Success in sales is all about the process. Develop a winning sales process and optimize it to perfection with a robust sales management system, and your team will close more deals, keep customer relationships, drive more revenue, and exceed all expectations.
We know it’s easier said than done, but it’s possible with the right sales management software. Keep reading to learn what this software does, why it’s beneficial, and what specific features to look for. Then, learn about the 10 best sales management software platforms.
What Is Sales Management?
Sales management is the process of managing a sales department. That includes:
- Setting objectives
- Developing processes
- Hiring, training, and motivating sales teams
- Analyzing sales data
- Sales forecasting
- Creating reports
- Defining territories
- Troubleshooting sluggish sales
- Project management
- Managing the sales pipeline
What Is Sales Management Software?
Sales management software is a platform that helps sales managers manage their responsibilities and track all sales activity in one place. It also helps sales leaders and teams work more efficiently, communicate with the sales team and key contacts, and see exactly what actions are necessary on a daily basis using various sales management tools and sales tracking features.
Benefits Of Sales Management Systems
Here are five benefits of sales management software:
These systems also provide valuable insights into sales performance, helping managers make data-driven decisions.
1. Visibility
The best sales management software makes it easy to organize and keep track of leads, prospects, and customers. Field sales reps can access a complete history for every contact, add notes, and even transfer scheduled appointments to other reps.
Effective sales pipeline management is crucial for maintaining this visibility and ensuring that no opportunities are missed.
Sales managers can see how reps are spending their day, the results of their sales efforts, and easily identify underperforming reps or territories.
2. Efficiency
Sales management software makes it easy to plan the most efficient sales routes. Reps can decide who they want to visit and let the software plan the best route between each stop, leveraging sales automation to streamline their workflow. Then, they can add notes about their visits that automatically sync to their sales CRM.
3. Automated Workflows
Did you know that the average sales rep spends less than 36% of their time selling? The rest of their on-the-clock hours go toward non-revenue-producing tasks like admin work. Fortunately, the best sales management software can bring new efficiency to your sales process.
You can build automated workflows using sales automation tools that reduce the time reps spend inputting customer data, sending follow-up emails, and performing other tedious tasks.
4. Real-Time Data
Data is the lifeblood of your sales department. Without it, you won’t know what’s working, what isn’t, and how to adjust your strategies for more success. Sales analytics tools provide real-time data that helps reps prioritize their time and focus on the most buy-ready leads.
Proper sales team management software ensures customer data is always up-to-date. When your reps have real-time data at their disposal, they can prioritize their time to focus on the most buy-ready leads.
5. More Sales
What’s the main reason you should invest in sales management software? It helps you generate more sales, plain and simple.
A sales management tool helps you oversee your sales reps, pinpoint winning strategies, track key performance indicators against your revenue goals, and optimize your sales process. Sales performance management tools help you oversee your sales reps, pinpoint winning strategies, and optimize your sales process to generate more sales.
Key Functions To Look For In A Sales Management Platform
Sales management software sounds pretty great, right? But how do you choose between the different sales hub options available to you? You start by looking for these seven features:
Sales activity tracking is another essential feature that helps managers monitor and analyze the daily activities of their sales teams.
1. Prospect Management
The best sales team software helps you organize prospect and lead information such as:
- Names and locations
- Occupations and titles
- Budget
- Pipeline stage
- Previous interactions with your company
Effective lead tracking ensures that no potential customer falls through the cracks.
The right sales management software also lets you sort and color-code contacts by specific data points.
2. Activity And Performance Tracking
How do your reps spend time in the field? Are they following your sales process? As a sales manager, you need to be able to answer these questions.
Sales tracking software provides visibility into what daily activities — calls, emails, on-site visits, etc. — reps are completing, as well as progress toward top-level sales targets, making sales activity management more efficient.
3. Sales Process Automation
Most reps are bogged down by a mountain of administrative tasks that limit their ability to do what they do best: Sell. Sales automation software can help alleviate this burden. Because of this, you’ll want to choose a sales management software that includes automation capabilities.
When you automate key steps in the sales process, your sales team won’t have to manually track customer interactions, who they last talked to, when, and what the next action should be.
4. Analytics Dashboard
Different organizations need visibility into different activity — and performance-based metrics. That’s why it’s important to invest in a sales team management system that lets you view only the most vital KPIs for different company stakeholders.
Sales performance analytics provide insights into the sales funnel and key metrics that drive your business forward.
5. Route Planning
Route planning can be a time-consuming part of the sales process. Sales route optimization features in the best sales management software can automate this task, saving reps loads of time. Look for technology that also incorporates mileage tracking, which eliminates yet another manual process for sales teams.
6. Custom Reporting
If you want the ability to run reports based on a variety of metrics, custom reporting is a feature to look for. For example, some sales management software lets you run sales reports based on individual and team performance, sales by territory, lost opportunities, and other metrics — and you can save your custom templates for repeat use.
7. Integrations
You probably already have technology that you and your team use every day — Microsoft Outlook, Salesforce CRM, and Netsuite ERP, for example. CRM integration ensures that your sales management software works seamlessly with these critical systems. With CRM integration, reps can automatically log visits, capture prospect details, and schedule follow-up reminders.
10 Best Sales Management Software Platforms
Now that we know about sales management, its benefits, and some specific features to look for in this kind of software, let’s discuss a few of the options available to you. Below, you’ll find the 10 best sales management platform tools on the market today.
1. SPOTIO
Best for: Field sales teams. SPOTIO is ranked #1 in the field sales category and was a 2024 G2 Best Software Winner.
SPOTIO’s industry-leading sales management software includes task automation, document management, and sales routing features that have been proven to boost field sales revenue by up to 23%.
Key Sales Management Features:
- CRM Mapping: Outside sales teams need to visually organize customer and prospect data on a map to stay organized and find new deals faster. With SPOTIO, you can import your existing sales data, quickly search through Google Maps, and seamlessly sync data to your CRM.
- Activity Management: Do you know how many visits have your field reps made this week? How about calls, emails, or SMS messages? SPOTIO tracks all of these details so you can properly evaluate your reps’ performance and provide additional coaching, where needed.
- Autoplays: SPOTIO lets you create automated messaging strategies so reps are following the right processes and using the right tactics to engage contacts.
- Rep Tracking: Your reps spend most of their time in the field, away from their desks. But with SPOTIO, you can still keep a close eye on them. View their travel histories and learn if poor performance is due to a lack of effort or a need to retrain. Note: You can turn off GPS tracking if it makes your reps feel uncomfortable.
- Territory Management: Use SPOTIO to cut territories by geographic boundaries, types of opportunities, potential account value, or other data.
- Sales Tracking: SPOTIO gives sales managers an accurate view of their team’s performance so they can easily determine who’s on track to meet quota and where potential gaps in their sales process might be.
- Custom Reporting: SPOTIO’s My Reports feature enables admins, managers, and reps to quickly create custom reports that they can save, re-run, and view on any device.
2. Veloxy
Best For: Salesforce power-users
Veloxy is AI sales assistant software specifically for Salesforce users. This sales management software automates non-selling activities inside Salesforce so sellers can become more productive and spend more time closing deals.
Key Sales Management Features:
- AI Sales Assistant: Veloxy’s AI assistant automates tedious tasks so reps can spend more time building relationships with prospects.
- Email Marketing: Email is one of the best ways to meet and engage with potential customers. Veloxy simplifies email for sales reps by personalizing messages, automating them to send at ideal times, and tracking the results.
- Analytics: Use Veloxy to get the data you need when you need it. Then sync that data with your Salesforce account so your records are always up-to-date.
3. Pipedrive
Best for: Small sales teams
Pipedrive is sales management software that helps small teams stay focused on the right deals at the right times. This tool can be used to communicate with leads, automate tasks, and manage deals productively.
Key Sales Management Features:
- Chatbots and Web Forms: Pipedrive includes live chat, chatbots, and custom web form features.
- AI-Powered Sales Mentor: Let Pipedrive’s AI sales assistant give you personalized performance tips to boost your results and compact data graphs to keep you on track.
- Plenty of Integrations: Does your sales team use Google? How about Microsoft, Xero, Slack, or Asana? Integrate them with Pipedrive with just one click.
4. Freshsales (formerly Freshworks CRM)
Best for: Integrated sales and marketing teams
The Freshsales sales management system combines contact management, deal management, sales sequences, and plenty of marketing features in one package.
Key Sales Management Features:
- Automation: Freshsales automatically assigns leads to specific reps based on custom lead-routing rules. It can also automate sequences in the sales process, manage intelligent workflows, and deliver notifications so nothing slips through the cracks.
- Communication: From within Freshsales, sales reps can communicate with leads by phone call, email, text, WhatsApp, or web chat.
- Marketing: This sales management software isn’t just for sales departments. Marketing teams can get in on the action, too, and take advantage of Freshsales web forms, email and landing page builder, and segmentation capabilities.
5. Nutshell
Best for: Small sales teams looking to grow
Nutshell is an easy-to-use sales and marketing tool. It includes contact management and sales automation features, as well as an email sequencer and free live customer support. It’s perfect for small teams with big ambitions for the future.
Key Sales Management Features:
- Contact Management: At the core of Nutshell is its CRM capabilities. Store all important contact details, from call notes to email conversations, in one location.
- Sales Automation: Wasted time is the enemy of effective sales teams. Eliminate tedious tasks with automated sales processes and communication workflows.
- Email Marketing: Stay in touch with your contacts and move them closer to the sale with Nutshell’s customizable email templates and automated sending features.
6. HubSpot
Best for: Large corporations
HubSpot is full-stack sales management software that includes contact management, call recording and tracking, email marketing, document management, and automation features. It can be difficult (and expensive) to adopt, but it’s a great tool for companies with a substantial budget. There’s also a free CRM with limited features.
Key Sales Management Features:
- Call Tracking: From within HubSpot, you can make, record, and log all sales calls.
- Automation: Keep leads from falling through the cracks and put time back into your day with HubSpot’s automated follow-ups, personalization, and workflows.
- Sales Analytics: Are your prospects progressing through the pipeline? How is each rep on your team performing? And how much revenue do you expect to bring in this quarter? HubSpot’s sales analytics dashboard can tell you.
7. Gong
Best for: Data-focused sellers
Gong is all about the data. Use this sales management software to access deep insights into your team’s performance so you can improve it in the future.
Key Sales Management Features:
- Deal Intelligence: Gong automatically captures the interactions between your sellers and customers to give you deep insights that boost retention.
- People Intelligence: Do you know why some of your reps outperform others? Gong analyzes the data to pinpoint what your sales stars do differently.
- Market Intelligence: To succeed at sales, you need to have your thumb on the pulse of your whole industry. Gong helps you understand what’s working right now.
8. Outreach
Best for: Outbound sales
If you need new leads and have cash to spare, Outreach is solid sales management software. Just be prepared for a steeper price tag than other tools.
Key Sales Management Features:
- Sales Sequences: Give your sales team a reliable tool to help plan when and how they interact with leads, then automate their emails, social posts, and more.
- AI Sales Assistant: The machine learning tech inside Outreach uncovers key customer insights and uses them to guide sales reps to preferable actions.
- Team Tracking: Take a look at Outreach’s analytics dashboards to discover what sales strategies your reps are deploying and the success levels of each.
9. Ambition
Best for: Coaching enterprise sales teams
Do you manage a sales team at an enterprise company? Then take a look at Ambition, a sales management tool that includes gamification to get the most out of your reps.
Key Sales Management Features:
- Sales Coaching: With Ambition, you can run 1:1 coaching sessions and give private notes and team training meetups, then implement action plans with ease.
- Gamification: Sales teams are competitive. Use this to your advantage with Ambition’s gamification tools that let you run competitions, display leaderboards, etc.
- Goal Tracking: To achieve your goals, you need to set and track them. Automate this process with Ambition and reach your objectives more consistently.
10. Solo
Best for: Solar sales teams
Solo is sales management software for solar sales teams. Its intuitive mobile interface lets field sales reps generate instant proposals, collect signatures, and even help customers access financing.
Key Sales Management Features:
- SPOTIO Integration: Access SPOTIO’s powerful lead-management features from within the Solo app.
- Sun Path Simulation: With Solo’s SunPixel feature, you can show customers how their solar powers align with the sun throughout the day.
- Integrated Document Management: Access, customize, and share contracts, installation agreements, and more from your mobile device.
Which Sales Management System Is Right For You?
Once you implement your sales management system into your workflow, you and your team become more productive, work together more effectively, and generate more sales.
So what are you waiting for? Choose a tool with each of the must-have features listed above — prospect management, sales rep tracking, process automation, and an analytics dashboard. Then, start using it and getting results.
Manage an outside sales team? Then you can’t go wrong with SPOTIO, the best sales management solution for field sellers. Request a free demo today to see SPOTIO in action.
