11 sales prospecting tools to help you work smarter (not harder)

The great news is you live in the modern sales world, where technology can help you work smarter, not harder.

There are literally thousands of tools on the market right now that promise to help you be better at prospecting and the sales process. With so many options for every sales team, the problem is figuring out not only if they work, but also if they’ll actually lessen your workload.

Can’t find a prospect’s email? You can, if you’ve got the right tool. Not sure how to approach a cold pitch for a prospect? No problem, there’s a tool that can help you with that, too.

We’ve done the groundwork for you, and compiled 12 sales prospecting tools that will get you and your sales team working smarter, not harder.

Before you start reaching out to prospects after researching contact information, you need to have someone to pitch to in the first place.

There are hundreds of tools on the market to help sales reps. But only a few help you seek out prospects and convert them into customers.

1. Dux-Soup

Okay, we all know LinkedIn is a prospecting goldmine. But, what if you could have your leads automatically scraped and invited to connect with you?

Here’s how it works.

Dux-Soup automatically views your LinkedIn prospect profiles, follows their every move and sends them a personalized message. It’ll also follow up on warm leads through 2nd and 3rd LinkedIn connections, automatically.

Once it starts contacting prospects, the tool can then transfer their progress into your CRM so your entire team can stay on top of what’s happening with each newly found prospect.

Boom.

Price: Free/$11.25 per month

Recommended for: Sales reps who are looking to cold pitch a lot of prospects and potential customers in their industry.

2. Email-Hunter

We all (well, some of us) know the secret sauce to closing a sale with a potential lead is having access to a key decision-maker. But contacting that person when implementing a prospecting strategy is easier said than done when they’ve got a gatekeeper.

EmailHunter can dig out the email address for a company’s key decision-maker—all you have to do is type in their company’s website URL. Once you do that, it’ll find any publicly available email associated with the domain and you’ll be able to get your hands on that all-important email address.

The tool will also verify any email as well and sync it straight to your CRM to make sure you won’t hit any dead ends.

Integrations: Firefox, Google Sheets

Price: 100 free requests a month/$45 per month thereafter

Recommended for: Sales reps who want to spend less time trawling the internet for for potential customer’s email addresses and more time closing deals.

3. LeadSift

LeadSift is a neat tool that helps you prospect by only targeting people who are actually on the buying journey.

They claim that only 3% of leads are actually interested in buying a product. So, it sifts away those who aren’t looking to purchase and leaves you with companies who have their wallets ready.

The best part? LeadSift finds some of these prospects and leads by tracking your competitors. Yep, LeadSift watches for prospects that are talking to your biggest competitors and then passes their details over to your team.

Price: Free for first 50 accounts, then custom price plan

Recommended for: Sales reps who are in a particularly competitive industry, where you need to know what your competitors are doing at all times.

4. LeadFeeder

LeadFeeder is like a sidekick for keeping an eye on your website traffic.

It automatically filters through all of your analytics traffic to sift out companies who have visited your website. It’ll also tell you how they found you, what pages they visited and, if they visit again, you’ll get an email alert.

And when the prospect revisits your site, your CRM will automatically update as well, so you know you can follow up effectively.

Integrations: Sales Navigator, Zapier, Slack, Mailchimp, Google Workspace Hangouts

Price: Free trial, then $60 for your first 100 leads

Recommended for: Sales reps who are looking to qualify their leads using prospecting tools before focusing their effort on closing them.

Now that you’ve got the tools to find your prospects, the next step is to build a long-lasting relationship with them.

In the Relationship Era, building a great relationship with your prospects early on can lower your churn and boost your bottom line.

5. Crystal

If you’ve ever had trouble keeping a conversation flowing or connecting with a prospect, Crystal is the perfect sales prospecting tool for you.

Rather than helping you find an email of a possible sales prospect, the tool allows you to analyze your prospect’s communication style, how they behave, and what motivates them in their business decisions.

Crystal assesses your prospect by using text and social media analysis to give you a rundown of exactly how you should approach them and helps you and other sales professionals plan out your sales pitch.

You’ll have insight into your prospect’s mind and know how to sell them—before you ever talk to them.

Price: Starts at $29/month

Recommended for: Sales reps who want to plan their sales prospect pitches to perfection.

6. Charlie

Charlie is a detective for sales pros.

This sales prospecting tool makes sure you’re as prepared as possible for any meeting you step foot into or any prospect you are following up with.

Here’s how Charlie does it: the program gathers every piece of information it can on your prospects, such as their social media movements and media mentions, and creates a file for you.

From the file, you can gain unique insights into your prospect. How many other sales reps and sales pros are going to take the time to figure out this level of information?

With this tool, you can show your prospect that you actually care about their company and where they’re heading.

Price: Varies by team size

Recommended for: Teams looking for sales prospects that have 10+ sales reps, as the technology is still being built for smaller teams.

7. Voila Norbert Enrich

Here’s another tool that will give you a boost in building a relationship with your prospect by helping you amass information on them.

Voila Norbert Enrich will build a complete profile of your prospect using their email address. With a single click, you’ll get a complete breakdown of their job title, social media profiles, company, and location.

The tool will also give you a breakdown of their complete contact details if they’re available, making it easier to verify your prospects.

Integrations: Zapier, Drip, Chrome Extension, Reply

Price: $0.10 per lead/$39 for 1000 leads

Recommended for: Sales reps who already have a prospect list, but need help making it more robust by using a sales tool to find contact information.

8. Nudge

Nudge is all about giving your sales reps the upper hand when they’re talking to a prospect to make a sale.

If you want to know the in-depth background of a prospect, this tool for sales professionals does exactly that. Have you contacted them before? What about their company? Is there anyone at the company who has actually worked for your company in the past? Nudge can answer all of these sales prospects’ questions.

It even rates your relationships with your prospects from ‘very weak’ to ‘very strong,’ so you know at a glance what prospects need more work.

Get the low-down before you send your first email and control the sales process from the start.

Integrations: Gmail, Outlook, LinkedIn

Price: Free/$19.95 a month

Recommended for: Sales reps who want a super in-depth look into each prospect and know them inside out.

There’s no point putting in all the effort it takes to find and nurture your prospects if you can’t book them in your calendar.

Here are two of the handiest tools when it comes to organizing your schedule.

9. Calendly

How many times have you had to endure a back-and-forth email exchange before you settled on a time to meet or call a prospect?

Don’t fall into the time-wasting trap of exchanging 10 emails without finalizing a meeting.

Calendly integrates with your calendar to automatically schedule a meeting and stops you from double booking, too.

Integrations: Google, Outlook, Office 365, iCloud, Zapier.

Price: Free or $8 a month for an upgraded account

Recommended for: Sales reps who want to have a more coordinated and professional approach to scheduling their meetings.

10. Clara

This tool is still in its early stages, but it gives sales reps a way to schedule meetings with a more personal feel.

Using an automatic algorithm, Clara schedules meetings with prospects for you by using locations you’ve already selected. If you’ve got a favorite coffee shop, for example, Clara will suggest that your prospect meet you there.

It communicates directly with your prospect (you just cc in Clara when you reply to your prospect), and once the tool has access to your calendar, it will schedule your meetings, coffees, and calls.

Integrations: Google Hangouts, Google Meet, Zoom

Price: Varies based on needs of a sales rep

Recommended for: Sales reps who want their prospects with email addresses to be personally nurtured at every step of the process—but don’t have time to do it themselves.

Of course, all of your efforts need to be tied together.

A CRM is the best way for sales reps to have a birds-eye view of every single prospect they’re nurturing.

11. Copper CRM

If you want to build relationships with your prospects, you’re in luck: Copper’s core focus is precisely that.

This CRM’s model is about building relationships and nurturing them, as opposed to the traditional hard-sell other sales tools promote.

All of the effort you put into nurturing your prospect will be stored in the CRM. This means every time you contact a prospect, send a proposal, or schedule a meeting, Copper will keep a record. So your entire team will know, too.

And because it syncs with G Suite, you can build email templates and manage deals right from your inbox.

No learning curve with this CRM.

Integrations: G Suite, Zapier, LinkedIn, Trello + many more

Price: From $9/month

Recommended for: Sales reps who want to nurture their prospects into long-lasting business relationships.

Sales prospecting has come a long way from cold calls and cheesy emails.

With the level of sophistication of tools in today’s market, sales reps really have a unique chance to capitalize on their prospect’s relationships.

But the key to making the most of your time as a sales rep is still the same: work smarter, not harder.

Using these tools, you can save your company time and money—and build more valuable relationships along the way.