Paid Assessments, Collective Knowledge, and HubSpot's Future Trajectory with Adam Sharrow

Adam Sharrow is the founder of Process Pro Consulting, a HubSpot Diamond Partner that does implementation, optimization and support retainers, and nothing outside HubSpot. Gray MacKenzie hosted, recording as Q4 2023 wrapped up. They covered Process Pro’s paid assessment, what happens when a client doesn’t want one, how a 13-person team keeps up with close to 500 HubSpot product updates a year, and where Adam thinks the ecosystem is going. Timestamps below are from the podcast audio.

The assessment works like a doctor’s visit

Gray asked what the client journey looks like for someone who comes to Process Pro for CRM help. It starts with a paid assessment.

“It’s kind of like a doctor, right?… We’ll go through all your settings, all your tools, and really look at what workflows and properties you have, you don’t have, and come back with a plan to say, hey, here’s the gaps and here’s how we can help you.”

(Listen at 01:53)

“It’s not just us looking at your HubSpot. We’re going into a detailed process review with your team members… How are they using the system? What works? What doesn’t work? What concerns them?”

(Listen at 02:30)

From there comes a phased project plan, then a monthly support retainer with a weekly status call.

When the client doesn’t want an assessment

Gray raised the obvious objection: plenty of buyers want one report or one fix and read an assessment as digging for extra work. Adam doesn’t force it. If a client has a top-five list, his team starts on it, with a shared understanding that they may find things that have to happen first.

“I can push an assessment all day, every day. But if it’s not what the customer is looking for, there’s value in getting those quick wins… I think our mentality is the anti-retainer. We’re a month-to-month retainer, that the value comes from the work that we’re doing on a monthly basis… And you can change that at any time.”

(Listen at 06:06)

Gray asked what month-to-month does to capacity planning. Adam’s answer was retention.

“If you came to me with that five-list item, how long have you been looking at that for? And so if our team can go ahead and get those crossed off the list and help you shine and be able to take that back to your team and show, hey, we’re moving the dial forward, that creates retention.”

(Listen at 08:02)

The problem almost every portal has: attribution

Gray asked for the bingo card of issues clients bring in. Adam’s list: lifecycle stage tracking, lead source and attribution, lead management, pipeline management and renewals. Attribution is the big one, and the usual mistake is overbuilding it.

“Everybody wants to overcomplicate it and get to every minutia of little detail. And can you even see it directionally right now, like where your sources are coming at a top 10 level? But everybody wants 125 sources, and that doesn’t tell you anything. And it also makes it very hard to analyze… because you make your rules too complex.”

(Listen at 13:07)

Nobody knows all of HubSpot, so build collective knowledge

Gray asked how Process Pro handles training and enablement on larger deals. Adam called the pace of change the hardest problem every HubSpot agency has.

“I don’t know what the number is, but it’s probably close to 500 product updates this year, right? So how do you keep it all straight? How do you share that knowledge?… Not everybody is gonna know everything. But collectively, as a team and as an agency, we’ve got people in certain areas that are experts in those areas that we can rely on.”

(Listen at 15:01)

“There’s kind of one point person that’s helping distill what are the top things. We’ll take those back on a weekly basis and run through those in our team meetings to build awareness.”

(Listen at 15:38)

At 13 people, Adam said, five teammates debating how to deploy one new feature is “a lot of lost time and effort and energy.” Clients are paying for the collective knowledge “so nobody’s figuring it out every single time.”

Why Adam is betting on HubSpot, and his number one tip

Gray asked about the risk of building an agency on one platform. Adam reads the history differently.

“When you look back on how did the Salesforce ecosystem evolve and how many Salesforce partners are there… it’s a very replicative of that… It’s a sign to me that there’s a long-term kind of stance if you can position yourself as a strong technical partner.”

(Listen at 11:55)

Pipeline comes from the partnership itself (accreditations, the steps to be presented as a top partner), from other partners whose clients need CRM help, and from sharing what the team knows. For 2024, the focus is new implementations rather than only cleanup work, and growing from 13 people to 25 so Adam can build out departments and “get that second layer in there.”

Gray closed with the question he asks every guest: the number one tip for agency operators.

“When you’re at five people, sure, we’re looking at margin and we’re understanding margin. But when you’re trying to establish a team, is margin what you should be pushing on?… If your only goal is utilization and margin, you’re going to burn people out, and it’s a pendulum that swings back and forth.”

(Listen at 23:35)

Adam is most active on LinkedIn, where he posts about HubSpot and what his team is solving for clients.