Brain In Hand

Their HubSpot challenge for us!

Brain in Hand were already sold on the potential of HubSpot to transform their marketing, sales and service activities.  When we met, they had a 9-12 month sales cycle and a 1-3 month roll out to their clients so recognised the opportunity offered by automation to speed up their sales process considerably.

They had already been through a HubSpot onboarding process but it hadn’t quite worked out as they hoped.  Rather than immediately seeing a return on their investment in HubSpot, the templated approach of the original onboarding hadn’t created the efficient processes and results they needed. The platform was in place, but the underlying understanding - of how HubSpot could be shaped around their business - was not.

Integrating the three HubSpot hubs should have brought real synergy for the team, but it just didn’t tie together. 
The challenges that Brain in Hand presented to us were:

• Make our investment in HubSpot support our scaling business, reducing manual tasks and streamlining systems
• Help us to understand and report on what is effective in our marketing campaigns and get visibility of performance across the business
• Develop our sales pipelines so we can accelerate lead nurturing
• Train our team so we can be confident in taking HubSpot forward.

They were looking for a partner that had an accessible approach to their sophisticated needs and who could tailor a solution to their business, without bending the platform too much.  Essentially, it was a two month project to get HubSpot working the way they wanted it to work.   

Our five phase fix response . . . 

We think there is a logical way of approaching HubSpot projects, with each phase building on the previous one so that we build on good foundations.  We approached this project in 5 key phases:

Phase One | data quality 

Brain in Hand could not trust their data - this is foundational.  We:  

• Completed a full data cleanse of their CRM, ensuring sensitive personal data complied with GDPR 
• Cleaned up HubSpot properties: mapping their sales process and questioning assumptions to ensure properties properly reflected their reporting needs.

Phase Two | integrate

Once the core CRM data was correct, then we could integrate it with other systems. Afterall, you don’t want to pull new data in or export data out if it's not correct . . . this is why the data cleanse comes first.  We:

• Integrated HubSpot with Xero and Eventbrite
• Explored SMS and Grid Fox API integrations and found alternative solutions.

Phase Three | automate

With good data correctly integrated we could get into the meat of the project - automation!  For this we undertook a number of workshops to understand Brain in Hand's business processes and future requirements.  We:

• Created three pipelines in sales and service so that leads and customers flowed between them seamlessly
• For each pipeline we mapped processes and challenged assumptions to put the best possible process in place before setting up automation
• Then we defined processes for sales and service teams to make them more efficient, including automated tasks and emails.

Phase Four | train

Once we had a fully automated system in place, using good data and integrated with other systems, we started to train the team so they could use it effectively.  We: 

• Trained them on how to use, edit and improve the workflows and sequences
• Created playbooks and a library of training videos that supported the in-person training.

Phase Five | report

At this point, Brain in Hand had data they could trust and that showed a complete picture from website traffic through leads, conversions, sales, customer service and revenue.  Finally, we:

• Reviewed existing reporting dashboards so they were showing accurate data
• Created new custom dashboards built around defined business KPI's 
• Trained the team on how to edit reports and send reports 
• Set up stakeholder focused reports, automatically generated and sent each month.

And the end result?

At last, Brain in Hand had GDPR compliant, valuable data allowing reporting from leads through to revenue: data they could rely on to make business decisions and inform funders.  This in turn has improved the confidence of funders in the team which in the longer term, will make funding and scaling significantly more likely.

To scale the Brain in Hand services, their key processes needed to be faster and more consistent. Now they have a fully automated system from lead nurturing, through sales and into service delivery which is already speeding up the sales cycle and delivering a consistent, professional level of service.  

More than that, the Brain in Hand team is confident in their use of HubSpot and how they can use the platform to support their work in future. 

Finally, here’s Mat Taylor - Operations Director of Brain in Hand - explaining what it's been like from his perspective:

Working with Noisy Little Monkey you can expect to be challenged, inspired and entertained.  We will listen to what you need and then deliver it with professionalism, humour and a touch of humility.  We know HubSpot, but you know your business.

Get in touch if we can help