Why your sales problem is almost never a sales problem

Ladies and gentlemen, we're back. Today we're on the show with Tony Horwath, founder and CEO of Sales Focus. This is a different kind of episode — Tony isn't a consultant who advises. He takes over your team, carries the client's business card, and closes their deals: your full sales cycle. He's had 2,000-plus chances to see what's actually broken inside companies that think their problem is sales, when it's almost never just sales. So Tony — who are you, and what do you do?

It really depends whether they want to grow their company. What we do is help organisations get to the next level of growth — that's why I started the business almost 29 years ago. I'm a computer engineer by degree, but I got into sales and marketing quickly and brought the idea of process-driven sales into the market, because 30 years ago the idea of process was really lacking. It was gut feel. When Salesforce came out it changed the market and let people start looking at process, and my whole background was process implementation and being a change agent.

In the '90s, that was when BPOs really kicked off — outsourcing a human. Now we're outsourcing to AI agents, AI SDRs. There's a lot of noise and a lot of garbage in it. How do you compare the opportunistic value of those two moments?

AI has been part of sales for a while — there's barely a tool you use that doesn't incorporate some model of it: CRMs, outreach tools, email campaigns. But our model has always been personal touch. I'm old school. I still believe seeing people face-to-face, eye-to-eye, building relationships, is a great way to sell — I get a lot more information when I can look someone in the eye. For generating opportunities, absolutely, AI has a play. But in the personal interaction, I don't see it yet.

It depends what you're selling — everything is different. We've engaged with over 2,000 companies. We've hired 25,000 or more sales agents, trained and managed them over the years. We've done three to 400 international companies wanting to get into the US, and worked in almost every industry there is. Traditionally we're managing 40 to 50 clients at any given time, 250 to 300 sales agents, and everyone has a different comp plan, a different ideal client profile, a different value proposition. All of that is unique to every client.

The way I use AI is: it gets me 60 to 70% of the way there, maybe 90% if my process is good, and then I pepper the last 10% myself — because most of the research and the insight-gathering is the mundane, repetitive stuff. I think it's an amazing opportunity, especially for agencies, in setting up the ICP, the list, making sure the messaging is right.

That back-office stuff — the outreach process, the drip campaign, the SEO and keywords — is a huge benefit to use as much technology as you can, because it cuts down that time. But it won't take away from the interaction time. Take that 70, 80, 90% and squeeze it into a tool so you have more time to focus on closing. Where it should also help is follow-up, because salespeople are traditionally not great at follow-up — it can take five to twelve touches to close a deal, and that's where a lot of them fail.

Sales is about solving problems — fixing problems, making companies and people's lives better. If you can't identify a value as a salesperson, you need to move on. I tell new salespeople there's one question you need to ask all the time, and it's why. Why are you not interested, why don't you see the value? Typically it's because the salesperson isn't explaining the value in a way that resonates. It's not a salesperson, it's a value-proposition person — get the value out, find solutions, solve problems.

I'm a big Chet Holmes fan — The Ultimate Sales Machine. I've typically sold to the problem: the ones aware of the pain, and the ones who have it but don't know it yet. But there's an alternative — what if they don't have a problem, they just want to grow? What's your take on selling to the problem versus selling to something other than the problem?

You said it yourself — it's not a problem, it's a challenge. Most organisations want to grow; if you don't grow, you die. I'm the OG of sales outsourcing — we really started the industry, and 28 years ago people looked at me like I was insane when I said I'd take over their sales team. So we solve problems — HR, training, turnover — but our focus is the top side: selling to business owners who want to grow. If I'm a million-dollar company and I want to reach five, ten, fifteen, that's a challenge every CEO has. We sell to the value of growth. That's opportunity, not just pain points.

You've generated something like 1.2 billion dollars in revenue for clients — but it all belongs to them. When I had my first big commission job, I generated over 650,000 for them and took 40,000 in commission, and it didn't add up. What's it like building a company where the scoreboard is always on somebody else's number?

Every time we engage a client we build a team specifically for them — the strategy, the value prop, the differentiation, the sales toolkit — and we hire the team, whether it's one rep or fifty, in 45 days or less. Those people are 100% dedicated, carrying that client's business card. And they're W-2 employees of ours, on full benefits — we don't do commission-only, we don't do 1099. The value we bring larger clients is brand protection: you're out carrying my business card, and we have zero tolerance for anything unethical or unprofessional.

Most sales organisations run on a 20-60-20 rule — 20% high achievers, 60% in the middle, 20% at the bottom. The key to growing is to build a core of good salespeople and grow that, which means sometimes dropping the bottom fast; we're a performance organisation. But bad managers focus on the top 10% — your high performers, get out of their way and let them do their job. Focus instead on the middle tier: the people hitting their knocks and conversations but not yet closing. They have the discipline; they just need more training.

People ask what we look for. We tried assessment tests — they didn't work for us; we couldn't tell the difference between our top performers and new people. So if you strip back the 25,000 people we've hired, the first attribute is work ethic. If you're not willing to get up and do the follow-ups, the knocks, the calls, the emails, it's tough. The other is a real interest in people — what we call intelligent conversations. The techniques we can teach. As I say: I can help you open almost every door, but I can't help you open your car door in the morning.

Enron was a great story and a bad story. We'd just launched in late 1998, and got two big contracts almost simultaneously — Sprint and Enron. We were selling deregulated energy, pre-deregulation, and the success was unbelievable, writing about 100 contracts a day. Then I'm flying to Texas, land, and my phone has 20 voicemails — Enron saying pull everybody out. We went from working with one of the largest companies in the world to laying off 50 sales agents in a single day. It was very detrimental.

But it made a light bulb go off. My model had been to help technology companies because that was my background. When Sprint and Enron came to us, I realised we don't need to be an expert in every industry — we're an expert in sales and sales process. Learning the product is the easy part; people hate when I say that, but you only learn it once. And there was a good ending: I built relationships inside Enron, some of those people started energy companies, and we've represented well over 50 or 60 energy providers ever since.

Most businesses are started by experts who think their solution is the only one until they search Google. After 2,000 engagements, what's the most common lie founders tell themselves about why their sales aren't working?

That's an easy one. Technologists build a great widget, spend all their money refining it, then sit in the garage and go, 'I hope someone can sell it.' They grow to a million on relationships, run out of network, and hire one mid-level salesperson — 'go get them, buddy, my product's so good it sells itself.' Six months later, nothing's closed, so they blame the hire. What they don't face is that there's no support structure: no toolkit, no ICP, no KPIs, no digital marketing, no training. They're not honest with themselves about what they really need.

We do let clients acquire the team we built after 12 months, and we charge them for it — because sometimes clients change direction. We represented one of the world's largest paint companies, built them a 20-to-25-person mid-market team and about $30 million in revenue over a few years. Then the person we reported to got promoted, a new leader came in and said his philosophy was to bring sales in-house. It was painful, but it gives them a ready-made team. Our best clients are the ones with the tightest relationship — they want to be involved, because it's a win-win-win.

Find us at salesfocusinc.com — there's a lot of great information there. I also do the Sales Focus Podcast, which is for salespeople who want tips, techniques and tools, and for small business owners who want to get to the next level. That's where to look for me.