As a sales manager you probably have enough experience to know what works for you to sell. You should invest in the same equipment for your team, so let’s look at some specifics when it comes to hardware to get you thinking about what they need.
Ideally you can provide laptops rather than desktops – it’s surprising to see how many companies still use desktops for sales folks. Sales generally isn’t a 9-5 gig, especially in the software industry where you can be working across multiple timezones and being stuck at a desk is a heavy limitation for those out of hours calls.
Consider a dual screen setup with your laptop monitor as a potential third or backup screen. The reason for the extra screen is for demos and CRM admin, so you can have one screen for presenting and the other for your company information or your CRM to be able to update notes without having to switch between tabs or apps.
All reps should have headsets (preferably wireless, to allow them to move around) for working the phones. Headsets are for audio quality and noise cancellation. Single ear headsets are fine but it comes down to personal preference.
We’d even recommend a stand up desk where possible so that reps can be up off their seats and energetic during calls if they need to be – this all adds to the general atmosphere in the group.
Software and other aids for sales teams are a dime a dozen – it goes beyond our scope to recommend all the software you’d need but there are great tools like Gong.io for call recording and analysis and Voip phone systems like Aircall. The best advice to give in terms of toolset is to test and trial where you can and have someone else on your team, preferably a sales rep, engage in the trial along with you. You can’t test in isolation and it’s important to get some good critical feedback from other people to do a proper analysis.
Ultimately the decision is yours on which tools to use. But if you engage a few core members of your team it will also help with adoption since they can both champion the change and share the knowledge about how to use them.