Sales Interview Questions and Answers

Every job requires people who have special skills in that particular area. Having certain skills and qualities in your field will help you improve your performance.

Skills and qualities that make you perfect for this job are as follows:

• Active listening and Good Communication skills
• Good Knowledge about products
• Check to see if the customer is ready
• Art of convincing or persuading people
• Having a high confidence level
• Being straightforward
• Being passionate
• Time management
• Good leadership skills
• Maintaining a positive attitude
• Possessing leadership qualities
• Having a good patience level
• Educate prospects with new ideas and perspectives
• Remaining loyal towards the team members and customers

AIDA is an acronym of the model used in creating powerful and effective marketing communications, sales letters and is widely used in advertising today. Examine several direct mails and email letters and read them at least three times. The powerful and effective letters follow AIDA. What’s AIDA stand for?

A: Grab the prospect’s “ATTENTION”

I: create “INTEREST” by providing some useful information

D: create “DESIRE” by offering something they want OR helping them avoid pain

A: demand immediate “ACTION”

How to Use the AIDA Model in Sales Emails?

What is AIDA approach in personal selling?

Such questions test your knowledge on current affairs. So, keep yourself updated about the current happenings. Read newspapers daily to increase your knowledge. Read news articles related to business, stock markets and international market.To explain the effect of the stock market over the retail market, you need to know the status of the stock market. So be thorough with the current affairs section.

When a salesperson goes into the field to meet the potential customers to sell products, it is known as outside sales. It helps in maintaining a face-to-face relationship with the customers.

The differences between indoor and outside sales are as follows:

In outside sales, you need to travel to different places to meet the customers, whereas, in indoor sales, you need to work from the office.

Your appearance counts in the outside sales, whereas, in indoor sales, you will have to interact with the customers through the telephone. Your appearance and body language does not matter but your manner of talking does.

There are certain interesting things about an inside sales job. You may like it for the

• Direct and timely feedback
• Casual environment
• Less amount of travelling
• Increased team work

Pros of outside sales:

• More demonstration is possible.
• You will gain more support
• More personal as it involves face to face interaction
• Cons of outside sale:
• Involves a lot of travelling
• Difficult to manage the day-to-day schedule
• Appearance matters a lot. It is not possible to concentrate on your looks throughout the day.
• You will be your own supervisor. It will be difficult for you when you face any problem

When an organization aims for a specified amount of sales to be achieved within a specific time frame, it is known as target oriented sales. The harder you work, the more you achieve.

You should make yourself comfortable when you work under a team leader. He/She is one who provides directions or instructions to a group of individuals in order to achieve certain goals.

You will gain many benefits and knowledge while you work under a team leader. He/She will help you to rectify your mistakes. He will constantly guide you to achieve your goal by giving feedback every time. It will also help you know the role and responsibilities of a team leader. In future, you may become one.

Retail selling means to sell goods and products to the consumers through different channels of distribution. You should have some knowledge about your own performance

You may meet a lot of customers who may be stressed or angry. You should know how to tackle such situations. When asked about this question, be confident to answer it. Give an example where you had to face a difficult person and describe how you handled him/her. Your answer should elaborate on your maturity and diplomatic skills.

The job profile of an employee working in sales includes a lot of activities.

A few of them are given below:

• Welcoming and greeting the customers
• Maintaining and developing relationships with existing customers
• Responding to e-mails, queries
• Representing their organization at various events
• Gathering the market and the customer information
• Understanding the need of the customers
• Attending team meetings and creating a good rapport with colleagues
• Providing information about the products to the customer.
• You should have a clear idea about your interest area. Above a few activities are listed which are done by a sales person, mention the area which interests you the most. The interviewer will have an idea about where can you be placed.

You should have good persuasion skills to convince people to buy a product. Your communication skills should be excellent. You should be confident enough to rate yourself on a scale of 10 about your convincing skills

• At some point, you need to assess your own work and decide whether it is good or not. There are certain ways through which you can evaluate your performance and per day outcome.
• Attitude is an important aspect. Apart from doing your job in time, leaving office, spending time talking to your friends instead of working can have a negative impact on your work.
• Keep the copies of your work in order to assess your own performance.
• Try to get feedback from others about your work. It will help you judge yourself and improve, if required.

Yes, it is absolutely right. You should have a pleasant personality in order to impress your customer. Make sure that you talk to them with a smile on your face. It will create a friendly atmosphere between you and your client. Your one smile can make them feel comfortable. Having patience is another important aspect of a sales job. You meet customers with different attitude each day. Attend to their queries patiently. Do not express any sort of dissatisfaction. Always remember, having patience will give good results at the end.

There are certain important aspects of sales:

• Trust is an important feature. There should be a good rapport between the customers and the sales person.
• You should have a complete understanding of any situation and should know the mood of the customer while dealing with them.
• To launch a product successfully, it should be promoted well.
• Shipping of the products should be handled with care.

Usually, meetings are very lengthy. Meetings should not be wastage of money or time. You should handle the situation with utmost care when a customer does not agree to fix a meeting with you. Customers may have many reasons for not fixing a meeting. For example, they may be busy. In such cases, give them an opportunity to decide a time and place for the meeting. Convince the customer about the benefits of a meeting. Make the customers understand that the meeting will be purely one-to-one without any barriers. It will prove beneficial for the customers.

Your products should have something different or some extra feature to survive in the market. Your product should stand out from the competitors’ products.

Technology is booming rapidly across the globe. Every organization tries to bring in some new technology to survive in the market. Product positioning is an important concept which will help you compare your products’ technology with that of your competitors.

You should know your target audience, target market and the competitors.

Sales are the exchange of a product for money. It is also known as the action of selling. Whereas, marketing is all about communicating the value of a product or service to the customers.

All the jobs require a considerable amount of input. Both sales and marketing involve healthy communication skills. If you do your best, both the jobs will be easy to deal with. Thus, everything depends on your hard work and interest. You should love your job to achieve self satisfaction.

As a salesperson, you should be aware of the principles and working methods of a device. You should have an in depth knowledge as you may need to clarify the queries of the customers. Apart from the basic features, you should also be aware of the working process of the device. It can be a mobile phone, a laptop or any other product. You should use the device once in order to handle the queries effectively. If you gain some practical experience, it will be easy for you to attend to the doubts of the customers regarding that particular device.

You should have the confidence to give a demonstration in front of the customers. This will also give the customers better and more information about the device. While demonstrating, the customers have the right to ask questions or doubts regarding the device. Thus, it is necessary that you should conduct a demonstration in front of the customer.

Customers are the backbone of an organization. As a sales person, you should know how to handle their queries in a proper way. While introducing yourself to the customer, also introduce your company. For example, “My name is Jack. I am working with XXXX Info. We are an online magazine and we help create awareness about various career options for our site visitors.” Be gentle and try to pay attention to the needs of the customer rather than focusing on your skills.

Interest of the customer to buy a product is of crucial importance in the sales process. Be professional to the customers. Follow the AIDA model (attention, interest, desire, and action).

Make a call to the customer and convey your message in a gentle way. Explain to them about the features of the product in detail. Arrange an appointment with the customer wherein you can have a face-to-face interaction. Ask them to spend some time to see the demonstration of the product.

The AIDA Model, which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action model, is an advertising effect model that identifies the stages that an individual goes during the process of purchasing a product Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) measures the “direct cost” incurred in the production of any goods or services. It includes material cost, direct labour cost, and direct factory overheads, and is directly proportional to revenue. As revenue increases, more resources are required to produce the goods or service. COGS are often or service Job Order Costing Guide Job Order Costing is used to allocate costs based on a specific job order. This guide will provide the job order costing formula and how to calculate it. As an example, law firms or accounting firms would use job order costing because every client is different and unique. Process-costing, on the other hand can be used. The AIDA model is commonly used in digital marketing, sales strategies knocking on Door Knocking on Door are a lead generation strategy used by investment banking advisors looking to secure prospects for business while keeping expenses at a minimum. The strategy started in the early 20th century when insurance agents would go knocking on people’s doors. and public relations campaigns.