The State of Sales report from Salesforce Research states that “Half of sales reps say building relationships is their favorite part of the job,” but “most feel overwhelmed by daily tasks and can’t connect with customers as often as they want.” Furthermore, sales professionals spend 64% of their time on tasks that don’t involve selling.

Sales tools simplify sales tasks and remove repetitive daily duties from sales reps, allowing them to focus on building relationships. They also boost efficiency, improve customer experiences, and ultimately lead to higher profits. With so many sales tools available, it can be tough to figure out which ones are right for your organization. Here are the best sales tools that, if used properly, could double your profits in 2020.

#1: Customer Relationship Management Tools

Customers are the heart and soul of any business. Without them, companies will fail to hit revenue targets and grow. Placing a bigger focus on building credibility, loyalty, and trust with prospects and customers will also reduce churn rates and boost returning customers.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software enables businesses to attract, retain and nurture customers in one system of record. It’s the fastest growing software on the market, and it’s not surprising why. CRM software yields a return on investment of $8.71 for every one dollar invested and can also improve customer retention rates by 47%.

It doesn’t matter whether your company is in the B2B or B2C space, a start-up, or an enterprise-level company. Every business can optimize sales performance and streamline customer operations by investing in CRM software. More benefits include:

  • Gain a better understanding of customer’s needs
  • Build strong relationships with prospects and customers
  • Centralize and record customer data in one platform
  • Track prospects throughout the buying decision-making process
  • Automate outreach activities
  • Improve interdepartmental collaboration
  • Enhance analytics and performance reporting

Top CRM Platforms:

  • Salesforce
  • Hubspot
  • Freshsales
  • Pipedrive

#2: Sales and Marketing Intelligence

Sales and marketing intelligent platforms support sales and marketing professionals to stay knowledgable with prospects and clients while generating new business. There is a distinct overlap between the capabilities of sales and marketing intelligence platforms. Both sales and marketing intelligence software collect publicly available data about businesses and consumers and utilizes it to produce reports or merge them with existing CRM information. They also blend internal and external data to enhance sales processes and boost sales. Data is collected from a number of online sources including press releases, contact data, firmographic data, financials, and news outlets. This comprehensive view helps companies identify new opportunities in the market and make more informed decisions.

Some key features of sales and marketing intelligence software include:

  • The ability to identify potential customers
  • Gathering external prospect data
  • Using collected data to populate lead lists and contact records
  • Providing actionable insights about prospects and industry trajectories
  • Improving data quality and lead scoring
  • Integrating with other sales and marketing software to boost functionality

Top Marketing Intelligence Platforms:

  • Adobe Campaign
  • DiscoverOrg
  • UpLead

Top Sales Intelligence Platforms:

  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator
  • ZoomInfo
  • DiscoverOrg

#3: Analytics and Reporting Tools

Sales organizations use analytics and reporting tools to bolster their internal processes, prioritize and score leads, determine market trends, and conduct sales forecasting reports. Managers use analytics and reporting sales tools to gain better visibility into sales activities, detect underperforming employees, and predict future sales numbers.

Analytics and reporting tools empower teams to:

  • Automate and visualize data from the sales pipeline
  • Revamp sales strategy and achieve a more predictable sales model
  • Report the performance of sales reps, products, and tactics
  • Forecast future sales performance

Top Analytics and Reporting Tools:

  • Salesforce Sales Analytics
  • Sisense
  • TIBCO Spotfire

#4: Process and Training Tools

Sales process and training tools help coach, motivate and train sales team members. These tools also increase collaboration across the entire sales organization and allow team members and managers to work together–which can be incredibly useful for challenging sales emails or calls. If implemented correctly, sales coaching and training tools enable teams to improve onboarding and cross-collaboration. Process and training tools also increase win rates. In fact, according to CSO Insights, sales professionals who undergo training programs have 10% higher close rates. If every salesperson in your organization increased their win rates by 10% how much would revenue increase across the organization?

Some key features of process and training tools include:

  • Assists with onboarding of new salespeople and the ongoing training and coaching of tenured employees
  • The ability to merge with CRM software to upload and store sales call information
  • Improving communication and approach of sales team members
  • Host an archive of past prospect conversations sales reps can access to review before their sales calls.
  • Integration features with sales performance tools to enable customized trainings and evaluations

Top Process and Training Tools:

  • Lessonly
  • MindTickle
  • Showpad Coach

#5: Sales Automation Tools

Sales automation software enables sales teams to establish and streamline processes. Everything from prospecting to conversations, to performance reports can be standardized. Additionally, sales teams won’t be bogged down with manual tasks so you can finally say ‘goodbye’ to manually inputting data on a spreadsheet. Sales automation tools give sales leaders the ability to calculate vital numbers like conversion rates, win verses loss ratios, and speed to lead. They can also track sales rep activities and categorize by product, services, or territory, increasing department-wide productivity and efficiency.

Top Sales Automation Platforms:

  • HubSpot Sales
  • Agile CRM

Go Beyond Basic Sales Tools and Increase Profits

Advancements to technology have completely shifted the way that sales and marketing are conducted. Almost every aspect of selling has changed. But with the right technology and processes in your sales tool shed, you’ll increase profits while improving, standardizing and automating sales operations.

Read more: Predict Future Sales