video: Marq Condense 7 Different Tech Softwares to HubSpot

In 2021, we were acquired by private equity and spun off of Lucid Software. Apparent company got going on our own and we had to, uh, stand up our own tech stack and pull everything out of the existing system that we had.

It's an interesting transition going from being part of a much larger company to be on your own and there's a lot of infrastructure that you need to like build up. It was gonna be pretty complex, it was gonna be fast. We had some unique legal agreements between moving out of the company.

We had deals running to contact some prospects. I didn't want us to have any downtime whatsoever,

So I knew that we needed a partner.

Hi, I'm Matt Niso. I'm a solutions architect at Aptitude eight.

Hi, I'm m Win Grove and I'm the VP of Professional Services for Aptitude. Eight.

Uh, two emotions ha sort of happened.

Oh wow, this is so exciting. And we have to do this blended with, oh no, we have a 90 day timeline and that makes this near impossible.

So at the beginning of this project, Mark's expectations we're just to survive the

Transition. I had a list of concerns. We just went through that list one by one and he told me, pretty frankly, you know, what we would be able to do and what we wouldn't be able to do. But with a Salesforce stack, we knew it was going to be complex. So we anticipated that that would come with some problems because it was a system that was built for a much larger organization for things that we didn't necessarily need. There were probably going to be challenges that we would encounter and likely need consultants to help us fix things that we broke.

Because when you have a whole bunch of multiple systems tied together, it's the complexity continues to increase and it required eight full-time employees to manage that. There was always problems with API calls and things not working. It was expensive. Uh, there was issues. It was hard to troubleshoot if something wasn't working. It would take weeks to sometimes build out a process because you have to think about all the systems and how they work together. You need a field and all the systems you have to make sure they integrate, make sure you're not doing too many API calls.

Price was a big factor, whether or not the stack would support our existing processes that were important to us, how difficult it would be to administer, um, and take care of the stack to keep it up and running. So we had to make this decision of whether to continue at the existing stack of Salesforce plus

Outreach, Zendesk, acado, chorus, groove. We had a whole bunch of different platforms to do what we needed to do. Okay. We could kind of clone our existing tech stack, uh, or we could build something new. We really wanted one platform for all teams. One platform makes it so much easier to administrate. I'd previously used HubSpot before, you know, you could roll out a feature or a functionality or process between multiple departments, like in a day, like less than a day, in an

Hour. There are a number of different areas where we can improve process and automate things where they made sense. And even were able to give them some functionality that Salesforce couldn't support

In the sales cycle. We had to demonstrate to the Mark team that not only were we capable of doing this, but we wanted to show them, yes we can, but here's the risks, here are the flags. So we started with that deadline. We plotted it on the calendar and we backed right out of it and plotted all the milestones. You know, when is QA happening, when is u a t happening? When is the Go Live window? And that's what we presented to them to prove we can get there.

After that call, I was sold that we were gonna go with Aptitude Date. Uh, at the time they were both a Salesforce partner and a HubSpot partner. And so I knew we could go either way. Um, but I was sold that whatever we did, we would use them.

One of the critical items that we were trying to do was figure out how do we wanna pass data from our product into HubSpot so we can use it? We needed to get data in there quickly and cost effectively, and, and we wanted a solution that we could manage ourselves. They made it feel like this, this is no big deal. We can do this. Here are some ways you could do that. You know, we'd put the keys back in your hand and you can run with it. You can manage it, but we'll help you get there.

So another one of our challenges was the access to the data that we needed to migrate over to HubSpot, both historically in an ongoing manner. We had some limitations around how we got that data when we got that data and what format it was in. So our approach to it was to list out a set of options that we had based on those constraints. Basically explained the trade offs to each of those, and then we reviewed those with Mark so that they felt prepared to discuss those with the stakeholders that they needed to make those asks from

Everyone at Aptitude eight was super honest with us. I felt like they were so transparent. They were so clear on what would be possible and what wouldn't.

At Aptitude date, we approach every single problem, every single client with direct communication, honesty, relentless resourcefulness. That's how we build trust. And so it was no different with the Mark team.

Everyone says, oh, it integrates, you know, but what does that really mean? And how easy is that to use? Business changes, your needs change and you have to be able to adapt. We chose HubSpot because we were looking for a system that could be used across sales, marketing, customer success. We were able to build a much smoother process for internal processes, but also like customer facing, like, what's the customer experience? It was very simple for a small team, even one person to really manage that across the teams. And we were able to move a lot faster. We could implement things faster, we could adapt the system to our needs.

What the HubSpot CRM platform enabled the Mark team to do that other platforms can't, has created a truly consolidated and integrated experience where everything lives behind the same login screen and then pair that with its ability to be customized to make the instance that you really need for your business. And we were able to do that for Mark.

The aptitude Aid is extremely creative. I really came out then with some crazy ideas at the time, and they were great at custom coding things, even for some of our more intense or complex needs

With Aptitude eight, they had experience with all the other platforms because they weren't directly part of HubSpot. It felt like they were giving an unbiased opinion of, Hey, if, if you wanna do this specific thing, the system you're in may be best. And here's why. If you wanna do this specific thing, then HubSpot would be a good fit. They were able to identify our current processes we were using and that we wanted to replicate and show us the best way to do it. In HubSpot,

I was really impressed. I felt like they had a specialist for every single role, which was great cause I felt like David and I were capable of figuring a lot of things out. But they had experts for each of these connection points. All of the members of Aptitude eight, uh, were very personable and just likable people that were easy to work with. And when it came to hitting deadlines, it felt like they were right there on the team with us on trying to accomplish our

Goals. And you can get the results that you want. Like it doesn't have to be let's cut and make every sacrifice and you know, slash all the things off of our requirements list. No, stay true to your requirements. Stay true to your specifications. And work with a partner that can get you to the finish line.

To sort of see how that translates to this new functionality is some of the most rewarding work we do. And to sort of know that it exceeded their expectations was even more rewarding.

The stack that we have now is superior to the stack that we had

Before. An all-in-one solution for us has been life giving. It was a more elegant solution than we had.

You're considering migrating any of your platforms. You're gonna want to partner with someone who's an absolute expert, not just in the platform but in the field. You're also gonna wanna partner with somebody who has Heart and Drive, who's gonna get to the finish line with you. And that's absolutely what we do at Aptitude eight. And you can see that from one sales call, one discovery call. Give us a call, we'll show you. We'll demonstrate to you in that call that we are absolutely experts with so

Much heart. If someone is looking at, uh, moving the HubSpot or concerning working with Aptitude eight, just do it. They, they're gonna be the best partner that you're gonna be able to find.