Top 12 Business Development Manager Skills to Put on Your Resume

Crafting a standout resume as a Business Development Manager means spotlighting the skills that actually win deals, shape strategy, and open doors. The tools below help you spot patterns, move faster than the market, and keep relationships warm while the pipeline hums—twelve essentials that make hiring managers lean in.

Business Development Manager Skills

1. Salesforce
2. HubSpot
3. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
4. Marketo
5. Pipedrive
6. Google Analytics
7. Tableau
8. Microsoft Dynamics 365
9. Zoho CRM
10. Slack
11. Trello
12. Asana

1. Salesforce

Salesforce is a cloud-based CRM that centralizes sales, marketing, service, and analytics. One home for the pipeline, with data that pulls its own weight.

Why It's Important

For a Business Development Manager, Salesforce sharpens forecasting, speeds handoffs, and makes outreach surgical. Data, process, and follow-up—tightened in one place.

How to Improve Salesforce Skills

Level up by dialing in how Salesforce mirrors your go-to-market:

1. Tailor objects and fields: Map stages, lead statuses, and custom fields to match your real process, not the default one.

2. Automate with Flow: Replace legacy Workflow Rules and Process Builder with Flow for assignments, reminders, and escalation. Fewer clicks, fewer misses.

3. Raise data quality: Validation rules, duplicate checks, required fields, and clear ownership keep reports honest.

4. Dashboards that drive action: Build role-based dashboards for pipeline health, conversion rates, and activity coverage. Make it obvious what to do next.

5. Integrate core tools: Connect email, calendar, marketing automation, and CPQ so context follows every record.

6. Lean on AI: Use Einstein features for scoring, next-best actions, and forecast insights where available.

7. Coach and adopt: Short, scenario-based training and enablement baked into the workflow beats one-off sessions.

How to Display Salesforce Skills on Your Resume

2. HubSpot

HubSpot is an all-in-one CRM platform for marketing, sales, service, and content. From first touch to renewal, it keeps motion aligned.

Why It's Important

It tightens lead capture, nurtures without chaos, syncs sales and marketing, and surfaces what’s converting—fuel for predictable growth.

How to Improve HubSpot Skills

Make HubSpot work harder with practical tweaks:

1. Laser-focused lead management: Segment by behavior and fit. Use lead scoring to push the right names to the front of the line.

2. Automate the grind: Build workflows for nurturing, task routing, SLAs, and lifecycle updates so momentum never stalls.

3. Sales–marketing alignment: Shared dashboards, clear MQL/SQL definitions, and feedback loops turn the funnel into one system.

4. Sequences and Playbooks: Standardize outreach with sequences; embed talk tracks and discovery frameworks right inside the CRM.

5. Personalization: Tokens, smart content, and account-based targeting lift reply rates without spraying.

6. Attribution and reporting: Custom reports and multitouch attribution clarify what truly moves revenue.

7. Ongoing enablement: Short refreshers when new features roll out keep adoption sticky.

How to Display HubSpot Skills on Your Resume

3. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s prospecting engine—advanced filters, alerts, and insights that help you find and warm the right buyers.

Why It's Important

It trims time-to-meeting by zeroing in on decision-makers, surfacing triggers, and enabling tailored outreach at scale.

How to Improve LinkedIn Sales Navigator Skills

Turn it from a directory into a deal starter:

1. Make your profile buyer-first: Lead with outcomes you deliver. Clear headline, proof-rich summary, and relevant highlights.

2. Dial in advanced search: Stack filters (headcount growth, seniority, technologies, geography) and save the ones that produce.

3. Save accounts and leads: Let alerts flag job changes, funding, and engagement signals. Reach out when the iron’s hot.

4. Engage with insights: Comment thoughtfully, share resonant content, then message. Warm beats cold.

5. Personalize InMail: Reference a trigger, show relevance in the first line, and make the ask small.

6. Use Smart Links and Buyer Intent: Track who views content and prioritize accounts showing heat.

7. Sync with your CRM: Keep notes and activities where your team already lives.

8. Review your SSI and iterate: Regularly tweak your approach based on what lands.

How to Display LinkedIn Sales Navigator Skills on Your Resume

4. Marketo

Adobe Marketo Engage is a marketing automation platform for lead nurturing, scoring, and campaign orchestration across channels.

Why It's Important

It bridges interest to intent, delivering the right touch at the right time and feeding sales with qualified, sales-ready demand.

How to Improve Marketo Skills

Make your programs sharper and measurable:

1. Segmentation and dynamic content: Personalize by firmographics, behavior, and buying stage. Relevance wins opens and replies.

2. Nurture architecture: Build modular programs with clear entry/exit rules and progressive profiling.

3. Lead scoring that matters: Blend fit and intent, calibrate with sales feedback, and revisit quarterly.

4. CRM sync hygiene: Align fields, statuses, and routing with Salesforce or your CRM so nothing slips through the cracks.

5. Testing and attribution: A/B subject lines, cadences, and offers. Use multitouch attribution to prove what drives pipeline.

6. Governance and templates: Standard assets and QA checklists keep speed without sacrificing quality.

How to Display Marketo Skills on Your Resume

5. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a sales-first CRM designed to visualize deals, streamline follow-ups, and keep reps focused on what moves revenue.

Why It's Important

It turns pipeline management into something simple and visual, making prioritization and forecasting far less guessy.

How to Improve Pipedrive Skills

Tune it to your motion and let automation carry the rest:

1. Customize pipelines: Stages that match your sales cycle, with win probability and time-in-stage visible at a glance.

2. Automate: Use workflow automation for task creation, follow-up emails, and stage-based triggers.

3. Integrate core apps: Email, calendars, prospecting tools, support—connect them so activity logs itself.

4. Data discipline: Required fields and duplicate cleanup keep reports trustworthy.

5. Reporting that finds friction: Track conversion by stage, activity-to-outcome ratios, and cycle length to spot bottlenecks.

6. Mobile on the move: Update notes and activities immediately after meetings to keep momentum.

7. Team collaboration: Shared visibility and activity assignments prevent dropped balls.

How to Display Pipedrive Skills on Your Resume

6. Google Analytics

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) tracks web and app behavior with an event-based model, arming you with insights on acquisition, engagement, and conversion.

Why It's Important

It shows where prospects come from, what resonates, and what converts—vital fuel for channel bets and website improvements.

How to Improve Google Analytics Skills

Modernize your setup and make the data sing:

1. Define outcomes: Set clear conversions and events tied to your funnel (demo requests, trials, key feature use).

2. Clean tagging: Implement with a tag manager, standardize event names, and document everything.

3. Ecommerce and lead events: Configure GA4 ecommerce or lead-generation events to track revenue and pipeline signals, not just visits.

4. Use Explorations: Funnel, path, and cohort analysis reveal where prospects drop and why.

5. Segments and audiences: Slice by traffic source, geo, and behavior to uncover patterns worth acting on.

6. Link Google Ads: Share audiences, see post-click performance, and refine spend with real engagement data.

7. BigQuery export: For deeper analysis and blending with CRM data, export and query at will.

8. Audit regularly: Check data accuracy after site changes and feature launches; fix drift fast.

How to Display Google Analytics Skills on Your Resume

7. Tableau

Tableau turns data into visual stories—interactive dashboards that help teams see trends, ask better questions, and decide faster.

Why It's Important

It translates scattered numbers into clarity. For business development, that means sharper territory plans, cleaner forecasts, and timely moves.

How to Improve Tableau Skills

Build dashboards that people actually use:

1. Master the basics, then stretch: Dimensions vs. measures, filters, table calcs, and parameters—then climb into LOD expressions.

2. Data prep: Use Tableau Prep or SQL to clean, join, and shape data before it hits your workbook.

3. Design for action: Minimal clutter, purposeful colors, and drill-downs that answer the next question.

4. Performance tuning: Optimize extracts, reduce quick filters, and limit oversized data sources.

5. Publish and govern: Share via Tableau Cloud/Server with permissions and certified data sources.

6. Practice with real sets: Rebuild dashboards from public galleries or team datasets to sharpen instincts.

7. Iterate with users: Short feedback loops turn dashboards into daily tools, not pretty posters.

How to Display Tableau Skills on Your Resume

8. Microsoft Dynamics 365

Dynamics 365 blends CRM and ERP with the Power Platform—sales, service, finance, automation, and analytics under one roof.

Why It's Important

One ecosystem means fewer silos, stronger insights, and smoother processes from first touch to invoice.

How to Improve Microsoft Dynamics 365 Skills

Shape it around your revenue engine:

1. Customize entities and forms: Align fields, stages, and business rules with how your team actually sells.

2. Automate with Power Automate: Build flows for routing, approvals, and alerts that keep deals moving.

3. Bring in Power BI: Interactive reports for pipeline, conversion, and account health—shared widely, understood quickly.

4. Use Copilot and AI: Draft emails, summarize notes, and get next-best actions inside Dynamics 365 Sales.

5. Tie in Teams and Outlook: Activity sync and in-context collaboration reduce tab-hopping and lost context.

6. Data governance: Security roles, field-level security, and clean ownership rules keep data reliable.

How to Display Microsoft Dynamics 365 Skills on Your Resume

9. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is a cloud CRM that centralizes leads, deals, activities, and analytics with a broad ecosystem around it.

Why It's Important

It’s flexible, cost-effective, and capable—from lead capture to forecasting—making it a smart spine for growth teams.

How to Improve Zoho CRM Skills

Make the system match your motion—and enforce it:

1. Blueprint and Canvas: Enforce your sales stages and give reps clean, tailored interfaces that reduce clicks.

2. Automation and assignment: Auto-route leads, schedule follow-ups, and trigger alerts based on behavior or stage.

3. Zia AI: Use recommendations, scoring, and anomaly detection to prioritize work.

4. Custom dashboards: Track conversion by source, pipeline hygiene, and forecast accuracy at a glance.

5. Integrations: Connect email, telephony, forms, and marketing tools so context follows every contact.

6. Data and training: Validation rules and regular enablement keep adoption high and reports clean.

How to Display Zoho CRM Skills on Your Resume

10. Slack

Slack is where work conversations live—channels, DMs, huddles, and files in one quick, searchable stream.

Why It's Important

Faster decisions, tighter coordination, fewer emails. For BD, that means quick answers and cleaner execution across teams.

How to Improve Slack Skills

Turn chatter into signal:

1. Channel strategy: Create channels by account, region, or motion (prospecting, renewals). Use naming conventions so everyone can find what matters.

2. Automate routine work: Set up workflows to collect intake, route asks, and standardize updates.

3. Integrate core systems: Pipe CRM updates, calendar notices, and deal alerts into the right channels.

4. Slack Connect: Collaborate with customers and partners securely, without inbox ping-pong.

5. Notifications that serve you: Keywords, custom schedules, and per-channel settings prevent overload.

6. Knowledge in the flow: Pin key docs, use canvases, and keep decision logs visible.

How to Display Slack Skills on Your Resume

11. Trello

Trello organizes work with boards, lists, and cards—simple structure, surprisingly powerful when combined with automations and views.

Why It's Important

It keeps projects visible, deadlines honest, and responsibilities unmistakable—perfect for cross-functional pursuits.

How to Improve Trello Skills

Build a system that moves without nudging:

1. Butler automation: Auto-assign tasks, set due dates, and post reminders when cards move stages.

2. Custom Fields and labels: Add deal size, priority, and next action so the board tells the story at a glance.

3. Dashcards and reporting: Turn criteria into living metrics on the board—instant health checks.

4. Power-Ups and integrations: Connect calendars, docs, CRM, and chat so context sits on the card.

5. Views that fit the work: Timeline, Calendar, Table, and Dashboard views reveal bottlenecks and capacity.

6. Templates: Standardize pipelines, QBR prep, and partner onboarding to speed repeatable work.

How to Display Trello Skills on Your Resume

12. Asana

Asana is a work management platform for projects, tasks, and goals—structured coordination without the spreadsheet sprawl.

Why It's Important

It clarifies ownership, timelines, and priorities, keeping cross-functional growth work on track and measurable.

How to Improve Asana Skills

Design for visibility and momentum:

1. Workflow templates and Rules: Standardize stages, auto-assign tasks, and trigger updates as work progresses.

2. Dashboards, Portfolios, and Goals: Roll up project health, link to company targets, and track impact—end to end.

3. Integrate your stack: CRM, chat, docs, calendar—connect them so updates and files live with the work.

4. Custom fields and forms: Collect the right inputs up front, reduce back-and-forth, and keep data consistent.

5. Resource and workload views: Balance assignments to prevent bottlenecks before they form.

6. Lightweight enablement: Short training, quick how-tos, and shared conventions make adoption painless.

How to Display Asana Skills on Your Resume