A bumpy sales process makes it hard to close deals fast. Most of those bumps can be smoothed out by using software to streamline the process. Here are six software applications that can help:
Salesforce
Salesforce is the ultimate tool for managing your sales process.
Salesforce comes with an AI-driven CRM called “Einstein AI” that helps you make decisions faster. The software identifies patterns and trends to help you find the root cause of unexpected outcomes, and customer interactions are analyzed to identify what content resonates with them.
Salesforce provides:
- AI-powered business intelligence tools. In-depth analysis tells you what happened, why it happened, and what to do about it. Salesforces’ AI engine has the potential to become a BI tool that goes beyond simple analysis and reporting.
- Condensed dashboards. With integrations to other essential software programs, Salesforce allows you to access all your data in one place with a single login.
- Einstein Analytics. Shazam – the music identification app – saw better data insights the moment they moved to Einstein Analytics. Before using Einstein Analytics, Shazam was spending too much time cleaning up inaccurate data before manually generating reports that weren’t entirely useful.
- Support for mobile devices. Download Salesforce on iOS or Android operating systems for your convenience. Customize your app to take the actions most important to you.
Proposable
Proposable helps small to medium-sized businesses streamline the sales process and build better proposals in several ways:
- Collaboration is easy. With Proposable, there’s no need to juggle .pdf files or Word documents. Team members collaborate inside the proposal.
- All communications take place within the proposal. When a proposal is passed to a manager for review, the manager can go through all comments in context, eliminating the need to reference scattered emails.
- Integration of electronic signatures. Clients can sign the proposal and approve it right inside the document.
- Proposals can require approval. Managers can require approval for all or some proposals before being sent to the client.
- Integrations. Proposable integrates with Salesforce, Hubspot, Netsuite, Insightly, and Microsoft Dynamics and several more applications.
Infusionsoft
Infusionsoft is a popular CRM tool among businesses who require an extensive, intricate web of automated marketing actions. For example, there is no end to how you can automatically move contacts between email sequences based on how they interact with your content. This can be ongoing for as long as your contacts remain in your database.
If you don’t need the extensive sales process management offered by Salesforce, and want to focus more on marketing automation, Infusionsoft is a better option. Infusionsoft will manage your sales process but on a simpler scale.
Infusionsoft allows you to:
- Manage the sales process simply. Sales reps are notified when new leads come in and can manage leads easily from their dashboard.
- Automate lead segmentation. When a contact clicks a link in one of your emails, automatically add a new tag for that contact.
- Move contacts to new email sequences based on their actions. When a contact completes a purchase, automatically move them into a new email sequence.
- Sell products from your website with a built-in shopping cart.
- Automatically rate leads from hot to cold.
- Add contacts to email lists based on their web form selections. Qualify your leads with a web form, segment them automatically, and drop them into the appropriate email sequence.
Zoom
Zoom is a great tool for online video meetings. With Zoom you can:
- Conduct online training sessions
- Provide better technical support
- Broadcast live webinars, marketing events, and meetings
- Use conference rooms for private collaboration
- Share files
- Exchange messages
- And more
Gabe Carey from Techradar.pro gives Zoom 4.5 stars for affordability, ease of use, and administrative control. However, he says the software lacks security, SLA, and SSO.
The security flaws are backed up by researchers who released proof of a vulnerability that would allow hackers to hijack a meeting. While Zoom remains one of the most popular video conferencing platforms, it’s best to use it only when you don’t need to protect your privacy – at least until security is tightened.
Hubspot
Hubspot is a tool that helps you streamline your inbound sales strategy. Your team can monitor the behavior of prospects and customers to help you identify decision makers. You can access powerful analytics, schedule sales meetings, create support tickets, generate customer feedback, and provide a knowledge base for your customers.
Hubspot offers both free and paid services, although the best features come with a paid service.
