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Thank you everybody for coming. Uh, today we're gonna be talking about HubSpot versus Salesforce and the total cost of ownership. Uh, and Todd from Ascend two who put together this report. Um, I'll hand it to you to kick us off. 

Well, great. Uh, thank you for being here today and, uh, we're gonna start right off and just jump right into some data. Okay. So, uh, the great thing about, uh, this research piece was, uh, when we were approached about doing it, uh, we, uh, really wanted to take a deep dive into the CRM and, and what the, to the total cost is. And so, uh, we tried to make this research very practical, uh, very, um, user friendly. Uh, we hope from this presentation today that, uh, you'll have some, uh, talking points you can take back with your staff and get started. So we're just gonna jump right into, uh, the research itself. And, um, Jo or Connor, do you want to do introductions? 

If you wanna do quick introductions, I can do our overview. I, I apologize. I'm 

Sorry. We, uh, <laugh>. Go ahead, Connor. 

Cool. I can do introductions. So, uh, with us, say we have, we have Todd, uh, from Ascend two. Uh, Todd is the CEO at Ascend Two, uh, which is the research provider. Uh, and they are the ones that put together this whole report. Uh, and then we're also joined by Jonathan Corbin, uh, VP of Customer Success at HubSpot. Uh, and then myself from the Aptitude Aid side, um, we're the ones that actually sort of engaged with Ascend two and asked them to put together, uh, this research. So I'm gonna talk about why we did that and what we're gonna cover today. Um, and we'll go through sort of a brief overview on everything we're gonna cover on our next slide, maybe. Yes. Awesome. Uh, okay. So what we're gonna talk about is there's this big debate that we're seeing in the ecosystem, sort of at large. 

Um, and, uh, we'll talk a little bit about what we're seeing, but, um, about Hubot versus Salesforce. And companies are trying to decide what is the right platform to build and grow, uh, my business on. And what we're gonna talk about is why does this actually matter? We're gonna go through some of that research. Uh, we're gonna present on sort of the, the key findings and, and get takeaways from the folks here. Um, and then we will do some q and a as well. So if you guys have elements and, and questions that you wanna ask, um, do throw them into, uh, the chat on LinkedIn and we will cover them towards the end here. Um, so let's start with at the top of this about where this conversation is, right? So we are seeing HubSpot and Salesforce. I'm seeing it in communities, I'm seeing it on LinkedIn. 

I'm seeing long LinkedIn thought leadership posts from folks about how and why, uh, they should evaluate these tools. And what we're seeing is the perspective is really changing in the market at large. And so, 18 months ago, 24 months ago, HubSpot was really rarely in the ring. In those conversations, I think the dominant conversation from HubSpot partners was, you know, this could be an alternative. This is legitimate. And from Salesforce folks, we heard a lot of Salesforce is a lot bigger, it has a lot more functionality. This isn't really something that is, is viable. Uh, and what we're seeing now is that conversation has changed to a really lively and, and proactive debate on how do we evaluate these products and how do we compare these things and what's the best way to do this? And I think the big driver of that is HubSpot has made a ton of product progress, and the product is radically different than it really was 18 months ago. Uh, and so Jonathan, I, I'd be super interested in your take on that and how you're thinking about how HubSpot thinks about, uh, HubSpot in the c r m conversation. 

<laugh>, I'll try to prevent it, uh, to bring a unbiased opinion here at Connor. Uh, but from a customer's standpoint, what we've heard from customers is that competitors will come to them and they'll say, HubSpot doesn't scale. And unfortunately, that's a bit of a misnomer. From years ago when HubSpot was a point solution, they had one kind of product that was inbound marketing hub. And so what we've seen, as you mentioned earlier, is the evolution of HubSpot. We move from being just a marketing point solution to creating a platform that's really about go-to-market teams. We have multiple teams that are focused on customer interactions and customer experience. We've evolved quite a bit and our customers have started evolving with us. That's pretty exciting. There's a lot of companies with thousands and thousands of employees who are using our products. And so, to your point, we start seeing that a lot more frequently, uh, in the, in the upmarket. And so our marketing and our sales hub are top rated products by our customers and by our users. So if you're looking for an easy to use solution, you can get started with quickly, uh, on average about less than eight weeks for us to stand up at a new implementation and drive the impact for your business, then we think HubSpot should be your platform of choice. 

Amazing. Uh, thank you so much. Uh, Todd, I, I'm interested if you wanna take us into this, this research section. 

Sure. So, sorry I jumped the gun earlier, but I was excited about <laugh> <laugh>. 

Todd likes to do the research. He's into 

It. I'm like, come on. But you know, 

This is the exciting part. 

Yeah, no, there's a lot of exciting parts about this. But, you know, we surveyed 332 marketing and sales professionals and what we wanted to do, and what we did was we got an equal amount of HubSpot users and Salesforce users. So we wanted to just take a agnostic look at what's going on in the marketplace. Um, these were mid-size companies, so a hundred to a thousand employees that were, you know, either using HubSpot or Salesforce and 90 this. And I thought this was really important. 94% of the individuals that we surveyed had insight into, into the implementation process. So they were involved in that IMPLE implementation process. And 88% of the people had done that within the last two years. So these were people who had a, a fresh, you know, active, uh, knowledge of what had happened. And we wanted to dive right in to get their perspective on this topic. So I think everything you're seeing here today, uh, I think is a very, you know, agnostic look at what was going on. Um, so, uh, and also too, I think Connor, everybody's gonna be getting the, the survey, uh, results in the report. So we're gonna just be looking at some of the highlights, but I would encourage you to, uh, take a look at the full report, uh, after this presentation. 

So one of the things that we did here was, you know, when we look at like, overall the CRM and priority, and this is something that Ascend two has seen over the last, I would say, uh, 12 to 18 months, uh, there's been a, a dramatic shift to really taking the whole customer experience seriously. Uh, before that, you know, we saw that that was a rising importance for companies, but I would say over this last 12 months now we're really seeing where, uh, this is like the highest priority. How do we improve the customer experience? And we also see, uh, tied with that, trying to get alignment internally between the sales and marketing departments. And, uh, the, the third leg of the stool here is just, you know, it all kind of centers around, uh, data. So, you know, with that, I, I, I think you guys probably, uh, Jonathan, you probably have a little bit bit of perspective on this as well, but this is definitely what we've been seeing, not only in this survey, but also, uh, in previous surveys. 

Yeah, yeah. Thanks Todd. What we're hearing from customers and prospects and we're seeing out there in the wild is that one out of every two companies say they're struggling with their existing growth strategies. That means 50% every other company is having a challenge when it comes to how do I find new prospects? Uh, and so it's not just finding new prospects that they're struggling with, but it's also closing deals. It's retaining growing their existing customers. That means that customer experience that you deliver as an organization is more valuable than ever. The companies that prioritize customer experience are going to have the edge in today's environment. And if you're interested in creating a great customer experience, CR m is where your customer data is stored. That's where your team works. It powers customer facing experience. HubSpot is built to store your customer information is built to put that in your rep's hands at the point of interaction, and it helps you to change that experience that you're delivering to your prospects and customers, making you much more successful in terms of being able to deliver the experience your customers and prospects are looking for. 

Yeah. I I think that point actually is really interesting, Jonathan. Cause I think the other conversation, I mean, we talked about, I see this conversation all the time cuz we're, we're pretty deep in the CRM space, but I think the other conversation that we're seeing a lot is everyone's trying to adapt and, and thrive in kind of the macro environment that's happening. And I think your focus on kind of what is your customer experience, how does someone buy from you? Uh, we're just seeing buyers across the board do a lot more diligence, do a lot more checking, have a lot more involvement in that, in that buying experience. And ultimately how your buyer buys from you is just as important as what you're actually selling to them. And I think at Aptitude eight, we, we really see the cr M as being the cornerstone of a wonderful buying experience. And so for us as an organization, our mission is really to help companies create the buying experiences that their customers demand. Uh, and we really see CRM platform as the most important technology to sort of fulfill on and, and deliver that mission. 

And I think when it goes back to the buying experience, Connor, you hit it on the head. You look at some of the really successful consumer product companies that are out there, they've simplified their by process down to the most macro level. And if we can continue to do that with our customers, we can help them be even more successful. 

Well, and there's also, I think a, you know, with improving the customer experience, I mean, that is, uh, a huge strategic advantage over your competition. And you know, we see that in some data that we've, that we've done from the standpoint of companies that, uh, have exceptional cus provide exceptional customer experience, it translated into, uh, revenue growth. And so there's a, there is a direct correlation, and I think that's why now people are truly taking that customer experience seriously, because we're seeing the end results of it. And this is one of my favorite, uh, questions we asked, uh, 88% of the people said that, uh, they would be more likely to switch their into a new CRM if they, if it wasn't such a pain in the, right? If, uh, if the experience to do that was not, uh, something that they were dreading. 

And this kind of told me a couple things. One was, you know, they identify the fact that there are opportunities to make improvements and what they're trying to overcome is just that dread of, of making the change. And so I think we see that, you know, in some of the data we also found was like, you know, there's a cost of doing nothing, right? So there's, there's a, there's a cost that is identified in the research that we did. Uh, if you don't do anything, so, you know, one thing I think we'll find out through this conversation today, um, is the fact that, you know, there are ways to alleviate the pain and factor, right? There are ways to do what you need to do, um, and minimize the pain in the process. 

Yeah, I mean, I think the, the, the thing that we really find, and I think this is across the board, um, CRM is hard. Uh, and I think HubSpot being easier to use, uh, still means that it, it's core business software, right? And I think CR r m to get right is hard, uh, integrating into your organization and doing it effectively as a challenge. But I think for our organization, we really focus on how can we make that experience as easy as possible. I think switchings really hard and it's really scary. Uh, and the thing that we look at in this whole process is h how can we enable someone to make that change and do it hopefully without a lot of pain, uh, but more importantly in a way that it becomes transformative, uh, is really kind of the whole purpose of, of aptitude as an organization. Um, I think HubSpot as a product not only brings a lot of that power, but I think it's also really easy to use. And I think you see that in a lot of the design intentions and sort of how the product gets put together. Uh, and, and Jonathan, I'm, I'm really curious on how HubSpot thinks about that promise and, and how you guys actually put that into your process of sort of building the business and building the product. 

I think before I, I jump to that, I wanna talk a little bit about what our users say, because this research comes from people who are using CRMs. Uh, and I love this, like, I want something that's not going to be a pain in my. So our customers tell us, Hey, we have the highest customer satisfaction on GT Crowd is the top rated CRM on trust radius, and this is the most loved product. That's pretty cool. I love hearing that from customers. And that's the result of the deliberate choices that we made to build, not acquire each of our hubs. And the reason for that is we want to build something that has consumer grade products with enterprise functionality. That's what we heard from our users. And that goes back to not creating software that's a pain in the to use or to switch to. 

So we help our customers get up to speed faster. We invest in ever boarding through free ongoing education for our customers in further end users. And we have an amazing support team. Uh, I've had a number of interactions with them. I've actually sat there and listened in on calls with them, interacting with customers. They're awesome. Uh, that's available to customers for free. We also have an awesome CS team, uh, which I have to talk about as well. And, uh, and so it's pretty cool because with those re resources, customers are able to derive value from our product faster than they can with other competitors. 

Our next, uh, data point we looked at was just, you know, we wanted to dive a little bit more into, uh, the data component, right? And so, I mean, your CRM we saw earlier it's a priority for customer experience, uh, but a lot of people, you know, are struggling with the fact that it, it, they're not able to get that experience through their current crm, right? And so data is an important factor. You see here, only 39% of sales and marketing professionals feel that their current tech stack makes it extremely easy to get a full view of the customer data. So, uh, guys help unpack a little bit of this Yeah. For us as far as the, the data component and just how you can, you know, way you should be looking for it with your crm. 

Yeah, I mean, I think this one's really hard, right? Cause I think when you think about, uh, and when I look at this, it's just like being, you know, a CEO of a, of a fast growing organization. Like, thi this is the thing that you want, right? You sit in the meeting and you're like, okay, well let's get an idea of who, who our customers are. Uh, what, what, why, how they're coming to us, how they're finding us. Like, this is the question you want to answer. And so seeing the people are saying like, I can't do that. That's really hard to do, uh, I think is really challenging. But I think we see that in market. Uh, this is the number one pain that we find with customers that we work with. And it's new leaders come into organizations. They don't trust the data that's there. 

They start asking questions, they start finding inconsistencies. They, they don't believe that the processes that were built to on that platform actually work and drive the business forward. And we see teams start doing things side Excel sheets, going and looking for point solutions, trying to do stuff outside of that core crm. And I think people ultimately are really looking for either need to fix what I've got or I have to replace something. And that's the primary point that we interact with customers. That's like the main thing that's happening when somebody comes and talks to us. And I think that this research really supports kind of that anecdotal experience. 

I think when you have products that are duct taped together, you end up with those, uh, rough edges in between where you're losing data and you have data you're collecting, it just lives in these silos and it's not that useful. So if you're running a business, you wanna be able to understand how much am I spending for my customers? How much is, how long are they staying with me? And how do I impact those numbers? So if you're tracking CAC or L T V, you have to have accurate and useful data. 

Yeah. 

Yeah. I mean, to that point, like, nothing's scarier than, uh, hey, I reported some things to our board or to investors, or I established compensation structures or did something else. And then later you find out like, hey, as it turns out, some of that data was maybe not reliable. And we, you know, worst ca be best case, we told some people the wrong stuff and we, and we have to like walk it back. But worst case, like we've made key business decisions to go in a particular direction off of a bad map. Uh, and I think that's kind of like the biggest fear of getting this wrong. Both, both in a platform, a service provider, any way you're gonna cut this if you, if you're in this position, I think that this is a really, you know, a big priority problem to solve. 

Yeah, I thought I was gonna say gun's. Like when you can't trust your data, I mean, that's the worst position you can be in. Um, and then once you put it out there, you know, to the executive team, then, uh, everything else after that, if, if it's, you know, if it's not trustworthy, then everything else, uh, you know, kind of goes along that same area. So that's, um, I think that's something that we'll, uh, continue to dive into. But let's jump into the total cost of ownership. We really wanted to, in this study, we really wanted to unpack the total cost of ownership, like kind of peel back the various layers, uh, to help leaders, you know, make better decisions. So we, we knew it was more than just cost. So we wanted to look at the implementation management support. Obviously you have the, you know, the software costs itself, but then also the use of the tool. We really felt like, you know, to better understand and make the best decision. You know, you have to look at this, you know, really holistic, holistically, um, and, uh, there's a lot of things that feed into the cost. So let's just kind of start unpacking this. And, uh, Jonathan, you probably, um, see this all the time in your conversations with customers. 

Yeah, definitely. I think one of the things that I, I'd be looking at in addition to this list is actually evaluating, uh, the time to value. I think it's, you know, you talked about time being so valuable to us as executives, as people, uh, as a company, you wanna make sure that you're getting the implementation done and equipped and, uh, reasonable timeframe. Um, I talked a little bit about it earlier, but you know, our average time to implement a product is, uh, is about eight weeks. So when you think about that, getting your, that solution set up, um, making sure that you're having the right inputs to create that good data, that healthy data we were talking about earlier, um, I think that's really important. Um, so, you know, when you, when you start to look at some of the things that the, um, HubSpot solution provides, we have some awesome partners who work with us on implementations. Uh, we have a, a strong, uh, management and support in, in place for our customers to be able to lean into our support teams. They have questions around the product. So I think it's, you know, these are the right things to be able to look at and understand what is really, you know, costing me money here and what am I paying for. 

And I think we are gonna dive into time here in a little while as bro 

Time matters. Yeah, we'll definitely talk about, I'm holding my tongue cause I don't wanna skip a hat. 

Your, your time matters. Wow. <laugh> all the time in the world. I don't know what you guys are talking about. All right, well, let's look at your software cost. Um, you know, how much does it cost? Uh, you know, and we looked at this, you know, uh, at your, also your overall tech stack, right? So you have to look at everything because it all has to work together, uh, to accomplish your goals. Uh, and you can see here, there's, you know, um, and may, and maybe I'll throw this to Connor. You can talk about this little Sure. A little bit initially, but, uh, just kinda like what this meant to you when you saw this data come out. 

Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that's really interesting here and that we see all the time, right? And I think that, uh, when, and we support Salesforce and, and hubs out, we do a fair amount of, of Salesforce work. And, and while we're aligning a lot more, we think Hub has a really good vision of kind of where the future of CRM is going. I think what anyone who's worked in these platforms or been sort of a G T M leader has experienced is the, the cost of CRM is, is much larger than just that base cr r m piece just on the software side, right? So in a Salesforce stack, you have Salesforce, which is your sort of base c r M functionality. You're gonna have your outreach license to do your sales enablement and have, or your sales loft license and have your reps calling and emailing and prospecting and doing all of those pieces. 

You have your DocuSign license for you to be able to generate your contracts, send them, get a signature on them, you have a telephony solution that's going to add on top of that and be doing both sort of inbound and the outbound calling. And all of that is really encompassed when you think about software costs. And I think when you're looking at sort of the total bundle, you really have to evaluate, how do I look at all of the tools in the stack that support this end customer experience versus just looking at sort of one CRM vendor to another CR r M vendor. And ultimately this rep experience that you're building and creating is how you deliver a seamless buying experience to the customer. So all these tools are super important. The way that they work and fit into your overall business matters a lot. 

Uh, but I think one of the things that this research really highlights, and this finding in particular really highlights is HubSpot being sort of all on one and having all the functionality built in. And, and there are add-ons and there are apps and there's ways that you can extend the platform and integrate it into the rest of your ecosystem. But for that core rep or service user or marketer experience, a lot of the functionality is gonna be in the product already. And I think that's really where you see HubSpot coming out ahead here is not just, you know, cost of a HubSpot license, cost of a Salesforce license, it's really what are all the things that are included in that, and how much of that is built onto that same platform. And so I John, and I'd be curious, I mean, you guys have been very intentional about how you do this, but how do you think about that from a pricing and software functionality perspective, uh, as you guys are approaching this problem at HubSpot? 

I think it goes back to the way that we build software. Connor, you know, we we're very intentional about how we go about doing that, thinking through the end user experience, and what are the tools that they need to be successful with their role. And so I think what we're talking about here is the value of something that's built purposely for the end user experience and for the job that they need to do. It's something that's built, it's not mashed together. And so we've created this solution that's made for go-to-market teams. It's oriented around giving more access, access to data across the business versus less limiting it. And so we think everyone should have access to data. Breaking down those data silos is something key to us. If you were at inbound this, uh, this past year, you have heard all about that there. Other platforms have hidden fees around things like integration. And so we've built all of our products on top of core functionality, so you don't have to integrate a bunch of additional tools and solutions in order to get to the tools that you need to do in order to do your job. Uh, other companies might acquire products, they integrate them, but that I integration can be pretty shallow when you end up having to supplement that with additional tools. 

And then we dove into in the research, uh, this whole topic of implementation costs and, you know, there's this upfront cost of a new CRM solution with your implementation. Uh, our research indicated that a smooth implementation contributes greatly to how effective your CRM can be. Uh, 83% said they were most satisfied with I implementation of their crm, uh, and I was extremely, uh, saw that as effective in helping them achieve their goals. So if they got the implement implementation rate and the cost factors right, then that resulted in the long-term effects of it meeting their goals. So I'm sure there's a lot of things you guys could talk about, uh, when you look at some of these, uh, I implementation challenges. But why don't you, uh, just grab and and and discuss one for us. 

Yeah. We think a lot about the, uh, education and how to enable customers to get things set up and how can they go live themselves or with some light support from our HubSpot onboarding team, uh, or, you know, and the starter side, uh, with, you know, some, some things that are built into their product. Um, but we also have a lot of customers who have more complex needs, and because of that, we have a large partnered ecosystem with some amazing partners, um, like Conor and Aptitude Eight that helps customers with more sophisticated needs, Conor for our customers with more robust requirements. How do you guys approach your implementation process? 

Yeah, I, I think, so implementation is one of those things that, uh, I think really matters. Uh, I think when we think about implementation cost, uh, and as much as that's kind of the focus of, of what we have here, and I think it matters when you think about total cost of ownership, right? The initial initial implementation is a huge chunk of that. But I think that getting it right really, really matters. Uh, cuz I think when we talk about the risks, uh, of you can't trust the data in the CR crm, it's not powering your business, I think that that all starts with kind of that failed implementation. And I think hubs stop focusing on, on being easy to use for, uh, some folks and, and having them be able to get up and running really, really matters. Um, when we approach things that are a bit more complicated. 

So we work a lot with organizations that are coming from, uh, a Salesforce environment and other point solution, maybe a CRM module of sort of their E R P or even an organization that's sort of growing up for the first time and kind of transitioning from maybe spreadsheets and a whole bunch of point solutions to, to something more robust. Uh, we really like to approach that with strategy work first. Um, so we really like to get deep with that customer. Uh, we do what's called a solutions design on our end, which is really this kind of discovery and strategy process of mapping out how, how do they do things, how does their process work, really understanding their core business process and, and how much of that business process should change if we're implementing a new technology and adding automation, how much of it do we need to need to make sure that we preserve and manage? 

And we really try to figure out what's this whole plan and what's this future state gonna look like before we ever actually engage and start building stuff. And so we really wanna understand what's the strategy, how's everything gonna get put together, um, really align on that cost at planet, know the timeline, um, and then come back and say, here's the plan, let's sign off on it and let's start working in sprints. And getting closer and closer to that future state was sort of the set timeline already. Um, but I think the important thing if, if you're looking at this kind of a solution is if you're either really early and you, you don't have a concrete process. So if you're an early growing organization and you really are just trying to figure out how you can organize some of this stuff, you can get up and running on something like HubSpot very quickly and lean into HubSpots out of the box way of doing things that would allow you to sort of create and, and manage sort of a, a best practice process for where you're at. 

And if you have something that's more complex and you either have existing sort of infrastructure that you have to manage and, and transform over to, or maybe your process isn't working and you're actually looking at CRM as a new way to define and build on it, um, I would really encourage people to work with, uh, a partner. We're, we're one hub has lots of them. Uh, and I think that if you can really find somebody who's an expert in this on the, the business process, the technology and sort of the change management piece, um, you can really define and expand on how you can get that implementation cost to be worth doing. Uh, cuz as we're seeing here, right, it's one of the most expensive pieces and complicated pieces of, of getting this whole thing, right? 

Yeah, I'm really glad this was called out because I, I've talked to a lot of customers and some of them say, I'm thinking of purchasing, you know, your CRM product, uh, but I don't wanna pay for implementation. And it's like, no, no, no. If you're purchasing a crm, you need to go through the process of setting it up, right? 

Yeah. I think, I think it's just like if you, if if you're coming from any degree of pain, uh, you know, you'd hope that like, I'm in pain, I need to fix it, <laugh> like, let me figure out how to do that <laugh>. Uh, but you know, I I think it's, it's hit and miss. I think doing this well on the front end is really good. And if you can get up and running and prototype stuff, I think that's a good way to do it too. We see lots of really early stage lean teams get up and running on HubSpot and immediately start getting value out of it, which I think is really a testament to some of that core product design. 

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, get your strategy right first, and, uh, and then I know earlier, Jonathan, you started talking a little bit about time and just how like, you know, time is such a critical component of, of this whole process, right? Making sure that we, uh, get the most efficiency out of the time we have available. And, and you can see here like that how long it takes for the implementation process is a key factor to consider. So, uh, Johnson, do you want to, do you wanna chat about this a little bit? 

When we go and we talk to customers, one of the things that they've told us is the time it takes to implement is so important for me. You know, especially if they're new executives coming in, they see those data silos that exist and they say, we need to break this down. We need to have actionable data. And if you're an executive, if you're a manager, uh, whether you, you know, whatever level you're at and you're in charge of your crm, your implementation and the data surrounding it, you have a pretty short period of time to make an impact. You know, a lot of companies do like 30, 60, 90, and at some point they wanna see those results. The faster that you can start producing those results in the form of actionable data, the more impact that you're going to be able to have. So it's incredibly valuable. We hear it from customers and from prospects all the time. 

Yeah, I mean, I think if, if I think if you believe C R M is gonna make a meaningful difference in your ability to deliver an amazing customer experience, which ultimately is what's gonna empower growth. And if you don't believe that at the outset, like I think think, think about where you're investing and what software you're buying, and I think you should really come into C R M with that plan and with that expectation, like, this is gonna meaningfully change and, and influence how we deliver an amazing buying experience. Fast matters. The quicker you get that up and running, the faster it's in the hands of your team and your users. And the faster it's influencing the way that customers buy from you, the faster you're gonna actually get this to be meaningful to your organization. And that's ultimately what, what is a big driver of that roi. 

And I, I think in our experience with HubSpot and, and WeWork with sort of multiple platforms, I think getting HubSpot up and running is not only easier, uh, but HubSpot's incredible supporting resources to help educate those end users. So I think that there's a, not only is this a little bit easier and a little bit less technical to actually implement and get set up from sort of the expert perspective, but one of the biggest challenges in doing this is change management, user enablement, getting people to adopt and use and actually be in the platform and in the product. And as Jonathan's kind of been mentioning throughout, HSA has this, these amazing support resources and free education and training and certification and helping your team actually configure and build on top of it as opposed to relying infinitely on a vendor. And so I think that this really mirrors a lot of our experience. 

And one of the big reasons why our team really loves building stuff on HubSpot is as an implementer, we love to build and create complex, interesting, wonderful things, uh, supporting end users to get up and running. Will do, will do. We will come in and we'll do the training and it's a key to make it effective, but responding to and managing minor end user things is not where we like to spend our time. And I think hubs such does such an amazing job of delivering this, which I think kind of goes into that, that cost value back to the customer as well. 

Right. And then, you know, the other, well, one more component is, uh, the cost of implementation, also, the majority of HubSpot use, and this is the great stat, I thought the majority of HubSpot users reported significantly fewer folks dedicated to the implementation process than with Salesforce. So there was a, there was a resource allocation difference here between the two systems. And I'll just throw this out to you guys as far as why, why you think that is. 

Yeah, I mean, I touched on this a little bit, uh, on the last slide, but I think it's, I think it's intentionality. So Salesforce is really built for the IT user and the technical partner, right? Like their avatar of who they're building solutions for are for Salesforce professionals that know how to build and create things. And they're building features for those people and, and particularly for IT folks that are trying to build and, and create stuff on the platform. And I think what you see is Salesforce has really extensive power. You can build anything on the product, but that power is really designed for hyper-technical users. Um, and HubSpot, in contrast, and my experience has really built top-down to cater to the sales leader, the marketing leader, the service leader, and increasingly kind of this rev op user with a lot of the investments in Operations Hub and some of the functionality there. 

Uh, and I think it really shows in the ease of use. And while we have developers on staff and we do custom build things for customers, and we do integrations and we do custom extensibility projects, uh, the reality is the vast majority of work that we deliver for customers is managed by technical consultants who are process experts, technology experts, have a lot of deep hub set expertise, but aren't doing any hands-on keyboard coding. Uh, they're, they're mostly using declarative automation and, and sort of building on top of the tool. And we can get those people up to speed on the platform relatively quickly, which I think ends up really influencing how people actually build and expand on the platform. And that's one of the big reasons for us that we've focused on building a business on and around HubSpot, is it's a lot easier to do, and there's a huge difference in our ability to bring folks in that are, uh, experts and, and have a deep background in marketing ops or sales op or rev ops, and, and they can come in and we can get them up to speed on the technology a lot faster than if we were building on, on other platforms and tools. 

Uh, and I think you're seeing that in market. I think there is this huge, uh, ecosystem of talent that exists in the Salesforce universe that ultimately is their jobs. And these are six figure employees in some situations are, they know where the buttons are and they know how to click them. And in the HubSpot world, uh, you, you're actually getting people who are maybe a little bit cheaper and, and sometimes comparable, but the impact of what those people can do is way higher than, uh, in a Salesforce admin environment where the skills required to just know how to make the product bend to your will. That learning curve is really, really high, as opposed to how do I influence and, and impact change in an organization and has this tool helped me do that? I got a little rambling, I know, probably gave a little bit of my perspective here, but 

That's good rambling, right? Um, <laugh> it all come, but it's all coming back to some, like some key, you know, ease of use and, and how the platform's designed and, and all those things. I mean, as our, as our analysts at the sun too, we're looking at this data, you know, we could see these trends bubbling up, right? Um, it was kind of, uh, you could start connecting the dots on, on why the data came out the way it did. So, uh, let's look here at internal resources. Um, and again, it goes back to ease of use, obviously. Uh, once you're out of the implementation process, you still have, you know, stuff to do and you're, uh, we're trying to, we wanted to try to find out how companies that are on HubSpot have, you know, we can see on the data that people who, uh, used HubSpot had fewer employees that were needed to support their solution. Um, so, uh, Jonathan, uh, since Connor took up all the time last time, also to, I'll throw it to you first so you can <laugh> maybe share a little bit of your insight 

There. Connor's pretty compassionate about this topic, so we may not be able to stop timing in, but I wanna take a step back actually from HubSpot versus Salesforce and talk about what we're seeing in the ecosystem around us. What we're seeing is that consumer apps are becoming easier and easier to use. Anybody say, oh, why do we care? We're talking about enterprise software here. People's expectations have changed in terms of the business apps that they're using. If I can go, you know, look on an app and click a button and have groceries delivered to my house, if I can, you know, click on a button on an app and have a car come and pick me up when it comes to doing my day job of, uh, you know, getting campaigns out there or interacting with prospects, I want something that's easy to use as well. 

And that's what we've heard from our users, uh, and our prospects, is that we want something that's easy to use. We wanna be able to pr to purchase a product that I can sit down in front of and know what I need to do in order to perform my function. That becomes critical, and it goes back to the, the topic that we were talking about earlier of creating something with enterprise functionality, but consumer, uh, grade, uh, interface. And so that's something that we've been deliberate with and listen to our end users in terms of what are they looking for in the product they're sitting down in front of. 

Yeah, I, I think only to, to build on that, and I'll, I'll try to keep it brief, uh, is I, I think one of the big things that we see with this is we hear from organizations that, uh, and, and I recommend organizations, you know, get somebody as, as whether it's a, a rev op leader or somebody to come in and, um, you know, an administrator's gonna manage and really own the product and own the platform. But for early stage organizations, you can flex into that or have somebody manage that in addition to another function for a lot longer, uh, before you get kind of that dedicated headcount. Whereas, uh, you know, I think organizations, and we see this in terms of the, the external resources required on some of those earlier findings, uh, they need a professional services organization forever, because you really have to have deep expertise in the product. And I think being able to manage some of that doesn't mean you should do it all yourself all of the time, but your ability to do some of it yourself makes a huge difference in your ability to drive change. 

And then this, uh, point here on adoption, and of course that comes back to the ease of use as well. Um, ease of use, you know, drives adoption. Sometimes, you know, you can have this extremely powerful tool, but if it's not being used by people, it really doesn't matter. And, and, and I've even, it's not being used, but maybe not being used in depth by people to solve key, you know, key problems and achieve key goals. Uh, you know, it doesn't matter. So again, we're kind of seeing this as a common thread throughout the research that we did. Um, so if you guys wanna, you know, comment anymore on that. But, uh, yeah, I think it, it does definitely come down to, uh, some of the talking points we've already had today 

Look like at the end of the day, no one wants to sit there and spend hours do it, creating the workflow. If I'm sitting down there, I want a system that's easy to use, I can understand what needs to be done, and I wanna do it quickly and a couple of clicks be able to perform that part of my job and know what I need to do. I can move on to other areas of the business. I can start evaluating the feedback from customers. I can start, uh, analyzing, you know, different aspects of my business, uh, not learning how to push and mouse around on the screen. So I think that is so important. Ease of use goes back to adoption. If it's not easy to use, you can purchase the best products in the world. It's never gonna do your business any good. 

Yeah, I think the only thing that I would add to that, um, and what we hear on, on customer sentiment, I think everyone's kind of experiencing it, right? Like when you use a great product, uh, you, you feel like that product, uh, and I, and when I think about an implementation, right? I mean, ultimately we're building a product for an end business as well, right? We're just doing it on top of other platforms. And I think when you use a great product, you really reflect on this. Like, wow, this is really propelling me forward. This is helping me do things that I can't do without this product. Cause they're hard to do without this product. Um, and when you work with a a bad product, it's this really frustrating experience of, uh, I'm just trying to do this thing and this, uh, blocker for me is like this extra step I have to get through in order to get to my end destination. And I think when you think about this, if you're, if you're in that camp, uh, I think evaluating c R M is a good way to start because I think there is ways to have this be something that actually helps you accomplish your goals as opposed to something that, uh, you know, is an obstacle that you feel like you have to have to constantly surmount. 

That's right. That's right. So, uh, and then, you know, this is, uh, one of my favorites too that we had from the research. 95% of those surveyed agreed that they would be more likely to switch to a new, new CRM if they could see the ROI within the first year. So how do we see the ROI within the first year <laugh>? What is, what is the key to making that happen? 

I can, I can, I can do it first step for sure. Uh, I, I think I, I think that the, uh, ROI to first year, right? I think if you're gonna make that change, I think one is, um, go with an implementation partner. If you're trying to get ROI quickly, um, there may be a higher upfront investment, but I think you, you can realize that investment in the first year, uh, if, if you're coming in and you're doing that implementation cycle, because in that first year, not only because you're gonna have a faster time to implement on something like HubSpot, but you're gonna get really high and fast user adoption. And all of that means that you're realizing value faster with that net investment. Uh, and I think if you're looking at some of this and, and you pick an implementation partner, you implement onto something like HubSpot, a, you're gonna get it right. 

Uh, and I think the cost of wandering and, and struggling and trying to get something to work for your business is really, really high. Uh, and I think getting it right really matters. Uh, and I think that the, the speed with which you can get this thing up and running and the speed with which you can have your users in seat adopting using the product is ultimately what drives this. So I, I'm excited to see this finding that this tells me that, uh, the market is open and thriving for people that are sort of evaluating on, on switching CRM platforms. Um, if we can help you do that, we'd love to, but I think if you're feeling any of this pain, uh, that there's certainly ways to solve it. 

Excellent. Well, I think we have hopefully now some time for some questions. So, uh, take this opportunity, uh, if you have any questions for us, please, uh, send 'em in and, uh, we will start that process. 

Yeah, I can tee up the first one, uh, for Todd. I think you covered this, but, um, maybe answering again would be good, which is, uh, a reaction to, uh, the original sort of 88% slide, um, and a s a question on the size of the company's surveyed. 

Yeah, sure. Uh, they were mid-size companies, so we defined that as companies with a hundred to a thousand employees, uh, was the audience that we surveyed for, for this. 

Cool. I have another question on, on audience that was in here, uh, of, of sort of survey participants, which is, uh, industry breakdowns, um, for b2b, uh, question on industrial manufacturer and some of these other ones. But, uh, is there industry breakdowns that might be in the, the full report, 

I believe? Yes, we do have some industry like breakdowns and, um, and so download the report if you have, if anybody has any questions also about the data, um, they can, by all means, they can, uh, uh, contact me. 

Yeah. Uh, Todd's great. Uh, ascend does great work. Um, the full report, uh, we have as a link that I think was in the original one, and then we'll do it as a, a recap too. So if you guys wanna dive into the full report, you're welcome to. Um, I have one in your Jonathan, I'd love to give you a first pass about at it. And then I'm, I'm happy to react to it as well from Ryan, which is, uh, that most of the pain seems to be for people in, in CRM building, uh, and that experience is bad implementation and management decay. So, so he's describing, so specifically letting the CRM and its data and the behavior in it decay without audits or cleaning or sort of updating some of these pieces. Um, and curious from either h how you see customers deal with sort of that, well, does that resonate with you in terms of where you feel that that problem is? Uh, and any other thoughts? 

We definitely see that, Connor, I think like the, uh, the analogy that I like to use with our, our customers, it's like, look, if you can buy a a car, you let it sit in your drive driveway, uh, and you know, it'll look great for a couple of of years, at some point you're gonna start seeing rust on it. You're gonna start seeing, like, things fall off, it's not gonna start anymore. And so just like a car, you know, you have to be able to maintain the thing that you're doing. Your business evolves and your implementation has to evolve with that. So the business that you created and implemented your CRM for might be very different from the one that you have today. And in those instances, that's where, you know, having a partner who works with you on a consistent basis really comes in handy. Someone who you can say, Hey, here's where we want to take our business, help us set up the product to enable us to go there. And then continuing to have that evolving conversation on an ongoing basis. So, uh, I've seen really great results from customers who have utilized that approach. Um, and I think that's something that needs to be done, whether you're working with a partner, you're managing it internally. 

Yeah, I, I echo that a hundred percent. I think, uh, we do a lot of implementation work and then, um, we do some of this kind of managed services. But I think what we often see is, and I think organizations that are incredibly effective typically look at CR M as an extension of their core business process and kind of the manifestation of it. Uh, and if you're growing and adapting and, and launching new products, adding new services, really evolving as an organization, you invariably are going to be building new processes and building new ways of doing things. And you really want to have somebody, and, and whether it's a team in-house or you're working with a, a partner, uh, have somebody who's going to help you continually adapt, uh, that CRM infrastructure to sort of your ongoing ever-evolving and changing, uh, business needs across the board. Um, another one for Todd, that this may be, I think you may have already answered it cause it's another question about some of the audience split was, um, B2B versus b2c, uh, split among respondents or if there was sort of filtering on, on any particular of that. 

I will need to get back to you. I was just, I saw that coming in and I was gonna look at the, the, uh, raw data. Cause I can't remember what our split was for B2B versus b2c. I think it was, I think it was more heavily on the B2B side. Um, but, uh, answer a few more questions and then I'll say that a few 

<laugh>. Sure. We, we, that should be in the whole report too. I think what you'll probably find, I know that there's industry, I don't know if there's a specific designation, um, for B2B versus b2c. Yeah, I will, I will, uh, question in here. I'll read and then, and then I'm happy to take, and then if you wanna add anything, Jonathan, you're, you're more than welcome to. Um, and this is, uh, I, I assume from somebody who's sort of in the hubs stop partner ecosystem, um, which is asking that HubSpot partners have traditionally come from a marketing or sales background. Uh, as HubSpot is becoming much more than a marketing and sales software. How do you think partners should set themselves up for success in the future? Um, and so what I'll answer is, I'll, I'll appear a little bit of, uh, of Yemeni's uh, communication last week at the partner event, which is, I think that the best way to thrive is to really be focused on what do customers need. 

And I think overwhelmingly what we're seeing is customers are really looking for, um, business process acumen, technical acumen, helping with some of that change management. And I still think that there's, uh, a world and there's a lot of folks who need marketing services, sales services, and, and those people use HubSpot. But I think that when we look at what we're seeing HubSpot customers want and need, it's, it's really focused on core crm, core marketing, automation, how are you building and helping somebody implement and expand these platforms to kind of meet and respond to the ever-changing needs of their customer. Uh, and I think that that's really where at least we're focused. And I, and I think anybody who's looking to sort of thrive in the HubSpot universe, uh, into the future, should, should probably be looking at as well. Um, Jonathan, I wanna give you a pass on that only cuz you're close to, uh, what HubSpot customers need. 

Yeah, I think what we're hearing from customers more frequently, it's not about just marketing or just sales, but it's about the customer experience. Connor, I think that's something we touched on at the beginning of this, is that CU companies who are focused on the customer experience across the different touchpoints with they have with them are more successful at acquiring, retaining, growing their customers. And so as you think about the, the requirements that are needed for that, most of those aren't going to be in-house. So from a partner perspective, think about how you can impact each of those areas. And of course, you know, you have to be a little bit discerning in terms of the target audience you're going after, the size of the companies you wanna work with, all of that stuff. Um, but I think that's what I would be keeping in mind if I was a HubSpot partner. 

Yeah. Uh, question from, from Ivan. I'm, I'm happy to speak about this as well, and I know that there's, there's some interests on the, the hubot end potentially too. Uh, which is, do you have a general comment regarding, um, HubSpot sales versus Salesforce or SF sales? Uh, from the view of an outbound driven business, um, I, I think one of the first things that we see is when you're looking at outbound, uh, driven businesses and, and some of that, Salesforce isn't gonna have a lot of that functionality itself. You're gonna be probably looking at more of like a, an outreach or a sales loft and something that's kind of dedicated to the outbound prospecting view, uh, across the board. Um, and I think that when you look at those products versus HubSpot sales today, um, some of them have a little bit deeper, uh, a functionality for sort of larger outbound teams and, and functionality. 

It's dedicated to, uh, that sales manager, uh, type of view. But what I would say is we, we see lots of organizations and have a lot of customers that run very successful outbound campaigns, uh, running outta HubSpot. And I think the main thing that we see is really sales and marketing being a lot more aligned. Uh, and I think that we're seeing outbound in general, and especially cold, uh, is decreasing in effectiveness across the board. And so the best way to do that is really to be looking at how can marketing be opening up, uh, demand channels and, and creating some of the, uh, top of funnel awareness, and then how can you be tying sales back into that? And that, in my opinion, that's a lot easier to do in HubSpot versus a Salesforce environment because you're setting it up in Marketing Hub, you're using workflows to trigger off sales interactions, and you're sort of interacting with people and you have a lot of knowledge about their interest and awareness of, of your products and your solutions, uh, and you're able to engage with those people a lot more readily. 

Uh, versus in the Salesforce universe where maybe I'm creating something in part parnot and kicking things over, I'm putting them into a campaign. I'm going and syncing that back over to outreach. I'm trying to build all of that together. Uh, and, and I think that doing those two things together is a lot more impactful than, uh, just straight cold, uh, outbound prospecting. Um, but Jonathan, I, I don't know if you wanna speak at all to things that are planned, things that are coming, how you guys think about that together in terms of sales marketing alignment. 

Yeah, I, I think what we're hearing from customers, you know, there's been customers who have done, you know, Hey, we're outbound only, we're inbound only. What we've seen is that there's an evolution. You know, we talked about how 50% of of companies are struggling with top of the funnel. And so they're saying, Hey, there's gonna be some companies that we can best interact with through inbounds and we'll be outbound. We actually need a mix of strategies in order to be able to achieve the optimum outcome. And so our approach from a HubSpot perspective is, we'll work with you on setting up the instance that you have to align with your business needs, but customers aren't saying, we only want to interact with you through a single channel. So you should be thoughtful about how you're setting it up as you look to the future. 

A hundred percent echo it. I, I think multi-channel, omni-channel customer experience is the way to think about it. Um, I think being a dis disconnected customer is really tough. Uh, and when you're getting hit from the outbound channel and you're engaging with the inbound channel, but you also have a service ticket open and none of those teams and none of those people know that those things are happening cuz they're running entirely outta different systems is so painful. Uh, and I think that if you can really focus on kind of this overarching customer experience, you're gonna have much, much better outcomes. Um, with that. Yeah, go for it. Please, please. One last comment from Jonathan 

Customer Journey Analytics that you haven't checked it out, it's awesome. Uh, and it goes back to how you can track the progression of your leads, uh, throughout their entire lifecycle. So that, uh, plus some of the ROI product, uh, uh, analysis that it enables, uh, is incredibly powerful, uh, especially for marketers who are trying to see where you're having the most impact for your dollars. So, uh, those are something that, uh, that, uh, just came out just launched. Uh, so if you haven't seen it, check it out. 

Amazing. Uh, thank you guys so, so much. Todd, thank you for putting all of this together. Uh, Jonathan, thank you for joining us. Uh, and for all of our attendees, thank you for coming by. Uh, we'll have the whole report, we'll have the recording, all that will get sent out to everybody. Uh, and thank you so much for everyone attending. 

Thanks everyone. Thank you.