HubSpot’s event kicks off today and, like anyone else living in an inbound world, I’m looking forward to the bounty. Like last year, they’re sure to announce some very cool new things and we’ll keep you posted as they become available.
A year ago Brian Halligan took to the stage to announce a freemium based, new crm. Organically connected to the marketing solutions, the HubSpot sales side promised a lot and, despite initial worries that it was a bit light, turned out to deliver in surprising ways. I was very well aware of what a traditionally thorough crm system could do since over the years I’ve had the chance to work with most of the established global ones as well as smaller local versions.
So when Brian spoke - I wasn’t totally sure.
What's happened in 12 months? My scepticism has faded as I have realised, that in its ability to not offer everything a traditional, corporate-driven crm does, HubSpot has in fact developed a very user friendly solution that eloquently enables real Smarketing, bridging the gap we’ve had between sales and marketing and minimizing the need for having layers of sales data in different systems.
Furthermore, the simple interface and visual approach works great in our company, because - although numbers driven - we’re much more inclined to enjoy a Cappucino with clients than indulge in technical manuals.
To say that HubSpot crm is a light solution for S&M companies is a gross understatement - the lightness is good. Like anything that real people use these days it’s easy to use and works great on a very practical level for our purposes. But when it comes managing an inbound-driven, digitally enabled B2B-sales funnel, I can’t really think of better alternatives. Our sales reps have an incredibly good idea of where their contacts are, what they’re interested in, where they’re going… So all the static, manually filled in client information they used to look at has now been transformed into real-time, actionable information.
Another example. Heard of Sidekick? The setup makes tracking our pipeline super easy. Our sales team gets real time intelligence throughout the course of the day, letting us know how our ecoystem is interacting with Sales Communications - in all the channels available to them.
Our expectations as consumers of how easy using apps, tablets and smart phones has certainly changed how I view software and what I expect as an experience. In just a year, we’re enjoying the ride with HubSpot, using the relevant features it offers in marketing and sales.
It all means I'm even more excited this year. This week my partner Jani Aaltonen and I will be able to meet with bright, astute smarketers from across diverse markets. Seth Godin’s keynote today is one nobody wants to miss. And as far as bringing new ideas into my business I’ll be that Wednesday’s keynote with Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah will not let us down - sales and marketing across the globe is listening to them very keenly these days.