Welcome to this episode of “Stark Raving Entrepreneurs,” where we delve into the dynamic intersection of AI and sales with the incomparable Mark Hunter, CSP, a master sales strategist and Certified Speaking Professional.
This is an excerpt from his meeting with us at Stark Raving Entrepreneurs recently. I wanted to share this with you for some of the golden sales nuggets that Mark shared with us.
In this episode Mark shares some real-world strategies on how AI can transform the sales process, reducing stress and increasing effectiveness.
Pay particular attention to what he says about his Wednesday video and blog post. That can help most anyone in business. I found this really profound and even inspirational.
Mark demonstrates how to enhance engagement and consistency in your sales efforts, ultimately building credibility and forging stronger relationships with clients.
Whether you’re struggling with client engagement or looking for fresh ways to reach quotas, this episode is packed with valuable insights tailored for today’s Stark Raving Entrepreneur (that would be you!)
Enjoy our discussion with Mark Hunter, CSP.
First, here’s a gift for you to better understand AI and build sales – Recommended AI tools for business growth.
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Here are seven key timestamp highlights from the episode “AI and Sales – Mark Hunter Shows How to Build Sales with AI” on the podcast Stark Raving Entrepreneurs:
1. **[00:01:08]** – Mark Hunter is introduced as a consummate professional in sales who uses a personalized approach, contrasting the stereotype of the pushy salesperson.
2. **[00:03:14]** – Mark discusses how AI can be used in sales to reduce stress, introducing the concept of an AI hack that he uses to stay in touch with customers effectively.
3. **[00:05:15]** – Mark describes how he uses AI tools, like ChatGPT, to identify the major reasons why salespeople don’t meet quotas, which he then shares with sales VPs in a concise, valuable format.
4. **[00:07:26]** – Mark illustrates the benefits of consistent, value-driven communication by sharing a story of how he maintained contact with a key individual over 18 months, leading to a promising business dialogue.
5. **[00:09:42]** – Mark explains his strategy of using AI to create content that he first tests through email before converting it into other formats like videos, blog posts, and possibly even webinars.
6. **[00:14:15]** – Terry Brock emphasizes the importance of repurposing content across multiple platforms, highlighting the versatility and efficiency of Mark’s AI-driven content creation strategy.
7. **[00:17:16]** – Mark elaborates on how he generates topic ideas for his content by discussing specific customer pain points and how he uses AI to craft solutions and insights targeted at these issues.
These timestamps capture significant discussions on leveraging AI tools to enhance and streamline sales processes, providing practical insights for entrepreneurs and sales professionals listening to the episode.
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For your convenience here are some time stamps of note-worthy content for this episode:
TERRY
Hall of Fame keynote speaker Terry Brock is a globally connected leading authority who works with organizations that want to leverage technology and social media for more customer engagement, productivity, and increased profitability.
Terry is the former Chief Enterprise Blogger for Skype, former Editor-in-Chief for AT&T’s Networking Exchange blog, and former Chief Retail Advisor for ACE Hardware.
A master at his craft, Terry earned the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association and was inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Virtual Speakers Hall of Fame and he was recognized as a Legend by the Veteran Speakers Association.
Terry is also a Cavett Award recipient, recognized as the National Speakers Association’s “most cherished” award (only one per year).
GINA
As the CEO of Stark Raving Entrepreneurs, Gina Carr works with business leaders to leverage AI-powered marketing for more impact, influence, and income. Gina has an MBA from the Harvard Business School and an engineering degree from Georgia Tech. Known as “The Tribe Builder,” Gina helps passionate people build powerful tribes of raving fans.
A serial entrepreneur, Gina has created several businesses, including an award-winning real estate company, a chain of community magazines, and Video Rock Starz. She is the CEO of TEDxDupreePark. A native Atlantan, Gina now lives in Orlando with her sweetie Terry Brock. Gina is a passionate advocate for animals, freedom, and plant-based living!
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Thank you for joining us today.
Terry Brock & Gina Carr
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For your convenience, here’s a summary of this in Spanish:
En este episodio del podcast “Stark Raving Entrepreneurs”, titulado “AI and Sales-Mark Hunter Shows How to Build Sales with AI”, el anfitrión Terry Brock dialoga con Mark Hunter, un profesional destacado en el campo de las ventas, sobre cómo la inteligencia artificial (IA) está revolucionando las estrategias de ventas.
Mark comparte su experiencia y proporciona consejos prácticos sobre cómo utilizar la IA para mantener el contacto con los clientes y potenciar las ventas. En particular, relata cómo utiliza herramientas como ChatGPT para generar contenido relevante que responda a los problemas específicos de sus clientes, lo cual fortalece la credibilidad y mantiene un contacto constante sin presionar directamente por la venta.
Además, explica cómo repurposar este contenido en diferentes formatos como correos electrónicos, videos y publicaciones de blog para maximizar su alcance y efectividad.
La clave del éxito, según Mark, radica en ofrecer valor consistentemente y utilizar la IA como una herramienta inicial para luego personalizar y enriquecer la interacción con información y perspectiva propia.
Also for your convenience, here’s the transcript you can use:
Terry Brock [00:00:00]:
We know that AI is changing our world. And when you take AI and use it for sales and get more sales, hey. That’s a real good thing. Hi. I’m Terry Brock, and we work with entrepreneurs to help them to really build their business. We have a program called Stark Woreaving Entrepreneurs. And recently, we had a guest named Mark Hunter. He’s a certified speaking professional, one of the best in the world, and he is a fabulous person communicating how to sell and how you can do it.
Terry Brock [00:00:25]:
I wanna share that with you. I’m gonna let you see an inside peek at what we covered in this recent meeting. He gave some really good tips on how you can connect with those people that are prospected, nah, didn’t quite come through yet, but they might. How you can do that? Some specific techniques. So get your pen and paper or your note taking advice of choice ready to go, and join me as we talk to and hear from the amazing salesperson with great ideas, Mark Hunter. Well, now we get a chance to do something that I know you are going to love today because we get a chance to learn about sales. We’re gonna get a chance to learn from one of the best. This man, Mark Hunter, is a certified speaking professional.
Terry Brock [00:01:08]:
He is a consummate professional in sales, and I like the way he does it because the words pushy salesperson have been attributed to many others. Mark would be the exact opposite of that. He is a person who looks at you and helps you to meet your needs to find out how you can do that. I’ve been following him for many years. I’ve enjoyed also many of the videos that he sends out. That’s something you’ll wanna look into. Real solid usable ideas on selling through his site. We’re gonna make sure we get a chance to find out about that today, and he is gonna talk to us today about what’s going on.
Terry Brock [00:01:42]:
And particularly today, I’ve asked him to do something that he doesn’t normally do because, well, it’s brand new stuff, but he is doing it. And I know he’s doing some amazing activities with AI for sales. You can find out how to really turbocharge your sales working with that. Also, gotta say this, he and Sam Richter have worked together, had a pro special program a few I think it was a few years ago, and they had an offer where you could pay a certain amount of money, and I could get access to them counseling for life. Mark told me that I could do that, and he said, Terry, you do have to remain alive. So So I’m working on that. I’m gonna make sure that I stay alive so that I can make sure I get that. And Mark has been very giving helping me.
Terry Brock [00:02:26]:
Today, he’s here to help you. We wanna find out what we can do, what the new environment is like, what is working now that wasn’t working before, and what isn’t working today that was working before. Tools that are there, Mark has agreed to just open it up and tell you all kinds of good things that are going on and how you can use them. Ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming CSP Mark Hunter. Mark, welcome aboard.
Mark Hunter [00:02:53]:
Hey. Thanks so much for having me. Great to see you. Hey, Lois. Great to see you. Judith, I’m gonna do a shout out to Larry. So thank you that he’s singing singing my praises. Rebecca, great to see you.
Mark Hunter [00:03:03]:
Hey. It’s so good to see everybody. Hey. Hey. Here’s the deal. I I I’m gonna share with you a couple things. We’re gonna do a mash up. AI and sales, less stress.
Mark Hunter [00:03:14]:
K. Look. Look. Let’s not kid ourselves. I mean, when you say the word sales, it stresses a lot of people out. I’m gonna share with you an AI hack that I came up with a few months ago. I came up with it. I don’t know if I came up with it, but I’ve been using it, and it works great.
Mark Hunter [00:03:27]:
And it brings together AI and how we stay in touch with customers. But before I do that, let me share with you 3 quotes. I I want you to kinda sit on these and savor them. Consistency creates credibility. Think about that for a moment. Consistency creates credibility. Think about that with your clients, with people you wanna do work with. 2nd one, sales is about helping others see and achieve what they did not think was possible.
Mark Hunter [00:03:59]:
That’s my definition of sales. Sales is helping others see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible. It’s not jamming something down somebody’s throat. No. It’s truly helping them. But here’s the one that I love the most. If you have the ability to help someone, you owe it to them to reach out. So many times what happened is we have people who we know we can help, but we’re afraid to reach out.
Mark Hunter [00:04:22]:
Don’t be afraid because if I have problem, and trust me, you can ask my kid. My kids will tell you that I have plenty of problems. And if I had if, you know, and and you could help me fix one of my problems, I I I would want you to reach out. I I I would because if I found out later that you knew how to solve my problem and you didn’t reach out to me, I’d be I’d be disappointed. Yeah. So we owe it to people to do that. But here’s the challenge. How do we do this? How do we do this? So I’m gonna share with you an an AI hack that is absolutely cool because let’s think about this.
Mark Hunter [00:04:55]:
You probably have all got people who you’ve had a little bit of a conversation with. You know, maybe you connected with them one time, but, and you just and, you know, so I know. You’ve got them on your email newsletter list. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Come on. Let’s not get ourselves. Those don’t work as well as they used to.
Mark Hunter [00:05:15]:
What I found is this. I will take what’s a problem that I think they have? What’s a problem? I do a lot of work with sales teams, and I did this just the other night. I I I said, what are the what are the big reasons why salespeople don’t make quota? And guess what? I went out to AI. I asked Chad GPT what are the big reasons why salespeople don’t make quota? And Check GPT came back with with this whole list. It was sweet. It was awesome. So what I did was I just synthesized that a little bit, put it into a real quick 5 bullet points, and I emailed that out. And I emailed it out individually to a variety of VPs and sales.
Mark Hunter [00:05:57]:
Like I said, that’s my target audience. So you think I’m your target audience. You know what’s amazing? The responses I get, people say thank you. This is absolutely incredible. 2 weeks ago, I I I was talking to somebody and they said, hey, Mark. Do you have any ideas regarding coaching? How do you coach salespeople? Oh, yeah. I just went up to chat GPT, asked chat GPT, came back. And then I I took with chat GPT and I added some of my I always wanna add some of my flavor, some commentary.
Mark Hunter [00:06:23]:
I’m never gonna take what that says. You know, I always say chat GPT is a starting tool, not a finishing tool. We finish it. And I sit down and what I have found is this. This is a technique that I do over and over again. So I have created over the last, I don’t know, just last 6 months, I’ve created probably 20 or 30 of these just really quick emails, 1 pagers. Some of them are PDFs. Some of them are just emails, but I can send out.
Mark Hunter [00:06:53]:
Now think about the beauty of this. I can send this out to people and it’s a way that I stay top of mind with them because I’m now bringing them something that they want, that they need, they see value in, and they appreciate me. They thank me for it. And it’s amazing how, yeah, come on. Let’s not kid ourselves. You’ve got that person that you’ve called 4 or 5 times or you’ve emailed them out. I’m I’m just I’m just I’m just bugging them. I’m no longer bugging them.
Mark Hunter [00:07:26]:
I I I have had an individual, a company, specific person in the company that I have reached out to, according to my CRM assistant now, 30 times over the last 18 months, 30 times over the last 18 months. And it’s interesting. She called me the other day. She said, Mark, we’re about ready to make make a move. I’ll be back in touch with you in May. And and she did. She sent me an email this morning and said, Mark, we’re going to have a meeting and I want to have a meeting right after that with you. Now think about that.
Mark Hunter [00:07:55]:
I’ve stayed in touch with her, like I said, probably 20, 30 times over the last 18 months. Consistency creates credibility. But in those messages, was I selling? Well, yeah, I was selling. I’m a seller. Was I selling, Hey, buy me, buy me. No, never worked. I was just sharing with her insights, sharing with her ideas and strategies that she and her company could use to do their job better. You see, sales is about helping others see and achieve what they didn’t think was possible.
Mark Hunter [00:08:35]:
So the beauty of this strategy is I could have come up with this content myself. Oh, sure. I could. But by using chat GPT or any AI tool, boom, it’s instant. And oh, by the way, as brilliant as we think we are, again, I I made the upper half of my class possible, AI brings us so much more content, so much more clarity that I can do. So stop and ask yourself this question. What are some of the challenges that your current customers are dealing with or people who you want to deal with? Because this is a beautiful thing. I make each one of these based around maybe one conversation, one question I get from 1 person, but I make it.
Mark Hunter [00:09:25]:
You know what? Now I have this, and I can send this to 10, 15, 20 people. And I could send that out. That’s it. Now here’s where it gets even better. So I take this tool, AI, start to create this document. I send it out. I get some feedback. That’s great.
Mark Hunter [00:09:42]:
That’s good. Now what do I do? I take that exact same document, and I now do a video on it. I do a video. And then again, we can turn that into a blog post. Every Wednesday, I email to my email list a video, a blog post, which is basically enhanced transcription of the video along with some other information. And what’s amazing is since we’ve gone to this strategy, our email open rate has gone up dramatically. Why? Because every topic we choose to do a video has already been tested. I tested it by sending it out to 10 or 50 VPs of sales.
Mark Hunter [00:10:33]:
And if it doesn’t resonate with them, if I’m not getting comments from at least 1 or 2 of them, then then must not be very good. But if I’m getting comments back from 2 or 3 yeah. Jump in. If I
Terry Brock [00:10:42]:
can interrupt for a moment, what you’re saying is golden. This is really good. I wanna get even deeper on that. Could you give us some examples of what you did what was the content that you sent out so we can go, oh, yeah. Yeah. Like I said, give us just a few examples of what you’re doing.
Mark Hunter [00:10:55]:
Yes. You know what? Let let me share my let me see if I can share my screen here. Sure. Sure. You love
Terry Brock [00:11:01]:
to do that? Go for it.
Mark Hunter [00:11:02]:
Let’s let’s see. Am I set up to do that? Let’s see. Share screen. Okay. Hold on. Bear with me because let me let me open this up. I’m gonna open up a drive here. Hang with me for just a moment.
Terry Brock [00:11:12]:
Sure thing. Appreciate this.
Mark Hunter [00:11:14]:
Talk amongst yourselves.
Terry Brock [00:11:15]:
Yes. Yeah. Mark, what you’re saying, I think, is really golden. You’re giving them something of value. That’s the key.
Mark Hunter [00:11:20]:
Right. This is this is the
Terry Brock [00:11:22]:
key thing. Wonderful, buy my stuff. No. You’re saying here’s something really valuable and you’re there in a consistent way that really is important. You’re doing that with your Wednesday meetings. And by the way, everyone, I would encourage you look into this. There’s Wednesday videos every time I say I’m using that carefully. Every time I see it, I get value out of it.
Mark Hunter [00:11:42]:
And and see this whole thing, consistency creates credibility. Everyone okay. Now I I think you see there my drive open there. Do you see that PDF?
Terry Brock [00:11:51]:
It’s coming through just fine.
Mark Hunter [00:11:52]:
Right. So I have another one. So here’s one. Evaluate a new customer. Let’s just open this up. Bear with me. It’s on the cloud, so it’s got to pull it in first. I dropped my computer the other day.
Mark Hunter [00:12:07]:
I broke the screen, so I’m using an old computer. Yeah. Yeah. $800 later. I think all of us
Terry Brock [00:12:13]:
are hurting for you. We know.
Mark Hunter [00:12:15]:
Yeah. Okay. Let’s see. Now you can’t you can’t see questions to evaluate a customer. Right? Bear with me.
Terry Brock [00:12:22]:
Evaluate a new customer. We’re not seeing the picture of it.
Mark Hunter [00:12:26]:
You’re you’re not seeing the PDF. Okay. Just a moment here. Bear with me. I’m sorry. It’s embarrassing when you can’t get something to work right. Right? Okay. Okay.
Mark Hunter [00:12:42]:
So here we are. This is questions to evaluate a new customer. And this just team of I was having a conversation with VP of sales or somebody. And and it so then I I just went to chat GPT and asked that question, chat GPT. It came back to me. And then I just crafted this very quick one page. You see? It’s 9 points. Put it into a PDF form, and I email it out.
Mark Hunter [00:13:07]:
So some I don’t even put it into a PDF form. I literally just copy the text and drop it right into an email. But now think about this. Are you creating value? Yeah. I’m creating value for my target audience. So I’m gonna encourage you to think of those topics. Think of those questions your old customers have, your current customers have. Do kind of this one sheet around this and send this out.
Mark Hunter [00:13:33]:
Because what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna create a tremendous amount of conversation. But, oh, you know what I’ve also got here? Think about think about this for a moment. You you’re talking with a client. You’re talking with a potential. You say, hey. Could you give a 1 hour webinar? Could you do a webinar on something? Boom. You’ve got content right there ready. You see? What we’re doing is we’re pre building, pre packaging all of our content.
Mark Hunter [00:14:04]:
And that is that’s what makes this thing.
Terry Brock [00:14:11]:
I like that because you could take that and repurpose that into many different directions.
Mark Hunter [00:14:15]:
I can we can we repurpose it so many different ways. Like I said, like like in that example I had, there were 9. So we have 9 tweets we can do off of that. I have, oh, voice mails. I could sit there and leave a voicemail with somebody. Hey, just wondering if this is a problem you’re having. And then I can read off point number 2 or point number 4 or point number 6. You see, Rory Vague, terrific, brilliant individual.
Mark Hunter [00:14:40]:
He always says whenever you you come up with a piece of content, you wanna be able to repurpose it at least 5, 10, 15 times. We finally we’re finally catching up. We’re finally catching up. Yep. And and it all starts by using chat and working our way through. Oh, did I tell you the other way to do it? You go back to if you were at, well, I I don’t mean to but you’re at Thrive, the NSA conference. Thrive, there was a session on how to create an ebook in 3 hours or less. That’s exactly what we do here.
Mark Hunter [00:15:16]:
We can take this exact same content and blow it out into an ebook. Blow it out into a infographic. There’s so many different things you can do. Think about what you could do with this with DALL E.
Terry Brock [00:15:31]:
Yes. Creating just the perfect graphic.
Mark Hunter [00:15:33]:
Just perfect graphic. And what here here’s what I find. I’m selling with 0 stress. And more importantly, when I am selling, not only am I selling my current client that I’m trying to get into, trying to do more with, but I’m also creating content that I can share with 5, 10, 15, 20 other people. And, oh, by the way, what I do with this, and this is, again, this may be, you know, I mean, well, I don’t wanna do this. Guess what? I send those out. If they haven’t responded to me within a couple days, I can pick up the phone and call them. Hey.
Mark Hunter [00:16:08]:
You know, Tuesday, I sent you this. I don’t know if you have had a chance to take a look at it. And, again, I can create convert. This is an excellent way to create conversation with potential clients, with current clients. Because, again, how many times have we had people who have gone dark on us? Right? Right? We’ve all had people like that. They they they they engage us for something, but then they go dark. Now I can stay engaged. I I I did a keynote for a company that shared the gentleman’s name, Tyler.
Mark Hunter [00:16:41]:
And, Tyler was all ecstatic. But, boy, Tyler’s been caught up in his business in his business. But guess what? I I I dropped him, like, 4 of these over the last several months. Sure enough, about a week and a half ago, you reached back out and said, hey. I apologize. I’ve been so busy, but you’ve been sending me some great stuff. We do need to connect. Let’s get time on the calendar.
Mark Hunter [00:17:06]:
Boom. If I had been saying, hey, Tyler. Bye for me. Hey, Tyler. When are you gonna have me come back in for your next meeting? He probably would have ignored me. Would have blown me off.
Terry Brock [00:17:16]:
Mark, let me interrupt you for a moment here, Justin. What you’re saying is really, really good. We can do this. Where do you come up with the ideas on what do you want to say?
Mark Hunter [00:17:24]:
Yeah. And The ideas.
Terry Brock [00:17:25]:
And some what kind of prompts do you put in for that?
Mark Hunter [00:17:28]:
All I do is I just put in the topic of what it is that that I’m talking with with that person about. In other words, they they they said, hey. You know what? Our salespeople are not making quota. They’re just I mean, it it’s getting worse and worse. So then I just went to chat GPT and said, hey. Why are salespeople not making quota? Then I they came back with some answer. Then I came back and I just kept tweaking it. Just keep playing with it.
Mark Hunter [00:17:52]:
Again, I’m not sophisticated. I’m not as smart as you, Terry. Okay? I made the upper half of my class possible. But I I just play around with it enough, and I get enough feedback, and then boom, within 15 minutes, I’ve got this thing. Yeah. I’m like, Mark, I’m And it’s in my it’s in my language.
Terry Brock [00:18:11]:
You’re hitting the nail on the head there with that because what we need to do is look at it as a conversation with an expert. We’ve heard this all many times when you’re dealing with chat GPT with perplexity, with Claude, whatever it is, you’re having a, well, a chat with them. Yes. You’re going through asking more and more until you come up with just what it is that, is making people not meet quota. And when you find it, then you bring in your ideas, what I like to call new ize it. You’re putting in your ideas, the examples that you could bring that chat GPT doesn’t know
Mark Hunter [00:18:48]:
about.