Marketing Sales Interview Preparation Guide

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For an organisation, at the end of the day, the product must be sold. No sales means no profits and no profits means no business! So this in turn depends upon the quality of the sales force. The sales force of an organisation needs to be properly selected, trained, developed and managed so as to be able to reach out to and gain a wider customer base and to retain the existing customers. This activity relating to the sales force is known as sales management. Sales management entails deciding upon the sales territory, determining the composition of the sales force and sales organisation.

Not everyone can handle sales. You need to have the right attitude and abilities. At your job interview, the interviewer will be looking for your sales skills, and the aspects of the process that help close deals. An example of a good answer includes the ability to recognize both verbal and non-verbal cues to adapt the sales strategies you implement to impress the prospective buyer.

Marketing communication can be defined as the efforts made by the seller to convey his message to his buyers and to accept it in retrievable form. The main point of communication process is persuasion. It is totally goal oriented. It is not an haphazard activity. Each of its tool consists of specific complexities and potentialities that justify managerial specialization.

Product refers to the bundle of tangible and intangible attributes that a seller offers to a buyer in return of a particular predefined amount of payment in a particular mode. Goods, ideas, methods, information, objects, services, etc., whose output serves as a need or want satisfier.

Any interview questions about your discomfort in sales should always be responded to with a "no" without any elaboration. If you are uncomfortable, reevaluate whether the position is right for you.

Rejections are common within sales jobs, and one of the primary reasons that most personalities could not handle sales roles. Try to downplay how hard you take rejections, but feel free and be honest about a technique you use to handle rejection or answer with something like, "I simply move on to the next prospect, because a rejection is simply a sign that the individual was not yet ready for our solution.

1) Field research : It is related to the research for a specific purpose.
2) Desk research: Usually it is conducted for one purpose initially but gradually it is used to support another goal.
3) Xploratory research: It investigates an assumption..
4) Predictive research: This type of research is done to predict any future occurrence.
5) Conclusive research: This type of research is done to derive a conclusion of a research process.

★ Introduction stage
★ Growth stage
★ Maturation stage
★ Decline stage

The presence of the product in the marketplace with respect to the ups and down in its business costs and sales activities. Products usually have a limited life and they pass through distinct stages, each posing different challenges, opportunities, and problems to the seller.

★ Segments must have enough profit potential to justify developing and maintaining
★ Consumer must have heterogeneous needs for the product
★ Segmented consumer needs must be homogeneous
★ Company must be able to reach a segment with its planned efforts. Must be able to measure characteristics & needs of consumers to establish groups.

In pure competition the number of buyers and sellers is very large. There is a perfect competition among them. Price is determined for the entire industry by the forces of demand and supply. All firms have to sell their product at that price. No firm can influence price by a single action. Thus every firm is a price taker and a quality adjuster.

Monopolistic competition refers to a market situation where there are many firms selling a differentiated product. There is competition which is keen, though not perfect, among many firms making very similar products. No firm can have any perceptible influence on the price output policies of the other sellers nor can it be influenced much by their actions. Thus monopolistic competition refers to competition among a large number of sellers producing close but not perfect substitutes for each other.

Oligopoly is a market situation in which there are a few firms selling homogeneous or differentiated products. It is difficult to pinpoint the number of firms in the oligopolist market. There may be three or five firms. It is also known as competition among the few. With only a few firms in the market the action of one firm is likely to affect the others. An oligopoly industry may produce either homogeneous or heterogeneous products.

Monopoly is a market situation in which there is only one seller of a product with barriers to entry of others. The product has no close substitutes. He is a price maker who can set the price to his maximum advantage. This may occur because the firm has a patent on a product or a license from the government to be a monopoly .Pure monopoly occurs when the producer is so powerful that he is always able to take the whole of all consumers' income whatever the level of his output is.

★ Mention some of the common criticisms on marketing professionals?
★ How do you want to contribute to the field of marketing?
★ Which of the entry level jobs in marketing would you prefer - sales, business development, marketing assistant, etc? And why?
★ How is the field of marketing different from other fields?
★ How does peer to peer interaction help to develop marketing strategies?
★ What are the essential skills that a marketing representative should possess?
★ How does a marketing representative maintain long lasting relationships with customers?
★ How do you ensure that the customer information gathered through surveys remain confidential?
★ What is your opinion on the unsolicited customer calls that are done to customers?
★ What are the advantages and disadvantages of using radio as a medium of marketing communications?

★ What is the role of a marketing professional in the development of a firm?
★ How will your previous skills help in delivering your responsibilities as a marketing intern?
★ What should be the ideal sample size while conducting a survey?
★ What are the differences between a product and a service?
★ Which subjects in marketing do you like the most?
★ How does a brand ambassador help improve the brand image of a firm?
★ How is the effect of advertising on TV measured?
★ What is the meaning of brand value?
★ Do you think you need to go beyond the limits of honesty to convince people to buy products?
★ Rate yourself on your learning abilities in terms of fast learner, slow learner, moderate learner?

★ Did you ever lie in your marketing career to increase your performance?
★ Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5 on your ability to work under pressure where 1 is the least and 5 is the maximum?
★ How would you want to contribute to our organization within the next 5 years?
★ Mention any moment in your previous work life where you faced criticism. How did you deal with the situation?
★ Differentiate between the role of a marketing manager and a marketing executive?
★ Can you define brand in the words of Philip Kotler?
★ What is the most important thing to do at this stage of your life - maintaining a good work-life balance or earning more money?
★ How would you react to a situation when a particular strategy incurred huge expenditure but is failing or taking huge time to deliver the results?
★ Do you believe a firm does enough to uphold the vision and mission of the company? What has been your experience as a customer?
★ Which of the following do you prefer - a good manager, a satisfying job, a fat pay check?

★ What according to you are the essential requirements to be a successful in marketing career?
★ What has been your biggest achievement in life so far?
★ Rate yourself on your marketing skills in terms of these parameters: mediocre, good, very good, excellent. Justify your rating?
★ What should be done to improve the marketing abilities of the candidates?
★ What roles would you like to perform as a marketing assistant?
★ Do you like to take orders from supervisors and execute them or prefer to have your own freedom in whatever you do?
★ What is the best for the company - team work or individual excellence?
★ Are marketing skills inherent? Can they be nurtured and developed?
★ Do you think marketing is a waste of money by the company? Why or why not?
★ How would you deal with the older members of the organization who are adamant but have to report to you?

★ Why did you choose marketing as a profession?
★ What do you understand by the term Marketing?
★ Do you think marketing is a lucrative profession?
★ What is the aim of a marketing analyst?
★ Do you think that your interpersonal skills are very good for this job profile?
★ What are the key skills that a marketing analyst should have?
★ What is the most challenging task for a marketing analyst?
★ Do you think findings of marketing analysis are trustworthy and investments of at least a few crores should be done on the basis of the findings?
★ What are the potential shortcomings of marketing analysis? How do you overcome them?
★ How do you do marketing analysis for a new and unknown product?

★ How does consumer behavior affect the marketing values?
★ What are the steps to be taken to bring consistency in customer services?
★ What are the different customer services that provide effective solutions?
★ How does a sale affect economy of the country?
★ What are the different ways in which you can give support to customers to solve their queries?
★ What are the steps involved in a generic sales cycle?
★ What is the relationship between marketing and sales?
★ What are the different types of sales agents that are present in this field?
★ What are the different types of markets that can be developed to increase the sale?
★ What is the tool used for measuring the competition between different firms?

★ What are the types of questions asked from the customers regarding the product of a company?
★ How does the sale help consumers to increase their awareness?
★ What are the techniques used to sell a product?
★ How does the sale people or seller agent find the vendors?
★ What are the distribution channels used by the companies to sell their products?
★ What are the different types of mergers?
★ What is the purpose of room sales forecasting?
★ On what basis does the negotiation about a product takes place?
★ What are the risk management techniques that should be used during a sale?
★ How does distribution of services differ from distribution of goods?

★ Why should we use marketing geographic techniques while selling?
★ What are the issues that arise in direct marketing?
★ How does selling happen in retail markets?
★ How does the service provider satisfy the requirement of the customers?
★ What is the need for customer service?
★ What are the drawbacks in customer service?
★ What are the different types of support being given to the customers?
★ How to gain more profit with even less sales?
★ How can we improve the chances of a better sale?
★ What are the provisions provided to rate the customers experience?

★ What is the use of ROS in advertising?
★ How can traffic be attracted for a company's website?
★ What are the effective measures taken to increase the sales?
★ How the market is measured using consumer equilibrium?
★ How does the retail selling happen?
★ What are the steps taken to define marketing entities and retail selling?
★ What are the advantages and disadvantages of direct marketing?
★ What is the function of LTP in share market?
★ What is the difference between sales and marketing?
★ What are the different financial statements used during sales?

★ What are the different levels involved in sales?
★ What is the decision making process required in this field?
★ What kind of people are involved in making these decisions?
★ What should be known about market before one starts selling?
★ What do you understand by MSRP?
★ How to write a good marketing plan that can be used to increase sales?
★ What is the purpose of providing 24*7 services?
★ How are these services essential for a company?
★ What are the different types of services provided to the customers?
★ What are the good and bad services that should be kept in mind while serving a customer?

At certain times we just come across a product and buy it impulsively without any kind of prior planning, evaluation or thought.