HubSpot Academy has always been a great place to find marketing education, but in the past couple years we've started tackling sales education, too. We now have the Inbound Sales Certification, the HubSpot Sales Software Certification, the Sales Enablement Certification, several stand-alone lessons most people don't know exist, and even more sales-related content coming down the pike.
This raises some important questions: How does all this content fit together? Where's the best place to start? Which content is most relevant to you?
Here's a rundown of all of HubSpot Academy's sales content, with concise explanations about what it's all for.
The Courses
Inbound Sales Certification
Upcoming update: Coming March 2018!
This course is for: Sales reps
Why we made it: HubSpot was founded on the idea that marketers needed to adapt to the changing techscape of the modern world. Fast forward 10 years, and the inbound revolution was making waves in the world of marketing, but the world of sales was still stuck in the 80s. We realized inbound was being presented as a marketing strategy instead of the business strategy it is, so we created a course to teach salespeople how to apply inbound principles in their world.
Overview: The world of sales has changed dramatically in the past 10 years. Salespeople and prospects both have more technology and information at their disposal than ever before. Consumers have adapted and are using this change to their advantage. Have you, as a sales rep, similarly adapted? By the time you finish the videos and pass the exam, you'll be ready to implement an inbound strategy that will make selling easier and more enjoyable—for both you and your prospects.
HubSpot Sales Software Certification
Originally released: September 2016
Upcoming update: August 2017
This course is for: Sales reps using HubSpot CRM
Why we made it: HubSpot had released a free CRM with a suite of sales tools built on top of it. Suddenly, we had people using our software who had never spoken with a HubSpot employee. Many of these users had never heard of inbound, and all of them wanted to make sure they were using the most important features of the tools. So we created a course to teach them the best practices of our sales software and introduce them to the idea of inbound.
Overview: You're a sales rep at a company that uses HubSpot CRM. The CRM is set up and ready to go, but you have no idea how to use it. By the time you've completed the videos and practical exercises and passed the exam, you'll be ready to use your HubSpot tools to implement your sales process in an inbound way.
Sales Enablement Certification
Originally released: November 2017
Upcoming update: Minor improvements coming Q2 2018
This course is for: Upper management (marketing and sales)
Why we made it: We'd tackled inbound marketing and inbound sales, but we hadn't told the story of how the two fit together. We also heard repeatedly that marketing departments who implement an inbound strategy often struggle to get their sales teams on board. So we created a course that would give marketers the tools they needed to prove inbound's value to their sales teams and that would simultaneously show sales teams what they could gain by making the change.
Overview: You're a leader at your company, and you're under a lot of pressure to help the business grow. You have a tip-top marketing staff and a crack sales team, but you aren't getting the growth you want. In this course, you'll learn from the experiences of more than 25 business leaders just like you who have been faced with this problem and found ways to overcome it. By the time you've watched all the videos and passed the exam, you'll be ready to align your marketing and sales teams around one goal and one strategy that will help you get growing.
The Stand-Alone Lessons
Certifications have long been the mainstay of HubSpot Academy's content, but we recently introduced the idea of lessons. Lessons are short, self-paced training modules that enable you to master a specific marketing or sales topic in under 30 minutes. Some of these are individual classes from larger courses, but some are completely independent. Here are the sales-related lessons that aren't covered in the sales-related certifications.
How to Import Your Contacts Into HubSpot CRM
This lesson is for: CRM admins
Overview: Do you have contacts, companies, or deals from another system that you need to get into HubSpot CRM? This lesson walks you through the whole process, from formatting an import-friendly spreadsheet to creating custom properties. By the time you finish this lesson, you'll be ready to import anything into HubSpot CRM.
How to Save Time in Sales by Automating Your Prospect Research
This lesson is for: Sales reps
Overview: It's sad but true that, as a sales rep, you spend most of your time doing things other than selling. Research and data entry are two of the biggest time-sucks for sales teams, but they're necessary evils. Or are they? In this lesson, you'll learn how to automate the bulk of your prospect research, which will save you time and cut down on hours you spend manually searching the web for your sales prospects' company and contact information. BONUS: If you're a partner or marketer trying to convince a certain sales team to start using HubSpot CRM, this lesson is gold!
Creating Custom Views for Your Team
This lesson is for: Sales managers
Overview: Do you need to help your reps get organized? Would you like more visibility into the leads that are falling through the cracks? Watch this lesson to learn how to filter your data and save those filters to give you and your reps easy access to the information you need.
Designing your Sales Process in HubSpot CRM
This lesson is for: Sales managers
Overview: Have you documented your team's sales process? If you haven't, you're going to have a hard time making the deals inside HubSpot CRM work for you and your team. This lesson teaches you how to define your sales process and build it into HubSpot CRM.
