It’s Friday so let’s go with another anecdote. During a phone screen, I asked a candidate a fairly innocuous sales interview question, “What is the biggest contribution you made in your last job?”

He took several moments to gather his thoughts and then offered this:

Good question. I would have to say hands down that the greatest contribution thus far with my current company is the fact that I have increased RFQ’s (request for quote) by over 200%.

RFQ’s? Obviously, I was hoping to hear something about increasing sales, improving the closing ratio or turning around an underperforming territory. Nope, it was far worse. Generating a quote with his employer entailed numerous hours from several departments.

The questions that flowed from his statement:

• How many thousands of dollars are we talking about to turn out the quotes?
• How did he come upon all these RFQ€™s? Did he qualify them?
• And most importantly, did he close any sales from all of these RFQ’s?

You know, there is a reason why they call it selling and not quoting.

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Posted By Lee Charles | Anecdotes | |