SALES RESOURCES

Sales resources help small businesses turn interested people into paying customers. Depending on the business, these tools can help with finding leads, tracking prospects, managing sales pipelines, creating proposals, scheduling meetings, following up and closing sales.

You do not need every sales tool below. Choose resources based on how your business actually sells.

👥 CRM & CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system helps organize leads, prospects, customers, conversations, follow-ups and sales opportunities.

  • HubSpot CRM — Great for small businesses starting with lead and customer management.
  • Pipedrive — Great for visually tracking leads and deals through a sales pipeline.
  • Zoho CRM — Great for managing leads, customers, follow-ups and sales processes.
  • Freshsales — Great for organizing contacts, leads and sales activities.
  • Salesforce — Great for businesses that eventually need extensive CRM and sales-management capabilities.

🔎 LEAD GENERATION & PROSPECTING TOOLS

These tools can help businesses identify potential customers or companies that may be interested in their products or services.

  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator — Great for B2B businesses researching and identifying potential professional prospects.
  • Apollo — Great for B2B prospecting, sales intelligence and outreach workflows.
  • ZoomInfo — Great for established B2B sales teams needing company and contact intelligence.
  • Hunter — Useful for finding and verifying professional email addresses associated with companies and domains.
  • Clay — Great for more advanced prospect research, enrichment and automated sales workflows.

📊 SALES PIPELINE MANAGEMENT

A sales pipeline shows where potential customers are in the buying process.

A simple pipeline could look like:

New Lead → Contacted → Interested → Meeting → Proposal → Negotiation → Sale → Follow-Up

Useful tools include:

  • Pipedrive — Great for visual pipeline management.
  • HubSpot Sales Hub — Great for combining CRM, pipeline management and sales tools.
  • Zoho CRM — Great for customizable sales processes.
  • monday CRM — Great for visually managing leads, deals and sales workflows.

📝 PROPOSALS, QUOTES & ESTIMATES

Service businesses often need to send a professional proposal or quote before making a sale.

  • PandaDoc — Great for proposals, quotes, contracts and electronic signatures.
  • Proposify — Great for businesses creating and managing professional sales proposals.
  • HoneyBook — Great for independent businesses combining proposals, contracts, invoices and client management.
  • Bonsai — Great for freelancers and service businesses managing proposals, contracts and billing.
  • Square Estimates — Useful for businesses already using Square for payments and invoicing.

✍️ CONTRACTS & ELECTRONIC SIGNATURES

  • DocuSign — Great for electronically signing sales agreements and contracts.
  • Dropbox Sign — Great for straightforward electronic-signature workflows.
  • PandaDoc — Great for moving from proposal to agreement and signature.
  • Jotform Sign — Useful for creating online forms and signature-based workflows.

📅 SALES CALL & DEMO SCHEDULING

Make it easy for an interested customer to schedule the next step.

  • Calendly — Great for allowing prospects to schedule sales calls or consultations.
  • Acuity Scheduling — Great for service businesses offering consultations and appointments.
  • Google Calendar — Useful for straightforward appointment and meeting management.
  • Zoom — Great for remote sales calls, consultations and product demonstrations.

📧 SALES EMAIL & FOLLOW-UP

Following up can be just as important as finding the original lead.

  • HubSpot Sales Hub — Useful for managing sales communications and follow-up activity.
  • Mailchimp — Great for broader email marketing and customer nurturing.
  • Brevo — Useful for email marketing, automation and customer communications.
  • ActiveCampaign — Great for more advanced customer journeys, email automation and sales-related workflows.

💬 LIVE CHAT & CUSTOMER CONVERSATIONS

Sometimes a potential customer needs one question answered before purchasing.

  • Tidio — Great for adding live chat and customer communication tools to a website.
  • Intercom — Great for businesses needing more advanced customer messaging and support capabilities.
  • HubSpot Live Chat — Useful for connecting website conversations with CRM records.
  • WhatsApp Business — Useful for eligible businesses communicating directly with customers through WhatsApp.

💳 PAYMENT & CHECKOUT TOOLS

Once someone decides to buy, make paying straightforward.

  • Stripe — Great for accepting online payments and subscriptions.
  • Square — Great for accepting payments both online and in person.
  • PayPal for Business — Great for offering customers another familiar online payment option.
  • Shopify — Great for product businesses that need a complete online storefront and checkout.

🛒 E-COMMERCE SALES & CONVERSION TOOLS

Online stores can use additional tools to improve the path from browsing to purchasing.

  • Shopify — Great for managing products, checkout, orders and online sales.
  • Klaviyo — Great for e-commerce email, SMS and customer lifecycle marketing.
  • Omnisend — Great for e-commerce email and SMS automation.
  • Judge.me — Useful for collecting and displaying product reviews and other social proof for online stores.

📞 PHONE & BUSINESS CALLING

  • Google Voice — Useful for businesses that want a dedicated business phone solution.
  • RingCentral — Great for business calling, messaging and communications.
  • Dialpad — Great for cloud-based business calling and customer communications.

📈 SALES ANALYTICS & PERFORMANCE

Track numbers such as:

Leads Generated • Sales Made • Conversion Rate • Average Order Value • Revenue • Repeat Customers • Customer Acquisition Cost • Sales by Product • Sales by Channel

Useful tools include:

⭐ GOOD STARTING CHOICES

Need somewhere to organize customers? → HubSpot CRM
Need a visual sales pipeline? → Pipedrive
Looking for B2B prospects? → LinkedIn Sales Navigator or Apollo
Need proposals? → PandaDoc
Freelancer/service business? → HoneyBook or Bonsai
Need contracts signed? → DocuSign
Customers need to book calls? → Calendly
Need website chat? → Tidio
Selling products online? → Shopify
Need payments? → Stripe, Square or PayPal
E-commerce follow-up? → Klaviyo or Omnisend

💡 SIMPLE SALES SYSTEM FOR A BEGINNER

A beginner doesn't need complicated sales software.

A simple process could be:

Someone Discovers Your Business
↓
They Visit Your Website or Product Page
↓
They Ask a Question or Join Your Email List
↓
You Follow Up
↓
They Receive Your Offer
↓
They Purchase
↓
You Provide Good Customer Service
↓
You Follow Up for Reviews, Referrals or Repeat Purchases

As the business grows, CRM and automation tools can make this process easier to manage.

⚠️ IMPORTANT: SALES VS MARKETING

Marketing helps attract attention and potential customers.

Sales focuses on moving an interested prospect toward a purchase.

The two work together, but they are not the same.