Sales Competency Assessment

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1. In which year did the company make the largest profit per employee?(Required)

2. How old is John if, in 38 years, he will be 3 times as old as he is today?(Required)

Sales assessment - 5 questions. Choose one response according to your judgement. None of the answers are wrong.

Question 1

After many attempts you have finally managed to see several key senior people in an important company which has been using a competitor for a long time. They insist on talking about everything but your particular products and their need for them despite many attempts by you to bring them all back onto the subject. The time you have allowed for this meeting is nearly over and you will be late for a presentation to one of your biggest accounts if you do not get away soon.(Required)

Carry on listening because sooner or later they will get on to business. If necessary you can call your next appointment to apologise for being late.

Finish the discussion politely; leave them with samples, literature, etc. and say you will call to make another appointment.

Tell them that you have to go now and ask them what next steps they would like you to take.

Ask them directly for a commitment in favour of your company.

Question 2

You have made your presentation to a group of people in a prospective Key account and you thought it went well. But at the end of your presentation they have a quick discussion while you are out of the room and then call you back in and say that they cannot make a decision that day. You have to decide what to do or say now. *(Required)

"Then you obviously have reservations and doubts which my presentation failed to satisfy - for which I apologize. May I ask you briefly to tell me what they are?"

Thank them for their time and attention and then approach your main personal contact after the meeting and find out if there are any problems that you failed to deal with at the time. Then circulate a brief summary of the proceedings for each member of the committee - but answering any "hidden" concerns.

"I quite appreciate that you need time to make an important decision like this. I will look forward to hearing from you when you are ready".

"I quite understand your position but owing to our own work scheduling pressures I have to plan in advance. May I provisionally place the order for you and wait for your formal confirmation in a few days time?"

Question 3

After a lot of groundwork, fact-finding and meetings you have finally been put through on the phone to the managing director of a new Key prospect (he alone can sign, but he is always abroad). He listens to you in a rather non-committal way; for all you know he may in fact be signing his mail. When you suggest a time and date for a meeting he says, "Although it sounds good and if, as you say, my staff all feel your offer is good, then I am interested. But I would prefer you to send me a formal proposal so that I can study it when I have the time. I am rather pushed at the moment"(Required)

Agree to put a proposal in the post and promise to call him again in a week's time.

Explain that although you could send him a proposal it cannot fully answer his questions or explain your service, so really it is no substitute for a personal visit from you. Suggest another date and time for an appointment.

Sympathize with him about the time pressure he is under and say that you can save him time by explaining everything to him face to face more quickly than he can read it. Ask him to suggest a date and time for a meeting.

Ask him on the telephone all about his company and its needs for what you are offering. Then write an individually written "selling" letter to him to go with your proposal so that he is more likely to respond positively.

Question 4

You have called to see (by appointment) a senior manager with whom you have a good relationship and who places a carefully metered proportion of his very substantial business with you. You are shown into his office where his assistant, an able and ambitious young man, informs you that he has suddenly been taken into hospital for an indefinite period and that he has taken over but will not necessarily be following the same policies as his boss / predecessor. He agrees that you can phone him in three weeks time to arrange another meeting, but he says that he literally has only two minutes to spare now before an urgent meeting with the Managing Director.(Required)

Take the opportunity to underline the benefits of his placing a much higher proportion of his company's business with you.

Ask whether this change has caused him any particular problems or concerns. Offer to give him every assistance - technical support, trial packages, increased number of calls to him etc, in order to make his new job easier.

Suggest that you wait for him to let you know what he wants from you once he has had time to settle in.

Deliberately refrain from talking business; sympathize with his situation and focus purely on establishing a relationship.

Question 5

You have an established Key client who provides a steady flow of business but is troublesome and always finds something to query or argue about (delivery times, errors on invoices, rudeness in the sales office, etc.) Sometimes his complaints are partially justified but he always makes far more fuss than is warranted. At the end of an apparently successful meeting he asks for an official quotation from your office prior to placing his next order. The morning he receives it he phones you up and angrily accuses you of "trying to pull a fast one" on him claiming that the official quotation is Rs. 39,00,000 whereas you had worked it out at 37,50,000 when you were in his office. You know perfectly well that he has deliberately "misunderstood" what you discussed (which admittedly was slightly complex) in an attempt to get you to agree to give it to him at the lower price. *(Required)

You know that complicated matters like this cannot be sorted out on the phone and that trying to do so will only make things worse - especially when the other party does not want to understand. Say you will come and see him in person to sort it all out.

Apologise for the fact that you obviously must have made a mistake when you were with him and say that this is why his request for an official quotation was such a good idea. Ask him to accept the higher price as quoted.

On the basis that you have already invested a lot of time and trouble in this particular order and that the difference of Rs. 1,50,000 is insignificant when compared to the annual turnover of this client, agree to the lower price. Make it sound as though it really hurts and that you are making a special concession because he is such a good client - for Rs. 1,50,000 it is neither risking upsetting him nor worth any more of your time.

Be politely firm with him on the telephone to show that you have had enough of his messing around, complaining, etc. Say that you kept notes about the discussion and that Rs. 39,00,000 was definitely the price you had agreed on at the end and there is no way you can alter it.

PSI
The following items are arranged in pairs (a and b) and each member of the pair represents a preference you may or may not hold. Rate your preference for each item by giving it a score of 0 to 5 (0 meaning you STRONGLY DISAGREE, 5 meaning you strongly prefer it or do not prefer the other member of the pair). 0 Strongly Disagree 1 Disagree 2 Somewhat Disagree 3 Somewhat Agree 4 Agree 5 Strongly Agree The scores for a and b MUST ADD UP TO 5 (0 and 5, 1 and 4, 2 and 3, etc.) Do not use fractions such as 2 ½.

Question 1a & 1b

1a. ________ Making decisions after finding out what others think. 1b. ________ Making decisions without consulting others. *

1a(Required)