Sales Account Mgmt interview prep.

Behavioural questions to expect

1. Walk me through your CV.
2. Tell me about a customer or account where you owned a measurable commercial outcome.
3. Why CPG sales + account management - vs brand, consulting, agency strategy, or tech sales?
4. Why this channel mix - modern trade vs hard discount vs e-commerce vs food service?
5. Why the firm?
6. What is your read on our customer portfolio and recent commercial performance?
7. How would you describe our category position and channel mix at the customer level?
8. Walk me through how you would diagnose a customer where NSV is flat but trade investment is up and contribution is down.

Technical concepts to master

• Joint business planning (JBP)

  JBP cycle + cadence · JBP agenda - the five anchors · ZOPA + BATNA + LAA · Value-led negotiation · Cross-functional team + RACI

• Trade terms + GTN architecture

  GTN waterfall · On-invoice vs off-invoice · Conditional vs unconditional · Promo ROI + baseline vs incremental · Listing + slotting + retailer fees

• Category management + share of shelf

  Category captain + category advisor · Share of shelf vs share of category · Planogram + range architecture · Nielsen / Circana / IRI scorecard · BDI + CDI

• Channel reality + e-commerce + retailer media

  Channel shift + hard-discount expansion · E-commerce + omni-channel basket · Retailer media networks · Private-label dynamics · Shopper marketing + activation

Practical drills

• A customer P&L: gross sales $100M (flat YoY), GTN $24M (vs $20M LY), NSV $76M (vs $80M LY), COGS $50M (flat), customer trade investment $14M (vs $10M LY), customer contribution $12M (vs $20M LY). Sell-out is flat in a category up 2%. Walk through the diagnosis and the first three moves you would make.
• You are the KAM for a major grocery customer. They are asking for 2 points more on-invoice discount and threatening to delist your second-largest SKU. Category is flat. You have a new innovation launching in 90 days. Walk through your JBP preparation and how you would run the negotiation.
• Your brand is planning a 6-week promo at a 25% price-off on its top SKU at a major grocery customer. Baseline weekly volume is 100k units at $5 retail. Expected incremental lift +120% over baseline. Trade investment $400k for the event. Walk through the ROI build and your recommendation.

Smart-question anchors

• Customer portfolio + top-account concentration - which customers are strategic vs transactional and where the growth comes from
• JBP posture + cadence - how multi-year + how value-led the joint business planning rhythm is with top customers
• Channel mix + hard-discount + e-commerce - structural channel shift and the firm's response
• Trade-investment intensity + GTN discipline - where the firm sits on GTN as % of gross sales vs peers
• Category-captain footprint - which sub-categories the firm leads category advisory in

Sourced from

Kantar Worldpanel + Circana + NielsenIQ - CPG measurement standards · Nielsen + Bain - Joint business planning + trade-promotion effectiveness research · Category Management Association (CMA) + ECR Europe - category management + planogram standards · BCG + McKinsey retailer-media + omni-channel research · MBA + practitioner CPG sales interview prep (Vault, RocketBlocks, Management Consulted CPG / consumer guides)