To improve your sales process, strengthen your funnel, and close more deals, it’s essential to empower your team with the proper sales tools. With so many options to choose from, it can be challenging to decide which tools are best for your business.
Here’s the good news:
We put together a list of the best sales tools for 2021 to help you get started.
Before we dive in, here’s an overview of what we’ll be discussing:
- Why sales tools are essential to your sales process
- Tips for choosing the right sales tools for your business
- The 13 best sales tools to consider
Why Sales Tools Are Essential to Your Sales Process
A winning sales stack — or collection of sales tools used by a business — can be the difference between driving growth and falling behind competitors.
The best sales tools will:
- Improve productivity
- Streamline workflow efficiencies
- Automate administrative tasks
- Enhance cross-departmental collaboration
- Shorten the sales process
Now that you know why sales tools are essential, let’s look at a few tips for selecting your company’s best options.
Tips for Choosing the Right Sales Tools for Your Business
The key is to focus on quality over quantity. You don’t need more sales tools, just better platforms that address your specific business needs.
Smart Selling Tools’s 2019 SalesTech Benchmark Survey found the median number of sales tools used by participants was nine tools. That’s a lot of multi-tasking, which can decrease productivity.
To refine and enhance your sales stack, follow these tips:
- Host a roundtable with your Account Executives to identify key pain points for funnel conversions.
- Make a list of core business needs specific to your industry for customer research.
- Develop a process to analyze potential new tools and make them habitual.
Now, on to the sought-after list of the best sales tools.
Sales Tools
1. Salesforce Tools
2. Sales Automation Tools
3. Sales Productivity Tools
4. Lead Generation and Sales Intelligence Tools
Listed above are the most popular types of sales tools for 2021. Below, we list the top sales software in each category.
Salesforce Tools
Salesforce is the most widely used customer relationship management (CRM) platform. If you’re one of the many businesses using it, here are the best sales tools that work with Salesforce.
1. Cirrus Insight
Cirrus Insight is a Salesforce integration that works to automatically sync information from your inbox to your Salesforce CRM platform.
A powerful tool like Cirrus Insight empowers you to create and edit your Salesforce contacts, events, and activities without leaving Gmail or Outlook. You can also access your Salesforce email templates within your inbox to eliminate back-and-forth browser switching. Not to mention, receive timely buyer signals when your customers open and read your emails.
To stay productive on-the-go like most Account Executives, Cirrus Insight has a mobile app.
In addition, Cirrus Insight offers an all-in-one suite of sales productivity tools — including email tracking for more personalized outreach and simplified meeting scheduling.
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ZynBit is another great Salesforce tool that’s best known for integrating with Microsoft Outlook.
The tool eliminates busywork and improves sales productivity through features such as:
- Automated calendar scheduling
- Email, link, and web tracking
- Two-way sync between Salesforce and your inbox
In 2020, ZynBit and Cirrus Insight merged to become the ultimate powerhouse of syncing customer activity data, email, and calendar integration with Salesforce.
3. DocuSign
DocuSign makes remote work a breeze and keeps your business secure with its electronic signature (eSignature) tool — eliminating paperwork and delays. Account Executives or Advisors that work with secure personal information can rely on DocuSign to keep attachments secure.
You can send eSignature requests in one click, trigger actions, and create templates for commonly used documents to save time.
Not to mention, DocuSign’s data reveals that using the tool can result in an 18% reduction in agreement errors.
Sales Automation Tools
Improve the efficiency of your business with these useful sales automation tools.
4. Hunter
Hunter collected all of the tools needed for successful cold outreach in one place allowing you to automate every step of the process.
You can easily find anyone’s email address with Email Finder, Domain Search and Author Finder depending on the final data you want to receive (list of all people working for a specific company or just a single specialist). Besides that, Hunter allows you to verify all of the email addresses you found with them or if you found them in a different source with Email Verifier.
Their free tool for cold outreach called Hunter Campaigns allows you to automate and personalize the whole outreach sequence. You don’t need to schedule and send follow-ups manually, Campaigns will do everything for you.
5. Zapier
Zapier is one of the best sales tools for automating repetitive tasks and streamlining your workflow.
Most Account Executives spend almost 40% of their time doing trivial tasks. Why not try to automate them?
Simply set up a trigger (i.e., Zap) to synchronize information across thousands of apps, and choose an action you want Zapier to take.
Not sure which tasks you should automate? No problem.
Zapier lists popular ways to use the app to help you get started. Before you know it, you’ll begin maintaining a level of productivity that will hum along in the background.
6. Clari
Clari is a revenue operation and sales forecasting software that does away with tedious spreadsheets. Using artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, Clari provides real-time data and predictive insights to deliver accurate pipeline projections.
You can also set goals to monitor and track progress against your key performance indicators (KPIs) and easily spot risk and opportunity areas.
7. Everstring
Acquired by ZoomInfo in 2020, Everstring is a leading business-to-business (B2B) data solutions platform powered by AI.
The intelligent tool automates sales prospecting, provides enriched firmographic information, and simplifies account-based marketing (ABM). Using data science and sales automation, you can build your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) in minutes to focus on target accounts and high-intent leads.
Sales Productivity Tools
Boost your employee output with the best sales tools for productivity.
8. Guru
Guru is a knowledge management sales software that keeps everyone in sync. You can think of the sales tool as an internal wiki to quickly access all the company resources you need.
Spend less time searching for details and more time on essential tasks. According to Guru's data, users spent 60% less time searching for information across a company.
9. Zoom
Zoom is one of the best sales tools for small businesses.
The cloud-based video conferencing app offers robust features for sales managers and teams.
With the free version alone, you can:
- Have unlimited one-to-one meetings
- Host up to 100 people
- Have up to 40 minutes worth of group meetings per month
From live screen sharing to in-video chat capabilities, Zoom also makes it easy to collaborate with your team from anywhere on any device.
10. Slack
Slack is a business communication tool proven to shorten your sales cycle and help close more deals.
Slack’s internal research revealed companies experience 60% shorter turnaround times.
Connect with your team or prospects in real-time, integrate with your CRM and other popular apps to streamline information, and automate alerts.
With Salesforce’s acquisition of Slack in 2020, it will be interesting to see how the sales tool evolves.
Lead Generation and Sales Intelligence Tools
Here are the best sales tools for getting more high-quality leads for your reps.
11. Leadfeeder
Leadfeeder leverages buyer intent data to show you who’s interested in your products and services by revealing your anonymous website traffic.
The sales intelligence tool automates prospecting by filling your pipeline with high-intent leads, enriched with detailed contact information.
For example, you can view:
- Job roles
- Email addresses
- Company names
Integrate Leadfeedeer with your CRM to automatically update it with qualified leads, filter your data to build target key accounts, and align your marketing and sales team with quality data.
12. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
If you’re on a B2B-focused team that emphasizes social selling, then LinkedIn Sales Navigator will prove an invaluable sales tool for your stack.
The LinkedIn Sales Navigator tool is a social media, sales prospecting tool that helps you identify decision-makers based on target account information.
You’ll also get updates on tracked leads and accounts in real-time and can sync any notes and tags back to your CRM.
13. Detective
Detective is a powerful sales intelligence tool full of rich data to help sales reps make meaningful connections.
Detective works by gathering information from across the web — from breaking news articles to social media updates. Simply type in a prospect and watch the data flow in.
Detective’s Browser Automation also makes it possible to customize ongoing searches to your team’s specific sales process.
Final Thoughts: The 13 Best Sales Tools to Close More Deals in 2021
There are endless sales tools to choose from, but not all will be best for your company. It’s important to consider your sales reps and core business goals when determining which platforms are best suited to your business. The list above is full of robust options to help you get started.
Need an all-in-one suite of sales productivity tools? Start your Free 14 Day Trial with Cirrus Insight.
