Set up the free HubSpot CRM properly, first time
HubSpot's free CRM is genuinely good, and genuinely overwhelming when you sign up and stare at an empty account full of features you'll never touch.
Where it hurts
Plenty of small firms sign up for HubSpot, import a messy contact list, poke at a few screens, and quietly abandon it. Not because the tool is bad, but because nobody set it up around their business.
The default account is built for a sales team with a pipeline and a marketing department. You've got customers, jobs and a phone that keeps ringing. Left alone, HubSpot buries the useful bits under sales language and half-configured settings.
So the list ends up half-populated, half-trusted, and you're back to the spreadsheet within a fortnight.
What I'd build
I'd set HubSpot's free tier up around your business, not the demo. That means importing your existing contacts cleanly, hiding the features you don't need, naming things in your language rather than sales-speak, and setting up the few properties that actually matter to you (service type, area, how they found you). If it helps, I'll add a simple pipeline for quotes or jobs so you can see what's in progress. You end up with a tidy CRM you'll actually open, on the free plan, with a clear route to paying only if and when you outgrow it.
What changes
- A working CRM on HubSpot's free plan, no monthly fee
- Your contacts imported and de-duplicated on the way in
- The clutter hidden so you only see what's useful
- A short walkthrough so your team can run it without me
Related fixes
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