The Client
How do you know who will be right for your team? And how can you be sure that your recruiting partner will know, too? The key is having a mindset that matches your team. hatch I.T. is a recruitment firm specializing in the tech industry, particularly servicing startups with staffing needs. Operating with a startup ethos and a compact team to match, hatch I.T. employs a unique strategy of account-based marketing when reaching out to new potential clients. Unlike many others in their industry, they initially engage potential clients by offering them a feature in one of their industry publications, which lets them provide value and gain publicity for these companies. This approach not only helps them showcase their expertise but also lays the groundwork for future recruitment services. After they feature a new company, the team reaches out to see if they would be a good fit for helping them expand their team.
The Problem
Because of their unique prospecting process, hatch I.T. faced challenges with their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. They experimented with several platforms including Pipedrive, which was limited in customization, and Salesforce, which proved overly complex for their needs. Being that they had a small but tech-savvy team, they wanted to balance customization with ease of use.
After careful deliberation, the team settled on HubSpot for its optimal balance of ease of use and customization capabilities. As newcomers to HubSpot, they sought to enhance their sales and marketing efficiency by enlisting help to get their Hubs set up. hatch I.T.’s model intricately links marketing to sales, as their marketing efforts directly generate leads through platforms like Zoominfo, making the need for an effective CRM system to track and manage these leads critical. So, what they needed was a setup that maintained this link from marketing to sales and helped them report on the metrics that guided them.
The Solution
The team paired up with ClearPivot to get their team onboarded to HubSpot while maintaining their unique processes intact. To address their needs, the first piece of the project was to guide hatch I.T. in mapping out their deal stages and contact lifecycle stages. This would help the ClearPivot and hatch I.T. teams understand what was needed for their initial setup of HubSpot. These stages would then become the Lifecycle Stages and Lead Statuses that hatch I.T. would manage within HubSpot. Both teams knew that skipping the documentation could lead to a HubSpot implementation that didn’t align with their actual approach, so planning was critical for a good outcome.
The lifecycle stages they decided on were:
- 'Subscriber,' which is the label for individuals who sign up for hatch I.T.'s podcast or newsletter.
- ‘SQL' (Sales Qualified Lead) represents leads imported from ZoomInfo or contacts identified through direct interactions like form submissions, marking them as potential recruitment prospects. This indicates that they’ll need follow-up from the sales team.
- The 'Opportunity' stage is initiated when a deal is created, signaling a deeper engagement with a potential client.
- The 'Customer' stage is used when hatch I.T. is officially hired to assist in staffing, reflecting a successful conversion.
- 'Former Customer' is a custom stage for clients with whom business relations have concluded, allowing for tailored re-engagement strategies.
- The 'Other' category encompasses non-prospect interactions such as partners and employees, ensuring all contacts are managed appropriately within the CRM ecosystem.
The next step was to integrate their tech. One of the first technical implementations was setting up an integration with Zapier to transfer contact data from ZoomInfo to HubSpot. This integration would help them make sure that every lead from ZoomInfo was accounted for in their CRM. Through workflow automation, these contacts would be automatically classified as Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs).
They also set up custom properties and workflows, such as "contract end date" to prompt sales engagement, and "closed-lost reason" to analyze lost opportunities. Their system includes two linked deal pipelines: an article pipeline that feeds into a recruiting pipeline, effectively tracking the transition from initial engagement to active recruitment interest.
As for their lead statuses, a lead starts off as 'New,’ which shows that the team has not yet made contact. Once the sales team enrolls them in a sequence to get in touch, the status is updated by a workflow to 'Attempted to Contact.' If the lead gets back to the sales team by responding to an email or scheduling a meeting, their status is automatically updated to 'Connected.’ The status is updated to ' Open Deal ' if the conversation moves onto a negotiation or proposal stage. Leads deemed not currently suitable for pursuit are classified as 'Unqualified,' and those who cannot engage due to timing issues are labeled 'Bad Timing.' To back up their sales process, a workflow also checks for associated deals that have been labeled with ‘Bad Timing’ in the Closed Lost Reason field to update a contact’s lead status to ‘Bad Timing.’
ClearPivot gave the hatch I.T. team comprehensive training and support to make sure that the hatch I.T. team was fully equipped to manage their processes in HubSpot. Every week, they’d meet to review their progress and ask for as well as strategic advice on their implementation. The hatch I.T. team was tech-savvy and eager to get going, so they utilized their time between calls to move forward with the project. ClearPivot wanted to make sure the hatch I.T. team could handle the system independently and make informed decisions for their future processes.
The Results
By the end of their assisted onboarding, hatch I.T. successfully integrated HubSpot as their central CRM solution, establishing it as the "single source of truth" for their operations. The new system offered robust safeguards against losing potential deals and improved their reporting capabilities, which helped keep their operations streamlined and on target.
The process maps they developed standardized their approach, leading to rapid user adoption and efficient use of the newly implemented features. The most important part of this project was that now, the team had the knowledge to keep inventing better ways to move their business forward. hatch I.T.'s strategic use of HubSpot has not only optimized their workflow but also reinforced the link between their marketing initiatives and recruitment success, demonstrating the effectiveness of their innovative client engagement strategy. With help from ClearPivot, the team created a stable foundation on which to build its business. Though the team will grow, it now has the tools to keep its edge and provide unique recruiting services to its partners, now and in the future.
