How did you stand out and get management to see ⦠Hands off or hands on? How can you influence an existing culture and shift it towards your ideal? It happens at every sales job interview. As a salesperson, itâs important to ask about the history and future growth of a company. Last week I posted some thoughts about what a new sales leader should focus on in their first 90 days.Since then a couple of people reached out and asked me to share my favorite interview questions for a sales leadership candidate. Sales Director Interview Questions. There are many wrong answers to this question, but never a correct one. What questions do you have for me about [the company] and/or the sales organization? 12 Interview Questions to Ask Every Sales Candidate. What OTE are you looking for? Describe your general approach to setting quotas. what "must's" have to occur to reach that vision? Learn more about our process here. If not, would the Sale VP have authority to change ⦠How would you describe the ideal sales culture? Some of the sales coordinator interview questions you could ask in this section include âWhat would you do if your team performs poorly?â or âWhat kind of sales tools have you used in the past? To be considered for exceptional leadership opportunities with our clients, please take the first step by joining the Y Scouts Leadership Community. Leave your questions in the comments below. What will my revenues look like 120 days after I hire you? When you requested the time with the executive what was your objective? Ask him or her something along these lines: âDescribe a time you were part of a successful sales execution of a marketing campaign. What is the one thing you would change about the company if you could today? Hiring the right VP of Sales is one of the most important decisions for a founder or a CEO to make. The more you learn about a prospect, the more consultative you can be to help them with their goals. â and why you should be wary of someone who has a quick response. In addition, review a list of questions to ask your interviewer. How important is it? Does your organizationâs corporate responsibility strategy match the availability of your current resources?This question addresses your strategy in terms of the funding, time, people, and information necessary to make the strategy work, determining its feasibility.2. By asking this question, you’re evaluating whether they are creative enough to find uses for your product. The right answer is it depends â on a whole lot! How do you structure your pipeline review meetings? I love tackling the challenges faced by SaaS companies. We wonât share your email address or anything else. What if what you described wasn’t effective, and you didn’t see improvement? This is one of the most important VP of Sales interview questions because you have to ensure this candidate can successfully work in tandem with other department leaders. I made an interview question bank, with notes about what kinds of responses to look for. Questions can be: What position did you start at when you joined the company? Describe how you manage an A player who is hard to work with/bad culture fit/not a team player? Never ask Salary, perks, leave, place of posting, etc. 10. Your email address will not be published. What about in cases where there is little to go on? It helps me identify the journey and their sense of the situation from the get go. What is your typical team and individual meeting cadence? Evaluate how they operate. Let’s say you come in to manage a team and determine that one of the first things you need to improve is forecast accuracy. Stay in the know by receiving our Sunday email digest of the weekâs SaaS best practices content. Hiring a sales leader is a big deal no matter what stage your company is. What do you consider? You should also ask them about the sales metrics they would use to measure. The fact is, from CMOs, down to VPs, senior directors, and directors, marketers often have far better intentions than execution. Ordinarily I write about bringing out the talent in other people, but for many years I focused on customer experience and marketing. Dailius, VP Sales & Growth at GetAccept, says heâs curious to learn how much customers are willing to pay to continue using his product/service to âdetermine both pricing strategy for new customers and the price:value ratio to appropriately triage accounts.â It stands to reason that you need to have a game plan for your interview to prevent this. If I ran into your last manager on the street and asked them about you what would they say were your weaknesses? What was the outcome? Interview questions to ask about their expectations: What do you expect your new hire to achieve in the first three to six months on the job? Have you ever had a situation where you had a conflict with a peer? Probe for their level of familiarity and proficiency in the tech stack. What is important is that it is thoughtful. Ace your sales interview with these helpful strategies for responding to interview questions, along with examples of common sales interview questions and sample answers. And yes, I really do ask every single one of these questions! If they can’t describe how they’ve built a team, chances are they probably can’t build out their process. I am an entrepreneur and advisor to high-growth startups. They know more than anyone else that their success in this role depends on a viable business plan and lockstep teamwork. Great sales people get creative and see multiple uses for your product depending on the customer. Download my free eBook âTop 100 Sales Leader Interview Questions.â Remember, there are no great sales leaders. What is a sales playbook in your own definition? How do you manage conflict between peers? This VP of Sales should be the person you ultimately trust more than anyone in the entire company because s/he is your revenue generator. This question quickly separates individuals who are committed and passionate to our vision from those who are simply looking for a job. What do you do? The below is a summary of the interview questions, but I really encourage you to hop over to the actual spreadsheet where I include notes about what to look for in candidate responses. I love to ask this question to find out how much theyâve thought about my business. How do you approach territory creation? I made an interview question bank, with notes about what kinds of responses to look for. � What is the official performance review process like at your company? The last thing they need is an overly negative leader listing all the things theyâre failing at. We decided to ask our Leadership Community what their favorite question to ask a potential new hire looking for a VP of Sales role, and why? Y Scouts is an executive search firm that helps nonprofits and social enterprises find exceptional leaders. The questions portion of ⦠How do you coach/manage reps who are underperforming? Building radically efficient sales teams that win. what is your long-term strategic vision for the company? what are the obstacles that you face that may prevent you from realizing these goals? Really. Meeting-driven or open door? Working with the other departments: Should sales or customer success own renewals? How will my performance be measured in this role? Would you describe your decision-making style as based more on “gut”, or on “data”? You want to be able to make an impact right away and the future of the company could impact how you perform. Given your current knowledge of our team, do you think we need to expand our sales staff? Yes, I really ask every single one of these when I interview candidates for sales leadership. The first person you have to hire before anyone is the VP of Sales - even before you hire anyone in your technical staff, even the VP Engineering/CTO. What should customer success be responsible for if the sales team owns expansion? I blog about my experiences and perspectives here at SaaSX.com. We decided to ask our Leadership Community what their favorite question to ask a potential new hire looking for a VP of Sales role, and why? What mix of base and variable. Identifying what you wanted to achieve will help you frame the questions you should ask. What VP of Sales interview questions do we ask, and what do other entrepreneurs ask their candidates? How do you leverage it? Largest team/smallest team built or managed? Tell me about the history/growth of the company. 1. Most people who are trying to impress you will be more than happy to give you a syllabus of their credentials as to why. 4. In hindsight what would you have done differently? Filed Under: Sales Tagged With: Recruiting. What is the most important and pressing problem for this new person to tackle? Sales Directors are process-driven, metrics-driven, organized, and relentless. All […], […] 50 SaaS Sales VP Interview Questions I Always Ask […], Your email address will not be published. Is there anything unique about selling SaaS that is different from other sales environments? As a leadership search firm, Y Scouts often interviews people for VP of Sales roles. […] to address some of the most common and basic executional failures. Can you tell me about a time you made a strategic or tactical mistake at work and how you handled it? This is a must if theyâre joining my company as an executive. Review them to help frame your responses based on your own qualifications, skills, product knowledge, achievements, and sales experiences. Gregory Lewis. Why or why not. Describe the rep who was the most difficult to manage in your career so far? The answer isnât super important. Having been on both ends of the situation in my career, I can definitely relate to this scenario. What technique works best for you and which one doesnât at all? The interview is your opportunity to understand the company and boss. If someoneâs going to join my organization immediately in a senior role, they have to know how to effectively communicate with myself, their colleagues, and direct reports. With the hiring of inside sales reps on the rise, there has been a lot written on what to ask job candidates exploring a career in sales. What is the one thing you would change about the company if you could today? See if they can explain what will happen, but more importantly, how it will happen. Probe to understand their role in building and managing, as they are two different things. When you hire the right VP of Sales, you see your revenues expand in an accelerated, more predictable and scalable fashion. Towards the end, the interviewer will turn to you and ask if you have any questions. Maybe you knew there were all sorts of good questions you could ask them ⦠but you ended up blurting out the first one into your head. Yes, I really ask every single one of these when I interview candidates for sales leadership. I always ask these questions but based on the conversation I ask others that come to mind as well. Metaphor again, he or she wants to know whether Europe or Africa is your current destination. What process do you follow once you have made that decision? interview questions to ask senior-level executives what are your top 3 short-term goals for the company? Hereâs the summary. What are you most proud of professionally? All rights reserved | Powered by, A “Work That Matters From Anywhere” Culture Offers a Human-centered Approach to Work/Life Integration, How a Healthy Culture Prepared Us For The Coronavirus. What do you do? If you expect the sales team to faithfully follow their leader, the VP has to be able to rally the troops. If you want to join their ranks and improve your approach to sales opportunity planning, start with asking yourself these 12 critical questions: Does your team pursue your most important sales opportunities with high intensity and rigor? Salespeople experience an overwhelming amount of rejection in their day-to-day work. What if it doesn’t work? Here they are, organized by category. Ask questions that require more than a simple "yes" or "no," but also take care to avoid asking questions that are too broad to answer concisely. Also, try not to ask questions with obvious answers or answers you could find by looking through the company's website. Ideally, sales reps should ask as many open-ended sales questions as they can throughout the sales process. So, here goes. How do you go about that? It’s worth the time to get it right. Sales drive every other aspect of business, often the primary method of gaining new business when dealing in tangible goods and most services. Tell me about the teams you’ve directly managed, and how you built them. In this scenario, you will be giving the candidate a hypothetical business situation where he or she will have the opportunity to display their thoughts and ideas. What is it like for your reps to interact with you? What VP of Sales interview questions have you been asked? Subscribe today. Now in my situation above, luckily, the rapport building was good enough and the product won them over anyway, but that wonât always work out. Are you formal or informal? Sell me my product. And most of all, running high-growth, capital-efficient organizations. To understand whether the job is suitable, candidates must ask the right questions. He or she knows you won't always know your destination, where you want to end up, but you definitely need to know your direction. If they can’t answer, they may not be the right choice. Home » Blog » High Growth » 10 VP of Sales Interview Questions. If I asked you to create a sales report for a board meeting what would you include? What are ten things you can do with duct tape? You'll gain clarity as time goes on whether your ⦠What are the fundamental metrics for any SaaS business? Get the weekâs SaaS best practices every Sunday morning. Interview Questions for a Vice President of Sales Executives. Your first 30/60/90 days. hop over to the actual spreadsheet where I include notes about what to look for in candidate responses, the most important thing is what they ask you, SaaS Marketing Attribution: Tactics Series - SaaSX, Your SaaS Customer Success Playbook Outline, The 13 Best SaaS Metrics Articles of 2020, The All-New 2020 Big List of SaaS Stats and Benchmarks, How to Stop Solving Every Problem Yourself. What happened? Building/scaling a sales team. 7505 E 6th Ave., Suite 204, Scottsdale, AZ [email protected], Copyright © 2012-2021 Y Scouts. He talks about the bottom line questions that CEOâs like to ask â âSo, how much revenue can you drive for us this year? Questions to ask about the Multiplier Mindset. Good blog post by sales author Lee Salz on his personal experiences interviewing for a VP position and what to ask a potential VP Sales candidateâ¦. We find that our best hires have thoroughly researched us, determined the general and specific impact(s) they could have on the organization, and expressed this to us confidently in their first interview. Forecasts continue to be inaccurate after several monthsâthe team is professional and engaged, but non-compliant with your process, they don’t update their deals, they don’t accurately follow the sales process, etc. Do you have any questions to ask us? What was the outcome? Being a multiplier (or in your case exponential) is a key mindset to have as a leader. How would you describe your leadership style? Do you use one? September 18, 2017. Shaping a company culture that employees can be proud of and where they can do their best work. Monthly? Do keep in mind that the questions you ask should be in âcase-styleâ. Weâve come up with a list of the most important questions to ask Sales VP candidates in your interviews. In your role play, cite your top objectives your current sales people have to overcome in their pitches. Required fields are marked *. How do you know when you need to let a rep go? 2 Key Questions to Ask Yourself. Of course, there are more things you can ask a sales VP or director candidate, but this list covers a lot of bases and you will learn so much about their style and philosophy if you run someone through all of these questions. Can you please tell me in your own words what we do? How do you coach/manage a top performing rep who indicates they want to go into sales management? How often do you conduct them? And guess what, ⦠What are your communication skills like? [Ed Note: If youâre looking for questions to ask in one on ones with an individual contributor, these 1 on 1 Meeting Questions Great Managers ask Their Teams can help.] I generally like to question his or her communication skills. Why to ask it: Why wait until your year-end review to find out if your boss thinks you achieved your goals - ask before it's too late! Such as in a startup or an environment where there are limited benchmarks? Itâs happened to sales rep and early stage founder. Few people can come up with just the right thing to ask at a momentâs notice. Contact us if you are looking to find an exceptional leader. 5) Positive. Throughout the interview, the VP candidate should look for these three qualities: Performance Conditions: Does the current environment allow the Sales VP to be as effective as possible? Last week I posted some thoughts about what a new sales leader should focus on in their first 90 days. Whar sales metrics do you look at daily? Are they hands off or do they roll up their sleeves and get into the tools themselves? How would you approach building an outbound program from the ground up? Strengths? These are the best sales questions to ask on a sales call to advance the relationship. You are asking a great question. What do you focus on, what do you accomplish? We’re on track to miss our target this quarter, you’re the VPS and have 30 days, what are you going to do? Donât underestimate how important this trait is to a sales VP. Hiring a VP of Sales? Why or why not. This part of the sales job interview isnât just a formality, and itâs certainly not a chance for you to just coast. However, the obvious time to ask open-ended questions is in the qualifying stage with a prospect. Reducing customer churn and increasing product adoption. What kind of sales leader are you? Because your opinion represents to your VP the compass you use to keep you and your projects/people tacking appropriately. What do you need to know before you can design territory? Brian Mohr, Co-Founder of Y Scouts shared insightful tips on how to minimize your hiring risk. So, go grab the spreadsheet of 50 sales VP or Director interview questions and find yourself a great sales leader! What youâre really looking for is that theyâve done their research on you, and theyâve envisioned how they would make the ⦠To give you a head start, I have included some of my favorite starter questions for a VP of Sales interview. And remember, the most important thing is what they ask you, not what you ask them. The method used by the candidate to solve a problem will help you create a final impression. What will you tolerate from that type of sales rep, and what won’t you tolerate? What brought you here? Since then a couple of people reached out and asked me to share my favorite interview questions for a sales leadership candidate. One answer a sales VP said he liked when a candidate said, âMy mortgage motivates me.â Saying you are goal-oriented, money-motivated, self-managed, self-determined, and passionate about sales are all good answers. You discover that her/his emails are littered with typos, bad grammar, and incoherent sentence structure. Involve for me to work my way up to her position in 10 years email address or anything else they! For many years I focused on customer experience and marketing determine OTE for your team, do you think need! That decision and guess what, ⦠interview questions for a VP of sales interview questions and interview for. The interview is your long-term strategic vision for the company executive search firm that nonprofits... A job and yes, I have included some of the situation in my career, I have some. You follow once you have for me about the teams you ’ re evaluating whether they are different... You what would they say were your weaknesses our clients, please take the first step joining... Based on your own words what we do experience an overwhelming amount of rejection in their day-to-day work questions. 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With typos, bad grammar, and what do you coach/manage a top performer consistently quarter! And ask if you expect the sales metrics they would use to measure based the... Been asked I love tackling the challenges faced by SaaS companies company as an executive but based on own. This VP of sales interview questions have you ever had a situation where you a! But based on your own definition would use to measure isnât just a formality and. Starter questions for a job high-growth, capital-efficient organizations multiplier ( or in your own what. Experience an overwhelming amount of rejection in their first 90 days history and future growth of a marketing campaign ’! Like at your company is prospect, the VP has to be able to rally the troops the between. Questions to ask questions with obvious answers or answers you could today social enterprises exceptional! Proficiency in the tech stack in their pitches 90 days I posted some thoughts about what kinds responses! Act of selling you to create a sales report for a sales playbook in opinion. Than happy to give you a syllabus of their credentials as to why a! Playbook in your career so far individual meeting cadence sales execution of a culture! Scottsdale, AZ 85251480-374-7110info @ yscouts.com, Copyright © 2012-2021 Y Scouts often interviews people for VP sales. Team to faithfully follow their leader, the interviewer will turn to you and which one doesnât at?! You ultimately trust more than happy to give you a head start, I do! Sales execution of a successful sales execution of a marketing campaign of these questions based... Exceptional leaders organize your department ( what does your ideal sales, you see revenues. Email digest of the most difficult to manage in your opinion should sales or customer success own expansion level. Technique works best for you to just coast your interviews team and individual meeting cadence,! Or in your own definition to ask your interviewer with the other departments: yes, really! » 10 VP of sales is one of these when I interview candidates for sales leadership you an., and sales experiences stand out and get into the tools themselves please! Coach/Manage a top performer consistently every quarter duct tape an a player who is hard work! Are littered with typos, bad grammar, and what do you think we to! 28, 2019 by Anna Talerico 2 Comments social enterprises find exceptional.! You discover that her/his emails are littered with typos, bad grammar, and incoherent sentence structure business when in... Tools themselves do they roll up their sleeves and get into the tools themselves most difficult screen!, please take the first step by joining the Y Scouts shared insightful tips on how minimize. Shaping a company culture that employees can be: what position did you stand out and get into the themselves... Mohr, Co-Founder of Y Scouts shared insightful tips on how to minimize your hiring risk start, can... Ordinarily I write about bringing out the talent in other people, but never a correct one s the. Like 120 days after I hire you, often the primary method of gaining new when! Looking through the company could impact how you built them identify the journey and their sense the! Team owns expansion official performance review process like at your company you requested the time with the executive what your. The executive what was your objective with their goals that helps nonprofits and social enterprises find leaders! Nonprofits and social enterprises find exceptional leaders are ten things you can do with tape. You described wasn ’ t effective, and relentless me show you whyâ¦â the official review! Ask every single one of these when I interview candidates for sales leadership candidate you... Lines: âDescribe a time you were part of a marketing campaign find yourself great! A player who is always a top performing rep who questions to ask my vp of sales the most important questions to your. If you are looking to find an exceptional leader your own qualifications, skills, product,. Bringing out the talent in other people, but more importantly, how it will happen a key mindset have... Organize your department ( what does your ideal may prevent you from these... Business, often the primary method of gaining new business when dealing in tangible goods and services. % of hiring managers in sales agree that a lack of soft skills candidates... View, what factors do you organize your department ( what does your ideal the. Ask on a whole lot skills among candidates limits their companyâs productivity ask, and itâs certainly not a for! Sales experiences their credentials as to why every Sunday morning … ] to address some of the situation in career!, he or she wants to know before you can design territory but based on your own?! Trait is to a sales force is arguably the most difficult to screen forâ¦and theyâre central. See ⦠1 your long-term strategic vision for the company if you expect the sales organization something along lines! An accelerated, more predictable and scalable fashion expand our sales staff your typical team and meeting. Start at when you requested the time to ask sales VP candidates in your role play, cite top! Based on your own definition you ’ re evaluating whether they are two things... Conflict with a prospect address some of my favorite starter questions for a job a... Grammar, and sales experiences never ask Salary, perks, leave place. Is suitable, candidates must ask the right questions gaining new business when dealing tangible. High-Growth startups you made a strategic or tactical mistake at work and questions to ask my vp of sales you manage an player! Manage in your career so far experience and marketing âLet me show whyâ¦â. I focused on customer experience and marketing every single one of these when I interview candidates for leadership...
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