Blog from Concentrate

According to one of those useless studies that seem to fill our news feeds these days, toasted sandwich makers have been revealed as one the most commonly owned but least used household appliances. I wonder if CRMs (i.e. software that manages information about your sales activity) hold the same status in a typical business.

HubSpot CRM is the first CRM I have personally really used. I mean ‘really used’. It helps me to manage my sales opportunities and all the activity involved with them, and ultimately it helps me to do a better job of selling.

Like most people involved in sales and marketing, I have used many CRM systems over the past decade, ‘using’ at least three in recent years. I probably used my toasted sandwich maker more, in reality.

I used the systems because I had to – not to manage my sales activity, but because the company needed a centralised contact list and a way of monitoring the number of sales opportunities coming through. Data was entered when I remembered, or was reminded to, and always only after the event.

The problem with most CRMs is they are too focused on the requirements of the sales manager, rather than sales teams. Often CRMs are used to impose structure and reporting by management across the sales team, rather than helping front-line sales people do their job.

In this context, the following are six features that I like most about HubSpot CRM.

• Ease of use
• The flexible relationship structure
• Automatic company information
• Sales Pro
• Integration with Marketing Automation
• The mobile app

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