Must know sales interview questions to hire the best salespeople

An organization is defined by the people who work for it. Hiring the right talent is an important responsibility that determines how your organization will grow in the next few years especially when you are looking to hire for the sales team.

Salespeople are the ones that help you bring in more business and opportunities every day. If you do not have the right sales team, that would definitely affect your business.

The sales team can be set up in multiple ways depending on the industry, location, size of the company, etc. But to help you make this easy, below are te 8 different sales roles that make the sales team. We have found the right set of questions that you can ask the salesperson before you hire them.

But, the questions below do not determine if the person is right fit or not. Their relevant work experience, their basic ethics, communication skills, etc are very important before you hire the person. So let’s talk about different sales interview questions that will help you find the right salesperson for the job.

• Sales Representatives
• Sales Executives
• Sales Managers
• Sales Enablement Leaders
• Field Sales Executive
• SaaS Sales Experts
• Field Sales Manager
• Account Executive
• Conclusion

Now, let us dig into these questions one by one.

Sales Representatives

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This is an entry level position and you probably many of the job seekers would have less than a year or two of experience. For this kind of role, instead of how many questions he/she answers, you probably want to check the soft like the way they communicate.

1. What motivates you the most?
2. Why do you want to be in sales?
3. Are you comfortable making cold calls?
4. Sell this pen to me.
5. Tell me about your experience with XX organization

Sales Executives

Sales executive has a role that is actually geared towards the administration part of sales and has the function of carrying out plans or orders. Basically, the sales executive is usually the immediate supervisor of the sales representative. For this role, you want to check for the soft skills, past relevant experience, and some technical knowledge.

The combination of situational and behavioral questions will definitely help you find the right sales executive.

1. What steps do you take to ensure your customers remain satisfied?
2. Have you used any of the CRM before?
3. What’s your experience with supervising others
4. Tell me about the most difficult sale you’ve ever had to make
5. If a customer kept asking you to lower the price of your product so they can buy, how would you handle it?

Sales Managers

Sales Managers are senior sales experts who started as a sales representative and then have been promoted to take care of the entire team. Hiring the sales managers is a challenge as this person will not only handle the team of 3-4 people under them but will also help companies in setting up the sales strategies.

Here the skills to look for would be a combination of leadership, team building, training, and coaching, etc.

1. Please share some statistics from your past roles as a sales manager.
2. How is your experience in handling a team of X people?
3. How do you set goals, track progress, and ensure performance for and from your team?
4. What method is the best performer for training new salespeople?
5. What area challenged you the most in sales and how did you overcome it?

Sales Enablement Leaders

The sales enablement manager is an important position for any organization. These leaders carry the entire load of the sales team on his shoulder. The responsibilities that you can look for in this role would be training the team, taking care of the content (sales pitch for say), sales process and practices, and tools needed to support salespeople throughout the buyer’s journey.

These leaders will work with departments collaboratively like sales, marketing, partners, and other key stakeholders to increase sales results and productivity.

1. How did you align sales enablement metrics with company/team goals?
2. How often do you meet with cross-functional department leads and sales leaders?
3. How are your sales? Is your sales team meeting and exceeding performance goals?
4. What are the new sales trends that you have seen recently in this year?
5. Share a few of your best sales methodologies that you have worked with.

Field Sales Executive

These are the people who do the fieldwork and sell your product by physically meeting your customers. This is a customer facing role and it is very important as they represent your brand directly. They work every day to find new customers and clients and maximize profitability within their sales territory.

They will walk the prospects through the entire sales cycle, including developing new leads, educating prospects, and turning interested shoppers into long-term customers.

1. How many customers did you take care of every month in the last job?
2. What was your sales quota for the last employer?
3. What do you do if the prospect is avoiding you?
4. How do you close a deal if the prospect is not happy with our service?
5. What do you do after you close a sale?

SaaS Sales Expert

The SaaS sales expert is very different from any other sales expert. Here they have to deal with recurring sales revenue and not a one-time revenue. The ticket value is low compared to the other sales solutions.

Companies have multiple pricing models and the aim is to sell the most priced subscription. Here the sales strategies and practices are different. For such a SaaS sales job, you should watch out for people who have similar SaaS experience, working with B2B models in the past.

1. What are the tools that you have worked with?
2. What are your outreach practices?
3. How can you up-sell the product?
4. As a SaaS sales expert, share your strategies to reduce churn rates.
5. What do you do if the customer finds the product expensive?

Regional Sales Manager

The regional sales manager will be the person in charge of the everyday operations and sales, of specific geography. Usually, the sales of a couple of districts or an entire state fall under the regional sales managers. During the interview with this sales manager, you want to check if the person has any previous experience in the same geography.

1. How well do you know this region?
2. What was your customer base in this area?
3. What was your sales goal in the past company?
4. How would you approach a sales rep who has missed quota three months in a row?
5. What skills and qualifications would you look for when hiring a sales rep for your team?

Account Executives

The Account executive is a person who has an understanding of the client’s objectives, company products, and can provide effective advice for creating new sales strategies

Before hiring the account executives you want to check if they have any experience with the sales/customer service role.

Skills like knowledge of MS Office, knowledge of CRM software will definitely be a plus for this role.

1. How many accounts did you manage in the past roles?
2. What do you do if the customer is angry?
3. Tell me about a time you successfully negotiated a customer contract
4. Describe a time you managed to reach an objective when odds were against you
5. What was your most complicated sales cycle in past positions?

Conclusion

When you hire a sales position for your company, you are not just looking for people who will sell your solution. These are the people who will help you create a culture for your company. The people will come and go for better but what stays behind is the culture.

There may be times when you will find that the person does not have a degree from the top university but sales is a number game in general. You want to interview the people who are more than what it says on the resume. Soft skills like communication, decision making, negotiation are the skills that every interviewer should consider before hiring the right salespeople.