Our picks: 8 Sales Team Productivity Tools

SciLeads Top Picks for Sales Productivity Tools

Sales productivity tools have become an essential part of our company toolkit and below we share with you some of our favorite software recommended by both our staff and our clients. These tools have helped us stay organized and serve our customers better.

Here are SciLeads’ picks for productivity tools for sales teams:

1. Crystal Knows - get prospect’s personality insights

2. Chili Piper - scheduling assistant

3. RescueTime - time enhancing software

4. SciLeads - life science leads generation tool

5. Papaly - organize your bookmarks better

6. Grammarly - check your grammar, spelling, and tone

7. DocuSign - digital document signing

8. Headspace - help to clear your mind

1. Crystal Knows - get prospect’s personality insights

Do you know whether your prospect hates small talk or the use of emojis? Do they want you to get to the point or would they rather have some background information first? With Crystal Knows you can get all the information you need to know about a prospect’s personality before making that all-important first contact.

(Image source: Crystal Knows)

The tool uses the DiSC framework which tracks four main personality profiles of (D)ominance, (I)nfluence, (S)teadiness and (C)onscientiousness.

‘Each person has their own set of values, beliefs and perspectives. We may not always agree, but there are tools that can make stressful interactions easier. It comes down to understanding and employing empathy in your everyday behavior. Empathy is the ability to share and understand another person’s feelings.’ (Crystal Knows)

The app can intuitively integrate with Google Chrome and provide a DiSC prediction for each prospect straight from their LinkedIn profile. Simply install the plugin and click your prospect’s LinkedIn profile to get a full list of helpful hints. It will tell you their likes and dislikes and give you very useful dos and don’ts for communicating with them. (You can also take your own personality test to find your personality type on their website).

Plus, it even gives you email templates for every sales stage from prospecting and scheduling meetings to discussing pricing concerns and deadlines. Check out our blog on Top 3 Email Marketing Mistakes to avoid for some further tips on sending cold emails.

Sales teams no longer have to risk getting it wrong and putting your potential customer off you instantly. Learn how they like to be sold to and what they will respond to best to close sales more easily and quickly. This app gives you the best start for interacting with customers and leads and helps you speak persuasively and confidently in every situation.

 

2. Chili Piper - scheduling assistant

Chili Piper is an automated scheduling software that acts as a hub for all of your meetings and appointments, and integrates with your current tech stack. It allows people to share their availability, send preferred meeting times, reminders, follow-ups, and support multiple attendees and locations.

The app can reduce the number of emails back and forth trying to find a time that suits everyone by letting prospects book a slot in your calendar with a couple of clicks. They will get a reminder email so they don’t miss the meeting, but rescheduling can be just as easy. It also integrates with other apps including your CRM to take the time, hassle, and stress out of diary management.

(Image source: Chili Piper)

You can also set how long a meeting slot needs to be, for example, a demo call might only take 15 minutes rather than having to book 30 or 60-minute meetings; so you can manage your time more efficiently. It can also provide sales managers with an overview of who is busy, and if someone is maxed out they can share the load amongst the rest of the team.

‘From capturing, qualifying, and routing leads, to simplified scheduling, preparation, follow-up, and reporting. Meeting Lifecycle Automation is helping revenue teams increase their productivity and convert more pipeline’. (Chili Piper)

As sales teams are constantly busy and have to juggle their time between calls, meetings, emails, and admin tasks, this tool provides them with a great way to organize their day in fewer clicks.

 

3. RescueTime - time enhancing software

For those that are easily distracted, feel like they are multitasking too much, or don’t know where the time goes have little to show for it; RescueTime is a time tracking software that can help you focus your efforts much better.

It maps your online activity during your working day from what websites you visit to what files you open and reports back on how you spend your time and whether it is productive or not. It will also analyze the meetings and events you have that day to let you know the time slots where you can get the most done.

It can help sales teams find the optimal times for work and meetings to achieve more and ultimately be more productive without the stress.

(Image source: RescueTime)

This is a great productivity tool for sales teams as it can show you the areas in which you are wasting time, or when you are most productive, so you can maximize your output. It has a coaching function to nudge you when you have time to work in between meetings and will learn from your activity. It is designed to help people be more productive, focused, and motivated.

‘When it’s time to reflect, RescueTime’s in-depth reporting on Focus Work, communication apps, and distractions can take you from overwhelmed to under control’. (RescueTime)

Plus, you can start a ‘focus session’ when you have deadlines or important work to do and RescueTime will block messages and apps that might distract you and affect your focus. It aims to stop you from having to work evenings and weekends because you haven’t been managing your time effectively enough.

 

4. SciLeads - life science leads generation tool

The SciLeads platform is an innovative lead generation app and market intelligence tool that helps sales teams identify, engage, and close their ideal scientific buyers.

For our customers, the SciLeads platform reduces the hours needed to research and locate the contact details of their target life science leads as the platform curates thousands of profiles in one place.

(Image source: SciLeads)

In our conversations with customers, they say their sales teams spend around 30% of their time researching prospects.

According to a Google search, the average sales representative’s salary in the US is around $70,000 and can reach $100,000 for more experienced staff. So the cost for this research time could potentially be $30,000 per person. In a sales team of 5 people, that could mean $150,000 is spent a year on research. By providing high-quality leads data quickly, the SciLeads platform saves time and money, allowing sales teams to do what they do the best = sell.

The platform’s search function utilizes Boolean logic (the same as PubMed or Google) allowing the user to build powerful search queries and pinpoint the data they need faster. The platform enables sales teams to search leads' profiles, easily target Key Opinion Leaders, and find extensive information on publications, grants, posters, symposia, and purchase history all in one place.

By using the platform's list-building feature, the sales teams can then create highly targeted segmentation for sales campaigns and even set up alerts when a new publication has been released or funding granted. Another very useful feature for sales teams is that it supports integration with other CRM and enterprise solutions such as Salesforce.

The platform has become a fantastic resource for many life science sales and marketing companies, and even our own staff use it on a daily basis.

Our team uses the platform to:

• Research which companies are selling into academia to identify potential leads for the sales team.
• Find which companies are getting seed funding and SBIR money, allowing us to identify recent startups that could benefit from the platform
• Locate companies who are getting funding or are growing quickly and need to upgrade their sales capabilities
• Lookup the popular tradeshows to determine where our relevant clients are attending.

 

5. Papaly - organize your bookmarks better

The Papaly application allows you to create a visual board that contains all of your links and bookmarks for quicker access. This tool helps you keep all of the content you have searched for, shared, and saved all in one place; which can be great for sales teams.

No longer do you have to go back through your search history or bookmark list for an article you think a prospect might be interested in, you can create a board especially for that topic that houses all of your ideas. It can even curate every social media post you liked, saved, and interacted with for easy reference.

(Image source: Paply)

Your sales team can collaborate on a board together by saving useful articles, templates, and videos to help their performance or onboard new team members.

‘Accelerate employee on-boarding by adding links to internal wikis, or keep your team up-to-date with links to courses or industry-related articles.’ (Paply)

This app is also a great way to reduce that open tab clutter which majorly slows your computer now and eats into your bandwidth when you’re on video calls.

 

6. Grammarly - check your grammar, spelling, and tone

Grammarly is a writing assistant tool that will review your spelling, grammar, and punctuation as you type. It provides real-time corrections and can also give you suggestions for better clarity, engagement, and tone. This tool is a must for sales teams who are sending multiple messages to potential clients to ensure all correspondence looks professional, as even a simple spelling mistake can lead to your message being disregarded.

(Image source: Grammarly)

Most word processing programs have a spell checker and can catch words spelled incorrectly, but Grammarly can also highlight words spelled correctly but used in the wrong context such as ‘Deer Dr. Smith…’; although ‘deer’ is spelled correctly, the right word in this instance is, of course, ‘dear’. Plus, you can set the language to suit your client, so if you normally write in UK English but want to contact someone in America, you can change your spelling to US English easily.

‘From grammar and spelling to style and tone, Grammarly helps you eliminate errors and find the perfect words to express yourself… Grammarly now organizes your writing feedback by theme, so you can see how each change will help your readers better understand your message.’ (Grammarly)

Grammarly can help sales teams get their message across more succinctly and saves them time by fixing spelling and grammatical mistakes quickly at the click of a mouse

 

7. DocuSign - digital document signing

Despite living in a digital world, many people still send paperwork requiring a signature by post. Even if it is emailed over, the recipient would often need to print it out, sign it and then scan and email or post the document back again. This manual process can take a long time.

Now thanks to e-Signature and document tracking software like DocuSign, sales teams don’t have to be in the same room or continent as their customer to get the paperwork processed securely. This process became a necessity during the pandemic when people couldn’t travel and delivery times were massively delayed.

(Image source: DocuSign)

Digital signature software can ensure that documents are quickly signed even across the world and reduces the amount of paper needed to process contracts and other legal documents. Plus, the whole process can be tracked from sending the document to it being opened, signed, and returned. No more biking or posting documents and waiting days for them to come back or agonizing over whether a contract will be returned at all and signed correctly, the process can now take a matter of minutes with an electronic signature.

‘From sales contracts and offer letters to account openings and invoices, agreements are everywhere. With DocuSign eSignature, you have the ability to complete contracts, approvals, and other agreements in minutes rather than days’. (DocuSign)

 

8. Headspace - help to clear your mind

Sales teams working under pressure can be highly susceptible to burnout and stress, so it is very important to look after your mental health. Although wellbeing applications like Headspace aren’t strictly productivity tools themselves, they can certainly help you cope with the stresses and strains of the day. Headspace even has a dedicated app for businesses to help companies support their employees.

(Image source: Headspace)

Headspace uses guided meditation and teaches ‘mindfulness’ to help people work better, sleep better, and cope with relationships and other daily worries. The website is also full of helpful resources like blogs on ‘how to stop procrastinating’ and ‘how to be mindful at work’ to advise on how to deal with and change our common behaviors.

‘There are thousands of studies that have shown mindfulness meditation can positively impact mental and physical health. Whether it’s by reducing stress, improving sleep, increasing focus, or improving relationships, research shows mindfulness works’. (Headspace)

 

Be more productive with SciLeads

Those are just some of the tools the SciLeads team uses and recommends to save time, be more productive, and complete sales quicker and more effectively.

If you want to save time and find target life science leads more quickly and efficiently then book a free demo and trial of the SciLeads lead generation platform now. During your trial, we will provide a data sample for you to test in your own sales and marketing campaigns.