Sales are the activity involved in selling a product or services in return for money or any other compensation. It is a total commercial activity. These days we find lots of young graduates in sales and marketing field. It’s a dynamic field to be in and a very challenging career too. Below are the possible few interview questions and answers in Sales and Marketing Department

Sales Interview Questions:

What interests you to choose your career in Sales and Marketing?

Applicant should answer that he/she is very good in communication skills, negotiation skills and is very punctual and disciplined. Apart from that he/she has done his/her education with specialization in marketing. So he/she feels that it is the best suitable stream of industry for him/her.

How have you dealt with conflict before in your life?

Here interviewer is checking for his conflict handling skills, applicant should answer that he/she would handle the conflict by identifying the other person’s problem and reframe the problem and understand why the other person thinks that it’s a problem, basically to think from their point of view. Then I would analyze my point of view from their principle and come to a common conclusion. And this can be done only by active listening about the problem. Also, not to forget in the end, accept the problem and acknowledge it and learn from the mistake. This will build the confidence with the person who raised the conflict before. One should always remember that while you are in conflict its 20% communication and 80% body language.

How would you handle an irritated or upset customer?

Applicant should be able to take good control over the conversation with their customer and should never allow to get dominated nor should get disappointed or over whelmed by a disapproving customer. He/She should be able to show the customers the advantages, benefits and good features of their product.  He/ She should handle the upset customer tactfully and come to common terms and should be successful in selling the product to the customer.

What are the important skills a sales person should have to succeed?

Applicant should answer with confidence and should be able to demonstrate also in his body language. Well, I think the important skill sets a sales person should have is ability to plan and prepare, ability to stay motivated all the time, ability to influence people all the time, active listening and probing and asking right questions, ability to negotiate and reach to common agreements with customers, ability in handling rejection and disappointments and moving on with the next sales process. It’s very important for a sales person to stay energetic all the time.

What do you mean by selling psychologically?

Applicant should demonstrate that he/she understands the entire concept of selling properly and he/she believes that is a professional way of directing  the customers how their products or services meet their needs and requirements and help them to improve their lives.

Can you please describe the typical process of sales with a customer?

Applicant in this case should behave exactly like a sales professional in front of the interviewer and should prepare a concise sales pitch and should start with a good knowledge of the product and highlight its features, benefits and should talk in good communication skills, identify and understand the client’s point of view, motivate the needs, understand the requirement and priorities of the customer, offer appropriate solutions, handle objections, and close the scale with a good note. Building good rapport with his/her customers is the best quality of any sales professional.

What is that you don’t like in this sales process?

While answering this question, candidate should be careful because there are chances that interviewer might take this point itself as negative and might lead to not selecting the candidate. So, applicant should be careful and mention that he dislike the negotiating solutions which he/ she can give to his/her customer, as there are very few solutions to the customer problems, needs or priorities. If you have had any instances in the past handling an irritated customer where there was a problem from the company end itself, you can state that problem. For example, if a delivery of a company product was slow and resulted in angry customers, discuss that situation now and explain the customer problems and the problems you had negotiating with customer.

Apart from the product, what are the other important things a sales person should be aware of?

Candidate should answer that apart from having a good knowledge about the product, sales person should be aware of his/her company policies, procedures, government rules and regulations, driving vehicles, driving license, insurance of his/her vehicle, good knowledge of the driving area, local community area, he/she should be aware of the various territory to be covered, the industry in general and current and future developments. Not to forget, most importantly he/she should have a good knowledge of his competitors and their products and services offered by them to the market.

If you are handling a team of sales executives, how would you assess their performance?

Applicant should answer that as a Supervisor for sales team, I would assess their performance based on the sheer number of products sold, their marketing and sales objective in handling sales force targets. Personal sales quota agreed against achieved, personal budget or expenses agreed against actual reflecting and also ability to get new customers frequently to their company and building good relationship with them.

After a while, this job might become monotonous, would be changing your career field from sales and marketing or will you be pursuing your career in this field only?

Applicant should show a lot of confidence in his/her beliefs and in his/her decision of choosing Sales and Marketing as his/ her career. Applicant should answer that his/her career goal is to get ahead and grow along with the company where he/she will be working. I want to use my full energy, my potential I have, and the expertise I have developed in this area that actually best fit my industry and my employer. As well I enjoy doing this as meeting new people is my hobby. I would love to take up more additional responsibilities and grow in the same industry and get exposed to new learning’s.

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