[SPEAKER_00]: This is the sales gravy podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, I'm Jeb Blunt, guest selling author, fanatical prospecting objection, sales EQ, and ink.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm here to help you open more doors, close bigger deals, and rock your commission check.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the sales gravy podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Jeb Blunt Jr. Tell me, J.B. J.B. and we have one of my favorite guests when I favorite people in this industry on the podcast today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll introduce them really quickly, but he has released four books
[SPEAKER_01]: recent book is what we're talking about today and he is a pillar in the sales training community.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's prospecting just genius prospecting savant.
[SPEAKER_01]: He also has worked some of the most high-level deals in company history.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's also worked with some of the elite sales teams across the globe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Today we have the sales hunter, the guy with the podcast with the blog, with those keynotes, with the books.
[SPEAKER_01]: And today we're talking about integrity first selling his new book that's coming out Mark, welcome back to the sales gravy podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, thanks so much for having me, J.B. J.
[SPEAKER_01]: That that name that those initials are going to stick with you forever they are and you know it's our good friend Victor Antonio who gave it to him
[SPEAKER_01]: It gave it to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have integrity first selling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mark, we have had you on the podcast so many times.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have, we've had you at up on conference by the way going on in November.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have had you for so many pieces of content over the years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it would be a shame to not introduce new audience members to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So give people a little bit of background.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do you come from?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you in sales?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are you sitting right here in the sales area of podcasts with four book, what brain damage happened that you got here?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, he had the brain damage, and then it's my last name, Hunter.
[SPEAKER_02]: People always say, so you're known as the sales hunter.
[SPEAKER_02]: What was your name before you changed it?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that was just your stage name.
[SPEAKER_02]: Naturally, I just had to go with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, hey, I didn't want to go into sales.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did not want to go into sales.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I wanted to be a disjockey.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're listening to the mind, you 95.
[SPEAKER_02]: KKN, that's a long story.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not what you tell your parents so you're going to do when you're in college.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I figured, I don't know, I'll get out of college.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll get a job.
[SPEAKER_02]: Problem was, I got too many speeding tickets when I was in college.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got out and I couldn't afford car insurance.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I meant I had to figure out something to that a car payment, reason I got to speed tickets, apartment rent, and insurance paid monthly.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I said, wait, if I get a job this applies with a company car, I can eliminate a couple of those payments.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is before like digital background checks when they were hiring people.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's hard to do a kind of driver background check.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a job that supplied with a company car.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a sales job.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't want to be in sales.
[SPEAKER_02]: I got fired from that job after a year, got a second sales job, second company car.
[SPEAKER_02]: And got fired from that job after seven months.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm on my third sales job, third company car.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my boss's boss brings me into his office just to me now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll swear I'm getting fired.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know I'm getting fired and he says, why are you in sales?
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to say the bill week, but no, it's really busy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's, mmm, not not going to work.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, I don't know what I said.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said you really don't know what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, gee, obvious.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's selling out.
[SPEAKER_02]: You really feel.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, tell me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, let's cut to the chase.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just because you're not taking a time to understand the customer.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not taking a time to listen.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was interesting, but that wasn't like the suddenly the sales world opened up to me, but it began to open my eyes that you got to take the time to listen to the customer.
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to understand the customer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because up to that point, I was really treating the customers if they were a bowling pin.
[SPEAKER_02]: My job is just to knock them down, take their money, and run fast.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was creating a lot of chaos behind you.
[SPEAKER_02]: David, did I do something wrong?
[SPEAKER_02]: I got the commission, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: not a way you build a sales curve.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, it was that third job that I began to realize what sales.
[SPEAKER_01]: We go back to the discjockey really quickly.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was your time slot?
[SPEAKER_01]: And and what was your favorite record to start spinning?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to impress your date and show, tell them that you're your discjockey and they listen to you on the radio, what is your record and what song are you putting on?
[SPEAKER_02]: anything by the Dooby Brothers.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're listening to the mind in 1995, KQZ Radio, 719, the city, go to highest 68 today.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Dooby's long train run.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got a long train of running.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was long before you were born, boy, that was in seven days, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also a great song.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you listen to that song, you got a lot of runway.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got long train of running.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got time to get coffee.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got kind of to think about your next record.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got time to think about the next song.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you, what do you pair?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just back to this Jackie thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you pair up after the long train of running?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your next go to?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that probably would be, you know, I could slow it down to the commenters.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, or maybe throw a little BG's in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is this is AM top 40 radio in Seattle, Washington.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then again, when the pizza guy comes, I got to put on and I got a divita, so I can go downstairs and get the pizza.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or buy by Miss American Pie, the long picture.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a, it's a nine minute and 50 something second song.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what you're ready to like I know that song back and forth because this is a fun fact mark that I'm going to tell the audience But I'm also telling you American pie by Don McLean is however me, you know nine minutes fifty seven seconds long It is almost exactly the exact same time in terms of distance from my house to my high school And so I would listen to it back and forth every day for like an entire semester because I swear I won the learning that song Because carry our CFO my my mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was her song.
[SPEAKER_01]: She showed me when I was like eight years old and so that's I know that song
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to get deemed C.A.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mark, you're too good.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've gotten to these jobs because you're concerned you had to pay for what you couldn't because you'd take it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you had these cars that you kept getting from these companies, which is incredible.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I didn't know that when I was 21.
[SPEAKER_01]: You realize after this guy said, you don't know what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you were treating customers like bowling pens.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the is a good segue into you've written this book called Integrity First Selling Integrity is one of those words that I think it's a lot of Airplay a lot of airtime and I'm going to you said go deep.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to get you some good questions here integrity is talked about a lot in terms of organizations and leadership and and how we go about a jobs everyone knows what integrity is, but it seems like not a lot of people actually know what integrity is if that makes sense common sense is not so common as the Great John Prime one set.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me a little bit about what you believe integrity is and how does that inform the rest of your book as you've written it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, let's back up the bus here because the fact that we even have to talk about integrity as a shame.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it really is because again, integrity should be like air, water.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the fact we do because unfortunately, the sales profession doesn't have really a great reputation because there's too much bait and switch out there.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's too much false expectations.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this was some of my problem early on in sales.
[SPEAKER_02]: to why my career wasn't going so well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because again, I was delivering false expectations.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is what integrity so I'm telling about.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about stop.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about realizing it's not the sales journey.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the buyer's journey.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is this is one of the first things we have to understand.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the buyer's journey.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that means you've got to understand what is the buyer's need.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this does not mean that you back off you like, oh, oh,
[SPEAKER_02]: Call me when you're ready to buy.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, my definition of prospecting is very simple.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you have the ability to help someone, you owe it to them to reach out to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my definition of prospect.
[SPEAKER_02]: And to me, that's integrity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if I can, you know, I get a lot of problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've known me long enough.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a lot of problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: My kids tell me I have a lot of problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you could help me, I would want you to reach out to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's part of integrity.
[SPEAKER_02]: But integrity is also about taking a time just to listen to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I'm not the right choice,
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to refer you to somebody else.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow!
[SPEAKER_02]: Wait, hold it, hold it, hold it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're willing to give up commission?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, I am willing to give up commission.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because here's what I found.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I play the long game and integrity selling only works if it's long game, you have to play long game.
[SPEAKER_02]: it is amazing how that customer is going to respect you more and you know what you're going to wind up getting more business because in this day and age of social media and everybody knows everything customers talk you mess up a customer they're going to talk they're going to tell somebody else but you delight a customer they're going to tell somebody else
[SPEAKER_02]: So integrity selling, I think, is the ying to the AI gang.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you think about that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, AI allows us to send out so many thousands of emails.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wait a minute, I sent a bad email to one person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I can send it to a thousand people, a bad email.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's suicide, but that's what's happening with AI.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so integrity is just the opposite.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that personal relationship that I understand truly what it is that you're looking for.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is JBJ looking for?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how I'm going to help you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So with this integrity selling model where it is about the buyer's journey, I think it's just the, it's so fundamental.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is crazy that we're talking about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Walk a mile on someone else's mock-a-sense, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: That it is the golden rule.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's treat others where you want to be treated.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that this is sounds really easy because it's simple, simple is not always easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you've got a lot of challenge with the sales profession today that I see which is the problem around scarcity.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't want to give up that commission check.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you willing to give up that commission check?
[SPEAKER_01]: you have been in the marketplace selling your services for decades.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got a lot of experience with these organizations when you have gone about your sales process with that kind of integrity and you have turned someone over to another vendor who might be a better fit or you've just said no flat out because it's not the good fit for you and you've made those tough choices.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of salespeople don't ever make those choices because they're afraid it'll never bear fruit.
[SPEAKER_01]: What kinds of fruit have you born from being able to sell with integrity over your career?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let me give you a story of one that didn't go so well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember sitting in front of a buyer, and I had an item that he was interested in, and he bought inventory for his stores.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was just, it was like a 10-year supply.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like a 10-year supply way too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he wanted it, so I took the order.
[SPEAKER_02]: I took the order.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't see anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get my car, I drive back to the office, and I'm like,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I was probably too much, probably should cut that down, probably, cut that down.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I, and I, and I tell the story of my book, I walk into the office and I wave this order just back in the days when you physically had an order.
[SPEAKER_01]: You had them in your hands and you didn't have to click a button and just wait for the digital gods to tell you that you've done it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was a hero.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was a hero.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was, it was unbelievable.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the commission check was unbelievable.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was fantastic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And on the whole time, I think I know this is, this is not good, but but but I sure felt good and man at commission check felt great this will this was excellent and it was way too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fortunately, I got transferred to a different area of the country shortly thereafter.
[SPEAKER_02]: A couple years later, I heard from the salesperson who took over that account and he said, yeah, he said, it was way too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not only did they have a hard time getting rid of it, but they literally threw a lot of it away and wrote the whole inventory off.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, yeah, I don't think your name would be very highly regarded if you were to show back at Potentacount.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a sad comment, that's a sad comment.
[SPEAKER_02]: Conversely, there are people who I have met, and not been able to really do anything with.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's just nothing here.
[SPEAKER_02]: But two, three, four years later, you suddenly see incredible sums of business coming from that relationship, because you just continue to nurture it, you just stay in the game, you just you built the
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the whole thing I say, we do not want to close sales.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't close sales, you open relationships, you open a relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because when you do that, we've invested all this time getting this customer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do we sit there and hand them off to customer success and never talk to them again?
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, hold it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a disruption in the sales process.
[SPEAKER_02]: We got to change.
[SPEAKER_02]: I land you as a customer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I won't stay in touch with you forever because you now become a sales person working for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to tell others about me.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how I build my business.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's playing the long game.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what does that do?
[SPEAKER_02]: It just continues to multiply multiply multiply multiply.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's go into this integrity for selling book a little bit further.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did you write it?
[SPEAKER_01]: And why did you write it now?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: I put it off for several years.
[SPEAKER_02]: Several years ago, I had several people approached me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember people, Markie, you always talk about integrity and so forth and you would get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you write a book, guys?
[SPEAKER_02]: And no, I just I just can't do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just can't no, no, it's just
[SPEAKER_02]: But then with AI exploding on the scene here and just becoming bigger and bigger and without a doubt, the traditional sales process is broken.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just, wait a minute, the time is right.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to change how it is that we sell.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to look at things differently.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've always talked about how prospecting is about qualifying fast.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanna qualify fast.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I spend more time with fewer prospects.
[SPEAKER_02]: Think about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: What am I doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm creating a deeper relationship to be able to understand you better, and to be a lesservy better.
[UNKNOWN]: Hmm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Isn't that integrity?
[SPEAKER_02]: I began looking around at all this stuff I've been doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hold it.
[SPEAKER_02]: This really fits into this integrity first model, and it just calls it out.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's funny, but as I was writing the book, I had to keep thinking, am I doing everything with integrity?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I tell you a story here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was really closing out finishing writing the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I do a lot of speaking all over the country around the world, you know, like you guys do there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It sells greaty.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had this great engagement with a great company.
[SPEAKER_02]: I won't say the company's name.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then this other company said, hey, can we get you for a day and a half for this here and so yeah, yeah, perfect.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to work out perfect.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can go between Minneapolis and Cleveland.
[SPEAKER_02]: This
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, the dates overlap.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't catch it.
[SPEAKER_02]: My staff didn't catch it, because I had written the date down raw.
[SPEAKER_02]: My staff, person who normally handles all my bookings, happened to be on vacation, and I handled the thing myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stupid, big mistake.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I understand, and it was funny, but I immediately.
[SPEAKER_02]: called up the one I say hey can can you move me day can you move me day no they can't go I got to come back this one and and remember calling the VP of sales of this company I wanted me for a day and a half and he wasn't there.
[SPEAKER_02]: He wasn't in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, me and my coctor is executive assistant said I got a problem got a problem got a problem so anyway I wound up writing him an email and right at front I said if you want your deposit back here it is we can just walk away and I gave him like four different options
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's amazing, but he called me back a few hours later.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Mark, I appreciate your candor.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll move the meeting.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a pretty sizable deal, too.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I said, oh, I'll just get back to the past.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, just, you know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: I blew it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he appreciated it.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I just recently did that event.
[SPEAKER_02]: And fortunately it was an event where it was just me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was the only person for this particular event.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they couldn't move him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's how he introduced me.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, you know, we were supposed to be together a few months ago, but we had to change it because of because Mark's schedule.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I absolutely appreciate that he was very forthcoming of saying that, hey, he made a mistake.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was no excuses, no excuses made.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just said what it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know what's interesting is, I sleep better at night.
[SPEAKER_02]: You sleep better at night when you just do full-disc.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't make it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just say it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I blew it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I made a mistake.
[SPEAKER_02]: On it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think this fits into this world so well that we have all of this AI that's allowing us to be stupider and faster at an incredible rate, bring next speed.
[SPEAKER_01]: we're able to bypass a lot of human human communication.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a person who grew up in the sales world and doing this for 10 years, I have absolutely made these mistakes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that from, as if I were a listener and I'm listening to you speak about this, I would say, Mark, I'm a good person.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I think that I'm trying to help people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do my best every single day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I still ended up with these situations where it feels like,
[SPEAKER_01]: I am trying to, you know, either tell the truth or make an excuse and sometimes I'm just trying to solve the problem and these excuses are buying me a little bit more time to solve the problem for the client will just be happier if I solve the problem for them, then give them an excuse or give them, you know, the truth and I don't think it necessarily says that that people who are kind of dealing with this Sophie's choice are like, this is a being a bad person or being a good person.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sort of in this gray area and you're kind of this is one of those situations.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, walking through that process,
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you coach salespeople to look at this scenario where they've made a mistake and it wasn't necessarily like, you know, they didn't do it on purpose, but it has to be resolved one way or the other how do you coach them through this process you say you've got to play the long game play the long game this is number one it is so easy would have been so easy for me to, you know, say I'll come up with some sort of an excuse and yet I got it out of that's the short game because you're playing it now you're talking commission breath.
[SPEAKER_02]: and you have to be willing to play the long game.
[SPEAKER_02]: And integrity is going to win.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could sit there and say, you know, really?
[SPEAKER_02]: my person who gnarling handles my bookings airing, she came back off vacation and she could have, you know, I could have said, oh, she failed to double it.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, just on it, just on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you own it, it's amazing how the customer respects you a lot more.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because in this world of deflection, where everybody says it's somebody else's fall, somebody else's fall.
[SPEAKER_02]: You will earn greater stature in the eyes of anyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you just on the mistake on the problem, say we're going to fix it, we are going to take care of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That, to me, is a breath of fresh air.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you sleep better at night.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you sleep better at night.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no cover up.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no ongoing thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, what did they find out this?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, there's nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just, it's, this is the way it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what happens is you wind up.
[SPEAKER_02]: developing a deeper relationship with the client.
[SPEAKER_02]: This particular client, they've already asked me to do additional work for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've already asked me to do additional things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've developed a tremendous relationship with the VP of sales and the CEO of the company.
[SPEAKER_02]: great relationship.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been fantastic.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I had made an excuse, yeah, we'd probably would have held the deal together.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I wouldn't be looking at the follow-up work I'm getting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would not be looking at the follow-up referrals and additional connections and all those things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so integrity pays out.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't always see it, and short term, you can say, oh no, I'm going to miss my number this month.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's the whole deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're at the point of saying, if I miss this number, I'm going to get fired.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then you know what, you have a lot of things up to that point, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because again, it just something's not there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I firmly believe that when you sell the integrity, you actually wind up with a more full pipeline.
[SPEAKER_02]: and things just happen because again, your reputation also arrives before you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stop and think about this, your reputation arrives before you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody takes a meeting with a salesperson.
[SPEAKER_02]: without first check on them out on the internet.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's amazing what the internet has to say.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's one of the people say.
[SPEAKER_02]: So your reputation arise before you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is an other key piece that you, you better make sure that your social media, your company's website, you, all the, kind of lines up right, how they're live.
[SPEAKER_02]: The domedown hunt.
[SPEAKER_01]: In a lot of ways, this deeply aligns with your work in high profit prospecting in all of the work you do at the salesmen university and all the work you've done with all these companies where you preach prospecting is your responsibility, it's your obligation to the world to go help people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're at the point where you have lots of scarcity, you have a mindset of scarce, you're not, you don't have a full pipeline, you're not selling deals.
[SPEAKER_01]: If this one deal that you're going to be working on is going to make a break your
[SPEAKER_01]: You have one deal that's going to get you over the line, but every other deal has come through.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's easier to play the long game than if it's the only deal you've closed that month.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Ek brings up, because you talk about scarcity.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to have a mindset of abundance.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to have so much of sales is your mindset.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the gentleman who plays for the Philadelphia Eagles.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can't remember his name, but we saw on the sidelines he's reading a book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you reading a book?
[SPEAKER_02]: because he says, football is 90% mindset.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now think about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Football on the field.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wait, that's 90% mindset.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if it's 90% football mindset, I bet it's about 98% mindset for us.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what is, when you have the right mindset of abundance, there's more opportunities.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's why I also say that the valleys are never as low as you think they are.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the mountain tops are never as high as you think they are.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, you play the long game and your goal is to just with every conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Leave the person where you've earned the right, the privilege, honor, and respect to be all to have a conversation with that person again.
[SPEAKER_02]: You do that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, you know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: Things are going to work out.
[SPEAKER_02]: They will work out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just put one foot in front of each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's consistency.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of the key things about sales.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's consistency.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really enjoy that visual of the mountains and the valleys as never as deep as you think it is as never as high as you think is in fact we think it's super high to remember that on the top of a mountain there's another side to that mountain and the higher the mountain the deeper the valley that is the math on how that works.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to pause real quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: because of this book that I'm going to read the title again in integrity for selling.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've written this and you're putting it out in the world who in the world should be reading this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who should pick this book up right now and start really digesting what's inside of it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, first of all, it's designed for sales people, but it's designed for sales leaders.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a lot of pieces in there talking about what sales leaders and even the sea switch should be doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I go through a whole series of questions in terms of as a company you need to be asking yourself from an integrity standpoint, because integrity starts at the top of the organization.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you know, it really is kind of funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: at the parent child relationship carries over to the workplace.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: The culture of an organization starts with the CEO and flows flows down.
[SPEAKER_02]: as a company tree star employee, it's how their employees treat their customers.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very, very simply.
[SPEAKER_02]: So anyway, I share pieces in there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I share it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, it's it's really written.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's kind of funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: I a book, I love and I know you have read the book, a tonic habits by James Claire.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you think about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I say that's one of the best sales books.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't know what set this guy named Jeb has written.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jeb's written some pretty,
[SPEAKER_02]: by James Clare, it's not a sales book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it benefits everybody, but boy, it should resigns for sales.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think this is what integrity first selling.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's a sales book, but it resonates with everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that the leaders who are listening to this podcast, if you've felt moved by any of the stories or what Mark is saying, and I felt this on sales teams being in the rooms with leaders where you have half the team doing their job and the other half that is sort of winging it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not that they're necessarily, you know, totally there must
[SPEAKER_01]: putting their hands together.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're on YouTube, you can watch me do all these little fun movements.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you think that sales people are doing bad things on purpose, it's almost never the case.
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, Mark, I just interviewed a secret service agent.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he had this beautiful sort of position philosophy about going into the interrogation room.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was if I'd give people something, they typically give me something in return.
[SPEAKER_01]: We call that law of reciprocity.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, most people, they think that they're the heroes of their own story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they built this narrative.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as soon as someone just gives them the
[SPEAKER_01]: It's insane how if you were a leader and you're going, it like with children, but if you're going into your office place and you give people the frameworks and the railroads to run on to be in someone with integrity, they typically want to be that person.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's other things inside of their mindset that are kind of holding them back from that and you can remove those barriers as a leader with this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you speak to that a little bit more Mark?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you had some of the say there, look like you kind of perked up when I started talking.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because I tell you what, when we elevate others around us, it's amazing what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a phrase that I'll abuse.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want everybody to have a big ego.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's not what you think of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's EGO.
[SPEAKER_02]: Empowering greater outcomes.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I empower greater outcomes in other people, it is amazing at what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is really what you're doing with customers.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a phrase I use sales, this leadership, leadership, the sales.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my definition of sales, my definition of leadership is exactly the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's helping others see and achieve what they did not think was possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stop and think about that for a moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: Show me good salesperson, what are they doing?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're showing their customers how to see and achieve what they didn't think was possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Show me a good leader?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're doing the same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is really at the core of what it is that we talk about.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you put the other person first,
[SPEAKER_02]: it is amazing at what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of what I refer to as quiet leadership.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's leadership that occurs when you're not there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is what a good sales person does because you create relationships with customers, where things happen when you're not there.
[SPEAKER_02]: They talk about you to other people.
[SPEAKER_02]: They talk, they share with other people how good your company is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the mark of integrity's selling.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is what happens because I firmly believe that when you sell with integrity,
[SPEAKER_02]: you get clients who have integrity.
[SPEAKER_02]: If somebody is destined is determined to take advantage of people, they're repulsed by people who demonstrated integrity.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are turned off by now.
[SPEAKER_02]: they just don't hang out.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what I find is when I sell it in integrity, I attract a higher caliber of client that I could close at a higher price and a higher margin.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not the ones who come back and nitpick nitpick nitpick.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm sure you've had this experience where you know how you finally don't look at the, that stop watching YouTube right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not reacting to this at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that low price customer, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The low price customers who doesn't understand your value proposition and nitpicks you on everything, and you're never ever able to satisfy them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is so tragic.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I coach some very high level CEOs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's interesting that they're paying you on a regular basis.
[SPEAKER_02]: we rarely connect.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we connect, we connect for like a 10 minute call.
[SPEAKER_02]: Their time is valuable and they just want to quick input.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's people who I coach where a low level is like, oh man, you're draining me, you're killing me, you're killing me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Integrity allows you to play at a higher level.
[SPEAKER_02]: And let's not
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is a really great tie-in to, if you, I mean, if you're college football, then I like, like, I am, unfortunately, and I have to deal with every season I had to go through the college football, wringer and gridiron and whatever that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Nick Saben that, you know, in my opinion, when the greatest coaches of all time, probably the greatest,
[SPEAKER_01]: college football coach of all time, you know, there's other people who you can argue for that spot, but I think Nick Sabin probably holds the the most votes in that arena and he says and he built an organization where a high performers do not want to hang out with low performers and low performers don't want to hang out with high performers.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot have a mixed group.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't you have to have a consistent group.
[SPEAKER_01]: you mentioned the story earlier about this customer that you provided goods for a lot of product for and they ended up not being the right thing and you kind of knew you knew it I think that pit in your chest that hits and I have this too where you have sleepless nights and you just know that the shoe's going to drop somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: You just have it in the back of your mind and it does and one day it will.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it does for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want you to coach yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to go think about that, go back to your, go back to that person, but as a leader, what would you have done in that situation to help yourself, help the customer, and potentially provide a better outcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be at maybe you know, a different outcome, maybe not better, but different, and maybe with more integrity.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's go through that process and you coach yourself through that immediately as he's discussing the
[SPEAKER_02]: I should have said, let's think through.
[SPEAKER_02]: How much do you think all of your locations will be able to use?
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is strategy for moving in for it?
[SPEAKER_02]: I should have had a conversation with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Instead, I was playing a game just to be silent.
[SPEAKER_02]: Be silent, let the customers speak, let the customers speak, and let them share.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I could have let them share, and they say, you know, is that really gonna be the right about?
[SPEAKER_02]: and I should have stopped him right there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even after I got back to the office, I could easily have called him.
[SPEAKER_02]: But by the time I got back to the office, other people knew.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, wait a minute, if I change this, I'm not saving face with all of the people in the office who are elevating me is like, yes, guys, a superstar, salesperson.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's unbelievable what he did.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember, I felt kind of crazy about that, but literally within about two months, I was transferred to Knoxville, Tennessee.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your rain goes, oh, I got away from it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not out of this one, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you didn't, because you called back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And though it wasn't the consequences, though it wasn't necessarily something that you would say like, oh, justice was served necessarily.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, a hard to say what justice was in the scenario.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've all kind of been on these situations.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you did have that conversation with the rapper who said, look, your name would not be good around here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like that's a hard one to take for the heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: it was.
[SPEAKER_01]: And to be honest, I didn't call back.
[SPEAKER_01]: He ran into me at a sales kickoff meeting and he came up to me and said, hey, you were the one.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, oh, you're the one with integrity.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got a story.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was long before this ever.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I mean, that's probably one of one of the strongest stories.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you know, it's funny.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I had handled it differently, sitting right there in the buyer's office, nobody in the office, everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody would have ever known, stop and think about that, which is both good and bad, good, because I couldn't have that conversation, we could have gotten the right quantity, and that account would have continued like me to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Instead, I gave a person who followed me, a ticking tag ball.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do I deal with this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I've been in that exact situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say I think it's a very if you're listening to this and you're in this, you know, very new part of your sales career.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't been in sales before or you're like right at a college and in this situation, I've done this several times where I was selling a product and this this person came into, you know, one of our networking events.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I started up a conversation things were going really well.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were a local business person who I was aware of in the community and I would probably see this person look Costco at the Walmart, you know, hanging around town.
[SPEAKER_01]: We owe the same events and they had a bunch of new businesses.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were opening land bunch of new locations to a main hub.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I was selling was telecommunications.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, great.
[SPEAKER_01]: All these new businesses are all these new buildings.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, all these new circuits.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can sell every single one of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got into the situation where I had said to this person.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I can absolutely serve every single one of your buildings.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't even check.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just said, yep, I can do it because I didn't want to say no.
[SPEAKER_01]: And have, you know, that bad sales conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said yes because I was overconfident and wanted to serve and this person had all least like they was like six locations and three of them were had to like have construction for six months at a time to get our internet lines there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a complete cluster F you know what I'm talking about and I went to sleep every night for like six months and I just remember thinking like if I see this person after I sold it
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you know, white my hands, I went into some other department and he was calling me text to me and I was just to answer my best, but I did know that if I met this person in public like I was going to be like, look in a way, like trying to find somewhere else to go because that was not the right sale.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was not the right way to serve the market.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that this book that you've written and what you were doing for the sales community with writing all of this really highlights how important it is to make the right decisions when it matters.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I want to talk about that for just a second because this is what when you don't sell with integrity, you make expectations, you set, make claims in the eyes of the customer that you can't honor.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what happens is somewhere down the road, we find a way to honor it.
[SPEAKER_02]: What does it do?
[SPEAKER_02]: We have margin creep.
[SPEAKER_02]: We start losing margin.
[SPEAKER_02]: And suddenly that sale that was profitable X now becomes profitable at a whole lot less because of all the additional service, all the additional stuff and again, this is why integrity selling with integrity first is out to the critical because it prevents that that margin creep but prevents all that follow up issue all that follow up work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because you're right, there was undoubtedly additional work that had to be done to get that installation on place get all those things take care of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It came out a cost to your company.
[SPEAKER_01]: The cost to the company costs to the customer because it was time that they couldn't be in those buildings when they probably could have gotten another provider much quicker and I could have been the integrity seller and said, you know what I can handle these three, but in my estimation, I'm going to serve you best by passing you along to a colleague of mine and another business who can serve you much faster and I probably would have gotten all of the 17 other locations as a person opened, you know what they didn't get the 17 other locations.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, she is an amazing, the long game.
[SPEAKER_02]: What you got was the commission checked about you.
[SPEAKER_02]: The first month's payment on your Corvette, what you missed out on was the total commission that could have paid cash for that Corvette.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't buy Corvette.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got too many of speeding tickets.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mark Man is so good to spend time with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: First and foremost, I want to let everybody know that you can find Mark's courses on sales gravy University, good at salesgrib university, learn.salesgrib.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got lots and lots of courses, including his high-profit prospecting courses.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're incredible.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can go view them on salesgrib university.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Mark, you're also in all kinds of other places.
[SPEAKER_01]: So where can people find you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where can they buy this book?
[SPEAKER_01]: And where can they get more information about how they
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, okay, you can go to Amazon to get the book.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, the website, the saleshunter.com.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also have a chance you got a great podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd always wake up in the morning and say, how can I catch sales gravy podcast?
[SPEAKER_02]: I got two of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: See, I had to have two to try to catch you sales logic is one of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the other one is the saleshunter podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one day, we will be as big as sales gravy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this sales logic podcast, by the way, if you're listening to this has has one an award for best podcast of 20 25.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that we incredible podcasts that you do with a few of your colleagues and then the sales under podcasts is what you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, live streaming all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So y'all go follow Mark on LinkedIn, go connect with him at salesenter.com and listen to his podcast, go get his new book integrity first selling anywhere you can buy books, but Amazon.com is a great way to go get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, otherwise, Mark, we really appreciate you joining us on the sales degree podcast and we'll catch you next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much.