“Sell me this Pen” - The most overrated Question in Sales

I am sure most of you have heard this question in your Life,” Show me how to sell this Pen”. Be it in real life, books or movies, we have all heard this somewhere. And mostly, we have seen this question being thrown at Salespeople during interviews. During my initial years in selling, I was always been drawn towards this question. Over a period of time and after interacting with thousands of people, one thing which I have realized is that we can never judge a Salesperson’s success in Selling basis his response to this question. But, still, a large number of interviewers base their hiring decision through this question. Let me share with you, as to why I am not a huge fan of this question:

A Sale is a two-way dialogue. It’s not a monologue:

Salespeople are mostly given 30seconds and asked to Sell the Pen. The Salesperson then starts with his pitch and concludes the same by making a buying offer. In most of the cases, the interviewer doesn’t participate in this process. Thus making the Sales Pitch a mere Monologue. Remember, in real life, for successfully closing a deal, you must Ask Questions. With questions you control the flow of your pitch/conversation. Thus, guiding your buyer towards your determined outcome. With this, you shift your talk from a mere Monologue to a two-way discussion. This will form the basis of your success in Selling The Pen.

Give salesperson a platform where you can rate them on their ability to ASK questions.

You may Miss out on Sales Superstars:

Such questions don’t tell us much about the personality profile of a candidate. Factors such as high dominance/influence/steadiness/compliance must not be overlooked. By giving too much weightage on a single question, the interviewers miss out on the profiling factors which are very important if you are looking to hire Sales Superstars for your organization.

Look for Hunger and not merely a Reply:

If you still want to go ahead asking this question in your future interviews, I would highly recommend that you look for Hunger in the eyes of candidates. Look if they are hungry for success/ hungry for money/hungry for learning/ hungry for coaching. This hunger in their Body language is more important than their reply to the question, “Sell me this Pen”. Even if their answer doesn’t make any sense, hire them. You can always train them. Remember, the difference between Successful and un-successful salespeople is TRAINING.