Vainu explains, ‘’Sales intelligence refers to a wide range of technologies that help salespeople find, monitor and understand data that provides insights into prospects' and existing clients' daily business.‘’

In simpler terms, what sales intelligence does is it helps you use a set of tools that will help in understanding the prospect data you have in hand so that catering your potential prospects becomes easier.

Let’s understand this with an example:

Sales Rep A has tapped Prospect A from the website. Sales Rep A understands that Prospect A wants its solution and has landed on their website. It starts to create a sales pitch and repeats the same over call to Prospect A. Prospect A doesn’t seem to understand what Sales Rep A is trying to sell or why they even need the solution and hence walks away disinterested.

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This is the common scenario which most sales reps make. Without understanding, they start to sell to their prospects. This happens because the main focus here is to just sell and not to cater to the needs. This mistake needs to be avoided because in 2020 the sales process demands more reasons for value than pretty sales pitches.

Now, what would happen if the same example was conducted but with sales intelligence's existence?

Let’s visualize that scenario.

Sales Rep A finds Prospect A and taps them from the website. It gathers data of that prospect such as its name, business, email address, contact information, their activities, where they land on your website, and more. Soon Sales rep A gets on a call with Prospect A and instead of starting off with the routine sales pitch, the focus is shifted on what Prospect A’s needs are, what is it looking for?

With that information, Sales Rep A continues to place the product it is selling as a solution to cure all the issues Prospect A is facing.

Now, don’t you think this is a better choice?

You have data that is more than just the email address and phone numbers of your prospects, it has their likes, dislikes, recommendations, actions, and more which can help you understand how you can treat them better.

See it in this way, when you are unwell and you speak to your doctor about your issues, the doctor will recommend medication which will help you cure your actual concern. This is exactly what sales intelligence aims to help the multiple sales reps reading this.

1. PROVIDES BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE

When you know what your prospects require, wouldn’t you cater to them better? 

“Filter everything you’re doing, saying and pitching through the customer point of view, and you’ll improve just about every metric you care about today.”

This is exactly what sales intelligence is all about. Helping you convert crucial data into insights that can help you act accordingly. In 2020, conducting sales doesn’t work according to a fixed format, it is with the use of data that you can modify and conduct sales activities that will cater to the relevant prospects.

2. HELPS TO TAP THE RIGHT LEADS

You will be conducting multiple campaigns now, in order to find the right leads for you hence with the data you get you will be able to understand which lead can add value to your business and which you need to capture. Now not all the prospects that land on your website or reply to your email are the ones for your business.

There will be many who will not add value to your brand which is why sales intelligence lets you analyze that and helps you tap only the valuable leads that can help you grow your business better. So instead of you wasting time contacting all the leads, sales intelligence lets you glance over the right ones and puts you in action quicker than before. 

3. HELPS YOU TO REACH OUT TO THE RIGHT LEADS AT THE RIGHT TIME

You can’t just hit your leads the minute they visit your website and start selling to them. You need to find the right time to do that. For instance, if your leads are visiting your pricing page, you can pop up and engage with them to give your product a chance by trying out the demo or free package. 

With the data you have in hand, you will be easily able to understand what type of leads you are catering to such as Hot leads (these are leads who will make the decision to purchase your product instantly), Warm leads (these are leads that are expecting a bit more push to invest in your product) and finally Cold leads (these are leads who are not convinced to buy yet but there are chances).

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When you are able to categorize them like the above it becomes much easier to tap the right leads and work accordingly. For instance, with cold leads, you can continue to nurture them by drawing their interest to your product more. You can conduct follow-ups and more to convert them into warm leads and then finally to a hot lead.

4. CLOSING MORE SALES DEALS WITH CONFIDENCE

It’s not easy to close deals but when you have sales intelligence who is helping you understand the prospect data you had, don’t you think closing sales deals quicker gives you the confidence. When you are able to understand what your prospect wants and give them just that, don't you think there will be a delay in sales deals being closed?

This is exactly what sales intelligence is all about. 

5. LET’S YOU CATER TO NEW AND EXISTING PROSPECTS SIMULTANEOUSLY

While you focus on taping the right prospects, your existing prospects need to be catered to. As the saying goes, ‘’it costs more to acquire new customers than to keep the old ones.” sales intelligence can help you keep both the parties happy at all times. 

With the data you have, you can easily understand what your new prospects and existing prospects expect from your brand and the product you are offering them. This gives you the opportunity to modify your selling tactics to them and enhance your product better. Now when you are giving your prospects whether they are new or exciting just what they expect, don’t you think your chances of selling becomes more easy and efficient?

You know how important data is for sales intelligence, but have you wondered how that data is retrieved in the first place?

There are a set of unique tools that technology brings to us that can help you gather these powerful and useful data for sales intelligence so that your sales activities always slay better than your competitors.

Let’s get you on a tour.

1. ADAPT.IO

Adapt.io lets you get contacts from across 100M+ contacts. This contact list can help you identify which are your potential prospects and you can filter them from the crowd and assists them better. Apart from contacts it also provides company data which makes it a better choice for B2B businesses. 

Best features of Adapt.io

1. Conducts automated follow-ups resulting in 10x more conversions
2. Provides free tools for scraping vital information about leads
3. Zero bounces are experienced
4. Can export prospect’s information to any CRM 

Pros:

1. All contacts shared are accurate
2. Also offers a chrome extension for sales ascension

Cons:

1. Domain for contacts is at times missing

G2 Ratings:

4.5/5

2. CLEARBIT

Clearbit is referred to as the marketing data engine for a very good reason. It helps you understand your prospects so well that your next action will always be personalized and you will know what needs to be done next. To give you an example of it, with the help of Clearbit identifying your future prospects becomes easy.

Best features of Clearbit:

1. Provides fresh real-time data
2. Receive data directly into the tools you use
3. It provides every minute detail of prospects so that understanding them and engaging with them becomes easier. To name a few are role, location and more
4. Guides and informs on new prospect arrival, online visitors and how campaigns can be personalized better

Pros:

1. An application well suited to function with the modern businesses of today
2. Every minute information of prospects are shared

Cons:

1. This application may not suit the small type of businesses

Trustradius Ratings:

8.3/10

Interesting Read : How to Conduct Price Intelligence in E-Commerce to Increase Sales?

3. INSIDEVIEW

Insideview can help make an impact on your revenue. All the data provided is accurate. It has a special integration where without any hassle it integrates easily with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Apart from providing company data and prospect data it also shares valuable information on social media feeds of the brand.

Best features of Insideview:

1. Helps you discover new markets to improve your sales performance
2. Manages CRM data without any manual effort
3. Organizes data collected so that the results can be retrieved better

Pros:

1. Offers data cleaning services
2. Provides data consulting services

Cons:

1. The LinkedIn connection with this application is a hassle task to use

Trustradius Ratings:

8.4/10

4. LEADFEEDER

Leadfeeder is another sales intelligence tool that helps you track who has visited your website, how they found you, and what they are interested in. Leadfeeder is accurate because it ensures that ISPs, bots, and any other sources which won’t give you the right leads are eliminated.

Best features:

1. Provides the option of eliminating any unwanted companies you don’t want to associate with
2. The data team at leadfeeder is always improving the way it conducts its data activities
3. Integrates with the tools that most multiple modern businesses used today
4. Receive only quality prioritized leads list

Pros:

1. Ensures that the content your share for your prospects are optimized as well
2. Leads are prioritized based on their actions on your website giving you the chance to tap them immediately

Cons:

1. Creating filters with this application is difficult

Capterra Ratings:

4.3/5

5. OWLER

Owler lets you always stay on top of your competitors. It tracks companies that are of importance to you. Its main focus is to send news alerts to all the executives, marketers, and salespersons as well.

Best features of Owler:

1. Access information from over 13 million public and private businesses
2. Identify companies that can help boost your business
3. Choose filters to extract the exact information
4. Filter the latest news to take the necessary actions for your business
5. Keep track of the companies you want to associate with

Pros:

1. Offers customizable real-time alerts of companies you want to keep a track of
2. Let’s you keep tabs on your competitors as well so you are always doing better than them

Cons:

1. The information provided by Owler is very limited

Trustradius Ratings:

7.1/10

6. LINKEDIN SALES NAVIGATOR

The Linkedin sales navigator is a complete sales intelligence tool. It helps you to find the right people, track them, and then start engaging with the valuable leads. Linkedin has grown to become such a platform where multiple professionals are present. With this tool, it will become easier to spot the right one for your business and direct your actions towards winning them before your competitors do.

Best features of Linkedin Sales Navigator:

1. Provides advanced lead and company searches
2. Recommends the right leads with the data present so that you engage only with the valuable ones
3. All lead details and lead accounts being catered to is automatically saved in your CRM
4. Organize your leads better with tags for better understanding

Pros:

1. Receive real-time sales updates
2. Cater to 500 million members on Linkedin even if you’re not connected with them

Cons:

1. Messaging length is limited

Trustradius Ratings:

8.5/10

Interesting Read : 15 Best Sales CRM Software for 2020

7. HUBSPOT SALES HUB

Hubspot sales hub aims towards helping you to improve your sales activities and scale it higher than usual. It ensures that your sales outreach is being conducted more. It makes sure that all your sales activities are being conducted in one place and sales deals are closed faster.

Best features of Hubspot Sales Hub:

1. Conducts email tracking to increase the efficiency of leads that come from that platform
2. Conducts predictive lead scoring
3. Get a view of who's interested in your solution without having to enquire
4. Conduct instant follow-ups before your cold leads can walk away from your inbox

Pros:

1. Almost all of the sales activities are automated
2. For every activity whether it is lead follow up or email activities, the support of data makes it easy to conduct the action

Cons:

1. For a beginner or a non-tech savvy person, this application can be difficult to get started with

Capterra Ratings:

4.5/5

8. UPLEAD

Uplead is another great sales intelligence tool. It helps to drive more growth with targeted sales leads. Its main focus is to immediately grow your sales figures by instantly connecting, finding, and engaging with qualified leads only.

Best features of Uplead:

1. Access 46 million business contacts across the globe
2. Search the companies you want to view or lookout for with an easy ‘Company search’ feature
3. Conducts data enrichment so that sales teams can build a better rapport with the leads
4. Connect with specific contacts instantly

Pros:

1. Backs leads with a 95%accuracy guarantee
2. All email addresses are verified by Uplead

Cons:

1. A few search parameters of Uplead is very limited to do conduct any other activities with it

Trustradius Ratings:

8.4/10

9. VAINU

Considered to be the best real-time company data, Vainu ensures that sales teams are enforced to push forward with their prospects eliminating any delays or stoppage. Vainu lets you personalize every interaction with your prospects so that conversion rates can be improved better.

Best features of Vainu:

1. Find your best prospects with over 100+ filters
2. Helps you understand when to tap your prospects and how you should do it
3. Conducts prospect research on behalf of you so that you can focus on achieving your sales goals

Pros:

1. Syncing prospect information has become easier with a single click
2. Receive prospect notification from the platform of your choice

Cons:

1. There are chances of receiving useless information if search criteria aren’t properly monitored

Capterra Ratings:

4.4/5

While these tools can help you capture data for sales intelligence, there is also another way for you to capture data so that you can always have quality data in hand. It is a secure and simple solution that is used by multiple users like you, a solution popularly known as ‘proxy servers.’

A Proxy service blocks your identity. It lets you surf the internet such as websites to capture vital information. Now you are aware that not all the websites can be accessed by you or anyone due to a restricted fence built but with a proxy server you can.

What a proxy server will do is it will hide your IP address. For instance, say that you want to access some vital information about the competitors you are engaging with. But the information is blocked and it will only allow users from their country to access it. So what a proxy server will do here is it will hide your original IP address and give you a new one.

Interesting Read : How to Automate Price Intelligence?

That new IP address will determine the location of where that competitor is so when you try to access it, it will be approved. It’s simple, you send a request to view a website, that request passes through a proxy server who gets the approval for you. In any case, nothing happens to your original IP address.

By now you realize how important sales intelligence is and how it can convert data into a pool of valuable prospect insights, with a reliable proxy server, you can capture all the other data that you’ve missed so that in the end, your sales activities are tuned according to the rich data you have in hand.