Background
This manufacturer has been outfitting athletes for decades, producing premium uniforms that show up everywhere—from local youth leagues to professional teams. They run a state-of-the-art facility, control the process from fabric to finish, and are trusted by organizations across North America.
On the operations side, they were rock solid. But when it came to their marketing and sales systems? That’s where things started to unravel. Their CRM housed sales activity, but marketing lived off in its own world. Campaigns went out, but no one could tell if they were actually driving deals. The result: frustration, inefficiency, and a lot of untapped potential.
The challenge
Three main hurdles stood in their way:
- Sales and marketing on different islands: Sales had a CRM. Marketing had campaigns. But the two rarely spoke to each other. Without clear attribution, leadership couldn’t answer simple questions like: Which campaigns actually drive revenue?
- Messy data, messy outcomes: Their CRM was filling with duplicate and unassigned contacts, making reporting nearly impossible. When the data isn’t clean, automation doesn’t work. And when automation doesn’t work, your team wastes time manually fixing what tech should be solving.
- Tools without training: Their marketing team had access to a powerful platform, but without proper onboarding, they felt stuck. Early attempts at building workflows and scoring leads didn’t deliver, leaving them discouraged instead of empowered.
The solution
Rather than drop in more tools or quick fixes, the approach focused on three things:
Fix the foundation
First, the systems had to talk. By cleaning up CRM records and tackling the root causes of sync errors, they were able to establish a healthy integration between Salesforce and HubSpot. This gave both teams the same source of truth.
Teach by doing, not by lecturing
Instead of overwhelming the team with feature overviews, training was hands-on. They built a real campaign together—emails, landing pages, forms, CTAs—every piece connected. The result? A working campaign and a team that finally understood how it all fit together.
Set them up for the future
Once the basics clicked, more advanced concepts came into play. Lead scoring, workflow automation, and a content framework (inspired by “They Ask, You Answer”) gave the team a strategy to keep building on their success.
The results
The transformation was clear:
- A cleaner, smarter system: With data integrity restored, their CRM reports finally made sense. Sync issues were no longer a daily headache, and automation could do its job.
- A confident, capable team: The team went from feeling intimidated by HubSpot to actually enjoying it. They launched campaigns on their own, created templates they could reuse, and built confidence along the way.
- A roadmap that scales: Instead of just patching problems, the engagement left them with a strategic plan: continue exploring advanced reporting, integrate ERP, and expand their content strategy to fuel long-term growth.
Takeaway
This isn’t just a story about fixing broken systems—it’s about what happens when you empower a team with the tools, training, and confidence to own their growth.
By bringing sales and marketing together, cleaning up the data, and teaching the team how to run with it, the company walked away not just with a better platform, but with a stronger foundation for the future.
Because when your systems, strategy, and people are finally aligned? That’s when the real growth begins.
