From Spreadsheets to Sales Hub: How a Shark Tank Company Increased Their Transactions by 153% With HubSpot
When an ed-tech company was in need of a sales system that could keep up with their growing business, TribalVision stepped in with the solution.
The Client: Prep Expert | A Shark Tank Winner & Mark Cuban Company
Prep Expert is one of the world’s fastest-growing edtech companies, specializing in online SAT & ACT preparation. Since its founding in 2008 by Dr. Shaan Patel, and winning a deal with Mark Cuban on Shark Tank, Prep Expert has helped over 50,000 students achieve over $100 million in scholarships. Between their rapid growth and rising sales, Prep Expert needed a sales and marketing solution that could grow alongside their business, and help them achieve even greater success.
Challenge: Implementing a Sales System to Unify and Optimize Operations
As a fast-growing company, Prep Expert had long outgrown a complicated system of spreadsheets and disparate communication channels. With their sales volume increasing exponentially, they needed to implement one seamless platform and process ahead of their busiest time of the year. With their peak season just a couple of months away, TribalVision worked with Prep Expert to identify three main challenges facing their sales team:
Current sales process was disjointed and hard to manage
Using separate platforms email, calls, meetings, and live chat, the sales team was manually tracking leads across several excel files. This often left them feeling bottlenecked, and created reporting difficulties for senior leadership to determine the overall success of sales outreach.
Operations and follow-ups needed to be optimized
With no CRM or reporting system in place, the team did not have a clear view of lead engagement metrics. This made it challenging to identify areas of opportunity for lead follow-up and ways to optimize the sales team’s efforts.
Hesitancy to bring on a new platform
The majority of the team had not used a formal sales platform or CRM, and had concerns about getting up to speed on new operations before they hit their upcoming busy sales season, which was mere months away.
Solution: Leveling Up With HubSpot
After discussing the challenges and concerns with Prep Expert, TribalVision identified HubSpot CRM, HubSpot Sales Starter, and HubSpot Marketing Professional as solutions that could help Prep Expert overcome their challenges and achieve their desired goals. Dealing with a very tight timeline, TribalVision was able to work with Prep Expert to get them fully onboarded in just three months, allowing them to achieve the following goals.
Create a streamlined, automated sales process
HubSpot Tools: Conversations Inboxes, Live Chat, Meetings, Workflows
TribalVision worked with Prep Expert to streamline their various sales communication channels into one seamless system. Utilizing HubSpot’s conversation inboxes, live chat, meetings, and workflows, TribalVision not only streamlined the team’s complex tech stack but helped the sales team achieve new levels of efficiency.
Optimize lead management and follow-up
HubSpot Tools: CRM, Reporting Dashboards, Tasks, Workflows
HubSpot’s CRM allowed the sales reps to more efficiently find contacts in the system and gain clearer transparency into lead engagement. TribalVision implemented workflows and tasks to assign lead owners, schedule sales actions, and help communicate/share lead information between reps. HubSpot’s custom reporting dashboards gave management a clear view of the team’s efforts, and identify where internal efficiencies and optimizations could be made.
Adopt a flexible, easy to use platform
HubSpot Tools: HubSpot Academy, Lead Scoring
After demoing Sales Starter and Marketing Hub Professional the senior leadership and sales team were eager to get started with HubSpot. Using tools like HubSpot Academy, and weekly training sessions with the TribalVision team, Prep Expert was able to learn the ins and outs of the platform within three months. TribalVision set up tools such as lead status and HubSpot scoring, allowing the sales team to quickly identify which leads were of the highest priority, a feature designed to assist in particularly busy sales seasons.
Results: Efficient, Measurable Transactions
Equipped with HubSpot and the expertise of TribalVision, the Prep Expert team was able to have what is projected to be one of their best sales years to date. With a CRM system designed to handle large influxes of leads, and a sales team operating under more efficient processes, Prep Expert was able to achieve the following in the 8 short months since adopting the platform:
Impact: Surpassing Sales Goals
TribalVision’s work with the Prep Expert team, through HubSpot and involvement in their sales efforts, helped the company to attain its best sales year ever, in spite of the challenges of COVID-19 in 2020. The sales team now has the resources they need to track a lead through its journey, and more quickly and efficiently drive conversions. They are working with a system that can grow alongside them, and are eager to see where this journey with TribalVision and within HubSpot takes them in the coming years.
Best Marketing Agency
I am the CEO and Founder of Prep Expert, a test preparation company. I brought on TribalVision to work with our Company almost a year ago, and have been very pleased with their work. Specifically, TribalVision has helped us improve our CRM integration, email marketing, paid advertising, and marketing promotions. I have enjoyed working with TribalVision because not only is the quality of their work high, but they are also utmost professionals at what they do. Special thanks to the TribalVision team members that our Company works with including Morgan, Diana, Ashley, and Agatha. I highly recommend TribalVision if you are looking to scale up your digital marketing efforts!
Shaan Patel MD MBA
Prep Expert
