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Director of sales & business development skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

6 min read

Quoted experts

Adry S. Clark Ph.D.,

Dr. Kristen Carlson

Director of sales & business development example skills

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical director of sales & business development skills. We ranked the top skills for directors of sales & business development based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 6.4% of director of sales & business development resumes contained value proposition as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a director of sales & business development needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 director of sales & business development skills for your resume and career

1. Value Proposition

A value proposition is the moral and the conviction of why and how a business operates. A good value proposition may highlight what sets a business apart from its competitors, but it should always focus on how customers define your value. It summarizes why a customer would choose your product or service.

Here's how directors of sales & business development use value proposition:

Identified specific customer segments and industry verticals to target with a join value proposition.
Maintained detailed analysis of competitor's value proposition, market share and pricing.

2. Sales Cycle

Here's how directors of sales & business development use sales cycle:

Reduced internal sales cycle 20%; led a corporate initiative focused on shortening the sales cycle and enhancing customer experiences.
Defined processes that included initiation of a telesales and outsourced revenue development organizations that reduced the sales cycle by 50 percent.

3. CRM

CRM stands for Customer relationship management and it is a complete process through which a business or organization monitors and administers its interactions with the customers. A process in which large amounts of data are collected through marketing via a company's website, polls, surveys, and other social media applications. The basic goal of CRM is to target the right audience for their product, and then fulfill their needs, to increase the sales and revenue of the company.

Here's how directors of sales & business development use crm:

Collaborated on MS CRM software implementation for improved client interaction and retention.
Hired and directed a staff of five to teach consultative selling, digital products, new sales associate curriculum and CRM.

4. Revenue Growth

Here's how directors of sales & business development use revenue growth:

Managed and developed accounts for sustained revenue growth, which included prospecting and qualification.
Contributed to revenue growth by marketing LCD outdoor display hardware and selling core network infrastructure into the world of digital media.

5. Leveraged

Here's how directors of sales & business development use leveraged:

Leveraged thorough knowledge of company and competitor software for sales and marketing presentations.
Leveraged and supported relationships with distributor reps..

6. Lead Qualification

Here's how directors of sales & business development use lead qualification:

Create a scalable and repeatable process for lead generation, lead qualification and new account acquisition process.
Developed repeatable process for consistent company branding and lead qualification; implemented program across internal and external sales teams.

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7. Saas

Here's how directors of sales & business development use saas:

Utilized SaaS to increase multimillion dollar business growth with portfolio of ~ clients.
Developed cloud services, and SaaS applications; managed Client/Customer interfacing and Stakeholder management and Implementation and Deployment of Projects.

8. Sales Strategies

Here's how directors of sales & business development use sales strategies:

Developed sales strategies to increase business relationships between sales staff and international and domestic customers.
Collaborate with Business Development team to develop and implement effective sales strategies.

9. Sales Process

Here's how directors of sales & business development use sales process:

Managed exceptionally successful large-scale projects throughout product design and development, delivery and sales processes, product assortment & channel programs.
Target and Develop Strategic Partnerships through Consultative and Strategic sales process.

10. Strategic Partnerships

Here's how directors of sales & business development use strategic partnerships:

Developed core messaging for the company s internal communication plan and strategic partnerships with service and technology partners.
Accelerated licensing revenue by building strategic partnerships with semiconductor, consumer electronics, and channel accounts worldwide.

11. Account Management

The process of strengthening the relationship between a company and client is called account management. Effective account management has two key objectives, one is to retain loyal customers and the second one is to help the company grow by creating connections with new customers.

Here's how directors of sales & business development use account management:

Managed and developed key accounts through strategic client consultation, account management and relationship building.
Developed a highly successful Operational Dashboard, credited with exponentially improving account management efficiency.

12. Client Relationships

Here's how directors of sales & business development use client relationships:

Developed and maintained executive client relationships to ensure execution of global business strategies.
Maintained client relationships and built new business relationships.

13. Business Development

Business development is the ideas or initiatives that work to make business work better. Selling, advertising, product development, supply chain management, and vendor management are only a few of the divisions involved with it. There is still a lot of networking, negotiating, forming alliances, and trying to save money. The goals set for business development guide and coordinate with all of these various operations and sectors.

Here's how directors of sales & business development use business development:

Led central and Eastern region marketing and new business development effort for a newly created professional services and outsourced development practice.
Established SBU wide Continuous Improvement process for Business Development: Portfolio management process, Proposal process, and Contractual negotiation processes.

14. Trade Shows

Here's how directors of sales & business development use trade shows:

Coordinated marketing efforts that included trade shows and advertising campaigns.
Exhibited at up 25 trade shows per year and educated publishers on best way to showcase products.

15. Product Development

Product development is the complete procedure of creating a product from concept until release of the final product. Product development has many stages after which a product is released into the market. Identifying the need, creating the opportunity, conceptualizing a product, and providing a solution, all are different stages of product development.

Here's how directors of sales & business development use product development:

Managed digital product development with responsibility of evaluating all vendor products to ensure online products aligned with corporate objectives.
Evaluated the financial aspects of product development; researched and developed appropriations, return-on-investment and profit-loss projections.

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What skills help Directors Of Sales & Business Development find jobs?

Tell us what job you are looking for, we’ll show you what skills employers want.

What skills stand out on director of sales & business development resumes?

Adry S. Clark Ph.D.

Director, Western Oregon University

The skills that stand out on resumes fall into two categories: 1) Skills required to do the job and 2) Skills almost all employers look for. The most important aspect of resumes is to make sure it reflects exactly what the employer needs. Study the job description, identify key skills, and have them reflected on your resume. Think about transferrable skills, not the specific roles you've had.

Most employers look for skills such as communication (written/oral), flexibility, proactivity, problem-solving, project management, and technical. Make sure to cultivate those skills in whatever role you have, and have examples that demonstrate those skills.

What soft skills should all Directors of sales & business development possess?

Dr. Kristen Carlson

Associate Professor, Augustana University

Anthropologists have to be organized, independent thinkers who can take studious notes and record every detail of their surroundings.

What hard/technical skills are most important for Directors of sales & business development?

Dr. Kristen Carlson

Associate Professor, Augustana University

Hard skills become very specialized across the discipline. Archaeologists HAVE to have a field school to be considered for any job. Many biological anthropologists also attend field schools to learn the hands-on skills they need in their careers. Want to work in forensics? An internship in a crime lab is vital. Museums? Internship.

You can't learn how to do the work of Anthropology from a book. It can only be learned by doing with the background knowledge that comes from classes. So students have to get internships and get on projects related to the specific fields they hope to join. In those hands-on settings, they will start to put together the things they learned in class with the dynamic world of practical anthropology.

What director of sales & business development skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Kaustav Misra Ph.D.

Associate Dean, Central Connecticut State University

This pandemic taught us many things and one important thing that we have an efficiency gap.

The way of doing business will be much more technology orientated. Hence graduates should be ready to unskill and upskill their credentials. This time it is necessary to forget the old way of doing business and learn new skills to get a job or stay in a current job. Soft skills have become much more important than before, but a different soft skill set would be essential to interact with future market participants. Thus, a gap year should be utilized to unskill-upskill and enhance relevant credentials by getting into short-long term programs, training, and workshops would be highly recommended.

What type of skills will young Directors of sales & business development need?

James McDonald

Professor, University of Montevallo

I am a strong believer in getting as many methods and research designs under your belt as possible. Students need both qualitative and quantitative skills, as well as a working knowledge of statistics (or better). Students also have to be steeped in an applied orientation that dials them into real-world problems, but also gets them thinking about other things, like leveraging careers outside the academy and the power of networks. Internships, practicums, and other forms of engaged, project-based learning are invaluable. I am convinced that applying knowledge, in the service of real-world problems and scenarios, is the only real way that students internalize knowledge and make it their own. Those experiences are also real lines on a resume that will get them jobs, down the road, after graduation.

Students also need to be trained about how to think about the transfer of their skill sets to jobs that aren't called anthropology. Few, if any jobs, get labeled as anthropology, but our skill sets fit well in many facets of government (research, policy, and analysis), museums, the corporate world (after all, Microsoft is the single largest employer of the anthropologist in the world), marketing/advertising (those organizations can teach you the mechanical tricks of the trade but they can't teach you to be deeply interested in what makes people tick), and non-profits of all stripes.

Also, students need to be attentive to the fact that diversity is at the very center of the anthropological paradigm. We are the cross-cultural specialists, more than any other social science, through our deep and nuanced understanding of culture as an analytical concept and not just a superficial slogan that gets slung around.

What technical skills for a director of sales & business development stand out to employers?

Todd Lee Goen

Instructor & Internship Director, Christopher Newport University

Technical skills are often industry and/or position specific. Applicants should highlight any technical skills related to the position advertisement and those that add value to the position/organization. Most importantly, requirements for technical skills change with time and technological advances. This means employers value workers capable of adapting to change and continually improving and acquiring new technical skills. Thus, it's usually more important to demonstrate you are capable of learning and developing technical skills than it is to have a specific skill set upon hire (although this is not true for some positions/industries).
That said, technical skills related to online presentations, virtual meetings, virtual networking, remote working and the like are hot commodities right now. While most organizations were in the process of adopting many of these technologies and ways of doing business pre-pandemic, the pandemic accelerated the process. Organizations are making it work, but they often don't know best practices or the most efficient means of working in the largely virtual, pandemic environment. Post-pandemic, many of the remote/virtual changes the pandemic brought will stay in some form. Technical skills that support this type of workplace will make applicants stand out to many employers because they need/want to do virtual/remote business better.

Do you want to know more?

List of director of sales & business development skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for a director of sales & business development resume and required skills for a director of sales & business development to have include:

Value Proposition
Sales Cycle
CRM
Revenue Growth
Leveraged
Lead Qualification
Saas
Sales Strategies
Sales Process
Strategic Partnerships
Account Management
Client Relationships
Business Development
Trade Shows
Product Development
R

Cloud
Direct Sales
Business Relationships
Sales Objectives
Sales Reps
Business Plan
Healthcare
Customer Relationships
Sales Pipeline
Enterprise Sales
Sales Targets
Sales Presentations
Sales Operations
Capture Management
Market Research
OEM

Distributors
ROI
Market Trends
Sales Growth
Real Estate
Sales Plan
Sales Efforts
RFP
Americas
Sales Organization
Direct Reports
Sales Training
IP
C-Level
Sales Revenue
Contract Negotiations

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

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Updated January 8, 2025

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