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You are here: Home / Blog / Answer to the Interview question. Sell me this pen.

Answer to the Interview question. Sell me this pen.

June 23, 2014 By maurasf

I’m not a fan of questions during interviews (sales or otherwise) that try to stump the interviewee. Why? Because the purpose of an interview is to get to know someone, not try to make them look bad.

Sure you may say, “But how do I know how they’ll operate under stress?”  You don’t have to ask an irrelevant gotcha question to do that. Instead you can ask about stressful times that the candidate had in the past.  Find out how they responded.  Maybe the situation wasn’t that difficult. That should tell you about the candidate’s tolerance for working under stress.  You learn a lot about  candidates who can calmly address the situation and develop a creative solution.

Just like in a sales call you don’t play stump the customer.  In an interview for a sales professional to gauge sales performance, you don’t play stump the salesman.  Some sales managers ask questions of prospective salespeople to sell them something during the interview. It’s often the pen that they use as an example.  Instead of asking to sell them a pen, why not ask about how the prospective salesperson got sales appointments, managed their business, prepared for the sales call, and questioned the customer during the meeting.  Those questions will get you much more useful answers to determine whether the person can sell or not.

Just in case you’re curious, here’s my answer to  ”sell me this pen. ”  It’s the #3 question

 

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About the principal

Would you take auto mechanics classes when you buy a car? Maura did because she wanted to be able to work on her car. She takes that same approach to selling. She can show you how to get below the surface of selling to learn why and how different strategies work. She will show you which skills to implement that will shorten your sales cycle and increase your sales. She was Mobil Oil's first female Lubrication Engineer in the United States and one of Chevron's top 5 salespeople in the country. She knows what works for sales.

"I would recommend your work to other sales organizations who want to get better results from improved selling strategies."
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Houston Texans

Sales Expert at Allbusiness.com

Selling is the easiest job in the world. Just ask anyone who is not in sales. Read Maura’s ideas on “more brain…less mouth” selling to make your selling easier and more successful.

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