Behavioral Examples Flashcards
Tell me about a time you had to get really good at a skill. What did you do to achieve that goal?
Back when I first started at Sprint I was practically thrown on to the sales floor with little training or experience and was expected to hit multiple metrics and high sales goals with no clear path to achieving them. I needed to start hitting my numbers within just 30 days or my company would start looking elsewhere for a candidate who could perform. To improve my personal sales process I spent lots of time reading books (the little red book of selling, how successful people lead, talk like ted) to pick up skills which improved my interactions with customers and my conversion. I also spent lots of time reflecting after each sale to determine what could have gone better and where I missed opportunities. Ultimately I continued this process of self improvement until I became a top 10 producer each month for my company, eventually working my way up to a store manager in just 9 months.
Give me an example of when you had to make a presentation to an unresponsive audience, how did you handle it?
Tell me about successful formal presentation you made recently
Every year our boutique is expected to make significant revenue and there’s usually a lot riding on that revenue. I am the only paid member of this part of the organization and we need lots of volunteer labor (usually 220+) to ensure its success. The task I was charged with is training volunteers who may have never had sales experience to sell effectively in a 15 minute training. It took me a few iterations to perfect my training presentation which was in part due to initial trainings leading to confusion and low productivity. I knew that I needed to pivot, simplify and meet the volunteers where they were. The action I took was to prepare a training that was geared toward my volunteer’s experience level, a training that would give them the skills they needed to succeed and the skills they needed to improve our profits. I did this by knowing that my target audience had very little experience, so I designed the training and methods of selling to be fool proof and systemized (like scanning groceries). I established early on how important their labor was and that we could not do this without them to give them confidence. I would organize the content in a methodical way as to simplify and mimic their experiences in a grocery store. The result was that with the effective training I provided them, we collaboratively served over 3000 customers over 15 days and exceed our sales goal by 150% in our first year.
Tell me about an important negotiation that failed, what went wrong and why?
Tell me about a time you worked hard for a sale but didn’t get it in the end, how did
you handle the situation?
Give an example of when you had to overcome strong resistance from a customer.
During my Sprint days a big part of my responsibility was prospecting and qualifying new B2B accounts. Early on in my sales career I had a whale of an opportunity that didn’t work out for me and I still remember it. A business called Servicemaster had close to 100 combined phone and tablet lines they were interested in bringing over from a competitor. My responsibility was to qualify, develop, and close their business. I started by setting an appointment for the customer in the store so we could have a one on one discussion about his businesses needs and how we could provide more value. From our initial discussions Sprint was going to be a good solution for him because we were providing new devices, more coverage area, and a lower price over all. Initial talks were great as we discussed his needs and concerns, he was excited about moving over though he needed to talk to other decision makers in his company. When he came in to the store to finalize the deal I came up against a pretty big objection which had not surfaced before. His plan at his current carrier was unlimited while the plan at Sprint had a limited amount of data. We agreed on every part of the deal except the service plan. I did my best to work out some alternatives for him. I worked to overcome his objectinon by looking at his phone usage and determined that his median use at his other carrier would still not exceed the limits of the plan we were offering and we’d be providing more value. The more I dug the more I discovered that his objection was more emotional and immaterial. It was more about his comfort and being afraid to try a new service. In the end this customer ended up walking away from the deal which was frustrating but was a great learning opportunity. This experience opened my eyes to the importance of qualifying the customer and asking as many discovery questions as possible at the beginning of the deal. It also taught me to continually qualify even past the initial stages of the deal as objections right before the close of the deal are much more difficult to overcome.
Describe a recent situation where you negotiated terms with a tough customer.
During my Sprint days a big part of my responsibility was prospecting and qualifying new B2B accounts. Early on in my sales career I had a whale of an opportunity that didn’t work out for me and I still remember it. A business called Servicemaster had close to 100 combined phone and tablet lines they were interested in bringing over from a competitor. My responsibility was to qualify, develop, and close their business. I started by setting an appointment for the customer in the store so we could have a one on one discussion about his businesses needs and how we could provide more value. From our initial discussions Sprint was going to be a good solution for him because we were providing new devices, more coverage area, and a lower price over all. Initial talks were great as we discussed his needs and concerns, he was excited about moving over though he needed to talk to other decision makers in his company. When he came in to the store to finalize the deal I came up against a pretty big objection which had not surfaced before. His plan at his current carrier was unlimited while the plan at Sprint had a limited amount of data. I did my best to work out some alternatives for him. I worked to overcome his objection by looking at his phone usage and determined that his median use at his other carrier would still not exceed the limits of the plan we were offering and we’d be providing more value. He then started putting up objections about things like the phones being too expensive stating that his other 5+ year old phones were paid off, he mentioned that the service area was not covering all his businesses, etc. I had to go back to basics with this customer and hammer home the additional value we provided and the ROI that he was going to get out of coming over to us. Ultimately he came around to our side on every objection except the data hang up. The more I dug the more I discovered that his objection was more emotional and immaterial. It was more about his comfort and being afraid to try a new service. In the end this customer ended up walking away from the deal which was frustrating but was a great learning opportunity. This experience opened my eyes to the importance of qualifying the customer and asking as many discovery questions as possible at the beginning of the deal. It also taught me to continually qualify even past the initial stages of the deal as objections right before the close of the deal are much more difficult to overcome.
Tell me how you developed your largest account
Describe a recent approach you took with a brand new prospect.
(Not my largest, but a larger win I can think of recently) I met a new prospect at an in person event who was interested in bringing three students over to our program from a competing program, but had some apprehension about whether we were a good fit. It was an all or nothing deal where all 3 students would need to move over or none of them would. This could be a huge deal for us. I was tasked with figuring out how best to position our product to multiple decision makers (kids and mom) and addressing all their pain points. I knew that I would need to find the right communication style and cadence of communication to reach them. After some general prospecting (Linkedin, facebook, etc) I started by contacting them via email as I know that method can be lower pressure for clients. After initial email communications I discovered that this client preferred phone communication. The client was very flighty and often hard to reach so I determined consistent and assertive communication was needed. I set up phone call reminders in our CRM to hold myself accountable, made scrupulous notes on client interactions, and maintained regular touchpoints with the client. After many voicemails I finally reached the client and was able to ascertain that we would be able to beat the value of her competitor as we offered more classes at a slightly lower price, mom was on board. The hangup was that the other stakeholders (the kids) weren’t on board as they had not sampled our product. I took an unorthodox approach and invited the kids in for a week of sample classes. The kids were ecstatic about our programming after the week’s end. What closed the deal was adding the additional value of a family discount. This client went on to do business with us for 5 years and would usually spend at least $15,000.00 each year. Maintaining good lines of communication after the sale is as important as making the sale. I have instituted my regular customer feedback/service call back strategy with the family every 90 days as our school year is split into 4 quarters. This helps us to proactively avoid any future pitfalls.
Give an example of when you had to change your approach to a prospect because the initial one failed.
I met a new prospect at an in person event who was interested in bringing three students over to our program from a competing program, but had some apprehension about whether we were a good fit. It was an all or nothing deal where all 3 students would need to move over or none of them would. This could be a huge deal for us. I was tasked with figuring out how best to position our product to multiple decision makers (kids and mom) and addressing all their pain points. I knew that I would need to find the right communication style and cadence of communication to reach them. After some general prospecting (Linkedin, facebook, etc) I started by contacting them via email as I know that method can be lower pressure for clients. I sent many emails 3-4 with no reply from the prospect at all. Finally I sent an email letting her know that we were closing the account and inquiring where we went wrong. I got a voicemail from the client the next day and discovered that this client preferred phone communication as she had three kids and barely had any time. The client was very flighty and often hard to reach so I determined consistent and assertive communication was needed. I set up phone call reminders in our CRM to hold myself accountable and maintain regular touchpoints with the client. After many voicemails I finally reached the client and was able to ascertain that we would be able to beat the value of her competitor as we offered more classes at a slightly lower price, mom was on board. The hangup was that the other stakeholders (the kids) weren’t on board as they had not sampled our product. I took an unorthodox approach and invited the kids in for a week of sample classes. The kids were ecstatic about our programming after the week’s end. What closed the deal was adding the additional value of a family discount. This client went on to do business with us for 5 years and would usually spend at least $15,000.00 each year.
How do you deal with stress?”
“Tell me about how you worked effectively under pressure
The specific scenario happened last spring. Spring is often a tough time of year for us as we are making a transition between two programs, our fall and summer programs. I am usually at my busiest during this time as the majority of programming change overs fall on my shoulders. A school in the Portland area closed permanently due to COVID, and our new supervisor wanted me to onboard 30 new students which is something that would usually happen during fall, not spring. I was responsible for reaching out to each new familes to begin talks of bringing their children over to our program and closing their business. To ensure our existing programming did not slip and we were not ignoring our current clients, I needed to reprioritize existing goals, use organization systems, automation to stay on track, and engage other team members. I used Microsoft To-Do’s to prioritize my daily, weekly, and monthly goals for bringing on these new students. I shared this with my team so that we were working off of a shared goal. I also used the outlook calendar function to set hard cut offs for our existing programming so that we didn’t lose sight of our pre-existing goals. I used our CRM to set call back reminders so that each of these families were getting multiple touchpoints before we closed their business. Ultimately by working collaboratively with my team and using the technology available to us to take some of the burden off of me we were able to bring on 20 new students late in the year, resulting in $20,000 more revenue than we planned for.
Tell me about how you build relationships
When I started at OBT, I was a part time hourly employee with limited influence over our business. I convinced my director that if the position was converted to a full time salaried position that I would be able to use my unique talents to increase our revenue. My task was to increase our revenue by bringing in new accounts through relationship building efforts which would guarantee growth in our revenue stream. Once an initial qualification or conversation was made to get their information, there were several parts to my relationship building efforts with clients: 1. Ask rapport building questions relevant to each family through conversations and notating key information about them in CRMS. Listen actively. 2. Understand their motivations and reasons for choosing our program over others as well as their needs. 3. Consistent follow up many times until business is secured. The result of my continued effort to build relationships with clients was a increase in gross profit by 11% from 2018-2023.
“Tell Me About a Time You Went Above and Beyond”
“What’s the most challenging sale you’ve ever had”
“Tell me about how you build relationships”
“Have you ever lost a customer or sale?”
“Tell me about one of the most time-consuming sales you have made.”
A family who had been with the school for 7 years and was high value left the year I arrived at the organization in a pretty spectacular way due to problems with communication, and a lack of confidence in the abilities of the employees. This wasn’t something that anyone expected me to do, but I recognize the value of a stable customer base and the way which they promote the organization by word of mouth, so I set out to win back their business. I started this process through another avenue of OBT at the boutique, giving them the chance to contribute to the organization via volunteering and win them over on a personal level. I built a personal relationship with the mother, father, and child (at one point taking them out to dinner) to show them how the quality of employee at OBT improved and how my communication style with other parts of the organization bleeds into my other roles. Building trust with them was a key part of my approach with them. After several years of working with me in a capacity outside of the school they felt comfortable enough to come back to the school. This was really important because the family went on to volunteer for 600+ hours total unpaid labor, spend $7,000.00, and became huge vocal promoters of the school (autistic child) which is something which can’t be measured financially. This relationship was a complex one that involved multiple stakeholders in the organization so it affected many folks.
“Tell Me About a Time You Failed”
“Tell me about a time when you were given a task but you didn’t have the skills or
information to complete it”
“Have you ever made a mistake? How did you handle it?”
Back in my sprint days our team had a co-worker who was severely underperforming in one specific metric which was add ons to existing packages. His performance was bringing down the entire store’s performance and was negatively impacting our bottom line for several months. My team and I didn’t perceive this as a shortcoming of his, but a failure of coaching and community building. I needed to find a way to help him improve in this metric in a way which would be constructive and well received. As a new manager, I had to do some learning to find a way to get to him. I read several books on leadership and consulted my direct manager for any advice to assist this employee. With that information in mind, my direct actions included coaching him to try some pre-prepared language which me and other associates found to be successful in closing add ons. I also facilitated and moderated a team meeting to support this associate where other staff could share tips and tricks to help him improve in this metric. This action specifically helped this associate feel like he had a community of folks to lean on rather than just himself or me. Ultimately this improved his performance from 5th quintile (of 5) to 2nd quintile. This improved our store’s performance from 4th to 2nd quintile and improved all of our paychecks. it also improved the relationships between all of the employees in the store and created a more supportive environment.
“Tell me about a sales goal you set for yourself”
“Tell me about a time you set a goal for yourself and you reached your objective”
Our organization was coming back from COVID and we really needed a stellar year profit wise to recover from the losses we took over the past two years. It was questionable if anyone would even want to come to our shows since we had not had any in person shows in two years, stakes were high. The task I was given was to reach a certain gross profit during the month of December. Our finance department set a very modest goal, but I saw this as a huge opportunity and told her that we could probably double it. I set a lofty, but achievable goal by increasing retail price on product currently in inventory, making strategic buys to keep costs low on new product, and ensuring we had appropriate staffing. I worked backwards from the total, setting revenue goals for each show and tracking our percentage to goal to determine where more effort needed to be applied. With successful staffing, product pricing, and goal setting we came only slightly under double our goal. It’s always my style to set a goal which is much higher than I need so that I’m pushing myself to grow, keeping other departments happy, and increasing revenue.
“What goals have you set for yourself this year, how have you ensured progress towards them?”
I was handed a sales operation that was hobbling along and was often times treated as a hot potato which no one wanted to take responsibility for. It had changed hands many times, usually the manager would leave after just one year. This led to problems with staffing and income. I treated this part of my job like my baby and always strove to improve from the last year. Several of the goals I set for myself this year were reducing our labor budget, Improved sales, and increased productivity. I cultivated a base of 240+ volunteers this last season, bringing on new folks and creating a welcoming and friendly environment. I started earlier than ever this year and began recruiting 2 whole months in advance, measuring our percentage to goal weekly instead of monthly to ensure our recruiting approach was more flexible. We improved our sales volume this year by offering an upsell to each client and increasing the number of volunteer employees per shift, the number of POS systems, and the transaction speed. Progress in this area was measured by running sales reports at the end of each shift to determine whether our current offers to clients were successful or if we needed to offer something else. The improvement in number of volunteers per shift resulted in a 25% reduction in our labor budget, which was a hard pill to swallow since I was the only paid employee and roughly doubling our revenue goal for the year. All this improvement to our processes and revenue garnered attention from our DFO and allowed them to see the potential revenue stream which was available to them for future growth.
“What Is Your Greatest Accomplishment”
“Tell me about a time you faced a challenge. How did you deal with it, and what motivated you to keep going?”
Boutique growth.
I was handed a sales operation that was hobbling along and was often times treated as a hot potato which no one wanted to take responsibility for. It had changed hands many times, usually the manager would leave after just one year. This led to problems with staffing and income. My responsibility was to cultivate a new following of volunteers and lead the this department to financial success. Improved staffing, increased productivity, systemization, organization, and modernization of processes were the things which I took on while in the role. I cultivated a volunteer base of 200+ volunteers each season, bringing on new folks and creating a welcoming and friendly environment. This was done through an in depth sales training to give volunteers confidence in their abilities in front of clients. This encouraged repeat volunteering thus helping to remedy the issue of constant untrained employees. Increased productivity and systemization was my other charge. This was achieved through increasing the number of volunteer employees per shift, the number of POS systems, the transaction speed, and increasing the average sale amount per transaction. These improvements resulted in a 150% increase in revenue our first year and maintained growth over the next three years. All this improvement to our processes and revenue garnered attention from our DFO and allowed them to see the potential revenue stream which was available to them for future growth.
“Tell me about a time when you managed numerous responsibilities and how did you handle it?”
We have two distinct programs that operate each year. Our fall programming which runs for 9 months and our summer programming which runs throughout the months of June, July, and August. Oftentimes preparation work such as prospecting students, generating new leads, and developing them for the summer needs to happen simultaneously while we are maintaining all of the new customers we received in fall. Balancing these competing priorities and ensuring that neither program is shortchanged is a challenge, largely falling on my shoulders. To do this effectively, I set hard deadlines and publish these to our customers for accountability. I use programs like Microsoft to-do’s to set short, medium, and long term goals to ensure programming is available for registration in advance of the deadline. Dedicating time to those goals each day helps greatly in being able to maintain our current programming while also making progress on our summer offerings. We started receiving revenue one month in advance this year compared to normal years due to my efforts.
“Tell me about a time you set a goal for yourself and you reached your objective”
“What is your process for setting goals”
“Give an example of a goal you reached and tell me how you achieved it.”
I am the only paid employee in the boutique part of my role at OBT. We serve over 3000 customers in about 15 days and need a significant amount of volunteers (usually around 220) by the first week of December to handle this traffic. I am responsible for recruiting, mainly through written email solicitation campaigns, these folks. Phone, social media, and in person are also ways in which volunteers are recruited. To achieve this goal I start very early in October with recruitment. I track my percentage to goal at the same time as last year to inform my approach and determine when I need to apply more effort. The system I use also tracks the percentage to completion based on current sign up numbers. I check in on our current percentage to goal daily and send out reminder emails based on where we’re at. If we’re tracking behind our goal I will diversify recruitment tactics through social media posts, verbal communication, and volunteer website posts. I find we’re more successful if we over staff as there are always cancellations and last minute issues which can’t be planned for. Each year we’ve reached or over reached our goal for staffing. This has allowed us to maintain nearly a 100% increase to our financial goal last year.
