Welcome to Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast, where business leaders turn for actionable strategies to fuel growth and drive results. I’m your host, Kerry Curran. With over 20 years of marketing agency experience driving client business growth I now run RBMA: Revenue Based Marketing Advisors where we help businesses like yours effectively scale revenue growth. Visit RevenueBasedMarketing.com or connect with me on LinkedIn!

Today, you’ll learn how to the full potential of CRM to unite marketing, sales, and customer success teams, driving revenue growth and operational efficiency. Maximizing Revenue Potential: The Power of CRM in Cross-Functional Collaboration with special guest Sam Anderson, CEO and co-founder of Origin 63, an elite HubSpot partner.

Sam shares her expertise on overcoming common CRM challenges, from integrating disconnected tools to leveraging data for smarter insights and personalization at scale. Learn how the right CRM setup can enable predictive analytics, streamline workflows, and foster stronger connections with prospects and customers.

Whether you’re navigating tight budgets, adapting to industry shifts, or looking to optimize your marketing efforts, this episode offers actionable strategies and real-world examples to help your organization thrive. Don’t miss this deep dive into the essential role of CRM in cross-functional collaboration and revenue amplification!

Podcast transcript

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:01.48)

So welcome, Sam. Please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background and expertise.

Sam Anderson (00:01.742)

Absolutely. So I'm Sam Anderson. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Origin 63. We're an elite HubSpot partner. So what we do is we support companies in getting up and running with HubSpot, so implementing that software and then learning it back, taking the processes, overlaying it on top of HubSpot, and making sure their teams are fully adopting and getting all the usability and visibility out of the software.

My background, I was a marketer by trade. So a funny story. Way back in 2014, I was sent to inbound, which is HubSpot's big conference every year on behalf of one of my clients. And I came back and I told my husband, my gosh, we have to be HubSpot partners. HubSpot's so cool. Like back then it was all about ROI out of marketing and marketing automation.

And we became partners and it's been 10 years now, and we never looked back. And so I was a marketer by trade. I did a lot in the big agency world, started my marketing agency, and became a partner 10 years ago. And that's kind of the history behind it all.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:19.164)

Yeah, that's awesome, Sam. And I know when you and I worked together in a previous role of mine, like you and your team helped provide that clarity and that connection between the marketing activities and the sales activities, which was game-changing from that perspective. So, so much value to that aspect of the business. I can relate to what inbound was like, I also laughed at the most recent one thinking I was like, one more time be doing. But yeah, so talk to me about, know, when you have customers and prospects calling you, I know you're you have your ear to the ground and kind of the business challenges that are that you have the solution to. So what are they asking you for? What are the kinds of challenges they often share with you?

Sam Anderson (02:09.762)

Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of times when I'm speaking to marketers specifically, they're coming from tools like MailChimp, which doesn't have a lot of automation opportunities, not a lot of time or opportunities to personalize. And then you've got Marketo and Pardot. So on the other end of the spectrum, very heavy tools, but kind of behind the times, just not super usable. It's still kind of that folder system for anybody who's listening and who's seen Marketo or Pardot, they're going to laugh because they know exactly what I'm talking about. So usability is really top of mind, first and foremost. They want to be able to utilize the tool quickly and be able to launch their campaigns, launch their assets with very little friction. So that's kind of the first thing. The second thing is just the connectivity of the platform with all the different tools.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (02:42.526)

You.

Sam Anderson (03:07.47)

I think there's a stat out there. I could be misstating this, so I'll just paraphrase, but I'm pretty sure there's something like marketing teams use somewhere around 10 tools to power their whole system. There's no such thing as just one tool now to do everything, right? From social, webinars, blogs, videos, et cetera. There are so many tools. And so a lot of times that's the second thing that's kind of a big pain point is …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:11.646)

Thanks.

Sam Anderson (03:33.89)

… the disconnection of their CRM software with all the other marketing tools. And of course, the third thing is when all those things are disconnected, they're having trouble with visibility. So I hear a lot about wanting more reports, more analytics to be able to power the overall marketing journey, understand what's working, what's not, and really double down on what's going to give them the biggest return because, at the end of the day, marketing teams are fighting for that. They need to be able to show results. So if you don't have the analytics because all your tools are broken or you can't launch your campaign fast enough, it's certainly going to stand in the way of accomplishing that goal. That's what I hear a lot.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:19.526)

Right, Yeah, and so I know too, like connecting the marketing activities to sales or customer acquisition or even engagement is such an important part. We're seeing, we were talking about this earlier, it is a tough time for marketing. We're seeing budgets get cut. We're seeing teams get reduced and we're seeing, you know, one of the challenges I keep seeing is people saying, we've, you know, we've hired more SDRs, BDRs, but we're cutting back on marketing.

And that's just not the way to lay that foundation to grow that reach and audience connection. talking about from your perspective, how is this a time, you know, we talked about this is a time for to lean into marketing, but how are you seeing that kind of in your clients that you're talking to and the brands that you're talking to?

Sam Anderson (05:16.428)

Yeah, so it makes me think of an anecdote that I was told when I was in school many, many, many years ago. But we had a marketing professor that kind of looked at data and looked at during times of economic downturn or just kind of like distress in certain industries, what companies ended up pulling forward, pulling out on top after everything kind of settled …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (05:42.567)

you

Sam Anderson (05:45.654)

… and it was interesting to see that there was a high correlation between those companies that are investing in marketing and doubling down when their competitors are pulling back. And it's a great time to do that because if your competitors are pulling back, that means you're just going to get like a 2X on everything that you're doing from an organization standpoint for the marketing that you are producing, that the dollars that you are investing.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:12.894)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Anderson (06:13.056)

And so I think what I see a lot of, especially when times do get tricky or get a little tight is marketing, just doing what marketing does best, which is getting scrappy, like a lot of guerrilla marketing, utilizing partners, finding ways to essentially enhance what they're doing and make it even better or reach more people. And I think that's what's interesting about the way that marketing automation is moving today is that there's such a large emphasis on personalization at scale. And I think that's where so many marketers are moving over to these new age tools like HubSpot because it's intrinsically built into the software, the ability to automate more of those touch points, to be able to infuse more of that personalization into your messaging …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:44.284)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Anderson (07:10.442)

… whether that's through different workflows that you're building so that people doing certain types of behaviors get certain types of messages, or it's just built into your overall structure in that you're allowing people to kind of opt into certain types of marketing that's going to work best for them or the topics that work best for them. I think being able to invest your time into what's going to give us the biggest return … 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:18.397)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Anderson (07:38.432)

… is going to be the way that these companies, even if they are pulling back, the way that they get the most that they absolutely can on the investment during these times. But I do think it does go to say that when you do look back, when you look back at the 2008 recession, for example, when you look at some of those companies that did do amazing after the recession was over, they were never pulling back kept pushing forward, they just did it in intentional ways to reach their audience where their audience was at that time.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:11.358)

Yeah, no. I've seen that in my strategies as well of or, you know, I've tried to do that in my strategies, I should say, is continue to kind of fill that pipeline and connect with more of your prospects, building that those relationships, especially for B2B marketers where their target audience might only be in the market for, you know, they say 95 % of B2B buyers are not in the market or only

25 % are in the market at any given time. So it is that relationship building. And to your point, like being able to continue to invest to fuel that, fuel your CRM, bring those new prospects into your program so that you can build the relationship and engagement with them over time. I mean, that in itself is one of the big values I've seen, you know, from having that CRM program.

Sam Anderson (09:07.69)

Yeah.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (09:11.281)

So talk a bit more about how the CRM, now, does specific examples of how you've seen your clients use that to help them stand out in that process.

Sam Anderson (09:22.243)

Yeah, absolutely. So I think it goes back to data. So as marketers, I think that one of the most powerful tools we have in our back pocket is data, but accurate data is the key there. Cause I hear that so often from people coming over into the HubSpot ecosystem. It's like, we don't have enough data, or the data that we do have, we can't trust for some reason, right?

So I think that's where this idea of having interconnected marketing and sales, but also having data flow in from your website, other online platforms that you may have. If you're a SaaS, even hooking up your platform to drive events down into your database so you can act on specific behaviors or activities that people are doing on your platform.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (09:53.789)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Anderson (10:14.85)

Data is what is the gold for marketers to be able to power the campaigns that they want to do, that they can understand where somebody is in their journey and then feed them the next step to keep them progressing. You can't do that if you don't have, first of all, a CRM. The CRM stores all of the information that you could have, not only with that company overall but with that …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (10:21.608)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Anderson (10:43.722)

… one person. And that's really how personalization at scale happens if we know a lot about that individual, right? But the other piece of that puzzle is having all those touch points so that you as a marketer can take a step back and understand what your typical customer journey looks like. And based on how people are interacting, what they're interacting with, and where they might be.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:11.87)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Anderson (11:13.452)

In that process. So life cycle stages, we talk about that a lot in the world of HubSpot and CRM. And I see a lot of marketing teams sometimes neglect this if they don't have a CRM, especially if they're not in the same group under marketing and sales, or if they don't have a super strong handoff, they tend to forget how to… 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:14.866)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Anderson (11:42.67)

… categorize where people are in that process. So that's where the life cycle stages help. Like what does a lead look like? When is it marketing qualified? When should it be passed off to sales, et cetera? And I think that's where having all those data points can help to categorize automatically where each contact is, which then again, maps back to the customer journey. And that overarching strategy is what ends up connecting everything in the one platform. So HubSpot … 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:53.778)

You.

Sam Anderson (12:12.734)

… is not just a marketing automation platform, right? It's marketing, it's sales, it's service. It also has other tools like website tools all in one connected with a centralized CRM. So that's the key to being able to utilize software, utilize data within the software to create that journey, and create those marketing paths that do allow you to, to your previous point.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:16.549)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Anderson (12:40.782)

Continue to build relationships with those individuals in your prospecting pool. And if they're not ready to buy, no worries, right? Like you're still there keeping your message top of mind. The goal, like you said, and you could totally talk more about this, right? For B2B marketing, it's making sure that you're there because that 5 % of your pool will be looking, but you don't know when. So.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:52.67)

Thank you. Yeah.

Sam Anderson (13:08.106)

That's the power of utilizing software, also utilizing CRM to deliver those messages at the right time.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (13:17.327)

Yeah, no, and it's definitely, it's so important. you know, one of the great values that you brought to my team when we worked together was setting it up correctly. It's not just a, it's so customizable. I'd say there's almost too many bells and whistles. But to your point, it's getting that tracking in place so that you do know when that prospect …

Sam Anderson (13:38.381)

Yeah.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (13:44.094)

… is showing behaviors that, they actually might be in that 5 % buying window, sending maybe different messaging to the target prospect that is engaging with your email versus the one that's not, or opening your newsletters and clicking on links versus the one that's not. So it's like you can create different workflows and automation

Sam Anderson (13:50.21)

Right.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:13.94)

just makes it so much more efficient and effective to be more, as you said, personalizing at scale. So super, super valuable from that perspective. And now AI has come to play a stronger role in content creation. And again, coming out of inbound, they announced all of their new AI tools. showed me a tool where you can have a podcast created without you even doing anything.

Sam Anderson (14:21.581)

Yeah.

Sam Anderson (14:31.405)

Absolutely.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:44.032)

I was like, I'll keep my manual process there. to the point of there are so many ways that you can use AI to improve that efficiency and effectiveness. What have you seen or kind of tested into with those bells and whistles?

Sam Anderson (14:45.998)

I know why I'll try.

Sam Anderson (15:05.312)

Yeah, absolutely. A theme I like right now is this idea of co-creating with AI because right now, we've all been there. We've tried to utilize chat GPT to maybe help us start writing an article or give us an outline. And you'll notice it's like 99 % of the way there, but it still feels fake. You can feel it's robotic. People are calling out when they know something is chat GPT, we can still tell. I predict that in a year or two we may not be able to, which will be a wild world. But for the most part, right now, there's still a tell. 

There's still a lie detector that we have that's like, that's not quite right. And so I like this idea of co-creating. So as simple as using outside of HubSpot, chat GPT to create an outline or to get ideas starting brainstorming with AI, right? But then within the tool itself, there are so many ways that AI is starting to help us to run faster campaigns. So I think the best use case for HubSpot AI, for example, right now for marketing is the fact that we can create maybe one blog article or we create even like a prompt of what we want social media posts to say. And with one or two clicks, HubSpot's AI can take that one piece of content and duplicate it across multiple different platforms. So it'll write social posts for you. It'll create an AI-generated video on that blog article. It can do all these little things that connect the entire campaign from one asset. And I think that's …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (16:39.986)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Anderson (16:57.422)

… kind of where we're seeing this first wave of AI be most helpful is in that efficiency movement. We're really looking at how quickly can we do things and how many steps can we decrease from our overall process to create a campaign faster or to deliver a message quicker. But there's also some really cool things going on with AI on the reporting side too. So I don't want to forget that because I think that's where again, this first …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (17:11.294)

Yeah.

Sam Anderson (17:27.244)

… this first generation of AI is going to be super helpful in not only creating those reports but helping us to drive insights because that's where we've always struggled. Even as an industry in general, we have all these beautiful reports, but then it's like, what does it mean? What do we do with it? And so I think that the value of AI today inside of a tool like HubSpot is efficiency and visibility. And then in the future, I know we're going to get even better tools that are going to be able to help us do all these amazing things that we wish we could just do with the magic wand. But I don't think we're there yet. I don't think we can expect it as a marketer like in this first wave. But who knows the second wave could certainly be able to produce content that looks and feels like you are …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (17:55.934)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Anderson (18:25.23)

… company, because maybe it was learning it over time, learning the voice. Maybe it absorbs all of the content that your company has ever done with video, blog, etc. And all of sudden, it can create these articles that are really well done and sound like your brand. I think that's a reality. I think it will be a reality. I don't know if we're quite there yet today, but I certainly think that we can expect that in the future.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (18:55.634)

Well, and again, anything that helps us get smarter while still adding that human layer to your point of it will get smarter, but still be in our voice, not completely computer driven or AI-driven. But you mentioned smarter insights. I think too, like, and I love that idea. And I use AI for that now. It's like, can pull out the key takeaways here.

Sam Anderson (19:10.764)

Exactly.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (19:26.334)

One of the benefits today, even as the AI opportunities are evolving, is that you can get smarter insights about your prospects in kind of getting a better connection back to what initiatives are driving conversions or driving engagement towards that qualified buyer. helping you kind of narrow down your ICP based on who's converting and buying. So talk a bit more about kind of the smarter insights that you can get out of a properly established CRM.

Sam Anderson (20:06.923)

Yeah, so I think that is another way AI is working already inside of tools like HubSpot. So you can pull things like, tell me more about this specific company, for example, or this specific prospect. So that's really helpful for sales, especially.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (20:20.239)

Right.

Sam Anderson (20:24.182)

I've seen it work well too for summarizing all the touch points and all the conversations to pass off for sales. So almost like that marketing to sales handoff support, a little bit of a different way of thinking about how that helps marketing. But if sales can work our leads faster, better, and more effectively, then the better the likelihood is that marketing is going to be able to show that return on those leads and our overall investment. So I think that's important.

But also I think that as we're looking at AI-generated insights, we are starting to get better journey reports as well. So I talked about that earlier today, but the idea of being able to understand, quantify, and predict, which is the biggest piece, where someone is or should be in their journey and what they should do next to get them closer to a decision point or even just an at a point of understanding your product, your service, et cetera, and evaluating if you're the right fit. I think that's where AI is playing a big role in reporting and analytics and insights are giving us those types of output that we normally would have had to either do tons of Excel worksheet stuff for or have had hired data analysts who are building these like predictive models.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (21:37.213)

Mm-hmm.

Sam Anderson (21:51.438)

Again, we're seeing a sliver of that today, but I feel in the future we're going to be able to pull these data models straight from our CRMs that are going to give us that predictive element to what we're doing, which in the end of the day, that's what we're all trying to do is just create a predictive revenue generation platform for our brands.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (22:13.886)

Yep, definitely. Well, this is so important and so valuable. So Sam, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us today. I know it's always great to talk to you. I always learn some things. So thank you so much and we look forward to having you on again.

Sam Anderson (22:28.59)

My pleasure.

Sam Anderson (22:32.43)

Thank you so much.