What does a sales development do?

Sales development representatives are interior sales representatives that focus on prospecting, lead qualification, and outreach. They focus on connecting with as many leads as possible and examining if they are a good customer match. Another responsibility is to educate and certify the leads they connect with. Additionally, they are very well at making the first contact and connect with clients through emails, phone calls, voicemails, direct mail, and LinkedIn connections. Candidates should be organized as well as have product knowledge, conversational skills, and perseverance.
Sales development responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real sales development resumes:
- Manage the submission of all RFP responses for body worn cameras, software and relate services.
- Manage corporate accounts and generate revenue from sales of treasury management services.
- Manage logistics for large and complex equipment deliveries, overseeing domestic and international traffic to ensure compliance with multiple government regulations.
- Manage distributor accounts including inventory management, allocations, and communicating internally with purchasing, logistics, finance and shipping departments.
- Deploy the SFDC data using eclipse IDE.
- Set goals and coach regional sales managers to meet KPI's.
- Develop SOQL and SOSL queries to get data from different relate objects.
- Provide training to sales team for SalesForce software and sales process requirements.
- Consume WSDL files into java platform by generating java API using axis tool.
- Create SOQL and SOSL queries to retrieve data from objects and perform DML operations.
- Conduct treasury management sales, service and product presentations and proposals.
- Educate and train accounts on new cloud technology
- Create cross-selling scripts for tellers and teller automation software.
- Develop custom search functionality for accounts and contacts using SOSL.
- Create web pages primarily utilizing HTML, XHTML, and CSS.
Sales development skills and personality traits
We calculated that 39% of Sales Development are proficient in Customer Service, Cloud, and Workflow Rules. They’re also known for soft skills such as Analytical skills, Creativity, and Customer-service skills.
We break down the percentage of Sales Development that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Customer Service, 39%
Establish lasting relationships with prospects and customers through territory development and management, contract negotiation, and customer service.
- Cloud, 18%
Implemented Service Cloud in organization.
- Workflow Rules, 3%
Created workflow rules and defined related tasks, time-triggered tasks, email alerts and field updates to implement business logic.
- Custom Objects, 3%
Delivered project reports using combination of custom objects and standard objects.
- Apex, 3%
Designed and Developed the Apex classes, Visual Force pages, Triggers as part of the Product Return in One-Step Application.
- Dashboards, 2%
Developed several Custom Reports & Dashboards to better assist managers and report folder to provide report accessibility to appropriate personnel.
"customer service," "cloud," and "workflow rules" are among the most common skills that sales development use at work. You can find even more sales development responsibilities below, including:
Analytical skills. The most essential soft skill for a sales development to carry out their responsibilities is analytical skills. This skill is important for the role because "sales managers must collect and interpret complex data to target the most promising geographic areas and demographic groups, and determine the most effective sales strategies." Additionally, a sales development resume shows how their duties depend on analytical skills: "designed the ui, the services layer and the database object model design based on java spring 3.0 mvc architecture. "
Customer-service skills. This is an important skill for sales development to perform their duties. For an example of how sales development responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "when helping to make a sale, sales managers must listen and respond to the customer’s needs." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of a sales development: "created visual force email templates and also automated email process to send installation instructions to new and existing customers. ".
Communication skills. sales development responsibilities often require "communication skills." The duties that rely on this skill are shown by the fact that "sales managers need to work with colleagues and customers, so they must be able to communicate clearly." This resume example shows what sales development do with communication skills on a typical day: "investigated business development opportunities for optical cable and components in wireless telecommunications applications. "
Leadership skills. Another crucial skill for a sales development to carry out their responsibilities is "leadership skills." A big part of what sales development relies on this skill, since "sales managers must be able to evaluate how their sales staff performs and must develop strategies for meeting sales goals." How this skill relates to sales development duties can be seen in an example from a sales development resume snippet: "recommended for sales management 6/05 after demonstrating leadership and sales performance, and previous management experience. "
The three companies that hire the most sales developments are:
- AT&T278 sales development jobs
- Snap-on Tools22 sales development jobs
- Qualtrics10 sales development jobs
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Sales development vs. Territory manager
A territory manager is responsible for monitoring the sales operations of the different sales team of an organization. One of the most crucial duties of a territory manager is to encourage the sales team to provide the best results for increasing the company's profitability. Territory managers are conducting sales training, improving marketing strategies and approach, reviewing sales pitches, analyzing current market trends, and reaching sales goals. Territory managers must display exceptional leadership and customer service skills to manage customers' needs and identify more business opportunities.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, sales development responsibilities require skills like "cloud," "workflow rules," "custom objects," and "apex." Meanwhile a typical territory manager has skills in areas such as "patients," "product knowledge," "work ethic," and "crm." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
Territory managers earn the highest salaries when working in the pharmaceutical industry, with an average yearly salary of $100,016. On the other hand, sales development are paid more in the technology industry with an average salary of $91,431.On average, territory managers reach similar levels of education than sales development. Territory managers are 3.2% less likely to earn a Master's Degree and 0.2% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Sales development vs. Regional manager
A Regional Manager is responsible for a company's overall business operations within a particular area or region. Most of the duties will revolve around setting sales targets, creating strategies to boost financial gains, and maintaining an efficient workforce by having the right staff. Furthermore, Regional Managers must oversee the progress of sales and profits, evaluate the performance of employees, ensuring they are up to the targets and standards of the company's policies and regulations, conducting assessments, and reporting to the higher administration.
While some skills are similar in these professions, other skills aren't so similar. For example, resumes show us that sales development responsibilities requires skills like "cloud," "workflow rules," "custom objects," and "apex." But a regional manager might use other skills in their typical duties, such as, "patients," "customer satisfaction," "financial performance," and "oversight."
Regional managers may earn a higher salary than sales development, but regional managers earn the most pay in the technology industry with an average salary of $118,087. On the other hand, sales development receive higher pay in the technology industry, where they earn an average salary of $91,431.Average education levels between the two professions vary. Regional managers tend to reach similar levels of education than sales development. In fact, they're 1.3% more likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.2% more likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Sales development vs. Account manager
Account managers are employees who act as the bridge between the company they represent and the client of the company. They are assigned to handle specific clients so that the company will be able to tailor-fit any product or service according to the clients' requirements. Account managers are responsible for maintaining a harmonious relationship between the two parties by ensuring that any agreement made is amenable to both the company and the client. They are also responsible for ensuring that the company will be able to provide the needs of the client within any limitation that the client may have. Account managers also ensure that the company's reputation and well-being are always considered in any dealings.
The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, sales development are more likely to have skills like "cloud," "workflow rules," "custom objects," and "apex." But a account manager is more likely to have skills like "account management," "healthcare," "crm," and "product knowledge."
Account managers earn the best pay in the technology industry, where they command an average salary of $76,412. Sales development earn the highest pay from the technology industry, with an average salary of $91,431.account managers typically earn similar educational levels compared to sales development. Specifically, they're 2.8% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree, and 0.2% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Sales development vs. Senior account manager
A senior account manager is in charge of managing and overseeing accounts in sales work, ensuring to meet all sales targets. Among the tasks of a senior account manager includes taking the lead and supervising workforce to its efficiency, devising strategies, and coming up with new opportunities to boost sales and strengthen client base. Moreover, it is also the task of a senior account manager to engage with clients, focusing on networking to attain better deals.
Types of sales development
Updated January 8, 2025











