On the latest episode of The Sales Hunter Podcast, Mark Hunter welcomed leadership strategist Anton Gunn for an honest conversation about sales leadership, integrity, and why authenticity matters even when the pressure is on. Anton’s experience spans politics, SEC football, and working with top sales leaders bringing unique perspective on what it really means to lead with integrity.
Integrity Shows Up When Times Get Tough
Anton Gunn set the stage by challenging the idea that integrity only matters when things are good. Instead, he argues the real test comes during adversity. As Anton put it:
“You can spend your life pretending to be the leader that you think other people want you to be. But when times get tough…the real you is always going to come out.”
Authenticity is the Foundation
Sales leaders need to know who they are at their core. It’s easy to put on a show during good times, but the moment challenges appear, true character is revealed. Pretending only works until the pressure mounts, then decisions are driven by values, not optics.
Anton shared a personal story illustrating what happens when leaders lack authenticity and honesty. When his family needed answers from senior military leaders about a tragic event, the response was evasive. That moment became a powerful lesson.
“Are you going to throw your people under the bus? Are you going to own the decision that you make?”
Own Your Mistakes—And Make It Right
Integrity isn’t about perfection. Mistakes happen, but leaders distinguish themselves by their response. Awareness is step one. Anton emphasized, once you realize you’ve fallen short, apologize quickly, and then ask how you can fix it.
“After you apologize, you need to ask the person…what can I do to make it right?…Your job next is to do it.”
This three-step process (awareness, apology, action) helps rebuild trust. Leaders shouldn’t assume an apology alone is enough. Follow through matters.
Stretching the Truth: The Hidden Cost
In sales, the temptation to stretch the truth around quarter-end is real. Leaders sometimes persuade teams to exaggerate product capabilities just to hit targets. But that short-term win creates long-term pain.
Anton warns those decisions make you “untrustable,” destroy company reputation, and damage customer relationships. Customers who feel misled will share their negative experiences far and wide. Earning back trust is slow—protecting it is always smarter.
The Affinity Trinity: Building Loyalty and Trust
Anton introduced a powerful framework called the Affinity Trinity, three key questions every employee and customer silently asks:
- Do you care about me?
- Will you help me be successful?
- Can I trust you?
The answers aren’t verbal—people observe actions. Genuine care and support open the door to trust, and leaders must prove it daily through behavior, not words.
Transparency Breeds Trust
Today’s world moves fast, and information is everywhere. Leaders must share more than ever before to minimize uncertainty and the fear of the unknown. Transparency builds trust; deliberately withholding information only creates confusion and anxiety.
Anton drives the point home: if leaders don’t provide the answers, people will fill in the blanks themselves—often with inaccurate information. It’s a simple equation. Share what you know, be open, and empower your team to make confident decisions.
Why Integrity Always Wins
Sales leadership is measured not by lofty speeches or quarterly numbers, but by consistent, day-to-day actions rooted in authenticity, care, and transparency. Integrity isn’t just a value—it’s the multiplier that drives lasting relationships with customers and employees.
It’s clear: integrity isn’t a holiday luxury. It’s the job description. Leaders who own their actions, build trust, and act transparently create teams that thrive, and reputations that attract the best talent and customers.
As Anton Gunn’s interview showed, the path to integrity begins within. And it’s up to every leader to walk it, one action at a time.
Mark Hunter :
You’re listening to the Sales Hunter Podcast. My name is Mark Hunter, The Sales Hunter. Hey, let’s talk about sales leadership and integrity, because I’ll tell you what, it’s easy to really demonstrate integrity when things are going good. But what about when things are going bad? With me today, Anton Gunn. He’s going to join us in just a bit. He’s got an incredible background, incredible level of insights in working with sales leaders. In helping them because integrity never takes a holiday. Hey, why am I talking? The show begins right now.
Mark Hunter :
You’re listening to the Sales Hunter Podcast with Mark Hunter, where the focus is to help you as a sales leader sell with confidence and integrity. And now, here’s your host. Integrity never takes a holiday. Integrity is in play 24/7. And if you’re a leader, it’s especially visible. Joining me today, Anton Gunn. Welcome. Thank you for joining me.
Anton Gunn :
Thank you for having me, Mark. Happy to be here.
Mark Hunter :
Hey, I want to dive right in because you’ve had a chance to work with a lot of leaders in all different facets. You’ve also had some experience in politics. You’re also, also SEC football. So again, hey, there’s a little background to you, Anton. But talk to me, what are the challenges that sales leaders have when it comes to demonstrating integrity when times get tough?
Anton Gunn :
Yeah, that’s a great, great place for you to start. I will tell you, Mark, you know, it really first boils down to understanding who you are, because who you are at your core is what’s going to come out no matter what the adversity is. I tell people all the time, you can spend your life pretending to be the leader that you think other people want you to be. Like you can have all of the credentials, you can have all of the accolades, you can chase every moniker that you want to chase to look like the leader that you think everybody else wants. But when times get tough, when times get dark, when times get rushed, panic, uncertain, the real you is always going to come out. So I always start the conversation with, are you being authentically who you are as a person and as a leader. Because the challenge is when it comes to adversity and having integrity, if you don’t have integrity when the times are good, you’re not going to have it when times are bad. And if you’re pretending to have it when the times are good, when the times get bad, you’re going to recoil back to who you are at your core, which means people sometimes cut corners if they’re not living who they’re— living their truth and living who they are.
Anton Gunn :
So I always start with first authenticity and understanding who you are at the core. And I’ll give you a quick example of this. You know, I’ve, I’ve been through a lot of things in my life, and, and I faced a lot of adversity, overcome a lot of adversity, right? But in the midst of those difficult circumstances, one that was real critical to me is when my younger brother— and I’ll just start with this one— my younger brother was actually killed in a terrorist attack by two Al Qaeda suicide bombers, right? Sounds tragic. Really sounds tragic. Okay. And I saw the evidence of what it’s like when the real you comes out in a time of adversity. And that is when my family had to speak with leaders in the United States military about what happened to my brother. And why my brother was in that vulnerable position in the first place.
Anton Gunn :
And Mark, I tell you, I couldn’t get a straight answer out of these guys. Now here they are with stars and bars. They got suits and, and everything you can think of on a military uniform. They matriculated up the ladder in leadership. But when my father, who was a retired 22-year Navy veteran, asked the question, why was my son’s ship in this port? He couldn’t get a straight answer. And it sent a voluminous message about what a leader doesn’t have, which is honesty, authenticity, and integrity about the decision that you made. And so for every sales leader out there who leads a team, you’re going to ask your team to do things, you’re going to make decisions. But if stuff doesn’t go right, and it goes wrong, as wrong as it can go, are you going to throw your people under the bus? Are you going to own the decision that you make? And if you don’t have integrity, it’s going to be easy to blame somebody else, throw somebody else under the bus, and not give a straight answer.
Anton Gunn :
But your job should be to own that outcome, because you’re the leader. And that’s what an integrity leader will do is own the outcome.
Mark Hunter :
Wow, you said a lot. First of all, I want to thank you and your family for your service to our nation and for the ultimate sacrifice.
Anton Gunn :
Thank you.
Mark Hunter :
Heart absolutely breaks. Not to get a straight answer, very difficult. Let’s bring this around to ourselves because I had a situation recently where I did, I did not demonstrate integrity and I caught myself afterwards. And I had to go on full apology, the full apology tour. Is that the right approach? What’s the right means? How do we work through that? Because in so many times that leader is trying to save face.
Anton Gunn :
Yeah.
Mark Hunter :
And it can be very tempting to pass blame.
Anton Gunn :
Yeah.
Mark Hunter :
Say it’s something else. But no. Yeah.
Anton Gunn :
I will tell you this. Hearing you share that story that you realize it later. Okay. The first thing I’ll say to every leader who makes a mistake or doesn’t operate in integrity 100% of the time, the moment you have awareness is when you can start to do something about it, because you can’t fix what’s wrong until you know what’s wrong. So the moment you are aware that I did something wrong, Mark, you did the exact thing right, is you got quickly to the apology. Like so many leaders feel like they cannot say I’m sorry. Or that I was wrong or I made a mistake. Again, nobody’s perfect.
Anton Gunn :
And when you pretend to be perfect, you’re pretending to be somebody that you’re really not, because you’re not perfect. None of us on this planet today are perfect. So the quicker you get to the apology— and apologizing for what’s wrong is the second step, uh, to getting back into integrity. And the reason why it’s the second step, because here’s the third step. After you apologize, you need to ask the person that you hurt or wronged or made the mistake towards, what can I do to make it right? The third step is asking the person what you can do to make it right and listen. And when they give you the answer of what you can do to make it right, your job next is to do it. And see, that’s the thing that is so hard for so many leaders, is that they might even have awareness of the problem. They might even make an apology.
Anton Gunn :
But they think after apologizing, that it’s over. But you have to remember that if you didn’t operate in integrity, you harmed or hurt someone. And when you harmed or hurt someone, you have to ask the question, I’m sorry for this, but what can I do to make this right? Now, they might tell you a long laundry list of things that you need to do. You need to give me my money back. You need to give me my money back plus the product. You need to give me my money back plus the product. And I need you to make a public apology on your website. They might give you a long list of things that you got to do to make it right.
Anton Gunn :
And maybe you can’t conceivably doing all of those things without making something else wrong. But what you can do is at least one thing. I don’t know what that one thing might be. It might be just giving them their money back. It might be giving them a new product. It might be giving them an extended warranty. I don’t know what your product or service is that you’re selling. But the point is, when you don’t operate in integrity and something goes wrong, a leader’s responsibility is to try to do something to make it right.
Anton Gunn :
And making it right means doing what they want and need to feel like they’ve been made right.
Mark Hunter :
Wow. I love what you’re saying there. And it really comes down to just, you know, when they begin talking, you just have to listen. Just shut up and listen. And that can be the hardest thing of all. You know, I’ve got a theory that integrity is built in short-term actions that create long-term value. And sadly, integrity can be lost quickly. But, but like you said, when you are willing to make amends.
Mark Hunter :
And I want to come back and talk about this from a customer perspective or from, from, from a salesperson’s perspective in just a bit here, because it’s so easy for the sales leader to pass blame. So let’s run this example. Sales leader, it’s coming up to the end of the quarter. You got to make the number. You’re with some salespeople and you tell the salespeople to go ahead and stretch a little bit in terms of the expectations, in terms of what the product is going to be able to deliver to allow the salesperson to close, close the deal. And ultimately, it comes back and backfires in subsequent quarters. I see that behavior a lot from people who say, oh, we demonstrate integrity. Oh, we’re integrity-centered.
Mark Hunter :
What are the ramifications of that from a salesperson standpoint?
Anton Gunn :
Yeah, well, I mean, the ramifications run wide and deep in that scenario. So number one, you become untrustable. And that’s a word that I’m making up. You become untrustable. If that comes back to bite you, you also destroy not only your reputation as an individual, you might destroy the reputation of the product that you’re selling and offering, and the reputation of your company. Company. And when you have reputational destruction, it is really hard to come back from that. I mean, like, it takes a long time.
Anton Gunn :
And we can all hear and know stories of companies who have damaged their reputation for similar processes long term. And so for the sales leader, you have demonstrated that I’m untrustable, my product is untrustable, and I’ve destroyed the reputation of the company, which means sooner or later, you’re going to be out of work, because nobody wants to keep tainted reputations around in their organization. So it’s wide ranging. It even is worse from a customer standpoint, because the customer is going to tell this story 100 ways to Sunday to everyone that they know. And they think about— that’s what’s going to exacerbate your ruined reputation, because we all know good news travels fast. But bad news travels faster than good news ever will. People are quicker to give you a negative report than they are to give you a positive report. If you do a great job of selling a good product within its capabilities and its scale, that customer is going to be happy.
Anton Gunn :
They might tell 1 or 2 people. But if you do a bad sales job by stretching the truth and the product doesn’t hold up, they’re going to tell 200 people not 2 people. And so this is wide-ranging, and it happens so very often. And I think what sales leaders need to understand is that you can’t get back what you lost when it comes to losing trust. It really takes a long time. It’s better to keep the trust, build it, and continue to earn it than it is to damage it by just trying to hit an artificial quota, quota, or a quarterly goal. And I say artificial. I do know You know, you got to have a great sales year.
Anton Gunn :
Every year has got to be a great sales year. But do you really want to compromise what you can build over time, just trying to hit a specific number? It’s not a smart thing to do. But it’s smart to think about how is this going to impact us long term?
Mark Hunter :
Wow, I love what you’re saying there. Because in my book, Integrity First Selling, I talked about the last company I was with. Great job. But I left because the president and the CEO were integrity-challenged. Yeah. And it just was eating away at me. And I won’t go, I won’t go into details. But, and it’s interesting, but looking back on that, we had a hard time attracting the right people.
Mark Hunter :
Well, we had a hard time retaining people. Why was it? Because we had a hard time in terms of maintaining our margin. Why was that? It all comes back to that level of integrity. So, OK, so let’s, let’s, let’s go into the building integrity mode. What are some things that you feel sales leaders and others should be doing to build integrity? So they can create that level of trust?
Anton Gunn :
Yes. So, so Mark, I have this framework that I call the Affinity Trinity. So affinity is a word that I think we all would understand that we want to have an affinity for great products. We want to have an affinity for great people. We We want to build a loyalty and connection to all of the things that we have an affinity around. And so the Affinity Trinity is what every sales leader, sales leader needs to understand. And here’s the Affinity Trinity. It’s 3 questions, 3 simple questions that every employee, every sales team member on your team is asking when they come work for you.
Anton Gunn :
I’m also going to tell you that these same 3 questions are the same questions that every customer is asking of you. And if you understand these 3 questions, and more specifically how to answer those 3 questions, you will build an affinity that will build the kind of loyalty that gives you the greatest lifetime value out of a customer. But more importantly, an employee, a team member who never wants to quit. Because you answer the 3 questions. Now, here are the 3 questions. Question number 1 is, do you care about me? Question number 2 is, will you help me to be successful? And question number 3 is, can I trust you? Now, Mark, here’s what I want you to understand about those 3 questions. They’re simple, but these are nonverbal questions. No one is ever going to say to you the day that you hire them, do you care about me? A customer is never going to open the door and say, hey, do you care about me? They’re never going to say, will you help me to be successful? And they’re never going to say, can I trust you? They’re not going to say them.
Anton Gunn :
They’re thinking them. These are intuitive questions that you can just, just imagine that they are wearing a t-shirt that has those 3 questions on it. And how you answer those questions will be everything. So here’s the answer, Mark. None of them want to hear yes to those 3 questions. Because your website says yes, your product brochure says yes, your position description says yes, your code of ethics, all of those things say yes. But they don’t want to hear yes. They want to see yes in your actions? How do you show them that you care about them? How are you showing them that you’re helping them to be successful? And how are you showing them that they can trust you? Now, Mark, I will tell you, you must answer these 3 questions in order.
Anton Gunn :
And more specifically, you need to only focus on the first 2 questions. Because if you try to answer that 3rd question, before answering the first two, you’re never going to win. Because why would I ever trust you if you’ve never shown me that you cared about me? Why would I ever trust you if I’m not clear whether you are actually helping me to be successful? So you got to focus on how you answer those three questions. And so if every sales leader understands when you have a new sales associate, a new sales team member, the first day they want to know, do you care about who I am? You care about what makes me tick, what motivates me, what inspires me, why I chose to work for you? And are you going to give me all of the information, all the tools, and all of the resources for me, for me to be able to close sales? Because if you don’t give me everything that I need to close, then that means I’m not going to be successful. And if I’m not going to be successful, then why am I here? Because nobody wants to fail at work. But you got to answer those first two repeatedly, over and over and over and over and over and over again. Then you start to build the trust that says, I can rely on my leader, because he cares about me. And he’s helping me to be successful.
Anton Gunn :
And I can trust that he’s going to have my back.
Mark Hunter :
Always.
Anton Gunn :
That’s how you demonstrate integrity as a sales leader.
Mark Hunter :
I’m hearing two things come through. A, you really got to be authentic.
Anton Gunn :
Absolutely.
Mark Hunter :
You have to be transparent.
Anton Gunn :
Absolutely. Now, transparency breeds trust, Mark. I mean, if you don’t have transparency, you’re not going to breed trust.
Mark Hunter :
And I find that’s where integrity breaks down when there’s not transparency, because there’s not an alignment of goals. There’s not an alignment of what expectations are. So how transparent do leaders need to be in today’s world? Because it feels like it’s changed over the last 15 or 20, maybe over the last 5 or 10 years?
Anton Gunn :
Yeah. Yeah, Markus, it’s evolving rapidly. And you can even add a layer of AI into this. All of the technology, our access for information, like, we can fill in the gaps with our own information. You know, one of the phrases that I use all the time is that A leader’s greatest responsibility when it comes to uncertainty or any kind of environment is to minimize the fear of the unknown. So how you minimize the fear of the unknown is to be transparent about what you know. Because if you tell me everything that I know, then I can have some confidence that you are giving me all of the information that I need. Because if you choose not to give me some information, I’m going to go and ChatGPT it myself.
Anton Gunn :
I’m going to go and Google it myself. I’m going to go and ask somebody who’s less informed than my leader. And I’m going to fill in the blanks that you didn’t give me as a leader with what somebody else says, which may not be the facts. It may not be right. It may not be valid. It may be old information. And therefore, that leads to more confusion. So I share with leaders all the time is that transparency breeds trust, and you have to provide much more information today than you ever have before.
Anton Gunn :
Because there’s so much misinformation and disinformation and information that I get from bad sources or uncredible sources, when I really only want it from the leader on my team. They want to hear it from you. They want to know it from you. And they want to know what you know. And in this new, you know, world that we’re in, sometimes leaders think, you know, this is a need-to-know basis, or you don’t need to know this information, or it’s not relevant to you, or it’s not important to you. Well, you can’t necessarily decide what’s important to me, especially without having a full context of what I might be managing. Because again, in this environment, the economics are shaky for all of us right now. It doesn’t matter where you sit, you got some uncertainty going on.
Anton Gunn :
So if my leader doesn’t give me all the information that I need, maybe I got one eye out the door looking for a new opportunity. Or maybe I need to do something different with my own personal finances. So nobody wants to get caught off guard. That’s why we access so much information. But the way you minimize that is being the leader that tells them everything that you know.
Mark Hunter :
Wow. I’ll tell you what, you have just delivered a masterclass in leadership, and especially because it is about transparency. And I, and I do believe it goes both ways because again, both parties, there has to be that element of trust. And it requires authenticity and transparency. Hey, Anton, absolutely fantastic. How do people get in touch with you?
Anton Gunn :
Yeah, great, Mark. You can always go to AntonGun.com to find out about me. Also, I’m on all the social channels, the ones that matter, but the one that I prefer and spend the most time is LinkedIn. So please connect with me at Anton J. Gunn on LinkedIn. And I’d be happy to have a conversation and, and find a way to work together.
Mark Hunter :
Great. And Gunn is with two N’s. G-U-N-N. Terrific. Hey, we’ve been talking today with Anton Gunn, talking about leadership, talking about integrity, mirroring the two together. Thank you, Anton, for being on the show. We deliver two shows a week, one like this where we do a deep dive with a subject matter expert. Second is where I just take a single topic and unpack it.
Mark Hunter :
Why do we do the show? It’s to help you see and achieve what you didn’t think was possible. Do me a favor, would you? Make sure you subscribe to the podcast. Hey, if you haven’t picked up the book Integrity First Selling, Pick it up, would you? Let me know what you think of it. I’m Mark Hunter, The Sales Hunter. Great selling.
