Turning HubSpot into an engine for results: making sales activity visible sharpened both speed and accuracy | SmartShare Inc.

About the client
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HP：https://www.smartshare.jp/
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SmartShare Inc.
Industry: marketing / digital marketing / IT services

Employees: 10 to 50
What we did: Sales Hub

SmartShare Inc. (founded February 2011, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) is an IT services company providing digital marketing solutions focused on social media, alongside contract system development and BPO marketing support.

Its main business is OWNLY, its own social media marketing platform. Through direct work with many well-known brands it has built up leading marketing knowledge, and it keeps growing on both IT and marketing expertise.

The problem: wanting to move on from not getting the most out of HubSpot

To handle more customers and more deals as the business grew, SmartShare had already adopted HubSpot as their CRM and SFA.

But against the hope that adopting a tool immediately makes work more efficient, in practice HubSpot’s features were not being used fully and it had become a formality. This is the wall of adoption that many smaller companies face.

・In sales in particular, two problems were serious.
Problem 1: the sales process and deal management as a black box

・Inconsistent entry and poor accuracy
What each salesperson entered into HubSpot, and at what level of detail, varied, so deal information was inaccurate.

・No way to follow the process
The sales pipeline from securing a meeting through the conversation to winning the work could not be followed accurately in HubSpot.

Hard to see objectively As a result there was no foundation for managing deals, and seeing sales work objectively and finding the bottleneck was extremely difficult.

・Problem
2: reporting underused, and decisions delayed

・Progress and revenue not visible
Each salesperson’s progress against target, and revenue data, were not visible in real time.

Slow to act

Managers could not see the sales data they needed in good time, so spotting problems early and acting on them – for example telling the team which deals need attention – tended to come late.

Adopting HubSpot: redesigning it as a tool that delivers

Moving on from a HubSpot that was not being used well: making sales visible sharpened both speed and accuracy | SmartShare Inc.
To solve the problems above, NowVillage supported them not by configuring a tool on their behalf but from the point of view of rebuilding the way the sales organisation works.

Step 1: making the present state visible and setting rules for how it is used

First we reviewed the fundamentals of their sales work together with SmartShare.

1. Setting out and making visible the sales process
We listened carefully to the actual sales process from securing a meeting through the conversation to winning the work, and made all of it visible.

2. Finding the bottlenecks and setting the approach
Based on that, we found where there was waste and where information was missing and then set out, concretely, how HubSpot should be used to solve it, defining the approach clearly.

Step 2: building something that encourages entry and improves data quality

Next, to resolve the inconsistent entry that was at the root of the problem, we improved the HubSpot configuration and the way it is used.

・Defining what information is needed
We clearly defined the information managers need in order to decide, and designed fields in HubSpot that capture it reliably.

・A design that does not burden the team
Rather than adding fields indiscriminately, we narrowed them to those tied directly to sales work and set the ones that are required. That keeps the burden on salespeople to a minimum while substantially improving accuracy.

Step 3: dashboards that move the whole organisation

Finally we built something that supports quick decisions by managers and lifts motivation in the team.

・Progress against target, in real time
Making full use of HubSpot’s reporting, we built personal dashboards where each salesperson can see their progress against target at a glance.

・Making the team’s position visible
For managers we built dashboards covering the whole team’s pipeline and key metrics. The day-to-day state of sales can now be seen in the context of the organisation’s strategy: a management foundation.

Through this, SmartShare’s HubSpot became not a data store but a living tool connecting daily work with the organisation’s strategy.

Results: a dramatic improvement in the precision and speed of sales

With the foundation in place, SmartShare’s sales organisation saw the following.

Result 1: more accurate deal management, and less load on managers

・A substantial rise in entry rates
Because it is clear what to enter and why, entry into HubSpot rose substantially and data is no longer missing.

・Accurate deal information
With more accurate data, deal information stays current and correct, and the state of each conversation is easy to see in real time. Managers spend less time checking with individual salespeople, which lightens the management load.

Results 2. Finding problems faster, and faster sales

・Seeing the position in real time
The key metrics managers need to watch are visible on a dashboard in real time.

・Acting quickly
Revenue and progress figures that used to arrive weeks late can now be seen immediately. That means problems are found early and acted on quickly.

・Faster sales across the organisation
With managers deciding faster, the improvement cycle runs faster across the organisation, and sales has sped up as a result.

Together these have fundamentally improved the precision and efficiency of sales, and built a foundation on which the whole team keeps performing better.

A comment from SmartShare Inc.

SmartShare Inc. said the following about the results.

“We had been using HubSpot, but without a foundation for how it was run we were not getting much from it.
With NowVillage’s support, from setting out the process to agreeing the rules, we finally feel it has become a HubSpot we can use.

What the sales team does is now visible, and managers can give direction with confidence.”

For companies considering HubSpot implementation or post-implementation support

If you want to remove inefficient manual work or speed up sales, HubSpot may be the answer.
And if you have already adopted HubSpot but find adoption slow, or it has become a formality, please do get in touch.

NowVillage Inc. supports HubSpot end to end, from implementation design through adoption to extending what it does. We will listen carefully to your situation and propose the best solution using HubSpot. Please take up NowVillage’s NowVillage Inc. will listen carefully to your situation and propose the right solution using HubSpot. From designing an integrated data model through workflow automation and analysis to making it stick, we support an implementation that leads to results. and get in touch.

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