12 Effective Sales Tools To Become A Better Salesperson

Updated 1 November 2022

The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed's data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.

Successful sales require generating leads, managing customer information, meeting with potential customers and following up with the customer to answer questions. There are many tools that can help sales professionals organise the different responsibilities that come with the sales field. Reviewing some of the top sales programs and applications can help you decide which ones may be most beneficial to your career. In this article, we explain what sales tools are and provide you with a list of 12 tools and a few tips to help you choose the right ones.

What Are Sales Tools?

Sales tools are applications or programs that assist a salesperson with managing leads and closing sales. This may include applications that help with organising sales leads or programs that track where each person is in the sales cycle. Typical sales processes involve many steps, including identifying a lead, communicating with customers and converting or processing the sale. Sales programs can help sales professionals and teams manage and organise each of these tasks.

12 Tools For Sales Professionals

Here is a list of 12 tools that can help sales professionals throughout the sales cycle:

1. RollWorks

RollWorks is a B2B sales tool that primarily focuses on lead generation. RollWorks helps brands conduct outside sales communications by identifying potential leads and helping them communicate with sales professionals. This tool also has built-in learning algorithms that remind sales professionals with follow-up communication and to direct customer questions to other sales representatives, as required. Learning how to use RollWorks can help with managing multi-member sales teams and demonstrating teamwork skills.

2. Demandbase

Demandbase is a sales tool that helps with customer relationship management (CRM), integrating sales leads, automating marketing tools and measuring the success of marketing strategies. This tool is especially beneficial for business-to-business (B2B) companies as it helps brands complete the many steps a typical sales process involves. Learning how to use Demandbase can help to demonstrate comprehensive sales skills and your ability to convert sales leads into customers.

3. Smart Rooms

Smart Rooms can help sales professionals improve their performance by better meeting the requirements of the customer. This tool has built-in features that let you personalise your sales experience based on the customer. It also allows sales representatives to keep track of details about customers, helping them cross-sell and increase sales. Learning Smart Rooms can help increase sales or conversions.

4. GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting helps sales professionals speed up the time to close a sale. This tool allows sales reps to schedule and attend virtual meetings with potential customers. It also has tools that allow the user to share their desktop via screen sharing to demonstrate products or services. Learning GoToMeeting can help sales professionals improve their client communication and presentation skills. This tool is especially useful for those sales professionals who sell digital products.

5. HubSpot

HubSpot is an all-inclusive customer response management (CRM) platform. It has a variety of tools useful to sales professionals, including the ability to track customer communications, phone calls and data from sales meetings. This can help sales reps know where a customer is at in the sales process, helping them provide them with a better experience. Many brands use HubSpot, making it an in-demand platform to learn.

6. InsideSales

InsideSales is a sales lead management tool that manages leads, automates data entry and helps sales representatives choose which leads to prioritise. This tool is especially useful for salespeople who prefer to interact with potential customers rather than analyse large collections of data. Learning how to use InsideSales can help you and your team members communicate more effectively with customers, which can lead to higher engagement.

7. ClinchPad

ClinchPad is a simplistic sales tool that lets users easily track customer data and their placements in the sales cycle. ClinchPad is for smaller teams that prefer only the most relevant information. Learning how to use ClinchPad can help you demonstrate your teamwork skills and your ability to organise the customer lead and retention processes.

8. Marketo Sales Connect

Marketo Sales Connect is a tool that uses real-time marketing insights to provide sales teams with in-depth data analytics. Using this information, teams can communicate with potential customers, engaging with their specific requirements. By learning the tools of Marketo Sales Connect, you can highlight your customer service and communication skills to potential employers.

9. Calendly

Calendly helps sales professionals automatically schedule appointments with potential and existing customers. It sends the client a link to the sales professional's calendar, which allows them to schedule a meeting based on their availability. This tool helps sales representatives make appointments without the back and forth of finding a time that works for everyone. Learning Calendly can help you demonstrate your time management skills. This tool also incorporates payment functionalities where you may directly charge your clients for the meeting if it is some kind of consultation service.

10. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is a sales tool that automates the customer relationship and marketing process. It provides users with tools to reach potential customers, nurture customer relationships, convert interested followers to customers and increase customer satisfaction. The tool has features available for every step in the buying cycle. Learning how to use ActiveCampaign can demonstrate your ability to prioritise customers and improve their overall experience.

11. Proposify

Proposify is a sales tool for creating personalised proposals to provide potential customers. This tool has a variety of built-in features that allow you to create a professional-looking presentation using previously uploaded templates. It also allows you to use electronic signatures to finalise a deal if a customer accepts the proposal. Learning to use Proposify can help develop presentation skills.

12. Yesware

Yesware is a sales tool that provides you with the data most important to your sales cycle. It takes the process of data collection to a more in-depth level, providing you with actionable steps you can take according to that information. By learning Yesware, you can further develop your sales skills by learning to identify what steps have the most significant impact on customers.

Tips For Choosing The Right Sales Tools

It is important that you choose the right sales tool for yourself or your team to make your entire sales process as efficient as possible. Here are a few tips to help you choose the right tools for you and your team:

Identify a budget. Some tools are free, whereas others come with a monthly or yearly fee. Before you choose a tool, consider creating a budget and comparing the different costs with your software requirements and preferences.
Evaluate your requirements. Identifying the size of your sales team and how many people typically interact with a potential customer can help you choose the right tools. Some tools do a better job at integrating the customer experience across multiple departments, which may or may not be important to you.
Consider your goals. Considering your personal goals and company objectives and the parts of the sales process you want to improve can help you choose the tools most relevant to your career. A customer relationship management (CRM) tool is suitable for managing customer information, whereas a sales intelligence tool is appropriate for finding and monitoring prospects.
Review existing tools. Your sales team may already have tools you plan on continuing to use. If you already have a sales analytics tool that works well, this may not be an important feature when choosing new tools and you may choose to invest in a different feature.

Please note that none of the companies, institutions or organisations mentioned in this article are associated with Indeed.