The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 160: My Top 3 Sales Tools

Today, I am talking all about the top three sales tools I use and recommend for you! I will be giving you recommendations based on what you need at your specific level in your business, so if you are just getting started or you are already at 10K months there is something for you. I also share specific software I have used and still use in my business today!

My Top 3 Sales Tools

By: Melissa Lin

Welcome back to another episode of the Fierce Business Babe Podcast! I hope that you're having an amazing day, an amazing morning, evening, weekend, whatever day of the week it is you're listening to this podcast. I know that it's just been such an exciting week for myself. It is currently the first week of fall. If you've never been to Seattle in the fall time, one of the things I absolutely love about the Pacific Northwest is we have such beautiful seasons. The leaves are falling and they're changing colors right now and it is just such a beautiful, beautiful time to be in Seattle and anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, and everything else along with it, right? Anyways, let's talk about something that my clients absolutely love seeing: the behind the scenes of my business and the softwares that I use, the different things I used when I first started versus what I'm using now, and what I would recommend, what are some of the products or the softwares that I used at the very beginning that I don't use anymore. Actually, I've done a pretty good job, I’ve got to toot my own horn here. I've done a really great job over the years of doing my research and making sure that I do use the softwares that are going to work for me and my business, so I actually haven't had too many softwares that I would not recommend. But today is all about what I do recommend, and so, again, yes there’s so much that goes into the front end of your business, right? Your messaging, your branding, and there's also a lot that goes on behind the scenes in the back end of your business, and that's what today's podcast episode is all about.

I’m going to be diving into my top three sales tools with you. And so I'm actually specifically going to be going into my top three sales tools that I absolutely love using in my business that help me, of course, with sales and driving more sales. Some of the actual softwares that we use with these tools, with the systems, and when I would recommend adding them into your business, whether you're at the beginning, you know, if you're a beginner coach or beginner business owner, and you’re just getting started, or maybe you're already at 5K months or 10K months, I’m going to share what I would recommend based off of where you are in your business, right? There are softwares out there that do have free versions, so you can definitely get started for free. And I actually had somebody ask me, I think yesterday, in my DMs, “Melissa, I've been wanting to start my online business. Is there anything that I really need to invest in, you know, outside of maybe your program or something like that to get my business started?” One of the really cool things about starting an online business is there's such little overhead, right? You don't need to go and get actual office space somewhere. You can literally start a business with your laptop, or with your iPad, or even with your phone. Like, you don't need too much to get started, and there are so many free softwares out there and just other things for you to get going. And then, as you start to bring in more income, you can definitely start to invest more and upgrade to pro versions and business versions and things like that. But anyways, that is what we're going to get into.

Lead Generating Tools

Something that I do want to say is that when you are in the beginning stages of your business, and I know you mentioned this, a few minutes ago, when you're in the beginning stages of your business, you don't necessarily need any of these tools, however, they can be helpful, and there's definitely free versions of everything. So for example, when you're starting out, you don't necessarily need a super duper fancy CRM system, right? You can definitely get started with a free version of a CRM system or your own that you create inside of a Google sheet or inside of another software, and I'm definitely going to go through some examples today on some of the softwares that we use. There's always something to help you get started and I'm really looking forward to going into that with you today. Most have enough features for you to at least get started, and then of course if you continue to grow your business, and scale your business, and have more income coming in you can definitely start to invest back into your business and upgrade into some of those pro versions, if you like, of the software. So if you've been in my audience you've heard me walk through having the sales process and what that looks like. And if you're not sure what I mean by that, I have so many different podcast episodes about sales and creating your own sales process, so I definitely recommend going and checking out some of those. And with your sales process the first step is lead generation, and that's where I want to start today in this episode. I want to chat about my favorite lead generation tools and keeping them organized and whatnot. So, the first sales tool that I recommend is some type of lead generation tool. Whether this is you keeping this information in a notebook, in a Google sheet, somewhere where you know who your leads are in your business. For example, if you have potential clients applying for your programs, where are you keeping track of this? If you've offered a placement into one of your programs, are you tracking when you'll be following up with them? If you popped on a sales call with a potential client, do you have anything noted in your tracker about following up if they haven’t enrolled yet? And especially as you continue to grow your business, you're going to want to be as organized as you can be on the back end, that way you can continue to grow and scale, of course, without chaos everywhere. Over the years I’ve used quite a few different tools for lead generation and just overall CRM systems. So over the years I've used many tools, including Google Sheets, Asana, Airtable, and yes, there are free versions of each of those available to use. And then, of course, we do use ActiveCampaign for our larger, you know, email host site for that information. And what we use at the moment for our main tool for all of our applications that we have coming in every single day and just keeping things organized in the back end with our potential clients and those that want to work with us, we use Airtable. And if you have never used Airtable, I highly, highly, highly recommend my clients LOVE our behind the scenes of Airtable that we provide them in our programs. For example, we have a note template, an actua lead generation template inside of Airtable for our clients so they can just take it and upload it right into their own Airtable so they can start to use it for their businesses. We also have a version in a Google Sheet for our clients. The reason I love Airtable so much, side note we actually use Airtable for a lot of different things in the business on the back end and this is one of my favorite tools. If I were to only choose one, this would be one of my top ones I would pick. We use it for so many different things in our business and it's so cool because it's basically an Excel sheet on steroids and there are so many different things you can do with Airtable. There's so much organization you can do in the back end outside of just using it as your lead tracker or a generation tool. So, there's just so many cool ways to organize and distort things. So for example, we also use it for our content planner in our content schedule, and also for our content bank. We also utilize Airtable for our client statuses and different things like that.

There's just so much that we can do and so, you know, as you start to create your lead tracker and, surprise surprise, if you're wondering what to put into a lead tracker or how to really utilize a lead tracker best for your business, because your lead tracker is your golden book in your business; It's where all of your leads are and you really want to be going into this every single day as a business owner, or somebody on your team going into this every single day. I always say that fortune is truly in the follow-up. And so you want to really utilize this tool. If you're going to set up a tool and let it sit there, this is the one not to do that for, not to let it sit there, please, please, please utilize your lead tracker. The things that you focus on, those are things that are going to expand your business, so keep going into that lead tracker. And so I do have a podcast episode all about what to put into the lead tracker, how to organize it, that sort of thing. So, you know, you can for example, this'll just be a quick little spoiler, but if you want the full episode, definitely go back and listen. I think I have to do two episodes, one that’s how to really utilize your lead tracker and then one that’s how to set one up. And what we do is we like to track my Instagram handles, email addresses, what program they applied for, all of their responses to our questions so that we can go in and organize, you know, who’s fit for our programs and maybe someone who's not quite ready for it. There's so much that you can do and it's really about what is important to you, what information is important to you. So if it's important to you to label whether they’re a hot lead, or warm lead, or a cold lead, you can sort and filter those out. And so it's such a cool tool and I highly recommend it. And if you do hop into one of our programs we do provide all of the templates for all of this, almost everything that you need in your business in terms of templates and things like that. So, definitely something I would check out in terms of other podcast episodes that I have if you want to learn more about that.

Sales Tracking Tools

So I want to go into the second tool that I recommend. The second tool is some type of sales or metric tracking. And one of my big reasons that I track sales and metrics is because, number one I always want to have a pulse on how the business is doing, and number to what we focus on expands, so if my team and I are always going in to look at these numbers, iIf we see that there hasn't been growth, we're going to do something about it, right? There are so many things that we track on the back end of our businesses to see how sales are doing and what type of improvements we can make. And I want to share how you can start to take a look at some of your numbers to help predict what needs to be done to move the needle forward. So I highly recommend, you know, whether this is in a Google Sheets, whether it is in Google studio, whether it's in Airtable, yes you can do this in Airtable as well. So we are actually in the current process of upgrading our entire dashboard system so everything is 100% automated. We've used many different softwares in the past for our tracking, we've used Google Sheets, we’ve used Airtable, and so it's really about which software or which platform you like and you prefer. And again we’ve got templates for our clients. Something that I do want to also share is a lot of the actual sales and dollar tracking is already done for you through your payment processor. So you can actually see a ton of information already in analytics and reports inside of Stripe if you have it. If you’re using Stripe you've got all that information for you, so you can easily zap it into a Google Sheet if you wanted to track that stuff. You can also just use the reports right there, directly in Stripe. You also can do so on PayPal and Thrivecart. That sort of thing. The reports are absolutely endless and again this is all dependent on what it is that you want to know. And so something I do want to mention is, you know, sales is a skill and you will continue to improve as you continue to practice that skill. So let's say that you're working on signing 1:1 coaching spots each month, and you've collected the data that shows for every 10 sales calls you hop on with potential clients, you close five of them. So that means that you have a 50% close rate. And so, if you wanted to double the number of clients, for the next month, you can either hop on twice as many calls, that would be 20 sales calls to sign 10 new clients, or you can make some adjustments to your sales calls and that process to improve your close rate so that the next month, instead of only closing five of those 10, you close six or seven out of ten. So again some type of KPI tracking, some type of sales metric tracking. And again, you can do all of this in a Google Sheet if you want to. We set our clients up with Google Sheets and different Airtable templates to get them started, and it's really about the tools that you use and, as you continue to grow, the tools that you and your team also use together. So definitely something to be looking at. The things that you focus on are the things that are going to expand. So that is the second tool I recommend, and I recommend getting that started ASAP. As soon as you get your business started, as soon as you sign your first client you want to be tracking this information. You know, how much is coming into the business? How much is leaving the business? What do the sales look like from month to month? Are you growing? Or is it going down? What are those numbers? What do those numbers look like, right? Because you can start to make decisions as the CEO when you do have some of those numbers. So definitely start to track some type of metrics that help you move the needle forward. So now ask yourself, what is it that you want more of, and then start to track the things that are going to help you get more out of that. And most of it will be related to sales most likely.

Payment Processors

So the third tool that I want to chat about is a payment processor. This is something you get to have very early on in your business and something that I want to share is some things that I've used over the years. So when I first started my business years and years ago, I started with PayPal and then eventually moved into something called Wave Accounting, I really liked using that software, and then eventually moved into Stripe. So now we mainly use Stripe for all of our finances and bringing sales in. I want to just remind you that you don't need anything super-duper fancy when you get started. Set up a business PayPal account, just have something to get started, so that you are able to send an invoice to a client through PayPal or through Stripe. Set up some type of payment tool so that your clients can pay you. You don’t want them to be mailing a check to you personally, you want to start early where you've got things set up with a business account if you can. You want to also be able to grow at volume and so having a payment processor is going to help you be able to do that. So as we've scaled over the years, we eventually upgraded our payment processor, right? We've definitely been bringing in more volume over the years and the payment processor that we use now just has so much more flexibility. So we use Thrivecart right now, and I've been with Thrivecart for over 2 years now and I absolutely love them. They've got great checkout pages, great branding capabilities, great automation, and so basically the difference between Thrivecart, my payment processor, and like Stripe, for example, Stripe is the source that actually takes the money whereas Thrivecart is the checkout page. So Thrivecart is a tool that helps us beautify our checkout page. Instead of creating so many different sales pages we’re very easily able to create a branded checkout page and also make duplicates and add in our terms and conditions to the checkout pages and things like that. I recommend some type of payment processor that you can send clients actual invoices and can collect payments and set up payment plans automatically. That way you're not needing to go in and charge your clients every two weeks or every month. You want to be able to take as much off of your plate as you can through automation. If you're able to, this is definitely something that you can start on very very early.

Bonus Tips for Your Business

I do want to go into some bonus tips too and something I want to recommend is really get to know your sales process and ask yourself: how can I make this smoother for my clients and for my potential clients? So, for example, your onboarding process, I know it's a little outside of sales, but once you've made the sale, your client will then move on to your onboarding process and you want to make it as smooth as possible, the smoother, the better the client experience. What I would recommend is to automate as much of it as you can. Your client doesn't necessarily want to hop on five different phone calls with you to give you their credit card information. That's why you have a payment processor like PayPal account or Stripe where you can send an invoice and don't need to do that. Stop hopping on so many phone calls to try and get that charge in. Set up an automatic plan that way you're not needing to send an invoice every single month or your client isn’t needing to put in their credit card information every single month. Make it as smooth as possible. Most of your sales process can be automated. So for example, if somebody does apply for one of your programs, what does that look like? Are you sending them a million emails after or do you have a fairly smooth process to get them on a call? And really ask yourself, how can you make it smoother for your clients and for your team? There's another bonus there. How can you make it smoother with your team? Some of the tools we've chatted about today can definitely help make things smoother for your team. For example, your lead generation tool, if you're using Airtable, or if your team has access to your Google, Sheets, or your Google Drive, where you're hosting this tool, then they can go, and they can also support you. If you have it in your notebook or if it's like listed out maybe on your iPad or your MacBook on your notes, then it's going to be difficult to share that with your team. Unless your team has access to that notebook as well, which is totally fine. However, you want to keep things as organized and just as easy for everybody, right? The easier it is for everyone, the more likely it is you'll be able to move things forward.

So have chatted today about my top three sales tools. And so the first was some type of lead generation tool. The second is some type of sales tracking tool, and most payment processors do have this embedded into software. And if you're wondering, well, if it's already embedded, why do I need to track it outside of it? I recommend doing so just because as your business continues to grow, your team will want to know and may need to know some of this information so they can also make decisions for you, because as you continue to grow and scale you will not be the only person making decisions in your business. And if you don't want all of your team members to have the username and password to your actual Stripe account, then you can always just put it in a dashboard so it's just very easy for people to see that information. So, there's one reason why you may want to put it into a Google sheet or an Airtable or a Google Studio instead of just using the reports. We can also export the reports into a Google Sheet or something. And then of course some type of payment processor so you can send invoices or take payments very easily and not need to stress about going back and forth with clients every single month. Let's make that a very smooth process for you and your client. And that is what we touched on today. The top three sales tools that I love using, some of the actual software that we use, and when I would recommend to start adding them into your business. We are already getting ready for next week's episode and I cannot wait to share it with you. We will see you next week in another brand new episode of The Fierce Business Babe Podcast bright and early next Monday morning!

Topics we cover include:

Lead generation tools
Sales tracking tools
Payment processors

And so much more!

Times to check out:

(12:20) Lead generation tools

(18:25) Sales tracking tools

(22:59) Payment processors

(26:58) Bonus tips

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