AI Sales Tools Picked By Actual Sales Experts

Since ChatGPT hit the public market in late 2022, it seems like nearly every industry has been impacted by AI.

This includes the world of sales, where new AI tools and apps can make every part of the sales process, from lead prospecting to sales conversions, faster and easier.?

However, not all AI sales tools are created equal. In this article, I’ll review the ones that are actually used by sales professionals. This includes myself—as a freelancer, I use AI every day to help me market my business, find new prospects, convert new leads, and retain my existing client base.?

I’m also going to explain how to use these AI sales tools, including the exact prompts you need to get started.

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Before you start: Using AI sales tools effectively

The tools in this list can save you time and help you work more efficiently—but only if you know how to use them properly.?

Remember that AI tools like these are only as effective as the person using them. While they can certainly speed up tasks, they won’t do the entire sales job for you.?

For example, later in this article, I’ll recommend using ChatGPT for drafting emails to prospects. While the tool can certainly get you started with drafting an email, if you simply use what ChatGPT spits out without editing it, you won’t see success.?

Rather, you should be taking what ChatGPT or other AI sales tools give you and building off them—using your own voice, insights, and experiences to guide you.?

Lastly, keep in mind that these tools are prone to errors, repetition, and sometimes even plagiarism. You must vet any information they give you before sharing it, and don’t ever publish unchanged content from an AI tool.

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More sales advice from The Vector Impact

We have lots of resources for folks who want to master the art of sales. Here are a few to bookmark after you finish reading about AI sales tools:?

• Selling 101: A Beginner's Guide to Sales Techniques
• How To Use LinkedIn for Big Career Gains
• Thinking of Working in Sales? Here's What You Need To Know
• How To Improve Your Sales Presentation: 9 Tips to Boost Conversions
• Crush Your Goals With These 7 Process-Driven Sales Activities
• Are Direct Sales Companies Legit? Red and Green Flags You Should Know
• Sales Psychology: 6 Methods That Actually Work

Use Apollo.io to find leads at scale

The process of finding, qualifying, and communicating with leads is notoriously the most time-consuming part of sales. Fortunately, Apollo.io can make the process much simpler.?

Of all the AI sales tools on this list, Apollo.io may be the one that has the most useful functions—it does everything from tracking leads, sending automatic check-in emails, and tracking who has read your content. But it’s most powerful feature, if you ask me, is its lead generation capability.?

Using its powerful AI search function, you can look for prospects using a variety of filters: industry, job titles, location, and more.

When you find prospects, you’ll get their details, including their LinkedIn page and methods of contact (assuming they are available online). You can then contact them directly in the tool or add them to a list for later.

Their built-in AI tool will even help craft your emails and automatically send follow-ups.?

My favorite feature of Apollo.io is its Chrome extension. With this installed, you can instantly see the contact details of folks on any website you’re visiting, with the click of a button.?

There is a basic version of Apollo.io that is free, with the most affordable paid subscription starting at $39 per month.

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Use Zoho CRM to predict sales

If you work on a big sales team, or you manage a high volume of sales on your own, then Zoho CRM might be the AI assistant you need to manage your time more effectively.?

Like any CRM, this platform helps you keep track of the leads in your database, including which sales team is assigned to them and what stage they’re in.?

But Zoho goes a step further by acting as a data analyst, giving you customized updates that help you understand business trends and predict the outcome of sales.?

The coolest thing about Zia, the name of Zoho’s AI, is that she talks to you conversationally in a chat window, or you can even voice chat with her.

The most affordable plan for Zoho CRM is $20 a month, or $14 a month if you’re willing to pay annually.

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Qualify and organize leads with Pipedrive

When you have a lot of leads flowing into your business, the administrative task of updating their contact details and qualifying them can become overwhelming.?

That’s where Pipedrive comes in handy. This tool can help you create a visual, customized pipeline, which you can use independently or manage with a team.?

But Pipedrive is more than just a good pipeline manager—it’s also an AI sales tool that can automatically pull in valuable information about your leads from the web, and assign them a score to instantly qualify them.?

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Use Otter.ai to capture important meeting notes

Sales professionals spend a lot of time in virtual or in-person meetings, and taking accurate, organized notes can mean the difference between making or losing a sale.?

Otter.ai is an AI sales tool that takes the pain out of note-taking by doing all the hard work for you.?

With the tool running in the background, you can automatically record meetings and turn them into searchable transcripts or shortened AI summaries of what was discussed.?

From there, you can create a list of action points following any meeting, or assign different tasks to other members using Otter.ai.?

I use Otter.ai to record my meetings, create synthesized summaries with action steps, and then automatically send those to the meeting recipient—all so I don’t need to take notes while I’m working with an individual.

You can use Otter’s basic functions for free, or pay $10 – $20 a month for a subscription that gives you additional features and more minutes to record.?

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Use these ChatGPT prompts to create and execute a marketing plan

So far, I’ve been covering AI sales tools that help with the outbound side of things—bringing new leads to your business.?

But if you’re like me, you prefer warm leads—people coming to you asking for more information, rather than the other way around.?

For that, you need a solid marketing plan. And there is no AI sales tool better than ChatGPT for creating and executing a marketing plan at a faster clip.?

There are so many ways to use ChatGPT—the best way to learn how to use the tool is to experiment with it yourself. To? get you started, here are just a few of my favorite ways I’ve used ChatGPT to enhance my marketing and increase inbound leads:

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Use ChatGPT to generate ideas for your audience

The backbone of any marketing strategy is the content you create—but coming up with a content plan isn’t always easy. ChatGPT is excellent at helping you identify topics that will be relevant to your audience.?

Here’s an example—imagine I’m a salesperson looking to connect with businesses in the home goods sector. I plug this prompt into ChatGPT:?

I’m working on a marketing strategy for a sales business that is targeting companies in the home goods sector. Most of my clients will be people who work in home goods warehouses or manage local home goods stores.?

Can you help me come up with 10 – 15 topics I could create for LinkedIn or blog content that would appeal to the interests and concerns of people in that sector??

In response, ChatGPT comes up with a whole bunch of ideas for me to choose from.?

Use ChatGPT to plan and structure content?

Once you have ideas you want to use, you can use ChatGPT to start writing the content. Again, you will need to do significant fact-checking and rewriting to make sure what you produce is unique, accurate, and compelling. But ChatGPT can give you a good start.?

Let’s say, for example, that I want to use the “Emerging Trends” topic suggested by ChatGPT and turn that into a blog I could send to sales prospects. I would use a prompt like this:?

I’m going to use your second suggestion about Emerging Trends for a blog article. My aim is to write about 1,500 words or so, with A CTA encouraging people to get in touch with me to talk about trends further. Can you help me create an outline for this piece??

With a prompt like that, ChatGPT will create a list of subheaders and bullet points, guiding me on what to include in my article. From there, I can ask it to help me write—editing along the way of course—or I can just take the outline and use it to write my own content.?

Use ChatGPT to create an email sequence?

Email marketing is one of the most valuable sales tools out there, but it can be a hassle to come up with engaging streams for your audience. ChatGPT can make it a lot easier.?

Using the same example as above, here’s how I might guide the tool to help me create a short 5-email sequence for my audience. Here’s the prompt I would use:?

I’d like to create a 5-email sequence to encourage people in this target audience to get in touch with me by the fifth email. We can mention the article about emerging trends, and I also have a guide to social media marketing for HomeGoods and an inventory management template to share. Can you suggest 5 emails, including their subject lines and what they discuss??

And here’s what I get in return:?

Use ChatGPT to repurpose content you’ve created?

The best thing about using content marketing for sales is that one piece of content can go a long way—especially if you use ChatGPT to make your content accessible on different platforms.?

For example, here’s a real example of how I use ChatGPT to take an email I’d written for my audience and turn it into a LinkedIn post. First, I wrote this prompt:?

I want to turn my last email into a LinkedIn post. LinkedIn caps the posts at 3,000 characters and currently mine is nearly 6,000. It also reads more like an email than a social post. I’m going to send you what I have as the email, and I’d like you to rewrite it so that it fits under 3,000 characters and also reads more like a social post than an email. However, I want you to keep the language, tone, sentiment, and main points as close to the original as possible.?

Then I sent ChatGPT the copy of the email, and it got to work:?

Use ChatGPT to get feedback and bounce around ideas?

Perhaps my favorite way to use ChatGPT as a sales tool is to treat it like it’s a member of your team. It’s a great way to get a sense check on something before you send it out, spitball ideas, or work out solutions that you can’t figure out on your own.?

For example, I usually ask ChatGPT for its opinions before I send an email to my audience.?

The prompt for this one is usually pretty simple—in this case, I simply wrote:

I have a new email I’m about to send out to my audience. Could I get your feedback?

Then I pasted the content of the email, and it got back to me with some very useful feedback.?

Use Canva or Beautiful.ai for quick and pretty presentations

Working in sales, you can expect to spend a lot of time creating slide decks for your prospects. Making engaging and aesthetically pleasing presentations can be a time-suck, but there are two excellent tools out there that can help.?

The first is Canva, which has established itself as the user-friendly version of Photoshop. Perhaps you’re already using Canva to create visuals for your marketing campaigns—but its AI Magic features are where the real time-savings come in.?

You can create a brief description of what kind of presentation you want to make, and Canva will create a custom template just for you:

If you’re less worried about aesthetics and more concerned with speed and ease of use, then consider using Beautiful.ai for creating your presentations.?

This tool is specifically for slide decks, and allows you to enter your brand colors and style, and then create and reorganize your presentation with just a few clicks.

Canva has a free version you can try out. Both Canva and Beautiful.ai have a low-cost plan for around $12 per month.

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Use Descript to make videos and podcasts

If you use video or audio as part of your sales and marketing strategy, then Descript is an excellent AI tool to add to your arsenal.?

With Descript, you can record live footage, capture your screen, or upload existing video or audio and use all of the basic video editing features—trimming, adding clips, including music, and so on.?

But where Descript really stands out is its vast array of AI tools that can add a level of professionalism to your video and audio content that will help you stand out to prospects.?

For example, you can use Descript’s “Studio Sound” function to make your audio crisp and clear, or even create an AI version of your voice to dub over errors in your audio.

You can also quickly transcribe any video, and then simply edit the video by deleting or adjusting parts of the transcript.?

They’ve even added an “eye contact” feature, which uses AI to make it look as though your video subject is always looking directly at the camera.?

There is a free version of Descript, and the $12 creator subscription is perfect for those who want to create more than just one hour of video per month.?

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The world of sales is evolving, don’t get left behind

Professionals who are using AI tools like the ones in this article will have the advantage. The key is to try each tool and find the ones that work best for your current needs.?

If you discover other AI sales tools that you love, I’d love to hear about them. Post your recommendations in the comments, and I’ll add the best ones to the list when I update this article.?

Happy selling!?

This post was originally published on The Vector Impact.

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About the Author

Liam Carnahan is a writer, editor, and content marketing specialist. He runs Inkwell Content Services, where he provides SEO-driven content strategies for businesses. He also founded Invisible Ink Editing, which provides fiction editing for indie authors.