Sales & Marketing Playbook: Unleashed

From Messy CRMs To Measurable Growth With HubSpot

• Evan Polin & Craig Andrews

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If your CRM feels like a black hole instead of a growth engine, this conversation will change how you build, measure, and coach your sales and marketing efforts. We sit down with Cathy Cain-Blank of The WDG Agency to unpack the real reason teams struggle with HubSpot—and how to fix it fast.

We start by drawing a hard line: strategy before software. Cathy explains why DIY implementations fail, how to map progressive deal stages that reflect real buyer movement, and which definitions every team must standardize to trust their data. From there, we dig into quick wins at the professional tier: task automation that prevents post-proposal drift and playbooks that replace scattered notes with structured discovery captured right in the record. The result is fewer “I’ll get back to it” meetings and more pipelines that actually move.

We also explore smart disqualification and recycling. Instead of letting “interested but later” clog your forecast, close the loop and send contacts into targeted nurture workflows. Cathy shows how unified engagement data—sales emails opened and clicked, marketing content consumed, form submissions—helps reps prioritize outreach while giving marketers the insight to refine offers. This is where HubSpot shines: one platform, shared visibility, and a feedback loop that ties campaigns to qualified conversations.

Adoption is where leaders earn their keep. We talk through driving consistent usage without bureaucracy, building peer-led learning around what top performers record, and measuring what matters: stage conversions, time-in-stage bottlenecks, and the engagement signals that precede wins. If you’ve only used 25 percent of your CRM’s power, you’ll leave with specific ideas to expand intelligently—sequences for outreach, smarter forms for lead capture, and dashboards that bring focus to the day.

Ready to turn your CRM from cost center to compounding asset? Listen now, then subscribe, rate, and share with a teammate who owns sales or marketing. Drop your questions on LinkedIn—we’d love to hear where your pipeline gets stuck and what you’ll try next.

SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed, the premier podcast for innovative growth strategies, hosted by two seasoned experts. Meet Evan Poland, the president of Poland Performance Group, a master in sales coaching with over two decades of experience. Evan is not just a consultant, he's a force in sales, focusing on mindset, planning, and skill development. He's also the co-author of Selling Professional Services The Sandler Way. Joining him is Craig Andrews, partner and CEO of Beholder Agency, an expert in growth marketing. With 20 years under his belt, Craig blends marketing creativity with strategy to propel businesses forward, making Beholder Agency a leader in effective marketing solutions. Together, Evan and Craig are here to share their wisdom on winning strategies, best practices, and transformative insights that will fuel your growth. Get ready to revolutionize your sales and marketing approach right here on the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed.

SPEAKER_02:

And welcome to the Sales and Marketing Playbook Unleashed. I'm Craig Andrews and my partner in crime, Evan Poland. How are you today? I'm doing great. How are you doing today, Craig? I am super excited. And here's why I'm excited. I'm excited because we have a guest on today who is kind of a perfect blend of you and I. You know my saying, if you've been paying attention to the show, my my my phrase is data, data, data, right? And a lot of times I know when I've been in your your um your training sessions, you talk about accountability. So the commonality between those two is naturally a CRM. A CRM, right? So we have a guest today who is going to do a great job because I use HubSpot. I know you use HubSpot. Not that we're particularly on HubSpot alone.

SPEAKER_03:

But if HubSpot would like to sponsor the podcast, we would not be opposed for anybody from HubSpot who may be listening.

SPEAKER_02:

And I won't put the phone down. I'll you know I'll answer it all day long, right? So I'm gonna bring to the stage uh Kathy. Kathy, I'm today.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm good, and I'm equally happy about HubSpot as a topic of conversation as you guys are.

SPEAKER_02:

Absolutely. So for our guests, why don't you give them a little bit of a background in term of in terms of what you do and what you offer?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. So my company is the WDG Agency. It stands for We Drive Growth, and we tackle anything and everything under the sales and marketing operations umbrella. So HubSpot as a CRM and the related tools is a big part of what we do, but it starts with CRM implementation and goes all the way through a lot of email marketing campaigns and sales messaging to keep people in front of their target audience on an ongoing basis.

SPEAKER_02:

Very good, very good. And so let's talk a little bit about uh HubSpot, your expertise and the client impact. Um, Evan, did you have a question in terms of that?

SPEAKER_03:

Sure. And I Kathy, and we're very excited to have you as a guest um just because you sit square right in between sales and marketing and incorporate both. Um and we've also lately had a lot of guests um on the podcast talking about AI. And again, that's that's you know, really HubSpot can help a lot with automation, messaging, those kinds of things. I know that you've worked with, you've helped a lot of small and mid-sized companies with HubSpot. What are some of the challenges first? Well, we'll start with the negative first in terms, terms of some of the challenges that you've seen businesses make when they first implement a HubSpot or when they're even thinking about implementing a CRM.

SPEAKER_00:

The biggest mistake that we see is they plunge right in and they think, oh, we can go it alone. We'll be fine. We're comfortable with software, we know how to do this. And what makes that a mistake is that HubSpot is this incredibly powerful platform, partly because it's so customizable. So if you're gonna be the super admin for your account, and then you have to train other people in your company, you need to make darn sure that everything is set up in a way that everybody can operate in sync, efficiently, effectively. But the problem is if you don't have a big understanding of what you can customize and control, you can't train people properly, and then that's where you end up disappointed and frustrated because you blame it on the technology and you think, well, this platform doesn't work for us. It's not the platform.

SPEAKER_03:

And it's more difficult for companies to do things two or three times versus you know having it all set out properly the first time.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you could spend an inordinate inordinate amount of time trying to figure things out as opposed to just having the setup done for you and focus on getting everybody trained, comfortable, and excited about the platform, and then you can go be productive. So it yeah, we end up with a lot of companies that come to us because they have HubSpot and they've got a mess on their hands, and they know the capacity is there for it to be something that enhances their operations and helps them convert everything else, and they just couldn't do it on their own. So that's one of the biggest mistakes.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh, I know, I know in a lot of cases, and I've seen it before on my end, is a lot of people will get a powerful tool like this in HubSpot, and they'll take all their data and they'll slap it in there. But I want to take I want to transition a little bit into strategy, okay. Um, in terms of the strategy, do you often work with companies from two to uh two to one point, two point fifteen million, excuse me. Yeah. Um, how do you balance the technology with the strategy? Because strategy is a big part of the marketing arm of this and the sales arm, to be honest with you, and making sure it works cohesively. How do you balance that when you're when you're dealing with people in HubSpot?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, the first thing is to make sure that they understand that you can do a lot with the technology, but the strategy has to come first. For instance, we need to know what needs to be tracked, we need to know what needs to be simplified compared to how they've been operating, whether it's just on Excel or maybe with a not so terrific CRM. We need to know what they need as an efficient process. Otherwise, there's no way to use the technology properly. So, strategy first, tell us what you need. Let's figure it out. We know what questions to ask, and then we're going to set things up that works for their industry, their specific company, and so on.

SPEAKER_03:

And for a company first starting to use HubSpot, what are a couple of ways that they can get a couple of quick wins, maybe help them get the buy-in from within their organization so that they have a good experience and start to see the value relatively quickly?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, for starters, there are a lot of specific little functions and features that nobody would know about and nobody's gonna learn by watching a million hours of HubSpot Academy videos. Um, you have to be shown what's gonna help your organization and your team members the most. And I'll give you a simple, a couple of simple examples. One is if you're at the professional level with the tools, you can use automation to create tasks and create reminders. And whether it's to make sure the deals don't fall off the radar and have the deal owner notified every couple days, hey, you sent the proposal, but it's been sitting in the proposal sense stage. Um, that's a great way to ensure that you don't have sales meetings again and again where everybody's saying, Oh, yeah, I better check on that one, or I'm not sure what's happening with that opportunity. So it's it's using the technology to make sure that everything stays on top of the radar. Another big thing that I love is playbooks. A lot of companies don't even know that playbooks is included in the sales professional tool. And I say that because it wasn't up until a couple of years ago. Used to be that was only an enterprise level feature. Well, then they added it to Pro, and you can get five different playbooks. Well, guess what? We see crazy discovery processes that companies are using, and maybe they're slapping questions on a Google Doc just as a guideline, or they've got literally printed printed documents, almost forms on their desk, and they go through the questions with the potential client, and then they have to just manually type in the answers.

SPEAKER_02:

That's not let me let me interrupt you real quick, just for our audience space, because they might not follow you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

In terms of playbooks, what are playbooks? That simplicity is might be what helps them trigger into the next move.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Well, to me, there are a couple different types of playbooks. One is documentation, it can be scripts, especially valuable for newer employees, so that they don't fumble and stumble when they get on the phone or get on a Zoom meeting. You know, they know how to lead the conversation to gather the kind of information that will help them figure out if this buyer is a good fit for their company's products and services. Um, the other type of playbook that I'm especially fond of is one that allows you to enter your questions instead, again, of having them on a form or a Google Doc. I saw a pretty Excel sheet the other day. Sort of silly. What are you gonna do that? So that that leads you through. You've got your questions right in front of you. Question number one, it's there on the screen. You type in your answer, you go on to the next one, and so on. And at the end, you just click a little button that says submit, and the answers and the questions are right there in that prospect's record. It's great for quick reference. What I also love about it is you're not gonna forget to ask a critical question, you're not winging it.

SPEAKER_03:

And so you're trying to say for companies looking to scale, if they actually have a process and the process is in writing and they that their folks can follow it, that there's a chance they may be a little bit more successful?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, imagine that. Um, I think what people forget if they haven't had processes in place, they don't yet have an appreciation for the time it will save them and how much easier it will make their job of figuring out, well, this one needs to go by the wayside, we can't help them. This one seems like a wonderful fit. Yeah, they say their timetable is six months from now. That's okay. I can be prepared to follow up in the right time period, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_02:

So, yeah, as I as I hear that, yeah, I'm hearing I'm hearing a little Evan on my shoulder who's talking about being able to classify I I told you there was medication for that. I'll say something, yeah. That little Evan is your cue to talk about how the sales part of things can work with this hub spot example. I I know you hear it. Do you want to explain to everybody in terms of how that process in the playbooks can work on the sales perspective?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, yeah, I mean, what you're saying Evan or me? Either one. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

First, just from a sales strategy point of view, um, for all of this to work, you actually have to have a playbook or have a sales strategy to put into HubSpot. HubSpot's not going to say abra cradabra, here it is. This is what works for everyone. So your organization should have a way that you're qualifying and disqualifying prospects. You should know what questions you want your folks to ask and what answers they may get that may let you that let them know this isn't a great opportunity. We should probably disqualify what answers they might hear that let them know, yes, this is something we want to pursue. Or, and again, I know Kathy's gonna talk a little bit about you know the automation within HubSpot. Okay, these are the three boxes we need to tick as it moves from one part of the pipeline to the next part of the pipeline. So I think that companies need to have that process in place first so that then when somebody goes to implement HubSpot, they know what they're actually putting in. They know what the playbook's gonna look like, they know what the stages of the pipeline is gonna look like. Because much like we talk about sales and marketing needing to work together, if you don't actually have the information and the qualification that you want to input into HubSpot, HubSpot's not gonna work really well if you don't know what you're tracking and what boxes you want to tick. And Kathy, maybe you want to talk a little bit about from an implementation standpoint, you know, what companies need to think about, and maybe some companies that you've seen that have been really successful with this, and maybe some projects that haven't gone as well because maybe things weren't as well defined.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll give you a few examples of challenges that we have encountered recently and uh see periodically. So one is when it comes to a sales pipeline with your deal stages, sometimes companies think of stages not as progressive, but just as sort of a status report. And they will create stages with names like interested but dormant, or interested but later. And that's not gonna help zero in on well, who do we think that we can make headway with right now, this month, or this quarter? So those are companies that are just trying to use the technology, they figure out technically how to use it, but there's not a process, as you mentioned earlier, Evan, or a strategy behind how do we make sure that we are equipped in order to make everything that could possibly work well for us and the client, how do we make it happen? So when we help them set up their new stages, it kind of holds their feet to the fire. And some accountability, yeah. And because it's also make a decision. Come on, this this deal has been languishing here for four months. Is it lost? Because if it's lost, that's okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Make it I I love those really wimpy companies who won't put clothes lost and just well, you know, not now, or they and it's like exactly yeah, and and the whole thing is that one of the reasons I like it is that it forces you to focus on what can happen sooner than later, and also it sets it up so that it's okay if somebody says no now, maybe they're interested later.

SPEAKER_00:

Great, then set some follow-up tasks to keep in touch with this person because you're gonna just create another deal when the time is right for them to be considering engaging your services.

SPEAKER_03:

Um, so that that's a big that's one big issue in terms of trying to um and and Craig and I talk about the importance of sales and marketing working together. So if a deal is dis for folks who may not be HubSpot users, may not be great with CRM still using XL spreadsheets in a HubSpot and a CRM, if a deal is disqualified, is there a mechanism to move somebody back into a marketing campaign so they continue to get touches and continue to be nurtured?

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, because if you're dealing with big numbers of contacts, that's critical. Um, we have a client that we work with, it's a medical clinic, and it's a very expensive service. Insurance doesn't cover it. But it doesn't mean that in a year or further down the road that they aren't going to offer a service that will work for some of these people who aren't gonna move to their location today and engage in their treatments. So there's I I'm optimist by nature. So there's always hope, especially as companies continue to develop more products and services and they're maybe for a different audience. So you bet it's okay to move it into lost. You just have to have your workflows, your automation and process to put them back in a specific funnel to keep educating, as you say, to keep nurturing, to stay in touch and try again because you never know. You know, we've all, everyone I know has had companies and and and buyers who have come back after X amount of time because now you are a good fit. They're a good fit.

SPEAKER_02:

So as I started the show off, I talked about data, data, data, as you know, from a marketing perspective. I need to know what's working to help the sales side get more efficient uh opportunities. Tell us about what uh HubSpot can do from a marketing perspective, in terms of data, in terms of touches, in terms of uh how campaigns are working and things of that fashion.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, in its simplest way, if you're creating a form that you're gonna put on your website to easily track how many new people have visited our website and completed a form, and now they're new leads and they're now in HubSpot. That's simple data, but it's useful. It may impact what you change about the form, or maybe you decide to do multiple forms, or you're doing different forms for certain lead magnets. That's it, the simplest form. Um, when you send out your email marketing campaigns, just like with any other email service provider like Constant Contact or MailChimp, you're gonna see who opens and who clicks, and you're gonna get information like, okay, well, this is what they clicked at. That's all pretty standard um analytics that you get today. But to me, where that comes into play is working it into the sales messaging and activity because it is one big picture, it is one platform, and there's a reason for it. So um the the marketing and the sales data and activity, it should really be accessible and available and discussed by both sales and marketing people. Simple example my contacts page, and anybody who's a HubSpot user will know this. My standard go-to view, and this is what we set up 99% of the time for clients, it pulls in information in real time of who opened a sales email. Sales email, right, sent as a one-off out of the CRM, out of Google or Outlook, depending on what your email client is. Um, it could be a template that's a one-off, it could be a template that's part of a sequence. But when I'm wearing my sales hat, I want to know who's paying attention to the emails that we're opening. Are they clients? Are they prospects and where are they at in our process? By the same token, I also have a column pulled in with recent sales email clicked information. So sometimes I resort the view and I can see not just who opened the email, but who clicked. Did they click to go look at a page on our site? Did they click to go read a blog article that I sent to them because I thought it would be of interest? In addition, I pull in a column for last marketing email open and another one on last marketing email clicked. And you can drill down in all of them. So you start to have information that really guides you. There may be salespeople that are thinking, you know, darn it, they're they're not really responding to the the offering that I sent out, the proposal I sent out. Okay, but isn't that interesting that they are reading articles about your services that are coming out as marketing emails? Maybe they're just they're not ready to keep talking, they want to be a little more invisible, but they're still demonstrating an interest. So I think this is all part of effectively using the platform and making it easier for users. Marketing people need to have the insights, and sales people need to have the insights. It helps everybody in the end.

unknown:

Yep.

SPEAKER_02:

And what I'll say is what do I say, Evan? We are the playbook. We give you the insights and the details to help you grow your business. And that's why we brought in Kathy to explain another tool that'll help your sales and marketing, because I believe it's the backbone of a business, any business. You can say what you want about all the engineering and innovation and stuff like that. If you can't sell and you can't market, nobody cares you exist. That's a fact.

SPEAKER_03:

Right. Yeah, yeah. You can have the best product that nobody knows about, nobody's ever used.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. Right. So we are the playbook and we bring here Kathy. Kathy, here's your chance. Think about it for a second while Evan and I do some plugging stuff. You're going to leave them with three tips that they need to remember when they leave the playbook. Okay. And while you think about it, Evan, why don't you give everybody an idea who we are and what we do, where they can see us in the nine.

SPEAKER_03:

So uh, well, we are the sales and marketing playbook unleashed. Um, so some of the places that you can come and find us. If you go onto LinkedIn, you'll see clips of our episodes uh that you can go and check out. If you want to see our beautiful smiling faces, uh you can go to um YouTube and see episodes. You can also go to Spotify, Apple, wherever you get your favorite podcasts, uh, ours is there. Please like, follow, subscribe, uh, check out our episodes. We have a couple of great guests coming up, as well as some content to try to drive you through the end of the year. Make sure that you're able to cross those goals between now and the end of the year. Uh, so come check us out. And if you have questions, if you disagree with anything that we say, go on to LinkedIn, comment, share your opinions. Uh, we'd love to engage with you. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02:

So, Kathy, if you can first let everybody know how they can reach you, how they can contact you, and then give us your top three.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. So, again, uh Kathy Kane Blank, my company is the WDG Agency. And you can send me an email, Kathy C at the WDGAgency.com. Um, when you get to the site, you can also at the uh WDGAgency.com just click on one of the buttons that says schedule a meeting with me. I am always happy to meet with anybody about HubSpot, look at their account, make some suggestions, and leave them in a better place. Um, so don't hesitate to reach out if you have HubSpot headaches or frustrations. I guarantee I can make some of them go away in within an hour. All right. Um, okay. And my three specifics tips to share, I'd say this again, reiterating. It really doesn't matter what what the technology is, don't go it alone. So many SaaS tools are set up with partners, right? Who specialize, who know the platform inside and out. Make use of their services and their insight and their experience and their expertise. Um, otherwise, you're never gonna get a full ROI on your investment in the platform. And HubSpot in particular is very expensive among the most. In addition, you're gonna struggle and you're gonna pay more over time. The second thing is be prepared to use as many of the tools as possible. Years ago, I read a quote that said, you know, we all use maybe 25% of software that we're paying for. Well, again, a partner will help you get past that. But there are bound to be tools with that with are within the platform that you're overlooking, and it could make a big difference in your operations and your efficiency and ultimately in growing and generating more business. The other thing is you you kind of have to require your users to follow the process, and they have to accept the training and um and just know that they're gonna be uncomfortable at first, whether they're coming off of Excel or another platform, or maybe they just feel like I don't want to feel like everybody has visibility into what I'm doing. But it it's also beneficial to have your colleagues in the same place because then you can communicate and help one another. What works for them may also work for you. So if you don't, you know, sort of play in the same sandbox and talk about the toys you've got in there, you're you're you're you're making things harder on yourself. So require, I know that sometimes is a harsh word, but everybody has to play ball, everybody has to follow the rules. And and it's not about data entry, it's about being able to use the data in there to help you be more strategic with your sales and your marketing efforts.

SPEAKER_02:

See, I I love, I absolutely love the play ball that plays right into our theme. Go birds. Um, and so you heard it here first. We are the playbook. Um, stay tuned. We have a lot more shows coming up, and we're really excited. Thank you, Kathy, for being here. Uh, and as we close out, anything else you want to finish with, Evan?

SPEAKER_03:

So just remember, there's all of these tools available. These tools are here that may be uncomfortable at first. They're here to make you more successful. Whether it's tracking, whether it's sales, whether it's marketing, take advantage of those tools that you have. It's going to make you a lot more successful.

SPEAKER_02:

And with that, great exclamation point at the end. As we say here on the playbook, keep winning. See you soon. Bye-bye now.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for joining us on this exhilarating journey through the world of sales and marketing. Remember, the playbook is in your hands and the possibilities are limitless. Keep exploring, experimenting, and innovating, and watch as your business reaches unprecedented levels of success. Don't forget to subscribe to the sales and marketing playbook unleashed on all major podcast platforms, and follow us on YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn for even more exclusive content. Until next time, keep hustling and keep winning.

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Craig Andrews

Host
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Evan Polin

Host