Mark Hunter - A Mind for Sales

Praise for A Mind for Sales

More is not the answer. Better is. In A Mind for Sales, youll discover numerous practical strategies you can use to be at the top of your game, succeeding beyond what you thought possible.

JILL KONRATH, speaker and author of More Sales, Less Time and SNAP Selling

What a refreshingly substantial piece of work. As Mark has highlighted, attitude is fundamental to sales success: with the right attitude, frontline sales professionals are more likely to embrace the skills they must have, implement the processes they need to retain control, and of course, continually expand their commercial bandwidth by increasing their knowledge. I like very much that he also highlights the fact that technology is not a panacea. It certainly is not arresting the alarming year-on-year decline in sales achievement levelsbut absorption and implementation of Marks philosophies just might!

JONATHAN FARRINGTON, CEO of JF Initiatives; Top Sales World, Top Sales Magazine

Everyone is in sales, but most people struggle with knowing what to do. This book is the answer! Mark shows everyone how to be better at promoting and influencing our products and services with systems and processes that work.

MARY C. KELLY, Commander, US Navy (ret.) and CEO, Productive Leaders

Mark Hunter has written a genius book that cuts right to the core of what makes the top 1 percent successful in salesyou, the sales professional, are the biggest factor. You are more important than all the technology in the world, and A Mind for Sales delivers tight, practical medicine for leveraging your greatest assetyour mindto not only sell more but to enjoy life while youre doing it. Every sales professional should read this book!

JAMES MUIR, CEO Best Practice International and author of The Perfect Close

Everyone knows that mindset is the most important factor in sales, but rarely do you find an expert and a book that can show you how to build and strengthen yours. Mark Hunter has written a truly unique and powerful sales book that goes beyond traditional skills and gives you the sales strategies you need to take your team to the next level.

MERIDITH ELLIOTT POWELL, President, MotionFirst

A Mind for Sales addresses all of the things you need to remember and execute to stay on top of your game. It is a must read for both people new to sales and veterans who are looking to stay relevant to their customers. If you want to see an immediate boost in your sales revenues, A Mind for Sales is your ticket. To top it off, it is written by one of the top sales thought leaders in the worldMark Hunter.

RON KARR, author of Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way

tells you why you should read this book: Be the Difference-Maker Others Will Value. When you do that, your world will change. The world needs problem solvers, difference-makers, and proactive people who create opportunities. This book will make you that kind of person.

JIM CATHCART, author of The Power Minute and founder of Cathcart.com

The genius of Mark Hunters Mind for Sales is that it recognizes that excelling at sales isnt about mastering the latest CRM tool, getting a more productive lead pipeline, or even perfecting your sales pitch. While those things definitely help, the most important thing is having the right mindset. If youre a serious salesperson, youve probably already spent lots of time working on those other tools. Now its time to get your mind right. This book will help you do it.

PAUL SMITH, author of Sell with a Story and The 10 Stories Great Leaders Tell

A Mind for Sales is about being real, relatable, and relevant... success in sales starts by looking inward. Mark hits this head-on as sales is a lifestyle. Sales professionals are leaders. With a servant mindset, Mark leads you down the path to sales prosperity as you develop your mind for sales.

LARRY LEVINE, author of Selling from the Heart

2020 Mark Hunter

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by HarperCollins Leadership, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC.

Book design by Aubrey Khan, Neuwirth & Associates.

ISBN 978-1-4002-1576-8 (eBook)

ISBN 978-1-4002-1567-6 (HC)

Epub Edition January 2020 9781400215768

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019948561

Printed in the United States of America

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Dedicated to the greatest family a

husband and father could ever ask for.

Ann Marie, Chris, Michelle, Sarah,

Andrew, Eli, Caleb, Amy and Jonathan

CONTENTS

THE MOST VALUABLE real estate you will ever own is the six inches between your ears. The truth for most people is that those six inches containing the crinkly, pinkish-gray matter oftentimes owns them. Over time, your mind picks up all kinds of infections, like negative beliefs and disempowering ideas, all the while rationalizing a set of excuses that prevents you from becoming your best-ever self. When you work in a role that requires that you do hard things and where you are greeted with a no more frequently than any other role in business, your mindset is the critical factor to your success. Your mindset is also, potentially, your greatest asset.

In my first book, I wrote a math equation for success in sales. Here is the equation I scribbled: Mindset + Skill Sets + Tool Kits = sales success. A reader tweeted me that my math was bad. He suggested that the real equation is (Skill Sets + Tool Kits) Mindset = sales success. The reader was right; mindset isnt additive. Your mindset is a multiplier. A Mind for Sales is also a multiplier, providing you with a set of recipes for creating and sustaining an indomitable mindset, the kind necessary if you are going to succeed in sales.

Here is why you should read this book and take action. Over the last decade and a half, the chattering class in sales development have placed too much of an emphasis on increasing sales by using the new sales tools. While you need tools (it is part of the equation above), they provide efficiencynot effectiveness. No single tool in your sales stack is going to motivate you to do good work, nor will it create a client preference to work with you instead of your competitor. In the world we now occupy, you are the value proposition and the compelling, differentiated value your dream client is deciding to add to their team, and no technology can substitute for who you are.

During the same period that technology has attracted a lot of attention and captured a lot of salespeoples time and attention, there have also been experts who have suggested that relationships are no longer important in sales, an idea I cant imagine being possible outside of transactional sales. In a human endeavor in which you help people make changes and leave their current state for a better future state, how can sales not be about people? Sales is an other-oriented endeavor, not the smarmy, selfish selling of fifty years ago. Hunter (those of us who know and love him call him Hunter) opposes this idea, believing it misses the point of what the best salespeople do: they are not only known, liked, and trusted, but they also create real value for their clients.

Throughout this book that you hold in your hands, you will find another foundational set of beliefs that lead to greater success in sales. Those beliefs are about who you are and less about what you do. Selling effectively requires integrity, and those who dont possess it dont last long. You are going to be encouraged to build your approach on helping your clients achieve better resultsincluding results they didnt know were possible for them.