No one explains the details of a product better than a salesman. The motivation behind each sale of a product has been the charm of salespeople. Salespeople are often viewed as one who forces people to buy things they don’t really need. In the early days, they were referred to as thugs or even called frauds 🙂 Fortunately, most of it is not true. Selling can be a fulfilling experience and a career in sales can bring you riches beyond your imagination.
Not everybody needs a certain product but someone does. People don’t understand the working of a sales company. It should be clear for those who want to start their career in sales that sales have an important role in the majority of today’s businesses.
What makes you fit for a sales career
Salesmen have to be very cautious when dealing with a client. They must adapt and understand what their client refers to. Having certain skills makes you a smooth salesman and the client’s needs will be easy for you to explain in reference to your product. Some of the skills salesmen must possess are:
1. Listener
Being a salesman, you want people to listen to you talk about your product. Similarly, you must listen to any customer who comes up to you with their problem. It is equally important that you as a salesman give time to listen to your customer’s needs or demands. A good listener is always listened to when he/she speaks.
By developing a skill of listening, you can quickly understand when you are dealing with a client. With this skill you will find no difficulty in carrying out any order from the authorities as well.
2. Confidence
Sometimes it is difficult to focus on your task to talk and describe your product to a client all day long. Also sometimes when a customer asks a certain question to you, it is likely for you to get nervous and either ignore them or go all silent. This is one of the reasons why salesmen are trained to be confident in their voice and words.
Being confident enhances your ability to understand the product yourself and then lay out the details to the crowd. Confidence can make you stand out more and people will listen to you.
3. Multitasking
Yes, it is true that salesmen have to be good at multitasking because they won’t just be selling a product out there. They have to reply to emails and respond to calls simultaneously. Possessing such a skill is a lifesaver. They won’t fizzle in the working hours and have control over their workflow.
While multitasking one must always be careful of what task they are handling at the moment. A small mistake might cause havoc to the other task.
4.Competitive
Nothing makes a salesman if he is not competitive with others.
A competitive employee is considered as a potential and beneficial asset to the company. Being competitive is a very good way to enhance your skills as well.
4. Hunger
The hunger to learn and grow more shows your impulsive challenging side. It is very useful for the company to give you higher stocks and much more important products to deal with.
ALSO CHECK – How to prepare for Sales Interview
Why Do Interviewers Ask “Why Do You Choose A Career in Sales?”?
The hiring managers want you to see your view on sales. You must be careful not to spoil your impression by giving an inappropriate answer like “I just want to see how this works” or “I want to get money”. Everybody applies for a job to earn some money, make sure that is not your only answer.
Try asking yourself, what is it that you like about sales and what made you think of it as a career. The HR wants to see how passionate you are in learning and growing with sales. Your answer should be about skills mainly, how you have developed those skills to make yourself a good fit for the sales job.
It will be helpful if you mention a successful sales story from your previous workplace. Make sure you talk about sales and the position you have applied for. Don’t forget to describe how you can benefit the company with those skills and strengths.
In your resume, you have mentioned your work history. The answer to this question will be the best chance to talk about how you have worked and what were your challenges in completing the task. Take advantage of the interview to sell yourself with your skills and ability to adapt to any sort of question asked to you, the interviewer will be impressed with such enthusiasm.
How To Answer Why Did You Choose A Career in Sales?
A list of reasons on how you have learned about it and what motivated you to learn more about sales and finally decided to choose sales and create a path in it. Answering this question is not at all tricky, you prepare yourself with enough practice so that you know what you are talking about at what point of your answer.
- You work for the company to sell as many products as you can. Give them stories about how you have won an award as the best salesperson of the month at your past workplace. You need to give them precise details in case they decide to check in on you and find it’s a lie. That will be a down vote for you.
- Tailor your story about explaining your strengths and skills in the most creative and decent way. The interviewer will have many candidates with an ill prepared answer. So make sure you have done your homework and don’t spoil their mood.
- Give them a brief explanation on what you think sales to be a brilliant way to enhance a company’s businesses as well. Show the interview that you have done enough research on the working of sales in different departments. This proves that you take no work less and value your priorities and perhaps will take less time to understand a task.
- The hiring manager wants a candidate who can help them achieve as many goals as possible. With your right perspective you can even show them a much bigger picture to achieve and create a good impression of you that will be a valuable asset to the company.
As a salesperson, you must be an excellent storyteller to improve your persuasive skills in selling a product. The interviewer is most likely to notice you lies right through you because of their experiences. Make sure you stay honest and it is okay to have no previous work experiences. You can always show your skills improvement by providing them the certification details or any volunteering work.
Best Answers for – Why did you choose a career in sales:
Some examples of answers on how to work your words around your answer to make it sound natural and strong.
“ I choose sales as my career because I am a hard worker who believes one’s work must be the result of their creative thinking, analytical measurement of a situation, quick adaptability to a place and moreover, have the confidence to accept criticism and face any problem that arises.”
“I want to be a salesman at your company because I believe that our product can help many customers. It would be an honor to understand the product and present it to the world where many needs will be reached.”
“I have always admired meeting new people in new locations. I enjoy listening and learning from them. When I was in college, I used to go to a shop nearby where they sell amazing essentials but due to their location they didn’t get much business. I decided to work there as a part timer and made more sales than they had made in a week. That was the time which made me think that I can start my career in sales to achieve many more goals.”
There are many examples to be used as references. Having the right knowledge in how to portray yourself to be the future salesman of their company gives a positivity towards them. The hiring manager looks for a potential competitor in their team who can give a hard time to other companies and have more sales. Remember to put the company’s benefits above.
Mistakes To Avoid While Answering:
Everybody makes mistakes. However, there are certain mistakes you must avoid while answering in a sales interview.
- Not giving much explanation to support your strength, weakness and skills. It is very important to give the interviewer a brief detail of your success story where you have used your skills and strength to get the result. Having experienced success with the skills you possess will increase your possibility of getting hired.
- Don’t be rude. Sometimes while describing a certain situation to the interviewer candidates become rude to others in the story. That will imprint a negative impression on the interviewer as they will consider you as an aggressive salesman who would probably hurt others to get the outcome. Always prepare a decent answer at home and practice it as many times as possible to sound natural and make sure you don’t give away any negative aura.
- Not making eye contact. When you answer an interviewer, it is necessary to make eye contact to not just that person but also to the other members as well. Making eye contact gives you the confidence that you are being listened to and you make it look effortless. In a sales job, it is important for salesmen to make eye contact with the customer to make them intrigued into the product they are selling.
- Using abbreviation instead of professional words can show how unprepared you are for the interview.
- Unnecessary add ons to the story part. Stick to the part where you can highlight your skills and avoid talking about irrelevant events. That shows how unprepared you are for the interview.
- While answering make sure to maintain your body posture. Your body movement also shows a lot about your nature.