Want to improve your interviewing skills when hiring salespeople? Use these questions to get to the heart of their sales experience: 10 Revealing Interview Questions to Ask Sales Candidates 1. What is a qualified buyer to you? 2. What words do you use on a cold call with a Gatekeeper? 3. At what point will you walk away from a sale? 4. What is your process for acquiring referrals? 5. What is the best way to present price to a buyer? 6. What are your 3 favorite questions to ask on a 1st appointment? 7. How do you define a successful 1st appointment with a prospect? 8. What words do you use to close a sale? 9. What would be your ideal relationship with your Sales Manager? 10. How do you acquire leads to fill your pipeline?

1. 10
INTERVIEW
Revealing
To Ask Sales Candidates
QUESTIONS

2. What is a
QUALIFIED BUYER
to you?
1

3. A sales rep that doesn’t qualify as a vital part of
the sales process will waste valuable time
chasing prospects who cannot or will not buy.

4. “A qualified buyer to me is a prospect who:
fits our target market
is the decision-maker
has the budget to pay for our products/services
has an urgency about making a purchase
has specific needs we can meet
agrees with our terms and conditions.”
Good response

5. What words
do you use on a
COLD CALL
with a
Gatekeeper?
2
Banana?

6. You do not want to hear:
“I would introduce myself and
say something about our
products or company…”

7. What you really want are the actual
words they use on a cold call. They
should deliver them so that it does not
sound scripted.
Conduct a cold calling role-play.
Listen for tone, confidence, value
statements and positioning statements
– not product pitches or coercive lines
to get past the Gatekeeper.
Consider this

8. At what point
will you
WALK AWAY
from a sale?
3

9. If their response is
“never”you might want to
keep looking.
(not all business is good business)

10. Persistence is admirable, but
experienced salespeople know
when to stop wasting time with
the wrong buyer and move on.
Consider this

11. What is your process
for acquiring…
REFERRALS?
4

12. In some industries, referral requests are made
immediately after the sale.
In other cases, only
after they’ve been
earned.

13. Be wary of “referral-heavy” sales reps. They
may avoid prospecting and only want
“warm calls” via referrals.
Consider this
A good response is:
“I set referral appointments with
satisfied customers as one part of
my new business development
strategy.”

14. to a buyer?
What is the
best way to
PRESENT
PRICE
5

15. You want to learn how much your candidate understands and follows a
sales process. Be wary of salespeople who prematurely present price –
especially to unqualified buyers.

16. A good response is for
the price to be
wrapped in value
using on-target
benefit statements
rather than the
undesirable method:
show product – present
price – offer discount.
CONSIDER THIS

17. 6
What are your
three favorite
Questions
to ask on a first
appointment?

18. Evaluate your candidates questions:
How well-crafted are their questions?
Are they relevant?
Would they get the prospect talking
about their issues and objectives?

19. GOOD RESPONSE
A good response is a set of business-
focused, issue-specific questions.
Examples:
How is <business issue> affecting your
production?
What solutions have not worked so far?
What is the intended outcome for this
initiative?
Who else is participating with you in
making this decision?

20. 7
How do you define a successful
first appointment with a prospect?

21. You’re looking for someone who wants to position
themself as a trusted business advisor. If their
answer is simply “make a sale”, they very well may
be overlooking critical financial, business and
serviceability issues - reducing trust and affecting
sales.
(Answers will vary somewhat by industry.)

22. A good response will indicate that they gather enough information to
clearly determine next steps in the sales process - even if that means
walking away.
Consider this

23. 8
What words do
you use to
close
a sale?

24. It’s surprising how many salespeople don’t have
a set of good words to close a sale.
Asking your candidate this
question gives you a sense of their
competency in the last step of the
sales process, their confidence
level, experience, and
communication skills.

25. A good response will be simple and free
from manipulation and focused on
facilitating a smooth transition into
the customer/vendor relationship.
Example:
“Let me show you how we do our
paperwork.”
Consider this

26. What would be
your ideal
relationship
with your
Sales Manager?
9

27. The employer/employee relationship is
critical. This is one of the main reasons
why salespeople do well and also why
they leave companies – the relationship
they have with their boss.

28. Listen carefully for:
How much coaching do they want (if any)?
How involved do they want their Sales
Manager to be in the sales process?
(closing sales for them)
What level of autonomy do they want?
Consider this

29. How do you
acquire
leads
to fill your
pipeline?
10

30. Expect your candidate to provide specific
answers. Depending on your industry and
process, a salesperson that is accustomed to
receiving company-generated leads or having
first appointments set for them may not fit
your needs.
Cold calling and
networking

31. A good response contains details for acquiring self-generated leads such as:
• building lists
• acquiring market research
• writing cold call scripts
Good response
• methods for making first contact
• nurturing low-urgency prospects
• follow-up frequency

32. 1. What is a qualified buyer to you?
2. What words do you use on a cold call with a Gatekeeper?
3. At what point will you walk away from a sale?
4. What is your process for acquiring referrals?
5. What is the best way to present price to a buyer?
6. What are your 3 favorite questions to ask on a 1st appointment?
7. How do you define a successful 1st appointment with a prospect?
8. What words do you use to close a sale?
9. What would be your ideal relationship with your Sales Manager?
10. How do you acquire leads to fill your pipeline?
recap

33. For more information about hiring great salespeople:
xPotentialSelling.com
866.350.4457