khiz

Account Manager

Fire Starter

Inside Sales Account Manager at HPE

Hi All,

I will be interviewing for Inside Sales Account Manager at HPE - already qualified for the second round.

If anyone can share from experience how I can prepare for the upcoming interview, I would really appreciate it!

Update: just got done with the interview, all in all it went great!

One question I need to work on: What is the greatest misconception anyone has had about you?

Next round: Have to pitch HPE Greenlake, let me know if any of you have any innovative ideas about that!

👥 Hiring

🤓 Sales Tech

🗣 Interviewing

36 comments

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TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

When ever you are going to be asked about your work experience make sure to be able to do these things:
1. Tell a short story about how you achieved the results you got
2. Why you left your previous employers
3. How you developed the sales process that you have now.

Ppl want to have confidence that hiring you is a good idea. If you have a process you follow to produce results, they will feel more confident

Also be sure to have a story for a big win and a big loss ready to go.

Just a bunch of story telling really! 😂

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

And for "why you left/are leaving your current employers" - don't be negative. It's always for a positive reason., such as the opportunity to work at HPE, a change in role to AM, etc.

SoccerandSales

Big Shot

Account Executive

This. Just like when you are selling, shit talk is never a good look

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Yes! Potential employers will have an issue with it, and you might not get an offer. Telling future employers about a "toxic work environment" or your bad manager is a red flag for them. Keep anything like that to yourself.

SoccerandSales

Big Shot

Account Executive

I think there are definitely ways to share a bad experience with a previous company, you just have to do so in a PC way

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

yes. but be honest. "the CEO was making decisions i just didnt think were ethical, which I can elaborate on if needed but over all it was a positive experience but there were things that I just couldnt look past any more"

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@TennisandSalesthanks, that helps. I shall keep you posted on how the interview goes!

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@TennisandSalesjust got done with the interview, all in all it went great!

One question I need to work on: What is the greatest misconception anyone has had about you?

Next round: Have to pitch HPE Greenlake, let me know if you have any innovative ideas about that!

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

oh wow thats a question they asked you? thats a really interesting one!

Idk if my idea are innovative but ive had to do this before, pitch a product i dont know well haha.

happy to go back and forth with you on this. but here is where I would start.
1. make sure you have a very clear understanding of what it is that they do, and can explain it in terms that do not show up on the website. a clear way to show you understand something, is to communicate it without using the words they gave you.

2. do your best to learn what key problems they are actually solving, and what a prospect is currently doing that this solution replaces.

3. does the product save money, save time, make money, lower risk of some sort. all solutions do at least one, try to nail that down.

SO in order to do the above things i would:

1. download EVERY piece of content they have available
2. make sure you have reviewed their website thoroughly
3. punch their name into google and see what ppl are saying about this.

this should allow you to start formulating some talking points.
Let me know what you think

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@TennisandSalessounds great, let me prepare and give it a shot, then come back here and update on how it goes

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

Sounds good! Let me know if you have any questions

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

Not sure specifics with the company I would check Glassdoor

Is the first round with the hiring manager or 2nd time with the Hiring Manager?

1st one, expect to talk about past experience and success in the role, % quota, rank, how long it took to ramp up, typical sales cycle and typical day

2nd interview with Hiring Manager typical means role play

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

It's the first one with the hiring manager and it's main focus will be on my past work experience mentioned in my resume from what I have heard @Kosta_Konfucius

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

Check out Glassdoor and just be ready to walk through your sales cycle. I would recommend asking about their average length and $$ per deal so you can match your answer accordingly

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Be prepared to talk about your process, your biggest/best deal and what went into closing it. You may be asked about losses and lessons learned. Hiring manager is trying to get a sense of you as a rep and how you work. You should also come with questions, as you are also interviewing them to see if they’re a fit. Best of luck!

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@Sunbunny31thank you, I'll make sure I prep accordingly

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Sounds like a great opportunity. I hope it goes well for you.

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@Sunbunny31 @Kosta_Konfucius

just got done with the interview, all in all it went great!

One question I need to work on: What is the greatest misconception anyone has had about you?

Next round: Have to pitch HPE Greenlake, let me know if you have any innovative ideas about that!

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

Awesome so what I would do is go on the website and find customer success stories for HPE Greenlake. Find 3 pains and know how the product helps, even site the story during the role play.

I would start the role play of mentioning the 3 pains you know how to solve as the reasons why they took the meeting.

In a role play pitching a product they know WAY more, you need to control the scenario. If you dont know to answer any questions about products, mention you can follow up with the SE team.

As for the misconception thats tough since you want their to be some truth to it also. Maybe talk about a client thought you were the typical car person esque rep. But through building trust and research was able to be a champion of yours

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I agree with these.

Congratulations on progressing!

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@Kosta_Konfucius "If you dont know to answer any questions about products, mention you can follow up with the SE team."

What's the SE Team?

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

Sales Engineering or Solutions Engineering team, they are usually the Product Subject Matter Experts who run demos

Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Exactly, the more technical pre-sales counterparts. SEs should be able to explain the solution, build and provide great demos, and if they can't answer an uber technical question, know how and who to ask internally to get the answer.

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

I have interviewed with this company for this role. For my second interview, they wanted me to do a presentation about something I had previously sold. Keep in mind this is dated experience.

So, I brought my customer-facing deck for the role I was leaving at the time, customized it as though HPE was my customer, and pretty much blew them away.

Just an insider note about HPE. Company is very supportive of employees (pretty good culture, but manager and leadership chain really matter). However, it is large and has lots of bureaucracy. If you get easily frustrated with red tape you may have a bad time. Generally a good place to level up your big corporate sales experience.

Do DM's work? feel free to DM me and I can share more without doxxing myself.

EDIT - Yeah so apparently DM's are only for iPhone users... and I'm not one.

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@JustGonnaSendItthank you so much, this helps a lot!
I will keep you posted on how this round goes in case I qualify for the final one!

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@JustGonnaSendIt

just got done with the interview, all in all it went great!

One question I need to work on: What is the greatest misconception anyone has had about you?

Next round: Have to pitch HPE Greenlake, let me know if you have any innovative ideas about that!

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

Great work @khiz!

That's an interesting question. I would have to think about it a bit to answer for myself.

Regarding HPE Greenlake, unfortunately I do not. I have not been exposed to that product directly. Only heard of it on the periphery of what I do.

Seems like another one of these hybrid cloud products. Knowledge of enterprise architecture and how data flows / what it's use cases are will be helpful.

My recommendation is to form a mental map of 1 - 3 use-cases that the product could enable, then tell that story after the standard product briefing, as part of your pitch.

Remember the 3 critical questions for sales:
- Why do I need this product / service?
- Why do I need to buy it now?
- Why do I need to buy it from you?

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@JustGonnaSendItI have written down this pitch so far, let me know what you think
Who is the customer?The CIO at a logistics company that has been in the market for 30 years
Pain Points They have their own data center and servers. However business volume increases in November-December because of Black Friday and other sales campaigns. Scalability is an issue, they are looking for a cost effective solution so they do not end up locking capital only for a 2-3 months requirement Do not want to invest in physical servers as that will require capital to begin with and then additional costs shall be incurred in physical maintenance of hardware and power supply of servers Want to subscribe to a pay-as-you service so January onwards when there is lesser load, they do not want to keep paying a higher price

Next, I am going to jot down how HPE can help with its solution. What do you think of it?

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

I think that's a good approach.

Being able to back it up with some kind of business case would be helpful.

Essentially:
- Who is the customer
- What are the pain points
- What is the solution
- What is the value / ROI of the solution

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Congrats and keep us posted.

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@CuriousFoxwill do

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@CuriousFox

just got done with the interview, all in all it went great!

One question I need to work on: What is the greatest misconception anyone has had about you?

Next round: Have to pitch HPE Greenlake, let me know if you have any innovative ideas about that!

khiz

Fire Starter

Account Manager

@TennisandSales @Kosta_Konfucius @JustGonnaSendIt @CuriousFoxUpdate: It went great!! one thing that no one mentioned here and the feedback the recruiter gave was: always end your call with an action point
For example: Let's connect on a call tomorrow at 1 pm to discuss the product in detail (or) I would love to connect you to our with our product team next as per your availability

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

Good feedback from recruiter. Glad it went well!

I think many of us that have been in the game for a while forget that step because it's automatic :)

Here's to hoping you land the job and it's an offer you want to accept.

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

great news! and that is great feedback and something we totally should have shared haha. nice work!

jefe

Arsonist

🍁

Did you end up getting the offer?!

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khiz

Inside Sales Account Manager at HPE

36 comments

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