Most sales professionals in 2021 rely on some type of technologies or tools to do their jobs efficiently and intelligently. A powerful CRM (customer relationship manager) software such as Salesforce is a great foundation. There are several powerful sales tools that offer integration or plug-ins to CRMs like Salesforce. Here are some essential sales tools that connect with Salesforce CRM, helping your sales team become more scalable, effective and better informed while selling.
Zoom Info
Area of focus: Lead Gen/Prospecting
- Summary: Zoom info is a robust B2B contact database that allows users to search for companies and contacts. Zoom allows users to build custom searches by company criteria and contact role or title, essential for sales reps and SDRs. Zoom also has a neat Chrome browser extension that allows you to search for contact information directly from the company’s website or contact’s LinkedIn Page.
- Key Benefits: Zoom collects a large amount of key contact information including email addresses and mobile numbers for those hard-to-reach targets. Zoom can also send you daily updates when new targets are added to your search.
- Salesforce Plug-in: Yes, Zoom allows you to push new accounts, leads, and contacts directly into Salesforce with a click of a button. Zoom Info does require a license fee (purchased through Zoom info) but the setup process and Salesforce integration is pretty straight forward.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Area of focus: Lead Gen/Prospecting
- Summary: Most people know about LinkedIn and their social platform for sales professionals. LinkedIn also offers a paid version of their platform which allows user to view and search an unlimited amount of target companies and contacts. Sales Navigator also allows you to build custom prospecting lists based on your desired criteria and, similarly to Zoom info, emails you updates to the list(s).
- Key Benefits: Having another communication channel can provide reps a second avenue to connect with those hard-to-reach contacts. Sales Nav also provides an alert feed to keep you updated on the companies and contacts you follow. Sales Navigator continues to roll out new features and has cornered the market in the professional social media platform.
- Salesforce Plug-in: Sales Nav offers a team license (5 users or more) that comes with a CRM connector (Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce only). The Salesforce connector provides a great way to connect and message LinkedIn Contacts directly inside of Salesforce.
Salesforce High-Velocity Sales
Area of focus: Sales Engagement and Automation
- Summary: High-Velocity Sales or HVS is a newer Salesforce product that provides out-of-the box sales cadence automation. What is sales cadence automation? Basically, it allows sales managers or individual contributors to build cadences, or unique steps, in a sales process (calls, emails, LinkedIn messages, etc.). Each cadence can be customized with a unique workflow depending on the prospect or target. Once the cadence is live, the automation comes in play by auto-assigning each following task after one is completed. Users can upload customized email templates for manual or automated emails, as well as upload custom call scripts. HVS has a integrate voice component (VoIP) called Lightning Dialer which allows users to click to call. Custom screen pops allow user to take notes, view call scripts, and close out activities with ease. HVS also provides a great work queue that conveniently organizes your work by cadence and priority.
- Key Benefits: HVS helps take the “guess work” out of the sales prospecting process which is highly beneficial for junior sales reps and sales management. HVS is a highly scalable solution to help manage sales teams of all size and scope. From an end-user perspective, HVS is an absolute game changer for adding speed and efficiency to your current sales process. Having the ability to organize your workday and automate follow up tasks will instantly save you time. Adding in the Lightning Dialer will also help increase speed and help reduce the fear of reps picking up the phone to make calls.
- Salesforce Plug-in: HVS is a native app to Salesforce and does not require a plug-in. HVS does require an additional license. Contact your Salesforce AE for a quote. High Velocity Sales can be setup by a savvy Salesforce user or certified Admin.
Conga Composer/Conga Sign
Area of focus: Document Management and Generation
- Summary: Conga provides a suite of integrated apps that can streamline the quoting, proposal building, and contracting process for sales rep. Conga is a great tool for building professional looking documents and merging multiple documents (Excel, PDF, Word) into a single proposal. Conga also provides end-to-end contract management and eSignature capabilities which can highly reduce the hassle and time-consuming process of building quotes, makings edits, and negotiating contracting.
- Key Benefits: Conga can help save your sales reps hours of grueling admin work. By leveraging data already in Salesforce, your reps will have the ability to compose quotes on the fly and can accelerate the quote to sale process thus shorting the deal cycle. Having sharp, professional looking documents can also improve your company’s image and impress prospective clients.
- Salesforce Plug-in: Conga and their suite of apps can be integrated and highly customized into your Salesforce environment. Conga products do require licensing and usually recommend leveraging a consultant for implementation.
As you can see, Salesforce has a ton of cool third-party apps and plug-ins that can benefit sales teams, no matter the size or industry. Depending on the specific needs of your team, chances are you may find something on the Salesforce App Exchange (App Store) that can help solve a challenge or help drive productivity or efficiency with your sales reps. By leveraging these pre-build integrations and plug-ins with third-party tools, it is very easy to bring these apps into your new or existing Salesforce environment and immediately add value. These integrated apps can also help increase user experience, drive better adoption, and maximize your organization’s overall investment in Salesforce.
If you have questions regarding any of the sales tools listed here or others that work with Salesforce, don’t hesitate to contact the Revolution Group Salesforce Team at [email protected] or give us a call at 614-212-1111. For more information about our Salesforce Consulting services, check out our blog or call us today!
