In many ways, telesales, also known as lead or demand generation, hasn’t changed in decades. Sales agents are still picking up the phone and doing whatever they can to get through to a decision maker.
Either they are scheduling meetings or demos for themselves, or they are booking meetings on behalf of business development executives that do online or in-person sales meetings or demos with potential clients. At the end of the day, it’s a numbers game.
A lot of people in sales have seen The Wolf of Wall Street. Starring Leonardo Di Caprio, the film is based on a real company. Di Caprio’s character, a cash-driven Wall Street stockbroker, was a master when it came to selling pink sheet stocks. But as buyers, customers and investors have grown wiser to these schemes over time, cold selling like that rarely works nowadays.
Sales itself has evolved considerably. Modern sales teams use a lot more tools to get the job done. It isn’t simply a case of picking up the phone and making calls all day long. Outbound sales teams need to use a range of tactics and tools, and should be fully supported by a proactive marketing team.
In this article, we look at five indispensable telesales tools that help sales teams generate the meetings and demand they need to drive forward growth.
#1: HubSpot CRM
Love them or hate them, CRMs are here to stay and are an essential part of the inbound and outbound sales process. Sales managers and everyone on the team needs a transparent 360 view of the prospects in the pipeline, and those that have transitioned into being customers. Every touchpoint needs to be registered, either automatically or manually, and a CRM makes that possible.
Although there are dozens of options on the market, from big tech legacy players to high-growth companies such as Salesforce, startups and SMBs usually love products that are free. This is part of the reason why HubSpot is so popular. It’s easy to use, has a 100% free version, and you can upload unlimited contacts. Plus, it allows you to track the entire pipeline and every deal from end-to-end, making it one of the most popular CRMs on the market.
#2: Zingtree
Zingtree is a great way to quickly and easily put together a series of sales scripts without needing coding skills. While it helps to maintain flexible conversation in a sales call, it’s useful to have a series of scripted workflows that a sales team can go through to make sure they stay in sync and on track.
Scripts can he hosted in a browser, or Zingtree can host them for free. This way, when agents are working their way through calls, a series of options can appear depending on the questions a prospect is asking. At the same time, these call script workflows can ensure the right questions are being asked on a call to qualify every lead.
#3: LinkedIn Sales Navigator
With over 660 million professionals, business leaders and owners on LinkedIn, it is the social network that every inside sales team should be active on. It’s extremely likely that your prospects are already active on the platform.
Sales Navigator is a popular solution for many sales professionals, who need the tool to extract as much value as they can from the platform.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is subscription product that starts with a 30-day free trial, and then starts at $64.99 per month, giving salespeople the ability to send 20 InMail messages every month. Of course, if you use the features designed to help find and connect with more people, you can send direct messages that don’t require using the InMail limit.
According to LinkedIn, those who use Sales Navigator benefit from:
- 5% Higher Win Rates
- 34% of Opportunities Sourced
- 35% Larger Deal Sizes
The top 25% of Navigator users perform even better, achieving a 55% increase in deal size, a 15% higher win rate, and a 75% higher influence on revenue. Pretty decent results for $64.99 per month, providing your sales team make the most effective use of LinkedIn.
#4: Calendar
Time and calendar management is another essential skill for sales teams. Thankfully, there are several apps out there that can help salespeople use their time as efficiently as possible every day.
Calendar is an AI-enabled digital calendar, time management and scheduling app. It’s available in a browser, iOS (App Store) and Android format (Play Store), with a free version, or Pro at $10 per month, with Enterprise plans for teams.
It even comes with automated meeting transcripts, and you can connect a range of calendar apps, such as Google, iCal, and Outlook, so everything can be managed in one place.
#5: CrankWheel
Screenshare apps are one of the most effective ways for telesales teams to engage directly with prospects, qualify leads, and close deals faster. With tools such as CrankWheel, they can do this without a prospect needing to download software or even be at their desk.
CrankWheel is an easy-to-use screen sharing tool used by tens of thousands of sales reps around the world. It can equally be used in a customer service environment. It gives sales agents the ability to jump on an instant online demo during a phone call, or book one in the future, and then do a call with a prospect to demo a product or service.
Prospects can also try out a new software product using remote control. Giving someone who’s interested in purchasing a quick tour is far more cost and time effective than waiting days and weeks for a demo in the calendar. It avoids the risk of prospects repeatedly cancelling and a lead going cold.
This is, of course, just a small sample of the many tools out there designed to empower sales teams. There are many more that cover every area of outbound sales, such as call recording and email marketing. But for those looking for the essentials to bring in more leads, track them, and close the deal, these are sure to get the job done.
Jói Sigurdsson, Founder & CEO of CrankWheel, a zero hassle screen sharing solution tailor made for telesales and inside sales teams, web and mobile-based, designed to help field and inside sales teams increase conversion rates and engagement with prospects.