Product
September 3, 2024

Pod Vs. Scratchpad: Which Tool Should You Use?

Pod Vs. Scratchpad: Which Tool Should You Use?

Product
April 17, 2024

Pod Vs. Scratchpad: Which Tool Should You Use?

As sellers, you’d ideally like to split your time between two agenda items. One, getting on calls and doing the selling, and two, moving your deals to the closed-won finish line. Anything else feels like tedious administrative work. It’s work you can easily start to dread.

Luckily, there are SaaS tools on the market to help with the other. Pod and Scratchpad are both popular options that many sales teams use in their day-to-day to slim down admin work. But what are the differences, and which tool is better suited for your team? Here, we’ll break down all things Pod vs. Scratchpad, so you can choose definitively and get back to selling.

What is Scratchpad?

Scratchpad is a tool for sales teams looking to stay up-to-date with their Salesforce workflow. Salesforce is known for having a clunky user experience, with notes, tasks, and next steps for deals stuck in a disjointed layout.

With Scratchpad, sellers can see all their Salesforce to-do’s in one place. It brings more cohesion to the team so the work gets done faster. Scratchpad also offers pipeline management and simple forecasting.

What is Pod?

Pod is a pipeline intelligence platform made to help sellers close more deals, faster. With its AI-powered platform, Pod helps you prioritize deals, organize your pipeline, and get the right advice whenever you need it.

Pod also syncs with Salesforce and Google Calendar, enabling sellers to work from one place and making it a one-stop shop for all of the important parts of your day. Here are some of Pod’s features in action.

The features breakdown: Pod vs. Scratchpad

Now that we have a basic understanding of what each tool does, let’s dive into the details and see how they work head-to-head.

Artificial Intelligence battle - Who’s AI is more intuitive?

AI is certainly on the upswing with tech tools, with no signs of slowing down. Every SaaS tool harnesses AI differently, and it can aid your teams to different degrees. Here’s what Pod and Scratchpad can do for your team.

Scratchpad: Scratchpad’s bread and butter is to keep your Salesforce up to date. In terms of AI, this means Scratchpad will make suggestions for notes and other customer data. While this can speed up the process for your reps, keep in mind that they are still required to click through the suggestions and choose to either accept, edit, or reject them.

AI for customer data can be helpful, but when there are still manual elements to the process, it doesn’t particularly speed up the workflow.

Pod: Pod’s approach to AI fills a gap in the sales workflow you may not know was possible, with AI Coach.

The AI coach allows sellers to ask questions and get impactful feedback based on your Salesforce data, contact data, and the progression of the deal. For all of the moments a seller has had stall progress for a second opinion from their manager, or spend hours trying to craft the perfect prospect response, the AI Coach could have stepped in. Here are just a few ways you could use it:

  • Ask AI Coach how to move a deal forward.
  • Ask how to objection-handle a tricky customer inquiry.
  • Have the AI craft the perfect personalized outreach messages for you.
  • Use it to gain valuable pipeline insights, thanks to it’s comprehensive knowledge of your sales data.

While both tools help level up your workday, Pod’s AI lifts a greater weight off of sellers, empowering them to work more efficiently and confidently.

Which tool is better at streamlining Salesforce?

For most sellers, CRMs like Salesforce act as the main hub to work from. And while Salesforce is powerful, it’s also overwhelming. The admin work, updating, and maintenance can be a time-suck in the work day, so using a tool like Pod or Scratchpad is key for syphoning the relevant bits. Here’s how both tools work with your Salesforce instance.

Scratchpad: Salesforce is not just for sellers, so it can be hard for Account Executives to cut through the noise. What Scratchpad does is create a single source of truth, so sellers can work from one place and stay laser-focused.

Users cite that it also has a smoother UI than Salesforce, making Scratchpad a cleaner, more intuitive option to work out of.

Pod: Pod offers a tool called Organize, that also allows you to update Salesforce like a pro. Even more, it leverages automation to nudge you on the deals you need to pay attention to while taking the tedious data entry out of the equation. More specifically, you can:

  • Manage notes
  • Update data
  • Track your tasks
  • Prep for meetings
  • …and more!

Organize also enables sellers to cut the hours of sales research, and you can use this feature to help in other areas of your role, like during daily stand-ups, weekly kickoffs and cleanups, and daily time blocking so you can stay focused.

Pipeline prioritization and staying efficient

While you juggle dozens of deals, it’s easy to lose sight of what to prioritize. Both tools aim to help with efficiency and prioritization, but which of them packs more of a punch in your pipeline?

Scratchpad: When it comes to making improvements to your pipeline, Scratchpad is great for providing easy-on-the-eyes formatting. Sellers can be bombarded with hundreds of tasks each day, and Scratchpad provides a simplified, wide view in a centralized task hub for maximum visibility.

Scratchpad also offers simple Kanban board views, and notes that sync right over to Salesforce, meaning less clicking and more updating.

Pod: Pod’s Prioritize feature also provides a much cleaner view for users than Salesforce does, but with a little more power. Prioritize uses data-driven deal signals like awaiting action, progression, and engagement to give sellers more in-depth view of how their deals are doing. It’s deal progress, without the guesswork.

This intuitive view is not only clear, but it also recommends daily top deals, deals at risk, and it keeps an eye on the deals most in need of your attention. On the right-hand side of the screen, sellers can also see their deals in an Opportunity Matrix, so they can easily view different deals grouped by pace and temp, to make quick informed decisions.

Prioritize with Pod makes your pipeline not only cleaner, but helps you take action and hit quota. On average, it helps:

  • Reduce admin work by 50%
  • Shorten your sales cycle
  • Increase your win rate

The final showdown: Pod vs. Scratchpad pricing

And finally, pricing. Salesforce itself can eat away at your budget, so choosing an additional sales tool that brings value at the right price point is crucial. Here’s how it works for both tools.

Scratchpad: Scratchpad has a free version to try, for the smallest of use cases. Keep in mind it only offers 1 Scratchpad view and a 3 day change history.

They also offer a Standard Plan with a few more features and a Business Plan you can purchase through their sales team to make the most out of Scratchpad.

Pod: Pod also offers a free plan for users to try out, and getting started takes less than 30 seconds. You can test a ton of great features, and then pay as you grow.

Pod also offers a Pro Plan which unlocks unlimited features and a Team Plan with tailored features and dedicated customer success to really suit a team’s needs perfectly.

Winner: Pod. But who is Pod really for?

It’s a tough battle, but only one tool can come out a winner. It’s Pod! When it comes to sales tools that keep the seller in mind, it’s really a no-brainer. But aside from the sellers on the frontlines, who else is Pod for?

Sales leaders: Pod’s AI coach is a huge help to sales leaders, who can’t be everywhere all at once. Leaders can trust in the AI coaching, and use Pod to receive forecasting data they can rely on. Because Pod is so intuitive, coaches also don’t have to go running for updates, as all the data and next steps are clearly laid out for everyone on the team.

RevOps: Pod also works like a dream for your RevOps team. Data is captured and updated in real-time, and RevOps can scale sales processes faster because Pod is so user-friendly. Pod also updates the Salesforce CRM so seamlessly, meaning top-notch data hygiene and more incoming deals.

So not only does it fuel your sales team, but Pod’s ripple effect reaches your business as a whole. With AI coaching, Prioritize, Organize, and a price that won’t break the bank, your sales department will be driving more revenue growth in no time.

Ready to be one step closer to quota? You can try Pod for free right here.

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