CLEAN UP YOUR MESS, HubSpot Developers.

Lately we’ve been feeling like the maid in the house of HubSpot. It’s largely a thankless job.  While it pays well and the people we get to work with are INCREDIBLE and solving problems gives us all the dopamine we could ever want, it’s preventing us from focusing on new client sales that we need to continue growing as a sustainable HubSpot Partner, particularly in light of their new tiering rules. So, it’s time to have a talk. 

I know that you don’t always like what we have to say about the state of HubSpot customer portals or the HubSpot Partner Program in general. HubSpot themselves recommitted to the customer this year after their 500 employee layoff, so we know that they feel just as strongly as we do about clean customer architecture in HubSpot portals. Despite this commitment, we continue to find ourselves fielding requests to finish the job that other developers, big name agencies and certified HubSpot partners didn’t, wouldn’t, or couldn’t take to the finish line.

That kinda sucks, to be completely honest. It handicaps the customer, it handicaps us and it doesn’t do much for the reputation of the developer that started the project OR the HubSpot platform at large. 

We’re all on the same team here. While it may not seem like it all the time, when you win, the customer wins. When the customer wins, they talk about their experiences and they attract more people to the HubSpot platform. And most importantly - when you win we don’t have to come in behind you to clean up your mess. We get it and we’re not here to judge you. No one takes on work hoping to fail at it or pass it off to someone else. 

We’re here to discuss what happens when you leave a mess in a customer portal, abandon a project, overpromise your skills or just plain let a customer down and how we think you should handle things… 

This is an open letter to HubSpot developers and we think it’s long overdue. 

No matter what your tier is, you lose points when you lose customers. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re the highest, best, most awarded Elite HubSpot Partner. Losing one customer impacts your bottom line and has a bad ripple effect. While the HubSpot ecosystem is massive and their customer base is huge, losing points with one customer has significant impact on your business as a whole.

According to Zippia.com: 

• 91% of customers say they won’t willingly do business again with a company that left them unhappy
• 61% of surveyed customers have recently switched to a brands’ competitor after a poor customer service experience
• Recruiting a new customer costs SIX TO SEVEN TIMES MORE than maintaining an existing one.
• There’s a 60-70% chance an existing customer will make a purchase and only 5-20% chance a first time shopper will. 
• MOST IMPORTANTLY? A loyal customer can be worth TEN TIMES the amount of revenue earned from their first purchase.

TEN TIMES. Ouch. 

You might think that because a partner is Elite status or really big that they never lose accounts because of poor development work - but our new client acquisitions as of late are all from Elite partners. 

Related: Growing Pains - 4 Problems with HubSpot Development Agencies that Grow Quickly

Here’s the bottom line that’s wrecking your bottom line - Just because you’re big doesn’t mean that your developers are all on their game and working the way they should. In fact, sometimes a smaller agency is more agile and has more quality control over their projects. I said what I said. It’s up to you to change my mind, because here’s my next point… 

When you lose reputation, we all lose reputation.

It’s a fact. A wrong move by a partner can mean death to a HubSpot portal. We’ve all had traumatic experiences that turn us off of things forever. Your client should be no exception. Just because their retainer and project investment is one of many in your world, doesn’t mean it isn’t the world to them. Clients spent a LOT of money to get onboarded into HubSpot and even more to create the architecture they need, get their website right and really mold their business processes around it. If you’ve been around a long time, you’ve seen how the price of the product has increased as more and more features have been added. 

When you take on a job and ghost the client or don’t perform the way you promised or your work is finalized and the client isn’t enthusiastic about it or it doesn’t really work like they wanted it to - it leaves a bad taste in their mouth. And that taste lingers for a long time. You can’t be surprised when HubSpot experiences greater customer attrition because all the capabilities they were promised in their initial sales calls with HubSpot and subsequent discussions about integrations and HubSpot development capabilities weren’t met. 

Related: Your HubSpot CMS Developer ghosted you, now what? 

You’re leaching their growth budget and leaving a lasting negative impact on their organization.

You really need to look at the implications of doing poor work inside a HubSpot portal. We’re not here to tell you how to do your job, but as long as customers continue to come to us and complain that their developers are letting them down - we have to address the elephant in the room.

When you take money from a client, that budget could’ve gone to other things.

When you cause them to not only use that budget, but then expand it beyond the scope of what they originally planned for to accomplish the SAME THING because you left them high and dry? 

You’re damaging an organization’s ability to grow. 

I know. I did it again. I made a bold claim. But you need to understand that your actions have a massive impact on your customers. When you or your account managers or sales managers think - this is a huge project, we’re so excited to take this one on, we’ll meet our sales goals or we’ll tier to the next level of HubSpot Partner tiers - and that’s your main focus and NOT how amazing you’re going to make the customer’s business work once you complete it… you’re already starting off the wrong way. 

Add to that eventually failing them and causing them to have to have the work done properly by another developer? You say all over your website that you help people build their dreams. That you help them move and reach people - and then you take money out of their pockets, put it in your own, and actively handicap them and stall them from continuing to build their dreams and reach their target audience? Oof. That is definitively *not* serving or solving for the customer. 

Maybe it’s harsh, but you need to understand that the HubSpot ecosystem and all the partners and the technical providers need to work together and create customer success so that every HubSpot customer is delighted, empowered and eager to share your agency and business with the people around them that also stand to benefit from your services. A stellar reputation with HubSpot customers eventually gleans a stellar reputation with HubSpot’s reps and that means more business for you, which means more money in your pocket.

So, let’s get to the good stuff - how do we fix this? 

Stick to what you’re good at. 

Stop overselling your skills. It’s becoming a huge problem for HubSpot customers. Developers are claiming to know how to developer in HubSpot CMS and failing the client miserably. It’s even becoming a problem in HubSpot agencies when developers oversell their skills on interviews with the agency and can’t deliver what they promised they were capable of. 

Related: 7 HubSpot CMS Developer Interview Questions to Ask - Part 1

Figure out your skills and specialties, the work that you love to do and don’t deviate from that unless you get formal training and experience or find a mentor that can lead the way. It takes more than 20,000 hours to become an expert at something. Don’t spend your first 50 hours wasting your customer’s money and overselling skills that aren’t there. HubSpot is its own bird, and it’s quirky and different and experienced developers know their way around and can operate much more efficiently. 

Establish a relationship with a specialized HubSpot Technical partner to help you consult the project and guide you through the process. There is admittedly a HUGE knowledge base gap when it comes to formal training for specialized developers. While we’re working to help bridge that gap with our own resources and knowledge base, but right now there isn’t much. 

Specialization is a skill and you don’t have to be a master at working with an application to be a master in general. Having HubSpot Certifications means something, but it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about working in a customer’s HubSpot portal. 

Bringing in experts that specialize in certain areas to consult with you and the client can help you consider things that you may not have considered before. HubSpot architects can help you understand how to configure databases, how to really consider UX as you develop modules and the big picture in how developing a website on HubSpot CMS will help with marketing ongoing. If you’re in over your head, ASK FOR HELP. We have many agencies reach out to us to help them get unstuck when it comes to a project they’re struggling to get to the finish line. 

We can do this together, but you have to stop overselling and ask for help.