Frequently Asked Sales Interview Questions
Q – 1 Tell me are you comfortable making cold calls?
Ans- I am comfortable making cold calls. I have found that some of my most interesting sales have been the result of a cold call, to someone who was rather unsure of their interest in my product at our first meeting.
Q – 2 What makes a sales person good?
Ans- I am very detail oriented, and that helps me in sales in many ways. I make sure that I know everything there is to know about the product I’m selling, so that I can answer any questions a customer may have to their satisfaction. I also like to know my territory in and out, and I like to find out about my customers personally, so I can better serve them.
Q – 3 Tell me what is more important, product or customer service?
Ans- The quality product comes first. When you are able to provide a consistently high quality product, you are providing the customer with the most important aspect of customer service, a superior product experience.
Q – 4 What interests you about sales position?
Ans- I’m an avid amateur golfer, and I find your company’s products to be incredibly easy to use, and helpful to the average person. I believe selling something that I personally enjoy using so much makes me even more effective as a salesperson.
Q – 5 What you least like about being in sales?
Ans- I really enjoy being in sales, and I try to look at the whole package when assessing my likes and dislikes. While sometimes there is a difficult customer, or a company who doesn’t stand behind their product the way I’d like, the vast majority of the time,
I am happy to help my customers, and proud of the companies I represent. When there is a small problem, I really believe it just helps to keep me focused.
Q – 6 Tell me what you know about this company?
Ans- In my research about this company I discovered that you had started out over 100 years ago as a small brick and mortar retailer in Center City. As a family owned business, you had the savvy to grow in unique ways, and when the opportunity arose to go public in 1993, the decision was clear.
Since then, the management has continued to make aggressive decisions, keeping your business in the forefront of its competition.
Q – 7 Tell me what you find most rewarding about being in sales?
Ans- The most rewarding thing about being in sales, for me, is the satisfaction of helping a customer to realize their goals. Once I had a customer who was restructuring her Children’s Department, and needed to fill in a large number of books in the pre-teen section. We had a great time making selections together, and she was really pleased with the variety I was able to help her select.
Q – 8 What are your strengths and weaknesses in sales?
Ans- My greatest strength is my organizational ability. I like to plan out the sales cycle to the letter, and follow it through. My greatest weakness is related to my greatest strength, because I would say that when my plan needs to change, I can be a little bit inflexible.
Q – 9 Tell me what are your long term career goals?
Ans- I am interested in all aspects of the retail market, and see myself in the long term spending some time working in a variety of roles.
Q – 10 How you sell me this apple?
Ans-
★ Be positive and enthusiastic
★ Emphasize the features that the interviewer will value
★ Be ready to sell
★ Be creative
Q – 11 Tell me how your supervisor describe you?
Ans- He would describe me as a self starter. We were responsible for our sales from first contact to the close, and worked alone and independently most of the time. There were some experienced sales people who had a difficult time with the lack of structure there, but I found it satisfying to have that kind of autonomy.
Q – 12 Tell me how would your colleagues describe you?
Ans- I think most of my colleagues would describe me as a people person. I really enjoy the opportunity I have as a salesperson to meet with and learn about lots of interesting people from many different places.
Q – 13 How you land most successful sale?
Ans- My most successful sale was one where I had taken over a customer from another salesperson who had to leave suddenly. I immediately contacted the person, and let them know the situation. I knew that my colleague was having a difficult time getting the client to commit to the purchase of a large motor home.
Part of it was circumstantial, but when I was given the opportunity to take over the sale, I was able to give the customer some reflection time, and was ultimately able to close the sale.
Q – 14 What sales cycle you prefer a Long or short?
Ans- I think there are interesting points to both types of sales. I like a longer sales cycle, as it gives me time to get to know the customer, and spend time educating them about the benefits and uses of the product.
Shorter cycles are more intense, since you typically don’t have the luxury of too much personal knowledge of the customer, or the time for lengthy explanations. You need to hit the high priority topics rather quickly.
Q – 15 Tell me have you consistently met your sales goals?
Ans- I have always met or exceeded my professional sales goals, and most often my personal ones too, especially in the last few years. I think with experience, I have learned to set my personal goals at an attainable level, very high, but not unreachable.
Q – 16 What are the most important skills for sales success?
Ans-
★ The ability to adjust your approach to different people and situations
★ The ability to ask the right questions and listen carefully
★ The ability to deal with disappointment and rejection
★ The ability to stay motivated with a high energy level
★ The ability to plan and prepare
★ The ability to influence and persuade
★ The ability to negotiate and reach agreement
Q – 17 What is the psychology of selling?
Ans- This is where you demonstrate your understanding of the entire structure of selling. Focus on your view of selling as a professional service directed at showing the customer how your product or service meets their needs and improves their lives.
Prepare a concise sales interview answer that highlights your knowledge of how to communicate and build rapport with a client, ask the right questions, identify and understanding the client’s values, motives and needs, offer the appropriate solutions, handle objections and close the sale. Include adapting to different personality types and using persuasive communication skills.
Q – 18 What makes you different from any other salesman?
Ans- I am a different candidate but i am not as good as other salesman with some of those degree or with highly more experience but i am sure i like to see that i am a different from other salesman.
Q – 19 Pick anything in this room and try to sell it to me.
Ans- what kind of room are you looking for?( how many kids do you have?) how many berooms youre looking for..do you prefer with two baths, or two story.
Q – 20 How many rejections do you take in a typical week?
Ans- couple, but however i need to move forward take my time to relief but try not keep it inside move to next level and try thanking the time for them
Q – 21 What do you think are the most important skills in succeeding in sales?
Ans- Put a number on the skills so that you can structure your sales interview answer around this. For example, “I think the 3 most important sales skills are …”. Rather than referring to specific sales techniques focus on competencies and abilities that every successful salesperson needs, such as:
► the ability to adjust your approach to different people and situations
► the ability to ask the right questions and listen carefully
► the ability to deal with disappointment and rejection
► the ability to stay motivated with a high energy level
► the ability to plan and prepare
► the ability to influence and persuade
► the ability to negotiate and reach agreement
Q – 22 What do you like and dislike about the sales process?
Ans- This question is asked to explore the candidate’s self-awareness and motivation. Know your strengths in the sales process as these will translate into what you like. Your “likes” and strengths should correspond to the main priorities of this sales position.
For example, if your strength is negotiating, describe how you enjoy this aspect of sales and your satisfaction at coming up with win-win solutions. Highlight how this has resulted in both satisfied customers and increased sales which is what this position is looking for.
When responding to the “dislikes” go carefully! The best approach is to choose a characteristic of your present or previous company such as its poor delivery on the sales you made or its lack of flexibility when it came to negotiating sales solutions.
Answer in a positive manner as someone who is able to take these sort of problems in their stride and constructively improve on them. For example if the delivery of company products was slow and resulted in angry customers, discuss how you instituted a follow-up process that accelerated delivery.
Q – 23 What is your psychology of selling?
Ans- This is where you demonstrate your understanding of the entire structure of selling. Focus on your view of selling as a professional service directed at showing the customer how your product or service meets their needs and improves their lives.
Prepare a concise sales interview answer that highlights your knowledge of how to communicate and build rapport with a client, ask the right questions, identify and understanding the client’s values, motives and needs, offer the appropriate solutions, handle objections and close the sale. Include adapting to different personality types and using persuasive communication skills.
Q – 24 You are out to sell, what is your objective?
Ans- The candidate should understand the difference in selling a company and a product.
Q – 25 Sell this pencil to me?
Ans- You should be quick in trying to get the right USP for the product and sell efficiently.
Q – 26 What will you do to improve your product or service or your company?
Ans- Give a lot of examples and explain to him how you would improve either of this. This will increase a lot of customer service. You should have a commitment towards improving sales and increase the customer base.
Q – 27 what do you think is challenging in marketing?
Ans- Be prepared with concepts that you feel is most challenging in marketing. Understand the risks and challenges of the new market developments.
Q – 28 Explain one of your marketing innovations that you have done till now?
Ans- You should be good at judgment as this can be one of the most trapping questions. You should be a person who will create something new and bring out with an innovation.