Introduction
Sales teams are often bursting with energy and determination. Team members are focused on getting things done — collecting more leads, educating top prospects and supporting existing customers. They have quotas to meet and goals to reach, and they’re ready to put in the work to get there.
The independence and flexibility of most sales roles usually attract high performers who are productive on their own and enjoy the challenge of instability. But a free-for-all work environment can quickly lead to confusion, frustration and dips in productivity.
When each salesperson is using their own platforms for taking notes, tracking deals and holding conversations with prospects and customers, it leads to a lack of collaboration, missed opportunities,and annoyed leads.
Supporting a productive sales team requires finding the fine line between providing structure without infringing on the independence many sales professionals crave. The best way to do that is with the right tech stack.
The productivity tools will provide managers with the control and oversight they need to ensure prospects and customers are taken care of and deals are moving forward efficiently while also providing team members with the personalization and customization they need to work the way they want to.
Here are 12 of the best productivity tools for your sales team.
- Scribe
- Calendly
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator
- Hunter.io
- Salesforce CRM
- Toggl
- Zoom
- Google Calendar
- DocuSign
- Databox
- Confluence
- Aircall
- Proposify
- Uplead
- RightInbox
- VoilaNorbert
- Wingman
- Baluu
18 Top Productivity Tools for Sales Professionals
There are hundreds of tools out there that promise to make your sales team more productive — it’s hard to know which ones will actually deliver on that promise. To help you boost your team’s productivity as quickly as possible, here are our favorites.
1. Scribe
Today’s sales professionals need to be effective educators to both their team members and their prospects and customers. But when they’re already busy, finding the time to properly explain how to complete a task or how a function works can feel impossible.
Scribe lets salespeople generate how-to guides in just a matter of seconds as they’re working. Rather than needing to find time to connect live or spend the time creating an explainer document, they can use Scribe to screen record their workflow as they complete a task. Scribe then automatically generates a step-by-step guide with text, images, and video explaining what to do.
Instantly share links or embed guides into other tools, like knowledge management platforms or customer support pages. Both team members and prospects get the resources they need without taking extra time out of your already busy sales reps’ days.
Here's a Scribe in action.
2. Calendly
Calendly is appointment scheduling software that cuts back on the back-and-forth of trying to find mutual availability. With Calendly, all you need to do is set your availability, link the app to your calendar, and share a link with whoever you’re trying to meet with. They can then browse your free time to find a meeting slot that works for them.
Calendly lets you create public-facing links that can be shared in emails, on social media, or in whatever digital way you connect with leads and prospects. Any party interested in meeting with you can simply visit your Calendly and schedule an appointment.
Your Calendly availability also updates in real-time, making it a perfect tool for busy salespersons scheduling multiple appointments at once. You can stop blocking off chunks of time for appointments that might never happen and cut back on needing to update the availability you already sent to a prospect.
3. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools for sales professionals — but trying to weed through dozens (maybe even hundreds) of profiles trying to find the right person to connect with is time-consuming and frustrating. That’s where Sales Navigator comes into play.
With LinkedIn Sales Navigator, your sales team can quickly and easily find the right person to get in touch with, keep an eye on particular companies and profiles, quickly export LinkedIn contacts and engage prospects more efficiently to close more deals. Advanced search functions give you quick access to the leads you need in just a matter of seconds and user-specific recommendations can make lead prospecting even faster.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator integrates with your CRM so all your lead and prospect information is stored where it’s easily accessible. Your team can work with the confidence that their CRM profiles are up to date without needing to manually transfer data between platforms.
4. Hunter.io
Let’s be honest — trying to find a way to get in touch with a lead is one of the most frustrating parts of a sales rep’s job. The time spent searching for email addresses adds up quickly, and if the message bounces back because the address was incorrect, it means all that time was for nothing.
Hunter.io, a search engine for finding professional email addresses, makes the process much smoother. Use the Hunter.io Chrome extension to find all emails associated with a domain you’re visiting, or use their search feature to verify an email address before sending a message.
Hunter.io even evaluates common patterns associated with different domains so you can make an educated guess on how a lead’s email might be structured. Your sales team will spend less time searching and receive fewer message bounce-backs.
5. Salesforce CRM
Salesforce is one of the most popular and powerful CRMs for sales teams. Keep track of customer information, conversations, to-dos, and ongoing deals, all in one place.
A common CRM like Salesforce lets your team collaborate, share information, and assign tasks to one another, making it easier to work on a team. Storing customer and prospect information in one central location also lets team members pick up communication when someone is overwhelmed or out of the office.
Salesforce CRM can further productivity with automation and integrations. Connect the rest of your sales tools with Salesforce to share quickly share information and data between platforms and automate busy work, like follow-ups and data entry, so your sales team can focus on more complex tasks.
6. Toggl Track
It’s easy to get to the end of the week and wonder where all your time went. For busy sales teams, keeping track of your time to see where you can be more efficient is crucial for moving forward and hitting sales targets and goals.
Toggl is one of the easiest ways to track time spent on clients, projects, or meetings. Sales teams can use it to monitor their own time to see where they might be wasting precious hours, or managers can use the tool to gather insights into how they can make their teams more productive and profitable.
Toggl integrates with popular apps and has a Chrome extension that allows users to log time where they work. There is even a desktop app to make time tracking even simpler.
7. Zoom
These days, we’re no stranger to video meetings and interviews. Zoom is one of the most popular apps for connecting virtually with team members, prospects, and customers. That’s because it’s reliable, easy to use, and offers free personal plans for anyone to join.
For sales teams that are constantly on the go or might be spread out across the globe, Zoom makes it easy to keep in touch. It can be used for internal meetings, or to connect “face-to-face” with prospects or customers that might be unable or uninterested in meeting in person. In addition to video calls, sales teams can use Zoom for phone conversations without needing to give out a private phone number.
Zoom’s presenting, screen sharing, and webinar features make educating prospects and customers more efficient. Sales reps can walk prospects through presentations or give live demos to potential customers. You can even record sessions and share links with leads and prospects so they can tune in on their own time.
8. Google Calendar
If you’re a Google Workspace user, Google Calendar should be your go-to for keeping track of all your meetings and appointments. This easy-to-use calendar is automatically connected with Gmail, Drive, and Meet so you can easily access documents, schedule meetings, and stay connected without needing to switch between apps.
Google Calendar has a clean mobile app for busy sales professionals on the go. They can view their meetings, schedule appointments, and update events all from their phones or tablets, so they’re always up to date.
You can also use Google Calendar to manage team meetings and appointments. Share your calendars with team members to see when they’re available or what they have on their plates, or create a shared calendar for team meetings, pieces of training, or other group reminders.
9. DocuSign
Keeping track of proposals, contracts, and the negotiations that go along with finalizing them can be overwhelming for sales teams. Working with PDF or document variations can get messy, and when contracts contain sensitive information, you can’t afford to be unorganized.
DocuSign makes contract management and electronic signatures easy. Teams can use the platform to send documents, store negotiation details and document versions, and ensure sensitive data is protected. Clients and customers can also use their own DocuSign accounts to easily revisit contracts or agreements whenever necessary.
DocuSign’s agreement automation workflows take some of the busy work out of closing deals. Automatically send documents from one person to the next to collect all the appropriate signatures and approvals and use pre-populated information or templates to quickly generate new agreements.
10. Databox
Supercharge your sales strategy with Databox, a custom dashboard software that provides sales teams and managers with a high-definition view of their sales pipeline and performance.
With over 70+ one-click integrations such as HubSpot CRM, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Outreach, and more, and hundreds of ready-to-use templates, this easy-to-setup, visual and interactive analytics tool makes it easy for sales teams to centralize and contextualize data.
Use their simple drag and drop interface to track your most important sales metrics and KPIs, create beautiful dashboards, share comprehensive reports, and uncover actionable insights in real-time.
11. Confluence
With most sales reps working independently, you need a central location where they can access guidelines, best practices, company updates, and policies. Confluence is one of the best knowledge sharing platforms to do just that.
Confluence is a document management and collaboration tool for remote teams. Keep track of important information, team strategies, and meeting notes, as well as employee comments and questions to keep everyone on the same page. Sales teams can use Confluence to share tips, messaging guidelines, and answers to common questions or concerns so conversations with prospects and customers are consistent and accurate.
Confluence can provide your sales team with the information and knowledge they need to perform well while also providing freedom and flexibility to work on their own terms. Answers and resources are easy-to-find so deals can move forward efficiently.
12. Aircall
Aircall is cloud-based call center software that integrates with your CRM. It helps your team save time manually dialing each lead or prospect and can automate busy administrative tasks like data logging and follow ups.
Post-call automations make it easier for your team to stay in touch after a call and can reduce downtime between conversations. Automated workflows and integrations also keep call logs and other platforms updated without manual data entry and swivel chairing.
Aircall also has built-in analytics so managers and team leaders can keep track of how much time is spent on the phone compared to conversions and closed deals. With the right data, your team can make better decisions to improve sales processes and strategies.
13. Proposify
Proposify is proposal software that does more than just keep track of documents. With Proposify, you can create custom branded proposals, agreements and contracts, share them with customers and prospects, and even collect signatures and payments.
Proposify has built-in tracking and analytics so you can see when recipients open your documents and engage with your content. Keep an eye on deal progress and strategically gauge when to send a reminder or reconnect to provide additional support.
Proposify also integrates with your other sales platforms, like Salesforce, so you can store proposal information and contact agreements in an easily accessible location.
14. UpLead
UpLead is a lead generation software designed to help businesses of all formats (and sizes) manage account-based marketing, real-time email verification, targeted sales generation and opportunity engagement.
This cloud platform lets sales teams build customizable B2B lists, configure the criteria for lead qualification, access and verify emails using lookup functionality, and engage with prospects in real-time to improve lead conversion.
UpLead boasts a 95 percent data accuracy to help you identify and convert highly qualified leads.
15. RightInbox
RightInbox is an email productivity tool for Gmail. The extension allows you to track emails, set up email reminders, access templates and more. RightInbox is a user-friendly and scalable tool that supports prospecting through each phase of the funnel.
Quickly scale cold outreach without losing touch, add reminder notes alongside contacts and organize your inbox. RightInbox also offers timezone support and follow-up sequences.
RightInbox is a leading tool that offers teams unlimited features and can easily sync with the most popular CRMs on the market.
16. VoilaNorbert
VoilaNorbert is an email address locator software that helps sales teams find and connect with leads, engage talent and build links and contacts across marketing and business development.
VoilaNorbert is both an email finder and verifier software that is highly accurate. You can submit emails via CSV for quick verification and download availability. It also offers real-time verification with an API.
The data enrich feature adds details for an email address owner, such as company, position, location, social media profiles and more. This data enables you to build relationships with added context and support.
17. Wingman
Wingman by Clari is a conversation intelligence platform that unlocks insights from every sales interaction. However, unlike most similar tools and call recorders, Wingman works in real time.
That’s right — sales reps get insights when they are actually on call. Using sophisticated conversation intelligence technology and live cue cards, Wingman provides contextual suggestions, actionable insights and alerts.
Wingman creates call transcripts with best-in-class 85 percent accuracy within minutes of the call completing, so sales leaders and managers can quickly review, tag and share feedback — simplifying and speeding up sales coaching.
Users can even create gametape libraries of notable calls and conversations, and categorize them for easy onboarding and learning. Because it’s all asynchronous, reps can learn at their own pace, in their own time.
The Wingman dashboard provides a host of call insights including topics discussed, competitor mentions, deals won or lost and more. Drill down further to see stats like average call duration, talk / listen ratio, number of calls and longest monologue for each rep. Wingman integrates with most leading CRMs like Hubspot and Salesforce and as a Clari product, features seamless integrations with Clari’s industry leading revenue platform.
18. Baluu
The benefits of Baluu are wide-ranging and can help you improve your team's performance in many ways. Baluu is a booking software that allows your team to manage appointments in one central location, reducing time spent on administration tasks and focusing on providing better service to your customers.The software can book restaurant tables, hair appointments, meeting rooms, and more. Rescheduling is simple, and Baluu will even send automated reminders to your attendees, informing them of an upcoming booking or rescheduling.
Baluu accelerates group bookings for businesses. Suppose your team hosts workshops, events, or courses with multiple guests spanning dates. In that case, Baluu can handle the complexities with features like on-demand bookings, multi-person payments, and private payment links.
Boost sales team productivity with the right tools
Sometimes software designed to make your team more productive can actually slow them down with extra tasks and additional requirements. But with the right tools, your sales team can function like a well-oiled machine.
When getting started building your tech stack, look for the biggest areas of opportunity for your team. Where do they need the most help and what tools are the easiest to implement? Slowly start introducing new tools and platforms and showing your team ways they can work smarter — not harder.
