Overview
A leading life sciences company specializing in preclinical drug development was ready for a change. Despite its track record of delivering thousands of studies to pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations, their internal sales systems told another story: siloed spreadsheets, disconnected communications, and a team stretched thin.
They came to us looking for more than software—they needed a structured sales system, guidance to adopt it, and a path for growth that wouldn’t overwhelm their already lean team.
The challenge
For years, the company’s sales process had been managed entirely through Excel spreadsheets. While this worked in the early days, it quickly became a bottleneck as the company grew. The lack of a centralized CRM created three core challenges:
- Disorganized and disconnected sales process: The team struggled to track client conversations, forecast accurately, or get a real-time view of the pipeline. With studies ranging from in vitro assays to complex in vivo programs, details were slipping through the cracks.
- Difficult onboarding and adoption: With limited time and varying levels of HubSpot experience across the team, adoption stalled. Add in the timing of the engagement—amid holidays, facility renovations, and heavy travel—and it became clear they needed a guided, hands-on approach to succeed.
- Technical roadblocks: A non-functioning Outlook integration was a major blocker. Without email and communication syncing, the team couldn’t achieve the single, unified view of client relationships they were looking for.
The stakes were high. In a competitive field where trust, confidentiality, and precision matter most, the company couldn’t afford inefficiencies in how they engaged with prospective clients.
Our approach
We knew success required more than simply “setting up HubSpot.” This was about building confidence, easing adoption, and showing the team quick wins that matched how they already worked.
Hands-on, project-based setup
Instead of forcing a new process, we mirrored their existing workflow inside HubSpot. We built a unified pipeline with custom deal stages and properties, plus tagging to track study types (in vivo vs. in vitro). Within weeks, the team saw the power of moving away from manual tracking into a centralized system.
Focused training and troubleshooting
To boost adoption, we prioritized training around real-world use cases. We fixed their Outlook integration, introduced sequences to streamline outreach, and trained them on the HubSpot mobile app to capture leads directly at industry trade shows.
Strategic roadmap for growth
Knowing their bandwidth was limited, we created a roadmap that balanced today’s wins with tomorrow’s opportunities. This included fractional admin support to keep things running smoothly and guidance for future marketing initiatives through HubSpot’s Marketing Hub and Content Hub.
The results
- From spreadsheets to a functional CRM: The company successfully migrated years of data into HubSpot, creating a single source of truth for their sales process. Deal tracking, reporting, and forecasting are now automated, providing clarity they never had before.
- Improved adoption across the team: With guided training and troubleshooting, team members who had been hesitant became active users. One team member in particular championed HubSpot’s sequences, cutting down manual outreach and freeing time for relationship building.
- Confidence in the future: Beyond solving immediate pain points, the team walked away with a roadmap for growth, a customized system that reflected their business, and the tools to expand into marketing automation when ready.
Why it matters
This case shows how even highly specialized, research-driven organizations benefit from a streamlined, centralized sales system. By meeting the client where they were—respecting existing processes while guiding them into new ones—we didn’t just implement software. We built a foundation for efficiency, adoption, and future growth.
In the world of preclinical research, precision matters in the lab—and now, it matters in sales, too.
