The extensive features of HubSpot Sales Hub, from pipeline automation to deal tracking, can leave sales teams unsure of where to start.
After onboarding 50+ clients to HubSpot, we’ve learned what works and doesn’t.
Our clients have seamlessly connected with prospects, automated routine tasks, and personalized outreach at scale, improving their sales performance.
In this post, we'll share strategies to help you transform your sales process using HubSpot.
Let's dive into this comprehensive HubSpot Sales onboarding guide.
Have you ever tried assembling a complex gadget without instructions, only to feel frustrated?
That's how navigating HubSpot Sales onboarding feels without the proper support.
This is where partnering with a certified HubSpot expert can make all the difference.
When you work with a HubSpot Partner, you can access expertise tailored to your needs.
Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, you'll receive a customized onboarding experience tailored to your sales processes and goals.
For example, imagine trying to set up advanced automation workflows independently.
A HubSpot Partner can guide you through this process, showing you how to automate routine tasks like lead assignments, follow-up emails, and deal stage updates.
This saves you time and ensures no prospects fall through the cracks.
While standard HubSpot onboarding offers valuable resources, it might not delve into the nuances of your specific industry or sales strategies.
In contrast, a HubSpot Partner can provide additional services like conversion rate optimization, sales consulting, and automated tools that streamline your workflow.
You'll get personalized attention with extended onboarding timelines that fit your schedule, making the transition smoother for you and your team.
Certified HubSpot partners help you integrate HubSpot with other tools you use, customize your CRM properties, and train your team on best practices.
This level of support can accelerate your team's proficiency with HubSpot, leading to quicker results and a more substantial return on investment.
So, why navigate this journey alone when you can have an expert guide?
Partnering with a HubSpot expert ensures you're fully equipped to leverage the platform's capabilities, transforming your sales process into a well-oiled machine.
Starting your HubSpot Sales journey might feel overwhelming, but breaking it down into manageable phases makes everything more approachable.
Let's start by setting up the essential technical components of your HubSpot account.
You'll begin by configuring user accounts, syncing your email inboxes, and integrating any external tools you rely on. This will ensure that everything operates seamlessly from the start.
Setting up custom properties and importing your data will prepare your CRM for smooth collaboration across your team.
Completing this setup means you and your team will have access to all the resources and tools needed to engage with prospects effectively.
First, set up your HubSpot portal as the central hub for all your sales activities. Configure your account settings and establish access permissions for your team members.
Integrating your email inbox (Office 365 or Gmail), calendar, and third-party apps like Slack or Teams will create a unified platform that streamlines communication and scheduling.
Remember to import your existing CRM data. Whether it's contacts, deals, or companies, bringing this information into HubSpot ensures continuity and solidifies your sales pipeline.
By customizing deal properties and pipelines, you can make the platform intuitive for you and your team, mirroring your unique sales process.
Next, install the HubSpot tracking code on your website if you're not using HubSpot CMS.
This small snippet of code unlocks powerful analytics and tracking features, giving you valuable insights into visitor behavior and engagement.
While these technical setups might seem tedious, they're essential for leveraging HubSpot's full capabilities and getting the most value out of your portal long-term.
Questions to Consider:
1. What custom properties do you need to add to the CRM?
2. Do you need to create custom objects in your CRM?
3. What processes does your sales team want to automate?
4. What are the stages of your sales process?
5. How do you define a lead, MQL, and SQL?
6. How do you define lead statuses such as Open and In Progress?
Tasks to Complete:
1. Create custom properties tailored to your sales process.
2. Import your company data to ensure all information is up-to-date.
3. Set up sales workflows to automate routine tasks.
4. Customize contact, company, and deal records to suit your needs.
5. Create views for Customers, SQLs, MQLs, and Leads.
5. Add lead status to your views for better tracking.
6. Set up deal pipelines, including deal forms and required properties.
7. Configure deal currencies if you operate in multiple currencies.
8. Invite your team members to collaborate in HubSpot.
9. Connect Office 365 or Gmail accounts to integrate email and calendar.
Now that you've established the technical foundation, it's time to connect with prospects.
Imagine engaging website visitors in real-time—answering their questions and assisting when their interest peaks.
You'll make this a reality by enabling live chat on your site.
Setting up the meeting tools is another game-changer. It simplifies scheduling by letting prospects book time with you at their convenience, eliminating back-and-forth emails.
Training your team to use HubSpot's conversations and CRM email tools ensures everyone communicates effectively and consistently.
Personalization is critical in this phase.
Utilizing your contact data allows you to tailor your messages, schedule emails for optimal times, and build stronger relationships with your prospects.
Questions to Consider:
1. How are you currently communicating with your prospects?
2. What process works best for you and your team?
3. Which communication channels do your prospects prefer?
4. How do your prospects schedule meetings with you?
5. How are your sales reps emailing prospects?
Tasks to Complete:
1. Set up live chat on your web pages. This lets you engage visitors in real time, provide immediate answers, and build rapport.
2. Learn how to use conversations to answer your prospects’ questions. Familiarize yourself with HubSpot's conversation tool to manage live chats effectively.
3. Connect your email and calendar. This will allow you to use the meetings tool to let prospects book time with you directly, streamlining the scheduling process.
4. Use email scheduling to send messages at your prospects' preferred times. This increases the likelihood they'll open and respond to your emails.
5. Email prospects directly from the CRM. This keeps all communications in one place, making it easier to track interactions.
6. Create shared inboxes (e.g., Sales, Contact). This ensures incoming inquiries are accessible to the right team members.
7. Connect shared email addresses (e.g., sales@company.com). Centralize your team's communication channels for efficiency.
Now, let's automate your sales process using HubSpot Sales onboarding. This is where HubSpot truly shines.
Building and customizing your deal pipelines will create a visual representation of your sales process that effortlessly moves deals forward.
Setting up automation for lead assignments ensures no prospect falls through the cracks, automatically distributing leads to the right team members.
By automating task creation and extending workflows to cover follow-ups and reminders, your sales reps can focus on what they do best—closing deals.
Integrating HubSpot with other tools and platforms you use further optimizes your processes, allowing for a seamless flow of information and reducing administrative overhead.
Questions to Consider:
1. What does your current sales process look like? Are there areas where you see room for improvement?
2. Which territories or regions do your teams cover?
3. What are the different stages of your deal pipelines?
4. What daily tasks do your sales reps complete?
5. How are leads currently assigned or rotated to your sales reps?
Tasks to Complete:
1. Create deal stages to automate your pipeline process. This will provide a clear path for each deal and ensure consistent progress.
2. Customize deal pipelines to fit your sales process. Tailor the stages and properties to match how you sell, making it intuitive for your team.
3. Add tasks to help your sales reps execute daily objectives more efficiently. Automated task creation keeps everyone on track.
4. Automate lead rotation to sales reps. This ensures that leads are distributed evenly and promptly, without missed opportunities.
5. Confirm that your deal stage properties are set up correctly. Accurate properties enable better reporting and forecasting.
6. Set up workflow extensions to automate sales processes. This can include automating follow-ups, updating deal stages, or sending internal notifications.
7. Explore how other tools you use integrate with HubSpot. Seamless integration reduces manual data entry and keeps all your systems in sync.
By automating these aspects of your sales process, you'll save time, reduce errors, and allow your team to focus on building relationships and closing deals.
Now that you've automated your sales process, it's time to add a personal touch to your outreach.
Reaching out to each of your prospects individually is ideal, but let's be honest—that's not always practical.
That's where HubSpot's tools come in—they allow you to personalize your outreach at scale.
By creating email templates with personalization tokens, you can make each message feel tailor-made, even when sending it to many recipients.
Imagine your prospect opening an email that speaks directly to their needs—that's powerful.
Have you considered using 1:1 video outreach yet?
Adding personalized videos to your emails adds a human touch that differentiates you from your competitors. It's like being there in person but without the travel time.
Sequences are another feature that increases performance.
HubSpot Sequences enables you to automate follow-ups, ensuring consistent communication without manual effort.
No more worrying about forgetting to send that vital follow-up email—HubSpot takes care of it.
Setting up tools for quotes, creating a product library, and automating follow-ups streamline your sales cycle, making it easier for your prospects to say "yes."
By simplifying these processes, you're removing barriers to closing deals.
Questions to Consider:
1. How are you currently personalizing your outreach?
2. How would your buyer personas prefer to be contacted?
3. Are you using 1:1 video outreach?
4. How do you follow up with prospects who have not responded?
5. How can you optimize communication with prospects for higher response rates?
6. How are you sending and receiving quotes for closed deals?
Tasks to Complete:
1. Use 1:1 video creation and outreach to get higher response rates. Record personalized videos to engage your prospects on a deeper level.
2. Add videos to your CRM emails. This adds a visual element that captures attention.
3. Create sequence queues to follow up with prospects automatically. This ensures you stay top-of-mind without manual effort.
4. Use personalization tokens in your email templates. This makes each message feel personal, saving you time while enhancing the recipient's experience.
5. Use the meetings tool to eliminate back-and-forth communication when setting up meetings. Let prospects book time with you directly based on your availability.
6. Set up quotes to close deals faster. Streamline the quoting process to make it easy for prospects to say "yes."
7. Set up your product library to include the items you sell. This makes creating quotes and invoices easier and quicker for your sales team.
8. Create automated tasks and task queues. This helps you manage your workload efficiently.
Personalizing your outreach will build stronger relationships with your prospects, setting the stage for successful sales.
If you're using a Pro or Enterprise HubSpot account, you're about to unlock advanced features that can catapult your sales process to new heights.
Imagine having sophisticated automation at your fingertips, with workflows and playbooks that guide you and your team through best practices and ensure consistency across the board.
With custom reporting and sales analytics, you'll gain deep insights into your performance, helping you make data-driven decisions.
Forecasting tools let you predict future sales and adjust your strategies proactively, so you're always one step ahead.
And if you're an Enterprise user, features like recurring revenue tracking and predictive lead scoring give you a competitive edge by identifying your most promising prospects and revenue opportunities.
Tasks to Complete:
1. Set Up Advanced Workflows: Automate complex tasks like lead nurturing and deal stage management. This will save you time and ensure that no opportunity slips through the cracks.
2. Develop Custom Playbooks: Create guides for your team to follow during sales calls or emails, ensuring consistent messaging and helping new team members ramp up quickly.
3. Create Custom Reports and Dashboards: Tailor your analytics to focus on the metrics that matter most to you. This will help you track progress and make informed decisions.
4. Utilize Forecasting Tools: Predict future sales based on historical data. This allows you to allocate resources effectively and set realistic goals.
5. Implement Recurring Revenue Tracking (Enterprise): Monitor subscription renewals and upsell opportunities to maximize customer lifetime value.
6. Leverage Predictive Lead Scoring (Enterprise): Use AI-driven insights to identify which leads will most likely convert so you can prioritize your efforts.
Starting with a new platform like HubSpot can feel overwhelming, but don't worry—you’re not alone on this journey. You'll receive personalized support throughout onboarding to make your transition as smooth as possible.
Imagine having a dedicated project manager by your side every step of the way.
This person coordinates all aspects of your onboarding, ensuring that the implementation aligns perfectly with your business needs.
They'll schedule regular consulting sessions to dive deep into your goals, challenges, and strategies. Together, you'll tailor HubSpot's tools to fit your sales process like a glove.
Weekly training calls are another crucial part of your support system. These aren't just generic webinars but interactive sessions focused on your team's needs.
Whether you're troubleshooting a technical issue or exploring advanced features, these calls provide hands-on training to increase your team's confidence and proficiency with the platform.
But what happens when questions pop up between sessions?
That's where private live chat support comes in. You can reach out anytime through platforms like Slack or Microsoft Teams for quick answers.
Need clarification on setting up a workflow? Just send a message, and a HubSpot expert will guide you. Email support is also available for less urgent inquiries, ensuring you have access to help whenever you need it.
This combination of scheduled training and on-demand assistance transforms your onboarding process into a collaborative partnership.
You're not just learning a new tool but building a relationship with experts invested in your success. They understand that every business is unique and are committed to helping you leverage HubSpot to its fullest potential.
By the end of your onboarding, you'll have a fully configured HubSpot portal and a confident and excited team to use it. The support offered ensures you're set up for long-term success with resources and contacts you can rely on as your business grows.
No two businesses are exactly alike, right?
Maybe you've thought, "I wish HubSpot could do this one specific thing to perfect our workflow."
Well, the good news is—it probably can!
Custom solutions and advanced integrations are about tailoring HubSpot to fit your unique needs.
Imagine your team relies heavily on an ERP system to manage inventory and orders. Manually transferring data between your ERP and HubSpot wastes time and can lead to errors.
By seamlessly integrating these systems, you can automate the quote-to-cash process.
For instance, when you close a deal in HubSpot, it can automatically trigger actions in your ERP or accounting system to update inventory levels and start order fulfillment.
This streamlines operations and ensures that every department is on the same page.
You may be migrating from another CRM and are worried about losing valuable data.
Custom onboarding solutions can help map all your existing data fields and properties to HubSpot's structure. You can also transfer your contacts, companies, deals, and custom objects.
You'll maintain data integrity while benefiting from HubSpot's intuitive interface and powerful features.
Integration continues beyond there. HubSpot can connect with accounting software, making revenue tracking and financial reporting more efficient.
Integrating with a subscription management tool can automate renewal reminders and payment processing if you're in a subscription-based business.
This keeps your customers engaged and reduces churn without manual intervention.
They'll take the time to understand your specific challenges and objectives, designing integrations and customizations that align perfectly with your business processes.
You'll get the best of both worlds: a powerful, out-of-the-box CRM and a tailored system that meets your unique needs.
We've covered a lot of ground in this guide, and now it's time to bring it all together for you. Here are the essential points to remember as you continue your HubSpot Sales onboarding journey:
1. Structured Onboarding is Crucial:
A well-planned onboarding process ensures you and your team can fully leverage HubSpot's powerful features. By following the phased approach, you systematically set up, learn, and integrate each aspect of the platform into your sales process.
2. The Value of Partnering with Experts:
Working with a certified HubSpot Partner provides personalized guidance tailored to your business needs. Their expertise turns standard onboarding into a customized experience that accelerates your team's proficiency and increases your return on investment.
Customization and Automation Enhance Efficiency:
Utilizing custom solutions and advanced integrations transforms HubSpot into a tool that fits your business like a glove. Automation streamlines routine tasks and personalizes customer interactions at scale, giving you a competitive edge.
3. Ongoing Support Leads to Sustained Success:
The transition doesn't end after onboarding. With continued support from Customer Success Managers and professional services, you can refine your processes, stay updated with new features, and ensure long-term growth.
4. Take Action Today:
The benefits of a fully optimized HubSpot platform are too significant to delay.
By starting your onboarding now, you're investing in a tool that will transform your sales process and drive your business forward.
Remember, you're not just adopting new software—you're embracing a more efficient, personalized, and effective way of selling. The combination of a structured onboarding process and expert partnership sets the stage for your sustained success.
You’ve successfully navigated the essential phases of HubSpot Sales onboarding—from setting up your account and enhancing prospect connections to automating your sales process and personalizing your outreach.
Now, it’s your turn to adjust your sales strategy:
Are you ready to improve your sales performance? Start your HubSpot Sales onboarding today and see how it changes your selling.