Why Work With An Agency When You Choose HubSpot?

There Is A Reason HubSpot Has Over 4,000 Agency Partners, And You Should Leverage That Expertise

First, this isn’t an article about HubSpot. We’ve been a loyal partner of theirs for close to 10 years. We’re huge fans of the software and work with almost all of our clients every day on all of the HubSpot products.

But this isn’t an article about HubSpot’s sales team. They are good people with good intentions and a focus on solving for their customers.

This is an article about good business practices, how to evaluate options and how to use outside counsel to make the best business decisions for your company.

When you are sick, you go to the doctor. Your doctor gives you a diagnosis and treatment plan. Then the best doctors tell you to get a second opinion. Why do they do that?

There are a lot of really good reasons. They want you to trust the first opinion. If someone else validates their diagnosis, you’re going to feel better and feel like you did your due diligence.

They’re not perfect, so they might have missed something. Having a second set of eyes ensures a comprehensive and thorough diagnosis and treatment plan.

They want another highly respected doctor to look at you and perhaps come up with a different treatment plan that is equally effective but perhaps better suited for you.

You should consider a similar approach when it comes to purchasing any enterprise-level software. HubSpot is not something you buy to try out. It’s something you should consider as an integral part of your business for the rest of your business’ life cycle.

Yes, it’s true that you can start small using the free product and then grow into a paid subscription. But if you’re considering HubSpot as your revenue backbone (which is what we recommend), then you’ll be looking at roughly $12,000 to $20,000 a year.

This decision should be taken seriously, just like the decision on how to proceed with a medical treatment plan.

Here’s how HubSpot agency partners can help.

They Have Many Experiences With Clients Like You

While the HubSpot product suite is extremely easy to use, purchasing, installing and optimizing it is going to take some time and energy. You want to get through these stages quickly and efficiently. Plus, you want to set up processes that help you get full value from your investment in HubSpot.

HubSpot helps with this, and you might have team members who have done this once or twice. But a partner has done this hundreds of times. Square 2 has brought almost 300 clients onto HubSpot.

These experiences are invaluable when it comes to creating the processes you’ll need to get the most out of HubSpot tools.

Think about it like this: HubSpot is a hammer, and one of the best hammers on the planet. But if you don’t know how to use the hammer or you’re not an experienced carpenter, you’ll likely be disappointed with your project.

The best carpenters come to your home with the tools, the experience using the tools and the experience building exactly what you need.

A Strategic Perspective Is Required

We see this very often. Companies come to us with HubSpot and wonder why they’re not seeing the growth they expected. Many times, the answer is a lack of strategy.

What does that mean? Let me try and explain it.

Sticking with the carpenter analogy, would you start building something without a plan, blueprint or drawings? Of course not.

Many clients make this mistake by buying HubSpot without a clear marketing and sales strategy that leans on HubSpot as the technology platform. This usually leads to underutilization and a general underperformance on results like leads.

Before you roll with a technology purchase, you need an amazing story that is laser-focused on your target personas and a host of remarkable messages lined up and ready to use.

Before you finalize your HubSpot purchase, you should know what tactics you’re planning on executing, have your sales process defined and mapped out on paper, have your buyer journey mapped out in detail and know both your budget and expected business outcomes.

This isn’t always easy to define, but it should be, and the right agency partner can help you with all of this.

Onboarding And Training

Companies adding HubSpot to their marketing and sales execution are going to need to be onboarded and trained. This work is done sometimes by HubSpot and often by agency partners.

I prefer the partner option because they are intimate with your requirements, especially those around the tactics we’re going to be working on with you. HubSpot runs generic onboarding and training.

When the agency does the onboarding and training, it’s tailored to your organization, your program, your strategy and your team.

We regularly tailor the onboarding and training to meet your needs, extending it, shortening it, phasing it out or coming back and redoing it if needed.

Using HubSpot is an entirely new set of motions for many companies. You’ll need ongoing support to make this part of your standard operating procedure in both marketing and sales.

Using new tools feels uncomfortable for many organizations. Many people might want to quit or go back to old ways of doing marketing and sales. Having an agency partner to help you work though those growing pains is critical.

Remember, agencies have seen this many times before. You’re going through it for the first time. We know how to get you through it and how to have you emerge successfully and with the business results you need.

Technology Is Just 25% Of The Solution

Finally, this is important to remember. Technology is never the answer to revenue growth. It’s just one of the pieces of the puzzle.

“When digital transformation is done right, it’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when done wrong, all you have is a really fast caterpillar.”

— George Westerman, MIT Sloan Initiative on the Digital Economy

With experiences pushing close to 1,000 businesses and well over 200,000 hours, we know that you need strategy, tactics, analytics and technology to grow your company. Miss even one of those pillars and you’ll be disappointed with the results.

Technology alone isn’t the answer.

Either your team has to wrap the strategy, tactics and analytics around the technology, or consider bringing in an agency partner to deliver those critical components.