On a recent episode of The Sales Hunter Podcast, Mark Hunter sat down with Meridith Elliott Powell, global keynote speaker and expert in navigating change, to talk about how salespeople and organizations can thrive in an environment defined by uncertainty and rapid transformation.
Adapting to the Pace of Change
Selling today isn’t what it used to be. According to Meridith Elliot Powell, “the pace of change has increased 183%,” and nearly half of Fortune 500 companies aren’t expected to survive another decade. Most teams are feeling burnt out and overwhelmed, and that isn’t changing soon.
But uncertainty isn’t just something to weather. It can be a competitive weapon. As Meridith put it, “If you can view uncertainty and change as opportunity, you are going to be way ahead in the marketplace.”
Three Steps to Thriving in Uncertainty
Meridith boils it down to three actionable steps:
- Adapt Your Perspective
Decide that change leads to opportunity, even if it’s not easy. Condition your mind to expect success and see adversity as fuel for growth. - Root in Core Values
Know who you are and what matters most. “If you say your family is important to you, then time better be scheduled on a regular basis to prioritize that time with your family.” - Get in Shape for Change
Treat navigating change like a marathon. Build the stamina needed for a constantly shifting market by training your brain and habits to spot opportunities amidst chaos.
Mindset Before Tactics
Success in turbulent markets starts with mental conditioning. Meridith recommends reading your personal vision three times a day—morning, lunch, and before shutting down at night. Even on tough days, coming back to your vision keeps you grounded. “My brain will go to the negative, and you have to bring it back.”
Customers Need Salespeople More Than Ever
In times of chaos, most sellers retreat, afraid of customer rejection or tough conversations. But Meridith stresses that this is when clients need help the most.
“Salespeople pull out of a troubled marketplace because they’re focused on themselves. Stop focusing on yourself and start focusing on how you could really help people.”
Sales professionals should be the calming, consultative presence for clients, helping them revisit their vision and discover new opportunities even when fear and uncertainty rule the day. Creating loyalty happens when you show up during customers’ toughest hours.
Short-Term Panic or Long-Term Focus?
When markets get shaky, the instinct to push for short-term wins is strong. But as Meridith sees it, pressure for immediate results doesn’t serve salespeople or their customers. Instead, focus on sustainable activity: continue building relationships, having conversations, and solving real problems.
Switching Industries or Changing Products?
The temptation to jump to a new product or industry during market shifts is real. But don’t guess from inside your boardroom. The answers are with your customers. Meridith highlights Procter & Gamble’s strategy during the Great Depression: by listening to cash-strapped customers, they introduced new, affordable products and thrived.
Stay close to customers, your network, and your own team. They’ll tell you what’s missing and where the real growth opportunities lie.
Don’t Race to the Bottom on Price
Uncertain times don’t automatically make customers price-driven. In fact, Meridith argues, “People are less price sensitive in an uncertain marketplace than they are at any other time.”
Clients want value since they’re careful spenders. But they’ll invest in quality, trust, and outcomes. Cut price only when value is not clear, never as the default strategy.
Reset the Sales Strategy
What worked last year may be outdated today. Many sellers must double their activity just to land the same number of deals, but more important than sheer volume is identifying where deals are getting stuck. Diagnose what isn’t working (whether that’s targeting, prospecting, or closing) and fix the real problem.
When one industry is dead, find a “sister industry” where your expertise still applies. Sellers need to be agile enough to follow opportunity wherever it pops up.
Disruption as a Competitive Advantage
The marketplace will keep shifting. Those who choose to see disruption as a door to opportunity and who consistently show up for customers win.
Sales teams today need stamina, perspective, and the courage to lead customers through uncertainty. That’s what makes sales an extraordinary profession—especially right now.
Mark Hunter :
How equipped are you to deal with all of the uncertainty and all of the change in the marketplace? Selling today has never been more different than ever before. With me today, Meridith Elliott Powell. And the show begins right now.
Meridith Elliott Powell :
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 :
And it’s great when you have as your guest the person who does the voice over for the intro. Welcome, Meridith Elliott Powell.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Yeah, I thought that sounded just, that voice sounded just a little bit familiar.
Mark Hunter :
Yes, it did. Hey, first of all to the audience, Meridith Elliott Powell. She is my co host, my partner on Sales Logic. So it’s great to be able to have her here. She travels literally all over the world. She just told me she just booked a deal in Morocco. She was just in Thailand. Let’s see, Helsinki, London.
Mark Hunter :
She is absolutely a person on demand. And all of her conversation, all of her work is really around helping people deal with change and uncertainty, which is going on in sales. So, okay, give us the 62nd version. No, the 10 second version. How do we deal with this? What’s going on out there?
Meridith Elliot Powell :
So, you know, market is. So the statistics are just off the chart. I mean, the pace of change has increased 183%, 45% of Fortune 500 companies are not expected to be here. And in the next 10 years, employee burnout is 4 out of 5 employees are burned out, overwhelmed, and just feel like they can’t keep up with any more change. And more change is coming. So that really put me on a mission to want to help people learn to turn uncertainty to competitive advantage. And what I’ve really nailed it down to is you got to get in shape for change. You got to treat change like it’s a marathon, like it’s a sprint, like it’s, you’ve got to build muscle because you’re getting older, whatever it is.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
But we know change is coming. So the more prepared we are for change, the more in shape we are for change, the more you’re going to be able to turn change to competitive advantage. Because the last thing I’ll say about that is if you can view uncertainty and change as opportunity, you are going to be way ahead in the marketplace.
Mark Hunter :
Okay, so give us the secret sauce. How do we prepare for this change?
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Yeah, so I’ve really, you know, Mark, I’ve been researching this since 2016. Right. I’ve been obsessed with why some companies grow during the Great Depression. Others disappear. I just told you that 45% of Fortune 5 hundreds are expected not to be here. I want to know why some won’t be here and others will, like, what are they really doing differently? And I’ve really nailed it down to just three steps, just three little things that you need to do. And number one is you need to adapt your perspective. You just need to make the decision that change leads to.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
To opportunity. Now, that sounds really simple, and it is simple. It’s just not easy. But to do it, you. You kind of, you. You take three steps in order to do that. Number one is you need to have a vision. I mean, Mark, you talk so often about how you start your day and you’ve got to start your day focused and training your brain that good things are going to happen for you.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
So let’s imagine I got up this morning and I lost two deals that I had in my pipeline. I’ve got to go back to this vision that reminds me that I’m successful, that I’m going to be on stages around the world, that I’m going to be happily married. I’m going to be in the best shape all of my life. I’m going to be financially stable. Like, I’ve got to refocus my brain in those places because if I don’t, my brain will find ways to validate whatever it is that I’m thinking. The second piece of it is in Mark, you talk so often about this with integrity for selling is you’ve got to be rooted in your core values. Your core values. You say often.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
You’ve got to play the long game. Well, if you want to thrive in uncertainty, you have to play the long game. You’ve got to be clear about who you are, what you value, and what’s important to you. So if you say your family is important to you, then. Then time better be scheduled on a regular basis to prioritize that time with your family. Being present for your customers is really important. Then you better not be on your phone texting anybody when a customer has you on a, on a zoom call or something. So that’s where we begin with adapting our perspective and just deciding that uncertainty leads to opportunity.
Mark Hunter :
Okay. You really focused in there on mindset and, and really how you do it. Because again, it. It, You’re. You have to prepare yourself before you can deal with change. Okay, how does this transcend to customers? Because again, customers are going through chaos. And your number that you shared 45 of all Fortune 500 companies are going to be gone.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Yeah, they expect them and not because they make bad products, not because they have bad people on the team, but simply because they’re not agile and adaptable. They’re not. They’re not following the steps that I talk about. That you need to. That you need to. You need to put into place if you want to. If you want to thrive in, you know, thrive in uncertainty. But mindset is critically important.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
In fact, when I speak about it from the stage, I always say to people, if you can’t get your head right, like, and it isn’t, you know, I can wake up this morning and say, oh, my gosh, I feel great. I’m. You know, I see a really bright future for myself. But that can’t be the only time I focus on my vision, because things will happen today that won’t be positive. And in uncertainty, you have more obstacles in front of you than you do in certain times. So I call it conditioning your brain. Like, I read my vision three times a day. I do it in the morning, I do it at lunch.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
I do it before I shut my office down at night. And the reason is because my brain will go to the negative, and you have to bring it back. The interesting thing about uncertainty is that if you read history or you read about people who have accomplished unbelievable things, they will tell you that the adversity they faced was what propelled them to the next level. But again, it’s so simple, it isn’t easy to embrace it, because nobody likes to go through the tough stuff.
Mark Hunter :
Wow. And I remember a book that you wrote where you chronicled a number of companies that had. Had survived the Civil War, survived World War I, World War II. And you share a number of those stories, and each one ends with how it made them better. Okay, so, gee, let’s sign up for the chaos process, because it’s going to suck, but we’re going to come out of it better. It doesn’t sound like a plan salespeople really want to do. So. Okay, so let me.
Mark Hunter :
Let me ask you this. You got a customer that’s going through absolute chaos, absolute change. How do you, as a salesperson, help them?
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Yeah. You first of all know that they need you now more than they needed you before. I think one of the most interesting things about a chaotic environment is most salespeople pull back. And they pull back because customers are going to be problematic. They’re going to be challenging. There’s going to be more rejection in a marketplace like that because there’s fear in a marketplace like that. But the truth is, customers need you more when the marketplace is uncertain. So, you know, you talk a lot about this with integrity selling, and that is that you’ve got to be the calming voice.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
So what I love about the formula that I created is that it’s for you, for your business. But whenever I speak with sales audiences, I always say to them, look, this is the formula I want you to take to your customer. I want you to take to your customer and say, I realize it is challenging right now. I realize that you have supply chain disruption. I realize that you are greatly impacted by the gas prices going up. But let’s go back to the vision, what you’re trying to do with this company. Let’s focus on that. Then.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Let’s talk about how we can redesign your value proposition. What you’re really focused on, the problems that you’re solving. Let’s find the opportunity in the middle of this chaos. So I feel like as a salesperson, you’re uniquely positioned to help people navigate that marketplace. And you talk about creating loyalty. I think that salespeople pull out of a troubled marketplace because they’re, they’re focused on themselves. I don’t want to get rejected. I don’t want to get beat up about my price.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
I don’t want to, you know, I don’t want to get put off on decision. Stop focusing on yourself and start focusing on how you could really help people. And if you focus there, you’re going to be incredibly successful.
Mark Hunter :
I like that approach. What you’re really saying is to be the calm voice with your customers, because again, I mean, do customers want to hear from panicking people? No, they’re panicking already. They don’t need to hear more panic. But if you can come in as that calm voice, how does this impact a salesperson, though, both in the short term and then, hey, I gotta make my number this quarter and the long term.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Yeah, what a great question. So, first of all, I think that when the marketplace gets really uncertain and it gets shaky, you cannot be short term focused. And the reason you can’t be short term focused is because there’s so much going on in the marketplace that you can’t, that you can’t control. In fact, I was thinking about this the other day. I’ve got a month coming up. I was sharing with you guys on the Mastermind last night. It’s, it’s really, there’s not very much. I don’t have much happening on that month.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
And my initial instinct is to go, oh, my God, I got to fill that month. I got to fill that Month. I got to fill that month when the truth is I just need to let it go. The month didn’t fill up. I don’t know why, I don’t know what is going on there. I just need to keep doing what I’m doing, that is filling the other months in the calendar. Because the moment that I put pressure on a short term result, I get focused on my own needs, my rather than my customer needs. And if I’m focused on my own needs rather than my customer needs, two things are going to happen.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
One, that does not feel good for any salesperson. There’s so much pressure when you put pressure on yourself for a short term result. The second is it isn’t sustainable. I, you know, I could probably get a couple of things on the calendar. I can probably muscle a couple of people to let me do a little bit of business with them, but it isn’t good for them and it isn’t good for me in the long term. It’s going to hurt my reputation.
Mark Hunter :
Thank you for saying that. Because it’s so easy for people to get short term focused. I mean, we all, we all, we all do. I mean, I’ve been victim of that many, many times. Because you want to just kind of get this. And we’re goal driven. You want to achieve this goal. So here’s the challenge though.
Mark Hunter :
In this chaotic world that we’re in, should salespeople be looking at, you know, maybe I need to focus in on a different industry. Maybe I need to, you know, change my product offering. What’s the advice that you share with, with salespeople and companies when that idea is kind of on the table?
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Yeah. So the thing that I. One of the most important strategies in thriving in uncertainty is a strategy number two. And strategy number two is to focus on people. And the reason we tell you to focus on people is because you cannot have the answers to one of the biggest mistakes I see people is they sit around a boardroom trying to figure out how to thrive in uncertainty when the truth is the answers lie outside of that boardroom. And one of the most important groups of people you need to listen to are your customers. Your customers are complaining, they’re talking, they’re sharing information, they’re telling you what their biggest problems are. And so great example is that it’s if, if you listen to the customer, they’ll tell you whether there’s a new product they need or a new product they want developed.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
They’ll tell you if the industry is shifting and it’s stalling. Right now and it’s not good to sell in anymore. One of my favorite stories from the book is about Procter and Gamble and in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the core value of, of one of the core values of Procter and Gamble, again, adapt perspective, know your values. Their core value is listening to customers. They don’t ever put a market that they don’t listen to customers. And in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, they were listening to customers. And what customers were saying was, we can’t afford your products or services. They’re too expensive.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
We’re like pinching pennies here. And they developed this whole line of products that. Do you remember? Anybody remembers drift detergent? And it was developed in the 1930s because it was a less expensive, high quality product that people could afford during the Great Depression. So I can’t tell you whether you need to change your product or service. I can’t tell you whether you need to get into a different industry. But the people you need to be listening to, your customers, your network and your team. The path to growth and profitability in an uncertain marketplace is through listening to people.
Mark Hunter :
I love that. Just get out and have the conversations with people now. When we get into uncertain times, get into chaos, it’s also, oh, we got to reduce price, we got to cut price. Talk about that. Is, is that a viable strategy? How do you talk people off the cliff on that? Because I can’t stand it. I hate cutting price because then I’m just giving up margin.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Yeah.
Mark Hunter :
What are your thoughts?
Meridith Elliot Powell :
So I think it is a myth that people are price sensitive. In fact, I think it’s a myth. I think people are less price sensitive in an uncertain marketplace than they are at any other time. I really do. I think, I think when things get really tight, people are willing to spend money, but they, they, it’s, they seem price sensitive because they’re, they’re more protective of where and how they spend money. So they don’t want to waste money. And so they’re not. If they’re comparing price to price, it’s because they feel like price is all that you have to, all that you have to offer.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
So I’ll give you a great example. Marketplace isn’t great right now. You know, the market keeps going down. Who knows what’s going to happen with inflation and gas prices. And we can’t seem to solve this whole issue going on with, you know, TSA and travel and the impact of that is going to be terrible on the economy. Well, my husband’s looking to PAVE the driveway. And we had three people come in to give us a proposal. One was reduced, ridiculously less expensive.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
But the biggest things my husband is concerned about is he doesn’t want to have to do it again for another 10 years. He wants people he could trust to come to the house when we’re not here, because we’re constantly gone. Either I’m traveling, or he’s off doing activities. And he wants somebody whose workers are going to show up. They’re polite, they’re kind, and he doesn’t mind leaving in his house. He didn’t go with the highest bidder, but he went with the middle bidder because the middle bidder, not because he was a middle bid, but because he offered, like, part of his proposal was those things. He would be on the job site every single day. He would guarantee the job for the next, you know, the next 10 years.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
And he was recommended to us by people in our neighborhood who have given them keys to his house. So you have to sell. Why? People are paying you more money, and they will pay more money if that’s of value to them.
Mark Hunter :
Because ultimately they. That company was meeting your husband and your expectations of what you were looking for. And. And again, this is. This is the fallacy. I think people just cut price. Oh, if I cut the price, I’ll be able to get the sale. No, no.
Mark Hunter :
Because so many times there’s other factors in there. Yeah. So here’s the challenge of if. If I’m a salesperson and. Or, you know, sales leader, and I am really struggling to make this year’s number. What are the strategies? What are the things that I should be doing to be able to navigate when I’ve got. I’m selling into a space that, you know what, it’s tough. It’s brutal.
Mark Hunter :
They are just getting beat up. And these customers, I don’t even know if they’re going to be around. What’s the advice you would share to that sales leader, that salesperson?
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Well, I think if you’re using the exact same sales strategy you were using in 2025, your sales strategies out of your date. So I don’t know what your number is, but I think one of the most important things to do with a number is back into it. I mean, I don’t know about you, Mark, but the number of sales calls that I had to make last year to close a deal has doubled for this year. I mean, I have doubled the amount of time I spend finding leads and selling than I did last year because the marketplace is tighter this year. So that’s, to me, that’s where you need to start. Take a really long list of the long inventory of the first quarter. What worked, what markets were open, what, what, what did you say to customers that got them to buy, to be interested in you or whatever. Learn from yourself.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
The second is what isn’t working. And if you’re far off your number, you’re not, you’re either not calling on the right people, you’re not, you’re not making enough sales calls. Where is it getting stuck in the process? Are you not even getting through the door? Or can you not get a deal to close? Like, where’s the, where’s the hiccup? And focus your, your, you know yourself there. Like don’t double your sales calls if you’re not even getting through the door to have a decision. Something’s broken on the front end of the sales cycle. And if the, you know, if the market that you’re selling into is really dead right now, like let’s take 2008 and if you sold into financial services, it’s time to sell to a sister industry. So I don’t know what industry you’re selling into. And if that industry is truly struggling right now, look to a sister industry, an industry that is like them.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Like in 2008, I got out of financial services, started selling into insurance. It was like enough that I was credit credible there, but the industry wasn’t going through the same amount of pain.
Mark Hunter :
I like what you’re saying there. You know, it’s okay to move into a new industry, kind of going back to what you had shared, what you had shared earlier, but it’s got to be something similar. So in other words, you still got traction, you’ve still got probably some relationships, you probably, probably know what is going on out there real quick. Final advice for salespeople in terms of going through this chaotic world we’re in.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Yeah, I tell you just a couple of things. Number one is really start to believe that disruption and uncertainty can be your greatest competitive advantage. Always remember that the customers need you now more than they needed you a year ago. They are going to remember the salesperson who shows up. And if you set a vision, you focus on people and you get in shape for change, you are not only going to shift how you think, feel and act about uncertainty, but you will turn it in to your greatest competitive advantage.
Mark Hunter :
And what you just shared was a mic drop moment. Where do people get in touch with you at?
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Yeah, so they can find me on LinkedIn. That’s probably the social media channel I spend the most amount of time in. You can also reach out to me on value speaker.com just the words value speaker.com and I am a big believer. Build your network. It will change your life. So if you connect with me, I will connect with you.
Mark Hunter :
And of course we get to do sales.
Meridith Elliot Powell :
Sales Logic. Join us every Saturday morning, 8am Eastern where we’ll solve all of your sales challenges.
Mark Hunter :
Yeah, and it’s amazing how we get people listening to us from all over the world. It’s absolutely fantastic. You’ve been listening to the Sales Hunter podcast two episodes a week, one like this, where we do a deep dive with a subject matter expert. Second is where I just take one topic and unpack it. Why? It’s to help you see and achieve what you didn’t think was possible. And hey, share the podcast with other people. And if you have any needs in your organization from a sales perspective speaking, hey, reach out to Meridith. I’ll go ahead and offer up Meridith.
Mark Hunter :
Call Meridith. She’s absolutely fantastic. Call myself whatever. But sales is an absolutely beautiful profession. We’re out there helping people. I’m Mark Hunter. Great selling.
