How I Built a HubSpot Playbook That Actually Gets Used
Our sales team was struggling with HubSpot. Not because they didn't want to use it—they just didn't know how to use it correctly.
Contacts were duplicated, deals were stuck in wrong stages, company records were inconsistent, and pipeline was not ideal. The head of sales came to me frustrated: "We have this expensive CRM but nobody's using it the same way."
So I built a HubSpot playbook. Not a massive manual that nobody reads, but a practical guide that actually gets used. Here's how I approached it and what I learned.
The Problem With Most CRM Documentation
Most HubSpot documentation falls into two camps: either it's the official HubSpot knowledge base (comprehensive but generic), or it's an internal wiki that's outdated and overwhelming.
Neither works for a busy sales team. They need answers fast, specific to how your organization uses HubSpot, with screenshots showing exactly where to click.
Our team had questions like "What does the 'Therapy' field mean?", "Which fields are required to create a deal?", and "How do I know if this company is already in the system?" The official docs couldn't answer these—they're specific to our business.
What I Built
I created a playbook organized around the core objects sales teams interact with every day: Companies, Deals, Contacts, and Tickets. For each one, I documented three things: what it is, what the fields mean, and how to add or update it correctly.
Companies: I started with defining what a "company" means in our context—an entity we can sell services to. Then I took screenshots of the company record and highlighted which fields the team could edit versus which were locked. Most importantly, I defined what each custom field actually means. That "Therapy: Yes/No" checkbox? It indicates whether the company uses our therapy services. Simple, but nobody had written it down before.
Deals: Same approach. What's a deal in our workflow? A potential sale with a specific company. Which fields are required to create one? What do the pipeline stages actually mean? I documented the process for adding a new opportunity and emphasized why keeping the pipeline current matters—because leadership makes decisions based on this data.
Contacts: How do you add a contact without creating duplicates? What's the difference between adding someone manually versus importing from our data tools? When should you use each method? Screenshots showing the exact workflow, step by step.
Tickets: We use HubSpot's ticketing system for internal support requests. I already had a PowerPoint explaining this, so I converted those slides into the playbook format with consistent styling and navigation.
The Parts That Made It Useful
What separated this from other documentation attempts was focusing on why and process, not just how.
I didn't just say "here's how to add a company"—I explained why data quality matters and what happens when you add bad data. If you create duplicate companies or miss required fields, it breaks reporting and makes everyone's job harder. Understanding the why makes people actually follow the process.
I also highlighted the differences between roles. Sales uses HubSpot for tracking deals and contacts. Marketing uses it for campaigns and outreach. Sales Operations (my role) handles support when things break or new features are needed. Everyone needed to understand their lane.
The marketing section was interesting because I had to collaborate with the marketing team to document how they use templates and marketing contacts. HubSpot has limits on marketing contacts (we have about 10,000), so we needed clarity on what qualifies as a marketing contact versus a regular contact and how to manage that quota.
What I Learned
Keep it scannable. Sales teams don't read paragraphs. They want to find their answer in 30 seconds. Clear headings, short explanations, big screenshots.
Use actual examples. Don't say "enter the company name"—show a screenshot with an actual company name filled in. It makes everything immediately clearer.
Document the weird stuff. The official HubSpot docs cover the basics. Your playbook should cover the edge cases and organizational-specific workflows. That's where the real value is.
Make it a reference, not a tutorial. People won't read it cover to cover. They'll search for "how to add a deal" when they need it. Structure it so they can jump directly to that section.
Get feedback early. I shared a draft with a few sales team members before finalizing it. They caught assumptions I made and pointed out gaps I missed. The final version was way better because of their input.
The Result
The head of sales loved it. More importantly, the team started using it. New hires got trained faster. Support requests to me dropped because people could find answers themselves. Pipeline data got cleaner because everyone followed the same process.
It wasn't a massive undertaking either—maybe 10-12 hours of work total. The biggest time investment was taking all those screenshots and organizing them clearly. But that one-time effort pays dividends every time someone references the playbook instead of doing it wrong.
Why This Matters Beyond HubSpot
This isn't really about HubSpot. It's about the gap between having tools and actually using them effectively.
Organizations spend thousands on software and assume people will figure it out. They don't. Not because they're incapable, but because every company uses these tools differently. Your custom fields, your workflows, your specific use cases—none of that is in the official documentation.
Creating internal playbooks for your core tools isn't glamorous work, but it's incredibly valuable. It turns chaos into consistency. It speeds up onboarding. It reduces support burden. It makes expensive software actually deliver ROI.
Whether it's HubSpot, Salesforce, Asana, or any other platform your team uses daily, the question is the same: does everyone know how to use it the way your organization needs them to?
If not, maybe it's time to build a playbook.
Managing HubSpot environments and creating documentation that actually gets used is part of what I do. If your team is struggling with CRM adoption or needs help systemizing your sales operations, let's connect.