When organisations start thinking about a new CRM, the default process is usually the same: a committee is formed, meetings begin, every department is asked for requirements, a giant backlog is assembled, procurement gets involved, an RFP is written, and vendors are invited. Months pass, sometimes more than a year, before the organisation properly starts testing what modern platforms can actually do. I think that process is often backwards.
I understand why it happens. CRM decisions feel big, expensive and risky. Organisations want to be careful, they want internal buy-in, and they want to avoid making the wrong choice. But in practice, this approach often creates a different kind of risk.
It leads organisations to define their future around a long list of historic frustrations, legacy workflows, departmental preferences and hypothetical use cases, before they have tested what is possible for a relatively low cost in the real world. That is a problem.
Because the truth is, most organisations do not fully understand their actual CRM requirements until they start working in a better system. They may know what is painful today. They may know which reports are hard to produce. They may know where teams are duplicating effort, or where audience, visitor, member, donor, learner or enquiry data is fragmented.
But that’s not the same as knowing what the right future operating model looks like. And that is where I think HubSpot, particularly at Starter level, is worth serious consideration. Not necessarily because it must become the final CRM, but because it can help organisations learn faster, improve earlier, and make a much better long-term decision.
The traditional CRM process captures legacy baggage, not future needs
One of the biggest issues with a requirements-first process is that it tends to document the organisation as it is, not as it should be.
Teams describe the reports they currently ask for, not the dashboards they should already have. They describe the workarounds they use today, not the cleaner workflows they could adopt tomorrow. They describe the limitations of the current system, then assume the next one must be built around compensating for those limitations – What starts as discovery can quickly become a very expensive exercise in preserving old habits.
In Arts, Culture and Heritage organisations, this is especially common because audience data, ticketing, fundraising, learning, membership, visitor services, volunteer management and marketing are often spread across multiple systems and teams.
That complexity is real. But it can also make people over-engineer the brief before they have tested a more joined-up way of working.
A low-cost live environment is more valuable than a committee meeting
I am not against workshops, governance or procurement, they matter. But, I do think too many organisations rely on meetings to answer questions that would be better answered through use.
What happens when forms, email capture, shared inboxes, simple automations, campaigns, contact segmentation and reporting are actually live?
- What data starts appearing?
- What audience behaviours become visible?
- Where do internal bottlenecks show up?
- Which teams use the platform naturally, and which processes need redesigning?
Those are not abstract questions. They are operational questions, and they are much easier to answer inside a working system than in a spreadsheet full of requirements. That’s why I think there is a strong case for installing HubSpot early, not as a final declaration that “this is the CRM”, but as a practical step that allows the organisation to start learning immediately.
HubSpot doesn’t have to replace everything to be useful
This is another point I feel strongly about. Too many CRM conversations are framed as all or nothing. Either a platform replaces everything, or it is treated as a side tool that is not worth serious attention. I do not think that is how organisations should evaluate HubSpot.
Even if it only becomes part of the final toolkit, it can still be hugely valuable. It can act as a shared engagement layer across marketing, communications, enquiries, campaigns, audience development and service.
- It can capture and organise interest from the website.
- It can improve follow-up.
- It can support segmented communications.
- It can help teams see what is happening across campaigns and journeys.
- It can bring together first-party data previously scattered or not being used.
- It can give organisations a much clearer view of the path from awareness to action
Whether that action is an enquiry, booking, visit, donation, membership sign-up, event registration or course interest, that is useful whether or not HubSpot eventually becomes the primary CRM.
If a new CRM is on the horizon, install HubSpot at the beginning
If an organisation is already considering a future CRM change, I would argue there is an even stronger case for getting HubSpot in place early.
The moment it is installed, it starts collecting data. Not just contact records, but behavioural data, form submissions, source data, campaign responses, email engagement, page interactions, enquiry patterns and workflow outcomes.
In many cases, that is more actionable than the data currently being captured in the legacy CRM. That matters because it changes the quality of the CRM decision.vInstead of asking, “What do we think we need?” The organisation can start asking better questions.
- What are people actually doing?
- Where are journeys breaking down?
- What should be automated?
- Which teams need visibility into what?
- What information is important, and what’s been carried forward out of habit?
- What data needs to live in the CRM, and what simply needs to be connected to it?
Those insights are incredibly hard to get from a static requirements-gathering process alone. They become much easier when the organisation has a live platform collecting evidence from day one.
It’s not about avoiding rigour. It’s about making the process more intelligent
To be clear, I am not suggesting organisations should make major systems decisions casually. There will still be governance questions, integration questions, procurement rules, data questions and long-term architecture decisions to work through.
But I do think the process becomes more intelligent when some of the learning is happening in a live environment, not just in meetings.
A low-cost HubSpot Starter suite (£14.00 PCM) can help organisations:
- Clarify what good actually looks like
- Identify which use cases matter most
- Understand what teams will really use
- Improve audience and supporter journeys straight away
- Start collecting better data immediately
- Separate genuine strategic requirements from legacy noise
- Make a future CRM decision with more confidence
That feels like a better starting point to me than months of internal debate before anything practical has been tested.
My recommendation
If you are an Arts, Culture or Heritage organisation thinking about a CRM review, I would seriously consider installing HubSpot early, especially at Starter level, before you commit to a long procurement cycle.
- Use it to test.
- Use it to learn.
- Use it to improve some key journeys now.
- Use it to start capturing better data than your current setup is likely giving you.
Once you have real evidence, decide what role HubSpot should play long-term.
- It may become the core platform.
- It may become the engagement layer that sits alongside specialist systems.
- It may just be the proving ground to help write a better brief for what comes next.
Any of those outcomes would be more useful than spending months writing a theoretical perfect requirement list before you have tested what modern tooling can do in practice.
That is why I think more organisations should start with a live, lower-cost platform trial in the real world, not just another round of committee meetings.
