The logistics around your meetings should be the easy part. Find out about three different types of tools you should use so you can focus more on your customer.
Meetings with your leads are valuable. Unfortunately, the logistics around sales meetings are annoying. Finding a common time to meet, scheduling a conference call, and sharing documents afterwards can be a pain if you don’t have the right tools.
Fortunately, there are a number of programs out there that you can use to make logistics a breeze. Modern sales tools can simplify the logistics around meetings so that you can focus on your customer’s needs and deliver the most value. Below are several tools to check out if you’re looking to make planning for your next sales meeting easy. (We don’t have an affiliate relationship with the businesses below—we just think that they’re useful for salespeople!)
SCHEDULING TOOLS
Sometimes the hardest thing about having a meeting is finding a common time to meet. Scheduling a meeting can be repetitive and time-consuming if you’re using email to coordinate between several people. With the right tool though, you can easily organize a meeting with your prospective buyers and clients with one email.
Our sales team uses ScheduleOnce to schedule with customers. ScheduleOnce allows your clients to select their preferred meeting time based on your availability and automatically update your calendar with your appointments. Simply embed ScheduleOnce in your email communication or on your website, and your customers will find the best time to connect with you in a relaxed atmosphere.
We like ScheduleOnce because it integrates with Google Apps, allows for various meeting types, and it is simple to use. We’ve also recommended it in the past to Outlook users because of its integration with Outlook.
One alternative to ScheduleOnce is Calendly. Calendly offers a lighter-weight version of ScheduleOnce optimized for Google Apps. Calendly is less customizable than ScheduleOnce, but it can be a great alternative option for teams with basic scheduling needs.
PipelineDeals Pro-Tip – You can integrate PipelineDeals with Google Apps and Outlook to sync your calendars. If you use a service like ScheduleOnce or Calendly to plan meetings and use our integration, this means that your meetings will be automatically scheduled back into your CRM. Brilliant!
CONFERENCING TOOLS
GoToMeeting has been a standard in web conferencing for many years, but they’re not the only option available for companies. Increasingly, savvy and growing businesses have been turning to more flexible conferencing services that are quick to setup and less expensive.
If you’re conferencing between Google users, one easy (and free) option available is Google Hangouts. Google Hangouts lets you share files, share screens, and collaborate in real-time. Unfortunately, Google Hangouts are only available between Google users and do not offer recording services.
For more functional conferencing needs, check out Join.Me or UberConference. Join.Me offers on-demand web conferencing for free, and can be used to setup a quick screenshare between teams. With the pro version, you can setup a personal and permanent sharing link, record sessions, and view on your mobile device or tablet. Better yet, the conferencing is available in a browser and doesn’t require any browser.
UberConference offers a comparable service to Join.Me, and comes with easy collaboration tools, unlimited calling, and screensharing.
PipelineDeals Pro-Tip – If you record your phone conversations or video conferences, upload those conversations and video conversations into your CRM. We don’t charge you for storage and this is the best way to stay organized.
DOCUMENT SIGNING TOOLS
The proposal and contract phase of a sale is a headache for many salespeople and a surprisingly easy place to lose a sale. Proposals can languish in potential customer inboxes for a number of reasons, and without the right tools, it can be impossible to know what may be holding up the signing of a document. Having the right tool can have an enormous positive impact on your business (Sneak preview – we’ll be featuring a story from a customer this week who closed more than $100000 in December by implementing a document signing tool).
So what document tool should you use? There are a few different tools out there to check out, including DocuSign (the market leader), RightSignature, PandaDoc, and HelloSign. RightSignature and PandaDoc have built integrations for PipelineDeals that allow you to integrate PipelineDeals with their services. However, any document signing service can ease the process of getting a contract signed.
To find the best service, check out the reviews on G2 Crowd. G2 Crowd offers a comparison of different document signing services from actual customers. Of the available e-Signature reviews on the site, RightSignature had the highest overall score amongst e-Signature products.
PipelineDeals Pro-Tip – Remember that you can track documents on to People, Deals, and Companies in PipelineDeals. If you remember to cc@pipelinedeals.com on documents that you send out, these documents will be automatically stored in your CRM.
This article has been brought to you by our friends at PipelineDeals!