Prospective employers want to see your accomplishments while you’re interviewing for a job. If you’re an engineer, you point to the items you’ve designed. You hand over a portfolio if you’re an architect. You supply campaign analytics if you’re a marketer.
The same is true for a salesperson as well. Organizations want to know what you’ve accomplished in your career i.e. quota achievement, instances of large transactions closed, corporate honors etc., but unlike other professions, they’ll be looking at how you present your story.
Before going to the interview, you should have clear motivation to apply for the job. Your motivation will keep you grounded, give you clarity of thought while answering questions as you will have a well thought out reason for why you want the position of tech sales rep. Also some background research will help you understand how it can shape your career in the future.
Tech Sales Interview Possible Question One:
Tell me about you and why are you a good fit for the sales role?
This is usually an opening question for any interview as it undermines whether the recruit will be a good fit for the company or the employer from the get go. It allows you, as an interviewee, to showcase your talent of communication and storytelling as this is the test to see if you can credibly sell them your personal story.
You will be effectively answering this question in two parts.
The first part will be the details about you. Your skills that are relevant to the competencies required of the sales person. The second part should actually be about the company and why they specifically are suited to your skills and qualities.
A good answer looks something similar to this:
“To begin, I am an active, cheerful, and resilient individual with a long-standing enthusiasm for sales. Because I never give up, I feel I have the perfect personality for sales.
Second, I am always working to enhance my ability to both create client and prospect connections as well as overcome obstacles in order to boost my conversion rate.
I feel I am a good fit for a sales position in your company as you are an innovative, forward thinking organization which is clearly going places. Coupled with my own career aspirations and enthusiastic approach for work, we will surely be a winning combination.”
Tech Sales Interview Question Two:
How much time would you spend cultivating customer connections versus finding new leads or clients if you were successful, and why?
This question is asked to gauge whether you will be a prospective hunter or farmer for the employer and will be teamed according to your strengths.
Strength 1:
If you say that you will spend more time cultivating customer relationships as those people will be easier to sell to in the long term, you position yourself as a farmer. You can justify your position by saying that people always buy things from those they like and already know. People tend to look for those salespersons who they are familiar with and have a credible relationship with rather than choosing someone new every time.
Strength 2:
You can say that you have an innovative strategy for generating new business leads or prospects. You can expand by talking about your strategies and your skills of persuasion and comfort of talking to new people. Here, you can highlight your resilience and energy. It also beehoves you to talk about your lead generation ability. It will help if you ask them for their preferred channel of lead generation and talk about how you will use that channel for your strategies to get new prospects. Remember to use keywords like “ideal customers”, “CRM” and “pain points” that show that you have knowledge about what it is that you will be doing and how to go about it.
Tech Sales Interview Question Three:
Walk us through your background and previous sales experience.
Answer honestly and succinctly. This is your elevator pitch about your background that makes you and your skills valuable to them. This can be handled in two ways:
a) If you do not have any actual sales experience
You need to state that even though you do not have direct selling experience, you do have experience that correlates to possible success in sales. Here, you can give examples of any activities or events that portrays you as a strong and persuasive speaker. Any experience from your previous job or university that shows that you are a natural leader who can communicate with people, involved in fund raising efforts and persuasion.
b) If you do have valid sales experience.
You must highlight your winning points. You must bring up what exactly you did in your previous sales job that improved their results. Were you successful on more lead generation? Were you particularly well adapted to cold calling and emailing?
Tell your story chronologically on your resume, customizing your experiences to the job you’re applying for. If you’re applying for an Account Executive position that demands a lot of prospecting experience in a new region, for example, talk about how you accomplished it in your previous job. This is referred to as “qualifying” in sales, and you want to qualify yourself for this position.
Tech Sale Interview Question Four:
What do you understand about this role and what will you be doing in your first month here?
Have a plan on what you want to do if you do get the job. Generally candidates do not prepare for such a question as their end game is getting the job. Your mindset should be such that you should be imagining yourself as already being selected for the role and being prepared for your responsibilities. This shows that you can take initiative and do not need micromanaging and will also set you apart from the competitors. It is also a way of asking you why you want to work for that organization in particular. You must prove to the interviewer that you didn’t just one click apply on LinkedIn. Prove the alignment of your passion and skills by outlining how you can directly contribute to their products and services. Tell them that you believe that they have a winning product or service and that they are making a strong positive impact in the world and you want to be a part of something bigger than yourself that you really care about.
So in your first month, you will be finding out as much as you can about the services that you will be selling and also the types of customers or prospects that you can convert easily. You will be getting in depth information about what it is you are selling along with industry knowledge. You will also be getting to know the team members, members of the supporting departments and accounts team so you can help make the sales process run smoothly and convert easily.
Tech Sales Interview Question Five:
What is the most effective technique to begin a connection with a potential client or customer?
This question gauges your knowledge about the psychology behind selling. In selling, people decide emotionally and justify logically. Therefore, you must tell the interviewer that you believe that a superior solution is not always the only way to sell and whenever humans are given choices, emotions are always involved. Even decisions on cold hard technology are all not made on specifications and facts alone. Therefore to build connections in sales, you must build trust, be truthful, listen to the customer or prospect and show them that you care about their success and not just in making your sale.
Your answer must show that you believe in always treating the customers the right way and being honest and open at every stage. Your understanding that trust is of utmost importance and can only be built by listening to the concerns and objections of the prospect and being truthful in every aspect of communication, thereby showing transparency in all transactions. Finally, your understanding of the last but probably the most important aspect of sales, which is following up with the customer.
CONCLUSION
These questions will probably be asked at some stage of your interview and being well prepared showcases your commitment and thoroughness. It is imperative to come across as a person who is capable of researching, communicating and being able to think on the fly with the available data. Sales people have to work with technical data, ground into easily digestible facts and memorable impressions. A sales interview is just a stepping stone of what your future as a sales rep, manager or director will be like. Introduce, persuade, rinse and repeat.
