Chasing leads feels productive. It keeps you moving, keeps you busy. But the real payoff? That comes when the business you want starts coming to you.
The best sales professionals are not just chasing, they’re building streams of inbound opportunities.
The Trap of the Transactional Mindset
Chasing is natural in sales. Every high-performer does it. But chasing with a transactional mindset means you’re always thinking “How do I close this deal?” rather than “How do I create long-term value here?”
It’s a subtle shift, but it’s the difference between a short-term sale and a long-term business.
“Chasing is a transactional mindset. What I want you to do is shift your mindset, even when you’re chasing, to creating relationships.”
Transform Every Lead Into a Relationship
Treat each prospect like the start of something bigger. Build genuine relationships, not just deals to check off a list. That means staying top of mind, serving in more ways after the initial sale, and helping your customers to connect you with others.
Referrals and introductions grow from real service, not quick transactions.
Create Value and Become Attractable
Attracting leads starts with being attractable. People need to see genuine value in what you do, and they need to hear it from others, not just you.
Here’s how to start:
- Talk to current and former customers.
- Find out what they appreciate about your work.
- Stay in touch and nurture those relationships—they turn into advocates.
“I call up old customers. It’s just to re-engage, to make sure things are good. What this does is allow me to create advocates.”
Stay in Your Lane and Stay Consistent
You don’t need to be everywhere. You need to be where your best customers are, and you need to be there consistently.
If your buyers are on LinkedIn, show up on LinkedIn. If you’re a solopreneur, build an email list, no matter how small, and share valuable content regularly. Out of sight truly is out of mind.
Quality content isn’t about bragging. It’s about offering insights, solving problems, and building trust over time.
“You want to be known for solving a specific problem. The tighter you become, the more valuable you’ll be.”
Making Your Outbound Work Count
Don’t quit on outbound activity. Cold calls, emails, and direct outreach are necessary. But when prospects already know you because they’ve read your content, or heard from someone you’ve helped, it’s a much easier conversation.
When inbound and outbound strategies work together, everything accelerates. Outbound becomes warmer, and inbound starts to snowball.
Referrals: Give to Get
Want more referrals? Focus on how many you GIVE each week, not how many you hope to receive. Give generously and track it—giving three referrals is a solid weekly goal.
Here’s the secret: When you have strong online presence and a reputation for sharing value, you’re ten times easier to refer. People will send business your way because it’s simple to say, “Go read their stuff” or “Watch their videos.”
Balance Content Creation With Sales Activity
Avoid the trap of spending all day on content. Yes, content builds a following, but you won’t close deals waiting for inbound. Block out time for prospecting. Make the calls. Send the emails.
Building authority takes time—years, even. The best time to start was yesterday. The next best is now. Plant seeds and stay consistent.
Relationship Mindset Drives Real Results
As you chase, don’t just focus on closing. Focus on building relationships that deliver ongoing value. Help customers in ways they aren’t expecting. That’s how loyal advocates and repeat business are created.
Build your reputation. Deliver value. Referrals and inbound leads will start to flow your way.
The best salespeople get it done on both sides: outbound and inbound. And they do it with confidence and integrity.
Mark Hunter :
It’s time you stop chasing leads and rather you move to a focus of attracting leads. Because I’ll tell you what, when you’re attracting leads, it’s amazing what happens. Hey, why am I talking? Let’s get the show going.
Meridith Elliott Powell :
Right now you’re listening to the Sales Hunter podcast with Mark Hunter where the focus is to help you as a salesman sell with confidence and integrity. And now, here’s your host.
Mark Hunter :
I want you to stop chasing leads. Okay? Now there’s nothing wrong with chasing leads. I do it all the time in my business. But what I want you to do is I want you to really begin saying, how do I attract more leads? Now what this eventually does is it eventually replaces the need to chase because you are truly attracting. Don’t ever get out of the habit of chasing leads. So please, because that’s a muscle, you got to keep going. But hey, let’s dive into this because here’s the thing. Chasing is a transactional mindset.
Mark Hunter :
I get it, I do it when I’m chasing leads. It’s a transactional mindset. But what I want you to do is I want you to shift your mindset even when you’re chasing, to creating relationships. This is where I want you to be focused on. It’s about creating relationships that are going to allow you to have a long term stream of opportunities. This is going to come from not only you serving the customer in more ways after this initial sale, but they introducing you to others in their company, others in their organization, you introducing them to others, or maybe they are referrals from outside. We’ll talk more about referrals in a bit here. But what I want you to look at is every lead that you chase.
Mark Hunter :
I want you to shift your mindset from saying, this is going to be a transaction. This is the deal. I’m going to get this quarter to one where it’s saying, I’m going to create a long term stream of business. Now how do you go about doing that? Okay, it’s about really being attractable. You have to create a level of attraction with the value and positioning of who you are. Now, the best way to do this is to talk to some of your existing customers. Talk to your existing customers and find out what they’re saying about you. Now here’s what’s really powerful.
Mark Hunter :
While you’re talking to your existing customers and finding out, hey, help me understand what is the value I’ve been able to create for you and what are the things I’ve been able to do. I do this Every week I call up old customers and it’s just to re engage with them and make sure that things are good and how can I help them better. And what this does is it allows me to create advocates. And when I’m creating advocates, guess what? They start telling others about me. I had this just happen last week, okay? Last week I had an inbound opportunity that came because of a client I worked with six or seven years ago who in turn shared my name with somebody else. You see, what I’m doing is I’m using my existing clients, my old clients, staying in touch with them and doing it. Okay, now what’s the next piece? Next piece is I’ve got to be sharing insights consistently. Because here’s the whole thing, out of sight, out of mind.
Mark Hunter :
And this is a reason why. And you know, I’ve talked a lot about this. You got to stay in your pool, stay in your lane, stay in your icp, your ideal customer profile. Again, you can’t create enough content or be so well known that the whole world knows you. No, stay in a very tight space. But what you gotta be doing is you gotta be sharing insights consistently. Content is gonna build your pipeline. Now content is also gonna become more valuable the longer you share it.
Mark Hunter :
So the question you have to ask yourself is, what are you sharing on social media? Now I’m going to break this down for both companies and solopreneurs, so hang with me for a moment here. You know, what are you sharing on social media? This is both as a company and individual. What are you doing in terms of trade shows if you’re a company? What are you doing in terms of your website? What are you doing in terms of online events? In other words, as a company you have to create a steady state stream of awareness building stuff out there. I see this all the time. I’m asked to work with companies to help them build sales teams and they have a great product, but they have no online presence. The marketplace does not know them. What does that do? That puts the salesforce automatically behind the eight ball because now they can make their calls, but nobody knows them. So chances are it’s going to be even harder for prospects to even want to say, hey, I’ll even talk to you.
Mark Hunter :
No, they just don’t. Now if you’re a solopreneur, this is really going to come down to your online content. Your online content, your email list. Yes, you’ve got to be building an email list. I don’t care how small it is, it may start off with one. Your Mother, I don’t care. Start it and be sending something to them on a regular basis. I’ve been doing it weekly for probably 20 some years now.
Mark Hunter :
You’ve got to be out there. Now, in my own business, we’ve had a consistent strategy, a really, a complete strategy for well over 10 years. Like I said, we’ve had the email list for 20 some years, but we’ve had things where we post regularly on LinkedIn and LinkedIn is our go to tool. Okay? Now we supplement that with Instagram and some other things. But LinkedIn, in other words, we stay in the space where our customers are and we keep putting content out there. And again, what I’m doing is I’m building up. This does two things. Remember the term SEO, search engine optimization? That’s been replaced with answer engine optimization.
Mark Hunter :
And again, the content you’re putting out there, what you’re doing is absolutely engaging. Now here’s the whole thing, and I hate to break the news to you, nobody’s going to know how good you are until you tell them how good you are. Yeah, I know that’s creepy to say, but here’s the whole thing. You have to do it. And it’s about the content that you share. Now, it’s not bragging on yourself. I hate that. I hate that.
Mark Hunter :
But what you want to be doing is you want to be having a steady stream of content. And it’s easier than, it’s easier than it’s made out to me. Now, you know, in my business, you’re listening to this right now as a podcast. So you’re right. I have a podcast, I have videos, I have LinkedIn content, I have an email list and I have books. So you’re right. I have across a number of platforms. And you say, mark, I can’t replicate that.
Mark Hunter :
You don’t try to replicate that all at once. You just start with one. We started with just the email list and from that then we just slowly built and there’s all kinds of strategies that you can use the content in multiple formats, multiple ways. Okay, I want to get off that, that, that tangent there. But what I’m saying is that if you’re a solopreneur and even if you’re a marketing, if you’re a marketing team for a company, it’s easier to put content out there than you realize. Just make sure you’re putting out their quality. And what you do, it is you want to be known for solving a specific problem. The tighter you become, the more valuable you’ll be.
Mark Hunter :
If you look at anybody who has a great presence out there. Let’s use Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary Vaynerchuk, wow. He’s everywhere. He’s everywhere. No, he started off with just wine. He became an absolute wine expert, and that’s what he became known for. And it was only after he was absolutely well known did he begin to branch out.
Mark Hunter :
He didn’t branch out. From the beginning, Brene Brown used shame, Shame. That’s what she focused in on. Beauty. Absolutely. Known for solving a specific problem. The tighter you become, the more valuable you’ll be. And what will happen is because, remember, it’s a big world out there.
Mark Hunter :
There’s a lot of players out there. Even if you’re in a very tight icp, people will find you. And again, this is how you attract customers. Now, it also does something else for you. While you’re doing this, while your company’s doing this or you’re doing this, you’re also chasing. I totally get that total. But you know what’s interesting? It makes your chasing be that much more valuable. You’re chasing the outbound work that you’re doing.
Mark Hunter :
I do outbound all the time. I’m constantly reaching out. And it’s amazing how when I’m reaching out to people in my icp, they will say, oh, yes, I thought I had this just happen. Just the other day, person I was reaching out to said, yeah, there’s somebody in our office who reads your newsletter every. Every week when it comes out. Now stop and think about that. You see, by putting the content out there where you’re trying to drive inbound, it makes your outbound be that much more valuable. You see, it is a circular approach to helping you be more effective as a salesperson.
Mark Hunter :
Now, what’s the next strategy? Next strategy is referrals. You knew I had to talk about this, right? Referrals. You can’t spend enough time on this. Now, here’s whole situation. In order to get referrals, you got to give referrals. And I want you to set as a goal, not the number of referrals that you’re going to get. I want you to set as a goal the number of referrals you’re going to give every week. I have a goal to give three referrals.
Mark Hunter :
And I’ll tell you what, over the years, it works. I get referrals back. But here’s something absolutely fascinating about referrals. When I give referrals, somebody else’s name, somebody else’s company to do something, the customer many times goes to the web. And what do they do? They’re looking to see what kind of presence they are. You see, what’s interesting is you increase your referability when you have a greater presence online. It’s amazing because now you become that much easier to refer. And I’ve had this happen.
Mark Hunter :
I’ve had people who have referred me and said, mark, you’re very easy to refer because I just say, go to the guy’s website, take a look at it, or go to see this post on LinkedIn or this book or YouTube video, whatever it might be. You see, again, it’s this circular approach. And when you take this circular approach, it is amazing at how much more productive and how many more customers you’re going to have the ability to serve. Now, let’s break down this time element because it can be very easy for you to sit there and say, I’m going to spend all my day just creating content and putting content out there, and I’m going to be all over social media. And you know what? You can do that and you will starve to death. You will absolutely starve death. This has to be done in a balanced manner. In other words, if you are just starting out, you’ve got to be on the phones, you got to be on email, you got to be.
Mark Hunter :
You got to be making calls. Because I’ll tell you what, putting content out there deliberately, very focused, very specific content, it takes time to build. It takes time and it could easily take two, three years. We just recently, in my own company myself, I found out that I’d been on LinkedIn for 20 years. People say, mark, you have hundreds of thousands of followers. Well, I’ve been on LinkedIn for 20 years. See, it does not happen overnight. But here’s the thing.
Mark Hunter :
People always say, when’s the best time to plant a tree? 20 years ago. When’s the second best time? Today. Yeah, today. So you start, and you just start sharing a little bit of content and engaging with people and creating a community. So you may block aside an hour a day, you may block half an hour a day, may have blocked 90 minutes, whatever it might be. But make sure that you’re still doing your prospecting because initially you are going to be absolutely, without a doubt chasing. But remember, when you’re chasing, don’t have a transactional mindset to get one deal. What I want you to do is have a transact, have a relationship mindset to where your focus is on developing a relationship to be able to help that customer in more ways than they might realize.
Mark Hunter :
That’s how you’re going to build your business. Hey, my name is Mark Hunter, the Sales Hunter. This is the Sales Hunter podcast. Do me a favor, pick up my book Integrity First Selling. Because again, I break down and there are a lot of these strategies on how you can stop chasing and start attracting. Hey, do me all a favor, share the podcast with somebody else, would you? And leave me a review on your favorite podcast app. I’m Mark Hunt of the Sales Center. Great Selling.
