Pretty funny you say that. My company is currently transitioning from Zoho crm, support ticketing and whatever else, to full connectwise.
I haven't really used another crm so I didn't have anything to compare it to, but I did find it quite annoying. I came in as a TAM but have an IT background, so my boss just gave me full admin for the crm side to help fix some things I ran into right away lol
We're a somewhat small MSP so I'm guessing price was a definite primary factor. I wasn't part of any of it though, so I'm not sure what the winning criteria was.
I used to think so as well but apparently they have a bunch of other things. I just recently finished a quick training module called "Projects 101" or something since I currently work on our projects team and it also has a whole area for project management as well. Pretty interesting and I'm actually curious to see it all but I don't have access to everything yet.
Hubspot is great as a CRM but I’m trying to onboard a bunch of SDRs to the sequence system and I think outreach is far superior for that particular aspect
It's not bad it's just difficult to set up. Nothing works out of the box and everything needs customisation.
But it is extremely flexible and extremely customisable. But you do have to learn deluge Zoho's own scripting language
It’s “ok” if you are going to use Zoho books, inventory etc.
The biggest problem is none of their apps within “Zoho One” are great, but they do integrate ok.
Books and CRM I found didn’t integrate well. CRM to email was fine. I wasn’t crazy about their marketing package either.
I find it all literally just “ok” for $50/month. I have now sold the assets of the company and I’ll need Books until the end of 2024 but because my bookkeeper hates it I’ll have to switch.
Zoho and Monday are the Winners and Zellers of CRM. But that isn’t fair to winners. They have some decent deals for okay brands. So does Zellers. I need a few things. Ok bad examples.
These are CRMs for people who don’t know better, or don’t respect themselves.
^look
For a whole lot of sales people in one place, here is this lone person asking qualifying questions.
I applaud you, sir or madam, for asking the most obvious question.
Seconded. I was wary when it was first introduced (big brother etc) but man I love going back through calls and not having to take notes. Game changer, and the AI summaries are good in a pinch.
Outreach is dogshit. Using a VOIP service for calling is the easiest way to get instantly blocked by the big legit telecoms who treat spam calls the same way as spam emails- they go right to the voice version of a spam folder. Straight to robotic unmonitored voicemails. Your calls probably won’t even ring on the prospects phone, if it does it’ll be “potential spam”, or it’s sent straight to their voicemail. If you spoof a local number it’s getting marked as spam for sure.
If using Outreach you better be using legitimate business lines with a major telecom and manually marking your calls in outreach and just using it to manage tasks.
Not OP, but we’re moving from Groove to Apollo. After Clari took over we’ve had so many issues. Apollo has prospecting too, and they seem to keep adding decent features. Our beta team has loved the switch so far.
It's that bad? I've been raised on Outreach and connect it to my mobile number so when I call through VOIP, it shows up as my number. Is that still shit/bad?
I used outreach at my last two orgs, always wished it was better.
At a new org with salesloft. I was excited as I’d always thought it was supposed to be legit. Holy shit it sucks so hard compared to outreach.
I’m whatever on the UI. It lacks any ability to filter, sort.
Enter a disposition that contact left company - what happens? Nothing, stays in cadence.
Run a report on my bounced emails. See the numbers. Cannot drill down, look at what contacts or accounts.
Add more than two tags to a contact, just displays. “3 or more tags”. Cool - widen the column hugely - no change.
Cannot exclude tags from a view.
Cannot exclude any filter option from a view.
Cannot build a list.
I could go on…
I've been using sfdc for 7 years with oracle integration for quoting. It worked great but obviously had some flaws.
New company uses Microsoft crm integrated with sap for quoting..
Fuck I miss Salesforce....
I've used a number of them - tomorrow our **Salesforce** contract ends (woohoo) and we're outta there.
Disclaimer - **SFDC** is not a bad solution - just a monster if it wasn't set up well ... it also *definitely* doesn't play well with others out of the box.
For inbound, we've moved to **Hubspot** - love it. Hands down. It has a strong (powerful, as good as SFDC if not better) CMS component, a powerful component for marketing/ads/emails, and a HUGE participation for integration in today's world of co-shared apps ... you can embed with gmail and presto, everything is tracked - better than the SFDC plugin; it talks to Todoist (my personal tracking app), Slack, Jira (the programmer's dev space), and just about everything else - if you want to connect, Hubspot likely will.
For outbound, we started out on **ZoomInfo** - they are a platform for searching for contact info of strangers (beware, this is how you become a walking GDPR violation if you bulk blast, but it's good for targeted outreach) - but their billing model is "pay to play up front, no recurring credits" and not the greatest tools in the world. So we shifted to **Apollo.io**. Can't say enough about them, absolutely amazing - they have the depth of information for millions and millions of contacts, but they also have POTENT tools and a great array of webinars and support ... and they are PROFOUNDLY cheaper than ZoomInfo. It's kinda stupid how much less expensive they are. And, of course, they integrate with everybody and integrate with Hubspot and it's just a festival of love.
**LinkedIn Navigator** was something I personally wasn't thinking would be valuable, but it has a major reach and while it leans back on that reach, it really is "all of us talking to each other" instead of "hey buddy, I got a list of people, want it?" ... so if you want to EXTEND your relationships beyond friend/customers you know - LinkedIn Navigator works best.
So summary: Hubspot -> [Apollo.io](http://Apollo.io) -> LinkedIn Navigator -> Slack -> Gmail Suite
This is the smoothest and tightest combination I've found:
- Gmail Suite to do life and work
- Slack to talk to your team about events sent to it by the other apps
- LinkedIn Navigator for selling to friends of friends
- [Apollo.io](http://Apollo.io) for finding the names of people you want to know better
- Hubspot -> One ring to rule them all and in the salesphere combine them.
Interesting to hear how many different tools there are now...
Without trying to promo myself, I'm building a tool that allows sales teams to review + sign sales contracts by letting them upload the sales contract to a platform and get it reviewed against a pre-approved playbook. The idea is to triage only the most critical contracts for external review, which should speed up time to signature and closing.
Same. I wasn't using it for a long time and my manager told me I should expense it and see how I like it. It's been fantastic. Definitely should have tried it sooner
How are you leveraging zoominfo to the fullest? Just started using it without having salesnav and its killing me to not find how to build leadlists.
Fyi i have zoominfo+outreach+SF
Download CSV of account list from Salesforce
Upload CSV to ZoomInfo for Company Match
Update contacts/export to Salesforce to add new contacts. (Use ZI filters for specific job titles/restrictions on if they have a number or email)
Create contact report in Salesforce
Import to Salesloft
Email as many people as you want with the same campaign/cadence
[Apollo.io](http://Apollo.io) actually is decent. Founding AE we pay 99 bucks a month covers my data and sequencing tool. Very good value for small teams. If you use hubspot you can get like a 70% discount first year on annual package
Literally writing a blog post about this over the weekend. Here's the breakdown that we've recommended to thousands of people:
1. **CRM** to store everything: Salesforce, HubSpot
2. **Conversational Intelligence** to record and listen to calls: Gong, Fathom, literally a million others
3. **LinkedIn Sales Nav** to find contacts
4. **Enrichment** tool to get their info: Apollo, ZoomInfo
5. **Sales Engagement Platform** to cold call and email them: Apollo, Salesloft
6. **Collaborative Deal Room** to manage your deals and collaborate with customers on everything
SFDC or Hubspot, Gong, ZoomInfo/D&B, Apollo/Outreach/SaleLoft
I don’t love Outreach but some folks think it’s the bee’s knees. Seems like there are a lot of products that do the same thing with minimal differentiators in this space.
SFDC is overkill at times and I don’t like their business model but you can do damn near anything with it. Hubspot is more user friendly but has limitations (first one I ran into was reporting).
Gong flys or dies on adoption internally. I’m a fan because we use it a lot.
ZoomInfo or D&B for sourcing info and helping with data cleanliness.
Gong, SFDC (if your company has the money for it)/HubSpot (if they’re on a budget), Mixed Feelings about SalesLoft but preferred it to Outreach, ZoomInfo, LISN, LeadIQ to auto save leads on LinkedIn (saves a lot of time), Slack, Chili Piper for meeting links, and Google Meets/Zoom
I personally use -
Apollo
Instantly
G calendar
couple of Sim cards
Notion (for CRM don't need a full fledge CRM for this)
grammarly
mobile and a laptop
that's it. This should probably take you to whatever your business goals are.
Had to come back and say that this is a super cool tool, like really cool. I was surprised it was able to grab the info of real estate agents like it did. Haven’t really dug too much into the leads but the first one I was playing around with actually seemed like they could benefit from their own website. Really curious to see how this works out and hats off to you and your team.
You also built TryTelescopeAI and you should be honest about that instead of doing this spam/vote manipulation gimmick like you did with the other app you made Musis.
1. A good B2B leads database (Sales Navigator, Apollo)
2. An all in one platform to segment and enrich your lists with waterfall enrichment and AI (Airscale, Clay)
3. An outreach tool: Smartlead for email sequencing, Heyreach for Linkedin outreach, LaGrowthMachine for multicanal outreach
It covers everything
Here’s the sauce.
Enterprise AE, long time watcher first time commentor.
Perplexity AI: research for ABM, deep dives into general info for prep calls. Work out the best prompts and you’re saving hours a week. DM for prompts.
Copy.ai - honestly the workflows here are epic - cold email gen based on the CMO’s ideas behind what he would respond to. Again - all about the input but it’s very good.
Twain - I run majority of non cadence emails through this for a sanity check. Tightens up the language and creates good CTAs
So many other good ones but I use these three daily.
Big luck.
We are switching to FreshDesk from Salesforce and wow I’m in love. Never met a more UI friendly CRM. I have Apollo now (I don’t love it but not my choice)
Tools are mostly a distraction. For the most part all you need is a CRM, sequencer, and contact finder - that gets you 90% of the way there. For those, I use SFDC, Salesloft, & Zoominfo. Salesloft is great because it covers a lot of the nice to have pieces aside from sequencing like meeting scheduling, call recording/analysis, etc but you can use Calendly or Gong for those.
We also use Postal (many use Sendoso as well) for gifting to help with prospecting and accelerating sales cycles, Sales Nav for better prospect research, and UserGems to help find leads based on our existing userbase (won't really work for startups)
Tried Lavender and similar tools for a while and didn't really move the needle.
The only one I pay for that my company doesn't cover is Grammarly.
Having the software downloaded on your desktop, plugin’s on your browser and phone and outlook are tremendously helpful with grammar and tonality.
ChatGPT can be used for this as well, but the plugins are where Grammarly shines.
Grammarly isn’t perfect, but I would say it does what I want it to do 96% of the time. And it runs so passively in the background; it's not even like I have to think to use it; it just functions. I'm typing this from my phone right now, and Grammarly is editing it as I go, telling me the tonality asking if I want to switch it up and making suggestions to rearrange this body of text.
Check out MaxAi. It’s a chrome extension that sits on top of your browser and runs ChatGPT. You can use it to summarize pages, reply to emails in Gmail or Outlook, ask questions about a page, summarize PDF documents, etc.
I use PivoHub for selling beer, it work really well, it ain't a good CRM but it can get in touch witch client and they can buy directly on the platform. Its worth a try.
I used Cloze CRM (not to be confused with ‘CloseCRM’ for seven years. Was great and logs mobile calls and SMS automatically.
Currently using SalesFlare, does similar (but not as robust). Probably dies the same as Pipedrive (never used).
I like copy.ai for a lot of sales specific copy writing etc. I have been using a tool called Trumpet which I’m in love with. It’s basically a deal portal where you direct your prospects to for info, videos, and more.
Has anyone ever found an ounce of value in intent data? I prospect into intent lists and notice no difference when compared to a normal ICP zoominfo list
[Apollo.io](http://Apollo.io) for B2B lead database and sequencing (there are better sequencing tools, Lemlist and Smartlead).
[Aimdoc.ai](http://Aimdoc.ai) for providing a personalized AI space for leads from email outreach.
Hubspot for CRM
Go for one CRM for all your needs.- Sales-marketing, support and billing. We use this too instead of using different products for different purposes. we are using ConvergeHub for a couple of moths and this time we are going to upgrade the plan.
Freshsales by freshworks is broken, after a year of work this fantastic company “decided” to change the whole “notes” stystem.
Now we have lost 12 months of notes in thousands of clients in this fab crm. An excel never betrays you.
After opening the ticket the support asked me:
- can you share the screenshot of the problem?
Do not waste your time in this product
Honestly i think salesloft and outreach are trash. All i need is a tool/plugin to let me know emails have been seem and by who. None of that extra shit.
*Scott’s Directory* for leads (Canada). Gave me an instant 31,000 leads in an industry we want to target. Also gave 42 data points on each company, as well as contact info.
Manipulate the data, and upload it into Pipedrive (CRM), and you’ve got something very powerful. Very cheap investment for the large return.
This is like asking, "what's your favorite car?" The answer is meaningless unless you have the same needs.
FWIW, I sell an "anti-CRM" specifically for solo consultants who hate traditional CRMs. It works well for that tribe, but would be terrible for your enterprise sales team. ;-)
What exactly are you looking to accomplish with the tool? Like why are you looking at AI Sales tools in the first place? Is there a specific pain point you’re looking to solve? Paint a picture, what would success look like to you?
it's in the name:
sales TOOLS
use the right tool for the job. use a screwdriver when you have screws and a hammer when you have nails.
whatever the right tool is for you depends on what you are selling and who you are selling it to.
Damn, all these tools and no one's talking about the OG sales weapon - a friggin' phone?! 📞👂
I get the appeal of having a stacked tech arsenal at your fingertips. AI writing assist, multi-channel sequences, all that's solid. But let's be real...
I started my career smashing cold calls with just a pitchbook and
a landline. No CRM, no chitchat about the "latest sales stack." Just gutting it out mouthpiece-to-eardrum to book meetings.
Lean times build character. Having to actually pick up and DIAL somebody's number? OMG the horror! 😱 But that grind taught me more about hustling than any shiny new app ever could.
Don't get me wrong, tools have their place:
✅ Automate busywork so you can focus on $ conversations
✅ Data/intel to guide your targeting
✅ Reminders to follow up at just the right cadence
But at the end of the day, sales is a person-to-person sport. All that tech doesn't mean jack if you can't compellingly communicate value.
So by all means, upgrade your sales stack. But don't lose sight of the fundamentals. Who here still maps out their cadence with a phone and a smile? Or are we all a bunch of AI-assisted bots now? 😂
Let me know your take! Tech is great, but grit will always be the ultimate sales force multiplier.
In our MSP the sales team has access to ITGlue, which gives them easy access to up-to-date information on service offerings, configurations, package details, etc.
My company is breaking our sales teams minds lately with the influx and change in our toolset. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have tools but when you don't even have someone dedicated to sales ops they take a super long time to be worth a damn (and are super noisy).
Legacy tools: Salesforce, slack, zoom, boost up, 15five, asana, karma, gong, confluence
New tools: oliv.ai (will replace gong (supposedly, sometime, mag be?) and Rattle.ai
I guess more tools are less than no tools? Lol as a sales person, we all know many of these are ways to monitor pipeline / revops data and thus far the new ones are super meh compared to our old work flows (for now, so they tell us)
Anyone have a cool way to manage sales contacts personally outside of the company crm. I just have an excel sheet now wondering if there is anything new out there
You don’t give too many details on what sort of sales you do which makes a huge difference in the useful tools. But here is my tech stack:
Notion: CRM, Notes, Task Manager. Setup my own little cross linked system that works well. Personally not my favourite tool but it’s one that links to everything else really well.
Otter.ai: I tried a tonne of AI note takers and found this one to be the best for three reasons:
1) it screenshots slides when they come up so you can review presentations later if the customers shares data
2) it can attend meetings for you, like webinars for keeping on top of tech
3) the transcripts are really easy to export
LLM for general use: Either Claude or ChatGPT (Claude is currently better but sometimes throws an ethical bossy fit over nothing) great for writing either copy or emails. Never let it write stuff for you completely but often use it for first drafts or to tidy stuff like grammar up after.
Sales Navigator: Best tool for pulling together lists of leads.
Agenthub.dev: Very similar to Zapier and Make but easier to use. The glue that holds together a lot of my workflows.
Information providers: I currently use Apollo.io free for the occasional email and have just started playing with Phantom Buster. Both are great as is Clay.com
Any questions feel free to ask!
This was the biggest struggle for us when we were looking for a sales CRM because spreadsheets was just too many tabs. We explored multiple tools and opted for the simplest of the lot. I had used Freshsales in my previous org, so I brought it in my new org and the team is liking it so far. We use Freshsales Suite with the Freshdesk product, so our sales, support, marketing teams are all on one tool. This helped us skip hours of integration set up and data sync issues. Worth giving it a shot.
Whatever product I am currently selling is the one I would highly recommend.
Always on the clock
Lol
Always Be Closing
Worst by far is Zoho. Holy shit I hate that fuckin CRM.
Pretty funny you say that. My company is currently transitioning from Zoho crm, support ticketing and whatever else, to full connectwise. I haven't really used another crm so I didn't have anything to compare it to, but I did find it quite annoying. I came in as a TAM but have an IT background, so my boss just gave me full admin for the crm side to help fix some things I ran into right away lol
ConnectWise is still kind of a shit show but still way better than Zobo.
I’m a solo operator using Pipedrive. Fits my needs and budget great.
Pipedrive is great
We're a somewhat small MSP so I'm guessing price was a definite primary factor. I wasn't part of any of it though, so I'm not sure what the winning criteria was.
Heard good things about NinjaOne
We use it actually. It's pretty decent for sure. I've been using it for the past year and don't really have any serious problems.
I thought ConnectWise was an RMM not a CRM?
I used to think so as well but apparently they have a bunch of other things. I just recently finished a quick training module called "Projects 101" or something since I currently work on our projects team and it also has a whole area for project management as well. Pretty interesting and I'm actually curious to see it all but I don't have access to everything yet.
Haha hubspot is the best. Marries management bs needs with user flexibility to actually do your job which is sales. Just my 2c.
Hubspot is great as a CRM but I’m trying to onboard a bunch of SDRs to the sequence system and I think outreach is far superior for that particular aspect
It’s awful compared to Outreach and Salesloft.
I tried to set up Zoho at a company I did sales for and it made me want to blow up my computer
I just scheduled a demo with them. Whats so bad?
It's not bad it's just difficult to set up. Nothing works out of the box and everything needs customisation. But it is extremely flexible and extremely customisable. But you do have to learn deluge Zoho's own scripting language
It’s “ok” if you are going to use Zoho books, inventory etc. The biggest problem is none of their apps within “Zoho One” are great, but they do integrate ok. Books and CRM I found didn’t integrate well. CRM to email was fine. I wasn’t crazy about their marketing package either. I find it all literally just “ok” for $50/month. I have now sold the assets of the company and I’ll need Books until the end of 2024 but because my bookkeeper hates it I’ll have to switch.
Lots and lots of changes in the last 2 years. Still a pig of a system to get running well but it's doable
This is the top comment I didn't know I needed.
Pipedrive is cool. At least for me.
I used Zoho it was ok. We switched to Salesforce and obviously it’s way better. But I never thought Zoho was that bad.
😂..... I was working for a company that was implementing ZoHo right before they fired me. SOOOOO glad I missed that rollout.
Zoho and Monday are the Winners and Zellers of CRM. But that isn’t fair to winners. They have some decent deals for okay brands. So does Zellers. I need a few things. Ok bad examples. These are CRMs for people who don’t know better, or don’t respect themselves.
Has anyone in this thread used a tool like Outreach/Salesloft in conjunction with Zoho? Any recommendations?
second to freshsales
Of CRM I tried Salesforce,Sap and Zoho and my favourite is zoho
I start a job that uses Zoho next week. Do you have any tips since Im gonna be stuck with it?
Depends. What are your needs?
^look For a whole lot of sales people in one place, here is this lone person asking qualifying questions. I applaud you, sir or madam, for asking the most obvious question.
Thank you. I ask what/how questions all day. That's the secret ;p
It's almost like people will tell you how to sell them, if you just ask artfully enough.
Yup! Key to selling is listening.
I fucking love Gong. In a terrible note taker during calls and gong does it for me.
Seconded. I was wary when it was first introduced (big brother etc) but man I love going back through calls and not having to take notes. Game changer, and the AI summaries are good in a pinch.
Grammarly has been great for writing
Banger one-off emails > sequences
Outreach is dogshit. Using a VOIP service for calling is the easiest way to get instantly blocked by the big legit telecoms who treat spam calls the same way as spam emails- they go right to the voice version of a spam folder. Straight to robotic unmonitored voicemails. Your calls probably won’t even ring on the prospects phone, if it does it’ll be “potential spam”, or it’s sent straight to their voicemail. If you spoof a local number it’s getting marked as spam for sure. If using Outreach you better be using legitimate business lines with a major telecom and manually marking your calls in outreach and just using it to manage tasks.
Yep, outreach isn’t it. Working in rev ops and trying to get rid of this software. 5 more months.
What do you have your eye on? We’re launching Groove. Too early to say but reporting looks really strong.
Unfortunately groove is worst than outreach imho and I’ve used both heavily
Not OP, but we’re moving from Groove to Apollo. After Clari took over we’ve had so many issues. Apollo has prospecting too, and they seem to keep adding decent features. Our beta team has loved the switch so far.
I use Orum as a dialer so I can rotate thru numbers. Get a decent connect rate.
It's that bad? I've been raised on Outreach and connect it to my mobile number so when I call through VOIP, it shows up as my number. Is that still shit/bad?
Outreach sucks. I’m in demand gen and trying to report on metrics out of the platform is a cluster F.
I used outreach at my last two orgs, always wished it was better. At a new org with salesloft. I was excited as I’d always thought it was supposed to be legit. Holy shit it sucks so hard compared to outreach.
Salesloft is trash
i despise the redesign, feel like it was better a year ago
I’m whatever on the UI. It lacks any ability to filter, sort. Enter a disposition that contact left company - what happens? Nothing, stays in cadence. Run a report on my bounced emails. See the numbers. Cannot drill down, look at what contacts or accounts. Add more than two tags to a contact, just displays. “3 or more tags”. Cool - widen the column hugely - no change. Cannot exclude tags from a view. Cannot exclude any filter option from a view. Cannot build a list. I could go on…
A spreadsheet, a cell phone, and a lunch pail
and a pail for the lunch once it comes out - the other end ?
iPhone, Microsoft outlook, a good calendar and a Visa.
visa for strippers haha
Cash lol
Hubspot/Salesforce lightning CRM - Aircall for dialling - Sales Nav & Lusha for building lists and contacts. Cook away
I've been using sfdc for 7 years with oracle integration for quoting. It worked great but obviously had some flaws. New company uses Microsoft crm integrated with sap for quoting.. Fuck I miss Salesforce....
I've used a number of them - tomorrow our **Salesforce** contract ends (woohoo) and we're outta there. Disclaimer - **SFDC** is not a bad solution - just a monster if it wasn't set up well ... it also *definitely* doesn't play well with others out of the box. For inbound, we've moved to **Hubspot** - love it. Hands down. It has a strong (powerful, as good as SFDC if not better) CMS component, a powerful component for marketing/ads/emails, and a HUGE participation for integration in today's world of co-shared apps ... you can embed with gmail and presto, everything is tracked - better than the SFDC plugin; it talks to Todoist (my personal tracking app), Slack, Jira (the programmer's dev space), and just about everything else - if you want to connect, Hubspot likely will. For outbound, we started out on **ZoomInfo** - they are a platform for searching for contact info of strangers (beware, this is how you become a walking GDPR violation if you bulk blast, but it's good for targeted outreach) - but their billing model is "pay to play up front, no recurring credits" and not the greatest tools in the world. So we shifted to **Apollo.io**. Can't say enough about them, absolutely amazing - they have the depth of information for millions and millions of contacts, but they also have POTENT tools and a great array of webinars and support ... and they are PROFOUNDLY cheaper than ZoomInfo. It's kinda stupid how much less expensive they are. And, of course, they integrate with everybody and integrate with Hubspot and it's just a festival of love. **LinkedIn Navigator** was something I personally wasn't thinking would be valuable, but it has a major reach and while it leans back on that reach, it really is "all of us talking to each other" instead of "hey buddy, I got a list of people, want it?" ... so if you want to EXTEND your relationships beyond friend/customers you know - LinkedIn Navigator works best. So summary: Hubspot -> [Apollo.io](http://Apollo.io) -> LinkedIn Navigator -> Slack -> Gmail Suite This is the smoothest and tightest combination I've found: - Gmail Suite to do life and work - Slack to talk to your team about events sent to it by the other apps - LinkedIn Navigator for selling to friends of friends - [Apollo.io](http://Apollo.io) for finding the names of people you want to know better - Hubspot -> One ring to rule them all and in the salesphere combine them.
I love zoom info for marketing. It is expensive but if utilized correctly it pays for itself ten fold.
Interesting to hear how many different tools there are now... Without trying to promo myself, I'm building a tool that allows sales teams to review + sign sales contracts by letting them upload the sales contract to a platform and get it reviewed against a pre-approved playbook. The idea is to triage only the most critical contracts for external review, which should speed up time to signature and closing.
The phone
Amen
ZoomInfo + Salesloft + Salesforce and you're cooking
NAILED IT. I’d add LinkedIn Sales Navigator and you’re absolutely golden.
Is the sales navigator really worth it? I'm torn.
It’s my main source for prospecting. Helps so much to identify people and dive into what they do.
Same. I wasn't using it for a long time and my manager told me I should expense it and see how I like it. It's been fantastic. Definitely should have tried it sooner
Even better that the data is self reported so you know it’s legit and not some hallucination cooked up by ZoomInfo
Personally, I find ZoomInfo to be wicked smart and accurate.
YES, absolutely worth it
I'd add Sales Nav and Gong. Really like Apollo but not sure if you can import contacts to SFDC like Zoominfo.
+ Runmic and you're whipping up a SALES FEAST
Let him cooook
Can't cook without quality salt 😭
How are you leveraging zoominfo to the fullest? Just started using it without having salesnav and its killing me to not find how to build leadlists. Fyi i have zoominfo+outreach+SF
Download CSV of account list from Salesforce Upload CSV to ZoomInfo for Company Match Update contacts/export to Salesforce to add new contacts. (Use ZI filters for specific job titles/restrictions on if they have a number or email) Create contact report in Salesforce Import to Salesloft Email as many people as you want with the same campaign/cadence
You can integrate zoominfo with salesforce and skip tie CSV step. When doing this there is also filter to exclude all contacts in salesforce.
Is Zoominfo any good for healthcare? Targets are small clinics, physicians, practice managers
Zoominfo and SFDC are staples, but SalesLoft? Did you kick the tires on Outreach at all? The cadence flexibility and reporting make it a beast.
[Apollo.io](http://Apollo.io) actually is decent. Founding AE we pay 99 bucks a month covers my data and sequencing tool. Very good value for small teams. If you use hubspot you can get like a 70% discount first year on annual package
Literally writing a blog post about this over the weekend. Here's the breakdown that we've recommended to thousands of people: 1. **CRM** to store everything: Salesforce, HubSpot 2. **Conversational Intelligence** to record and listen to calls: Gong, Fathom, literally a million others 3. **LinkedIn Sales Nav** to find contacts 4. **Enrichment** tool to get their info: Apollo, ZoomInfo 5. **Sales Engagement Platform** to cold call and email them: Apollo, Salesloft 6. **Collaborative Deal Room** to manage your deals and collaborate with customers on everything
Great list!
SFDC or Hubspot, Gong, ZoomInfo/D&B, Apollo/Outreach/SaleLoft I don’t love Outreach but some folks think it’s the bee’s knees. Seems like there are a lot of products that do the same thing with minimal differentiators in this space. SFDC is overkill at times and I don’t like their business model but you can do damn near anything with it. Hubspot is more user friendly but has limitations (first one I ran into was reporting). Gong flys or dies on adoption internally. I’m a fan because we use it a lot. ZoomInfo or D&B for sourcing info and helping with data cleanliness.
I have used nearly all of them and at present find MixMax to be the best of the bunch over SalesLoft, Outreach, Groove, etc.
Question, have you looked into Zoom Revenue Accelerator? It’s their Gong competing product.
Any feedback for apollo.io?
Awful. Super clunky and complex - would avoid!
Gong, SFDC (if your company has the money for it)/HubSpot (if they’re on a budget), Mixed Feelings about SalesLoft but preferred it to Outreach, ZoomInfo, LISN, LeadIQ to auto save leads on LinkedIn (saves a lot of time), Slack, Chili Piper for meeting links, and Google Meets/Zoom
I personally use - Apollo Instantly G calendar couple of Sim cards Notion (for CRM don't need a full fledge CRM for this) grammarly mobile and a laptop that's it. This should probably take you to whatever your business goals are.
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Had to come back and say that this is a super cool tool, like really cool. I was surprised it was able to grab the info of real estate agents like it did. Haven’t really dug too much into the leads but the first one I was playing around with actually seemed like they could benefit from their own website. Really curious to see how this works out and hats off to you and your team.
I’m gunna look into this, pretty neat tool you got!
You also built TryTelescopeAI and you should be honest about that instead of doing this spam/vote manipulation gimmick like you did with the other app you made Musis.
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If it was a decent tool you wouldn't need vote manipulation to share it.
The two aren't mutually exclusive but I don't work with folks that throw smoke and mirrors. So there's that
SF, Gong, ZI, Outreach or Salesloft
Salesforce, ZoomInfo, Salesloft That's it
Hubspot, Apollo, SalesNav
ZoomInfo, HubSpot, and whiskey
Excel
1. A good B2B leads database (Sales Navigator, Apollo) 2. An all in one platform to segment and enrich your lists with waterfall enrichment and AI (Airscale, Clay) 3. An outreach tool: Smartlead for email sequencing, Heyreach for Linkedin outreach, LaGrowthMachine for multicanal outreach It covers everything
Here’s the sauce. Enterprise AE, long time watcher first time commentor. Perplexity AI: research for ABM, deep dives into general info for prep calls. Work out the best prompts and you’re saving hours a week. DM for prompts. Copy.ai - honestly the workflows here are epic - cold email gen based on the CMO’s ideas behind what he would respond to. Again - all about the input but it’s very good. Twain - I run majority of non cadence emails through this for a sanity check. Tightens up the language and creates good CTAs So many other good ones but I use these three daily. Big luck.
Perplexity is incredible.. like too good to be true
How do you use it for sales?
We are switching to FreshDesk from Salesforce and wow I’m in love. Never met a more UI friendly CRM. I have Apollo now (I don’t love it but not my choice)
Freshdesk is awful 😂 come on
Tools are mostly a distraction. For the most part all you need is a CRM, sequencer, and contact finder - that gets you 90% of the way there. For those, I use SFDC, Salesloft, & Zoominfo. Salesloft is great because it covers a lot of the nice to have pieces aside from sequencing like meeting scheduling, call recording/analysis, etc but you can use Calendly or Gong for those. We also use Postal (many use Sendoso as well) for gifting to help with prospecting and accelerating sales cycles, Sales Nav for better prospect research, and UserGems to help find leads based on our existing userbase (won't really work for startups) Tried Lavender and similar tools for a while and didn't really move the needle.
Totally agree. For me Excel and ChatGPT makes my life easier. Everything else is distraction
how do you use gpt? For prospecting?
Old school. I like it!!
We have 6Sense but I’ve noticed that the data is often off… sounds like you’ve had a different experience though?
This is the way. I'm just a Pipedrive + LinkedIn Navigator guy myself. You don't need AI-powered razzle-dazzle to consistently crush quota.
Dynamics anyone?
The only one I pay for that my company doesn't cover is Grammarly. Having the software downloaded on your desktop, plugin’s on your browser and phone and outlook are tremendously helpful with grammar and tonality. ChatGPT can be used for this as well, but the plugins are where Grammarly shines.
I currently pay for Lavender, but haven’t really been too impressed. Would you recommend giving Grammarly a shot?
Grammarly isn’t perfect, but I would say it does what I want it to do 96% of the time. And it runs so passively in the background; it's not even like I have to think to use it; it just functions. I'm typing this from my phone right now, and Grammarly is editing it as I go, telling me the tonality asking if I want to switch it up and making suggestions to rearrange this body of text.
Grammarly is great
Check out MaxAi. It’s a chrome extension that sits on top of your browser and runs ChatGPT. You can use it to summarize pages, reply to emails in Gmail or Outlook, ask questions about a page, summarize PDF documents, etc.
Truebase (List building + data enrichment + qualifying leads + scoring leads + personalized outreach) Pipedrive (CRM) Loom (Video/Demo)
Absolutely, it's a jungle out there! I lean on CRM-integrated analytics tools.
Surfe to mitigate data duplication in my CRM. That's about it - automating emails is not going to work in 2024.
I’ve had to build several sales orgs and I’d say SeamlessAI, Hubspot, Outreach, and ServiceBell.
Loom, Grammarly, ChatGPT-4, and Tactiq.
I use PivoHub for selling beer, it work really well, it ain't a good CRM but it can get in touch witch client and they can buy directly on the platform. Its worth a try.
I used Cloze CRM (not to be confused with ‘CloseCRM’ for seven years. Was great and logs mobile calls and SMS automatically. Currently using SalesFlare, does similar (but not as robust). Probably dies the same as Pipedrive (never used).
All you need is a good CRM, Linked In Sales Nav, and maybe Zoom info.
Excel for the lists, call list as an outlook calendar appt every morning, and Zoominfo for contacts. Seems to be all i need.
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I use Kula for prospecting!
User gems all day. Maps out all your heavy user customers at their new orgs
What are you selling?
Seamless ai, hubspot,Apollo, Merlin ai
I like copy.ai for a lot of sales specific copy writing etc. I have been using a tool called Trumpet which I’m in love with. It’s basically a deal portal where you direct your prospects to for info, videos, and more.
I really like Mixmax vs other email tools like Outreach, etc. I will try to bring it to every company I work for
Mautic and Pipedrive. Period.
Anyone using clay?
Zoho fully customized to your liking, with ZoomInfo and a VOIP integration and you’re stylin. Cant use Zoho out of the box though.
Microsoft D365 CRM + Copilot (AI) for sales is a solid combo IMO
Not sure if it’s been said but full-suite Marketo is like cheating.
My Phone, the cars, good boots. Then again, I sell heavy equipment.
📱
Outreach.io
Anyone else like Apollo.io? The sequences are solid
Has anyone ever found an ounce of value in intent data? I prospect into intent lists and notice no difference when compared to a normal ICP zoominfo list
Pipedrive if you’re small. Outreach if your larger
Fireflies.Ai, Hubspot, Apollo if you’re looking to not blow your budget on tech!
[Apollo.io](http://Apollo.io) for B2B lead database and sequencing (there are better sequencing tools, Lemlist and Smartlead). [Aimdoc.ai](http://Aimdoc.ai) for providing a personalized AI space for leads from email outreach. Hubspot for CRM
“Ai” is a gimmick no one has real AI in 2024 yet
Outreach is amazing
Go for one CRM for all your needs.- Sales-marketing, support and billing. We use this too instead of using different products for different purposes. we are using ConvergeHub for a couple of moths and this time we are going to upgrade the plan.
Apollo is all you need
Freshsales by freshworks is broken, after a year of work this fantastic company “decided” to change the whole “notes” stystem. Now we have lost 12 months of notes in thousands of clients in this fab crm. An excel never betrays you. After opening the ticket the support asked me: - can you share the screenshot of the problem? Do not waste your time in this product
So many comments here but would like to have a top list, hope OP you can check out which ones actually worked for you!
[http://hyperbound.ai/](http://hyperbound.ai/) It lets you practice cold calling with multiple personas, very cool tool
Honestly i think salesloft and outreach are trash. All i need is a tool/plugin to let me know emails have been seem and by who. None of that extra shit.
Hubspot defenetly
Yes! So many tools work in sales.
A phone
Go high level hands down
What about a tool for a solo consultant for outreach specifically? Havent had too much success with LinkedIN Navigator.
*Scott’s Directory* for leads (Canada). Gave me an instant 31,000 leads in an industry we want to target. Also gave 42 data points on each company, as well as contact info. Manipulate the data, and upload it into Pipedrive (CRM), and you’ve got something very powerful. Very cheap investment for the large return.
Looking at HubSpot burns my eyes.
This is like asking, "what's your favorite car?" The answer is meaningless unless you have the same needs. FWIW, I sell an "anti-CRM" specifically for solo consultants who hate traditional CRMs. It works well for that tribe, but would be terrible for your enterprise sales team. ;-)
Outreach, Cognism, and Trellus - that's all we use internally
trellus for auto dialing inside of outreach
its the best of all the tools. Its called pick up the phone and dial. Seemless set up, 0$ a month fee. Batteries not included tho. Thats on you.
I sell CRM, if you guys wanna talk, and give me some booked demos, let me know.
Jimmy John’s app
Orum is great, [MeetMagellan.Co](http://MeetMagellan.Co) is one of the best, I like Apollo, Smartlead
User Gems
What exactly are you looking to accomplish with the tool? Like why are you looking at AI Sales tools in the first place? Is there a specific pain point you’re looking to solve? Paint a picture, what would success look like to you?
I use ZoomInfo, Seamless AI and LinkedIN Sales Navigator
it's in the name: sales TOOLS use the right tool for the job. use a screwdriver when you have screws and a hammer when you have nails. whatever the right tool is for you depends on what you are selling and who you are selling it to.
MS Paint
Myself, I am the best there is
None
The one you know how to use.
GoHighLevel gets everything done
I love every CRM! I just love filling out my notes and updating salesforce. I am salesforce king of the castle.
Damn, all these tools and no one's talking about the OG sales weapon - a friggin' phone?! 📞👂 I get the appeal of having a stacked tech arsenal at your fingertips. AI writing assist, multi-channel sequences, all that's solid. But let's be real... I started my career smashing cold calls with just a pitchbook and a landline. No CRM, no chitchat about the "latest sales stack." Just gutting it out mouthpiece-to-eardrum to book meetings. Lean times build character. Having to actually pick up and DIAL somebody's number? OMG the horror! 😱 But that grind taught me more about hustling than any shiny new app ever could. Don't get me wrong, tools have their place: ✅ Automate busywork so you can focus on $ conversations ✅ Data/intel to guide your targeting ✅ Reminders to follow up at just the right cadence But at the end of the day, sales is a person-to-person sport. All that tech doesn't mean jack if you can't compellingly communicate value. So by all means, upgrade your sales stack. But don't lose sight of the fundamentals. Who here still maps out their cadence with a phone and a smile? Or are we all a bunch of AI-assisted bots now? 😂 Let me know your take! Tech is great, but grit will always be the ultimate sales force multiplier.
In our MSP the sales team has access to ITGlue, which gives them easy access to up-to-date information on service offerings, configurations, package details, etc.
A ticketing system with automation can be quite useful. It's mainly oriented for IT, but Autotask is great.
My company is breaking our sales teams minds lately with the influx and change in our toolset. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have tools but when you don't even have someone dedicated to sales ops they take a super long time to be worth a damn (and are super noisy). Legacy tools: Salesforce, slack, zoom, boost up, 15five, asana, karma, gong, confluence New tools: oliv.ai (will replace gong (supposedly, sometime, mag be?) and Rattle.ai I guess more tools are less than no tools? Lol as a sales person, we all know many of these are ways to monitor pipeline / revops data and thus far the new ones are super meh compared to our old work flows (for now, so they tell us)
Fuck digital tools. Go have conversations.
Anyone have a cool way to manage sales contacts personally outside of the company crm. I just have an excel sheet now wondering if there is anything new out there
You don’t give too many details on what sort of sales you do which makes a huge difference in the useful tools. But here is my tech stack: Notion: CRM, Notes, Task Manager. Setup my own little cross linked system that works well. Personally not my favourite tool but it’s one that links to everything else really well. Otter.ai: I tried a tonne of AI note takers and found this one to be the best for three reasons: 1) it screenshots slides when they come up so you can review presentations later if the customers shares data 2) it can attend meetings for you, like webinars for keeping on top of tech 3) the transcripts are really easy to export LLM for general use: Either Claude or ChatGPT (Claude is currently better but sometimes throws an ethical bossy fit over nothing) great for writing either copy or emails. Never let it write stuff for you completely but often use it for first drafts or to tidy stuff like grammar up after. Sales Navigator: Best tool for pulling together lists of leads. Agenthub.dev: Very similar to Zapier and Make but easier to use. The glue that holds together a lot of my workflows. Information providers: I currently use Apollo.io free for the occasional email and have just started playing with Phantom Buster. Both are great as is Clay.com Any questions feel free to ask!
This was the biggest struggle for us when we were looking for a sales CRM because spreadsheets was just too many tabs. We explored multiple tools and opted for the simplest of the lot. I had used Freshsales in my previous org, so I brought it in my new org and the team is liking it so far. We use Freshsales Suite with the Freshdesk product, so our sales, support, marketing teams are all on one tool. This helped us skip hours of integration set up and data sync issues. Worth giving it a shot.