Something dramatic happened this year to salespeople. No matter what industry they belonged to, in a matter of weeks (if not days) their jobs completely transformed. In-the-flesh contact with both customers and colleagues was abruptly cut off. And it stung.

Sales processes which had taken place in meeting rooms had to become entirely digital. Customers required more communication and empathy than ever as connecting with them became the hardest it had ever been. 

And gone were the days when you could swing your chair around to pick a colleague’s brains, or convene around the water cooler to swap useful tips. 

Collaboration and communication required a whole new set of tools and skills in order for salespeople to operate at the levels they were used to. So it’s no surprise these sales tools were a hot topic of conversation at our recent Salesforce Live: UK & Ireland virtual event. 

Let’s take a moment to look at just a few of the sales tools discussed in the sessions – and see how they can help you smash it in the ‘new normal’, just like you did in the old one.

Sales tools can keep you connected to your customers

As a salesperson, your job is primarily about relationship building. It’s about connecting with people, often in the room, using a repertoire of verbal and non-verbal skills to forge a strong connection.

And you also need to build relationships between clients and your business, understanding their history with your business before any conversation you have with them –  making sure your colleagues treat them with the same consideration.

So how do you go about building (and sustaining) those sort of close relationships with clients in the digital world? Can a warm handshake really be replicated by savvy use of cold, hard data?

Well, not exactly – but to a greater extent than you might realise. 

A CRM platform that organises and consolidates disparate data into a reconciled customer profile can give you a surprisingly comprehensive – even intimate – view of a customer, arming you with insights about them and their business, and their previous interactions with you and your business.

Salesforce’s Customer 360 platform (the world’s #1 CRM) gives you exactly this 360 degree view of customers. Plus, it draws on that view to power  an array of tools that enable you and your business to connect intelligently, relevantly and personally with customers – without ever meeting them.

Head to the Customer 360 page to learn more.

Sales tools can help your sales team stay in formation

Of course, selling isn’t just about your personal interactions with a client. Now more than ever, selling is a team game.

In many industries, the sales cycle can be months long, cross-departmental and multi-dimensional. A single sale will touch many people’s desks, with each person adding value along the way.

A sales tool we’ve developed that can help you and your teams collaborate as effectively as you did in the office (if not more so) is our collaboration-enhancing app, Salesforce Anywhere. 

Embedded within the Salesforce platform, Salesforce Anywhere was built to bring everything relevant to a sale – including chat, alerts, comments and video – directly into Salesforce CRM, preventing it from getting lost in email threads and text messages.

Salesforce Anywhere enables you and your sales team to collaborate on deals in real time from remote locations. It alerts you as deals progress, and even proposes next steps you can take so your sales team can stay a step ahead, wherever they are.

Sales tools can prepare you for whatever comes next

2020 has taught us all a harsh lesson: radical change can happen – and fast. Salespeople – and sales teams – have to be able to pivot rapidly. 

But how can you make sure you, and your sales tools, are able to respond quickly and effectively to change? 

At our recent Salesforce Live event, we heard from Simon Gilks, Global Director of Sales Operations & Enablement at GoCardless, about how implementing our cloud-native Customer 360 platform meant his company was well prepared to adapt rapidly to events in March – and in the months since:

“Because all our systems are built on the Salesforce platform, we were ready to switch to remote working from day one. Since then, we’ve been relying on reports generated in Salesforce to measure the impact of our decisions and adjust where necessary.”

Being in the cloud also means you get access to the latest innovations without complicated integrations and installations. Companies operating on our Customer 360 platform can easily deploy powerful sales tools – such as Salesforce Anywhere, and our intelligent territory planning tool Salesforce Maps.

Salesforce Maps enables rapid evaluation of sales territories and seamless reallocation of reps to ensure equitable balance of sales teams between territories – a powerfully relevant capability during this time of complex, widespread upheaval.

Digital sales tools help you read the lay of the land – but they can also help you predict what might be coming over the horizon. Our smart CRM assistant Einstein analyses data to predict outcomes – such as which sales leads and opportunities will convert. It’s not a crystal ball – but it can still give you an edge.

Thinking it’s time to tool up? You’ve come to the right place.

At Salesforce, we’ve been helping salespeople perform at their best (in whatever circumstances) for over two decades. 

And we’ve developed the world’s leading selection of sales tools to help them do it.

Both Salesforce Anywhere and Salesforce Maps were demoed at Salesforce Live: UK & Ireland event (in the Sell from Anywhere & Drive a More Agile Sales Operation session).

You can watch that session, as well as a whole host of other sessions talking about other tools housed on our Customer 360 platform, by heading over to the event page and catching up on-demand.