Sales Interview

What do you expect a typical day to be like?

One of the most important sales management concepts is that a salesperson needs

To know certain things in order to succeed. I've developed that concept into The a Sales Knowledge Base, which consists of Product Knowledge, Market Knowledge, Operational Knowledge and Selling Technique. It's Important to understand, though, that all the knowledge in the world won't Lead to success unless the salesperson is willing to work hard. The answer

I'm looking for when I ask this question revolves around starting early, Working late, and putting plenty of sales-building activity in between. If I Don't get the answer from one client, or prospect it doesn't mean my day is over. I tell anyone who is looking to get into this business that "if this isn't what you had in mind--or if you're not willing to make this your typical day do yourself a favor and do not choose this line of work."

On a scale, how would you rate your "product

Knowledge?"

Once you've established that the necessary work ethic seems to be present, it's time to evaluate other key elements of the Sales Knowledge Base. The situation you face is pretty straightforward in that any necessary knowledge the customer doesn't already have will have to be "trained in." By that I mean even if it is a customer that you already are supplying to every week a new product or service will take a certain amount of training for me the salesperson, and the customer for both of us to understand, and hopefully feel the need to sell and buy. When a relationship with the product is established it is much easier to move it when you believe in it. I try to use a selling technique that not only uses my product knowledge, but focus more on the buyer's knowledge of the product. When I am trying to sell and new food product to a reastruants head chef or owner it is sometimes hard to get something new in the door. Sometimes they are reluctant to use new products, some buyers have an automatic rejection button installed in them as soon as I start talking about a new product and can be hard trying to sell him/her into a product. But I have noticed that most of the time when they automatically say no they just don't have product knowledge of the specific product I am trying to get them to use. That is where it is important for me to have expert knowledge, so right there on the spot I can tell him why this product is good for him and it dose work more then you might think.

On a scale, how would you rate your knowledge of selling Strategy and technique?

Obviously, this question takes the same approach to another of the key elements of the Sales Knowledge Base. Remember that a low self-rating is not necessarily a disqualifying

factor. We'd all like to be "9s" and "10s," but the reality of the situation is that many companies are forced by simple economics to hire salespeople at the low end of the scale, which translates to low levels of experience and knowledge. That doesn't men that people can not be trained, and possibly one day turn into a better sales person.

How much money do expect want to make in your first full year?

Here's where you establish the "want" level. If the first-year and third-year "wants" are reasonable. If not, you'd be wise to stop and tell yourself that you may not be able to earn that much money within a one-year or three-year timeframe. Remember, if the money doesn't work, neither will the relationship between you and your career path. Remember also that the sales process is a two way street. You're trying to make a good sale, and the buyer is trying to make a good purchase. Both parties need the truth on the table to provide a win-win situation. In my field it is more important to build a relationship that you sell your product regularly then one big sale and moving on.

What would you say your greatest strengths are as a salesperson?

This question takes us into the "getting to know you" part of our interview.

Remember that what you're getting here is an opinion, my opinion. This is likely to be at least a little bit self serving. The trick here is to listen to that opinion, and then hold it up to examination in terms of everything else I say and do during the interview. For example, if I say that being "hardworking" is a personal strength; listen for examples of previous hard work in the answers to subsequent questions. If you can do that here with me you will have a better advantage selling out in the field, because you need to pay attention to everything the buyer is saying. Doing that will make your strengths as a sales-person grow extremely. This question provides an opportunity to measure how much I really know about selling. Personal strengths definitely translate into selling strengths, but there are a few things that stand out especially as selling strengths, like organization, the ability and willingness to listen, self-discipline, and perseverance.

What are your weaknesses as a salesperson?

Everyone has weaknesses, and an intelligent salesperson takes a three-pronged approach to dealing with them (1) Identify any weaknesses early and decide if they're really important within the job description, (2) start the process of shoring up those weaknesses, or else (3) make the decision not to continue in this particular field. Shoring up any weaknesses falls into the category of training, and just as any necessary any knowledge that isn't already present will have to be trained in, any weaknesses and/or bad habits will have to be trained out. Keep in mind that some personal "weaknesses" can be turned into real positives in a salesperson. I recently trained a sales candidate who told me that his greatest weakness was impatience, and I told him there's a fine line between impatience as a weakness and impatience as a very strong motivating factor. "If you're willing to work on finding the balance," I said, "we can use this to make you a more successful salesperson. But if you expect great success and big money to come quickly in selling, hiring you would be a big mistake for both of us."

How are you going to go about finding new customers?

What you mat have in mind is more of a "feet-on-the-street" strategy