topic Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler in Ask Me Anything and Panel Discussions

[Closed] AMA with Karsten Köhler

sharonlicari — Fri, 23 Jul 2021 16:15:03 GMT

Hey Community,

@karstenkoehler is a high-valued member and a thought-leader of our DACH and EN Communities. Karsten is currently at the top of our leaderboard in both communities and the quality of content that Karsten has consistently delivered is remarkable.

Karsten was able to reach 1000 solutions accepted in less than a year and a half.

From the 19th of July until the 23rd of July you will have the opportunity to ask Karsten anything you want about him, his experience, knowledge and HubSpot.

Here are some sample questions could be:

What is your favorite HubSpot tool
What is the toughest question you've answered on the Community
What are your tips for customizing your CRM

Have fun! 🙂

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

danmoyle — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 13:33:19 GMT

Thanks for doing this @karstenkoehler! I'm curious what your Community time looks like. Do you devote specific hours or days to it? You're so active, how do you manage it along with your other work?

And a follow up... in addition to your obvious penchant for helping, why do you do it? Does it lead to leads/connections for your business?

Thanks!

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

karstenkoehler — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 13:43:45 GMT

Hey @danmoyle,

One of the reasons I am so active in the community is that it's a great way to sharpen problem solving skills. I've definitely become a better HubSpot consultant during my time in the community, learning about new functionalities and figuring out what the best workarounds for very specific situations are. I can generate more value for my customers that way. I'm faster at figuring out solutions and I can with very high accuracy and confidence say what's possible and how long it's going to take me. There's also almost instant feedback as to whether a solution works.

And yes, my activity in the community has helped me get more exposure especially in the German speaking markets. The leads that I generate from my meeting link in the signature are either people who mistake me for HubSpot support or very highly qualified leads.

As far as my time management goes, that's also a mystery to me. I'll hit 2,000 solutions soon. With 5-10 minutes per solution, that's between 20-40 working days that I've spent on solutions alone. German time management skills and efficiency I guess?

Thanks for asking!

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

ConnorSlivensky — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 17:28:52 GMT

How do respond so fast? I've got the Knowledge Base bookmarked and everything still can't get close. Is it dictation software or what?

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

karstenkoehler — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 18:14:22 GMT

Hi @ConnorSlivensky,

I have a developer portal set up with all kinds of dummy data for easy access, screenshots etc – and typing fast helps. Just did one of these tests for the first time in ages:

Also for 1 out of 20 answers, I'm able to site-search the community for an old answer of mine and re-use it.

Thanks for the question!

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

TheMiz777 — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 18:43:47 GMT

What's your favorite suite of tools for Direct Mail + PURL campaigns?

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

AHudson — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 21:48:10 GMT

@karstenkoehler I can't believe there is a live AMA happening with you right now!

What advice would you give in regards to best organizing Sales assets for prospecting emails within Hubspot's horizontal folder system?

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

karstenkoehler — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 04:09:38 GMT

Hi @TheMiz777,

Haven't used one myself yet but Postalytics would be the first one I'd evaluate: Personalize HubSpot Landing Pages With pURLs

Thank you for the question!

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

karstenkoehler — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 04:19:30 GMT

Hi @AHudson,

Hahaha, I know, right?

This depends a bit on what exactly you're trying to achieve. If you want to use HubSpot's documents feature, this is a question about categorization and taxonomy, mostly. There are a few threads in the community about naming conventions, I would take these as starting points for how to name your files.

Regarding the folder structure, documents could be sorted into folders by topical area (e.g. industries), the sales process stage or deal stage they're usually needed in (e.g. exploratory call documents) or – if highly personalized – by sales rep.

Generally, the file system structure in HubSpot is limited, yes. I'd love to see more functionalities in the future here, too (multiple level folder structures, tagging etc).

If you need a sales asset management solution in general, I'd recommend having a look at digitial asset management software in the HubSpot App Marketplace. So far I've only used solutions that do not integrate well with HubSpot, unfortunately, but Brandfolder has been mentioned here and there in the community.

Thanks for the question!

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

auto-mate — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 06:23:44 GMT

Hi Karsten, what do you think about handling "re-leading" i.e. contacts that re-enter the buyer journey - such as upselling or cross-selling to existing customers, or customers making unrelated product/service/solution purchases - specifically with respect to long B2B sales cycles?

We have this linear lifecycle approach with Hubspot - can we break it, should we break it?

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

karstenkoehler — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 07:36:40 GMT

Hi @auto-mate,

Agreed, while HubSpot has introduced the flywheel model, the tool itself is mostly following a linear logic. How exactly you're "breaking" with this approach depends a lot on your requirements and sales process. Over the years I've set up different processes to handle upselling, cross-selling, resetting lifecycle stages after inactivity etc.

My recommendation would be to try to document your sales processes and requirements as accurately as possible. Not a fun task (unless you love process documentation, user stories and requirements), but invaluable if done correctly. If for example you need to see something specific in your reporting, you can then reverse engineer whether that affects HubSpot's linear lifecycle stage logic or whether you're fine using it as is and an assisting custom property will do for these reporting purposes.

I know this is a bit of a vague answer, but: it depends 😉

Great question!

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

auto-mate — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 10:33:04 GMT

I agree - I think the only answer is "it depends"!

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

auto-mate — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 10:53:52 GMT

...The flywheel thinking is great and there are good planning charts there ...but... I fear if I explore that thinking with my organisation the lack of concrete Hubspot features to put it into practice will make thnigs cloudier 😉

The other paradigm I'm grappling with is source, and handling offline (non-Hubspot-tracked-inbound) source attribution. I "grew up" on Original Source being locked - but now we can edit it! Like most enterprises we have all kinds of data sources, data entry in myriad other systems and uploads/imports in various systems.

I'm looking for best practice on the pros and cons of editing Original Source vs using custom offline source field values. Any thoughts?

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

SMcCann25 — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 12:30:42 GMT

Hi Dan.

I am wondering how you can split revenue into shipment months after the deal stage. It is not reocurring as the revenue per month will be different. Is this possible in hubpsot?

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

karstenkoehler — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 12:36:05 GMT

Hey @SMcCann25,

As far as I know there aren't any out of the box features for this at the moment. Other users have discussed this before (see here and here) but the only options seem to be splitting one deal in multiple deals. For monthly recurring revenue, there is a specific report (available in Sales and Service Hub Enterprise).

I'd recommend posting this in the HubSpot Ideas section of the community.

Best regards!

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

karstenkoehler — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 12:47:01 GMT

Hi again @auto-mate,

I can't think of many cons here, the only one being human error, potentially.

If you import a list of contacts, check if these contacts have potentially been around in the CRM for a while. With a list, you can remove all contacts from that were created before the day of the import, to not overwrite more accurate previous data. If the Original source of the remaining contacts is offline, I don't see why you shouldn't change it to whatever information you have about the actual source of these contacts.

Best regards!

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

AHudson — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 16:42:10 GMT

Thank you for doing this and all your help!

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

TRichards — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 19:53:09 GMT

Question about deleting bounced or unsubscribed contacts. We have too many contacts in our database. There is a lot of advice about deleting hard bounced or unsubscribed people.

We are integrated with a different CRM than Hubspot. My fear is that these contacts will come back to Hubspot via the integration and be re-created. And since we won't have their bounce information any more, they will be sent messages that will bounce or that they don't want, then they'll mark us as spam.

Is this a common thing?

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

SSears13 — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 02:14:33 GMT

Appreciate all the help you provide here. Question for you, Is it possible to have people show on the forecast if they do not have an open deal against a pipeline? They have goals setup for that pipeline and as soon as they have an open deal they show on the forecast but I would like them to show from when they are first setup.

Re: [Now Open] AMA with Karsten Köhler

TimSeabrook — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 03:42:00 GMT

Hi Karsten, what API is available to screenpop the HubSpot client screen based on the Calling Line ID (CLID) or ANI of an incoming phone call? I see that you have a Calling Extensions SDK but this is only applicable to outbound calls.

thanks, Tim