The Challenger Sale- Interview with Matthew Dixon | Sales Podcast | Aaron Evans Sales Training
Interviews for Top Jobs at Challenger
Data Analyst Interview
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Challenger in Feb 2022
Interview
1st round: HR screening2nd round: interviewed by two seniors in the team, the team is small but people are experienced3rd round: interviewed with the head of teamA good talk to them but they eventually hired someone more experienced.
- why this role and resume-based questions
Intern Interview
I applied online. I interviewed at Challenger (Sydney) in Aug 2016
Interview
On line applying, took two weeks and first interview about political view and a kind of IQ test. One week later got call to take the second interview. Three or four weeks passed, but not any offer yet.
- What is the thing you want to do but never did?
Are you a sales manager looking to add Challenger Sellers to your team? What are the best sales hiring questions to find Challenger Sellers?
Don’t emulate the Lone Wolf: While Lone Wolves can be highly successful (25% of them are high performers), a sales force consisting entirely of Lone Wolves would be dysfunctional. Each does their own thing, so you can’t replicate their behavior across the organization and you couldn’t manage a sales force like this. Creating collaborative solutions for customers requires teamwork—however, Lone Wolves behave independently of rules and sales processes.
These sales hiring questions from The Challenger Sale can help you weed out the top-tier candidates in your pool, and identify current or potential Challenger Sellers. Setting your reps up for success starts with the hiring process. These sales hiring questions can help.
Even as you use Challenger Sale questions to find Challenger sellers, remember that every high performer isn’t a Challenger: Part of the rationale behind the Challenger Selling Model is to replicate what Challengers do naturally across the rest of the sales force. But not all high-performers are Challengers. It’s important to avoid mistakenly using high-performing Relationship Builders and Lone Wolves as teaching examples, since you’ll teach non-Challenger behaviors and tactics. You can use the abbove sales hiring questions to identify the high-performing Challengers you want everyone to emulate. But as you do this, there are important things to keep in mind that might stand in your way of being a great Challenger Sale manager.
Develop rep skills and organizational capability at the same time: To get the full benefit from the Challenger Selling Model, companies need to improve both individual skills and organizational capabilities. Developing both at the same time speeds up the overall transition, since the capabilities are complementary. For instance, reps need presentation materials developed by marketing professionals, and marketing people need feedback and information from reps to create great materials.
More assertive selling starts with a better agenda
A question we get a lot from sales managers is how do you teach sales teams to get good at more assertive, challenger style selling? The ancient Lao Tzu proverb… “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” is good advice. The first step in a sales interaction is to communicate an effective agenda that allows a more insight driven approach. In testing salespeople we work with, we find less than 50%, even from some great companies, know how to set a truly customer focused agenda that can easily springboard into a more assertive approach. Less than 50%! Alyssa commented to us how important it is to coach salespeople on this essential foundational skill…
Challenger Sale meets Challenger Interview
My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying.
– Rodney Dangerfield
Finding your next job is not about luck. It will require you to get out of your comfort zone and embrace selling techniques. Competition is stiff, hiring processes are changing, unemployment remains high. What can a job seeker do to increase their chances of success?
What if you could understand and apply the basic principles of the most successful sales people in the world?
Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson, and their colleagues at Corporate Executive Board interviewed over 6000 top performing salespeople at a who’s who of leading corporations. They studied their techniques and remarkably found a common theme in their approach. They then aggregated these findings into a book called The Challenger Sale. The highly acclaimed book suggests that when it comes to selling complex, large-scale business-to-business solutions, there is a simple 1, 2, 3 steps that lead to superior results. It can be summed up simply as teach, tailor and take control. The best salespeople execute this without their prospect feeling like they just experienced a sales call. The prospect felt, like the salesperson showed expertise and shared as well as educated the prospect. The dialogue did not feel canned, but rather customized to the prospects business situation. The meeting probably also did not follow the prescriptive path the prospect originally felt it should, would or could.
Can this work in job interviewing? Absolutely!
What if you entered your next interview with the following blueprint and executed it in a seemingly crisp, yet casual exchange?
1) Teach – You begin by offering some macro trend data having to do with your prospect companies industry or something unique to the hiring department. As an example, if interviewing for a job in Human resources, you could share a statistic about HR outsourcing and/or some of the latest software automation trends.
2) Tailor – Now tie the conversation back to explicit needs of the company or hiring manager. You can do this by studying CEO statements in press releases, listening to recruiters describe the job goals or great discovery questions. However, you should do pre-work. You want this research completed prior to the interview. This will allow you to customize your dialogue to be truly relevant to the hiring manager.
3) Take Control – This may be the hardest part to execute. However, if you are properly prepared with meaningful insights that allow you to teach and tailor, taking control will happen naturally.
Imagine if you can begin the interview by taking out an article (preferably from a prominent media source) you recently read and tying it back to the job description, CEO’s strategy statement and the business challenge as outlined by the recruiter. With this simple technique, you have taught, tailored and taken control. You are no longer competing against other interviewees trying to find a unique and powerful way to answer:
Let’s be honest, these questions are all listed on the Internet and there are actually websites providing great answers to these questions for folks to repurpose.
So how can a job candidate increase their chances of getting hired? Differentiate yourself. Do it the same way leading salespeople are beating their quota goals. Teach, Tailor and Take Control.
The author, Ian Levine, is a leading speaker and blogger on advanced sales strategies and career branding.
FAQ
What questions will be asked in a sales interview?
How do I prepare for a sales interview?
- Are you comfortable making cold calls? …
- Have you consistently met your sales goals? …
- What motivates you? …
- How did you land your most successful sale? …
- How would your colleagues describe you? …
- Sell me this pen. …
- What are your long-term career goals?
How do you implement the Challenger Sales Model?
- Do your research. …
- Practice your answers. …
- Make a solid first impression. …
- Be specific about your work history. …
- Highlight your optimism. …
- Emphasize customer service. …
- Ask good questions.
