As a sales enablement leader, you’re always focused on delivering on today’s priorities, and yet keeping an eye on the opportunities to continuously improve and be ready for what's coming next. We’ve put together a list of the top sales enablement tools, and organized them by functional category. These tools can help sales enablement teams and sales enablement leaders train their reps better, faster, and more efficiently, and thus help reps close more deals.
But to start with, let's get to a common ground on what sales enablement means.
What is sales enablement?
Sales enablement is a broad term that describes the process of helping sales reps and sales leaders improve, train, and optimize their sales performance--with the end goal being increased sales.
Aberdeen found that companies with excellent sales enablement programs have:
- 32% higher team sales quota attainment
- 24% better individual quota achievement, and
- 23% higher lead conversion rate
And sales enablement has many nuances to it — specifically because it involves understanding the set of things that can accelerate deal closure.
So, what does a sales enablement specialist do?
Sales enablement specialists are at the intersection of marketing and sales departments. The main responsibility of a sales enablement specialist or a sales enablement executive is to ensure that sales reps and account executives are well-equipped with content, training materials and more importantly aware of the existing sales assets that they can leverage to accelerate the sales velocity.
Now, that begs the next question: who owns sales enablement in an organization?
Who should own sales enablement?
In most companies, sales enablement is owned by both marketing and sales. Typically a product marketing team tends to have a set of people specifically focused on creating sales enablement content such as case studies, comparison decks, videos, blogs, etc. The core idea behind having people focused on sales enablement as a core KPI is to ensure that marketing teams have a strong understanding of the voice of the customer, as much as the sales reps.
In case of early stage startups, focus on sales enablement helps companies achieve product-market fit much faster.
Structure of sales enablement teams
According to Sirius Decisions, 46% of the companies have structured their sales enablement unit under sales, whereas 32% under marketing and 18% reporting to corporate departments.
Key elements of sales enablement
- Optimal technology (access to the right sales enablement software)
- Content and training resources (content assets)
- People (on-boarding and sales coaching)
- Process efficiency (sales collaboration)
Metrics to measure your sales enablement progress
- Time to revenue /Length of sales cycle
- Transition rate between the sales stages
- Conversion rate
- Quota attainment
- Usage of content during sales conversations
Now, let's get to the sales enablement tools.
There are many types of sales enablement tools, and each type either helps to improve the skill set of sales reps, provides them with tools to operate more efficiently, or offers data-driven insights to help team leaders make decisions.
Categories of sales enablement tools:
- Conversation Intelligence
- Sales Engagement
- CRM
- Training and Onboarding
- Dialers
- Gamification
These categories represent a stack of sales enablement tools. We see categories 1-3 as essential for every sales team, and categories 4-6 as more valuable for larger teams.
1. Leveraging Conversation Intelligence for sales enablement
Conversation intelligence gives business leaders insights into what is happening during customer conversations, and allows them to steer reps behavior toward closing more deals based on those insights. The software and platforms in this category use a combination of artificial intelligence, speech science, and natural language processing technology to parse and understand the meaning behind verbal conversations, and organize this information for use in data driven decision making by sales leadership.
We’ll start by introducing you to Avoma, and explain how we approach conversational intelligence:
Avoma
- Pricing: Pricing starts at $40/user per month.
- Capabilities: Audio recording & text transcription, Speaker and keyword-based playback, Audio clip sharing & playlists, AI generated notes, Centralized team notes, Calendar and CRM sync, Conversation intelligence insights
- Strengths: Optimized for customer-facing teams. Multi-benefit platform - rep productivity, sales enablement/coaching, business intelligence for leadership
Avoma transcribes, summarizes and analyzes video conferencing meetings and dialer calls at scale. It helps sales teams win more deals and coach reps to become top performers. Reps and managers can review specific calls instantly for training purposes, and also save time by reducing manual note-taking and CRM data entry.
Avoma seamlessly integrates with the software your team is using: CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot), Video Conferencing (Zoom, GoToMeeting), Dialers (Aircall, RingCentral), and Calendar (Google, Outlook) to name just a few.
What sets Avoma apart in the sales enablement context?
- Avoma is a sales reps’ personal meeting assistant. SDRs and AEs use it to take notes during sales calls, but also get summarized notes automatically for key topics after the call. It syncs these notes to the appropriate CRM record for timely data-entry and connects each note to audio playback making it easy to review key interactions from their past conversations for follow-up. Easy clip sharing also enables them to pass on important feedback moments from their calls with other stakeholders on the team.
- Managers use Avoma to get visibility on what’s happening during their teams’ customer calls. They can use the platform to understand more about their top performers, to see exactly what they are doing on calls that is making them so successful. Accordingly, they can help coach other reps based on insights into an individual's strengths and weaknesses from their sales conversations.
Now that we’ve introduced ourselves, here are the other conversation intelligence and sales enablement tools for you to consider:
Chorus.ai
- Pricing: Contact for pricing details.
- Capabilities: audio and video recording, recording playlists, sales coaching tools, analytics, and conversation analytics and reporting.
Chorus records and transcribes audio and video calls in real-time. It helps sales teams improve their performance by allowing them to review specific calls for training and discussion purposes. The AI-enabled aspect analyzes calls and provides users with intelligent insights. Chorus integrates into other software such as Salesforce, Zoom, and Outlook, to name just a few.
Gong.io
- Pricing: Contact for pricing details.
- Capabilities: audio and video recording, recording playlists, sales coaching tools, conversation analytics and reporting.
Gong records customer interactions across phone, email web conferencing, and in-person meetings. It uses AI to parse these conversations and extract intelligent insights into what was said. Users can then compare their metrics to what Gong considers to be “best practices.” It enables sales reps to go back and re-review certain calls to understand the next steps.
2. Using Sales Engagement software for sales enablement
Sales engagement software helps automate sales activities to help reps close more deals. The category consists of tools that help automate emails, calls and sequences to prospects.
Outreach.io
- Pricing: Contact for pricing.
- Capabilities: Planner, CRM integrations, AI-powered suggestions, sales dialer, multi-channel communications platform, sales intelligence, and live call coaching.
Outreach.io provides sales reps with relevant insights and recommended sales activities that can help them close deals and improve the bottom line. They accomplish this through a guided system called a sequence. It allows reps to plan customer interactions, such as follow up text messages, social, email, and phone calls. This enables them to prioritize tasks and have a clear view of the upcoming workday.
One of the more popular features is the always-on assistant which automatically updates records in the Outreach system and then sends that data to 3rd party platforms such as Salesforce or other CRM. The AI-based machine learning will help reps uncover key customer insights and provide reps with intelligent suggestions on the next action step.
SalesLoft
- Pricing: Contact for pricing details.
- Capabilities: Email tracking, dialer, conversion intelligence, analytics, call recording, AI, outbound call tracking, social selling prospection, and sales engagement.
SalesLoft helps companies perform better sales outreach. They accomplish this through a wealth of features such as a dialer, call recording and coaching, analytics, and meeting captures.
Groove
- Pricing: Contact for pricing information.
- Capabilities: Email and calendar integration, salesforce integration, campaign automation, sales analytics, dialer, sales productivity, account based sales.
Groove is a sales engagement software that helps automate every stage of the sales process so reps can spend more time closing deals.
Customers use it to help improve efficiencies around email campaigns and call cadences with prospects.
Yesware
- Pricing: Free trial. Plans start at $12/mo., billed annually. Enterprise plan is $55/mo.
- Capabilities: Email integration, SalesForce contact list importing, email tracking, templates, campaign management, reporting and analytics, SalesForce and LinkedIn integration.
Yesware integrates into Gmail or Outlook and provides sales reps with the tools they need to manage a high volume of emails and client correspondence more efficiently.
Users can import large contact lists from SalesForce and then schedule and track emails directly from within their inbox. Yesware can help improve the efficiency of teams that deal with a large number of emails daily.
Mixmax
- Pricing: Free trial. Plans start at $12/mo., billed annually. Enterprise plan is $55/mo.
- Capabilities: Email tracking, templates, automation, personalization, campaigns, reporting, analytics, multiple integrations.
Mixmax helps companies manage and personalize outbound emails. It natively integrates with Gmail and provides users with a robust set of tools and features such as scheduling, automation, tracking, and engagement.
Mixmax also integrates with several other platforms, including Twitter, PipeDrive, SalesForce, and Google Calendar, to name just a few. It prevents users from having to switch windows and helps them lower their stack of email communication tools.
3. Making CRM the core of sales enablement
CRM is an acronym that stands for Customer Relationship Management, and it helps keep sales reps organized while providing them with relevant information that can help them turn an opportunity into a sale. It also connects internal departments such as marketing and sales, and that prevents siloing of useful information.
SalesForce
- Pricing: Contact for pricing details.
- Capabilities: CRM, marketing, analytics, lead management, partner management, sales data.
Salesforce gives users the ability to track customer interactions and information in one shared location. It accomplishes this through a robust set of features that will help increase the productivity of sales teams.
One of the more popular aspects is the wide range of sales tools and improved functionality offered by external apps through the AppExchange. This enables companies to custom-tailor the software to their particular needs.
Salesforce also integrates with many external software solutions such as ZenDesk, TeamSupport, and LeadExec, to name just a few. It can also connect to other sales, accounting, and CRM solutions, which provides a seamless workflow experience for the end-user.
HubSpot Sales
- Pricing: Plans start at $50/mo. Enterprise plans start at $1,200/mo.
- Capabilities: CRM, sales, marketing, analytics, lead management, analytics, reporting, sales data.
HubSpot Sales helps streamline and automate the sales process through a robust set of tools and features. It includes a CRM, Sales Hub, Service Hub, and Marketing Hub.
A comprehensive and interactive dashboard allows them to view customized metrics and show that data in the form of charts and graphs.
Sales reps can view and monitor multiple sales pipelines throughout the entire lifecycle of the buyer’s journey. This allows them to stay focused and improve their performance, and follow a recommended sales strategy.
PipeDrive
- Pricing: Essential plan starts at $15/mo. recurring and the Enterprise plan is $99/mo., billed annually, with a minimum of 10 users.
- Capabilities: CRM, marketing, analytics, lead management, partner management, sales data, reporting, integration with 3rd party software solutions.
PipeDrive is a web-based CRM sales enablement solution that allows businesses to manage leads, track communications, and automate repetitive busywork. It uses an activity-based selling methodology that helps streamline the entire sales cycle of a lead from the top to the bottom of the sales funnel.
Users have full visibility of the sales pipeline as they view the progress stages of each lead or deal. Sales managers can monitor custom metrics, such as sales data, through robust reporting functionality.
In addition to offering seamless email integration, Pipedrive also integrates with several 3rd party solutions such as MailChimp, Trello, and Zapier.
Microsoft Dynamics
- Pricing: See website for pricing details.
- Capabilities: CRM, analytics, lead management, sales data, custom installation solutions such as on-premise or in the cloud.
Microsoft Dynamics provides users with a CRM solution that helps businesses of all sizes better manage their client interactions. It includes such features as business insights, social intelligence, and campaign management. What makes it unique is that it gives users the ability to run it in the cloud, on-premises, or a hybrid variation.
The core functionality of Microsoft Dynamics includes social listening and engagement, marketing automation and planning, analytics, sales force automation, and customer service. It also offers machine learning capabilities that enable users to find intelligent, actionable insights.
4. Using Sales Dialers in tandem with CRMs
Sales dialer software often works in tandem with a CRM, automatically dialing numbers and providing the reps with intelligent scripts or important customer information. This helps increase sales productivity and improves the overall customer experience. Some tools will provide users with a way to take notes, or engage the customer via email or social media.
Ring Central
- Pricing: Plans start at $19.99 per user and go up to $49.99 per user for their most comprehensive plan.
- Capabilities: Cloud phone, team messaging, online meetings and online fax
RingCentral a complete cloud phone system that’s easy to setup and manage. It integrates with other cloud business tools such as Salesforce, Microsoft, Box, Zendesk, Google and Dropbox.
RingCentral is the only provider to allow setup, management, and access to your entire cloud phone system right from your smartphone.
Aircall
- Pricing: Free trial. Plans start at $30/month per user
- Capabilities: Cloud call center
Aircall is a cloud-based call center for sales and support teams. It syncs with CRM systems, helpdesk software and other essential apps.
RingDNA
- Pricing: Contact for pricing.
- Capabilities: Call recording, AI-powered insights, auto-logging calls, emails, and video conferences in SalesForce.
RingDNA is designed for sales teams that use SalesForce. It combines conversation intelligence with enterprise-level telephony to help reps engage with customers and prospects more efficiently and intelligently.
In addition to helping improve sales effectiveness and efficiency, RingDNA offers solutions for both inbound and outbound sales as well as sales management and marketing. Conversation AI is one of them. It uses artificial intelligence that allows managers to listen in on phone calls and gain intelligent insights that can help grow team performance.
5. Using Sales Training and Onboarding Software for sales enablement
While newly hired salespeople might have years or even decades of experience, they are often not well versed in the specific products and offerings of their company. Sales training and onboarding software can help reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to bring a new sales rep up to speed as well as help experienced reps improve their skillset.
MindTickle
- Pricing: Contact for pricing details.
- Capabilities: Coaching, gamification, analytics, sales training, video recording, reporting.
MindTickle helps improve sales readiness by providing users with a user-friendly, data-driven platform that enables them to monitor progress and improve the performance of the sales team.
It gamifies the learning process, which helps sales reps better grasp the concepts and ideas their managers want them to learn. It will also track the progress of users and send out reminders when they haven’t completed a particular course.
Sales managers will appreciate the Missions and Coaching session modules, which will help sales reps fine-tune and practice their pitches through recorded video sessions. MindTickle also allows for manager or peer feedback, which will enable reps to take full advantage of the knowledge of the entire sales tribe.
Brainshark
- Pricing: Contact for pricing details.
- Capabilities: Onboarding and training, AI-powered gamification, reporting, analytics, content authoring, content management, dashboards.
Brainshark provides users with a comprehensive platform that enables them to create relevant content for sales reps. This can help improve the time it takes to onboard and train new sales reps. It uses an AI-powered engine to help gamify the process with automated scoring and custom feedback.
Brainshark also has a robust reporting and analytics platform, which gives managers the ability to track training progress and sale-readiness of the entire team. Users can view such detailed metrics as retention, clicks, and views, which will help them better understand how well the sales reps are doing with the learning content. This content is also referred to as “sales asset management” (more on sales asset management in this article from Seismic).
Lessonly
- Pricing: Contact for pricing details.
- Capabilities: Distribution of learning sales resources, lessons, and training materials, lesson builder, recorded video training, chat practice, screen recording, email composition.
Lessonly provides businesses with an intuitive way to distribute their learning resources and training materials. It allows managers and the leadership team to share their knowledge and best practices with sales reps in an easy to use platform.
Webcam recording is one of the more useful features of this product. Sales reps can sit in front of a webcam and give a pitch as if they were sitting in front of a customer. Managers can then review the video and offer body language and sales tip advice to help improve their performance.
6. Leveraging Gamification Sales Software
Gamification software turns sales into a game by giving reps badges, awards, and leaderboards from which they compete against one another. It allows sales managers to motivate salespeople and reward top performers. Gamification often uses psychological principles to help incentivize salespeople to perform at their very best.
Ambition
- Pricing: Contact for pricing.
- Capabilities: Gamification, dashboards, coaching, scorecards, goals, awards, big screen leaderboards, real-time performance insights.
Ambition provides sales teams with the motivation they need to get out there and sell. They do this through a gamification platform that includes an easy to use dashboard, coaching help, scorecards, and real-time performance insights.
Ambition is highly customizable as sales managers can easily create a surprise alert for the first deal of the day or when a rep hits a particular milestone. It provides managers with the tools and features they need to help keep their teams motivated and performing at their very best.
Hoopla
- Capabilities: Gamification, leaderboards, connects with SalesForce, analytics, real-time data, mobile enabled.
Hoopla uses modern game mechanics coupled with video and analytics to help keep sales teams motivated. Managers can use the robust set of tools to improve performance and keep remote employees engaged via a mobile app.
Hoopla also features a professionally designed leaderboard that allows for the tracking of individual or team progress. Reps can instantly see where they are at and the numbers they need to hit to win. This helps create a friendly competitive environment while motivating sales reps to improve their performance.
Hurrah!® Leaderboards
- Pricing: Contact for pricing.
- Capabilities: Gamification, leaderboards, analytics, real-time data, mobile enabled, multiple integrations.
Hurrah! Leaderboards connects directly to your CRM and pulls in relevant data so that both reps and managers can see where they stand at a glance. Gamification comes in the form of sales contests that are based upon one of many different KPI’s. Performance rankings are then tracked and broadcast in real-time.
User can also create goals, television slide shows, and events and then track them via a robust dashboard that provides insights into various KPI’s. Managers can also create visual charts and graphs from the data presented.
Which Sales Enablement Tool is Right for You?
If you’re a smaller growing company, we recommend getting started with one of the tools in categories one through three. We believe that all companies could benefit from tools to help them coach their sales reps, improve close rates, track and engage prospects.If you’re a larger company, then in addition to categories one through three, we believe you could benefit from the tools in all six categories. Picking a tool from each of the categories with the sales enablement tool stack that you need to be successful.We hope that this list will help narrow down your choices and increase your productivity.
