The OG of Outsourced Sales with Tony Horwath of Sales Focus Inc.

Tony Horwath, Founder and CEO of Sales Focus Inc, joined the Outsource Accelerator Podcast to discuss why face-to-face B2B selling still beats automation while explaining how his hybrid US-and-Philippines model has sustained growth for 28 years.

As one of the OGs of outsourced sales, Horwath shared what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and where AI actually fits in a people-first industry.

Sales Focus Inc and pioneering sales outsourcing 

“Our real focus from the beginning was to help companies grow. We assist organizations to build and manage dedicated sales teams face-to-face, door-to-door, business-to-business.”

Tony launched Sales Focus in 1998 after years working in tech, spotting an opportunity in the then-emerging BPO category. At the time, the concept felt radical.

“When I first started, everyone thought I was crazy because who would give up their sales team? That’s the heart, that’s the engine of an organization who has my relationships with my clients.”

Tony on the early days of outsourced sales:

“Companies started to come to us to say, ‘Hey, if you can really do this, do what you’re saying, we really need that. We need feet on the street doing B2B sales.'”

Boots on the ground, backed by offshore lead generation

Sales Focus Inc runs a hybrid structure: a 250–300-strong US field sales workforce, an inside sales centre in Charleston, South Carolina, and a lead generation engine in the Philippines. Each program — across energy, healthcare, telecom, and tech — gets a dedicated team carrying the client’s business card.

“When I say feet on the street or boots on the ground, it’s really about sometimes knocking doors. So if we’re doing a telecom or internet services company or an energy type company, it’s almost every door, every floor on the business side.”

The offshore team handles outreach and lead qualification; closes happen onshore. Tony argued that for B2B, the speed-to-market advantage is hard to replicate internally.

“We can launch a sales team of any size anywhere in the world in 45 days or less. They can’t do that. It’s impossible for a large organization to get that together. Sometimes it takes them 45 days just to write a job description.”

Why “Fee Plus Commission” beats commission-only

Sales Focus Inc reps are W2 employees, not contractors, paid a fixed fee plus commission. Tony says the model is what makes long retention possible and why his clients get sellers who stick around for years rather than churning every 90 days.

Tony on compensation structure:

“In a commission-only world, it’s like 90 days. So you’re constantly feeding, hiring, training. You really become just a recruiting company more than anything else, which is not what we wanna do.”

That stability, he said, also protects the client’s brand. This is non-negotiable when a sales team is carrying someone else’s business card.

Where AI fits in a people-first sales model

Tony incorporates AI into CRMs and lead databases but draws a hard line at automated mass outreach. He sees the current flood of AI-driven sales spam as an opening, not a threat.

“There are some things I’m not a big fan of, like the auto-outreach type of thing. They’re pumping out 1,000 calls in an hour. We just don’t do that. That’s not our model.”

The personal touch, he argued, is becoming a differentiator again, including a quiet comeback for direct mail.

“People got bombarded for years, everything just thrown away. It’s a little less now, so there is a potential for that if it fits the ICP and the model that you wanna go after.”

Hiring salespeople for the intangibles

Sales Focus Inc received the 2025 Outsourcing Impact Report Catalyst for Change Award for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. The company focuses less on resumes and aptitude tests and more on character cues such as work ethic, communication, and willingness to commit.

“You have to be able to take nos. You gotta get through your nos to get to those yeses. So if you’re gonna knock 30 doors or 50 doors in a day, do ’em. Get through ’em because you don’t know when that yes is gonna come.

Really good salespeople understand that they have to do that legwork. They have that discipline [and] character. Again, it’s all about what’s inside of somebody that makes the difference.”

To learn more about Sales Focus Inc’s outsourced sales services, visit salesfocusinc.com. If you’d like to learn more about what we do in the outsourcing space, send us an email at ask@outsourceaccelerator.com.