The director of sales has a lot of responsibility. In addition to leading your team to success, you're also managing sales efforts and planning when to launch new products. There's a lot of strategy hidden behind the job position so make sure your thinking cap is on.
In order to be good at this job, you need to be organized. This is how you'll ensure an efficient workflow. But that's not as important as the way you choose to lead. Directors of Sales learn how to motivate their team rather than dragging them through the mud.
Director of Sales is the short-term game. You rely on the immediate success of a product or service. While you'll be leading your team to successfully releasing and selling these products or services, you will have a bit of customer or client involvement. So make sure you've got your communication skills in check.
Director Of Sales Overview
Director Of Sales Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a director of sales. For example, did you know that they make an average of $63.29 an hour? That's $131,642 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 20,600 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Director Of Sales Do
There are certain skills that many directors of sales have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, communication skills and customer-service skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a director of sales, we found that a lot of resumes listed 16.8% of directors of sales included sales goals, while 14.2% of resumes included sales process, and 10.6% of resumes included customer service. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the director of sales job title. But what industry to start with? Most directors of sales actually find jobs in the hospitality and technology industries.
How To Become a Director Of Sales
If you're interested in becoming a director of sales, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 61.4% of directors of sales have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 18.1% of directors of sales have master's degrees. Even though most directors of sales have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a director of sales. When we researched the most common majors for a director of sales, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on director of sales resumes include associate degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a director of sales. In fact, many director of sales jobs require experience in a role such as sales manager. Meanwhile, many directors of sales also have previous career experience in roles such as account executive or regional sales manager.
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Director Of Sales Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of senior sales director you might progress to a role such as senior sales director eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title senior sales director.
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for a Director Of Sales
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Lumen Sales Director Sales Director | Lumen Lumen | 03/31/2021 03/31/2021 | $100,80003/31/2021 $100,800 |
Arrow Electronics Sales Director, Cloud Solutions (North America) Sales Director, Cloud Solutions (North America) | Arrow Electronics Arrow Electronics | 03/30/2021 03/30/2021 | $247,50003/30/2021 $247,500 |
Goodwin Recruiting Sales Director Sales Director | Goodwin Recruiting Goodwin Recruiting | 03/30/2021 03/30/2021 | $55,00003/30/2021 $55,000 |
Dell Inc. Cloud Sales Director, VMC On AWS-Sled-Opportunity for Working Remotely Cloud Sales Director, VMC On AWS-Sled-Opportunity for Working Remotely | Dell Inc. Dell Inc. | 03/28/2021 03/28/2021 | $192,00003/28/2021 $192,000 |
Vmware, Inc. Cloud Sales Director, VMC On AWS-Sled Cloud Sales Director, VMC On AWS-Sled | Vmware, Inc. Vmware, Inc. | 03/27/2021 03/27/2021 | $192,00003/27/2021 $192,000 |
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Director Of Sales Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Director Of Sales. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Director Of Sales Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Director Of Sales resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Director Of Saless
1. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
2. University of Wisconsin - Madison
Madison, WI • Public
3. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
4. University of Georgia
Athens, GA • Public
5. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, VA • Public
6. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
7. Ohio State University
Columbus, OH • Public
8. University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX • Public
9. University of Houston
Houston, TX • Public
10. SUNY at Binghamton
Vestal, NY • Public
Top Skills For a Director Of Sales
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 16.8% of directors of sales listed sales goals on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and communication skills are important as well.
- Sales Goals, 16.8%
- Sales Process, 14.2%
- Customer Service, 10.6%
- Revenue Growth, 5.3%
- Territory, 5.3%
- Other Skills, 47.8% See All Director Of Sales Skills
Best States For a Director Of Sales
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a director of sales. The best states for people in this position are New York, Delaware, Vermont, and Connecticut. Directors of sales make the most in New York with an average salary of $148,668. Whereas in Delaware and Vermont, they would average $145,765 and $137,952, respectively. While directors of sales would only make an average of $133,909 in Connecticut, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. New York
$148,668
Avg. Salary
2. Vermont
$137,952
Avg. Salary
3. New Jersey
$130,752
Avg. Salary
How Do Director Of Sales Rate Their Jobs?
Top Director Of Sales Employers
We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ directors of sales and discovered their number of director of sales opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Mary Kay was the best, especially with an average salary of $190,606. Holiday Inn Express follows up with an average salary of $88,739, and then comes AT&T; with an average of $140,091. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a director of sales. The employers include Realogy, Laboratory Corporation of America, and Medallia
Director Of Sales Videos
