Showing top 0 results 0 results found
Showing top 0 results 0 results found
You know that feeling when you’re trying to juggle few things at once, and you’re not sure which one of these things can help you get traction and therefore, should be prioritized?
Running your own business can be difficult, especially if you don’t have the right tools at hand. So is making sure that all of your sales processes are fully optimized.
So, what are the best sales tools that can support you in keeping things aligned with our overall business strategy? I will check it in my today’s post.
I’ve decided to sort these apps by their primary purpose to make going through the list a bit easier.
Let’s dive in.
All-in-one sales tools
1. Salesforce
If you’ve been in sales for at least few months, you must have used Salesforce at some point. This tool aims to be a one-stop shop for salespeople, and it does the job perfectly well.
What you get by signing up to Salesforce, it is a toolset that you can quickly scale as your business grows. You can start with a simple CRM to keep all your customers in one place and add a ticketing system, analytics, email marketing platform, and a task management tool as you go.
You can try Salesforce for free during a 30-day, then it’s $25 per user/month (billed annually).
2. GetResponse
GetResponse may not be as developed as Salesforce, but it will work great if you need a tool to build up your small business.
With GetResponse, you can prepare a CRM system, set up a landing page, or send an email outreach campaign. There’s also a webinar feature where you can set up, stream, and record your training or a walkthrough - all in one place.
Their pricing is based on the number of emails you have in your database, and it starts from £10 a month for 1k emails (email campaigns and landing pages only).
3. Base
Another all-around sales stack I wanted to mention on this list. It’s also another tool that you can build up as your company grows. You can start with their flagship product (Base), and you can easily enhance it later on with plugins for emailing and calls (Connect), building your own tools (Snap), or analytics (Apollo).
I also highly recommend their Sales Intelligence calculator where you can check how your business stacks against different sales benchmarks and goals such as call logging in and the ability to see all of the processes in an overview.
The Base Starter pack costs $45 per set/month (billed annually).
Presentations and proposals
4. Storydoc
If PowerPoint were a caveman, Stroydoc would be Elon Musk. It is the natural evolution of presentations from static overloaded slides to interactive content experiences. Storydoc is a modern presentation maker that lets you use videos, animations, storytelling, and dynamic personalized content to create memorable and engaging presentations.
It’s an intuitive collaborative tool for very small or very large teams. With Storydoc It’s easy to make beautiful content and very hard to ruin the design. The tool has advanced storytelling capabilities that break complicated information into small easily understandable chunks. And it comes with built-in analytics that lets teams and individuals see how audiences engage with the presentation content.
Storydoc provides integrations with major CRMs, like Salesforce and Hubspot, which lets you automate and personalize presentations at scale. It also allows you to embed your Calendly widget so that your prospect can book a meeting directly from the presentation. Other integrations like a lead capture form, chatbot, and Google Maps are also available
You can try Storydoc for free for 14 days after which plans start at $30/month.
5. Proposify
Preparing and sending out business proposals can get repetitive over time, but it doesn’t have to be. With Proposify, you can create, send, and get your interactive business offers signed with a few clicks.
I am a huge fan of their BizChat podcast where its host, Kyle Racki interviews salespeople and startup founders about up and downs in their business journey, and talks about latest sales tips and tricks.
You try Proposify out for 14 days; paid plans start at $25 a month.
6. Prezi
Prezi is an excellent alternative to tools such as PowerPoint and Keynote, especially if you need to create interactive presentations. Once you’ve paid $5 (billed monthly) for a personal use account and picked your template, you can fully customize with your brand assets, data visualizations, copy, images, etc.
With Prezi, you can also share your finished work with anyone, and - if you’re on a $15/month plan - store your presentations in a cloud, edit them offline, and record voiceovers.
Meetings
7. Calendly
If you need a fast and easy way to schedule your in-person meeting and calls, Calendly is the app for you.
One of its advantages is its flexibility. It not only allows you to set up one-on-one with invitees able to book a slot, but it’s great for groups and multiple invitees. It integrates with other sales tools such as Salesforce, MailChimp, and Google Calendar too.
The basic version is free; paid ones start at $8 per user/month.
8. Zoom
You may have tried using Skype or Google Hangouts, but you also know how fickle they can sometimes be.
I’ve found that Zoom is great for all types of meetings I organized in my marketing career: all-team gatherings, webinars, conference calls, and one-on-ones.
Hosting a meet-up is easy there, they also have extensive resources in case you need any support.
The free version has a 40-minute time limit for group meetings, paid ones start at $14.99 a month.
Sales outreach
9. Woodpecker
If you read my last article about outreach emails, you’ll know how important personalization is.
With Woodpecker, you can create a message flow with a personal feel. You can also track your opens and responses, and stop further follow-ups as soon as you get a reply.
Woodpecker works with most email clients, including Gmail, SendGrid, and Office 365. They also have tons of integrations (i.a. With Zapier, Close.io, and Base), so you can easily include in your daily toolset.
Once you sign up for a trial, you get 60 days free; then it’s $40 a month for a starter plan.
10. Close.io
Close.io is not an emailing tool per se. By using this tool, you can display all of your sales activities, including emails, text messages, and calls in one dashboard. The ultimate goal is to help you close more sales.
It’s also perfect if you need to share what you’re doing with others from your team or allow them to pick up your contacts and follow up. You can also set up a few report overviews so you’ll always know what to do next and which leads need your attention.
Their Basic plan is priced at $59 a month.
11. GrowBots
GrowBots’ AI-powered leads database allows you to create more targeted email campaigns and reach people who are interested in your offer.
You can also stop worrying about follow-ups: schedule them in advance and let AI do the rest, including sending the emails based on prospect’s timezone and automatically rescheduling messages if you receive an out-of-office reply.
All of your campaigns can be done tracked and analyzed in a beautifully designed dashboard.
Business intelligence
12. Tableau
Although no sales processes are the same, they share one thing: they need storing loads to data that needs to be analyzed and visualized by different teams and for various reasons.
Tableau can help you with that.
What’s more, it is yet another tool that has collaborative features, so it is easy to share your data reports with others or allow them to create their insights.
You can try Tableau out during a free 14-day trial; paid plans start at $12 per user/month for a Viewer account.
Further reading: 7 Google Analytics Alternatives for Product Managers
13. InsightSquared
InsightSquared’s main features are called Tiles and Slate. Tiles is an on-demand reporting tool that allows you to analyze your Salesforce data from day one, and help your reps (or yourself) close more sales.
It has 80+ ready-to-use report templates and forecasts that you can customize and share with others.
Slate will be perfect if you need to move beyond these templates and you want to take a more in-depth look into your data.
14. Leadfeeder
Although it’s not a business intelligence tool as such, Leadfeeder can seriously boost your sales efforts.
It is fueled by your Google Analytics data, and it enhances it by showing you the names of the companies your website visitors work at.
If you’ve ever been involved in a sales outreach project, you’ll know it’s very much a hit-and-miss game. Leadfeeder helps you avoid that and the fact that you’re retargeting your website visitors with emails increases the quality of your leads by a fair bit.
You can also integrate this tool with CRM apps such as Salesforce or Pipedrive or email clients, including Zoho and Mailchimp.
Paid plans start at $53 billed monthly.
Legal
15. GetAccept
Getting your sales documents signed can be yet another hurdle for your team. With GetAccept, you can send your proposals and agreement, and track if they are opened and signed using their Deal Accelerator feature.
What’s interesting is that you can also create video presentations to be emailed along legal documents to make the signing process even more accessible.
You can also set up push notifications sent to your phone or smartwatch to help you time your emails and call just right. Plans start at $35 a month.
16. DocuSign
Going completely paperless is a dream-come-true for anyone who has ever run a business.
With DocuSign, it’s possible to send agreements as well as payments through an automated system which allows you to oversee all your legal documents in one place.
You can also integrate this tool with all of your Google, Microsoft, or Apple products.
Personal plan is $10 a month, and API plans which allow for creating your own tools and OAuth authentication start at $50 billed monthly.
SEO
17. Ahrefs
If you’re a salesperson who needs to create powerful landing pages, this tool is for you. You can enter any topic or words you had in mind into Ahrefs’ search and what you’ll get will be the list of related keywords, top performing pages or blog posts built around this subject, and more.
You can even spy on your competitors and check how their sales pages have been structured when it comes to content, and what keywords they are ranking for.
Paid plans start at $99 for the Lite version (1 user, up to 5 campaigns).
18. Yoast
Your marketing team may be busy at all times, and who needs them anyway if you’ve got Yoast?
This tool analyzes your copy and makes suggestions on what to modify for better positioning in search engines. Yoast also has tons of educational materials on their website, including paid SEO courses for all levels.
Their basic editor is free online, and as a plugin, the premium plan costs from $79 a year (for one site).
Over to you
As I’ve mentioned in the introduction, getting your sales strategy right will be crucial for the success of your business. Hopefully, this list will help you start using tools that can move your company up the ladder.
Are you familiar with any of these tools? Would you add any apps to the list? I'd love to read more about it in the comments below.
You can also check Kasia Perzynska’s blog post on 3 ways to increase your affiliate sales.
