How to Hire Good Salespeople: What Really Separates Top Performers

In sales, few questions come up more often than this one: “How do you find good salespeople?” It is the first thing nearly every client asks when launching a new program, and for good reason. They have usually tried to hire on their own, watched a promising rep fail within six months, and assumed they simply picked the wrong person. More often, the problem was never the individual. It was the absence of a process to hire, train, and support that person in the first place.

In Episode 7 of The Sales Focus Podcast, Tony Horwath shares what nearly three decades of hiring, training, and managing salespeople has taught him about identifying real talent, and why the best traits rarely show up on a resume. You can listen to the full episode below.

Sales Is a Skill, Not a Personality Type

One of the biggest myths about sales is that you have to be a natural-born extrovert to succeed. Tony challenges that idea directly, pointing to his own background as an introvert and an engineer by degree.

“I’m not an extrovert. I’m an introvert. I’m an engineer by degree. I’m a process person. […] Some of my top salespeople over 28 years, or 35 years really, have really just worked on developing their skill.”

The best salespeople are not necessarily the loudest people in the room. In fact, the stereotype of the fast-talking, overly aggressive “used car salesperson” represents exactly the wrong traits. Strong salespeople tend to share a different set of qualities:

• They listen well
• They study and refine their skill set
• They understand their product deeply
• They understand the company they represent
• They focus on solving business problems

A salesperson is simply someone who represents their company to execute contracts, generate new revenue, and acquire new clients. The title does not matter, whether it is account executive, business development, or client manager. What matters is whether that person can sit down with a prospect, understand their business, and make it better.

“If you’re able to solve business problems, that’s when you’re a good salesperson. It’s not just selling a product.”

Why So Many Sales Hires Fail

When a salesperson fails, the instinct for many small business owners is to blame the hire and start the search over. But hiring a replacement without fixing the underlying process usually leads to the same outcome, and a wasted year or more along the way.

The reality is that many small business owners are not traditional salespeople themselves, so they do not always know how to set a rep up to succeed. Before expecting results, a company needs to ask whether it has actually given the salesperson the tools to win:

• Have you provided training and ongoing support?
• Have you defined the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)?
• Have you established clear KPIs?
• Have you built out the selling and outreach process?
• Have you created a plan for generating opportunities?

When a rep is hired, told to “bring in some revenue,” and then left to figure everything out alone, failure is not a reflection of the person. It is a reflection of the system, or the lack of one.

“They wasted a year and a half because they haven’t developed the process internally in order to hire the right people, train the right people, implement process and then inspect what you expect.”

The Four Traits of a Great Salesperson

So what should you actually look for when hiring? Over 28 years and more than 30,000 salespeople hired, Tony has identified four core traits that consistently separate the strong reps from the rest.

1. Work Ethic

This is the foundation, and it is non-negotiable. Sales requires discipline and the drive to show up and do the work every single day.

“You can’t be a lazy salesperson. It just doesn’t work.”

Tony notes that candidates with backgrounds in sports or the military often excel here, because they are accustomed to meeting daily expectations. Sales is a numbers game, not exclusively, but activity matters. You have to make the calls, send the emails, and knock on the doors to build a pipeline.

2. Communication Skills

How a salesperson speaks shapes how prospects perceive them. Filler words and hesitation, the constant “um, uh, like,” signal a lack of confidence in what is being sold.

“Confidence is really, really big. You know, fake it till you make it, as they like to say.”

That does not mean misleading a customer. It means representing your product and company with genuine confidence, especially early on, and following up with the right information when needed.

3. Comfort With Technology

You do not need to be a technologist, but you do need to be comfortable using the tools of modern sales, especially the CRM. Capturing intelligence from the customer base is essential to building territories and pipelines.

Understanding why prospects say yes is just as important as understanding why they say no. Without that data flowing in, it becomes far harder to know whether the issue is the salesperson, the messaging, or the price point.

4. A Genuine Interest in People

The final trait ties everything together. The best salespeople are genuinely curious about the people and businesses they serve.

“Go out with the idea of, ‘Hey, I’m out here to solve problems. I want to come out and make your business better.’”

When you solve problems, make people’s lives easier, and build real relationships with clients, you create partnerships that last. That model never goes out of style.

The 20/60/20 Rule and Why the Bottom 20% Struggles

Most sales teams follow a familiar pattern. Roughly 20% are top performers, 60% sit in the productive middle, and 20% ultimately need to be replaced. But the reason that bottom group struggles is rarely a lack of talent.

“When we really look at that bottom 20%, it’s because 90% of the time, they’re not doing the work ethic.”

In other words, they are not knocking on doors, making calls, or sending the emails required to get over the hump. This is why work ethic sits at the top of the list. Skills can be taught. Techniques can be trained. But effort cannot be installed.

“We can train you to sell. We can teach you techniques, just like we’re doing today. We can give you ideas on how to be a better salesperson, but I can’t help you open that door in the morning.”

Building a Hiring Process That Works

Hiring well is not about finding a flawless resume or relying on a single personality test. Tony notes that resumes only reveal so much, and that standardized sales tests have not proven to be reliable indicators in his experience.

Instead, the Sales Focus recruiting team focuses on asking the right questions, often challenging candidates during the interview to understand how they respond when something does not go their way. That resilience matters, because rejection is built into the job.

“You have to get a lot of noes in sales in order to get to the yeses. It may take 80% noes just to get a couple yeses.”

The salespeople who succeed are the ones who can absorb that rejection, stay disciplined, and keep showing up. For the best sales professionals, that consistency is what turns activity into results over time.

Final Thoughts: Hire for Effort, Train for Skill

At the end of the day, finding good salespeople comes down to identifying the intangibles that resumes cannot capture: work ethic, communication, comfort with technology, and a genuine interest in people. The skills of selling can be developed. The willingness to do the work cannot.

For business owners, the lesson is twofold. Look for candidates with the right traits, and build the internal process to support them once they are hired. When you combine the right people with the right structure, you create a sales team capable of long-term, repeatable success.

As Tony puts it, work hard, have fun, learn about the companies you talk to, and enjoy what you do. The rest will follow.

Listen to Episode 7 of The Sales Focus Podcast, “How to Hire Good Salespeople,” below.