Smart technology is everywhere. If you'relike most business people, you can't help but feel thatthere are too many tools out there.

They all sound the same, which leaves you confused, frustrated,and uninterested in changing.

Let's cut through the clutter.

Here are a few awesome business tools you need to beusing:

Business research tools

These tools help you learn all you can about prospectivecompanies, existing clients, or industry partners:

1. Owler

The team that built the revolutionary Jigsaw e-mail finderplatform that Salesforce purchased for hundreds of millions ofdollars is at it again with another blockbuster sales researchtool.

Instead of researching people, Owler researches companies. It'seasy to find and select which companies you want to follow. Eachmorning, you get a customized e-mail with everything that happenedat that company that you should know about.

This service, which costs many thousands of dollars peryear from other companies, is completely free from the Owler team.Drop what you are doing and sign up now.

CRM and address books

These tools help you organize the people you know, the deals youneed to close, and the marketing that gets you there:

2. Cloze

We have used them all — every customery relationship managementsystem on the planet (or so it feels) — and Cloze is by far thebest to use if you need to build and maintain relationships withpeople. It collects, organizes and manages all the people you needto know — right beside your e-mail (and social) inbox. It'sepic.

3. AgileCRM

It has “CRM” in its name but with features like landing pages,social and web tracking, and smart email campaigns, it's really thebest all-in-one marketing platform on the planet. And it's 1/10 thecost of Hubspot or Infusionsoft.

Related: 10 top apps for business

Security and password sharing

These tools help you keep your team safe and secure withoutemailing usernames and passwords around:

4. LastPass

Forget your passwords? Share your passwords over email? LastPasssaves all your passwords for you and even allows you to set upsharing groups where you can allow family or friends to use yourpasswords — without them ever seeing what the actual passwordis.

5. Blur

It's the most technical personal security platform out there. Itallows you to create disposable credit cards, phone numbers, ore-mail addresses. It saves your passwords for you and notifies youwhen you might have gotten hacked.

Prospect research

These tools help you learn all you can about prospects you wantto do business sometime soon:

6. AeroLeads

In a cluttered category of lead and prospect research, AeroLeadshas the best combination of capture and results. They claim toverify email address and phone numbers multiple times before theypass it along to you. It works.

7. Capture

Ever want to zip through a website and vacuum up all the peopleand email addresses (and other contact information) you find there?Meet Capture by Ringlead. Not only will it capture leads on awebsite, it verifies the e-mail addresses and exports everything toSalesforce.

Scheduling efficiency

These tools make it easy to schedule and prepare for awesomemeetings:

8. Charlie App

Connect Charlie to your Google calendar (or Outlook) and it willautomatically research everyone you are planning to meet with. Anhour before your meeting, you'll get an e-mail with everything youneed to know about those people.

9. Assistant

At the push of a button, Assistant checks your calendar andsuggests up to three days' worth of availability formeetings. It runs in Gmail, right where you are sendinge-mails, so it is fast and a tremendous time saver.

Getting things done

These tools help you plan out what needs to be done and assignresponsibilities to the people who need to help you get there:

10. Todoist

This is the best tool ever created to handle recurring tasks,reminders, and team planning. They have native apps for more than adozen different environments, so you can take it anywhere and useit anytime.

11. Wrike

Imagine if Microsoft Sharepoint and Project decided to build anepic productivity platform for today's generation of GanttChart-needing professionals. It's mobile friendly. And runs in yourbrowser. And it's free to start using.

Design platforms

These tools help you ditch Photoshop and make it super easy tocreate impressive images for social media:

12. DesignFeed

The hands-down, best ever online tool for creating epic quotesfor social media. It is incredibly easy to use, but to make it eveneasier, you can pick one of their curated designs, swap out thecontent, and post it live in seconds.

13. Canva

Drop Photoshop and invest a few of those dollars in Canva. Editimages. Design new ones. Create social media content or designs forbusiness cards or brochures. Share your designs with your team.

Conferencing

These tools make it easy to collaborate with your team,partners, or prospective customers:

14. Appear

Go to your Appear link and do some video conferencing, or shareyour screen, without needing to download all those bloated desktopapps. It's fast. And easy. And free.

15. SpeakEasy

Instead of waiting on hold for people to join your conferencecall, SpeakEasy will call you on your cell when the people whoneed to be on the call actually show up. Saves you time. Saves youfrom being a chump who uses FreeConferenceCall.com.

Security and miscellaneous

These tools keep you safe while sharing files or cruising theInternet each day:

16. WhoHasAccess

Connect it to you Google Drive account with a push of a buttonand wait for it to tell you who has access to any one of yourfiles. Using the tools you can take back sharing permissions too.It's a free and awesome way to stay safe.

17. Disconnect

Download one of their free apps or pay a little more to getunlimited secure and anonymous access to the Internet. Makes webbrowsing safe while you're traveling or using Wi-Fi from yourlocal coffee shop.

Try one. Try them or all or bookmark this article for whenyou are looking for great tools down the road.

Great businesses use smart tools to do more withless. These are just the sort of tools to do that for you.

Related: 16 of the coolest P&C insurer mobileapps

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