Overview
Building an effective B2B sales tech stack requires strategic planning and careful tool selection. According to industry data, companies spend between $3,100 and $5,200 per sales representative annually on technology tools.
How to choose the right tools based on your needs & objectives
Choosing the right tools boils down to what your business’s needs and objectives are, as well as the stage of business growth it’s in.
The latter is important because:
Businesses in the startup stage have a small budget and should generally focus on minimizing costs and adopting easy-to-use tech that is absolutely essential.
Businesses in the growth stage have a bigger budget and are no longer in “survival” mode. They can focus on more robust solutions that offer advanced features.
Businesses in the maturity stage have the flexibility to choose best-in-class (and expensive) sales technology that offers innovative features that streamline the entire sales process.
Whichever stage your business is currently in, the first thing you’ll want to do is go through your sales process and determine what’s causing bottlenecks, what needs improvement, and what needs to be voted off the island.
Ask yourself (and your revenue team) these questions:
- Are there manual processes that can be automated?
- Are there processes/tasks that can be streamlined?
- What can we do to improve prospecting?
- What can we do to improve conversions?
- What can we do to improve close rates?
- What can we do to retain more customers?
- What sales KPIs are most important to us?
By taking the time to dissect your revenue team’s sales processes, you’ll ensure that you’re not wasting money on a sales tech stack that you don’t actually need — or that complicates everyone’s lives.
Fun fact: “61% of businesses leveraging automation reported exceeding revenue targets.”
How to ensure team-wide adoption of sales technology
You can spend tons of money on your B2B sales tech stack, but if no one in your revenue team is actually using the tools, you’ll never see improvement or ROI.
According to a study conducted by Gartner in 2021, “59% of sellers noted that the introduction of new sales technology generally hinders their overall efficiency.”
If sellers don’t see value in their tech stack — or worse, see it as something that sets them back — it’s no wonder they resist its adoption.
To ensure high adoption, you need to choose tools that:
- Facilitate the user experience with a straightforward UI.
- Offer a painless — and whenever possible, short — implementation process.
- Meet sales reps when and where they need it (for example, directly in their email inbox).
- Integrate with your existing systems (for example, Salesforce integration).
- Offer great customer support and training material.
- Streamline/combine/automate workflows.
Modern B2B sales tech stack must-haves (with pros/cons)
We researched top review sites and compiled a list of modern B2B sales tech stack must-haves (divided up into relevant categories). We also provided descriptions for each tool, as well as pros and cons to simplify your evaluation process.
We’re not suggesting you adopt ALL of these tools (unless your budget — and patience — are infinite).
One tool per category (based on your needs and objectives) will provide your revenue team with a winning B2B sales tech stack that will support their journey toward success.
Prospecting
| Tool | What it does | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| LeadIQ | Helps users find prospect data, track buying signals & personalize cold outreach for outbound prospecting. | Chrome extension; Integrated with LinkedIn Sales Navigator; Easy enterprise governance | Data quality; Can create duplicates in Salesforce; Phone number inaccuracies |
| Crunchbase | Provides private-company prospecting and research solutions for new business opportunities. | Easy to navigate; Good customer service; Accurate company funding information | Data inaccuracies; Integration with other platforms; Pricing options |
| LinkedIn Sales Navigator | Enables salespeople to find quality leads easily through LinkedIn and add them to a team’s sales funnel. | User-friendly UI; Good filtering; Easy to find decision-makers | Integrates with CRMs; Expensive; Limited to businesses with a LinkedIn profile |
Business intelligence
| Tool | What it does | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Looker | Helps users define metrics that drive their business while giving single-point access to trustworthy data. | User-friendly interface; Support for monitoring, scheduling & alerting; Self-service BI | Made for large teams; High upfront costs; Complicated initial setup; Outdated visualizations |
| Tableau | Helps users access, visualize, and analyze data to uncover hidden insights that make impactful business decisions faster, even when offline. | Advanced data visualizations; Intuitive UI; Easy embedding | Pricey; Steep learning curve; Poor customization |
| MS Power BI | Helps connect to and visualize any data using a unified, scalable platform for self-service and enterprise business intelligence. | Inexpensive license model; Excel integration; Constant updates | Poor interface; Not compatible with Mac; Steep learning curve |
Conversation intelligence
| Tool | What it does | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gong | Analyzes customer-facing interactions across phone, email, and web conferencing to deliver insights to close more deals. | Easy to use; Shows pipelines that are at risk; Salesforce integration; Daily reports of calls | Transcript inaccuracies; Poor multi-language capabilities; Upload speed |
| Chorus | Identifies and helps teams replicate the performance of top-performing reps by analyzing their sales meetings. | Speed of transcription; Easy video sharing; Recording quality | Transcript inaccuracies; Contact information not always updated; Long processing time |
Calling
| Tool | What it does | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dialpad | Connects teams through voice, video, messages, and online meetings. | Easy to use; Accurate voice messaging; Works from anywhere; Call recording | Lack of integrations; Transcript inaccuracies; Connectivity to third-party address books |
| Aircall | Transforms customer experience with the IT-approved cloud call center solution for sales and support teams. | Call clarity; Upfront pricing; Easy setup; Supports multiple numbers | Poor SMS capabilities; Lack of customization; Discrepancies between web and mobile apps |
Sales engagement
| Tool | What it does | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mixmax | Helps revenue teams engage more prospects and customers, collaborate better, and eliminate repetitive tasks. | Quick implementation; Integrates with Salesforce & LinkedIn Sales Navigator; Cost-effective; Can be used directly through Gmail | Incompatible with Outlook; Not suited for large organizations; No HubSpot integration |
| Outreach | Transforms customer experience with the IT-approved cloud call center solution for sales and support teams. | Good reporting and analytics; Easy to build sequences; Calendar sync | Poor customer service; Complicated and overwhelming; Expensive; Not suited for AE and CS teams; Can’t be used directly in Gmail |
| Salesloft | Helps sales teams automate sales plays, access coaching material, and manage pipelines. | Easy cadence creation; Template sharing capability; Good reporting | Poor user interface; Not ideal for opportunities; Long load times; Local dialer number not available |
Customer relationship manager (CRM)
| Tool | What it does | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salesforce | Web-based CRM application that enables users to forecast revenues and track leads. | Mobile friendly; Can be customized for multiple products; Integrates with other systems; Data visibility | Expensive; Steep learning curve; Customizations require advanced skills; Long load times |
| HubSpot | Processes and analyzes customer information allowing users to keep track of leads and customers at different stages in their journey. | Lead and contact organization; Chatbot integration; Track meetings and calls | Messy properties; Complicated navigation; Poor tracking |
| Pipedrive | CRM and sales pipelines management tool for small and medium-sized sales teams that helps users visualize pipelines and track activities. | Cost effective; Easy to add new team members; Keep track of ongoing interactions with contacts | Inability to link multiple email addresses to one account; Limited reporting; Limited support for small businesses |
Video hosting
| Tool | What it does | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vidyard | Online video platform for business that allows users to increase leads and accelerate pipeline. | Easy to use; Easy to embed videos into emails; Good customer service; Video analytics | Onboarding; Complicated video editing; Reporting |
| Bombbomb | Video messaging platform that accelerates and personalizes sales processes. | User friendly; Video personalization; Tracking analytics | Issues with Outlook; Few integrations; Video quality |
| Loom | Helps users get their message across through instantly shareable videos. | Easy to learn and teach new users; Intuitive UI; Easy video link-sharing options; Video quality | Inaccurate transcripts; Inability to transfer videos seamlessly between workplaces; Video editing |
E-signature & contract management
| Tool | What it does | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| DocuSign | Provides consumers and professionals with a simple way to electronically sign and return documents from anywhere. | Allows for multi-location signature collection; Strong encryption; Signature reminders; Certificate of completion | Confusing onboarding; Pricing solutions; Customer service |
| Adobe Acrobat Sign | Combines simple and secure e-signatures with Adobe Acrobat. Users can create, sign, send for signature, manage and track documents in one place. | Easy to use; Strong encryption; Integration with other applications; Real-time notifications | Expensive; Time-consuming initial setup; Outdated UI; PDF editing complicated |
| PandaDoc | Electronic signature platform for sales teams that contains sales proposal automation and CPQ features. | Analytics; Concise data acquisition; Easy to add custom content; Cost-effective | Slow loading; Homepage not customizable; Cluttered UI |
Sales analytics & forecasting
| Tool | What it does | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insight Squared | Provides insights into sales processes, closing rates, pipeline, and revenue forecasts, and calculating KPIs. | Detailed forecasting; Dashboard customization; Consistent sync with Salesforce | Expensive; Lacks differentiation; Complicated |
| Clari | Provides actionable insights based on data from across an organization, from emails and meetings to outbound marketing ad conversations. | Intuitive user interface; Detailed reports; Forecasting; Advanced analytics; Pipeline tagging; Automation based on content | Advanced analytics; Pipeline tagging; Automation based on content |
| BoostUp | Revenue operations and intelligence platform that integrates all data and revenue processes. | Salesforce integration; Opportunity forecasting; Overview of team pipeline; Engagement risk scoring | Data visualization/graphics on pipeline progress; No editable fields within the platform |
Note: Pros and cons based on online reviews.
Conclusion
If you’re a sales leader looking to invest in a sales tech stack that your revenue team is actually going to use, you have to first understand what’s working and what’s problematic within your sales processes.
Once you figure that out, you have to consider your business goals and allocate your budget to resources that will help you achieve those goals.
Investing in tools that allow your team to focus on selling and fulfilling customer needs rather than wasting time on other tasks will motivate them to reach their full potential.
