November 11, 2015: In my work as a sales professional, I have a lot of information that I need to keep track of –dates, notes, impressions and data are all important. In order to serve my prospects in the best way possible, it’s critical that I make the best use of my time.
For me, apps are the answer. Here are the sales productivity apps I’ve found to be indispensable in my day-to-day work; they’re also likely to be highly useful for those working outside of this field.
Outlook for Android
The Outlook App for Android and IOS is a hidden gem of an app that doesn’t get talked about a lot, but is essential in my day-to-day work. The official Microsoft Outlook app unifies your Outlook email, calendar, contacts and attachments by directly communicating with your organization’s Exchange server. I can attach files from Onedrive and Dropbox, which means that I can work on a presentation at the office, share it with my team, and have it available so that I can easily display it on a tablet.
Because it allows access to full Outlook functionality, I also have full access to the notes I leave on Outlook on my phone. This makes the app great for trade shows or for creating a contact when I am away from the job.
Toggl
Toggl – This time-tracking software is great for time management. I can track exactly how much time I devote to prospecting, brainstorming, creating proposals, and so on. I can mark time with projects or tags, which makes it helpful for both the job and personal use (I love using Toggl at the gym). This app is free for small teams (up to 5); therre are also “Pro” ($5 per month) and “Business” ($49 per month) versions with extended functionality.
Builtwith
Builtwith is an essential tool if you’re in the business of on-site digital services. Builtwith will crawl and analyze a target website and give details on the entire array of technologies that the website employs. If you sell digital services, this is an essential tool for prospect and competitor research. It enables me to have intelligent conversations with my prospects so that I can serve their needs better. Builtwith offers a free version for limited use several paid versions for business use that do much more.
Sidekick
HubSpot Sidekick – This is an amazing tool that was first demonstrated to me by the people at HubSpot. Sidekick installs into your Outlook and will let you track the e-mails that you send out, letting you know who opens them and when (this is vital if you work in sales). When used in conjunction with an inbound marketing solution, you not only determine the best time to engage with a prospect, but know who they are, their professional history, which past e-mails they have opened, and a cascade of other data. This sales productivity app has helped me serve several ongoing clients and prospects.
Evernote
Last but by no means least, there’s Evernote, an omnibus software that stores files, schedules, and to-do lists, letting you work wherever you can get a wireless connection. Evernote has far too many features to summarize here, but suffice it to say that I really like the master scheduling, business card scanning, file storage and collaboration features, to name a few. Evernote has a free version, a “Plus” version ($24.99/year), and a “Premium” ($49.99/year) version. For me, the “Premium” version more than pays for itself in terms of saved time creating presentations, annotating PDFs, scanning business cards, and performing other routine sales tasks.
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