“What experience do you have in sales?”

Ask the candidate to tell you about their background in sales and what successes they have achieved. Make sure the candidate has a strong understanding of your industry, customer base, and products or services. You want someone who understands how to build relationships with customers and close deals.

“How would you go about creating a successful sales strategy for our company?”

This question provides a great opportunity to assess the candidate’s preparation. Quality candidates should show up to an interview with a number of well-researched suggestions that demonstrate how much time they put into informing themselves about your specific business and industry. They should know about your recent financial performance and offer several strategies on how the sales operation can build your customer base and boost revenues. They should be able to describe the types of strategies they believe would be most effective for your business.

“Can you describe a time when you successfully overcame an obstacle in the course of a sale?”

This question will help you gauge the candidate’s problem-solving skills and resilience. Their answer to this question will highlight whether they’re able to effectively manage difficult conversations with customers. Any candidate who claims they’ve never met obstacles during a sale isn’t being honest.

“What methods do you use to stay informed of changes in market trends?”

The candidate should understand the competitive landscape and be able to adjust their strategy based on customer trends. This question helps determine the candidate’s commitment to sales as a career. Their answer should show that they have an enthusiasm and understanding of what it takes to be successful in sales and that they’re willing to put in extra time to stay ahead of the game in your industry.

“How do you respond to customer feedback and complaints?”

This question will help you assess the candidate’s ability to handle difficult conversations with customers and how well they respond to feedback. A great answer would include examples of how they have used customer feedback as an opportunity for growth or improvement. Quality candidates will remember several such situations and candidly describe their persistence in dealing with an angry or resistant customer.

“What strategies do you use to build relationships with customers?”

The candidate should enthusiastically describe their approach to building customer relationships and their plans to create successful, long-term partnerships. They should give examples that provide insight into their communication and relationship-building skills, as well as their willingness to doggedly pursue customers and accounts without alienating prospective customers and clients.

“Can you give an example of how you handled an unexpected challenge in a sales situation?”

Problem-solving skills are critical to sales success. Every experienced sales leader has encountered obstacles, but how they deal with such surprises is another matter entirely. Perhaps they thought they had a sale in the bag, a deal closed, or an account onboarded, only to find the customer backing out at the last minute.

Learn how a candidate responds to such unexpected setbacks. A prospective sales leader should candidly explain a situation that arose and how they were able to overcome it. A candidate who claims they’ve never encountered a surprise obstacle in a sales situation isn’t credible.

Watch out for reluctance to describe sales challenges. A candidate who sets themselves up as succeeding easily in sales with every call is exaggerating, at best.

“Describe your approach to achieving sales targets.”

This question should give you a sense of the candidate’s strategy for achieving sales goals. Ask specifically about how they motivate a team to work together toward company sales targets. Candidates should explain how they prioritize tasks and approach sales targets efficiently and effectively.

They should also be able to provide examples of successful sales leadership strategies they have used in past roles. Ask specifically about how they mentored a sales team member who was struggling with achieving individual benchmarks.

“What strategies would you use to improve our company’s sales performance?”

Any candidate for an executive position should demonstrate that they’ve done their homework on your business, and specifically, its sales performance. Candidates should provide examples of strategies they have used in other positions as well as new ideas that they believe would be beneficial to your company.

“What would you do to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty?”

Sales leaders know what it takes to build customer loyalty and satisfaction. They should mention strategies such as providing outstanding service, following up after a sale, or offering incentives for repeat business. They may also acknowledge outstanding individual performance by sales team members and present ideas to build upon those successes.

These 10 questions to ask your next sales executive will help you identify the best candidate for a sales executive position at your company. Experience in sales is a given, as is an understanding of current market trends and an ability to build relationships with customers.

Remember that you don’t have to conduct this type of search on your own; a sales executive search firm can streamline the process and develop a roster of highly qualified candidates. Executive recruiters should also help prepare you for the interview process and vet candidates in advance to ensure you’re only talking to the top contenders.

Finding the right candidate will help your business grow and keep customers coming back for more. Choose from the best and broadest candidate pool to pinpoint the executive who is the right fit for your business. This means casting a wide net, considering leaders in other industries, and ensuring you have a diverse pool of executives who can offer different experiences and points of view. Your business will benefit from fresh sales leadership and an executive who knows how to build, motivate, and reward a hard-working sales team.

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1. Determine Recruitment Challenges During Due Diligence 
   Begin by evaluating the company’s existing talent acquisition practices and talent pool. How were the existing executives recruited? Or did they come from within the company? What percentage of leaders and employees already lived in the city before they joined the company? Has the company had success recruiting from outside the town before? What is the average length of tenure – and is there any relationship between length of tenure and the employees’ point of origin (i.e. Can the company retain employees that it’s recruited from other cities?)? Does the company tend to retain executives (i.e. more experienced employees) but fail to retain newer or younger employees, or vice-versa?Exploring these questions will provide PE firms with a thorough understanding of potential recruiting challenges before they acquire the company, so that they can be fully prepared as soon as the deal is closed.
2. Identify Talent Needs at the Executive LevelIf the acquisition will result in a merger of two companies, the PE firm will need to quickly evaluate the leadership of the merged companies, retaining the best employees and managing any downsizing in a manner that will minimize the impact on employee morale. More importantly, they’ll need to retain the talent that will not only run the company at the time of the merger, but that will be able to manage the business as it continues on its path of rapid growth. Experience working with mergers/acquisitions within the industry should be a high-priority need. Once gaps are identified, the PE firm will need to evaluate the best way to fill that position, keeping the recruitment challenges they’ve already uncovered in mind. Is an outside hire—potentially one from another city—the right choice, or is an inside hire a better option? Armed with an understanding of the company’s recruiting history, the PE firm should be able to make an educated decision here.
3. Target the Right Candidates with the Right Message 
   Recruiting top talent to smaller cities is all about developing the right candidate profile and fully understanding the needs of the candidates in the pipeline. First, it’s important to understand that some candidates will simply not be interested in leaving a bustling metropolitan area for a small city; don’t waste too much time on those candidates. On the other hand, boomerangs—candidates who attended college or grew up in a small town and may want to return to one—are smart targets, as are candidates from mid-sized cities.It’s also important to fully understand any of the candidates’ personal circumstances and family needs that might affect their willingness to relocate—have their children gone off to college recently? Are they burned out from big city living? Do they want to be closer to family on the opposite coast? All of these factors can turn an unlikely candidate into a good fit.
   Once the right candidate profile is identified, the people in communication with the candidates—HR managers, recruiters, headhunters—must be educated on how to sell the value of the city. They should not only tout the value of the city (its attractions, history, high standard of living, etc.) but should also tailor their pitch to each candidate’s needs. For example, an empty-nester looking to leave Manhattan might be particularly interested in the light traffic and walkability of the town while a younger boomerang candidate might be interested in the lively town center or nightlife.

 
PE firms that are acquiring companies in small cities should be prepared for recruiting challenges. But despite the obstacles that come with attracting big-time execs to small-town life, a thoughtful strategy can lead to success.

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Though New York didn’t get nearly as much snow as we predicted with winter storm Juno earlier this week, businesses across the city closed their doors and told their employees to work from home. A decade ago, this type of storm would have had a significant effect on the productivity of many companies, but with today’s technology-enabled workplace, most companies likely felt very little impact.

It’s times like this when the true value of workplace flexibility becomes clear. According to the Families and Work Institute, 38 percent of employers allow people to work from home on a regular basis, up 23 percent from six years ago.

Work-life balance and the need for flexibility used to be something that we exclusively associated with working mothers, but this is no longer the case. Flexibility during times of unforeseen circumstances—bad weather, last minute family commitments, unpredictable public transit—or even realities of everyday life—broken down cars, sick children—just makes business sense.

First, flextime (and flexible working arrangements) leads to better retention of talent. According to the Society of Human Resource Management, 89 percent of companies reported that offering employees flexible work schedules improved employee retention. A flexible schedule is an intangible benefit that has concrete value, and one that employees are often reluctant to give up.

Flexible working arrangements can also improve employee performance and increase productivity. In their global study of the value of flexible schedules in the workplace, Regus found that 72 percent of businesses saw increased productivity after implementing flexible working policies, and both small and large businesses agree that they generate more revenue as a result of flexible working arrangements.

But employers’ definition of flexibility should be, well, flexible. What works for one company’s employees may not work for another. Employers might adjust schedules for your slower season—the holidays, summer, etc. Or they might allow employees with school-aged children to align their schedules with the school day. To maintain and facilitate collaboration and teamwork, employers may choose to allow all employees to work from home as they choose, but require all employees to be present in the office on one designated “all hands” day each month. It’s important to tailor flexible working conditions for the needs of a company’s unique employee base.

While I hope the remainder of the winter season won’t test our limits, the bottom line is that workplace flexibility can no longer be considered a perk or a reward—a necessary evil—that employers dole out to appease their staff. Flexibility is a mission-critical component of the most successful company’s workplace cultures.

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