Top Sales Tech Tools for Boosting Your Sales in 2023-2024

In today's rapidly evolving sales landscape, staying ahead of the competition requires the right tools and technologies. The right sales tech stack can empower your team to streamline processes, improve efficiency, and ultimately close more deals. As we look ahead to 2024, it's crucial to understand the top stats and trends in sales tech to ensure you're equipped with the tools you need to succeed. In this article, we'll explore the current state of the sales tech landscape, salesperson behavior, and concerns, the changing sales roles, the rise of social selling, the importance of data and analytics, and the role of automation and AI in sales technology.

Current State of the Sales Tech Landscape

Sales organizations are increasingly recognizing the importance of sales tech investments. In the U.S. half of all sales organizations have increased their investment in sales tech in response to the pandemic, with another 52% planning to grow their investment over the next year. Sales professionals acknowledge the significance of technology in closing deals, with 57% of US sales professionals considering it important and 38% considering it very important. As a result, almost a third of sales professionals are applying technology to sales planning, engagement, and enablement.

Digital selling has become a prominent trend, with 77% of sales professionals conducting more video meetings. However, sales professionals also anticipate challenges, with 44% expecting buyers to be less responsive to sales outreach during the pandemic. Moreover, 60% of sales professionals expect to struggle in hitting their quotas due to the decrease in closing deals. Despite these challenges, 75% of U.S. B2B sales organizations are increasing their investment in sales tools moving forward.

When it comes to the top technologies, CRM tools take the lead, with 42% of sales professionals prioritizing them, followed closely by visual collaboration/demo tools (41%) and sales intelligence (40%). Other important technologies include sales planning (37%), sales engagement (36%), sales enablement (30%), and sales coaching (28%). Interestingly, warm outreach is preferred by 40% of sales professionals, while 39% lean more toward cold outreach during the pandemic.

Salesperson Behavior and Concerns

Understanding salesperson behavior and concerns is crucial for optimizing sales strategies. Today's sales professionals spend just 34% of their time actively selling. This highlights the need for tools and technologies that can automate and streamline sales processes, allowing salespeople to focus on what they do best: closing deals.

The current landscape poses challenges, with 57% of sales professionals expecting to miss their quotas this year. However, high-performing sales teams prioritize customer satisfaction, with 66% tracking customer satisfaction (CSAT) as their top key performance indicator (KPI). Additionally, optimizing value messaging (55.5%), sales processes (35.5%), and sales coaching (32.9%) are the top sales enablement priorities.

Sales professionals recognize the importance of communication channels, with 41.2% considering their phone as the most effective tool for performing their jobs. Furthermore, high-performing sales teams are more likely to receive proactive alerts from service reps about opportunities, indicating the importance of collaboration within organizations. Meeting customer expectations and dealing with competitive concerns are the top process challenges that sales organizations face.

The Changing Sales Roles

Sales roles have undergone significant changes, especially with the rise of virtual meetings and collaborative selling. Since 2015, sales reps report a 60% increase in virtual meetings. Inside sales, roles have also increased by 7%, while sales development roles have increased by 6% since 2015. This shift toward virtual interactions is expected to continue, with nearly 90% of B2B decision-makers expecting the remote digital model to be the "new norm". In fact, fewer than 25% of B2B buyers in the U.S. want to interact with reps in person, even after the pandemic ends.

Collaborative selling has proven to be highly productive, with 60% of sales professionals reporting increased productivity by more than 25%. Additionally, 68% of sales professionals consider having a single view of the customer across departments and roles as absolutely critical or very important. This highlights the need for tools that facilitate collaboration and provide a holistic view of customers.

The Rise of Social Selling

In the digital age, social selling has become an integral part of the sales process. However, our research shows that only 20% of U.S. B2B sales reps use a multi-channel approach to engage with new prospects. Among social media platforms, LinkedIn is the preferred choice, with 51% of B2B sellers ranking it as the best platform for providing unique customer data for social selling strategies. Furthermore, more than 80% of U.S. B2B sales reps are active or very active on LinkedIn.

To optimize social selling efforts, it's essential to leverage data and automation. Sales.Rocks, for example, offers an all-in-one sales automation platform that provides a 360° view of the target and existing accounts, ensuring higher conversion rates and ROI. It includes features such as email warming, prospecting using a filtering system, multi-channel automated outreach, and hyper-personalized outreach.

The Importance of Data and Analytics in Sales

Data and analytics play a crucial role in sales, enabling organizations to make data-driven decisions and personalize customer interactions. Sales teams leverage data to produce timely and accurate forecasts, with 33% prioritizing leads based on data analysis of "propensity to buy". High-performing sales teams are 1.5 times more likely to base forecasts on data-driven insights.

Having a connected view of data across the entire customer journey is considered important by 81% of sales reps. This highlights the need for tools that can integrate and analyze data from various sources to provide a comprehensive view of customers. Sales analytics technology is currently used or planned to be used by 79% of sales teams to increase efficiency. Sales analytics have significantly improved sales professionals' ability to provide customers with a consistent experience across every channel.

Automation and AI in Sales Technology

Automation and AI are revolutionizing the sales landscape, enabling organizations to streamline processes and improve efficiency. Salesforce research reveals that 64% of enterprise IT leaders are actively looking for ways to utilize AI, with a projected two-year growth of 95%. Sales reps spend less than 36% of their time actively selling, underscoring the need for automation tools that can handle mundane tasks and free up salespeople's time.

AI is the top growth area for sales teams, with adoption forecasted to grow by 139% over the next three years. Predictive intelligence and lead-to-cash process automation are also expected to experience triple-digit growth in the same period. High-performing sales teams are more likely to use guided selling, indicating the effectiveness of AI-powered tools. By 2022, 59% of business leaders believe that AI will be widely used in sales and marketing.

Conclusion

As we approach 2024, sales professionals must stay up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies in sales tech. Investing in the right tools can empower your team to streamline processes, optimize customer interactions, and ultimately close more deals. From sales automation and social selling to data analytics and AI, the sales tech landscape offers a wide range of tools to boost your sales performance. By leveraging the power of technology, you can stay ahead of the competition and drive growth in the ever-evolving sales landscape.

NetHunt CRM, Novocall, Better Proposals, Sales.Rocks, and ActiveCampaign are just a few examples of the top sales tech tools available that can help supercharge your sales efforts in 2023 and 2024. Explore these tools and find the ones that align with your sales process and goals to take your sales performance to new heights.

Remember, success in sales requires a combination of the right tools, an effective sales process, and skilled and proactive salespeople. By harnessing the power of sales tech and staying informed about the latest trends and innovations, you can stay ahead of the competition and achieve your sales goals in 2023 and beyond.