Managing a wholesale business is a lot harder than most people think. Not only do you have to manage the day-to-day operations of your company, but there are a lot of factors to contend with. You have to manage your massive inventory supply, your supplier list, customer relations, sales, and so much more.
They say that business owners have to be available 24-hours of the day to manage a company. Let's be real. That's not very realistic. Even if you have all the time in the world, managing every detail of your wholesale business is impossible without a bit of extra help.
Luckily, there are many great tools that you can use to lighten the load. Software tools simplify a ton of tasks and help you manage all those important details from one place. You have a lot of great software options to choose from. To make things a bit easier, we've rounded up a collection of the best software tools you should use for your wholesale business.
PipeDrive
As you probably know, the sales process for wholesale businesses can be tricky to follow. Whether you sell to brick-and-mortar retailers or e-commerce retailers, it's not as easy as performing a simple transaction.
Retailers often buy large amounts of inventory at one time. Depending on the particular consumer electronics you're offering, you're looking at a sale that totals thousands of dollars! Needless to say, retailers are not so quick to spend that money.
Most take their time to shop around and see what other wholesalers have to offer. This can make things a bit tricky for your sales team.
PipeDrive allows you to see the entire sales pipeline from one single place. It's a customer relations management tool that helps you stay on top of where potential sales are in the process.
You can input various leads into the system and modify them as things change. For example, you can see potential prospects, cold leads, or even warm leads.
From there, you can better understand what your potential customers are feeling. Instead of treating every call like a cold call, you can go into that conversation knowing where they stand. It's a great way of organizing the sales team.
Say, for example, that one potential customer showed some interest in the past. But, you never ended up making a sale. You can have your sales team reinvigorate that interest. You already know where they stand. So, you can use that information to address their needs and close the sale!
The software even allows you to view activity from your sales team. From one platform, you can easily track sales, view a team members' strengths, and gather all the analytics you need.
Overall, the software is intuitive and easy to use. It operates on a monthly subscription model.
QuickBooks
What business owner hasn't heard of QuickBooks? This piece of accounting software has been around in some form since the 1980s! It's been a staple in the retail and wholesale industry for many years.
The newest iteration of QuickBooks offers even more functionality than ever before. QuickBooks is entirely cloud-based. Thus, you can access all the accounting information you need on the go. It's accessible on computers, tablets, and smartphones. It's a must-have for business owners who are constantly traveling or those who don't want to rely on in-office visits to perform business.
So, what can QuickBooks do? Well, QuickBooks is designed to be a multi-purpose accounting tool. There are various versions available based on your distinct needs.
At its core, QuickBooks is built to help you manage your various business accounts from one place. You can make data entries, view sales figures, go over expenses, and so much more. It's a great tool for tracking expenses and sales. With the platform, you're also able to manage your tax liabilities, bills, employee time, and more.
Like PipeDrive, QuickBooks online operates on a subscription model. There are various tiers available based on the features that you need most.
ActiveCampaign
Improving the customer experience is the best way to maximize your sales potential. Even in the wholesale arena, you need to utilize ongoing marketing campaigns. Not only do they attract new business, but these campaigns can also promote sales to your existing customers while letting them know that they haven't been forgotten.
ActiveCampaign intuitive piece of software that's geared towards small and medium-sized businesses. Like the previous tools we went over, it's entirely cloud-based. That means that everything can be done online from a myriad of different devices.
There's a lot that you can do with ActiveCampaign. At its core, it's a marketing tool with strong CRM capabilities. From one place, you can start email campaigns that are targeted to each individual client.
After implementing customers into the database, you can customize settings to ensure that everyone is getting an effective email. Emails include dynamic content, personalized messages, and more. You can even set up automatic marketing materials to perform tasks that your sales team would normally have to do. This includes sending "Thank You" emails, reminding customers of items they forgot to purchase, and more.
All of your customer data is kept in one place for easy management. The software even lets you manage the sales pipeline and implement messaging systems for your clients.
JustCall
You don't have to be in the office to communicate with your team and customers. JustCall.io is a cloud-based phone system that's designed to make communication much simpler.
Rather than using traditional phone lines, you can establish a custom phone system that works over VoIP. It's cloud-based, which simplifies the process tremendously. No more dealing with physical phone lines. As long as your team has an Internet connection, they can communicate with clients.
The cool thing about JustCall.io is that you can create custom numbers that act like any other line. Get a local number to appeal to customers in the area. Or, get a toll-free number for those long-distance clients. There's even an option to send and receive text messages!
The beauty of this software is that you can make calls and keep records of communication. Calls can be recorded and your sales team can easily make calls from one unified platform.
It's not just customers your team can communicate with. Say that you have an important team meeting you need to complete. But, everyone is off doing their own thing. With the software, you can collaborate in just a few clicks. It's easy to use and has the potential to improve productivity significantly.
ClickFunnels
If you're looking for website software tools that you should use, check out ClickFunnel. This software is designed to enhance your website so that you can generate leads and make sales. This isn't your average website builder. ClickFunnels is specifically designed to guide visitors through the sales process while automating a bevy of marketing tasks.
Visiting a new site and ordering merchandise isn't always cut and dry. While we'd like to think that every website is well-designed, some incorporate confusing designs that make the process a lot more difficult than it needs to be. This is especially true with wholesale businesses.
ClickFunnel avoids all of those issues by creating a step-by-step process for visitors. You can guide potential customers to specific products based on their distinct needs. This eliminates confusion while also building up some brand loyalty. Furthermore, the funneling process gathers important information about your customers so that you are better equipped to serve them later on.
It's very easy to use. The software is flexible enough to use without any programming knowledge whatsoever. Thanks to the drag-and-drop builder, you can create beautiful sites quickly and efficiently.
The tool is also effective for CRM. Rather than relying on your sales team to follow up with potential clients, ClickFunnel does all of that automatically. It's a highly targeted system that utilizes multi-dimensional marketing. Even if your visitors don't make a purchase, ClickFunnels can follow those leads to help your business make a sale.
Conclusion
These are just some of the software tools you should use. There are plenty more that you can take advantage of to simplify your day-to-day operations.
Software tools are essential for any modern wholesale business. While these tools do come with some added costs, they are well worth the investment. With the time and energy you'll save, tools can pay for themselves off in no time.