The tools you use in your sales stack every day have a direct impact on the deals you close.
It’s a fact: According to a survey by LinkedIn, 73 percent of salespeople use technology to close more deals. And 97 percent of salespeople said that technology is either ‘important’ or "very important" to their sales process.
Companies are using more and more technology to improve their sales productivity and win more deals. Businesses increasingly turn to technology as their ally in boosting sales efficiency and securing more deals.
However, this technological influx isn't without its challenges. A report from Harvard Business Review highlights a striking paradox: nearly half of sales professionals feel swamped by the sheer volume of technological tools at their disposal.
This isn't just a minor inconvenience; it significantly impacts performance. Their research indicates that salespeople burdened by technology are 43 percent less likely to achieve their sales targets than their unburdened counterparts.
In other words, the sales stack of the average business is constantly growing. However, it's crucial to exercise discernment in tool selection, as the right choice of technology is key to practical usage and sales success.
But, what exactly is a sales stack? And how can you make sure your team actually uses the sales stack?
We’ll see that in this guide and 30+ top sales tools that you should consider for your stack. We’ve separated the tools by their functionality, including:
- Lead generation and sales prospecting tools
- Internal communication tools
- Engagement and outreach sales stack
- Analytics and automation tools
- Documentation Software
- Sales enablement stack
What is a Sales Stack?
The best sales stack is made up of sales tools that integrate together, meaning your team can access the features and information they need seamlessly.
Sales Software Stack for Sales Leaders
The job of sales leaders involves paying attention to the activity of their team, setting goals, forecasting sales, and managing quota attainment and commissions. Tools that make up the sales stack of a sales manager or leader would include:
- Sales analytics platform
- Automation tools
- Data warehouse
- Sales enablement platform
Sales Technology Stack for Sales Professionals
Sales reps spend their days generating new leads, contacting prospects, and pitching to potential customers. The tools they need to accomplish this include:
- Sales engagement and outreach software
- Lead generation and prospecting tools
- Proposal software
- A communication-focused CRM
How to Build a Sales Stack Your Team Will Actually Use
If you build it, the sales reps will use it, right?
Wrong.
Building a sales stack isn’t the same as purchasing a bunch of tools. It’s a bit more complex.
Whether you’re running a startup, SMB, or something else entirely, if you want to build a sales stack that your team will actually use, structure it around the sales process they’re already using.
A well-defined sales process enables sales teams to predictably close deals. The tools you purchase should transform an already fantastic process into something more efficient and productive.
So, before you even consider adding new tools to your belt, make sure you have a clearly defined process.
Here are 7 easy steps to understand your sales process and build a sales stack around that process:
- Have clearly defined customer profiles
- Understand where your leads come from
- Define the best method to present your product to prospects
- Build a framework to handle common objections
- Understand your ideal follow-up timeframe
- Define which sales metrics matter most to your business
- Know which sales activities drive more deals to close (cold calling, sales emails, SMS, etc.)
Once you have a clear view of these seven points, you can build a sales tech stack that functions inside your existing system.
So, which tools should be part of your sales stack?
We’ll show you 30 of the top tools that sales teams are using right now and explain how to choose the right tools for different aspects of your sales process.
Lead Generation and Sales Prospecting Tools for Your Tech Stack
Information is key at this stage of the sales process. So, how do your reps gather information on prospects and generate new quality leads?
According to Gartner, 89.9 percent of companies use two or more sources of contact data to fulfill the needs of sales development.
Along with that, 50 percent of sellers are using CRM tools, while 45 percent use sales intelligence tools, according to a 2022 State of Sales survey by LinkedIn. Among those that use sales intelligence tools, 97 percent said these are extremely critical in closing deals.
What are your best options for sales prospecting and lead generation?
1. LeadFuze
This popular prospecting tool helps sales reps quickly find new leads that fit the right criteria. You can set the job title, field, location, company size, and more for the leads you want, and LeadFuze will generate a list of leads that fit.
This is a great tool to use once you have a clearly defined customer profile. If you have exact details and criteria for your leads, then LeadFuze can help you narrow down to the right people. Plus, you’ll find all their contact information, including their email address, phone number, social profiles, and more.
Cost: Plans start at $147 per month.
2. ZoomInfo
This lead generation tool is built for B2B companies looking to get the latest sales intelligence. It lets you filter by industry, location, company size, revenue, job title, and more and boasts of having the most accurate and up-to-date database for B2B sellers.
ZoomInfo also offers AI that analyzes your previous searches and recommends new contacts for you to reach out to.
Cost: Pricing is only available upon request.
3. LinkMatch
If you and your reps love using LinkedIn for prospecting and were looking for a tool to integrate LinkedIn with your CRM, you’ve just found it.
LinkMatch shows you which LinkedIn profiles are saved in your CRM and which ones aren’t, allows you to directly save profiles to your CRM, and even syncs the data when a contact updates their LinkedIn profile.
Basically, it cuts out a lot of the manual work involved in doing sales outreach on LinkedIn.
This tool integrates directly with top CRMs (like Close).
Cost: Between $15.99 and $26.99 per user, per month. (Price depends on which CRM you want to integrate with.)
4. Hunter.io
If you’re looking for a fast way to get or verify email addresses, Hunter is the tool for you. This easy-to-use sales prospecting tool can help you find the email address of almost any professional.
You can search by name and company, do bulk searches with lists, or do a domain search to find all the email addresses in a company. It even recently released a basic cold email tool called Campaigns for sending a low volume of sales emails.
Hunter also has a handy Firefox add-on that allows you to search for email addresses without even opening another window, a popular Chrome extension, plus an Email Verifier. (Make sure to check our constantly updated list of email finder tools.)
Cost: The free version allows up to 25 requests per month. Paid versions start at $49 per month.
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5. VoilaNorbert
Similar to Hunter, VoilaNorbert is a great tool for finding emails and adding new qualified leads to your lists. It also allows you to create lists within the web app, verify emails in real-time, and automate with its API.
This tool also has a feature called Enrich. When you do an enrichment search on a verified email list, VoilaNorbert will gather publicly available information from hundreds of sources to provide you with deeper information on companies, job roles, locations, social media profiles, and more.
Cost: From $49 to $499 per month, depending on how many leads you search. Verify and Enrich features are pay-as-you-go.
6. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Sales Stack
Arguably one of the most popular social prospecting tools available today, this native LinkedIn tool gives an incredible boost to your LinkedIn selling strategy.
It starts with the advanced lead and company search: Using specific criteria, you can narrow your search results to the prospects that are best qualified for your business. Once you start adding prospects to your lists, LinkedIn will add lead recommendations, helping you discover new leads automatically.
When you purchase the Sales Navigator, you’ll also get access to an expanded list of who’s viewed your profile, InMail messages, and real-time updates about your prospects in your notifications feed.
Cost: Plans start at $99 per month.
7. Overloop
As Overloop states very clearly on its homepage, sales prospecting is boring. That’s why this fun tool is the perfect companion to cut the boring out of exploration and actually get some work done.
This easy prospecting tool helps you search for emails, create lists, segment leads, set up drip campaigns, and more. And, since Overloop has a Chrome extension, it’s a handy tool that lives in your browser, right where you need it.
Cost: Plans start at $49 per month.
What to Look for in Lead Generation and Prospecting Tools
Adapted to the unique journey your customers take: Your customers are on a journey toward the purchase, so your lead generation and prospecting tools should be adapted to that individual journey. For example, if you find warming up your leads on social media works best, you may want to choose a tool like the LinkedIn Sales Navigator, LeadFuze, LinkMatch, or VoilaNorbert that helps you find social profiles for your prospects. Then, you can set up warm outreach based on an already existing social connection.
Maximizes your best lead generation channels: When you reach out to prospects for the first time, what channel works best for you? If it’s email, then focus on the tools above that deliver email addresses. If it’s via phone, try LeadFuze or ZoomInfo to ensure you get the correct phone number before you call.
Of course, another important aspect to consider is the price. If you’re looking to spend less money without skimping on quality, try Hunter.io or other free sales tools for prospecting.
Internal Communication Tools for Your Sales Stack
Communicating with your team is just as important (if not more important) than communicating with your prospects. (And it’s become even more essential as many teams have been forced to switch to remote sales.)
So, which communication tools should be in your sales stack?
8. Zoom
Sometimes, an email just doesn’t cut it.
Facilitating face-to-face interactions is crucial for fostering team culture and camaraderie. However, in situations where physical presence isn't feasible, leveraging video conferencing software provides the closest alternative.
That’s where Zoom comes in: This platform is the perfect tool to help you build a good culture in your remote sales team. With high-quality, secure video conferencing options, Zoom is an essential piece of tech for any sales team.
Of course, Zoom isn’t just for internal communication: It’s perfect for remote video sales calls with your clients, product demonstrations, and more. Find out more about how Close’s native Zoom integration can help you sell better:
Cost: Free version for meetings with up to 100 participants and a maximum of 40 minutes, or paid plans start at $13.99 per month.
9. Slack
Slack is the ultimate chat room for work, allowing you to have quick conversations without endless email threads.
Like our favorite instant messenger from the ’90s on steroids, Slack is a place where conversations happen fast and fun. You can separate messages by channel, start individual chats, and integrate with your favorite tools so you always know what’s happening and everyone stays in the loop.
Pro tip: Check out how Slack integrates with Close to level up your sales productivity and keep your team motivated.
Cost: Very comprehensive free version or paid plans start at $7.25 per person per month.
10. Loom
For remote teams, asynchronous communication can get a bit dull. Whether sending emails or text messages, the emotion and tone can get lost on the page, and meanings can more easily be misunderstood.
Loom is the solution to the problem of asynchronous communication for remote teams. This video messaging platform allows you to take screen-share videos while recording your face. That means you can communicate ideas and express yourself as you would talking face-to-face with someone, even if that person lives on the other side of the world and won’t see your message until you’re asleep.
Loom makes internal communication much more personal and helps remote teams stick together better.
Cost: Free plans are available, and paid plans start at $12.50 per month. (Note: Loom only charges for accounts that create videos; viewers are always free.)
What to Look for in Internal Communication Tools
Ready for remote and dispersed teams: Due to recent events, face-to-face meetings have become limited, so 81 percent of salespeople are conducting more video meetings. Therefore, your internal communication tools should work for dispersed teams.
Easy, simple, personal: No matter whether your team is in-office or dispersed, working from home or working from a coffee shop, your internal communication stack should help them feel united as they collaborate on reaching their sales goals.
Engagement and Outreach Sales Stack
How does your sales team reach out to prospects? Do you send cold emails, make cold calls, or both? Do you use Gmail or a more robust CRM like Close?
Outreach is an essential part of sales: After all, how can you sell to someone without talking to them?
Here are our top choices for outreach and engagement tools that should be in your sales stack:
11. Drift
Drift is an excellent tool for seamless conversations across different channels.
Drift allows you to start a conversation via email, continue the conversation on-site when your prospect enters your website, and finish the conversation via email. It also offers chatbot features that allow you to qualify prospects automatically.
You can even send a personalized Drift Video while chatting with prospects on your website.
Cost: Free for live chat. Paid plans start at $2,500 per month.
12. Intercom
Another conversational messaging tool, Intercom, presents itself as much more than live chat. It offers a combination of AI chatbots, live chat, self-service tools for your prospects to use on your website, and in-app messaging.
In addition, Intercom helps you manage all your conversations with prospects by offering a collaborative inbox for your team and in-depth reporting. There are also helpful add-ons for sales teams, such as the Product Tours feature, allowing you to onboard new customers and show prospects what your product can do.
Cost: Plans start at $39 per month.
13. SavvyCal
For salespeople who regularly book meetings and demos, SavvyCal is a great tool to smooth out that process both for you and your prospect.
Remember all those back-and-forth emails trying to decide on a date, time, and place for your meeting? With SavvyCal, those are a thing of the past: All you need to do is set up your available times in the web app and send your prospect a link where they can select a time that works for them.
This is the easiest way to streamline scheduling meetings. Ever. Their user interface is much smoother than that of other competitor scheduling apps like Calendly & MixMax.
Best of all, SavvyCal integrates directly with Close (and other CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot), meaning your contacts and meetings will be updated in your CRM without any extra data entry. Smooth.
Cost: 7-day free trial; basic plans start at $12 per user/per month.
14. 99Inbound
If most of your leads are inbound coming through your website, 99Inbound is the right tool to capture and collect those website leads.
This intuitive form builder is easy to use and integrates with the tools you use every day (including Close, Slack, and others). That means it takes care of the heavy lifting after a form is submitted: sending you an email, updating information in your CRM, posting a message in Slack, or sending automated follow-ups to the person who submitted the form.
Cost: Free for two forms, or paid plans start at $7 per month.
15. Bloobirds
Bloobirds is a sales engagement + playbook platform that guides SDRs and closing reps in converting more prospects into customers. It partners your existing CRM, sitting on top of it to make it more functional for the sales team. It eliminates admin tasks, makes selling more intuitive, and ensures reps follow the best plays with the help of the in-app playbook. Bloobirds helps sales teams flow through their pipeline while collecting crucial data and creating competitive insights.
Cost: Pricing is only available upon request.
16. Customer.io
This tool is more than a place to send emails, push notifications, and SMS. While primarily a marketing tool, it can help both marketing and sales teams improve communication with customers, and it integrates well with dedicated sales tools (like Close). If you want to send smart campaigns to leads based on real-time events, Customer.io could be a great choice.
This tool is all about easy, logical segmentation: It updates profiles based on current information, including everything they’ve done on your website or any other information you want to integrate with its simple API.
That means your prospects are segmented based on their real-time actions.
Customer.io also includes an intuitive workflow automation tool, which allows you to set specific triggers and build complex workflows for your email campaigns in a simple, visual way.
Cost: Plans start at $100 per month.
17. Help Scout
Help Scout is primarily a customer support tool (in fact, our customer support team here at Close uses Help Scout). But with easy integrations, this tool is definitely worth considering if you want to help support and sales collaborate more effectively.
This tool sets up shared team inboxes where all emails come together. In these inboxes, teammates can tag each other in comments, ask for help, or even take over another rep’s inbox while away. Since Help Scout integrates with Close and other sales tools, it enables support to easily forward inquiries to the sales or success teams whenever necessary.
This tool also includes in-depth reports that help team leaders see how their reps work.
Cost: Plans start at $22 per user per month.
What to Look for in an Engagement and Outreach Sales Stack
Makes connecting with prospects simpler: Seamless communication is essential now. Prospects expect to be able to start a conversation in one channel and continue it in another without any interruptions. That’s why you must ensure your outreach tech works well in a multi-channel environment.
Allows a personal touch to each connection: While outreach is important, personalized outreach is essential. Your sales stack should include tools that make it easy to add a personal touch to each conversation you have with prospects.
Analytics and Automation Sales Tools
Your sales funnel may be working perfectly well. But to scale that sales process seriously and increase the results you see for the same amount of effort, you need sales analytics and automation.
With the right sales analytics tools, you can do more than gather data: You can turn that data into actionable insights for your team.
Using a combination of automation and analytics, you can get a clearer view of what’s happening with your sales and your team. Then, you can maximize their efforts for the biggest results.
Here are the tools that should be a part of your automation and analytics stack:
18. Zapier
Most software geeks have probably heard of Zapier. If you want to get two different tools to talk to each other and share data, Zapier is often the solution.
Automations set up in Zapier create an ‘if this, then that’ type of workflow, meaning that when a certain event happens in one tool, a specific result will be produced in the other tool.
For example, you could set up an automation that links VoilaNorbert to your favorite CRM (like Close—check out how Zapier enables sales teams to integrate Close with more than 2000 different apps). Then, whenever you discover a new contact in VoilaNorbert, a new lead is automatically created in your CRM.
Cost: The basic free version allows five automation or paid plans starting at $29.99 per month.
19. Process Street
As a workflow management tool, Process Street allows you to create documentation for standard operating procedures that everyone knows and can collaborate within.
This is so much more than a boring checklist. Process Street allows you to create easy, collaborative workflows, including conditional logic or rich content such as audio and visual aids. Then, you can schedule those as daily, weekly, or monthly workflows and automate the approval process.
Cost: Plans start at $100 per user per month.
20. Gong
If your team does a lot of sales calls and you’re interested in getting a deeper understanding of how those calls work, this is the tool for you.
Gong is an extremely in-depth call analysis tool. This is more than just recording your calls: With Gong, you can see how prospects react to different opening lines, how much time your reps spend listening compared to speaking, or how often the word COVID comes up in your team’s sales calls. Gong even warns you that a deal is about to go south by analyzing patterns and real call data.
Cost: Pricing is only available upon request.
21. ChartMogul
If your team does SaaS sales or you have a business based on subscription purchases, this is a tool you should seriously consider.
Subscription-based businesses come with unique metrics and data, and ChartMogul collects that data and turns it into something that can be easily understood.
This tool helps you see monthly recurring revenue, churn rate, customer lifetime value, and more. Best of all, you can customize how you see your data with intuitive filters and segments and share all the data you want with unlimited users.
Cost: Free if your business has less than $120K in MRR, or paid plans start at $127 per month.
22. Clari
Clari gives you clear insights into a prospect’s readiness to buy or a customer’s likelihood to churn out based on their behaviors on your website, inside your product, and with your sales team. This tool uses AI-driven revenue insights to help you forecast more accurately and alerts sales teams to patterns that indicate a deal is heading south.
It integrates with other tools to gather and decipher buyer signals and then turns them into activity intelligence and forecast data.
Cost: Clari’s pricing info is only available upon request.
23. Geckoboard
While having a lot of data is good, being able to visualize and share that data easily is essential.
That’s the idea of Geckoboard. This tool allows you to create a customizable sales dashboard, informing your whole team of your top KPIs at a glance. With a few clicks, you can import the right metrics and visualize your data, meaning your sales team and the higher-ups can easily see what kind of impact sales are having on the rest of the company.
Cost: Between $39 and $559 per month, depending on the number of dashboards and users you need.
24. Google Sheets
Of course, how could we talk about data and analytics without mentioning Google Sheets?
This spreadsheet tool is an absolute must-have for your sales stack. When your team uses Sheets, you can collaborate seamlessly, keep track of important data, and export it into other tools. Whether you’re pulling customer data, survey results, sales data, or anything else, Google Sheets is the companion you need.
When you compile data from multiple sources into Google Sheets, you can easily export it, analyze it even further with the tools we mentioned above, or create automation with Zapier. Almost any tool integrates with Google Sheets, so this is an excellent place to compile data for further analysis.
Pro Tip: For small businesses just starting to build their sales stack, you can even use Google Sheets as a CRM to keep track of prospects and customers. Check out our free spreadsheet CRM, SalesTable, and build your own CRM in Google Sheets today!
Cost: Google Workspace's free or paid plans start from $12 per user per month.
What to Look for in Analytics and Automation Tools
The reporting you need, not the reporting ‘everybody’ needs: When it comes to analytics and automation software, the ability to customize is critical. If you can’t customize how your data is analyzed and translated into action, you’ll never be able to adapt the data to your personal needs.
Even different sales team members need other types of data. For example, sales managers might be more interested in sales activity data, while SDRs and AEs will probably want to see information on customer satisfaction and quota attainment. The more customizable an analytics tool is, the better.
Links directly to your CRM and other data collection tools: Any analytics tool worth its salt should connect directly to them. In the case of a sales team, your analytics tools must link directly to your favorite CRM.
Documentation Software
A sales team's day-to-day work includes creating proposals, building contracts, and getting documents signed and approved.
That’s why you must add the right documentation software to your sales stack.
Here are some of our top picks:
25. PandaDoc
When it comes to building documentation for your prospects, there can be endless steps involved. From building a proposal, getting it approved by your team, sending it to the customer, seeing if they received it, to finally getting it approved and signed, a lot of time can be wasted.
PandaDoc claims they can help you build documents in half the time (plus, they’ll look even better than before).
This tool is a treasure trove of great documentation features, from easy-to-use templates and a drag-and-drop style document builder to real-time reporting on engagement and activity in your documents. With PandaDoc, you’re not just sending plain PDFs: You can add rich media, links, comments, and even a customized pricing table that allows prospects to choose from multiple options, change quantities, and more.
Cost: Free for eSignature features, or paid plans with the built-in document editor start at $35 per user per month.
26. GetAccept
This is another great tool for sales teams to create, manage, and track their sales documentation. You can add personalized videos or use one of the beautiful templates in the document builder.
This tool also allows you to create custom workflows and automation that help deals get pushed forward. For example, if you send a document that doesn’t get opened, you can make an automated live chat message to remind your prospects that the document is ready for them to approve.
Cost: Free plan and paid plan start at $69 per user per month.
27. Dropbox Sign
Electronic signatures are essential for modern business, especially for remote sales teams. With Dropbox Sign, you have easy-to-use templates to save and send out, allowing you to get back a signature where you need it quickly. HelloSign also sends automated reminders to let prospects know where their signature is needed.
Cost: Between $15 and $25 per month.
28. Better Proposals
If you want to stand out from the competition with beautiful proposals, contracts, and more, you’ll want to check this out. As the name suggests, Better Proposals helps you build better proposals, Mainly because they have over 160 beautiful templates that look just as good on mobile as on a desktop.
Best features include a content library where you can store your favorite proposals, an easy-to-use proposal editor, intelligent pricing tables, and real-time reporting that helps you see what’s happening with your proposals and where each stands in your sales pipeline.
Cost: Between $19 and $49 per month.
What to Look for in Documentation Software
Simplifies the process: Dealing with the paperwork is probably not what you looked forward to when you decided to become a salesperson. Since no one likes paperwork, why spend any more time on it than necessary? When choosing the right documentation software for your sales stack, you need first to make sure that it helps improve your workflow by simplifying the process of creating, sending, and signing documents. If it’s not easy to learn and use, it’s not worth the money.
Has the right design capabilities: I know you’re not a designer. So why should you care how your proposal looks? Because your prospects care. When choosing documentation software, ensure it has lovely templates and easy design capabilities. Since you’re not a designer, any software you use to create proposals and contracts should make it easy to build documents that stand out.
Sales Enablement Stack
Enabling your sales team to work smarter and better involves providing the right content, helping them be more productive, and giving meaningful sales coaching and training.
Why is this so important? It directly impacts your sales. In fact, companies with formal sales enablement achieve an above-average win rate of 49 percent.
To implement sales enablement in your sales team, you must add the right enablement tools to your sales stack. If you want to leverage the power of technology and automation, consider incorporating AI-driven sales enablement tools into your arsenal.
29. Showpad
This sales enablement content and training platform helps you coach reps, give them the right content when needed, and onboard new reps in less time. On top of that, it helps link marketing and sales, storing all relevant content in one easy-to-search database. That way, sales reps can find and use the right content when dealing with prospects.
It also allows sales managers to effectively deliver training and coaching at scale. Bite-sized learning experiences are delivered to reps when they need them, and they can go back and re-learn parts of the sales process that they need to be refreshed on. Managers can also assess their team’s knowledge with quizzes and surveys, allowing them to see where certain reps may need more help.
Finally, Showpad gives you in-depth analytics. For sales reps, you can see how prospects use the content you send them and how that content affects win rates. For managers, you can see how reps use your coaching and training materials and how this helps improve their sales skills.
Cost: Showpad pricing is only available upon request.
30. Ambition
A major part of sales enablement is coaching and motivating your sales team, and that’s what Ambition is all about. This tool is perfect for more structured coaching and creating healthy competition amongst your team.
First, Ambition identifies which metrics have the biggest impact on your sales. Then, you can build contests to motivate teams based on those important metrics.
You’ll also be able to build custom scorecards, leaderboards, and dashboards, giving your team more accountability for their results and helping you build ambitious sales teams motivated to win more deals.
Cost: Pricing is only available upon request.
31. Brainshark
This sales enablement software leans heavily towards engaging video content that can be easily created and shared with your team. This tool helps you build an on-demand library of essential training, plus video coaching available to reps when needed. Brainshark also gives you scorecards showing what’s working and what's not in your team training efforts.
Cost: Pricing is only available upon request.
32. Ignition
Ignition is a Go-to-Market Operations platform designed to centralize every step of product, feature, and campaign launches. Built by GTM experts from Rippling and Facebook, it helps sales enablement teams drive more effective launches and translate product velocity into revenue.
From research to planning and execution to post-launch measurement, Ignition automates the entire launch process in a single collaborative hub. Build beautiful visual launch calendars, house plan documentation, and assets, then communicate them internally via automated email and Slack updates. All while using Ignition’s built-in research tools to infuse competitive and customer insights into the process.
Cost: Starting at $79 per month.
What to Look for in a Sales Enablement Stack
Gives your sales team what they need to keep selling, even on bad days: The right sales enablement tools help your team by giving them what they need when needed. Even when they’re not enthusiastic, sales enablement content like cold call scripts or email templates can help reps perform at their best. So, when choosing sales enablement software, ensure content is easily accessible for your team.
Keeps your team motivated no matter what: The right sales enablement tools should help your team be motivated. But every team is different: So, look for the best motivation methods for your team, and then find a tool that fits your unique motivation regimen.
How a CRM (Customer Relationship Management Platform) Fits into Your Sales Stack
Above, we’ve covered some of the most important pieces of your sales stack.
But did you notice one thing that was missing?
Yup, it’s your CRM software.
Your CRM is the place where relationships happen. It’s where you store customer and prospect data, record conversations, track rep activity, make forecasts, and build and manage your pipelines. Your CRM is such a broad tool that it could fit into all of the sections we discussed above.
The tools we discussed above may be the structure of your sales stack, but your CRM is the foundation.
So, before you choose any other aspect of your sales stack, you need to do two things:
- First, choose the right CRM for your team
- Second, make sure any other tool you add to your sales stack integrates with your CRM
By taking these two steps, you’ll ensure that your most important tool comes first and that every other tool can be easily used alongside it. That way, you’ll stop wasting time transferring data back and forth between different tools and start using more time to close deals.
So, how can you choose the right CRM for your team?
What to Look for in a CRM
- Easy lead import and organization: New leads come in from all kinds of sources, so the right CRM will be able to capture them as they come in. Also, a good CRM allows you to organize your leads the way you want to, like the Smart Views in Close, which automatically group leads together based on the criteria you choose.
- Automatically recorded conversations: Any CRM worth its salt should be able to record your conversations with customers automatically. That means your emails, SMS, phone calls, or video meetings should all be recorded in your CRM without your reps having to type in copious notes that no one will ever read.
- Intuitive pipeline capabilities: A clear view of your sales pipeline is essential to moving deals forward. The right CRM shows you a visual pipeline, giving you and your team the right insights to close more deals in less time.
- Integrated with the tools you use every day: While building your sales stack around your CRM is ideal, your team probably already has some tools they love using and aren’t willing to change. So, ensure your chosen CRM integrates with those essential, everyday tools.
- Outreach features that adapt to your team’s needs: Does your team do a lot of email outreach? Make sure your CRM has good email features. Are cold calls an essential part of your sales process? Then, your CRM should have a power dialer or, even better, a predictive dialer. Define your team’s favorite outreach methods, then find a CRM that maximizes your productivity for those methods.
- Easy to learn: Ultimately, your CRM will only work for you if your reps use it. And they won’t be as willing to use something that’s difficult to learn. So, when deciding on a CRM, stay away from clunky, unfriendly tools that will only slow your team down. Instead, find a fast, intuitive CRM that can adapt to your unique sales process.
Building the Ultimate Sales Stack for Your Team
So, what have we learned today?
First, your sales stack includes all the tools that maximize your sales process and increase your team’s productivity in closing deals.
Second, that stack should be adapted to the specific methods and processes that your team already follows to close deals.
Third, the tools in your sales stack should cover six specific areas of the sales process:
- Lead generation and sales prospecting
- Internal communication
- Engagement and outreach
- Analytics and automation
- Documentation
- Sales enablement
Is your favorite sales tool not listed here? Let us know on LinkedIn, and we'll keep adding new tools to our guide!
And finally, we learned that while your sales stack is the structure, your CRM is the foundation. So, if you want to build the ultimate sales stack for your team, you need to start with the right foundation.
Ready to get started?
Try a lightweight, easy-to-use CRM that can be easily adapted to your sales process: Close CRM.
