

Ask HN: What tools do sales reps use? - tadasv

If you are in sales, what are your favorite tools that you use daily?
======
aidanlister
The big ones in the space for SMEs:

\- [https://www.insightly.com/](https://www.insightly.com/) \-
[http://www.zoho.com/crm/](http://www.zoho.com/crm/) \-
[http://www.sagecrm.com/](http://www.sagecrm.com/) \-
[https://www.pipedrive.com/](https://www.pipedrive.com/)

I evaluated all of them recently and settled on Insightly. Their support is
average and their API is shocking, but the UI is clean and it is quite
configurable.

If you want to step up into the enterprise level then use SalesForce ... if
you can get past their horrendous UI. Also, the SalesForce sales team is top
notch and they'll do several rounds of phone based support with your sales
team to make sure everyone knows how to use it effectively, etc.

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slbenso1
I think this really depends on what type of sales role you have. For example,
you could be a lead gen rep (SDR), a inside sales rep, or an outside sales
rep. I'll break the tools down by type that way:

For Lead Gen reps (SDRs), I don't think that there is much better than
Linkedin - its got everything in it. The have recently become so stingy with
their 'inmails', even for their premier accounts, that you really have to get
names from them and then figure out what the pattern is. The trick here is to
be a highly connected individual in the group that you are trying to sell
into. Joining LION (linkedin open networker) can help here. Sales Loft does a
nice job of generating the emails and their patterns too. Voilanorbert is a
new service that I've played with a little bit which seems like a good way to
generate emails. You can also use the Rapportive trick (just Google it, its
complicated). Once you have an email, you can ping the mail servers to ask if
an address exists with Mailtester (its free).

For InsideSales Reps, InsideSales.com (clever name guys...) and Close.io can
be great tools to help with your phone calls productivity rate. Whatever
flavor of CRM your company has should become your best friend too. If your
lucky you'll get Salesforce or one of the other modern cloud based ones, if
you're unlucky you'll get Seibel or a homegrown CRM or maybe something else
made 15 years ago and hardly supported today. If this is you, sorry.

For Outside Sales People, The Badger Map can be a serious time saver and
productivity enhancer with the way it maps out your territory and gives you
the ability to organize and prioritize your life. Waze or Google Maps should
always be on, just don't forget your car charger.

Different Sales people need different tools, for example its rare to see
outside sales people living in their CRM the way an inside sales rep will. I
feel like everyone should use mail merge or some other automated mail system
more than they do. There are free ones and ones you pay for here. Anyway, this
is my brain dump, hope it helps.

~~~
nealmueller
Everyone I know that's inside uses LinkedIn and the tools you mentioned. For
outside people that Badger mapping tool you mentioned looks like a nice add
on.

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jp1989
1\. If you're serious about sales, you can't go past Salesforce. Pipedrive,
Base, Sage and any others are all good, but you'll eventually grow out of
them. In my view, you may as well start with Salesforce. You'll grow into it.
It's the most flexible/customisable and has the most plugins and services to
help you extract value from it.

2\. InsightSquared.com for Salesforce analytics.

3\. SalesLoft.com or Outreach.io for scalable sales development

4\. LeadGenius for assisted lead gen

5\. [http://SpartaSales.com](http://SpartaSales.com) for sales gamification
(plugs into Salesforce too)

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andersthue
I have just started using close.io (a YC company) and like it, I am a
founder/sales guy and have seen a few crm's

[http://close.io](http://close.io)

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calcutter
1 word son. Salesforce.

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prahv
outreach.io is my favorite

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9968929
This is a great question!

