Three Tough Interview Questions for Super Sales Stars

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A career in sales affords flexibility, a bit of autonomy, unlimited (to a point) earning potential and transferrable skills to a wide variety of industries. Successful sales people can have an exciting career and cash in on sales incentives, such as travel, bonuses or valuable merchandise. Top sales people bring in the business and revenue for the company. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship. Finding the best and brightest sales people can be a challenge. Enthusiasm as well an ability to solve problems and handle objections are critical to building a successful sales career.

 

If you want to be successful in sales, you have to be able to handle rejection, and plenty of it. No one hits a home run every time. Many job seekers are drawn by all the perks and glamour of the job and minimize the hard work and confidence-breaking rejection. Employers interviewing job applicants need to bring in a dose of reality to find the right mix of enthusiasm, energy and thick skin necessary for sales success.

 

The article in Inc. Magazine, "Overcome 3 Common Sales Objections," listed three objections sales people regularly hear from prospects and offered ways to counteract them. With a little alteration, these objections can be turned into interview questions to test an applicant’s product and company knowledge, problem-solving skills, listening skills, and ability to persuasively and tactfully counter a prospect’s statement. 

 

  1. “I can get it cheaper elsewhere.” For the interview set up a situation and use the price objection for your most popular product or service. Does the applicant know the product and price point? Does she use product features, reliability or applications to show value over the competitor’s product? Does she use persuasive language and show confidence and enthusiasm when talking about the product? 
     
  2. “I have a friend in the business.” Buying from a friend may get a lower price, but often backfires when a product or service doesn’t live up to expectations. An applicant should be able to counteract this objection by bringing out that price isn’t the only consideration, and point to the company’s service policy or reputation for quality. With so many knockoffs available on the Internet, another counter would be the ability to buy with confidence, knowing you’ve got the “real deal” and a company to back it up.
     
  3. “I did business with your company is the past, and they were unprofessional.” This is a great role play. How does the applicant handle the customer’s statement? Does he go into a defense of the company, negating the customer’s concern? Or, does he ask questions and try to determine what happened and how the company seemed unprofessional. Do they try to find out what the customer needs to restore confidence and a customer relationship? Perception is reality, and if a customer has an impression, telling them they are wrong isn’t the right response. Listening, asking probing questions and empathy for a customer’s situation are important skills for a sales pro who wants to win back a customer.

 

Using real life situations in an interview can tell you more about an applicant than the standard, “Tell me about yourself,” or “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” kind of questions. If you get good responses to some of the toughest sales scenarios, you may have a prospective sales star.

 

Photo Source: Danilo Rizzuti / Freedigitalphotos.net
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  • Leonard Del G
    Leonard Del G •
    Facing pricing issues is a daily part of sales, and anyone interviewing a potential sales representative should be addressing this issue,  but in my own experience only about half of those I have interviewed with actually have.Also note worthy is that the majority of those missing this very important question are larger corporations where a human resources person either attended or was directly involved, but the majority of small companies seemed more concerned with actual performance and addressed more of the daily activity and sales specific questions.I attribute this to the fact that many times when interviewing with small companies the interviewer will be an owner or long term employee who are not only directly effected by the expense of the hire but also by the future success or failure as well. I believe this relates to the fact on a percentage of gross sales/profit the small business hire relates a much higher number and therefore the expense or investment has a much larger impact on the companies future, and the principles increase or loss of income.It would still seem obvious that both big or small would be concerned about hiring someone who can produce successful results over someone with super star credentials, but somehow even in sales I have found most large corporations somehow find it to gravitate towards credentials and fluff over ability and results.Handling a companies problem accounts of the past is going to be part of any new salesperson day. It is only logical for a owner or manager to want to get the business that they have been missing or have lost, but this also is rarely discussed.Obviously using a questioning style or approach will produce good results with those who have had a bad experience or opinion of your new employer, but why most avoid this during the interview stage is interesting.I have found from my own questioning and requests for feedback from those positions I was not successful in gaining that most want to avoid anything that could be negative towards the company during an interview. It seems that small business is just ignoring the fact or somehow allows ego to cause them to avoid it, and the bigger companies seem to see it to be more about the perceived value of working for a company without problems etc.Still the interesting fact here is how many who are interviewing sales reps are not fully understanding the position or know what makes a successful salesperson in the first place.Hopefully in the future things will improve from articles like a this.
  • Hany  S
    Hany  S •
    The article is valid and true to is nature . A superstar Sales person will be able to give the correct response to all of these questions . I am one of those superstars . As I was reading the article I was answering he questions before I read the answers in the article .
  • Irving S
    Irving S •
    Very interesting, these are common situations most sales people run into. I have had these objections when I sold life insurance.A question similar to the last one has come in most of the interviews i've had lately.
  • Stuart W
    Stuart W •
    These are excellent sales "scripts" to be learned in handling a prospective customers ploys in stalling the "close"

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