[SPEAKER_00]: This is The Sales Grady 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_01]: Welcome back to the sale free podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Jeff Lynch Jr. your host.
[SPEAKER_01]: And today we have my favorite guest for the sales great podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to put it out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: My favorite guest Mr. Mark Hunter author of integrity for selling a mine for sales high profit prospecting high profit selling and some incredible books in the sales base.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's been working for the last
[SPEAKER_01]: However, many decades, we've had many podcasts together with Fortune 500, Fortune 100, Fortune 200, small business midsize business.
[SPEAKER_01]: He helped people sell more every single day.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is his life, his job, he spends his entire working life observing what high performance sales teams do well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm so excited to have him on the podcast to talk about outbound conference in 2026.
[SPEAKER_01]: Outbound is coming up in Las Vegas, November 9th of the 12th Mark.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for being here, and I'm excited to talk about what we're doing there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you tell me what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, you said my favorite.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I think you say that every week with the show.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to listen to it every week to figure it out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I'll tell you what, outbound is about pipeline and productivity.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you haven't noticed, we've all noticed the marketplace has changed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, tools and techniques and hacks and apps and all those that worked a year ago aren't working today.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so when we talk about pipeline and productivity, because that's the other thing, productivity, man, we could talk about that forever, because a lot of salespeople are busy, but they're not productive.
[SPEAKER_02]: Big difference, big difference between the two.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to be really bringing in a lot of strategies and a lot of ideas because I'll tell you what, anybody listening to this right now, anybody watching this right now has got stuff in their pipeline that you got, got to get rid of because it's not going anywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not moving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get it out of there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Focus on fewer and you'll make more money.
[SPEAKER_02]: Too many salespeople are not making quota because their chasing deadwood.
[SPEAKER_01]: The data on it was like 70 or 80% of all sales reps across all industries miss quota in 2025 or 2024.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has to stop and think about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That number is abysmal.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you were a CEO of a company and you turned in results like that, you would not be the CEO.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do we allow that?
[SPEAKER_02]: in the sales community.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, first of all, I think it's because we frame up what we're doing totally wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because again, we're trying to chase anything and everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it's got a heartbeat, we're trying to go after it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, my dogs got heartbeat.
[SPEAKER_02]: My dogs not buying anything from it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you got a tighten up the focus.
[SPEAKER_02]: And have you ever noticed that sales kickoff meetings spend 90% of their time talking about the product?
[SPEAKER_02]: And only 10%
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got to fix that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't lean with your product.
[SPEAKER_02]: Lead with the problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got to set the table for the, now you can't tell them that they're stupid, but it's by asking questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Awareness.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to be a mother of change.
[SPEAKER_01]: You create awareness.
[SPEAKER_01]: What the question is it?
[SPEAKER_02]: You ask.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sales is not as hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: as we make it out to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: I see too many salespeople they lead with the product and then they race to the demo.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me tell you something.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know of anybody who wakes up in the morning says, man, I hope I get to sit through another boring demo.
[SPEAKER_02]: If people want a demo, you go to YouTube.
[SPEAKER_02]: You go to YouTube and get any company's product on a video.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't want that?
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: They want help on what's challenging them right now today.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's the magic question.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the magic question I want anybody to ask, what are your KPIs for the show?
[SPEAKER_02]: I was with a CEO back here about a month ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I asked him, he said, okay, what's the board?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are the very specifics?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because again, he doesn't have KPI, he has, you know, the board has, you know, and he said, hey, thanks for asking.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's where I got to go, and that becomes the pain, that becomes the challenge, that becomes the problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're talking to any type of a customer, ask him, what are your KPI's?
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, they're gonna be shocked that you will ask that question.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know what, they will share it with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: If they got a problem, they're going to share it with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what your solution is designed to help them overcome.
[SPEAKER_02]: With that, that's a mic drop moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good night.
[SPEAKER_02]: See you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see it up out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I liked that this you brought up this really interesting concept, which is busyness versus doing the work that gets us to our numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that most sales reps feel this and our theme for outbound is breaking through by our resistance.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of by our resistance comes from being in the sales process with people who don't ask good questions and give you a demo and do all this product pitch.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're resistant because they don't feel any trust so they don't feel that they have the ability to make a decision with this person that they can feel good about.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other part of this is that sales teams are spending time with deals that are never going to close.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this busyness perspective is so powerful and so prevalent, but it can be difficult to overcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: So at outbound, you've been on stage.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are a mainstay, you're one of the four horsemen of outbound.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you get up on stage and you talk about productivity and you talk about pipeline,
[SPEAKER_01]: And you help sales teams realize where they're spending their time in their energy.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you notice about the conversations that happen at outbound after you've come off stage?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're in the room with people who are high performing business athletes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, suddenly people are talking about, what's the questions I gotta ask?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because there's three criteria that you gotta get any buyer over the hurdle.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are the questions I need to ask to create urgency?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, what, because again, people can have problems, but it may not be urgent.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got a lot of challenges around my house and my wife wants to do things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're just not urgent.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not gonna get to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to get to what's urgent and the same thing in a business.
[SPEAKER_02]: Two is their budget and it sounds so much is their budget.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't ask that question, but that's stupid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, in other words, it is the investment you're looking for them to make, does that pay all in comparison to the return on their investment?
[SPEAKER_02]: You may be asking them to spend a million dollars, but because of this investing with you a million dollars, they're going to reap a $20 million dollar return.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bingo, 21, you got that one in the bank.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other piece is this, and this is a little bit of a strange one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is the buyer going to look stupid?
[SPEAKER_02]: if this doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody's afraid of losing their child right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody, I mean, the economy is just weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's different varies by industries.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody wants to make a decision that they're going to be fully shot.
[SPEAKER_02]: If there's any risk in that, they don't make a decision.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's our number one competitor, no decision.
[SPEAKER_02]: That becomes back to that we haven't created enough trust.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's not enough accountability between myself, the salesperson, and you, the customer, and vice versa.
[SPEAKER_02]: And three, you are not confident.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, it's not salesperson being confident.
[SPEAKER_02]: The customer has to be confident that the decision they are about to make is the right one.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is why, if you race to the close,
[SPEAKER_02]: It reverts to price because, again, give it to me cheap enough and I'll be confident.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not the way to sell.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to get, you know, maybe a little bit more insight from you and learn from you because you asked such an interesting question to your prospects.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your KPIs this year?
[SPEAKER_01]: But I often find when I work with sales teams at that question is great, except that most sales people don't know where to go once they have the answer to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They go, oh, great.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have $5 million of revenue that you want to increase in the next quarter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyways, and then they just keep moving along.
[SPEAKER_01]: From a productivity and pipeline perspective, what are some questions or what are some insights that you get from, you know, teaching sales seems to ask that question and what do they do after they've got the bone in their, in their, in their jaws.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the process that you're using right now?
[SPEAKER_02]: And how confident are you doing that?
[SPEAKER_02]: What are the, what are the challenges that you're facing?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, what, what are the issues?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why was it five million?
[SPEAKER_02]: Why was it not two million or ten million?
[SPEAKER_02]: How are you feeling?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just asking them questions about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And shut up, don't even think, don't even think about your product, your solution.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't even think about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just let the customer share and talk.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because they may come back to, oh, you know what?
[SPEAKER_02]: We got that one made in the shade.
[SPEAKER_02]: What happens if you exceed that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Getting five you got seven or eight million or maybe there's another KPI.
[SPEAKER_02]: In other words, just talk to the customer and listen, ask a follow-up question on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just keep unpacking, unpacking, unpacking.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've done this time and time again and it's amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: The more they share, the more confidence they have in you, because you're actually paying attention to what they are saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: Turns out listening is really powerful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then a follow-up question to that is, for me, when I get into the conversations, all right, I set the appointment, especially if it's outbound.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if I'm prospecting the way that I do, and I set a cold appointment with somebody, I call them up or I email them or I send them a DM on LinkedIn, and they say, yeah, sure, I'll take a meeting with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I find too often that sales reps come in with an adversarial mindset.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to sell this person on why I'm there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The question I ask people along with those is, tell me about how this conversation fits into your growth goals.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did you take this conversation?
[SPEAKER_01]: Then they give you the answer and here's the thing with integrity first selling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I read this book, here's what the lesson should be for salespeople.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you ask these good questions, yes, they trust you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you can get further down the road and get to the demo and maybe you get the sale.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in the other hand, we talk about productivity and pipeline.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are trying to be efficient with your day, sometimes the discovery conversation means that they're not the right fit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like when you take all the information back and you go, I can't value bridge what I'm doing to what they want to get done.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you need to be honest, and then you can just say, this deal, I'm taking out of my pipeline, I'm throwing it over there, and I'm not going to spend 40 hours of my week work on this.
[SPEAKER_02]: If the dog don't, don't, don't take him hunting.
[SPEAKER_02]: We try and, you know, in sales, stay in the game, stay in the game, stay in the game.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I believe in staying in the game.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to stand only if they're qualified.
[SPEAKER_02]: only if I know that I have a need that I can help them with, only if I know that they fit, who I am, I am going after, you know, otherwise.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't want to have them in a pipeline.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems easier than it then it actually is in practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the psychology behind that and all of the things that we just said right there in that brief moment of, yeah, I don't want to play the game if they're not qualified, feels really easy for us
[SPEAKER_01]: to say this because we've been practicing it for so long, but you and I have both been in places where we played the game for so long because we didn't have the pipeline, we didn't have the process, we didn't have the efficiencies, we didn't see what we'd see today, and I'm still learning this process.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you're an outbound, which is the biggest baddest conference in sales around these particular topics, when you are there on site, what is it that
[SPEAKER_01]: draws you to outbound every single year that we have it and what do you think draws the audience back year after year after year to join us in outbound even though we are talking about lots of similar concepts you know since 2018 since we've been doing this but it's still impactful for everyone who shows up why would you as sales leader join us at outbound this year in a November based on your experiences why do you take a shower every day
[SPEAKER_02]: because otherwise you'd stink.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just that simple, because here's the deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's the deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: A rising tide lifts off, though.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've become the sum of the five people we hang out with most.
[SPEAKER_02]: Jim Rohn said that line years, here's the one.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's something magical about being an outcome, because you are with other intense, successful people.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the conversations that happen after the sessions over meals, over a drink, wherever it might be.
[SPEAKER_02]: You hang out with great people and it's amazing at how you get challenged.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm part of a mastermind group of four other incredibly successful individuals.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's amazing at how we live to each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is why you have to be at outbound.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not for slackers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't come if you think that what you're going to do is, oh, I'm going to get the perfect playbook and it's good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, you're going to get, you're going to playbook.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then, God, you've got to go do something with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's what I like about outbound.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I hear this from more people.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I was talking to somebody, just the other day, who is at, where was that our last two out mountains?
[SPEAKER_02]: And he made a comment.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, I'm still using strategies and techniques.
[SPEAKER_02]: I learned outbound.
[SPEAKER_02]: and I'm not going to out of the park, you know what's funny is everybody has this limiting belief, everybody has a limiting belief.
[SPEAKER_02]: Outbound allows you to shatter that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get to coach sales people around the world and there's a real estate person I get to coach in Dubai.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're not about challenging right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's actually ahead of his annual plan.
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, his annual plan
[SPEAKER_02]: what he had last year.
[SPEAKER_02]: His average transaction is four times the size of what it was last year.
[SPEAKER_02]: He does not allow anything to stand in this way.
[SPEAKER_02]: The apartment building he lives in was attacked by a drone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Later that day he would outclose his biggest deal of fear.
[SPEAKER_01]: limiting beliefs, you get to outbound, and you should be exhausted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the ideas that you don't leave their rejuvenated with all kinds of rest.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you don't hang out by the pool and drink my ties and hang out with Mark.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we run before five o'clock in the morning, we're in the sessions.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are learning every single second.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we leave those sessions.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have conversations with other ultra-performance.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we cannot stop talking about how we're going to make our lives better.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we go prospect.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we come back to the conference.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we learn more and then in the evening we play hard because that's what we do in Mark Hunter plays hard, but we go to bed early because we're getting up before 5 a.m. and run in a 10k easier for us east coasts to folks in central time folks we get that extra hour pack.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've been one of the OGs of outbound.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was maybe 17 years old and we walked up on stage and you know we're doing some practice you and Mike Weinberg and Anthony and Jeb and I remember sitting in that room and you were really excited about 2018 because it was the first outbound as this tiny little room.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we're several almost gosh almost a decade since that day which feels incredible that we're even there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember, you know, how excited y'all were for the people who are joining you because they just love sales so much, you know, what is one thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess about the interactions that people have with you that are off stage, that means so much to you as content creator as somebody who is a thought leader, you get the ability to intermingle with the people outside of just hop out of on stage, you hop in on a plane and leave in the event, you get to hang out with everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean to you?
[SPEAKER_02]: it's the passion for people.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're in sales and it's all about the money, you're in it for the wrong goal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Money is great.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you're in it to impact and influence others.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for me, it's the ability to interact.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll never forget the first outbound we did.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a lady who came up and she was crying.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was absolutely crying because she said, you guys changed my life, but you gave me today.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've had so many of those success stories along the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: See else is about investing in others.
[SPEAKER_02]: Zig Ziglar had that line.
[SPEAKER_02]: The best way to achieve your goals is if you help enough other people achieve their goals.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I truly do believe that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's that side note, people are like, oh, I want referrals, I want referrals.
[SPEAKER_02]: Great, how many referrals have you given?
[SPEAKER_02]: You gotta give referrals, then you'll get referrals.
[SPEAKER_02]: When we invest in people, and this is what jazz is mean.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what excites me about out now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is every time you get to create new relationships and you renew old relationships.
[SPEAKER_02]: And those just light a fire, they're fun, they're cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: The money we make, that's the scoreboard.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the conversations that those are the plays on the field that put the numbers on the scoreboard.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sounds, it's not as complicated as we make it out to be.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pick up the phone, make the call, have the conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And now, what part of this do you not understand?
[SPEAKER_01]: Help somebody else out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes people don't want to be helped, and that's where people get hung up, move on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Mark, thank you so much for joining us today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for being an outbound and being one of our four horsemen, people who have joined us since the very beginning, you have been a part of it since, you know, since 2018.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you've seen it grow and become what it is today, the biggest baddest conference in sales.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have not gotten your tickets yet and you're listening to this podcast, if you got to go to outboundconference.com right now, outboundconference.com and go get your tickets.
[SPEAKER_01]: We will be in Las Vegas at the beautiful red rock
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be hosting VIP bowling event.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be doing runs at three o'clock in the morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shoot, we might even sleep.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just going to get, we're just going to keep running until the next conference day comes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we are going to be there in November 9th through the 12th.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go get your badges at outboundconference.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mark, thank you so much for being here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we appreciate you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see you in Las Vegas.