HubSpot Sales implementations fail on a regular basis. When we investigate the cause of failures, two reasons invariably surface:
- Sales teams don’t understand the software
- Sales teams don’t get value from the software
In addition to the reasons above, in my view another cause is the word we use when introducing these implementations: ‘onboarding’. Are we not just suffering from onboarding fatigue? These days, everything must and can be onboarded. New member of staff or customer? Onboard them! New software rolled out? Onboarding! Booked a cruise? Onboarding... We’re tired of it!
Irrespective of the word, it would be foolish to underestimate the power and benefit of an onboarding for HubSpot Sales. In fact, it’s good onboarding that allows you to tackle the two reasons mentioned above and pre-empt the irritations. Your organisation gets off to a flying start. Sales teams understand the tool and immediately get value from it.
Once your organisation has worked through the HubSpot Sales onboarding, the sales team can start working with HubSpot Sales – with the right knowledge, competencies and behaviour to improve the commercial process. To make this happen, we go through the following steps together.
Step 1: Switch on HubSpot
Getting started with HubSpot is simple. Create an account, complete the payment and you become the proud owner of a HubSpot portal. So ‘switching on’ HubSpot is very straightforward – done and dusted in a matter of minutes. It even works reasonably well if you then use it straight out of the box.
Step 1 of the Sales onboarding is all about HubSpot’s technical set-up. We make sure that the technical side is completely sorted. Think, for instance, of matters like linking your email account to HubSpot. Setting the appropriate access levels. Transferring your customer, prospect and lead data.
Bringing in a new system is also a good opportunity to sift through your data with a fine-toothed comb. Is that old list of phone numbers still relevant or can we freshen things up by moving forward with clear and qualitative data?
Step 2: The sales blueprint underpins effective implementation
Besides taking a critical look at the data your sales team is working with, this is also a good time to review your current sales process. It’s important to clarify the sales process precisely so that HubSpot can be organised accordingly. We set HubSpot up based on your sales process and NOT the other way around, with you having to adapt your sales process to HubSpot.
Although we do see this happening from time to time, within this step. When you start using HubSpot Sales, all at once you have a great set of new tools at your disposal. You might be tempted to start using these tools immediately within your sales process. This would make sense for certain tools. They optimise your sales process and streamline your work, so enable you to realise the value of HubSpot Sales.
To make sure that your entire sales team embraces HubSpot too, we work with you to co-create the so-called Sales Blueprint. This blueprint provides an overview of how HubSpot will support your sales process. It covers questions like: what data do we want to view in the CRM? Which pipelines are crucial for our business? But also: can we optimise our sales outreaches and do we want to?
With clear answers to such questions, we can finetune the set-up of HubSpot so that it aligns perfectly with your sales process. Just to be clear, this is not about modifying your sales process based on HubSpot; your sales process is distilled into HubSpot. So you benefit from the functionality from the outset, while also optimising your process.
Step 3: Become a HubSpot Champion
The best way to learn about HubSpot Sales is, of course, to actively use it. This is what ultimately differentiates a ‘regular’ HubSpot Sales user from a true HubSpot champion. Fear not – we will train your entire sales team to use HubSpot Sales properly.
During our training sessions, ideally involving the full sales team, we work through HubSpot Sales and CRM. You learn highly practical ways to use the CRM, the sales pipeline and the sales enablement tools so you can get started straight away. It goes without saying, the learning is completely tailored to your organisation. HubSpot Sales places a considerable number of Sales Enablement Tools at our disposal. But these do not offer the same value to every organisation, or even to every department or sales cycle. During the training, we focus on the parts that matter to you and zoom in on them.
We also decide in tandem who should be the champion or champions within your organisation. They take on a leadership role in order to take the team, along with us, into the world of HubSpot Sales. These champions are often identified in step 1 or 2. It’s easy to take the pulse and see who is keen, quick on the uptake and sufficiently driven to make it a success.
Step 4: Continuous optimisation
Do we now leave you to sink or swim? No, we certainly do not. Thanks to our previous steps, your sales team members are qualified HubSpot Sales ‘swimmers’ so there’s no risk of anyone drowning. We’re also still in attendance as lifeguards, should a big wave come along unexpectedly.
During this step, your sales team is entirely capable of using HubSpot Sales on their own. They feel confident and know their way around HubSpot. During the initial weeks and months, we set times to evaluate progress together. What’s working well? Where can we still identify opportunities? This makes perfect sense within the process.
In effect, you can only really determine what else to optimise once you’ve completed your first full sales cycle with HubSpot Sales. If you’ve been an active user for a month and your average sales cycle is three months, it may be a little premature to modify, say, the final phases of your sales process.
Thanks to this roadmap, a successful implementation is virtually guaranteed. Our focus is on setting up the system properly and on its adoption. Following this trajectory, your sales team can then wholeheartedly say yes! when they answer the questions below:
- Does the sales team understand the software?
- Does the sales team get value from the software?
Tired of all that onboarded-ness? Bear in mind that a solid base – a strong foundation – is essential for further growth. And with this roadmap from Webs, you have a solid base to get started with HubSpot Sales.
