Sales Interview Questions
A good sales professional must possess excellent communication and interpersonal skills. Combining these skills with your subject knowledge will certainly project you ahead of all the other job applicants.
A company employs a lot of its resources while hiring for a marketing and sales job position. Thus, it is important for them to find a candidate who excels at every stage. Along with the typical interview questions, sales interviews emphasize on various factors, such as overall personality of the candidate, subject knowledge, salesmanship quality, core sales skills etc.
Common Sales Interview Questions :
Following are the questions that can be asked during the interview for a sales job.
- How long have you been working in sales sector? How would you rate your experience in sales?
Give a detailed explanation regarding your sales experience. Ideally, you should begin with an ascending chronology. Start with your first job and speak about your recent experience at the climax. This will provide them a step by step explanation of your sales experience.
In case, you do not have any prior experience, communicate your keen ness and let them know why this field interests you.
- According to you, what is the most favorable and unfavorable part of the sales process?
This question directs at finding out your outlook toward the sales process. Describe what you like about the sales procedure. Justify your response with comprehensive detailing.
Meanwhile, the negative aspects of the sales process must be sugar coated to avoid risking too much criticism. The best way to deal with this question is to present your response in a positive way by stating that you strive towards turning your dislikes into a continuous learning process.
- What are your basic principles of selling?
There can be no standard answer to this question. Each candidate has his own set of principles of selling. Gather the most important principles that you abide by, as a sales professional. Prioritize your principles and state why according to you, they form your fundamentals.
- What is the difference between sales and marketing?
To demonstrate your strong hold over the subject, you must mark the clear distinction between the two terms. Inability to answer a basic question as this can endanger you chances of getting selected.
- What steps would you take to appease a visibly unsatisfied customer?
No sales job interview is complete without this question. This will test your ultimate skills as effective communicator, problem solver and decision maker.
In this case, you are expected to comprehend the customer's problem, offer suggestions and thus resolve the issue. Hence, approach the problem in a systematic way. Your answer will be reviewed according to the effectiveness of the solution.
- How would a client describe you?
You have to speak about you strong client relationship. You can mention that you are known to work in the best interest of the client as well as the company. Give an example to support your claims.
- Sell me this book.
You will have to employ the best of your salesman skills to successfully go through this exercise. The interviewer is your potential customer; and you may have to use immense convincing power to make the sale. More often than not, the interviewer will pose as a customer difficult to please. Successfully closing the deal will only improve your chances of being selected for the sales job position.
