Sales Chump

Most people that aren’t in sales underestimate the power of sales and don’t realize how much selling occurs in everyone’s daily life.  Everyone should build or hone their sales skills, not just people directly involved in sales.

When I talk to young people that have just graduated college or are looking for an internship I always recommend sales.  Not everyone is made for sales but the experience they will receive from sales will help most people for years to come.

Sales helps build confidence, increases communication skills helps people become more outgoing, and should help in a wide array of other skills such as negotiation, listening and closing.  How will this serve better in life?  In all aspects.

We are always selling ourselves; whether it is to someone we want to get to know better, selling ourselves in an interview, to a co-worker, to our employees or boss, to our spouses and to our friends.  We may use negotiations when buying a car, a house or anything else for that matter.

Planning on starting your own business?  You will have to sell your idea to potential investors.  How are you planning on gaining your business?  Will you sell or will you hire someone to sell?  You will still have to sell someone on why they should join your new business with no current clientele or no history.  Many smart and highly competent people try to start their own business but fail because they can’t get the business in the door.  It’s not their fault, they just don’t know how.

If you or someone you know are looking to better yourselves in your career but are unsure of where to go, gives sales a shot.  Even if it’s not for you, the skills you will learn are invaluable and will help in all aspects of your life.

Looking for a good sales rep but not sure what questions to ask them in the interview?  The questions below are a good base of questions to ask.  Some of them aren’t related to sales at all and just get a better understanding of the type of person you’re interviewing.

General Interview Questions

• How do you currently pay for your expenses (rent, cell phone, etc)?
• What are your long term goals as a professional?
• If your current co-workers could describe you in 1 word, how would they describe you?
• If you could rate your organizational skills 1 - 10 (10 being high), what would you rate yourself?
  • What methods do you use to stay organized?

These questions allow you to see if they rely on others to help them and what their true motivation is.

The rest of the questions will be more sales related:

Sales Interview Questions

• What do you like most about sales? 
• What do you dislike most about sales?
• Would you prefer longer sales cycles for a bigger account or several smaller sales cycles for smaller accounts?
• Describe a situation with a client or prospect where you made a mistake. How did you handle the error?
• Describe a situation where the standard approach to a situation wasn’t working and a creative solution was needed.
• What do you think are the most important skills in succeeding in sales?
• What do you feel is the most important part of the sales process? (Opening, Interviewing, Demonstrating, Negotiating, Closing or some other aspect)
• How do you overcome a string of rejections and get out of a slump?

Again these aren’t all the questions in the world you would ask but I find these a more core group of questions that will get the foundation of the rep you are interviewing.  Obviously there may be more company specific questions needed for your particular interview.

Please feel free to chime in with a set of questions you like to use when interviewing new sales reps.

Selling around the holidays can be a hard proposition.  A lot of people ake off time during November and December and can be very hard to track down.  If you can get a hold your decision maker, other key people in their organization like legal, accounting or other executives may be out, and make you unable to get a deal done before January. 

So, what is the best approach to keep sales coming in even when prospects aren’t?  I like to work on smaller accounts, specifically mom and pop and owner/operator operations.  Why?  Because these small business owners usually never get a vacation.  Their bottom line and income depend on it.  They don’t have money to give to someone else or even the trust to let someone else run their company while they are out.  Because of this, they are still around even when your large commercial or key accounts are out on vacation.  Who knows, this could even lead to bigger things if they are a franchise or affiliated with another larger company.

If you don’t deal with smaller prospects, the holiday’s provide an excellent opportunity to get organized and build up your potential prospect list for the new year.  If you can get caught up, organized, spruce up your sales material and find good qualified leads, by the first of the year you can hit the ground running.  Many times you can still call a larger account and get someone on the line.  That person may be in a good mood due to the holiday’s and may be more likely to give you the decision makers name and extension or direct number.  Again, this will allow you to build up your potential prospect list for 2009. 

The worst thing to do is nothing.  Sales for the 4th quarter and the 1st quarter will reflect this time, for the good or bad.