Sales Professional Interview

Introduction

Wal-Mart is considered as one of the leading chain stores in the world of retail business. Wal-Mart has achieved continuous success over the years since its foundation in 1962. The international net sales of the company in the present years of 2018 amount $118.07 billion. Consequently, in the same fiscal year, the total net sales of the company amount $ 495.76 billion (Statista, 2018). Considering the potential of the company I have selected Claudine Mckenzie, the former store manager of Wal-Mart.

Claudine Mckenzie has served Wal-Mart for more than 18 years. She joined Wal-Mart as a Sales Clerk in 1997. In 1999 she got promoted to the position of Department manager. She became assistant manager in 2001 and co-manager in 2005 and finally become Store Manager in 2008 through her continuous hard work over the years.

During her tenure as a store manager, she managed the team of 15 professional along with hiring and training more than 500 employees.  While working in Wal-Mart, she completed her BA (Business Administration). She left Wal-Mart in 2016. She can be contacted through her Linkedin profile: linkedin.com/in/claudine-mckenzie-21a8a83b.

Purpose

The purpose of this interview is to create networking with the sales professionals along with acquiring the useful information about the sales profession. Moreover, this interview is a source of career exploration.  As the sales professional that is interview can give the best career advice based on the personal experience and knowledge about the filed.

During her tenure being a store manager at Wal-Mart, she was involved in different innovative programs to increase employees’ loyalty as well as reduced employees’ turnover. Moreover, she also conducted much training for the employees to achieve these targets. Therefore, employees’ training is her most favorite part of the job as the training gives the motivation and satisfaction to the employees. Moreover, training also increases the skills and competencies of the employees that enable them to excel in life (Goetsch, 2014). She said that it is the most satisfying thing to see your juniors making progress in their life.

Claudine Mckenzie has recruited more than 500 employees being the store manager. Therefore, during the procedure of recruitment and she selected she had to reject many candidates that couldn’t meet the job criteria (DePillis, 2014). Although it was necessary and based on the fair judgment, she didn’t like to reject those candidates. However, in professional life, one has to do it in this position because everyone can’t be hired.

Stay positive is the best way to motivate oneself that is what she believed. Claudine Mckenzie said that in a professional life everyone has to face difficulties, conflict, and resistance in such situation one should stay calm and positive to avoid stress and do the best.

Sales questions

She was in a very miserable condition when she joined Wal-Mart as a sales clerk. She was just a 19 years old pregnant teen without the support of her partner. This job was the only source of income for her to support her studies and her child too. She never lose hope and the Wal-Mart’s initiative of “life with baby” really helps her to excel in her life and career with a baby (DePillis, 2014). She completed her education and got involved in different training and development programs in Wal-Mart. The education and different training program really helped her to improve her professional competencies and ensures the future success that shed achieved over time.

Always gives the customers what they want or what they desired for. Likewise, the customers must be treated as the kings, and they must be given attention and information about their desired products. In this regard, the sales persons must need to have all the information about the products to be sold along with the good behavior and communication skills to encourage the potential customers to make a purchase (Johnston, 2013).

Her greatest professional strength is that she never restricts herself from learning. She is a change loving person, and she uses to get involved in different innovative programs. Moreover, she always maintained work ethics no matter how difficult the situation would be. Whereas professional weakness must not be revealed in front of anybody, rather one must try to overcome the weakness whether it is personal or professional.

Additional Questions

She had a long career with the Wal-Mart, and during that tenure, the Claudine Mckenzie has faced lots of sales calls most of them went really well, and some of them didn’t come out as per expectation. To be fully informed about the product is one of the most useful things to make a sales call successful. Likewise, showing nice and respectful behavior is also important for a good sale to call as it makes the customers feel special and valuable for the company (Johnston, 2013).

In a sales call, she tends to behave nicely with the customers and try to convince them to make a purchase by providing all the information about the product including all the pros and cons of buying the respective product.  In this way, the customer feels that the salesperson is really concerned about them and he/she is also well informed about the products that inspire that customer and influence their purchasing decisions.

Other Questions

At some point in time, every student has to enter in the professional life which is full of opportunities and hardships as well. In this regard, to be successful in the personal and professional life, one must have to be patient and consistent. Hard work is the key to success as the winner never gives up no matter how hard the situations are.  She started at $ 5.75/ hour and converted it into a six-digit monthly salary with continuous hard work.

Conclusion

Professional life gives us lots of opportunities, but the struggle and hardship are also associated with it. One has to face both the good and the bad phases of life in such situation consistency are the key that ensures the success. Moreover, in a sales profession, the education of the person, behavior, communication skills and product knowledge are the most important things that decide the success or failure of the person. Likewise, one must have to keep himself/herself motivated to achieve the desired career goals.

 

 

References

DePillis, L. (2014). This Walmart worker went from temp to store manager. Here’s why that’s so tough. Retrieved July 16, 2018, from Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/01/31/this-walmart-worker-went-from-temp-to-store-manager-heres-why-thats-so-tough/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4cf3bebb0ecd

Goetsch. (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. pearson.

Johnston. (2013). Sales force management: Leadership, innovation, technology. Routledge.

Statista. (2018). Walmart’s annual net sales worldwide from 2008 to 2018, by division (in billion U.S. dollars). Retrieved July 16, 2018, from Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/269403/net-sales-of-walmart-worldwide-by-division/