Chris Strom 🤘

The most painful mistake you can make (when trying to get accurate funnel/pipeline data in Salesforce): Adding stage date stamps to Leads/Contacts/Opportunities (only). And not using a custom object. Why? 1. The buyer's journey is not linear. But you have built a linear reporting model that cannibalizes itself. > When the dates are on the Lead/Contact, and that buyer exits the sales process and then re-enters, the date fields are overwritten. Meaning you lose the history of the last sales process for reporting. 2. You need a unified data set. But you have built siloed data. > You're stuck pulling a Lead report, a Contact report, an Opportunity report, and a Campaign Member report. Then, you have to do hours of "Excelympics" to get a stitched-together (but still incomplete) dataset that you can build reports with. I used to think B2B SaaS companies were ok with this "siloed linear" method. But it gets very painful as you scale. It'll work for a little bit. Maybe until you hit series A. But as soon as this data is important to you >> upgrade immediately. But really, the sooner, the better because you don't want to be caught out when the difficult questions start coming from your board, investors, and a growing marketing/sales team wanting to know conversion rates, what to invest in, what to cut, etc. P.s. I know you can solve some of this with BI/data warehouse. But that setup brings a whole host of other issues e.g. data in BI not matching data in SFDC, reliance on your data team (that often deprioritizes marketing), additional cost, and extra lead time on making any changes. #gtmoperations #marketingoperations #revenueoperations  

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"There are features/tools that I never got with Salesforce and still can’t get to this day that HubSpot did right out of the box." - Davey Warren 🍐 In Ep. 12 of Fast and Tierious Davey chronicles: How Pearagon won the Customer First Award in 2020, 2021, and was top 10 in 2022 and 2023. AND more! He shares much about his journey - including: Getting Started in HubSpot - Initial CRM Consultancy: Started as a general CRM consultant, not initially focused on HubSpot. - Shift from Salesforce: Transitioned from using Salesforce after realizing HubSpot's features, user-friendliness, and partnership. - Full Commitment to HubSpot: Decided to become a dedicated HubSpot partner after successful implementation experiences. Scaling Challenges - Rapid Expansion: Grew too quickly at first, which led to inefficiencies and the need to scale back. - Finding the Right Talent: Challenges in hiring the right people, especially avoiding hiring friends and family. - Outsourcing Difficulties: Initially struggled with finding the right outsourcing partners which matched their business model and pace. Advice for new partners 1) Understand HubSpot Deeply: Invest time in learning all aspects of HubSpot’s functionalities and tools to provide comprehensive solutions to clients. 2) Focus on Customer Retention: Prioritize keeping clients happy and engaged long after the initial sale, as this is critical for sustainable growth and building a positive reputation. 3) Build Strong Relationships with HubSpot: Engage actively with HubSpot’s support and management teams to gain insights, support, and resources that can help enhance your offerings. 4) Adopt Lean Business Practices: Be cautious with rapid expansion. Focus on maintaining quality and manage growth in a sustainable manner that aligns with your business capabilities and market needs. 5) Strategic and Calculated Risk-Taking: Be prepared to make significant strategic bets if they are well-aligned with market trends and your business model, similar to Davey's full pivot to HubSpot. 6) Participate in Community and Educational Events: Organize or participate in events that foster community engagement and technical training, such as the Winter Bound event organized by Paragon, to enhance visibility and networking opportunities. What He Said He Would Never Do Again / Do Earlier - Never Again: Avoid hiring friends and family to prevent personal biases and complications. - Do Earlier: Master effective outsourcing strategies to avoid financial losses and operational inefficiencies. Their Big Bet: - Enterprise Market Focus: Betting on HubSpot’s move towards the mid-market and enterprise segments, aligning Paragon’s services to cater to larger, more complex clients and projects. ----------------- Fast and Tierious = Real, practical advice learned from building a HubSpot service business.

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This survey is chock full of interesting stats. Larger decision committees, an increased need to support buyers in finding the information they need in their own - expected. This statement stopped me in my tracks: “The 2024 B2B Buyer survey illustrates that nearly half (48%) of buyers are using AI tools to research software, and that an overwhelming 98% of those who are using it agree that it’s been impactful.” Nearly half already! I’ve shared before that a growing percentage of our inbound conservations were driven by prospects asking chatGPT for solution suggestions. It’s logical to expect this will increase. It’s causing us to reconsider the metrics for how we evaluate the content we create and continue to emphasize that it is the providing of information (regardless of where it is created), that can give you the advantage in the longer, more complex, B2B cycles. Have you seen AI become a lead source for you? How are you thinking about this? https://ow.ly/geUk50TnJpn

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[Downloadble] CRO Checklist. Let's break down what each section means and why it matters. 1) Understand user behaviour: Spy on your users (legally!) with heatmaps and session recordings. Watch where they click, scroll, and bounce. It's like being in their browser! 2) Fix webpages Is your site slower than you on a lazy Sunday? Speed it up! Why? A 1-second delay can cost you 7% in conversions. Ouch! 3) Killer landing page Your landing page should be like a first date: • impressive • clear and • leaving them wanting more. 4) Testing & analysis Don't just guess - test! 60% of marketers say: decisions made with data >> based on gut instinct. - Google research. 5) Reassessment Listen to your users. They're practically whispering sweet conversion secrets in your ear. Use surveys, but keep them short. Shorter than this sentence. 6) Retargeting Don't let window shoppers walk away. Retarget them like a friendly, non-creepy stalker. Why? Retargeting can boost ad response by 400% - AdRoll. Not too bad! So - refer to the checklist. Which is not just about quick fixes, but an ongoing system of optimization. Save and share with other marketers AND... Comment "CRO" if you want me to send you a high-quality printable PDF.

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There are only 6.3k stores on Salesforce Commerce Cloud. (By 2030, half will be on Shopify.) But for now… 2.8k do $1m+/yr. 1.4k do $5m+/yr 1k do $10m+/yr 704 do $50m+/yr 281 do $100m+/yr There are huge brands on Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Definitely a higher concentration of public brands than on Shopify. But the Shopify market is so much larger in the $1m - $100m segment. It’s still the greatest opportunity in eCom. Give it 5 more years. Shop will catch up with the bigger fish. #Shopify

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Got 2 great questions on my guide to running renewals in HubSpot 💡 1. Where is the value for {{ deal.next_renewal_year }} coming from? 2. How are you parsing out the year from a date? In the renewal playbook we’re using the “Next Renewal Year” property inside of the CloneNer app to include the correct renewal year in the name of subsequent renewal deals. Here’s to set it up: 1. Create a new HubSpot property: Name: Next Renewal Year Object Type: Deal Group: Deal Information 2. Define your property Type: Calculation Output Format: Number Number Format: Unformatted Number 3. Add a custom formula → (year([properties.renewal_date]) + 1) 4. Test your formula by selecting a date and clicking Test. You should get back the next year. Eg. Date in 2024 → 2025 For more on managing renewals and recurring revenue in HubSpot check out the full playbook over in the ConnectedGTM newsletter (link in my profile) Here’s the highlights from part 1 of the renewals playbook: → Define your renewal process in a dedicated HubSpot deal pipeline and trigger the right milestone or time-based playbook for each customer. → Automatically move deals through your renewal pipeline as they make progress towards their renewal date. → Discover 2 simple methods for creating subsequent renewal deals and transferring the required context to the next phase of the customer journey. Any other questions let me know in the comments ✌️

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This is literally my favorite update from the 🌊 of HubSpot updates and betas this year. HubSpot : announces HIPAA support and new sensitive data tools 🔥 For anyone still on the fence about HubSpot's enterprise capabilities - this put's that argument to rest. With this update companies in healthcare, finance, insurance and other regulated industries can lean on a best in class customer platform to create outstanding client and patient experiences. Support for storing sensitive data in HubSpot is available globally, and will include additional data types in the coming months. Using HubSpot's products in compliance with HIPAA is available in public beta. Enterprise customers can enable these features in their Privacy & Consent settings. https://lnkd.in/d3uVrFEC

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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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One of the best things about working at RevPartners is the quality of people and the level of detail in what we do 💚 How Frank Devine approaches HubSpot audits is a perfect example of that. If your HubSpot instance needs some love, check out this video 📺 There's a link to request a complimentary audit in the comments if it resonates.

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Before diagnosing missed revenue targets Many B2B SaaS companies only look at: - Overall CAC - General LTV - Surface-level metrics To dig deeper, here's what you should track: • Time to impact • Pipeline velocity • LTV by segment • Sales cycle length • Lead quality score • Expansion revenue • Net revenue retention • Feature adoption rates • CAC by customer segment • Customer acquisition cost payback period These metrics reveal hidden insights. Combining these metrics give you the deeper meaning.

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Top mistakes people are making when trying to hire a GTM engineer First - what ISN'T a GTM engineer? It's not salesforce admin It's not report building It's not customer journey design It's not outbound It's not A/B testing and growth hacking It's not GTM strategy It's also not sales enablement All of those things are REALLY important to get GTM engineering right and without them GTM engineering doesn't add any value But if you try to hire for someone with all of those skills you're going to have a tough time In a nutshell, a GTM engineer automates complex GTM workflows I'm not talking about something like a simple round robin lead flow I'm talking lead qualification in multiple ICPs, personas, products, verticals, and sales AI agents to identify key qualification criteria that predict win rates Data waterfalls that detect bounced emails or bad phone numbers and re-enrich with different providers Complex workflows that would normally require multiple tools and vendors to get working Or lots of manual effort on the web In other Give a GTM engineer a specific manual workflow that you KNOW drives value They give you BACK an automated workflow that scales with quality GTM engineering won't help if you Don't know your ICP Don't know your buyer personas Don't know how to qualify accounts Don't have reliable data sources Don't have messaging that works Don't know what qualified pipeline looks like Then it won't happen And if you try to hire a GTM engineer without having the other skillsets in place AND some kind of GTM architect to help discover requirements, and challenge them to simplify and streamline You probably won't be able to hire them OR get an ROI if you did find someone

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Salesforce stock just dropped 21% …so how is HubSpot up 12% YTD? It’s simple. Customer expectations have changed. And it turns out… Not all PR is good PR. So what’s changed? 1. Customers demand a shorter ‘time to value’. In this market, they can’t afford an 18 month implementation. 2. SMBs have grown skeptical of ‘no one got fired for buying Salesforce’. SFDC + SF engineers have become a perpetual 2% tax on businesses. 3. Customers expect to use 40-60% of a platform. They’re ok paying for that. SF is so bloated that customers only use 10-20% of what they pay for. 4. Open source is in. If you’re going to buid a custom solution, make it portable. 5. Pricing needs to be inclusive. If it’s not cost-effective for infrequent users, they’ll use something else. Salesforce sold to the COO and CFO - it became an operations platform. Usability for the GTM was sacrificed. Ultimately, SMB isn’t the feeder it once was. Companies like HubSpot built FOR SMB. They stole the pipeline. While growing WITH their customers. We see the same with Event Management Platforms. Customers want: - To get up and running faster. - Power back in their own hands. - Pricing tied to value. - A user experience they’re not embarrassed to put in front of attendees or internal teams. Seems resonable, right? And here’s the icing. Brand matters It turns out not all PR is good. “Updating Salesforce” has become a dreaded meme. Who wants to be hated by your team for buying the dreaded platform? HubSpot made themselves more relatable AND more lovable. Ultimately, your brand is more than what you can do it. It’s how you make people feel. And that does impact company performance.

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Stop Manually Handling Playbook Submissions. Automate Them with Workflows Instead. As a HubSpot user, you're probably familiar with playbooks for guiding your sales team through the deal process. But did you know you can now automatically trigger workflows when a playbook is submitted? This changes everything. No more manual hand-offs. No more dropped balls between sales and operations. Submit the playbook, kickoff the workflow, and streamline your process in seconds. Reps stay focused on selling, managers have visibility into deals, and workflows handle the heavy lifting behind the scenes. It's a triple play for efficiency, consistency, and scalability as you scale. So put down the paperwork and ditch the manual tasks. Automate playbook submissions with workflows to accelerate your team and sales velocity. Let the robots work while you close.

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That's it - We nailed it. Any Salesforce or HubSpot object. Custom or default, including opportunities, deals, leads, contacts, and accounts.  Any event.  Any field type—picklists, ranges, checkboxes, text fields.  Mandatory fields, fields with dependencies. We update it ALL. When we first started building WINN.AI, I didn't imagine we'd go this far and this deep into CRM functionalities. Why not stop at the basics like most tools? Why not push it all in a bulk note and that's that? Our goal with WINN is to completely take CRM admin work off of reps' hands. That means updating the CRM with meeting data JUST LIKE A SALESPERSON WOULD. Covering any mandatory field. Being able to support custom requirements. If we don't do it all, then at some point the seller will have to fill out the rest. Or, more likely, they won't do it at all. That's why we didn't stop until we knew we had the whole process covered, no matter what specific CRM requirements our customers bring to the table. That's how you reach perfect CRM hygiene. That's how you 9X CRM data. For. Every. Customer. Interaction.

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HubSpot's move into highly sensitive data storage is a game changer. Being able to store financial data, social security numbers, and even HIPAA compliance for medical records in HubSpot opens up a world of possibilities. I’ve always been frustrated walking into a hospital or any business where they’re juggling outdated systems. It’s 2024, and they’re still hunting through multiple screens, wasting time while I stand there waiting. With HubSpot’s easy-to-use interface, this could finally be a thing of the past. Imagine having everything you need at your fingertips, no more delays, just fast, seamless customer service. What HubSpot has done is brilliant: they've stayed true to their promise of simplicity, even as they expand into more complex areas like AI and sensitive data. The result? High adoption rates and ultimately, delighted customers. This is the future of customer experience, and HubSpot is leading the charge. It’s the kind of innovation the healthcare and finance industries desperately need. #CustomerExperience #HighlySensitiveData #INBOUND24 #DigitalTransformation #HIPAA #SeekEvolution

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Today we're going to delete a workflow in HubSpot. 🗑️🚯 Because we’ve made it super easy to automate your HubSpot pipelines in Arrows 🤖 Now, you can automatically move customers through your onboarding or implementation pipeline in HubSpot as they take action in your Arrows action plan. No hacky workflow setup or complex logic required. Setup takes less than a minute and your pipeline will be updated in real-time 🎉 Here’s how it works: 1. Enable Pipeline Automation from the left sidebar of any Arrows template. 2. Select the pipeline in HubSpot you would like to automate. 3. Choose your automation criteria – Arrows completed tasks, phases, or plan status changes. 4. Publish your pipeline automation. 5. That’s it - no more manual pipeline updates or out of date reports.

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Here's a good way to make a bunch of money. And stop getting lumped in with the competition. Become what I call a “category-of-one brand.” Here are some examples: Flodesk Porsche Notion Southwest Apex Wheels (one of ours) None of these companies created a category (like Salesforce) or transformed an existing category (like iPhone). Yet they still created a difference so great that, for the right customer, they became irreplaceable. What do all these brands have in common? They're masters of vibe. The intangibles. They do things differently in ways that aren't solely rational. Call it MLG - Mojo-led Growth. (Only call it that if you want people to think you're a huge brand nerd.) Whatever you call it, these companies live by a simple rule: "be different." Be different in 5 seconds when you need their attention Be different in 5 minutes when they want to know more Be different in product, as much as marketing Be different in business model Be categorically different When do we create category-of-one brands at Gold Front? When our clients' product clearly fit in an existing category, yet their ambitious business goals still require clear separation from the competition. What will you do with all the money? That's entirely up to you. ............................................

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This email structure is getting me 12,5% positive replies. 👨‍💻 1. Subject line: 2 lower-case words. Make it sound boring and internal. Link it to your value prop. For example for a Patient Experience SaaS: px control 2. Opening line: We should forget about "Hope this email find you well" kind of line. Focus on AI processing your prospects data to make a super-personal approach. 3. Value prop: Test at least 5 value prop variants that would improve your prospects' KPI. You could frame those value props into a classic sentence as: "We help {{audience}} achieve {{outcome}} in {{time}} without {{risk reversal}}." 4. Social Proof: Super quick and simple line on how much you helped a relevant company improve thair KPI. Use specific metrics. 5. Value Based CTA: Offer a video that explains how you could help them achieve the same result. 6. Signature 7. PS: Work out an AI personalized call out linked to the opening line. 🤖 Subscribe to automaterevops.com for RevOps tips and insights.

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Email unsubscribe landing pages fall into a few categories: * Impossibly complex trees of various sublists that I was involuntarily added to that I need to opt out of * The 'sad cat' gif that guilts me into staying * Broken Hubspot, Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua, etc. pages that were never designed properly in the first place * Or this one... from my second favorite app, Cornell's bird-call identifier (tweet! tweet!). Super simple, and it makes a surprising sweepstakes offer for re-subscribing. Which I did. What could make it better? Would adding something about the mission of the app or something about the quality of the content have been better or just noisier?

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