Mastering the Mock Call in Interviews

Krissy Manzano: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Blueprint Round Table. Today, we are going to talk about one of the most important steps during the interview process in order to secure that offer. And it’s all about the mock call presentation stage. Um, and we see a lot of candidates failing, especially on the sales side, miserably. It’s the knockout stage. It’s as one hiring manager told us where our candidates go to die interview process. And so we want to walk people through why that’s happening, how to approach this stage, because it’s different at every company, but really key things that are going to be helpful for you in being able to show your skills, even in a setting that’s a little bit nervous. So Emily, I’m going to pass it over to you to kick it off and give us all of that wisdom.

Emily Bell: Yeah, well, I would say a couple of things and every, every company is going to do it a little differently. Um, but the biggest thing is the preparation and making sure that you have done enough preparation on the front end to feel comfortable with what you’re about to jump into. So whether that be, this is a mock discovery conversation, this is just a demo, or maybe it’s a combination and a hybrid, including both.

You want to make sure that you’ve done enough due diligence on your end to where you’re not necessarily expected to be a specialist or perfect, but you want to feel confident and the easiest way to provide confidence for yourself is to prepare. And a couple of things that you can do to prepare, um, even without having formal training on a platform is by going online and looking up videos of that solution, um, reading client case studies, understanding why certain clients came on board and what feature functions were key differentiators.

Most organizations have all of this available on their websites. And if you are in a preparation stage first for a interview setting like this, if you can’t find it, asking your contact for that information is absolutely recommended. Um, They may proactively provide that to you in the prompt or whatever, you know, interview preparation material that they provide. Some don’t. Some might think well, they’ll ask if they ask we’ll give it to them if they don’t we won’t and maybe they just go and find it on their own.

But asking the question I think is is way better than, you know, going in blind if you can’t find the material that you need. So the biggest step and being successful in a mock stage is preparation. Not perfection, but preparation. So, um, I think one of the examples that I’ve given to a candidate, they were really kind of in their head about, um, I don’t know, I’m going to be presenting a product that I have not been trained on and two people who are the specialist and, um, basically kind of walk them through, Hey, to like, take a breath. It’s going to be okay. Most I would say 99 percent of clients that we work with are absolutely not expecting you to present as if you are part of their team today. What they want to see is confidence. Um, They want to see your professional polish. If you’re an enterprise seller, they want to see executive presence.

They might even want to see that in a mid market type role, depending on the strategic nature of their platform and who their personas are. But the biggest thing in consistency is that confidence to, um, be able to guide through a platform or through a discovery conversation and show that you’re actively listening to what they’re saying.

Um, I’ll kind of pause there. I’m wondering if you have any thoughts or if this is kind of like, um, you know, resonated at all. Kind of your experience and walking candidates through the stage.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. You know, I think initially when, I mean, this is not a new stage as far as the interview process as a whole, this has been around for really long time, right? At least the last decade. But what’s been interesting is the last 12 months is in this stage has been something that candidates cannot pass instantly.

And so my initial reaction was clients, what are you doing here that’s not correct? And I’m not saying that they can’t make some changes, right. To make sure that they’re really getting folks to showcase what they can and can’t do. But, when you actually really get into it, people are not doing discovery.

They’re not asking questions. And to your point, I think people get nervous and they just want to pitch. They just want to pitch. And we are in a world where what selling has always meant by definition, but you didn’t have to do to sell is now required. You have to do discovery and be curious, right? To your point, we’ll see a lot of folks get the prompt, get all of the information and they will ask no questions. They just go and they prep. When you get to that stage, I can assure you that hiring managers want you to be successful because it’s a big part of their time for you to go in and not be successful. They are dying for you to call and reach out to them and say, what are my questions here? Right. Or, or, Hey, I’m confused. Or is there a video I can find that is going to, they’re going to eat that up. They’re going to love that. But you have to actually ask questions. Also, prior to the mock call stage, there are so many questions that you can ask. I always say you should be having secondary level questions. It shouldn’t just be what’s your value prop. What’s in credit. You should be doing that homework, by the way. What’s culture like? It’s just very basic questions that are important, but they’re basic. Companies want to know that you’re excited about what they’re doing, but the only way you can really do it is if you do your homework and you ask and keep digging.

Right? I always tell people, pretend you got the job today, what would you do? And so I think you’re spot on all of that. I think it’s so critical. That you come in and just, you know, you run it in the same. Follow the instructions. They give a lot of details in most cases, because they want to see if you’re detail oriented.

They’re seeing if you’re detail oriented. How do you handle situations where you don’t know all the answers? They’re not expecting you to write. Can you pause? Can you say that’s a great question? I think I know the answer, I’m not sure about that. Can I get back to you? Right. Basic things like that. And so I think we’re back to the basics of sales that people haven’t had to practice for a really long time because of how buying was the past two decades and where it is today.

Emily Bell: Yeah, it’s interesting that the question piece is the, I would say the most consistent reason for pass fail and and you can tell candidates all the time, like, dig in, go separate, like, go into further layers when you hear a requirement, um, be kind of surface. In a conversation, um, but it’s hard for them to understand. Well, I replied like, I don’t, I don’t know how it could have gone deeper. An example of this would be like in a mock buyer statement, like your, your contact, whoever they may be, um, is like budget allocation for this new tech is really tight this year and a surface level fail response, which isn’t bad would be our platform provides great value for the cost or right. It’s like you’re pitching that. That’s what that’s what we mean by. They don’t want you to sell it. They want you to dig in deeper a pass. And honestly, you’ll stand out and likely get the job and a better deeper question by a rep in that scenario would be, given your budget restraints, what are your top priorities this year?

How do you foresee a solution like ours fitting into your long term strategy? You know, you’re, you’re kind of asking the same question, but it’s way more layered. You’re qualifying the deal. You’re showing them that I know how to prioritize, you know, my pipeline. That’s what they’re looking for. Neither of those responses required me to be a subject matter expert on that platform. So that that’s what they’re looking for.

Now, it does get a little trickier when they do expect you to walk through their platform or some type of sandboxUI. My, my recommendation is watch any and all videos, immerse yourself in that solution as much as you can. Uh, if you have dual monitors at your home office and you have that option, absolutely have both of those pulled up.

Do not try to survive on one laptop for that setting. Like, treat it like you would do a demo in a typical SaaS, you know, sales environment. Um, have practice logging in. Practice those little transitions, like things that are just like outside of, um, you know, what would be considered, you know, understanding the platform, like little bitty nuances like that to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Everything you would do in a typical day to day demo environment, replicate that in the interview setting. You’re going to be very happy with yourself if you do. So, yeah,

Krissy Manzano: 100 percent no, I think it’s great advice. It’s spot on and candidates. You have to like one, the amount of people that like cancel last minute because something came up or what, like, it takes a lot of work to get people here. If you’re getting to the stage, they want you to be successful.

There’s a lot of times where in the interview process, they’re like, I’m going to like be pushing maybe a little too hard on the candidate to get you out. Once you get to this place, they want you to be successful. So if you want this job, if you want to have a shot at this job, get ready 15 minutes beforehand, right?

Like all the preparation. Practice it once through with someone. Ask the questions. To your point, emily, right? The most important piece is not giving answers. It’s understanding their responses or their questions and a lot of times to understand that, it means you need to ask questions back, not provide an answer to your point.

And what is your, what’s the priority for you all given your budget restraints? All of those things. Summarize it, right? Like, walk right out, like, what is a perfect sales view look like, right? It’s discovery. It’s understanding. Follow their prompt. It’s summarizing things. Who are all the people I need to reach out to.

All of that stuff, but also one thing for clients is this, this stage is so helpful in this time of needing to hire, um, because what we do know is that, like, I always say this. Just because you tell someone to go kick a soccer ball in the top left hand corner of the net. You can tell them exactly what you want to do.

And they don’t have the skills to do it. They’re not going to be able to do it. They’re not going to get just lucky. Right. And so it’s a perfect way to see what someone has skills to able to do and what you’re okay, know what you’re okay to coach on and what you’re okay

A good point.

So that’s, that’s the huge piece.

And candidates, if there’s a miss or something, it needs to be on you to ask for a do over. You’re not always going to get those, but show that you understand where you had misses. Cause that’s also really important. 

Emily Bell: I agree with that. I mean, I think you almost, I, in my mind, it’s almost like, especially when a demo is involved, it’s almost treat it like it’s your first demo on the job. You’re not going to be perfect, but you can pull up enough information and prepare enough to feel reasonably comfortable that it’s not going to be a bomb.

So, um, another expert tip would be, and I’ve done this at every sales role I’ve ever been in before when I’m onboarding and I’m newly presenting a new platform. Have the knowledge center pulled up on a separate monitor. So if a feature is brought up that you’re not familiar with, that you haven’t fully immersed yourself in knowing it, um, just type that in into the search function of that knowledge center.

It’ll likely pull up a one pager with, um, actual images of the platform and likely their marketing team has done a decent job at giving you kind of a script of how to walk through that feature by just describing it and showing it, you know, live on your screen. So a lot of little tips and strategies that, um, I think candidates forget to do because it’s an interview setting and not a day to day demo, but treat it the exact same.

I mean, that’s really what these hiring teams are looking for. Not perfection because they understand you’ve not been trained on the product, but they are looking for someone who can reasonably come in and like high level, hold their own. Um, And then ideally when they’re trained, you know, go and really crush, you know, selling that solution.

Krissy Manzano: I agree. I think it’s all great advice in this day of buying and selling. If you don’t understand the pain of your buyer, if you don’t understand and dig deep on what they’re really going to need, you’re not going to sell successfully. And that’s what companies are looking for is can you go deep with our prospects or our existing clients and really uncover what is going to become mission critical for them to where they’re going to put this budget in front of it.

Right. Cause everyone can say all the time they don’t have budget, but money doesn’t become an issue when you fix a big problem. Right. And so you need to understand it. What is that problem and does your solution help with that? Right. And that’s what companies are trying to see is, are you going to be able to go deep or are you just going to read a script?

Right. Reading scripts aren’t going to get you anywhere these days.

Emily Bell: Agreed. Hear, hear.

Krissy Manzano: All right. Well, we hope that helps. Um, Comment below if you have any additional tips or tricks that have worked for you in these scenarios, don’t forget to follow us. Um, you can see all of our blueprint round tables and subscribe at blueprintexpansion.com. Follow us on Spotify, Apple podcast, and any other listening platform that you have. Until next time. We’ll see you later. Bye.