From the course: Interview Tips for Sales Professionals

How to approach this question

From the course: Interview Tips for Sales Professionals

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How to approach this question

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- If you work in sales, there's one universal truth. You're going to hear no, over and over again. Even if you're great at what you do. And please, of course you're great at what you do. As a sales professional, you surely know that rejection is just part of the deal. Certainly there are steps you can take to minimize the frequency of the no's, but even the highest performing sales people deal with their fair share of rejection. When you're interviewing for a sales role, it's important to help your interviewer understand that no doesn't unravel you, not even close! Maybe it even fuels you to turn that no into a yes. You'll also want to outline the specific ways that you prepare for, respond to, and bounce back from rejection. To show your preparation, maybe you share that while you genuinely care about customers, you maintain just a little bit of emotional distance during that prospecting stage so that you can make decisions from a place of strategy and objectivity versus taking things too personally. You might outline your process of setting long-term goals and focusing on these, versus dwelling on those here and there deals that fell apart. Or, if you've gone through a period in which you were hearing more no's than yes's, and that happens, you could walk the interviewer through how you studied your approach, pinpointed where things were going wrong, and then found some new ways to improve your success rate. And last, you'll want to share how you rally when those no's really start to get to you. Maybe you pull out your past performance reviews. Or celebrate recent accomplishments. Or take a walk around the block to clear your mind. Whatever your techniques, be sure and let that interviewer know that you just expect an occasional no. You prepare for it. And you're ready to either bounce back quickly or cook up a longer range plan to turn those no's into yes's.

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