It's hard to stay focused and consistent in an industry that frequently presents obstacles in your path. Luckily, HubSpot’s automation and tasking features have helped the team here at Spitfire to stay on TARGET.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes, 53 seconds
My productivity app is yelling, reminding me to update my workflow before 8am tomorrow. I won’t lie and say the red notifications don’t annoy me. But, at the same time, I can’t imagine working without them.
HubSpot’s automation and tasking has streamlined our team’s work life. Where before they’d spend time anxious about what had to be done and when, now they get reminders to help keep them on track. This means they can stay focused on the important tasks, and ensure that they have time for the softer skills, like building stronger relationships with clients.
This is one of the many reasons why we view HubSpot as not only the best marTech platform, but also as one of the productivity tools of choice for the Spitfire team.
What do I mean by tasking and automation?
According to economics lecturer Robert McIlree, a task is “an activity which needs to be accomplished within a defined period of time, to work towards work-related goals.” What HubSpot does, is provide an intuitive, efficient system where team leaders, members and managers can give tasks to other team members.
Automation is a system that allows a process to be completed with little to no human assistance. In other words, it allows you to reach your goals quicker, by doing the simple, repetitive tasks for you.
Now you may be thinking, “hold on… I don’t want robots taking control of all my sensitive data!” Who can blame you? Have you seen “I-Robot”? Luckily, I can promise you that HubSpot’s artificial intelligence system will do nothing to harm you or your business. Quite the opposite actually; it’s designed to make your life simpler, and to work like an assistant, by giving you a hand with the everyday tasks you have to complete before COB. It doesn’t replace the human in the business - it aids them.
How HubSpot keeps us on TARGET
All this talk around productivity got me thinking, and so I thought I’d share how tasking and automation in HubSpot keeps me, and the rest of the Spitfire team, on TARGET:
T is for teamwork
If you’re like me, you’ve probably found yourself in a situation where you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. It’s frustrating; juggling different responsibilities, while still providing an exceptional level of client delivery and work that you can be proud of. HubSpot to the rescue! With tasking and automation, it's easy to delegate different tasks to your coworkers and employees through tasking, leaving you enough time to concentrate on what matters. “I can’t even compare it to systems I’ve used before,” says Darren Leishman, CEO here at Spitfire Inbound. “If I need an email to be proofread, I can task someone from the content team to check it for me.” The assigned person will receive automated reminders to complete their task, and you’ll get a quick notification when they finish, meaning you never have to worry whether the task you assigned has been completed, and on time.
HubSpot makes collaboration that much easier.
A is for Accessibility
Remember the days when you needed a memory stick or hard drive to share documents? When you had to be at the office to get work done? The team at Spitfire don’t, because we’ve been using (and possibly getting spoiled by) HubSpot’s accessibility functionality.
HubSpot is entirely cloud-based, which means that any team member can access a client’s workflows, tasks, documents, and projects from any device, at any time, so long as they have an internet connection. This means I can get work done at home, on the road, and even when I’m away (if for some reason I need to take a break from taking a break).
Spitfire has adopted a “remote working” policy where its employees are allowed to work away from the office, because they realise that sometimes people simply work better where they are more comfortable. HubSpot has allowed us to take this progressive step.
R is for Reliability
It's no good having a productivity tool if it only works for a few tasks. The Spitfire Inbound team and I can attest to HubSpot being an incredibly reliable tool. Issues which plague similar products, like slow connections, server crashes, and security issues, aren't a problem with HubSpot. This means I can focus on what needs to be done in order of priority
Not only is HubSpot in itself reliable, it also helps our team improve our own reliability and stability. Using tasks and automation in the HubSpot Software allow us to test and experiment with new ideas, workflows, campaigns, and goals, to see how effective they are. This means we can improve and grow our service without having to gamble with uncertainty - Positive risk taking, sans the risk.
G is for Growth
Unlike so many large software corporations today, HubSpot’s development is driven by the dedicated community that use it. This is so important, because it allows us to keep up to date with the demands and needs of the inbound marketing and sales industry. HubSpot is continuously being updated with greater functionality that makes our lives easier, and I for one do not doubt that it will allow us to stay up to date as the market changes and evolves.
E is for Efficiency
“Automation is kind of the salesperson’s dream,” says Darren Leishman, “The ability to mitigate all that boring, time-wasting admin, means you can concentrate on what matters - the client, and building strong, lasting relationships.”
Okay, but where does this extra time come from? Firstly, HubSpot integrates all the sales tools you need into one interface, meaning that everything can be run from one place. This saves you having to use different programs and applications that all try (and often fail) to do individual tasks.
Secondly, as Darren so eloquently mentioned, HubSpot reduces the need for admin work. The CRM automates many of the tasks that a business would normally need to spend hours completing, like setting up and maintaining workflows, monitoring employee performance, and tracking your webpage traffic. This leaves you with the time, and motivation, to deal with those more important tasks - like communicating with clients, and teambuilding.
Using functions like the CRM’s automation means that back-end sales related tasks can happen seamlessly, no notepads required! HubSpot’s deal automation will automatically assign tasks internally, so the relevant people in the team are tasked to take a particular action in relation to that sale, at the relevant time. The less “admin” work for the sales team, the better!
Last (but not least), you can also customise HubSpot to suit your particular needs. It's all well and good to buy the fastest race car, but it’s going to do nothing for you if your business works in mining. As an example, we have customised the ticketing pipeline into a Content Pipeline for all those inbound related items: blog posts, social media, workflow content, email content, and so the list goes on. At each stage in the workflow, different teams are notified of what needs to be done, and by when. This means accountability by the team can be taken - no one is in the dark at any point in the content production process. The system is designed specifically to compliment the dynamic at Spitfire. This means that it does the job we need it to, exactly as we need it, and not in some generic, template-esque manner.
T is for Teaching
One of the biggest obstacles when using any marketing software, is the learning curve to figure out how everything works. HubSpot has gone the extra mile to combat this. There are literally hundreds of courses and educational videos on offer in the HubSpot Academy, which can help you learn more about the HubSpot CRM and inbound marketing in general. What’s more, by completing the training, you can take a short exam to receive official certification. This looks good for your business, and motivates your employees to learn all they can to work better.
That is, in a nutshell, how tasking and automation in HubSpot help keep us here at Spitfire on TARGET. I can’t recommend it enough for you and your business.
I wish I could tell you more about HubSpot’s exciting features, or how it streamlines event planning, but my browser is buzzing with HubSpot notifications , and I really should get back to work.
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