What’s in your sales tech stack?

Sales Hacker breaks down the ROI, adoption rate, and impact of 40+ sales tools in 2021

In 2021, the growing number of hurdles and challenges for sales teams don't end with prospecting and selling. An ever-growing field of tools to choose from can make the task downright daunting.

As a buyer, you might be wondering: will I get a good return on investment on the tools I select? Will new software help my team, or create more work? Will a majority of team members be receptive to something new in the first place?

To help ease this selection process, Sales Hacker surveyed over 1,000 sales and revenue leaders about their experience using over 40 tools across seven different categories.

This blog post will break down some key highlights, although for deeper insights we recommend checking out the full report: Sales Stack in 2021: ROI, Adoption, and Impact.

CRM, data intelligence, and sales engagement: The sales stack Triforce

Just as all pieces of the Triforce empower each other (or, for non-Zelda fans, just as pyramids rely on each side for strength), one of the report’s biggest takeaways is that it’s essential to understand the strong relationship between having a CRM, Data Intelligence tool, and Sales Engagement solution in your stack.

Overall, these three categories ranked as having the highest overall return on investment and widespread impact on rep performance and productivity.

While it's not surprising to see CRM ranking so high, you may not have considered having the other tools as fundamental in filling data gaps, streamlining prospecting, and creating actionable data for sales engagement.

But with 89% of respondents saying they have a Data & Intelligence tool in place and 72% using a Sales Engagement solution, all three of these tools should come together, front and center, when building a sales stack.

This isn’t a popularity contest

Just because a tool is popular doesn't mean it's the right fit for everyone. Sales Hacker notes that popularity doesn't necessarily reflect ROI, adoption, or overall impact at all.

Data from the survey showed that tools like LeadIQ had a higher perceived ROI than huge players like Sales Navigator.

When researching tools for your sales stack, make sure you take some time to dive deep into features or schedule a demo to understand how it can fit in with the rest of your stack instead of relying solely on how widely used it is.

Adoption for sales tools is low across the board

One of the more surprising takeaways from the report was the low adoption rates across the board. When respondents were asked to rank tools with Good or Full adoption, most categories barely reached 50 percent. Even CRMs, the foundation of most sales stacks, didn't crack 60 percent.

In a discussion, Chad Nuss says this may be the case because of a sales-world version of "The Tragedy of the Commons." What this means is that most tools are designed for a baseline of common usage, instead of being targeted to specific roles responsible for using them.

Another reason for low adoption rates could be caused by the involvement of the people who kicked off the purchasing process. With sales being such a "me-centric" industry, if there was only buy-in from the top instead of individual users, it may be challenging to get adoption levels to a point of justifying a good ROI.

What will your tech stack look like?

These are just a few of the highlights that stood out in the Sales Hacker Report. If you are in the process of reevaluating your sales stack in 2021 or beyond, you will want to give the report a good readthrough.