RUReady

Enterprise Sales

Interviewing with a competitor - Question

Questions around USP's I can dance around, but "who are your clients?" is a constant question.

I understand the ask. They want to understand what doors you can open right away. I'm always hesitant to offer it up being that im speaking with a competitor.

How have you handled this one in the past?

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Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

"I'm sorry, I'm sure you can understand you're still a competitor and I'm still an employee of company A. As such, I am expected to adhere to company policy of confidentiality. I'm sure you'll understand my need to follow the terms of my contract."

They'll expect you to follow their NDAs once you're employed. They shouldn't expect you to break confidence now.

RUReady

Executive

Enterprise Sales

Spot on! Thanks

TennisandSales

Politicker

Head Of Sales

perfect response!

ChumpChange

Politicker

Channel Manager

Beautiful rebuttal. Acknowledge and defer.

punishedlad

Tycoon

Business Development Team Lead

Ding ding ding 🛎️

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

I would not share any clients detail due to privacy. I would give some surface level details on how I build my pipeline in the existing and how my expertise will help me get clients for them.

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

You can go the NDA route, but I have successfully used this before:
"I work with a number of clients which I will be able to reach out to if I join, however I will quickly exhaust those as would anyone else if you went with a different person.
I bring a lot more than just a rolodex, which I developed myself, such as my ability to manage the sales process from cradle to close".

They might be fishing for client names they can go after with you, but they also may be asking so they know the types of accounts you have previously gone after. A Google account is much different than a local start-up.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

I have got this question and I typically say industry and employee count or revenue, vs saying names of the company

Lots of times they are trying to confirm you have dealt with similar businesses vs trying to use your prior history with a specific company.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Keep it generic by naming vertical markets you call into without naming names.

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RUReady

Interviewing with a competitor - Question

9 comments

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