So You Got Bought Out: What Happens to HubSpot?

Don't fret. You've got options.

Imagine. Your company just got acquired. Your calendar creeks and buckles under the weight of transition-team meetings scheduled into next decade. If just thinking about it raises your pulse, maybe you don’t have to imagine.

Merger and acquisition transitions (M&A) can devour much of your time, business continuity, and the HubSpot CRM workflows you so painstakingly optimized to bring order and productivity to sales and marketing.

So, what do you do? What if HubSpot comes up on their radar, eligible to be replaced or retired? Chances are, your new bosses will want to implement cost-cutting incentives with little sympathy for the hard work you put into configuring HubSpot.

Even if decisions get made to retain, rather than retire HubSpot, your CFO might question the expense of paying for 3, 4, 5, 6 separate HubSpot portals - and that’s when HubSpot portal consolidation can seem attractive as a quick cost-cutting exercise.

In this situation, there are certain shortfalls to avoid going ahead with generic HubSpot consolidation to cater for what are ultimately narrow motives.

Play your cards right, and your HubSpot assets could emerge from M&A much stronger. Here’s what to do.

Don’t rage-quit your job: Map your M&A scenario and motives for consolidating HubSpot

When your CFO calls out the logic of paying for multiple HubSpot portals, they’ve kind of got a point, right? But consolidating HubSpot portals for short-sighted motives is a missed opportunity.

Self-reflect: are you just trying to make marginal savings?

Gather relevant stakeholders and discuss the following questions:

1. Are we consolidating HubSpot portals just for the convenience of not having to switch between portals?
2. Are we consolidating just for the meager marginal cost savings of reducing our number of HubSpot licenses? Where’s the real opportunity?
3. How can we revamp and reconfigure HubSpot ahead of portal consolidation to better integrate and serve our newly-merging teams, processes and commercial goals?

If your motives for a ‘DIY’ HubSpot portal consolidation are kind of narrow, you’ll want to advocate for a carefully-planned approach for optimizing sales, marketing and revenue KPI outcomes across all merging business units.

If only two business entities are due to merge (and both have existing HubSpot portals)

In this case, you may be able to consolidate both HubSpot portals yourself in the simplest way possible, without a more advanced re-implementation.

The question remains - “is DIY HubSpot portal merger a good idea?” That’s another question entirely. 

1. Can you afford to get it wrong?
2. Will basic consolidation create more issues than it solves?
3. How would those issues affect sales & marketing integrity?

For example: will DIY HubSpot consolidation mean you’ll migrate all HubSpot objects 1:1? It’s something to think about. 

What if one of the merging businesses (or both!) already have overlapping or conflicting CRM workflows? Migrating all HubSpot assets 1:1 into a shared portal - for the sake of cost savings - would lead to a bigger, more expensive problem in the long run. 

If multiple businesses merge, consider re-implementation

If post M&A, multiple business entities are merging - and at least *some* leverage HubSpot already, then full, professionally delivered HubSpot re-implementation is really the optimal way to go.

Make the case for resetting the HubSpot chess board with full re-implementation prior to portal consolidation. In doing so, you’ll navigate the M&A transition with augmented capabilities and better data integrity.

• Better-integrated multi-unit sales processes
• Better marketing to sales handoff
• Better sales to customer success handoff
• Better reporting across business units
• Better workflows automations

You’ll also emerge with a cleaner, more unified customer & prospect database, with established systems of governance over your HubSpot assets.

You’ve got options: But choosing the right one will require advocacy and a little homework

Before making any sudden moves, think about how you can best advocate for preserving and even elevating your HubSpot assets and capabilities. Keep in mind that change management will also be necessary to ensure satisfaction and, ultimately, adoption from all the involved business units.

Establish rules of engagement ahead of time with input from stakeholders across Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and any other relevant departments at each company that has a HubSpot portal to be consolidated.

• Get the room temperature: speak to co-workers equally enthusiastic about retaining HubSpot and educate them on the benefits.
• Speak to those against keeping HubSpot: find out their reasoning. Chances are they’re making assumptions you can start to break down.
• Gather HubSpot success metrics and outcomes: so that you can prove HubSpot’s value-add and how axing it may incur more costs than it saves.

If conversations are trending around cost savings, don't hesitate to make the case for HubSpot reimplementation - making the transition will expend resources no matter what, and it's an advantage to the business if those resources work towards improving productivity.

If you play things right, you’ll emerge on the other side with a rich HubSpot architecture that optimally integrates the merging sales and marketing functions around urgent new KPIs that will likely result from M&A.