Selling this pen again by Tony Green

I described the scenario in an earlier entry when I asked to ‘sell the pen’ question during an interview. As you may recall from my previous entry I was on a quest obtain a sales position. The question is a good question to ask because it tests a potential salesperson persistence to overcome rejection and their listening skills, key components of any successful salesperson.

When I was asked the question I failed miserably as I stumbled to describe how this was the pen that they wanted. I resolved that would never happen again reading everything I could get my hands on how to answer the question. Now that I was prepared for the question I figured that I would never be asked again.

Of course, I was asked. Since I had learned from my previous nightmare I was going to jump all over the question. I remembered that I needed to focus on the benefits and not the features and if I got an objection, naturally the interviewer would make it challenging, so I tried to convince the interviewer that a pen was what he wanted regardless of how many times he objected. Once I finished I took a breath.

After I answered the question I thought I was in good shape until the interviewer asked me had you considered whether he wanted a pen? The wind went out of my sails as clumsily tried to recover. I guess I will be asked the question until I get it right.