HubSpot vs. Salesforce: Which One is Right For Your Business? [Endless Customers S.1. Ep. 40]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy.

Will Smith
0:00:00
If you're a business owner and you're thinking about getting a CRM or making a CRM switch, well, there's a lot of options out there, but the two biggest ones, it's kind of like iPhone versus Android, Pepsi versus Coke, McDonald's versus Burger King. You know what it is. It's HubSpot versus Salesforce. So let's get into it.

Alex Winter
0:00:20
Let's get into it.

Alex Winter
0:00:21
Welcome back to Endless Customers.

Alex Winter
0:00:30
My name is Alex Winter and today I'm joined by Will Smith, a HubSpot trainer here at Impact. Will, welcome back to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, I'm happy to have you here. Today we're talking about HubSpot because you know us here at Impact, we're not really

Alex Winter
0:00:43
big HubSpot fans here, are we? Oh, whoa, you went there.

Will Smith
0:00:47
Shots fired. What? Kidding.

Alex Winter
0:00:50
Come on.

Will Smith
0:00:51
Kidding, kidding.

Alex Winter
0:00:52
We're huge HubSpot fans here. We're a big part of why Impact is what Impact is, is our journey with HubSpot, our relationship with the team over at HubSpot. So with that, I want to keep it real. I want to get into it with you. I want to talk about, I think, a topic that comes up a lot, and it has to do with the

Alex Winter
0:01:06
choice of HubSpot versus Salesforce, and which CRM isn't like not even say like it's the best but it's gonna be better for your business or why you should go with one over the other pros and cons so I really want to pick your brain you work with a ton of clients and for those who don't know Will Smith is a HubSpot expert the stuff he knows in there is way above my pay grade so I'm gonna stop talking and

Will Smith
0:01:29
let's start just like high level HubSpot. The majority of our clients that we work with do use HubSpot. In my experience, I have used Salesforce, but more on a limited basis. So a lot of times I work with companies that their marketing department will use HubSpot to do all the marketing things. And then once the prospect is qualified, they'll use the HubSpot to Salesforce integration to push it over

Will Smith
0:02:04
to Salesforce. So nice little thing there. But when it comes to, so that's my experience with Salesforce. Somewhat limited, trying to make it work, but still I can't, I think I can speak to your question. And it's going to be that

Alex Winter
0:02:18
classic answer that everybody loves, it depends. It depends, okay. And it depends on a couple of different factors, I'm sure. And every business is different. Every industry and business has different facets that they maybe will have pros and cons for using either or.

Alex Winter
0:02:34
So what would you say about that? What would you recommend as the way to go? You know what too, it's got me thinking, what drew you to HubSpot ultimately? Why did you end up on the HubSpot side of the fence? It's like the Pepsi versus Coke conversation, right?

Will Smith
0:02:47
Yeah, absolutely. Well, HubSpot was kind of my first CRM. I had been, my experience has been, I was doing a one-man online music production company. Okay. That was very specific with, to cheer and dance music. And so, I created this website. I had some really good word of mouth,

Will Smith
0:03:08
but I had some folks that were recommending me to other people that were not in the Pittsburgh area where I am based. And so they said, you should get a website. So I said, okay, yeah, let's learn WordPress and let's figure out a website, no problem. So what's the number one thing after you launch a website that you're going to Google?

Will Smith
0:03:29
Which is what I Googled and that is, how do I get people to actually come to my website?

Alex Winter
0:03:36
Right, how do I get people to understand that this thing's live and ready to go?

Will Smith
0:03:40
Precisely, and HubSpot popped up. And then, right underneath that, HubSpot Academy popped up. And the phrase, free training, and for an entrepreneur with a side hustle that I was trying to put together, free, sounds amazing.

Alex Winter
0:04:00
Free sounds good.

Will Smith
0:04:01
And so I started right there with HubSpot certification number one, inbound marketing.

Alex Winter
0:04:07
Wow, very cool. Okay, so that's what drew you into it, and we know you're a fan, but if we can step back and look at it objectively, unbiasedly, if we can, right? What would you say is the deciding factor for business owners, for marketing leaders, for web folks to choose Salesforce versus HubSpot. Pros and cons.

Will Smith
0:04:29
Yeah, it ultimately comes down to, in my opinion, two things, complexity and supporting resources. So when I talk about complexity, it really, and sometimes this is hard to take a good look at yourself as an organization. How complex do you want to make this?

Will Smith
0:04:48
You know, Salesforce has a lot of folks that they service, whether it's IBM, whether it's Mercedes, they have PayPal, they have a lot of people that they service. These are big companies. Yeah, I've heard of a few of those before. Yeah, so they're pretty well known. Monster. Monster companies. Yeah, exactly. So for a large brand like Mercedes, they're probably going to have and this is to the point number two here,

Will Smith
0:05:14
the public is going to have the supporting resources that they need to design the complexity, to troubleshoot the complexity, to be able to actually look at the data and take action upon that. So they could probably drill down into,

Will Smith
0:05:30
because they're using Salesforce, it's highly customizable, they know exactly what they want to use, they can make it as complex as possible to find all the possible data points that they need to go to market, to sell,

Will Smith
0:05:43
to do the things that they wanna do because it's so complex, but they have the supporting resources that they need to support that complexity. Right, right.

Alex Winter
0:05:54
When you have an organization that big, you have a lot of staff, a lot of people to help support all those different facets.

Will Smith
0:06:00
Whole departments.

Alex Winter
0:06:00
Right, exactly.

Will Smith
0:06:02
Absolutely.

Alex Winter
0:06:02
We have dedicated people that works really well. But for people that maybe don't have those resources for startups or for small to medium sized businesses, do the same rules apply? Not necessarily because they're not going to have

Will Smith
0:06:14
the supporting resources that they need to or full departments to really take a look at these things. You have a lot of small businesses that, and I believe we have a great video about this, that are wearing many, many, many different hats. And so, focusing in on just the CRM,

Will Smith
0:06:36
focusing in on just Salesforce and trying to manage that and design it and make it do all the things that you want it to do, a lot of departments or a lot of single people or small businesses are gonna have a hard time doing them. And so, that's what really separates HubSpot from the rest

Will Smith
0:06:52
from Salesforce is that it's very easy to use, it is it's very intuitive, it can be learned, and your supporting resources are not necessarily a person but rather maybe an agency or somebody that is doing HubSpot training with you. Maybe it's just finding a YouTube resource that you can watch and say, oh, that's what I need to do, rather than having full departments. So for small businesses that have smaller staff

Will Smith
0:07:21
and are very focused on that inbound marketing, HubSpot's really gonna be a good choice for them.

Alex Winter
0:07:27
That makes sense, yeah, that makes sense. So if you're tight on resources or you really need to focus on staying lean and mean, it sounds like HubSpot might be a better option versus Salesforce. Now does that have price factored into it as well

Alex Winter
0:07:39
as one more expensive than the other? I know that there are different tiers and packages and all these different things, so I don't want to get into the weeds of all the different potentials, but generally speaking, HubSpot versus Salesforce

Alex Winter
0:07:50
is one more expensive than the other, and why?

Will Smith
0:07:52
So that, again, is gonna be an it depends type of answer here. Yeah. So you could probably get away with a smaller version of Salesforce, that would be cheaper than a larger version of HubSpot. So, yeah, I don't really want to get into the weeds

Will Smith
0:08:08
of pricing and things like that. I've never priced out Salesforce. What I can tell you from the HubSpot perspective, small businesses can start small. And the assumption is, and this is how HubSpot kind of makes this move along in almost a tiered, almost stepwise fashion.

Will Smith
0:08:27
So let's say you start off with a less expensive version of HubSpot, because you are a small business, because you only have one person on staff that's doing your marketing, who's also doing sales, and so it turns out to be a pretty good option for you as far as your monthly budget is concerned.

Will Smith
0:08:44
But then you start growing, and you start doing well using HubSpot. HubSpot has a nice, what's the next step? What do we do now? What's the next level that I need to go to? Of course, as you go up in levels,

Will Smith
0:08:58
you are going to go up in price. And so one big distinguishing factor between Salesforce, it's known as a very enterprise CRM, HubSpot can actually get you there, but you don't have to start with the enterprise level of HubSpot.

Will Smith
0:09:16
You can work up or grow into that.

Alex Winter
0:09:19
That makes sense. No, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that's a really great value add for HubSpot just because most businesses aren't at that enterprise level out of the gate and may not have the budgets to do that right away but ultimately want to get there. Maybe that's the dream scenario.

Alex Winter
0:09:33
The goal is to get to that point. But you have to take those steps one foot in front of the other in order to make it to that point. And to have that clearly outlined and to have options for you to build and scale, that sounds pretty impressive to me. Pretty much a real differentiator compared to Salesforce.

Will Smith
0:09:49
Absolutely.

Will Smith
0:09:50
Yeah.

Alex Winter
0:09:50
So these platforms also overlap because we're talking CRMs, which for those people out there listening and watching that don't know, we're talking about customer relationship management software, right? And when we talk about these types of softwares, we're ultimately trying to track data and we're trying to track leads and sales and funnels and all of those things, but there is overlap with what they do, right?

Alex Winter
0:10:12
And I'm a newb with this stuff. So what is like the overlap and maybe what are some features that HubSpot has that's better than Salesforce and maybe Salesforce has something better than HubSpot. Like, what does that, you know, what does that look like?

Will Smith
0:10:25
Yeah, I would absolutely say that some of the advantages with Salesforce is they have some pretty advanced customization. That goes back to the complexity I was just talking about. That you could get really complex, you can get into some really highly detailed customization

Will Smith
0:10:42
as you're implementing a very enterprise level features. Some folks that have worked in Salesforce, they might come over or maybe explore HubSpot a little bit, and they might say, well, in Salesforce I could do this, or I was able to design this. HubSpot is enabled to do that right out of the box.

Will Smith
0:11:00
So I think for, if you were assigning a point here, there's a point for Salesforce when it comes to advanced customization. The more complex, the more resources you're going to need to support that complexity, but they also have a lot of integrations as well.

Will Smith
0:11:15
So there's a lot of things that they do that are pretty similar, but you can also, if you're not finding the specific thing that you need, you can kind of enlist the help of a third party application. HubSpot does that as well, but I feel like Salesforce might have an advantage here only because

Will Smith
0:11:34
I believe they went to market first and they're pretty well known from a marketing standpoint. And then finally, when it comes to, I would say the analytics within Salesforce, being able to report on those highly advanced customization, that's where a lot of people go to as well.

Will Smith
0:11:52
I want to be able to see every detail, every piece of data that I absolutely would want. For some folks, HubSpot's a little simpler than that. I just need to know, are we making the sales? I just need to know, are we completing those funnel things? Am I able to get this, am I able to just get

Will Smith
0:12:12
a broad overview of, is the business working? And so, if you're focused on inbound marketing, maybe you're not a brand like Mercedes. I don't think they need to do a ton of inbound marketing. People know who they are. Same is true for IBM, same is true for PayPal like we were saying before. You know them, a lot of our listeners are probably

Will Smith
0:12:34
going to know them. They're not going to be focused on that inbound marketing.

Alex Winter
0:12:37
Right, but if Mercedes is running a very specialized campaign that's catering towards a key demographic that they're doing maybe something outside the box and they really want to customize that campaign and then track analytical data based off of that very customized campaign, that sounds like a good, Salesforce is a good tool for something along those lines.

Will Smith
0:12:56
Absolutely. We may want, you may even want to go a little bit deeper. I want to be able to retarget the people that said no. I want to be able to reach out and store the people that went with BMW instead of Mercedes, so that I can, so that I know that when they're not happy with their Mercedes,

Will Smith
0:13:15
I'm gonna be right there as somebody that is, you know, a part of BMW or whatever. You can get into some really granular details here when it comes to the complexity of Salesforce.

Alex Winter
0:13:27
Okay, that makes sense. And then for HubSpot, it sounds like it's more along the lines of, and we hear this a lot, where like businesses are doing well and they're growing, but they don't have a CRM in place. And because of that,

Alex Winter
0:13:39
they have no way of tracking any of this data. They have no way of looking at, like in real time, if they're maximizing their efforts or if there's gaps that they can fill and they don't have anything to like tangibly tell them what's up.

Alex Winter
0:13:49
So using a tool like HubSpot for those types of businesses sounds like it's a really good tool to start getting your footing with the CRM game and with being able to have analytical data to back up your sales and back up your marketing.

Will Smith
0:14:01
Is that right? Absolutely. Yeah, finding that data, being able to analyze that data, being able to see trends, being able to see consistencies and even inconsistencies, maybe in your sales process. Obviously HubSpot can do that as well. A lot of times I see folks going from spreadsheets, which is more like a storage area, into HubSpot and they're amazed at how flexible the data is and how it moves from one place to the next place through automation or because they're looking for well which web which pages on my website that this

Will Smith
0:14:32
person take a look at before they reached out to my sales team things like that obviously Salesforce can do things like that but HubSpot it's extremely

Alex Winter
0:14:40
intuitive and it's really right in front of your face. Yeah that makes sense that that makes a lot of sense to me and I feel like too it's important to say we're making it seem like Salesforce is enterprise only and HubSpot is for like the little guys and little companies that are growing and trying to scale. But that's not true because HubSpot has an enterprise platform as well and has some really powerful and customizable tools that can really keep up with enterprise businesses too.

Alex Winter
0:15:04
So can we talk a little bit about that? Because there is overlap with these two tools. There's a lot of similarities here.

Will Smith
0:15:08
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That's a great point that it seems like we've kind of put together this giant versus the little guy. And really, HubSpot can do a lot of these things.

Will Smith
0:15:19
I think there's a little bit of almost historical marketing magic happening here. You know, when HubSpot first arrived on the scene, they really were known as just a marketing platform. That's it. And I've worked with companies, I've talked with companies

Will Smith
0:15:34
that are considering HubSpot, that that's what they still believe. Wait a minute, HubSpot has a sales function? I could do stuff along sales? Well, usually that's known as, that's what we do in Salesforce.

Will Smith
0:15:46
And again, the name right there, I mean, again, marketing magic. It definitely implies we are going to get you more sales. And so you still see this kind of residual, historical information that's here. But HubSpot had, through the years,

Will Smith
0:16:01
has really bumped that up, has really made changes so that they can definitively say, we're not just for the little guy. We can start you off as a little guy, but if you use the CRM in the right way, you're doing all the right business,

Will Smith
0:16:16
making all the right business moves and everything, we can get you to that enterprise level. And we have not only products, but also the functionality that you're going to need when you do get up to that enterprise level.

Alex Winter
0:16:29
Yeah, that's well said. It feels like HubSpot is definitely the growth partner. That's like, hey, if you're starting off and you don't know where to start, here's a great point of entry and here's all the steps and ways we can help you scale and grow with you as your business grows. So that's a real great value add.

Alex Winter
0:16:43
But there's also, like anything, like any product or service, there's also cons. There's also problems. There's also some things that don't always work great. So can we, we talked a little bit about the positive and weighing which one may be better for your business on the positive side of things,

Alex Winter
0:16:57
but how about for cons and for the negative side of things as far as like what business owners and business leaders should be aware of, should be mindful of, and just know going into it what to be thinking about.

Will Smith
0:17:07
Yeah, I'll start with Salesforce on this one since it's kind of top of mind for me. When it comes to Salesforce, I think the complexity could almost be too much. That there's a pretty steep learning curve. Because there's so much you can do,

Will Smith
0:17:24
it's almost like the abyss of freedom. I don't know where to start. I don't know where, I don't even know what success looks like at this point because I have so many options available to me, where do I get started?

Alex Winter
0:17:41
Right, it's almost like overwhelming, there's so many different tools and things you can do.

Will Smith
0:17:45
Yeah, absolutely. The onboarding process could be fairly lengthy because of that with Salesforce. I also think there's a pretty high price tag that it's almost as if you can say, rather than, opposite to HubSpot,

Will Smith
0:17:59
where you're growing into it, Salesforce is kind of like, this is the price tag, here's what you're getting. You need to, let's invest and let's keep going. And so it has a pretty steep cost that may not, that may work for enterprise level who are making that kind

Will Smith
0:18:14
of, that have that kind of budget. But for people that are looking to grow and need to get off their spreadsheets and things like that, or even people that are in that mid tier that want to get to the next step, sometimes that could be a pretty steep cost to just really hit you right on the onset.

Alex Winter
0:18:31
Right, right. And then the implementation. Well, you mentioned growth, who started to cut you off. You mentioned growth, and that's a good point to make where we've seen this time and time again where somebody may be implementing HubSpot,

Alex Winter
0:18:40
a client of ours, that doesn't have CRM experience, but going through HubSpot Academy and learning and growing, they can start to really understand these tools and leverage them by themselves, versus it sounds like with Salesforce when you're in an enterprise level and you're jumping in it almost feels like these business

Alex Winter
0:18:55
leaders and owners need to have a Salesforce expert on their staff or they need to hire for it because there's so much the learning curve is so big that you'd rather just bring someone in that knows what's up versus trying to train

Will Smith
0:19:04
somebody who's green and doesn't know anything. It's a great point the people that are listening to this that know we call it the Salesforce tax that you're gonna need somebody to manage this, to understand it, to know what they're doing right at the onset, instead of being like, well, let me just kind of learn on the job. For somebody that's hiring a Salesforce implementer,

Will Smith
0:19:28
they're not gonna want them to be learning on the job. They wanna get in there, hit the ground running, because it does take time to implement this kind of complexity.

Alex Winter
0:19:38
Right, and when you're spending that kind of money, you don't want to be spending that money to not be using your CRM or to not be leveraging these tools because you're ultimately just throwing that money away. So it's really important, at least for me, if I was a business owner, I would want to be maximizing

Alex Winter
0:19:52
my dollars and not wasting my dollars. So that's a huge point.

Will Smith
0:19:56
Yeah, that absolutely can be very frustrating because, hey, we've been at this for six, eight, 12 months now. And I'm paying all this money for this amazing enterprise level CRM, but I'm not seeing the return. I don't know my business any better. And I can't get any more strategic

Will Smith
0:20:14
because I don't know it any better than I did six, eight, 12 months ago. That's gotta be frustrating, not to be able to see that ROI with a new CRM. Yeah, absolutely.

Alex Winter
0:20:24
And that's not to say that that can't happen with HubSpot either. We've seen that before where people are paying decent money for whatever package or tier they're on with HubSpot and the same rules apply. They're not leveraging it the way they should and they're ultimately throwing money out the door when they could be really using this data and these tools to their advantage. So definitely something to think about for our business owners out there.

Alex Winter
0:20:45
What other cons are there? We talked about Salesforce. How about with HubSpot? What are some things that people should be mindful of when they're getting into the HubSpot game?

Will Smith
0:20:51
Yeah, when you're getting into the HubSpot game, I see a lot of people saying, you know, I wish I could customize it in this way. Can I make this change? Can I make this happen? And so HubSpot is pretty structured when that is concerned. If you really want to learn something, these are the kind of the guardrails here to help you learn it because we don't want to over complicate it. We want to

Will Smith
0:21:16
make it simple and for 90 percent of the people that are using HubSpot this is what has worked. So let me steer you in this direction. Now this analogy may fall on some deaf ears here but I want to offer it. I used to have an Android phone

Will Smith
0:21:33
and now I use an iPhone and my understanding between the two, if you were to make an analogy between Salesforce and HubSpot, Salesforce is a lot like that Android phone. It is open source, there's a lot that you can do with it, there's a lot of different ways

Will Smith
0:21:50
that you can tell it how to operate because of the complexity, because of the programming language and things like that. Whereas an iPhone, and I've heard this from other iPhone users, you learn how to use your iPhone.

Will Smith
0:22:05
Like this is a set way that iOS works. And this is the way that you're going to make this happen. So if we're talking, hopefully this analogy is gonna translate. But your Salesforce is kind of like your Android and your HubSpot, kind of like your iPhone.

Alex Winter
0:22:21
That makes sense. No, it really does. In the iPhone ecosystem, I'm not an iPhone user, I'm an Android person. So you love this. So I get it. No, this this hits home for me Totally and it's and it's true. It's very true. And it's not that one is better than the other It's really what's gonna be best for you and your style and ultimately your business. That's what we're talking about here. Yeah

Alex Winter
0:22:40
So yeah, not better than the other but they're different. Yeah, so we've gone over some pros and cons We've talked about Salesforce and HubSpot, the big question I have, right, is aside from features and from capabilities, do you think there's one platform that's easier to learn and that people should go with? Like if you had to make a recommendation,

Alex Winter
0:23:01
what would you say and why?

Alex Winter
0:23:03
Well, obviously I'm gonna show my bias here,

Will Smith
0:23:05
but when it comes to a user-friendly interface, quick onboarding, and comprehensive training resources, HubSpot is the recommendation I'm going to go with. It's really designed with simplicity in mind so that it's accessible to pretty much anyone. So your marketing manager who's never even seen a CRM, hopefully that's not the case, they can learn it, pick it up pretty quickly. Your sales people that have always used, you know, the Rolodex, I'm dating myself here, nobody knows what that is, that's always used the spreadsheet and that's how we run our sales.

Will Smith
0:23:46
I know the Rolodex. I know what you mean, I know the Rolodex.

Alex Winter
0:23:51
Spreadsheet for you young folks out there, but yeah, I know what you're saying.

Will Smith
0:23:52
There you go, exactly. So for the, you know, for the sales team that is used to the spreadsheet slash Rolodex, whatever generation we're talking here. It's pretty easy to get them in there to kind of say, hey, let's find a better way to use your time so that you spend more time selling and less time just learning a CRM or learning the process of the CRM. The onboarding makes it pretty short, quick, and easy to do because, again, it's intuitively

Will Smith
0:24:21
designed to get you up and running as fast as possible so you can see that ROI pretty quickly. And then finally, there is a ton of training resources out there. And the simplicity and the ease of use of HubSpot really lends itself to those short, quick, five-minute, seven-minute videos. You're like, hey, I really need to learn something. I want to grab a value. I need to learn something new that I can implement almost immediately in my HubSpot portal.

Will Smith
0:24:51
Where can I go? There are plenty of resources, and not just on YouTube and other agencies that do this and specialize it, but HubSpot established the HubSpot Academy. And a lot of folks may say,

Will Smith
0:25:03
well, I don't want to spend six hours earning this piece of paper that says, I now know marketing in HubSpot. I got my certification badge. Yes, exactly, terrific. Thank you for the piece of paper.

Will Smith
0:25:15
What does it mean exactly? So, for the folks that don't want to go that path, you know, if they just, listen, I need help with workflows. I don't need to spend six hours to find hour three, minute 31 so that I can understand workflows. They have, HubSpot has the academy set up where you can just search for workflows and

Will Smith
0:25:36
get a quick 17-minute understanding in one video. Okay, now I know how to use it. And it's officially from HubSpot. I think that's a tremendous value add because it's right there. They want you to learn, they want you to use it

Will Smith
0:25:50
and stay in it. So that's my recommendation, HubSpot for those reasons.

Alex Winter
0:25:55
Yeah, listen, I'm a video professional by trade. That's what I went to school to study for. That's what I came out of school doing. And even I know how to use HubSpot, and I learned from HubSpot Academy. I have my certifications.

Alex Winter
0:26:05
They may be expired. I might need to re-up on those, but I would say at least 85 to 90% of what I know about HubSpot, I learned from HubSpot Academy. The rest of it I learned from you guys and from Jess and from Joe and the team, but yeah, there's a lot of great resources and tools out there for people to get self-educated and to start self-implementing immediately.

Will Smith
0:26:24
The whole reason I told you that story in the beginning and why I love the HubSpot Academy so much is that personally for me, my degree is in music education. I was a musician and I saw a lot going on and obviously I started that side hustle and I said, you know what,

Will Smith
0:26:40
I wanna learn how to do this digitally. I wanna be able to sell online. HubSpot was there for me. I used a free version of HubSpot to start, understand, and get this side hustle off the ground. So I can totally relate to your story that as a musician, a music educator coming in and the education mindset.

Will Smith
0:27:04
That's why I really like the Academy. It's easy to get going. It's easy to understand. It's easy to just learn and hit the ground running.

Alex Winter
0:27:12
Totally. If we can do it, you guys out there can do it too. No excuses. No excuses. Okay. So I got another question for you here. This is, this is my favorite part. I always love asking these because you you really are a coach and a trainer. You work with clients every single day.

Alex Winter
0:27:25
You're on calls all the time teaching people about how to maximize what they're doing in their HubSpot portals and in their CRM, right? Do you have a story you could share with us of maybe somebody who was with Salesforce and then switched to HubSpot or like something along those lines just to kind of paint the picture of like the pros and cons and what we've been talking

Will Smith
0:27:43
about this whole episode. I know I'm putting you on the spot here. No, that's a great question. I would say I see the most value from sales teams coming off of Salesforce. Now it could be different for another organization that is using Salesforce, maybe they have more streamlined process, but this particular client that I was working with, they moved everything from Salesforce and then onto HubSpot.

Will Smith
0:28:10
And what we try to do is train a HubSpot owner, somebody that is going to say, listen, this is how we're going to operate this, we put this together, and then they end up training the sales team, for example, so that, because they know the sales team.

Will Smith
0:28:26
So this person who is training the sales team had an understanding of what they did in Salesforce and is now teaching the sales team HubSpot and they recorded the training I was reviewing it and it was fantastic the first words that we heard were listen guys this is going to be a lot easier for you it's going to be a lot easier for you to not only know where your leads are coming from but also you'll be able to track and see what are the things that they have looked

Will Smith
0:28:59
at, what are the things that they have observed. And so this is a whole new, for a lot of the people on the sales team, this was a whole new world for them because they didn't know that they could see what was important to the lead. And so now we can have better conversations. We can now say, and of course,

Will Smith
0:29:19
we don't want to sound creepy and say, oh, hey, I saw you checking this out on our website, but rather, hey, is this important to you? Or how is price factor into your budget? And what are you thinking as far as, because we knew that they were looking on the pricing page.

Will Smith
0:29:34
And so for this particular sales team, it was a whole monumental shift to be able to take the data and to use that to fill in the conversation, to have better conversations, and to connect better with that lead who ultimately is going to become their customer because they connected with them on a human level. And so a lot of people say, well it's a CRM, it's a platform, it's technology.

Will Smith
0:30:04
And you're telling me that it's helping me be a better salesperson? Absolutely, because you can connect with a human better using the technology.

Alex Winter
0:30:15
Yeah, that's such a great point. And I think too, the sales folks are busy. You know, they live and die by their numbers. That's like, usually it's like they have certain numbers they have to hit or certain quotas they have to fill and they got to get there and it's make or break.

Alex Winter
0:30:28
So they're very busy people and when they have to work with a CRM or with tools that are clunky and that slow them down and that are tedious, they tend not to use them because they have to get stuff done. So when you have a tool that you can use, that is relatively easy to learn and then you can start to have better, more meaningful conversations from the data coming out of it.

Alex Winter
0:30:47
I mean, that's the dream scenario right there.

Will Smith
0:30:49
Yeah. Absolutely. That's why I love training sales teams because we can take something from the training and then say, I can immediately implement this. I can create this template.

Will Smith
0:30:59
I can create this snippet. I can do this. And right after the training, I can use it to be more effective, more efficient, and be a better salesperson. It's amazing to see just a quick turnaround like that.

Will Smith
0:31:13
I love, maybe it's a little too much instant gratification, but it really is, as a coach and a trainer, it's great to see that.

Alex Winter
0:31:20
Well, it's a win-win for everybody. You win because they're doing better, they're happy because their numbers are better. Everyone, that's the rising tide that lifts all boats, right?

Will Smith
0:31:28
Very cool. Love it. Very cool. Very well said.

Alex Winter
0:31:30
Will, so any, as we wrap here, any closing thoughts? Any last thoughts, maybe things we haven't covered, pros and cons, Salesforce versus HubSpot?

Will Smith
0:31:38
I would say my bottom line is this is difficult to do to really take a good look at your organization and at your teams as well. One of the things that I stress a lot of my clients, even when we're working in HubSpot, maybe they're not making the decision

Will Smith
0:31:52
between HubSpot or Salesforce is, the first question to ask is, are people going to actually use it? You could have the best CRM in the world, but if nobody's using it, it does not matter.

Alex Winter
0:32:04
Yep, so true. That's the biggest question. That's the question of the day, I think, right there.

Will Smith
0:32:08
Yep.

Alex Winter
0:32:09
Yep. Well, Will, thanks for all your insights. I love chatting with you, man. I love having you on the show. You're welcome back anytime. For people who might have follow-up questions or may want to pick your brain about HubSpot or whether they should choose Salesforce versus HubSpot for their business, how can they get in touch with you?

Will Smith
0:32:22
I'm always on LinkedIn. Now, there's probably a lot of Will Smiths on LinkedIn, so just look for Will Smith Impact. Will Smith Impact. Reach out.

Alex Winter
0:32:31
Awesome, well thanks again, great to see you my friend.

Will Smith
0:32:34
Thanks for having me, appreciate you.

Alex Winter
0:32:37
You got it, and for everybody out there listening and watching, this is Endless Customers. I'm Alex Winter, see you on the next episode. I'm Alex Winter, see you on the next episode.

Alex Winter
0:32:42
you




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