Here’s a quick roundup of seven of our favorite sales productivity solutions you’re probably not using today.

Some we’ve profiled in the past, others are new.

Next week we’ll follow-up with Part II, including seven additional tools you really need to add to your productivity arsenal.

We’re interested in hearing your suggestions, too, feel free to comment.

Online contact management. At this point, it’s too inexpensive and convenient to not track your contacts and prospects online. Our two leading candidates in this area at this point are Highrise, by 37Signals, and PipelineDeals, by Downtown Ecommerce Partners. Read more at our Online Contact Managers review. Plan on about $12-15 per month for a step above their minimum plans.

Online notes and idea management. We don’t want to go 37Signals crazy here, but you just can’t beat Backpack. This is a Swiss Army Knife for keeping your todos, lists, ideas, important files, a shareable calendar, reminders, and any other snippet of information. Just $5 per month gets you an extremely powerful system.

Fax/email integration. My choice is Voicefaxemail, for only $5 per month. But others have said they love eFax or Maxemail, and we just reviewed the phenomenal RingCentral. All three give you a phone number to receive faxes, which are then delivered into your email inbox. If you travel, you need this.

Create PDFs. Prevent tampering and make sure people can read your files, regardless of their computer situation — more people can open a PDF than a Microsoft Word document. My choice is CutePDF (I use Professional for $50, but there’s a completely free, fully functional version as well.) Other options: PrimoPDF, pdf995, doPDF, and there are others.

Gmail/Google Docs/Google Calendar. Sure, you have personal and company-issued email accounts. But you can use your Gmail account for storing emails with attachments to the tune of 5GB worth of data. Plus, you can create, edit, and share lightweight Word-, Excel-, and Powerpoint-compatible files through Google Docs (one of many online Microsoft Office alternatives). All for free. And Google Calendar is a powerful tool from so many angles we can’t mention them all here.

Free conference call line. Okay, so the calls are long distance for you and your clients and colleagues. But they’re otherwise free. And can be recorded and downloaded later. Great service provided by FreeConferenceCall.com (and by the way, the company offers a variety of related, free services, check it out.) There are other free conference options as well: FreeConference.com, Rondee.com, InstantConference.com, and many more.

Online sales training library. A place to save all of the sales tidbits that you find–techniques and strategies found in articles, audios, videos–in one place, categorized nicely by keywords (tags). You can also easily browse through solid content others have found. No more time-consuming Google searches! It’s here. It’s SalesMarks.com. Check it out.

That’s seven tools that should cost you a combined $25, at most, per month. And four of them are free!

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