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Director of sales skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

6 min read

Quoted experts

Adry S. Clark Ph.D.,

Dr. Kristen Carlson

One of the most important hard skills a director of sales can have is a strong familiarity with every aspect of the sales process. Director of sales need to demonstrate a history of meeting and exceeding sales goals and an extensive product knowledge. In general, sales managers need these hard skills in order to provide guidance and create objectives for sales teams towards revenue growth.

When it comes to soft skills, directors of sales should have strong strategic planning and business development skills alongside excellent customer service skills. In leading teams, directors of sales also need strong delegation and prioritization skills as well.

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical director of sales skills. We ranked the top skills for directors of sales based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 7.4% of director of sales resumes contained sales process as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a director of sales needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 director of sales skills for your resume and career

1. Sales Process

Here's how directors of sales use sales process:

Envisioned and spearheaded the implementation of a new sales process and methodology, increasing account penetration rates and dramatically elevating revenues.
Managed monthly and quarterly dealership sales processes including sales efficiency, profitability, manufacture goals and customer satisfaction.

2. Customer Service

Customer service is the process of offering assistance to all the current and potential customers -- answering questions, fixing problems, and providing excellent service. The main goal of customer service is to build a strong relationship with the customers so that they keep coming back for more business.

Here's how directors of sales use customer service:

Promoted through multiple positions with increasing responsibility including Aerospace Contracts Manager, Aerospace Sales Manager, and Aerospace Sales/Customer Service Representative.
Interfaced with project stakeholders including internal team members and external contractors to facilitate operations and ensure delivery of excellent customer service.

3. Customer Satisfaction

Here's how directors of sales use customer satisfaction:

Created customized packages and promotions to generate sales revenue, and successfully increased higher levels of repeat business and customer satisfaction.
Provided Consultative sales with engineering expertise to provide the best solution to each customer providing customer satisfaction and ensure repeat business.

4. Sales Management

Here's how directors of sales use sales management:

Key focus on channel sales management for enterprise customers and direct sales model to penetrate incumbent telecommunication operators in the region.
Developed and orchestrated Branch Manager Development and Senior Investment Consultant programs creating a model for sales management succession and high performance.

5. Healthcare

Healthcare is the maintenance or improvement of a person's health by the diagnosis and treatment of a person's injury, illness, or any other disease. Healthcare is a basic necessity of human life and is the responsibility of the country's government to ensure that each person gets healthcare. Providing healthcare is the job of certified health professionals that includes doctors, surgeons, nurses, and other physicians. Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, dentistry, therapy, and health training all come under healthcare. Healthcare plays a vital role in the country's economy and its development.

Here's how directors of sales use healthcare:

Managed strategic initiatives focused mainly on brokers and HealthCare Reform.
Developed and launched a Biological Managed HealthCare Account Team in 2000 (1 Supervisor, 4 Account Managers.)

6. 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 use crm:

Maintain detailed sales and account information in corporate customer relationship management (CRM) system in support of cross-departmental business intelligence.
Applied demand generation tactics utilizing online marketing, key industry partnerships, and high-touch customer repeat business/retention programs leveraging CRM system.

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7. 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 use business development:

Performed sales forecasting and strategic planning to ensure the sale and corporate profitability while analyzing business developments and monitoring market trends.
Served as key collaborator in numerous senior-executive strategy sessions regarding product and business development, marketing, and customer outreach initiatives.

8. Salesforce

Salesforce is an American cloud-based software company based in San Francisco, California. This company provides customer relationship management services that enable the customers to be closer to the company. It gives the company detailed information about each customer, including marketing, sales, commerce, and services. Salesforce also helps market a product to attract more buyers, and helps win more customers by targeting the right audience.

Here's how directors of sales use salesforce:

Headed letter generation initiatives to improve process, and drove use of SalesForce to advance organizational capabilities.
Trained account managers on SalesForce.com, territory planning, account saturation, and business development techniques.

9. Sales Strategies

Here's how directors of sales use sales strategies:

Managed all aspects of customer relationships from developing regional business plans to sales strategies to inventory assistance.
Developed custom sales strategies, marketed membership programs and services, and developed relationships with C-level executives.

10. 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 use account management:

Championed a more holistic approach to account management, effectively coaching sales and service teams towards a more collaborative commercial strategy.
Supervised all sales and business development functions including new promotions, account management, customer relationship management, and order fulfillment.

11. Revenue Growth

Here's how directors of sales use revenue growth:

Hold accountability for reaching and exceeding targeted revenue growth from national account business via new account acquisition and existing client development.
Developed strategies to develop product-base for electronic products in order to establish and engage potential customers to achieve significant revenue growth.

12. Sales Plan

Here's how directors of sales use sales plan:

Developed sales plan compensation policies and business rules to support administration, ensure consistent program application, and reduce litigation risks.
Promoted through positions of increasing responsibility within this premier cellular company to develop sales plans and achieve customer activation goals.

13. Work Ethic

Here's how directors of sales use work ethic:

Job Description: Broad-based manufacturing and sales background that encompasses exceptional work ethics and commitment to organizational objectives.
Required independent, entrepreneurial work ethic to develop and implement new customer development tools.

14. Direct Sales

Here's how directors of sales use direct sales:

Increased REVPAR and consistently outperformed expectations by gaining significant market share of competition through aggressive direct sales and marketing efforts.
Developed and facilitated the transition from a Direct to Indirect Sales Model including new operational procedures and compensation methodology.

15. Business Plan

Here's how directors of sales use business plan:

Authored and executed the business plan for early-stage privately funded start-up of digital imaging systems designed to operate in high-temperature environments.
Developed company and individual business plans, fiscal responsibility for Division budget and expenses of division and sales team.

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What skills help Directors Of Sales 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 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 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?

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 skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Kerri Orders

Assistant Professor of Business, Aquinas College

In terms of a gap year, I recommend that international business students acquire tangible skills, relevant experience and/or certifications which will enhance their success in their desired area of interest. For example, a gap year could consist of gaining technical or digital training overseas, which would also further the students' cultural intelligence and language proficiency. These types of enriching gap year experiences will assist students to distinguish themselves in a highly competitive market. Furthermore, students should focus on broadening and maintaining their global network during a gap year in order to be ready for the job market once the gap year is concluded.

What type of skills will young Directors of sales 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.

Do you want to know more?

List of director of sales skills to add to your resume

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

Sales Process
Customer Service
Customer Satisfaction
Sales Management
Healthcare
CRM
Business Development
Salesforce
Sales Strategies
Account Management
Revenue Growth
Sales Plan
Work Ethic
Direct Sales
Business Plan
Sales Targets
Home Health

Customer Relationships
Lead Generation
Product Development
Direct Reports
Client Relationships
Sales Organization
Saas
HR
Sales Professionals
Sales Efforts
Enterprise Sales
Sales Training
Senior Care
Trade Shows
Sales Objectives
Sales Quota
Account Executives

Sales Cycle
Product Line
Sales Revenue
Sales Reps
ROI
Sales Operations
Sales Growth
Sales Presentations
Market Research
Group Sales
Cold Calls
C-Level
Facebook
Lead Management
RFP
Market Segments

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.

Updated January 8, 2025

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