Numerous thought leaders have produced excellent lists of sales tools including our friends at SalesLoft and Barbara Richardson. Here is a great list of software we use to drive efficiency in our sales organization.
Customer Relationship Manager (CRM)
Every sales organization should use a CRM. CRMs are the driving force behind any sales process. They are the ultimate sales performance tool. For those who do not know, a CRM is a system that allows businesses to manage their relationships with all of their customers. You can store all of your customers’ and prospects’ information, track activities, and see the status of every one of your opportunities, and it is all in one place.
What’s the best CRM? At Rivalry, we use Salesforce.com (SFDC). SFDC is the Google of CRMs. They dominate the CRM market with their Sales Cloud, but have also expanded into other areas as well. Other CRMs include Zoho, SugarCRM, and Microssoft Dynamics.
Rivalry’s Crown Report provides a weekly email around key metrics every sales rep using SFDC.
Lead Generation Software
While CRM is vital to storing all of your customer data, lead generation software is how you get that customer data. Traditional legacy databases likes Hoovers and Dun and Bradstreet have new competitors. Contemporary solutions like SalesLoft, InsideView, Data.com, and DiscoverOrg are valuable solutions that allow you to find leads by mining the web and social profiles for ideal customers, as well as consolidating prospects into lists.
Lead411, Data.com, and ZoomInfo are others to consider as well.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the ultimate social tool for businesses. LinkedIn allows for professional networking online so that you can connect with business people around the world. Every businessperson, regardless of industry or title, should be using LinkedIn. It is your online business presence.
LinkedIn is also one of the best places to be find new leads.
Consider upgrading to LinkedIn premium, which gives you increased access to people outside of your network. This also gives you an unlimited look at who is viewing your profile. You would be surprised how many of these profile views can turn into valuable inbound leads.
Power Dialers
These dialers, such as ConnectandSell, InsideSales.com, and MonsterConnect are key tools for B2B sales, allowing the user to multitask while waiting to be put through to a live contact. That way, there is no waiting around for somebody to answer, losing valuable time. These dialers also use predictive analytics to find the best time to call. Plus, both provide local presence so you show up with the same area code as whoever you are calling. It’s dialing done smart and it can contribute to a big boost in efficiency and productivity.
Email Productivity Software
The email counterpart to dialers for email productivity includes software including Yesware and ToutApp. These solutions allow salespeople to send mass email drips and email tracking, so that you can see if and when your email was read. Plus they, integrate with both CRMs and Gmail.
Using these email services provides valuable insight into how successful your email campaigns are, and also lets you see, if you are simply being ignored by the recipients or if they haven’t even seen your email. As Chet Holmes, author of The Ultimate Sales Machine, would put it, email is like your long range bombing, softening the market before your salespeople go in for hand-to-hand combat, calls.
Gmail and Gmail Plug-In
Gmail is the best email service out there for an inside sales rep. Equip this with Rapportive, LinkedIn’s add-on that allows you to see contacts’ information right there in Gmail, and Gmail is an even more powerful tool.
Rivalry also uses Voxa to automate email tasks in SFDC. No more manual entry!
What makes Gmail so valuable though is actually the other services that it gives you in addition to email. Google Calendar is your standard digital calendar, but it allows for easy sharing, so that you can actually overlay your colleagues’ calendars on yours. It makes coordinating with one another that much clearer and makes it easier to schedule appointments and meetings. Additionally, using Gmail gives you access to Drive, which has word-processing, spreadsheet, and slideshow capabilities. Within Drive, users can work on each-other’s documents and easily share them. These are just a few of the incredibly useful tools that come with Google Chrome.
Sales tools are plentiful! I’m sure we missed some but these are ones that come top of mind at the moment.
Which ones did we miss in these categories?
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