The big ones in the space for SMEs:<p>- <a href="https://www.insightly.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.insightly.com/</a>
- <a href="http://www.zoho.com/crm/" rel="nofollow">http://www.zoho.com/crm/</a>
- <a href="http://www.sagecrm.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.sagecrm.com/</a>
- <a href="https://www.pipedrive.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pipedrive.com/</a><p>I evaluated all of them recently and settled on Insightly. Their support is average and their API is shocking, but the UI is clean and it is quite configurable.<p>If you want to step up into the enterprise level then use SalesForce ... if you can get past their horrendous UI. Also, the SalesForce sales team is top notch and they'll do several rounds of phone based support with your sales team to make sure everyone knows how to use it effectively, etc.
I think this really depends on what type of sales role you have. For example, you could be a lead gen rep (SDR), a inside sales rep, or an outside sales rep. I'll break the tools down by type that way:<p>For Lead Gen reps (SDRs), I don't think that there is much better than Linkedin - its got everything in it. The have recently become so stingy with their 'inmails', even for their premier accounts, that you really have to get names from them and then figure out what the pattern is. The trick here is to be a highly connected individual in the group that you are trying to sell into. Joining LION (linkedin open networker) can help here. Sales Loft does a nice job of generating the emails and their patterns too. Voilanorbert is a new service that I've played with a little bit which seems like a good way to generate emails. You can also use the Rapportive trick (just Google it, its complicated). Once you have an email, you can ping the mail servers to ask if an address exists with Mailtester (its free).<p>For InsideSales Reps, InsideSales.com (clever name guys...) and Close.io can be great tools to help with your phone calls productivity rate. Whatever flavor of CRM your company has should become your best friend too. If your lucky you'll get Salesforce or one of the other modern cloud based ones, if you're unlucky you'll get Seibel or a homegrown CRM or maybe something else made 15 years ago and hardly supported today. If this is you, sorry.<p>For Outside Sales People, The Badger Map can be a serious time saver and productivity enhancer with the way it maps out your territory and gives you the ability to organize and prioritize your life. Waze or Google Maps should always be on, just don't forget your car charger.<p>Different Sales people need different tools, for example its rare to see outside sales people living in their CRM the way an inside sales rep will. I feel like everyone should use mail merge or some other automated mail system more than they do. There are free ones and ones you pay for here. Anyway, this is my brain dump, hope it helps.
1. If you're serious about sales, you can't go past Salesforce. Pipedrive, Base, Sage and any others are all good, but you'll eventually grow out of them. In my view, you may as well start with Salesforce. You'll grow into it. It's the most flexible/customisable and has the most plugins and services to help you extract value from it.<p>2. InsightSquared.com for Salesforce analytics.<p>3. SalesLoft.com or Outreach.io for scalable sales development<p>4. LeadGenius for assisted lead gen<p>5. <a href="http://SpartaSales.com" rel="nofollow">http://SpartaSales.com</a> for sales gamification (plugs into Salesforce too)
I have just started using close.io (a YC company) and like it, I am a founder/sales guy and have seen a few crm's<p><a href="http://close.io" rel="nofollow">http://close.io</a>