All startups need the right sales tools to support revenue growth. No matter how great the product or service, sales is the lifeblood of every business there is because, without it, there is no revenue.
If you’re short on manpower, worry not. In recent years, a range of new sales tools have come on the market that make it easy to sell more – even with a limited budget and staff. Here are some top tech tools startups are using to prospect, nurture sales leads, and move deals through the sales pipeline more efficiently.
1. Better Sales Proposals
There are very few people who enjoy writing business proposals. However, they’re a necessary part of pitching clients and winning new business. Proposal software like Better Proposals makes it easy to write, send, and manage proposals. Instead of manually typing them out in Word or Google Docs, you can use proposal templates and send proposals within minutes instead of hours.
Top features include the ability to track your proposals (when they are opened, read, and signed) and a wide range of proposal templates from different industries. Moreover, all proposals are optimized for mobile and you can get signatures and receive payments through the proposal.
What sets Better Proposals apart is that, even if you’re not a paying user, there are lots of resources to help you write better proposals and sell more. Their annual Proposal Report shows the science behind creating a high-converting business proposal. Moreover, their proposal university teaches you the fundamentals of writing and managing business proposals successfully.
2. Higher Website Conversions
All marketing experts know how powerful social proof is. We look upon the actions of others who are similar to us when making our own decisions – especially regarding purchases online. After all, we all look at other people’s reviews before making a purchase. This is what crowdy.ai lets you do through the use of reviews, testimonials, conversion notifications, and much more.
The top features of the app are the reviews and testimonials. You can collect them from your customers and easily display them on your website. Another extra-useful feature comes in the form of conversion notifications, which pop up for your visitors and show the most recent conversions such as purchases, signups, and booked demos. To add to the mix, crowdy.ai offers a neat cookie tool to help you stay GDPR compliant.
3. Power Dialers for Sales Calls
Solutions like ConnectandSell directly connect salespeople’s phone calls to decision makers – with no need for reps to hang up on voicemail, talk to gatekeepers, or navigate phone directories.
Sales reps won’t have to perform data entry, either, as ConnectAndSell automatically logs all activities in CRM and sets up follow-up calls for effortless voice nurture. They are 100 percent focused on selling so, rather than giving up after a few dial attempts or first conversation, they can follow up and persist with second, third, fourth, and fifth conversations – which are needed to make most sales happen. Benefits include 5x-8x improvement in rep productivity (due to time savings from not having to dial prospects on their own) as well as automated follow-up reminders and data entry into CRM.
4. Business Contact Provider
Unfortunately, good sales leads don’t grow on trees.
UpLead is the go-to app for finding verified data on your leads, regardless of your niche and preferred method to sell. It currently has information on more than 46 million contacts all over the world, with emails and data fields verified in real time.
Whether you use this data to contact leads or just to enrich data you got from another source, UpLead is a valuable addition to your sales stack. Perhaps one of UpLead’s most interesting features for SaaS companies is the ability to filter leads according to the software they use. That way, you can build a list of contacts just using your competitors’ software, making it super easy to sell to them.
5. Web Visitor Conversions
Getting your inbound leads on the phone is one of the easiest ways to close a deal. However, the road from just visiting a Website to hopping on a call with a sales rep is a long one. Limecall is the app to bridge this gap.
This marketing/sales tool is placed on your website so visitors get an option to quickly ask your sales reps a one-on-one question. Once they do this, the visitor gets an option to immediately call the rep and, after the call, they will get a personalized SMS message. It’s one of the best ways to convert cold traffic into inbound phone calls for your reps.
6. Online Chatbots for Customer Service
As the years go by, the average conversion rate for any Website still hovers around 2 percent. One reason is that Websites are static in nature and visitors rarely have a chance to interact with a human being. Of course, you can hire customer support – but who can afford reps 24/7?
Botsify lets you create a chatbot that sounds just as natural as a real human being. The app does this by allowing “human takeover” at various stages so a rep steps in when your bot can no longer reply. You can create story trees and conversation forms and build a natural logic for the conversations your customers can have with your chatbot. Besides your Website, Botsify lets you create chatbots for your Facebook account and even your Slack workspace.
7. Website Analytics
Again, data is pure gold. Sometimes, it’s not the data about your leads but the data about how leads interact with your brand. And, as you already know, Google Analytics can only do so much.
Finteza is the all-in-one analytics tool for your Website. It can spot bad traffic and see whether you’re targeted by spammers or hackers. Identify your audience easily according to a wide range of parameters, including their company, IP, location, device, and much more – all without violating their privacy. You can also build funnels, split test them, and optimize your pages according to different criteria. If you have a Website and use it to sell stuff, it’s worth giving Finteza a try.
8. Automated Cold Emails
Email is still one of the top channels for sales, especially in B2B. And, as much as we love to hate on cold email and regard it as spam, the reality is that it simply works. It’s super easy to scale and it works in a variety of niches. But, just as with CRM tools, cold email tools have become abundant in recent years.
Lemlist has everything in one place to create personalized cold email campaigns that deliver results. It automatically warms up your email address and comes with a range of high-converting email templates. Moreover, it guarantees one of the best deliverability rates in the industry. With lots of dynamic content (images, logos, and text), you can create amazingly personalized cold emails that get results every time.
9. Cloud-Based Call Center Software
Inbound calls are a large part of every good sales process. Unfortunately, not many CRMs come with systems that allow inbound call capabilities to the same extent as they do for outbound calls. And, if you have customers from all over the world, it gets even messier.
CloudTalk is the virtual phone system that lets you easily manage all your inbound calls. You can receive calls from your browser and set up a local presence so, no matter where your customers are, they have a local phone number to call you on.
Leverage the Right Sales Tech Tools to Grow Your Startup
No matter how many tools we have nowadays, sales always boils down to making a strong connection with prospects and convincing them to pull the trigger. While these tools won’t necessarily make you a better sales professional, they certainly make it easier to sell – no matter your industry or niche.
Adam Hempenstall is the CEO and founder of Better Proposals. Having helped his customers at Better Proposals win $120,000,000+ in one year only, he’s launched the first Proposal Writing University, where he shares business proposal best practices.
