Thought I would share the tools I use day-to-day with you, along with some commentary.
CRM | Business data | sales tools | cold emailing | Email finder | Cold emailing | Self Publishing | Video | More
CRM
I still use ACT! from my active calling days. Two features that stand out to me as critical if you are doing outbound. 1) All key data you need to make a call is on one view. As soon as you call up a record, BOOM, at a glance you have a grasp as to what is happening and can decide what to do. No bopping around 5 screens to find out what you need to know to make a call. You control the layout and can put all the important stuff in one spot. 2) Custom fields. You can set up custom fields easily for potential worth codes and anything that is important to you. Then you can slice and dice by any combination of these fields to drill down into segments of your list.
If you are on my email list that is sent out using ACT! marketing automation which is very convenient.
Every CRM has its faults. Every. Single. One. I think ACT! is behind the times on a few things, particularly Email and Internet integration. But not enough to make me want to change. My ACT! agency Keystroke.ca has some custom add-ons and help options that make using ACT! a lot easier.
If I were to change, I would look heavily at Pipedrive or ActiveCampaign. If I was small and just needed something basic I would look at LessAnnoyingCRM.com which is simple, intuitive and cheap.
Business data
My go to for decades has been the old Salesgenie, now DataAxleGenie.com. Find it a reliable resource for “first cut” info as to industry and company size. Not good at all for identifying decision-makers within companies or emails.
ExactBuyer.com. Full disclosure, they were a client. Chief data scientist for a leading business data source founded his own company to do things a different way. I am in ExactBuyer pretty much every day. I use it to identify people behind generic email addresses and to do advanced searches for companies using AI and keyword tools that I have not seen anywhere else.
Rant mode on: Every compiled data source is not 100% accurate. Don’t focus on what is inaccurate, focus on what you can do with what is accurate. Rant mode off.
Linkedin Sales Navigator is a must have to identify decision-makers within companies and a lot more.
Finding Email address
Have tried many but GetProspect.io is my go to. It integrates with Linkedin easily. Can get emails individually or in bulk. My experience is that I can get an email address 63% of the time and they are 95% deliverable.
If GetProspect doesn’t find me an email address I check VoilaNorbert.com.
Have tried many but if I can’t find an email address using the two tools above, I’m done looking.
Cold Emailing
If you send cold emails to those that have not given you permission, you MUST use a cold email tool and set it up properly.
I have used Outreach, PersistIq and Quickmail.io. Have had a number of clients use Woodpecker.co and be pleased with it.
If you are looking for something simpler PersistIq and Woodpecker would be the places to look. Outreach.io is the Cadillac option. When I was doing large volume cold emailing a few years ago I used Outreach with great success.
My strong preference now is Quickmail.io. It is beyond basics sophisticated without the pricing and commitment of Outreach. Plus, the founder is a cold email geek always improving the product and providing real world practical tips, not hype.
Video recording
Descript.com. If you want to do more video but find editing a pain, look at this program. This program generates a transcript next to your video. As you edit the transcript it automatically edits the video. Insane.
Other tools
Zoom
Otter.ai to transcribe recordings
ProWritingaid.com for editing everything. My blog posts, emails and books. Used Grammarly before and it was good, but prefer ProWritingAid.
Self Publishing
I have self-published five books, the first in 2004. It has worked great for me and I highly recommend it to anyone that has expertise to share or wishes to gain an advantage in the marketplace. It can be a bit scary to think of writing and figure out the logistics of publishing, but it is very doable.
IMHO publishing provides you an unfair marketing advantage. Considering the time invested and difficultly factor I truly believe that publishing beats other positioning and lead generation options by multitudes. Nothing can compare.
For preparing the first draft of a book I use Word and ProWritingAid.
Once it comes back from my editor, I use Atticus.io to layout the book. Absolutely fantastic tool that saves a ton of money. Generates files needed for paperback, hardcover and Kindle versions with click of a button. Ton of layout options.
Get ISBN numbers from Myidentifiers.com.
To make the book visible I use a tool called Publisher Rocket for competitive book and keyword research. Use AmazonAds to make sure my books are visible in all the right places. Thought I knew a lot about AmazonAds but a book by Matthew J. Holmes on Amazon Ads for authors really produced not only book sales but more inquiries for consulting and training.
Hope the above helps.
