About Ignite Group

Ignite Group specializes in grant applications, providing support to customers in obtaining various grants. They tailor their offers to specific project needs and circumstances. They also offer additional administrative support services, including personalized grant news, access to a grant portal for administration, and assistance with tasks like WBSO notifications. Furthermore, they provide an Academy with presentations, workshops, and training on grant options and strategies.

What was wrong?

Ignite Group came to us through their investor, Silvertree. Their immediate need was an assessment of their setup within Salesforce, which they felt no longer suited their operational reality: it was slowing down their ability to scale revenue, as well as hampering reporting efforts: they didn’t really know what was working, or where their opportunities were.

Sure enough, we found a system that, after its initial admin had left, had not been properly maintained: data was inaccurate to a point sales was keeping separate spreadsheets on progress. The team worked off of minimal screens that they knew worked, while avoiding parts of Salesforce that they didn’t understand. They knew they were missing out on a lot of functionality and insights this way, but did not have the time or expertise to change the situation.

Finally, a newly-acquired division's entire process, from marketing to sales to quoting to billing, was manual, kept in spreadsheets and Word documents. For a scaleup, this wasn’t a feasible situation, as even basic reporting and mundane tasks proved time-consuming.

The work before the work

We recommended a phased approach: Assessment, Solution Design, Implementation and Training. We set out to gather and document the central processes of sales and marketing, both in the Netherlands and Germany. 

Then a set of requirements was put together, based on which Ignite Group could make a final decision on whether to try and adapt Salesforce to such an extent that it would facilitate the reality of the teams, or whether a move to HubSpot was in order.

Ignite ultimately decided to move to HubSpot for it's lower total cost of ownership, easy-to-use interface, and faster time-to-launch for such a complex implementation.

Now we're hoppin'

With all stakeholders aligning on the proposed solution design, and a brand new Revenue Operations Manager on board, we were ready to kick-off the implementation. We held weekly sprints throughout the 8-week implementation covering progress made, decisions to make and roadblocks that we encountered along the way.

As we neared completion, we held one of our favorite meetings, what we call The 80% Meeting. As a soft-launch of new processes, systems and tools to the full team, we collected valuable feedback on what we've built so far. While we love hearing "OMG, this is amazing!" we also love to hear "This is okay, but it'd be even better if it did X...". This meeting allows us to course correct for the final stages of implementation if needed and ensure where we land is exactly where everyone wants to be. For Ignite, it was mission success!

Jeroen Kunst, our internal champion as Revenue Operations Manager and owner of this project, had this to say when we wrapped up and kicked off our 12-month support retainer: