Top 12 Sales Development Representative Skills to Put on Your Resume

Sales is noisy. To break through as a Sales Development Representative (SDR), you need more than a silver tongue. A sharp resume that blends tech fluency, strategy, and a human touch signals that you can spot opportunities, start conversations, and move pipeline with intent. Show the skills. Tell the story. Make it unmistakable.

Sales Development Representative Skills

1. Salesforce CRM
2. Lead Generation
3. Cold Calling
4. Email Marketing
5. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
6. Negotiation
7. HubSpot CRM
8. Market Research
9. Pipeline Management
10. Prospecting
11. Zoho CRM
12. Customer Relationship Management

1. Salesforce CRM

Salesforce CRM is a cloud platform for managing leads, accounts, and every interaction that ties them together. For an SDR, it’s the command center: clean data, clear workflows, quick follow-ups, and a view of what matters next.

Why It's Important

It keeps leads organized, captures activity automatically, and surfaces the right next action. Better timing. Smarter touchpoints. Faster handoffs. More meetings booked.

How to Improve Salesforce CRM Skills

To sharpen your Salesforce impact as an SDR:

1. Customize your workspace: Build dashboards with conversion rates, activity volume, speed-to-lead, and stage progression. Trim the noise. Highlight signals.

2. Sync email and calendar: Log meetings and messages automatically with tools like Einstein Activity Capture so context follows every record.

3. Automate the repetitive: Use Flow (not Process Builder) to route leads, set follow-up tasks, and trigger alerts based on field changes or inactivity.

4. Guard data quality: Deduplicate, normalize fields, and enforce required data at key stages. Clean data compounds.

5. Go mobile: Update notes after calls, log activities in real time, and keep pipeline current from the field.

6. Keep learning: Knock out Trailhead modules and apply one improvement a week. Small gains stack up.

Do this and Salesforce stops being a database. It becomes a growth engine.

How to Display Salesforce CRM Skills on Your Resume

2. Lead Generation

Lead generation is the hunt: identifying ideal buyers, stirring interest, and feeding the pipeline with qualified opportunities.

Why It's Important

No leads, no meetings. No meetings, no revenue. Lead gen powers the pipeline and gives sales a steady runway.

How to Improve Lead Generation Skills

Level up your approach:

1. Nail your ICP: Know the firmographics, pain triggers, tools, and buying committee. Precision beats volume.

2. Work multiple channels: Blend email, phone, LinkedIn, and events. Multithreading wins attention when single-threading stalls.

3. Use intent and signals: Watch for hiring trends, tech stack changes, funding, product launches, or content engagement to time outreach.

4. Ship useful content: Lead with relevance—case studies, benchmarks, or short videos that speak to a specific problem.

5. Lean on your CRM: Track touchpoints, score engagement, and tighten follow-up loops.

6. Ask for referrals: Happy customers and champions open doors faster than cold outreach ever will.

7. Iterate weekly: Test messaging, segment targeting, and CTA styles. Keep the winners. Scrap the rest.

How to Display Lead Generation Skills on Your Resume

3. Cold Calling

Cold calling is proactive outreach to prospects who haven’t raised a hand—turning strangers into conversations, and conversations into meetings.

Why It's Important

It slices through inbox overload, uncovers immediate needs, and accelerates discovery. The fastest feedback loop in sales.

How to Improve Cold Calling Skills

Make your calls land:

1. Research fast: Scan LinkedIn, company pages, and recent news. Grab one insight to anchor the opener.
2. Write a crisp opener: Lead with relevance, not a monologue. One sentence on why you called, one on value, then a question.
3. Practice the reps: Record calls. Tune tone, pace, pauses. Build muscle memory.
4. Time your blocks: Early mornings, late afternoons, and midweek often outperform. Test your book; trust your data.
5. Listen like a pro: Mirror, label, clarify. Let prospects steer you to the real problem.
6. Pre-wire objections: Short, calm responses. Pivot to a question. Keep momentum.
7. Follow up fast: Send a tight recap with a clear next step within minutes.
8. Review with call analytics: Use tools like Gong or ZoomInfo Chorus to spot patterns that convert.

Calls aren’t magic. Cadence, timing, and curiosity make them work.

How to Display Cold Calling Skills on Your Resume

4. Email Marketing

Email marketing for SDRs means targeted, personal messages that spark replies, book meetings, and nurture interest at scale.

Why It's Important

It’s direct, trackable, and scalable. Done right, it feels human and lands meetings while you sleep.

How to Improve Email Marketing Skills

Sharpen your sends:

1. Personalize beyond tokens: Reference a recent post, product release, or role-based pain. Make it unmistakably for them.

2. Segment with intent: Industry, persona, stage, use case. Segment small; speak precisely.

3. Subject lines that earn the open: Clear over clever. Curiosity without clickbait.

4. Tight copy, one CTA: Write like you talk. One idea, one ask. Keep it under 120 words when possible.

5. A/B test weekly: Subject lines, first lines, CTAs, send times. Let data pick winners.

6. Automate wisely: Sequences that adapt to replies, clicks, and silence. No mindless drip.

7. Track the right metrics: Prioritize replies, meetings booked, and conversions. Open rates are shaky with modern privacy changes.

Short, specific, sincere. That inbox earns respect, not noise.

How to Display Email Marketing Skills on Your Resume

5. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s prospecting cockpit—advanced filters, lead and account tracking, and insights that warm up outreach.

Why It's Important

It helps you find the right people, map buying groups, and time outreach with real signals. Less guessing. More relevance.

How to Improve LinkedIn Sales Navigator Skills

Get more from it:

1. Use advanced filters with intent: Layer industry, headcount, function, seniority, technology, and geography to mirror your ICP.

2. Save leads and accounts: Let alerts surface job changes, posts, and company news so you strike at the right moment.

3. Engage before you pitch: Comment thoughtfully on posts, share a relevant resource, or ask a sharp question. Warm beats cold.

4. InMail with purpose: Keep it short, personalized, and anchored to a specific outcome. Always ask a low-friction next step.

5. Leverage newer features: Smart Links for trackable assets, Buyer Intent signals where available, and Relationship Explorer to map stakeholders.

How to Display LinkedIn Sales Navigator Skills on Your Resume

6. Negotiation

Negotiation for SDRs shows up in scheduling, qualification, and alignment—securing time, shaping scope, and setting expectations that stick.

Why It's Important

It turns friction into flow. You protect value, build trust, and keep deals moving without forcing the fit.

How to Improve Negotiation Skills

Build the muscle:

1. Master your value: Know the outcomes you deliver and proof points that matter to each persona.

2. Listen actively: Ask layered questions. Reflect back what you heard. People say more when they feel understood.

3. Earn rapport, don’t fake it: Be curious, be human, be clear. Credibility over charm.

4. Speak plainly: Ditch jargon. Explain trade-offs and benefits in one breath.

5. Seek win-win: If it’s not right, say so. Protect the long game.

6. Prep scenarios: Map your must-haves, nice-to-haves, and walk-away points before the call.

7. Stay flexible: Adjust as new information lands. Rigidity kills momentum.

Clarity, empathy, and options. That’s the trio.

How to Display Negotiation Skills on Your Resume

7. HubSpot CRM

HubSpot CRM centralizes contacts, sequences, tasks, and reporting—everything an SDR needs to prospect with rhythm and visibility.

Why It's Important

It streamlines outreach, automates follow-ups, and keeps data tidy so you can spend more time selling and less time scrambling.

How to Improve HubSpot CRM Skills

Make it sing:

1. Automate routine work: Build workflows for lead assignment, reminders, and lifecycle updates.
2. Integrate your stack: Connect calling, calendar, and scheduling tools so activity logs itself.
3. Report what matters: Create dashboards for meetings booked, conversion by sequence, and time-to-first-touch.
4. Tune lead scoring: Weight behaviors (opens, clicks, site visits) and demographics so your best leads float to the top.
5. Use templates and sequences: Standardize winning emails and call steps, then personalize the first 20%.
6. Invest in training: Knock out HubSpot Academy lessons and apply one new workflow each week.
7. Personalize with context: Use contact timelines to reference real activity in your outreach.
8. Stay mobile: Log notes and tasks on the go to keep momentum.

How to Display HubSpot CRM Skills on Your Resume

8. Market Research

Market research means gathering intel on customers, competitors, and trends so your outreach hits the mark and your message lands.

Why It's Important

It sharpens targeting, shapes messaging, and prevents you from pitching the wrong problem to the right person.

How to Improve Market Research Skills

Get sharper, faster:

1. Use analytics tools: Review website behavior and traffic sources to see what content and pages attract your ICP.

2. Map your CRM: Segment by industry, company size, role, and engagement to spot patterns that convert.

3. Run quick surveys: Short, focused questions reveal pains and priorities straight from the source.

4. Listen on social: Monitor conversations, competitor moves, and trending topics in your space.

5. Network in the open: Join relevant communities and forums; ask real questions, share useful answers.

6. Study competitors: Track funding, hiring, messaging, and customer stories to position smartly.

7. Keep learning: Refresh methods and tools regularly. What worked last year may be stale now.

How to Display Market Research Skills on Your Resume

9. Pipeline Management

Pipeline management is the discipline of tracking leads through every stage, removing friction, and keeping momentum until handoff or close.

Why It's Important

It prevents leaks, focuses time on high-probability prospects, and makes forecasting real rather than hopeful.

How to Improve Pipeline Management Skills

Bring order to the chaos:

1. Segment with intent: Use your CRM to group by stage, potential value, and urgency. Clear lanes reduce context switching.

2. Score and prioritize: Rank by engagement, fit, authority, and timeline so you work the right list first.

3. Personalize outreach: Use insights from tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator to tailor your touch.

4. Define exit criteria: Set clear rules for advancing or disqualifying. Stalled is not a stage.

5. Review weekly: Identify bottlenecks, update next steps, and refresh tasks. Iterate your playbook.

How to Display Pipeline Management Skills on Your Resume

10. Prospecting

Prospecting is the art and grind of identifying, researching, and engaging people who are likely to care—and proving it fast.

Why It's Important

It fills the top of the funnel with quality, not clutter. Consistent prospecting equals consistent pipeline.

How to Improve Prospecting Skills

Upgrade your motion:

1. Clarify your ICP: Industry, size, tech stack, triggers, titles. Hunt where the odds favor you.

2. Personalize at scale: Use CRM and enrichment data to craft relevance in the first two lines.

3. Lean into social selling: Connect, comment, and share content that solves your prospect’s problems.

4. Cold email and call with intent: Short emails, smart call openers, and a reason to meet that isn’t “just a quick chat.”

5. Follow up with discipline: Multi-touch, multi-channel, spaced over 10–14 days. Persistence without pestering.

6. Keep sharpening: Review talk tracks, test new angles, and borrow what works from top performers.

How to Display Prospecting Skills on Your Resume

11. Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM helps SDRs capture leads, automate follow-ups, and track activity across the sales cycle—lightweight and flexible.

Why It's Important

It streamlines workflows, reduces manual updates, and surfaces the right prospects at the right time.

How to Improve Zoho CRM Skills

Turn it into a force multiplier:

1. Customize lead scoring: Weight fit and engagement so focus stays on high-value buyers.

2. Automate tasks: Build workflows for reminders, status updates, and email alerts to protect follow-through.

3. Integrate email: Sync your inbox so every touch is logged and searchable.

4. Use analytics: Track conversion by source, activity cadence, and time-to-first-touch to guide improvements.

5. Train and iterate: Refresh processes as features evolve and feedback rolls in.

6. Close the loop: Collect feedback from AEs and adjust fields, stages, or scoring to improve handoffs.

How to Display Zoho CRM Skills on Your Resume

12. Customer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is both strategy and system—organizing interactions, standardizing follow-ups, and creating a single source of truth for prospects and customers.

Why It's Important

It boosts productivity, personalizes outreach, and makes every handoff cleaner. Relationships scale when the details don’t slip.

How to Improve Customer Relationship Management Skills

Raise your CRM game:

1. Understand buyer goals: Research the company, the role, and the outcomes they chase. Context drives relevance.

2. Personalize every touch: Use history, preferences, and intent signals to tailor messages.

3. Master your platform: Learn shortcuts, fields, automations, and reports until they’re second nature.

4. Follow up promptly: Speed wins. Set SLAs for first touch and response time—and hit them.

5. Ask for feedback: Short surveys and quick calls reveal gaps you can close fast.

6. Offer consistent value: Share content, insights, or benchmarks that actually help. Trust compounds.

7. Be transparent: Set clear next steps, recap decisions, and keep promises.

How to Display Customer Relationship Management Skills on Your Resume