The sales and marketing industry is one of the most dynamic and demanding facets of a business. It offers a high adrenaline experience to professionals in the industry, especially for high achievers. Sales professionals know that you must be strategic and driven in order to close a sale. 

Sales teams are crucial personnel in a healthy organization. Up to 13% of all full-time jobs in the US today are salespeople. Still, it’s not enough to just have sales staff. They should also be equipped with the right sales tools and techniques to help find leads, nurture them, and turn them into clients. There are various examples of sales tools found on the internet but you have to be aware of your own needs. This starts with knowing how to select the right tools for the right use-case scenarios. 

7 simple steps when choosing sales tools for your business

In this hyper-digitized world, technology enables sales professionals and businesses to improve sales and marketing efforts. So how does one choose what tool you need to become a more effective salesperson? Here are seven steps to take.

1. Determine your sales pain points

Pain points are specific or distinct problems or challenges that you encounter in your business. Often, you might think that you’re solving a pain point when you’re only really addressing a symptom. It’s important that sales professionals and business owners learn how to spot what areas of weaknesses they have in their sales channels.

Determining your sales pain points involves asking specific questions about your data and other important information. Questions such as: 

• Where are we dropping leads?
• Why do clients choose to stop working with us?
• How can we improve our sales funnel?
• What sales activities are eating the most time? Can I automate those activities?

You could also determine your paint point by looking at the processes of your company. If you choose a sales tool too quickly without finding out your sales points, you might be using a tool that is not helpful to your business at all. 

2. Figure out what tools will answer your problems

Specific tools solve specific problems. The more specific your diagnosis is, the easier it is to choose the best sales tools that can help you. The good news is that for every problem, there is a specific tool that can help you address that problem. 

Here’s a list of best sales tools that can help you grow your company or business. 

CRM tools

Customer relationship management or CRM software aids in managing and running your business without losing your personal touch with your clients and customers. CRM does this by providing helpful insights and information about your existing customers. Studies show that CRM tools improve sales by up to 29%.

CRM software can also improve your customer service experience, and oversee your existing sales and marketing initiatives. Some CRM helps you manage and track multiple communication channels like email, text and calls inside a single platform. You can also get virtual phone number for UK, USA, Australia and many other countries at affordable prices, which help you be local while working remotely.

Sales intelligence tools

Sales intelligence tools give salespeople a competitive edge or advantage by leveraging the information they need in building a healthy relationship with their clients. It provides specific information such as the kind of people they should look for, the topics to talk about, and the ideal time you should contact or message them. Some sales intelligence tools can even give a potential buyer’s past purchases, existing contracts and other digital information.

Sales productivity tools

This kind of tool provides an upgrade to a salesperson’s productivity habits through automation and time-tracking tools that increase a salesperson’s focus on closing a sale. This kind of sales tool allows salespeople to pour out their efforts on the aspects of their work that are essential and important. 

Using sales productivity tools will greatly improve a salesperson’s daily habits by managing daily tasks and activities in order to produce more sales. 

Marketing automation

Marketing automation functions as a lead generation tool that gives a higher chance for buyers to find the sellers. This sales tool allows salespeople to become efficient in acquiring and building their leads for potential sales. It automates marketing efforts like sending an email, making a post and other lead-generating efforts. This tool helps salespeople dig a deep well of contacts through conversions. 

CPQ tools

Configure, price, quote software or CPQ software increases a company’s or a business’s ability to identify their potential customer’s needs and give them a customized quotation that came from their specific needs. This tool optimizes client relationships by providing detailed and personalized quotations. 

With the help of CPQ tools, the lifecycle of giving quotations and proposals is automated and in effect, avoids a lot of possible errors. It allows sales teams to move quicker, and give more accurate price information and market bundle promos. 

3. Set your sales goals

Before choosing which sales tools software or sales techniques you will use, it is important to map out your direction and clarify the win for your sales team. Your sales goals must be clear to everyone on the team. It must be big enough to challenge you but be specific enough to allow you to choose the best sales tools. A realistic sales goal gives you the right perspective on which kind of sales tools you are looking for. 

4. Create a rollout plan for your teams

The effectiveness of sales tools software is affected by the way it was integrated into the team or company. Oftentimes, instead of a tool increasing sales and generating more revenue, it slows down the sales process because the rollout plan was not well thought of. 

An effective rollout plan has different phases. Those stages should include introduction, training, implementation and evaluation. In order to make the most out of the best sales tools, they must be introduced gradually, implemented thoroughly and evaluated properly. 

5. Set up an ad-hoc team to champion the transition

An ad-hoc team is a temporary group that will champion your rollout plan. This team will lead the implementation process and assist sales team members as they try to understand the tools that you will use.

Companies form ad hoc teams in order to ensure smooth transition and implementation of projects. Implementing sales tools may sound simple but it entails a certain amount of focus, planning and effort in successfully integrating it to the whole company. These ad-hoc teams don’t have to be the managers. The important part is that the members of the ad-hoc team will take full ownership of the process from introduction to evaluation.

6. Train your staff

A company’s greatest asset is not its sales tools and techniques; it is their staff members. The best sales tools cannot increase a company’s productivity and output if the staff is not prepared and well-trained to use these tools.

The sales tools and techniques can achieve their goal in the hands of an equipped staff. When training your staff, make sure to give ample time to learn the new sales tool. Better yet, incentivize your staff to encourage them to embrace your technology roll-out.

7. Evaluate

Finally, evaluate the integration of the sales tools software with your team. It merits to look at the different aspects of your business and not just the numbers or the revenue. It may be that your numbers have gone up but haven’t fully maximized the new sales tools and techniques that you have implemented. Also, do not hesitate to stop using sales tools software that does not increase the productivity and revenue of your business. 

Tools Plus Skills Equals Growth

In becoming the best sales team or sales company, teams should do more than put time and effort into skills. After all, 55% of sales representatives don’t get the training they need to become successful. But it shouldn’t end with skill. Sales teams should also have the tools they need to succeed.

Choosing the best sales tools plays an important role causing growth in your business. To a certain extent, it is trial and error but with careful analysis, you will find the right sales software for your company.