Many businesses invest in HubSpot expecting it to transform their sales and marketing, only to find they continue working exactly as they did before. They use a handful of basic features, ignore the rest, and gradually fall back into spreadsheets, manual processes and disconnected ways of working.
That was exactly the position this established energy consultancy business found itself in.
Although they had been using HubSpot for several years, the platform had never been properly aligned with their business processes or the way their team worked. Many of HubSpot's most valuable features remained untouched, despite the business investing heavily in the software each month.
Rather than replacing systems or starting again, they wanted expert guidance to help them understand which parts of HubSpot would genuinely benefit their business, eliminate unnecessary complexity, and improve adoption across the team.
They chose to work with JDR because they wanted practical, tailored support rather than generic product training. We delivered two short, focused HubSpot training projects, designed around their business processes and objectives, helping the team gain confidence while building a CRM that genuinely supported the way they work.
Rather than a standard onboarding package, we delivered two short but highly tailored HubSpot consultancy and training projects focused on:
Perhaps the biggest change wasn't technical - it was cultural.
Some members of the team had remained reluctant HubSpot users, preferring spreadsheets despite the business investing heavily in the platform for more than two years.
Through tailored workshops and practical demonstrations, we showed the team how HubSpot could simplify their daily work rather than add complexity. Features they had never previously considered quickly became part of their normal processes.
One director even implemented HubSpot's meeting scheduler over a weekend immediately after training because he recognised how much time it would save.
By the end of the project, HubSpot had gone from being seen as an expensive CRM to becoming a valuable business tool the team actively wanted to use.
Like many businesses, they had been paying for Professional licences while only using a small proportion of the available functionality.
Working together, we introduced features including:
These capabilities immediately reduced manual administration while creating opportunities to automate follow-up, improve sales consistency and identify engaged prospects automatically.
As one team member commented during training, they simply "didn't know what they didn't know."
One of the client's priorities was improving forecasting.
We configured custom deal properties, reporting dashboards and forecasting views so management could clearly understand which opportunities were expected to close each month and where deals were sitting within the pipeline.
The business also introduced standardised deal information across the team, ensuring every opportunity contained consistent information, including service area, campaign source, next steps and expected completion dates.
This has created much greater visibility for management while making sales meetings significantly more productive.
A key focus throughout the project was identifying repetitive manual work and replacing it with automation wherever possible.
We started by mapping out the processes for prospecting, sales and upselling - and then identified the areas to automate.
We then built and configured the automated workflows to:
Combined with personalised email templates, meeting scheduling and automated sequences, these improvements are saving valuable time across the sales team while creating a much more consistent customer experience.
Rather than simply acting as somewhere to store contacts, HubSpot now actively supports the client's sales and marketing strategy.
Lead scoring identifies contacts showing buying intent based on website activity, email engagement and company profile, allowing the team to focus attention where it is most likely to generate results.
The CRM also supports automated marketing campaigns, service gap analysis and targeted follow-up, helping the business make better use of its existing customer database while reducing reliance on manual processes.
Most importantly, the team now understands how to continue developing HubSpot themselves, supported by JDR's ongoing advice and knowledge resources.
"We have been a partner of JDR for a few years now, since we embraced HubSpot. The team at JDR have been fantastic in supporting us as a business. In particular helping us work out how to benefit the business the best way from HubSpot rather than just try and use it all. User training has been delivered in a tailored method which helped build the confidence and use of our team. Special mention to Josh, Emma and Andy. Josh is our hero! Thanks all."
We have been a HubSpot Partner since 2012, helping hundreds of businesses get more value from their investment in the platform. Our team has the expertise to ensure HubSpot works seamlessly for your business. We can help you with:
If you want to unlock the full potential of HubSpot, book a call with one of our experts.