The Best B2B Sales Tools for Every Stage in the Sales Cycle in 2023

Sales software simplifies your everyday sales workflow with tools for automation and productivity. These tools have evolved and now include not only customer relationship management (CRM) but also a range of other solutions that help with prospecting, lead generation, and/or quote generation. 

Salespeople who work with digital sales tools are more successful than their colleagues who don’t. Why? Because, with the power of automation, they can work their way through the sales process quicker and with more efficiency, which results in a better customer experience. Practical, isn't it? 

In this article, we’re recommending valuable digital tools for each stage in the sales cycle to help your sales teams automate their processes so they can close more deals.

Digital Tools for Every Stage of the Sales Cycle

Have you ever thought to yourself, "There are way too many tools for sales! I don't even know where to start and where to stop!" Then this article is for you. We know that trying to find the right tools can feel overwhelming. We want to help you find the right digital sales tools that will automate your process at each stage in the sales cycle to make your business and sales teams more efficient.

Remember: not all sales tools are created equally! That’s why this guide will help you choose the right software solutions for the right stages of the sales cycle.  

1. Choosing the Right CRM System: The Foundation of Good Sales Work

As a rule, sales teams should track all their customer activities in a CRM. CRMs are used to track everything from interactions, prospects, leads, closed deals, customer behavior, and more. Most organizations invest in CRMs and it is already integrated into the day-to-day duties of sales teams and others across the company. But there are a lot of features in a CRM that often go overlooked especially in customer engagement. 

A CRM forms the foundation for a sales organization and you should make sure that you choose the right one for your needs. Additionally, you’ll need to ensure you have a good strategy for how your organization needs to use a CRM.  

Support Your Customers with SuperOffice CRM

SuperOffice CRM is a cloud platform that’s designed with your customer engagement and relationship strategy in mind. SuperOffice CRM offers user-friendly interfaces, tracking of your team’s progress with leads and customers, and responsive customer support. 

A cool feature with this CRM is it offers a calendar view option which showcases a pleasing colored member view. SuperOffice also has a mobile version for your sales teams that are on the go. This CRM tool from Norway simplifies how you store your customer’s data and helps sales team build sustainable relationships.

Customer Care Made Easy with HubSpot & Salesforce

Consider investing in robust CRM solutions like HubSpot or Salesforce. Salesforce,  a U.S.-based CRM solution, offers different options and features depending on the size of your company. Salesforce also provides additional features focused on customer support and team productivity.  

The competitor Hubspot offers the standard CRM features as well as document management and marketing automation solutions like email marketing, landing page development and hosting, blog support and more.

Salesforce is standard for large companies and corporations, while HubSpot is a great, affordable solution for small- to medium-sized companies.

2. Prospecting – How to Generate High-Quality B2B Leads

After taking the first step and investing in digital marketing initiatives like paid advertising and content development, it’s time to start considering how your activities will convert your audience into leads.  

An all-encompassing tool that supports your marketing activities in partnership with your sales and research activities, will ensure you are generating high-value B2B leads. Save time and resources with an efficient and productive B2B lead generation software.

Create a Better Buying Experience with Albacross Web Tracking

Albacross tracks current demand from companies that visit your website and landing pages. With the help of IP-to-company mapping, this tool delivers current selling opportunities and identifies current company events that align to the buyer’s journey – from the first click to the final sale – in a highly personalized way. Currently, this tool is only available in English, French and Swedish. 

Lead Generation at the Touch of a button with Dealfront

Put up your feet, relax and watch the leads flow in with Dealfront. Dealfront offers options to filer over 300 contact criteria which allows you to find your perfect customer sets and download those lists as leads for yourself and your team. 

Say goodbye to the old days of buying static address lists. With Dealfront you can rely on digital sales solutions based on artificial intelligence. Find companies, contacts and buying signals for lead generation and new customer acquisition with just a few clicks. Or, have highly relevant and current sales opportunities sent directly to your inbox. In addition, you can search for sales triggers such as relocations, new construction plans or job cuts – there is no better conversation starter than when you know about a company’s current pain points and needs.

Another hack: Create B2B lookalikes based on your best customer sets and easily convert these digital twins with relevant use cases from your existing customers. B2B lead generation has never been easier thanks to Dealfront.  

Achieve Intent Data Success with Bombora

Intent data provides you with important clues as to what your target audience is currently concerned with, what they are looking for online and at what stage in the buying process they are. Bombora is an intent data solution for B2B sales and marketing teams which provides information on the topics your target companies and industries are interested in. You can also view your website engagement and create individualized reports. This software solution is currently only available in English.

Generate Leads on Social Media with LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn is a professional social networking channel and offers many opportunities to connect with your target audience and prospects. LinkedIn is a great place to use social selling tactics. Social selling is the process of creating organic relationships with leads and is typically done through social media sites. LinkedIn Sales Navigator provides users with fresh contact lists that fit your search profile and goals. It’s as simple as sending a LinkedIn InMail message with your offer. This approach allows you to create an individualized message with your custom offer or solution to their unique pain point.  Additionally, you can contact hot leads not only via LinkedIn InMail but also through targeted LinkedIn ads.

3. Enrich & Qualify Leads in a Simple Way

Regardless of whether your marketing investments are paying off or whether you generate B2B leads with a sales intelligence tool, lead enrichment is always important. Lead enrichment provides you with the perfect overview of your target customers and makes it easier for you and your sales team to initiate conversations. While many sales intelligence tools already provide you with a lot of useful information about your leads, you may still need to enrich them separately. We recommend considering the following solutions:

Accurate Data with Clearbit Enrich

Clearbit is a software solution that will automatically keep your company information up to date. Clearbit provides you with the most recent and relevant B2B data, so you can focus fully on your customers and create individualized and targeted interactions. In addition, you can receive automated alerts when a target customer visits your website and shows interest, giving your sales teams an opportunity to reach out about that specific touchpoint.

Screen Companies with Dealfront

With Dealfront you’ll receive up to date B2B company profiles at the push of a button. Keep your data fresh and enrich it with financials from the commercial registry and other publicly available sources.

Dealfront saves you up to 60 percent of your research time and receive GDPR-compliant data for your sales teams. Moreover, this tool easily integrates into various CRM systems (Salesforce, HubSpot etc.), which helps automate your database management activities. With the Dealfront app, opportunities and leads can be filtered regionally so you’ll never miss a sales opportunity directly in your region. 

Understand Your Contacts Better with FullContact

FullContact helps enrich data of employees, decision makers and business contacts. This solution can add profile photos and other relevant data to a contact so sales teams know exactly who they are working with. After all, the more you know about a lead, the more individualized your approach can be and it’s more likely your lead will convert. 

4. Prioritization – Boost Your Sales Engagement

In the Right Place at the Right Time with Xant

Xant automates your sales to-dos and prioritization for you. You’ll receive effective task lists and sales playbooks that support you during the entire sales cycle.  This tool sends follow-up emails automatically, alerting you whether a prospect has answered you or not which allows sales teams to determine their next strategy.  

Furthermore, your sales teams can receive additional leads with this solution. Xant provides you with recommendations on who to approach, when and how. The tool makes the sales process and cycle easy and efficient for sales teams. 

Create a Better Pipeline with Outreach

Outreach helps you develop and implement intelligent pipeline generation. Outreach offers unique solutions like full-featured voice-over and email features. With this solution you can see the position of your next potential customer and how their open, click and reply rates have evolved over time. In addition, you can easily schedule appointments and get a view of people you’ve contacted all in one dashboard. 

5. Sales Enablement Tools that Benefit Your Sales Team

Closing the deal is all about the details. With your investment in the right sales tools, you’ll have high-quality leads, an audience with high demand and the right person to contact. Now it's time to prepare your sales pitch, book appointments and present products! So, what’s the most elegant way to do this? Presenting your product can be difficult, especially in the digital age.

There are multiple strategies sales teams can use to get in front of their target customer, from cold calling to social selling online. Either way, contacting interested parties and setting up appointments is made easy with digital software solutions.  

Book Appointments with Calendly

With Calendly, your customers or prospects can easily book an appointment in your calendar. It’s as easy as linking to your calendar on a landing page and you're ready to go! Calendly integrates with Microsoft, Zoom, Salesforce, and more, further simplifying the appointment scheduling process.

Content Management for Sales & Marketing with Showpad

Showpad is a sales enablement platform that supports collaboration between sales and marketing teams. In Showpad, users can share and link the latest and most relevant content across teams. The right content at the right time helps your sales team with their conversations and keeps them on track with relevant marketing activities.

Conversely, sales teams can also store and track their customer engagement insights, which is equally as valuable for marketing teams who are tasked with creating content. Showpad is available in many languages, including German, English, French and Italian.  

Present & Sell Products Optimally with Vidyard

Vidyard is a great option for virtual and visual selling. Record and send any kind of videos, from demos to product promotions, with Vidyard. Additionally, Vidyard offers helpful analytics that shows who is watching your videos and for how long. 

See at a glance what kind of material is working with your audience and which team members are performing best. Using Vidyard is a great asset to add to your technology stack and users report a higher open rate for their emails when a Vidyard video is included.  

6. Please Sign Here – Tool to Create, Store and Manage Offers

The final step in closing a deal with a potential new or existing customer is having a deep understanding of the numbers. If your customer is seriously interested in your offer, they will naturally want to know what your product or service costs. If you create offers or cost estimates by hand using programs like Microsoft Word, careless errors can often creep in. If you want to prevent this, consider investing in a software solution that automates the process for you.

Sign Contracts Online with Pandadoc

A popular tool for creating quotes and signing contracts online is Pandadoc.  Create quote templates that seamlessly integrate with data from your CRM to design an individualized quote for your next customer. With Pandadoc you save time and stay on track for closing the deal.

Save Paper & Sign Online with with DocuSign

DocuSign helps you with the contracts process, document organization and paperwork management. Every department can easily view and access a wide variety of different documents – whether it’s cost estimates, invoices or employment contracts.

Nice to Have: More Exciting Digital Tools

 In addition to investing in software solutions for key areas in your sales process, there are also numerous browser plugins that can make your everyday sales life easier. Browser plugins can be used not only for lead generation activities but can also support productivity and organization. We have compiled the most helpful Chrome plugins here.  

Track LinkedIn Activities with Shield

If you are a personal branding or social selling expert on LinkedIn, you need to use Shield. Shield shows you how your posts rank and tracks your post engagement. At a glance, Shield will provide recommendations on what you can do to improve your posts to receive more interactions. Furthermore, you can also get detailed insights into your target audience and readers across multiple accounts or teams within the company.  

Use Crystal to Get to Know Your Audience on Social Media

If you're familiar with the DISC color model, you'll appreciate Crystal. This tool shows you the respective personality type of a person based on their LinkedIn profile. This is not only enormously helpful in recruiting and leadership, but also in sales. If you know the DISC type of your prospect, you know what will likely persuade them.

Connect Tools & Automate Processes with Zapier

Zapier is your tool for effective workflows. It connects your software solutions with the goal to create smooth and time-saving workflows. This tool also transfers information from one solution to another, so you can devote yourself to more important things. 

Conclusion: Automate as Much as Possible!

Every organization follows a similar sales and lead generation process. But software tools can help organizations automate processes which will help them stand out from their competition. If you’re considering digital tools for your sales process ask yourself: Where can I individually optimize my sales process? Which phase of the sales process can I be more efficient? Where can I save time and resources? Where can I boost hidden potential? 

In this article, we introduced you to many exciting tools for every phase of the sales cycle. If you want to compare various solutions, we recommend you look at  Capterra and G2. There, you will find concrete feedback from customers on the respective products and can decide which one suits you and your team best. Good luck and happy automating!