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Outside sales associate skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

5 min read

Quoted experts

Jonathan Byers,

Kaustav Misra Ph.D.

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical outside sales associate skills. We ranked the top skills for outside sales associates based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 31.7% of outside sales associate resumes contained customer service as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills an outside sales associate needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 outside sales associate skills for your resume and career

1. 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 outside sales associates use customer service:

Prepared marketing material for presentations, and coordinated with customer service and operations departments to ensure total customer satisfaction.
Implemented and maintained an effective customer referral system with great customer service that generated quality leads.

2. Roofing

Here's how outside sales associates use roofing:

Supervised and coordinated the daily activities of manufacturers representatives engaged in promoting and selling roofing products.
Coordinated and created relationships between homeowners and insurance company to assist homeowners with roofing claims.

3. Sales

Here's how outside sales associates use sales:

Performed regular sales visits throughout assigned territory to develop relationship with independent grocery and convenient stores.
Developed revenue-producing niche with clients by creating long-range advertising plans rather than focusing on one-time sales.

4. Sales Floor

The sales floor is the area in a company or a business that is specified for retail activities or is designated as the selling area of the shop. A car showroom can be considered a sales floor, as it has cars in its display which are to be sold. A sales floor is generally crowded with sales assistants who are there to help you out while you can search and check out the products. Generally a sales floor has free access to the public and they can observe, view and get information about the product that is being sold.

Here's how outside sales associates use sales floor:

Stocked the sales floor with merchandise and ensured that the shelves were organized, well kept, and fully stocked.
Worked in a high energy team based environment made exceptional numbers on beginning weeks of employment top on sales floor.

5. Sales Support

Sales support refers to a variety of functions that help sales reps focus on selling and closing deals. Sales support performs a variety of tasks that result in faster sales cycles, lower costs, and higher revenue. Sales support tasks include interviewing and tracking sales leads, matching offers to sales packages, monitoring sales and sales team performance, collecting sales data, providing training and customer service, and managing customers.

Here's how outside sales associates use sales support:

Accelerate delivery on service and improve synergy by collaborating with business services support personnel, including sales support and marketing personnel.
Perform a variety of admin, sales support, reception, clerical and order-management duties for an Electrical/Lighting Manufactures Representative.

6. Customer Issues

Here's how outside sales associates use customer issues:

Provided feedback to distribution team to develop solutions for customer issues
Addressed lost customer issues, to regain their trust and purchases.

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7. Building Materials

Building Materials are the raw materials used in construction projects, including concrete, rebar, steel, wood, and scaffolding. The construction projects can be rudimentary as well, and therefore twigs, leaves, and clay can also be classified as building materials. There are also classifications of building materials, such as binders that act as adhesives like cement and lime.

Here's how outside sales associates use building materials:

Assessed and organized the safe loading and unloading of building materials.
Estimated all building materials and costs, from reading blueprints.

8. Customer Relationships

Customer relationships are the interactions and efforts made by a company to improve its customer service. Customer relationships cover not just all of the essential roles performed by customer support, but also the initiatives made before and after the interaction with a customer.

Here's how outside sales associates use customer relationships:

Developed new customer relationships through targeted marketing efforts and building permit research.
Monitor customer relationships by visiting and conducting quality control assessments.

9. Customer Satisfaction

Here's how outside sales associates use customer satisfaction:

Increase customer satisfaction through regular customer contact and effective problem resolution.
Maintained products to achieve maximum customer satisfaction.

10. Product Knowledge

Product knowledge is the skill of having better information and knowledge about the product you are selling. Product knowledge is essential for the employees of the companies so they can communicate and inform the customers about the product. Having great product knowledge is essential for a better sales pitch and to give the customer a better and complete idea of the product that will influence him to buy the product eventually.

Here's how outside sales associates use product knowledge:

Build and develop relationships based on dependability and product knowledge.
Recruited for industry expertise and product knowledge to this leading national wholesale distributor of HVACR equipment, parts and supplies.

11. Sales Territory

Here's how outside sales associates use sales territory:

Established and managed multiple customer accounts within my designated sales territory.
Expanded my sales territory of engineered sands and soils for golf courses.

12. Trade Shows

Here's how outside sales associates use trade shows:

Completed order entry and represented BEA at various trade shows, including National Plant Engineering and Maintenance show in Chicago.
Attended and worked at trade shows to meet new customers and educate them on the products offered.

13. Business Relationships

Here's how outside sales associates use business relationships:

Established and maintained Business-to-Business relationships.
Registered interviewed and placed temporary workers throughout Greater Cleveland and surrounding area by soliciting and creating new and existing business relationships.

14. HVAC

Here's how outside sales associates use hvac:

Retained and lead major infrastructure proposals for HVAC maintenance department servicing commercial real estate throughout the Anchorage metropolitan community.
Assisted customers in load calculations, design, and implementation of a variety of HVAC systems.

15. Sales Contracts

Here's how outside sales associates use sales contracts:

Negotiated sales contracts with local restaurants to provide cutlery and servicing of items purchased.
Managed office administration paperwork including the writing of sales contracts for customer orders and sending to manufacturer for processing.

5 Outside Sales Associate resume examples

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What skills help Outside Sales Associates find jobs?

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

What skills stand out on outside sales associate resumes?

Jonathan Byers

Assistant Director, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

- Professional skills related to career development competencies such as strong oral & written communication, teamwork & collaboration, leadership, problem-solving ability & creativity, and professional integrity, but we recommend that applicants do not just list these skills. They should provide evidence of how they have used them in their work experience, volunteer experience, academic experience, etc.
-The ability to use technology effectively to solve problems or improve collaboration; this could relate to social media management, computer hardware or software skills, proficiency with general programs like Microsoft Office Suite (also being able to demonstrate the use of these skills in various experiences).
-With diversity, equity, and inclusion becoming more important in 2020, the ability to appreciate different points of view, accept and appreciate different cultural backgrounds & types of identities, and increased awareness of one's own cultural biases and assumptions can also be important to market on a resume.

What outside sales associate 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 outside sales associates need?

Dr. Vallari Chandna

Chair and Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

Critically, for all graduates, expertise or interests, in sustainability will be important. The reason behind this is the shift in looking at sustainability holistically and not just as something one-person does. This would also give an edge to those with degrees, specifically in sustainability. Graduates with degrees related to sustainability will often be asked to oversee or manage these across-the-board sustainability endeavors. Also, soft skills are highly desired. The ability to be better at time management, work in teams, and have a strong work ethic, will be more desirable. These are all interconnected with remote work as well. Employees who "thrived" in the pandemic were those able to manage their work-life balance, work remotely in teams, all the while performing well. The skills are thus "transferable" to both modalities of work in this way.

What technical skills for an outside sales associate stand out to employers?

Linda Hajec

Assistant Teaching Professor of Accounting, Associate Chair, Student Recruitment, Retention and Outreach, Penn State Behrend

I think the basics are still important - the feedback from employers still says that they want to see excellent skills in Excel - but if we are talking about changes as a result of the pandemic, job candidates that can also show a comfort level with remote meeting software will feel more natural and less awkward going forward. If you are going to meet on Zoom, make sure you know where to find the features on the screen and if you need to, practice with someone who knows you are just needing to mess around with the settings.

The last thing you would want to do is accidentally exit your interview halfway through because you didn't know where the "share screen" button was. Being familiar with other online collaboration software such as Teams or GoogleDocs is important, too. Even companies that are not working 100% remote are finding great use for these kind of sites, even just to house documents such as policy manuals that they want to share with a group of employees. The fact that a group can work together an collaborate asynchronously is a reality that many companies had not faced before, so the employee needs to be prepared to remember to follow up on team projects instead of waiting for a meeting to see where everything stands.

What soft skills should all outside sales associates possess?

Sonya DiPalma Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Chair, Academic Policies Committee, Director of MCOM Internship Program, University of North Carolina at Asheville

Be personable and a person someone wants to talk with and work with on a continuing basis. Listening and note-taking skills will be critical. Great employees listen well and ask good follow up questions. Be versatile and adaptable. If you find some downtime between projects, ask how you may help with another project.

Do you want to know more?

List of outside sales associate skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for an outside sales associate resume and required skills for an outside sales associate to have include:

Customer Service
Roofing
Sales
Sales Floor
Sales Support
Customer Issues
Building Materials
Customer Relationships
Customer Satisfaction
Product Knowledge
Sales Territory
Trade Shows
Business Relationships
HVAC
Sales Contracts

Credit Applications
Cold Calls
Product Line
Relationship Building
Account Management
Sales Quota
Customer Accounts
Sales Process
Business-To-Business Sales
Sales Presentations
Sales Growth
Customer Complaints
Upselling
Inventory Control
Sales Reports

Gross Profit
Sales Volume
Product Demonstrations
Golf Carts
Sales Plan
MRO
Customer Orders
Local Businesses
OEM
Client Relationships
Product Specifications
Delivery Truck
Expense Reports

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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