When people picture a great salesperson communicating, they picture the smooth pitch. That image is mostly wrong, and hiring to it gets you the wrong people. The communication that actually builds a strong sales team is quieter than that, and a fair bit of it happens away from the customer entirely. If you are building or hiring into a team, it is worth knowing what to look for.
Listening is the skill, not talking
The best salespeople talk less than you expect. They ask a good question and then stop, and let the customer fill the silence. Simple, and rare. Weak ones treat every pause as a cue to pitch. In an interview you can watch for this directly. Does the candidate answer what you asked, or do they steamroll into a rehearsed spiel? A rep who cannot listen to you will not listen to your customers either.
Communication inside the team matters as much as outside
A strong sales team is not a set of lone wolves. They share what is working, flag a deal that needs help, hand over cleanly when someone is off. The rep who hoards their tactics and goes quiet when they are struggling drags the whole team down, however good their personal number. When you hire, you are hiring someone into a group, so how they communicate with peers counts. It counts a lot.
Clarity with you, the manager
But you need reps who tell you the truth about their pipeline, including the ugly bits. The one who dresses up a dying deal as 'nearly there' every week is not managing you, they are storing up a nasty surprise. Straight, honest communication upwards is what makes a forecast worth anything. Screen for people who can say 'I am behind and here is my plan' rather than people who only ever report sunshine.
Writing is half the job now
Modern selling happens in email, on LinkedIn, in proposals and follow-ups as much as on calls. And a rep who is charming on the phone but writes a sloppy, waffly email is losing deals in a channel you cannot see. Ask for a writing sample, or just pay attention to how they write to you during the process. It tells you a lot. Often more than the interview.
How this shapes who you hire
So the communication skills worth hiring for are listening, honesty, and clear writing. Far more than slickness. The slick talker, the one who dazzles in the first interview and has the whole panel nodding along, is very often the weakest hire once the novelty wears off and the real selling starts. We screen hard for the quieter communication traits because they predict who actually performs, and they are exactly the ones a rushed interview misses. Our piece on the traits of high-performing sales teams puts this in context. When you want people screened properly before you meet them, here is how we work, or book a call.
