In any given channel I service, my dealers are more similar than they are different. Similar business models mean they all face similar challenges.

As a result, when I talk with clients, the same topics come up repeatedly. One that’s surfaced a lot lately is recruiting and hiring — and the headaches that come with both.

Not everyone understands this, but it always comes down to the people on your team. Who’s on your team, and what they do, makes all the difference.

You can train your teams — and you must. When it comes to sales skills training, you can turn OK salespeople into good ones, and good salespeople into even better ones.

But great salespeople are born, not made. Real talent can’t be trained into existence. It has to be recruited and unleashed.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t train highly talented salespeople. You absolutely should. Training sharpens their natural abilities and makes them more effective. But beyond putting guardrails in place to keep them from committing fraud, they don’t really need to be managed — they just need to be aimed at the right targets.

A million years ago, I was a multi-store manager for Sunglass Hut, which isn’t nearly as glamorous as it sounds. I was essentially a baby district manager, running my stores and reporting to a Western Canada district manager who oversaw all of us MSMs.

At one of my locations, there was a young woman who was a natural-born killer.

Guys would walk into the store and head straight for the spinner rack of cheap $10 sunglasses.

Pro tip for anyone who ventures into a sunglasses store: Salespeople do not want you buying the $10 sunglasses. Those are bait.

Every time someone came in looking for cheap shades, she’d get into their head. They’d walk out with a $400 pair of Gargoyles (remember those?), a hard clamshell case, and not one — but two — care kits with cleaning cloths, spray and tiny screwdrivers (one for home, one for the car). And they had absolutely no idea what just happened.

She was a force of nature.

When she gave notice, she told me she was moving to London to work in the fashion business. I had no reason to doubt her. Whatever she ended up doing, I’m sure she went far.

I’ve got a more recent story that underlines the importance of recognizing talent.

The owner of a company I work with recruited a new store manager. I’ve known this manager for years. He’s a born hustler. Wherever he goes, results follow.

I benefited directly. In one year running that store, his business with me increased 4,000% year over year.

That’s not a typo: Four thousand percent in a single year. He was selling — a lot — and he was selling my products.

Long story short, the owner eventually sold the company. The new owner didn’t keep the manager or his sales team and brought in his own people instead.

It probably won’t shock you to hear this, but the new team isn’t putting points on the board the way the old one did.

Sometimes the most valuable asset a company has isn’t inventory, real estate or branding — it’s its best people. Ignore that at your own risk.