If you work in sales, you probably have your own process of finding and connecting with potential clients. Weâd like to speed up your sales cycle by giving you tool recommendations for every step of the way.
First, weâll talk about databases, buyer intent and outreach solutions as well as data verifiers and sales engagement video tools that can make the initial stages of prospecting a lot more effective.Then weâll list some tools for calendar invites and video calls for your meetings with potential buyers. Finally, weâll recommend some of our favorite options for analyzing call recordings to improve your strategy.
Feel free to jump to the category that interests you the most:
The sales cycle usually starts with finding leads who match your ideal buyer persona. This can be a tedious process when done manually: depending on the product or service, creating a pipeline of potential customers may take up as much as 16 hours per work week.
This is where lead databases come in handy: they provide you a list of valid contacts – all you need to do is choose your ideal prospects and add them to your CRM.
1. Rocketreach
With Rocketreachâs database, you can filter people based on their industry, company, title, location, education and put together contact lists for different campaigns. The system saves your previous searches, so when the database updates, youâll automatically find new leads.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Chrome extension to easily access contact information
Bulk lookups to find thousands of prospects immediately
Integrates with thousands of apps including Slack, Zapier and HubSpot
Adapt’s extensive database with over 175M contacts allows users to conveniently filter individuals according to their industry, company, title, location, and education to find their verified contact data. This feature enables the building of hyper-targeted contact lists for various campaigns. Additionally, Adapt offers. chrome extension, data enrichment, and API for faster prospecting.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Real-time verified B2B data with on-demand access
CRM Enrichment with 25+ data parameters for salespeople to fill information gaps instantly
Seamlessly integrates with CRMs
Pricing: Offers Annual Pricing Only. Starts at 108$ for 600 credits. You can purchase additional credits as needed. Custom pricing is available on request
ZoomInfo SalesOS has advanced search capabilities to filter out the ideal connections from millions of contacts. This tool also provides valuable insights to your sales prospecting performance through analytics, making it easier to pinpoint which areas to improve in.
Cognismâs database gives you unrestricted access to 98% accurate global B2B contacts, which could save you as much as 16 hours per work week and land you five times more live conversations with prospects. Trusted by 1800+ companies, Cognism is recognized as the leading sales intelligence tool as of 2023 by G2.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Offers company and contact-level data
Global coverage
Includes CRM and sales engagement integration tools
Apart from providing a database of 265M+ contacts, Apollo.io also offers sales engagement and automation tools in one platform. For example, you can create sequences to build up your ideal prospecting process including emailing, cold calling and outreaching via LinkedIn. The Messaging AI feature also speeds up the back-and-forth between you and your prospects.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
65 attributes to filter data
Ideal customer profile setup
Email alerts when new leads match your criteria
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at $39/user/month
Similarly to lead databases, sales intent tools will also speed up your initial search for leads tremendously. By accessing valuable information on who is visiting your website or researching topics related to your business, youâll have a good chance of finding the right contact at the best possible time.
6. Albacross
Albacross uses over a hundred data points to rank website visitorsâ buying intent from low to high. It monitors information such as industries, keywords used or pages that your potential prospect visited.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Customizable website messaging for different prospects
This tool turns anonymous website visitors into a list with company and contact information. The wide array of filtering options help you focus on high-quality prospects based on your criteria. You can also create various feeds based on different attributes or follow certain industries and get notifications when new leads from that area come in.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Scores leads based on their web activity
Automatically sends qualified leads to your CRM system
Lead lists based on industry, geography, company size or custom properties
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at â¬199/month
Apart from providing verified contact information about your website visitors, Leady also tells you which product or service theyâre interested in, and even tracks which campaigns brought in the most revenue.
Leadberry gathers thorough prospect data from company details (website, industry, company bio, social media pages) to visitor-specific data (name, position, email address), making it fast and easy to find the right decision maker. With the direct LinkedIn integration, youâll also receive information about common connections with a lead and recommendations on who to add to your contacts.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Provides a list of LinkedIn connection suggestions
This tool specializes in various aspects of the sales prospecting process. Similarly to the above mentioned solutions, its main focus is to track visitors for lead generation. Moreover, it provides a database of 4.5 million companies and offers website personalization options.
Clearbit combines company intelligence and sales signals to help you find your ideal buyer – whoâs already viewing your website. The tool relies on a constantly updated database of 44 million companies and 350 million contacts and provides 100+ data points to ensure you always discover the right prospects.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Pinpoints best-fit prospects who visited your website
Uses automatically refreshed B2B database
Over a hundred data points to create an ideal customer profile
Bombora measures digital journeys across more than 5000 B2B websites, helping you find the best time to reach out to a prospect with an outreach. With successes such as doubling leads per account for one of their clients, this intent data provider ensures fast lead generation and high quality outreaches.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Actionable insights based on analytics
Keeps a list of 12k+ B2B topics
Follows which topics target accounts are researching from
Octoparse enables you to create your own web scrapers to extract the data youâre looking for on the internet. For sales teams, this tool is especially useful in the lead generation phase, as it can scrape website visitorsâ contact information to build prospect lists easier.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
No coding required
Auto detected data
Multi-role access for teams
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at $75/month
By this point of the sales cycle, youâve probably built a massive list with contacts to reach out to. But before you do, you can double-check their email addresses or phone numbers to make sure youâre trying to get ahold of your prospects using valid contact information.
14. Hunter.io
With this tool, you can find contacts based on a companyâs domain, enter a prospectâs name and find their email address, or verify emails before sending messages to them. Hunter.io also helps with cold email campaigns with templates, scheduling and tracking.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Domain search to find the best contact of a company
Verify emails with a click
Chrome extension for easy access
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at â¬49/month
You can use Byteplantâs phone validator for bulk or individual phone number verification as well. This tool also provides a free trial in which you can upload 100 phone numbers and get them validated.
Designed for both sales professionals and recruiters, ContactOut makes it easy to access contact details without leaving LinkedIn, enhancing your outreach and lead generation efforts. This tool is a powerful email finder that integrates seamlessly with LinkedIn through an email finder Chrome extension. It allows you to efficiently source personal and professional email addresses directly from LinkedIn profiles.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Search portal
Email finder Chrome extension to easily view contact information
Integrates with Salesforce and HubSpot, as well as ATS systems like Lever, Greenhouse, and Bullhorn
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at $79/month
This tool finds your prospectâs email address based on their name and company using a unique approach. First, it generates possible email addresses based on the information you enter, and then, it tests each of them to see which one is valid. This method allows you to find email addresses that other tools might not even have in their database.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Free tool with no signup required
Finds the right email address based on the prospectâs name and company only
Now that your pipeline is filled with promising leads with verified contact information, itâs time to outreach to them. As each prospect (and salesperson) prefers a different communication channel, weâll give you recommendations for outreach purposes via telephone, email, SMS and social media.
18. VCC Live
Having 20+ years of experience in the market, VCC Liveâs cloud contact center solution offers various features to make your sales outreach more effective. By using power or predictive dialing, or even a fully automated outbound IVR, you can save time on dialing and waiting to be connected with a real person on the other side of the line.
Additionally, VCCâs customizable dashboard gives real-time insights into your performance, making it easier to stay on track with your sales prospecting goals.
Mainly known as a marketing automation tool, Getresponse can be useful for sales prospecting via email as well. It enables you to create landing pages, popups and signup forms to convert traffic to leads and to build a relationship with them through automated yet personalized email messages.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Automated email sequences
Optimal sending time suggestions
Pre-designed templates
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at â¬13.12/month
Similarly to Getresponse, Mailchimpâs main focus is marketing automation. As a sales representative, you can take advantage of their workflow builder, AI, segmentation and email campaign options to stay in contact with your prospects.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
AI & data tools to boost engagement and content creation
Segmentation to find ideal prospects
Campaign manager for a clear overview
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at $13/month
This tool sends notifications when your emails and attachments are viewed, making it easier to build relationships with prospects. It also gives valuable information on open rates and reply rates as well as on your most engaged leads and your highest-converting campaigns.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Notifications when prospects read your emails
Personalizable email templates
Reports on your daily activity, leads and campaigns
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at $15/seat/month
SmartReach.io is a sales engagement platform with deliverability as its unique selling proposition. It provides features such as shared inbox, email validation, spam test report, spintax that helps to send unique emails to recipients, multichannel outreach via LinkedIn, email, WhatsApp, SMS & call, and many more features. SmartReach.io also provides AI-generated email content and intelligent replies to prospect queries.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
AI-generated email content, subject line, rephrasing or shortening and replies based on the queries
Various LinkedIn tasks like profile view, send connect request, send message and send Inmail
Free 200 credits per month for LinkedIn email finder tool (ProspectDaddy) with SmartReach.io
Pricing: Email Outreach: Starts at $29 per month Sales Engagement: Starts at $49 per month
With this tool, you can send and schedule mass text messages, import your contact list or even create templates for different frequently sent message types. While most platforms limit text messages to 160 characters, Simpletexting offers up to 306 characters per message.
Connecting to over 800 mobile networks worldwide, this tool specializes in mass texting and keeping track of your contacts. Available through any web browser, desktop or their iOS mobile app, you can stay in touch with your list of prospects with ease.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Option to send attachments via SMS (images, PDFs, JPEGs and more)
This tool allows you to communicate with prospects via SMS and phone calls using one platform. Salesmsg is especially useful for sales teams, as it gives you the option to assign certain conversations to specific team members. Another useful feature for collaboration is the shared inbox where teams can manage interactions together.
This tool supports your LinkedIn prospecting efforts in various ways, from automated invites to smart messaging options. Linked Helper works in LinkedIn Basic and Premium as well, and stores contact in a built-in CRM system.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Raises LinkedIn invitation limit from 100 to 700 per week
scrapes emails from 3rd degree and even more distant connections
LinkedIn Sales Navigatorâs advanced lead and company search helps you find the right prospects, while the CRM integration keeps contacts organized. To make even more valuable connections via LinkedIn, you gain access to profiles who viewed your profile in the last 90 days.
SalesQL finds your LinkedIn prospectsâ email addresses or phone numbers, even if they arenât your connections yet. Once you extract the data, you can turn your connections into contact lists to work on, and even set up an ideal customer profile for easy access.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
40+ data points per contact
Filters for different types of prospects
Export data in bulk
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at $39/month
This Chrome extension facilitates the seamless integration of your CRM with LinkedIn. With just one click, you can effortlessly add contact and company information from LinkedIn to your CRM. By visiting a prospect’s LinkedIn profile and selecting the ‘Add as Contact’ button, they are instantly incorporated into your CRM. The CRM data overlays on LinkedIn, providing a convenient overview of deals, messages, contact and company details, tasks, notes, and more, ensuring smooth interaction between the two platforms.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Adds LinkedIn contacts to your CRM in one-click
Improves data accuracy by providing access to global leading enrichment partners
Improves LinkedIn message and InMail response rates with template analytics
Pricing: Free version Paid plans start at 29$/month
Messente is a powerful communication platform that specializes in delivering high-quality messaging solutions, making it an ideal tool for sales prospecting and customer engagement. With its advanced API, Messente allows seamless integration into existing sales and CRM systems, enabling sales teams to send personalized SMS and WhatsApp messages directly to their prospects and customers.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Ensures global reach to connect with prospects worldwide
Tailors messages based on customer data
Creates detailed delivery reports to track messaging campaigns
For a unique touch, you can utilize video recordings in your outreach strategy. By personalizing each message, you can show leads that youâre familiar with what they do and how your product or service can help them. A quick video message stands out from the crowd of text-based cold outreaches and proves your commitment to the potential customer.
31. Vidyard
Vidyard helps you record personalized videos or screen recordings that you can send to prospects to make your sales outreach messages stand out. Once recorded, you can send your videos directly from Gmail, LinkedIn, Outlook, Salesloft and other popular business communication platforms.
Loom is another useful platform for creating easily distributable video recordings. You can use the desktop version, mobile app or the Chrome extension to create messages for your prospects and paste your video anywhere – your recipients will be able to watch it without creating a Loom account.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Accelerates the sales cycle
Allows custom branding – add your logo and company colors easily
Add password protection or restrict access by email
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at $12.50/user/month
Hippo Video is an AI-powered video recording tool that helps sales reps create personalized videos at every stage of the sales process. The tool provides a time-efficient solution via pre-built templates, custom workflows and the possibility to stitch pre-recorded videos and personalized intros together.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Personalized video thumbnails for prospects
AI-generated first name personalization in videos
Edit videos through their transcribed text versions
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at $20/user/month
When itâs time to book a time slot for a discovery call or a demo, these tools will come in handy. To make international prospecting easier, some of our recommendations include built-in time zone detection and a time zone converter.
34. Calendly
Calendly is a scheduling automation platform that makes finding the right time with your prospects easier. You can share your calendar with others, enabling them to book a meeting with you. You can also post your availability on your website, or send your free time slots to prospects via email or SMS.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Option to pre-screen your prospects before scheduling a meeting
Customizable reminder and follow-up workflows
Meeting polls to find a right time with multiple people
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at $8/seat/month
Uniqodeâs QR Code generator helps salespeople book more meetings using their business cards. You can add a QR code created using Uniqode and link it to your preferred calendar tool. This can be extremely effective when you attend tradeshows or industry events where you meet prospects and share business cards to network.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Expedite the meeting booking process with just a scan
Track interactions with your business cards – take data-driven decisions
Works with all calendar apps – Google Calendar, Calendly etc
When scheduling a meeting with a prospect in a different time zone, Time and Date makes finding the right time easier. With options such as time zone converter, international meeting planner and time zone map, this tool is a must for global sales prospecting.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Provides insights into global business hours
Gives information about public holidays in the target country
Tracks the weather worldwide – your most valuable small talk resource
YouCanBookMe offers customizable booking pages and powerful features (such as flexible scheduling, appointment padding and automatic time zone detection) to save time on the meeting booking process.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Integrates with calendar apps and virtual meeting platforms
Connects with Google Sheets to save records with one click
Automates data entry via HubSpot integration
Pricing: Free version Paid plan starting at $12/calendar/month
When itâs time to have the meetings you have successfully scheduled, choose one of these platforms to create virtual meetings with ease.
38. Zoom
With Zoom, you can book virtual meetings, use an online whiteboard or screen sharing to keep your prospects informed and interested throughout the meeting. This is especially useful during the product demo phase of the sales process.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Option to record meetings
Integrates with CRM systems such as HubSpot
Optional password protection and waiting rooms to ensure security
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at $139.90/user/year
This tool helps you create virtual meetings with unique features such as polls within a meeting, emoji reactions, and even translated captions. To ensure high quality audio with your prospects, you can also filter out noise in Google Meet.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Seamless integration with other Google Workspace tools
Can be accessed from any device
Collaborative features, such as screen and document sharing and real-time editing
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at â¬5.75/user/month
This tool can be used to organize video or voice conference calls. With the free plan, you can organize meetings with up to a hundred call participants and five web participants, and enjoy features such as screen sharing, online whiteboard, document sharing and breakout rooms.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Call scheduling, invitations and reminders
Accepts participants from any device
No downloads necessary
Pricing: Free version Paid plans starting at $9.99/month
Finally, after youâve ended a sales call, use a conversation intelligence tool to analyze how your meeting went and pinpoint places for improvement (such as adjusting the product or service messaging to your audience). Some of these solutions even have their own AI technology to spot recurring trends or make predictions for the future.
41. Jiminny
With just one platform, you can record, analyze and transcribe customer calls, see insights and forecasts on a custom deal dashboard, pinpoint potential risks and compare your teamsâ performances. Jiminny also helps you find relevant keywords and best practices to drive in more revenue.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Automatic call scoring
Track trending topics
Tailor coaching framework based on actual call performance
Trusted by clients like LinkedIn, Shopify, Slack, PayPal or HubSpot, Gong describes itself as a revenue intelligence platform. With an AI-powered model, this tool helps you understand sales conversations to improve your strategy when it comes to closing more deals.
Benefits for sales prospecting:
Dashboard with prioritized action items for sales representatives
Being among the top 10 conversation intelligence tools in G2, Chorus helps you gain insights into bettering your sales strategy. By using 14 different technology patents to enable effective machine learning, this software combines conversation intelligence with market, customer and revenue details.