The secret to a compelling Sales resume or Sales Management resume

Pre-recession Sales or Sales Management Professional Resumes

A professional resume for a Sales Representative or Account Executive used to be one of the easiest to write because sales professionals are full of statistics and quantifiable results.

Using Dynamic statistical-drive content in Sales Resumes

One of the most fun-to-write sales resumes I ever wrote was had results-driven bullets, such as:

Propelled sales by 20% from 2007 to 2008, an increase of $900,000 from $4.2M to $5.1M by greater focus on sales, garnering more inside sales person support, improving sales proficiency in France and Germany, and removing of sales rep’s operational role.

Qualifying sales resumes

you could pull in statements such as:

Managed account base of $1.8 M in annual revenue and achieved quota consistently for sales of SBC Yellow Pages and Smartpages online product.

Consistently ranked in the Top 10% among all sales representatives.

The impact of the recession on sales resumes

By 2010, the challenge for sales representatives was to position their product so that firms would grasp the value and though that is always the goal of sales, positioning products for value became much harder with the recession.

Using charts to show sales in your resume has become very popular and when I work with clients, I always tell them that a graphic can increase the impact of their resume if they can come up with the data and we can create a compelling chart with that data. Often though, they hesitate.

Demonstrate account retention strategies in Sales Resumes

Why? Since the recession, like many individuals, companies procrastinated buying anything and put off trying new products. By 2010, the challenge for the same #1 sales representative was to create that trust at even a deeper level. Look at these two bullets from the same resume:

Justified the value of improved analytics to major international online retail presence and implemented $225,000 solution to give detailed feedback on web traffic creating expansion opportunities for the retailer and a dedicated repeat client.
Championed new $300,000 cost-effective back-up solution for major international accounting firm with 17 locations worldwide, gaining the trust of multiple partners in the firm by demonstrating the ability to research alternative solutions to match budget parameters.

The sales professional made the sale but you can see by the language that he was working harder to get there. Showcasing a product is different today and getting people to invest in a product today is much harder.

List sales generating strategies in a sales resume

Writing a resume for a sales professional takes deeper digging to come up with statistics and results than it ever did. Asking probing questions about what strategies you used to instill a desire to buy in the customer may bring up the meaty resume stories that resonate with the “why” a sales professional should be hired even if he can’t boast of the same level of sales as five years ago.

Showcase customer retention in your Sales resume

Getting and keeping customers is much harder and the sales professional needs to tell the story of how he kept the customer and how he selected product features to demonstrate to the customer to build trust and make the sale.

Writing a resume for a sales representative or account executive takes deep digging and prompting to create the answers that will showcase their talent to the next employer. If you are a sales professional, start now to think about and document your successes. Perhaps save a graph or chart that you think shows your best sales record. This will all contribute to a stellar sales resume in 2013!