How Migrating 3 Sales Teams From Salesforce To HubSpot Simplified The Sales Process

The Challenge: Multi-layered Migrations Are Complicated

Hart Energy came to us with a pretty standard request: move what they have in Salesforce over to HubSpot and train their team. But like many migrations, once we dug into it a bit we discovered there was a lot more to the story.

Getting the Right Data to the Right Place

An inherent challenge of this type of migration is that things can’t always transfer over in a 1 to 1 kind of way.  This means that everything needed to be mapped strategically, especially since Hart Energy was looking to cut useless fields and dead-weight data. Combine this with the fact that we were dealing with over 100k records. It is very easy to lose track of where things go and for information to be lost in the transfer. Without the proper data quality checks and tests, a migration like this could spiral out of control causing more harm than good.  

Creating New Processes vs. Recreating Old Processes

Hart Energy was also looking to streamline their sales process. This meant that as we built out their HubSpot Sales Pro environment we needed to dig in on how they were selling, what their back office activities looked like and trim the fat. To make things harder, the sales team had already been familiarized with HubSpot during a test, but the experience left a bad taste in their mouth because of the duplicated work using two CRMs. We needed to not only train the sales team on HubSpot, but turn the tide of opinion as well during our training sessions.

The Solution: A Streamlined Sales Process Packed with Power

Just moving their data from Salesforce to HubSpot wasn't enough. They needed to be ready to take full advantage of what HubSpot has to offer and hit the ground running.

Go Where They Are

In order to do this well, we conducted a series of interviews with Hart Energy Sales Reps and Managers. Doing this not only allowed us to make sure all essential steps in the sales process would make it into HubSpot, but also allowed us to identify friction points in the sales process and fix them. We asked pointed questions about what running a sale through their process actually looked like and identified specific ways we could make things better for them.  

EXAMPLE 1: inputting company information was a step that was often missed or only done to the bare minimum. We were able to set the system to add and prefill company info automatically. This not only put time back into the pockets of the sales people, but improved the quality and coverage of their data. By tasking HubSpot with filling in the company info we were able to improve reporting and unify all the account communication history in a much simpler more intuitive way.

EXAMPLE 2: the process of logging sales activity. This was often not done or done incorrectly. We were able to standardize that and allow for easy logging of emails and calls in contact timelines. Doing this gave sales management a better understanding of who key accounts were and how much work goes into different types of sales.

The result was a more streamlined process, which enabled easier reporting and less extraneous tasks. This allows the sales team to focus more on selling. In one instance, we had a salesperson who had been maintaining an additional CRM outside Salesforce, but after the migration, they were able close it down and work solely out of HubSpot.

Shifting the Team's Mindset

With the sales system built and the data transferred it was time to take on the challenge of getting the sales team to embrace the new CRM. To strategically increase early adoption, we made sure to conduct interviews with our front-line users. This enabled us to take their input to incorporate into the sales system, adding more value to HubSpot and ensuring the sales team didn't feel blindsided when it was time to start training. In some cases, they were even enthusiastic about the change and raring to go!

An Uber Mindful Approach to Training

We split training into 3 different sessions:

• The first covered the basics. How to create a contact, how to create a deal, and how to move leads through the sales pipeline.
• The second training focused on more advanced features, like setting up and using workflows, integrating their calendars and emails into the system, and using other sales features like documents and quotes.
• The final training focused on reporting in HubSpot and how to best run queries to find the data you need. 

With training complete, we set up a resources document that not only linked back to the recorded training sessions, which we cut down and added a timestamped table of contents for easy navigation, but it also had step by step instructions to use some functionalities the sales team had asked for.

Final Thought: It's Not What You Use, but How You Use It

HubSpot isn’t inherently better than Salesforce, nor is Salesforce better than HubSpot. They both have their strengths and weaknesses and to use them successfully you need to play to their strengths. But, it's possible to find ways to still get the data you need, but deliver it in different ways—sometimes in better ways. The importance of understanding this change was a key component of overcoming resistance to the change. Overcoming resistance to change because of a fear of learning a new system is tough to overcome. That is why we always include anyone that will be impacted by a migration early and often in the planning phase, so by the time training comes around there is much less resistance to it.