Don’t wait, check it out. 
Learn the right attitude for a genuine sales career Discover a business plan to make your B2B podcast a success Scale your B2B podcast through multiple outlets Learn to build genuine relationships and trust through a podcast Find a content creation strategy that will work for your business
00:00-08:52 | What’s the story behind a sales career? 08:52-14:00 | What you need to start a strong podcast 14:00-20:15 | Learn the right business strategy to start your podcast 20:15-28:09 | Bring the “social” back into the “selling” 28:09-32:58 | Is it a numbers game or a quality game? 32:58-36:50 | How to develop your thought leadership 36:50-41:53 | Create your content creation strategy 41:53-00:00 | How to refine your expertise and leadership
“Sales is helping others see and achieve what they didn't think was possible.” - Mark Hunter “What’s missing in conversations is the element of trust. When you have trust, the conversation goes to another level, and that’s what sales is all about.” - Mark Hunter “With every sale, I want to open a relationship so that with each call I make I earn the right, the privilege, honor, and respect to be able to reach out to that person again.” - Mark Hunter Podcasts are becoming more and more niched, and that makes a more loyal and engaged audience.” - Mark Hunter “If you want to be more valuable locally, be recognized globally.” - Mark Hunter “I want my podcast to create actionable results now, but I also want it to create marketing awareness.” - Mark Hunter “You can't be in the intellectual space if you're afraid of giving away too much of your content, because your intellectual level should be continuously growing.” - Mark Hunter “You can't be a thought leader if you're not putting out content to help demonstrate and develop an expertise.” - Kap Chatfield “If you're really embracing intellectual leadership, you'll never be repetitive.” - Mark Hunter
Full transcription:
Kap Chatfield 00:20
Hey gang Welcome back to B2B Podcasting, the show for B2B CEOs, brand leaders, sales leaders and marketers to help them skip ads and be the show. I'm your host, Kap Chatfield the CEO of Rveal Media. Today, we have The Sales Hunter, we have Mark Hunter on the show today, he's known as the Sales Hunter. That's his nickname, because he is an absolute sales mastermind. He's the author of A Mind For Sales, we'll be talking about that book a little bit through the show as well. He's the co-host of Sales Logic, it's a show that comes up on Saturday morning, so be sure to check that out on YouTube and wherever else it's streaming. And then also, by the time that we're recording this, he's about to launch a new show. So when you're actually listening to it, the show should be live. He's going to be the host of The Sales Hunter Podcast. And so Mark, man, we're so excited to talk about all things B2B sales, marketing, content strategy today. Thank you so much for joining us on the show.
Mark Hunter 01:13
Hey, thank you. So I guess we're gonna be here all day, right? Talking about this?
Kap Chatfield 01:16
Pretty much, we could be! For your, for the sake of your day, we won't go all day. But man, I mean, listening to your book, and just listening to you, a lot of your content on Sales Logic and seeing what you're putting out on LinkedIn, your videos. You you're just a wealth, you're a goldmine of information and education regarding sales. And it's really exciting to have you on the show to talk about, you know, your your career and your thought leadership on sales. And as we kick it off, just to kind of give a little bit more context, I mean, your nickname, The Sales Hunter, that's a juicy nickname. Can you give us a little bit of a just a background story of where that nickname came from?
Mark Hunter 01:51
Well, yes, my real last name is Hunter. People always ask me, "What was your name before you change it?" No, I owe this name to my dad. So really, it came about because I was in sales. And I was talking to a guy one day and he said, I gotta use this name in the name of my business. So we did some extensive market research. I mean, we we went to the limits of the Earth. We googled saleshunter.com Oh, it was taken. So we put "the" in front of it. Oh, it's available! Buy the domain name. That's it. End of story. Since then, we've trademarked it and it lives and it works. And that's what I'm known as.
Kap Chatfield 02:30
Known as The Sales Hunter. A lot of research. I love it's so amazing how you, just a quick Google search, and you can really find, you know, what's going to be the direction of your brand very quickly. And so that's what you've done. You've, you've kind of created this, this brand around being The Sales Hunter. But let's talk a little bit about just your background, and your heart. And you're speaking of your book, A Mind For Sales, your mind for sales. How did you begin selling? I mean, you're clearly passionate about it. You talk about selling as like serving people and your mindset and your heart behind it. It's just so unique. Where'd that come from?
Mark Hunter 03:04
Well, I'm passionate about it now, but I wasn't. You know, again, you've listened to the book as read by the author. And back in the beginning of the book, I talk about how I did not want to get into sales. Really, I wanted to, "You're listening to the 9095 KQED radio" I want to be a disc jockey, that's what I was in college. But it's not something you tell your mom and dad "oh, by the way, this is what your tuition money is going for". So that doesn't work. So anyway, I got a degree in marketing, because that was gonna be the easiest thing. I thought I could do voiceover work for radio commercials. Well, what happened was I ran into the police department. No, the police department kept running into me, I wound up getting like four speeding tickets in the course of about six weeks. Right? Just before I graduated, now I was responsible, I paid the I paid the tickets. And I forgot about it. Problem is my insurance company reached back out to me, it was about in July of that year, saying they weren't dropping me. They were just inviting me into the high risk pool. In other words, they were going to charge me a lot of money for insurance. And basically it came down to that I could not afford, I could not afford my car payment, rent and insurance. Something had to give. So I wound up getting a job that supplied me with a car. That's how I wound up in sales. That, that again is a lot of research. Hmm. How's that? You know?
Kap Chatfield 04:24
That you that's amazing. So you found yourself in truly I think is your calling. You are called to do this. You're called to coach this, but it was really because you were delinquent and you just kept on you kept on speeding. But that's it is it's so it's so cool how, I know faith, a big a big is a big part of what you do and how providential all of that comes together. So all things can be worked together for the good, right?
Mark Hunter 04:52
Well, yeah, exactly. I mean, that that's the whole thing. I mean, you know, it's funny. That first sales job I was so good at it I got fired after about a year.
Kap Chatfield 05:01
Wow. You're that good.
Mark Hunter 05:02
Yeah, I was at good. So I got a second sales job, I was even better at that job because I got fired. I lasted not nine months, eight months? Eight or nine months at that job. It wasn't until my third job, and and this kind of goes because I thought I was getting fired for my third job. My boss sat me down. And he said, he really asked me if I knew what I was doing. Yeah, there you go. This is like this is, yeah, you're setting me up to be fired. And he really challenged me if I really understood what the customer is looking for. Because I was so focused on the product, I was so focused on what we sold, that I wasn't focused on really helping the customer. And that was a lightbulb moment. And that began this this journey that I'm on. Sales is about helping people. Sales, my definition of sales is helping others see and achieve what they didn't think was possible. Think about that. So I mean, you know, I could have been a plumber, I could have been an architect, I could have been anything. But sales allows me to interact with more people in probably any other job. And if my passion is to help people, boom, I found what I'm supposed to be doing. So I love it. You're right providential? Spot on, you bet.
Kap Chatfield 06:17
That's amazing. Uh, one thing that I'd love your input on is the challenge of when you're in a position kind of like you were in, you didn't have a lot of money. And if you're, I'm sure you're in a kind of commission sort of situation where you get to eat what you kill basically. A lot of people and sales are in that position, which is some people are made for that. They love to compete, they love the love the adrenaline, they love to go out and, and catch the hunt that day. But at the same time, there can be a tension, if you're in a really desperate situation where you start to, you start to miss that. You start to miss that it's about the person, it's about the customer, and not about the product, and really not about you. And so in that season of your life, did you find yourself kind of wrestling with that challenge? Even even after that conversation that you had? Or was it truly like, it was easy to make the shift?
Mark Hunter 07:11
You must be describing yesterday. No, no. You know, is this so is. So is, boy, that's terrible English. Here's the deal. In sales, you have to always play the long game. When you play the short game, that's when you start getting into trouble. You know, it's a shame, we got to we got to do this mic drop moment: integrity. It's a shame, we even have to talk about integrity, because we shouldn't really have to. But unfortunately, we do because of societal norms out there. And it can become easy. And this is why I got fired from my first two jobs. Because I was making claims, I was creating expectations that the company couldn't deliver on. That's why I got fired. I just I viewed I viewed the customer, as if they were a bowling pin. And my job was to knock them down, take their money and move on and get the next one. And it was this third job where my boss finally sat me down and said "hold it stop". And I look at today as I don't we don't close a sale. I hate that term. Closing a sale. We open a relationship. Right? See what I want to do with every sale is I want to open a relationship. My my, my objective, with each call I make is to earn the right, the privilege, honor and respect to be able to reach out to that person again. Think about that. If I can do that, that's a good day. And things will begin to happen, will they they will begin to happen. But you've got to be willing to play the long game. This is where so many solopreneurs get themselves into trouble. Because they start chasing one shiny object after another. Stay the course, know what your plan is, stay the course. And stay focused.
Kap Chatfield 08:52
That that concept about if you can make your win, like you kind of have to redefine your scoreboard right? If you can make your win, to to have the permission to enter back into that person's life again, at some point, whether it's through a phone call or email or whatever, then what that really means is you got to be willing to lose quote unquote, what you think you want to win in order to win that at the end, right? Like so you're in a situation where you're on a phone call or with a with a prospect, for example. And you recognize, hey, they are not ready to buy this thing and it's probably not even going to benefit them at this point to buy this thing. It might down the road, but if I I can either win now, close the deal, as you as you said and make that commission but lose that relationship, lose that trust over time, or I can lose the battle and potentially win the war down the road and win a customer for life and win referrals. All of that.
Mark Hunter 09:50
I'm going to give you a great example and it ties into podcasting. I began a podcast probably 15 years ago. 15 years ago, this was in the very much infancy of podcasting. Yeah, I'd have to go back I'm sure I could find some of the original episodes. And I did several dozen. And they were crushing it out there. And I just wasn't getting traction from. I wasn't getting response I wasn't getting I wasn't getting the love. I wasn't getting the phone calls, I wasn't getting the stuff, and I stopped doing it. Could you imagine, if I had stuck with that podcast, what it would be like today?
Kap Chatfield 10:26
I mean, I mean, you know, it'd be insane. The, the compound effect of that would be.
Mark Hunter 10:29
The compound effect. And this is what you have to, this is what relationships, this is what people are all about. It's the compounding effect of the value of the relationship. And what you create. You have to play the long game. When you start playing the short game, it becomes shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter. And soon you have no game left to play.
Kap Chatfield 10:56
Tell us about that podcast that you started. You started this podcast, you said 15 years ago, and you're not doing that one now. You're doing other things now.
Mark Hunter 11:04
Exactly, exactly. And see this, this again, this is this is the entrepreneurs nightmare. I was doing a, I was doing a podcast. And I've got I'd have to go back and find it was probably 15 years ago in the infant stage. In fact, I was doing daily video content, I was emailing out. Daily video content I was emailing out. And again 15 years ago, and both of them I wasn't getting the love and I walked away from. And I go wow. You know, I had somebody shar with me said, "Mark, your biggest problem is you've been too far ahead of the curve. And you didn't have the patience to stick with it". Oh, wow. You know, you stop, you stop and think about that. But see, at the time, I said wait a minute, I gotta put food on the table. I gotta be hustling for money. And so I needed to spend my time generating revenue. And if I had stuck with that, could you imagine how big those podcasts would be today? Yeah, so I'm back in the podcast business. And in fact, I, you know, I'm doing this podcast with you. You know, I'm a guest on a lot of podcasts, because the power of podcasting is only becoming exponential bigger. And people say, oh, there's so many podcasts out there. Yeah, but you know what, each one's becoming more and more niched. And what does that make? That makes a more loyal audience, a more engaged audience. Right. To me. That's, that's, that's the future of podcasting.
Kap Chatfield 12:34
So what was your, you had you had some sort of kind of business development goal with your original podcast. Where, what was that? Like? What were you trying to do with it? And you weren't, you obviously weren't hitting what your, what your goal was. That's what made you stop. But how was what was your objective for that? And how has that objective shifted now that you're doing your new shows?
Mark Hunter 12:54
Well, I don't know what I was doing. I couldn't even I think it was, I think it was called. Say, I couldn't even tell you what the name is. Again, I'm on I, this is really poking me I got, I got to go back and find it. I just thought it was going to create, you know, this, this, it was going to go viral, and I'd have millions of people downloading it. And I'd have millions of people beating a path to my door. And because it didn't happen in the course of I don't know, I did probably 15 or 20 episodes. And it just so then I just walked away from it. I see, that was the problem, I got into a podcast, without having a business plan. Totally, totally the inverse of the podcast I have now. We have a very strong business plan. And I'm on the verge of launching a second one, very strong business plan. This is what's key. Just doing episodes, you know, you look at the number of podcasts at start and then stop. And that is a big, big, big problem. Cuz you don't have a business, you don't have a business model.
Kap Chatfield 14:00
Right. That's it. First of all, total grace for not remembering what podcast you started 15 years ago. I mean, it's, that's a long time ago. And you're doing so much now. And it's it's interesting that you even mentioned, like you didn't even truly reverse engineer what outcomes you really wanted. And so that no wonder, no wonder you're in a place where you're like, man, is this even going in the right direction? But now, you know, hey, what we're doing is actually a vehicle to get us to get us where we're trying to go. So can you break down for us, like, what's the business development strategy behind your show and some of the content that you're putting out?
Mark Hunter 14:35
Yeah, The Sales Logic Podcast is a show I co-host and we do it live on Saturday mornings. And it's about a 25 minute show, you know, I don't know. You know, somebody told me 22 minutes is the average commute. Oh, I don't know who commutes to work? Or 22 minutes is the average workout. So 22 minutes is what the what a podcast should be. So anyway, so we have this podcast and I'm I'm a co host with with with a lady. And this is key male, female. Very, very key, because it resonates better. And it attracts a larger audience. So we do this, we live stream it on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn. LinkedIn is our go to platform because it's a B2B. And this business model is designed around really one thing: create continuity. Okay, that's not a business model. The continuity is, it's creating a media platform for us. Nice, The two of us, we both do a lot of speaking at conferences, sales events, and so forth. So what will happen is companies will hire both of us to come in and speak. It's a media platform, because it's allowed us to come out and create a mastermind group. It's allowed us to have a media platform because we're on the verge now, in January, we'll be rolling out half day online events, with sponsors, and so forth, which will ultimately go to in person events. And it's myself and this lady, we, we will do these half day events, but we'll have other guests that we'll be bringing in, and they'll be doing segments of it too. So we're creating multiple streams of influence and impact and revenue off this single podcast. And the podcast, unlike most like, this is a traditional podcast, we have a host, and you're interviewing me, this podcast I do with my co-host, we have no guests. We just pick a topic each week, we take a question from a listener, we have a website, people submit questions. So then we've we fashioned the topic around the question. We create a book or we we say what's what's a book people should read relative to that topic? And then we have what we call a lightening round. And we do it all in about 20 to 23 minutes. We've got a pretty high energy opening video, and voiceover that starts. And that's really it. So it's just the two of us. And, yeah,
Kap Chatfield 17:05
Sorry to interrupt you, no finish what you're saying.
Mark Hunter 17:09
No, no, that's okay. jump in, jump in, Go.
Kap Chatfield 17:12
I'm curious on how, because you're using your show, here's what I've noticed about doing shows is that you can have a show that's very featured guest centric, which is a you know, it's really good for building strategic relationships, you're obviously you're you're you're kind of creating content at a more scalable rate. Because you're also bringing on people that are creating the content for you, you're just there to kind of mine the gold out of them. But you also don't have a lot of control over what that does for you and your personal brand, regarding your expertise. And then you have this other side, where it's like, Hey, we're, we're actually crafting our own episodes kind of more narrative centric, we're, you know, we're really trying to drive our own narrative for our own brand, and, and our own expertise, our thought, leadership, all that. So that's where you're leading with with that. But I'm, I'm interested in the blend of the two, I think that you can use both on the same show for a lot of different cases. But I'm curious about you and your audience, specifically, because you've said before that, you know, sales is really about serving people. And I'm curious about like, how are you? How are you leveraging the show to, to serve your customer base?
Mark Hunter 18:22
Yeah, the the the podcast, of course, is one way. It's us talking to you. Sure. The live stream, we have a live audience, we have a very engaged audience. We do this at 9am, Eastern Time, 6am, Pacific Time, Saturday mornings. And we have a pretty loyal audience. And as people chime in, as they put in comments, we put them up on the screen, we talk about it. So the show has evolved, where it is an interactive show, with whoever the guests with whoever happens to be listening and chimes in. What does that do? That brings an element of freshness to us. It brings an element of real time to it. It just it just creates a more engaging and the co-host and myself we interact very, very well very, very comfortably. So we we pinball back and forth, we kid each other and it just works very well. So in that regard, we get interaction. And then what happens is we have a lot of people who will watch the show live on Saturday mornings, and then they're anxious to listen to the download, you know, on iTunes or Spotify, what whatever it might be. In fact, we got really screwed up because we were not actually uploading shows to podcast for several months, and we didn't realize that. We did not we were so caught up in the live show, Oh man, did we make a mistake? So we finally just a few weeks ago, we got okay, got that piece fixed. And you know, again, it's one of those things when you have a co-host. She thought I was doing it, I thought she was doing it and we're both racing around doing other things. We're having a kick doing a live show. And oh, you know what? We weren't checking the back door.
Kap Chatfield 20:15
Yikes. But hey, at least what's so cool though is that you're you're leveraging like this one vehicle, which is a live show. And you're repurposing it. So you're putting your attention in the, in the avenue where it's truly a unique experience. It's a two way conversation and you're, you're repurposing it. So you're, you got the wheels back on your your video that's uploading, I was just listening to actually one of your recent episodes today. And you guys got to make sure that you check out that show, by the way, we'll put the link for his show and his LinkedIn profile all that in the show notes of this episode. I want to talk about your book, briefly in regards to content creation, because you're talking about how you're using, you're using this podcast as a means of serving your audience. And part of that is like getting real feedback, knowing what questions they have, how can they grow in their own sales leadership? And I'm wondering, I want to piggyback off of this, this. One of the chapters in your book is called Social Selling, is Neither Social Nor Selling. And it's this whole concept of like, using social media to build relationships, and it's very inbound focus, I think, is kind of what is really what you're trying to poke the poke that bubble about is. Hey, you know, there's you got to have a social media presence, but at the end of the day, if you want to sell you got to get on the phone, you got to interact with people individually. I don't want to take the words out of your mouth, but maybe you could kind of like flesh that out for us. What's that? Yeah. What do you mean by that concept?
Mark Hunter 21:45
Yeah. And that's pretty controversial. I've had I've had people really rip me on it. That's fine, I I stand by what I say. In that's fine because what I find is too many people do what I call "click and pitch". They click to connect to you and then suddenly, they're trying to sell you. Hold it. What happened to the social in social media? The other argument I have is people will sit there and say, "well, if I just throw enough posts out on Facebook, Instagram, yada, yada, yada, I'll have people beating a path to my door." Well, I don't know where you bank, but where I bank, they don't take clicks and likes, you can't take clicks in likes to the bank. So I mean, period, end of story. Now, I want to be on social media. I'm on social media fair amount. And it's all about building your profile. Do I get business off LinkedIn? Yes, I get business, but it's a long tail. You have now there's some short tail strategies. We don't have time to go into it here. But I view I use LinkedIn more as a long tail. I'm creating my awareness. Here's the thing that that I really remind businesses of: if you want to be more valuable locally, be recognized globally. Hmm. And social media is your ticket to being recognized globally. I have over 300,000 followers on LinkedIn alone. My co-host, I do this show I do the show with Meredith Elliot Powell. We added up one time and across all platforms, we have about 650,000 connections. Golly, between email lists, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, yada, yada, yada. In fact, it's probably probably closer to a million, I bet. And what does that do? That has more people being able to touch us? Well, just the law of probability there says that, it's probably going to create some opportunities long way. Which it does, which it does. But it goes back to something you said repurposing content. We, we, we never want to do something. I never do anything that I can't repurpose at least three, four times. Even our sales logic podcast video shows, we'll pull out clips, we'll pull out like 10 second clips, and we post them. We post them on LinkedIn, we post them on Facebook, we post them on Pinterest. You know, for me, LinkedIn is my go to tool because I'm B2B. I'm B2B. So that's our primary platform.
Kap Chatfield 22:37
But your look, you're always looking at how do we we use the analogy like with the buffalo, right? Like the Native Americans, when they would kill a buffalo, there was not a single element of the buffalo that went to waste. They use the hide for things, they use the bones for things, they use the meat, obviously. And so that's what you're doing is you're thinking, hey, if we're gonna invest in this, because content, really it comes down to communication. If we need to leverage this to communicate our brand, our products or service on all platforms. So you're being extremely resourceful with it.
Mark Hunter 24:11
Yeah, it is. Because here's the other thing that I have found time and time again with Meredith is that we'll be talking about top we'll be talking about a topic and we say something and she'll say "Mark, that was really good". And I go wow I didn't really thought of that. But suddenly, what does that become? That becomes a tweetable moment. That becomes something I can repackage up into something else that becomes. So again, when I look at podcasts is a confirmation and a laboratory. In other words, I can confirm ideas I like. I can share. Hey, what type of play am I getting on this from the audience? And I can use it as a laboratory that I can test things. And that's what I like about the freshness of an audio podcast. That's the beauty of it. Because I hear back from listeners.
Kap Chatfield 25:28
I love the laboratory element. Because one thing that I really believe is that when thought leaders choose to document their expertise, and just show up and not get too precious about producing it perfectly, but just getting the reps in and putting it out there. And just that process allows you to refine and more clearly articulate your thought leadership, which makes it so much more value valuable. Have you experienced that personally, with your brand, as you've been just like, getting the reps and communicating on the podcast on your show?
Mark Hunter 26:00
Yeah, because here's the whole thing it just gives you more experience. It just gives you more. And what happens is, then what happens is it accelerates the process. I'm in a meeting or somebody has somebody asks a question, and suddenly I just come out with an answer. And I go, where'd that answer come from? Well, wait a minute, that was something we talked about on a podcast. Maybe it's a podcast. I did. I did with Meredith Elliot Powell, or it was a podcast I was a guest on. I mean, I love going on podcasts as a guest because they challenged my thought. I'll give you an example, in my book, A Mind For Sales, I talk about the 25 year goal. And that came up to me when I was sitting, doing an interview for a podcast that was also going to be on the CBS Radio Network. And the guy who was interviewing me says, Oh, you really into goals, really the goal is, you've got five year goals, and what are your 25 year goals? And I go, Ah, no. He was, "hey, you know what, we'll take a commercial break right now, when we come back, I'm gonna talk to Mark about what his 25 year goals are". I The guy was a professional. But what, and that was about 10 years ago. And that really got me thinking, Wow, 25 year goals, which then became an idea that I flushed out a few years ago in my book A Mind For Sales. So I love podcast interviews. I love them.
Kap Chatfield 27:23
Really brilliant. I love that tactic of, hey, we'll cut to a commercial break. I think you could still apply that to like a post produced podcasts. I'm gonna file that away. That's a good one.
Mark Hunter 27:35
Well and this is the whole thing, now for for him it was actually a commercial break, because we had we had we go. And I made the comment, I said, Thank you for "Saving me." He said hey my job is to make sure my guests look good. So great. I think about that. I think that that that has stuck with me ever since. And that was probably like I said, 10-12, 10-12 years ago. When really podcasts were cut, because I was more excited to be on the CBS Radio Network than I was for a podcast. Yeah. Yeah.
Kap Chatfield 28:09
That's phenomenal. I want to ask you, because you mentioned about the the probability element of like getting your name out there. Obviously, you have the the more people you have on your email lists and subscribers and followers, that's going to help at some point. But you also I'm gonna, I'm gonna mine this out of you. So I'm trying to set you up for success. But I do want to be the devil's advocate for somebody who sees this other chapter in your book that says Sales is Not a Numbers Game It is a Quality Quality Game. And I think what you're saying is you can get both. You can get numbers, but you can also get good numbers. How does how does creating your own content help you? Not just, you know, go why, but go deep with the right people?
Mark Hunter 28:49
Yeah, here's the whole thing. It's a numbers game in terms of the awareness. It's a quality game in terms of the conversations. This is this is what I'm really driving home to because I want to have. One of the goals I have is I want to be able to influence 1 million people a day. That's that's one of my my big 25 year goals. I want to be able to influence 1 million people a day. I'm not going to able to have 1 million conversations. I can maybe have two or three. So that's that's the quality piece. That's that's the quality piece. So I'm always striving for and think about this, a good podcast host. And people say this about my book, my book A Mind For Sales, I had the privilege of doing the audio. People have called me up and they said, "Mark, as I've listened to your book, you read the book, it feels like you're sitting right there next to me. It just feels like you're sitting right there".
Kap Chatfield 29:45
It really does. Yeah,
Mark Hunter 29:46
That's that was that really was that's, that's cool. I'm humbled by that. But see, in this era that we're in authenticity and transparency is more important than ever. So we have to be authentic in our conversations, and we have to be transparent. And in my book A Mind For Sales, I am transparent by how I how I was a failure in sales. And in several other places in the book, I talk about big failures I've had, and so forth. And it's absolutely important for that, because people there is what is missing in conversations is the element of trust. And if you think about it, you can you can converse with somebody. But when you converse with trust, it takes on a whole different meaning. So true. That's what sales is all about. And that's what you strive for the podcast. I strive, I have people who, who I coach people who, who I work with, and I'm talking with them, I'm bringing them on board as a client. And they'll say, "Mark, this is so because this is exactly the way you talk on your podcast. This is I this is I there was no doubt I was going to call you for this project, call you for this, because I've listened to enough of your podcast, I've seen enough of your shows. I know, you know, I've seen enough of your YouTube videos, I've been to some of your events." When people can experience you, from a safe from a safe place, and a podcast is a safe place. This is what I tell business owners, when people can experience you from a safe place, they are much more likely to be able to engage. Much more. Okay, now I'll check you out. But if they if they if they couldn't have that, and they had to just reach out to you right away, and and they never reach out to you.
Kap Chatfield 31:46
Oh, man, that's so good. I love that because it's, it's the concept of residual relationship, right? You're letting somebody you're letting them play offense in the relationship, like they don't have to feel like, okay, what's this person trying to do? Are they going to make me sign on the dotted line? Be by creating that content, you're allowing them to build a relationship with you on their terms. And then when they when they are ready they're like, "Hey, that's my guy. I know him better than I know, most people." And you've never even met the people half the time probably.
Mark Hunter 32:17
Yeah. See. So I hope there are 1000s of people out there right now that are kind of building those type of relationships with me. 1000s. And over the next 10-15-20 years, some of those people will emerge as clients. That's wonderful. That's you. That's the That's what really marketing is all about.
Kap Chatfield 32:40
Yes. Yes. 100%
Mark Hunter 32:41
And up, you know, a podcast can take on multiple levels. This is what's cool. I mean, I want podcasts, I want my podcast to create actionable results now, but I also want it to create marketing awareness.
Kap Chatfield 32:58
You mentioned earlier in the episode that you know, you said you don't close a sale you begin a relationship. That's another major concept in your book A Mind For Sales. Yeah. And the thing that I'm interested in is how do you look at content creation, because you get your like you talked about using your your podcast, you want to create like a media machine. Your company is practically like a media company first and then a sales company second. You guys are putting out so much content, content that's free, top of funnel, you have behind the paywall content, online course stuff. So the question that I have is how are you using content creation to nurture current customer relationships? Have you seen any results from that?
Mark Hunter 33:39
Oh, yeah, we get we get calls all the time from existing customers. You know, you know, existing clients who say, "Hey, I just read this post that you just put out on LinkedIn, or this social image or I saw this video. Hey, what more have you got on that? Wait, you haven't really talked? Next time we meet? Would you would you share with us?" I mean, I have a number of companies that I meet with on a regular basis. And invariably the CEO or the VP of sales will call me up a couple days ahead of time say, "Hey Mark, when we get together", and these what I kind of call fireside chats, it's just it's just me unplugged with their cup with their people might be their sales team. You know, you know, whatever. And he says, "Hey, we just saw this, we just saw this video or saw this in your weekly tip or you know, what, what, One of your emails and talk to us about it". It's great. I love it. I love it. That's, that's, I mean, you people, you can't be in the intellectual space if you're afraid of giving away too much of your content. You're not being intellectual. Hmm. Think about that. Because your intellectual level should be continuously growing. Continuously growing and yeah, every day I'm coming up with new ideas. I'm coming I'm coming up with new thoughts. And and I can just keep giving I keep giving it away. It's fine.
Kap Chatfield 35:00
You gotta I mean you can't be a thought leader if you're not putting out content to help demonstrate and develop an expertise.
Mark Hunter 35:07
BINGO, BINGO, BINGO. I mean, it just, you know, never, never be afraid of giving away too much stuff. Never be afraid. Because it will come back. Because at the end of the day, are they hiring the intellectual thought? Or are they hiring you? They're hiring you. true, that that's who they want, they want you. And many times what people hire me for is just, would you just give the commentary behind what you put out? You know, I post questions, I do social images, I do all kinds of things. And I routinely have clients to say, "hey, talk to us about that". I just, I just had an engagement, we're, I happened to be in Omaha, Nebraska, and had a situation just a week ago, where a company called they were in desperation, because the speaker they had lined up for their major meeting, wasn't able to make it because it COVID. And they Googled. And they found me, they looked at some of my YouTube videos, they looked at my LinkedIn and looked at my website, and they called me. And I was able to help them out, I was able to do the meeting for them. And they were very thankful, very appreciative, we delivered on the objectives, and it happened all within like a 48-hour window. The only reason I got that engagement is because I was recognized globally. See you this, this comes back to this whole thing. You create more value locally, when you're recognized globally. And they said, Yeah, we looked at your content, like wow, it's just they were just blown away by everything. Spot on. I love it. So
Kap Chatfield 36:50
Yeah, you're able to build that relationship, build that influence, because you've been putting out this content I love I love the comments about you know, you're serving, you're helping your own customer base think about things in a new way, which leads to new business opportunities for you. But you're constantly thinking about serving them beyond just after they sign on the dotted line. And your contents a way to do that. That's remarkable as as really, that's really amazing. I'd love for you to speak into. Let's get kind of tactical, we don't have too much time on this, on this episode left and you what you are doing with your content creation strategy is so powerful. It's like you create a flywheel. So I'd love for you to just kind of give us the pitch, like how it's how is the whole machine put together to create all this content?
Mark Hunter 37:41
Yeah, well, one of the things that we do is, is each month there's a different theme. Each month, and it's built around what we are featuring on our online Online Sales University. Now this is behind the paywall. So we have content, and we're trying to drive people to our online university, it's a subscription model. So what we do is then we build out a series of videos. I shoot a series of videos, one drops each week, and we do a blog post, I just record the video, then we literally transcribe the video. And I have a writer who then really wordsmith this and packages it up, and that becomes my Wednesday video that goes out. And it's always centered around the topic that we're kind of featuring behind the paywall. But then I also do three live stream events on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook each month, one every three, three weeks out of four. Again, where I'm talking about this topic, I'm, I'm adding additional insights. Then we also do separate LinkedIn posts where we do social images, and polls, we'll put polls out. Again, one per week. So basically, for the entire month, our whole messaging system is around this one topic. And and then next month, we have this topic next month we in we work this out 90 days in advance. And it allows my team to be very tight in terms of how we're doing it. And it's a model that has just worked very well and surprisingly enough, it's not as hard to implement as people think. It really isn't. It's just building up the strategy. We have a very tight calendar. These are when emails are going to go out these are when posts are going to go out and and it's built out and it's a rolling 90 day calendar. And it just it just keeps it just it just works.
Kap Chatfield 39:41
So when when the 90 days happens, like you got like your whole 90 days kind of planned out. A lot of it's probably scheduled. At what point in a 90 day window do you begin preparing for the next one? Is it like Yeah, well, I mean, a month before?
Mark Hunter 39:54
Yeah, well, we really try to be at least two months out. And I just got done you yesterday with the December content. And because I'm just running, I'm running a little bit behind, I would really like to be on the January content. But and actually what I mean December content, I wrote the materials. Now I'll shoot the videos probably tomorrow. And we'll shoot a whole month's worth of videos. And in in literally one day period, less than a day, but we just go go. And, and the January one, we just kind of changed the topic the other day. So I'm working on that and all I'll get that one. But yeah, our goal is to typically be 90 days out with our content. And just we've we've had a busy fall. And sir, we have, we have slipped behind.
Kap Chatfield 40:45
Slipped behind, just so everybody knows today is November 2. So it is November 2. And Mark's already got all of his content plan for the month of December. And in his words, he's behind. So you, you can get the idea that he Yeah, but he's a content machine. Yeah.
Mark Hunter 41:01
Now, you know, there was a time when I was literally scrambling to get tomorrow's content out. Sure. But I've been added, I've been able to find really great resources, great freelance people I work with and because of their schedules because of their calendars and so forth. It's it's forced me to get my act together. Yeah. So yeah, so yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's November 2, and within a couple of weeks, I will have January done. And, and then and then we put out a lot of other content along the way, we have a weekly sales kickoff video, I, I put out. And in fact, I just, I just wrote all the content for that to go all the way through March. And I'll be shooting those videos probably Friday or Saturday of this week. So again, by November 5, all those videos will go off to my editor, buddy, he will have them all the way through March.
Kap Chatfield 41:53
That's amazing. I'm super impressed by that. That's that's the strategy you guys were that's super tactical, we're gonna make that a micro video. So you guys can take that, share it with your team, figure out how to implement that sort of process. Mark, as we close out, I want to leave you with one last question for the audience. Because we're think we're really trying to speak to people who are really at the level of leadership that you are in the customer base that you serve, and helping them understand that content creation, you just I was literally just listening to this on a recent episode from you guys on Sales Logic. Because of what happened last year with COVID-19, and the whole marketplace, particularly B2B in a way that it wasn't ever used to. Was thrust into this digital landscape. Where now communicating to people through a screen and through a lens is becoming normal. And it's people need to learn businesses need to learn how to execute this. But if a business was to execute the strategy that you that you put out there, I could imagine that some businesses would say, well, will my message become too repetitive? Will I have anything new to say? Should I have anything new to say? What would you say to that that person in that area of leadership that's struggling with that?
Mark Hunter 43:05
First of all, if you're really embracing intellectual leadership, you'll never be repetitive. Second of all, if you are repetitive, it's okay. It's okay. You know, there have been topics that that I've dug down to multiple times. But you know what? The audience continuously changes and I bring fresh points. I bring fresh content, I bring fresh ideas. And so the message never is the same. There are certain key messages you know, you know, you earn the right to you know, what, one of the comments I always say is you can't take a Walmart shopper and make them a Nordstrom customer. I've been saying that for years, you know, Walmart, you go there for low prices. Nordstrom high end fashion retailer. And you know, they're both very good business models. And they know they can't steal, they can't steal from one another. Now, I've been talking about that concept for years in terms of knowing the segment you're in, but I'm constantly adding new commentary. I'm constantly and here's the thing. If you can get into sound bites, and you can get into things, people will repeat it. I have I have been in many a meeting I've been listening to many a show. And people have said oh this guy Mark Hunter, he says this. And they're re-stating a quote I use. Wow. Guess what? Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Then there are people who take my course and use them and don't don't attribute to me but that's just life.
Kap Chatfield 44:31
That's okay. They'll come back to you at some level, I mean, your your legacy's living on your I mean, I believe you keep this up, man, you're gonna hit your goal of being able to influence a million people every single day. You're already on track. So, Mark, this is this was so much fun. Thanks for joining us today on B2B Podcasting. As I mentioned, to the audience, I've said this before that we're going to put Mark's LinkedIn profile link in the description show notes of this episode, so please go follow him. Follow him. Be added to the like 300 plus 1000 people that are already following him. You can also check out TheSalesHunter.com you can see the Sales Hunter University and also his book is there too for you to order. I really recommend if you're a sales leader, you're trying to motivate, encourage your sales team for your organization, check them out, you're not gonna be disappointed. And then also some free content if you want to build, get to know him a little bit better and build that residual relationship from afar. You can check out Mark's show Sales Logic and his new show at the time of this release of this episode, The Sales Hunter Podcast. Man Mark, thank you so much again for joining us. We'll have to have you again soon down the road.
Mark Hunter 45:39
Thank you. Take care
