In this chat with Bertrams Lustkins, we discussed the use on CRMs on B2B companies.
The question is often, Salesforce or HubSpot.
At many companies, it’s Salesforce + HubSpot.
Unfortunately, there is no simple or one-size-fits-all answer.
This is a republishing of the original interview where I was the guest for Bertrams at his WintacticX Youtube channel here.
The setup, before anything else
At my current role at Cyberbit, we run both.
Not by my choice, but that’s how the structure of the company requires it. Salesforce is our source of truth, and sales, legal, and finance run the client contracts through there.
Marketing, on the other hand, runs most of the work, forms, campaigns, emails etc. through HubSpot.
Having two systems is not ideal, but sometimes is needed.
In this episode, you will hear us discuss:
Why two CRMs is a deliberate choice and not indecision
What Salesforce actually costs
What Salesforce genuinely does better than anything else
CRM chaos is a management problem
How company size and tech-stack ecosystem should drive the decision
Two CRMs? Why?
Every consolidation conversation starts from the assumption that one system is the goal. I do not think that holds.
Salesforce is not great for marketing.
HubSpot is what plays well with our WordPress site and automates work that would otherwise sit manually with my team.
In some cases, there are systematic blocks that keep a two-CRM system working.
For most companies, I would advise to use only one CRM.
But, that requires a management direction, decisions, and team flexibility. Someone won’t be very happy working in a CRM not exactly built for their own purposes.
Salesforce is as good as your RevOps budget
My honest take, and I said it on camera: I find Salesforce terrible.
But it is terrible specifically if you do not have a full RevOps team behind it.
With the know-how and the headcount, it is not bad.
Without them, it becomes expensive, clunky, and slow.
The CRM is as good as how you use it and what budget you have.
Fully customizable is another way of saying fully dependent on someone maintaining it.
If you are sizing your own stack against your team, The Modern ABM Tech-Stack & Process Behind It covers how I think about the tech-stack and what I recommend using.
What Salesforce actually wins at
Salesforce is good for its own purposes:
It supports a genuinely complex enterprise sales motion. Finance approvals, legal approvals, documentation, contracts.
Everything sits in one place for the AE. NDAs, offers, signatures.
We run a full Microsoft ecosystem, so connecting Salesforce to email and calendar was quick and easy.
HubSpot can do a version of that. But, it’s not incredibly good at it.
CRM problems is a management issue
I have used many CRM tools, both built for marketing and sales. I lead efforts to change tooling in both LearnWorlds and Cyberbit.
Different teams want different systems.
Sales, marketing, CSM, Support, etc…
How clean your CRM is comes down to management.
If leadership lets every team pick whatever they want for whatever reason, it ends in disaster.
Every time.
You need something centralized and you need to enforce it, even when enforcement is unpopular.
Pick for your ecosystem, not the features
My actual buying advice, by shape of company:
Enterprise with real budget and a dedicated agency or internal admin. Salesforce works. Budget realistically for one or two people doing database work, or roughly 20k of agency support. I would still argue most of them do not need it.
50 to 500 people who want marketing and sales in one place. HubSpot, and accept that it is expensive too. It has everything out of the box, and you pay for every single tool you need…
Under 100 people on a tight budget. Look at the newer options. I have not used Attio, but three agency friends swear by it. You build almost everything from scratch, so it suits a hustling founder and not a company where roles have already split into corporate lanes.
If you don’t like either of the three above, then pick one that plays well with your tool stack, is easy to connect with your tools:
Has native integrations
Has at least a Zapier integration
People using your tech stack use it as well
It fits your organization & revenue motions…
…a CRM is just a tool, and you need to consider what it’s used for. Storing leads, emailing, reports, etc?
If you are heavy on sales, tenders, long sales cycles and offers, you need a sales-led CRM.
If you are heavy on quick turnarounds, quick sales, you probably need something else.
If you have a marketing-led motion where nurturing, automated sales, upgrades/downgrades matter, you probably need something different.
The most important thing is that a CRM comes with little management and maintenance, or else it becomes a pain.
Last considerations:
Three things I would take out of this conversation.
First, the cost of a CRM is not the license. It is the RevOps headcount, the agency retainer, and the weeks your team loses to undocumented fields nobody remembers building.
Second, CRM problems is a leadership decision. Centralize it or watch four teams build four sources of truth, it’s a mess.
Third, is your MarTech budget: perfection adds cost, adds maintenance, and adds work on top of it. That slows the team and makes you less competitive.
“It’s better to lose functionality than go for the optimal solution.”
I am a big believer in simplicity, especially in marketing.
Less maintenance, more actual deliverables!
