The Ultimate Guide To Startup Sales Tools (2015) from Nic Poulos
Here at Bowery Capital, startup sales tools are top-of-mind on a daily basis. They’re core to our portfolio support efforts: we work closely with every one of our founders to build an optimal sales infrastructure from the ground up. They’re a part of our diligence process: we see sales tools as critical to keeping acquisition costs low and sales cycles short, and always evaluate how a startup plans to leverage them. They’re an area of potential investment for our team: we specialize in B2B SaaS and sales automation has become a sub-sector in its own right. Over the years, therefore, we’ve developed a unique view on the startup sales tools that work.
As a result, we thought it would be helpful to aggregate our team’s and founders’ learnings into a piece that other startup stakeholders can use to build their own sales stacks. Last year, we released the first edition of the Ultimate Guide to Startup Sales Tools. This year, we upgraded and expanded the document into a report that we hope will serve as a good framework for evaluating sales solutions at any company.
Like last year, we broke the guide into the 3 segments based on where in the sales funnel each tool has the most impact: Pre-Sales, Sales, and Post-Sales. Within each segment, we identified 7 solution categories based on function. Within Pre-Sales, the categories are CRM, Predictive Sales, Lead Generation, Lead Intelligence, Collateral Management, Social Sales Enablement, and Marketing-Sales Alignment. Within Sales, the categories are Calling, Outreach Management, Email Intelligence, Content Sharing, Conferencing, Mobile-First, and Contracts & Proposals. Within Post-Sales, the categories are Sales Ops, Coaching & Incentives, Customer Success, Chat For Sales, Pricing, Customer/Partner Engagement, and Data Entry/Management. Within each of these 21 categories, we have chosen 5 different offerings that we feel are a great mix of established companies and emerging startup solutions in the space worth checking out, making for a catalog of 105 solutions in total.
It’s important to note here that the list isn’t exhaustive; we had to leave out some great solutions that are also worth considering. Though we worked hard to cover the full landscape, the truth is that each of these 21 categories could probably be expanded into a 100-page guide in its own right. But we believe this year’s update of the Ultimate Guide To Startup Sales Tools will provide a great starting point for any early-stage founder, salesperson or startup stakeholder looking to take their sales infrastructure to the next level. Lastly, we welcome any feedback or suggestions for the next go-around. Feel we misrepresented a product feature or pricing structure? Are we missing your favorite tool or startup? Please let us know so we can continue to improve our guide. While feedback specific to this report are probably most easily left directly in the SlideShare comments, you can also always reach us via Twitter or LinkedIn.
Happy selling!
