With so many sales technology tools out there, and the list growing even more each year, how do you decide which are best for your small business needs? From sales intelligence and customer relationship management (CRMs) to marketing automation and analytics, we’ve gathered an abbreviated list of what sales experts on Quora recommend as the best tools out of everything they’ve tested and tried. Check out this list of sales automation tools to add to your technology stack this year.
PerfectLeads
With PerfectLeads, you can target prospects in any industry or based on the technology they’re using. Once you build the perfect prospect list with employees and companies you want to target, you can export that list to upload it to your small business CRM tool.
“The best lead prospecting tool is PerfectLeads,” said Brian Roizen, cofounder and Chief Architect at Feedonomics. “Using PerfectLeads, you can target prospects by any industry (doctors, restaurants, fashion, etc), and using any technology like Google Analytics and Optimizely. You can even do niche filters like Facebook likes, number of tweets, and advertising spend.”
Outreach.io
Outreach IO offers workflows and reporting that make sales teams more efficient and successful. Their product offers a number of solutions for the sales process, including a voice dialer, SalesForce and email integration, account playbooks, analytics and more.
“By far, the best product on the market is Outreach IO,” said Adam Chavez, director of product strategy at Domo, Inc. “If you want a true solution, that was built by people who understand what it’s like to run a sales org, use Outreach.”
Salestool.io
This sales automation tool uses the power of social media to build lead prospect lists that include email, phone number and social profiles. Salestool.io scrapes LinkedIn, Xing, Twitter, Github, Crunchbase and more.
“When I was working as VP sales in investment banking in San Francisco, we were extensively using Chrome Plugin call Salestools.io,” said Pierre Truffer, who boasts more than 15 years as a sales banking manager and VP of sales. “My customers and consultants were using it on a daily basis.”
Hatchbuck
Hatchbuck is a sales and marketing automation platform designed and priced specifically for small businesses. This all-in-one platform includes simple-to-use tools for email automation, contact management, and lead capture. Hatchbuck’s marketing and sales automation tool enables your small business to better convert inbound traffic into leads, and nurture more prospects into sales. That means sales can spend less time cold calling and more time with hot, engaged sales opportunities. It also includes dedicated support which is a huge plus in getting the most out your sales automation investment.
“For my money Hatchbuck’s customer service is top drawer,” said Nancy Chorpenning, founder and managing director of C-Suite Advisors.
IFTTT
IFTTT stands for, “If this, then that.” This handy automation tool allows you to create recipes by combining different tools online to get tasks done quickly. For example, you can create an IFTTT recipe to alert you every time a prospect on LinkedIn updates their title and then send them a congratulations note. Or, create an IFTTT recipe for a search on Twitter that then sends you a notification on your phone every time someone Tweets the search criteria, fills out a Google Doc spreadsheet with the information, or sends yourself or another person an email. The possibilities are endless.
“Contact management and backup is an amazing way to use IFTTT for productivity, especially for remembering when you added someone to your address book with a calendar entry, or automatically sending an email to your new contacts with all of your information in it,” said Bob Thordarson, CEO BluCapp, Inc.
CirrusInsight
CirrusInsight integrates your Gmail or Outlook inbox with SalesForce to help salespeople track emails, book meetings, set follow-ups and more. It also gives you seamless SalesForce insight into every customer you’re emailing in your inbox, and allows you to automatically update SalesForce with information via email.
“Know exactly how to appeal to the person,” wrote Jeremy Boudinet, director of marketing at Ambition. “This means research. How can your product help them? Has your company gotten any good publicity recently? Is there something in common you guys share not related to work? Briefly describe one of the 3 in your subject line. Try these different approaches, then go back and use a tool such as CirrusInsight or MailChimp to see which subject lines worked most effectively.”
Expensify
Expensify is one of the best expense tracking tools out there, and allows salespeople to use their desktop or mobile app to track all expenses around sales trips, client meals and more. You can keep track of expenses tied to different GL codes, clients, projects and even create custom fields to understand where the expenses are going.
“I discovered Expensify while traveling with pockets stuffed full of receipts that I had to hang on to in fear for not being reimbursed for my expense report; Expensify not only removed that fear, but made it a paperless joy to keep track of my expenses, and get accurate, smooth and timely expense reports filed,” said Josh Tretakoff, head of loyalty at JustAnswer. “I went from being my company’s perpetual laggard to the most organized, and I have shared the gospel at several companies now.”
Did we miss one of the sales automation tools you use and love? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter @Hatchbuck.