Hiring the Best Ch 13

Sales Hiring Strategies

• Sales positions have high turnover, making hiring crucial for profitability.
• Sales candidates often view interviews as sales pitches.
• Hiring managers must have specific, probing questions to evaluate critical skills and professional values.

Interview Questions for Sales Candidates

• Product Knowledge:

  • "What do you know about our product line?" assesses grasp of the product and its market position.

• Sales Process Understanding:

  • "What steps are involved in selling our product/service?" Differentiates candidates who can adapt to different economic situations.
  • This requires excellent communication, critical thinking, and multitasking skills.

• Time Management & Prioritization:

  • "How do you plan your day?" and "Do you find it helpful to prioritize activities?" Evaluate time management skills, understanding of industry-specific needs, and non-selling activities like tracking results.
  • Critical to understanding how candidates manage the sales process and their day. Identify ability to plan, organize, and prioritize.

• Customer Relationship Management:

  • "What different types of customers do you deal with/have you called on?" & "What titles have you sold to and in what types of companies?" Evaluate experience relevant to the target customer base.
  • More complex sales & higher ticket items require more advanced traits in critical thinking and communication skills

• Sales Process Efficiency:

  • "How many e-mails, phone calls, and in-person visits does it typically take to reach a decision maker?" and "What percentage of your sales calls result in full presentations to decision makers?". Assess understanding of the sales process, closing ratios, and how to reach decision makers.
  • Validate the claims and uncover any discrepancies to find out if the candidate is telling the truth

• Sales Process Management:

  • "How long does it typically take to move from initial contact to close of sale?" and "How many phone calls/e-mails/in-person meetings does an average sale usually involve?" and "What criteria do you use to qualify a potential sale?" & "At what point do you go for the close?" This assesses understanding of the sales process, from qualification to closing.

• Client Management & Prospecting:

  • "How large a client base do you need to maintain sales on an even keel?" & "Have you ever broken in a new territory/desk?" & "How do you go about identifying and ranking customers in a new market?" Evaluate candidate's understanding of maintaining growth even when old cycles end. Examine the ability to penetrate new markets and establish new relations.

• Handling Objections & Difficult Situations:

  • "What kind of people do you like to sell to?" & "What type of people don’t you like to sell to?" Assess candidate's ability to deal with diverse customers, including difficult ones.
  • "Tell me about the most difficult prospect you turned into a buyer." and "Tell me about a prospect you couldn’t close." Understands candidate's approach to overcoming objections and dealing with challenging prospects.

• Handling Failures & Resilience:

  • "Tell me about your most crushing failure." or "Give me a specific example of a time when you were rejected, and how you handled it.". Assess resilience and ego strength.
    • Important to know how candidates handle rejection and setbacks.

• Goal Setting & Quotas:

  • "All of us have failed to meet a quota at one point or another. When you don’t meet your goals, how do you handle it?" and "What have you been most frequently criticized for, and by whom?" & "How do you keep yourself going when everyone is having a bad day/is unorganized/is depressed?" Assess determination, emotional maturity, and adaptability to negativity

• Peer Performance & Expectations:

  • "How productive are you compared to your peers?" &" How smart are you compared to your peers?"& "How do you rank professionally compared to your peers?" This evaluates self-awareness and comparison to peers.

• Exceeding Expectations:

  • "Give me an example of a sale that was, for all intents and purposes, lost. How did you turn the situation around?" and "Give me an example of a time when you surpassed what was expected of you from your employer." Evaluate performance above the norms. Assess critical thinking abilities.

• Sales Methods:

  • "What do you dislike most about sales?" (Evaluate if the candidate dislikes essential sales tasks).

• Telemarketing Skills:

  • Questions to evaluate a candidate's telemarketing skills (adaptable to specific company needs).

Additional Considerations

• Interview Structure: Employ a structured interview approach.
• Past Performance & Situational Questions: Utilize past performance & situational questions to gain insights into candidate’s past sales activities.
• Objectivity: Remaining objective and methodical during the interview is key.
• Follow-Up Questions: Important for follow-up questions to clarify the candidate's response and uncover any inconsistencies.

General Interviewing Tips

• Understand that sales candidates see the interview as a sales opportunity.
• Adopt a structured questioning approach.
• Ensure consistent application of the questions across all candidates, for fairness.
• Be acutely aware that statistics can often be false, verify them with additional questions and reference checks.