Properly designing and effectively executing sales processes within a company is a monumental challenge. The situation becomes increasingly complex as the business grows – the need arises to coordinate a growing number of people involved in sales, the lead database grows, and the services offered remain the same, all while the hours of the day remain the same. Sales Automation can provide significant support in this endeavor.
Sales automation – what is it?
At a certain stage of a company's expansion, proper sales management requires a certain mindset—or rather, a willingness to delegate some responsibility to specialized software. Software devoid of the human element certainly won't replace a salesperson in convincing a customer that a particular product or service is the best choice for a lead—at least not at this stage. However, it can revolutionize a company's approach to sales organization. It's undeniable that the "traditional" sales management model has several flaws, two of which stand out:
- A sales specialist's time is limited – the more small sales-related duties a salesperson has to complete, the less time (and energy) he or she has for actual sales;
- Even in the best organizations, leads are sometimes "wasted" – when, for example, they were not passed on to the right person at the right time or their potential was incorrectly assessed.
Sales Automation software eliminates, or at least significantly reduces, the damage caused by the issues mentioned above. It saves the sales department time on all fronts and – when properly configured – organizes and classifies leads. All of this is accomplished with the immediacy and inevitability of a computer program. In short, the Sales Automation module in HubSpot:
- Improves productivity by replacing the salesperson in many necessary organizational tasks;
- Ensures that the lead is not “missing in action”;
- Ensures consistency of sales data between all departments within the company;
- It allows you to link a given lead to the actions they performed on the company's website – for example, they visited specific subpages or filled out a form;
- Offers the ability to send internal messages to all members of the sales department;
- It allows you to see the entire history of cooperation with a given lead – conversation records, logs of activities performed, etc. on a clear timeline.
- Combined with Marketing Hub, it enables full email automation – for example, automatic sending of an upselling offer, invoice payment reminders, or a request to leave a review of a product/service.
What does our Head of Sales Natalia Frąckowiak say about HubSpot Sales?
(The rest of the article can be found below the form)
HubSpot allows me to manage my sales team more effectively. Detailed data analyses and custom reports allow me to examine salespeople's sales performance and monitor their ability to build relationships with customers. Thanks to the ability to track leads on our website in real time, I can identify the most engaged leads and configure appropriate email notifications for my team. This is just a drop in the ocean of possibilities HubSpot offers us. They are definitely worth taking advantage of to grow your business.
It's important to remember that while Sales Automation, in the right hands, is an advanced tool that can catalyze a company's dynamic growth, without proper configuration, the software won't be able to fully utilize its potential. Sales automation is a powerful ally for salespeople, but without it, it's nothing more than a galaxy of ones and zeros. Therefore, introducing this type of software into a company must be done in a well-thought-out and organized manner, and all individuals who will use Sales Automation within the company should receive appropriate training. Don't worry – in the vast majority of cases, it's worthwhile.
Sales Automation CRM
The most important element of Sales Automation is undoubtedly CRM (customer relationship management) – software used to manage customer relationships. The days when all related processes were organized in Excel spreadsheets are rightly over – a CRM system can be compared to switching from a horse-drawn carriage to a modern car.
As part of a broader ecosystem, HubSpot Free CRM perfectly meets the needs of businesses in establishing and maintaining relationships with potential and current customers. How does it work?
Sales automation in HubSpot – for salespeople
Let's start from the beginning, adding contacts to the lead database and pre-selecting them. HubSpot's marketing module allows you to develop a personalized workflow. This way, based on the lead's source, the data they provided, and the activities they performed on the website, you can not only automatically enter them into the contact database but also categorize them.
People who participated in a company-organized webinar on a specific topic, for example, are more likely to be interested in that service or related options, rather than other parts of the offer. Contact can also come from Facebook or Google Ads ads , website forms, and many others. Lead classification options are plentiful thanks to near-complete customization. Other examples include categorization by position (the conversation with the CEO will likely be different than with a junior specialist), company size, and any other value you set.
HubSpot's Sales module allows you to create message templates with personalized tokens, allowing the system to automatically fill in elements like company name, first name, and job title. This provides significant time savings compared to writing content or even the typical process of copying a template from another source and customizing it for a given lead. HubSpot does it for you.
Moreover, thanks to the email tracking function in HubSpot, the salesperson will see in the system that the message has been opened by the recipient, the link in it has been clicked, or the file attached to the message has been downloaded (notifications can also be displayed on the desktop in the form of push notifications).
If a lead ignores a sales email, the chances of a sale decrease, but they're still better than zero. The Sequence feature in HubSpot Sales allows you to automatically send multiple emails at specific intervals to remind the prospect about your offer. And once a dialogue is established, HubSpot immediately removes the contact from your list and stops sending further emails.
Thanks to integration with Google Calendar and the calendar available in Microsoft Office 365, HubSpot can also help salespeople schedule meetings with potential clients. Simply send a link with available times to the lead, and they can quickly and conveniently click on the time that works for them. The meeting will automatically appear in their calendar.
Sales automation in HubSpot for managers
HubSpot also provides a powerful tool for sales team leaders. In many organizations, creating reports is a time-consuming (and often essential) task. HubSpot has a solution – customized reports can be automatically generated and then emailed to sales team members, management, or other stakeholders.
Another advantage of HubSpot as a CRM is its extensive automatic lead categorization capabilities. These range from basic classification options—for example, based on company size, location, industry, or type (B2B/B2C)—to fully definable custom fields that may be useful for a given business. Furthermore, HubSpot can also be used to create a lead scoring system.
How does it work? By logging various events and adding custom fields, a given lead can be automatically evaluated. For example, repeated missed calls will result in negative points, while reading an article on a specific service's subpage will result in a positive ranking. The entire algorithm can even be expanded to include elements such as email address analysis. If a customer is potentially interested in a high-priced service or product, and the company email address is on a free domain (for example, adresfirmy@interia.pl instead of kontakt@adresfirmy.pl), it can be assumed that the cost is likely beyond the customer's means.
With the right number of factors and the right weighting, HubSpot can use a percentage to represent the potential for client collaboration. While this is only a secondary indicator, if configured correctly, it can be surprisingly effective in scoring.
HubSpot and the Power of Integration
Even the most well-designed and configured CRM system would be of little use if it couldn't be integrated with other services. Companies use numerous external services for various purposes—from lead generation and analytics to logistics and much more. When it comes to sales automation, HubSpot can integrate with various types of software, used at virtually every stage mentioned above.
- For example, Sales Navigator will help you catch leads
- LeadSpace or LeadGenius may be useful for obtaining information.
- In addition to Google and Microsoft calendars, you can also use Calendly or Arrangr to schedule calls.
- When analyzing sales conversations, it is worth taking an interest in tools based largely on artificial intelligence: these include Wingman and Avoma
- ClientPoint or PandaDoc are great for developing quotes and sales proposals.
- In automating reports, your (and HubSpot's) ally will be, for example, QuarterOne
And that's just the tip of the iceberg – the number of tools you can integrate with HubSpot is truly impressive – and sales automation is just a fraction of the platform's capabilities.
Let HubSpot transform your business!
Wondering how HubSpot can transform your company? Contact Verseo – as an official HubSpot partner, we'll guide you through the entire process, provide substantive support, and assist you throughout every stage of implementation.
What does the whole process look like in a nutshell?
- We talk about your company – its structure, plans, and the tools you use to achieve your goals.
- We assess whether and how HubSpot can help you achieve your goals. If HS features are unlikely to be a viable fit for your business, we'll be honest with you.
- We offer solutions – HubSpot offers a wide range of options and modules, so we'll work with you to find the perfect combination to meet all your business needs while avoiding unnecessary costs. Flexibility is the software's greatest advantage.
- We train you (or other people who will be working with HubSpot) in the use of selected modules and together we implement basic solutions.
FAQs about sales automation in HubSpot
Sales Automation is a powerful set of tools (available primarily in the Sales Hub module) that relieves sales departments of tedious, repetitive administrative tasks. The system can automatically send messages, create tasks, update data, and assign leads, allowing salespeople to focus on what drives profits for the company—building relationships and closing deals.
The system's capabilities are vast. HubSpot can do things like:
- Automatically send planned series of emails to potential customers (so-called sequences),
- Create tasks with a reminder to make a call (follow-up),
- Change the transaction stage in the sales funnel independently (e.g. when a customer opens a sent PDF offer),
- Automatically save communication history and meeting notes directly to the customer card in CRM.
These are two different pillars of automation that perform slightly different functions in sales:
- Sequences: A 1:1 communication tool. This is a scheduled series of personalized emails and call reminders that automatically stops when a customer responds to a message or schedules an appointment.
- Workflows: Global process automations running in the background. They move transactions, update system data, send internal notifications (e.g., to the sales director), and maintain database order, regardless of the individual salesperson.
This feature effectively eliminates chaos and customer "poaching" in the sales department. When a new inquiry (lead) enters the system, for example, via a website form, HubSpot automatically assigns it to a specific salesperson. The system can distribute contacts evenly among all employees or base them on advanced criteria (e.g., the lead's company size, language, or the region served by a specific salesperson).
After rejecting an offer or hearing "I need to think about it," salespeople often forget to follow up. Thanks to automation, HubSpot can monitor whether a given deal has "stuck." For example, if there's no activity on a customer's record for seven days, the system will automatically send a reminder to the salesperson or send a "warm-up" email to the customer.
Important licensing note: HubSpot's free CRM is an excellent foundation, but advanced automation is a paid feature. To fully utilize Sequences and extensive multi-step workflows, you must have the Professional or Enterprise version of the Sales Hub module. Lower-tier packages (Starter) offer only very simplified, point-based automation.
Summary
The above article covers the following topics:
- how sales automation supports the sales organization and what benefits it brings to the sales department and lead management,
- CRM system functions in the sales automation structure,
- possibilities of automating salesperson's work in HubSpot.
