David BerezinAre you spending too much time on tedious, repetitive tasks like composing emails, scheduling meetings and building presentations? There’s a better way! Here are 10 free apps that’ll take care of those tasks for you—and more—and make your job that much easier:
For quick and dirty prospecting: Sales Navigator (formerly Rapportive)
Rather than go through the hassle of looking up a prospect on LinkedIn, just add Sales Navigator to your Gmail account. Sales Navigator inputs info from your contact’s LinkedIn profile directly in your email window, so you can easily access their photo, work history, social media links, and connections that you both share.
For meeting prep and researching your contacts: Charlie
Don’t have the time to Google your clients? Charlie syncs with your Google calendar and, before your meetings, scours the Internet for information about who you’re meeting with and creates one-page reports on them. With Charlie, you’ll know your contacts’ passions and hobbies, as well as news and stats about their company, before you even shake hands.
For a scheduling “assistant”: x.ai
Hate going through the back-and-forth of scheduling meetings? x.ai offers “Amy,” an AI personal assistant that schedules meetings for you. Instead of playing email tag with your clients, simply cc “Amy” and she’ll communicate with them on your behalf to find a time and place that works for both of you and add it to both your calendars.
For calendar sharing: Calendly
Like x.ai, Calendly avoids the frustration of email tag when scheduling meetings. This app lets you create a calendar with your availability and scheduling preferences that you can send and share with your clients. Your customers can then easily pick a spot on your calendar that works best for them, and Calendly adds the scheduled meeting to your calendar.
For scheduling that’s easy for your clients: Assistant.to
Assistant.to syncs with your Gmail account—when you’re setting up a meeting through email, it allows you to choose a selection of available time slots from your Google calendar and imports them as links in your email. Then, the client can click on the date that works for them and it’ll automatically schedule the meet-up on your calendar. Assistant.to even remembers your most frequent meeting locations, so you don’t need to type in the same location over and over.
For email tracking: Sidekick
Want to know if your emails are being read? Sidekick informs you which of your emails are opened, when and where they’re opened, and the device on which they’re opened. It can also schedule your emails to send when you want them to go out, and gives you info about your contacts (much like Rapportive), like their work history and where they live.
For email templates and tracking: Yesware
Like Sidekick, the free version of Yesware lets you know when your emails are opened. You can also create email templates to blast out to your contacts—and Yesware will even give you reports that show you which templates were opened, read, and clicked the most.
For an inbox that never lets anything slip through the cracks: Boomerang
Do you forget to follow up with your prospects? Boomerang sends you reminders to follow up within your desired time frame. This app can also “boomerang” important emails to the top of your inbox, which lets you address them at a later date without the risk of them getting buried and being forgotten.
For creating presentations: Prezi
Tired of PowerPoint presentations? Prezi is a cloud-based tool that creates unique-looking presentations that let you zoom and pan around freely, rather than go from slide to slide—giving your decks a fluidness that makes them stand out from standard PowerPoints. Plus, it syncs across all your devices so you can present any time, any place.
For quick and easy screen sharing: join.me
Need to give a remote demo? Screen sharing isn’t a pain in the neck anymore. This app lets anyone in the world watch your screen—just by entering a code into join.me in their browser. You can also enable audio to chat live.
CloserIQ doesn’t get paid to endorse products or services—we only recommend stuff we love or that we’ve heard great reviews about from the community. If you have an app you love, shoot us a note about it at content@closeriq.com.
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