One of Guy Kawasaki's "reality checks" for entrepreneurs is the question "What can we beg, borrow, or lease that we are buying?" However, as evidenced by Kawasaki's own new product Canva, the Web has lots of entirely free and free-to-try resources.
I built this list specifically for salespeople and marketers, but much of it is useful to anybody in business. (An extra tip of the hat to Freebie.Supply for most of the social media tools.)
Free College Courses
Study.com
- Business 102: Principles of Marketing--Overview of marketing (Study.com)
- Marketing Philosophies and Ethics--Intellectual background of marketing
- Consumer Decision Making--How to predict consumer behavior
- Managing a Product and Retailing-- Product development and marketing mix
- Services, Channels and Supply Chains--The basic mechanics of indirect marketing
- Selling and Pricing Strategy--How to price products more effectively
University of Pennsylvania
- Identifying Your Sales Strategy--Client needs, product/service differentiation
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Data Mining--How to mine data about customer buying patterns
- Marketing Management--Introduction to product, price, promotion, and place
The Open University
- Marketing Communications--How organizations communicate with clients
- The Market-Led Organization--Target audiences, orientation, and relationships
- Social Marketing--Market for the promotion of social goals
SmallBizU
- Marketing 101: The Fundamentals--Basics of marketing and market planning
- Positioning Master Class--Reaching the best customers for each product
University of California
- The Elevator Pitch--How to present informative, succinct sales pitches
Free E-books
- 48 Marketing Tips
- Attract Customers Using Facebook
- Business Planning Guide
- Handling Objections Workbook
- How Systems Thinking Can Transform Your Sales Efforts
- LinkedIn: A Guide to Starting on the Right Foot
- Mission for Success
- The Power of Goals
- The Six Qualities of Superstar Sales People
- Understand and Use Google
- 2015 Goal Planning Guide
- Why Is Selling So #%&@ Hard?
- 15 Best Practices for Productive Sales Team Meetings
- 9 Keys to Successful Coaching
- The Care and Feeding of Highly Aggressive Salespeople
- Can LinkedIn Increase Your Sales?
- Why Is Qualifying a Prospect So #%&@ Hard?
Free Sales Training Videos
Free CRM
Free Customer Service Tools
- Zendesk--Customer service simplified
- FreshBooks--User-friendly bookkeeping
- FreshDesk--Customer satisfaction and service
- Phone.com--Phone system for small business
- Jobber--Scheduling and invoicing
- RingCentral--Cloud-based phone system
- ProWorkFlow--Online project management
- FreeAgent--Online accounting
- KickServ--Field service customer management
- UserVoice--Customer service and satisfaction
- Handshake Sales Order Manager--Helps write sales orders
Free Sales Team Tools
- Exo--Collaboration over the Web
- Mavenlink--Project management
- WhenIWork--Employee time clock for small businesses
- TribeHR--Teamwork and collaboration
- Salesforce Chatter--Social media for inside a company
- Wrike--Social software and collaboration
- BambooHR--Human resource management
- Disqus--Build a community of readers and commenters
Free Sales Writing Tools
- Sales Source Newsletter--Free critique of your sales emails
- Cliche Finder--Finds the common cliches
- Corporate Mission Statement Generator--Generates "don't do this" re bad writing
- Evernote--Keeps track of everything
- Google Translate--Translates to and from dozens of languages
- Grammarly--Finds and eliminates grammatical errors
- Hemingway--Encourages sparse writing
- Liberio--Creates e-books from Google Drive
- Online Text Corrector--Online grammar corrector
- Readability Score--Estimates grade level required to read a document
- Spam Analyzer--Finds spammy word and phrases
- ZenPen--An easy-to-use online editor
Free Email Power Tools
- Contact Form 7--Collects email addresses from Web visitors
- Contact Monkey--Email tracking and Salesforce/Outlook integration
- Email Extractor--Finds and displays all the email addresses on a website
- MailChimp--Send up to 12,000 emails to up to 2,000 subscribers
- ManyContactsBar--A website contact form that harvests emails
- Rapportive--Shows you social networking information email senders
- Sidekick--Tells you when prospects are clicking on your emails
- Vibe--Hover your mouse over any email to get the full info
Free Social Media Tools
- Addthis--Get more shares, follows, and conversions
- Bitly--Create, share, and track shortened links
- Buffer--Schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and Google
- Click to Tweet--Gets more shares for your content
- CrowdFire--Easily follow or unfollow Twitter and Instagram
- Digg Digg--Your share buttons in a single plugin
- Filament--A customizable sharing bar
- Hootsuite--Dashboard for multiple social networks
- Klout--Social media influence score on browser extension
- Latergram-- Plan and schedule Instagram posts
- MyTweetLinks--Increases your Twitter traffic
- Riffle--Full profile and info on any Twitter user
- Ritetag--Instant hashtag analysis
- SharedCount--Track URL shares, likes, tweets, etc.
- SocialRank--Identify, organize, and manage Twitter followers
- Spruce--Creates Twitter-ready images
- SumoMe--Optimizes your share buttons for traffic
- Tally--Absurdly easy poll creation
- Typeform--Online survey and form builder
- WriteRack--Easier blogging on Twitter
Apr 9, 2015
