by Ann Smarty
Republished from Entrepreneur, May 27, 2017
Communicating and collaborating are two important factors in the world of sales. But we can’t do it properly without the right tools behind us.
There are plenty that promise greatness these days, especially with the app startup tech boom of the past few years. These are ten that really deliver, and I would personally recommend for any team manager wanting to take their sales staff to the next level.
1. Salesmate
Salesmate is great for putting all your team efforts in one place. It stores every bit of customer interactions allowing anyone from the team to follow up with each contact in a most effecient way. The so called “360 view” captures every interaction from an email message to an attachment and pitches.
It also has powerful project management features (tasks) and very good looking visual reports.
2. Slack
If you haven’t heard of Slack by now, where have you been? It is a communication platform that has become part chat dashboard, part team management hub, part task collaborator. You create channels, assign those to whom you want, and lock out those you don’t.
I use it with other team managers for us to collaborate on the inter-department tasks that creep up behind the scenes. Then create channels specifically for my sales team to interact, keep one another informed of what is going on, share prospects, and just mess around and chat.
Creating a space for interaction has been a huge success, and we are working as a better team than ever before.
3. Wrike
I used to use this project management software exclusively for content managing. But I have found that it is actually pretty great for my sales teams, as well. You can assign tasks and projects, keep up with to do lists, and share prospects and targets.
It can definitely improve the team effort, and help work better as a unit outside of sales itself.
4. KiteDesk
Have your team come together to collaborate on better prospect lists, so they can make better sales.
It is very ideal-target based, so it doesn’t waste time with outsider prospects that may or may not be interested. Instead it goes whole hog, only listing those that fit all the demographic set points and parameters to make them likely bets.
5. Basecamp
Basecamp is the top collab and project/team management tool for a reason. I wouldn’t recommend this for smaller teams, because it would get pricey and a lot of the tools might not be needed.
But if you have a medium sized team, or several teams that work together in other departments, definitely give it a shot. It has its own message boards, chat features, to do lists, doc and file storage, check ins, a scheduling tool, and tons more.
You can try it for free, then it is $29 to $75 per month, depending on if you are just using it for internal use, or with clients.
6. Google Drive
No list would be complete without including at least one Google product on there, would it? I am a big fan of drive, and I use it for both professional and personal reasons. Chances are you have at least tried it before, or had someone share something over it.
You can upload files and docs, share, create spreadsheets, collaborate om documents, and add a never-ending list of other extensions and tools from their extensive database. And all for free, like all other Google products.
7. Wimi
Share documents, perform tasks, comment on messages, communicate, collaborate and more. This is a fairly new tool and I haven’t used it myself. But a couple of my clients have mentioned it, and they say it is worth trying.
You pay per user, so it is great for small teams that don’t want to buy unlimited services that they won’t use. They have a fair list of integrations with third party apps, as well, including Dropbox, Google, Skype and Evernote.
Here is one specifically for you managers that need a little help getting things done and keeping track of your team. Track productivity, invoices, performance, assign collaboration, and notify your team automatically of new tasks.
It is a clean, easy to use platform that unlike a lot of others has been built from scratch to only include features the founders themselves needed during their time managing teams on multiple projects.
That has led to a sleek and simple app without the frills that some people will stuff into their features list just to look more complete. You will use everything that Studio Manager has to offer.
9. Evernote
Evernote is a well known tool for educators, creatives, and anyone who has a solo project where they need to collect items quickly and efficiently, within a searchable app. I don’t use it with my sales team, to be honest. But my sales team uses it with one another all the time.
Since they are comfortable with it, I authorize it, and it definitely works. They share little bits of information, like prospects, target details, and information to incorporate into new sales plans. There has also been a wash of sloth photos shared recently, but I don’t think that has anything to do with sales. Yet.
10. Postwire
This tool is all about engaging beyond email and phone, and instead sharing one on one, as a team, with clients and prospects.
It takes into account for sales have changed over the years, involving into something new through the power of the internet.