In my experience, shifting to a new business software option normally falls somewhere on a scale of ‘frustrating’ to ‘extremely, bloody frustrating’. Between working out the little differences, to having to migrate data, to training staff, the whole process can sometimes be daunting enough to turn you off making the move at all. Even when the software itself is intuitive and simple, learning all of the ins and outs can be time-consuming and a drain.
As such, when we were tasked with Onboarding new HubSpotters into the platform, we had no interest in making it a laborious process - that’s no fun for us or them. As such, we chose to build out a process that teaches people beginners everything they need to know, while also letting us build out the foundations of a successful portal at the same time. If you want to learn a bit about the Neighbourhood Approach to teaching, then step into our classroom. Eyes up, phones away - this will all be on the test at the end of class.
HubSpot is a complex beast to learn all the ins and outs of for anyone. Even after using it literally every day for the last 3 years, there are often moments where something totally new or unexpected will surprise me. The prospect of teaching that to a beginner in a reasonable amount of time is… intimidating, even if we do know a thing or two about the software. Even HubSpot’s own training, the Academy, requires many, many, many hours of video to try and get you skilled up (speaking from a great deal of experience).
At Neighbourhood, we prefer to focus on the essentials and build a super strong framework around the core, relevant functionality you require, tied to real world examples and the requirements of your business. To do this, we step through that content in week-by-week workshops, each one focused on related set of tools or topics. Combine this weekly data-dump with some activities, training and a small amount of Homework, and we can turn beginners into rabid, orange t-shirt wearing HubSpot-super fans in no time at all.
The Neighbourhood HubSpot Onboarding process is a 10-week series of workshops, with each specific stage serving as an opportunity to learn a specific section of the HubSpot environment. Those 10 weeks look like…
Let’s get into a little more detail though.
The Kick Off Meeting is a consistent first step across all Neighbourhood projects. This is an opportunity for us to get extremely, perfectly crystal clear on what you want from the project, the goals, your challenges, past experience and more. In the context of an onboarding project, it also lets us know what specific elements you need to learn and why, so that we can better tailor the learning experience. While the entirety of this process can be conducted in person or online, we’ll always try to hold at least the Kick Off meeting in person - people learn better from someone they know and trust. At least, they probably do… why wouldn’t that be the case. Regardless, ideally this is in person.
This is where we’ll basically go through housekeeping and general knowledge. Think things like setting up users, ensuring the tracking code is installed, setting permissions, understanding where the settings are, etc. It’s the not-so-fun nitty-gritty, but as the title implies, it’s essential.
Now we’re getting into the interesting stuff. Week 3 is all about learning about the contact, the life-blood of the CRM. We’ll discuss the contact profile, properties (custom and otherwise), forms, lists and more. Expect to walk out of this workshop very concerned about how much data companies out there might have on you.
Next is a deep dive into Marketing Hub. It’s no secret that a majority of our HubSpot clients want to make use of HubSpot's extensive and powerful marketing tools to better grow their businesses - here you’ll learn how. We’ll discuss emails, blogs, landing pages, campaign tracking ads, and more.
We’ve spoken at length about the importance of marketing automation in the efficient and effective running of a successful business. Once you know how much time automations can save you, doing literally anything manually feels like a giant waste of time. Worry not though, because week 5 is nothing but learning how to automate in HubSpot, specifically covering Workflows.
What about your Sales staff though? They get their time in the sun too, don’t worry. Our week on Sales Hub covers everything from Sales Pipelines, to Sales Automations, to Deal records and tasks. Your Sales staff will learn about all the tools at their disposal and the many ways they’re lives are about to get a lot easier.
One of HubSpot’s newer features, there is still plenty to discuss when it comes to how you can best provide long term service to your customers. Whether you currently have a support ticketing system and are interested to hear the alternatives, or all you care about is chat bots, this will be an opportunity to go through what you can do to turn your customers into promoters.
Knowing how to use all the tools is important, but so is proving that they work. This week we’ll tackle your options when it comes to Reporting in HubSpot, from setting up personal reports and dashboards to reviewing site-wide traffic analytics. This workshop is going to teach you everything you need to impress your boss when the time comes.
We’ve officially covered all the important stuff! This week is a recap, to make sure that what we covered in week one hasn’t faded or been forgotten in the last 8 weeks. After that, you’ve got all the tools you need!
Believe me when I say that this process has gone through many, many versions before it reached its final polished version that you see today. That being said, we think it’s reached the very best version itself for a couple of reasons, including…
Not all HubSpot users need to know all of HubSpot, we know this. Our step-by-step approach means that irrelevant lessons can be removed as needed.
Teaching you how best to use HubSpot invariably means we learn your system and what you’re looking for. When the time comes to start properly using it, we’ll already have all the foundational knowledge we need.
Not to talk ourselves out of work here, but one of our favourite things is watching our clients run with what they learn about HubSpot, and start solving their own problems. We want our HubSpot students to become teachers in their own right, and this onboarding program helps staff get there.
And that’s about it! If you’re looking to learn the ins and outs of the HubSpot system and the idea of strapping in for 100 hours of lectures like we did seems a little daunting, then perhaps let us help. We’ll turn you masters in no time at all.
If you want to learn a little more about what HubSpot has to offer, before you jump in to actually learning it, then perhaps check out our page on HubSpot where we take a look at all the features it provides.