Help Book a call →
HubSpot Onboarding

Most onboardings get the portal live. Few get the foundations right.

We onboard HubSpot for lean B2B teams who can't afford to redo it in twelve months. You get a small, hands-on team, not a rotating account roster. We map how you actually sell, then build the lifecycle, data, and reporting layer the platform was bought to deliver.

What we're noticing

Most onboardings get the portal live. The foundations come later, if at all

The pattern

Teams sign with HubSpot when the buying case is clear and the timeline is generous. The portal goes live. Lifecycle stages stay on default. Pipelines get drafted by whoever ran the demo. Reports get built before anyone agrees what a qualified lead actually is.

A year later the portal is full of records and the team is still running on spreadsheets. Sales doesn't trust the data. Marketing can't explain the funnel. Reporting shows leadership what happened, never why.

What we do

We start before the portal is touched: map the business, agree the architecture, then build the foundations, lifecycle, objects, pipelines, properties. Reporting and automation come after, because they inherit whatever the architecture decided.

By the time your team logs in for training, the platform reflects how you actually sell.

Who we onboard

The six industries we know best. Same approach every time, built around how you actually sell.

01 /

SaaS and technology

CRM and lifecycle built around trials, demos, and renewal cycles. Reporting that shows pipeline coverage, not just contact volume.

02 /

Financial services and lending

Pipelines for multi-stakeholder deals and longer approval cycles. Reporting that shows principals the book without an export.

03 /

Professional services and accounting

Lead-to-engagement workflows with consistent handoffs and templated comms, and visibility into where engagements actually sit.

04 /

Higher education

Enquiry-to-enrolment journeys. Segmentation by program and intake. Automated comms timed to the academic calendar.

05 /

Manufacturing and technical industries

Deal stages built for long cycles, multiple stakeholders, and spec capture. Follow-up automation that survives a six-month sales conversation.

06 /

Media and publishing

Subscriber and advertiser lifecycle managed side by side, on one data set.

What's included

Here's what we typically bring to an onboarding, adjusted to fit your portal and how much you need.

01 /

Discovery and process mapping

Two weeks of talking to your team and watching how work actually moves. We map how you sell and deliver, then turn that into a HubSpot setup that fits.

02 /

CRM setup and data migration

Your records, properties, and history moved over carefully, not just dumped in. We clean up duplicates and inconsistencies as we go, so what you build reporting on later actually holds up.

03 /

Lifecycle and pipeline design

Stages that match how deals actually move through your business, not HubSpot's defaults. Each one has a clear point where it's finished, so nothing lingers in limbo.

04 /

Properties and data governance

The fields you actually need, named in a way that makes sense, with checks in place so the data stays trustworthy over time.

05 /

Workflows and automation

Automation that takes the repetitive stuff off your plate, like notifications, handoffs, and routing leads, without hiding anything your team needs to see.

06 /

Email templates and marketing assets

Branded templates and the essentials for nurture and outreach, built so your team can keep using and updating them long after we're gone.

07 /

Dashboards and reporting

Three to five dashboards built around the questions leadership actually asks: what's in the pipeline, where it's coming from, how fast it's moving. Built natively in HubSpot wherever we can.

08 /

Integrations

The tools you already rely on, connected properly: calendar, email, calling, billing, and the rest of your stack. Nothing double-handled.

09 /

Training and handover

Training built around what each person actually needs to do, not a feature tour. Documentation your team owns, so you're never stuck waiting on us.

How we work

Six principles that hold the practice together.

01

Discovery before configuration

The architecture gets decided in conversation, not in the UI. Two weeks of mapping before the portal is touched.

02

Foundations come first

Lifecycle, objects, pipelines. If the foundations are wrong, everything downstream bends. We fix them before anyone builds reports on top.

03

Data hygiene is a process

Duplicates and bad tags are symptoms. We fix the upstream process that created them, not just the records.

04

Reports answer questions

Three dashboards the team opens beats twenty no one does. We build for the questions leadership actually asks.

05

Documentation as handover

Every decision lands in a living playbook the team owns. We leave behind a system, not a dependency.

06

Calibration over bravado

The platform shifts. The business shifts. We come back to recalibrate, not to rebuild from scratch.

Engagement rhythm

A standard onboarding runs Eight to Twelve weeks. Complex portals and multi-team rollouts run longer.

Weeks 1–2

Discovery

Stakeholder interviews, process review, lifecycle and pipeline decisions. The build doesn't start until the architecture is agreed.

Weeks 3–6

Architecture

Lifecycle, objects, pipelines, properties. The spine gets configured before reporting or automation is touched.

Weeks 7–10

Rollout

Workflows, sequences, dashboards. Configured in order so downstream work doesn't sit on unstable data.

Weeks 11–12

Adoption

Training, handover documentation, and the first round of calibration. The team leaves with a system they own.

Before and After

What changes when onboarding starts with the foundations.

Dimension Before After
Lifecycle stages
Default stages, undefined exit criteria

Custom stages aligned to actual sales motion

Deal tagging
Inconsistent across reps, no enforcement

Required properties, validation on stage change

Reporting
Twenty dashboards, no trust in the data

Core dashboards, leadership opens them weekly

Data
Duplicates accumulating from day one

Best practice migration, governance in place

Handover
Tribal knowledge sitting with one person

Living playbook, team owns the system

Adoption
Training session, then nothing

Quarterly check-ins for the first year

Onboarding options

Three ways to scope the work, depending on portal complexity and how much of the build sits in-house.

01/

Guided setup and training

From $2,835

Your team builds. We direct the architecture, run training, and review the work at structured checkpoints. For teams with internal capacity who want expert oversight without a full done-for-you engagement.

02/

Done-for-you onboarding

From $4,750

We design and configure the core HubSpot setup, migrate what matters, and train your team. The standard engagement for most mid-sized portals.

03 /

Advanced onboarding and rollout

Typically from $12,000

Built for complex portals, multi-team rollouts, and businesses with deeper governance and automation needs. Phased launch plan that scales with the work.

Case Study · SaaS · Canberra
A sales process too nuanced for the defaults to handle.

One pipeline. Marketing, sales, and service, finally finally aligned.

A geospatial SaaS company selling to government agencies and engineering consultants had outgrown HubSpot Starter. Their sales motion didn't fit a standard pipeline, and their two ICPs needed separate nurture paths.

We mapped the customer journey across three connected objects, built lead scoring around their actual conversion signals, and created five nurture flows tailored to each segment. One pipeline, so marketing, sales, and service finally work from the same picture.

Selected clients
WF
CW

If the platform you bought isn't doing the job you bought it for, what would it take to change that?

Email hello@otm.com.au
Based Tamworth, Australia
Engagements Migration · Onboarding · Optimisation