Top 10 tools for sales managers and how to use them instantly

Effective tools for sales managers are no longer a luxury but a necessity in the world of B2B sales. An essential cog in the business machine, the sales department’s productivity significantly impacts a company’s revenue growth and sustainability. So if you find yourself asking, what are the best digital tools for sales managers, you’re in the right place. That you have all of your sales management tools in order is crucial to leading a sales team – we will outline the categories of digital tools for sales managers and highlight the top ten tools within these categories to enhance productivity and, ultimately, revenue.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms

First on our list is CRM software. Think of it as a goldmine of customer data. CRM tools are crucial in managing leads, opportunities, and automating sales tasks. Essentially, your CRM is the foundation of maintaining an efficient sales operation. Tools such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Copper fall under this category. Salesforce, for instance, is a comprehensive tool for managing customer relationships, offering a centralized platform for tracking customer interactions, monitoring deals, and automating tasks. Proper usage of CRM tools can exponentially increase sales performance, especially when combined with effective strategies and diligent data entry. If you do decide to install HubSpot CRM, it’s best to connect with a HubSpot partner who can get you up and running smoothly.

Sales Performance Management (SPM) tools

How can you track your team’s progress and provide real-time feedback? Enter Sales Performance Management software. SPM tools, such as Xactly, Anaplan, and SAP Sales Cloud, give sales managers real-time insights into their team’s performance. They allow managers to set and track performance goals, manage territories, and provide timely coaching. Using Sales Performance Management software effectively involves setting realistic goals and actively monitoring progress. With its utilization, companies can avoid revenue stagnation and cultivate a proactive, results-oriented sales team.

Sales enablement tools

Sales enablement tools have gained prominence due to their multifunctionality. These tools, such as Seismic, Highspot, and Showpad, optimize the sales process by providing access to essential resources like content and training from a centralized platform. The key to using these tools for sales managers is to consistently update the resources and align them with the sales team’s evolving needs. Doing so can enhance team competency, improve sales pitches, and consequently, increase conversions and revenue.

Communication tools

In a remote work era, digital communication tools for sales managers are non-negotiable. Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom stand out in this category. These tools provide an avenue for seamless collaboration and instant communication among team members. Regular virtual meetings, brainstorming sessions, and updates are some ways these tools can be leveraged to foster unity and a clear understanding of sales objectives. This can help streamline operations and boost overall productivity.

Sales forecasting and analytics tools

What if you could predict your future sales revenue? Sales Forecasting and Analytics tools provide just that. Tools like InsightSquared, Tableau, and Microsoft Power BI help identify trends and opportunities, and optimize team performance. They leverage historical data and AI to provide accurate forecasts. By carefully analyzing these forecasts, sales managers can devise strategies to capitalize on the opportunities presented, and in turn, increase sales. This is what differentiates the small fish from the big fish. The top sales teams globally use sales forecasting and analytics tools to gather insight from their sales data that might otherwise have slipped under the radar.

Sales productivity tools

Sales productivity tools are designed to automate tasks and streamline workflows, thereby increasing efficiency. SalesLoft, Outreach, and Calendly are popular choices. SalesLoft, for instance, integrates with CRM software to provide a streamlined sales engagement platform. Best practices for these tools involve automating repetitive tasks and scheduling meetings effectively. For example, you can use Salesloft and Outreach to set up sequences of touch points that are activated by certain actions or conditions. This allows the sales team to focus on core activities like closing deals. Surfe integrates with both Outreach and Salesloft to allow you to add prospects to your sequences directly from their LinkedIn profiles.

AI tools

AI tools for sales managers are becoming increasingly essential in the sales landscape – we are all forced into a corner and lectured about it every time we scroll through our LinkedIn feeds. But it’s an unavoidable truth. They automate tasks, suggest options, and provide comprehensive analytics. Most digital tools are using AI in some capacity in today’s digital age. The use of AI tools can vastly improve decision-making and lead to significant improvements in sales performance.

Email enrichment tools

Email enrichment tools like Apollo, Rocketreach, Hunter, and Dropcontact allow users to quickly and easily find verified professional email addresses of prospects. When used correctly, they can increase engagement rates and conversions by allowing sales people to target their prospects in a more personalized manner. Many sales people choose to contact prospects via email as opposed to channels like LinkedIn and, when combined with personalized content, this can make your outreach stand out from the crowd.

The top sales management tools

 

Now let’s run through our top 10 tools for sales managers and how to use them. In fact, we’re including more than 10. We’ve grouped some tools for sales managers together to help you categorize them and then hopefully choose the best tool for you. All of the tools for sales managers are linked and you can find a handy table comparing each tool after the list.

 

1. Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Copper:

These are top CRM tools for sales managers that streamline the process of collecting, organizing, and managing customer data. Salesforce, a leader in the CRM market, provides a comprehensive view of every customer, manages marketing campaigns, and tracks customer interactions. HubSpot offers marketing, sales, and customer service software, including a powerful CRM that gives you detailed insights into your sales pipeline. Pipedrive focuses on driving sales processes and tracking deals. Lastly, Copper, designed for Google Workspace users, integrates seamlessly with the G-Suite, offering CRM services directly within Gmail and other Google apps. By providing a unified platform for customer data, these tools for sales managers make customer relationship management more efficient, leading to better targeting and increased sales.

2. Xactly, Anaplan, and SAP Sales Cloud:

These are exceptional Sales Performance Management (SPM) tools for sales managers. Xactly offers real-time insights into team performance, enabling managers to provide constructive feedback. Anaplan facilitates goal setting, performance tracking, and territory management, ensuring optimal resource allocation. SAP Sales Cloud, part of the SAP suite, provides comprehensive sales solutions, including performance management and customer experience. By offering insight into sales performance, these tools for sales managers allow managers to track progress, set achievable goals, and ultimately drive sales growth.

3. Seismic, Highspot, and Showpad:

These sales enablement tools for sales managers enhance sales team performance by offering content, training, and collaboration features. Seismic provides an AI-driven platform that helps create, manage, and deliver sales content to the right audience at the right time. Highspot offers a sales enablement platform with content management, training, and coaching features. Showpad aligns marketing and sales, improving content accessibility, and delivering training modules. These tools for sales managers help optimize the sales process, improve pitches, and increase conversions.

4. Slack, Microsoft Teams, Livestorm and Zoom:

As communication tools, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Livestorm, and Zoom are essential for facilitating real-time communication, collaboration, and remote meetings within sales teams. Slack enables instant messaging, file sharing, and integrates with a lot of other tools. Slack is actually owned by Salesforce who we mentioned at the start of this list so you can imagine how well integrated with each other they are. Microsoft Teams integrates with Office 365 to offer comprehensive collaboration tools. Zoom provides video conferencing – we probably all know this one from the boom it saw during Covid-19. These tools enhance coordination, increase productivity, and enable faster decision-making, all of which contribute to better sales performance.

5. InsightSquared, Tableau, and Microsoft Power BI:

These are sales forecasting and analytics tools for sales managers that offer data visualization, trend identification, and sales predictions. InsightSquared provides sales analytics and forecasting for better decision-making. Tableau allows you to visualize your data to easily understand trends and insights. Again, this one’s owned by Salesforce. Microsoft Power BI combines business intelligence and analytics to provide comprehensive data analysis. By leveraging these tools, sales managers can gain a better understanding of their sales data, make informed decisions, and improve sales strategies.

6. Salesloft, Outreach, and Calendly:

These sales productivity tools automate tasks, streamline workflows, and improve efficiency. Salesloft provides a sales engagement platform that integrates with your CRM to manage customer interactions. Outreach offers a sales engagement platform that streamlines customer touchpoints across email, voice, and social, while Calendly automates meeting scheduling, reducing the time spent on setting up appointments. Using these tools allows the sales team to focus on core sales activities, resulting in increased productivity and higher sales.

7. Surfe:

Hey, that’s us! We provide a chrome extension that allows you to connect LinkedIn to your CRM in 60 seconds. This means you can add LinkedIn contacts to your CRM in one click, directly from the CRM. You can track deals, personalize outreach messages, and sync your messages with your CRM all directly from LinkedIn. We facilitate this for all of the CRMs in this list, including a Pipedrive LinkedIn integration, a HubSpot LinkedIn integration, a LinkedIn Salesforce integration, and Copper integrations.

8. Gong and ChatSpot:

Gong is a conversation intelligence tool that provides insights into sales calls and customer interactions, helping sales teams improve communication and close more deals. ChatSpot is a conversation intelligence tool that integrates with HubSpot and works like a content assistant. Have a conversation with it and describe what you’d like it to create: killer CTAs, social media drafts, blog posts, etc. You can also ask it questions like “How many tasks do I have scheduled for this week?”

9. Intercom:

Intercom is an automated customer service tool that allows you to build your own Help Center. As well as providing a place for all of those helpful articles, it provides a messenger tool your customers can use to find quick answers to their questions. They even have their own AI bot that will crawl your article to provide the user with the best response by taking information you have already written. It will save your customer support team hours every month.

10. Apollo, Dropcontact, and Zoominfo:

These are lead enrichment tools for sales managers that help sales managers find, track, and nurture leads. By effectively using these tools, sales teams can generate a consistent pipeline of potential customers, and target them with personalized content, thereby increasing opportunities for sales.

Compare the top tools for sales managers

 

Category	Tools for sales managers	Key Features	Surfe Integration
CRM	Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Copper	Customer Data Management, Lead Tracking, Task Automation	✅
SPM	Xactly, Anaplan, SAP Sales Cloud	Performance Insights, Goal Tracking, Territory Management
Sales Enablement	Seismic, Highspot, Showpad	Content Access, Training, Resource Management
Communication	Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom	Instant Messaging, Video Conferencing, Collaboration
Forecasting & Analytics	InsightSquared, Tableau, Microsoft Power BI	Sales Forecasting, Trend Analysis, Performance Optimization
Sales Productivity	SalesLoft, Outreach, Calendly	Task Automation, Workflow Streamlining	✅
Email Enrichment	Intercom, Apollo, Dropcontact, Hunter, Rocketreach	Email Personalization, Customer Data Provision	✅
Conversation Intelligence	Gong, ChatSpot	Sales Call Analysis, Meeting Insights