6 Must-Have Sales Tools for Your Sales Team

You already know that your industry, marketplace, and business itself grow all the time. It’s a competitive world out there and you always have to work hard to keep up with its fast pace.

Customer needs fluctuate and sales rise once you meet those needs. You have to cultivate a well-trained sales team. They need to collaborate with other departments across your company to enhance the customer experience.

And they need the right sales tools to do so.

The technology available to you is also ever-growing. You have to match new and available sales tools to the needs of your business. This is where it gets tricky. How are you supposed to know which ones are worth the investment or will benefit your selling process? What do these tools even do in the first place?

Martech Alliance says that there are almost 1.1 thousand sales tools vendors right now. That number is always on the rise, too. By the same token, Gartner says that inside sales is going to take up the majority of the market by 2025. Apparently, 80 percent of B2B sales exchanges between suppliers and buyers will happen online.

So let’s talk about why you need the right tools and online sales training to measure up to that shift.

What Tools Do Sales Reps Need?

Simply put, sales tools are the software and applications that sales experts use to refine their sales skills. They make their jobs easier.

You might be a small business owner. You could work for or run a midsize company. Maybe you’re in enterprise sales. Regardless of company size, if you’re in the sales universe then you know how much each sales rep matters. They have to perfect their sales techniques through training programs.

So just how many sales reps are out there? Why do you have to consider top-of-the-line sales tools for them at all?

Tech companies hire the most sales reps, more so than any other industry. How do those tech organizations stay at the top of their game? They use updated sales tools and skills training to shine apart from their competition.

Remember that sales as a whole are heading towards a primarily digital marketplace. Your whole sales department has to stand up to the digital shift.

Since sales tools benefit your entire sales team, there are multiple types. When you choose one, it depends on which employee you need the tools for to create a dynamic staff.

How to Choose Your Sales ToolsHow to Choose Your Sales Tools

That “and more” might look intimidating. But we’re here to help you choose the right sales tools for all of your exclusive business needs.

First, you need to know what each sales tool does and how well it achieves your goals. Then, figure out how all of the tools build on one another.

You know as well as we do that your sales team is the lifeblood of organizational success. So don’t rush into anything without knowing all of the key details.

Your competitor down the road might excel at sales after they implemented their own chosen sales training plan template. But they’re not you. They don’t have the same strengths and weaknesses as you. Their opportunities and threats vary from yours.

Identify all four of those and your recipe for success. Only then will you know the types of sales training programs that are right for your team and your business.

Let’s think of enterprise sales again. If you’re in that industry, you need a stockpile of sales tools that work together. Then you can tame your longer sales life cycle. If you specialize in one product at a high volume, though, one automated sales tool might be your top choice.

Know your business’s individualized needs and those of your target market and customer core. When you choose your sales tools and training programs, make sure your decision is customer-centric. They’ll know if it’s not.

We also have a basic structure you can use for “dos” and “don’ts” when you pick your sales tools. More on that right now.

The 6 Types of Sales Tools With Their Examples

We want you to have a firm grasp on why the right sales tools are vital to keep your business booming. With that being said, we know that there are a lot of them out there to pick from. That only means that there are a lot of the wrong sales tools, regardless of why they’re not the right fit.

That’s why we take you through the top six types of them. We provide you with three examples for each. You’ll leave here today with a better vision of custom-fit professional success, which is always our goal.

First, though, let’s touch on some of the “dos and don’ts” you can reference to select your sales tools.

A good sales tool does:

  • Bring you to easy-to-reach and measurable data
  • Have compatibility with other tools
  • Feel simple instead of complex
  • Boost productivity levels
  • Pinpoint where it can automate to save your team time
  • Simplify the hiring, training, and management of your sales team
  • Raise your metrics, like closing rates and lead growth percentages

A good sales tool does not:

  • Leave you with problems that don’t have solutions
  • Eat up your administrative team’s time
  • Generate tedious tasks for your sales reps when they could spend valuable time on client-centric sales tasks
  • Create a large-scale problem and stress out of small-picture question or task
  • Diminish your ROI 

Keep that structure at the forefront of your mind when you choose from the following six sales tools.

1. Process and Training

You need to follow structured processes in all aspects of your life. You’ve had processes for all of your life’s stages, too. Think back to when you had to do a book report in elementary or middle school.

Let’s follow a standard scenario. Your teacher gave you an outline or a rubric to follow for the book report presentation. You read the book and took notes on its content. You also read through the provided rubric and took notes on that. You made a rough draft based on the guidelines your teacher gave you. Then when it was time to present your book report to the class, you didn’t have to do any guesswork.

You were prepared and structured, even if you had a bit of stage fright.

You put so much work into something that seems as menial as an elementary book report. So it would be shocking if you didn’t put at least twice as much of an effort into your sales processes. Similarly, it would be pointless if you put effort into your sales processes without training your team on how to be effective salespeople.

Proper training programs save you time and stress while driving revenue and boosting profit margins.

DocuSign

Have you been a key player in your market for a while? Did you ever have to close a deal with a customer or have them sign various contracts and miscellaneous documents? If so, you might remember the days when you had to say the dreaded words on your phone call: “Can you sign this for me and fax it back over?”

They had to print out the document, sign it and scan it. Then, they had to type in your fax number and were bound to press at least one wrong button in the process.

Forget the fax machine. It wasn’t even that long ago when you had to print, sign, scale, and then email documents back and forth. Some companies still do.

Enter: DocuSign. It’s an e-signature tool. If you have customers and clients across the world, no worries. With DocuSign, you can complete order forms and advanced documents or agreements in mere hours. It doesn’t matter where you live or what time zone you’re in.

Guru

Guru serves as your internal wealth of knowledge. Think of it as a company-only Wikipedia. All of the moving parts of your sales team can add their sales tips, tricks, and resources into Guru. This is so that everyone benefits from what your range of talent knows.

After all, nobody likes secrets. They’re not fun. Nobody likes when they spend hours researching ways to improve their sales when the information. Not when it could have been just a click away from the next desk over.

Guru is a streamlined way to share and update your employee base as often as you need.

Chorus.ai

You don’t want to work for a company that doesn’t realize the value of internal transparency. Top talent doesn’t want to, either. So don’t operate that way.

Chorus.ai is simple. It’s a way to record and transcribe all sales calls so that you can go back and review them later, whenever you need. That way you can document customer calls, internal meetings, relevant emails, and whatever else as you see fit.

2. Automations and Integrations

Why would you waste your top talent’s time with busy work? It will surprise you how many more sales you can close when you automate and integrate your tedious processes.

With these tools, you can:

  • Pre-qualify leads
  • Address support questions and concerns right away
  • Merge data from different sources

Workato

Workato is an enterprise automation system. It gives you one single platform to integrate and automate your workflow.

It focuses on the customer experience by connecting your team members with integrated customer information. Your sales team gets the full view of all of your customers and their specific journeys.

Then, they can specify pitches and use them to target particular customer desires.

PieSync

PieSync is a way to automatically send and share customer contact information. It syncs the internal and external experience and it’s compatible with a ton of your apps, including those of your:

  • Marketing automation
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Invoices
  • Online shopping
  • Email marketing

Zapier

Use Zapier to integrate app-specific data. It automates the transfer of information between all of your web apps and cuts out the middleman.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)3. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Today’s buyers want you to treat them like gold. And you should. They’re the incentive to sales success. Your CRM sales tool is key for company workflow. It’s how you interact with and communicate with your customers. It analyzes your data to evaluate huge amounts of information.

Zoho CRM

You can customize Zoho CRM to work with your B2B or B2C company, no matter the size.

It aids you in increasing lead conversion, customer engagement, and revenue.

Copper

Copper‘s creators made it for G suite users. It tracks and measures data and schedules meetings for you. It’s a great way to generate more opportunities.

Dynamic 365 Sales

Microsoft made Dynamics 365 Sales. It consists of multiple apps for many levels of the buyer journey. It personalizes their experience using sales intel. Dynamics 365 Sales also works with some integration tools to give you important sales information on the inside.

4. Sales and Market Intelligence

For qualified leads, you need sales and market intelligence tools. They bridge the gap between basic client information and what you still need to know.

Clearbit

Clearbit is a data engine. It takes the small bits of information that you get from customer chats and builds it.

It can tell you their business’s name, their geographic location, and more. Then, you’ll know if they’re the right choice to take on as a customer.

MadKudu

MadKudu analyzes your customers’ behavioral data. Then, it pairs it with the most appropriate demographics. You can integrate it with other apps and use it to land premier leads.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn is a trusted site all around, and their Sales Navigator tool is no different. It gives you access to their user network so that you can figure out who your prospects are and the right decision-maker to appeal to.

5. Lead Handling and Prospecting

Leads are meaningless if you can’t turn them into a sale and retain them as a customer. These tools make sure that you can.

Demandbase

This is an account-based marketing platform. It shows you a comprehensive view of all accounts. Once you look at them, you know what customer to target, how to engage them, and when to take action.

Aircall

Outbound sales companies favor Aircall. It’s a broad tool with detailed services, like call recording abilities and data analysis. It integrates with several CRM tools, too.

DocSend

You can’t rely on hard drives anymore to keep your sales data safe. Instead, sales tools like DocSend store all of it for you. It sends crucial content like case studies and company presentations. Then, it monitors customer engagement so that your sales team knows where they succeed and where they can improve.

Analytics and Reporting

6. Analytics and Reporting

You have to actualize your data, or else it loses meaning. But it takes time. These tools analyze and report the hard numbers for you. It takes away the time-consuming work so that you can make the most profitable decisions.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a choice if your company uses Google for the rest of its internal processes. It shows your sales team where they couldn’t convert their leads and what content their prospects are the most interested in.

It also points out where they heard about you or interacted with you for the first time and key demographics.

Use it to act on your available opportunities.

Clari

Clari encourages sales productivity through gamification. It also lays out the buyer journey and inspires the right forecasts to close more sales.

InsightSquared

If you want up-to-date data on your KPIs, InsightSquared might be the tool for you. It elevates the operational side of sales for spot-on forecasts and effective sales coaching. It also helps your team fill their pipelines.

Conclusion

You need these tools for a prosperous business. You know the top six ones now, but there are so many things to question. Sometimes it’s hard to find answers.

Sales tools. Profit margins. Sales management training. Top talent recruitment. Retail sales training programs. As an entrepreneur in the modern marketplace, you constantly have these thoughts rolling around in your head.

So let us help. For countless clients, we revolutionize the way they tackle sales strategies and train their champion teams. And you’re up next. For more profitable tips, read through our blog. While you’re there, book a call with us to see how we can get you on the path to greatness.