Pure Bookkeeping’s Broken Technology Stack
As President and CEO of Pure Bookkeeping North America, Michael Palmer knew its expansion to the U.S. from Canada would require him to take a realistic look at the company’s technology stack and its ability to grow with the company.
Initially, Michael grew his customer base by holding live seminars in some of Canada’s largest metropolitan areas. But the United States has about 50 to 100 cities of the same size, and it seemed unlikely that he could scale the same approach to the U.S. market. Therefore, Michael and his team turned to sales and marketing technology to see if they could use it to make his expanded vision for the company a reality.
Starting with Infusionsoft, they found they needed to add Zapier, OptinMonster, and Squarespace to enable funnels, pop-ups, and websites. When they needed to add custom landing pages, they had to bring in yet another software to solve for that.
These solutions stacked up, and soon Michael couldn’t even remember what each provider did, who their point of contact was, when their contract was up for a renewal, and so much more.
Given these disparate systems, it didn’t take long for the technology stack to break.
“I spent most of my days trying to figure out why this thing happened or why that thing wasn’t working,” says Michael. “I was pulling my hair out.”
Eventually, Michael had to hire consultants to troubleshoot, which was an added expense.
The whole situation distracted Michael from his company’s central mission — and it also ran counter to Pure Bookkeeping’s advice to its own customers.
“We’re a system building company,” says Michael. “So why weren’t we building our system in a way that we would recommend to our customers?”
Knowing he needed to make a change, Michael grappled with which solution to choose.
Pure Bookkeeping Uses HubSpot to Reach Prospective Customers Across North America
Michael had worked with Salesforce before, so that’s where he started his search. But he soon realized it was too expensive and complicated for his dispersed sales and support team, and other technology pieces would still be needed.
Eventually, a friend suggested HubSpot. When Michael signed up for HubSpot's free tools, he was impressed with how easy they were to use.
Still, he worried that HubSpot would be too expensive. But when he compared the costs of his current technology stack to HubSpot, he saw that HubSpot would cost less.
Just as important, he liked HubSpot’s direction.
“HubSpot was building the exact technology pieces I needed to remain nimble and small, yet grow our business without all of this crazy chaos,” says Michael.
For all of these reasons, Michael implemented the full Starter Customer Platform. The bundle gives subscribers access to all six HubSpot products along with the Smart CRM: Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Content Hub, Service Hub, Commerce Hub, and Operations Hub. This platform hosts everything under one umbrella, with a single login and holistic views of all cross-functional activities.
Some of the most leveraged features are:
Michael is automating his marketing, sales, and service processes to make his teams more efficient. It’s also lessening his workload and opening his schedule for more creative thinking.
Michael and his team are using HubSpot reporting and analytics to get a deeper understanding of what’s happening in the business.
One insight proved to be particularly valuable:
“HubSpot helped us identify that we didn’t have a marketing problem,” says Michael. “We were bringing in leads, but we weren’t executing on our marketing efforts to follow up, nurture, and analyze them. With workflow automation, I can do 50 things in just a few seconds. It’s like we’ve doubled or tripled our staff without adding any additional headcount.”
HubSpot Academy answers questions and develops the team’s professional skills with its free (and ever-expanding) online training.
Michael also takes comfort in knowing that HubSpot has tens of thousands of users just like him.
HubSpot Solutions Partner Program
When Michael discovered Content Hub could replace six WordPress sites, one Squarespace site and another custom CMS, he turned to the HubSpot Solutions Partner Program for development help.
“Whatever we can imagine, we’ve been able to produce. And I can add bench strength to the team at any time without increasing my headcount,” says Michael. “We couldn’t have gotten as far, as fast without our HubSpot Certified Partner. Richard and his team at Chirp Media have been excellent.”
Not only was Michael able to migrate his sites quickly, they run lightning fast, look beautiful and can be updated by any of his team members in just a few clicks.
ROI in the first 90 days of using HubSpot
Pure Bookkeeping was able to see results quickly. Within five to ten minutes of working with HubSpot, Michael was already able to make better decisions. He was able to get a few customers within hours of set up. With the help of the HubSpot customer platform, Pure Bookkeeping was able to sell more licenses within 90 days of using HubSpot than in the entire year prior without HubSpot.
HubSpot is also helping Pure Bookkeeping run more efficiently, saving hours of time with templates and workflow automation. In fact, when Pure Bookkeeping experienced a spike in new customers, Michael’s team was able to quickly onboard 30 new customers. Something that would have taken a month with the old technology stack took just a few days.
Michael is also thrilled because his time is no longer spent fixing technology. Instead, his focus has shifted to helping his customers grow their businesses and provide better service to their own clients.
“HubSpot frees us to do the work we need to do without being strangled by technology,” says Michael. “It’s reignited my passion for this business.”
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