If HubSpot feels like more work than it saves, you're not alone.
Small teams don’t fail at HubSpot because they’re not capable. They struggle because the system was never made with your actual day-to-day in mind.
You’re trying to manage campaigns, clean up data, track results, and prove ROI. And you're doing all that while wondering if HubSpot is helping or just adding noise.
Let me tell you about one team. Ten people, wearing twenty hats. Marketing was juggling a new product launch. Sales was living out of Gmail. Leadership kept asking, “Can we trust the reports?” Their HubSpot setup looked like a junk drawer. It was stuffed with good intentions and chaos.
Sound familiar?
Here’s the good news: that team cleaned it up. And you can, too. It didn’t take a full replatform. It took clarity, alignment, and a few solid process decisions. After working with dozens of B2B teams, we see the same 9 HubSpot problems come up again and again. Here's how to fix them.
The issue: Everyone’s using spreadsheets, emails, forms, and ad tools. Nothing talks to each other.
Fix it:
Choose your single source of truth. (It should be HubSpot CRM.)
Audit what tools store contacts and plan a one-time, clean CRM migration.
Standardize how you use Contacts, Companies, Deals, and Tickets. No exceptions.
The issue: Data is inconsistent, fields are incomplete, and reports are unreliable.
Fix it:
Kill unused properties. Consolidate duplicate or redundant fields.
Make lifecycle stage, lead status, and key fields required.
Automate standardization (e.g., clean up job titles into one field). “After cleaning up the schema and killing unused properties, the team finally trusted their own dashboards again.
“After cleaning up the schema and killing unused properties, the team finally trusted their own dashboards again.”
The issue: You built five workflows. Now no one wants to touch them. Everyone’s scared to break something.
Fix it:
Start simple: confirmation emails, internal alerts, basic nurturing.
Document enrollment logic in plain English.
Test before launch. Use HubSpot’s built-in tools to preview logic.
“We cut their workflow count by 40%. Nothing broke. Everything got easier to manage.”
The issue: Dashboards don’t answer business questions. Too many charts, not enough clarity.
Fix it:
Start with questions: What do we want to know?
Use pre-built reports and attribution tools before building custom.
Align your data structure with what you want to measure.
“Once we aligned reports to actual business questions, the noise disappeared—and leadership started paying attention.”
The issue: Leadership asks, “What did this campaign actually produce?” You pause… because the answer lives in 12 places—and none of them talk to each other.
Fix it:
Define lifecycle stages clearly (Lead, MQL, SQL, Customer). Write it down. Make it visible.
Link forms, emails, and workflows to deals and contacts. Attribution only works if the data connects.
Use basic attribution reports—first-touch, last-touch, even manual tags. Anything is better than guesswork.
“One client went from ‘no clue what’s working’ to seeing what actually influenced pipeline—just by using the attribution tools they already had.”
The issue: Sales calls it a lead. Marketing calls it a cold contact. Support has no context.
Fix it:
Align on definitions. Create shared SLAs.
Use automation for handoffs (e.g., tasks when a lead hits SQL).
Log everything in one place so no one has to dig through inboxes.
“Just agreeing on what counts as a lead stopped the weekly blame ping-pong between teams.”
The issue: Your team builds quotes in docs or spreadsheets. Nothing is standardized.
Fix it:
Set up your product library with consistent naming and pricing.
Use HubSpot’s quote templates.
Link quotes to deals so you can track performance.
The issue: Need a new landing page? You’re waiting on one person, or worse, an agency.
Fix it:
Use drag-and-drop templates and themes.
Tie all assets (emails, ads, CTAs, pages) to one campaign in HubSpot.
Build a content checklist: Who does what, when, and how?
The issue: You’re using HubSpot for email and forms. That’s it.
Fix it:
Prioritize tools that impact revenue: email nurturing, workflows, forms, reports.
Pick 1–2 new features to implement each quarter.
Get part-time HubSpot help instead of duct-taping it all yourself.
“They were only using email and forms. We added just one smart nurture and they finally saw momentum in pipeline creation.”
If any of this hits home, you're not "doing it wrong."
You're just a small team trying to run a modern GTM engine without 10 full-time specialists.
Here’s how to start:
Pick 2–3 problems from this list that are hitting you hardest.
Fix them in 30–60 days.
Build simple, durable systems first.
Not sure where to start? Drop us a line. We’ll share what’s working for teams like yours. No pitch, just perspective.
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