Today on the Heath Barnes Show, I’m talking with someone who many of you will know, Hunter Marckwardt, a top-producing loan advisor for RPM Mortgage based in Danville, California. Hunter’s been in the industry for more than 20 years and has been a coach for more than 10. He has a great team who have been with him for a long time, and collectively they closed 205 loans with a $132 million value in 2019. In this episode, he shares some of his father’s advice that I believe really made him a great leader and contributed to the success of his team.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Being A Great Leader With Hunter Marckwardt

I’m excited to introduce Hunter Marckwardt. Many of you in the industry have heard of Hunter out of Danville, California. He has been in the business and a coach for several years. He is going to share with us some of the advice his father has given him that I believe has made him an unbelievable leader. His team has been with him a long time, and you are going to love it. I hope you enjoy this episode.

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My guest is Mr. Hunter Marckwardt at Danville, California. He is a personal friend, originator, and a wonderful father. How are you doing, Hunter?

I’m doing great, Heath. Thanks for having me.

When I started thinking about having you on the show, I was thinking, “The one thing Hunter can give any young loan officer or experienced loan officer is a piece of his wisdom when it comes to managing a team because you got a large team and they have been with you a long time.” That is one of the struggles most loan officers have in the business. Before we get into the teams, I want everyone to get to know Hunter a little bit. Tell me how did you get into the mortgage business. You probably, like most of us, were born with that dream.

I graduated from the University of Arizona degree in Finance. It has nothing to do with this job. It was ’96. I came out of school. There was a company called Nextel Communications. If anyone remembers the push to talk, you must listen to cell phones. I was door-to-door selling those. The next step for me was software. I’m in Silicon Valley. It’s Danville’s Bay Area. Silicon Valley was the thing to do at the time, maybe even still now, although I don’t think people realize how horrible the job it can be.

I got a job selling software. I was in that field for several years. It was an unbelievable experience but I also hated what I was doing. At the age of 28, I was driving home one day, the typical hour-and-a-half commute. I tell everybody that has heard the story. I had a junior midlife crisis. If you ever saw the movie Traffic, that was me. I started banging my hand on my steering wheel and couldn’t take it anymore. I got home and told my wife, “I had to get out of the business.”

Oddly enough, my dad was on the wholesale side of the mortgage industry. I called him. He is someone that I go to for a ton of advice, and I told him I couldn’t do it anymore. He was a proud father of his son in the software field, high-tech in Silicon Valley. I said, “What do you think about the mortgage business?” His comment, which is similar to yours, was, “The problem with our business is once you get into it, you can’t get out of it.” I said, “Screw it.” I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I went to work for a small brokerage shop. I was there for a couple of years. I have been at the company RPM for several years. I would say, “Me getting into the mortgage business was an escape from getting out of another business.”

What did you hate so much about the software business? A lot of people in the software business think it’s great.

It was very complex, and I was selling software that solved a problem that nobody knew they had yet, and the product didn’t work. I was a sales guy who they thought would be fun to get the sales guy in the room, having to do a presentation to fifteen engineers, and make fun of what an idiot he is on what he doesn’t know about engineering. You do that all day. I had to go three weeks into my job. This stuff I was selling until the integration software had to do with canonical models and helping disparate applications communicate with one another. I’m giving you an idea of how much fun that was.

They got me in. Three weeks into the job, I got to do a presentation to fifteen people at Enron in your town. I sweated through a suit. I had moons through my jacket. I had never been nervous in my life but I put up the bed. One of the guys in the room called my CEO and said, “Whoever your sales guy is, he is terrible.” I will say this to everybody reading, especially new sales reps, that three weeks into that job, I ended up three years later closing the biggest deal the company had ever seen.

Everyone has a target for what they want to achieve in life. Click To Tweet

When HP and Compact merged, our staff helped integrate those companies. I was the first sales rep that they hired. I thought I was going to get fired. I had to go to a presentation in front of my CEO. My VP of Sales said before the meeting, three months into the job, said, “Hunter, if you F this up, you are going home after this presentation.” My CEO is in the room with me, presenting to a venture capital company. I have never been so nervous in my life. I did okay with it. To end the story, I went through 3 CEOs, 35 salespeople, and 4 VPs of Sales. I left on my own terms. I refinanced fifteen people in that company when I got into the mortgage business.

There was so much turnover because of the way they treat their employee, “If you screw this up, you are out of here.”

Kim and I, my wife, were on our way to a beach house for Labor Day weekend. I’m pulling into this driveway to this beach house with four other couples. You know me well enough. I get decent anxiety. I’m on the phone with Mike H. He is now in Texas. He said, “You are going to be doing the presentation. If it doesn’t work, you are going to get fired. FYI.” It was unbelievable. Think about that one for a Labor Day weekend.

It reminds me of my first summit. For those of you that don’t know The CORE Training, Hunter has been a coach with The CORE Training for about nine years now in 2022. I was a coach for about five years. Every time you go to a summit as a new coach, you would do the finance class with Rick. He would give you plenty of prep preparation. It’s just, “You are going to be doing the class with me when I pointed at you.” That is when you tell your story. The class is an hour and a half long. In my head the whole time, I’m wondering, “When is he going to call on me? Am I going to get the story right? There are 100 people out listening to the class.”

He looks at me, and I’m in my head thinking about what I’m saying. He catches me off guard and says, “Heath, what was it like for you?” I said, “It was tough, Rick.” There was dead silence. Rick looks at me, and he keeps talking. The next morning, on Saturday, I don’t know if you remember this, but he was like, “Heath, two words. Are you kidding me? It’s tough. I don’t think you can stay here as a coach.” I will never forget Josh Sigman and Scott Foreman. They both raised their hand and said, “No, he is going to be all right.” I know what it feels like to have an enormous amount of anxiety and be bombed. One thing you haven’t bombed at is doing loans.

Another thing you haven’t bombed at is building a team. I am jealous of the fact that you have eight hot women that are not only attractive but nice. They know the mortgage business. They have been with you a long time. Tell me about Erica because I have called her many times and tried to bribe her to come to Houston but she is not interested. Tell me about your team.

I got a great team. The bottom line is I got Erica, who you mentioned. I hired Erica several years ago. I consider her my business partner because she has been such an asset. From a core perspective, she’s the team captain. I’m more on the strategic side of how we are dealing with the team. She is in operations, dealing with our people. She also does a great job talking to clients but puts out all the fires. If you look at her job description, it’s solving 90% of the problems before I see them.

I have Tina, Holly, and Michelle, who fall fit the bill. We hired Paula, who will follow that same role, which is LP II, Loan Partner II, as it relates to The CORE. I am making some tweaks where we are moving Holly to more of what we are calling a pre-approval specialist. We can differentiate the timelines that are spent on pre-approving loans and having the rest of the folks do. You have one person doing a loan app for pre-approval.

We are in a space where everything has to be dialed in up front because a lot of it’s jumbo, and it’s easy for those loans to get off track. We are diligent upfront in the pre-approval stage. It’s different from a pre-call or a quick review. We are assuming someone is going into contract with no loan, no appraisal contingencies, and everything has to be dialed in. The pre-approval specialist is important. The contract to close is going to be where Paula, Michelle, and Tina are in.

 

I got Brigitte, who is my admin assistant. I don’t give her the justice and love she deserves. She helps my world go around. She is in charge of my calendar, our gifting program, and the content that we do in our team meetings. Anytime we have quarterly meetings, semi-annual meetings, and annual meetings, she is responsible for not necessarily the content but putting it together for everyone so that everyone is always hitting on all cylinders.

Hillary, who is my sister. She has been with us since 2021. She is in charge of business development. That has been tough during COVID, especially in California, where everyone is on total lockdown. When the dust settles a little bit, she will be more out in the field talking to new business partners and hopefully creating relationships there. That’s what it looks like.

Erica has been with you for several years, and I know all the other beautiful women have been with you for a long time. I’m curious. Why do you believe that these loan partners have been with you so long on your team? What is it that you do, say or advice would you give someone that is maybe struggling like myself to keep people on the team for a long time?

It’s a complicated question because there are certain things I don’t think you can fake. You can’t fake caring about someone. We went through an exercise on coaching. One of them was like, “To understand your priorities, put a bullseye together.” You think of a bullseye. You got the inner circle and four outer circles. You start going, “Where are my priorities?”

Your priorities, what you want, and what you are, are different things a lot of the time. I was running, thinking about it because Rick made a comment. It’s something to think about for everybody reading this. He said, “You are not heard as much as you are watched.” I think of my own boys. They are not overly interested in what I have to tell them but they are watching me. If someone reports to you, they have to listen to you but they are also watching you. Are your actions in alignment with your words?

My point is that when I think of what I was put on this Earth to do or at least something that brings me total joy, it’s not this altruistic sales pitch. I legitimately enjoy helping people. It’s important for me to help my team. If you think about it, whether or not you are thinking about it, altruistically, selfishly or whatever, if you help the people that are closest to you. If I invest in my team and my team feels good about coming to work every day, they are treated not fairly but overly fair. I don’t mean around compensation but time.

We go through planning together. We go through something that we are working on each week together. It’s like the wheel of life. We pick one topic every week, and we’re all focused on that. We do book reports. That sounds like if you brought this up to me several years ago, I’m like, “Are you freaking kidding me? It sounds dumb.” We do book reports and budgeting. We help save money and pay off debt. We do charity work together.

We are all in with one another. When you do that, what do you think happens when those people are talking to your clients? What do you think happens when they are talking about your business and your business partners? They are not doing it out of necessity. They are doing it out of gratitude. They are doing it because they are proud to be on the team. When you have people that are proud to be a part of something because of how you’ve treated them, then you are going to get a different outcome, which includes longevity, energy, and desire to be a positive representation of our team. When you put everyone together, that’s why everyone is still here. I would like to believe that no one is going anywhere.

One of the things you said that I like is that you genuinely care for them. Sometimes when you hire someone new, it’s tough to know what is important to them. How can you hit the bullseye? How can you make them feel cared for? Sometimes we forget by sitting down, having a conversation, and saying, “I want you to know that you are important. I want to make sure I’m doing a good job. What can I do to make you feel cared for?” People will tell you. For some people, it’s time, words or promotion but everyone has a target. That’s awesome.

You have to think through your decisions up front and not be emotional about them. Click To Tweet

If someone is on the call and they are a newer loan officer and struggling with, “Should I hire a team member or not?” I was coaching a guy, and he was asking me the same question. He was doing 3 or 4 loans. I’m curious about your opinion. To all the people you’ve coached in the several years, when do you tell people to hire a team?

It helps people to have metrics around stuff because you make actual decisions as opposed to emotional decisions. If you are closing 5 or 6 loans a month, you should probably start considering a team member. For every 5 or 6 loans a month, you should have a team member. If you are closing twelve loans a month, you should probably have a couple of people on your team if you want a business where you are out doing what you do well, and there are other people doing stuff that they do well. Let’s face it. We are salespeople. I am horrible at the process. We need to have people that help me with that. It’s key.

To answer your question, if you are closing six loans a month, you probably need to consider hiring someone. If you want a long-term, it all depends. I know a lot of people, even in my office, that are highly successful, that don’t have anybody, and they close ten loans a month. They are less on the sales side and more on the execution side. To me, it’s the magic combo when you have execution with some sales skills.

I got to get out of my own way. I learned this from my dad. If someone can do something 80% as well as I can, I need to delegate it. My highest and best use, when you are thinking about what a day looks like for us, a day, for me, where I’m happy is when I’m in my green time mode. If I’m out talking to business partners, clients and getting leads in the door, that’s where I’m great.

If I got to look through a bunch of files, I would assume it off myself. I hate it. I got to have people that do that for me. The key is that I want to grow my business. If you are doing six loans consistently and want to grow, you want to consider hiring one person. People want to have a team. I don’t know why. Leading people is not necessarily easy, and you need to have work for them to do.

It’s always easy to find their work to do, especially if you are doing 5 or 6 deals a month. That first person, what would they be doing?

You need a technical person. If you think about Loan Partner II, as far as everyone having an understanding of it, there are pieces of it. On my team, it has always been someone that can handle pre-approval to close. That is what you need. The second hire for me is administrative. You hire an LP II, and you hire an LP I. I hired someone that could help me get the loans through the system. I get the loans off my plate. I’m still on the front end. Salespeople are more like LP I. You are talking to clients and getting basic information. I then get it to someone else.

The next step is you get an LP I that can help you with your organization, calendar, gifting program, and thank you notes. They keep you on track. Brigitte, who is my right-hand person, makes sure that I’m on track. I look at her and tell her that she is my boss. If she doesn’t hold me accountable to make sure that my day happens, then she has no use for me. She is in my ear. I give her permission. I played tricks on myself all the time. If I tell her I’m going to make X amount of phone calls, and I don’t do it, she will get a stack of money in her drawer and takes it out. We do stuff like that.

I was coaching a young loan officer. He had been in the business for several years. He is talking about hiring a team member. He brought up a guy that had been working with him for about eight months. He was going to pay him 30 basis points. I’m thinking, “He’s not technical.” It has been easier to give him 30 basis points. For those reading, basis points stay in your pocket.

 

I like that point of having a great technical person that should be the best first hire. Speaking of money, is there a range? All around the country, people are always asking, “What should I pay?” Do you have any suggestions on pay or range of pay? I know it’s going to be based on how long they have been in the business and what business you are doing.

We are in the middle of COVID. Most of the people on my team are remote, which I hate. They all know I hate it but I also can’t expect people to live in the Bay Area because it’s too expensive. Here is what I would tell everybody, including myself and you, which is that people need to prove themselves for six months. I pay well. If you look at Brigitte, her income had gone up 1.5X to 2X when she joined me. All of our roles on the technical side are between 70 in 100-ish. Erica is at a different level now because she is more of my partner than anything else. She’s 1 in 1,000.

Everybody needs to come onboard. When you are talking about your 30 basis points, people come on board with some package that they don’t deserve, and you don’t know if it’s the right fit. I brought on this other person, and she has a relatively low comp. It’s not a comp that I would expect to keep her at. I told her, “Flat out. We are going to re-review your comp at the end of six months with the idea that we will adjust it if everything is working out like we want it to.” Out of the gates, you set false expectations up front like this person with 30 basis points that you are talking about. Someone on my team making 30 basis points would make $800,000. You have to be careful where you take these things. You make a decision on day one and can’t go backward on comp. You have to think it through up front, not be emotional about it and get it right. I have been on both sides of that argument.

I learned this a long time ago. You want to pay someone but you want to pay someone a fair amount for your market. If they are going to come to work for you because they are paying you more money, they are going to leave you because someone else is paying them money. Money is rarely the reason why someone is coming to work for you.

The other thing I would say, from a leadership perspective, is that no one on my team has ever had to ask for a raise.

It’s because they are generous.

It’s not scalable if you are running 2,000 people. If you treat people well, you are going to get more out of it than making an extra whatever by being frugal.

I remember, early in my career, hiring people and forgetting the fact that people want a roadmap. They want to know where they are going. They want to know what the future looks like. Talking about that upfront is important, and also reviews, having a 30, 60, 90-day review and 6-month review. When you are starting off with a new team member, there are a lot of things that are going through their head. It’s good to check in with them. Any thoughts on that?

The word I love and a new word for me, and it was brought about because Erica yelled at me. Erica called Kim several months ago. She said, “You need to work with your husband.” They conspire against me. They are like, “I call one’s work wife. One’s my wife’s life.” Erica had called Kim, and it’s in the middle of us trying to close 55 to 60 loans a month but it’s a team of 4. We were dying. One of my team members was crying, and I thought about it. I was like, “I care about my people but having empathy is different than caring.” Having empathy is reversing the lens.

Having empathy is reversing the lens and looking at your members with care. Click To Tweet

One of my members would never complain about anything but Tina is a single mom. She got to do all of her work. She also has to go home. She has to make dinner and breakfast for her daughter. She got to get her daughter on Zoom because everything is remote. It didn’t dawn on me. I care about Tina a great deal but I never reversed the lens.

My point in telling you that, Heath, is that when you have someone that has been on your team for 30, 60 or 90 days, you have to think about how comfortable you are in your own skin. They are not. They are several days into a new job with a new team and leader. You have to give them the honest feedback that they deserve to make sure that it’s going to work out long-term. You have to do effective reviews.

The other thing I was going to say too is you have to tell people up front what they are signing up for. For guys like you and me, understand that if you are newer and developing your team, what do you want your team to look like? What do you want your culture to look like? I tell the people that are interviewing with us. I’m like, “We are weird. We do weird things. We do book reports. If you are open to it, I want to see your budget. I want to help you save and make more money. We talked about goal planning. If you want a job, I’m not the right fit.”

Set those expectations up front in the interview process. If someone doesn’t show up and go 90 days into it, you go, “This isn’t what I thought it was going to be.” Including that review part that you said. You are like, “We are going to look at your 30, 60, 90 days to make sure that we are tracking how we should be.”

Those reviews are super beneficial. You do a review, and everyone is always worried about, “What am I doing wrong?” When you have the review, it’s you praising them for everything they are doing right because it’s hard enough taking on a new job. People are naturally self-critical. When they hear you say, “You are doing a great job.” I like the way you talk to people on the phone. I like how you do things, either you help out around the office.

Sometimes even recognizing those things that may be they are doing surface level to expose it so that they see that it is important. I don’t know about you but especially with a new employee, I like to meet with them once a week for fifteen minutes so that you can maybe correct things. Do you have any advice for weekly meetings on new employees and how that works?

Erica and I are daily. Training-wise, the best training on the planet is watching other people. Paula is on Zoom calls all day with Tina, Michelle, and Holly, because those are the roles that she is going to be filling. They are talking to her. I need them to do their jobs but they are watching and talking as they are going through their day. Once every day, there is a fifteen-minute slot for Erica and myself to touch base with Paula.

With Paula for me, it’s like, “Paula, give me a couple of questions that you have. Let me know what you are learning. Let me know how your day is going. How do you feel about the team?” I told Erica, “I had an epiphany because I jumped on the phone with Paula. I had nothing to say to her outside.” I said to Paula, “The reason we are talking is that I want to touch base with you once a day to make sure that you are doing okay. Now that I think about it, I should be helping you with the culture side and the goal planning side of our team.”

The team was teaching her the day-to-day tactics and how to get things done. I call myself 15,000 to 30,000 feet, and the team members are 0 to 15,000 feet. For the first 30 days, once a day, say hello and hold them accountable. I’m like, “I’m going to come to you every day with a couple of questions. I want you to ask me a couple of questions.” We do that in every team meeting. It sounds nuts but you got to ask me a question every day. It can’t be a specific file related. It should be in general. It started off weird, and now we all enjoy it. I learned from it too.

 

Ask them to bring up a problem because they should have a problem every day, something that’s not going right. After this call, we will put together a list of 10 pitfalls or 10 things any new loan officer would want to know. You spoke about your dad earlier, and I know your dad taught you a lot but I’m curious, what are the 1 or 2 lessons that your dad taught you that you want to make sure your two boys learn and pass on to their kids?

One would be planning ahead. That’s where Sunday’s thoughts came from. My dad taught me Sunday thoughts of something that I see out, and you haven’t sent it out. Heath knows about them. I have been sending them out for several years every Sunday. Be proactive in understanding what your week is going to look like. The lesson that I learned from my dad, specifically, everything he did, he planned for.

When you plan, you have less anxiety. You feel more dialed in going into something, as opposed to either procrastination or winging it. I would say, “Plan.” If you spend 30 minutes or 1 hour on a Sunday to look at what your week ahead looks like, it will make your week more intentional and purposeful and make sure that you are doing everything you should be doing. That’s number one.

Number two is to honor your word. I don’t know why I keep talking about Rick but he did this exercise with this coach. The coach has called one time where he said, “If you take your left arm and put it all the way out to your side, say that’s your intention. You take your right arm. You put it all the way out to the side and say that is your action.” It’s like, “Your words are what your actions are.” What is your intention all the way on the left-hand side? What are your actions all the way on the right-hand side? If your arms are spread out all the way like wings, your intentions and your actions are completely off track. It means you are full of crap about what you preach and what you do.

I tell you that I’m a huge family man, and I love my team. On the right-hand side, I’m drinking and a philander. You are getting hammered and doing drugs. You are far apart. When your hands are connected and when you bring your hands together out in front of your chest, and they are linked, that’s when your intentions and your actions are in alignment with one another. I would say that my dad’s intentions and actions were always close together. He is the perfect example for me of what I talk about in what you said, which is, are your actions in alignment with your words? Anyone will want to be a part of what you got. He is a respectful, good human.

We sometimes judge others by their results and judge ourselves by our intentions. We forget that everyone is doing the best they can. Speaking of a word, I had an issue where we didn’t send out a pre-approval on time, and things weren’t happening on time. Whenever I look at a team member, and I want to be critical of what they are doing, I always pause and think, “What am I doing that’s either causing this or what am I doing that’s being the example of it?”

I was thinking about you, Hunter, because I was thinking I was about to get those Sunday thoughts that I wrote out two pages of how can I be on time to every single meeting and putting together strategies because I found myself every meeting running over? That’s being someone that holds their word is being where you said you are going to be at the time you said, and prepared and listening to what’s going on. In this business, we often run from meeting to meeting. We do, and you forget being present with another human being, and listening to them is impactful.

The other thing I got to throw out there for everybody that is reading this is if you think of anyone that you respect, admire, like, and trust, more than likely, you can rely on those people. You think of five people that you like, trust, respect, and admire. You think of five people that you don’t like, trust, respect, and admire. More than likely, when you talk about showing up on time and prepared, those five people that you trust, like, admire, and respect would probably show up on time and are reliable. Reliable is not a very sexy word but it’s important.

When you don’t show up on time, just say, “I apologize. I was not here. I disrespected you. I got no excuse other than I wasn’t here. Will you accept my apology?” Everyone wants to accept somebody else’s apology. They don’t want to hear us, “It’s traffic. It was awful.” That sounds like an excuse.

Sometimes you need to pull people, and sometimes you need to appreciate where people are and what they need. Click To Tweet

They don’t want to hear it twice. Fix it and get it right.

I want to thank you, Hunter, because I called you and said, “I’m going to be in town.” You saved two hours for me. We went to lunch and had a great time. I appreciate you picking up the tab. I owe you one. I will assume to make that up to you. The impact that meeting had on me was that it allowed me to change my hotel for the event that I was at, which was in Amplified.

I changed the event and got to spend some time with my good friend, Jane Floyd and Austin. Kelly Zitlow. I got into a conversation one night with Kelly Zitlow, who’s also a coach with The CORE. She talked about losing her mother, who was also her best friend. It was devastating because it was like one minute she was here, and several months later, she was gone.

I asked her about that time, what was going on and what had an impact. Rick said, “What can I do to help you?” She said, “I want to stay at work. I want to stay coaching. I got one request. I want Hunter as my coach.” Why do you think she wanted you as your coach? I know what she said but I’m curious why you think you have that impact on people.

I’m honored. Thank you for saying that. I appreciate Kelly saying that. When you are coaching people, there’s a balance between pushing and pulling people. Sometimes you need to push people. Sometimes you need to pull people. You need to appreciate where people are and what they need. I don’t want Kelly sulking. I want to get Kelly out of the current situation that she’s in, and at the same time, I respect the fact that she lost her mom. I know that her mom is an incredibly important person to her. This whole thing happening was catastrophic for her to the most important person in her life.

The bottom line is that if people know that you care about them, they will do more with you and for you. There will be more willing to help themselves as well. Kelly knows that I care about her. I love her, and we were going to get through it together. She felt more comfortable with me doing that versus someone else grinding away at her, saying, “The only way you are going to get past your mom’s passing is to grind it out every day and put your emotional stuff on the shelf.” She and I talked about the whole thing but it still went forward.

Before I get to where people can get in touch with you if they need to, I want to acknowledge you, Hunter, for the care you have for people, the passion that you show in the game of life, the journey you are leading, making an impact in people every day. Most of all, the courage you show all the time by showing vulnerability because it happens over and over. I’m always amazed. That is one of the special things about Hunter. If people want to contact you for any reason, what’s the best way for them to contact you?

I’m embarrassed to say this. I need to up my social media presence. I will probably give them my email address for now or my cellphone. I don’t care if people call me or not. I felt my cell phone is (925) 575-0086. I’m always happy to talk to anybody.

Before I let you go, you got to give it to me. You know what it is. Hunter’s got this great story about when he was a salesperson at Nextel. Maybe it’s because you and I are around the same age but for any young salesperson out there that are looking for a way to motivate yourself, Hunter has got a story that might help that. Can you share that with the readers?

 

You and I are always talking about that being your favorite story but I don’t know how I talked about this at the end of this thing. Honestly, it’s important for people because we are all in sales. Sales is rejection. It’s like baseball. If you are batting 30% in sales, you are a freaking rock star. In my first job out of college, in Nextel Communications, I’m selling phones door to door. Anybody that’s in the Bay Area, Benicia Industrial Park. I would sit there.

My dad and I went to Nordstrom, and he bought me 2 suits and 2 pairs of Allen Edmonds, 1 black, and 1 brown. I wore the soles out, walking door to door but what I would do is I would get in my car and blast the song by Chumbawamba, I Get Knocked Down but I Get Up Again. I would listen to the entire song. I would jump out of my car and go door to door. I’m like, “I’m a Hunter Marckwardt, Nextel Communications. Would you like to buy a phone?” They are like, “No. Get that out.”

The best part for everybody reading is I was 0% of quota, three months in a row. In my fourth month, I was 400% of the quota. It worked. The bottom line is that you got to change your attitude and energy. You got to make things that are hard. You got to make them fun somehow. That was my way of making that fun, and it worked.

That’s great advice. Make it fun, put on your favorite song. We can’t have a bad day because it’s Friday and I have got to spend a little time with my good friend, Hunter. I appreciate it. Thanks for being on being on the show. Thank you very much, Hunter.

It’s my pleasure. Take care.

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There you have it. Another great episode. Don’t forget to check out our website at HeathBarnes.com, and you can find out more about all the ways we can help you. That’s it for this episode. Have a great week, and we will talk next time.

 

Important Links

• Hunter Marckwardt – LinkedIn
• The CORE Training
• HeathBarnes.com