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Hunter Horton was born and raised by his parents, along with a younger brother, in Cartersville Georgia. Hunter lives in Cartersville with his wife and two sons and a third son is on the way.Hunter attended a church youth group. In seventh grade, he went on a youth trip with his friends and all of them were “giving their life to the Lord” so Hunter did, too. He thought he was saved from that point on, but now he sees that he wasn’t. In middle school and high school, Hunter walked a path of destruction, drinking, and having unhealthy relationships. After surgeries for sports injuries, he got addicted to pain pills and sold narcotics.Hunter talks about the solid upbringing in faith and church attendance that his parents gave him. But in eighth grade, he got into a relationship and started partaking in unhealthy things that were not honoring God. Looking back, he had no conviction of faith. He had just said the words at a youth camp, following his friends.In 11th grade, Hunter suffered a broken kneecap playing in the first baseball game of the year and had surgery for it. It crushed him. Right after the surgery, Hunter got addicted to pain pills. After a year of physical recovery, Hunter went back to play baseball in his senior year. Over four years, he had elbow surgery, four knee surgeries, and ankle reconstruction.
When Hunter was in an unhealthy relationship starting in eighth grade, he stayed away from home as much as possible. He hid his relationship from his parents. If his parents had found out, he says he would have been embarrassed, but that exposure would have corrected his behavior quickly.Hunter shares how his addiction to pain pills occurred. He had broken up from his relationship, he had had multiple sports injuries, preventing him from fulfilling his childhood dream of a sports career, and pain pills gave him a momentary escape from reality.After high school, Hunter received a full baseball scholarship from Shorter University in Rome, Georgia. In the first month of Fall practice in 2011, Hunter blew out his other kneecap.When Hunter was injured, he told his coach that with his history of surgeries, he couldn’t play anymore. Hunter finished the school year and then transferred to Georgia Highlands and lived at home. After two years, he got an associate’s degree and transferred to West Georgia.Hunter talks about getting saved. When he transferred from Shorter to Georgia Highlands, a friend of his came over and invited him to a Campus Outreach event through Georgetown College in Kentucky. There he heard the gospel again. As Hunter was sitting in church, a pastor shared Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” (KJV) Until then, Hunter had thought that if his good works outweighed his bad works, he was good to go. When he heard that scripture and remembered Romans 5:8 “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (KJV), in the blink of an eye, Hunter felt the Lord pluck him out of darkness and place him into the light. That changed his entire perspective on life.
Hunter found that West Georgia had a Campus Outreach, the same program that his friend had invited him to in Kentucky. Hunter transferred to West Georgia. He found a great ministry and a lot of friends that he still has. He entered the business administration program for a bachelor’s degree. He was in that program for two years and it was pivotal in setting him up for his career.Hunter tells of his father’s history as a sales executive for a company that erected steel structures for billboards, and how he started a company for that. Hunter tells how he decided to go into sales after hearing a guest lecturer at college speak about a career in sales. He liked the billboard business but instead of selling steel like his father, he chose to get into the ad space side of the business.Hunter tells how he started selling his pain pills in college. A player approached him who knew somebody who would buy them at a price per pill. He did this for a few months, raising the price when he was selling out. He cared more about how much he could get per pill than he did about taking the pills. Finally, his doctor refused to prescribe more. He walked away from selling and that was about the time he moved back home with his parents. Hunter feels the Lord had already started to work in his life and remove the incentive for him to be selling pills.Hunter thinks that his “sales” experience with the pills may have helped him to succeed in sales. As Hunter was considering a sales career, he discussed it with his mom and dad. After he had gotten saved, he started to appreciate who they were and what they did for him. His Heavenly Father’s influence on him had a huge impact on his relationship with his parents.
Hunter graduated in May 2016 and took a job at Southwire in Carrollton. That summer, Hunter’s dad passed away. Hunter moved back home again to help his mom run the several businesses his dad had left behind. After six months, he wanted to go back to Carrollton, but the opportunity was gone. His dad’s friend Josh, in Cartersville, who ran a billboard company, renamed his company Horton Outdoor in honor of Hunter’s father and allowed Hunter to get into adspace sales in the billboard industry with him.
Hunter’s first job at Horton Outdoor was Account Executive, cold-calling on customers. Hunter describes the subliminal effect of billboards. McDonald’s does 98% of its advertising on billboards. You know when the McRib is back because you see it on a billboard.Hunter tells how “playing dumb” as a new sales executive got him in the door with decision-makers at first. When he had more experience, he used a hook to capture attention, asking the business owner if their advertising dollars were providing the results they had expected. Then he asked for a little bit of time to show how he could help them. He wanted to get the owner to sit with him and see eye-to-eye. Hunter says sales is about relationships, not products or services.
The biggest thing that helped Hunter right out of the gate was being told “No.” On his first day of cold-calling, he got told “No,” every time. That night he was wondering if that was how he wanted to spend his life. Being told “No” is not fun, but it made him pivot and think. Over time, that has helped in many ways besides sales, including his relationships. Hunter believes being told “No” helps us mentally in a way that the Lord uses for good. we need to be told “No” way more often. When Hunter’s parents had told him “No,” he would disobey and do it anyway. It doesn’t work that way in the “real world”!Jim and Hunter unpack the “real world” to mean accepting adult responsibility for your actions and life. When you become a man, things affect you differently than when you’re a boy. After getting told “No” all day, the next morning, he decided that he would do this job for three months, the best that he could, getting after it as hard as he could, calling on as many people as he could, and see if he could make a career of it. If not, he would pivot to do something else. With persistence and discipline, slowly but surely, there were a lot more yeses than there were noes. Sales is a numbers game. Every person can’t tell you “No.”
Early on in his career, Hunter wanted to do everything “Hunter’s way.” It wasn’t working for him, so he called on a list of men his father had known; business partners, customers, and as many people in the billboard space that could advise him with their decades of experience. After a week or two of talking to all his dad’s associates, Hunter felt ready to go forward.
Hunter recalls two traits that his new mentors exemplified. They shared instructions and set an example. Every one of them shared instructions in humility, admitting where they had gotten it wrong. Every one of them listened to Hunter and asked him questions to understand his need.Hunter talks about meeting his wife right after his dad passed away. They started as friends and got into a relationship at the time Hunter got into the billboard industry. She encouraged him, listened to him, and gave him advice that he didn’t want to hear at times. She was the most helpful thing in Hunter’s life as he was learning more about what it meant to be a Christian, to mourn and grieve the loss of his father, and to face his responsibilities. They weren’t married yet but she was a huge helper to him. In the summer of 2017, Hunter proposed to her and they got married in January 2018. Their third child is expected in January along with their fifth anniversary. She provides the platform for Hunter to be able to go out and do his work well.Jim acknowledges being a Godly stay-at-home mother as the most difficult job in the world and as the hardest-working humans that have walked the planet.Hunter shares how he developed resilience and did not quit. He decided early that he wanted experience to be his teacher. He learned to sell through cold-calling and sending hand-written letters to businesspeople. Jim remarks that hand-written letters are missing from today’s society. Hunter knew that to get the success that other people weren’t getting, he need to do things that other people weren’t doing. He shares some examples of tactics he used to make contact with business owners.
Jim comments on Hunter’s creativity and determination to devise and try new methodologies and asks how that confidence applied to his marriage and parenting.
Hunter quickly realized in marriage and as a father that he had a lot of room to grow. He got married after about a year in the industry and he had seen a lot of success from the techniques he was using. His ego told him he had marriage figured out, too. After several arguments early in his marriage, he realized he had to do something different for it to work. It was the same for parenting. He knew he was wrong in his first approach and he credits conviction from the Lord for setting a new direction for him. Listening to his wife, hearing God’s word, spending time in prayer, and listening to people of faith helped Hunter. He prays all the time that the Lord would convict him and bring him to his knees so that he can be a better husband and father.The biggest development in Hunter’s career came in October of 2021 when his boss sold the company to Trailhead Media. Hunter had to decide if he was going to stay with the larger company and go from an inventory of 600 billboards to 5,000 billboards, including travel to the Carolinas. It would have meant more money and less time at home. He chose to be a Godly husband and father. He decided to stay at home with his family, take a leap of faith, and start a business. He reveals the conversations he had with his wife about it. She told him over and over that she trusts him and knows he will make the right decision. He spent a lot of time in prayer and seeking wise counsel. Hunter talked to Jim about it and other friends and businessmen. The more conversations he had, and even feeling that the Lord would support him in either decision, he realized that this was the time of his life when he would have the best opportunity to start a business. It’s going on a year, and Hunter says it’s going well.Hunter has learned some lessons in entrepreneurship. The hardest thing has been turning from a sales executive to running a business. He quickly realized that there was so much more to a business than he ever imagined. For the first couple of months, all he did was learn. He wanted to be out making money, but he couldn’t do that effectively or successfully until he learned the key parts of running a business. The paperwork is hard, but what has been easy is the selling he has been taught to do over the previous five years. His growth and development along the way have prepared him for where he is now.
Hunter encourages the listeners who are salesmen to be disciplined and stay persistent. Stay true to who you are and do the same thing over and over until you get to the point where you may have to change it. Instead of giving up at the first hard thing, give yourself a commitment to do it as hard as you can for three months to see if you succeed. You’ll be able to tell in that time if you’re cut out for this or need to pivot to a different career.
Jim directs the conversation to the family. Hunter talks about discipline, Growing up, Hunter was spanked and slapped a lot because his behavior was incorrect. He learned what was wrong and right. Now, Hunter does not see many fathers discipline their children. He doesn’t see nearly as many fathers present in their families as when he grew up. That’s the biggest decline he has seen and he sees that sets up children for failure.Jim agrees that the presence of a man changes the behavior of a boy.In the time leading up to getting engaged, and then married, Hunter spent a lot of time thinking back on how his father was as a husband, and he read a lot of scripture on what it is to be a husband. Anytime today that Hunter has any questions about what it means to be a Godly husband, he goes to the scriptures. He remembers how his dad led his mom in a Godly way. He talked with other men who are examples.
Jim and Hunter discuss what methodologies they saw in their dads that they affirm for their work as husbands. Hunter noticed that his father and mother always communicated well with each other. Applying it to his marriage, Hunter will often ask his wife what is he doing well in their marriage and what is he doing poorly; what are some ways in which he can be a better husband and a better father; and ways in which he can grow in who he is. He feels that if he can ask questions to open up communications in their marriage, they will thrive. He says that husbands and wives don’t communicate enough. Jim affirms Hunter’s practice of asking his wife what he does well in their marriage, so he can continue to honor his wife with those things. Jim asks Hunter to share one or two things he is doing well in his marriage that he would like to pass on to the audience.
Hunter talks about providing, not just financially so his wife can stay home with their children, but providing conversations at the dinner table, prayer together before bed, times of entertainment and exercise, and different things to do as a family. He is always asking himself how the family can intentionally interact with one another to strengthen their marriage and family. It can be going out to eat, playing at the playground, playing tag in the yard, and spending time together in prayer. Hunter intentionally spends one-on-one time with his boys. His older son can have a conversation with him and that has allowed Hunter to have a better understanding of how his son views the family and the world.
Hunter tells how his faith in the Bible affects the way he is as a husband and father. The biggest way is having a Godly community around the couple and family, his faith in Jesus Christ, and what He has done in Hunter’s life. Godly community influences their marriage and family. Prayer, reading God’s word, and Bible studies are very helpful, but surrounding yourselves with Godly people who can pray over you and encourage you is the best influence.
Hunter suggests how listeners can begin some of the disciplines he practices. If you are hesitant to commit to something time-consuming, start by singing worship music alone in your car. That discipline, over time, will flow into other spiritual disciplines.Hunter would want people to remember what marks him as a man by the way he loves his wife and boys. He wants people to say Hunter Horton was a Godly husband and a Godly father. Look at his marriage and look at his boys. He also wants to be marked as someone who is humble and doesn’t want any credit but can do much for the Kingdom of God and the community he lives in without any recognition or praise. He admits that’s his biggest struggle so he is working on it. He credits all his success to God.
Jim thanks Hunter for making himself transparent on this podcast and sharing his inspiring example.
