Dear Members,
I've recently joined an start-up company. We are now recruiting Sales Manager. Pls guide me what qualities I should check while interviewing them. In past we have taken few sales Managers who said a lot during interviews but when they joined, they were not able to perform at all and all our efforts gone waste. My head wants to check the Creative and Out of Box thinking of these Sales People. The organization is in to manufacturing and sales of Water treatment plants . Can any member pls suggest me any exercise to check it.
Your valuable suggestions are awaited
Regards
Deepali Rastogi
From India, Delhi
I've recently joined an start-up company. We are now recruiting Sales Manager. Pls guide me what qualities I should check while interviewing them. In past we have taken few sales Managers who said a lot during interviews but when they joined, they were not able to perform at all and all our efforts gone waste. My head wants to check the Creative and Out of Box thinking of these Sales People. The organization is in to manufacturing and sales of Water treatment plants . Can any member pls suggest me any exercise to check it.
Your valuable suggestions are awaited
Regards
Deepali Rastogi
From India, Delhi
I have been from Sales background and switched to Recruitment... The basic and most important for a sales manager is 'Attitude'. A sales man / Girl will be surely able to sell
him / Her self.
Let me share my thoughts...
1. At the beginning.. you must be very keen to listen him with smile; which will help you to know his
presentation skill.
2. Gradually try to pressurise him.. to know his ability to overcome the pressure.
3. Ask him to market his product to you directly from the same sitting and ask him more
question from totally negative angle and try compare his product with his
competetors.. which will support you to understand his knowledge and confidence level.
4. You should give him an excercise... you tell the most negatives of your product and
ask him.. how to market the product in highly competetive market?
5. You should ask his working hours... If he says an exact time period... through him
away.. A Good Sales Manager will never mention a time as its depends on customer's
convenience.
6. Ask him... If he is appointed, how much business he can do? Why that much? How?
7. Ask his expecting Salary and Other benefits.. You offer him a Double incentive and 1/2
of his expectation in his basic..(You must tell him its not the final amount.. but,
Suppose If I offer you this much....).. An experienced and a proven track record holder
will not denie your offer even he/she dint accept... Because he/ she is confident that
he/she can earn huge amount through incentive..
8. Collect the details of his most important three clients with contact person.
9. After these steps... Relaax..! Then ask him to prepare a Sales plan and send to you
within 48 Hours. After getting his plan you will come to know his ability to plan and its
scope of implementation.
There is a pure negative strategy which is best in my experience.. I cant tell you as it is negative strategy. If you are interested.. Lets communicate through Email.
From Qatar, Doha
him / Her self.
Let me share my thoughts...
1. At the beginning.. you must be very keen to listen him with smile; which will help you to know his
presentation skill.
2. Gradually try to pressurise him.. to know his ability to overcome the pressure.
3. Ask him to market his product to you directly from the same sitting and ask him more
question from totally negative angle and try compare his product with his
competetors.. which will support you to understand his knowledge and confidence level.
4. You should give him an excercise... you tell the most negatives of your product and
ask him.. how to market the product in highly competetive market?
5. You should ask his working hours... If he says an exact time period... through him
away.. A Good Sales Manager will never mention a time as its depends on customer's
convenience.
6. Ask him... If he is appointed, how much business he can do? Why that much? How?
7. Ask his expecting Salary and Other benefits.. You offer him a Double incentive and 1/2
of his expectation in his basic..(You must tell him its not the final amount.. but,
Suppose If I offer you this much....).. An experienced and a proven track record holder
will not denie your offer even he/she dint accept... Because he/ she is confident that
he/she can earn huge amount through incentive..
8. Collect the details of his most important three clients with contact person.
9. After these steps... Relaax..! Then ask him to prepare a Sales plan and send to you
within 48 Hours. After getting his plan you will come to know his ability to plan and its
scope of implementation.
There is a pure negative strategy which is best in my experience.. I cant tell you as it is negative strategy. If you are interested.. Lets communicate through Email.
From Qatar, Doha
Hi Deepali
Interesting situation!
I will be able to help you sure.
I am a management consultant as well as a psychologist.
I can help you in making psychometric tests inorder to assess the qualities you want to check in your candidates.
with the results of these tests , we can finalise the candidates.
But ofcourse , this has to be given to me as a consulting assignment and will be chargeable.
If interested , please let me know at
The tests will be sent to you by email and you have to send me back the results for analysis. Based on the analysis i will be able to give you the feedback of each candidate .thus i am sure you can select the best canddiate.
the test which i provide is reliable and valid and is being used by many companies in their selection process.
From India, Kochi
1Interesting situation!
I will be able to help you sure.
I am a management consultant as well as a psychologist.
I can help you in making psychometric tests inorder to assess the qualities you want to check in your candidates.
with the results of these tests , we can finalise the candidates.
But ofcourse , this has to be given to me as a consulting assignment and will be chargeable.
If interested , please let me know at
The tests will be sent to you by email and you have to send me back the results for analysis. Based on the analysis i will be able to give you the feedback of each candidate .thus i am sure you can select the best canddiate.
the test which i provide is reliable and valid and is being used by many companies in their selection process.
From India, Kochi
Dear Deepali,
A person who has handled sales should not have a problem in conducting interview of another sales person. As I see, there are two aspects of interview - one is to check his managerial competencies and another is his sales competency.
To check sales competency, behavioural interviewing should come handy. Ask a simple question - "What sales process did you follow? What was its effectiveness?"
The answer to this question is quite comprehensive. A matured interviewer should be able to ask right supporting questions.
Then there are few CV specific questions as well.
I conduct training on "Behavioural Interviewing". It is a 1 or 2 day training programme (depending on your ability to spare the time). If you take up this training, you will become competent to handle interview of not only sales managers but all other managers as well.
For your reference, I have attached my Training e-brochure to this post.
Dinesh V Divekar
dineshdivekar(at)yahoo.com
From India, Bangalore
A person who has handled sales should not have a problem in conducting interview of another sales person. As I see, there are two aspects of interview - one is to check his managerial competencies and another is his sales competency.
To check sales competency, behavioural interviewing should come handy. Ask a simple question - "What sales process did you follow? What was its effectiveness?"
The answer to this question is quite comprehensive. A matured interviewer should be able to ask right supporting questions.
Then there are few CV specific questions as well.
I conduct training on "Behavioural Interviewing". It is a 1 or 2 day training programme (depending on your ability to spare the time). If you take up this training, you will become competent to handle interview of not only sales managers but all other managers as well.
For your reference, I have attached my Training e-brochure to this post.
Dinesh V Divekar
dineshdivekar(at)yahoo.com
From India, Bangalore
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