowing how Mark Hunter was able to rise up and generate skills and success.

Mark: Believe me, we rise up because we fail. You know, the old expression, fail fast. I mean, now you've never had a failure in your life. You've lived this perfect life. But I look at it this way, and I admit I'm an optimist, but I look at it every time I fail. It's an opportunity to learn something new.

And if I don't learn something from each time I fail, then I haven't done it. You know, when you're a sales leader, we tend to get this ego. We tend to get this pride, and nothing wrong with that, pride in your organization, pride in the results. But when it becomes this personal piece, you quickly become a narcissist, and not a good place to hang out.

David: I [00:10:00] couldn't agree more. And that, all then again, boils down to your mindset. And so, what I'd love to do is circle back to something you said at the top of this, which I think is an interesting perspective and not a way that a lot of sales leaders necessarily look at customers. 

And so, you said that you think that customers should be viewed as part of the team. Could you spell that out a little bit, and what that means?

Mark: Yeah. You know, what's funny? I share that with some salespeople and companies, and they go ballistic: "No, no, no." And I go, "Hold it, hold it." Because again, if my customers are not succeeding, I have zero chance of succeeding, and if you view me as an adversary, are you going to be willing to share with me insight information? 

No. But if you view me as a team, as part of your team, if there's a level of trust, a level of integrity, a level of confidence between the two parties, you're going to be much more likely to share information with me. [00:11:00] Well, I, as a salesperson, it's not what I sell. 

What I sell is totally irrelevant. It's not even how I sell. Whoa, now I just touched the third rail. It's why I sell. I sell because I want to help you achieve something you didn't think was possible. 

And I can only do that when there's a level of confidence, a level of trust between both parties, and you're willing to share with me that information. I can't do that if we're both an adversary.

Then it's just purely a transaction. We might as well just move that to the internet and set up, set it up as a bidding auction and go home.

David: I think that perspective is so important and you also dive into it in a way for folks to actualize and you talk about at the beginning of the year in your book that salespeople should actually go out with account managers or in this case with customers and account managers and just be there to listen to customers at the beginning of the year and [00:12:00] understand their goals.

Because a lot of times, we do that when they're up for renewal as salespeople. So, can you talk about how you think they should flip and how that relates to having the customers as part of the team?

Mark: I love asking when I'm with sales leaders, and I remember I was with a company just about a year ago, and all the sales managers, probably 35, 40 of them, in the room. And I said, "When do you spend the majority of your time with salespeople in front of customers?" And it was always closing the deal.

It was the renewal, closing the deal renewal. And I go, "Stop. That's the wrong time." Because if all you do is show up to close the deal or help get the renewal, you're telling the salesperson that they're not effective. You're telling the salesperson that they can't do their job. You're telling the salesperson that they're nothing more than an Uber driver or a lift driver.

What you want to do is be out there ahead of them. You want to be out there having meetings and conversations because you're the leader. You can have meetings, especially if you're like [00:13:00] CEO, COO, you know, whatever. You can have meetings with people who your salespeople can't get. You can ask questions that they can't ask.

Well, you might be able to ask the same questions, but you're gonna get different answers. I look at it this way. I want a metric for every sales leader to be: what is the incremental business you're bringing to your team in the first quarter? Right now, we're recording this in the first quarter, you know, of the new year.

And so, I tell sales leaders, this is when you want to be going out and having meetings. And by the way, here's a little side trip. You're going to have those meetings with the account manager in tow with you, or maybe it's on Zoom, Teams, whatever, but you're also going to have some of those meetings without them. 

Now, that's not to slight them, CEOs especially. What I love doing is this, I'll work with a CEO and say, "Okay, we're going to help set up five meetings with you, with five different customers at senior-level people." 

And you're going to have these conversations and then you're going to be able to [00:14:00] say, "Hey, this has been great insight. I'm going to have our salesperson who handles this account, Jody or Jim, reach back in touch with you." Now, guess what? 

You have now introduced your account manager, your salesperson to that COO or that CEO. You don't think you haven't elevated them? You have done that in a magical way. This is the role that senior leaders should be playing very heavily in the first quarter of the year.

David: Oh, that's amazing. That's amazing, Mark. It just shows again, going back, it's a team sport. It's working through account managers and salespeople, the relationship doesn't stop at handoff or just once a year when we're going into renewal. 
You've got to work together as a team, but also on the organizational side.

And that actually transitions to one of the things I wanted to talk about. I mean, you were actually one of the first [00:15:00] people that I know of to really talk about what's become a real buzzword over the past one or two years, which is multithreading and working through lots of people within an organization.

And what you just talked about is a perfect example of that. You know, making sure your salesperson is introduced to different people throughout the organization, so you really can work as a team and you can create a partnership. 

So let's dig into that a little bit more, both from what we're talking about, which is after they become a customer, but also through the prospecting side and working through an organization so that you aren't just thinking about a sale through one person.

So, can you tell us a little bit more about how you think salespeople and sales leaders should look at this concept of multithreading and working through different people in an organization? How do they do that without feeling like they're sometimes going over the person's head who they're currently speaking with and how do they bring it all together?

Mark: Well, there's multiple ways to do [00:16:00] this. We were talking about LinkedIn earlier. There may be other people in that company that you're trying to get into that are on LinkedIn. Well, then you just start having conversations with them. See, you know, those are viewed as non-threatening, right?

So you're developing a little bit of a relationship there. So that's one strategy. Second strategy is grab an SME, Subject Matter Expert, in your company and say, "I've got Bill or I've got Manuel. They're incredibly brilliant when it comes to this. Love to kind of allow them to spend some time with your counterpart who, you know, Matt."

See, so you're creating these other meetings there. And the idea being is the prospect, the customer, is seeing value in this. They're seeing value in this. Wow. Wow. He is bringing me, you know, David's bringing me this person. I want to connect them with that person. I'm going to be able to sit in on that meeting also.

So it's not like you're going over their head, but you're building a bigger pie. Now, one of the neat things that I love doing with this is creating a metric. And what you want to [00:17:00] do is, if you have an existing account, what is the current level of business I get from them? And what is the opportunity?

And you put those two numbers together. If it's just a prospect, it's just the opportunity number. And you sit there and say, "For each $300,000 in business, I need to have at least one relationship, or each million dollars, or each 50." But the idea being is that if it's a very small account, you may only have one relationship because that's from a cost-effectiveness.

That's all you can. But if it's a larger account, you're going to have six or seven contacts. And oh, by the way, these are six or seven contacts that are not only in the company, the customer, but also within your company. Well, we make a big mistake in that, we have account managers. "Oh yeah, I've got relationships with all these five, six, seven people in this customer."

But then that salesperson leaves the company. Guess what? All those relationships left with them. So as a sales leader, I want you to set up a matrix [00:18:00] where you are measuring all this. 

And you're looking at this because it's absolutely critical, because here's what I found. Customer service, for instance. Many times what happens is account manager sells something or whatever, and then it goes to the onboarding team or the customer success team, or customer service, whatever it might be. Those people are incredibly valuable because as they bring this new customer on board. They're going to develop relationships.

Guess what? They're going to be able to uncover information. They're going to be able to uncover insights. I want to make sure that information is being exchanged because guess what? 

It's amazing at what somebody, you know, lower down in, in customer B will share with somebody over at the customer service desk. Wow. It may be low-level person, but they just unveiled an incredible, guess what? We're getting ready to lay off 300 people. 

You know, boom. Does that have an impact? I mean all these kinds of things. So you got to [00:19:00] create that multithread out there and don't sit there and say, "Yeah, they like me."

Here's a measurement: you'll know you are in strong with a company when the people at that company are starting to ask you questions that have nothing to do with what you sell. Think about that for a moment. When you've developed a relationship, you know, with a customer, and they begin asking you questions about things you don't sell.

That means what? They must see you as a real trusted person. They see you as a critical asset. Wow, that's key. That's critical.

David: That is huge. That is wonderful way of putting it together. I think first with having, helping sales leaders have a guiding metric and I think giving them that type of tool to be able to manage what is a complicated process of multithreading and whatnot, but that gives people a goal for their teams to head for, which is, it's hard to [00:20:00] execute on anything when you don't have some form of metric to help you with that.

And then the second concept wraps everything that we've been talking about together. You can't multithread 
effectively if you're not looking at this as a team sport, both from your organization and the people that you can bring into this, and you're not even thinking, you know, it's not a lot of people think, "Oh, I'll bring my CEO."

And that's fine, but that's not where you went with this. There's so many other resources that might even be 
more powerful who are closer to the product, closer to the customers, paying points, these specific customers that might be more, more helpful. 

And so, thinking through that prism allows you to think in a different way to try to help your clients or your prospects here and be able to bring in the right people to build those relationships, build that value and be able to execute on the buzzword of multithreading, which really at the end of the day will deliver more value to your prospects. 

And that is what is going to turn them into clients.

Mark: There's a term I love to [00:21:00] use. It's called "carpool selling." And it came out of the old IBM days because back in the old days, IBM people never traveled alone. They always traveled with three, four people, but there's something to be said about this. 

Because again, when I can be on a phone call, when I can be on a Zoom call, a Teams call, or in person and there's two or three people from my company, I'm the account manager, I'm quarterbacking this, and there's two or three people from the customer, it's amazing at what can happen.

I'll share a very quick example. Years ago, I was asked to join an account manager. I was a subject matter expert asked to join the account manager and their leader to go in on a sales call. We had another SME with us. So there were four of us from the seller meeting, and the customer was caught off guard.

Because there's only one of them. He said, "Well, wait, there's four of you and only one of me. Hold on, let me go get some more people." Well, he goes and gets some more people. [00:22:00] Unbeknownst, the people he got, incredible. We wound up having a meeting that we never realized we'd be able to have. Because, you know, it wasn't planned because it just happened, you know, but whatever.

It was amazing at the insights. We all came away from there with a tremendous level of additional relationships, insights, and ultimately resulting in a tremendous amount of additional business. We were able to get us a seller and the customer is able to achieve some objectives that they never, never thought they'd be able to achieve.

David: That's amazing. So what I'd love to do, Mark, is zoom out a little bit and, you know, sales leaders, sales managers, at the end of the day, one of the biggest things that they're thinking about on a day to day basis is quite frankly, how do I build a winning sales team?

That's where the stress is. How am I going to build that? And so, obviously, there's lots of directions we can go here, but [00:23:00] what I'd love to just hear from you and what I think could be helpful to sales leaders is if you're that sales leader and you've either been promoted into that role or maybe you've been working on it. 

You're struggling for the team to hit quota. You know, if you're in that position and trying to think, what do I do, what are the activities I should do to build this winning sales team to make sure that my team is thriving and successful, what are some of the activities that you would recommend that they should be focused on?

Mark: Yeah. First of all, focus on the mindset, not the product knowledge. It's so easy. New sales leaders come in and they go, "Oh, we're going to do some product knowledge training." This is what drives me nuts is we're right at the start of the sales kickoff season. And it's not sales kickoff; it's product kickoff.

All we do is product them. Focus on the mindset because I'll tell you what, at the end of the day, it's not what I, as a salesperson, know but it's my [00:24:00] ability to have a conversation to uncover from you, the customer, what you know. That's what my objective is. I'll take that information back and I'll figure out what I do with it.
If I can have my salespeople have a mindset that is geared towards two things. 

One, your objective with each customer is to help them see and achieve what they didn't think was possible. And two, always realize that if you have the ability to help someone, you owe it to them to reach out to them.

What I find is that, you know, prospecting is still the number one issue. People say, "Well, no, it's closing." No, it's not closing. It's not closing the deal. If you prospected right to begin with, you wouldn't have a closing problem. Okay, let's get over it. Okay, that's a rant I can get off on real quick. 

Anyway, but here's the situation. If you know you can help someone, you owe it to them to reach out to them. So we have to help our salespeople be confident to be able to have [00:25:00] what they normally would perceive as an uncomfortable phone call. 

"Oh, you mean I got to call 25 companies today? Oh, I got to call this. I got to do this again." Yeah. Yeah. Because if you have the ability, you know you can help them. And this is why it is salespeople and sales leaders. It's so easy to get focused on the product. "Our product could do this, or our competitor does this." I don't care. I don't care. It's the outcome that you help your customers achieve.

So sales leaders, an exercise that you want to do with your people right now at the start of the year is get them in a room, get them on a Team call, Zoom call, whatever, have them take a piece of paper and draw a line right down the middle on the left hand side, write down all their customers, all of their customers that they've had over the past year.

And on the right-hand side, write down what you helped them achieve. What did the salesperson help them? Not what they sold them; what were they able to achieve? And every salesperson do that and then look at that sheet and give yourself a big hug [00:26:00] and realize that you know what you made a difference.

You helped your customers do something. That's your goal going into the new year. And this is an exercise that I tell sales leaders if you're having a challenge motivating your team, do this every month. And, oh, by the way, sales leaders, you know that you can't motivate your people? Whoa, yeah, you can't.

All you can do is create an environment for your people to motivate themselves by doing that simple exercise, by asking them the question, "What did you learn yesterday from the customers you talked to? What did you learn? How's that going to help you? How's that going to help you tomorrow?" The best salespeople are the ones who ask the best questions of their customers.

David: Yeah. And the best sales managers are great listeners, which is why I think, you know, it is interesting. I think some of the right type of salespeople make the best sales managers for the two reasons we just discussed. If you're a great salespeople, you ask great questions, and if you're a great salesperson, you're a [00:27:00] great listener.

And I can't think of two more important skills for a sales manager.

Mark: I'm gonna not poop on the parade a little bit, but I will share a couple things if you think about it just in the last couple of days. Nick Saban has just retired as coach, University of Alabama. Bill Belichick, New England Patriots. Pete Carroll, Seattle Seahawks. All three of those great coaches, yet none of them were great players of the sport.

Now, they were good players, but they were not great players. Now, this is what's kind of interesting. CEOs, COOs, if you're listening to this, CROs, it's so tempting to take that top performing salesperson and promote them. I'm working with a CRO right now, trying to talk him off the cliff. He wants to take his number one salesperson, and I said, "No, no, no, no, no."

Because so many times, what happens is the top performing salesperson just does this stuff instinctively. They just do it instinctively, and they don't know how to communicate it. Larry Bird [00:28:00] went great, phenomenal basketball player, failed miserably as a coach. Michael Jordan attempted to be a basketball coach after he got failed miserably.

I mean, it really is amazing. Something about that mid to upper-level person, because they had to work at it. They had to really figure out what is it going to take. And they have a higher degree of empathy, and they have a higher degree of that ability to be able to coach people. That's just a quick side note, but I'll tell you what, come back to what you said.

It is listening, because I'll tell you what, any person, if you want to succeed, and this just isn't in sales, this is in life. I'm married, believe me, I have to listen a lot, right? Because listening is the way. Listening is the way you're seen brilliant without even saying anything. Is that interesting?

David: I want to dive into that a little bit because I think you brought up some interesting things. I think sales leaders, as well as leaders in an organization, need to think through this, right? 

And so, you, as you said, pooped on that a [00:29:00] little bit, but I think it's important for people to understand your perspective because it's one of the most challenging things is to figure out who you want to promote to be a sales leader and maybe even more importantly as a salesperson whether that is the voyage or the journey you want to take. 

And so, from two perspectives, if you are a salesperson, how do you self-assess whether you want to be a sales leader? Because it sounds good, right? Everybody wants a promotion, right?

So, how do you think about whether that's really your thing and on the not the flip side, but on the other side, how do you assess that person to decide whether they are a Nick Saban or whether they are a Michael Jordan?

Mark: Yeah, I'll give you a real example. I'm working with right now a very successful seller, always over half a million a year. And he's being asked to step up into a sales management role. And he's really [00:30:00] struggling with it. 

And I've asked him, I said, "Okay, here's the number one objective you have to answer. A. What motivates you? What drives you?" If what drives you is helping other people, then you have to ask yourself, "Is that going to be through the people I get to lead if I'm a sales manager, or is it going to be through the customers lead?" 

Okay. So then two, "Where do you want to be five years from now?" And then the third question is, "What is the upside to you stepping into a sales leadership position?" Because here's the thing, if your customers or your company were to go south, were to just fall apart, but you've demonstrated yourself as a great sales leader, is that going to make you more marketable? 

You're always looking at what is your marketability skills. There's no right or wrong answer. I have seen people who have stepped into a leadership role and taken severe pay cuts. 

But over the next five to 10 years, they have [00:31:00] morphed themselves into becoming a CEO of a company.

I've seen others move into that role. And then within a couple of years, they say, "Screw it. I want to go back. I want to be a producer. I just want to sell." There's no right or wrong. And how do you assess? I'll tell you what, here's what it comes down to, and this is something for everybody to look at. Are you ego-driven? 

Are you self-driven? Or can you truly delegate and be comfortable playing the long game? Because top-performing salespeople, they do look at the long game. But boy, when it comes down to crunch time, they're solo fighters, right? I mean, they are solo fighters. I get it. I'm all over that one. 

And so, then you got to ask yourself, "Can that person give up that skill if they move into a leadership position?"

Because there are times, as a sales leader, you have to let a sale go by because you're coaching, you're developing a person, and long term, you know, it's going to be better [00:32:00] off. But boy, as a top producer, you can never do that. I wanna jump in, I'm going to save the day. Hmm. Nothing will turn salespeople off faster than a sales manager who comes in and saves the day.

Again, it goes back to what we talked about earlier: salesperson becomes nothing more than an Uber or a Lyft driver or a Zoom connector, Teams connector...

David: I think that's an amazing interview question or a conversation question to ask is to somebody who's becoming a sales leader. "If a deal is going south and you're riding along. The person who's working for you is making some mistakes. How do you handle that situation?" 

You're absolutely right. If they are the type to swoop in and help close it, probably a great salesperson, but they don't know how to nurture somebody and look at the long game to make sure that person can fail, but then learn from their mistakes.

Mark: I get it because at the end of the year, the end of the quarter, you need every little deal you got, [00:33:00] that's when you, as a sales leader, make your money deciding when to step in and when not to step in because I mean, I get it. There were times that I had to step in and save it because I had to deliver a number, and if I didn't deliver that number, I wasn't going to be around.

I get that. But then there are other times they say, wait a minute, I gotta let this one go because this is going to be a coaching moment. I know we're going to be better off long term. Sales leaders have to have options on the table. And again, the bad sales leaders are the ones that put themselves in a box because they haven't planned from the beginning of the quarter, from the beginning of the year.

That's why I say, "Sales leaders, get out there right now. Create those incremental opportunities, those incremental relationships for your people to build on over the course of the quarter and the year."

David: It's amazing. Awesome, Mark. Well, what I want to do as we're moving towards the end of the episode is I have a few rapid-fire and I would love to have the answer with, you know, the first thing that pops in your head so we can get a few more nuggets of wisdom from Mark Hunter here.

What is one thing [00:34:00] people don't give enough value or attention to in leadership?

Mark: Following up, following up at every level, and just being in touch with people up and down the food chain.

David: What is one skill you advise everyone in sales to master leaders or not leaders?

Mark: The art of curiosity. And putting curiosity ahead of ego and pride.

David: What's your favorite business leadership or sales book?

Mark: Oh, wow. I don't know that's a hard question. Cause I read quite a bit and I'm kind of scanning my shelf here. I'm going to share a book that's kind of controversial. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson. 

And it paints a very interesting picture about Elon Musk, but there's some nuggets in there that are incredibly powerful in terms of leading an organization or how not to lead an organization.

David: Favorite quote, mantra, or saying that inspires you as a sales leader.

Mark: If you have the ability to help someone, it's your obligation to reach out to [00:35:00] them. And I admit, that's my quote.

David: No, no, no harm in that. That's a great quote. And what is the most important goal you are working on right now?

Mark: I started a goal a week and a half ago to run 1,000 miles this year. You know what? I'm having an absolute kick doing it. I have an absolute fun because I've got the right mindset. So that's going to demonstrate a tremendous amount of consistency because I got to do it every day.

Got to be out there. It's going to naturally get me in great shape, and it's also forcing me because I got to create the time to organize my calendar that much more.

David: That's a great goal. Hats off to you, Mark. Well, Mark, we are at the end here and I just want to thank you so much for being our first guest here. I learned a lot today. I know our listeners will too. I just appreciate all the insights, how active you are in the community, how you continue to just help sales leaders, [00:36:00] salespeople across the world with your insights and guidance. 

And if people want to continue hearing from you, what are some great ways to be able to continue learning from Mark Hunter?

Mark: Well, the best way is just jump out to my website, thesaleshunter.com. I'm all over LinkedIn, Mark Hunter. I got a podcast, the same name. It's just kind of The Sales Hunter. What can you say? You know, when you got a great last name, you might as well use it, right?

David: Well, that's wonderful. Thanks again, Mark. Thank you, listeners, for joining us today. As I said, this is our inaugural guest podcast. So if you want to keep listening, make sure to subscribe to Sell Like a Leader podcast on your platform of choice. 

Also, I'd love to know what you liked about this episode, any feedback you have, anything that you guys want us to cover in these podcasts that can be helpful to sales leaders or aspiring sales leaders. Feel free to DM me on LinkedIn. I'm just David there, or if you want to learn more about the work we do at SalesRoads, just go to [00:37:00] salesroads.com. 

We'll soon have the episode notes and other resources for you also on that website. See you in the next episode. 

Thanks so much. Thanks, Mark.