The Sales wing of a company is such a territory where the employer can never afford to compromise on the quality of manpower chosen.
It is pertaining to the sections in the work force where the personnel employed is supposed to take care of the earnings of a company.
They should be such that the profit and the top line both get enhanced and augmented day after day. This is the profit center of the company or organization – whatever term is applicable to the work place concerned.
The sales force – by being physically present at the premises of the clients or by rendering their voice or sending e mails etc – are the front line personnel whom the client can see or visualize apart from experiencing the product or service concerned.
Thus from the other side, the sales persons should also take adequate measures to prepare for the interviews for the various sales positions. This is the subject of this discussion today.
How To Prepare for an Inside Sales Job Interview?
Tons of pages and newsprints have been utilized already for specifying the ways on how to prepare for an inside sales interview.
Here, it would be better perhaps if the candidate reiterates himself so as not to indulge in certain things which can reduce the selection chances of himself for the coveted inside sales position.
As being among a company’s inside sales personnel, the work of the incumbent like you would be a bit different than the general telemarketing staff.
The telemarketing part often contains conversation which is more or less scripted and the situation is something like “do or die”.
A deal might flourish or may close without bearing any fruits but the matter ends there. Telemarketing process involves selling low ticket items like say an insurance policy or things like an extended form of warranty etc.
These are normally Business to consumer or B2C calls. But in case of the inside sales person, the job demands something more. They harness in excelling in B2B or Business to Business calls more often. The caller might have to refer back to the prospective client a couple of times or may be more than that.
Thus while speaking to the clients – they might have to improvise the text of their speech – depending on the situations, the nature of the client business, the budget etc. Thus it is a bit specialized compared to mere telemarketing.
With the above in the backdrop, it would be possible to review the do’s and don’ts for a candidate like you in inside sales interviews. The aspiring candidate should never criticize the existing or former employers at all in the presence of the ongoing interview’s esteemed board members.
The candidate should make it a point to maintain eye contact with the potential employer at the interview. Otherwise the interviewer might be haunted by second thoughts about the candidate although there is no question of any eye contact in case of inside sales.
But this occurs as the inside sales person might have to maintain healthy relationship with the potential client as these involve multi touch points which are generally Business to business variety sales.
The candidate should never be late for the interview. The candidate must be industrious enough to gather as much information as possible about the interviewing company and the relevant industry because in inside sales the seller needs to do a lot of homework often about the prospect company’s business since these variant sales generally involve big ticket high expense items – often industrial in nature.
How To Prepare For a Sales Phone Interview?
The tips for how to prepare for a sales phone interview are as follows. Candidates must never engage themselves in any kind of activities apart from receiving the phone for the interview on the scheduled date and at the stipulated time of the phone interview.
The candidate should be highly equipped with details of his credentials ‘s copy and some other relevant details although it is assumed that the interviewers are also having copies of the same ready while calling him over the phone.
The disposition adopted by the candidate must sound cheerful over the phone. This is because of the simple fact that the interviewers are more interested to test his pro activeness while responding to any kind of business phone call.
In this case also the candidate should make it a point not to ever criticize or be harsh while discussing about his present or past employers due to obvious reasons.
Apart from this, you as the aspirant should always be cheerful in answering any kind of interview questions – whether a bit attacking in nature or polite.
The interviewers intentionally pose to be aggressive at times over the phone on order to cross check whether the candidate is capable of managing his cool composure even when trying circumstances.
It is to be borne in mind that all these members of the esteemed telephonic interview boards are immensely experienced and that they are well aware of the ground realities that sales executives face while trying to pitch for their product.
How To Prepare for a Sales Associate Interview?
If you want to know that How to prepare for a sales associate interview, first you have to know the job sphere and responsibilities that you have to undertake.
The term sales associate generally counts in retail. Persons recruited in such position generally take care of certain pre assigned work.
Being in a sales associate job you should take care of — you should be proactive to deter the miscreants who are shop lifters, answer to the various queries of existing and potential customers.
Keep the selling space tidy and well arranged, promote a friendly environment for the patrons, greet the customers duly and acknowledge their compliments for the company – if any; to maintain a perfect awareness pertaining to the promotions and advertisements that the company has released, to initiate the floor moves of the retail store premises and the list is virtually infinite when considering the micro aspects of the job description.
Thus the candidate for this position – like you should also prepare adequately for an interview for such a post. The interviewer would always be keen to test whether you fit the bill for this post.
For this he will ask you such intriguing questions by means of which he would be able to gauge whether you are capable of recollecting and sequencing all the aspects of any given job description.
In case you are experiences, you should be ready to articulately pronounce the exact jobs which you had to undertake in your previous organization. Also, there might be questioned on your achievements – if any – in your previous work places. You should do home work for answering such questions.
Sales Job Interview Questions:
The chestnut and evergreen sales interview questions are “Tell us something about yourself”, “Why are you so interested to work in a sales job?”; “What prompted you to leave your last job?”; “What really motivates you to try for selling?” and so on.
The intention of the people on the other side of the table is to judge the promptness of the respondent — while answering the queries. They also judge his analyzing skills, ability to articulate.
They also dig to fathom his depth on work knowledge and how well versed is he with the norms and recent happenings within the industry concerned.
Sales Interview Tips and Answers:
There is no ready reckoner to find Sales interview tips and answers. But some tips are given below for answering the patent sales interview questions, which are helpful indeed to aspirants like you.
The respondent should take care of the answers given to a query by the future employer. This is to suggest that the answers should be modeled in such a way that while you end answering a particular question – the leaving point becomes intriguing for the interviewer to come up with a related question.
In this manner, the entire course of the interview can be controlled by you – although being at the candidate’s seat. This requires a bit of rehearsal — prior to the interview date.
Thus the question might be –”What interest you the most about this company?” This answer should start with “I have always admired your company and I am aware of the media reports about your esteemed company”.
It shows real interest, dedication and sincerity from the point of view of the candidate concerned. Simultaneously above answer provokes the interviewer to ask the respondent to narrate some of the recent accomplishments by this company – which the candidate should be able to answer well since he is well prepared .
This befittingly illustrates the manner in which the respondent like you should answer questions to passively control the course of the interview.
Sales Interview Tips Tell Me About Yourself:
You would obviously come across the question “Tell me something about yourself”. It is of course a golden question in sales interviews.
Though giving suggestion on sales interview tips introducing yourself in interview is not an easy task to do, because it is to be kept in mind that the sales interviews are designed in such a way that the negative as well as the positive traits of the respondent – if any – are to be crystal clear to the board.
It is quite natural for them to do so also considering the fact that the sales personnel are often to be trusted with the supremely demanding work of representing the company to clients of various bent of mind.
Thus at that point the traits of the employees will be evident to the patrons and they would often judge a company by means of their observations of the sales people apart from the qualities of the product or service.
But the latter come only after you win the deal and convince the clients. Thus the interview board always harnesses to read the candidate flawlessly.
In view of the above, the answer to the subject question should never be such that your negative traits are laid bare to the interviewers. Of course you should never say bluntly that you do not have your negative points in the character. But your gestures and your replies should suggest that.
Conclusion:
Thus it might suffice to mention that communicative power and pro activeness are the two main traits which the employers seek from the sales personnel. Next to that there are level specific qualities.
But the initial two are the key skills. Thus the respondents like you should also do the rehearsals and homework more to acquire the ability to enhance the same on one hand and also to find ways to exhibit them on the other – during the course of the sales interview.
It is true that experience in appearing for sales interviews do count a lot in the performance at the board room but being intuitive and exposed to the recent happenings in the allied industries are also the things which should never be ignored while gearing up to attend a sales interview. This is the issue which you should never forget – prior to a sales interview.
Try to place yourself on the other side of the interview table and envisage what goes on within the mind of the interviewer in response to your answers. Your battle is half won already by you if you can successfully simulate such situation prior to attending a sales interview.
