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Sales representative and account manager skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Adry S. Clark Ph.D.,

Andrea Dixon Ph.D.

Sales representative and account manager example skills

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical sales representative and account manager skills. We ranked the top skills for sales representative and account managers based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 23.5% of sales representative and account manager resumes contained customer service as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a sales representative and account manager needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 sales representative and account manager 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 sales representative and account managers use customer service:

Service and maintain customer accounts and exercise continuous pivoting strategies to insulate book of business while providing remarkable customer service.
Developed and maintained customer relations by coordinating pricing, preparing and presenting contractual bids and providing exceptional customer service.

2. Business Relationships

Here's how sales representative and account managers use business relationships:

Increased revenue streams by developing new business relationships with public relations firms, ad-agencies and numerous corporations.
Cultivated strategic business-to-business relationships by identifying and seizing market opportunities and aggressively pursuing new business opportunities.

3. Sales Process

Here's how sales representative and account managers use sales process:

Trained new sales representatives in sales processes, individual strategy in meeting metric, target goals, and CRM operations.
Work with less experienced Sales Executives to improve their sales process, strategy, script and presentation skills.

4. Flyers

Here's how sales representative and account managers use flyers:

Designed and created promotional materials, including promotional flyers and mailings.
Designed marketable advertisements and flyers to effectively target a specific demographic.

5. 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 sales representative and account managers use business development:

Research new market and business development opportunities; develop and implement appropriate sales and marketing programs resulting in profit margins increase.
Collaborated daily with Vice President of Business Development to cultivate new business through cold calls and territory management.

6. 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 sales representative and account managers use product knowledge:

Maintain strong product knowledge through product and sales training programs * Identify opportunities and overcome territory/competition hurdles.
Developed relationships with manufacture representatives and increased product knowledge.

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7. Customer Relations

Here's how sales representative and account managers use customer relations:

Manage customer relationships by providing technical advice when requested and ensure that customers are given all appropriate technical and safety information.
Developed and maintained profitable customer relationships by providing tailored cost effective solutions and services, with focus on customer satisfaction.

8. Sales Volume

Here's how sales representative and account managers use sales volume:

Contributed in identifying and pitching to new customers in low and risk segments, increasing channel sales volume.
Developed new markets/customers by implementing sales strategies, securing new customers to meet and exceed projected sales volume.

9. Local Businesses

Local businesses are independently owned businesses that require less capital, fewer workforces, and less or no machinery. These businesses are ideal for operating on a small scale to serve a local community/population and provide profits to the business owners. A local business can be a locally owned business or a corporate business with multiple locations operating in a specific area. Local businesses provide opportunities for entrepreneurs, jobs for neighbors, and meeting places for communities.

Here's how sales representative and account managers use local businesses:

Satisfied local businesses and previous exhibiting clients were instrumental in opening doors in radio sales allowing for quick success.
Call on local businesses within the Western Massachusetts area through Cold Calling and Telephone methods.

10. Territory Sales

Here's how sales representative and account managers use territory sales:

Promoted to Territory Sales Manager Nashville, Tennessee to manage a direct sales force with key account responsibility.
Recruited from the University of Utah to fill a direct sales position reporting to a territory sales manager.

11. PowerPoint

Here's how sales representative and account managers use powerpoint:

Created PowerPoint presentations outlining the benefit to sales of online marketing initiatives.
Created PowerPoint presentations and literature utilized and presented in sales calls.

12. Customer Accounts

Here's how sales representative and account managers use customer accounts:

Introduced new products and services, including the setup of technology/integration for e-commerce businesses and expanded business opportunities within customer accounts.
Managed and maintained existing customer accounts and generated new business; identified and aggressively pursued opportunities for account expansion.

13. 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 sales representative and account managers use account management:

Provided exceptional quality of service through account management of all existing commercial accounts.
Created new business, assigned additional responsibilities in Account Management and Marketing.

14. Cold Calls

Cold calling is a kind of business solicitation from customers who didn't express interest in their product and services before. In this technique, a salesman conducts a call with potential customers with whom they haven't had a prior interaction. Cold calling can include phone calls or telemarketing. However, in-person visits like door-to-door marketing are also a type of cold calling

Here's how sales representative and account managers use cold calls:

Gained access to decision-makers by utilizing prospecting and telephone /in-person cold calling techniques.
Generated customer base through cold calls and telephone solicitation.

15. Trade Shows

Here's how sales representative and account managers use trade shows:

Coordinated luncheons for hosting Continuing Education events and participated in professional conferences and trade shows
Attended trade shows and conventions, promoting products and providing demonstrations/education.

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What skills help Sales Representative And Account Managers find jobs?

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

What skills stand out on sales representative and account manager 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 sales representative and account managers possess?

Andrea Dixon Ph.D.

Executive Director, Center for Professional Selling, Frank and Floy Smith Holloway Endowed Professorship in Marketing, President, University Sales Center Alliance 2019-2021, Baylor University

Since sales professionals have a lot of information available to them today via customer relationship management (CRM) systems, the sales manager's "supervisory" role is less important (especially for experienced sellers). Consequently, the sales manager needs to be more of a coach and enabler of high performance. Having confidence balanced with humility allows the sales manager to engage more effectively with their salespeople.
One of the critical soft skills for sales managers going forward will be the ability to connect members of the sales team to others in the organization - in other words, the sales manager of the future needs to have strong skills in network building for others. Sellers have access to data which helps them build success.
They also need access to the right people to turn to when they need specific expertise or assistance.

What hard/technical skills are most important for sales representative and account managers?

Andrea Dixon Ph.D.

Executive Director, Center for Professional Selling, Frank and Floy Smith Holloway Endowed Professorship in Marketing, President, University Sales Center Alliance 2019-2021, Baylor University

One of the growing technical skill requirements for sales managers is in the area of data analytics. Our performance and customer systems provide a myriad of data, and the role of the sales manager is to be a sense-maker of that mound of data. What are the implications for changes in strategy or behavior evident in last quarter's activity? How can the sales manager help a specific seller "see" where the data suggest new approaches?

What sales representative and account manager 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 sales representative and account managers need?

Michael Mikitka

Executive Vice President, MHI – Material Handling Industry

Courses and internships are essential. While the required depth of knowledge may vary from one position to another, employers are generally looking for candidates with strong "people-related" skills, those who are willing to continue to learn, and those with the ability to be flexible and adapt.

By "people-related" skills, I mean the abilities associated with effective communication (listen and express ideas and direction) and the skills related to working independently and a team.

As for the interest to continually learn... from a technology, data, and equipment perspective, today's supply chain looks very different than it did 10-years ago. The willingness and ability to continually learn are essential for anyone in a leadership role.

As for flexibility and adapting...supply chain/logistics is as much about responding to disruption and demand as it is planning for it. There is a predictable demand (i.e., seasonal...everyone knows when back-to-school shopping begins). Then there is the unpredictable demand (i.e., power-outages, wildfires, pandemic) that impact market and the ability to operate. Candidates that express flexibility and problem-solving skills will be much sought-after.

What technical skills for a sales representative and account manager 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 sales representative and account manager skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for a sales representative and account manager resume and required skills for a sales representative and account manager to have include:

Customer Service
Business Relationships
Sales Process
Flyers
Business Development
Product Knowledge
Customer Relations
Sales Volume
Local Businesses
Territory Sales
PowerPoint
Customer Accounts
Account Management
Cold Calls
Trade Shows
Sales Presentations

Sales REP
Customer Satisfaction
Client Relationships
Outbound Calls
Sales Quota
Product Line
Develop Leads
Sales Strategies
Business Sales
Territory Development
Sales Growth
Customer Issues
Customer Retention
Inbound Calls
Direct Sales
Market Research

Sales Techniques
Client Accounts
Sales Revenue
Customer Complaints
Business Accounts
Inventory Control
Customer Support
Revenue Growth
Client Retention
OEM
C-Level
Gross Profit
Customer Inquiries
Corporate Accounts
Retail Store
Credit Terms

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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Sales Representative And Account Manager Skills

Updated January 8, 2025

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