Is HubSpot Right for Manufacturers? Lessons From a 2.5-Year Rollout

Manufacturers adopted technology fast on the production floor. The front of the house (sales, marketing, and customer support) often still runs on email chains, disconnected tools, and spreadsheets.

In this Lake One office hours session, Ryan Ruud, founder and CEO of Lake One, and Rachel Cecko, VP of Client Delivery, talked with two guests:

• Ben Henneberger from the marketing team at Gerard Daniel, a wire mesh manufacturer
• Chris DiPietro, senior solutions engineer at HubSpot

The topic: whether HubSpot fits manufacturing, and how to make the move without disrupting the business.

What are the biggest misconceptions about HubSpot for manufacturers?

Ben hears the same three objections inside manufacturing companies:

• "Why do we need a CRM at all?"
• "We're not big enough for this."
• "It's only for marketing."

The marketing misconception has history. HubSpot started as a marketing platform, and Chris remembers manufacturers telling him, "We're looking for a marketing tool. We just bought Salesforce." HubSpot has since built a full CRM through internal development rather than acquisitions. Marketing, sales, and service all run on one contact database.

On the size question, Gerard Daniel is the proof point. They started on a base marketing tier, added Sales Hub, added Service Hub, and now run on Enterprise.

What changes when everything lives in one system?

Before HubSpot, Gerard Daniel's data was spread across a previous CRM and several email tools. Now three things are different.

Coverage. Sales emails with customers are tracked on the record. If a rep is out sick, a colleague can pick up the conversation without asking the customer to repeat themselves.

Upsell visibility. Reps can see what a customer bought and what they've engaged with, so the next conversation starts from context.

Shared view of marketing. Sales sees campaign responses the moment they come in, instead of waiting for marketing to forward them.

Chris named the larger benefit: lower switching costs. Every jump between systems takes time and creates a chance for data to leak, and leaked data turns into lost revenue.

What kinds of integrations do manufacturers need?

Manufacturers rarely start clean. Chris regularly sees email tools, social tools, ad platforms, a separate CRM, an ERP, quoting software, and vendor databases all running at once.

Two examples from Lake One's client work:

Zip-code territory routing. One manufacturer assigned leads using a color-coded map pinned up in an employee's cubicle. Lake One automated it so form submissions route to the right rep by zip code.

Proprietary software licensing. Another client's lead-gen software issued unique license keys and tracked versions offline. Lake One connected it to HubSpot so the team can see who has which version.

Both projects put dozens of hours a month back into the inside sales team. For quoting, Chris pointed to CPQ partners like DealHub, which connect HubSpot to ERPs and other databases.

How should a manufacturer roll out HubSpot?

Start with a rowboat, not an aircraft carrier. Ben's rule: find the easiest process to move first. For Gerard Daniel, that was marketing email.

Don't stop the engine. Manufacturing can't pause while you implement. Ben is now repeating the process at a newly acquired company. The first step there was rebuilding their web forms in HubSpot but keeping the old email notifications. Nothing changes for the team, but HubSpot starts building a history of the data immediately.

Plan in phases. Chris's typical roadmap:

1. Phase one: Marketing Hub and Sales Hub basics, including email, lead handoff, tracking, and reporting.
2. Later phases: The full sales process, ERP and system integrations, and custom architecture.

Some companies do all of this in year one. Others take three to four years.

Earn buy-in by proving it. Ben knew it was working when a sales rep emailed him about a new HubSpot feature before Ben had announced it to the team.

Treat the CRM as a product, not a project. There's no finish line. Like any software product, it keeps improving based on what its users (your sales, marketing, and leadership teams) need next.

Final advice from the panel

• Rachel: It's never too late to fix a HubSpot setup that's gone sideways.
• Chris: Teams freeze because there's too much to tackle. There is always a place to start.
• Ben: Build it for the people who use it. A system that looks great to you but doesn't work for them helps no one.
• Ryan: Progress over perfection. Follow the revenue, start where the impact is largest, and get moving.

Thinking about HubSpot for your manufacturing team? Talk to Lake One about a phased rollout.