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I was reading an excellent short blog on the cost of poor sales staff selection here and it ties in nicely with the Sales Manager Training manual I am developing at the moment.
The
art of candidate selection and employment
It's
may be that it's a lot easier to employ a ready-made top performer
than create one. One of the best ways to achieve a highly effective
sales force is to employ the right people.
What
questions you ask during the sales interview is a small but vital
part of the candidate selection process.
Other parts of the
employment process are of course:
Understanding and characterising the role you are employing for so that you can match the skills and personality to the role.
Defining the appropriate sales personality type for the role.
Defining the attributes you need to assess.
Selecting and crafting the appropriate questions.
It may consist of an initial interview process followed up by professional sales role-play scenarios.
You may choose to perform pschometric testing on the candidate
Analysing and summarising the candidate background check.
Structuring commissions, etc. to best suit the ideal candidate.
Making the job offer.
We have yet to decide if the next edition of our sales manual 'SalesFish; The Consultative Sales Professional' will include a supplementary section for Sales Managers or whether to publish this as a separate Sales Manager manual. We welcome your feedback on comments on whether to do this as a separate Sales Manager manual. Either way we will include a section on candidate selection and recruitment.
Note:
i) This is a possible pool of questions only. I acknowledge that there are many skills and attributes that are not currently assessed by this list. Over the next few months we will continue our research and will add to the list below - so remember to check back for an updated list.
You should decide what skills and attributes are most important to be successful in your role and select only the appropriate questions.
ii) The order in which you ask the candidate interview questions is important. Each group of questions should start with ice breakers to relax the candidate (these have not been included in the list below). Questions should be asked in an open exploratory manner initially to extract as much information as possible. Closed questions (questions with one or two word simple answers) should rarely be used during the sales interview process.
ii) Answers to questions should be queried and explored in depth. e.g. Can you further explain that?
iii) The heading under which the question is positioned below gives you a clue as to its purpose. For example the question “what do you know about us?” is placed under the 'what are the candidates habits and processes' section to determine if they habitually research clients before a sales call.
What
are the candidates sales skills:
What is the biggest challenge you would face in
this role?
What do you like and dislike about the products or
services you're selling now and why?
Give an example of a time when you have exceeded a
customer's expectations. Tell us what the customer required and how
you went about providing it and how you think it exceeded their
expectations. Tell us how the customer acknowledged that you exceeded
their expectations?
What
are the candidate's strategic and business analyses skills:
Who do
you see as our company's
biggest competitors, and why?
Tell
us why the customers purchase the products you are currently
selling?
What do you see as our
strengths?
What do you see as our biggest challenges?
Can you explain the following terms ROI, net profit, margin, markup, cash-flow, EBIT, SWOT, capital investment?
What are
the changes that see are taking place in our industry at the
moment?
What do you think the future of our industry will
look like?
How good is their product knowledge:
What are the key benefits our products offer our customers?
What are the key benefits our competitors products offer?
What are the candidates habits and processes:
Tell us
what you currently know about our company?
Tell us what you did to
prepare for this sales interview?
List the typical progression steps you might take with a sales opportunity.
List the steps a customer will typically progress through before making a purchase?
Personality Assessment:
Tell us a little about yourself?
How would your
colleagues describe you?
What positive comments would you current/previous sales manager make about you?
What criticisms might your current/previous sales manager make?
Can you give us an example of you
assisted a colleague in your previous role?
Describe how you have reacted in the past to a specific incident where someone opposed your decision or opinion?
What do you do when
you are not at work?
Which part of this role is least attractive to you?
What aspect of your last job was the least attractive to you?
What was the last book you read?
Would you
describe yourself as a hunter or a farmer?
What percentage of your
income do you expect to earn from commissions and bonuses? (This
question is a reality check on whether they really have a
hunter or farmer sales personality – are they better suited to a
consultative or feature selling environment?)
What questions do
you have for us?
After 12
months here, how would you like to be able to define your
success?
What immediate benefits do you think you will bring to
our company?
What is the most important
attribute of a successful sales person? Explain?
Do you believe you will be successful in this role?
What
is the candidates personal development regime:
What sales training courses/workshops have you completed?
Specifically how has this sales training assisted you?
What are your long term professional goals?
What
are you doing to get there?
What associations and clubs are you an active member of?
What networking associations do you belong to?
What
are the candidates time management skills and focus:
In
your current role what proportion of your time is in front of
customers?
What are the activities that you do when you are not in
front of customers?
What is the most frustrating aspect of your
current sales role?
Detail your last three days at work?
What
are you doing tomorrow? and the rest of this week? (Are they well
planned?)
Tell me
what you would you set out to do in your first week of work with
us?
What
does the candidate want/expect from this job:
What
prompted you to apply for this position?
Why are you looking to
leave your current employer?
How do you feel
about leaving your current company?
What
have you enjoyed there and what have you learned
from them?
How would you
evaluate your present firm?
Compare previous companies you have
worked for?
What role did you enjoy most and why?
What kinds of people do you like working with?
Describe
what you feel to be an ideal working environment?
How would
you evaluate your present firm?
Have you thought of leaving your
present position before? If so, what do you think kept you there?
Why
do you want to work for us?
What is the biggest challenge you face
in your current role?
What would excite and motivate you if you
came to work for us?
What has been the candidates track record to date:
(Track record is one of the best predictors of future success and progression.
What are your greatest accomplishments?
What is the best
sale you have ever made?
How was is achieved?
What % of of your sales targets have you been hitting over the last 12 months?
How has your success ranked with your colleagues sales success?
Win a free copy of our 140+ page eBook “The Consultative Sales Professional”. Just add your favourite sales interview question to the following list by clicking here. Please explain why you like the question you have submitted. We will email a free copy of the eBook to senders of our favourite questions.
by
Liam Venter: Author of the popular sales training manual
'The
Consultative Sales Professional'
You can obtain a copy here
