Erin Balsa

HubSpot adoption is critical to its success. There's no point investing thousands into your CRM if none of your team are using it. There's also no point if your team are using it, but only because they're being forced to (or need constant reminding from leadership to update their notes). The data that goes in will be the bare minimum to check a box, and won't actually be that valuable in helping you make decisions long term. Instead, show your team how to have the CRM work FOR them, not the other way around. Adoption then becomes a self-driven and self-motivated act by the team. That's what Outbound is all about. Making HubSpot adoption a self-motivated act. How good. #outbound #crm #hubspot

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SDRs = Calling 📞 Marketing & Rev Ops = Cadence Tools & Automations Save your org $$$s by getting your SDRs out of cadence tools and back into the #CRM focussed on dialing Leave automated outreach and multi-touch sequences to marketing, and guess what? Then you only need one cadence tool licence! I chatted to Mark Bedard who clearly lays out the path to streamlining your outbound motion #sales #salestips #bdr #sdr #outbound #calling #coldcalling

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🚨 "𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝗜 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝟭𝟯 𝗦𝗮𝗮𝗦 𝗖𝗠𝗢𝘀 𝗱𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗻𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝗳 $𝟭𝟱𝗠 𝗔𝗥𝗥 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁..." You won’t believe what they all had to say! Okay, we'll tell ya! Turns out, they all agreed that hooks like the one at the top are trash. 😲 This is Liam Moroney's experience who sums it up well: "𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗸𝗻𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗽𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗼 𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 '𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆' 𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲." Absolutely, Liam. Our experiences align, showing that patterns—whether in business or personal life—quickly become recognized and associated with manipulation when overused. Think about it. When children don't get their way, they cry. The first couple of times, we're fooled and give into their demands. But once it starts to become a pattern, it becomes less effective. We're no longer fooled. Well, it's the same with selling. We're training people to know our next move. Hence, when we repeatedly use the same hook, template or opener, people start to see it as a ploy to sell rather than genuine engagement. 📉 While once effective, these tactics eventually wear out. The key is remaining fresh, creative. Avoid becoming too comfortable with what currently works, as it can quickly become stale. 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗮 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻? Then don't abuse or create a new one. P.S. For more insightful content, give Liam Moroney a follow! 👏

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Heard a phrase yesterday that really stuck with me. Stephanie Tobin from HubSpot was on a podcast speaking about a competitive deal she won by deeply understanding the prospect's needs and focusing on outcomes. She then shared the origination of this mindset that's instilled in HubSpot's sales org "How you sell is why you win" I then read a quote from Yamini Rangan a few years back about this concept: "How you sell is why you win. There used to be this whole paradigm that it was just the product or it was just the brand that motivated people to buy. ... Buyers are actually in control of the entire sales and service process." 18 years since launching. A global category leader. One of the biggest software companies in the world. Yet HubSpot doesn't rely on its market dominance or brand to sell. They prioritise the buying experience as a differentiator. 84% of buyers care as much about this as the product itself. And the fact that customers have hundreds of solutions to choose from nowadays, you shouldn't underestimate the impact of delivering a stand-out buying journey. Kudos Stephanie 👏

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Top-rated survey app for HubSpot! Yup, that’s Survicate. But our integration with HubSpot is more than just toolstack connection—it’s a partnership. 🧡 Here’s what Survicate & HubSpot make possible: 🧡 Embed surveys directly in HubSpot emails for higher response rates, as customers can answer questions straight from their inbox, 🧡 Send personalized communication that resonates with your customers by segmenting your audience based on survey responses, 🧡 Trigger workflows based on survey responses—ask satisfied clients for reviews and quickly address negative feedback to reduce churn risk. On top of that, you can now also view Survicate data directly in HubSpot, and share insights from HubSpot to Survicate for automatic analysis and categorization. What words can’t describe, a visual can show—check out the video that’s playing at #INBOUND24, and get all that there’s to the deep integration of Survicate and HubSpot. Special thanks go to: Russell Bradley-Cook ⚡️, Jackie Valenzuela, Sejal Parikh, Roger Brown, Robyn N., Scott Brinker, thank you for making our partnership as great as it is. 🙌🏻 And BIG kudos to our team for making it all happen: Serhii Duzhych, Daniel Korczynski, Barbara Derkowska-Podhajska, Paulina Hryniewicz, Ada Wręga, Jarosław Brzozowski, Magdalena Kuncicka, Anna Belka, Mariusz Kowalczyk, Michał Krzeczkowski 🙌🏻 Survicate 🧡 HubSpot

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Easy question for all the HubSpot + RevOps folk out there 😅 → What do you want to see more of in your feed? 1. Step-by-step use case playbooks? 2. Breakdowns of new HubSpot updates & features? 3. In-depth reviews of HubSpot marketplace apps + integrations? *or none of the above...there is already too much noise 🎧 Let me know or make your own requests in the comments 👇 - P.S. I’m building a media/education brand for the HubSpot ecosystem. Subscribe for 🆕 step-by-step playbooks to deploy directly to your account. https://lnkd.in/en942kTf

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💡Are you leaving money on the table with your HubSpot setup? Most businesses only scratch the surface of what’s possible. Let’s change that. 📊 The truth is, most businesses only tap into a fraction (typically 20%!) of HubSpot’s capabilities, leaving untapped potential—and ROI—on the table. That’s why we created the HubSpot Accelerator Audit, designed to help you: ✅ Solve your data and process challenges ✅ Maximize your HubSpot ROI ✅ Build a system you can confidently maintain and leverage long-term Why Now? Q4 is the perfect time to audit your HubSpot setup and enter 2025 with a solid foundation for success. 💥 Special Offer: Get 50% off our Accelerator Audit (now $2000) if you purchase by December 15th. This includes: ✨ A complete audit and action plan ✨ 4 hours of implementation to address top priorities Let’s unlock the other 80% of your HubSpot potential. Book a call today! #HubSpotAudit #MarketingAutomation #HubSpotOptimization

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Tangent: But some of my very best leads were webinar attendees. Here’s the scenario: I was running demand generation for a well-established IT brand that had been popular with SysAdmins since the 90s. The webinars were technical, to the point where I needed some training just to build the deck, make the intros and advance the slides. I was the "host," while a sales engineer (SE) -- with all the necessary IT credentials -- was the presenter. Here’s how we turned those attendees MQLs: 1) Leaked Webinar Invites: These were built as customer webinars, but we “leaked” invites to our prospect list. It was a bit of an accident at first, but we realized that this “peek behind the curtain” was what IT professionals wanted. Many had used the solution 10-20 years earlier and weren’t interested in going through a standard demo process. 2) Structured Q&A: We promised a Q&A session at the end of the webinar and I politely deferred live questions to the end. However, I monitored the message window for technical issues, gauge the audience and other significant issues. The presenter (the sales engineer) could not see these messages unless I shared them with him. 3) Water Break: Between the presentation and the Q&A, the sales engineer would take a "water break," and I would run a short, commercial-like interlude. I'd ask the audience 3 or 4 survey questions. We used On24, which had a live survey tool. One or two of the questions asked who in the audience -- as if they were all customers -- was interested in speaking with their AE and an SE about expanding their license to include these features, with some aura of exclusivity 4) Lead Qualification: Invariably, prospects in attendance would express interest not only in the new features but also in the broader solution. This gave them the feeling that they were "hacking" their way around an otherwise frustrating qualification process and getting straight to the right conversation. In line with the Sales/Marketing SLA, we processed these webinar hand-raisers as MQLs. After one webinar, the resulting MQL-to-Opp ratio was nearly 1:1. Oh, and Evan's right about everything. Read his post too. /Tangent

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I love this post—it's hilarious to see a RevOps person reporting to a sales leader and admitting to skewing data to make their boss look good. I agree that having separate ops people for each group creates dysfunction since everyone interprets data differently. But there's a time and place for everything. It's like saying every SDR team should report to sales—that's too broad. For instance, an inbound SDR team might be better suited under marketing. My take is that larger companies should have a centralized operations team reporting to a third-party group. It doesn't have to be finance; it could be operations or strategy. In small companies, I'm more open to having functional operational support. It's beneficial for a marketing ops person handling processes, reporting, website, ABM, etc., to report directly to marketing leadership. This way, they can establish processes without getting sidetracked by irrelevant projects from a centralized team that has no clue about marketing. You gotta treat this on a case-by-case basis and consider the people involved. If you have a great data-driven finance leader, it might make sense to put operations under them, for example. Every situation is unique, but the general rule of thumb is: small companies should have ops people under their functional leaders wearing multiple hats, while bigger companies should have the operations function report to an independent third party.

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We’re continuing where we left off on the first HubSpot Fall Update. For those tuning in for the first time, Breeze is the new HubSpot multi-talented AI agent. Breeze Content Agent will help you create landing pages, podcasts, case studies (to be used as lead magnets), and blog posts. Breeze Social uses AI to analyze social post performance and trends to create a custom social strategy and even goes further to create the actual social media posts. Breeze Prospecting Agent can automate outreach of inbound leads or set up a leads re-engagement campaign. Breeze Customer Agent can replace your first level of support and answer questions based on your knowledge base. Then, route the question to the right second-level support agent if and when needed. One of the most effective use cases for AI is first-line customer support: nobody likes waiting for support agents to connect to the chat, and if an AI agent can answer the mythical 80% of easy customer queries that would have required users to comb through the knowledge base. Talk about quick wins! However, possibly the most useful Breeze add-on capability is Breeze Intelligence, a data enrichment platform (notably excluding emails and phone numbers!) that HubSpot evolved from its Clearbit acquisition. Data points provided are demographic, firmographic, and intent data. Among other use cases, data enrichment will allow you to increase the number of forms-fills on longer forms. Why would you ask so many questions if you already have the data or can enrich it? HubSpot forms can now dynamically adapt to the data that needs to be filled in. A small step for a marketer, a giant leap for mankind! And a step or two forward from the already present progressive profiling. Based on the collected data, you can then score and route the leads to the appropriate team or automation for further processing and follow-up. With enrichment, you can enrich single records or bulk enrich multiple records. Intent signal enrichment is implemented as ICP data + first-party behavioral data collected on your website. So, for example, if you’re targeting the automotive industry, you can find all the people in the automotive industry who recently visited your pricing page or the Contact Us page. Breeze Lead Scoring can also give you insights into how past leads have converted and help you build a lead scoring rule set that works, keeping firmographic and behavioral data into account. I'll be covering more of HubSpot useful features in my posts so to make sure you don't miss the next ones, like, comment, follow, or connect with me to tell The LinkedIn Algorithm that you want to see more of these. #hubspot #b2bmarketing

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We at ZUZU Hospitality are doing exactly what Dharmesh Shah said HubSpot's product and GTM strategy was - Broad featureset and SMB focus. We just happen to do it for Hospitality. One more thing, we are doing it with an added layer of services components to take away the more complex bits such as Revenue Management. Thanks you Dharmesh Shah for articulating this strategy. Gives us early builders more confidence in what we are going for.

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I can’t understand why some PMM don’t want to work with sales. Ok ok, I understand, but I disagree. It usually boils down to: 🌊 Not wanting to open the flood gates of requests 😓 Feeling insecure about their ability to bring value ♟️ Thinking other work is more important or “strategic” That’s wrong. Some of the most successful PMMs I know got where they are because they understood the importance of working closely with sales. They got as close to revenue as possible. Because they knew it was a two way street. Product marketers can provide a lot of value to the revenue team, but they also get a ton of value back in return. Or at least they have the ability to. What does that look like? You give value: ↳ Market Insights ↳ Competitive Intel ↳ Messaging ↳ Content ↳ Social Proof ↳ Deal Support And at the same time, your sales team is out in front of buyers and customers. They're getting real feedback on your pitch. Hearing how you stack up against competitors and why you lose deals. They're also bringing in revenue, which is one of the clearest ways for you to align your efforts with revenue impact. So, you get value: ↳ Market Insights ↳ Competitive Intel ↳ Win-Loss Insights ↳ Messaging Feedback ↳ Revenue Impact If you have a sales team, or even a CS org responsible for driving revenue, make sure you’re looking at that relationship as a two-way street. Your future self will thank you for it.

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I dropped this comment from RevPartners and didn’t think twice about it… It now has massive (for us) engagement on an Alex Lieberman post with 800 engagements and counting 🤩 2024 = the year of the B2B unhinged comments and we’re all in. No one wants a stuffy, unrelatable brand. If you’re holding back your social media team and clutching your pearls to approve every post, you’re doing more to hurt your brand than you may realize. 👎 If your potential buyers think you’re weird on social (or old fashioned), they might think your product is behind the times too. 😴 Instead, empower your SMM to be funny, be different, be an actual human from the brand account and be known for that. Hire young, sure, but hire for the social skill set of 2024. If you work in social, advocate for what you see is working. Connect social to top of funnel brand awareness. Don’t take no for an answer. Come to your boss with data. Notice what you yourself find funny on the internet and try to replicate it with your own twist. Hey mom, mom, and dad (Christina Le, Bri Reynolds, Gabriel Gomez) look at your @ Me webinar at work !! ps shoutout to the best boss Rob Jones, sorry for dragging you so much from the brand account lol See you in the comments! 🫶

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SaaS companies often fight each other on execution when what they should really be doing is trying to beat each other on strategy. Imagine this: you’re in a well-established market with three big players dominating the space. They’re locked in a bidding war on Google ads, even paying to show up on each other’s brand keywords. This only drives up their ad costs and makes Google richer. But none of these 3 players have an organic LinkedIn motion where they are educating and entertaining their ICP. Now, along comes a fourth, smaller company. Instead of joining the Google ad bidding war, they save their budget and take a different route. They decide to go all-in on LinkedIn, focusing on building their brand organically. The founder steps up, spending time on LinkedIn to educate and engage with their target customers. The founder hires a couple of folks from his ICP in his marketing team, who then help add to the momentum being built by the founder on LinkedIn already. Now, this strategy of opting for an organic LinkedIn motion instead of engaging in bidding wars on search could fail or take time to succeed. But if does succeed, then the fourth upstart could gain a serious edge in market, leaving the 3 legacy players scratching their heads as they continue their pricey ad war. What other strategy moves do you think SaaS brands should consider?

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Friday goal for booked Discos: 10 We all have full calendars - how are we going to do it? Warm outbound of course 🤙 Call blocks 📞 And highly targeted, well researched outreach. 🧪 What's everyone's Friday goal this week??

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More B2B SaaS companies are ungating their content. According to the poll Paul Slack conducted, 71% of respondents report they’ve ungated some or all of their content. Yet a third of those that either do still gate or have ungated content are still unsure if it drives pipeline and revenue. Regardless of which camp you fall into, I hope you can join us Wednesday for the Demand Gen Jam Session hosted by Vende Digital. We’ll discuss how ungating our content correlates with driving demo requests and pipeline, and other lessons I’ve learned though the process. Hope you can join us. 🔗 in bio.

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📉 Why ROAS is Holding You Back (and What to Do About It) Marketing leaders: if you’re still clinging to ROAS, it’s time to let it go. Here’s why + how to track metrics that scale your business: ❌ ROAS is stuck in the past. It was built for a single-channel world. In today’s omni-channel environment, ROAS can’t keep up. ❌ ROAS ignores the big picture. It measures individual campaigns but doesn’t show how your entire media spend impacts total revenue. ❌ ROAS can be misleading. It’s easy to inflate ROAS while your business stalls. (We’ve all seen it happen.) The solution? Media Efficiency Ratio (MER). MER = Total Revenue ÷ Total Media Spend. ✅ It’s simple. One formula gives you a complete view of your marketing’s effectiveness. ✅ It’s transparent. No more inflated metrics—just real insights into what’s driving growth. ✅ It’s actionable. MER helps you identify where to invest for scalable results. Download our free MPI Checklist to: 📊 Calculate MER for your business. 📈 Benchmark your performance. ⚙️ Start scaling smarter today. https://lnkd.in/g26jUxsf

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Our SDR team is the best in the biz.  That’s a fact. But it’s also a fact that our human team can’t possibly keep up with every single lead all at once. We’re putting so much of our marketing budget into getting eyes to our website, and on weeks where we have multiple events and tons of conversations are happening, speed to lead is crucial to make the most of all that engagement. It doesn’t matter how hard your SDRs work, they only have so many hours in a day. That’s where AI SDRs like Piper come in.  AI SDRs aren’t just a replacement for human employees, they augment your team when they’re at capacity and give them time back in their day to focus on bigger and better things. Maura Rivera and I sat down this week to talk about all the things that matter when evaluating an AI SDR in The AI SDR Hiring Guide. Check out the full conversation here: https://bit.ly/4eyaHEa

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HubSpot’s Predictive Lead Scoring can dramatically improve your sales process. Here's how... Unlike traditional lead scoring, which relies on manually assigning values to lead attributes, HubSpot learns to analyze patterns from your historical data and automatically score leads based on their likelihood to convert. What is it? Predictive Lead Scoring taps into your CRM’s past data—such as how leads interacted with your content, their company size, and other behaviors—to forecast which leads are most likely to become customers. HubSpot then generates a predictive score, making it easier for your sales team to prioritize their efforts. 3️⃣ Reasons Predictive Lead Scoring Is So Powerful: 1. Automated Accuracy: Traditional scoring often requires continuous manual adjustments, leading to inconsistencies. HubSpot’s predictive model constantly learns from your data, ensuring your lead scores are always accurate and up-to-date. 2. Effective Prioritization: Focus your sales efforts on leads that are more likely to convert. With predictive scores, your team can quickly identify and target high-value prospects, minimizing wasted time and boosting conversion rates. 3. Scalability: As your business grows, manually managing lead scores becomes impractical. HubSpot’s predictive scoring scales with your CRM, handling large amounts of data easily. 🚀 Here’s How You Can Use it in Your Business: ▶ Accelerate Sales Cycles: Route high-scoring leads to top sales reps for quicker engagement, shortening the time it takes to close deals. ▶ Personalized Nurturing: Use scores to segment leads and deliver tailored content, ensuring that higher-scoring leads receive more personalized attention while lower-scoring ones are nurtured until ready. Note: The lead scoring properties are automatically set by HubSpot and can’t be edited. To set values for these properties. By adopting Predictive Lead Scoring, you let your sales team to make smarter, data-driven decisions, leading to higher efficiency and better outcomes. This method not only automates the scoring process but also provides more consistent and reliable results compared to traditional lead scoring methods. Are you using Predictive Lead Scoring? #HubSpot #LeadScoring #SalesOptimization #PredictiveAnalytics #CRM #DigitalMarketing

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