“How do you hire the best candidates for a sales role?” That’s a question I’m asked often by sales leaders. In fact, yesterday I spoke with a Managing Director of a shipping and marine supply company who shared the following two major challenges: competition from well-branded multi-national corporations for applications and selecting the best candidates during the interview process.
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So how do you attract applicants? Strong employer branding, using LinkedIn as a recruitment tool, soliciting employee referrals, offering attractive compensation and benefits packages, and providing advancement opportunities are great places to start.
What I’m more interested in, is how do you select the best candidates? Here are 7 of my favorite sales interview questions:
1. What are two things about this position that interest you?
2. Who was your least favorite manager? Why? Who was your favorite? Why?
3. As a sales person, what do you see as your most important role? Secondary?
4. What would you say is the most difficult part of selling? Why?
5. What was the last sales book you read? What did you learn?
6. Think of your last lost deal. What could you have done differently?
7. What phase of the sales process do you like most? Which one the least? Why?
Need help training an existing sales team? Drop me an email and lets chat about different ways we can help turn your team into top performers.
Download Complete List of 35 Interview QuestionsAuthor Profile
- Tom Abbott is the author of 'The SOHO Solution' and 'Social Selling' and the creator of the online sales training platform SOCO Academy. Sales leaders engage Tom for his proven solutions to building high performance sales teams that exceed targets and for motivational keynotes that energise their audiences.
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