Season 2, Episode 4: Mark Hunter

Jack Hubbard  00:02

Banking, what a great industry. It's been at the heart of our economy since day one, fueling growth and helping America thrive. The Bank of North America was our first bank, established by Robert Morris, way back in 1781 over the years, banks have dotted our landscape in money centers and small towns where community banks have been a great partner. They've helped businesses grow, become a vital part of the communities they serve, and making families feel secure. We've sure come a long way from those old school ledgers, and now we offer cutting edge technology solutions. Regardless of all these advancements, banking remains a people business. I've been in and around our industry for over 52 years, racking up over 5 million air miles and spreading the gospel of performance, culture, development and trust based sales conversations.

I've had the unique privilege to train and coach over 80,000 bankers speak at state and national banking conferences in 49 states and teach at 13 of the nation's preeminent banking schools. Along the way, I've made countless friends. Now as a cancer survivor, it's time for me to give back. One way I'm paying it forward is through this program, Jack rads with modern bankers. Welcome to Jack Rants with Modern Bankers. I'm Jack Hubbard, chief experience officer of The Modern Banker. And every week I feature special guests, bankers and consultants and best selling authors. And the goal here is to help you improve your sales efforts and your marketing approach, your performance culture and your bottom line. It's all brought to you every single week by our great friends at RelPro and Vertical IQ.

I'm one of more than 300,000 LinkedIn followers of my very special guest this week, Mark Hunter. I met Mark virtually when I first listened to his Saturday morning podcast sales logic, along with his podcast partner and my good friend, Meredith Elliot Powell, as you will quickly see in this interview, Mark is to the point spot on with his sales ideas and most open with his valuable time. Mark received a BS in business from Seattle Pacific University. He earned his sales chops in the food business at Pillsbury Kraft Foods and ConAgra. He's a much requested, internationally renowned speaker and trainer and a board member the National Speakers Association.

Mark is a three time best selling author with his amazing books, high profit selling, high profit prospecting and a mind for sales. And when bankers call me and say, give me a sales book to read, a mind for sales is at the top of that list. Today we go sales hunting with Mark Hunter on Jack grants with modern bankers. Here we go. Well, I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Mark Hunter is one of my favorite people on Earth, even though I've never met him, but I feel like I know him really well, because I see he and Meredith Elliot Powell every Saturday morning. Great to have you on the show, Mark.

Mark Hunter: Thank you for having me on. It's the same way.

Jack Hubbard: You know, we have never met, but it feels like we know each other so well, I will make a trip up to Chicago. We will, we will break bread together. Okay, yeah, we're gonna that. We'll, we're gonna make that happen. Talk about, let's, let's start right at the top, The Sales Hunter. You couldn't have been blessed with a better name, by the way. And you're a podcaster. You're a best selling author. You speak all over the world, talk about The Sales Hunter, and what you do to help people? Well, yeah, what I do is I, my goal is just to help others see and achieve what they did not think was possible. That's That's my goal.

Because if I can help others see and achieve what they didn't think was possible, then they will, in turn, be able to help others see and achieve. Because really, what is sales? Sales is not something we do to somebody, it's something we do or somebody. And that's a big difference. I you know, you think about in the financial institution banking, what are we doing? We're helping businesses. We're helping people seeing achieve something that they didn't think was possible. And that's what I get to do. The medium just happens to be I get to do it sales. Many of your listeners do it by way of a loan officer, by way of working in a bank. Wait, wait, of whatever it is we do.

So yeah, and yeah, you're right. With the last name of Hunter, I had to use it. You're right. It worked. It's great. And and later on the show, I want to talk about prospecting, because I don't think there's, there's two people in the world when the subject is prospecting that I go to, Jeb Blount and my guest, Mark Hunter. So we're going to talk about that a little bit. So you do help people, and you and my friend Meredith Elliot Powell, help people every Saturday morning at 8am Eastern Time, and you have a program called sales logic, talk about that show. How did it get started? How did you two get together and talk about some of the, some of the subject matter that you deal with? Well, yeah, it's, it's been fascinating. We met at a National Speakers Association Conference. We happened to just be there together, and we sat next to each other at a meal and got to know each other, and then so we just began talking so forth. And it was, it was very interesting. About a year or two later, we happened to be in a meeting

Mark Hunter  05:54

where a gentleman was speaking about video, and he said, you know, the best way to do a video is with a male and a female, and I happened to be sitting on one side of the room, and I just glanced over and Meredith was sitting on the other side of the room. She looked at me, and boom, that was it. We decided to start doing videos, and from that came sales logic podcast. Now it didn't come fast. Took probably about a year or two for us to kind of get our act together, but we love it for two reasons. One, it's how we get to share insights with the sales community. Because I firmly believe we learn from each other. When people like you chime in and others chime in and had a comment, I learned so much from people who are participating in the show. Two, it's, a way for us to be able to demonstrate one of the traits of being successful in business, that's consistency. Very quickly on we realized that we didn't have time during the week to do a show, so we fell on this thing of doing it every Saturday morning, and we do it every Saturday morning at 8am Eastern Time, regardless of where we are in the world. And we've been all over the world now, you know, we occasionally, there's a flight that gets in the way, you know, so we may have to pre record, but that's only maybe two three weeks a year. But that consistent, because think about that. How does anybody be consistent in anything? Well, actually, how does anybody be successful in anything? You have to be consistent. It's why the book atomic habits, by James Claire is a must read for anybody.

You just do things consistent, consistent. No, we love doing it. I mean, we are not walking away from sales logic anytime soon. Well, it's so fun because there are times when you are together, yes, and you're either speaking together at an engagement or something like that. That's a very interesting approach. When I see you two together, I I remember one show when I think you were doing it in a hotel restaurant area that wasn't open, and there was all kind of noise behind it, but it's such a fun program. Mark it is. I mean, we have done it from cruise ships. We did a show a few weeks ago. We both happen to be on a cruise with our mastermind group, and we did it from a cruise ship somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. We did it one time from Lithuania, and we were speak, both speaking at a conference in Lithuania, and here we are doing it live from there. But yeah, there's about two three times a year that we happen to be in the same place at the same time and again we've done it. I mean, I've done it from Hawaii at like, 2am in the morning. She's done it from Europe. I've done it from Europe Asia. I did it from Japan one time. It was like nine o'clock at night and but, you know, gotta go. Gotta do it. Yeah, for

Jack Hubbard  08:49

sure. Well, one of the other things that you do is you're a best selling author that's several best selling books. And I get calls from bankers all the time and they say, give me a book I can read. Give me one that's kind of timeless. And your book, a mind for sales, which you sent me, is timeless, published in 2020 and I want to talk about your new book too, but I want to go back to this one mark, because it is timeless and it's extremely practical. What was the impetus? What was the inspiration for this book?

Mark Hunter  09:22

Well, the impetus was the fact that I had written two books before that, high profit selling and high profit prospecting. One was high profit selling, how to how to maximize, how to maximize price, how to avoid the discount. And the other one was prospecting, which was really kind of my unveiling of all of my prospecting stuff. And people said, This is great, but I just can't do it. I just can't do it. And I realized it was the mindset. So I felt that, you know what, if I write a book on a mind for sales, the idea being that it's amazing when we have the right headset, it's amazing how much better we listen, how much. More engaging. We become to people we're speaking to much more information we learn. You know, it's funny, but mindset Trumps product knowledge. You know, we want to know all the insights. You know, all the insights. But I have found that if you just have the right mindset, and you just ask the right question questions and demonstrate that you care, that you really care. It's amazing. That's why I say trust is the currency of business. I got to create trust, and it begins with your mindset, yeah,

Jack Hubbard  10:34

well, I want to dive into it a little bit. You know, bankers are very traditional in their thinking, and some have moved forward. Some have not, and a lot of times, bankers are measuring stuff that maybe doesn't work so much, numbers of calls made and numbers of phone calls and and sales. In the book, you talk about measurement that counts. Talk about some of the things, metrics that matter. I call it. What are some of the measurements that count?

Mark Hunter  11:03

Well, this is the whole thing. There's a lot of things that you know. How many transactions did we as a bank process? How many bank how many, how many loans you know we do? So many things. I have one metric that I measure in my business. Do I have five conversations a day? Five conversations day. I know that if I have five conversations a day, and guess what our conversation, AJ, you are one of them. If I have five conversations a day, my pipeline is going to be full, and that's it. I could sit there and measure how many emails go out, how many this and this and this. I don't care. I don't care. Just five. Keep it, keep it simple. Because just because you can measure it doesn't mean it should be measuring. This is what I think we in in the banking community, we're very numbers oriented, right? So we want to create spreadsheets upon spreadsheets, just simplify. Just simplified. Because if I can have five conversations, and then I take it one step further. The magic of a great sales call when I can ask five questions, hmm, think about this. If I can ask somebody five questions, chances are I'm going to find something out, something of relevance, which is going to allow me to continue the call. It's not hard. No,

Jack Hubbard  12:20

it isn't. But let's take that to another level. I'm a banker, and I've read your book. I buy in I'm a I'm a mind for sales guy. I'm real big on the five questions. I'm real big on the five conversations. My manager wants me to make five sales a day. How do you elevate your philosophy around that to a manager and get them to believe that the right activities and behaviors are going to lead to the right results?

Mark Hunter  12:51

Yeah, it's very, very simply, I'm going to take football at the end of the day. It's the points on the scoreboard. Okay, without doubt, points on scoreboard, but in order to put points on the scoreboard, you got to run the plays on the field. The plays on the field. Now, there are multiple types of plays that you can run. You can just run plays for sake of running plays. But do you want to run a mix of pass plays? Do you want to run a mix of Rush plays or or option plays, or whatever it might be? So this is the whole thing, and And sure, you can begin dissecting it, dissecting it, dissecting it. But I'm going to go back to a metric, to a couple metrics that a coach told me years ago. Coach Tom Osborne, he won three national championships at the University of Nebraska. He said our metrics are very simple. He says they had seven metrics for any game. And I don't, I don't I don't remember all seven, but one of them is just yards per play. They just knew that if they could get at least 2.9 yards per play, they were okay. They were okay. See, I'm sorry, 3.9 yards. If they could average 3.9 yards per play, that was it, and that was his key offense and metric. And if they could hold the defense to less than, I believe it was 2.8 yards or something like that, they knew that they would get bought. And he said, you can sit there and do all kinds of things, but then that's the metric we're measuring. He said we didn't measure the number of pass plays, the number of option plays, the number of sweeps. No, what am I getting? So again, it's it's we have to determine. And the other piece that I will come out of this is where a lot of managers fall down. Every person is motivated differently. Now I'm not saying that you create different processes for every person, but if I'm a manager and I've got four loan officers. What motivates each one of those four is going to be different. Do I know what they are? That means you know what I got to understand. What are their personal motivational factors? What are their personal motivation and if I don't understand their personal motivational factors, something's wrong. Because how am I really going to. Because at the end of the day, whatever the metrics are, is the person emotionally buying into it, because otherwise, what happens? They'll go through they'll go through the motions for a period of time, and then they'll bold, then they will leave. I was dealing today with an insurance, large insurance agency on the West Coast, and the leader there, the sales leader, said, she said, I'm under pressure from the CEO, owner of the agency, for just what you described. And I said, You know what this is where you have to stand and block your CEO. They may want these things measured, but you know what, at the end of the day, I want you going out and measuring these things. It was just that number of conversations and so forth. And when you pause it, just keep it very, very simple, because your CEO, your owner, is not going to challenge you if you're delivering the numbers, ultimately, the points on the scoreboard, but you have to be strong enough to be able to stand in that gap.

Jack Hubbard  16:02

Well, that's powerful mark. I all of the chapters are brilliant. The one that I love is sales is not customer service. Don't confuse the two. Now, I gotta believe this has been a very controversial chapter. I bankers tell me, wait a second, isn't my job to provide a great customer experience? Talk about this chapter. It is phenomenal. Oh,

Mark Hunter  16:32

I love it. Because here's the thing, if I'm a loan officer, it's about incremental business, incremental business I'm bringing to the bank. If all I'm doing is taking care of existing customers. Something's wrong. Go back about 1015, years ago, there was a large regional bank that invited me in, and I was going to do a lot of work with a lot with all of their they had about 6575 branches at the time. And I said, Great, great. I want to go out and meet a number of the managers. I want to go out meet enough. So I did. And you know, what's interesting is, I lived in their geographical area. I lived in the area it was, I think it was like my 10th or 11th person who finally said, Oh, by the way, where do you bank at? And what would it take to have you move over to us? I couldn't believe that. It's like you got to be kidding me. You got to be kidding me. None of them. They all just want, Oh, Mark, what questions can I answer it? None of them were saying, Hey, Mark, tell me about the bank where you're at, tell me.

Tell me about the bank you're at. What do you like about it? What? And you know, what's funny, I didn't like the bank I was at. I did not like the bank. I did not like it, but it took about the I'd have to go back to my note, but it was in double figures. I believe it's like the 11th or 12th person. It's a shame we in the banking business don't ask for the order enough. We're too nice. We're too nice. And what it is, is we become rain barrels versus Rain makers. Well, that's, you know, Craig over there. He's the rain maker of the bank. I'm just the rain bear. I'm just one who services what he brings in. And we're all rain makers. We're all rain makers, you know, stop and ask yourselves, how many products does the average customer have? Now, I don't want to get into the problem that a few of our large banks had where creating bogus product. I'm not going down that path, but I gotta stop and ask myself, think about this, we all have at least one or two more products that a typical customer we have should probably have, but they don't have. Why? Because we haven't asked. We haven't put it out there in front of them to have that conversation that's on us. That's incremental business

Jack Hubbard  18:51

in our industry. It's a bit of a challenge. In a lot of industries that I'm sure you work in, they have customer success managers, where a salesperson can kind of move this customer and know they're going to be served really well. A banker may have a portfolio with current clients as well as they have a responsibility to grow that portfolio as well as to prospect it leads me to this. You write in your book that the three best, biggest assets of a salesperson are your time, your mind and your network. I want to talk about your network because you are phenomenal on LinkedIn. You're everywhere, but talk about time in terms of I'm a banker, I have a portfolio, and I got a prospect, but I you don't want me to do customer service. How, where does this all fit work?

Mark Hunter  19:47

Yeah, how long? How much time would it take for you to send an email to a customer that you just just saw the they just did something? Hey, congratulations. Nice job. Takes you a minute and, oh, by the way, you know what, when you send that, you. A note of congratulations. Not only are they going to feel good, but you're going to feel good. And I'm going to challenge any banker out there, because, again, if you're in tune to your marketplace, which you are, what you are, because you don't make it long if you're not, you hear what's going on out there. You hear, you see things you you know. You may read an article on on online. You say, hey, you know what? I'm going to take it, I'm going to send that link to these particular, these three, four people, and I'm just going to, hey, just saw this. Was thinking of you. Send it to them. Boom.

It takes, it takes all of if a typical banker were to take 10 minutes a day, they could probably send three or four of these out a day. Easy, easy, easy. Now think about that. That's three or four touches that you wouldn't have otherwise. You did it just by way of email. And you know what? You multiply that over the course of a month, you don't think that those people aren't going to sit there and recommend you to other people they come in contact with other other you don't think they're going to be more likely to take your phone call when you call them and ask them about something you don't Yes, yes, 10 minutes a day, that's all. And don't sit there and say, Oh, I don't have 10 minutes today. You have 10 minutes a day because there's probably 10 minutes a day that you're you're spending at home just kind of watching Netflix in the evening or something like that. Hello again. I'm going to go back atomic habits. The book by James clear, if anybody hasn't read that, they need to read that, because it's habits done consistently well. I routinely. I give three referrals a week, and I always send out at least two thank you notes a day to people, and they're just quick emails or they're text messages, just thanks, just thanks. It's easy. It changes. My mindset changes. I mean, it just boom. And what does it do? It allows me to have more conversations.

Jack Hubbard  21:51

And you have conversations every day on LinkedIn, and that's this whole idea of networking as your third biggest asset. Y'all ought to know. Mark has over 300,000 followers on LinkedIn. You comment, you post. This is phenomenal. I would love to have your opinion on bankers who say they either don't have time, don't want to it will work. Pick it. Pick whatever excuse you want for bankers that don't get on LinkedIn and aren't active on LinkedIn, what do you say to them?

Mark Hunter  22:29

The world is passing you by. Because again, LinkedIn becomes A Silent Voice for you, becomes a silent voice that is just out there. So Well, I know, but LinkedIn, my my customers aren't on LinkedIn, yeah, your current customers, but what about new customers again? We have to establish a level of credibility. Ai, ai is racing so fast, so fast if we don't create that relationship now, we're never going to have a chance to do it. So this is why I love posting on LinkedIn, and you're right. Probably 95% of the people who, who I'm, who follow me, could never buy anything from me. I don't care. I don't care. But you know what?

There's probably 5% that do and, oh, by the way, you know what it is. It, it allows me to get comments on that here, here's, here's a, here's what I love. Any banker. Do you post something you might see, something you might and you may comment on. Somebody else makes a comment. Then you know what? You can sit there and call somebody else, say, hey, you know what? I I just posted this, and I got some comments, and love to get your thoughts on it. I use I do that all the time. I will sit there and take things that I'm I'm sharing on LinkedIn, and weave that into conversations. I do that almost on a daily basis. And what does it do people begin looking at me a little bit differently, because, again, I don't want to be seen as a salesperson. I want to be seen as somebody who can help you and and I don't know how I'm going to help you. I may not be I'll help you, but maybe I can do I can refer you to somebody who could help you. Ooh, that jazzes me, that. That makes me excited.

Jack Hubbard  24:14

Yeah, that's, that's powerful stuff. So I remember when, when I started Saint Meyer and Hubbard in 2000 and I said to my wife, when we started now, we've been married 52 years now. And I said, you know, I want to make sure, because I'm going to be traveling a lot, that we that we are able to strike a balance here. Kids were, you know, in high school slash college. And she said something to me. She says, you know, what's really important to me to maintain our family and continue to grow is balance, and that balance is in our checking account. And I'm going to do everything I can to support you, to make sure you make that happen. And I'll tell you when you've gone over that line, when when we need. More. Jack Hubbard, until then, we're good. You know, Mark, one of the things that we've never talked about is, is this whole idea of having a great partner. You're on the road all the time, if you don't have a great partner that's behind you when you're out in Japan, you're always wondering, Am I okay at home? Talk Talk about that balance a little bit.

Mark Hunter  25:27

Yeah, I'll tell you what balance is so critical, because it comes out and first of all, there's no such thing as a perfect balance. Okay? There's always going to be ebbs and flows. I mean, there's, I've been married for 44 years, and it was the best sale I ever made. Was getting her to say yes, and we love each other more today than we ever have before. But, and there are times that I'm gone and you're right, the wheel's a little bit out of balance, but we know that over time, it comes back around. But here, here's the whole thing. I can't be efficient in the marketplace unless I'm effective at home. In other words, when things are screwed up at home, I'm not efficient on the road, because, again, I'm stressed out. I'm not making the right decisions. I'm perplexed. I have to be effective at home. What does that mean? My kids are grown now and they're out, but when they were younger, I had to make sure that they were, you know, I'm there with them for the critical moments. And I admit there were time, there were some key events I missed.

There were some key events I missed. I hustled like crazy, but they accepted it, because I was wide up. I was right up front with them that, hey, just have to understand that dad's in this and there are going to be some challenges, but you offset that because, again, that's where the wheel gets a little wonky here, but then the wheel becomes really good when they can go with dad on a business trip to Hawaii or something of that nature. And that's keeping you know, again, in everything, we have to play the long game. Things always have a way of working out that kind of interesting. They just, you know that the valleys are never as deep as we think they are, and just as the mountaintops are never as high as we think they are, we just play the long game. Keep our focus on helping people. It's amazing how things come together.

Jack Hubbard  27:21

And that's that's a fact. I saw Lou Holtz speak once, the ex coach of Notre Dame, and he said, you know, nothing in life is is as ever as good as it seems, and nothing is life in life as ever as bad as it seems. It's somewhere in the middle that that makes a difference. Well, you've been in the middle of a project for a while, and that project has to do with this newest book. Yes, yes, making of a mind for sales. It's a great book, and one of the things I love is it's 33 days to success, right? This is a roadmap. This is a workbook. Y'all.

27:58

What

Jack Hubbard  27:59

got you to this point, mark of writing this book, atomic

Mark Hunter  28:02

habits, by James Claire, it was, it was a few years ago I read the book and really realized the power of consistency, the power of consistency. So I first wrote this book as a conference program I was doing then we kind of sheltered. Then about a year ago, we said, hey, hold it. We got to take this out to the masses. We got to make this available to everybody and but yeah, I really because the longer I'm in this business, and this is what look at any buddy successful in any industry over long term, they're incredibly consistent. They're incredibly predictive in how they do things. I mean, I start the day every day the same way. I go through the same motions every day, regardless whether I'm on the road, I'm traveling, which I do a lot, or I'm in my office, whatever it might be, consistency is a way that you really remain a lot calmer. Because again, I know, for instance, five conversations. I get five conversations in easy, you know what? I can I can relax. Yeah, it's good. It's good. One of the things I talk about in the book is the 10am rule, and I love the 10am rule, and that that's you want to accomplish something significant before 10am each day. Why? Because, fine, guess what? It really motivates you for the rest of the day. And oh, by the way, if you accomplish something significant by 10am and then at 1030 you get a phone call from the president of the bank, and and the sky is falling, you still had a good day. You know? It's little things that successful, successful people do, and success attracts success.

Jack Hubbard  29:56

So it's, it's, it's not a calendar. But. For example, day 16, sales is not a solo activity. Sales is a is a team sport. But what one of the things I like toward the toward the back of the book, you talk about five selling fundamentals. We don't have time, nor do I want to give all the secrets away, because I want people to buy this book. But talk about one or two of the five selling fundamentals.

Mark Hunter  30:22

Well, this the five selling fundamentals. And you can twist and turn them around, but one of them is just flat out. What we've been talking about consistency. It's being absolutely consistent. One of the challenges that salespeople have is they and this, not just salespeople, bankers have we all get caught up in shiny objects. We all get shot up. Or what happens is, we wind up, you know. We've had a couple loans that just aren't functioning, you know, and we got to move them over to that pile. So then what happens is your whole headset changes, and you think every loan is no longer going to be and and say, What are we going to do? Our ratios are getting out of line, and it's the ability to be consistent and just stay focused on the long game. And, and I could go on and on for this, but if you look at it, that's who people want to look to. Anybody can lead.

When things are easy, anybody can lead. It's when times are difficult that leadership really comes out. You may be having to deal with a customer. It's going through a really difficult time, and there's some lines of credit that you've got to pull in. You got to pull them in right now, right now. If you've been consistent with that customer, with that client, at that point in time, that's so much it's still a difficult conversation, but you can have that conversation because, again, it comes back to this ability to create trust and a relationship with them. This is this is why I say don't allow yourself to not have conversations with people, with your clients, except when you're having to do deal with a servicing issue. Shame on you. That's why I love just sending two or three notes out of it. It takes five minutes, 10 minutes. It's not hard. Just do it. It puts your name in front of them, and they're gonna, they're gonna, it's gonna make those conversations so much easier. Wow,

Jack Hubbard  32:33

it's true. When we started the conversation, I got a just a couple more questions. I talked about you and Jeb Blount as being legends in prospecting. One of the things I heard from Jeb must have been a recording or YouTube. He said, What's the best way to get somebody to stop prospecting? Answer, put a telephone in front of them. And I use that a lot, and it's a it's with him as a give him credit for it. We've gone through a lot of cycles here, Mark, we and we've talked about a lot of things. Talked about LinkedIn, there's AI and ChatGPT, there's cold calling, there's networking, all this. What's happening in 2024 on prospecting. What are you seeing? Well,

Mark Hunter  33:17

you know what's funny is the telephone still works, and it still works great. It works great. Let me share with you a line on the views. If you have the ability to help someone, you owe it to them to reach out to them. If you have the ability to help someone, you owe it to them, reach out to them. Now think about this from the banking community. It's just about everybody. That's just about everybody. We owe it to them. Because if I have a problem, and trust me, I have a lot of problems, my kids tell me all the time, Dad, you have a lot of problems and and if I knew you could help me, I would want you to reach out to me, and I'd be upset if somewhere down the road I found out that you could have helped me, and you did. You did not call me, so we did Second. I have yet to see the headline. I've yet to see the the internet post that says a banker was maimed or shot or bled to death because they made a call, because they picked up the phone call. It just doesn't happen.

There's nothing wrong with a telephone call. And here's what I love. This is what's so funny. People say, Well, you know when's a good time to call anytime. But you know what's funny? I love Friday afternoons. I love calling business owners on Friday afternoons, because here's what it demonstrates. Demonstrates three things. One, you're working, you're not out playing golf, Friday afternoon, you're now, you're gonna get a lot of voicemails. I get it, but they're gonna be absolutely respectful that your word. And you know what? Also, Friday afternoon, many time owners are kind of they're starting to wind down there. And you know what, they'll pick up the phone, they'll call and they'll have a conversation with you that you would not get Monday through Thursday, yeah, and three, because you're having that conversation, they'll wind up sharing with you some insights. Oh, yeah, you know Yeah. We are, yeah.

We need to really look at. At changing our inventory position, or we need to do this as a capital expense. Oh, guess what? It create. It's just, it's having a conversation. And yet, for some reason, bankers, I had a bank hire me one time, and they brought me in just to help them to do just this prospect. And the President bank said, Mark, I'm concerned. They're just, they're just too scared to call, and I literally had to sit in some other offices, Yeah, but you're, you're an extrovert. I said, Hey, I'm not an extrovert. I'm an introvert. If you knew my background, you would know, but it's just, I'm helping people. If I can't get jazzed about helping people, then why am I in the banking business? Stop and think about that. So it is. It's just, I mean, yeah, I mean, I love jebs line. How do you get a salesperson to stop prospecting? Put a phone in front. Yep, it's not. And it's just, it's just a phone call. Hello, it's just a phone call. Big deal. What can go wrong? Yeah,

Jack Hubbard  36:09

yeah. So last question, then I want to, I want to, I want to ask, tell everybody how to get a hold of you. You every week on your show with Meredith, you talk about a book I'm curious. Mark, part of your approach to improving your own self is continuing learning, and you do that through reading. Who are some of the authors that that you you are reading, or books that you are seeing where, where bankers could really get some benefit here?  

Mark Hunter  36:43

Wow, I've

 got a stack of books my In fact, my wife chastised me. She said I was cleaning up the front room, and you had a stack of books there. And I almost like, throw them away, honey. I'll get to them. I'll get to them. I'll get to them. Authors I like right now a I read every new sales book as fast as it there's a book that just came out just a couple weeks by Christy Jones, and it's selling your way in. Yeah, it's a sales book. But I'll tell you what I love it because it's very simplistic. It's a playbook I go back to, I go back to James clear and atomic habits. It's absolutely well worth reading. Norman Vincent Peale, hello. These are some people that go back 4050, 7585, years ago. There are legendary authors, and those are books that we need to read. There's one book in particular that I love, and I've sent this out to a lot of business owners. It's called Scaling up by Vern Harnish. He has Gazelle Consulting Group, traction, right? A lot of businesses use the traction process. Scaling up is a different process, and I like scaling up because it's more simplistic, it's more simplistic, but I recommend that book a lot. Surprisingly enough, there's a book that goes back probably 40 years ago now, Harvey McKay, swim with the sharks. It was all about the personal relationships. Now I'm a good friend. I'm I'm a good friend of Harvey and but I used to kid him. I said, Harvey, I've sold more of your books, and I have of my own books. So it isn't necessarily grabbing the newest book out there. Many times it's going back and grabbing those old books and rereading them because again. But Vern Harnish, scaling up, I absolutely love and atomic habits. James Clark, those are probably the two books that I send out the most. I love sending books to people, and I don't send my own. I love to send them other people's books.

Jack Hubbard  38:53

Well, that's the kind of person you are, and y'all need to know that Mark is on the road 45 weeks a year, maybe more, but he found time for me, and that's everything I need to know about. Mark Hunter. Mark, how do people get a hold of you, if you need a speaker or they need some prospecting training, how does somebody get a hold of you?

Mark Hunter  39:15

Well, the best way is The Sales hunter.com is the website the sales center.com, we have, I have two different podcasts. One is, of course, the one you listen to sales logic, that is a great podcast. I have another podcast called The Sales Hunter podcast. Gee, it's kind of Yeah, because I just used the name. There's a lot of Mark hunters in the world. I don't know if you know that, but there's a lot of Mark hunters in the world. So we use the sales center, but yeah, and I'm all over LinkedIn. Just find me out there. Follow me. I'm all I love sharing. I love anybody who calls me. I'm going to make time for a phone call with them. I'm going to make time. May not be tomorrow due to schedule, but I believe sales. Is a team sport. We all learn from each other. And it just, it's just, it's fun, it's, I get more jazzed today about sales than I ever have before. And, oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. This is a banking podcast, yeah. But you know what, we're all in sales.

Jack Hubbard  40:20

Mark Hunter, what a privilege it is to get to know you and to have you on the show. Thanks so much for your time.

Mark Hunter  40:26

Thank you.

Jack Hubbard  40:28

Thanks for listening to this episode of Jack grants with modern bankers featuring Mark Hunter next week, I have the privilege of sharing the microphone with a 35 year banking veteran and first time best selling author, Chip Higgins, we'll explore his outstanding new book, The physics way. Need some practical ideas and resources around blending LinkedIn to the sales process. Well, you can, if you go to the modern banker.com Subscribe to this podcast. It's been downloaded more than 50,000 times, and we've got a ton of five star reviews. Follow us on YouTube as well and join that free public library. You see that library contains all kinds of amazing stuff, replays of all my shows, replays of all of Jack grants with Brynne, more than 40 e books, and much, much more, a big thanks, as always, for bringing this program to you, to our friends at vertical, IQ and RelPro. It's September 2024, and it's always a great practice to make today and every day a great client day.