Use Cases

From Spreadsheets to HubSpot: B2B Sales Gets Clarity

Written by Media Junction | Aug 25, 2025 5:00:00 AM

The challenge

When this B2B SaaS company came to us, they had the drive to grow but were stuck in the weeds. Their tools were there — HubSpot, Excel, MailChimp — but nothing worked together. Instead of clarity, they had chaos:

  • No real sales process: Deals were being tracked in Excel and follow-ups happened through one-off emails. Without a structured pipeline, leaders had no visibility into how opportunities moved (or didn’t move) through the funnel. Forecasts were inaccurate, and performance was hard to measure.
  • Technical headaches everywhere: Their email domain wasn’t authenticated, which tanked deliverability. Nearly 9 out of 10 outbound emails were bouncing before even hitting inboxes. On top of that, data imports from places like ZoomInfo only added duplicate and messy records, leaving their contact database bloated and unreliable.
  • HubSpot collecting dust: They had the right platform but weren’t getting any real value from it. Standard dashboards felt like they were made for B2C companies, not for their B2B needs. They couldn’t easily see how their pipeline was trending, and the lack of reporting left leadership frustrated and flying blind.

In other words: the tools were in place, but the strategy and structure to make them work were missing.

The solution

Our approach wasn’t about shiny add-ons or quick fixes. It was about laying a solid foundation, then building from there.

Step 1: Get the sales process out of spreadsheets.

We worked with their team to map out what their sales cycle actually looked like and built a custom pipeline in HubSpot that matched it. We defined deal stages, added custom properties, and introduced automation tools like the meeting scheduler and sequences to make outreach consistent and scalable. To keep the pipeline clean, we separated early-stage leads into a dedicated prospecting tool — so leadership could finally trust the numbers when looking at forecasts.

Step 2: Fix what was broken under the hood.

We helped them authenticate their email domain with SPF records, which immediately improved deliverability. We also recommended adding an email verification tool like Kickbox to keep bounce rates low. For their database, we guided them through cleaning up duplicates and using HubSpot’s import tool properly so they could update existing records instead of accidentally creating new ones.

Step 3: Make reporting work for B2B.

Out-of-the-box dashboards weren’t cutting it, so we built custom reports tailored to their business. These included quarterly pipeline views, company-level metrics, and account-based marketing features like “target accounts” to help sales and marketing stay aligned. We also showed them where third-party integrations could fill gaps, like extending beyond HubSpot’s native LinkedIn connector.

The results

  • Sales, simplified: Their team now works from a single pipeline with automation doing the heavy lifting. Instead of chasing down details across spreadsheets, they’ve got one central source of truth.
  • Emails that actually land: With authentication fixed and clean data in place, bounce rates plummeted and campaigns started reaching the right people.
  • Reporting that matters: Custom dashboards now give leadership clear visibility into where deals stand, how the pipeline is shaping up, and where to focus resources.

And maybe the biggest shift: confidence. Instead of constantly reacting to problems — bad data, broken processes, missing reports — the team now has control. They can make decisions backed by real data, see what’s working, and plan for what’s next.

The impact

For this company, the biggest win wasn’t just in the numbers (though those improved fast). It was in how their team felt about their sales and marketing operations.

The sales team finally had a process that supported them instead of slowing them down. Outreach became faster, easier, and more consistent.

The marketing team had confidence their campaigns were landing and reaching the right audience.

Leadership had the visibility they’d been missing. Forecasts went from “best guesses” to something reliable.

This engagement showed what’s possible when you combine the right tools with the right strategy. By cleaning up the foundation, this company not only solved their immediate problems but also set themselves up for scale. Now, they’re not just catching up — they’re ahead of the curve.