S6E33 - Mark Hunter - Your commission breath ruins authenticity

Good.

What's up, everybody? Welcome to yet another episode of the Surf and Sales podcast. I am Scott Lease, one of the two co founders and co hosts of this show as well as the Surf and Sales Summit, which we are happily sold out this year out in Portugal. We'll be there in about four weeks. Check it out@surfandsales.com and you can see updates on where we are going next year and get on that wait list. And I'm here joined by my good friend and co host, Richard Harris. What's going on, my man?

I forgot to. I'm good, I'm good. But I forgot to ask you. You know, I purposely did not bother you for the Buffalo Bills football game because I knew the anxiety you were experiencing.

Oh.

Oh, yeah.

Like I was literally. I was literally, you know Scott. I know Scott well enough that I might have to send, when they lose, like a text that just says, proof of life, please. Like that you're still alive. How did you do before we jump into our. Into our guest and everything, how did you do during that game?

Oh, my God, I. I was a miserable wretch.

That's really what it was.

You know, it's. Listen, they were the two, two best teams, I think, at the time, and I knew it was going to be a big, big game.

Yeah.

I had actually, before the season marked this as an L on the schedule. I didn't think we'd get the win, but I like our schedule the rest of the way. So I was pretty upset by how bad we were getting beat more than the fact that we were losing. And then just little by little, I kept going, what is happening? What is happening? What is happening? And I would say this could be potentially controversial amongst Buffalo Bills mafia, but it might be the second best game I've ever experienced in my whole entire life, surpassed only by the 35 to 3 deficit against the Houston Oilers back in the day.

Yep.

Came back from. I struggle off the top of my head to think of better, better moments. So it's been. It's been a good few days, but it's. I'm a little emotionally exhausted, I'm not gonna lie.

And how did Braden handle it? I know. You know.

Well, this is a. A fun story. So I was in California and. And they were here in Texas and I texted him saying, can you believe what just happened? And Braden was. Was like, what are you talking.

This is his seven, by the way.

This is his 17 year old son, by the way. Yeah. He was like, what are you talking about? I went to bed. So he turned it off when it was 40 to 25 and went to bed and got back up out of bed, grabbed his little brother, got him up out of bed and put the game back on and rewound it to when they stopped and then watched the end. And then he was, you know, losing his mind. So he, he had, he had given up.

Sounds like his father.

So. Oh, I was, you know, I wasn't, I was close, but I was also in California, so it wasn't as late, you know, I was. It's a little, it's a lot easier to watch sports, sports, you know, from the west coast.

But yeah, yeah.

Anyways, I'm, I'm hanging in there. I'm refreshed. We are joined today by one of the legends in sales, one of the legends in sales podcasting, one of the legends of authorship, book writing in sales. I don't know.

Thanks, Scott. I never knew you felt that way about me.

That is definitely not Richard Harris. I am talking about the sales hunter lead sales hunter, sales speaker, sales trainer and consultant guy who travels in his own words 200 plus days a year on average. Mark Hunter joins us, everybody, today on the surf and sales podcast. Welcome to the show, Mark.

Hey, thanks for having me. And I got to add some commentary onto that Bills game tonight because I was working on a big project. I wanted to watch Sunday Night Football. I could not turn the TV on because I had to get this project done. Date driven, client needed it. I get it done, I go to espn, see what the score for is. Screw it, it's over. I'm gonna go to bed.

Oh, you did the same thing as.

My son and you didn't text me, Scott.

So wait, did you, did you not know what happened till you woke up the next morning?

I did not know until I woke up the next morning and oh, my goodness. And it was all, it was almost like a foregone conclusion. But hey, you know what? There is a sales application to that.

Yes.

Application to this. If you, as a salesperson think the deal is not going to happen, think. Oh, no, don't, don't, don't think that for a moment. The game is not over until the fat lady sings.

Until it's over. Right. The power of belief.

The power of belief. If, if you think about what was going on on that bill sideline. I mean, amazing. I mean, there's so many applications for that. And yes, I'm glad you said it was the second best Bills win because if you had taken out the Houston Oilers thing, I mean, come on.

Oh, no, no, no, no. Nothing. The only thing that will take that out will be the day, hopefully while I'm still alive, that we win the Super Bowl. That will be the only win better than that Withers win.

I've got a question for you. Which one's going to come first, you or the Vikings?

I thought Mark was about to say what's gonna happen?

You're dead.

You dying or the Bills winning?

I did, too. I did, too.

Come on, man.

Oh, man.

Throw you under the bus, you know. Does the audience know that you and I finally met about nine months ago in torches? They.

They do not. Yeah. I don't know that we have known of each other and, you know, admired from afar or whatnot, but we only just met in, In Dallas a little less than a year ago.

Yeah, in Torchy's Taco. And a twin taco listener have not been to Torchy's Taco. They're coming everywhere. They're spreading. I was out in California the other day and they're out and I saw a sign. Torch really soon. Yes. Wow.

Wow. Well, you were out in California. I want to dig into this. 200 plus days a year travel. How long have you estimate that you've been traveling 200 plus days a year?

You know, I've been back when I was in corporate America, my office was in New York and I managed the west coast. And I would literally. God, I would literally do JFK to LAX or SFO once a week, if not twice a week.

Oh, my gosh, twice a week.

There would be times I would literally, because corporate was in New York, I'd fly out for a call, have to come back for a. For a meeting, turn around, fly back. I mean, so I've been doing this my whole fact. You talk, you know, I, you know, you're going to be in Portugal, I'm in Italy next week. I'm speaking at a major conference in Italy next week. Just wandering. I just wander the countryside, you know.

You, you, you enjoy it. You haven't. You have. You don't. It's not getting harder on you. You still love going all over the place on somebody else's dime. I suppose that helps as well.

You know, the only thing that, that really I can't stand is packing. I hate it. Packing. I absolutely do. That is. That is. But I have got traveling down to just such an easy. I mean, it's just. No, there's no stress involved. And you know what? The client always knows what my flights are, and I've Only missed one engagement that was in Raleigh, North Carolina because of snow. Raleigh got snow. And myself.

Well, listen, don't travel with me, Mark, because I am like kryptonite for smooth.

Every delay, every delay that could happen. Scott has run into it now.

I, I get delays. I get delays, I get canceled.

But you've only had one canceled flight.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. One gig I didn't get canceled.

One gig you missed. Okay, okay, okay.

No, no, no. I've had. All right, I've had plenty of canceled flights. Plenty of canceled flights. But there's always an option, there's always a backup. I mean, I have rented cars and driven six, seven hours. There was.

Yeah.

Where I literally I was to speak at 8am and I had to drive from, from LaGuardia all the way up to New Hampshire. I got up there literally as the sun was coming up at like 7:05. Change clothes and I'm speaking at 8:00 clock in the morning.

Oh my gosh.

I mean, but yeah, no planes, Trains and automobiles, planes. You find a way to get there and you do. So yeah, there was one gig I did not make it to on time and snow in Raleigh.

Yeah. All right, before we jump further, because I do have to give out a compliment to Vasco who is our sponsor for the event and the podcast. We appreciate what they're doing. We just had their CEO on. So if you haven't listened to this, that episode, it's the one right before this one that's dropped. So go check that out. We, we dug in deep on some really interesting approaches to founders and founder led sales and that data that early stage founders need to. I think. What was the quote, Scott? Don't over optimize on your last two closed deals as a founder. Right. Isn't that, wasn't that like the highlight point?

That's the highlight. That's the highlight. Yeah.

And Vasco actually helps make sure you do that with getting to the data and using some cool AI stuff to figure those things out. So please check out our sponsor, Vasco V a s c o.com but without further ado, Mark, what is the latest in the sales world? It is September 9th, I think, 10th of 2025. What's different September 10th of 2025 than September 10th of 2024? What's different?

Well, the sales journey is over. The sales journey is done. It truly is the buyer's journey. And you know, we're seeing this more and more and I think some salespeople are starting to get this memo, customers are buying on their time frame. You know, we've talked about this for years, how the customer's further along in the process, et cetera, et cetera. But what's happening is we, the sales community, have to create authentic relationships. And I think this is something that's been really percolating over the last six or eight months. And I think it's really come into. We have to be authentic out there in our relationships. That's why I like the two of you guys, because you're incredibly authentic sales salespeople who have commission breath. They're just not being successful anymore. You got to be authentic to understand the customer's journey. Sell to.

Let me, let me pick on that. For, for, for people that maybe struggle with what authenticity means or how they can be authentic. What are one or two examples that a, you know, a younger seller or mid level seller who's kind of getting kicked in the teeth right now, maybe for the first time ever, is going through and they're like, okay, be authentic. What the heck does that mean? How do I be more authentic than I feel like I'm already being?

Well, it starts with, don't try to put yourself into somebody else's shoes because you're not. And it, I'm going to be very basic. If you don't know the answer to it, don't, don't try to just throw out a bunch of crap. Tell them, I don't have the answer to it, but I'm going to get you the answer. I'm going to get back to you. Second, don't sit there and play a game, smoke and mirrors, that you know something that you don't know. I see this all the time with salespeople that they will walk in on a sales call pretending they know everything and they don't know. You may know a few basic pieces of information, but that's it. And that's okay. Be authentic with your customer. And it's amazing. When you're transparent with them, they will begin opening up with you. But tell you what, if you want to go in and think you're this, this. Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm Scott Lees. I'm Richard Harris. You know, I'm, I'm of that caliber of sales skill when you're six months into the job.

Yeah. It's almost like you're, it's almost like you're saying that old adage, fake it till you make it is gone. That you can't do that anymore.

It's gone. But it's still there. In other words, it's gone. And that you can't fake it, but it's there that you got to be confident. You got to be. Because you are going in with one premise. Every salesperson has to remember this. You are having a conversation because you seriously are committed to the belief that you can help the customer see and achieve something that. That they did not think was possible. That's what your underlying premise is. And the only way that they're going to be able to see and achieve is if they ultimately engage with you. So that's what you're attempting to do. But in order for you to get them to see full value, they've got to understand you. Because here's what's fascinating. The customer derives all of their opinions about the company based off their interaction with you. They base it 100% off their interaction with you. So if you're a jerk, guess what? The company's a jerk. And this is why it's so critical that we real. We have to accept the fact of what our role is, and that is to. I want to have a conversation with you to earn the right, the privilege, honor, and respect to be able to come back and talk with you again. If I do that, something good is going to happen. We'll get there. We'll get there.

Scott, what Mark has just said is that you and I are successful in spite of ourselves.

We have known that to be true for quite a while. But there's an interesting distinction. It's like you have to be confident. Mark said sometimes we don't feel confident as salespeople, but I have to project confidence anyways. So I could maybe fake that confidence part, but definitely don't try to fake authority or knowledge or understanding, etc. Etc. Mark's nodding his head. Go ahead, Mark.

That's what's absolute key. You don't fake knowledge. I gotta be confident in believing in yourself, believing that. That you have the ability. And you're gonna go in and you're gonna listen. I'm gonna go in, I'm gonna ask questions, I'm gonna listen, and I'm confident in who I am in my skin. That Dove soap commercial, you know, be comfortable or comfortable in your own skin. I don't have all the knowledge. I don't. I don't pretend to have all the knowledge. I don't, you know, I'm sitting across the desk or I'm on a zoom call, a teams call, whatever. With this customer who's got years and years of Experience in this industry. And I'm new. I get that. I get that. Respect them for that. And spend your time asking questions. One of the, the best sales presentation ever made is a sales presentation never given. Stop and think about that. Because customers just want a conversation. The, the confident salesperson's walking is willing to walk in without a presentation because they just got Preach.

Yeah, preach, man.

The non confident, they walk in, they've got the presentation. Let me show you our 65 locations and yada, yada, yada, you want that presentation back.

I feel that way about so many things. I feel that way about running an event, for example.

Yeah.

The person who lacks confidence is trying to control all of the variables, all the moving pieces all over the place. The person who has confidence is just like, that's gonna be all right. We'll figure it out.

Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there.

So, you know, I, I may or may, I may or may not be throwing Richard under the bus with that statement, but I think I've gotten much, much better over there.

Much, much better over there.

Much, much, much, much, much, much.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Particularly this year. Particularly this year. So here's my question mark. And maybe because we live in this world and we swim in this pond regularly, I feel like it's always been this way. But what do you. What changed in the last year that makes you realize other people are finally waking up and smelling the coffee? Right. Because I don't. Is it that the buyer can now go in AI stuff instead of Google things? Like, I, I agree with everything you're saying. I just feel like it's been this way, you know, fake it till you make it really is about your own self confidence, you know, that the, the journey is over, so to speak. Like, you know, it's all about the experience someone has. Where do you think that's even coming from, though? Because I feel like it's been that way for a long time.

Well, it has been that way, but something has changed. SEO is dead and it's been replaced by Geo Generative Engine Optimization. So this changes the customer's ability to garner information about you. They're not. They no longer see your, your homepage, your website. Yeah. You know, because they're looking at specific content now. That's kind of new. In the last 18 months, 12 months in particular. Go back to Covid. Remember when we first got into Covid, everybody had a story. Everybody had a story. How'd you get here? You know, everybody, you know, those first few months of COVID we're all talking about what. And that's when we began talking a little bit about this being authentic, being real. Okay, so then we come out of COVID and we go back to Fake World. You know, we go back to FOMO on Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and yada yada yada. Now we've seen kind of a collision of the two and people are saying, wait a minute, I saw that and I saw that. I don't want to go back to Covid. But there was something, you know, conversations were kind of genuine back then. Didn't they get genuine? And I think now we're seeing is, no, this stuff is just so fakeish. I want to have genuine conversations. I want to have real conversations with real people. That's how I'm going to really get the solutions that I'm looking for.

Yeah, I, I would agree with you. I would agree with you. How do we, how do we now teach this to the reps, though? How do we, you know, maybe, maybe you've already answered, I'm just asking it differently or something. But how do we teach that? Because you can't tell a rep to be authentic. Right? Like, I just read something the other day where, where someone was telling their, you know, been spending, to your point, about Geo and stuff. Like, I spend more time on Reddit and some other places to, to drive that. But I saw someone asking, like, my boss is telling me to go and post really personal stuff on LinkedIn. Right, right. Because he's trying to tell me to be more authentic. Authentic. But it makes me feel like cringe. Right. And you know, and I get it, right? Like I, I, I think we've all done enough of the LinkedIn game of like, we know what to do and how to do it. But how do you teach someone authenticity without forcing them to try and become authentic, which is not authenticity. Right. So how do we teach this to this next generation that's coming along?

Well, if you stop and think about it, if I'm a 25, 26 year old, I'm not going to work for a company unless their values and morals line up with.

Oh man, I hope a lot of people hear that.

Yes.

Yes.

Wow, that's a good one. Yeah, I'm with you. I get it.

They are just not. And you know what? They get it. They get it.

Right.

They get it, right. In other words, they're not going to work for the paycheck.

No.

They want to believe that the organization is doing good for mankind. They want to believe that that life is going to be. And that's what, and what's happening is that's beginning to permeate up, up the food chain. Up the food chain. And in fact, it's funny, I just had, I just had an exchange. Conversation. Exchange with my social media person. And she said, mark, I. We just don't have enough personal stuff on you. And I go, I'm a very personal person.

Yeah.

In person, Scott, you, you and I, we broke bread for an hour and we had a great conversation. I'm incredible. But she said, and she knows that about me, but she says it doesn't necessarily come across on social media in who it is that you are. Comes across in your writing and your books and so forth, but not so. Yeah. So I, I've got to be more genuine. So here's where I'm going with this. Culture starts at the top. Culture starts at the top. And if you're leading a sales team, you have to be. And you're the, you know, you're the CRO. You're the VP of sales. You have to be the one who's starting to be personal in what you're posting, what you're commenting on, what you're saying, what you're doing. And where does this start? It's by showing interest in other people. And I tell this of every sales leader. I say, look, if you don't know the personal drivers of each of your salespeople, you don't know your salespeople. Their personal drivers might be the fact that they, they coach their kids, you know, soccer team, or they're dealing with elderly parents. Their drivers, their motivators might be that they are rebuilding a 67 Camaro, whatever it might be. But if you don't know what those are, you don't know your people. And guess what that means. They probably need to know your motivators, your drivers. What is it about you? It. We have to create this level of transparency throughout the organization. Now this, this makes some HR people cringe. Oh, you can't ask those questions. I'm not asking that. And, and, and, and I'm not going down this slippery slope of politics and religion, all that sort of stuff. I just want to get to know you. I just want to get to know you. And it's amazing when we do that, I have found this. The way I communicate with people inside my company is the way I'm going to communicate with my customers. Stop and think about that. Right? I mean, how many times have we had a sales manager? I had a Sales manager. One time he was late to every sales meeting we had. Every, you know, we had weekly salesman. He was always late. So guess what? The kind of the culture of the organization been, you can be late to sales calls, no problem.

You know, late to follow up with one on ones.

One on ones was always the worst, in my opinion. And they showed up late for that.

So, so what does that mean? Oh, if I'm a few minutes late to this customer call, no big deal. No big deal, Right? Yeah. Excuse me. Hello. So culture start. So I've got to create this level of transparency all, all the way through. And it's, it's not a, it's not a switch you can flip. It's not because it's emotional.

So what do you think? Right. And, and again, at least two of the three of us mostly swim in the startup world. I don't know how much you swim in that mark these days. Easier to adjust, I believe. My belief is it's easier at a smaller company. Even 200, 300, 400 employees. Right. You, you now have the Fortune companies. Right. Microsoft just came out yesterday. Right. Three days a week back in the office. Right. And I think the three of us might sit around and go, all right, well, you're going to be able to pull that off for now because the economy sucks. But as soon as the economy tanks, guess who's leaving. Right? How do you, can you do it? Can you create this transparent authenticity, Authentic, authentic culture while forcing people back in the office? Because that's just, that's, that's what everybody wants. And I don't think anybody's cracked the code. Right. And by, Let me rephrase that. The leaders want it. The employees probably don't for the most part.

Yeah.

Where do you see that? How do you see that at all? And I know that's a big question to ask, and I expect you to have the perfect answer.

No, it's a big question because. Let's talk about founders. Founders would say, hey, you're going to be in the office all the time because they live at the office. Remember, you know, the company to the founder is their life.

Well, the, the founding. Right. It lives in their head. The office is in the founder's head. Right, right. So it's 24. They think they're in the office 24, 7.

When they sleep there all the time.

Right, Right.

So now let's back this up. First of all, you're right. Microsoft is probably going to have some turnover. And they, and they said, we're going to Start it in the Puget Sound area, the Seattle, Redmond, you know, then they're going to roll it out across the country. And of course, J.P. morgan's done. There's so many companies done this. Okay. Yeah. It's the shock to the system. I get it. But hey, go back to 2019 and before and hello, that was the environment we were all in. Okay. So we went through this shock mode. Now here's what I found. People at the end of the day, don't work for a paycheck. They don't work for a paycheck. They work because they feel valued. Go back to that 25, 26 year old, you know, they want to know that, what they're doing. So if they feel part of an organization, if they feel part of a community, they're going to participate in it. You have to.

You have to feel like you matter one way or another.

Yes. My.

My work matters. Great. I matter as a human being. Great. Even better. Both of those things matter at the same time. Bullseye. I'll run through a brick wall for you. Right, right.

With, without a doubt, I talk about two people in my last book, A Mind for Sales. One of them was. One of them was a gentleman like that who literally, I would walk through a wall for. He was my sales manager. He just created a culture and incredibly transparent. He cared about me as a person, cared about my family, cared about everybody on the team. We knew him and all this. But as a result, we would literally, I mean, if it, if it meant an all nighter to get this ready to go for a client, we would do it. We would do it. We were committed because we knew he was there with us.

I was gonna say he was there with you all night long too. Right. Not only was he there, he was like probably calling any spouse to say, hey, I'm sorry. Hey, I'm gonna get food in for us. I'm going to sit here and grind this out. Y' all give me the hearts. Like, that's what I imagine that leader is like, because I've, I've been that leader and I know Scott has been that leader. It's one of the things that, that I learned with him of when I worked with him was Scott is equally that passionate. He will not ask you to do something he has not done or willing to do himself. Right. I think all three of us are that way.

One of the, one of the techniques, and I learned, I learned this from him. He cared about our spouses, he cared about our significant. And he said, hey, guys, we're gonna. I remember him coming in to my office when I'm, hey, we're going to be here until east midnight. Is Ann going to be okay with that? Yeah, my wife. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, when your boss calls out your wife's name, you know, he said, is. Is Anne going to be okay with that? Yeah, yeah. I.

And then your wife loves him because I know you're going to go, hey, honey, I got to work late. But just so you know. You know, so and so asked if you're going to be okay with it.

Right.

John asked.

Right. And when we'd get together, you know, a few times a year at different events, he was always incredibly interested in how Anne was doing, you know, and. And she. He would tell Ann what Mark was like at work and. And, you know, both positives and let a few comments go, like, you know.

You really got to clean up.

I mean, right. It create that. It created that personal bond that for the two years I worked for John, literally, it changed my life. Absolutely. Yeah.

I think one of the. I was just gonna. Scott, I'm gonna give you a compliment. One of my. One of my favorite. One of the favorite. Scott's taught me many things over the 17 years we've known each other. One of my favorites when I first got with you was when you're in sales, if you don't know how to build rapport with someone, but you know they have kids, ask them about their kids. There's not a parent in the world.

Trick in the book.

It is like. And I just never dawned on me, right. Because we were both. We were both early parents at that stage of our lives. Right. But you know, just ask them about their. And you could say the same about their spouse or significant other or the.

The bill, their dog, even.

Yeah. But when it's the kids, man, people can't shut up. Right. And it's. And it's not fake if you show genuine interest in it because you'll also remember to use that at another time to say, how is your kid? How did they do? Are they feeling better? You know, whatever it is. So. So I commend you for that. Go ahead, Scott.

Yeah.

So have we over indexed so far on technology, though, that we've lost that art or in danger of losing that art of rapport building and knowing somebody, there's a visual representation of losing. Because we're relying now on technology to do all of this for us.

Yes.

Or we're trying to really rely on it.

You know, for those of you who weren't watching the video. I picked up my phone and I was texting Scott, you know. Yeah, I mean, yes, we have, we have over indexed technology and I think this is the whole thing that it's just, it's just, let's have a conversation, let's just shoot three. There, there, there is nothing wrong with that. You know, there's a line that I used to use and I used to use it a lot. I said, when you get done talking to somebody, if, when you walk away, you don't know the color of their eyes, you weren't listening.

Oh, that's really good.

Think about that, Think about that for a moment.

Yeah.

If you don't know the color, if you don't remember the color of their eyes, you weren't. Because again, eye contact is so valuable. So valuable. You know, it's kind of funny. I've got you on my screen here, but I've got to look right at the camera. I want to look at your faces, but I've got to look at the camera. It's eye contact. It's eye contact and eye contact and, and for younger people, that's creepy, that's scary. But I'll tell you what, it's genuine. It's, it's because if you ever talk to somebody who doesn't give you eye contact. I had a boss like that one time.

I was that boss for a long time. I was terrible.

But you want to, you want to break down barriers, just listen and give people eye contact. Okay, so whatever it is that they say, and this is such a basic sales, this is sales 101. But whatever it is that they say, ask them a follow up question on that.

Yeah, yeah.

Let them all in conversation. See, the confident salesperson will let the customer drive. Whoa, what did he just. Yeah, yeah. The confident salesperson will let the salesperson drive because they know at the end of the day the customer is going to be the one that's going to be in charge.

So how. So what, so what are you telling sellers to do? Who. Let's say they're hearing this advice right now and they go to one of your, you know, speaking events and they're all fired up and they're like, man, I think Mark gets it. But in the other ear, they've got a boss and they've got a company that's trying to shove all this technology down their throat and say, you know, I'm exaggerating here, but it's like, don't do anything. Just automate everything and just Put all these things in place that automates all of the freaking work. And you just, you know, kind of run only the last mile or what or whatever. And I think people are struggling to find the balance of that. Right. How are you, how are you trying to guide those folks through this? Because I think a lot of people agree. I agree we've over indexed too far in technology. Salespeople today don't have the basic skill sets nailed down as well as my generation did. And you probably say the same thing, you know, how do you find the balance?

Yeah, okay. I'm going to use technology to take care of the masses. I'm going to use technology because again, if this is the boss I'm working for, this company I'm working for, and they're saying I got to use this tool that go, go, go, go, go. But here's what I found. More becomes more when I do more with less. Let me explain what I mean. Ultimately, it's going to be five prospects. It's going to be 10 prospects. Those are the ones that are going to deliver the number for me. And my whole objective is to use this technology to take care of all this stuff out here. But the other day, it's those five that I'm zeroing in on. And I'm going to give them so much one to one care, so much one to one relationship, that they're going to wind up becoming the ultimate customer for me. And I think this is where salespeople believe. In fact, I just did a video on this today. We have too big a pipelines. Sales managers are demanding. We have this big giant pipeline. Oh, we got 10,000 literal. You can't be. That's a sewer.

Not real. Yeah.

I want a water tap where I can bring a lead in, where I can, I can reach out to Richard. Richard's qualified, Richard's in my icp. There's buyer intent. They are ready to make a decision. I want to be able to zero laser in on just Richard and Scott. You're off here in ozone layer. Well, that's where you are all the time anyway. I'm going to forget about you right now.

It's a haze. Oh, so no, I agree. So, so continue with that. Right. So Richard's in the drip, Scott's in the ozone.

Yeah. So. So here's the deal that I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna laser in on just those four or five leads. Those four or five prospects, those four or five that are gonna absolutely make a difference in my own business. I have One objective every day, and my staff holds me accountable to it, is to have five conversations a day. Five conversations a day with people who can either buy from me, are going to buy from me, or can refer me. That's it. That's it. That's it. Now we have a ton of automation tools on running in the background. We've got stuff, we're sending out books, we're doing all kinds of stuff. But my sales focus, five conversations say people who are buying from me could buy from me or refer me. That's it. And if I do that, 25. So that's 25 a week. And, and I know there are going to be some days I won't hit that, but if I can get to 21 or 22, life is good. Our company's growing and we're having a good time.

And he's doing that while traveling 200 plus days.

Exactly.

Yeah. Because again, I'm keeping it simple. It's not hard. We, we, we can screw up a two car funeral better than anybody.

That might be the new title.

That's the new title.

Car Funeral in sales.

Yeah. And, and there's a lot of founders out there who, who, who. Let me tell you something. They've smoked a lot of dope, they've jumped a lot of rope and they've lost a decade along the way. And they think they know the answers and they don't. It's just being human, just being here.

Yeah.

Oh, that's good.

This is five conversations a day, Richard.

I'm sitting here because it's funny. I'm sitting here going, God, you know, the weeks when I'm down or I feel like something's going on, I realize I haven't been putting the effort into whatever that lead gen is, whether, oh my God, I'm not writing a blog post, I'm not working on my generative AI. I'm not reaching out to people just to say hello to what Mark says. But as soon as I do that, you know what happens? My pipeline goes up. And it's not even from the fact that I'm talking to those people or doing things. Like, it's just like, it's the karma I'm putting in the world of like, positive activity to attract it back in. Like. And I've been having this conversation with myself the last two days because I feel like, like, wow, stuff, stuff's not moving all of a sudden. What am I doing? And I realize I'm not doing enough of the other things that will drive that. So I I hear it and I probably needed that kick in the butt today. So thank you.

I'm going to give you two. No, I'm going to give you three other things that I think you absolutely have to subscribe to. One, I have a referral number every week. I'm committed to giving three referrals a week to other people. Three referrals. And I found that if I just throw. I'm not expecting, you know, I give you a referral, you're going to give me one. I could, but I've just found that if I throw referrals out, somehow they come back me. So that's an absolute commitment. Two, I am absolutely committed to a routine. And my routine starts off with exactly. I do the same thing every morning and I'm committed to that routine. Top performing salespeople are committed to a routine and it starts first thing in the morning. And the third thing is what I call the 10am Rule. The 10am Rule. I want to accomplish something significant before 10am that's not get up long before that, but I want to accomplish something significant before 10am why? Because I feel good. If I can just have one good phone call before 10am I feel good. Yeah, it jazzes me. Even if my day goes to pot, at least I've had one good phone call.

I love that 10am Rule. I never framed it like that, but I used to schedule all of my, when I was a rep, I used to schedule all of my kind of follow up closing calls, demos, whatever you want to call it between 6am and 9am you did because yes, that was my block to demo the rep demo. Middle part of the day I didn't demo. I didn't want to get thrown off my rhythm of prospecting be the beginning of the day or the end of the day between like 4 and 6pm Those are my only two blocks to like hold demos and try to close deals. Because to Mark's point, I wanted to go to bed excited to wake up because I thought I could close a deal. I wanted to close a deal before some other people even got into the office. And I wanted to start my day off with a win. So if the rest of the day went to shit, at least it was like, well, at least I closed a deal. This morning. Feels like forever ago. When I closed the deal and the end of the day was blocked to kind of try to pull myself out. If the rest of the day was crap, I could look forward to something at the end of the day, that was it. And the middle Part of the day was just prospecting, prospecting, prospecting. I never thought of it as this 10am rule, but as the same kind of concept for me when I was a salesperson, you know, so that's great. 10:00am Rule.

Sales is a mind game. It's the most difficult sale we'll ever make is the one we make to ourselves, period.

Yeah.

And agree believing in ourselves. And I've struggled, you know, I've had some ups and some down periods and it's one of the things fact right here, I've got a journal right here. Every morning I write down 10 things I'm thankful for every morning. 10 things I'm thankful for. I do that every morning. And oh, by the way, those 10 things have to be different.

Mean, they can't be from yesterday. You can't still be thankful for yesterday.

But you know what it does? It just. It just shifts your mindset. It just. Yeah, shifts your mindset. And now I. I've got this servant mindset that's.

That's tough. 10 unique things a day. That's 70 unique pieces of gratitude per week.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, my God.

I. I accept this challenge. I'm going to try to do this starting tomorrow. And I will report back to the both of you.

I want to hear this.

This does not sound easy for me.

You know, you really get down to the nitty gritty clean underwear. But you know what? But, but, but you stop and think about this because it's easy for salespeople to get down. Oh, man. Things just. Hey, we all have so much to be thankful for. I was a student of Zig Ziglar and this is a technique I just lifted, you know, from Zig. But, but Zig, you know, there's always, you know, if. If you don't like your position in life, move. You're not a tree, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right out of Zig Ziglar. I don't know if he got it from somebody else, but you know, again. And take Jim Rome. The line. You become the sum of the five people you associate with the most. Be careful who you choose to hang out with. Sales is a mind game completely.

Completely. So we need to. We got a shift real quick. Mark, like this thing has flown by. I could sit here for another hour doing this with you. But we want to give you a chance to ask us a question if you'd like to. Although I think you have all the answers. And first, we also want to just give a quick shout out to our sponsors. Vasco, please check Them out as you're looking to build the, the pieces you need to know to grow and build your own business from a, from a revenue operations and signals perspective. So please check out Vasco. But Mark, what, what, what can we do to help you?

Well, I, I got a, I got a. I got a question for you guys. What's the biggest sales challenge you see? Founders failing to get out, failing to get over.

It's not hard. Scott, you want to go first? I'd be willing to bet it's the same, but.

And there's so many different. I'm just trying to pick one. I would say simplification of what they. What the pain is that they solve and how they solve it. Everybody falls in love with their baby and wants to describe all 1 million features and things that it does and that overwhelms people. You know, people can't. Don't have the attention span for it and half the time they don't care. I use this analogy a lot about the car salesman. If you go to the lot to buy a new car and the car salesman wants to tell you about every nut, bolt, screw, breaking pad, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you're not a car buff and you don't care about all that stuff, you're running away. You're like, dude, leave me alone. If that car salesman was like, hey, what are you looking for, Scott? I'm like, well, I'm looking for a white Chevy Tahoe with this thing and, you know, no miles on it. I got like four things I care about. Dude, how much does it cost? Great. Boom. Done. Let's get out of here. You just made a sale. So the biggest sales problem that I think founders have is they try to over talk, over, explain. They can't keep it simple.

Yeah, yeah. I was, I was going to go down the same path too, of that. They are, they, they're too in love with what they do and they're. They're too in love with their own brain and how much. How smart they think they are. I think the other piece is, is that particularly because we work with so many founders who are tech minded, right? So I think it has to do with how they're wired that there is mathematics that can apply to sales. Not early, not early. There's no. The only math that matters early is just the number of conversations you have. And then can you get better at those conversations? That's about it. Right? But I've talked to so many founders and I've talked to three founders in the last week. Well, we're about to implement the CRM and this and I'm like, what do you need a CRM for you? How many? You don't even have a customer. Well, you know, we want to track everything. Track what? Yeah, there's like, you know, as. As much As I like CRMs and Scott doesn't, you know, it's like, not at that stage, like, not necessary. So I think, think that's. That's probably the same thing that Scott's saying too, is like they're over complicating things. That should just be simple.

Yeah.

At a high level.

They're totally in love with their baby. They think what they. They've created is going to bring world peace, solve world. And the earth is going to rotate differently because.

No, because their latest piece of martech. Yeah. Yes, we saw. We solved it. Yeah.

And.

And they want to hire the first salesperson as commission. Only the.

That's the other one. Why not?

That's right. That's a whole other wildebeest right there.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

I'm working. I'm working with a company right now that is struggling with that. And I go, guys, the dog don't hunt. Okay. The dog don't hunt, Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, this has been. This has been awesome, Mark. It has been wonderful to get to know you better over the last year or so. I appreciate you coming on the show, sharing your knowledge. Everybody got to see and listen to the sales hunter do his thing. If you ever have a chance, by the way, to go listen to Mark speak. Run, don't walk. Check out his books, follow him on LinkedIn. He's got a bazillion followers for a reason. We appreciate you spending time with us, Mark, and wish you all the best, man.

Thank you so much. Great selling, everybody.

Good to see you, buddy.