princess_slaya

RVP

Sales Management Interviews & 30-60-90 Plans

Interviewing for sales management positions for the first time after getting some initial management experience under my belt.

What questions should one expect to get in sales management interviews?

What recommendations do you have for putting together interview 30-60-90 plans to knock it out of the park?

Any input from the seasoned leader savages most appreciated

🧢 Sales Management

🤝 Interviewing/Offer

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TheNegotiator

Arsonist

VP of Sales

This one is a major graduation. Here’s what I can offer you:
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SM is a combination of leadership and technical skills. You have to manage people who are in/under amongst the most volatile and stressful positions in business, and still find a way to get the best out of them, have a positive relationship with them, and balance the needs/objectives of the company. Representing an understanding of this concept is first and foremost. The third point is tricky because depending on the company you’re interviewing with, they will look for different qualities and you will have to judge that in real time. You will likely never be asked a theoretical question that leads to this answer, but you need to convey this understanding in everything you say.
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A critical point to mention here, ESPECIALLY for first-time or relatively inexperienced leaders are the ins and outs around HR-appropriate behaviour. And I don’t mean, you can’t hit on your people or obvious shit like that. You’re expected to be impeccably well-behaved, but I mean making strategic and tactical decisions to protect the interests and reputation of the company. Anticipating potentially controversial interactions with the team, or amongst the team, or with clients and planning for them in advance. Solving customer experience issues before they happen by improving the sales process. The strongest and most valued leaders (not exclusive to sales) are those who can demonstrate they know how to make sure company doesn’t end up embroiled in HR/PR bullshit. You win MAJOR brownie points for demonstrating that maturity and it’s often overlooked in preparation.
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Be prepared to talk about leadership style. I.e. how do YOU extract productivity and performance out of people? How do you motivate/inspire? How do you skill people up/train? How do you test/weed out the wrong people?
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Be prepared to lend credibility to your own business acumen. Being able to reference mentors, sources of content/training/methodologies are extremely valuable. It’s one thing to talk about implementing a new process, but where did you get that idea from? Did you pull it out of your ass? Do you have any evidence to explain why it’ll work besides your own belief?
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30/60/90 questions are reasonably common, even if the are pretty inane. Especially if you don’t yet KNOW the company, and so your objectives may change based on what you’re coming into. Your answer for 30 should ALWAYS be to soak everything up. Learn everything about everything. Review data, sales process, performance metrics, KPIs, win/loss, observe the team composition, dynamic, culture, people. After that, again, it’s quite contextual. Some interviewers will give you context and others will just kind of ask you to speak.
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A generally healthy answer for 60 is to set processes and systems straight. Fix clearly apparent flaws and make sure your house is in order while charting a course for the future.
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For 90, an approach I take is some variation “that will depend on what I learn in the first 60” - basically communicate that once you have the lay of the land you will define a clear strategy, with clear success criteria and KPIs and forge ahead towards it. If the team lacks competency, you’ll aim to train and skill-up. If the sales process is inherently weak, you’ll institute a new one with stronger milestones and train on how to wrangle prospects through it. An important one here (some of the most highly sought after sales leaders have this one in the bag) is if the product/solution/company are inherently weak, how will you find a way to succeed regardless and sell around it, without making excuses?
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You asked, so that’s my input, but 30/60/90 tend not to be that important.
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Finally, be prepared to speak most eloquently about HOW you’ve solved problems before. If you have management experience and you can speak about where you’ve solved organizational problems, that’s great, but not necessary. Speak about how you’ve removed roadblocks, circumvented obstacles in your own direct sales experience and express your confidence in being able to apply those abilities to a team/org. Reference clients who weren’t having success and changed you made to get them there. Talk about interpersonal issues and how you maturely dealt with them. Talk about how you took ownership of the whole sales cycle for a specific high-maintenance customer, because that’s what it took to land the deals. Getting a signature and handing them off to the on-boarding team wasn’t sufficient; you identified and recognized this, and hand-held it through to close.
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Above all, portray confidence, maturity and self-assurance. You’ll get the offer every time.

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

Sales

Remarkable answer @TheNegotiator thanks for the level of detail here.

InQ5WeTrust

Arsonist

No marketing, mayo isn't an MQL

Now, this is negotiation; the trade federation would be proud.

Mjollnir

Politicker

Account Executive

wow. impressive answer. well put!

princess_slaya

Fire Starter

RVP

Thank you so much for the thoughtful response, all very helpful I will get my examples lined up for these points

princess_slaya

Fire Starter

RVP

Thoughts on any particular framework to use for evaluating reps in the first 30 days?

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Dude. Wow. This is fantastic.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Days 1-30: Determine the reality of your organization.
Days 31-60: Map out the "end-game" of where your org is headed AND how you'll get there.
Days 61-90: Execute the plan you developed in the previous sprint.
Days 91+: Continue on execution and iteration of the process.

There is a bare-bones playbook of what all managers should be driving towards. It's up to you to tailor the specifics based on what you already know about the company and/or sales org that already exists.

UrAssIsSaaS

Arsonist

SaaS Eater

This is the plan I have taken into any new team/role and its never lead me astray.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Sorry not in management position but I always like to ask the top 3 challenges that they have and how they feel this role can help them achieve.

All the best!

TheNegotiator

Arsonist

VP of Sales

There are only two: effort and results. Results is the easy part, just pull their stats out of the CRM.
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You don’t yet know these people (and you should say as much) so evaluating them should sync with your soaking up of new info.
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Shadow existing reps to learn the sales process they’re using, while monitoring their adherence to it, their skill executing it, and the effort they put in, in general. You can fake effort for a day, but you cannot fake historical activity. Typically the litmus test here is subject matter expertise and demo quality. Do THEY KNOW what they’re selling, and can they speak about it knowledgeably? Could they sell it (compellingly) to you?
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That’s generally more than enough to have a clear picture.

MCP

Valued Contributor

Sales Director

I have never had a 30-60-90 question come my way, but if I did, I’d talk about meeting people, observing & learning as much as possible in the first 30, assessing people, process & tools during the 2nd 30 & drafting & implementing plans during the last 30, with some quick wins sprinkled in.
As for other questions, that varies by role you interview with. You will likely be asked how you would gain the trust of your team. You’ll be asked what your management style is. You’ll be asked how you handle a struggling rep and / or conflict. You’ll be asked questions to gauge your thought process. You’ll be asked what your day-to-day as a manager has looked like. You’ll be asked how you leverage data. You’ll be asked how you work interdepartmentally. You’ll be asked about sales cycles & deal sizes. You’ll be asked about sales process. You’ll be asked what you do to help reps get deals unstuck.
There’s really no secret to it, it’s about finding the right fit. Don’t tell them what you think they want to hear, tell them about you and the right ones will move accordingly.
Best of luck.
End of line.

princess_slaya

Fire Starter

RVP

Absolutely about finding the right fit, need to be smart about this next move and it's scary.

gripittandripitt

Contributor

Senior Global Sales Manager

How do I save this? I’d like to have a point of reference to come back to this at a later point. Such a valuable read. Thank you @TheNegotiator for your thoughts!

princess_slaya

Fire Starter

RVP

Personally I keep a notebook of career advice and aha moments, great to have ready to refer back to when putting together interview presentations

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princess_slaya

Sales Management Interviews & 30-60-90 Plans

15 comments

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