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What’s In a Name? Job Titles and Your Sales Career

optimized-6460819_lIn a world where labels reign supreme, how important is your job title? We explain the surprising and sometimes unexpected effects job title can have on your work performance, job satisfaction, and career trajectory.

When it comes to job titles and their impact on salespeople, there are two general schools of thought Sales VP’s, Sales Managers, and HR leaders tend to embrace. One suggests there are risks to inflating or distorting one’s job title. For example, if you are a Customer Guru it can be difficult to determine if your experience lies in handling customer issues or in initiating sales. Conversely, others see creative and imaginative job titles as simple yet powerful ways to increase employee productivity and creativity. This is known as reflective job titling and has been proven to alleviate job burnout and results in employees feeling more connected to and in control of their work life.

The divide on job titling is substantial: for every article on how creative job titles can increase employee engagement, increase retention, and psychologically motivate employees, there are just as many that argue job title inflation is a senseless and impractical practice. Some experts suggest creative or exaggerated job titles are a meaningful and cost free way to reward employees, leading to a higher performance level. However, just as many qualified dissenters believe that simplicity and consistency are best when it comes to employee job titles.

Here, we investigate the question of job title significance as it pertains to the sales world, where job titles can be particularly arbitrary and subjective. Account Managers, Sales Professionals, Business Development Specialists, Client Growth Consultants, and Telemarketers are all effectively salespeople, yet their titles signify a vast array of roles and responsibilities. Whether you recognize it or not, your job title impacts how you view your role in sales.

Responsibilities

When it comes to the responsibilities that your job title denotes, size and scale of your company are key indicators of the accountabilities of your role. You may serve as a Director of Sales at a company of thirty people, but at a Fortune 500 company, your sales role might best be described as a Regional Sales Manager. If you’re in the tech industry, well known for it’s inventive and outside-the-box operating principles, you may find yourself in a Guru Sales Hacker or Growth Expert role. Descriptive and imaginative job titles have been proven to significantly transform employee attitudes and perceptions about their job after retitling. This can lead to greater emotional job satisfaction and company engagement. Conversely, retitling can create unease because the responsibilities of your position might not translate well to other industries, or not be recognized in the same way that more traditional job titles are.

Laszlo Bock, head of People Operations at Google, explains in his book Work Rules! that he was hesitant to assume his current job title because he felt it failed to accurately portray his human resources expertise. Now, however, he appreciates the way the title signifies his connections to the people that make Google run. Ultimately, your job title will be specific to your industry and company, but you also want it to accurately portray your responsibilities, job functions, and the value you deliver to your organization.

Promotion Opportunities

When thinking about promotion opportunities, both within and outside of the company you currently work for, it’s important to have a clear idea of what metrics your current or future employer will use to measure your adequacy for the role. Think through how you can leverage your current job title as a way to strongly position yourself during an interview or performance review. For example, how has your work as an Account Associate set you up to be a great Account Manager? What are you currently doing as an Associate that will serve you as a Manager? The more directly you can draw links between job titles, the more authoritative you will be in your candidacy for the more senior role.

While job titles may appear to be only one small facet of your role in an organization, job title effects who applies for a role and influences who is attracted to the job. In fact, companies use job titles as a recruitment strategy, assuming that candidates who aren’t a cultural fit for their organization will self select out of the job opening. Someone who isn’t interested in being a Sales Guru, who views that job title as too frivolous or jokey, probably won’t fit into the other aspects that comprise the corporate culture. This is something you should consider when researching organizations as a potential employee.

companies use job titles as a recruitment strategy, assuming that candidates who aren’t a cultural fit for their organization will self select out of the job opening

Performance Measurement

The markings of uncommonly good sales organizations are that they are organized, disciplined, and results oriented, with high levels of employee accountability—all of which include well defined rubrics of performance measurement. According to the Peter Principle, however, eventually employees will reach a position where they lack specific competencies. While they will likely not receive further promotions, they will operate in a position where they are inadequate to the demands of the job.

Your job title is what ultimately defines your work accountabilities

Naturally, there is a direct relationship between the Peter Principle and job title because your job title is what ultimately defines your work accountabilities. This makes it even more important to be clear about job title when entering an interview or performance review.

Job Satisfaction

There are strong relationships between organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Organizational commitment can be understood as an individual’s desire to remain part of the same company, even in the face of new job opportunities. It also represents how closely you personally align with the company’s culture and vision.

Evangelia Katsikea et al. published a study explaining that a company’s ability to influence the attitudes and satisfaction levels of its employees is critical to an organization’s success. It further explains that this is particularly true for the sales division of an organization because sales serves as the primary way in which to generate revenue. This is important to job titling because it means that employers will generally be open to how you as an employee want to title your role. In fact, we have seen at Peak that employers are very flexible when it comes to job titles. Hiring Managers often ask us for advice in terms of titling positions because they understand that they can be, again, depending on size, somewhat arbitrary to an organization but also highly important to an employee.

The study also found that the more autonomy, variety, and feedback you receive from your job, the more likely you are to experience job satisfaction. In their research on export sales managers (the primary subjects of their study), job autonomy, variety, and feedback are positively correlated to job satisfaction: a key indicator of employee commitment to a company. One factor in job satisfaction rests on your attitude and feeling toward your job title. The more connected you feel to your title, whether as Account Executive or Sales Guru Extraordinaire, the more likely you are to be engaged in your role.

Irrespective of your level of seniority or industry, your job title influences your perception of yourself, your stress levels in the workplace, and your company to a significant degree.

So How Important Are Job Titles in Sales?

There are those who believe in the psychological benefits of creative and inflated job titles, and others who see value in levelling the playing field and creating an environment of employees driven by factors other than hierarchy.

As an employee, job titles are an integral part of how you understand and differentiate the workforce. They are powerful social symbols and have a surprisingly high effect on emotional stress levels. Whether or not you deem your job title as particularly important or worthy of thought,  they are an essential building block of a company’s culture and will ultimately effect how you view your role.

When evaluating how important job title is to you, consider:

  • Your job title should accurately reflect the responsibilities you hold and display the value you add to an organization
  • Job titles influence who applies for open positions: there are links to cultural fit and job title
  • The best sales organizations have clear performance rubrics that directly tie to your job title
  • There are strong relationships between job satisfaction and how accurately you feel your job title reflects your role

To advancing your sales career!

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60 Sales Team Names: A Comprehensive List

While it’s easy to dismiss sales team names as a nonessential element of team membership, the fact remains that a relevant and unified sales team name creates alignment and helps foster a sense of unity within a group dynamic. Ultimately, the sense of belonging that comes from being in a group is a powerful component of success, and attaching a name that instills a sense of unity is an important element that sales leaders can leverage. In light of this, we’ve assembled a comprehensive list of over 50 sales team name ideas you can use within your sales department.

In fact, Peak’s Chief Sales Officer and Managing Partner Brent Thompson knows first hand the value that can come from a cohesive sales team name. In the early days of his career, Brent was employed at Fast Lane Technologies. He was a member of the sales team the Hounds in the Pound: read on to explore the comprehensive list of the best sales team names we have seen at Peak since, and to learn how the name the Hounds in the Pound came to be.

60 Sales Team Names:

A-Team
Ask to Answers
Aggressive Achievers
Business as Usual

Business as Usual
Business Bulldogs
B2B Bandits
BD Bulldozers
BD Dominators
Captains of Commerce
Cold Call Captains
C-Suite Sellers
Commissioners of Cold Calling
Dynamite Dealers
Earning Eagles
Eliminators
Elite Group
Empty Coffee Cups
Fast Talkers
Fast & Furious
Fear This
Fans of the Boss
Hawk Insights
Hounds in the Pound
Hot Shots
Hungry Hunters
Hunting Hounds
It’s Business Time
Ker-Pow!
Keep Calm & Sell On
Leaders of the Hunt
Money Makers
Miracle Workers
Over Achievers
Product Pushers
Power Sales
Power Grabbers
Prospect Persuaders
Prospecting Powerhouses
Peak Performers
Quality Control
Revenue Revelers
Risky Business
Sales R Us
Sales Express
Sales Xpress
Spin Sellers
Sons of Strategy
Sale on a Sail
Super Sellers
Solution Sellers
Sultans of Sales
Team Prosperity
The Target Markets
The Sellouts
The Value Propositions
Territory Tyrants
We Are Dynamite
Wheeler Dealers
Qualifying Leaders
Quota Crushers

As for the story behind the Hounds in the Pound, the company Brent worked for was a software start-up that was expanding fast, and the organization was simply outgrowing the tenth floor office space it occupied. The founders were in the midst of expanding and carving out their team and, simply put, the sales team went from an airy tenth floor open concept to no windows in a dingy basement in the span of an afternoon.

What Brent and his fellow sales reps discovered was that they didn’t require a fancy office—or really, an office at all—to be successful and enjoy their work environment. They had t-shirts made up for their team, set up a hockey net, aptly named themselves The Hounds in the Pound, and excelled as the number one team in their organization.

When their office space finally expanded, the basement dwellers didn’t want to leave. There was a strong sense of alignment and a cohesive team identity that they wanted to protect. “It was the best team I’ve ever been on because we all cared and we were all in it together,” he explains. The accomplishments of the Hounds in the Pound remains his favorite team to this day.

Out of our top 10 sales team names, which is your favorite?

A Team
B2B Bandits
Cold Call Captains
Empty Coffee Cups
Hounds in the Pound
Hot Shots
Keep Calm & Sell On
Money Makers
Sons of Strategy
The Sellouts
Other
Please Specify:

Sales team names can be one of the foundations of a great sales organization. What sales team names have you comes across? Leave them in the comment section below! 

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5 Keys to Writing a Winning Sales Resume [Infographic]

You are a top performing salesperson, so it is in your DNA to sell. And, best of all, you know how to sell yourself. However, before you can get the opportunity to sell a future employer on the reasons why their company needs you to achieve their aggressive growth goals, you need to attract them through a winning sales resume.

According to Inc., every corporate job opening will receive 250 resumes, however, only 4-6 of those resumes will receive an interview opportunity. Therefore, it is essential to develop a resume that stands out from the crowd and establishes you as a top performing salesperson.

That is why we at Peak have compiled the 5 keys to writing a winning sales resume that will you your dream job:

Want to save this infographic? Fill out the form below to download a PDF version:

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The 5 Things Sales Candidates Want to Know About You

When customers approach us to find great salespeople, the focus, as it should be, is on the candidates we present. Key questions about each candidate’s past sales performance, their selling methodology, book of contacts, experience selling within the industry, traits, and likelihood of success within our client’s unique selling environment must be investigated and answered before a candidate could even qualify to know who our client is.

Given the fact that Peak only approaches passive candidates who are actively and gainfully employed, these candidates are often not willing to go through our rigorous sales assessment process without asking our recruiters some important questions about the employer.

Since successful sales recruiting is about win-win outcomes for both our customers and the candidates they hire, world class employers know the importance of being able to properly answer the following 5 key questions when hunting for new talent.

Here are the 5 things sales candidates want to know about you:

1. What sets your company apart from the rest?

Top sales professionals don’t want to work for just any company. In the war over sales talent, it is critical for employers to establish some significant differentiators from not only the competition, but against the stereotypical 9-5 grind that many salespeople face on a daily basis. Peak advises clients to utilize approaches including: highlighting their on-boarding program to demonstrate the significant investment your company will be making in the new hire to set them up for success; highlighting their view of maintaining a real work-life balance, including investing in their professional interests (ie. paying for 3rd party training, attending conferences, etc); and demonstrating a commitment to hiring world class people and avoiding inferior salespeople.

2. What opportunity is there to move up the corporate ladder?

A key characteristic of top performing salespeople is that they possess a level of drive and ambition that is much higher than that of their peers. Hence the reason why it makes perfect sense for them to inquire about their opportunities such as a move into a management role from a rep, or into the VP or director spot if already in a management position.  Being able to articulate, using examples from your organization, the advancement opportunities within the company enhances an employer’s ability to attract top sales talent.

3. How is the compensation package structured, how much more can I make, and how often are commissions paid?

While offering a compensation package that is at the top end of the market is always key to attracting top sales talent, a big, and sometimes overlooked aspect relates to the base vs commission structure. Is there a cap? Is there a draw? Are there accelerators that kick in at a certain level? How are these paid – quarterly, at the end of the fiscal year in a lump sum, or can the candidate choose? Top salespeople expect to be compensated well and know that the best employers have well planned comp packages that enable both the organization and the candidate to be financially successful.

Need assistance putting together an effective compensation package for your new hire? Check out these 6 tips

4. Are there any accounts handed over to maintain upon accepting an offer?

Sure the candidates you meet will be hungry to go out and land new accounts.  Some also appreciate working a few existing clients to get used to their new product/service/solution. This also gives them an opportunity to experience, first hand, the processes, objections and challenges potential new clients would encounter once they sign off on a deal. Put simply, great salespeople are well-rounded and want to understand and experience first-hand how existing clients view their company.

5. What is the financial standing of the company?

While salespeople are typically more comfortable with exposure to risk than non-sales types, making a move from a stable employment situation and income represents a huge risk. In a seller’s market (the top salesperson being the seller facing excess demand for their services), the onus to prove financial security is on the employer. Just saying revenues are ‘solid’ isn’t good enough for ‘A’ level sales talent; they want to know specifics. If you are not a marquee brand, you must be able to demonstrate consistent growth, or have strong financial backing.

Failure to have compelling answers to these five questions compromises sales recruiting efforts. On the other hand, comprehensive answers to these questions will pay huge dividends in the level of talent an employer can attract and more importantly, retain.

When customers approach us to find great salespeople, the focus, as it should be, is on the candidates we present. Key questions about each candidate’s past sales performance, their selling methodology, book of contacts, experience selling within the industry, traits, and likelihood of success within our client’s unique selling environment must be investigated and answered before a candidate could even qualify to know who our client is.

Given the fact that Peak only approaches passive candidates who are actively and gainfully employed, these candidates are often not willing to go through our rigorous sales assessment process without asking our recruiters some important questions about the employer.

Since successful sales recruiting is about win-win outcomes for both our customers and the candidates they hire, world class employers know the importance of being able to properly answer the following 5 key questions when hunting for new talent.

Here are the 5 things sales candidates want to know about you:

1. What sets your company apart from the rest?

Top sales professionals don’t want to work for just any company. In the war over sales talent, it is critical for employers to establish some significant differentiators from not only the competition, but against the stereotypical 9-5 grind that many salespeople face on a daily basis. Peak advises clients to utilize approaches including: highlighting their on-boarding program to demonstrate the significant investment your company will be making in the new hire to set them up for success; highlighting their view of maintaining a real work-life balance, including investing in their professional interests (ie. paying for 3rd party training, attending conferences, etc); and demonstrating a commitment to hiring world class people and avoiding inferior salespeople.

2. What opportunity is there to move up the corporate ladder?

A key characteristic of top performing salespeople is that they possess a level of drive and ambition that is much higher than that of their peers. Hence the reason why it makes perfect sense for them to inquire about their opportunities such as a move into a management role from a rep, or into the VP or director spot if already in a management position.  Being able to articulate, using examples from your organization, the advancement opportunities within the company enhances an employer’s ability to attract top sales talent.

3. How is the compensation package structured, how much more can I make, and how often are commissions paid?

While offering a compensation package that is at the top end of the market is always key to attracting top sales talent, a big, and sometimes overlooked aspect relates to the base vs commission structure. Is there a cap? Is there a draw? Are there accelerators that kick in at a certain level? How are these paid – quarterly, at the end of the fiscal year in a lump sum, or can the candidate choose? Top salespeople expect to be compensated well and know that the best employers have well planned comp packages that enable both the organization and the candidate to be financially successful.

Need assistance putting together an effective compensation package for your new hire? Check out these 6 tips

4. Are there any accounts handed over to maintain upon accepting an offer?

Sure the candidates you meet will be hungry to go out and land new accounts.  Some also appreciate working a few existing clients to get used to their new product/service/solution. This also gives them an opportunity to experience, first hand, the processes, objections and challenges potential new clients would encounter once they sign off on a deal. Put simply, great salespeople are well-rounded and want to understand and experience first-hand how existing clients view their company.

5. What is the financial standing of the company?

While salespeople are typically more comfortable with exposure to risk than non-sales types, making a move from a stable employment situation and income represents a huge risk. In a seller’s market (the top salesperson being the seller facing excess demand for their services), the onus to prove financial security is on the employer. Just saying revenues are ‘solid’ isn’t good enough for ‘A’ level sales talent; they want to know specifics. If you are not a marquee brand, you must be able to demonstrate consistent growth, or have strong financial backing.

Failure to have compelling answers to these five questions compromises sales recruiting efforts. On the other hand, comprehensive answers to these questions will pay huge dividends in the level of talent an employer can attract and more importantly, retain.

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Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

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How to Get Promoted to Sales Manager: 20 Tips from the Experts

Optimized-iStock_71438907_MEDIUM

As a sales rep, you may aspire to move into a management position. And, this career goal comes as no surprise – data from Payscale.com indicates that the promotion to sales manager averages an OTE increase by nearly two times that of what a sales rep earns.

However, working your way up through the ranks is no a simple task. “Getting promoted to sales manager is particularly challenging, especially for top performers,” says Samantha Carr, Account Executive at Handshake Corp. Why? Firstly, companies don’t want to give up their top performer and secondly, the majority of the time sales reps make bad managers. In fact, more than 75% of reps promoted to sales manager will not last 2 years in the role. 

That is why we have combined the tips from the industry’s leading sales experts, authors, trainers, and executives on what you can do to get that promotion to a leadership position.

Here are 20 tips from Sales Experts on how to get promoted to Sales Manager:

 

1. Develop your leaderships abilities and resume

Mike-WeinbergMike Weinberg

Principal of The New Sales Coach and Author of Sales Management. Simplified. and New Sales. Simplified.

“Leadership skills are significantly more important than sales ability to succeed in a sales management role. If you’re looking to make yourself more attractive as a potential candidate for a sales leadership role, spend more time developing your leadership abilities and resume than your sales acumen. Take on a tough project at work. Join a board of a nonprofit or ministry. Come up with solution to a vexing problem at your company. The harsh truth is that there is very little similar about an individual producer sales role and a sales management role. It seems counterintuitive, but getting better at your existing job isn’t preparing you to get promoted.”

 

2. Understand the skills, traits, and behaviors required for success

Dave-SteinDave Stein

Principal of Dave Stein Inc. and Author of Beyond the Sales Process: 12 Proven Strategies for a Customer-Driven World

“In order to get promoted to a management position, a sales rep must first understand the skills, traits, and behaviors required for success. Sales managers must have skills in hiring, territory assignment, conflict resolution, forecasting, career development, and, among others, working with managers from other functions. A sales rep who wants to get promoted should come up to speed in these areas through reading, attending webinars, participating in programs, and availing themselves of coaching and mentoring opportunities inside and outside their companies.”

 

3. Establish yourself as a lifelong learner

Mark-CoxMark Cox

Managing Partner at In the Funnel – Sales Consulting

“If a sales rep wants a promotion to the management team, they will need to establish themselves as a lifelong learner. Leaders are intellectually curious. Read a book (or 5) on sales. Apply new approaches to what you do. Leverage your knowledge of your industry AND the industries that you sell to increase your effectiveness. Share what you have learned with the team. Only those that have the ability to learn and adapt will make the leap successfully.”

 

4. Start thinking and acting like a sales manager

Jill-KonrathJill Konrath

Speaker and Author of SNAP Selling, Selling to Big Companies and Agile Selling

“To get promoted to a sales manager, start thinking and acting like a sales manager. If a colleague is struggling, how can you help? If you have plateaued reps, how will you re-ignite them? Read about sales leadership and take action — before you get the job.”

 

5. Go above and beyond what is expected

Mark-BirchMark Birch

Founder of Enterprise Sales Meetup

“Sales reps need to go above and beyond what is expected to get into management. That means being willing to actively share sales tactics, set up lunch and learn sessions or a sales book club, volunteer to coach and mentor newer reps, etc.  When you demonstrate a willingness to coach and an investment in the success of your peers, you demonstrate your ability to manage and lead a team.”

 

6. Demonstrate your ability to coach and scale effectively

Gary-SmythGary Smyth

Founder and CEO of Sales Elite, LLC

“Getting promoted to Sales Manager means more than just hitting and exceeding your number. Shadow your current manager or management team and identify tasks that you can assume as an informal Team Leader/Manager, these tasks should help demonstrate your ability to coach and scale effectively. Take the opportunity to lead a team meeting or help reinforce a key sales area by leading a team huddle or call shadowing session. Start assuming the key attributes of a successful Sales Manager now to separate yourself from peers and make that next step in your career as seamless as possible.”

 

7. Be a leader within your organization

Brent-ThomsonBrent Thomson

CSO of Peak Sales Recruiting and Author of Sales Recruiting 2.0 – How to Find Top Performing Salespeople, Fast

“Getting a promotion is not easy. If you want to put yourself in the best position for becoming a sales manager, you need to be a leader within your organization. It’s all about the little things – knowing your metrics, having a structured approach to your day, leveraging your CRM, teaching others, hitting your numbers, forecasting accurately, and being a great corporate citizen.”

 

8. Develop a unique level of knowledge

Kelly-RiggsKelly Riggs

Founder of Business LockerRoom

“One of the ways that salespeople get noticed and considered for sales management positions is to develop a level of knowledge that is uncommon in their peers. Typically, this becomes apparent because they provide more value to their clients than their counterparts — new or varied applications for a product or service, more insight into the industry they serve, or a more significant understanding of the customer’s business. This will often lead other salespeople to seek them out and ask for help. If they demonstrate an inclination to help out and to coach other salespeople, that’s often a leading indicator of a potentially successful sales manager.”

 

9. Demonstrate the ability to execute the sales process

Tibor-ShantoTibor Shanto

Principal at Renbor Sales Solutions Inc.

“To be promoted to Sales Manager, a rep needs to demonstrate the ability to execute the sales process; as managers they will need to leverage the process in a number of ways to ensure execution and success. If they demonstrate an understanding of the process, and are examples of how to make it work for the rep and their buyers, they will be seen as someone who can lead others to do the same.”

 

10. Exhibit leadership behavior

Steven-RosenSteven Rosen

Founder of Star Results

“The key to getting promoted to a sales manager is not sales results. What I have seen is two types of salespeople, one who exhibits leadership behavior and the other who exhibits rep behavior. Leadership behavior is about finding solutions, it’s about showing your colleagues the way when they are stuck, and it’s about keeping an open mind and being open to change. On the other hand, rep behavior is about whining, only seeing problems and saying things like “we can’t do that” or “we have tried it and it doesn’t work”. Yes, good sales is a positive but we all know the best sales reps don’t always make the best managers. If you want to get promoted to a leadership role than you need to behave like a leader!”

 

11. Improve your ability to motivate

Oscar-MaciaOscar Macia

CEO and Co-Founder of ForceManager

“Salespeople who want to take that next step in their career need to focus on improving their leadership skills and ability to motivate. This can be done through self-education, reading books, sales management courses, etc. However, there is nothing better than learning on the sales floor – weighing up the challenges within the real-life setting of the business and seeing how they can be solved, effectively preparing them for their new role.”

 

12. Never stop learning

Dan-PerryDan Perry

Principal at SBI Sales Benchmark Index

“The key is continuous education. Salespeople who get promoted never stop learning. We call it new capability acquisition. We are fanatics about it at SBI and judge ourselves on what we are learning. Promotable people never stop ‘gaining new capabilities’.”

 

13. Get out of your comfort zone

Nick-van-der-KolkNick van der Kolk

Head of Enterprise Benelux & Nordics at Hubspot

“If you want to get promoted to Sales Manager, go above and beyond in your current role. Get out of your comfort zone and proactively ask to help your boss with more important projects, help your colleagues who currently hold the role you want, and introduce new technology to your boss that improves the sales force’s effectiveness and efficiency.”

 

14. Take on new responsibilities

Sam-CapraSam Capra

Founder of SalesTechStack

“Demonstrate you are cut out to be a manager by taking on new responsibilities. Volunteer to organize sales training, lead team meetings, take on an open sales territory, etc. In addition to the business of actual selling, demonstrate you can also handle the admin side of the business.”

 

15. Prove yourself as a leader on your team

Christopher-CronerDr. Christopher Croner

Principal of SalesDrive

“Sales reps should not get promoted on numbers alone. In order to get promoted into a leadership position, a sales rep must prove themselves as a leader within their sales team. Reps can do so by continuously resolving conflict, demonstrating confidence, and regularly suggesting new, creative promotions or incentives.”

 

16. Prepare for both asking for a promotion and interviewing for the position

Thomas-PhelpsThomas Phelps

Sales Career Expert at About.com

“Make sure you have your ducks in a row. If you are ready and your desired position is available, make sure you spend plenty of time preparing for both asking for a promotion and interviewing for the position. You’ve done way too much work getting yourself in a position to confidently ask for a promotion to waste your opportunity by going into a meeting with your supervisor ill prepared.”

 

17. Demonstrate your communication skills with co-workers and customers

Vivek-Thomas
Vivek Thomas

President of Maximizer Software Inc.

“Managers with the power to promote look for people who communicate well with co-workers and, more importantly, with customers. Patient, polite, determined, and confident are adjectives that describe a solid communicator who understands the keys to getting promoted to management – someone who demonstrates these qualities on a daily basis during customer interactions and business transactions.”

 

18. Bring new solutions to the team
Steven-BensonSteven Benson

Founder and CEO of Badger Maps Inc. and former Regional Sales Manager at Google

“Be the person who brings new solutions to the team. A key thing that sales leaders do is take responsibility for the results of others. Even at Google, the best way I’ve seen this done is by introducing new technology that will improve team performance. A sales rep that champions new technology is proving they care about, and can be responsible for, the results of the team. That’s the most important criteria for a manager – driving performance and owning results.”

 

19. Be a top producer

university-of-san-fran
University of San Francisco

“Regardless of your readiness to assume sales management responsibilities, the reality is that sought-after sales manager positions generally go to top producers. To be considered for a sales management role, you have to exhibit a consistent ability to meet and exceed sales quotas. You’ll also need to demonstrate a solid work ethic, as sales managers are expected to serve as an example and inspiration to their teams.”

 

20. Become a tour guide for new salespeople

Jeff-WestJeff West

President and Founder of The Sales Tour Guide

“If you’re a salesperson wishing to earn that promotion into management, I recommend you become a tour guide for new salespeople. Jump in and help with the on-boarding of new salespeople. Make sales calls with them and encourage their success. The best entries on your resume for any promotion into sales leadership are the names of those whom your mentorship has played a part in their success.”

 

Put these 20 tips to use and visit the Peak Sales Career Blog for the latest actionable insights on how to advance your sales career.

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Faster, Better, Sales Onboarding

Onboard Salespeople FastSales onboarding continues to get a lot of attention, as more organizations seek new ways to ramp up reps faster and reach higher levels of productivity for new hires.

Most onboarding strategies I read about are good, but I rarely see anything that’s truly differentiating, or that will significantly move the needle. I’ve developed a method that’s been used in multiple companies and has produced great results. (See slide 3 for examples.)

The secret is combining these 7 things and doing them well:

Define the Competencies for Sales Success

A systems approach can help average performers produce at above-average levels, but no amount of training will help someone succeed if they don’t have the mindset, competencies, skills and behaviors needed for sales success at your company. These are the foundation for everything else a salesperson does so spend the time to get this right. This fuels hiring and training, and can be done at the same time as a Top-Producer Analysis (which is one way to identify the competencies you want to hire and replicate.)

Hire Right

This is always the first step of effective sales onboarding.

Your competency analysis and Top-Producer Analysis can tell you a lot about who to hire. I recommend a combination of validated psychometric assessments, behavioral interviewing, simulations, past success validation, plus background and reference checks. The experts at Peak Sales Recruiting can share much more about this and support you through the process.

Use Top-Producer Practices as the Content for Training

When you study top producers, identify those who have been primarily responsible for their success (meaning, they didn’t just inherit a great territory or have extraordinary assistance in landing one massive account) and find the replicable and differentiating behaviors that separate them from middle and bottom producers.

Compare the mindsets, knowledge, skills, competencies and best practices of top-producers to those in the middle bucket, and then create a list of what middle producers should continue, start and stop, to help them get better results. Then, work this content into your sales onboarding, as described below.

Set Performance Milestones

Set performance expectations for your new hires.

But in either case, think this through, benchmark past results as a starting point, set the milestones, and measure and report progress toward goals for all new hires.

Focus on Need-to-Know by Milestone

First, you need to have the difficult, prioritization conversations and determine what reps really NEED to know to hit each of your milestones.

Then, you need to use a technique known to instructional designers as Chunk, Sequence and Layer: Chunk like topics and content together, sequence them in a logical order based on business process and workflow (how the rep will actually do their job), and once they learn one thing, and you can validate the learning through assessment/tests, discussion or skill validation, layer something else on top of it.

Keep this going until the rep has learned everything they need to know and do to achieve the first milestone. Then track their progress toward the first milestone, while you start to ramp them toward milestone 2. Rinse and repeat, working your way through however many performance milestones you’ve set.

Execute with Discipline

The success of any sales training initiative, including onboarding, will be determined by how well you execute. I recommend what I call an Effective Learning System.

Content

Start with content that will get results in the real world. Base your training content on top-producer practices whenever possible.sales onboarding plan

Design

If you start with the right content, you still need to design your training well so people learn and have plenty of time for skill practice, feedback and applying that feedback. I prefer using a blended curriculum where you can flip the classroom training to be exercises, activities and role plays, with plenty of feedback and redoing.

Manager Engagement

If you’re training sales reps, their managers need to buy in to what’s being taught and need to be trained on it, too. That way, they can reinforce what is taught. They must be trained how to coach their sales reps to mastery.

Transfer and Coaching to Mastery

For transfer and coaching to mastery, you can create assessments to use over time, or use a learning reinforcement tool like Qstream. Through this type of tool, you can create forms and job aids and other performance support. Sales managers can inspect what they expect, as well as coach the reps over time. Don’t expect the training to stick without some purposeful plans for reinforcement and using the skills on the job.

Measures

What gets measured gets done. It always helps to have metrics and measures in place to gauge how well it’s working and whether your sales reps are doing what was taught, and if it’s getting better results for them.

Performance Management

This is a larger, separate effort, but all of this should be wrapped into your sales reps’ performance plans (as well as your managers’), to reinforce and drive the behaviors you want to see.

Integration | Alignment | Change Management

If you expect behavior change, you need alignment around the expectations of what trainees should be doing and should treat the entire initiative like a change management project. Organizational behavior rarely changes without a well-designed and well-implemented plan.

Combine this concept of an effective learning system with the logic above when creating an effective Sales Onboarding program, and you will get results like you never thought possible.

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Is the Company Culture Right For You? Five Questions to Ask in Your Sales Interview

Contrary to popular belief, company culture is not about the number of vacation days you get, catered lunches, or the “perks” offered by leadership. This article explains what company culture is and offers some insight into what questions you should be asking during the interview process to illuminate if a company’s culture is an environment you will excel in. Read on to find out.

As much as the interview process is about being assessed for your capabilities as a sales candidate, it’s also an opportunity for you to evaluate the fit for the company you will potentially work for. We have explained how to make your resume stand out, as well as how to properly prepare for an interview, but the path to employment is just as much about your view of a company as theirs is of you. Here, we explain what company culture is and the 5 ways you can determine if your potential employer is the right cultural fit for you to advance your sales career.

Understanding Company Culture

Company culture can be understood as the beliefs and behaviors that govern how a company’s employees and leadership team interact. Often, company culture is implied and not expressly defined and develops naturally over time from the cumulative traits of the people the company hires. Essentially, it is the values collectively identified by leadership, the mission and vision of the company, and the practices relied upon in hiring, firing, and promotion criteria. Experts have spent decades studying company culture, but ultimately the leadership of every company will decide what defines their company culture. It is alive and subject to transform over time.

In a study conducted at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, 1,400 North American CEOs and CFOs were surveyed on workplace culture over 13 months and the results were clear. Over 90% of CEOs viewed workplace culture as an essential aspect of a thriving business. On the other side of the scale, only 15% felt that their corporate culture was where they needed it to be.Company-Culture-graphic-1

Such disparate statistics illuminate just how intangible corporate culture can be, making it that much more imperative to understand the right questions to ask throughout the interview process.

To help you determine company culture, ask the following 5 questions throughout the interview process:

1. What is the sales environment like and how does it fit in with the rest of the organization?

This question allows you to get an idea of what the leadership values in their work environment; specifically how it views the sales department. Since alignment with your leadership team is imperative for selling success, knowing what type of organizational selling approach is used – team based for example – will impact your ability to excel with the company.

Sales expert Mike Weinberg describes the healthiest team culture he’s ever seen, and it includes things like a laser focus on the strategy for success, open and immediate feedback, a competitive, self-policing team, ample doses of celebration, and an engaged, servant leadership team. Look for these attributes when listening to an interviewer’s response to this question.

As a salesperson, you want to know that the leadership recognizes that the entirety of the organization plays a role in sales. It should be a given that the leadership of a company sees value in acquiring new business – it’s much easier to close deals when you know the entire company is focussed on acquiring and retaining new business/customers.

2. How would you describe your company culture in three words?

This question is powerful because it forces the interviewer to get to the essential characteristics that define their company. It also allows you to evaluate how the interviewer responds, which may in fact be the most telling aspect of the answer. Do they tense up? Do they need to think about it?  If they are able to quickly and easily speak to the culture, it’s a sign that culture is something that is top of mind for the leadership team.

It’s also useful to ask potential colleagues this question if given the opportunity to speak to them (this often comes at later stages of interviewing, on the second or third visit to the office). See how closely their answers align to the interviewer you spoke with earlier. Divergent responses can mean a lack of cultural alignment.

3. How do people give and receive feedback at your company?

During the second or third interview is a good time to ask how a company manages feedback. Conflict management is one of the most telling ways to determine a company’s culture.  A Psychometric study on conflict in the workplace found that 59% of workplace conflict is due to clashing values, whereas warring egos and personality clashes comprise of 86% of conflict. Knowing how the company navigates feedback can lead you to a workplace most in line with your own values.

Some organizations prefer to document conflict and mistakes, reporting the minutiae of worker disagreement and error, while others prefer informal, frequent, and on-the-spot feedback. Being clear on the way the company handles feedback is necessary to know whether you will fit in and if this workplace will be an environment you will be comfortable in.  company-culture-2

4. How does your company celebrate success? What do you use to motivate your employees?

Different employees are motivated by different rewards – but salespeople are universally motivated by money and recognition. Ask the interviewer how quota attainment is rewarded. Is there a multi-tiered target structure for specific milestones hit? Is there a quarterly bonus in addition to an annual one? Understanding how the company both motivates and rewards its employees is a way to understand its corporate culture.

Sales culture is directly tied to the results of the team, so having an engaged, pro-sales CEO and executive team who understand and respects the value of its sales team is proof that this an environment you as a salesperson want to be a part of.

5. What role would I play in the growth of this company?

While it may seem obvious what role a sales position will hold for an organization, titles and roles mean different things to different companies. How the interviewer answers this question illuminates how they view the sales force of their organization and how well they understand the function of sales within the company.

You want to hear the interviewer provide an answer that is specific, and includes tasks devoted to selling (as opposed to tasks that pull you away from your selling activities and make it more difficult to fulfill targets). A response that makes you feel like your duties and responsibilities are integral to the success of the company is a strong indication that the company understands sales–and that you will be a good fit.

Company Culture Impacts Your Selling Success:

Company culture is the beliefs and behaviors that govern how the leadership team and employees interact in an organization. The interview process measures your fit as an employee for a company, but it’s also an opportunity for you to evaluate the company’s fit for you. In the path to employment, knowing what questions to ask about a company’s culture is imperative to understanding if you will be a good long term fit. Ultimately, you want to know:

For more industry insights or to learn more about the landscape of B2B and enterprise sales, visit the Peak Sales Blog.

 

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Six Sales Onboarding Tools to Welcome and Train New Hires

Each year, the Aberdeen Group surveys more than 200 companies to ask them about their new hire onboarding efforts. The report finds that best-in-class companies that offer dynamic onboarding programs enjoy a much higher employee retention rate – and employees reach their goals faster than those at companies without strong programs. Companies that show a commitment to onboarding use tactical and strategic initiatives, a structured approach, in addition to technology throughout the onboarding process. These efforts pay immediate dividends by working to protect an investment in recruiting and employing high performing sales people, helping to provide increased revenue performance; improved client experience; and protecting company brand reputation.

Creating, executing, and maintaining an effective onboarding program takes commitment from the entire organization, including Sales VPs and Human Resource Leaders, particularly when training salespeople involved in long sales cycles for sophisticated offering. Leading B2B organizations today embrace an interdepartmental approach, which uses technology to enhance their onboarding program and enable new sales hires to hit their targets, faster.

Here are six pieces of technology your organization can utilize in your organization’s onboarding plan:

1. Develop a welcome plan

Technology: HR software that offers automated options

New sales employees require an abundance of items: A desk, laptop, business cards, a phone number, accounts login for all the CRM your department uses, access to your virtual private network (VPN), a corporate credit card, a key account and stakeholder list, etc. It’s a long list. Fortunately, the majority of HR cloud services and software packages have onboarding features that can help HR and Sales coordinate everything from tax paperwork to seating assignments and IT. In order to be successful, a checklist of everything your new hire requires on arrival should be developed that incorporates the expertise of all of the departments your new sales hire will interact with – HR, finance, accounting, facilities, etc. Important in this process is ensuring that feedback on the onboarding process is collected from the new employee. The top sales organizations we partner with utilize this information to refine their software’s functionality and the onboarding process. By utilizing HR specific software, organizations’ enhance their ability to orchestrate a smooth first week for their new sales hire, and ultimately generate higher sales, faster.

2. Embrace your new sales hire

Technology: Social media

As soon as the hire is official, start using social media to welcome your new hire to the team. A Harvard Business Review Online article contends that social tools improve the onboarding experience for employees. One of the best tools you can use to help your salesperson get acclimated is LinkedIn – it will serve as a cheat sheet for helping them remember coworker’s names and faces, and also serve as a learning tool to help them make associations with co-workers, particularly those working remotely. Encouraging team members to send the new hire an invitation to connect, or creating a closed group for your department that your new hire can join provides a unique channel through which new sales hires can be introduced to their team.

The LinkedIn group method can also act as a sales learning tool where team members can share selling techniques and insights (for more information on how to great a LinkedIn group, see our reference list) about important selling activities. Unfortunately, many companies have tried – and failed – to make their own proprietary social networking tools, but why re-create the wheel? Using a familiar tool like LinkedIn requires little effort and is efficient. And don’t worry, Facebook fans, Facebook at Work is coming soon.

3. Develop a detailed onboarding plan

Technology: Excel

Word class organizations invest heavily in their onboarding process (Stein and Christiansen, 2010). Sitting a new employee in front of training videos, or providing vague direction on who to talk with about your products or services is a recipe for failure. One of piece of advice we provide clients as part of a structured onboarding process is to devise a discovery roadmap that the employee should follow to learn about their new job, the organization’s sales strategy, and the organization’s selling environment. As noted by Harvard Business Professor, Frank Cespedes, new sales hires “need to learn about the company and how other functions affect, and are affected by, selling behaviors. They don’t need to know how to do other jobs in the firm. But they do need to know what those jobs are and how those activities affect selling.”

Tip: Start with the big picture and drill down to the details, providing the names of people inside and outside of the organization the employee should contact and get to know. You’ll wind up with an agenda for the employee to follow for his or her first few weeks, and your new employee will be able to set appointments and meet people at their speed – an important way to ensure the new salesperson focuses on tasks and selling skills that add immediate value to the team. Your matrix might look like this (in fact, copy and paste it into an Excel spreadsheet and start working on it right now.)

Practice Area Contact When Topic
Company and Product List various contacts that can sit with the new salesperson and give them a strong overview – include contact phone number so that the employee can call and set an appointment. Stipulate when this meeting should take place: Within the first few days, first week, first three weeks, etc. Provide a definitive topic and objectives for each meeting so that the new hire and the contact knows what’s expected.
Sales Process
Resources
Customers
Tools and Systems

4. Training details

Technology: Video

While personal interaction is important for a new employee, there are some tasks that employees will have to learn through video, particularly as they start drilling down into learning the ins and outs of your product or service. In fact, the Society for Human Resource Management’s paper, “Onboarding New Employees: Maximizing Success” promotes the use of a wide variety of learning tools and environments – including video – to help new employees learn. Fortunately, tools are available to make this happen.

Many of our clients have training videos for their customers. Utilizing a video editor to augment existing sales videos with notes and voiceovers that are useful for salespeople to know is just one method of incorporating video into your onboarding process. PowerPoint can also be recorded.

Tip: Have your top sales person walk through a PowerPoint deck, providing selling insights on topics like typical customer encounters, important selling skills, different sales approaches, and success stories. Use PowerPoint’s record functionality and save the presentation for new salespeople.

5. Measure progress

Technology: Gamification

The Aberdeen report found that only 17 percent of organizations apply gaming techniques to the new hire experience – but those who use it improve engagement by 48 percent. Tools as simple and easy as Survey Monkey or TINY Pulse enable organizations to send quick quizzes with feedback options that employees can use. Since the administrator can review the results of the participants, managers are provided another tool to gauge their new hires progress.

only 17 percent of organizations apply gaming techniques to the new hire experience – but those who use it improve engagement by 48 percent.

6. Mastering the client call

Technology: Google Hangouts

Pairing new sales hires with top sellers is one of the most vital exercises of any sales onboarding processes since a new hire can actively learn about effective selling tasks and activities. If selling is done primarily over the phone, consider using Google Hangouts. The technology allows for two-way video communication that can be recorded. Clients are typically more than willing to participate in a video call, particularly if they know there’s a new employee trying to learn (we’ve all been there), and being able to review the play-by-play afterwards with the salesperson is helpful to everyone in the process. Google Hangouts provide yet another technological tool to handle role-playing for sales calls – reviewing video is a great way for an employee to get visual and audio feedback on how they’re doing, and gives their manager an opportunity to pause and replay to reinforce what they did well, and point out where they need improvement.

New employees are eager to learn so they can get selling. By developing and embracing a structured onboarding strategy that utilizes technology to make new hires feel welcome, engage them right away, and set them on a path of learning and socialization, sales managers can feel confident that their new hire will be set up for success.

Need more in-depth information on implementing an effective sales onboarding strategy?

Read our eBook, The First 90 Days – Your Guide to Making New Sales Hires Produce Fast.

References:https://www.peaksalesrecruiting.com/sales-resources/new-sales-rep-onboarding-guide/

Creating a LinkedIn Group, LinkedIn
Facebook at Work, Facebook
Successful Onboarding: Strategies to Unlock Hidden Value Within Your Organization, Mark Stein and Lilith Christiansen
Social Tools can Improve Employee Onboarding, Karie Willyerd
Facebook Developing ‘Facebook at Work’ Service, Says Report, Issie Lapowsky, Wired.com
Onboarding New Employees: Maximizing Success, Tyla N. Bauer, Ph.D, Society for Human Resource Management

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Eliot Burdett

CEO at Peak Sales Recruiting
Before Peak, Eliot spent more than 20 years building and leading companies, where he took the lead in recruiting and managing high performance sales teams. He co-founded Ventrada Systems (mobile applications) and GlobalX (e-commerce software). He was also Vice President of Sales for PointShot Wireless.Eliot received his B. Comm. from Carleton University and has been honored as a Top 40 Under 40 Award winner.

He co-authored Sales Recruiting 2.0, How to Find Top Performing Sales People, Fast and provides regular insights on sales team management and hiring on the Peak Sales Recruiting Blog.

Connect:

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Preparing for Your Next Sales Interview? Read This and Ace It

 

sales interviewThis article covers the top 10 things you need to do to prepare for your next sales interview. Specifically, it explains why you should:

Like most aspects of business, the interviewing and hiring strategies companies use have evolved – they are now more rigorous and hyper personalized than ever, especially in sales. Because the best sales interview processes are structured to ensure consistency and objectivity in the hiring process, it is now that much more imperative for candidates to be prepared.

For example, at Peak, interview questions used to assess a potential sales representative are more in depth and role specific than simply ticking down a list of standard interview questions such as “tell me about your work experience” or “what interests you about this position?” World-class companies have eliminated these questions and evolved their interviewing and hiring practices to reflect the need to conduct structured interviews that eliminate subjectivity from the hiring process and expose average and below-average sellers.

As a top performer, you actually want to be faced with exacting and challenging questions, because it speaks to the standards and expectations your potential employer has aligned themselves with. If you do find yourself in a generic interview that doesn’t spark any thoughtful discussion or press into your ability to achieve your quotas, consider it a red flag; this is potentially in line with how the rest of the business is run.

Here is a list of the 10 most revealing questions interviewers ask salespeople, with insights into what these questions attempt to uncover about you:

1. Discuss your sales skills. What do you view as an area for improvement, and what are you doing to address the deficiency?

This question is asking about your:

Someone who is achievement oriented understands exactly what sales skills they need to improve, and have a strategy in place to achieve the next level of competency in their work.

Think through a specific area of your work (cold call to close ratios, up-selling and cross-selling of existing accounts, requesting referrals) and explain why and how you plan on improving this skill. Employers want salespeople who possess a natural desire to achieve; explaining the skill(s) you want to improve displays both a need for achievement and a self-awareness of your selling strengths and weaknesses.

Stand-out-Interview---DYK2 (1)

2. In your current/last role, where did you rank on the team?

This question is asking about your:

Great salespeople always know where they stand relative to their colleagues. Because they are competitive, they have a constant need to know where they rank in comparison to other reps. While you may not necessarily be the top sales rep every quarter, being able to accurately state where you ranked is an indication that you are cognizant of your standing and are working to improve your performance.

Eliot Burdett, CEO of Peak Sales Recruiting, explains that the most effective predictor of future behavior is to understand past behaviour.

Often, employees’ reasons for leaving a company each time are similar, so the best way to navigate this type of question is to be straightforward and proactive when explaining your work history.

Being evasive or indirect about reasons for leaving past roles comes across as suspicious to employers, and the more they know about your history, the more comfortable they’ll feel about hiring you. Even if your last job exit was due to family or personal needs, explain this in a fact-based way. Proactively addressing any gaps in your work history before they are brought up demonstrates that you have nothing to hide.  

Stand-out-Interview---DYK1_Second-Half

3. Tell me about a time you failed or faced adversity.

This question is about:

Often touted as one of the toughest questions to be faced with in an interview, understanding the nature of why this question is asked can help alleviate the anxiety that comes with formulating a response to it. Interviewers want to understand how you define success, failure, and everything in between. This question allows you to open up about your selling activities and behaviors, which illuminates for the interviewer how you measure and take risk.

This question is often used to calibrate whether or not you are risk averse and determines if you learned from the experience (hint: top performing salespeople take risks, they have experienced failure, and they have grown from it).

For example, perhaps you worked for a company that had a poor name in the market and you built relationships and established trust to restore the reputation of your company. Explaining how you repaired the reputation gives the interviewer a concrete example of your willingness to commit to an employer by establishing and building relationships – even when it’s not easy.

4. Why are you a great salesperson / why do you win business?

This question is about:

Great salespeople know why people buy from them and what triggers the response.  Brent Thompson, CSO of Peak Sales Recruiting, views this question as one of the most useful ways to test a salesperson’s selling ability. He explains, “if you provide a generic response (i.e. ‘people just like me’) it indicates you don’t really know what you are doing and lack a methodology to your selling process.” The best salespeople understand the why of people’s buying behavior and how their selling process influences and guides that behaviour.

5.  What have you done in the last thirty days to make yourself a better salesperson?

This question is about:

This is a favoured question from sales management strategist Lee B. Salz, best-selling author of Hire Right Higher Profits. It is designed to provide the interviewer insight into how seriously you take your own professional development and how you go about making your career ambitions a reality.  

Whether you’ve read a great sales book recently or engage a sales mentor, competence and desire to learn are essential traits employers are looking for with this question.

To go above and beyond with your answer, describe the book or the mentor meeting. Explain what you implemented into your selling behavior afterward and how it’s made a positive impact. You show not only that you’re tactical, but that you can execute strategy as well.

Stand-out-Interview---DYK3

6. Where do you see yourself in 3 and 5 years?

This question is about:

While this question may seem broad and/or vague, the interviewer is looking to see if you have a plan.  Great salespeople always have a plan. Everything is calculated, and if not, you can develop a plan very quickly. This is also a way for companies to determine if your career goals align with the company’s vision for you on a longer term basis.  It’s about being an appropriate fit with a company as much as it is about determining your specific career goals. Employers want to see that you have a clear path set out for yourself, and that you are willing to commit to an organization to make those goals a reality.

Stand-out-Interview---DYK4

7.  How will you sell our offering?

This question is about:

Asking the “how” of getting the offering to the consumer illuminates your communication style and certain components of your drive. Examples of this include:

It also examines how well you did your research on the company prior to the interview. Being able to speak to the offering the company sells, key markets, purchasing stakeholders, and buyer groups demonstrates that you are prepared for the interaction and understand what it takes to instill confidence into a sell.

An inability to answer this question tells the employer that you may go into a pitch or a prospect call with the same lack of preparation about the company you are selling to – a major red flag and not something that top performers do.

8. What is your least favorite aspect of the process of sales?

This question is about:

This type of question is telling to the employer because it alludes to your selling personality. If you point to cold calling as your least favorite aspect of the sales process, you likely don’t possess the drive, determination, and resilience required to excel in a true hunter role. If cold calling is one of your preferred activities, it speaks to the fact that you possess high levels of aggression and enjoy the persistence required to close a lead.

9. Who do you enjoy selling to the most and why?

This question is about:

Your answer will likely include a description of your ideal prospect, and employers will be listening for the type of buyer you are most attracted to: is it a company looking for a complex, enterprise solution that has a long sales cycle and involves multiple stakeholders? Or, is the client you describe a transactional buyer, with minimal lead up to the sale? Depending on the company you are interviewing with, more transactional selling preferences will be a red flag because you don’t have experience with the consultative nature of complex selling.

dyk_6

10. Tell me about yourself.

This question is about your:

Most often, this question is the first one asked by the interviewer: it’s meant to break the ice, get the conversation going, and allow them to have a general picture of who they are speaking to. If you are able to easily and comfortably speak about yourself, both personally and professionally, it indicates that you are comfortable in your skin and will have the same demeanor with clients that you have not necessarily established a rapport with.

In your sales interview, remember to:

Be prepared to answer open-ended questions. The best candidate devotes time thinking about specific instances in response to the questions outlined above and are ready to provide precise figures where necessary. For example, being prepared with a response that includes exact numbers of how much you sold over quota and what percentage of that was net new business versus recurring will distinguish you as someone who is both organized and achievement oriented.

Often, you will be asked proof questions such as “what did you do in the past” instead of theoretical questions such as “what would you do in the future.” Arming yourself with the best of your past numbers and quotas will alleviate the stress of coming up with information on the spot.

Ultimately, employers want to learn the intangibles of your work history, so come ready to provide that to them and the rest will speak for itself. While the evolution of interviewing and hiring practices can make preparing for a sales interview feel daunting, coming equipped with numbers, having specific examples prepared, and understanding the “why’s” of your selling methodology will ultimately be your keys to hiring success.

For a comprehensive checklist of everything you need to know before a sales interview, fill out the form below:

Interested in more industry insights and the most up-to-date sales career resources and tools? Visit the Peak Sales Blog.

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5 Steps to Getting a Higher Base Salary for Your New Sales Job [Infographic]


You aced the interview and got the offer of employment. Now comes the part 59% of candidates dread and 20% of candidates completely avoid – negotiating your starting base salary with your prospective employer.

It can be agreed that everyone wants a higher base salary, but, how many have the knowledge and skills to make that happen? According to research from Linda Babcock’s book, Women Don’t Ask, only 57% of men and 7% of women successfully negotiate their starting salaries with new employers.

That is why we created the infographic below with the 5 proven steps you need to get a higher base salary at your new sales job:


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