HubSpot to Join Google’s Alphabet Soup?

This week on Funnel Frontier: A surprising spring in CRM Land, Einstein's AI wisdom lands in Tableau, and Zoho cleans up your lead gen game

This week:

• Alphabet *may* acquire HubSpot 

• Einstein Copilot AI arrives in Tableau

• Clean lead generation? Use a style sheet (via Zoho)

• How to get obsessed customers orbiting your biz (via Forrester)

• Quick refresher on resource forecasting (via monday.com)

Stat of the Week 

In 2023, 68% of sales leaders automated their CRM platform. (Prezentor)

Deal or no deal: will HubSpot end up in the Alphabet soup?

Oh yes, you better believe the latest, greatest tech soap opera takes place in our very own humble CRM Land.

Alphabet, Google's omnipotent overseer, appears to be setting sights on HubSpot, one of the majors in CRM and marketing software. Reuters reported the hubbub. 

In a world where minting a "mega deal" is akin to threading the needle while riding a rocket—via increased scrutiny by America’s antitrust hawks—this potential move could be Alphabet's most astronomical splurge ever. 

HubSpot is currently valued at a cool $35 billion. Meanwhile, the alpha-titan sits on a hubristic hoard of $110.9 billion and whispers in Morgan Stanley's ear, pondering how much to fork out for HubSpot without getting zapped by regulatory rulings.

The deal would give Google a handsome heap of the booming CRM market, and access to more would-be marketing and advertising customers. It would also crunch down their cloud computing gap with arch-rivals Amazon and Microsoft.

At the time of writing, Alphabet is acting all coy, not yet sliding into HubSpot's DMs with an offer. HubSpot plays it cool, too, saying they’re concentrating on "building a great business."

Good idea, bad idea? The rumored deal was the subject of heated debate in the most recent episode of The All-In Podcast (check that out here). 

Hosts were split on whether Google will see a good return on this kind of horizontal integration or if it’s better to go vertical and control the whole funnel all the way down to sale.

The Week @ CRM.org

Top 10 Insurance CRM (2024). “Insurance” against getting stuck in the admin shuffle. Our updated ten spots. 

Best WordPress CRM Plugins. A WordPress site without a CRM plugin? It’s like a sci-fi movie without special effects—I mean, come on, I need to suspend my disbelief!

Sales CRM. Find your way back to earthly revenue growth: 2024’s tops in a crowded market.

Weekly Bloom

Writing a Great Vision Statement. Think of your vision statement as a flag: symbolic, aspirational, and slightly fluttering in the wind of market trends. Our how-to guide, with examples.

Salesforce bequeaths beta of Einstein Copilot for Tableau

What are the odds of being born in Ulm, Baden-Württemberg, then becoming a famous theoretical physicist, then becoming an AI 140 years hence?

Probably pretty low, I’d wager.

It seems Salesforce can’t stop the Einstein AI-ing, recently releasing Einstein Copilot for the Tableau business intelligence platform.

Currently in beta, the tool aims to turn every Tom, Dick, and Harry into a data expert, ready to face the new dawn of analytics with AI by their side. 

No more wandering aimlessly through the badlands of spreadsheets and reports created by those high-falutin' expert analysts. No sir. 

Now, with just a whisper to your digital pal, you can query the vast expanse of data like a data-slinging John Carpenter movie protagonist, uncovering rich insights as if they were the ruins of pre-cyberpunk civilization. 

Einstein Copilot hunts-and-pecks away at complex data analysis, aiming to transform the user from a data dunce into a dashing dashboard desperado. 

And just when you thought the landscape of analytics couldn't get any more “Salesforce extended universe,” Einstein Copilot for Tableau comes equipped with the Einstein Trust Layer, protecting precious data from prying eyes. 

So saddle up, data cowpokes; the future of data exploration (and Einstein products) awaits.

Stellar Strategies: Tips & Tricks for Sales, Marketing & Service

Keeping lead generation clean with a style sheet (via Zoho)

We’ll keep this tip clean and concise—like your list of leads should be!

It can happen to the best of us. Your CRM is now a “clothing pile” closet, a heap of outdated and confused numbers, email addresses, and tags. 

In our post-Marie Kondo world, you can think of a Style Sheet as your joy sparker.

Simple guidelines. 

Do “Acknowledgement” and “Thank You” tags mean the same thing in your mind palace? 

Are you a "USA" or a "United States of America" kind of biz? Pick one and stick the landing. 

Abbreviations and standard data entry formats are your friend. This way, when you're sending out your mass emails, you won't miss leads because of technical issues. 

Thanks, Zoho.

How to get obsessed customers orbiting you (via Forrester)

Divining customer desires is part of the wicked game of modern commerce. Meanwhile, the gravitational force of customer loyalty is what keeps your biz in orbit. 

But what if customers were “obsessed”? What if your biz dared to not only put the customer first, but at the very core of its mission?

Forrester reckons a mere 3% of enterprises have mastered the art of customer obsession, making it the rarest element in the business universe.

To be fair, embarking on this journey isn't for the faint of heart. 

It demands more than a passing fancy for customer service. One must dive into the nebula of customer insights, chart courses based on uncharted customer needs, and exceed expectations with the precision of a tattoo-removing laser. 

Staying agile and flexible, evolving to keep every department on the same page—not easy. But those adopting a customer-obsessed approach have reported “two times higher revenue growth, two times higher profitability… and two times higher customer retention.”

Getting obsessed? More from Forrester here.

Clear-cut CRM integration ideas from ClickUp

Imagine peering into the biz-mos with a telescope that can predict where each conversion will be and when. A tool for foreseeing personnel phases and material moons.

Okay, stop imagining because your tyranny of will has made this thing exist. It’s called resource forecasting, and it’s more-or-less astrological divination for the business realm.

Best future-gazing practices include:

• Working from historical data, like project time allocation and team capacity.

• Using time-tracking software to make insightful resource allocations in the future.

• Eyeing individual and team data to balance resources.

• Getting stakeholders involved and engaging at the macro level.

• Using modern software, ala CRM and project management tools, to keep things all-one, like the wacky writing on Dr. Bronner’s soap.

More from monday.com here.

Galactic Gourmet

CRM blips from around the web

Adium Mortgage CRM receives $19 million in Series A funding. Equity firm PeakSpan Capital was the biggest backer. This latest instance of mortgage + CRM synergy follows Zillow’s acquisition of Follow Up Boss in November 2023. 

MedTech360° CRM implementation accelerator released by Cloud Peritus. Built upon Salesforce software, the accelerator aims to simplify CRM implementation and optimization for MedTech companies. 

Trades software vendor ServiceTitan acquires Convex. By acquiring the commercial-services targeted sales/marketing/CRM platform, ServiceTitan aims to boost its product offering for commercial contractors. 

Astronomical Assets

Significant Stock Moves from Last Week

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