How HubSpot CRM Can Transform Your Sales Process
I don’t care how good your spreadsheets are—if you keep using them to manage your leads, you’re capping your sales and holding your team back. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through getting started with HubSpot CRM for free, so you can rest easy knowing you’ll never miss another follow-up again.
HubSpot CRM offers various modules for marketing, sales, content management, customer service, and operations. Today, we’ll focus on Sales 101: importing your contacts, tracking follow-ups, managing your pipeline, and forecasting your annual revenue.
Getting Started with HubSpot CRM
To begin, head to the HubSpot website. You can click on the link provided. Start by clicking on “Get Started Free” and signing up for an account. HubSpot will ask you a few questions to personalize your experience, but you can skip these steps if you prefer to dive right in.
Once you’re signed up, HubSpot might offer a template to get you started faster. However, we’ll set things up manually so you can configure everything exactly how you want it. Use sample contacts if you’d like, and skip adding teammates for now. After answering a few questions, HubSpot will take you to the user guide page. While the training content here is excellent, we’re focused on getting your leads into the system.
Importing Your Contacts
Move your mouse to the left sidebar, click on “CRM,” and then click on “Contacts.” Everything I’m showing you today is available on the free version of HubSpot, starting with the Contacts database. This is the core of any CRM, where you can view all your contacts and their details.
If you want to add leads, you can do so one by one by clicking the “Create Contact” button. However, if you have a spreadsheet ready, click the “Import” button instead. Upload your file, and HubSpot will automatically map your data to its system. If you encounter any errors, like mismatched lead statuses, HubSpot will guide you through fixing them.
If you encounter an error, don’t worry. We just need to match the columns. If there’s a green checkmark, then it’s mapped correctly. If there’s an error, we need to translate it so HubSpot can understand. HubSpot has its own lead statuses, and none of those are ‘Connected’ or ‘Not Connected.’ So, for ‘Contacted,’ we’ll choose ‘New.’ Everything looks good, so we’ll exit. If the columns match correctly, a green checkmark will appear
Managing Your Contacts and Communication
Once your contacts are imported, you can start managing your outreach. For instance, if you’re a donut distributor reaching out to a potential reseller like Ginger from Silver Bakery, you can search for her name in the Contacts database and see all the information you imported.
On Ginger’s contact page, you’ll see all related activities, including emails, texts, and phone calls. To send an email directly from HubSpot, connect your inbox, which will also enable automated follow-up tasks and contact detail capture.
Creating and Managing Tasks
HubSpot’s task management features are straightforward yet powerful. For example, if Emma Jones from Sunrise Delights has requested a pricing sheet, you can create a task to ensure it gets sent on time. Tasks can be associated with multiple records, so everyone on your team knows what’s next for each contact or company.
Tracking Deals and Pipelines
As you interact with your leads, you’ll want to track these engagements as deals in HubSpot. For example, if Ginger from Silver Bakery schedules a meeting, you can create a new deal in HubSpot, adding details like deal stage, expected close date, and even custom properties like “Order Size.”
Your deals are organized into a pipeline, which helps visualize the stages of each deal—from the initial appointment to closing. You can customize these stages to fit your business needs, and HubSpot will use deal probabilities to help you forecast your revenue.
Reporting and Forecasting
Finally, HubSpot’s reporting tools offer valuable insights into your sales activities and pipeline health. You can create dashboards with pre-built reports, filter data by date range, and monitor your progress toward sales goals.
And there you have it—a whirlwind tour of HubSpot CRM. You now have your contacts in one place, a single location for tracking follow-ups, a sales pipeline, and a method to forecast your business growth. If you found this guide helpful, please give it a like and subscribe for more tips on optimizing your sales process. Let me know in the comments if there’s any part of HubSpot you’d like to see in more detail.