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

■ Company profile
SmartShare Inc.
Website: https://www.smartshare.jp/
Industry: marketing / digital marketing / IT services
Employees: 10 to 50
Services: Sales Hub

SmartShare Inc. (founded February 2011, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo) is an IT services company that provides digital marketing solutions focused on social media, along with contract system development and BPO marketing support services.
Its core business is OWNLY, a social media marketing platform it developed itself. Through direct work with many well-known brands it has built up cutting-edge marketing knowledge, and it continues to grow on the twin strengths of IT and marketing expertise.

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

To handle the growing number of customers and deals that came with expanding the business, SmartShare had already adopted HubSpot as its CRM/SFA tool.

But contrary to the ideal that “once you bring in a tool, work immediately becomes more efficient”, in practice HubSpot’s features were not being used fully and it had become “a formality”. This was exactly the wall of “getting a tool to stick” that many small and medium-sized companies face.

In the sales department in particular, the following two problems had become serious.

Problem 1. The sales process and deal management had become a black box

・Inconsistent entries and declining accuracy
What each salesperson entered into HubSpot, and at what level of detail, varied widely, so deal information had become inaccurate.

・No way to track the process
The sales process (pipeline) from securing an appointment through the sales meeting to winning the order could not be tracked and managed accurately in HubSpot.

・Difficulty seeing things objectively
As a result, there was no proper foundation for deal management, and it was extremely difficult to see sales activity as a whole objectively and find the bottlenecks.

Problem 2. “Delayed decisions” from underused reporting

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

・Delays in taking timely action
Managers could not check the sales data they needed in a timely way, so spotting problems early and taking the right improvement actions (for example, instructing the team on which deals need a push) tended to come late.

The biggest mission was to solve these problems and transform “a HubSpot they had not been using well” into “a foundation that accelerates the organisation’s growth”.

Implementing HubSpot: redesigning HubSpot as “a tool that produces results”

To solve the problems identified above, NowVillage supported them not by simply configuring the tool on their behalf, but from the perspective of “rebuilding the way the sales organisation itself works”.

What we emphasised most was building “a system in which the information needed for management gathers naturally, without adding to the burden on the front line”.
Specifically, we proceeded in the following three steps.

Step 1: Making the current state visible and setting operating rules

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

1. Thoroughly organising and visualising the sales flow
We listened carefully to how the actual sales flow (business process) runs from securing an appointment through the sales meeting to winning the order, and made everything that currently happens visible.

2. Identifying bottlenecks and setting an operating policy
Based on the process now made visible, we identified where the “waste” and “gaps in information” were. On that basis, we clearly set out a concrete operating policy for how HubSpot could be used to solve the problems.

Step 2: Building a system that encourages entry and improves data accuracy

Next, to resolve the “inconsistent entries” at the root of the problem, we improved the HubSpot configuration and the design of how it is used.

・Clarifying the information needed
We clearly defined the information managers must have “in order to make decisions”, and designed fields in HubSpot that reliably capture it.

・A design that keeps the burden on the front line low
Rather than adding entry fields indiscriminately, we narrowed them down to those directly tied to sales activity and organised the entry system, for example by setting required fields. This kept the entry burden on salespeople to a minimum while greatly improving entry accuracy.

Step 3: Building “dashboards” that move the whole organisation

Finally, we built a system that supports quick decisions by management and lifts motivation on the front line.

・Real-time visibility of progress against targets
Making full use of HubSpot’s reporting features, we built “personal dashboards” on which each salesperson can see their progress against their own targets at a glance.

・“Making visible” the team’s situation
For managers, we set up dashboards covering the whole team’s pipeline and key metrics. This completed a “management foundation” in which the state of day-to-day sales activity can be understood in connection with the organisation’s overall strategy.

Through this support, SmartShare’s HubSpot was reborn not as a mere data store, but as a living tool that connects daily activity with the organisation’s strategy.

Results after our support: dramatic improvements in sales “accuracy” and “speed”

With the HubSpot operating foundation established through our support, SmartShare’s sales organisation saw the following results.

Result 1. More accurate deal management and a lighter management load

・A substantial rise in entry rates
Because salespeople now clearly understand “what” to enter and “why”, the rate of entry into HubSpot rose substantially and data is no longer missed.

・Accurate deal information
With more accurate input data, deal information is kept up to date and correct, making it easy to grasp the status of sales conversations in real time. As a result, managers spend less time checking with individual salespeople, and the management load has been reduced.

Result 2. A faster problem-finding cycle and faster sales

・Understanding the situation “in real time”
The key performance indicators (KPIs) that managers need to watch are now visible on dashboards in real time.

・Quick improvement action
Revenue and progress figures that used to be known several weeks late can now be checked immediately. This has established a set-up in which problems are found early and improvement actions are taken quickly.

・Faster sales across the organisation
With managers deciding faster, the PDCA cycle has begun to turn quickly across the whole organisation, and sales have sped up as a result.

Through the combined effect of these changes, the “accuracy” and “efficiency” of sales activity have improved fundamentally, and a foundation is now in place for the whole team’s performance to keep improving.

A comment from SmartShare Inc.

SmartShare Inc. gave us the following comment on the results after implementation.

“We had been using HubSpot, but without a proper operating foundation we were not making full use of it.
With NowVillage’s careful support, from organising our flows to setting operating rules, we really feel it has finally been reborn as ‘a HubSpot we can use’.

What our salespeople are doing is now visible, and management can give improvement instructions with confidence.”

For companies considering HubSpot implementation or post-implementation support

If you face challenges such as “we want to eliminate inefficient manual work” or “we want to speed up our sales activity”, implementing HubSpot may be the solution.
And if you have already implemented HubSpot but are struggling with things like “it’s taking a long time to get it to stick” or “we implemented it but it has become a formality”, please do get in touch.

NowVillage Inc. supports you end to end, from designing your HubSpot implementation through embedding it in day-to-day work to extending its functionality. We listen carefully to your business challenges and propose the best solution, making the most of HubSpot’s features. To start with, please feel free to use NowVillage’s free consultation.

---

Talk to NowVillage