When someone refers to improving a HubSpot portal, the discussion typically jumps right to the major aspects: new workflows, new integrations, and a complete pipeline redesign.
The projects are important, but among the most significant improvements I’ve implemented were, in fact quite minor. They are the kind of change that most people would not notice at first.
I once changed the name of a custom property, which was causing confusion among the sales team. The job wasn’t major and only took a few minutes. Yet almost immediately, people stopped asking what that property meant.
I once took the step of getting rid of some fields which nobody was any longer using. The CRM then appeared neater, and it became a bit quicker to enter data. It wasn’t a major improvement, but the team appreciated having fewer fields to deal with each day.
I also changed the name of the pipeline stages so that they matched the way people actually spoke in meetings, and that minor adjustment made discussions much easier since everyone was finally talking about the same thing.
None of them required hours of planning or complicated automation; they simply made the CRM a bit easier to use.
It’s simple to concentrate on the next major improvement since such projects seem more exciting. However, over time I’ve begun to notice the small instances of frustration, like a property that has a confusing name, a report with a vague title, a workflow lacking a description, and a stage name which nobody really understands.
On their own, none of it appears to be a major issue, but taken together they can make an entire portal seem more difficult to use than it actually needs to be.
Every time I am using a portal, I make a point of observing those small frustrations; if I can resolve them, I do so, and it is often more important to make the CRM a bit easier to use each week than it is to wait months for the next major project.
It has affected the way I consider ways to improve HubSpot. I still enjoy creating new automations and taking on major challenges, but I no longer ignore the little things. It’s those smaller aspects that sometimes people appreciate the most.