In a world where sales reps and professionals find it challenging to reach their sales target at work, sales software has become one of the most sought-after tools that give you an edge over your competitors. No wonder sales professionals take advantage of sales tools to be at the top of their game in terms of sales productivity. At the end of this article, you will be able to understand what sales software is, its features and the 15 best sales software for 2023.
What is Sales Software?
Sales software is any digital software tool that helps businesses make the whole process of selling their products more effective. It goes through the stages of inquiring about a product, ordering the product, sending invoices, and making payments.
The decent side of a sales tool is that it allows the sales team to be more productive while maintaining a high level of productivity. The outcome of using good sales tool is that it has a high conversion rate plus a higher inflow of revenue. Aside from that, sales managers, teams mate, and sales enthusiasts use sales tools to effectively handle sales processes like a pro. Some kinds of sales software include;
- Customer Relationship Management(CRM)
The CRM software helps you keep track of all your customer information in one place. This includes prospect and customer data, how they got into your sales cycle, what they like, and more.
- Lead generation software
These tools help you find, attract, and connect with people who are like your ideal customer (ICP). By automating the lead generation process, you can improve the quality of your leads and make it easy to grow your business without sacrificing efficiency.
- Sales Tracking tools
Sales tracking software makes it easier to keep track of, manage, and direct every step of the sales process. It does this by letting you know where each prospect is in the sales process at any given time.
- Sales funnel software
A sales funnel is the series of steps you take with a prospect to turn them into a customer. So, sales funnel software refers to the programs, business tools, and platforms that are used to automate the creation of capital that move prospects through each phase of your sales funnel.
- Sales Analysis Software
Sales analysis software produces insights and data that can be used to boost sales performance. With this information, sales teams can boost their sales processes to make more money while cutting costs.
- Sales productivity
To be productive, you have to be able to make a lot of tangible results. That’s probably something we all want. But there are often hurdles and problems in our way, making it hard for us to get to the end. Sales representatives are lucky that there are tools to help them be more productive. This group of tools, as the name suggests, helps sales representatives be more productive by giving them a variety of automation and time-saving tools that let them focus on the most important parts of the sales process.
- Sales Intelligence
Sales intelligence is a broad term for several tools that help sales representatives find, track, and interpret data about their prospects and clients’ regular business. Sales intelligence tools help sales representatives know exactly who they should be talking to, what they should be conversing about, and when they should connect to also puts all the necessary details in front of them when they’re having that conversation.
- Sales acceleration
Sales acceleration technology helps sales representatives improve their efficiency and effectiveness by making the whole sales process more organized and engaging. This is a lot like what sales enablement software is meant to do. But the second one focuses more on how salespeople act and gives materials, good opportunities, and best practices. Still, some sellers do use both of these words interchangeably.
- E-signature and document tracking
An e-signature is a way to sign something without using a pen and paper. With e-signature and document tracking software, users can get signatures on electronic records like sales contracts and proposals in a safe way. This kind of software makes administrative tasks easier and cuts down on costs by giving a single, unified view of how each contract is handled. E-signature technology also makes it possible for an office to be paperless. Paper documents and files take up a lot of space, which is a problem on more than one level.
- Customer success
Businesses use customer success software to make sure that customers get the results they want when they use a product or service from the business. In other words, making sure that the customer succeeds and that the relationship with the customer is at its best. Customer success measures are important for keeping and growing revenue, making customers more likely to recommend your business, and keeping your business profitable and growing.
- Sales Training
Any sales team that wants to be good needs to know a lot about their products and leads. Software for sales training is a good way to make sure that everyone is not only on the same page but also always getting the latest information as things change.
Advantages of using sales Software
Sales software helps you arrange data and keep track of information
The sales software keeps track of every sales call, email interaction or response, and the status of each deal. This way, as a sales professional, you can find and keep a record of these details faster.
It helps to speed up revenue generation which contributes to the growth of your company
Sales software helps you improve your sales process by letting you perfect sales forecasts, keep track of how old deals are, predict what will happen to deals in the pipeline, and even tell you how likely it is that a prospect will buy from you based on their email address.
Enhanced reports can be generated quickly with sales software tools
With sales crm software, you can put together a sales report based on certain metrics.
The sales software tool allows you to engage with your prospects often
A sales software lets you automatically assign prospects to salespeople as soon as they enter your device, so you can get in touch with them more quickly.
Best Use Cases for Sales Software
Sales tool can be used in several cases which include real estate, small businesses, fieldwork, medical services, etc.
For instance, sales software can be used in real estate to track meetings with prospects, Track what your prospect does on your website to find out what areas they’re interested in and talk to them about that, and many more.
In the medical field, sales software can be used for the following:
- Link the best doctor to the right patient so that you can get to them quickly.
- Send emails or alerts to doctors and patients at the right time to remind them.
- Assign or switch doctors to patients and make sure they get care quickly.
In business, sales software could be used to:
- Set up a wide range of automation features, like email syncing and data collection. This saves you time and lets you concentrate on selling.
- Divide and target the right prospect with email marketing and sales teams
- Estimate and predict sales through sales forecasting.
- To pull customer conversations from different channels and puts them all in one place. So, the customer service teams can look at all the ways the customer has talked to them and give them more personalized service.
- Businesses run more smoothly and solve many problems. It lets sales managers, for example, but leads in order of importance, analyze team performance, automate boring tasks, and give better customer service.
15 Best Sales Software For 2023
You need sales CRM software to help you find leads, keep in touch with them, and turn them into customers. This software will help you keep track of your sales and improve your sales processes, which will make your sales team more effective. The top 5 best sales software include:
Sloovi outreach is a modern sales engagement platform for your company that load thousands of potential lead effortlessly, strengthen connections, and closes more sales. The core features of Sloovi outreach include:
Lead management
Bring thousands of leads to your platform and manage them all from a single, effective dashboard. Analyze and keep track of important sales data for each lead with a simple swipe.
Pipeline management
Gather your teams around the right deals by gaining a comprehensive understanding of the real and anticipated values at each stage of your sales pipeline.
Sloovi outreach provides you with key metrics that help you understand how to grow your business and increase your sales success.
Contact management
Sloovi outreach has a free trial and four paid plans which are a starter plan for $19/per user, $49/per user, $69/per user, and $99/per user for each month.
Salesforce is a great sales CRM, and its analytics engine is one of its best features. With characteristics like sales tracking, the platform gives sales teams the ability to predict what could happen, so they can be ready for each opportunity. The benefits of Salesforce CRM include:
- It gives you insights into your sales team conversion rate.
- It helps with managing leads.
- It increases your productivity and workflow.
Salesforce CRM has a free plan which cost $0 and a paid plan which cost %25 each month. Other basic features of Salesforce CRM are lead management, account and contact management, pipeline management, etc.
It is a sales CRM software that helps with sales automation. HubSpot Sales automates everything to do with sales, which saves time throughout each stage of the sales funnel. You can use it to automate notifications and follow-up emails without making them vague. You can also use it to turn the most repetitive ones into standard templates that you can then use to measure how well you did. Some of the benefits of using HubSpot sales include:
- It can help you close business deals and automate outreaches.
- It helps with managing contacts thereby eliminating manual data entry.
- The sales reps at HubSpot can provide you with business solutions that will contribute to your business growth.
Pipeliner is one of the sales CRM software that helps salespeople connect with prospects, customers, and other employees within the company. It has a lot of different features, such as account management, email scheduling, project management, and reporting. Some benefits of using Pipeliner include;
- It allows users to create customized emails.
- Sales reps can stay updated with customers and prospects via the Pipeline newsfeed.
- It lets you know right away about risks that could affect ongoing deals and sales opportunities.
Pipeliner has a free trial and a paid monthly plan that cost $65 every month. The basic features of this sales CRM software are sales forecasting, contact management, account management, etc.
Pipedrive is CRM software that lets you automate manual sales processes with a wide range of apps and integrations. Its most important features are automation of the sales force, sales forecasting, and insights and reports. As leads move through the sales funnel, Pipedrive gives you customized email templates that you can use to automate communication. Sales teams can choose from templates that have already been made or make their own. The software will then automatically fill in information from their contact database. The core features of Pipedrive include customer engagement and support, project management, sales reporting, etc.
Zoho CRM software is used by start-ups, large companies, and verticals like real estate, healthcare, insurance, legal, media, restaurants, travel, banking, taxes, freelancers, and non-profits to improve their sales, marketing, and customer service. The core benefits of Zoho CRM include;
- It lets you track the sales cycle, deal size, contact history, competitor profile, and a lot more in real-time so you can target the right customers during your business processes.
- Zoho CRM helps you keep in touch with your customers and figure out how well you’re doing it via email marketing, sales calls, and customer relationships.
- Zoho CRM will help you get an in-depth look at your business so you can make decisions faster and better.
- Salesmate is one of the best sales tools that gives sales reps all the tools they need to oversee the sales process. Among the tools they have are in-built calling and texting tools that enable the sales team to get in touch with leads, prospects, and current customers quickly and in a more personal way. This sales software has four different plans which are the free plan, starter plan, growth plan, and boost plan. Its benefits are as follows:
- Its inbuilt calling tool enables the sales team to call their lead and customer with a single click.
- It enables business owners and sales managers to track how the productivity of each sales rep.
- Salesmate automates repeated tasks. This gives your sales reps more time to find new customers and keep the ones you already have.
- Through Salesmate, Sales managers can know what their team is doing and how well they are doing.
- Salesmate can handle your list of products. To keep your leads and customers updated on your available products and their price tags.
The core features of this sales tool are automation of data entry, contact management, sales forecasting, product management, etc.
8. Sales Creation
Sales Creatio is a top sales automation program that enables small and medium-sized businesses to manage their whole sales cycle, from managing leads to invoicing and CRM functions. Sales Creatio lets sales team members build highly automated workflows and use predictive/prescriptive analytics in their daily work thanks to its advanced no-code and AI/ML features. The sales Creatio price plan is categorized into 4 which are the free plan, the team plans $25/per month, the commerce plan $30/per month and the enterprise plan $50/per. Its benefits are as follows:
- Sales Creatio allows you to smoothly plan your task and relate it to the best representative, business, or deals.
- With the smart features in Sales Creatio, you can figure out things in a matter of seconds. So, you can look at your progress or success with a certain task and compare it to your planned sales target.
- The sales tool has a system specifically for leads/ contact management that lets you look at your contact data to guide you through the whole sales process.
- Sales Creatio comes with tools that can help you organize orders into different categories, such as accounts, budgets, status, and owners.
Some of its core features are project management, sales operations, orders and invoices, product management, lead management etc.
Freshsales is a complete sales tool for sales teams to automate their sales force. It gives sales experts everything they need to find good leads, have contextual conversations, close deals with AI-powered insights, and keep in touch with customers. Freshsales gives sales teams more time to sell by scheduling the sales process and making their daily tasks more efficient and productive. Some benefits of Freshsales are:
- With Freshsales, you can get more leads, move them through multiple sales pipelines, turn them into customers, and keep them happy after the sale.
- Freshsales gives you insights about good deals and helps you go after the right ones.
- Freshsales has in-built integrations that take care of each customer.
Freshsales provides 21-day free trial and offers paid plans ranging from $12, $25, $49, and $79 per month for each user. Its core features are pipeline management, sales automation, event analytics, and many more.
Disadvantage of Freshsales
Some of its premium features are secured for the paid plans. But ultimately, the free and basic plans are a good place to start, but you can also always upgrade.
Zendesk Sell is salesforce automation software that helps sales and service teams work together to make the customers feel better as a whole. With Zendesk Sell sales automation, sales reps have ample time to focus on what’s important. The sales platform allows access to all marketing channels, such as email, SMS, and voice calls. You can talk to prospects instantly on your website through live chat, or you can turn them into leads from a single interface. Some of the benefits of Zendesk Sell are:
Zendesk Sell allows businesses to offer business solutions to customers right away.
Disadvantages of using Zendesk sell
The two major disadvantages of using Zendesk sell are;
- The cost of their paid plans may be quite expensive for small businesses
- Some users have complained that the site loads slowly and that the automated data entry makes mistakes.
11. Capsules
Capsule works to take all of your business relationships, including those with customers, to the next level. And its core features include contact management to groom business relationships, a sales pipeline to help you make more sales, and sales analytics to make educated business decisions to ace your business growth. Currently, there are 3 paid plans for capsules enterprise plan for $54 per user/month, the teams plan for $36 per user/ month and $18 per user/ month aside from that you can enjoy a 30-day free trial without a credit card.
Advantages of using Capsules
The free plan only lets you have up to 250 contacts, so you may find that you have to switch to a paid plan all of a sudden. Aside from that, if you want to track and automatically create contacts from email, you’ll have to keep in mind to BCC them to your Dropbox, which is easy to forget.
Leadfeeder is a B2B sole objective data platform that lets you see which leads are keen to purchase by identifying who visits your website and keeping track of what they do there. Currently, over 60,000 B2B are using leadfeeder to discover unknown leads and turn them into customers. Some basic features of leadfeeder are lead generation, sales prospecting, website tracking, etc. You can get started on leadfeeder with the 14 days free trial or the paid plan for $79. Some benefits of using leadfeeder are:
- Leadfeeder immediately gets rid of bots, ISPs, and other traffic sources that won’t give you good leads.
Leadfeeder figures out what companies your visitors work for by looking at their domains, locations, IP addresses, and contacts.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator gives sales teams even more tools to find leads and keep track of their sales pipelines. LinkedIn sales navigators have both free and paid plans for job recruiters, job seekers, sales professionals, and many others. LinkedIn sales navigator uses the LinkedIn network effectively to land quality deals. Some of its benefits are:
LinkedIn sales navigator integrates with sales tools and CRM software such as Sloovi outreach, Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.
It saves sales professionals a step in the sales process, fills the sales pipeline, and helps them find relevant connections faster.
LinkedIn sales navigator offers 3 paid plans which are core, advanced and advanced plus.
Salesmate is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform for sales professionals who want to spend less time learning how to use new apps and more time selling. It works well for new businesses and small businesses, but it can also be used in the real estate and building industries. The platform has a 15-day free trial plus 4 paid plans which are the starter plan for $12/per month, the growth plan for $24/per month, and $40 per month.
Disadvantages of using Salesmate
- You need a paid plan to have access to some premium features such as email analytics.
- Some personalized features may be lacking especially when trying to make custom data fields.
EngageBay is a sales CRM software that gives you multi-channel listening and collects contact data from all the places your customers interact with you. The platform tracks contact online activity, web usage, email response, email open and click rates, and more. EngageBay’s free trial is restricted to only 1000 contacts but its paid plans exceed 1000 contacts. Its paid plans it’s grouped into 4 which are the basic plan, growth plan, and pro plan.
Disadvantages of EngageBay
Options for email templates are few and have a straightforward design.
EngageBay might benefit from more native integrations with third-party applications.
What to consider when choosing a sales management software
Sometimes, it is difficult to start comparing different sales software in terms of price, features sales strategy, reliability and support. Because the marketing solutions that each business software provides differ from each other it makes them unique. However, these are a few things to consider before choosing sales management software.
- Ensure it is targeted to the ideal audience
When looking at sales and marketing platforms, the difference between B2B and B2C can make a difference. A business that sells to consumers might need an online store and the ability to keep track of purchases. A B2B business might want a way to manage and keep track of several business relationships at one company and to follow deals through a sales pipeline. Knowing how to target your ideal audience will help know which sales platform to consider.
- Ensure it is user-friendly
Will it be easy for your sales teams to use the CRM? Does your marketing team have the CRM functionalities they need to connect to your audience? Adoption by users is the key to success, so include them in the decision-making process. The very worst thing that could happen to your business is that you implement a new platform that is supposed to make tasks easier and increase productivity, but employees find ways to get around it because it’s too hard to use.
- Affordable pricingSoftware for sales has been shown to help businesses to get and manage leads and convert them at an affordable price. This makes it a good investment for your business. But unplanned costs, like the price of a developer for custom integration or a big startup fee, can quickly wipe out your budget. Therefore, while considering software for sales ensure that the price is affordable.
- Proper featuresGetting the proper features can be very important for how easy it is to use and how many people use it. You have to figure out how to get the features you need to grow and scale without getting software that is too big and hard to set up and get going.
How to choose the best sales software
The best sales software is whatever fits your needs, whether it’s flexible CRM software, sales intelligence software, or an analytics package.
- Try a demo or free trial
If you’re not sure, try out a demo or, even better, a free trial. Even if the software looks great on paper (or on-screen), the best way to find out if it’s a good fit is to use it. Most of the top sales software companies offer free demos and sometimes even free trials.
- Define your sales goals
The whole point of sales software is to help you reach your sales goals. Because of this, it should be the most essential part of your decision. Even though it seems like a no-brainer, most businesses don’t even have definite sales goals. Plus, the jargon of how many software companies promise perfect pipelines or a “well-tuned sales funnel” can be distracting. Instead of trying to chase promises that don’t come true, try to figure out exactly where certain software fits your needs and goals.
- Confirm from your team
If you’re in charge of a sales group, your team members are the best people to talk to about your company’s sales tool needs, goals, and gaps.
Even if you already have a great idea of what you need from your sales software, your teammates can still give you new ideas that might change your mind. Also, since your teammates will be using the software you choose, their needs and opinions should be given the most weight.
- Limit your path
Shopping for sales software can make it hard to decide because there are so many options. This is particularly true if you have more than one great choice. When many candidates have the same features, you may need to choose between them based on what you or your team values most. Again, think about what your teammate needs and how well they can learn.
- Evaluate your present tools and find the gap
You probably already use some kind of tool to help you with sales operations. And while that may be a good thing, it could mean that your workflows aren’t as smooth as they could be. You possibly already know if your tools aren’t meeting your needs as well as they should. But instead of just replacing all of your tools, try to find software that fills in the gaps and helps you sell more.
Basic features to look out for in a sales software
- Useful IntegrationsMost companies use more than one digital solution every day, and integration helps make sure that all of their customer data is consistent and up-to-date. Integration is also what lets sales professionals talk to new and existing customers on just one platform instead of switching from one system to another.
If your platforms aren’t linked together, your sales rep(s) will have to switch from one to the other when they talk to customers. Making your sales rep(s) switch between different platforms will hurt your sales team’s performance and productivity.
- Data Analytics: Utilizing data analytics, you can identify patterns in a customer’s past behavior, like their purchase history, to figure out what they like and what they need. Such information will help your salespeople cross-sell or up-sell products that your customers find important. Fortunately, today’s all-in-one software solutions come with smart reporting tools like real-time KPI dashboards and wallboards that can be used to track customer data and KPIs.
- Updated Database: In addition to having the right attitude and getting good sales training, your sales rep(s) will need software for sales tools to perform sales operations. One of these tools is a database that is correct and up-to-date. If you want to manage sales campaigns well, you need a correct database.
- Lead Management: This feature helps salespeople assign, generate, capture, and follow up on leads until a sale is made. Other vital features associated with lead management are lead nurturing, lead generation, lead capture, and many more.
- Contact management: Keeps a database of leads with contact info, call history, activity tracking, and contact historical background for future sales advertisements. Other features of contact management are contact history, contact database, activity tracking, and many more.
- Opportunity management: This feature enables sales teams to keep track of possible sales opportunities through order management, pipeline management, and quote management.
- Customer service: Check the customer service of the tool you want to use to make sure that any problems you might have with it will be fixed right away so that your work doesn’t get interrupted.
Tactics to increase software sales
- Create more landing pages
One thing people who want to sell more software should remember is that the more landing pages they have, the more software they will sell. Multiply the number of landing pages you think you need by at least three. This is likely a good place to start. Each landing page should talk to a different type of customer or show off a different part of the software. Bring people to your landing pages by using things like social media, blogs, and so on.
- Try Guest Blogging
This is one way that guest blogging can help you sell more software. Say you made a program that helps people plan for their retirement. You can try to sell a blog topic to any general lifestyle or financial planning blog by giving helpful, non-sales information about how computer programs can speed up the process of planning for retirement. Even if the guest post only has one backlink to your landing page, that’s still a great way to get traffic.
- Do not discard video marketing
Marketing your software with videos is a great way to get people interested in it. When people look into new software, one of their biggest worries is that it won’t be simple or easy to use, or that its features won’t be as good as they say they are. A product demo is a great way to put these worries to rest.
- Give away a demo or free trial version
Of course, you won’t sell more software if you just give it away. Instead, think about giving away a demo or free trial version.
- Establish a community of consumers
Another way to sell more software is to build a community of people who have an interest in the program and keep it going. This can be done by building a blog or social media community long before the official launch of other tools of your sales software.
- Give affiliate marketing a chance
Also, think about hiring business professionals in affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketers only get paid when they make a sale, so this is one of the least expensive ways to make sales.
Top 5 tips to get started in a software sales
Consider starting in an entry-level position or working in customer service or marketing. These jobs give you a chance to learn about industry trends, customer needs, and a company’s products and services, which are all useful for sales teams and can help you make a wise choice.
- Have a sales experience
You’ll have a better chance of getting the software sales job you want if you improve your sales skills at a different company or in a different industry, learn how to court clients, gain experience researching and understanding client problems and needs, and build a track record of advocating for both clients and an organization’s products and services.
- Take a class
There are always new sales tools and best practices being made. Consider taking a course taught by experts in your field to stay on top of the latest trends and make sure your skills in research, prospecting, and discovery are up-to-date and useful. This will give you an edge over your competitors.
- Find a mentor
Mentors can help guide and support mentees in their careers, help them network and find job opportunities, and use their contacts and experience to help mentees move up more quickly. Because selling software is so much about people, having a mentor who can give you advice based on their own experience can help you get a job as a sales rep and do well in that job.
- Get endorsed on LinkedIn or other social platforms
Recruiters find a lot of sales reps by looking at their LinkedIn profiles or social media profiles. You can improve your chances of getting noticed and getting an interview by staying in touch with other salespeople and getting public endorsements.
- Have a specialist skill
Having specialist skills in the industry or type of product can give you an edge because you will already know the lay of the land, the kinds of problems potential clients might have, what the competition offers, and how your company’s software is different. Check out some sales related guides, sales productivity, B2B sales, SaaS sales and tech sales.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are sales strategies?
A sales strategy is a plan that B2B sales teams use to reach their sales goals and do direct sales. It is a chance to figure out who you’re going to sell to and how you’re going to do it. This is important for any business that wants to make money.
What is a sales tracking system?
Sales tracking software helps to monitor, track, and guide all parts of the sales process.
What are KPIs for sales?
Key Performance Indicators(KPIs) are metrics that sales reps use to measure their efforts toward sales performance.
What are the 5 basic skills in sales
- Confidence
- Resilience
- Collaborative
- Active listening
- Critical thinking
Why do we need sales software?
Customers these days want their purchases to be quick and easy. When you invest in sales software, you can quickly meet customer needs and stay competitive.
What is the best way to track sales?
- Plan an Email Series. A big part of managing leads is taking care of them.
- Plan for follow-ups. Not every lead that comes through the funnel is ready to buy.
- Follow a structured lead cycle
- Keep an eye on the sales pipelines.
- Use a CRM and rate your leads.
Is Sloovi Outreach a sales tool?
Yes, sloovi outreach is a sales tool. Sloovi outreach is a modern sales engagement platform for your company that loads thousands of potential leads effortlessly, strengthens connections, and closes sales.
What is a sales system?
A sales system for business is a platform that holds key sales metrics, customer information, and other sales-related information to help your salespeople track and meet sales performance targets.
How do you measure sales excellence?
Sales excellence means that sales performance always beats goals and targets. Sales excellence is a metric that can be analyzed, tracked, and improved over time, no matter what the details are. The following are the ways to measure sales excellence.
- Total revenue
- Year-over-year growth
- Percentage of sales reps attaining 100% limit
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- Customer lifetime value (LTV)
- Content engagement rate
Conclusion
Sales software has become one of the most wanted tools because it gives you an edge over your competitors. It’s no wonder that salespeople use software to help them be at the top of their game when it comes to making sales.