(*Go to the bottom to see more sample answers from CWCO*)
General questions
These questions help an interview understand your personality and background.
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What motivates you in your work?
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What is your educational background? What did you most enjoy about school?
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Why do you enjoy business development?
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What do you enjoy the most and least about teamwork?
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What qualities do you think make someone a good salesperson?
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Where do you see yourself in five years?
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What is your greatest strength? What is your greatest weakness?
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What do you enjoy doing when you’re not at work?
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What’s your favourite book?
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Tell me what your ideal work environment looks like.
Related: How to Appear Confident in an Interview
Questions about experience and background
These questions are designed to help the interview learn more about your background and whether you’re qualified to complete the tasks associated with the position.
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How has your background prepared you for sales?
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Have you ever had to sell a product you didn’t believe in?
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What’s the most satisfying deal you’ve achieved?
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How do you use technology in your job?
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Describe the process you follow for business development.
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What are the sales techniques you’ve used in the past? Which do you find to be the most effective? Which were the least effective?
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Have you ever trained junior staff?
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Tell me what business intelligence tools or systems you’ve worked with.
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Explain to me a time you did not meet your goal.
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What makes you the most qualified person for this job?
In-depth questions
These questions help the interviewer gain a more in-depth experience regarding the strategies you’ve used in the past and your leadership style.
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What would you do if one of your prospects was continually finding excuses to avoid you?
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What would you do if you found out that one of your customers was testing out one of our competitor’s products?
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If you had to sell our product, what are two questions you would ask to understand the needs of potential buyers?
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What do you think are the three most important factors when evaluating a deal?
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Describe a situation in which you’ve had to improvise.
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How do you measure success?
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How do you turn a lead into a long-term relationship? How do you decide which leads are worth pursuing?
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Pick something in this room and then sell me on it.
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How do you sell unpopular ideas to people?
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Tell me about a time you used analysis to make a business-critical decision. Walk me through that analysis and outcome.
Interview questions with sample answers
Here are some common interview questions that business development managers are often asked along with suggestions to guide your responses and sample answers.
Related: 6 Popular Interview Questions for Managers
Describe how you balance finding new customers with retaining existing ones.
This question is designed to help the interviewer assess your task management skills. It will also help them evaluate how successful you are at managing multiple relationships for business development. Nothing you do as a business development manager should be random. You should always have a fully developed plan for how you are going to manage multiple relationships. A great response to this question will show that you are methodical in how you maintain relationships while finding new customers.
Example: “I am entirely dependent on the company’s CMS and a calendar for balancing my time. Each time I speak to a client or prospect, I enter the details of that conversation into the CMS and schedule a date and time in my calendar when I want to follow up with them. I also block out time every day on my calendar for when I’m going to be reaching out to new potential prospects, and then I put that information into the CMS and schedule follow-ups in the calendar. By taking those steps after every touch and systemizing my process, no client or prospect is even forgotten.”
Describe a time when you lost a sale or client.
This question is designed to assess how well you can handle rejection. A great answer discusses a specific situation in which you lost a sale or client, what you learned from the experience and what you did differently moving forward. Touch only briefly on what caused you to lose the sale or client and move quickly on to what you learned from the experience.
Example: “We once lost a client because we weren’t communicating with them properly. Unfortunately, weeks went by and no one spoke to the client or updated them on the status of their project. When that happened, we sat down as a team and created a plan for who would perform status updates and when those would occur. We also had a person who was responsible for making sure those happened to ensure none were overlooked, particularly for active projects. We took responsibility for the error, apologized, created a system to ensure it never happened again and moved forward.”
What steps you do take to analyse trends and identify new opportunities?
The company wants to hire a candidate who is committed to continually monitoring for new markets to stay on top of all potential new opportunities. This question assesses whether a candidate is forward-thinking and can identify innovative growth opportunities. Your answer should demonstrate evidence that you’re well-informed, committed to looking for innovative, forward-thinking opportunities and are always monitoring emerging trends.
Example: “While the majority of my day is spent on developing new relationships and nurturing relationships with my current clients, I block out an hour every morning to review industry news and publications and research future possibilities to see what new and interesting opportunities could be emerging.”
What is your management style?
Because this is a management role, the interviewer needs to assess how you plan to grow and develop a team. A good answer also covers how you delegate responsibilities. A great answer includes specific strategies you’ve used in the past to develop a team.
Example: “I believe one of the most important parts of growing a team is making sure each member understands their roles and knows they can depend on each other. I am also a big believer in real-time feedback. If you make a mistake, you should know it immediately. Constructive criticism is integral to success for team members and I believe this should be done regularly, not just when it’s time for an annual or bi-annual review.”
Jobs similar to a business development manager
Business development professionals can pursue a variety of positions within the business and management industry. Here are 10 positions similar to business development that you may want to consider:
3. Business development executive
5. Business development officer
6. Business management consultant
7. Business management analyst
9. Business development analyst
10. Business advisor
credit: indeed.com
More Sample Answers by CWCO:
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What motivates you in your work?
knowledge, connections and friends, success, recognition, status -
What is your educational background? What did you most enjoy about school?
highly-educated individual,
learning methods, intelligent people, intelligent conversations, projects go to the very depth of topics. -
Why do you enjoy business development?
everyday is different, problem-solving for clients, measurable results and rewarding, working with real people, -
What do you enjoy the most and least about teamwork?
different ideas, more likely to make big things happen (v small tasks),
with bad communication/organising, something small task takes much longer time to deal with vs only one person is dealing with it. -
What qualities do you think make someone a good salesperson?
eager to win deals, positive energy and continuous motivation, professional manners, client-facing communication skills, team-working skills -
Where do you see yourself in five years?
be a master in a specific topic. -
What is your greatest strength? What is your greatest weakness?
communication skills
always wanting to achieve more and more whilst sometimes what I aim to do could be a little bit out of my capacity. -
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not at work?
sports -
What’s your favourite book?
A picture of … and The Great… -
Tell me what your ideal work environment looks like.
People working remotely and physically together with good harmony. People appreciate each others’ culture.
Questions about experience and background (QUALIFICATIONS)
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How has your background prepared you for sales?
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Have you ever had to sell a product you didn’t believe in?
Current job! Ha! -
What’s the most satisfying deal you’ve achieved?
a deal I have been working on for six months. the biggest deal in the company’s history. -
How do you use technology in your job?
data management: time, schedule, client report, team reports… -
Describe the process you follow for business development.
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What are the sales techniques you’ve used in the past? Which do you find to be the most effective? Which were the least effective?
– Find the pain and Magnify the pain and make the cost real, present, and unbearable. …
– Create scarcity and tap into the fear of loss. …
– Preempt your top two sales objections. … (when you can’t sell everything)
– Save a key sales objection to the end, and use that as a lever to close the sale. …
– Help them sell themselves (AKA: Sales Aikido). -
Have you ever trained junior staff?
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Tell me what business intelligence tools or systems you’ve worked with.
tableau, internal systems, and plug-ins developed based on SalesForce -
Explain to me a time you did not meet your goal.
-
What makes you the most qualified person for this job?
In-depth questions
These questions help the interviewer gain a more in-depth experience regarding the strategies you’ve used in the past and your leadership style.
-
What would you do if one of your prospects was continually finding excuses to avoid you?
-
What would you do if you found out that one of your customers was testing out one of our competitor’s products?
-
If you had to sell our product, what are two questions you would ask to understand the needs of potential buyers?
-
What do you think are the three most important factors when evaluating a deal?
-
Describe a situation in which you’ve had to improvise.
-
How do you measure success?
-
How do you turn a lead into a long-term relationship? How do you decide which leads are worth pursuing?
-
Pick something in this room and then sell me on it.
-
How do you sell unpopular ideas to people?
-
Tell me about a time you used analysis to make a business-critical decision. Walk me through that analysis and outcome.
Describe how you balance finding new customers with retaining existing ones.
This question is designed to help the interviewer assess your
task management skills. It will also help them evaluate how successful you are at managing multiple relationships for business development.
Example: “I am entirely dependent on the company’s CMS(?) and
[using a Client Management System] and a calendar for balancing my time.
A. I would normally document the conversations I have with exiting and prospective clients and schedule time on calendar for follow-up.
B. I block out time on my calendar daily for both catching up with existing clients and for reaching out new prospectives respectively. And, document them.
C. Following the steps and systemising my process to make sure I do not miss any opportunities from old or new clients. Manage my time efficiently and guarantee my service quality for all clients.
Describe a time when you lost a sale or client.
[Reject Handling]: discuss a specific situation, what you learnt, move forward.
We once lost a client because a competitor offers an additional function (a specific API to their SAP system) that we do not offer on our system directly. Neither was it efficient for us to tailor making the function for them, changing the existing architecture unfortunately. (weeks went by, the deal is gone)
We sat down as a team and created a plan for meeting requirements from clients as such going forward:
(1) we analyse the modules that open to external connections and the compatibility of the system,
(2) enabled the external plug-ins to help restructuring the data coming out of our system and re-organising to the data format that recipients’ internal system accepts.
(3) also, appointed a dedicated person who was responsible for making sure those happened to ensure nothing was overlooked, particularly for meeting the deadlines.
(4) at client’s next catch up, we took responsibility for the incapabilities, apologised, and suggested the new solution and sold it.
What steps you do take to analyse trends and identify new opportunities?
Committed to continually monitoring for new markets to stay on top of all potential new opportunities. forward-thinking and can identify innovative growth opportunities. Your answer should demonstrate evidence that you’re well-informed, committed to looking for innovative, forward-thinking opportunities and are always monitoring emerging trends.
Example: “While the majority of my day is spent on developing new relationships and nurturing relationships with my current clients, I block out an hour every morning to review industry news and publications and research future possibilities to see what new and interesting opportunities could be emerging.”
What is your management style?
Because this is a management role, the interviewer needs to assess how you plan to grow and develop a team. A good answer also covers how you delegate responsibilities. A great answer includes specific strategies you’ve used in the past to develop a team.
Example: “I believe one of the most important parts of growing a team is making sure each member understands their roles and knows they can depend on each other. I am also a big believer in real-time feedback. If you make a mistake, you should know it immediately. Constructive criticism is integral to success for team members and I believe this should be done regularly, not just when it’s time for an annual or bi-annual review.”