Nov, 2012

Sales Professional's Guide to Acing Sales Job Interview

Sales professionals find Job search not a fun task, especially in a turbulent economy all around the world. But, sales professionals are in demand right now to help businesses sell products and services. If you’re an unemployed sales professional, looking to get ahead of your competition here’s a few tips to help you have a competitive advantage.

1. Research

In order to be prepared for a sales job interview, you should research and learn everything you can find about the company. They expect you to know what they sell and who they are selling it to. You’re sales professional, treat your sales job interview as a sale. Research your “prospect” to close the sale and get a competitive advantage towards thousands of sales job applicants like you.

The internet is one of the best ways to search for information and most companies have their own websites. Study the content of the company’s website; know their background, goals, and information about the executives.
Google the company and/or senior executives, you could also obtain news and additional information about the progress of the company, past projects and issues, and organizations to which the company belongs.
Review the stock market chart of the company. Since majority of shares are publicly traded, you could examine the recent stock price and learn the difficulties of its market over the past years. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the company will help you during the interview.
Study competitors too. When you read articles about the industry, you will find out who the leader is and you can find out the company’s competitors. Having this knowledge could help you during the interview since you could be able to justify how the company is better than its present competitors are. And even how you can help take company to a new level beating competition, usually for smaller companies. employers like you more when you show that you know how to read their competition and know how to create in your sales pitch the competitive advantage they need to win.

2. Attitude

Having the right attitude towards the interviewer and the sales job interview itself would ensure the position is yours.

Majority of successful sales professionals have a unique energy that you can feel. They command a presence and hold the attention of everyone. Be energetic about the job and interview.
Be enthusiastic. Since you have done your research about the company and its competitors, the interviewers will appreciate your enthusiasm and interest about the position.
As a sales professional, use your persuasion skills to command the sales jon interview and help you “sell” yourself to the interview. Show them your competitive advantage.

3. Preparation

The position you desire could be yours as long as you show up prepared.Prior to the sales job interview:

Create a presentation by researching the products and services of the company. Be prepared to speak directly and intelligently about the company and the industry.insert in your presentation a clear competitive advantage they have against their competition.
The fact about sales is its all about numbers. If you are asked about your numbers, simply provide them with production reports, past employment lists or a W-2 form of your yearly earnings.

Before you go, remember, you’re a sales professional. Sell yourself to your interviewer, he’s just another prospect you need to sell yourself to. Handle objections and rejections as if you’re handling a prospect. Many interviewers want to see how well you can handle tough conversations, objections, rejections, and your overall performance.

Nov, 2012

By admin

4 Sales Careers Job Seekers Should Consider

Sales Careers

There are a number of sales careers positions available in the sales of different industries which are up for grabs for prospecting salespersons. The careers are many and varied; some focuses at helping the salespersons advance their careers in sales while others introduce them to sales careers.

Gone are the days when such careers were considered default careers meant to absorb only those people who could not find something else to do or a well paying job. These careers are now well paying after most businesses realized the importance of marketing and sales of their products and services. This article gives an insight into a number of sales careers that are at your disposal and from which to choose.

Sales Careers option (I) Independent sales represantatives

These are sales professionals who specialize in selling products or services from different companies but are not employed by the companies. Those who develop a sales career in this field agree to work and get compensation from the company for their effort. Their work is to offer the selling services and in return get compensation.

Sales careers option (II) A sales entrepreneur

This is one of the sales careers where a salesperson takes greater risks by having an interest in the product or service on offer. In most of the cases, these persons share profits or may have equity in the producing company. The sales entrepreneur represents himself and directs all his effort in selling the product or service in question.

These people must be strong, agile and hard working. They are mostly self-motivated, self-directed and work for long hours. This career is therefore suitable for only those persons who have a self drive and have very good time management skills. These people are normally free to make their own decisions and are free to try new strategies which they hope can work for them. They are autonomous and enjoy unlimited freedom.

Sales careers option (III) Inside sales representative

This is also one of the sales careers that are open and which anyone interested in marketing can take. These people must have a strong rapport and very powerful closing skills. They mostly make use of phones but often meet their clients to close deals. If you have high organizational skills, this is an opportunity that can help you move up the ladder. These sales persons must be prepared to spend most of their time contacting customers to find out what the customers may be looking for.

Sales careers option (IV) Sales director

If you are competent in finance and sales, you can easily move up to the rank of Director of sales. This position has good rewards but comes with a number of challenges which must be overcome. The sales directors earn a handsome salary and are exposed to a number of bonuses not available to other salespersons.

They are in charge of the entire sales force and must work hard to ensure that the desired results are achieved. They normally have busy schedules attending sales meetings, conferences and sales meetings. This is one of the sales careers that come with a lot of authority since it installs one in a leadership positions with many responsibilities on his head.

Whatever you decide to pursue, don’t forget that you need to assess your skills and your passions. The sales careers option is good and many entry level positions are available. Plus, most businesses offer commissions to their sales teams, which opens an opportunity for additional income if you perform well. You just need to stay on top of your sales training to continue to improve and refine your skills for higher commissions.

Aug, 2012

By admin

Sales force assessment: 4 Great Tips

Sales force assessment: 4 Great Tips to Higher Market Share

As a managing director , are you having trouble increasing your sales force figures? Are you thinking about running a sales force assessment? or not really because you are still brainstorming?

The sales force assessment will help you sell more and increase the business development opportunities of the company as every sales manager , managing director and CEO ever dream of. Is it your sales organization market share growth is your Number 1 challenge this year?

If your answer is a YES then you should be asking yourself the following sales force assessment questions:

What if our sales force is not following us? what to do to boost each sales person sales targets? how do we keep our sales force motivated? do we need more products to gain market share and sell or is it better and easier to optimize our sales force? are we following the right sales strategy ? Is our sales force compatible with our sales strategy?

Does each managing director clearly need to hire stars salespeople in the sales force? or do we need to build on each sales person skills and potential for growth? do we need more sales coaching or sales training? or No we only need to restructure our sales force? what is our sales force competitive advantage? what is our sales business development plan?

Lots and lots of sales strategy questions that every one of us would like to grasp the magical answers. I can tell you that the only magic is to identify a each sales person sales process, set core competencies for the sales force and to achieve all that you will need to follow a successful sales force assessment.

Take advantage of our 72-hour free trial

TIP # 1: Each sales organization should go through a sales force assessment at least once a year. The sales force evaluation should answer the following questions:

Is my sales management team efficient enough ?
Is each sales person providing us with the full potential?
can your sales force consistently overachieve?
who is reaching his full potential?
can they hold my margins?
Who can grow?
Do we have the right core competencies?
can we reach a higher market share with the current sales person?
who is trainable?
who is coachable?
everyone has an adequate sales process?
how to be sure of our competitive advantage ? etc..

Each managing director and sales manager should be able to screen your sales team into the tiny tiny detail , this is how you can find the write answers to your sales organization growth potential. A dashboard of priorities should be set up to move forward and find sales success.

TIP # 2: Each managing director should look at his sales organization globally, so he can identify the sales force competitive edge will drive him to successfully increase market share and sales.

TIP # 3: The sales force assessment will provide each managing director with a full range of actions to improve his sales organization market share position, each sales person skills, optimize the management team compass and create then a real competitive advantage to drive success.

TIP # 4: Each managing director will be able to get an optimized budget for sales training and sales coaching that will be dedicated directly to take the sales force and market share to the next level.

By Nada Bifani, CEO of WIN Sales and Marketing Programs, July 31, 2012.

managing director, market share, sales force assessment 0

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Category : sales stars recruitment