Keith Rosen's Executive Sales Coaching Blog on Selling, Leadership, Management

Goals Can Be Your Worst Enemy – An Intervew with BNET’s Sales Machine

Jan 7, 2010 Career Advice, Executive Coaching, Goal Setting, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Time Management Tips, management tips

A few months ago, I was interviewed by Geoffrey James who writes the Sales Machine column for BNET. (Geoffrey is also the author of seven books and the columnist for Business 2.0, CIO, The New York Times as well as many other publications.)

Today, he wrote about something we discussed during our conversation, which is one of the most important characteristics that successful people possess, especially top sales champions. And that is, the importance of being process driven rather than being so result driven.

No, I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t focus on the results, or set goals. After all, we need to have something to measure our success, especially in sales, and we need those goals to help determine an endpoint to strive for, something that we’re focused on attaining and the gauge that lets us know when we’ve ‘arrived’ at our destination.

What I am suggesting is to also adopt a mindset that may seem, on the surface, to be in conflict with the belief that you should stay focused on your goals. So, if you suffer from absolute or ‘either or’ thinking, this concept may be a real challenge to wrap your head around. Since we’re on the subject of healthy thinking, absolute thinking is something worth abandoning as well. It’s not one way or the other way; instead, it’s both. (“Either-or” vs. “And.”)

Those people today who challenge status quo and traditional ways of doing things are realizing the benefits of embracing not just one but two truths; two conflicting truths that can, in fact, live together in harmony. Yes, I know this sounds counterintuitive but that’s the paradox and the source of power for those who adopt this mindset.

That is: be mindful of the future, while engaged in and living in the present. To get a bit more cerebral, your process lives in the present where your results or your goals are all living in the future. And if you’re always focused on the result or outcome you seek, it’s going to affect what you need to be doing in the present moment. That includes the quality of your activities, the way you communicate, how well you listen, your level of creativity and ultimately how connected, present and engaged you are with people, especially your customers.

The point is, once your goal is set, continually thinking about or obsessing over your goal or the results you need to achieve doesn’t make that goal manifest itself any faster or easier. Instead, it actually winds up becoming a diversion, keeping your stuck in the future. The real cost is, you’re not being fully present and focused on today and more important, the actual process that’s going to take you to your desired destination.

Think if it this way. If I wanted to move a concrete wall, does the act of pushing on that wall all day make the wall move? Not even a little. It’s the same as spending all of your time thinking about the goal or the result. Doing so doesn’t move you any closer to your goal.

Once your goals are set, they’re not going anywhere! Now it’s time to shift your focus on developing and fine tuning your process which is what will ultimately be the vehicle that will take you to your goal.

Below is an excerpt from Geoffrey’s post based on our interview. You can read the full post here.

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Sales pros always have goals, and most enjoy the process of achieving them. But did you know that goals can be a major impediment to your success?

Take cold-calling, for instance. Most sales pros see cold calling as a goal-oriented activity — fill the pipeline with “X” number of prospects, in the hopes of creating as many customers as possible.

That makes sense, but it also encourages sales pros to see each conversion that results in a prospect as a “win” and each cold call that ends in some other way as a “loss.”

And that’s setting yourself up for failure, because the nature of cold calling is that only a small percentage of the people you contact will be potential customers. The majority will be people who simply aren’t interested or are not a fit for a variety of reasons.

However, if you’re caught up in the “win/loss” way of thinking, you may feel like a “loser” even if the person you called had absolutely no use whatsoever for your product!

Not surprisingly, sales pros begin dreading it, avoiding it, and become increasingly less effective when they actually get around to doing it.

The root cause of this deeply flawed “win/loss” thinking is focusing on the goal rather than the process. If you’re focused on the result, you are visualizing the future (i.e. “will I make my goal???”) rather than experiencing the present moment.

As a result, there’s no way that you can really listen to the prospect, because your attention is on a possible event in a future-yet-to-be. Because your focus is elsewhere (on your goal, that is) you’ll find it difficult to be creative and flexible in responding to what the potential prospect actually says.

Here’s how you fix this. Define cold-calling as a process rather than goal-oriented activity. Stop focusing on the result and start focusing on the potential prospect and the process of communicating with that prospect to determine if in fact, there’s truly a fit.

Changing your way of thinking is that you’ll immediately become more effective because it removes the “sting” of contacting a lead that turns out, for whatever reason, not to be a real prospect.

Rather than a “loss,” the event simply becomes something that you happened to discover during the process of cold-calling.

More importantly, treating cold-calling as a process keeps you focused on finding ways to help potential prospects and customers – and on not wasting the time of those who don’t need the help.

Your true goal shouldn’t be to make your sales goal, but to emulate an Olympic athlete. Top athletes visualize “winning” (the goal) before competing, but when they’re actually performing they focus on what’s happening right then and there.

Here’s the cool part… the real reason for this entire post. Focusing on process rather than your goals increases the chances that you’ll fulfill your goals.

In other words, know your goals, then forget them, and put your mind into the process. If you do this right, your goals will take care of themselves, because your process will make them happen without you wasting time obsessing on them.

You can read the full post here.

Tags: calendar, career coaching, Executive Coaching, goals, results, Sales Coaching, schedule, time management

Podcast: Managers, Coach Your Salespeople to Bring in More Sales by Relinquishing Your Role as Chief Problem Solver

Aug 30, 2009 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Management, coaching for managers, management tips, podcast, training for managers

Listen to the podcast here

In this podcast I did with eyesonsales.com, I share some more observations around my experiences in coaching salespeople and managers. The topics I cover in this podcast include:

Listen to the podcast here

Tags: career coaching, coach the coach, coaching, coaching for managers, executive coach, Executive Coaching, management coach training, management coaching, Sales Coaching, team coaching

PODCAST: Coaching Mistakes Managers Make. What You Can Do To Improve Sales Performance and Drive Higher Sales Numbers Today

Jul 22, 2009 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, coaching for managers, coaching tips, management tips, podcast, training for managers

Listen to the podcast here.

In this podcast interview I did with eyesonsales.com, I share some very tactical insights regarding some of the inherent challenges that managers need to overcome when coaching their salespeople and what they can do to better coach their team to sell more today.

I also address how to best handle underperforming salespeople and the power of effective observation techniques when observing your people in the field or on the phone, whether they are delivering presentations or making cold calls. You’ll also learn what the masterful coaches do when it comes to coaching the gap through the use of powerful, well crafted questions, which is where the magic of coaching happens.

Discover what you can do to make the shift from just being a regular sales manager with an average performing team to becoming an effective sales coach and leader who becomes the driving force behind developing a high performance sales team.

Listen to the podcast here.

Tags: coaching, coaching for managers, coaching salespeople, Executive Coaching, how to coach salespeople, podcast, Sales Coaching, sales management coaching

Managers Don’t Know What Their People Are Doing. Powerful Observation Techniques to Better Coach Your Team to Excel

Jul 20, 2009 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Sales Management, coaching for managers, management tips, training for managers

Do you know what your people are doing in the field? Really? Are you sure? In my experience, unless managers are in the field observing and listening to what their people are doing, they have no clue. Sure, you can guess and hypothesize as to why, for example, some of the salespeople on your team aren’t making quota or selling more. But when managers finally take the time to observe their people in the trenches, the real truth is (sometimes painfully) apparent.

Granted, managers are often left in a state of shock when they see what their salespeople are and are not doing and saying when meeting with and presenting to their prospects and customers.

However, the upside is,

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: coaching tips, Executive Coaching, leadership articles, management tips, management training, observation, performance reviews, Sales Coaching, training for managers

PODCAST: Leadership Strategies That Motivate Your Team to Higher Performance

Jul 10, 2009 Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Leadership Academy, Sales Management, articles on leadership, coaching for managers, management tips, podcast, training for managers

Listen to this podcast here.

If you want your team to sell more, the driving question every manager needs to ask themselves is, “What am I doing each day to make my salespeople even more valuable and effective so that we can better retain and acquire new customers?”

So, what are you doing to develop the skills and competencies that would enable you to get your salespeople to become sales champions? What are you doing to better your best?

Now, the obvious solution would be to spend more time with your people but the question then is, what are you doing with that time?

Most managers resort to reactionary micro management simply because that’s all they know. As such, all they’re attempting to do is try to control more of the situations that surround them. Not the most effective strategy. This actually creates a more toxic environment, making matters even worse.

There are many things that a manager can do to boost your team’s performance. In this podcast, I’ve highlighted the ones that will result in an immediate positive change, which you can start engaging in today.

You can tune in and listen to this podcast here.

NOTE: Given this page is updated often, this podcast may not be listed as the most current one on the top of the list of podcasts.

Tags: coaching, Executive Coaching, leadership, management, management training, sales management coaching, tips for managers

My Meeting with Zig Ziglar – A Timeless Message Regarding the True Definition of Success and How to Achieve It

Jun 11, 2009 American Entitlement, Career Advice, Executive Coaching, How To Close The Sale, Insights in Business, Life Coaching and Career Coaching, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Prospecting, Cold Calling and Networking, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Videos, accountability, articles on leadership, management tips, training for managers

About 25 years ago, I read my first book on selling. It was, The Secrets of Closing the Sale. Like many sales and business professionals, this was the first book that I was ever exposed to which focused on the subject and the art of selling. 25 years later, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down and meeting with the master of selling and personal development, the often imitated but never duplicated, Zig Ziglar.

Now, if you’re in sales or a self help junkie, you know who Zig Ziglar is. (If not, you’re either someone who hasn’t truly invested in your career and embraced lifelong learning by continually investing in your development, you’re fairly new to the selling profession or are just starting out, or you’ve been living under a rock for far too long.) Zig (he prefers to be called Zig over Mr. Ziglar) is truly an American Legend, an icon in the world of personal and professional growth and one of my personal heroes. (The conversation I had with him further cemented why this is still true today). Zig has shared the platform with many distinguished Americans such as Presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush and has authored over two dozen books on personal growth and success, family, sales and leadership that have touched the lives of millions of people across the world.

Zig has an appeal that transcends barriers of age, culture, industry and occupation. Since 1970, he has traveled over five million miles across the world delivering powerful life improvement messages, cultivating the energy of change.

Zig Ziglar’s corporation is built upon the same philosophy he expounds to his audiences – hard work, common sense, fairness, commitment and integrity.

In his autobiography, Zig offers a candid and inspiring account of his transformation from a “too small, poor boy from Yazoo City, Mississippi,” to one of the world’s most highly regarded motivational experts. At the heart of his story are his many heroes who modeled solid values such as faith in God, commitment to hard work, compassion for others, common sense, integrity, and a sense of humor.

“Wow! What an amazing experience. What did he teach you that was new?” This is the first reaction I would typically hear from people when first telling them I had spent an afternoon with Zig and time at his headquarters. So, what impact did Zig leave on me that I have taken to heart? What profound, new and valuable message was I able to walk away with from my meeting with this highly acclaimed guru and though leader?

Before I answer that, (no, I won’t make you wait until my next blog post) here are just a few of the things that Zig and I casually chatted about. (Our conversation was videoed and I will be posting the video to share with you in the very near future.)

• How the selling profession and the profile of a salesperson changed and evolved since the time he authored, The Secrets of Closing the Sale, 25 years ago.
• What salespeople need to do today to ensure their success in this new marketplace.
• What leaders need to be more mindful of if they want to ensure the success of their organization.
• The people who have impacted his life the most.
• Zig’s definition of integrity.
• A message for the younger generation out there, who are working hard at trying to build a successful career and a family.
• His legacy.
• What parents need to do to be more accountable around raising children with stronger, more meaningful values.
• How people actually go about developing or upgrading their attitude.

I was fortunate to gain the perspective of such a worldly man grounded in the values that matter. You would even think that it would be a bit of a challenge to retain all of the gems Zig shared with me. Conversely it wasn’t. It was surprisingly, yet reassuringly very simple. You see, the ultimate epiphany I had, the priceless message that Zig delivered, was grounded in the core principles that are and have always been right in front of us.

Zig reinforced what really mattered most; the basics. Yes, that’s right. The basics that we so often gloss over, neglect, take for granted and assume we already have in place. The very basics that are paradoxically, still the undeniable and timeless secret to success and designing a life worth living.

The basics of truth, being your word, living a life of integrity, honoring your core values and your commitments, honesty, family, faith in yourself and helping your fellow man and woman selflessly and graciously. Yes, the basics that our society seems to have an unyielding tendency to put aside and dismiss in search of the latest and greatest, the next “Big Thing” or the flavor of the month. We have fooled ourselves into thinking there is some other secret out there that would help us get what we want most and propel us to where we want to be, both in our home life and at our work life.

We are hiding behind the guise of “What’s next” without honoring the core, fundamental beliefs and values that make us all worthwhile human beings. As we immerse ourselves in our own thinking, as we get distracted and challenged by the upsets and problems at work, as we continue to allow the media to erode our thinking and our heart-centered priorities as well as sensationalize our deepest fears and insecurities, we move farther and farther away from the person we truly want to be, and then with a shock, we turn around and notice that the person we have become, is not the person we want to model, especially for our children.

Our integrity has now been compromised, and we wonder why we continually feel, “off,” out of sorts, or out of balance with ourselves, regardless of how much more money we make or what other possessions or successes we amass. We can’t understand why personal satisfaction, our self worth, sense of fulfillment and our peace of mind continually escapes us and our grasp, and becomes more and more elusive.

To reinforce Zig’s message, I’m reminded of a conversation I had with his son. When talking with Tom Ziglar, the CEO of Ziglar, Inc., he shared with me so many wonderful stories about his dad. During one of our conversations, he shared with me one of his dad’s quotes which was, “How much better would world be if people cared as much about their responsibilities as they do their rights.” With the level of greed and American Entitlement that has plagued our society, which has only come into our direct line of vision due to our challenging marketplace and the media continually reporting on the failure of so many large institutions and organizations, this message is so timely today, more than ever before.

Zig’s message touches the heart, soul and spirit of everyone he interacts with, especially those who work with him. It was during my video shoot later that day, as I was filming some new training and coaching insights, when someone else in Zig’s office shared another story that is yet another testament to Zig’s character and being a man who lives by his word and walks his talk. I was told that, throughout all of the years Zig has traveled the word, before every seminar or presentation he ever delivered, even as they’re introducing him and calling him on to the stage, he would always make it a point to pick up the phone and call his wife, just to tell her he loves her.

What a better place our world would be if every man and woman would call their spouse or significant other on their way to work, just to say, “I love you.” To this day, Zig cherishes his wife and the relationship he has with her (the Redhead, as he lovingly refers to her in his books). He keeps her on the pedestal that she so rightfully deserves to be on. Again, what would our world be like if we followed in Zig’s footprints, doing the things that really matter most.

When it was time to conclude our conversation, one of the final questions I asked Zig was, “I’m not sure if you’ve been following the numbers on your book sales and where they rank in terms of popularity. So I took the liberty of seeing how The Secrets of Closing the Sale has been doing on Amazon. Currently, your book holds the following rankings regarding how popular they are in specific categories. In the category of sales and selling, your book is rated number 15. Now, here’s what I found interesting. Under the category of spirituality, your book is holding strong at number 3. Now, I know you’re a very spiritual man. And regardless of your faith, how do you explain this? What’s the connection between success at selling and spirituality?”

To that question, Zig smiled and responded with a resonating message that reinforced why the holistic approach to professional development will always be the most effective and long lasting. That was, while skill, talent and what you do is important, it is the essence of a person, your character and who you are that matters most.

At 82 years of age, he still has that spark, that twinkle in his eye, that presence he naturally exudes from a man who we can all use as a model of what it means to be not just remarkable, but to be human; that’s the Zig we know and love.

I don’t know if there are too many authentic heroes like Zig left in the world, and I know he’s still one of mine. And as I look on my desk at the gift that my children had given me just the other day (an early Fathers Day present), I’m reminded why I do what I do and what gets me out of bed each day. My five year olds (twins) came back from school and in their youthful exuberance, handed me a picture frame they had made with the cutest picture of each of them wearing a suit and tie that their teaches had dressed them in. On the top of the frame it said, “When I grow Up I want To Be Just Like My Daddy.” How important our role is as parents, our most significant role we will ever have. That message was a happy reminder of how important it is for me to follow in the footprints of success that my hero has left behind for all of us to travel on.

I am profoundly and deeply appreciative of my time with Zig and of the gifts that he has shared with the world.

And to Mr. Zig Ziglar I say, I am grateful for the contribution you have made to me, as well as the impact that you have had on all of us throughout the years. Keep shining.

Tags: faith, god, life coaching, life lessons, life tips, Sales Training, spirituality, Zig Ziglar, Ziglar

PODCAST: Want Full Accountability Within Your Team? Coaching People to Become More Accountable

Jun 8, 2009 American Entitlement, Executive Coaching, Sales Management, accountability, coaching for managers, coaching tips, management articles, management tips, podcast

Listen to the full podcast here.

Sure, we can’t control many of the things going on in the economy. However, what managers and business owners can control is how they go about realigning their thinking and efforts around how they are continually developing their people, which begins with how these managers develop themselves into the leaders they can be in this new age.

It’s evident that many organizations have lost sight of the primary objective of management and leadership, which is simply this: To make your people more valuable.

There are several issues at work that inhibit the manager’s ability to get their people to be more accountable around their goals.

This falls on deaf ears because for someone to truly internalize this message and make it real for them, they must hear the consequence in their own words, through their own voice and arrive at the consequence on their own. They need to recognize it, say it and declare ownership around it.

And the only way to do this is by asking them better consequential questions. In this podcast, I’ll share with you the steps you can take to coach people to become more accountable around their job and their goals, and the questions you can use to achieve this critical objective. (Oh, and did I mention that by following this process, you no longer have to be positioned as the bad guy!)

Listen to the full podcast here.

Tags: conflict resolution, confrontation, deal with conflict, Executive Coaching, full accountability, management tips, Sales Coaching, sales management coaching

Stop Focusing on Your Goals and Start Honoring Your Process

May 19, 2009 Business Advice, Business Coaching, Career Advice, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Insights in Business, Live Responsibly: Life Tips, Great Living, Sales Coaching, Sales Management, Sales Training, coaching for managers, management tips, sales articles

The result is the process. A timely paradox and critical mind shift that every salesperson and manager must make if they want to transcend the mediocre performance they may be experiencing today.

Even before you can engage in the type of sales benchmarking activities that I wrote about the other day, (you can find that blog post here) or even take the time to refine your selling skills, you will come head to head with resistance to selling by the numbers if this change in attitude around how we approach selling is not fully embraced beforehand.

I was reminded how important this was during a seminar I delivered last week in NYC. At the end of the seminar, one manager raised his hand and posed this question to me. He said, “Our sales cycle has changed dramatically. Our salespeople can no longer make a call and take an order. Our product offering has been modified and as a result, the average cost of our product has increased, which has all contributed to a longer sales cycle. However, my salespeople are still reluctant to change. They’re still stuck in that transactional way of selling. They’re getting more frustrated and discouraged because sales aren’t happening fast enough, all because they’re unsure how to manage this longer selling cycle. I’ve told them many times over, that our sales cycle is no longer the way it used to be, and we need to be more patient with the process and more consultative with our customers. I’ve explained to them over and over again, that we need to modify and re-engineer our selling process in response to these new challenges, the changes we’re up against and how our customers make a purchasing decision and buy from us. What else can I do?”

As this sales manager was explaining his challenge, I was thinking to myself how important it is today, more than ever, to become process driven. Without this change in our thinking, salespeople will be unable to honor the process needed to convert more conversations into sales, let alone build out a more robust process and selling strategy that will enable them to do so. As such, the eternal conflict between our tactical strategy and our thinking will continue to rage on.
I have a detailed article on this very subject that you can find here. The original title of this article was WARNING! Goals May Be Hazardous To Your Success. Are They Sabotaging Your Selling Efforts?

As my colleague Dr. Tony Alessandra explains in the following statistics, “It’s amazing how many times success can be assured by attending to the basics of the job.” For example, in a study of 257 Fortune 500 companies, the following was found:

17% do not determine an approximate duration for each sales call.
23% do not use a computer to assist in time and territory management.
28% do not set profit objectives for their accounts.
37% do not use prescribed routing patterns in covering territories.
46% do not look at their use of time in any organized way.
49% do not determine the economical number of calls for each account.
49% do not use prepared sales presentations.
70% do not use call schedules.
75% do not have a system for classifying customers according to sales potential.
76% do not set sales objectives for their accounts.
81% do not use a call report system.

So, the question is: How can you assure your future success by eliminating these oversights?”

The fact is, companies will fail to invest the time in order to eliminate these process oriented oversights and embed these necessary changes into their process if the sales culture is too focused on getting to the result by forging ahead in an attempt to close more sales. Managers can continually push their people to become more mindful of these numbers, however, it’s the process driven questions managers need to be more sensitive to rather than the result driven questions that managers obsess over that continue to perpetuate this toxic way of thinking. Those questions sound like, “Are you hitting your numbers? How many follow-up calls did you make today? How much good volume did you book this month? How many leads did you run this week?” While important, these questions only focus on half of the equation. What is missing is the “How,” that is, the questions that focus on the process the salesperson needs to engage in to achieve the desired end result.

Managers need to stop coaching to the result and start coaching to the process, instead.

Become more mindful of the process that will drive the results you seek. Without the change in your result driven attitude that’s keeping you stuck in the first place, all efforts to better manage your selling strategy by a numeric formula are certain to be short lived.

For salespeople and sales leaders, the fundamental shift in our attitude that needs to occur is this; move away from being so result driven and instead, become more process driven.

We must honor this paradox and break free of the limiting thinking that confines us to the current level of performance we’re experiencing. If we truly want to excel today, realize the result is truly the process.

Here’s more on this paradox.

Tags: coaching, Executive Coaching, management training, sales benchmark, sales benchmarking, Sales Coaching, sales process, sales tips, Sales Training, successful thinking, tips for managers, training for managers

Sales Managers: Get Your Salespeople to Sell More: Listen to This Webinar Now!

May 1, 2009 Business Coaching, Career Advice, Executive Coaching, How to Manage Your Team, Interviews, Leadership Academy, Sales Management, coaching for managers, management tips, training for managers, webinar

Click here to listen to and view this webinar.

If you missed last week’s blockbuster webinar, The Sales Leadership Imperative, you can now access the recording immediately and listen to this 45 minute discussion I had with Jonathan Farrington. We focused on the most pressing questions that sales managers and sales leaders are faced with today.

Here are the questions we responded to:

Most sales professionals, in practically every industry sector are struggling to meet sales quotas. The reality is, there are still plenty of opportunities to better retain existing clients and acquire new ones but the rules of engagement have changed.

Sales leaders, who have recognized these changes, are re-educating themselves and their sales teams by adopting a totally new approach to selling as well as leading their team and as such, are forming a new type of sales culture. To drive positive, measurable change and keep their competitive edge, managers must learn how to quickly and effectively coach, motivate and retain their top producers while turning around the underperformers.

So, if you’re a sales manager or even if you’re not a sales manager but need to get your team producing and selling more today, you can access this recording here.

Click here to listen to and view this webinar.

Tags: Executive Coaching, management coaching, sales leadership, sales management training, training for managers, webinar, webinars

How to Interview and Identify Top Sales Champions and Avoid the Costly Mis-Hires

Apr 28, 2009 Business Advice, Business Tools, Career Advice, Communication, Executive Coaching, HR issues, Hiring and recruiting, How to Manage Your Team, Interviews, Sales Management, accountability, career coaching, coaching for managers, management tips, training for managers

“I know how to interview. I’ve been doing it for years.” I hear this from practically every manager or HR executive I’ve ever had the privilege of coaching or training. And today, when speaking to one of my favorite clients, a VP of HR, this statement was echoed once again.

And it’s not like these managers or those responsible for making a hiring decision are doing it all wrong. Many are quite good at interviewing people, finding the right candidates and screening out the ones that just don’t fit. I’ve just observed over the years some key areas that many people are missing the mark on when conducting an interview and determining who the best candidate for the position truly is.

Especially when it comes to topgrading and rebuilding your sales team, getting the right candidate in the right position in the most expedient way possible is more critical than ever. The cost of not doing so can be severe. And this cost is compounded when companies onboard the wrong person. Just pick up any newspaper and read about another company closing their doors or missing their sales goals to exemplify how much of a priority this is today for any organization.

Below, I’ve listed some very key questions in order to reduce mis-hires and bring on the right people. If asked and asked correctly, these questions will reduce mis-hires by about 80% or more. Yes, that’s how powerful these questions can be. I would strongly suggest weaving these questions into your interviewing process. And keep in mind, most of these questions will apply to any position. Notice that I’ve also broken down these questions by category, as well as some additional categories that you can use to build out further interviewing questions.

Granted, you may already be using some of these questions during an interview. And keep in mind, this list can be built out even further. However, it’s the collective use of all the questions that are going to have the deeper, more positive impact when choosing the right hire.

Moving beyond simply the questions that you could ask, what other things are you doing to ensure you make the best hiring decision? Keep in mind, the interviewing process is multi-dimensional. To build off this, lets look at how you manage or facilitate a simulation or a role play. Many interviewers ask questions like, “How would you handle this if you were in this situation” or “Tell me what steps you would take before calling on a key account” or even “Walk me through a strategy you would use to build your pipeline.”

While these are all great questions, they are still falling short of one critical element. That is, the language this candidate would be using to facilitate the type of conversation described in these simulations. To go deeper in determining this person’s acumen or ability, it’s critical you’re able to evaluate how they communicate, as well as their overall communication strategy that would be embedded in each of these situations I’ve described in the prior questions.

The most successful salespeople realize that sales, just like leadership and coaching, is truly a language and a way of communicating. Therefore, it’s imperative you uncover not only how they think strategically and the processes they may use but how effective this person could be when you send them out to connect with your new and existing customers. Anyone can talk a good game regarding processes and approach from the hundred foot viewpoint. But how they deliver the message in a variety of different situations is something that can’t be faked during an interview.

When these questions and the simulation exercise are used correctly, you’ll find that the need to topgrade your sales team will diminish because you’ve fixed the breakdown in your overall hiring and retention strategy; the broken component that exists in your system and where it all starts, your interviewing process.

Interviewing Questions:

Work History:
1. What were your responsibilities in your last position?
2. We all make mistakes. What would you say were a couple of the mistakes or failures you experienced in your last job?
3. If you could go back in time and fix that, what would you do differently?
4. What would you prior supervisor say if asked what your strengths and weaknesses were?
5. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced and were able to overcome?
6. What were your successes? What are you most proud of? How did you achieve that?
7. What circumstances contributed to your leaving?
8. What was your supervisors name and title? Where is that person now?
9. Would your boss hire you back? Why?
10. What were his or her strengths and weaker points from your perspective?
11. Would you be willing to arrange for us to talk with him or her?

Next Position:
1. What criteria are most important to you in your next job?
2. Describe your ideal position?
3. How close does this opportunity fit your ideal position?

Excellence and Development:
1. How to you better your best?
2. How do you raise the bar on yourself and others around you?
3. How do you develop yourself and your skills?
4. How important is it to you to be the best at what you do?
5. How do you assure that happens?
6. How do/did you keep your edge in such a competitive environment/marketplace?

Accountability:
1. What does personal accountability mean to you?
2. What areas in your life/career are you most accountable? Least?
3. Give me an example of how becoming more accountable has contributed to your success?
4. Where do you feel you need to become more accountable (in an area in your life or career)?

Decision Making and Problem Solving:
1. How do you solve problems?
2. How do you go about making decisions?
3. Give me one problem or challenge you had and walk me through how you solved it using that model.
4. How do you go about making a career decision? What factors do you measure? Your approach?
5. What were a couple of the most difficult or challenging decisions you’ve made recently?
6. What are a couple of the best and worst decisions you’ve made over the last year or so?

Creativity and Solution Development:
1. How creative are you?
2. How important is creativity in relation to your overall selling approach and strategy?
3. Can you provide an example how you were creative in your last position that led to solving a problem or closing a sale?

Integrity:
1. What are some of the values you have that you refuse to compromise?
2. Describe a situation where you were pressured or challenged to compromise your integrity and what you felt was best and right? How did you handle it?

Self Discipline, Time Management and Organization:
1. How do you go about organizing your schedule and your day?
2. Do you live by a set of best practices? How? What are they? (in selling, organization, etc.)
3. When was the last time you missed a significant deadline? What happened?
4. Everyone procrastinates at one point or another. Can you share the kind of things that you have a tendency to procrastinate?
5. How much guidance and supervision do you feel you need?

Self Management/State/Stress:
1. What stresses you out?
2. What do you when that happens?
3. How do you eliminate it? How do you handle it?

Openness and Self Awareness:
1. What were the most difficult criticisms for you to hear and accept?

Resourcefulness:
1. What actions would you feel you would need to take during the first few weeks here in your new position if you were to join our organization?
2. What obstacles did you face during your present/last position and how did you handle those?
3. What would you be mindful of needing to do and the resources and training you would need to secure your success here?

Tactical Sales Oriented Questions to Recruit at a Deeper Level:
You can find these questions and more on my prior blog post here:

1.What was the average size of each sale? (Dollar amount, cost of goods/services sold.)
2. What type of appointments were you scheduling when prospecting or cold calling? What was the goal here?
3. Where the appointments on site/face to face with each prospect or via the phone?
4. When actually closing a sale, did you actually sell over the phone or did you have to meet each prospect in person?
5. Did you sell a product, a service or both? (Describe how you sold each product and why there was a different approach.)
6. Did you handle the entire sales process from start to finish, including the deliverable? (Was there an account executive who you worked with, was it a team oriented approach to selling, were you only responsible for certain aspects of the sale?)
7. Describe to me the products or services you’ve sold? (Complicated or simple?)
8. Did you sell something that had an online component? Was it strictly a service? (Where they selling the tangible or the intangible?)
9. Was your product/service a “nice to have,” a “want to have” (luxury, added benefit) or a
need to have?” (Was it a necessity, i.e. gasoline, telecom, office supplies, utilities, mobile phones, insurance, etc.)
10. What do you consider ‘prospecting’ and ‘cold calling’ to be? How do you feel about having to engage in this activity? (We’re looking to uncover how they think and feel about prospecting; their perception of it.)
11. What type of prospecting and cold calling did you do? How much cold calling did you do each day/week? (Number of calls made.) How many calls did you have to make to (get an appointment, close a sale, uncover a new prospect, etc.)?
12. Please share with me what your typical approach would be when cold calling. (Describe not only your process but exactly what you said when you were making a cold call.)
13. Who was your target audience/prospect? (B2b, b2c, C level executives, business owners, sole practitioners, were you dealing with only one decision maker or did you have to coordinate with several decision makers, influencers, committees, board members, etc.)
14. When were you calling on them? (Time, day, frequency of calls, etc.)
15. What was the average size of the company you called on?
16. What markets did you focus on? (Type of company, industry, vertical, etc.)
17. How did you get your leads/uncover your prospects? Where the cold calls you made totally cold or were you getting them from another source and then following up with them? (These would be warmer leads from trade shows, web inquiries, referrals, call-ins, direct mail and marketing efforts, etc.)
18. What were the concerns or objections that you typically encountered with your prospects? (What stalled your sales efforts?)
19. How long was your average sales cycle? (From the time you connected with a qualified prospect up until the time when you converted that prospect into a client.)
20. Were you selling based on a bidding process, RFP’s, etc.?

Simulations and Role Plays:
1. If you had to make a call to a prospect who you have never spoken to, what would be the steps you would take before making that call?
2. What would that cold call sound like?
3. If you were following up with a customer to explore and uncover additional selling opportunities, what would your approach sound like?
4. Lets say you just delivered the final product/service to your new customer. They called you the next day with a major problem. They were frustrated and irate. Lets say I’m the customer in this situation. How would you facilitate that conversation? What would that dialogue sound like?
5. There’s a prospect you’ve been calling on for months. They’re finally ready to make a decision to buy and you just found out that there are two more venders now involved in this bid for their business. What would be your strategy to position yourself as the vender of choice? (What would you say, questions asked, etc.)
6. How many times do you call on a prospect before putting them on your do not call list? How do you determine that? What would your approach be? Why?
7. You’re about to visit a new potential client for the first time. What preliminary work would you do? How would you craft your presentation and set the expectations of the meeting? (What would your presentation sound like?)
8. You’ve been handed a client list of approximately 100 accounts to call on. You’ve noticed after several months, their monthly spending with you has slowly diminished. How would you handle this? What would you say?

Additional Topics That Require Further Questioning:

• Persuasion
• Communication
• Presentation
• Assertiveness
• Team player
• Conflict management
• Motivation and passion
• Tenacity, commitment, perseverance
• Education

Tags: avoid mis-hires, avoid mishires, Executive Coaching, hiring, hiring salespeople, how to interview, interview process, interviewing, Interviews, management training, onboarding, recruiting, recruiting salespeople, screening candidates, topgrading