Essential HubSpot Renewal Considerations + Costly Mistakes to Avoid [HubHeroes, Video EP55]

My opinions are representative of everybody. There's no safe harbor language when it comes to my opinions.

You.

You speak for the humans.

Yeah, we just edit it out, that's all. I'm sorry.

It's generated poem for your birthday. This is how you were. This is how you pay me.

I'm. I'm sorry. My apologies.

Yeah. Okay. Well, welcome back. Welcome.

Is it someone's birthday?

What?

Did you say birthday? Oh, okay. Yeah.

You. You wished me happy birthday.

Oh, I thought Liz said it was her birthday.

It really was a crappy week for you.

Oh, my gosh. When is my birthday? Oh, this is bad. Oh, when this goes out, it's this month, so my birthday's in October.

There you go. Right?

October. What?

I'm exactly one more month after Georgie.

Wait, October. What?

26Th.

Huh?

Oh, okay, well, that's easy to remember then.

Eliza is the 28th.

My wife is the 18th.

What is happening?

Yeah, everyone's having birthdays because we were all bored.

Max, where are you driving us today, bud?

I am driving us to hot take Ville.

Ready?

And here's. Here's my hot take.

Yeah.

Oh, listen, I'm as someone who is. As someone who does plenty of annoying people on LinkedIn whenever a cool feature comes out, and I've been known to drop a. A screamy tick tock or two whenever I see something that really excites me. One thing that is, like, totally grinding my gears, like, recently is like, everybody clearly using the same, like, chat GPT prompt to write, like, a new feature alert. Like, their own new feature alert post that has way too many emojis. And they all say, what is it? What is the value? What does it do? How does it work? And, like, it's like, literally everybody's doing the same exact thing. Like, today, I swear I saw 75 different posts just glazing this new conditional properties, conditional properties feature, right? And it's like everybody is either using the same exact template, or they're all just going on Chat GPT and they're saying, Write me a new LinkedIn post about this feature.

Right?

And it's just.

It's littering as. And as someone who is a habitual litterer of LinkedIn, me, this guy, the. The AI generated posts just ain't doing it for me. They're just so annoying.

So. So, Max.

A.

But you do realize that you chose to have marketers as friends, right?

Yeah.

You did that to yourself.

I mean, you did this to yourself. Like, you. You jacked up your LinkedIn feed when you said, hey, I'M going to be friends with marketers. Well, of course you didn't know AI was going to come out or chat GPT was going to come out or people weren't going to be creative when they actually could lose their humanity with AI. But that was last week's episode.

I was going to say if people want to get get in on that train, they need to go back and listen to the Fireside Chat. George. And last week as our bonus episode in Hub Heroes. But I do want to point out something before we jump into this week's topic. Did anybody notice that when Max is doing rage hot takes, he drives us in a circle? He just doesn't.

Poetry man. Yeah, he's. He would be one hell of a NASCAR racer. Let's just throw it that way. Always turning left.

You would see that.

Wait, isn't it right? No, it is left. You're right. Yeah.

No, it's left, bro. Unless you're driving in reverse.

Then maybe Zoolander wouldn't be able to do that. He's not an AMB. Turner.

Can I. Can I just.

Can I just say there is nothing. Hold on.

You can't turn left.

No.

Zoolander. Yeah, cuz you rock on the Runway. There is nothing. There is nothing more comforting and satisfying than a protected left hand turn. You never know. Like the. You ever get the anxiety pulling up into an intersection? Hold on. You get the anxiety pulling up into an intersection.

How is this the topic? Someone else brought up?

Left hand turns.

Yes. I'm so glad you brought this up. You're right. Q4 is here. And as scores of ladies just like me.

I was. This was a roundabout way of getting to talking about today's subject, which is Liz.

Oh, that was the worst handoff.

Which isn't Liz. But Liz is not the subject. But she has the subject.

I'm excited about today. I know I say this every time, but I am excited about today. Max, thank you so much for that seamless, flawless segue. Beautiful segue, Swan. We're not in any way driving into a ditch already, but.

Yes.

So what are we talking about this week? It is Q4, guys. Q4 is here.

Wow.

Is here. Like it's here it's now. And so, in addition to people like me coating every available surface in my home with every scented candle and tons of fall decor and like, reams of paper dedicated to soup recipes I will never cook because I just always go to Panera. Anyway, we need to remember that this time of year isn't just about celebrating the rapid demise of My least favorite season, Summer tax season. Budget time. It is budget time at businesses. Yes. I heard that. The tax man not cometh yet.

Yo, if you haven't paid your taxes by now, you should probably start sweating.

Just saying, right?

Business taxes, that is. I know.

I'm trying to purge that memory, George. We're staying on track. It's budget time.

Okay. It's budget time.

For the past couple of months. Business leaders, marketing leaders, sales leaders, everybody's kind of running around going, okay, so what's my budget going to look like in 24? What's going to look like in 24? Now we're actually here, guys. That dull roar is now deafening. And look, I don't think we're all walking around with the economic anxiety that we had, say during the pandemic, but like 2023 has been, it's been a bit of a challenge. It's pretty mid walking that fine line between surviving and thriving. And one of the biggest costs that businesses deal with other than SA salaries is technology. Right?

Yeah.

Now, George, you and I have been in the agency world. We spend a lot of time in the agency world. Right. How many times do you remember those random mandates that would come down of like, everybody evaluate which tools you're using, we're slashing and burning, we're contract. And then you'd end up with like 15 developers and designers all like trying to jockey on one single Adobe Creative Cloud account and it's just complete chaos. But one of the biggest things, one of the biggest technology pieces is HubSpot.

Yeah.

At least for the people who are listening. And depending on how many hubs you're invested in, it could be a pretty hefty bill.

Yeah.

So we're talking about HubSpot renewals today. Okay. Because when times are tough, you can easily fall down the slippery slope of fear. Right. Whether we're talking about HubSpot or we're talking about something else, it can be easy to fall into that slash and burn mentality. So I thought it would be good this week for us to just take a moment. Let's talk about HubSpot renewals. Let's talk about what people need to be thinking about, knowing and avoiding before they start making any big or drastic changes to their HubSpot. Sound good, guys?

Yeah. I can't wait to have this conversation. And I, you know, the reason we can have this conversation. Conversation. Woo. That was easy for me, Liz, is because, because unlike many agencies who decided to bittorrent their Adobe Creative Suite, historically, when you could do that you can't, you can't, you can't bit torrent your HubSpot. You can't bit torrent HubSpot.

Are you kidding?

SaaS platform. Dang. Gone cloud. It's not a download. What? Wait.

Anyway, dude, I downloaded a whole bunch of extra contacts on Kazar. My guy.

I'm just saying.

Yeah.

It was Aerosmiths living on the edge.

It was really unfortunate.

Not what I expected.

Yeah, yeah.

Napster was the ruination of, of just purchases everywhere around the world because it just kept getting worse. But, but I am excited to have this conversation because one many times when you hear this conversation, people default to one or two things. Oh, well, make sure your contacts, you know, you know, marketing contacts. There's way more, way more of a conversation. I mean, don't, don't get me wrong, I'm gonna mention marketing contacts before we're done. But, but it's only like a sliver. Sliver of what I think we're gonna talk about today.

I love it. Yeah. And here's what I'm also gonna put out there. So for those of you who may be reaching for your dial button because you are not the decision maker, let me just put this out there. You should still listen. Because if you are using HubSpot at your company, you need to understand what your business decision maker should be thinking about. So that way if you're asked, you have actually something to say, you also have thought this through, or you can proactively advocate for what it is that you think you need. You need to be an active part of this discussion. If you love HubSpot, if you love what it does for you, this is going to empower you to be the squeaky wheel. And to the marketing and business leaders out there, yes, we are making them squeaky wheels for you.

But yeah, because, because here's the thing. Here's I, I agree with them. Listening Liz. Because here's the thing. If, if you love your life and you don't want to be sharp Spring or Marketo or some other SaaS software, not to be mentioned user, in other words, your life gets turned upside down. Maybe Pardot. Maybe, Maybe, maybe. Anyway, anyway, like you'll want to have this information that we're going to talk about because you'll be able to arm yourself and be like, like imagine getting the note. Ladies and gentlemen, we've decided to maybe cut HubSpot from our budget. You'll be able to say, boss, can you please listen to episode 50, I don't know, whatever. 55, 54. Anyway, doesn't matter. Can you listen to this episode of this podcast before we make any rash decisions, please?

And if they say no, that's when you quit your job.

Oh, what was that, Max?

I said if they say no, you quit your job.

Wow, that got like.

I'm chilling for Big Sprocket this episode, baby.

Oh, there we go.

The answer's always going to be upgrade.

Listen, listen, I have three times this year. Anyway, all right, let's continue on the conversation.

All right, guys, so we're gonna start with my favorite thing about this conversation, which is how do you think how many of our listeners right now are going like, wait, what? A renewal? Playoffs. Talking about playoffs. Like, how many people right now do you think even have an idea of when their renewal is coming up?

No more than five. Because there's five listening to us right now at this very moment in time.

If you want to watch us live continue.

So. So what I'll say is it's very few. Like, I mean, listen, first of all, HubSpot's smart, right? Because they talk that stuff, like, away away. Like, it's not like renewals is not a main nav item where you just look at it on the daily or the weekly. Like, it's kind of stuffed away in the software. And not to mention, like, sales is really smart because some people are monthly, some people are quarterly, some people are, you know, yearly. Heck, I've seen deals for like multiple years. By the time you get three months into a two year deal, you're not thinking about it at all. And then all of a sudden it's like, boom. Wait, my junk just auto renewed. Wait, there's auto renewal in HubSpot? Oh, I thought I would have to have a conversation for a surprise.

Yeah, we all love those types of surprises.

Yeah.

Well, what do you think most. Folks. Folks, Max, go ahead.

Well, no, no, what was your. I was gonna ask what the. I didn't know if you would ask the first question yet. Sorry.

Wow. Pay attention to the road, Max. Pay attention to the road.

Well, it's just like, what people are thinking.

Well, okay, gotcha.

No, I'm there.

We arrived.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, okay, so the, the big thing that I like, also try to make people, like, aware of is that your cost of HubSpot is not like, just like what you're paying HubSpot for the software.

Right.

You know, more and more you're seeing folks have headcount whose job it is to manage HubSpot. You know, there's this whole big Thing called the app marketplace, where, you know, you're starting to think of the iPhone or. Sorry, you're. Sorry, you're starting to think of your CRM or HubSpot is more of like an iPhone, right. Where, like, you down. You get it, and it comes with a bunch of stuff that does some. Does some things, but you can go and, like, buy something that makes it do something that it didn't do before or a better version of something that it already does.

Right.

That's an extra cost you got to think about out. Right, of course. But then there's also, like, are you working with partners?

Right.

You know, things like that. So, you know, I think there's many other kind of, like, factors you got to kind of put into the equation. It's not just like your bill. There's all these other things you're kind of paying for you should be thinking about, too.

Yeah.

How do you think, Devin, most folks, good or bad, for better or for worse, approach their renewal time with HubSpot. Like, are there any common mistakes you see people a lot of making either in their mindsets or their thinking or actions?

Well, I'd say the biggest mistake that I've seen is people treating it like a fixed cost and not even thinking about it. Oh, the renewal is up. Okay, let's go. And while that's wonderful for HubSpot.

The.

Thing is that what I've seen is that people are lacking in a plan and they're just kind of throwing money at software. And I think renewal time is a great time to kind of take a step back and look at what you're doing versus what you want to do. And at that point, that's how you make the decision on what you want to do with that or any tool. Like, if you have a tool for the sake of having a tool, then you're just burning money. And while HubSpot loves, you know, making money, at the end of the day, our core goal is to help people grow better. And you're not growing, growing better. If you have this tool that has this. Is this powerful platform that has all these different tools within it and you're just letting them atrophy, or if you have capabilities within your. Within your dashboard that you are paying for on other services, it's like, the thing is that if you aren't. If you don't have a plan associated with your tool and you don't have a strategy, and like, here's what we want to do, here's what it can do for us, here are all the different aspects of our marketing strategy that HubSpot supports and how we could even possibly expand what other tools there are out there available, then it's like you're just wasting money at that point.

Yeah, I love that. Chad in the chat Pane said, since HubSpot is essentially the same center of your tech stack, renewal time is a great opportunity for admins and business owners to evaluate your entire data model, dare I even say process, which we'll get to. I I want to get to eventually this about not immediately blaming the platform like at some point in this episode. But what I'll say what I've historically seen when people are talking about HubSpot renewals is they wait till the last dang minute. And can I just tell you, don't wait till the last dang minute. Because if you're sitting there and you're struggling with HubSpot and you're thinking of jumping ship and you have to ask yourself some honest questions, if you wait till the last dang minute, guess what? You're not going to get to your questions, the needed answers. And and when I think about these questions that I would want people to start to ask themselves again, we're thinking, hey, I. It's renewal time. Shoot. We really haven't seen the ROI that we want to get out of HubSpot. Like what? Why? Why is that what's happening? This is a perfect time to ask yourself, well, hey, did I even set up HubSpot properly during my first 30 to 60 days of using the platform?

Or.

Or did I skip some steps and just try to create what we already had? Like Devin has said many, many times not to do, you need to start asking yourself, am I only using HubSpot as a glorified email tool or just a knowledge article or as a human holder for my sales team, you know, one step above my historical spreadsheet or post it note that used to be on my desk? You have to ask yourself, have I created parts of the platform that my team need to really use the tool? Or are they a ghost town and not set up and not like ready meaning? You know, listen, some of you get it because you want a blog and you don't even have blog subscription types set up in your HubSpot portal after you reach out and ask us for help, after a year or two years of using the system like so you've got to start thinking of those things. Then you have to even ask yourself, do I have the right level of hub giving me the features that I actually need to get to my specific success metrics that we're trying to hit. And that's why I'm feeling the pain. And finally, are you looking at the value of the software there only during this renewal, this last minute decision making opportunity, or do you understand it goes way past that? Right? And, and when I, when I say that, what I mean that it goes way past that is HubSpot works way better when you're all in. When you're all in. And when I say when you're all in, what I mean is, are you a lone soldier out in the middle of the battlefield of business not realizing that part of your paying for this software is the use of the HubSpot Academy is the searchability of the HubSpot knowledge basis, is the community and the knowledge bases and conversations you can have in HubSpot community. And even if I go to the next levels that we've kind of even mentioned, here's. Are you working with a partner? Like, do you realize that's part of what might ease your pain in those last minute decision makings around renewal if you're struggling with HubSpot? And, and by the way, dare I say, and I don't even know if we've talked about this on an episode yet, shame on us. But are, are you going to a hug? Like, do you belong to a HubSpot user group where other like minded individuals are actually attacking conversations like we have on this podcast and many others together as a team? Or is it like, no, we spent this money and shoot, we're really not sending out any automated email, so let's cancel.

Yeah, I think if, like, if you're getting to the point where it's like you're, you're, you're approaching your renewal and the mindset is we need to reevaluate if this is even worth it versus oh man, this is a, you know, our whole business runs on this thing and how could we live without it? Like, that's a big red flag. Like that means something's wrong in terms of the way you're either like approaching it or setting it up or deploying it or connecting it to your other systems. Like, ideally you should be approaching like your renewal with like, okay, you know, obviously this thing is fundamental to the way our entire business operates and we need to look at renewal as more of like a cost saving exercise, you know, because we know we're going to be using HubSpot. But obviously like your goal as the customer should be, you know, pay the least amount that you can to get the most amount of software like in all situations. But also like, I think you should be using it at like hopefully when you're approaching it, you know, you're also using it as like a strategic way to approach any like upgrades you're thinking about, right? Because like of course your, your sales reps want you to renew, right? But of course they also want to sell you more product and like, maybe you guys have been holding off for the right time to upgrade to, you know, Ops, Hub, Enterprise or you know, any of these other things, right? Doing it at your renewal time is a great way to do it because if you're up for a renewal, you as the customer have a great deal leverage that you can, you know, exercise, right? So I would suggest that you do that with your sales rep.

You know, George, I actually want us to go ahead and talk about what you said though, which I think is really kind of the tip of the spear of a lot of this conversation. When they, when folks look at HubSpot like it is the problem. Talk about that.

Yeah, yeah. And before I talk about that, Chris, I agree. Hug. HubSpot user group is a great acronym because it is like just getting a nice squeeze on a cool evening from a, a nice friend or a family member. So, so here's the thing. One of the things I've seen is immediately when, when, when, when goes awry and people aren't doing their job all a sudden we want to blame the platform. We want to blame the platform instantly. And honestly, to me, this is, this is a three part conversation. And, and at least maybe four layers, maybe more by the way, maybe more four layers that we should be paying attention to. So, so here's what I'll say. First of all, yes, there is the platform, there is HubSpot and it's kind of things that we talked about. Are we paying attention to contacts and seats? We'll talk about that later. Do we need an upgrade, a downgrade? Do we need to go from monthly to yearly or can we go multi yearly? But, but there's the things that are around the platform. Then there's the thing that is around the people, right? That you have humans in your, or you have humans in your organization that are blatantly not using or passionately using. And I don't know what the percentage rates are, but do you know the percentage rates of the. I'll get to the word. There's a special word that we're going to talk about when we let layers and then process. Are, are, are you and again in the chat pane, all on one customer platform. Like, are you, do you have all the processes so that your, your team is spending more of the time doing more of the important things, saving more time in their day because the processes are in place. So like when you're thinking about renewal, it's not like, ah, this car's a lemon. It's like, no, and I don't know how to drive either. And why do I have four flat freaking tires? Like, that's, that's where we're at with this. And so when we think about platform people and process, the layers that I start to think of is like, and I gotta, I will beat this drum until the day I can't beat this drum anymore. The amount of portals that I've gone into and the setup is crap. Like they are missing things. They're, they're not email sending domain, domain is not set up. They have static IP addresses for their offices and it's not in there. So sales teams have been using the tool and their Gmail or Outlook hasn't been hooked up for the last six months. Like, there are so many things that setup is just bull crap. And they're like, yeah, I don't know why we're getting the ROI out of it. Oh, because you bought a bicycle and never rode it, that's why. Because you never put the chain on the freaking like gear system, that's why. And then like, here's the other piece of it is the next layer I want to talk about is buy in like the lack of getting somebody to come train your people and get excited about why they should be using the platform. Not because Big Brother has arrived, not because we actually want to do spammy crap, because now we have all the lead intelligence and we can cookie the crap out of you, but because it's actually going to give you a better process, more time in your day, you're going to be able to spend time with the ones you love or go golf more. Maybe you want to do that and instead. But like you're literally going to have tools, snippets, templates, documents, meetings, automation, marketing, reporting that like helps you, if you buy in, get better success as an individual and as an organization. The other piece again I'm going to harp on and we have an episode where we talked about our favorite ones of these is like, it's not just HubSpot. That's like saying, I'm just going to go play football. I'm going to play NFL football and I just need the Quarterback. Or, or I'm gonna go play, you know, basketball. And I just need a forward. No, you need a whole dang team. And so this idea, the lack of integrations that I see people actually applying into the system. Right. And, and then, and then here's the last one I'm gonna tell you right now. We have reached a place. Sales Marketing Service Operations, CRM. Cms. Ladies and gentlemen, your organization needs a frickin super administrator. You need a HubSpot super admin. And so when I think about like all the things that you should be thinking about instead of just going, oh, HubSpot doesn't work. You're thinking about platform people. Process the setup, the buy in, the integrations and who is actually managing this ish. Why you're actually out running the business. I'll get off my soapbox now.

I didn't know how you felt about that, George. Just.

Yeah, I'm a little bit passionate about this.

Yeah, just constructive feedback. If you could be a little bit more direct in your opinions, that would be.

I'll try next time. Next question list. Next question. Liz, I got this. I got it for you, George.

I just think you're just not dedicated enough. I really not.

I mean, I've been thinking about maybe using this thing called HubSpot for a couple years, but I'm just on the fence about it.

I don't know. I don't know. Max, what do you got?

Where's the passion? Where's the passion? Yeah, I mean, you know, I think it does. You got to think about like all the other things that are factored into the equation.

Right.

Whether it's like the partner you're hiring or the people that you're hiring to deploy it.

Right.

You know, it's so much more than just like the cost of the software itself.

Right.

Sorry, I'm gonna move back here. I'm like under my desk right now.

But.

Yeah, I don't know.

I like, like, I almost like lost track of the question again because I was just listening to George go on and on about it. Damn it. I don't know.

All right, you know what? All right, fine, fine. I'm re centering this conversation.

Yeah, resetting the combo. I need a fresh question.

And this is the one where we began, George, by saying that they should send this specific episode of Hub Heroes to the leadership of their company.

Yeah, well, they could still do that, but we're not getting hired by them at this point.

No, no, no, no, no.

Okay, so when we think about these decision makers, talk to me about the data that they need to be collecting and looking at in their HubSpot portal before they make any decisions, before they start running around and talking to people and gathering their opinions and decisions. Because that is. That is what these decision makers should be doing. They should be talking to their people. But first.

Right, okay, Max, you got this, first of all. Yeah. Well, this is good. Let me start first so I don't lose. My ADHD isn't kicking and I lose track of the question. So in terms of the data that you should be looking at. Well, not to be the it depends guy, but. Yeah, I mean, it kind of depends. But I mean, that really kind of goes back to did you have a good idea of what the jobs to be done were for HubSpot when you hired it?

Right.

And when you bought it? And were you setting up your goals or were you actually tracking metrics that are actually important one?

Right.

But were you actually setting it up in a way that you could say, hey, yeah, this was successful for the reasons that we purchased it for?

Right.

So it kind of goes back to that. So really go back and take a look at whatever it was that you, you know, wanted to look at, whether it was, you know, leads you were generating or deals you were creating or like, any sort of indicator of did it solve the problems that we went out and, you know, bought it for.

Right.

But then I think that's also where you start to get into, like, more of the expansion conversation.

Right.

Are there any metrics that are lacking or hurting or things that you would expect to be different? But it's because we're missing, like, a piece of the puzzle.

Right.

You know, are you generating a ton of leads in the marketing Hub and getting a lot of good traction on your content or people interacting with it, but, like, nothing's really happening with your sales team? Well, do they not have the proper tools that they need? And you maybe need to start look at how you're utilizing Sales Hub a little bit more.

Right.

Look at how success in one part of the tool is either dropping off or failing as it kind of goes to the other parts of the tool that, you know, those elements of your strategy should be interacting with.

Right.

And I think there you can start to find, like, hey, if we're going to approach renewal time as more of a, you know, how do we make a tactical decision about how we invest further?

Right.

You got to look at your data. What data? I'm not even going to try to say, look at this metric and look at that metric, because it's going to be different for everybody. Like, everyone comes into HubSpot at a different place of their business growth and everyone has their own challenges, even though they're usually inside the flavor of marketing, sales and service.

Right.

But again, it's, it's. This is why you gotta do such a good job at like, setting out like an understanding and defining your goals at the beginning.

Right.

The beginning of it is always gonna have a massive effect of, you know, how you're evaluating HubSpot at renewal time. Right. So, hate to be the it depends guy, but it does depend.

If I can jump in here for a second, hopefully you have your attribution set up so you can see exactly how much your marketing efforts through HubSpot are impacting the bottom line. Because at the end of the day, people in C Suite care about two things. Either you're building the brand or you're building the bottom line. And you need to be able to show how you're doing both. And that's not just for renewal time. That's any time. That's job security right there. Because instead of all of the kudos and the accolades going to the sales team for being the closers, it still is necessary to show what it took for you guys to get there. So, I mean, HubSpot has attribution reporting built in. If you're using your deals tools, if you're using the forms correctly and you're not just constantly manually importing spreadsheets and data, if you're using the tool correctly, you can quite easily see, okay, Hubs, I'm making money using HubSpot, and here's the proof. And also another metric is how integral is HubSpot into your core operations. Because one thing that the, the people who are going through the slash and burn may not take in consideration is that they may be cutting themselves off at the knees without even realizing it. There's this thing, well, why didn't we do this? It's like, because we don't have HubSpot anymore. And how come this landing page looks like crap? Because we're not hosting it on HubSpot anymore. So things like that are all things that need to be taken into consideration. And also lastly is ease of use. You can. It's hard to put a metric on that, but when you're talking about what it takes to update a page in WordPress versus a page in HubSpot versus a page that's been created by a third party using like, React or something like that, these are all Things that you need to take into consideration.

Flow.

Exactly.

Yeah.

The other thing I want to like throw in there while it's fresh in my mind too is that like, it's not always something you can like measure with a report and like a metric, right? Oh, a lot of the value that comes. Go ahead. So like a lot of the value that comes out of HubSpot is very intangible, right? Like, so if you don't have like specific metrics that you're looking at to say that we hit the KPIs we wanted to get when we got HubSpot.

Right.

Go talk to people that are using it.

Right?

Like, try to get a gauge of what it would be like if they had access to a different tool. Like, would they be able to do more? Or it's like, if we took HubSpot away, what kind of detrimental effect is that going to have on your work? Right. You know, because a lot of the times you got to. There's just some things that you can't just. You can't just replace a conversation with a human being that's actually operating inside of HubSpot and doing their day to day out of it. And you'll probably get like a lot of really good insight too from the Boots on the Ground folks using it in terms of like, are we talking about a downgrade situation? Because maybe there's a certain part of the tool that we're not using as much or would we be better off like reinvesting that on like an upgrade of a different hub and like maybe dropping down a tier on another one? You know, it's not you. Not everything you can measure with a frigging report. Sorry.

Yeah, yeah, so. So I want to double down on your. It depends. And not everything can be a report. But before I do that, I love Nick in the chat pane. I mean, I like Nick, but I love what Nick said in the chat pane. That total cost of renewal versus total cost of doing something else. The second seems like it would be a lot harder than determined. And yes, that is a true fact. Trust me, I'm helping people. Literally. I said webflow because it's. I'm literally helping a client go through a new process that HubSpot and Webflow have recently built and they didn't know was built. And now we have to untangle zapier from a system that was historically there. Anyway, I digress. Here's the thing my brain goes to. There are a couple absolutes that you can start to at least kind of Pay attention to. For instance, if you are using HubSpot across your entire organization, you should be paying attention to sales, AKA deals, AKA our revenue. How much revenue has we have we been able to drive and can we measure? Because we have forecasting and goals and pipelines and deal stages. The next place I go, if you're using something like Salesforce maybe for your pipeline is like what about meetings booked? If, if we can get the team on HubSpot meetings. We know the meetings that were booked, we know the outcomes of the meetings, we know where we're spending too much time in meetings that aren't worth it versus meetings that are worth it. If we go a layer of that and it's just marketing. Well now we need to think about forms and lead generation. How many leads did we generate, how many conversations did that actually equal? And then I'll even go to the service side of like because we've actually used surveys, the service side and surveys like now we actually have a voice of customer system in place and what impact impact has the insights of being able to listen to our customer made in the last 365 days of the year to our actual business. Okay, so there are some places where you can kind of go these high line metrics. We could pay attention to what impact they're making in our business. Some could be reports, some might not be reports. However, two other places that I want to talk about, one and I mentioned integrations. Go to the Marketplace app in the top little browser of your HubSpot and go connected apps and just see how many connected apps you have and then imagine the time that you will spend unraveling that versus actually just continuing to use a system that is built and work work second place. And some people will hate me, some people will love me. But one of the things you can measure that I don't think a lot of people pay attention to being able to measure is go into your settings gear in HubSpot, go into the security tab, hit the settings and activity tab in that security tab and then simply click on the little link that says view account login history and look at your employees and who has logged in, who hasn't logged in when the last time they logged in. Do I have buy in or not? It's measurable. Ladies and gentlemen. You I can tell you the three people who don't give rats that you told them to use HubSpot because they haven't logged into your portal for the last 200 days.

Yeah, I mean if you're finding people at renewal time and you're finding out that your employees haven't been using HubSpot. Oh, my God. Well, okay, it's a whole different problem.

Step out of the data here and let's talk about George's favorite topic for a second. You want to hit us up with a hard hobby?

Oh, man. It's time to talk about the humans.

Right. So you were talking about here. If you don't know which of your employees are or are not using HubSpot, you've got bigger problems. Let's talk about the conversations that these decision makers and business leaders and other folks should be having with each other. So first of all, let's start. What questions should they be asking people? Who should they be talking to? What are the conversations that you would encourage these folks to be having it?

Are we talking about internally or with HubSpot?

Internally.

Okay.

Yeah.

I, I kind of categorize users of hubs. I'm forming this thought as I'm saying it, so maybe I'm going to sound stupid here, but I categorize like, users of HubSpot as like, boots on the ground, customer facing folks, and then more of like, the operators.

Right.

So like the people pulling the strings, setting stuff up, you know, making it work, and then the people that are, like, benefiting from that, that are, like, interacting with customers. Right. I'm sure there's more sort of categories that you can put into it, but like, you know, the, the questions I think you ask those folks are going to be completely different to determine, like, if HubSpot is something that you need to kind of keep on board and if you're getting the most out of it.

Right.

Like, if I'm thinking of the salesperson, I'm thinking of the, you know, the performers, if you will, the salespeople, the, the service people, and like, arguably the marketers as well.

Right.

Like, the marketers are going in there and creating and they're getting enabled with all these tools and they're putting stuff out there and they're, you know, they're very much performing just like a salesperson is, like, going in there and pulling a lot of the strings and making sure everyone has what they need and setting up all these processes that the other people can use.

Right.

I think the conversations that you have with those folks are very different.

Right.

Like, with those individual sort of like performers and operators inside of HubSpot, it's more along the line of like, making sure, like, hey, do you have what you need to do your job? Is this actually making your Job easier, right? What do you wish it could do? What is it not able to do for you? Things like that get a good idea. I think any sort of questions there you're trying to suss out how much it's actually enabling them to do their job better and how much net value it's actually injecting into their day and their ability to do their job because they can do their job with different tools.

Right.

But like is HubSpot kind of giving them what they need that they didn't have before?

Right.

So you're going to ask that question differently depending on is it a salesperson, a service person, a marketer, things like that. And then it good.

Well, it's interesting, my brain, when you were talking Max, I was like, it almost feels like there's like this is a two lane highway. And what I mean by that is there's some questions and conversations that workers should have with managers and then managers should have with the C suite. But there's a lot of questions going the other direction that I think the C suite could be having with the managers and the workers. Like imagine just being. And by the way, not in a big group but more of like an individual one to one. Imagine going up to the marker and being and saying these words, hey, how much would it impact you if I took your HubSpot campaigns tool away? Or like you went to a sales rep and you said hey, if all sudden we didn't have that sales pipeline in HubSpot, like would that affect your day to day progress? And like being able to like sell to our customers or going to the service rep and being like, hey, do you think if we didn't have knowledge articles you'd probably get more calls in a day or have to send out more emails? Like would that be a waste of time if we got rid of that? Like, like I know I'm dumbing it down but like I feel like you kind of have to dumb it down. And again, one side of this is a common. Huh.

Like I don't think you're dumbing this down. I think this is a positive, this is simplifying.

Oh, all right then there we go.

Look at that.

Well, it's also, it's also, you know, having a pointed conversation on with that person on how they interact with HubSpot because it's going to be much different than other people. You know what I mean? Everyone has a different experience in an organization dealing with HubSpot because they're approaching it from different angles and you have different jobs and all that kind of stuff.

Right.

But, and I think this also goes why, it's like, this goes to show why it's so important to like, you know, as someone who's a decision maker, like, having a true understanding of like, how your employees are actually using all these different tools you're paying for.

Right.

Like, because if you don't have a semi nuanced understanding of that, then it's really difficult to have meaningful conversations around should you keep certain technology or tools around and stuff like that? I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this.

Yeah, there's, there's one more layer that conversations like that can unlock and it's whether or not people even know what they're doing, whether or not these are the best people for the job, or whether or not you need some outside help and assistance. The thing is, when people think of solutions partners or they think of agencies, they think retainers, monthly fees, contract, all that stuff, you can get a solutions partner to come in, tell you why you suck, and then tell you how to be better. And then that would be the end of the engagement. And it can help your team get back on track because it's very possible that people have gotten so deep in the weeds that they've completely lost the forest for the trees and they forget why they're doing what they're doing in the first place, which is to help the company grow. So yeah, having those kinds of conversations and it can be as scary when you lift up the rock and see just all kinds of, just terrifying stuff. But at the end of the day, it may help you understand that it may not be the tool itself, but the people who are using it. And they might just need to be re energized by having some outside strategist come in and, and set you straight.

I love Devin, that you mentioned this, like, lifting the rock and seeing what's under it and because usually if it's under a rock, it's kind of something that's small and it, it leads me to something that one of my buddies says that I think is, is fitting in this thing because there are a bunch of small parts to HubSpot, but HubSpot in itself is really big. My buddy likes to say how you do small things is how you do all things. And so like, this is a big decision and how you've made the little decisions along the way is probably going to determine a lot of how the conversation on this big decision is going to go. And I'd be remiss too, if I Didn't hit the chat pane one more time before we start to close this bad boy out. Because I love that Chris put roles, responsibilities, accountabilities and in all caps, by the way, he felt like he had to yell at us for that last part. Expectations.

Oh, don't yell at us, dad.

So I do want to take this to the other part of the conversation as we start to wrap this up, George, because you asked a very interesting clarifying question. You know, at the start of this particular segment, I, we were, we were discussing employees. I wanted to talk about what the internal conversations they should be having. But you brought up. So are we talking about the conversations they're having internally? Are we talking about the conversations they're having with HubSpot? So why don't we start to wrap up this conversation around that idea? So we've talked so far about the data they should be collecting. We've talked so far about what they should be looking at internally, how they should be thinking internally, and the conversations that should be driven. Talk to me now about once they have that data, once they have that information, what does that conversation with HubSpot look like?

Yeah, and we are making a hard left turn back to earlier in the episode. We are making a hard left turn from like best deal mentality versus like best uses and, and process mindset that we've kind of been banging on for a lot of this episode. But you have to start asking things like, hey, Mr. HubSpot sales guy, can I get a better discount because it's based on fiscal year or because it's the end of the quarter and you guys are trying to, oh, I don't know, hit your number. We might actually want to ask for a more significant HubSpot discount if we say these words. I'd like to buy a bundle, meaning I want to get two or three hubs together and maybe I can get a weed. Wait, maybe I can get a suite, a bundle and, and have multiple products and get a discounted rate. The other thing is, can I change my billing cycle? Hey, I know that I'm bought at a HubSpot. What kind of dope price can I get if I go to a two year contract?

Right.

So discounts on higher contract limits. Also an internal conversation. You, you should have with yourself. Two of them. One where in the is the auto renewal button? And turn it off. I'll let that sink in for one second.

Leave it on. Leave it on. Big shill. Leave it on. Turn it on.

Turn it off. Just leave it on.

It's easier. Just leave it on.

Just leave it on. Yeah. See, I'm just going to play music over you. But, but here's the thing. The, the second thing. Hey, if you like your discount, it's okay to keep it. Like, you can have that conversation of, like, I see what you're trying to do here, but as one human to another, I'm probably gonna have to ask that we keep it where it's at. And many times, not always, but many times, just by having that conversation. They'll go to a manager, they'll have a conversation, they'll look at the bottom line and they'll be like, yeah, that sounds good to us too. Right? So those are the things that I think internally you start to ask in conversations you start to have.

Yeah, do that at the end of the month, though, when it's crunch time and they're.

Yep.

You know, that's, that's, that's when there's 30 days.

Bring it up. Day 27.

Yeah, don't, don't try it on, on day one of the month, because that ain't gonna go nowhere or it's gonna go to the end of the month and then, then you'll get there. But yeah, I mean, the, the other thing too, right, is think about it. When you're renewing HubSpot, you're kind of just buying it again, right? And like, maybe this is a good time to ask your CSM or, or, you know, the, the SC that's on your renewal deal if you have one. Or, like, whatever it may be, like, it might be a good time to say, like, okay, like, what are we not doing with what we already have?

Right?

And the folks at HubSpot are really good at, like, looking at your portal just because they've seen a billion and saying, oh, you're not really using this and you have access to it. Like, you know, they want. They still want you to be happy and use what you have, right? So you keep it, you know, so they're really good at pointing that kind of stuff out, Right? So it's a good time to kind of.

You.

Yeah, exactly. Like, they want you to. They want you to use every single square inch of that thing, right? So, like, it's a good time to say, like, hey, you know, even if we're happy with the price, we're happy with whatever. It's just like, what are we missing?

Right?

What are, what are some of the things that maybe aren't so obvious, right? And try to squeeze more out of what you already have too, right? Not just like, oh, can we lower the price? Can we do this, can we do that?

Right.

But yeah, try to figure out, do more with what you got.

I love that.

Okay, I want to end today's conversation with a question. And I. And I want to start with Devin. So this is instead of our usual one thing, HubSpot, as I alluded to at the beginning of this conversation. It's. It's only part of this conversation that a lot of people are having. Like, they're not looking at HubSpot in a vacuum in their budget, right? They're looking at lots of things. And depending on what their mindset is, they may be. They may be looking at this with a fear mindset. So what do you want to tell folks who may be listening right now who are feeling a little bit more stressed? They're coming at this with a defensive posture. What are the things you want to tell that reactive person to keep in mind before they make a decision they might regret?

The cold hard truth is that you got to spend money to make money. And this tool is going to help you make money. And I mean, you can't come at it scared because scared money don't make money. You need to go out and equip your team with the tools they need in order to get the job done. And what it boils down to is whether or not they can get the job done. Because. Because HubSpot is going to do what HubSpot does, and it. It's help people grow. But yeah, Nick said it right. You don't buy a HubSpot, you hire a HubSpot, and it's just about whether or not you are going to give your team what they need to help you grow. But at the end of the day, if you're going to be scared, then, you know, ain't nothing I can tell you. Because what's gonna happen is you're gonna be answering these same questions next year, but you're gonna have fewer lines to cut with the same problems. You just. I mean, you need to get out.

There and I can't take full credit for the jobs to be done thing. That is a. That is a Doug Davidoff top me that, you know, you don't buy HubSpot, you hire HubSpot, right? Jobs to be done. So big shout out to Doug. It was great seeing you in inbound. In terms of, like what I would say to somebody. I mean, the thing. The thing you got to remember is just like, it's. It's if. If you're struggling, right. To, to see a lot of the success that you thought you were going to see with HubSpot. Packing up and heading to another tool is not going to be what fixes it.

Right.

It's, it's going to be, you know, sitting down, buckling down, taking a look at, you know, what you could be doing, what you're not doing, what you are doing well, what you're doing bad.

Right.

Having good conversations and honest conversations with your team and going in there and actually figuring it out.

Right.

Because a different tool set that does the same thing, but it costs less and you get sold a dream by another sales rep that doesn't fix a problem. There's so many other reasons why, you know, you didn't succeed with it.

Right.

And if you don't fix those, like, you know, you're just going to be having another one of these awkward renewal conversations with the next thing that you jump ship to a year from now.

Right.

So just remember, it's, it's, it's not the, it's usually not the product. It's. It's the process.

Right.

And you know, you gotta, you gotta take that into consideration.

Yeah. I've actually been in many of those conversations, Max, where we would be onboarding somebody and they'd be like, oh yeah, we were on HubSpot two years ago and then we went to XYZ platform, but now we're back.

Yeah.

And it's, that's the exact decision that you're talking about that they were making. So it's, it's funny because like, I. Listen, I love what Devin said. Scared money don't make money. And I, I literally was. When, when you started to talk about this, Liz, the major word that I heard you say was fear. And I was like, oh man. Like I could go on a whole, whole like, thing about fear. Yeah. And, and you know, you just can't live in that world. And, and I know that sometimes some of the things that come out of my mouth are just like, yeah, that dude's living on a different planet than we are. But look, I'm a small organization and when we started the company we had like Starter Bundle and HubSpot CMS. Like, we were paying maybe 400 bucks for like the tools. But as we opened the business and, and started to grow, we literally, we've upgraded three times in the last year and a half. And I can tell you just this, I pay way more for HubSpot than I ever thought that I would have paid for HubSpot. In my lifetime. But I. I would spend more. I would spend more because I understand how fundamental it is to everything that we do just from beginning to end. And I can't imagine a world where I would go and try to Frankenstein this somewhere else with something else. And so, you know, you have to just. And we haven't really said this yet, but the thing that I would say to people, if it's a fear based thing, get out of the damn office, go find your local park, sit down at the base of a tree with your notepad and write all the positives on one side, all the negatives on another. Sit there and sip your Starbucks or your Duncan for a hot minute and think about the cost of change and the cost of moving an entire organization's cheese versus the fact that you just don't think you're getting your, you know, 25 cents. I know it's not 25 cents out of a software that you purchased and then kind of maybe sort of did something with also, by the way, before we stop this though, I've got to say two things. One, if you're getting ready to renew, one, look at your marketing contacts. Make sure you're doing data hygiene. Make sure you're getting rid of contacts don't matter so you don't get charged for contacts that you don't need. Two, your janitor doesn't need a sales or service seat. Damn it. Make sure the people who need sales or service seats have sales and service seats. Not everybody needs to have a pay seat. Okay, I'm done. Thanks. Bye.

I thought you literally were going to tell people, hey, go outside and touch grass, but you actually took it somewhere much more productive, which I appreciated. Here's my little final line in the sand. Every time you decide to save a couple pennies here and there. By removing an automation, you are forcing someone who costs more than that automation to do that task manually over and over and over again. So just throwing that out there, you're saving a few pennies technically in your budget, but things will start taking longer. And that is my two cents on this. Anyway, gentlemen, thank you for another chaotic episode. Max, how you doing, bud? You good? You're gonna go drive somewhere else now? You're doing great. Fabulous.

Well, I'm gonna go pick up my Adderall.

If you'd like to leave a comment or review or perhaps directions of where Mac should drive next, don't forget comment to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Otherwise, gentlemen, I will talk to you next week. That's it. That's all done.