Last week was HubSpot Inbound 2023! Lots of interesting stuff was mentioned over in Boston, so Wave [opens in a new window] has prepared this quick round up to let you know what was announced and how it could impact your business.
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HubSpot Inbound – Introducing the new Sales Hub
At Inbound 2023, HubSpot EVP of Product Andy Pitre announced the biggest changes to Sales Hub for the last 10 years. In this post, Wave will talk you through the changes and how they will help your sales team be more efficient and productive.
Why did Sales Hub need to be updated?
In a world with evolving technology and a standstill economy, the old Sales mantra of “more is more” is outdated. Companies don’t have the resources to keep financing new sales reps. They need their teams to work smarter and be more productive. They needed to get their sales team using their time more efficiently.
Teams need a tool to reflect that, and HubSpot has responded to the challenge by updating Sales Hub.
- Prospecting workplace
- Redefined lead management
- Seamless sequences
- Easier hand offs
- Deals inspection and insights views
- Forecasting
- Deeper deal reporting
- AI forecasting
- Improved LinkedIn Navigator integration
Prospecting workplace
Sales teams could struggle juggling a long list of prospects and remember where they are with prospect one or what they last emailed prospect two. The Prospecting Workplace makes this a lot easier.
In one dashboard view, sales reps will now be able to see everything they need to see in one place. This includes emails and calls to prospects, tasks they need to complete and displays everything within the right context. One major feature is that it uses your CRM data to provide any necessary information the rep might need.
HubSpot has also introduced a new report: prospect activities report. The new report tells you how your sales activities (calls, meetings and sequences) and reps are performing. You can then dig deeper into key metrics (conversion rate, activities completed per day, activities per contact) to figure out who’s performing well and who needs coaching.
Redefined lead management
You now have clearer insight into a lead. Instead of relying on the ‘lead status’ property that is buried amongst all your data, leads now have their own separate records. They are not a standalone object. They are records that you can create to track lead progress and associate with the relevant contact or company – the same way you associate a task or ticket!
Visible in the new prospecting workplace, you can easily track how leads are progressing. And best yet, it’s almost 100% automated – your prospects' status will change from “new” to “attempting” when you reach out. Your teams no longer have to worry about data management on top of selling.
Seamless Sequences
We think it’s about time… the sequences tool is getting a major upgrade as part of the new HubSpot Sales Hub. Here’s a quick round up:
Outcome reports: see what sequences are good at generating meetings and closing deals.
Step analytics: see the performance of each step and learn where people progress and where they drop off
A/B testing: once you find a step that’s falling short, you can now A/B test that sequence step. You can then put forward the step that works for your audience.
Hand off leads with ease
You must make your sales process as frictionless as possible. Not being able to get hold of a sales rep for multiple reasons causes the most amount of friction and there’s very little you can do about it… until now. You can now book meetings on behalf of your colleagues directly into their calendar. If you have a successful qualifying call, you can immediately book a call in with the right team member to progress the deal instead of waiting for them to get back to you. Or, you can add them into a round robin to automatically get moved onto the next available team member.
But, wait, there’s more! It’s now possible to redirect people to a meeting calendar when they fill in a form. All you have to do is set a conditional rule in your form settings and choose what meeting link they go to. For example, if they say their city is Chester, you can send them directly to your Chester rep’s meeting link.
Has the new HubSpot Sales Hub changed deals?
Deals are the backbone of HubSpot Sales Hub, and HubSpot has added some small updates to how sales reps can view deals.
Deal inspection view
Firstly, the deal inspection view makes it easier to view important information on a deal without leaving the pipeline. You can click on a deal and instead of moving you into the record, a pop up will deliver all the important information you need. No more scrolling through lots of data for a quick update – everything you want to know is served to you.
New deal reports
Deal Insights
To keep your sales progressing, it’s good to know how far you are above your KPIs and keep staff motivated. So, you can now choose to surface sales insights on your pipeline view. If you toggle insights on, you will see:
- The total deal amount
- The weighted deal amount
- Open deal amount
- Closed won amount
- New deal amount
- Average deal age
You’ll also be able to see the amount forecasted in each deal stage.
New Deal Journey Reports
The path to a closed won deal is rarely linear. HubSpot, as well as updating the out-of-the-box deal funnel report to be more accurate, has now introduced deal journey analytics. You can now customise the deal funnel report as a Sankey chart and leave out certain stages.
New Sales Velocity reports
A sales velocity report gives your sales team members important insight into their performance. This insight enables them to make informed decisions to optimise their sales strategies and drive more sales. The sales velocity report now tells them how long it takes to convert leads into customers, allowing them to set realistic targets and allocate resources effectively.
Accurate forecasting
HubSpot has updated the forecasting tool making it more accurate and reliable. The sales team leaders can now leverage their team member’s historical data when checking their revenue predictions.
For example, if a sales team member or team has a close rate of 75% and has deals worth a total of £10,000 in the pipeline, the forecast tool will suggest that you’re likely to bring in £7,500.
You can also surface forecasting insights to look at the health of your revenue predictions. You’ll be able to understand how forecasts and pipelines are trending across teams through key metrics such as team goal, closed won, gap, and forecast submissions.
What else is coming soon to HubSpot Sales Hub?
There’s a lot more in the pipeline that we have to keep secret for now (🤫) but two things we’re delighted to announce are AI Forecasting and an Improved LinkedIn Sales Navigator Integration.
AI Forecasting
When you’re forecasting, AI will look at your closed won amounts and present you with a best and worst case scenario of where you are likely to end up that month. In testing, this tool helped improve accuracy for teams by 95%.
Improved LinkedIn Sales Navigator Integration
Ever wanted to know if a prospect has had a promotion or even moved to another company? Well we’re pleased to say that soon you’ll be able to do just that right from with your HubSpot CRM. HubSpot and LinkedIn are working together to rebuild the integration and give it exclusive functionality. A lot of this is underwraps for the moment, but we can announce that the integration will include two-way syncing between the platforms – you’ll get more data and insights, be able to close deals faster and build better relationships.
Talk to Wave about the new HubSpot Sales Hub
Wave is a Gold HubSpot partner and was fortunate enough to attend Inbound 2023 and be one of the first agencies to see the Sales Hub updates in action.
If you want Sales Hub or are interested in learning how you can best use the updates, book a call with us to discover how Sales Hub is right for you.
