To determine if you have the right candidate, you have ask questions that give you an on-sight of your candidates GRIT.  Like a GRIT scale.  You could even ask yourself these questions to determine if you have GRIT.  You see GRIT is something that you “notice” about someone over time, in meeting someone once, it’s hard to determine if they really have it.

In sales this is the number one thing to measure, to know if someone has or not!  But how?  I put together the JUICE.  Join Us In Creating Excitement on a list of questions to determine if someone has “what it takes” to be on your team.  Here’s a power list of interview questions that you can ask yourself, or anyone else to determine their GRIT and likelihood to succeed..(especially in sales)

Top 50 Questions to ask a candidate you are interviewing.  Ask yourself these to help determining your own GRIT;

1. What have you done to prepare for this job/ interview, project, plan of attack? (what ever it may be)
2. What do you know about the background of it? (anything, weather company your interviewing with, or products your selling)
3. Tell me about a time you have failed at a project in your life? (think about this)
4. Are you in sales now? What methods do you currently use to gain new clients / what works best? (Now look to create a plan, recheck that plan and hone in on what works best for you)
5. What do you see as key skills in obtaining a sale? Now ask yourself how much time do you spend actually doing that skill.
6. Do you have goals for yourself? If so what is one of them? And what was the last goal you accomplished that you set for yourself?
7. What attracts you to the industry you’re in?
8. What is your biggest weakness? (in life to your career, think about it)
9. How would you define team work & communication in the context of sales and/or account management?
10. Describe a situation when you had to influence or convince others to do something your way? Even if it’s with your friends or family, can you describe it? Better yet spend the time OUTLOUD and tell yourself the story of how it happened.
11. Describe an example of a tough decision you had to make quickly? (good practice saying out loud)
12. Why should we you hire you for a sales position?
13. Do you have any significant achievements in the past you can share?
14. On a scale from 1-10 how would you rate your perseverance? (10 being high perseverance) your ability to never give up, and can you give an example of when you last used your perseverance.
15. How competitive are you on a scale from 1-10? (10 being very competitive)
16. If you are an optimist, explain what this means to you?
17. How would you approach a short sales cycle differently than a long sales cycle or vise versa? (go deep, sometimes it’s more relationship oriented and works best to have a strategy made)
18. When do you stop pursuing a client or prospect?
19. Who are you most comfortable selling and why? (Can you describe that target market)
20. What’s your least favorite part of the sales process? (What’s your favorite part?)
21. What motivates you? And do you have a picture of it on your desk, or a model perhaps, or something tangible that you can see that thing all the time? If not get one.
22. Have you ever had ups and downs in sales, and what did you do to turn yourself around?
23. In your last position for sales how much time did you spend cultivating client relationships versus hunting and prospecting for new ones?
24. What’s your approach to handling a client’s objections? Do you have the common objection responses written down?
25. What are some of your favorite questions to ask prospects? What about clients?
26. What’s your opinion of the role of “learning” in life/sales?
27. Describe relationship selling to yourself and how you would do it?
28. What motivates you as a sales professional or in your career?
29. How would you describe the corporate sales culture of your company you represent? Are you contributing to that culture and engagement?
30. How comfortable are you with cold calling?
31. How long is/was the average sales cycle at your current/previous jobs? Did you notice that as your skill got better your sales cycle shortened?
32. Who and/or where were your most profitable target markets at your job? Remember to go deep.
33. How would you describe your sales technique?
34. Give me an example of when you’ve prospected a client creatively and what was the outcome and what did you do?
35. Where would you like to see yourself improve in the area of sales?
36. What does the term consultative selling mean to you?
37. Have you quit a job that was once a career or worked at the same company for the last 5 years?
38. How do you define success?
39. How would you describe leadership?
40. How would you define passion?
41. There are three ways to learn, visually, auditory, and kinesthetic. How do you learn best?
42. What do you feel is the best way to establish a strong relationship with anyone (client)?
43. Give me an example of where you demonstrated high initiative? Seriously think about this one..
44. Have you been successful in anything? We all have, say it out loud.
45. Have you struggled and found something so difficult you almost quit but then stuck with it and succeeded? If yes, what was it?
46. Have you read any books lately? If so what book?
47. What was your first job ever?
48. What do you do when you lose?
49. Don’t compare yourself to others, but know where you measure up. The point is to know when you can learn something new. How did you do compared to others in your past sales organization? Top 5, middle 80%?
50. What kinds of sacrifices have you had to make to be successful in the past? Again got a story you can tell yourself in the mirror?

I wanted to not only engage my readers here, and offer insight on what you can ask yourself, but make a list of questions that can stand out in determining if someone has a want to succeed.  A need for competitiveness and genuine optimism to help drive an inner want for success.  For those that are clear on their “why” it will be impossible to miss, and those are the candidates that can describe, and give examples immediately from the questions I listed.  Those are the candidates with GRIT.  Hire GRIT, teach skill.  My advice.  – #SellWell  – JUICEman.