We Made $1.23M in 12 Months With These Sales Tools

Looking back to our early days of Proxycurl (we have been in business for 3 years now as of writing), we’ve tested and used various sales tools to get that crucial little edge over our competitors. And the results speak for themselves—an impressive $1.23 million in revenue in the first 12 months.

Now, I'm not saying we're the undisputed champions in our field. But I do think we have some qualities that separate us from others you can learn from—that is we work smart and try to automate everything as much as possible.

From prospecting to sales analytics, I’ll walk you through the sales tools and techniques in our arsenal that may propel your business to similar success.

TLDR

CRM

Just like every other business out there, we would die without a CRM. In the early days, we tried to manage everything with spreadsheets to keep our expenses down. That approach works. But as the business exploded, our heads exploded too.

Having all that customer information scattered across different spreadsheets was inefficient. And trying to collaborate and share updates across the team made us insane. Even using spreadsheet templates didn’t help us at all.

Luckily we realized early that sticking with our existing method is a recipe for disaster. So we finally decided to invest in a proper CRM.

Salesforce (4.77/5)

So, we chose Salesforce because it’s the industry leader, the big dog in the industry. But that’s not the only reason. We also want to learn it as we're planning to build a third-party integration via Sapiengraph. Hence, we went with Salesforce.

Here's how we handle it in Salesforce. We start by adding leads. Then, as they move along their customer journey and eventually become a paying customer, we'll update their status. At that point, we'll change them from a "lead" to an "account."

Below is an example of a lead. After adding them, we’ll fill in their names, company, and email address.

We can also add tasks for ourselves like follow-ups, reminders to send invoices and quotations, etc.

We can also log their email threads.

Salesforce has a ton of advanced tools. They've got 14 products for sales and 8 for marketing! Then there are 5 more categories - commerce, service, Tableau, MuleSoft, and Einstein 1 platform. All these add up to 56 products in total!

You can also integrate Salesforce with lots of existing apps. You can also build your custom apps right on their platform. However, all that power and complexity comes at a price, not just in cash but also in the time it takes to get the hang of it.

Here are other CRM recommendations you can consider.

Hubspot (4.43/5)

Hubspot is considered one of the best CRMs today alongside Salesforce. HubSpot is more user-friendly and budget-friendly but it doesn’t pack the same punch as Salesforce when it comes to advanced features and customizability.

If you want to dip your toe before committing, HubSpot offers a free plan for basic CRM needs while Salesforce does not. However, you can try Salesforce with the 30-day free trial while HubSpot gives a 14-day free trial for its paid plans.

All HubSpot plans, even the free plan, come with solid features. For example, contact management, email scheduling, deal pipeline meeting scheduling, team email, and user management.

Pipedrive (4.38/5)

Pipedrive has the normal CRM features you’d expect like managing leads, visual sales pipelines, customizable dashboards, and mobile apps. Pipedrive starts at $14 monthly per user if you pay annually, which is more affordable compared to Salesforce, which starts at $25 monthly per user.

So, if you’re a small or mid-sized business owner who needs a cheaper Salesforce alternative, Pipedrive might be perfect for you.

Zoho (4.40/5)

Zoho CRM is an excellent entry-level CRM tool. For businesses just starting, Zoho has a free version that covers the core principles of any CRM well, which is tracking leads and contacts.

When your business has grown and you upgrade to a paid plan, you’ll unlock several features, including automating marketing tasks.

Not just that, you can also sync up Zoho CRM with other Zoho tools and third-party apps such as QuickBooks, Mailchimp, Google Analytics, and PayPal.

Sales Intelligence AKA Prospecting

When it comes to prospecting, our crucial edge is our own sales tools: Proxycurl and Sapiengraph. We don’t just sell them, we use them too.

A lot of companies rely on our data, so using our products is our badge of honor. It's how we earn trust, not just ask for it. If we don’t believe in our own stuff, how can we expect our users to?

Proxycurl (4.91/5)

Proxycurl offers two great products: LinkDB and our API. LinkDB is our dataset of 487M+ LinkedIn profiles covering 285 countries and territories worldwide. Our API, partially powered by LinkDB and enriched with additional sources, is a LinkedIn scraper that scrapes profiles, companies, and jobs.

We usually use our dataset to query the profiles we’re looking for. Then, we use API to enrich those profiles with detailed data not found in LinkDB such as work email addresses, latest work experience, which LinkedIn groups they are a part of, volunteer work experience, test scores, a list of other closely related LinkedIn profiles, and more.

For the sake of simplicity, I will not show the LinkDB query examples but will use Python with the Proxycurl API instead.

In the following examples, we will search for the personal email addresses of individuals meeting these criteria, as well as the general company email address they work for.

• Located in the US
• Have "ceo" or "chief executive officer" in their current job title
• Working at companies in the US
• Working within the Human Resources industry
• The companies have a minimum of 100 employees.

Step 1: Use the Person Search Endpoint to find the specific person

First, I set the 'page_size':'10' to get 10 results and use 'enrich_profiles' = 'enrich' to obtain detailed profiles. By enriching the profiles, I can access their latest work experience and dig into their company profiles which might include their contact emails.

For simplicity, I will save the response from the Person Search Endpoint as person_search_01.json. You might prefer to save the results in a database.

import json
import requests

api_key = 'YOUR_API_KEY'
headers = {'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + api_key}
api_endpoint = 'https://nubela.co/proxycurl/api/v2/search/person'
params = {
    'country': 'US',
    'current_role_title': 'ceo OR chief executive officer',
    'current_company_country': 'US',
    'current_company_industry': 'Human Resources',
    'current_company_employee_count_min': '100',
    'page_size': '10',
    'enrich_profiles': 'enrich'
}
response = requests.get(api_endpoint,
                        params=params,
                        headers=headers)
                        
data = response.json()

with open('result/person_search_01.json', 'w') as output_file:
    output_file.write(json.dumps(data, indent=2))

If the search parameters result in more entries than the specified page_size, the response will include a next_page URL. This URL can be used to retrieve the next set of 10 results as I set the page_size to 10 earlier.

I save these next results as person_search_02.json.

import json
import requests

with open('result/person_search_01.json', 'r') as input_file:
    person_search_01 = json.loads(input_file.read())
    
next_page = person_search_01['next_page']

api_key = 'YOUR_API_KEY'
headers = {'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + api_key}
api_endpoint = next_page
response = requests.get(api_endpoint,
                        headers=headers)
                        
data = response.json()

with open('result/person_search_02.json', 'w') as output_file:
    output_file.write(json.dumps(data, indent=2))

If the response still contains a next_page URL, we can repeat the previous action until we have gathered all the results, as indicated by the total_result_count field.

Step 2: Use Personal Email Lookup to find each person’s personal email

In the following example, I will perform these steps:

1. Read the profiles from the person_search_01.json file.
2. Loop through the results and use the Personal Email Lookup Endpoint with the linkedin_profile_url to return personal emails, if available. Limit the results to 3 emails per profile by including the 'pagesize': '3' parameter.
3. Update the profiles to include a personal_emails field populated with the results from the Personal Email Lookup Endpoint.
4. Overwrite the person_search_01.json file with the updated profile data.

import json
import requests

with open('result/person_search_01.json', 'r') as input_file:
    person_search_01 = json.loads(input_file.read())
    
for index, result in enumerate(person_search_01['results']):
    linkedin_profile_url = result['linkedin_profile_url']
    
    api_key = 'YOUR_API_KEY'
    headers = {'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + api_key}
    api_endpoint = 'https://nubela.co/proxycurl/api/contact-api/personal-email'
    params = {
        'linkedin_profile_url': linkedin_profile_url,
        'page_size': '3',
    }
    response = requests.get(api_endpoint,
                            params=params,
                            headers=headers)
                            
    data = response.json()
    
    person_search_01['results'][index]['profile']['personal_emails'] \
        = data['emails']
        
with open('result/person_search_01.json', 'w') as output_file:
    output_file.write(json.dumps(person_search_01, indent=2))

I only show an example of using the Personal Email Lookup Endpoint because it is simple. Using the Work Email Lookup Endpoint requires a more complex implementation, as it involves a webhook to notify your application when the request has finished processing.

If you would like to see the demo, please contact us at [email protected].

Step 3: Use the Company Profile Endpoint to find each person's current company email address

Each person’s profile I saved earlier may have work experience. For any experience without an end date, which could be their current occupation, I can use the company's LinkedIn profile URL to get the company information, including the company’s general email if available.

In the following example, I will perform these steps:

1. Read the profiles from the person_search_01.json file.
2. Loop through the results and check if the profile exists, the ends_at field of the first experience is None (null), and the company_linkedin_profile_url exists.
3. Check if the company_linkedin_profile_url has been previously stored in
   existing_company_profile_urls variable. If it has, continue to the next profile (skipping the next steps). If not, store the URL and proceed with the next steps. This step will prevent
   retrieving the same company profile multiple times.
4. Use the Company Profile Endpoint with the company_linkedin_profile_url, making sure to use the 'extra': 'include' parameter to return an email if available.
5. Save all the responses from the Company Profile Endpoint in companies_01.json.

import json
import requests

with open('result/person_search_01.json', 'r') as input_file:
    person_search_01 = json.loads(input_file.read())
    
companies = []
existing_company_profile_urls = set()

for index, result in enumerate(person_search_01['results']):
    if result['profile'] is None:
        continue
        
    experience = result['profile']['experiences'][0]
    if experience['ends_at'] is not None:
        continue
        
    company_linkedin_profile_url = experience['company_linkedin_profile_url']
    if company_linkedin_profile_url is None or \
       company_linkedin_profile_url in existing_company_profile_urls:
        continue
        
    existing_company_profile_urls.add(company_linkedin_profile_url)
        
    api_key = 'YOUR_API_KEY'
    headers = {'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + api_key}
    api_endpoint = 'https://nubela.co/proxycurl/api/linkedin/company'
    params = {
        'url': company_linkedin_profile_url,
        'categories': 'include',
        'funding_data': 'include',
        'exit_data': 'include',
        'acquisitions': 'include',
        'extra': 'include',
        'use_cache': 'if-present',
        'fallback_to_cache': 'on-error',
    }
    response = requests.get(api_endpoint,
                            params=params,
                            headers=headers)
                            
    companies.append(response.json())
    
with open(f'result/companies_01.json', 'w') as output_file:
    output_file.write(json.dumps(companies, indent=2))

You can repeat this step with the person_search_02.json file, and continue similarly for subsequent files.

Result example

Sapiengraph (4.88/5)

Sapiengraph is a Google Sheets extension. It allows you to enrich and get fresh B2B data on people or companies using custom spreadsheet formulas.

Let's say you want to search for CEOs in the US who studied at Harvard University. For this case, we will use the Person Search formula.

Find LinkedIn profiles

• US – Alpha-2 country code
• 20 – Max amount of search results
• Harvard University – School name
• CEO – Title
• Commas – Other criteria in the formula sequence that we skipped

Find emails

Now, let’s find their personal emails. For this, we’ll use the Personal Email Lookup formula.

We have 22 formulas you can explore. If you’re interested to test it out, you can sign up for a free trial here and get 100 free credits.

P.S. Sapiengraph also has a free job change monitor. You can track up to 20 profiles for free.

Here are other prospecting tools you can try.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator (4.39/5)

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is designed specifically for salespeople. Sales Navigator has a lot of features. Here are some core ones:

• Prioritization of accounts

It lets you sort accounts based on intent level, connections, and recent company news like funding or layoffs.

• Identifying hidden connections to make warm introductions

The TeamLink shows you your colleagues' connections so you can get a warm intro. Relationship Explorer maps out potential connections at a company, and gives you tips on relationship building.

• Leveraging key signals to reach out

You’ll be notified anytime something big happens such as when a new executive comes in, they're on a hiring spree, or they just got funded.

However, Sales Navigator doesn't let you export the leads. Here's an insider info - we are building a Sapiengraph Prospector. It's what you wish Sales Navigator is. 🤫

Apollo (4.40/5)

Apollo claims itself as the all-in-one platform to find your perfect customers, get in touch with them, and close them. Apollo has a database of 275M+ contacts (we have 487M+ though). Here are some things you can do with its database:

• You can enrich and update accounts in your CRM
• Find new leads using 65+ filters

Lusha (4.37/5)

Lusha is a prospecting and data enrichment platform. With Lusha, you can:

• Target buyers with behavioral data to tell when decision-makers are ready to buy
• Find contact details (emails and mobile numbers) of your ICP
• Automatically fill and enrich your CRM with new leads based on your ICP via automatic workflow

Usergems (4.36/5)

From what I understand, Usergems focuses on giving company and people-level buy signals rather than prospecting. Some of the signals are:

• Job changes
• New hires
• New promotion
• Website visitors

For example, you can track job changes of your previous customers, users, or prospects so you can reach out and ask them to introduce your product to their new companies.

Outbound Automation (via email)

We use email outreach for two things: sending cold emails and newsletters.

Cold emails have been absolutely crucial for us. They’re the reason we got off the ground in the first place. In the first few months of running this startup, we made a few thousand dollars in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) through cold emails. Even today, we still send cold emails.

Sendy (4.24/5)

We started with Sendy because it’s so cheap. $60 one-time fee + super cheap emails via SES. We can also send as many emails as we want from it without paying more, unlike other SaaS, which will make me pay more the more I use it.

However, 2 big issues came up:

1. Amazon got mad at us when we used SES for marketing emails. And we do not want to risk our reputation/account with AWS.

2. Then, cold emails from SES no longer perform well after the Gmail/Yahoo mail 2024 update. Cold emails became MUCH harder to land in inboxes. If we keep doing this, our emails’ new home is in the spam box.

By the way, Sendy’s user interface is weird. I was confused about how it worked the first time I logged in.

It’s also inconvenient to send follow-up emails since Sendy is more on sending newsletters than cold emails. We’ll have to create a new campaign and quote the last email to make it look like a real reply. It's not straightforward at all.

That’s one of the reasons we switched to Mailforge and Smartlead.

Mailforge (4.65/5)

Mailforge is a cold email infrastructure. We use it to:

1. Permutate and register many domains that sound similar to proxycurl.com (IE: useproxycurl.com, withproxycurl.com, etc)

2. For each of these domains, handle DNS settings to handle SPF/DKIM/MX configuration.

3. Set up and manage mailboxes per domain.

So far, our experience with Mailforge is great. We have used Mailforge to register 22 domains, with 2 email accounts per domain.

Watch the demo video below.

Smartlead (4.81/5)

After that, we’ll load up the emails we have created into Smartlead. This is the super convenient sales tool we pay for to:

• Warm up all our emails.

  Warm-up means sending an email from an address we control to another address that the warm-up network controls. The idea is that if the email lands in spam, then the network will mark it as Not Spam. Otherwise, it sends emails that look real to many inboxes to simulate real-world email behavior. Basically, build the email address's reputation.

• Combines a large number of mailboxes to send email campaigns from a variety of warmed-up emails to a large list of recipients.

• Handles A/B testing and email sequences.

• Handles spintax. Spintax is a technique to create variety in one email. For example,

    {Hi|Hey}. Are you {open for|taking in} new investment?
  

So, there are 4 possible variations of this email. Some recipients will receive the 1st variation, some 2nd, and so on.

   1. Hi. Are you open for new investment?
   2. Hi. Are you taking in new investment?
   3. Hey. Are you open for new investment?
   4. Hey. Are you taking in new investment?

Other than that, Smartlead lets us receive every reply from all email accounts in one inbox.

We can also reply directly within the app.

Forward directly within the app.

Label the lead with categories such as Interested, Not Interested, and Out Of Office.

And insert deal value, add a task, add notes, and more.

Here are some recommendations for other sales tools related to email automation.

Yesware (4.28/5)

Yesware focuses on two main areas: sales engagement and data enrichment.

For the sales engagement side, some of the features they offer are email and attachment tracking, email templates, and a meeting scheduler.

For data enrichment, they have this thing called a prospector - as the name suggests, for prospecting. There's also a contact enrichment feature that fills in the gaps in your customer data.

Instantly (4.39/5)

Instantly is pretty similar to Smartlead. They do a lot of the same stuff such as warming up emails, bulk domain testing, automating email sequences, and inbox rotation. However, Instantly is more expensive than Smartlead.

Salesforge (4.41/5)

Salesforge is another player in the same field as Smartlead as it has the usual stuff such as warming up your emails and letting you receive emails from all your email accounts in one tab.

One of Salesforge’s stand-out features is that you can personalize email beyond using spintax only, thanks to their AI which can read the prospects’ data you upload.

Mailreef (4.47/5)

From what I understand, Mailreef is a cold email infrastructure and also a platform for sending cold emails. Think of it as a mashup of Smartlead or Instantly with Mailforge.

With Mailreef, all the technical stuff is handled for you. You can buy domains and set up mailboxes with it. They’ll also take care of all that SPF, DKIM, and DMARC jazz.

Moreover, they also give you unlimited daily sending and your very own dedicated IP address, and they even screen out potential spammers. However, the price starts from $249/month.

Infraforge (/5)

Infraforge is still in the works. From what I gather, it will help you set up a private cold email infrastructure with advanced deliverability controls and free DNS setup. Sounds promising.

Outbound Automation (via cold calls)

We have yet to do cold call automation, so I can't give you good feedback. But we're planning on giving it a shot as we're ramping up our sales team. We've been doing our homework though, and have identified two promising cold-calling sales tools.

ConnectAndSell (4.64/5)

ConnectAndSell claims to be the only patented cloud solution that solves the number one B2B sales challenge—getting those hard-to-reach decision-makers on the phone.

I've tried cold calling manually and it usually connects with the executive assistant or office receptionist first. Those folks are what we call gatekeepers. Their job is to decide if you can talk to the decision makers (typically the C-level executives).

Sometimes I also run into a phone tree or Interactive Voice Recording (IVR). You know, those voice recordings that say "Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Spanish" and things like that before getting to the person or department needed.

So, ConnectAndSell helps bypass all those roadblocks and get straight to the decision-makers. ConnectAndSell performs this by using its highly trained agents who will represent you to navigate gatekeepers, IVRs, phone trees, and other obstacles.

At first, I was afraid that ConnectAndSell's agents would end up speaking to my prospects. However, a quick look at their website put my mind at ease - their agents never utter a word to the prospects. Their sole purpose is to just navigate the obstacles. The moment the right person answers, the call is immediately transferred to you. From that point, the floor is yours to take control of the conversation.

Here are other interesting features:

• When you log in to ConnectAndSell and click the “Go” button, multiple numbers from your list will be dialed at the same time. Once the agent successfully gets the right person on the phone, the call is immediately transferred to you and all other dialings will stop.

  This way, your sales reps can 100% focus on selling ONLY. No stress about hanging up on voicemails and other obstacles anymore. Watch the quick demo below to understand better.

• You can source contact lists from your CRM system. ConnectAndSell integrates seamlessly with SalesForce, Outreach, and other CRM.
• No data entry is required as ConnectAndSell automatically logs all activities in your CRM.
• Lead injection: Call new leads minutes after they submit the form.
• Leave prerecorded voicemail
• Time zone filter
• Coaching feature

ConnectAndSell is awesome. However, I would rate it higher if not for the outdated design that is straight out of the early days of the Internet. So, it may take a longer time to get used to it or I’m afraid the design may frustrate me.

Orum (4.71/5)

This one seems the most promising sales tool for me. Orum is an all-in-one AI dialing platform. It pretty much works like ConnectAndSell with multiple dials, seamless CRM integration, and a time zone filter. Although it’s not equipped with ConnectAndSell's patented obstacle-navigation technology, here are some of the features that are found in Orum but not in ConnectAndSell:

• Modern, user-friendly design.
• Since Orum uses AI, it will automatically transcribe your sales calls and flag common objections for quicker insight.
• A virtual sales office called Salesfloor to bring your teams together to supercharge learning and motivate each other.
• A dashboard showing each sales rep’s essential metrics such as calls-to-meeting and calls-to-conversion rate.
• Call outcome analysis to help spot trends such as the best time to call and the most common objections.
• A library of past calls to show how top performers handle objections
• Coaching feature where you can leave feedback on each call

Here’s Orum’s demo video.

Sales Analytics/BI

For sales analytics/business intelligence (BI) sales tools, we have been using Redash since the beginning of this startup. This is another crucial small edge for us because Redash allows us to visualize data and see clearer pictures of how our business is going, all for FREE.

Redash (4.78/5)

Let me give you a taste of how awesome Redash is. I can't share our company's data for obvious privacy reasons. But don't worry, I've got some sample data that'll do the trick just fine.

After you have set up Redash on your computer and run it, you will see this home screen.

1. First thing first, you have to connect your Redash to your data source. There are various database connectors available such as Amazon Athena, PostgreSQL, and BigQuery. Choose one that is relevant to you.

2. After that, you have to fill up information such as the Database Name, Port, and Host. After you have saved it, you can check if Redash is properly connected to your database with the “Test Connection” button.

3. Next, go to your home screen again. Go to “Create your first Query.” You can also create a query with the blue “Create” button at the top.

4. This is your query screen. Let’s say you’re looking for monthly sales data. So you’ll name your query “Sales by Month”. On the left side of your screen, there’s a schema viewer showing the tables Redash has access to.

5. One thing about Redash is that you don’t have to learn a new syntax. Redash supports the native language of your database. If you use a PostgreSQL database, you just use PostgreSQL’s SQL syntax.

6. As you can see above, the query is not formatted. Don’t worry, you don’t have to format it manually now. You can just click the format query button under the query editor and Redash will do the hard work for you.

7. After you have finished querying, click the blue “Execute” button. A table will appear under the editor.

8. A table is the default view of your query. If you want to visualize it more effectively, click the “+ New Visualization” button and a Visualization Editor will appear. You can edit how you want your data to be visualized. You can also change colors and labels.

9. After you hit save, the visualization will appear under the query editor.

Redash supports around 15 types of visualizations. You can learn more about that here.

10. Lastly, let’s say you queried for another two data: Annual Sales and Number of Subscribers. In Redash, you can create a dashboard to compile all your visualizations in one place via the blue “Create” button at the top. You can also share the dashboard with your team by sharing the secret link or the best way is to just add them to Redash using their email addresses.

Handling inbound

It's been amazing to see how our company has grown over the years. We've been really gaining traction in terms of the company’s exposure and customer base! I remember when we'd only get leads or inquiries a few times each week. Now? Our inbox is buzzing almost every hour!

Our previous method of handling inbounds was a nightmare. We'd forward, CC, or BCC every single message to the right staff. We’d sometimes overlooked those important emails as they were buried under other emails in our inboxes. And as the business picked up and more emails kept coming, forwarding emails became a huge, time-sucking chore. Our inboxes were in complete chaos. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. That's when we discovered Gmelius.

Gmelius (4.65/5)

Gmelius is a software that transforms Gmail into a collaborative workspace. It lets us access the company’s inbox from our own work Gmail account. Gone are the days of endless email forwarding or having to log into the company account.

Instead, we have a couple of additional tabs on the left side of our screen as shown in the picture below. All the emails sent to our company’s general inbox will only reside in either of these tabs, separate from our personal inbox. We also have an additional tab on the right side of our screen to assign each email to the right person.

Also on the right side of the tab, we can add a note and mention people. It’s similar to the classic BCC feature but made simpler.

Overall, since everyone who is in our company’s Gmelius will see the emails, whoever sees them first can assign them immediately. As a result, our customer service improved because inbounds are noticed quicker and we get to reply faster.

Discover Gmelius here and get $100 off on all plans.

Tidio (4.71/5)

Tidio is pretty cool. It's not just a live chat tool. It doubles as a lead capture platform too. With Tidio, we get to know the total leads, meaning how many people have chatted with us so far. There’s also a line chart that shows our monthly leads that we can play around with the date range. We can even check out who's browsing our page in real time.

At the “Go to contact list”, we’ll be shown a breakdown of all our leads’ email addresses and countries like below.

At the “Use your leads”, we can use the emails to either send an email campaign or export the list elsewhere.

At the “Visitors on your page right now”, there is some interesting information such as

• The name of visitors (email address will appear only if they start a chat) along with a tag indicating they’re a new or returning visitor
• Date when they opened the website for the first time
• Location and search engine used
• Last visited page
• A button to start a chat with them immediately.

Now, below is what the inbox looks like. Other than knowing the name, location, and email address of our leads, we’ll also get to know their IP address and device used.

One feature I like about Tidio is that no message will go unnoticed, even if we are offline. We can set forward email notifications and will still get notified of those inquiries as they will land in our inbox.

Depending on the plan, we have a monthly limit of 100 Handled Conversations. According to Tidio itself, Handled Conversations refers to

Any live chat, ticket, email or social media channel conversation that includes a message from a human agent (you). A conversation is only billed as a Handled Conversation once you reply using Tidio or proactively initiate a conversation with your visitor. If you don’t respond to a customer conversation – if it’s spam or simply a message that doesn’t require a reply – the conversation won’t count toward your monthly limit.

Chatwoot (4.70/5)

Tidio's been great and all, but we're thinking of switching to Chatwoot soon. It's not that there's anything wrong with Tidio, it's just that Chatwoot's free version packs enough punch for what we need to run our business. Why pay for extras when you can get the job done for free, right?

Let’s compare Chatwoot’s free plan to our current Tidio paid Starter plan.

• Chatwoot's free plan is pretty generous. It gives us 500 monthly conversations. Tidio's Starter plan, on the other hand, only lets us have 100.
• Chatwoot’s free plan doesn’t come with email, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Telegram integration. Tidio’s Starter plan allows all that. However, we don’t need those integrations. So, paying for Tidio’s plan and having unused features felt like a waste.
• I’m not sure if Chatwoot can forward messages to our email on the free plan. It would be great if it could but if it couldn’t, it’s not a deal-breaker. We’ll handle messages in-app.

Here’s what the inbox looks like. (Pic is taken from Chatwoot’s user guide. Thanks Chatwoot!)

Calendly (4.62/5)

There’s not much to say about Calendly. It helps us schedule meetings with potential clients ahead easily. What’s cool is that the schedule shows the open time slots based on your location's time zone. Meaning if my open slots are from 10 AM to 6 PM Singapore time (GMT+8), you will see 3 AM to 11 AM on your end if you’re in England (GMT-1)

Other than Gmelius, Tidio, Chatwoot, and Calendly, other inbound-related sales tools we have surveyed are Intercom, HiverHQ, Zendesk, and Hubspot. I’m not going to explain them in depth. Just telling you the standout features (if any) and why we don’t use them.

Intercom (4.43/5)

Intercom claims itself as the only customer service platform that's truly AI-first. AI-first means they've baked AI into every part of their system. So, customers get support from an AI agent, human agents get instant answers from an AI copilot, and support leaders get instant AI insights.

Some of Intercom’s standout features are

• In-app phone calls, video calls, and screen sharing
• Fin AI Copilot
• AI reporting and insights such as reports of frequently asked topics
• Knowledge Hub to manage all support content in one place

One reason we don’t use Intercom is because they don’t have a free plan. Their paid plan is also quite expensive. The cheapest plan starts at $39 per seat/month whereas we only pay Tidio around $23/month for 2 seats to run our business.

HiverHQ (4.36/5)

HiverHQ is pretty much similar to Gmelius but more expensive. For Gmelius, we paid $29 per user each month for unlimited shared inboxes and users. But for HiverHQ, we would have to pay $79 per user each month for similar features.

Zendesk (4.41/5)

Zendesk is a customer service and CRM sales platform in one. We don’t use it because the cheapest plan is $55 per agent per month, which is a price we are not happy to pay. Also because we already have Salesforce for CRM.

Hubspot (4.52/5)

Although Hubspot is one of the leaders in Saas, it comes with a heftier price tag. The cheapest price for its customer service platform is a whopping $90 per month per seat! That’s really out of our budget.

Key takeaways

Let’s wrap this up. The sales tools in this guide have been absolute game-changers in our journey to $1.23 million in revenue in 12 months. But do remember that it’s not about throwing money at the fanciest tech. You have to be smart about it:

• Pick the right tools for your specific needs. What works for us might not work for you.
• Make sure they fit into your existing workflow. Reinventing the wheel is inefficient.
• Train your team thoroughly to maximize the benefits
• Monitor constantly to see what works and what doesn’t

While these tools have been game-changers for us, they aren’t magic wands. They just amplified what we already got right: a solid sales strategy, a great product, and a dedicated team.

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