Are You Seeking For a Sales/Marketing Role? This is for you!

Are you seeking for the sale/marketing role? Do you have a job test or interview on sales/marketing role? I genuinely share my experience so that you can also learn from me.

I attended a written assessment test for the role of sales representative sometime ago at a pharmaceutical company and was called up as the top-most candidate after the test grading. I was prioritized for the final interview but ended up not securing the job based on my inability to drive and lack of driving license. Unfortunately, I applied for sales representative role but at the final day, I was meant to know that the job was actually a marketing role and I would be a given a car for it, so I ought to know how to drive and also must be conversant with some major part of Lagos.

According to the manager, I proved to have every knowledge/competency needed but the driving skill became a necessity. I believe that my knowledge/competency being talked about finally landed me my current role in sales/marketing at a different company. Now check out the questions asked and my answers that pushed me to the final stage and add to the great knowledge you already have and kindly comment to share your own insights:

QUESTION 1: AS A SALES REPRESENTATIVE, WHO WOULD BE CONSIDERED TOP CONTENDERS IN THE MARKET?

MY ANSWER 1: As a sales representative, I consider the customers or consumers of our products as the top contenders. Bringing delight to the heart of every customer should be my core value because I would place customers’ needs at the core of my decisions since my aim is to provide solutions to their needs with our products/services.

QUESTION 2: FROM THE PRODUCT WE OFFER, WHAT WOULD BE THE BEST WAY TO BREAK INTO THE MARKET?

MY ANSWER 2: The best approach to adopt would be “consultative selling (Need-creation/Solution-oriented). Here, I would serve the role of both a consultant who identifies the need and a strategist as I tactically grow our sales by pitching my product offer or unique perceived benefits to them. My aim is to use their pain-points to build their interest towards our product offer. For example from the drugs you offer, some needs would be: health satisfaction, body building, pain relief or even fair price assurance. With regards to the customer segment that requires fair price, I would identify what they value most about our products and then use the benefits to determine the cost to offer. To break into the market with this approach, the best promotion mix would comprise of personal selling, email marketing, cold calling and advertising with educational elements to attract prospects.

QUESTION 3: HOW DO YOU DETERMINE YOUR TARGET MARKET i.e. HOW DO YOU IDENTIFY YOUR POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS?

MY ANSWER 3: The best approach to determine our potential customers is Social Prospecting (using LinkedIn, twitter and other social media). Here, I would go through their profiles evaluating and segmenting them based on demographics (e.g. sex, gender, age etc), psychometrics (attitudes, hobbies, needs etc) and other variables. Then evaluate what needs each segment would require from our products and define them with respect to their needs.

QUESTION 4: WHAT IS YOUR BEST STRATEGY FOR MAINTAINING OLD AND PROSPECTIVE CLIENTS?

MY ANSWER 4: Manual Customer relationship management (CRM) has been a great approach to maintain both old and prospective clients. I follow up by calling, messaging and emailing them both on formal or informal level (like Christmas wishes, birthday wishes etc). This is because I would not like to lose my prospects from buying my products and old ones from future purchase or destroying our business relationships.

QUESTION 5: WRITE-UP COMPREHENSIVELY. CLEARLY DESCRIBE IN DETAIL YOUR STRATEGY FOR BREAKING NEW GROUNDS WITH OUR PRODUCTS?

MY ANSWER 5: Highlighted Below is My Strategy For Breaking New Sale

STEP 1: PREPARATION/ SOCIAL PROSPECTING: The aim of social prospecting is to research our potential prospects those who may need our products and segment them according to their needs. Before I can be able to pitch my product offer, I must understand each customer segment with their needs and then prepare my plans on how to reach out on them to attract them to buy our products. I would use the promotion which I already stated to attract them.

STEP 2: MY VALUE PROPOSITION: To pitch in my product offer, I would use a unique perceived benefit specifically meant for that particular customer segment. For example; let’s assume that I would prospect a customer segment whose hospitals are just for taking care of babies and nursing mothers, my unique perceived benefit then would be:

“In XYZ Pharmaceuticals, we help gynecologist like you with the most reliable and effective health products to protect health of nursing mothers and their infants as we make drugs available at their own convenience”.

STEP 3: QUESTIONING/PAIN-POINTING: Questions help to identify needs and evaluate if our products/services can actually solve the needs while with pain-pointing, I confirm it. Example of question (either use BANT or GCPT approach): Do you encounter challenges trying to get an efficient and reliable drugs within the time you want to save lives infants/nursing mother?

While Example of its Pain-point is: At XYZ Pharma, most customers complained that they found it difficult getting the reliable health products requested at their needed time and they have invested huge amount of resources on less efficacious drugs which pose threats to health of patients.

STEP 4: BUILDING INTEREST: This is where I then sell my products by letting the customers visualize the solutions our products would offer to solve their pain-pointed need.

STEP 5: CLOSING WITH CALL TO ACTION: I would request for the customers’ contact or another meeting with him and then set another time with him to contact or meet him again if the product is sold at that time.

LESSONS TO BE LEARNT FROM THIS WHOLE STORY:

1.You need to be appropriately prepared for any interview because it may turn out to be a written test just like this one.

2.You may be considered as the best but someone else can still have a competitive edge over you, so always expect the worst…

3.Don’t assume that your CV shows lack of experience because employers don’t actually judge you that way on your interview or assessment. Learn about/ know the role you are seeking for and be ready to defend yourself in it, knowledge is power. I wrote this test as a Microbiology graduate without prior experience in sales and got tested with those with years of experiences in sales/marketing but was graded as best.

4. If after all your own efforts and things don’t work well the way you expected, be calm to have hope in God because He knows the best for you. It’s not of him that willeth or runneth but God who showeth mercy. Also know that God’s Mercy doesn’t locate a lazy man, you must also work hard to be your own best.

5. When one door closes, a better one opens. Always believe in yourself and in God!

GOOD LUCK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

As both a digital marketing & branding strategist as well as an inspirational writer, Josephine Uba is a typical example of a passionate goal achiever who continously strive to be successful in what she does no matter how she fails and inspite all her limitations. As a young lady with great enthusiasm for business growth, she’s becoming more influential as she consistently grow in a world of the invaluable digital marketing and branding profession. Joe also offers various aspects of inspirations which can ultimately drive individuals from their present level to the great level they always desire to be. Her vision as an inspirational person is to become one of world recognized female philanthropist ,while her mission is to accelerate progress for people who are optimistic about their aspirations.