Unlock the Full Potential of Sales Hub – Solver Hubs

Welcome to the Sales Hub CRM Playbook! This comprehensive guide is designed to help you master the key functionalities of the Sales Hub, empowering your team to streamline sales processes, enhance customer relationships, and drive growth.

Here, you'll find detailed explanations and practical guidance on:

Core concepts: Understand the foundational entities that structure your sales operations.
Profile management: Learn how to effectively view, edit, and create customer profiles, ensuring accurate and up-to-date customer data.
Opportunity management: Discover how to create, track, and manage sales opportunities through their entire lifecycle, from initial lead to a closed deal.
Task management: Master the tools for creating, organizing, and completing tasks, keeping your sales activities efficient and organized.
Event management: Explore how to schedule and manage important events, ensuring all customer interactions are logged and tracked.
Reporting: Leverage powerful reporting features to gain insights into your sales performance and make data-driven decisions.

By understanding and utilizing these features, you'll transform the way you manage customer relationships and accelerate your sales pipeline. Let's get started.

Key Entities

The Sales Hub organizes your customer interactions around these core entities:

Profile: Represents a contact or company in your CRM.
Opportunity: Tracks potential sales and deals.
Task: Individual actions or to-dos related to sales activities.
Event: Scheduled occurrences, like meetings or calls, associated with your sales process.

Profile Types

Profiles are categorized based on the level of engagement and information you have for them. This helps you tailor your approach and track their journey:

Visitor: Identified only by a cookie (from the Customer Data Platform - CDP). These are anonymous interactions.
Lead: You have basic contact information for this profile. They represent potential future customers.
Prospect: This profile has at least one active Opportunity. They are actively being pursued for a sale.
Account: This profile has at least one active product or service associated with them, meaning they are current customers.

Profile Management

Effectively managing customer profiles is central to your sales operations. This section guides you through how profiles are displayed, edited, and created within the Sales Hub, ensuring you have the most accurate and up-to-date customer information at your fingertips.

1. Viewing and accessing Profiles

2. Editing Profile

3. Creating Profiles

Viewing and accessing Profiles

Customer 360 (C360) Profile View in Sales Hub

The C360 Profile View in Sales Hub provides a comprehensive and dynamic overview of your customer information, tailored for sales activities.

Customizable display: The interface is highly flexible. You can configure which information is displayed in various sections and adjust the number of tabs available for viewing. This allows you to personalize the view to best suit your workflow.
Key profile information: The top section of the C360 view is dedicated to essential profile details. This includes the profile's status (Lead, Prospect, or Account) and the entity type (Company or Individual User), giving you an immediate snapshot of the profile's standing.
Enhanced sales functionality: Unlike profile views in the CDP module, the Sales Hub's C360 view offers direct interactive capabilities for your sales team. From here, you can:
- Directly edit profile data: Make real-time updates to customer information.
- Create new opportunities: Instantly initiate and track new sales opportunities linked to the profile.

Add Tasks and Notes: Log follow-up actions and record important details or interactions directly within the profile.

This integrated approach significantly enhances the functionality of the C360 view, making it a central hub for your daily sales operations.

Customer Profile view from CDP (Customer data platform)

The profile page within the CDP adapts to the available data for a specific user and their behavior. Based on the quantity and type of collected information, relevant insights are presented to the user in a structured and contextual format.

The profile page includes several functional tabs, enabling a detailed overview and work with data:

Basic: Core profile information.
Analytics: Behavioral and engagement analytics.
Segments: Displays the segments the profile includes.
Details: Additional profile information.
Broadcasts: Shows communications sent to the user.
Recommendations: Personalized recommendations based on previous behavior.
Interactions: History of the user's interactions with content and communications.

This comprehensive structure ensures complete transparency and enables quick decision-making based on context and relevant data.

Editing Profiles

The ability to edit profile data depends on the user's access level within the system.

If an employee has the appropriate authorization, they will have access to the Edit option, allowing them to modify core profile information. This includes, for example, correcting typos in a name, changing an address, email address, phone number, and similar information crucial for the accuracy and timeliness of the customer record.

After making your changes, you must confirm the entry by clicking on the "Save changes" option. This ensures that all modifications are permanently saved in the system and immediately available for further use in related processes and entities.

Creating Profiles

New profiles can be created in Sales Hub through two primary methods: Manual entry and automated creation from Forms.

Manual entry (B2B / B2C)

You can manually create new profiles by directly inputting data into the system. This method allows you to select the profile type: B2B (business-to-business) for companies, or B2C (business-to-consumer) for individual clients. This process ensures you can accurately enter all relevant information about a client or company, tailoring it to the specific nature of your business relationship. Manual entry is especially useful when data isn't automatically available or when you need to add highly customized profile details.

Automated creation from Forms

When forms are used within campaigns (e.g., a Lead form), all submitted data is automatically forwarded to the system and registered as an open sales Opportunity. This means every completed form directly initiates the creation of an Opportunity, ensuring efficient capture and further processing of potential clients within your sales pipeline.

Opportunity management

An Opportunity represents a potential sale or deal, and its effective creation is fundamental to managing your sales pipeline. Sales Hub offers multiple pathways to create new Opportunities, ensuring flexibility based on your workflow.

Where you can create Opportunities

New Opportunities can be initiated from various points within the Sales Hub, streamlining your lead-to-deal process:

From the Opportunity Studio: This is the dedicated hub for managing all your opportunities. You can directly create new ones here for a centralized approach.
From a Profile: When you're viewing a customer's profile (Lead, Prospect, or Account), you can directly create a new Opportunity associated with that specific individual or company. This links the potential deal directly to the relevant customer record.

From a Qualification Task: As we discussed, if a Qualification Task successfully identifies a sales potential, it directly leads to the creation of a new Opportunity, pushing qualified leads into your sales pipeline.
From a Campaign: Opportunities can also be generated directly from ongoing campaigns. This ensures that promising interactions or responses from marketing efforts are immediately converted into actionable sales opportunities.

Note: The functionality to create Opportunities directly from an Event is currently under development.

Managing your Opportunities

Once an Opportunity is created, Sales Hub provides a comprehensive set of tools to manage its lifecycle. Effectively managing Opportunities involves tracking their progress through various statuses and performing key actions to move deals forward.

Opportunity statuses

Each Opportunity progresses through distinct statuses that reflect its current stage in the sales pipeline. These statuses help you understand the health of your deals and prioritize your efforts
Open: This indicates an active sales opportunity that is currently being pursued.
Won: The opportunity has been successfully converted into a closed deal.
Lost: The opportunity did not result in a sale.
Canceled: The opportunity has been cancelled, typically due to external factors or a change in circumstances before a final decision was reached.

Key actions within an Opportunity

Sales Hub enables you to perform essential actions directly from an Opportunity, keeping all relevant interactions centralized:

Log a Call / Initiate a Call: You can record details of a past phone conversation (log a call) or initiate a new call directly from the Opportunity. This ensures that all communication related to the deal is documented.
Log an Email / Send an Email: Similar to calls, you can either log details of an email you've sent or received or compose and send a new email directly from the Opportunity interface. When sending an email, employees will have the option to select from predefined templates or create their own custom email from scratch. This flexibility helps streamline communication while allowing for personalization.
Add an Event: Schedule and add events, such as meetings, demos, or follow-up appointments, directly to the Opportunity. This helps you keep track of all planned interactions and ensures no crucial step is missed.
Add a Task: Create and assign new tasks directly related to the Opportunity. This helps you manage specific actions, like follow-ups or research, ensuring all necessary steps are taken to advance the deal. This option also includes the ability to add or remove products associated with the opportunity, helping you accurately track what's being discussed or sold.

Task management

Effective task management is crucial for staying organized and ensuring timely follow-ups in your sales process. Sales Hub provides robust tools to create, track, and manage your tasks, whether they're for sales qualification or general to-dos.

Task Types

Sales Hub utilizes specific task types to streamline your workflow:

Qualification Task: These tasks are designed to help you determine the suitability of a lead or prospect. They guide you through the process of gathering necessary information to assess their potential.
To-Do Task: General tasks or reminders that need to be completed. These can be anything from following up with a client to preparing for a meeting.

Task Views (Tabs)

To help you manage your tasks efficiently, they are organized into two main tabs:

Active: This tab displays all tasks that are currently open and require your attention.
Completed: This tab shows all tasks that have been successfully finished. You can review past actions here.

Creating Tasks

Tasks can be initiated from multiple points within the Sales Hub, integrating seamlessly with your daily workflow:

From Task Studio: This is the central hub for managing all your tasks, allowing direct creation for a centralized approach.
From a Profile: When viewing a customer's profile, you can create a task directly associated with that individual or company.
From an Event: Tasks can be linked to specific events, ensuring all necessary follow-ups related to scheduled interactions are captured.
From an Opportunity: As discussed, tasks can be created directly from an Opportunity to manage specific actions needed to advance a deal. From Broadcasts: Tasks can be generated directly from broadcast activities, ensuring follow-up on mass communications. (Note: This functionality is currently under development.)
From Automation Studio: (Note: This functionality is currently under development.)

Working with Tasks

Once created, tasks are easily managed to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. Sales Hub provides several key actions to help you track and complete your tasks efficiently:

Log a Call: Record details of a phone conversation directly associated with a task.
Send Email: Compose and send emails related to the task.
Sales Task > Opportunity: This action allows you to convert a sales-related task directly into an Opportunity, streamlining the transition from a task to a potential deal.
Reassign: Easily reassign tasks to other team members when responsibilities shift.
Reminder: Set reminders for tasks to ensure you stay on schedule and never miss a deadline.

Event management

Events are crucial for tracking planned interactions and key milestones in your sales process, from meetings and demos to follow-up appointments. Sales Hub allows you to create and manage events efficiently, ensuring all important engagements are recorded and accessible.

Creating Events

You can create new Events from several points within the Sales Hub, seamlessly integrating with your daily activities:

From Event Studio: This is the central location dedicated to managing all your events, offering a straightforward way to schedule new ones.
From a Profile: When you're viewing a customer's profile, you can directly add an Event associated with that specific individual or company. This helps in keeping a complete history of interactions with your clients.
From an Opportunity: Link events directly to an ongoing Opportunity. This ensures that all meetings, calls, and other planned interactions related to a specific deal are tracked within its context.
From a Task: If a task requires a scheduled interaction, you can create an Event directly from that task, ensuring smooth workflow transitions.

Editing Events

Events can be edited to update details as your plans evolve.

Note: The full functionality for editing events is currently under development, with ongoing efforts to enhance these capabilities.

Reporting

Effective reporting is key to understanding your sales performance, identifying trends, and making informed strategic decisions. Sales Hub provides robust reporting capabilities to give you a clear overview of your sales activities and outcomes.

Key reporting areas

Sales Hub offers insights across various critical areas:

Sales performance: Track the overall performance of your sales team, including achieved targets, conversion rates, and revenue generation.
Opportunity analysis: Gain deeper insights into your sales pipeline by analyzing opportunities across different stages, statuses (Won, Lost, Canceled), and values. This helps you understand what's working and where adjustments might be needed.
Task completion: Monitor the efficiency of your team's activities by tracking task completion rates, ensuring that follow-ups and actions are being taken promptly.
Profile engagement: Understand how your profiles are interacting with your campaigns and communications, providing valuable data for future targeting and personalization efforts.

Customizable reports and dashboards

Sales Hub allows you to:

Create custom reports: Tailor reports to your specific needs by selecting various metrics, filters, and dimensions.
Build personalized dashboards: Assemble key reports into intuitive dashboards for a quick, at-a-glance overview of your most critical sales data.