In this article, we will be sharing some of the questions with answers that you might be asked in your interview as director of Sales.
1. Why Are You Interested In This Role?
The main reason for applying for this role was to sit in the driving seat now after all these years of experience and skill-building. My exposure has been unlimited in my previous roles and I have learned a lot. It would be nice to take the steering wheel of sales to grow more.
2. What Are The Roles Of A Director Of Sales?
The duties that need to be fulfilled under this role are:
- Improving customer services through staff training,
- Make sure that sales goals are met through proper planning
- Increase the customer loyalty of existing customers while reaching new,
- Ensure all timeline constrained sales targets are met,
- In corporating all data into sales reports,
- Keep an eye on competitors in the market and assess the plans,
- Foresee and estimate the next sale figures,
- Conduct sale training program and
- Keep an eye on the company’s overall performance via managers.
3. What Are The Qualities That A Director Of Sales Needs To Be Successful?
He needs to be strong in customer service skills for interacting for talking business. He should command excellent communication and teamwork skills for conveying information to other staff members. His job includes knowledge of the product and services and handling methods with laws and regulations.
4. What Major Challenges Did You Face During Your Last Role? How Did You Manage Them?
The biggest sales challenge in my previous role was to have a long list of to-dos that mostly comprises mundane tasks such as following up with prospective clients, sending sales proposals, and updating statuses in the CRM system so the sales team has enough time to do what they do best: sales. To deal with this, we improved access to adequate sales tools to navigate through the overwhelming workload hampering the overall productivity of the team.
5. Describe Your Daily Routine As Director Of Sales?
Every day is different, depending on the challenges coming my way. The normal task I do is to:
- Checking daily schedule and have weekly meetings with the managers for goals and objectives. While targets are reviewed, pending tasks are aligned as priorities.I sometimes include a brainstorming session with managers for a pitch to engage with teams.
- Checking my emails and messages to respond to any lead discussions and
- Update me regarding competitors and what’s happening in the market
- Checking daily schedule and have weekly meetings with the managers for goals and objectives. While targets are reviewed, pending tasks are aligned as priorities.I sometimes include a brainstorming session with managers for a pitch to engage with teams.
- Checking my emails and messages to respond to any lead discussions and
- Update me regarding competitors and what’s happening in the market
6. Describe Briefly About Your Experience?
I started my career at XYZ Company in the sales department as a fresher. It was a great professional experience to put all that I have learned in my degree into something professional. After a year and a half, I found a great opportunity at ABC Company where I got to build skills based on what I had learned at my previous company. I have been in the same company ever since new challenges kept coming to me and I kept getting promoted. It has been a great ride but now I am ready to take the steering wheel.
7. What Kind Of Strategies And Mindset Are Required For This Role?
With a positive mind, this role requires a can-do attitude to meet targets! No matter what obstacles come, it is important to believe that I can make a sale. A leadership mind succeeds in all sorts of complications with flexibility, adaptation, and innovation. I also believe that achievement is maximized when a leader prioritizes the demand of the company.
8. What Is The Biggest Challenge You Foresee In This Job?
Ever since COVID19, all sales teams are under a lot of pressure with new challenges. We’ve been oriented to face-to-face meetings but now with social distancing and safety measures, emails and phone calls are the new methods to pitch to potential clients. The challenge is to stand out from all the emails and phone calls that an implicit customer is formerly getting. Another challenge will be the sync of the marketing and deals platoon because it does take some time.
9. How Do You Stay Motivated At Work?
My motivation in this field is achieving sale target on time. I like the feeling of having a solution to someone’s problem. In my opinion, Sale team is a solid bridge between problem and solution! Attention to detail is my second nature and when I see things happening correctly and precisely, I feel good about having achieved my objectives.
10. Describe A Time You Failed In This Role And The Lesson You Learned?
I don’t remember any exact incident as of now but like all of us, I have made my share of mistakes in this career. I have learned a lot of things in this career like remaining patient, believing in your team, and motivating them constantly to ensure efficiency and uplift the overall environment.
11. Why Do You Feel You Are Qualified For This Role?
I have been in this industry for the longest period and I also have a Master’s degree in the same field. As you can see that I have experience in managing several local and international brands with high-budget campaigns as well. I have also led major campaigns and teams on activations and have been a great leader as well. I am sure I can provide a lot to this company if given chance.
12. Share With Us Your Greatest Achievement
I earned the title of employee of the month in my previous role as I exceeded my target earlier than the timeline. I was also given a chance to train new members of the team and oversee their tasks.
13. Have You Worked On Any Collaborative Sales And Marketing Campaigns? What Was Your Experience Like?
I have been involved in several campaigns that were cross-promotional. I was able to work with several internal and external teams to reach the goals of the given project and I also worked on strategy for such campaigns. In my experience, such campaigns bring a lot of learning experiences for everyone on board. You learn a lot about new and other companies and role decisions are great exposure as well. In this role, I would love to train my marketing managers in such learning.
14. Do You Believe The Sales And Marketing Departments Of Any Company Should Be Well Synced? Why?
The marketing presence can help in sales a lot. I believe that all campaigns should be well synced between both of the departments because the budget is well utilized only then otherwise both departments might be working on the same goal but it’s a kind of misfit when communication is not synced.
15. How Do You Train Your Representative For Cold Calling Activity?
My suggestion is always to do a little bit of research before talking to anyone about your product. I always train my representatives to do company research and their profile to make cold calls somewhat better. If the call lasts longer than 3 minutes then it’s your potential client so representatives need to engage him for the first few minutes to build his interest in your product or service. I don’t think that cold calling should be a target. Representatives should be judged on several minutes they spent talking to an online customer.
16. How Do You Handle Disagreements Between Teams?
Communication is the key to sales and disagreements are the fruits that you should foresee always. I do not hesitate in getting into disagreements or avoiding discussions for the sake of disagreement; I am a true believer in healthy conversations between teams. If ever I come across any disagreements, I arrange a small meeting with the teams involved and ask them to share their opinion on an open platform. As they mention their reservations and ideas, we all look at the pros and cons of any said idea. This helps in working out a good plan that becomes beneficial for the campaign itself. I always suggest my teams never take anything personal at work because the goal is common i.e. choose the best for the brand and company. By valuing each other’s opinion in any matter, you are giving importance to other team members and it does increase the morale of the team.
17. A-Team Member Is Unable To Meet The Sales Target. What Will Be Your Suggestions?
The first thing is to check and update the sales strategy and understand the target audience’s needs. Most of the time, the problem lies between these 2. I always suggest representatives discuss this with their supervisors. The pitch should be improved and revised from time to time just like technology updates itself for a smoother experience.
18. What Is The Method To Generate Quality Leads?
This is the requirement of every business: To acquire good, quality leads to meet targets, scale the business, and stay ahead of the competition.
19. How Do You Motivate Your Team?
I usually appreciate them from time to time and tell them they are valuable assets to the company. On the other hand, I do not hesitate in training them for new challenges and I keep engaging with them from time to time. This helps in achieving goals and objectives for any campaign or launch planned. Once the campaign ends and the workload is less, I take them out for an official lunch or get doughnuts for everyone on the floor with their coffee. I also initiate team-building activities from time to time to encourage communication between all team members.
20. How Do You Stay Updated In This Industry? What Activities Have You Performed To Update Yourself In The Last 12 Months?
Learning should never stop, no matter what is your position or salary in the company. There is a lot to learn and now even degrees are online too. I have subscribed to several YouTube channels of various salespeople who share up-to-date information regarding industry and trends from time to time. I have also subscribed to several business magazines and I am very active on LinkedIn as well. I enjoy connecting with my peers who belong to the same industry and have a lot to share as well. In the last 12 months, I ended up getting several sales certifications from Coursera and several online websites. Due to the pandemic, all offices were shut down and we all were working from home. To ensure safety, I did not have to go anywhere at all after I signed out from work so I started taking a few online classes as trials but they were interesting, so I ended up completing the course. I believe the new normal brought a lot of learning opportunities for each one of us.
21. How Do You Identify Sales Channels To Reach A Potential Customer?
To choose, I first study the target market closely. With this research, I can pull out a lot of information that might have missed my attention. I go through their profiles and understand their needs and likes and dislikes. Once I know my target audience, I analyze their leisure to know where are they spending their time when free and which channels are their favorite. For example, For GenZ, TikTok has become a favorite whereas millennials can be found on Instagram and Facebook. With new gaming trends, you find a lot of audiences playing games and interacting with people. Data can be captured by assessing the customer database with the help of fragmentation.
22. How Do You Handle Criticism?
I understand the importance of feedback but there is a fine line between feedback and criticism. As long as the feedback is worth giving a thought, I would spend my time on it and encourage a few activities to engage the relevant team members on it. If it’s just a random criticism, I won’t pay attention to it because I have more responsibility towards the brand and I should not bring my morale down at any cost. At the end of every campaign, I always encourage my team members to share their feedback regarding the whole process. It’s a team-building activity and we learn a lot from each other. It just takes a few hours on any day but it impacts the team in the next campaign as well. I do believe in the power of team unity.
23. How Is ROI Calculated?
Return on Investment is calculated by the simple formula i.e.Divididing Net Income by Average Total Assets. For all campaigns, you can set up a formula sheet in excel where you mention the net sales and divide it by total cost. Total cost is the sum of all expenses including salaries, office supplies, and shipping cost of any order.
24. What Is Your Leadership Style?
While leading teams, I always do a checklist in my mind as a reality check.
- Be a better leader just like I would want myself to work under,
- I observe my teammates a lot to understand and build long team relationships,
- I track my progress in soft skills to know what is working for me and what is not working for the team,
- If I am trained, I always pass on the same information to my fellow members and engage them in healthy discussions with me and
- I practice and learn new skills every day to stay fresh and motivated.
25. Many Companies Stop Investing In Their Marketing And Want Sales Department To Bring Revenue. What Is Your Take On This?
I believe that both departments are equally important to generate a lead and brand love. No doubt, Sales can bring money for the brand to enjoy but brands are sustained through marketing and communication. To generate some good profit in terms of repute in the market and money in your hand, brands should be investing in both sides of the product. I always give an example of food and water for human survival. You might survive a few hours without water but at the end of the day, you will require a glass of water. The same goes for food as well. A sync between the two is important for all brands.
Conclusion
These 25 questions are surely going to help in acing the first round of interviews as a Director of sales. Good luck! Here is a small tip from us: Wear a nice shirt or dress and walk into the room with confidence. Also, take your updated resume in a hard copy with you. Don’t forget to Smile!
