Most people know that one of the measurements of a sales person’s effectiveness is whether they beat quota. I thought it would be useful to share the other key metrics employers look at when they are evaluating sales professionals.

First of all, always make sure you express your accomplishments in percentages. For example, “Beat quota by $750K” has no context – “Delivered 167% of quota” does. I try to avoid sales numbers unless they are very impressive, as $2 million worth of business is high in one firm and miniscule in another.

After you’ve bragged about your quota achievements, here are the other areas you can brag about.

1. Did you increase the customer base?

2. Did you increase business with existing customers?

3. Did you retain your customers because of your attentiveness to their needs?

4. Did you use improved sales techniques that shortened the sales cycle? Increased the average deal size? Improved your closing rate? Generated more leads?

5. How did you compare with your peers (and how many were there)?

So if you want to really show off what you can do, quantify each of these areas as appropriate, and make yourself really stand out.