A sales team's success depends on many factors, such as understanding the audience, building a consistent sales process to capture every opportunity, developing content to reach prospects, and a skilled and motivated sales force to make it all work.
The common thread among all these factors is the technology or 'tech stack' used by companies to streamline processes and increase productivity. Organizations use a stack of sales tools to accomplish various tasks and keep the sales process running like a well-oiled machine.
What does B2B mean?
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| B2B Marketing Tools |
B2B is an abbreviation of business to business. B2B carries out transactions between fellow business people. For example, furniture companies collaborate with digital marketing companies to help market their products
B2B is short for business to business. So what is B2B? B2B is a business transaction that occurs between one company and another company. Usually we know the process of selling goods and services from companies to consumers, so how can B2B happen?
B2B can occur because companies need goods or services from other companies. So, before marketing their products to final consumers, companies usually collaborate with other companies to meet their production needs or also to introduce their products to the public.
It is also possible that B2B companies are producers with a target market of fellow producers where they will not reach end consumers directly. One B2B example is a clothing manufacturing company that purchases advertising services from a commercial advertising company.
The advertising company will most likely not interact directly with end users because its advertising services will only be used by the company. Of course, non-producing people will not seek advertiser services if they are not business people.
In the case above, another example of a B2B company is a manufacturer that supplies raw materials to clothing companies. Thus, it can be said that B2B companies are companies that are involved in buying and selling activities.
What are sales tools and why do you need them?
Sales tools are applications designed to perform several tasks that help salespeople in their role. This is an umbrella term that combines many sales-related software such as CRM, lead routing tools, sales training tools, automation tools, market intelligence tools, etc. Because each tool has a specific and closely related function, companies usually need more than one tool to optimize their sales processes.
According to a GetAccept survey, 67% of respondents said their tech stack uses between 4 to 10 sales tools, while 97% use at least one. Sales aids have a number of benefits, such as
- Simplifies the process of tracking progress towards goals
- Cut down on time spent by representatives doing unproductive administrative tasks
- Greater structure for the sales cycle
- Accurate sales forecast
- Better prospect analysis
- Better customer relationship management
- Increased productivity and higher deal closing rates
Best Sales Tools to Improve Sales Productivity & Revenue
This section lists the best sales tools based on their categories. While you won't need most sales tools, each is a good fit for the different needs of all organizations.
1. Sales prospecting tools
Sales prospecting tools save reps a lot of time by cutting out the tasks of manual prospecting, organizing emails, and scheduling meetings. Lead qualification is automated in this tool so reps can focus on the best prospects.
a. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Drawn from the world's largest professional network, Sales Navigator is designed specifically for salespeople. By leveraging data from more than 500 million professionals on the platform, the tool narrows down the most qualified leads for sales reps.
The software can be synced with all leading CRMs to store critical lead qualification data so businesses can find the best prospects and engage with them faster.
Feature:
- Tracking, capturing and managing leads
- CRM
- Real time data
- Lead nurturing
- Dashboard
b. LeadFuze
LeadFuze is a cloud-based sales prospecting software designed to generate leads and assist with marketing and recruiting operations. The platform collects information about professionals across organizations and is used by salespeople, marketers, and recruiters.
The extracted data is used to provide the best leads so sales reps can spend their time selling to those most likely to convert. For marketing teams, LeadFuze uses AI to automatically compile a list of the most qualified prospects so they can get the data they need for their marketing programs.
It can also help recruiters find the most suitable candidates by using various specific criteria and also avoid double data entry.
Feature:
- Lead capture
- Lead nurturing
- Leader qualifications
- Leadership verification
- Prospecting Tools
Get LeadFuze
2. Main routing tool
Only a few sales representatives in an organization are suitable for each incoming lead. The process of deciding who gets which leads is called lead routing. While it sounds like a simple task, tools specific to this process can help increase conversions by matching lead attributes with the right sales reps who are best qualified to handle them.
a. Leading Establishing
Lead assign is a lead management and routing system designed for companies so they can easily see all their leads. This software can be used as a stand-alone tool or integrated with other technology devices.
Lead assign ensures optimized lead routing so that each campaign has the expected ROI and sales cycle times are shortened. Used by some of the top companies in the world, this software performs a variety of functions, including lead capture, distribution, qualification, management, nurturing, etc. This tool is only supported on the web and not on mobile devices.
Feature:
- Lead capture, distribution and management
- Forecasting
- Activity dashboard
- Lead nurturing
- Interaction tracking
Get Main Task
b. Fresh sales
Freshsales is a comprehensive sales force automation software that provides sales teams with everything they need to generate high-quality leads. Driven by AI, these tools engage in contextual conversations and offer critical insights for salespeople to nurture leads for higher close rates.
In addition to directing leads to the right sales reps, AI also provides insight into the best deals and creates forecasts to predict revenue. With built-in automation features like phone, chat, and email, these tools free up time for reps to focus on selling.
Feature:
- FIRE
- Access/permission control
- Activity dashboard
- Activity tracking
- Price:
Get Freshsales
3. Incentive compensation management tools
Sales compensation tools automate the accounting and administration of sales force commissions and incentives. Reps have a clear view of incentive plans and real-time info about their earnings and forecasts.
By incorporating gamification features, sales gamification tools bring fun and competitiveness to the sales process. Sales engagement tools are used to improve employee well-being and encourage a healthy culture of appreciation and appreciation.
a. Compass
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| Compass |
Compass is a leading incentive compensation management software that can be used by sales teams of all sizes to support teams, freelancers, and even channel partners. This tool helps increase engagement in sales teams with intrinsic motivation problems.
This is accomplished by helping companies navigate the intricacies of sales and channel business through effective goal setting, alignment, communication, and feedback that keeps teams moving toward established goals. Compass is SaaS and web-based and supported on desktop, Mac, and all mobile devices running Android and iOS.
Feature:
- FIRE
- Activity dashboard
- Activity tracking
- Agency commission
- Audit trail
- Rewards management
Get Compass
4. Sales team engagement tools
a. Empuls
Empuls is employee engagement software that companies can leverage to build a strong culture and enliven the workplace. At Empuls, leaders bring teams together to promote organizational values, break down silos, and offer a platform for all employees to voice their opinions.
Companies can build reward and recognition systems for employees to keep their employees motivated and measure their level of engagement. This tool is used by more than 1000 organizations worldwide to improve employee morale, reduce attrition, and increase satisfaction.
With empulse, teams can celebrate milestones, anniversaries, birthdays, and contributions, and ask for feedback for improvement.
Feature:
- FIRE
- Employee engagement
- Employee community
- 360 degree feedback
- Audience targeting
- Benchmarking
- Document management
Get Empulse
5. Sales gift management tools
a. Plums
Plum by Xoxoday is a tool to automate payments, incentives and rewards while making it easier for companies to solve the problem of extrinsic motivation in employees. Plum easily integrates with some of the largest CRM, HRIS, and HRMS software to give teams the flexibility to deliver rewards without disrupting workflow.
These sales incentive tools can be global, with tools providing multi-currency and multi-region support. Its scalability makes it suitable for organizations of all sizes. Plum supports all devices, including desktop and Mac and runs on all mobile devices working on Android and iOS.
Feature:
- FIRE
- CRM
- Campaign analysis
- Customer activity tracking
- Customer survey
- Customizable reports
Get Plum
6. Sales enablement tools
Sales enablement is a set of processes, content, and tools given to sales teams to help them sell more and sell better. Sales enablement also includes processes carried out by the marketing team to help the sales team close more deals.
a. Mindtickle
Mindtickle is the best sales readiness platform used by some of the world's largest companies to train their sales teams. The tool's learning board allows users to track various learning metrics like skills, updates, training, etc.
This software can also be integrated with other major learning platforms to get the best results. Sales leaders can also see important things like progress in learning, engagement with content, and areas of improvement tailored to each rep. The software is supported on desktop, Mac, and all mobile devices running on Android and iOS.
Feature:
- AI/Machine learning
- FIRE
- Activity dashboard
- Activity tracking
- Asynchronous learning
- Attendance tracking
- CRM
Get Mindtickle
b. Bite
Sharing critical knowledge with employees working on the front lines is critical for many organizations. With Bites, you can train and host KT programs on simple platforms like social media that are very intuitive and easy to use.
The training format consisting of short videos and trailers creates content that can be consumed in one bite similar to most existing social media. Bites allows leaders to monitor employee training progress and allows them to share information and learnings with others when needed.
The platform is supported on both desktop and mobile devices for easy access.
Feature:
- Activity dashboard
- Assessment management
- Assignment management
- Content library
- Course management
Get Bites
7. Sales automation tools
The main goal of sales automation is to free sales staff from repetitive and unproductive administrative tasks that do not contribute to sales. Several sales processes across the cycle can be automated, from lead generation to pipeline management, sales activity tracking and sales forecasting.
a. HubSpot Sales Hub
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| HubSpot Sales Hub |
Sales Hub is a powerful sales automation platform with a wide range of functions that sales teams need to achieve their best performance. The tool is built on HubSpot CRM, a single source of truth platform for customer data and all other critical metrics for the sales process.
Using this platform, sales teams can gain comprehensive insight into their prospects and use automation functions to close more deals. The platform helps reps secure data about prospects, log communications contextually and schedule emails for follow-up and meetings. CRM also records data for sales intelligence.
Feature:
- CRM
- Appointment scheduling
- Activity dashboard
- Activity tracking
- Campaign analysis
- Call management
Get Sales Hub
b. Apollo.io
Apollo is a comprehensive sales platform that excels in automation, intelligence, and sales enablement. With an extensive contact database, the platform helps salespeople find highly qualified prospects and connect with them to start the sales journey.
The platform's AI scans data to provide insight into prospects and even makes automatic suggestions based on behavioral and conversation analysis. This makes it easy to build automated workflows that use rules engines, auto-sequences, auto-dialers, event-triggered emails, and other features. The software also integrates seamlessly with other platforms and applications.
Feature:
- CRM
- Behavior analysis
- Autoresponder
- Campaign analysis
- Collaboration tools
- Correlation analysis
- Price:
Get Apollo
c. EngageBay
EngageBay is an all-in-one marketing, sales, and customer support software with affordable pricing. It offers robust sales automation and prospecting tools to help SMBs improve efficiency and team productivity.
EngageBay's tools can help sales teams automate their pipelines and gain insights into their performance through advanced analytics and dashboards. The built-in CRM also captures and tracks all customer interactions, offering a 360-degree view of each customer. These features help sales teams close deals more effectively.
Feature:
- Sales automation
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)Sales pipelines and funnels
- Contact management
- Segmentation and personalization
- Email automation
- Appointment scheduling
Get EngageBay
8. Data solutions
Sales data involves various types of machine-readable information and helps sales teams prospect, understand prospects, and make better decisions. Sales data can involve information about organizations and individuals that can be useful to the sales team.
a. Lead411
Lead411 is the most comprehensive collection of professional information available on the market. This platform allows salespeople to view lead data using highly customized filters. They can extract a variety of information ranging from profiles to hiring plans, job vacancies, new hires, company awards, etc.
Detailed data helps salespeople narrow their search to the most qualified prospects. Lead411 also enables reps to achieve targets and helps companies start a sales dialogue.
Feature:
- B2B lead integration
- CRM
- Built-in database
- Campaign planning, management and analysis
- Autoresponder
Get Lead411
b. Swordfish
Swordfish is the world's most comprehensive people search engine. The platform collects data from various sources such as Experian, Dun & Bradstreet, Hovers, and many other independent outlets as well as social media feeds to provide the most up-to-date information about people.
This tool is used by some of the best recruiters and includes information from everyone at large companies to individuals and freelancers. Sales teams that leverage such data can easily determine the pool of qualified leads and leads.
Feature:
- Activity dashboard
- FIRE
- Import/export data
- Master database integration
- Lead management
Get Swordfish
9. Sales intelligence
Sales intelligence platforms crawl millions of publicly available pages to gather data and build individual profiles. The platform may also collect data from third-party aggregators and enable sales teams to analyze and evaluate the data.
a. Outreach
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| Outreach |
Outreach is a powerful sales intelligence software that integrates various aspects such as revenue intelligence, conversation intelligence and sales engagement into one platform. Outreach, the dominant vendor in this category, also made it into the Deloitte Technology Fast 500.
Trusted by some of the biggest brands in IT, this software helps personalize the prospect journey throughout the buying cycle. This AI-powered software can join live meetings, capture real-time information, transcribe conversations, and provide critical product information needed on the spot.
Feature:
- FIRE
- Activity tracking
- Audio/video recording
- Auto dialer
- Content delivery
- Data management
- Lead capture, management and qualification
Get Outreach
b. UpLead
UpLead is software that specializes in lead generation and sales intelligence. This software helps generate leads for sales representatives in B2B settings and uses real-time tracking to verify engagement opportunities.
The platform pulls data from emails, phone calls, and other forms of communication to enable sales teams to build B2B lists and help interact with prospects in real-time. UpLead automatically captures the data needed for sales enablement and helps prospects using the various data points it collects.
Feature:
- FIRE
- CRM
- Contact database
- Lead generation/capture
- Prospecting tools
- Third party integration
Get Upleads
10. Reporting & analysis
Sales reporting and analytics tools are used by sales representatives, team leaders, project leaders, and VPs to create extensive reports on different sales cycles. These reports have selected KPIs and use a storage system and dashboard that integrates with other data sources to produce plots that show growth, revenue, and other metrics.
a. Tableau
Data visualization and forecasting using data plots is essential for today's businesses. Tableau is designed to do this and more for companies that routinely make data-driven decisions. The software can connect to hundreds of local and cloud data sources to help sales teams with presentations, forecasting, calculations and a variety of other tasks.
This feature-rich software helps reps understand data, make discoveries and unearth opportunities with its insights that can easily be missed in manual analysis.
Feature:
- FIRE
- AB Testing
- AI/machine learning
- Ad hoc analysis, querying and reporting
- Association discovery
- Bayesian Analysis
Get Tableau
b. Datapine
Datapine is a powerful data analytics, business intelligence, and reporting tool used by companies to visualize, analyze, and explore all their data in one platform.
The most important features of this software include its ease of use and its ability to connect to multiple data sources to generate reports, insights, and forecasts with my non-technical staff. The platform is supported on web and mobile devices.
Feature:
- Activity dashboard
- Ad hoc reporting
- Benchmarking
- Charting
- Collaboration tools
- Data discovery
- Forecasting
Get Datapine
11. Sales content management
Sales staff always work with data and generate data throughout the sales cycle, which can take the form of numbers, images, documents and a list of other formats. This content must be managed systematically, so it requires special tools to handle this work.
a. Paperflite
Paperflite is a comprehensive content management and sales enablement platform that helps sales teams organize, store, distribute, and track their content. The software allows teams to see a document's journey, the number of views it has taken, and other metrics.
Sales representatives can measure how the content they share with prospects has been accessed and how user engagement occurs when it is viewed, shared, or accessed. The platform supports web and mobile devices running on all operating systems.
Feature:
- CRM
- Asset library
- Division of assets
- Activity tracking
- Content management
Get Paperflite
b. DocSend
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| DocSend |
Dropbox's DocSend is built on a powerful data storage system that is widely used around the world. DocSend allows users to set custom security preferences for each user and the software even notifies them when a file is opened and reveals who has viewed the document.
The platform has over 17,000 users and is supported on web and mobile devices. The mobile version makes it easy for sales teams to review and sign documents or share them with colleagues or vendors. DocSend also allows sales staff to create presentations and create sales decks to present to potential clients.
Feature:
- Access/control permissions
- Audit trail
- Bulk upload
- Content delivery
- Document management
- Customizable branding
Get DocSend
12. Email management
Email management software helps salespeople organize, store, and track emails for sales enablement, sales intelligence, and maintaining contact with prospects. Marketing teams also use email management to automate campaigns, send mass emails, and track open and click-through rates.
a. QuickMail
QuickMail is an automation tool for email outreach in marketing and sales. This software allows sales teams to send emails to prospects and generate leads. This software automation feature takes cumbersome tasks out of the hands of sales reps and even follows up with those who haven't replied or left after showing interest.
The best feature of this tool is its ability to send highly personalized emails based on existing data on prospects and companies.
Feature:
- Audience targeting
- Autoresponder
- Campaign management
- Customer database
- Customizable fields
Get QuickMail
b. EmailAnalytics
EmailAnalytics is a comprehensive analysis tool for emails sent by marketing and sales teams. This tool monitors performance parameters such as click-through rate, response time, and other metrics that are important for different teams.
This tool provides an overview of the success of an email marketing campaign that can be shared as a report with management. This tool syncs seamlessly with existing email platforms.
Feature:
- Email tracking
- Campaign tracking
- Email monitoring
- Email analysis
Get EmailAnalytics
Conclusion
The comprehensive list of sales tools mentioned above have specific functions that are useful in various organizational settings.
Simple tools can automate routine tasks and save time for reps, while automation-based tools can provide deep insights and contextual feedback for each prospect to help them on their buying journey. While some significant enterprise-level platforms have features built into them that can replace smaller, more niche tools, the latter have niche uses.