5 Sales Enablement Tools Your Team Needs

A recent State of Sales report revealed a staggering statistic: two-thirds of sales reps feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of tools they use.

That’s wild. Technology was meant to simplify tasks, but these tools often do the opposite. Instead of seamlessly integrating into workflows, they force sales reps to acquire new skill sets, adding more tasks to their already overflowing to-do lists.

And when salespeople are overwhelmed, they cannot perform. Those drowning in a sea of tools are 43% less likely to meet quota.

Of course, the problem doesn’t lie in technology itself. It stems from giant tech stacks that fail to align with the unique needs of sales professionals. 

The tech revolution is not about giving your sellers more technology. It is about giving your technology more responsibility.” – Alice Walmesley, Director of Research & Advisory at Gartner

So what do you do? How do you trim the fat in your sales tech stack? 

You make sure you have one tool that covers each of the following categories, and no more. Even better if a single tool combines two or more capabilities, though there are very few worthy contenders. 

Sales enablement tools your team needs to perform at a world-class level.

1) Account Intelligence

You need to be two steps ahead of your leads. You should know who the key decision-makers are, when they are ready to make a purchase and the messaging that will convince them.

For this, you need data on each prospect that goes beyond mere employee count and annual revenue. Keep track of every account and understand their unique characteristics, needs, and behaviors. With account intelligence, you can identify triggers and personalize messaging for each account.

Key components of account intelligence include:

1. Demographic – This includes basic company information, such as industry, size, and location.
2. Firmographics – Understand the account’s financial health to access its capability for investment and potential value as a customer.
3. Technographics – Know the tech stack of your audience. Offer integrations and customizations that help them streamline work.
4. Key stakeholders – Shoot your shot where the prey is. Engage with key decision-makers who influence the deal. This helps you fast-track deals by directing communications to individuals who are in authority.
5. Organizational structure – Understand the hierarchy, departments, and reporting structures within the company. This provides a clear picture of how decisions are made and how different departments may interact with your products.

When you combine these pieces of information, you can draw a picture of each account. This helps you align your messaging to the specific needs and preferences of accounts.

ZoomInfo is one of our favorite account intelligence tools

2) Revenue Intelligence

Think of a deal that didn’t work out. Things were on track but all of a sudden, the prospect went another way. Maybe it was a high pricing or an unresolved concern. With revenue intelligence, you’ll know the factors that influence the decision.

Revenue intelligence tools help you see the bigger picture of your sales pipeline. You get alerts and recommendations on your actions. You can also spot missed opportunities and revenue gaps in each deal.

These tools gather buyer data from multiple sources like phone calls, site visits, downloads, CRM and emails, and use AI to identify risks. Sellers can prioritize deals which have a higher probability of closing fast. You know where your deals stand and where they are headed.

Here is how revenue intelligence increases your win rate:

1. Sales leaders get an overview of the health of their pipeline. It highlights how fast the teams sell and how far are they from their quota.
2. Each deal has a health score that predicts the likelihood of the deal being closed.
3. Sales Ops can use the data to identify trends and define best practices.
4. Sales leaders get reports on each seller’s performance. It has metrics such as average deal size, time taken to close deals, and win rates.
5. Customer success teams can identify opportunities to cross-sell or upsell.
6. You can forecast revenue based on historical performance, current pipeline health, and future quarter projections.

Our picks for Revenue Intelligence tools: Clari, Salesloft

3) Conversation Intelligence

How many times have you scribbled notes while on a sales call? You come back to it and find random sentences here and there. You try to piece it all together but can’t make sense of it.

You just missed out on valuable insights from conversations with prospects and customers. These calls have hidden data on how leads talk, what they expect from you, how they view your competitors, and what will make them sign the deal.

This is where conversation intelligence tools help record and analyze customer interactions. This saves sales reps’ time and lets them focus on what’s more important- listening to customers and asking the right questions.

Here is why you should use conversation intelligence:

1. Record customer interactions across platforms like phone calls, emails, and meetings.
2. Get insights into key topics being discussed, action items, and objections.
3. Analyze the call based on metrics like talk ratio, patience, keywords, and customer monologues.
4. Share customer insights and align sales, customer success, and marketing teams.
5. Refine best practices based on what works on a sales call and what doesn’t.
6. Uncover hidden insights that customers might not say directly.
7. Sales leaders can review calls to coach team members, identify top performers, and give feedback on specific moments in a call.

Some amazing Conversation Intelligence tools: Gong, Wingman by Clari

4) Buyer Intelligence 

You sell to humans, not organizations. All data boils down to what humans need, what their goals are, what problems they face, how to win their trust, and how to negotiate with them. All other data just builds on this. How would you score your leads if you don’t know what motivates them to buy your product?

Buyer Intelligence focuses on the human nature of buying. It arms salespeople with crucial buyer insights such as:

1. Demographics (location, age, etc.)
2. Prographics (designation, experience, etc.)
3. Personality and behavioral insights
4. Tone and style of messaging that they would respond to

While the first two types of data points draw a static picture of your buyer , the latter two are far more dynamic and can help you personalize your messaging for individuals, and not just demographics.

How buyer intelligence helps sellers

Buyer intelligence uses personality insights to research and connect with prospects at a deeper level. Sellers use these insights to target, select, connect, and close deals. Here is how buyer intelligence fits into your workflow:

1. Identify and segment leads
   The market is saturated. You need to choose your customers. Factors like company size and revenue only scratch the surface. Did you know people with a certain personality type are far more likely to adopt innovative technologies? With buyer intelligence, you can analyze the kind of buyers that are more likely to buy your solution, and the kind that is least likely to.
   
2. Understand pain points
   B2B sales cycles are lengthy. You need to hit the right pain points of your buyers. Start from the bottom up. Know your buyer’s priorities, desired gains, success metrics, and communication preferences. 
3. Personalize outreach
   Simply tossing in first names in emails won’t cut it. You need to know your buyers inside and out to speak their language. Buyer intelligence assesses the buyer’s level of interest, it gives you actionable insights on the best way to deal with the buyer based on their personality regardless of medium, be it phone, email, or a simple LinkedIn DM
   
4. Follow up with buyers
   Sellers are guilty of trying a bit too hard. There is nothing more annoying than those repetitive email notifications asking for “just 30 minutes of your invaluable time”. You’re being pushy and that doesn’t always work. There are some buyers who would respond to that, but there are some who would instead prefer a friendly remark, a FOMO pitch, or simply a mysterious email that reads “Thoughts?” With Buyer Intelligence, you can figure out how and how often to follow up with each individual buyer.
   
5. Close deals faster
   You’ve hit the right pain points. They like your product but here’s the bad news: your prospects don’t have the budget. What should you do? Should you give them time to run some calculations? Should you get into the details of your product’s ROI? There isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer. You’ll have to deal with each buyer differently depending on their personality. That’s the kind of data a buyer intelligence tool gives you.

Looking for the perfect Buyer Intelligence tool? Try Humantic!

5) Empathy!

Ok, we’re cheating a little here, but before you roll your eyes, look at the data. According to Gartner, buyers who receive validations are 30% more likely to make high-value purchases. Your buyers should feel heard and respected. Empathy helps you enter the shoes of your buyers, look at their pain points, and tailor your solutions to fit their requirements. Humans crave genuine connection and a sense of belonging. While there are many tools to close deals, empathy is one tool you can’t substitute.

Here are some of the ways in which successful salespeople implement empathy:

1. Cognitive Decoding- Predicting how a buyer is likely to act even before they’ve acted
2. Empathy Hacking- Taking actions to influence what a customer feels
3. Perspective Taking- Understanding what a buyer thinks
4. Active listening- Listening to every word of the buyer carefully

To empathize with your buyers, ask them the right set of questions. Listen to what they’re saying. Don’t pitch your solution right away. Give them a chance to explain their problems. It’s a win-win opportunity for both.

More sales enablement tools =/= Higher revenue

Take a step back. Evaluate your tech stack. Do you really need all those tools? An easy way to figure that out is to check the ROI you get from each. Run numbers parallelly to see how much they cost and the revenue they add (The Humantic ROI calculator can help you do just that).

Once you do that, you’ll realize you’re being sold a lie – a bloated tech stack is not necessary for sales. You just need the right set of data from accurate sources. The analytics from buyer, account, revenue, and conversation intelligence provide you with all the insights you need for the entire sales cycle.