Do You Need HubSpot Training? Here's How to Tell

Wouldn't you just love to be a pro at HubSpot?

Be able to jump right into the tool and create awesome blog posts, forms, landing pages, and CTAs?

Maybe run reports of the keywords you're ranking for, see which articles and pages are performing the best, and see how your efforts stack up to the competitors?

It would be pretty sweet if you could draft targeted emails that only go out to qualified recipients, schedule messages for your social channels all in one place, or just be able to monitor all of the engagement you've gotten from specific leads, wouldn't it?

All of those things are very possible with HubSpot. And the features I just listed only scratch the surface of what you can accomplish with HubSpot.

You probably have a good idea of just how awesome and complicated HubSpot is, otherwise you wouldn't be reading an article about why HubSpot training is helpful in the first place.

Whatever the case, you're here now, and we're going to help you determine if HubSpot training is right for you.

And to be completely fair and honest with you, I may be a little biased because we offer training for HubSpot here at IMPACT.

But just because we offer HubSpot training, doesn't mean we always fully recommend it to everybody. Instead, the level and extent of HubSpot training we recommend often depends on a variety of factors.

Three Ways to Learn HubSpot

Before we jump into the various types of training you could receive, let's talk about the three ways you can learn HubSpot:

1. Learn as you go
2. Learn before you start
3. Get professional training

All three of these options are possible solutions; we've seen people accomplish great things with all of them. However, we've also seen a lot of failures because of two of them.

Learning HubSpot as you go

Some people out there are just phenomenal at learning new things and take to self-teaching with genius level determination and discipline.

These are the kinds of people you could strand on a desert island with a machete and a flint, only to come back a few weeks later and find them decked out in animal skins, cooking fresh fish over a spit as they kick back on their beach-front hammock sipping pineapple juice from a coconut.

Most of us, however, will probably be found fevered and delirious, drinking sea water while babbling nonsense to a palm tree.

For many of us that give the "learn as you go" approach a shot, we're going to have a lot of trial and errors. And for the most part, we only figure out how to do something right after we've done them wrong a number of times.

HubSpot is a very complex tool, and while it's possible to figure it out as you go, your efforts might take a long time to see fruition as you constantly battle missteps.

Learn HubSpot before you start

Some people, before they give anything a try, want to learn as much as possible about it before ever dipping their toe in the waters.

Sticking with the "surviving on a deserted island" metaphor from just a few sentences ago, this would be like studying everything there is to know about the island you're going to live alone on for weeks before getting dropped off. You know all the flora and fauna by name. You've researched how to build a shelter out of bamboo, how to start a fire with bamboo, how to make weapons out of...bamboo (it turns out bamboo is pretty versatile).

But still, you can prepare all you want, but it's nothing compared to when your feet hit the sand for the first time.

And where this analogy falls apart is that while you're studying your butt off, your business is suffering because you haven't done anything yet.

To put it in proper desert island perspective: what if you and another wanna-be survivalist were having a contest to see whose island would flourish the most over time. While you're still back at home studying from the safe confines of your home how to weave a palm frond basket, this other gal is out there throwing spears at fish from 20 feet away and lancing them with Tom Hanks precision.

This is exactly what your business competitors might be doing.

Get professional HubSpot training

Then there's professional training.

Imagine if before you departed for your tropical island adventure, you were given a couple days of boot camp from Bear Grylls on all things survival. That would be insanely helpful, right?

Now imagine if he accompanied you to the island for your first couple of weeks and helped you set up base camp, showed you how to properly fillet a puffer fish so you don't eat the deadly part, showed you how to set traps for small game, and trained you to huck a javelin better than Tom Hanks.

Sounds like the best option, right? Plus, his camera crew would probably have a cooler full of cold beverages for you to drink while Mr. Grylls demonstrated how to get fresh water from licking exotic toads or something.

This is pretty much what a HubSpot trainer would do for your own business efforts. They're the Bear Grylls of marketing software. They've been on hundreds of islands with hundreds of naked and afraid survivors. They know the tools, they know the lay of the land, and they know how to apply their knowledge to your specific set of needs.

Getting Started with HubSpot Training

Depending on what kind of experience you already have, what kind of training you need, and what you have for a budget, we'll help you determine what kind of training you should get.

Let's say that you are the dive first, learn to swim second kind of guy, and you want to give trial and error a shot. You should still take some tools with you.

And if you're all about learning everything about swimming before ever swimming, you're still going to need to make sure you're getting your information from the right resources. Otherwise, you might spend all your time learning how to survive on a tropical South Pacific island before getting unexpectedly dropped off on one of Alaska's Aleutian islands. Still an island. Still in the Pacific. But an entirely different climate and ecosystem.

Necessary HubSpot Resources

First and foremost, to learn about HubSpot, you'll need to turn to HubSpot. And fortunately, they have put a lot of work into the HubSpot Academy.

At the academy, you'll learn the basic principles of inbound marketing, how to apply those principles by using their tools, and they even give you awesome badges so you can feel like a real boy scout. But instead of pinning it to your uniform, you get to paste it on your LinkedIn profile. Still cool though.

They have hours of videos to watch covering (currently and always growing) 12 major focuses of inbound marketing.

The problem with HubSpot academy is that it's kind of a generic program. They've created these awesome videos, but they're very broad. And a lot of the examples they give focus on B2B companies.

Now, what if you're a B2C or B2G? The principles are similar, but the applications can vary widely.

You'll have to do a lot of work in taking what's taught and trying to apply it to your own business.

HubSpot is always evolving and changing. This is a good thing because it means they listen to their customers on how to best update their software to be as helpful as possible to its users. It can be a bad thing for those just learning how to use a tool only to have it change on them suddenly. Sometimes it's hard to keep up with all the changes.

If only there was somewhere you could go to hear the latest news about HubSpot while getting tips and tricks for using it. Well, there is.

For you nerds that like to read (I'm with you), there's always HubSpot's blog. Whether you're wanting to learn about marketing, sales, or how to use the tool, HubSpot is always blogging away on these topics.

For you other types of nerds that enjoy learning on-the-go via podcasts (I'm still with you), The Hubcast is a weekly podcast hosted by our very own Marcus Sheridan and George B Thomas where they talk all about the latest news and updates coming out of HubSpot, as well as giving practical tips and tricks for using it.

Heck, you can even email them your specific questions about HubSpot as they feature a question from listeners every week.

In addition to the Hubcast, we also create tons of tutorials on HubSpot over on our YouTube page. Most of these videos are all short, sweet, and to the point covering questions we hear all the time. 

HubSpot Intensive Training Workshops

Let's say you've got some HubSpot chops, but you just don't think they're quite up to par, or you're having trouble getting the rest of your team to use HubSpot.

It's been awhile since we visited the deserted island analogy, and I know you really need more of those metaphors in your life, so...here's one: You're an amateur survivalist. You've gone out on long weekends backpacking through the wilderness and you've managed to survive thus far, but you haven't thrived out in the wilderness.

HubSpot Intensive Trainings are one or two days of intensive training on HubSpot (see, we're clever in the way we name our workshops). One of the members of our team will fly to your location, sit down with your entire team, and go over how you can use HubSpot for your specific needs. We'll look at your business goals and objectives and show you actionable steps you can take with the tool to achieve those goals. And while you're out on the island, you can still phone us in for help as you get situated.

HubSpot Sales Workshops

The biggest misconception about HubSpot, and inbound in general, is that it's a marketing specific tool. And that's just not true. HubSpot is really about generating revenue using inbound marketing and sales principles. If your marketing team is crushing it on their end using HubSpot, but your sales team is struggling to hold up their end, you might need a HubSpot Sales Training.

Similar to the HubSpot Intensive Training, this is a one or two day workshop, but with your sales team to teach them how they too can use HubSpot to further your businesses goals by closing deals faster using the CRM.

HubSpot Consulting

And then of course, for those that want to really do HubSpot right, there's ongoing HubSpot consulting. With consulting, you'll not only learn how to use HubSpot, but you'll have a HubSpot pro on your team teaching you best inbound marketing practices, analyzing your results, and teaching you all of the inbound principles over a couple of months.

We'll be in your HubSpot portal, all over your website, and learning everything we can about your business to ensure that you thrive under our tutelage.

It's like getting to live on the island with Bear Grylls as your constant companion. You'll have that island subdued in no time. All of the creatures that inhabit it will work with you instead of constantly trying to kill you. You'll open a little tiki hut selling fresh margaritas to tourists. You'll be living the island dream.

Meanwhile, your competitors will still be on their island eating bugs and leaves watching their 20th bamboo lean-to blow away in a monsoon while you're sipping mai tais watching an orange sun disappear behind a pale blue sea.