If you’re running a small business, you’re probably here because you’re looking for a simple sales tool like a CRM to help you automate tasks that you and your team are now handling manually. Or you’re on the hunt for other kinds of sales software for small businesses like yours. You’re lucky; this is now a great time for businesses to be investing in sales tools. AI-powered sales tools are changing how sales teams handle their sales process.
It’s no longer the case when only large enterprises can automate sales to improve efficiency. Today even a small team of five sales folks can do the same without breaking the budget.
This blog will take you through the different kinds of software small businesses and startups need as part of their GTM tech stack, and help you pick the best one for your team.
What is sales software?
Sales software refers to tools that help a sales team manage, automate, and scale their sales process. These tools provide a structured system to track leads, manage customer interactions and analyze sales performance.
The basic function of sales software includes:
- Lead management to organize potential customer data and prioritize qualified leads.
- Contact management to store customer details, purchase history and communication history.
- Sales pipeline tracking to provide an overview of the current progress and track deals across different stages of the funnel.
- Workflow automation to eliminate repetitive manual tasks like follow-ups, reminders, and data entry.
- Reporting with in-depth analytics on the sales performance, productivity and revenue forecasts.
Key features to look for in sales software for small businesses
Choosing sales software for your small business can be tricky. You need to ensure that you get all the features and functionalities you need for your business, while also making sure you aren’t unnecessarily paying too much for a software that has features you don’t currently need.
Here are some features and capabilities you need to look for while buying your product:
1. CRM
A CRM is the backbone of a sales process. It’s the first and the most important sales tool a small business invests in. When you’re investing in one, be sure to buy a CRM that offers more than just a database management module. It should offer contact management to store customer details, track conversations, log emails, book appointments with built-in calendars and provide automated reminders.
While a CRM is the starting point, your sales tech stack will likely grow as your business scales. Choose a CRM that can scale as your business grows, and supports integrations with other sales tools through APIs, webhooks, or native integrations. A rigid CRM that can’t adapt to new tools will force you into costly and time-consuming replacements down the line.
2. Lead management
Good sales software makes lead management effortless. It can help you make sense of all the data from various sources like websites, LinkedIn, email, or other social media by organizing all the details of your potential customers.
It further helps you prioritize the leads based on their buying signals so that your sales reps can spend time on high-intent prospects instead of wasting time on cold leads.
3. Automation
Choose the tool that offers extensive automation features. As a small business, you would be looking for ways to work with small teams and limited budgets. Invest in a sales tool that assists with automating manual work and also improving efficiency.
4. Ease of use
No matter how powerful a sales software is, if it's too complex, your team won’t fully adopt it, and you won’t see the results you expect. A smooth learning curve means faster ramp time and better results.
Pick a user-friendly tool with an intuitive interface that requires little to no training. If a tool is complex but offers great value, make sure you have access to dedicated onboarding support and have a member from the software vendor to guide you and answer questions whenever needed.
Top sales software options for small businesses
Here’s a hand-picked list of the best sales software available for small businesses with their overview, unique features, and pricing.
1. Highperformr
Highperformr is a sales tool that helps small businesses identify leads and enrich contacts using first-party social data.
It finds leads that are the right fit for your business, builds contact lists using different signals of interest, fills in missing details like work emails or phone numbers, and helps you reach out to the most promising leads by knowing their social activity status.
More of what you can do with Highperformr:
- Find potential customers on social media who match your ideal customer profile (ICP).
- Use keyword search to discover leads who are actively talking about relevant topics.
- Build a list of key decision-makers from a company you're targeting.
- Stay updated on job changes, promotions, and industry events that could signal a sales opportunity.
- Get weekly or monthly reports on who your prospects are connecting with on LinkedIn.
- Access enriched lead details, including contact info, company insights, and social engagement trends.
Key features:
- Build lead lists: Find and organize potential customers based on different criteria like events they attend, keywords they use, social media activity, and even your competitors' audience.
- Use with ease: It's a self-serve tool to quickly sort, filter, and improve their lead lists.
- Integrate with your CRM: Highperformr connects smoothly with 50+ sales, marketing and CRM tools.
- Track job changes: When your key contacts switch jobs, get promoted, or take on new responsibilities you automatically get real-time alerts.
- Save LinkedIn contacts: With the Highperformr Chrome extension, you can import LinkedIn and sales navigator contacts to your dashboard with a few clicks.
2. Clay
Clay is a data enrichment platform that integrates with multiple data sources to pull insights and automate hyper-personalized messaging. It provides you with consolidated information by allowing you to have all your information in one place.
Key Features:
- Advanced lead enrichment: Get data from connecting over 50 data sources.
- Automated prospecting: Uses AI to identify and qualify leads after the enrichment.
- Personalization: Generate customized outreach messages that vary based on customer interactions.
- Works with existing tools: Integrates with tons of API and works with standard CRM and sales tools.
3. Apollo
Apollo is a sales automation tool that provides lead enrichment, email sequencing, and contact discovery. It offers a massive B2B contact database to give a boost to your outbound sales efforts.
Key Features:
- Extensive contact database: You can access millions of verified leads using Apollo.
- Email and phone number enrichment: Find accurate contact details for outreach.
- Sales engagement tools: You can automate email sequences and track engagement.
- CRM integrations: Integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, and other popular CRM and sales tools.
You might also want to check out these 15 major Apollo competitors.
4. Freshworks
Freshsales is an easy-to-use sales automation tool that offers an intuitive interface where you can plan your entire sales process with a Kanban card, 360° view and meet them on their preferred channels.
Key features:
- Deal collaboration: Tag your team members for updates on deals within your team.
- Freddy AI: AI assistant that helps you find customers, write emails, and tell what needs to be done to close deals.
- Pipeline management: Customize and track deals visually without any technical knowledge.
- LinkedIn marketing form integration: When a form is created on LinkedIn, a new account will be created on Freshsales.
5. HubSpot
HubSpot sales hub is an all-in-one sales platform that combines CRM, automation, and analytics. It’s best known for its marketing and customer service tools.
- Lead management: Manage your leads and upcoming sales activities in one workspace.
- Breeze prospecting agent: Focus your outreach efforts on quality leads with a native AI agent.
- Sales automation: Easily add and score deals, assign tasks, and track your prospects automatically.
- Call tracking: Make calls directly from your browser and track calls in your HubSpot CRM.
Implementing sales software in your small business
When you have a small sales team focused on closing deals, you can’t afford to disrupt their workflow with a software rollout. Switching tools can be frustrating and time-consuming.
Assessing your business needs
Before picking a sales tool, take a step back and evaluate what your business actually needs. Are you struggling to track leads? Do you need better reports? Are you spending too much time on manual tasks?
Understanding your sales process and pain points will help you choose software that solves your real problems rather than adding unnecessary complexity.
Training your team
A simple training plan can make a big difference because that’s how your team can learn to use it effectively. Start with short training sessions, create easy-to-follow guides, find early adopters to try the tool and encourage team members to help each other.
If the software provider offers onboarding support, take advantage of it. The goal is to make sure everyone feels comfortable using the tool in their daily workflow.
Measuring success with sales software
Once your sales software is up and running, the next step is to ensure it's making a difference. The best way to do this is by tracking key metrics and gathering feedback from your team. Here’s how you can measure the success of the software:
Tracking key metrics
Keeping an eye on the right sales pipeline metrics will tell you if the software is helping your team close more deals or improve productivity. These are some important ones to track:
- Lead conversion rate: Are you able to track and quantify the impact of the tool on lead conversion and revenues? See how leads are turning into paying customers.
- Sales cycle length: Is the time it takes to close deals getting shorter?
- Team productivity: Are sales reps saving time and focusing more on selling and less time on manual tasks?
- Pipeline visibility: Do you have better insights about the leads in the sales process?
Gathering user feedback
Your sales team is on the front lines using the software every day, so their input is important. Here are some ways you can be sure that the tool you’ve bought is actually helping the team.
- Regular feedback: Check in with your team and send quick surveys to assess what’s working and what needs improvement.
- Support requests: Do reps constantly ask for help with the software or report bugs? It might not be as good as expected.
- Monitor adoption: Track how often your team uses the tool and its features. Low adoption may indicate a need for additional training or a simpler solution.
Highperformr is a sales tool designed to meet the requirements of B2B businesses of all sizes. Book a demo with our GTM engineer to see how your team can grow revenues easily using Highperformr!
