---
title: "He Built a $60K CPQ Inside HubSpot in 2 Days"
episode: 108
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Derek Mogar"
guest_title: "Architect"
date_published: 2026-09-01
date_modified: 2026-09-03
duration: 00:59:27
word_count: 10400
topics: ["revenue-operations", "pricing-packaging", "ai-in-gtm", "gtm-strategy"]
canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/derek-mogar-cpq-inside-hubspot-two-days/
source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# He Built a $60K CPQ Inside HubSpot in 2 Days — Full Transcript

> Episode 108 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Derek Mogar.
> Published September 1, 2026 · 00:59:27 · 10400 words.
> Machine-transcribed and **not diarized** — speaker attribution is inferred, so verify
> attribution against the audio before quoting a specific person.
> Structured breakdown: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/derek-mogar-cpq-inside-hubspot-two-days/

## 00:00 — Cold open + intro

**[0:00]** And those changes are gonna impact the, you know, the way that the contracts are

**[0:04]** built or handled. That's gonna be really important that you have someone that

**[0:07]** knows that and owns it and can make sure that those processes are keeping up

**[0:11]** with one another. My guest today is Derek Mogar, one of the architects here at

**[0:17]** LeanScale. Derek, this is a fun one. I'm really excited to get some of the

**[0:21]** projects that were running in the field and share it with our audience. So one of

**[0:28]** the trickiest things when it comes to CPQ and quote-to-cash in general is

**[0:34]** everything that drives the downward systems and motions of your go-to-market.

**[0:39]** Some of the downstream effects like billing and reporting, some of those

**[0:45]** nuances really require a strong CPQ in place. What are some limitations they're

**[0:51]** gonna run into and some things they might not have? I think reconciliation

**[0:56]** and alerting and monitoring, that's not something that I would recommend doing

**[1:02]** on a quarterly basis. If you can automate like alerts of things that you expect to

**[1:06]** come up and there's a lot that could potentially come up, you want to make

**[1:11]** sure that you surface those things immediately. A lot of people don't think

**[1:15]** about that part but there's so many different things that require a really

**[1:20]** really strong logic engine just to produce the quote, let alone document

**[1:25]** everything and connect it to your other systems for reporting and intelligence

**[1:29]** purposes as well. Oh these are nice to have automation so that way we can not

**[1:35]** have to do as much work. This is, oh if we don't do this it could put deals at

**[1:40]** risk, if billing looks funky it could put our reputation at risk, it doesn't look

**[1:44]** good to a customer if you send a bill with the wrong name or don't bill them

## 01:47 — When the throwaway MVP became the product

**[1:47]** and try to bill them later, it just looks like you don't have your house in order.

**[1:54]** Derek this is a fun one, I'm really excited to get some of the projects that

**[1:59]** were running in the field with actual B2B SaaS AI companies and share it with

**[2:07]** our audience. So with this one you set out to show the customer a demo of what

**[2:13]** advanced selling could look like and you ended up walking away building a

**[2:19]** production level CPQ. When did you realize that the typical throw MVP

**[2:25]** actually became the product? Not gonna call it a love story but it was a love

**[2:32]** at first sight when they saw it. As you said you know we set out to really just

**[2:38]** show them what advanced selling looks like inside of HubSpot because HubSpot

**[2:44]** is so accessible it's really easy to show off a lot of MVPs. You have an idea

**[2:49]** it's really easy to bring it to life but I use all of my knowledge and

**[2:54]** experience with CPQ, quote to cash, my background in sales and a lot of

**[2:59]** discovery and diving into the data before that happened to really tailor

**[3:05]** this MVP to how they sell, the different types of selling motions that they have

**[3:10]** addressing some of the different pain points that they have and now I'm not a

**[3:15]** developer or coder I understand it and I can be dangerous with it at times but I

**[3:20]** understand design really well and that really assisted kind of building it out

**[3:26]** to where they saw it. They loved it immediately and they're basically just

**[3:31]** said well why don't we just use this like why don't we build on this and make

**[3:35]** this kind of the go-to system for everything that the sales team does. So

**[3:41]** it really started as just like hey I just want to show them something really

**[3:45]** cool in HubSpot, something maybe that they haven't seen because coming into

**[3:50]** this they actually already had two months of research into different like

**[3:54]** full-stack kind of quote to cash systems, different CPQ systems, different billing

**[4:00]** and subscription systems and they had kind of started leaning towards one and

**[4:04]** then something that you mentioned sales lead and product lead started to collide.

**[4:10]** Those you know don't tend to act very nice when it comes to billing and

**[4:16]** subscriptions. The way that they enter the system, the way that they grow, they're

**[4:20]** vastly vastly different. So we came in had a really really good time to just

**[4:26]** start talking about it, start really digging in with the sales team. How do you

**[4:31]** actually sell today? From the data we can see a lot of the issues already. We can

**[4:36]** see that the lack of guardrails, the lack of kind of decision-making when it

**[4:42]** comes to selling a certain type of product or selling a certain type of

**[4:47]** motion like a renewal or an expansion or an enterprise product skew, those were

**[4:52]** all things that it was kind of just a wild wild west from what you can see in

**[4:57]** the data and even when we were doing walkthroughs with the sales team you can

**[5:00]** see that just very very clearly. So that was something that I didn't set out to

**[5:06]** prove against. They knew they needed a new solution. What I didn't think is

**[5:12]** that it was going to be this MVP that we were just standing up to show them how

## 05:15 — The environment: colliding sales-led and product-led motions

**[5:17]** the full quote to cash system could work. Maybe let's walk through exactly the

**[5:24]** environment that you're walking into because all selling motions are not

**[5:29]** created equal. There's certain things that make selling certain products or

**[5:34]** services more difficult than others. So what did the environment look like? I've

**[5:37]** heard some product led motions, some sales led motions, but what are the

**[5:41]** details of how they sold, how they sold their products and some of the

**[5:44]** challenges that have brought up? So one of the trickiest things when it comes to

**[5:49]** CPQ and quote to cash in general is everything that drives the downward

**[5:55]** systems and motions of your go-to-market. So you can sell one product one way. It

**[6:02]** may have 15, 16 different conversions. It definitely has you know eight to ten

**[6:07]** different ways that it can be billed, sliced and diced. What they had in

**[6:11]** place before was almost like a single motion. Everything was sold the same

**[6:16]** exact way. There were no restrictions around like what could and could not be

**[6:20]** edited. HubSpot does have some natural like out-of-the-box limitations when it

**[6:26]** comes to B2B SaaS Rev Rec and we can probably get into a lot of those later

**[6:31]** but it was almost like a one-trick pony. You can put a product in there. You can

**[6:35]** select a quantity. There's no product SKUs so there's no way to do any kind of

**[6:40]** reporting or segmentation or product level ARR. You can add the discount and

**[6:45]** then that's it. It's giving you a couple kind of bland numbers out of that engine

**[6:50]** but there's so much more that you need from a CPQ system because ultimately

**[6:56]** it's driving how your contracts are laid out, how your proposals are laid out, your

**[7:02]** commission systems, your forecasting. Like everything is kind of branching off of

**[7:07]** really the CPQ as the starting point but really the quote to cash system as a

## 07:09 — The gotchas of quoting in spreadsheets or out-of-the-box tools

**[7:11]** whole. Yeah I think you mentioned a couple things where I think a lot of

**[7:17]** people have a simplistic view of oh I just need to build a quote. I probably

**[7:22]** need to put a couple line items, quantities, lock and load but some of the

**[7:27]** downstream effects like billing and reporting some of those nuances really

**[7:32]** require a strong CPQ in place because that's kind of the beginning of that

**[7:39]** process. What are some gotchas that people either not using a CPQ they're

**[7:45]** just doing things maybe in like Google Sheets or Google Docs or they're just

**[7:51]** using very simple out-of-the-box stuff. What are some limitations they're going

**[7:54]** to run into and some things they might not have because they're not using a

**[7:58]** proper CPQ? So I'm gonna dabble into revenue intelligence on this one just

**[8:05]** because one of the most important things outside of the data being in a single

**[8:10]** environment that is consistent, clean, it's structured and that's what a CPQ

**[8:16]** sets the tone for across your entire go-to-market across the entire quote to

**[8:21]** cash is that it creates repeatable, confident, stable, structured data. When it

**[8:29]** comes to revenue you know tons of formulas out there there's tons of

**[8:32]** calculations that are driving it in the back end. For us we want to make it as

**[8:37]** easy as possible for a sales rep to go in there, build a proposal, have confidence

**[8:42]** in the output and get a signature as quick as they possibly can. We don't want

**[8:47]** to really distract them with having to go build out these elaborate pricing and

**[8:52]** quoting tables. They should be filling out a couple questions in the guided

**[8:56]** selling. There should be the products, the few configurations that go with that

**[9:01]** product and everything else should be done for them. It should be really a

**[9:05]** couple you know minutes in there depending on you know how complex the

**[9:10]** the pricing and selling is. It might take a little bit longer but it should get

**[9:14]** them to sharing something with the customer. For sales teams we want them

**[9:18]** spending as much time with the customers, not buried in tools, not buried in

**[9:23]** calculations. We want to try to restrict and reduce the number of errors that can

**[9:29]** happen with say a spreadsheet or can happen just trying to use like out of the

**[9:34]** box HubSpot properties or even in Salesforce. When I've done quote-to-cash

**[9:39]** and CPQ in Salesforce you have a lot of legacy technical debt that gets built up

**[9:45]** over time. So when you're going into a project like this understanding every

**[9:50]** single thing that this might touch, mapping that out completely end-to-end as

**[9:54]** well as anything net new that is going to be coming in, that's day one. Like we

**[10:00]** have to understand the entire ecosystem before we can recommend changes, before

**[10:04]** we can look at tool selection or anything like that. Yeah and I think a

**[10:10]** lot of people don't have an appreciation for the complexity behind it and the

**[10:15]** permutations of different types of pricing and coding models that you could

**[10:20]** have depending on the types of rules that you have in place. So if you have

**[10:23]** like product dependencies, so hey you can't buy this product unless you have

**[10:27]** this product, if you have any like quantity thresholds, if you have a usage

**[10:31]** based product, okay how are you stair-stepping different gates of the

**[10:36]** price per unit. There's so many different things that require really really strong

**[10:41]** logic engine just to produce the quote let alone document everything and

**[10:46]** connect it to your other systems for reporting and intelligence purposes as

**[10:50]** well. So there's a lot in here even if you have an on-paper simple product

**[10:56]** you'd be shocked at how many permutations of quotes you could develop

**[11:02]** with a simple offer. I actually had an interesting conversation with my dad

## 11:05 — Model your top reps: discovery, conversation intelligence, rip-and-replace

**[11:06]** this morning, he's been in enterprise sales his entire life but we were going

**[11:11]** into just different types of leadership and how as a business, as a company, as

**[11:17]** an organization you want to find your top performers and try to replicate what

**[11:21]** they're doing. I take the same approach when it comes to quote to cash like I

**[11:25]** want to understand what the top sales people are doing, how are they selling the

**[11:30]** product, let's go into conversation intelligence and really break down the

**[11:34]** ins and outs and a lot of the times you'll find that it's just the simplest

**[11:38]** approach. They get on, it's an honest conversation, they know what the the

**[11:42]** prospect or the customer needs and wants and they're able to get it to them

**[11:46]** really really quickly. So even modeling some of like the guided selling,

**[11:51]** simplifying some of those processes is always an approach that I try to apply

**[11:56]** when it when getting into quote to cash. You can again look at what exists, you

**[12:01]** can look at the data schema, you can look at what you know what tools are in place

**[12:06]** today and you can look at the data itself but actually talking to the

**[12:11]** people that use these systems is really really helpful and even just looking at

**[12:16]** like how they're talking about them, how they're talking about the products. So

**[12:20]** I'll use an example with one of the customers that we had. They were going

**[12:26]** through a selling motion that wasn't a tip like a standard selling motion like

**[12:30]** an enterprise ramp deal or a co-term to expansion. This was a full like rip and

**[12:37]** replace. This existing contract is going to be null and void and this one is

**[12:41]** going to be replacing it. So there's nothing to handle that within their

**[12:45]** system but in talking through discovery we knew like hey this needs to be a

**[12:50]** quoting scenario that we need to address for. I think from like the the CPQ

**[12:55]** standpoint it's about the same. You're building products, you're assigning terms,

**[12:59]** you're going through the same guided selling, but something that the out of

**[13:03]** the box CPQs can't do without heavy heavy customization is okay let's go

**[13:09]** look back at the records. What is this actually replacing? And then you can find

**[13:14]** the differences, you can set credits, you can do a lot more calculations that are

**[13:18]** going to give you much better revenue reporting on the back end. So it's little

**[13:22]** things like that that won't come up or surface in like looking at the

**[13:27]** intangibles but then when you actually talk to the people that are doing it on

**[13:31]** the day-to-day that's when you start to uncover a lot more and then you bring

**[13:35]** that to leadership like is this how we want to sell, is this something that we

**[13:39]** want to continue with and the answer ultimately landed on yes for them

**[13:44]** because it's more revenue. Of course we're gonna you know cancel a contract

**[13:49]** and they can you know go on a new 12-month or 36-month term with more

**[13:52]** seats and products. There's no reason not to do that so build the system and make

**[13:58]** it work and with the the extension UI which is how you do a custom CPQ inside

**[14:05]** of HubSpot we just built out a new scenario for that. So now you have a new

**[14:09]** scenario it can easily handle that and everything on the back end gets done, new

**[14:14]** language goes in the contract that's getting inserted, Maxio which is a

**[14:21]** billing and subscription platform that gets updated and it knows that hey this

**[14:25]** is going to replace this contract. So all that identity resolution is happening in

**[14:29]** the back end because of just a simple discovery and seeing that this was

**[14:33]** something that they needed. So I'd love if you could walk through exactly how

## 14:39 — How he approached the build: mapping the full tech stack

**[14:39]** you built it. I know a lot of this was AI powered but how did you approach it? How

**[14:46]** did you feed the context? How did you deploy it? All of the details if somebody

**[14:51]** could try to figure this out for their own. How did you put it all together? I

**[14:55]** guess the one of the initial steps that you want to take is you need to map the

**[15:01]** full tech stack that is going to be touched by quote-to-cash. So not just the

**[15:06]** the tools that are in place but the typical tools that would be part of

**[15:10]** quote-to-cash which would be CPQ, CLM or document handling and billing and

**[15:16]** subscription and then maybe you tack on like ERP or accounting systems but for

**[15:21]** the most part it's focused around CPQ, document handling and billing and

**[15:26]** subscriptions. Those all need to work together flawlessly. If those can't

**[15:31]** communicate or there are certain elements of one system that aren't

**[15:35]** available in another that's when you have to potentially hit the the

**[15:40]** abandonment button and go a different direction. Luckily with this we were able

**[15:44]** to do a lot of that very early on so we kind of knew where they were leaning on

**[15:49]** the billing and subscription side so we knew what that what that data model

**[15:54]** needed to look like. So that made it a little bit easier. The other part of just

**[16:00]** CPQ in general is what reporting do we want to get out of this and you don't

**[16:05]** need to overload it. If you build it the right way you can always get additional

**[16:09]** reporting but do we want to report you know year-over-year ARR growth for a

**[16:15]** multi-year deal? Do we want to be able to really granularly track like product

**[16:20]** level ARR or do we want to is contracted ARR and bookings is that the only thing

**[16:24]** that's important to us? So you start to go down this list and we have a full

**[16:28]** you know library built out of all the different revenue fields and and

**[16:34]** potentially you can get out of a correctly set up CPQ and we just start

**[16:38]** to go down the list. What of this is important to you? This is what it could

**[16:43]** potentially deliver depending on where they are in their funding stages to

**[16:46]** certain ones might be more important now than they are in the future but I would

**[16:52]** push back and be like well you want to prepare for the future. You know we're

**[16:55]** building something here in the present and it's gonna service you very well but

**[16:59]** we also want to look six months down the road, 12 months down the road, 18 months

**[17:03]** down the road. What are you know the product and price book changes that

**[17:07]** you're gonna be going through? Are you thinking about AI? Are you gonna be

**[17:11]** bringing on a you know partner channel or something like that that might need to

**[17:15]** be serviced by this a little bit differently and there are actually point

**[17:19]** solutions for like partner CPQs out there that I would definitely recommend

**[17:24]** potentially looking at but it's a it's a great way to allow partners to co-sell

**[17:30]** and sell on your behalf so there are options like that out there as well but

**[17:35]** it's you got to think ahead you can't just think about the here and now you

**[17:40]** have to think about where the organization's gonna be what the world's

**[17:44]** gonna look like six months from now with AI it changes on a daily and a weekly

**[17:48]** basis what I would have been talking about from quote to cash six months ago

**[17:52]** to what we're talking about now has dramatically shifted and it's gonna

**[17:57]** continue to change I think within the industry just specifically talking about

**[18:02]** you know CPQs and subscription and building software 2025 you saw big

**[18:07]** consolidation you saw a lot of new kind of all-in-one solutions come up you saw

**[18:13]** a lot of M&A activity across the board that's gonna continue to happen one

**[18:18]** thing I haven't seen but I'm actually really excited to check out is the hub

**[18:22]** spot revenue hub which just got totally revamped by an acquisition that they had

**[18:27]** earlier 2025 might have been end of 2024 but they in that kind of roll out one of

**[18:34]** the biggest things they were trying to address is how do we make this more than

**[18:39]** just a singular subscription system and you know singular like e-commerce style

**[18:44]** sales and revenue system so a lot of what they've a lot of the R&D that they

**[18:50]** put into revenue hub is specifically addressing that some of the most like

**[18:54]** advanced selling motions co-termed expansions ramp deals you're over your

**[19:00]** escalators all of these are some of the toughest to figure out as a rev ops

**[19:04]** person but they're starting to lean that way because they see the benefit of

**[19:09]** having a fully robust and native CPQ built out within HubSpot yeah the tech

**[19:18]** stack is definitely going through quite a bit of an evolution on the HubSpot side

**[19:22]** investing in their own Salesforce end of sailing Salesforce CPQ so not end of

**[19:30]** lifing it if you have you can still use it but they're not selling it anymore and

**[19:33]** there's still a lot of unknowns about their revenue cloud architecture and how

**[19:39]** that's going to impact and then there's a few bigger players like deal hub they

**[19:43]** just acquired subscribe which should help with that subscription based billing

**[19:47]** but yeah it's starting to feel like there's some consolidation there might

**[19:52]** be a couple obvious choices but in the meantime you chose to build it on your

**[19:57]** own so once you have the discovery done you knew exactly the motions they needed

**[20:02]** to account for you knew what the reporting looked like the downstream

**[20:04]** effects all the blueprint of exactly what you needed to build how did you

**[20:09]** actually end up building it it started with the data like what do we want that

**[20:15]** the data outcome to be when it comes to quote to cash so that that was the first

## 20:19 — The three hardest problems: co-termed expansions, churn, early renewals

**[20:20]** part and I spent about two months in the data before we got to this point they

**[20:25]** spent two months kind of evaluating different systems and looking at

**[20:28]** different CPQ options different billing and subscription softwares but being

**[20:34]** in the data the problems were crystal clear the the first thing is the the

**[20:40]** guardrails every single selling motion is a little bit different on the front

**[20:46]** end to the salesperson it's the exact same I'm getting on the phone I'm

**[20:49]** putting together a package I'm sharing it with them but how it needs to work in

**[20:54]** the back end is totally different so I started there I started with their

**[20:58]** their three biggest problems so the three biggest problems for them were

**[21:03]** co-termed expansions they weren't able to get accurate ARR values out of the

**[21:07]** co-termed expansions which is a huge miss I think when you're going into a big

**[21:11]** funding round like you want to know what does our expansion pipeline look like

**[21:17]** what does our year-over-year growth across expansion look like you're

**[21:21]** constantly looking for those metrics that signal growth and you couldn't get

**[21:26]** an honest number out of the expansion pipeline so that was that was one of the

**[21:31]** first things the second thing and this is maybe less to do with quote to cash

**[21:36]** and more to do with just renewal motions and churn but how do we honestly churn a

**[21:43]** customer at what point does that happen and what does it drive across the rest

**[21:47]** of the system so churn was also part of this conversation so building a way for

**[21:53]** them to really show accurate churn was was essential and right now the only way

**[21:59]** to show churn was relying on manual input by the rep or going into the

**[22:04]** finance system and see when billing stopped which that's not going to cut it

**[22:08]** when you need to understand your net revenue retention very very quickly and

**[22:13]** have an answer off the cuff ready to go so that was a another kind of portion of

**[22:18]** this is how do we handle renewals and specific renewal motion so an early

**[22:23]** renewal is another type of motion that they go through where it renews say two

**[22:29]** months earlier so that two months what how are we measuring measuring the

**[22:34]** difference so this is new paper new contract usually it's an upsell that's

**[22:37]** happening in that early renewal period but there's that two-month overlap that

**[22:42]** an old contract is ending and a new one is is beginning and we want to make sure

**[22:47]** that we track revenue in that period correctly so one's turning off one's

**[22:51]** turning on essentially and so those were all the scenarios that I started to show

**[22:56]** them and then from there it showed it what I call the payload so when the rep

**[23:01]** hits the apply button quotes on everything looks good they did the guided

**[23:05]** selling what happens then so I show them how accurate numbers can be put in there

**[23:11]** I showed them that instead of doing these co-termed expansion proration

**[23:18]** calculations in a calculator nowhere in a spreadsheet it's all done in a

**[23:22]** calculator it's done automatically you just plug the start date well sorry the

**[23:26]** that you plug in the start date the end dates automatically grabbed now you have

**[23:30]** the exact days of that co-termed expansion and you can do an exact

**[23:34]** proration calculation based on that exact number of days so it gave them an

**[23:40]** accurate number not something that they couldn't trust not something that was

**[23:43]** rep rep manually inputted and again it's it's all just feeding better tracking of

**[23:49]** revenue better commissions invoice schedules I also shared that as part of

**[23:55]** this like MVP walkthrough of how an invoice schedule gets set up so I think

**[24:01]** for you know a very basic example if you look at a 12-month deal they're paying

**[24:06]** annually that's one invoice but now there's the question when does that

**[24:11]** invoice go out does that go out on the contract start date does that go out 30

**[24:17]** days on like net 30 terms so all of that is designed into the guided selling to

**[24:23]** determine what those what those terms are some of the more complex

**[24:28]** organizations that I've worked with and lean scales worked with is when each

**[24:33]** individual line and we can carry individual terms if the whole deal you

**[24:37]** know 15 line items all carry the same terms it's a little bit easier but if

**[24:41]** you have individual products with different configurations different

**[24:44]** start and end dates or delivery dates that adds a whole another layer of

**[24:47]** complexity to everything but for this particular case like showing them how

**[24:53]** invoice schedule gets get set up how this could potentially feed the the

**[24:59]** billing and subscription system making it really easy for invoices to get

**[25:02]** established for a new account to get set up that was all done in two days and

**[25:07]** shared via that MVP conversation just showing them how that that motion should

**[25:11]** work and I think that's ultimately what like entice them to say let's go into

**[25:16]** this more let's look at this if you can make it if you can do this in two days

**[25:20]** what can you do in 30 days so the next 30 days was just hardening the code

**[25:25]** making sure it was production ready we should talk about build or buy I think

**[25:29]** that's something that most you know sass orgs are gonna start talking about is

**[25:34]** with this like AI invincibility cloak that everyone has builder by I think is

**[25:39]** gonna become a huge conversation for everybody should we build it or should

**[25:42]** we buy it from a vendor or a partner or someone that's already doing this into

**[25:46]** the industry for this particular case they landed on build because they knew

**[25:52]** kind of where they were as an organization they knew that by being

**[25:56]** able to control the user interface control the quoting scenarios put the

**[26:04]** guardrails on that kept the data accurate that's where they needed to be

**[26:09]** accurate data so that's that's how we got to that decision of let's go all in

**[26:14]** on this and start building it out now so in the build conversation can you walk

**[26:19]** through technically and mechanically how you built it what tools did you use what

**[26:24]** context did you gather to feed the build how did you deploy how have you

## 26:27 — The four-step build and the 50–70 property payload

**[26:30]** maintained since that or from MVP to production technically how did you make

**[26:37]** the changes and adjustments how did you use AI to do it and then how are you

**[26:43]** maintaining once it's been deployed I so I started with a simple diagram of what

**[26:52]** the process should look like so I looked at it in four different steps and not

**[26:58]** not the technical steps are like how the plumbing needs to work but here's what

**[27:03]** it needs to do for the front end user so the first is the scenario selection what

**[27:08]** am I selling right now what motion am I going through and that almost sets the

**[27:12]** rest of the CPQ up for what it's going to offload onto the deal onto the line

**[27:19]** items what it's going to set up from a from a revenue standpoint all the 50 to

**[27:25]** 100 properties that are updated after the quote is built I started there that

**[27:32]** the selection of a scenario or a selling motion is is kind of position one and a

**[27:39]** lot of CPQ platforms they'll call them workflows so we're selecting a workflow

**[27:42]** that we're going to launch that might be a renewal workflow enterprise workflow

**[27:48]** but for this for this particular purpose we call them quoting scenarios so starts

**[27:53]** with the quoting scenarios then it goes to the products so selecting the

**[27:57]** products selecting the add-ons the services the quantities the discounts the

**[28:02]** number of seats basic kind of like minor product and pricing configuration and

**[28:08]** then right there on that page you're gonna have a summary of the breakdown

**[28:13]** based on the schedule the billing schedule and you're gonna have AR which

**[28:17]** is something they didn't have visibility into before so they're gonna see total

**[28:21]** contract value this is what everything costs end-to-end across two years three

**[28:26]** years whatever that term is you're gonna have the ARR breakdown the MRR

**[28:30]** breakdown and then you're also gonna have you know discount breakdowns for

**[28:34]** co-term expansion you're gonna see the peration discount amount but ARR is

**[28:40]** gonna be accurate in that case which they didn't have before so products

**[28:44]** pricing slight configuration is the next the third steps I would say is more of

**[28:49]** the guided selling slash like commercial terms set up how are we gonna bill for

**[28:54]** this quarterly monthly semi-annually all up front is it net 30 terms one thing

**[29:01]** that we added after that we fell found was very helpful and it got added in 15

**[29:05]** minutes was the ability to change a billing contact so by default it selects

**[29:10]** the signer and or the billing contact role but if you want to adjust that if

**[29:17]** say you know someone else we need to send this to AP at or accounting at they

**[29:21]** can do that in that step or they can come back to it later and change it if

**[29:25]** they want to as well but the the commercial term set up is the third step

**[29:31]** and I would say it's the most important in terms of the payload that comes out

**[29:34]** of it the last step oh here's actually another part another nuance to all of it

**[29:39]** is that certain quoting scenarios will have certain commercial term setups so

**[29:45]** you're you're gonna be setting these up in the parameters that we allow so for a

**[29:50]** 12 month deal sorry for a 36 month deal we don't want to allow monthly billing

**[29:56]** for that we want that to be billed annually or all up front so we remove

**[30:00]** that we remove that option from the reps view so now you don't get in the mess of

**[30:05]** like okay they billed it for 36 months either we have to go back to them and

**[30:10]** say we can't do monthly or it's just not an option for them to do that so that

**[30:14]** was all cleaned up put in those guardrails so after you get through those

**[30:18]** three steps you go into just the quick review you want to see that the numbers

**[30:24]** all match up you want to make sure that it's a very you know clean process it's

**[30:29]** all nothing is edited on this final screen it's just the final review step

**[30:33]** before you get to actually generating the document or before you create the

**[30:37]** line items update the line items update the deal data any of that but the very

**[30:43]** bottom was in something new that we also added which was a almost like a selling

**[30:48]** mechanism where reps were allowed to do a one-time discount really quick example

**[30:54]** if you've ever been in sales you get to the end of the year you want to try to

**[30:59]** get people on the phone you want to close out your you're strong so your

**[31:02]** cons you're going to leadership and you're asking for hey can we do an end

**[31:05]** of the year discount of some sort or an end of the year push that we can get

**[31:10]** some more people through the door I have you know pipeline X and I really want to

**[31:13]** get them sold or even at the beginning of the year when budgets get released

**[31:17]** and people start to look at what they you want to do for the upcoming year

**[31:22]** that's also another really good time depending on the industry and they may

**[31:26]** have different planning periods you may see like July fiscal years are when most

**[31:30]** people start to get their budgets and numbers and start to plan out for the

**[31:35]** upcoming year so you have to plan around that but their their idea was like a

**[31:40]** hundred percent like we should be doing this type of stuff all the time but it

**[31:44]** should be controlled so you can't just go in there and put a hundred percent

**[31:47]** discount it was controlled based on the value from those three previous steps so

**[31:53]** that that is something that gets put in at the end it's a you know a line item

**[31:57]** in there in their case when it comes to CPQ and the billing system but it's just

**[32:02]** a really just nice touch and again 15-20 minutes to get that introduced and

**[32:07]** built into the CPQ so definitely gold in hey let's set up all the rules all of

**[32:15]** the decisions the blueprint of everything then did you take that did you

**[32:20]** put it into cloud code and then ask it to build a HubSpot extension how did you

**[32:25]** take the hey I have everything I want it to be in every scenario and then

## 32:26 — Building it with Claude Code as a HubSpot extension UI

**[32:30]** actually turn it into something that somebody's going into HubSpot and

**[32:34]** putting a quote into it was first to actually cross-check if HubSpot native

**[32:42]** quoting was a viable option so it was almost like a blueprint of what good

**[32:47]** looks like and then I brought that into Claude to compare to their existing

**[32:52]** environment and just HubSpot native quoting in general is can we get it to

**[32:58]** this point and I kind of knew the answer already to that I knew that it was going

**[33:02]** to be no and the the the biggest dent on arrival point was the lack of guardrails

**[33:08]** that you can put on the the sellers so I knew that was probably going to be a no

**[33:14]** option and then I built a couple other extension UIs out I knew it was a really

**[33:19]** nice way to build custom cards within a HubSpot environment and I decided to

**[33:24]** roll the dice and say let's actually see if we can do this tick so they can see

**[33:27]** that comparison between native quoting and what this MVP is gonna look like I

**[33:33]** wasn't gonna spend like a ton of time on it I was just gonna stand something

**[33:36]** quick Claude enables you to do that really really fast but it took my brain

**[33:40]** dump and the blueprint that I created and it almost like to a T created it

**[33:46]** perfectly the four steps the one part that needed tweaking was the updating of

**[33:51]** the deal itself and the creation of the line items that you know I think the

**[33:55]** initial one was a like a ten field payload and it grew to 50 and then 60 70

**[34:01]** it kept growing because of what they wanted to report on but that's how it

**[34:05]** ultimately got to that first point of getting it in front of them was it was

**[34:10]** showing that you know this is why a HubSpot isn't gonna be suitable for you

**[34:16]** and then it turned into let's build this which was for me I was excited

**[34:21]** something that you actually taught me too it was is you know build or buy you

**[34:26]** know is it gonna be production ready our 20 30 40 50 reps going to be able to use

**[34:32]** this thing without fall and I think because the way extension UIs are built

**[34:36]** they're built in react they're built into the HubSpot environment and we're

**[34:41]** only interacting with HubSpot at that point hundred percent like it's gonna

**[34:44]** it's gonna move quickly I battle tested it too before that first MVP demo yeah

**[34:50]** and maybe it's just maybe that's good to know like the difference between okay

**[34:54]** once you do the MVP they fell in love they're like okay this is great and

**[34:57]** you're able to take the blueprint put it in quad code push it to HubSpot now

**[35:02]** they're in HubSpot looking at it and they're like oh why don't we just do

**[35:04]** this what did you have to do to say okay fun MVP but now we need to make some

## 35:05 — From MVP to production-grade: hardening and battle testing

**[35:12]** changes to make it production grade anything that stands out as you were

**[35:16]** testing it that you needed to make adjustments to or is it just tweaking

**[35:20]** and fine-tuning yeah we haven't talked about the the tools in the the quote to

**[35:25]** cash space I know we're kind of heavily focused on CPQ right now but I was

**[35:30]** actually trying to recommend subscribe based on PLG sales led motion I was

**[35:36]** really trying to this is beginning of the year trying to really get them to

**[35:41]** look at subscribe I think there were some existing relationships there that

**[35:45]** they thought like oh yeah it sounds like a great system but they just got

**[35:50]** acquired so you know it's it's always a little shaky a little scary to be going

**[35:56]** in as they're getting acquired you have no idea what the acquiring company is

**[36:00]** going to do with this piece of software is it gonna just go away completely are

**[36:04]** you gonna onboard and then have to re-onboard in a couple months so I was

**[36:08]** actually really pushing for subscribe and a lot of like the kind of the

**[36:12]** blueprinting was built with on my experience using subscribe and how they

**[36:17]** go about CPQ guided selling user experience all of that so that's that

**[36:22]** sunk that plan and then they looked at a couple other ones but the the MVP when

**[36:29]** we said hey we're gonna go this route I actually got really excited because it's

**[36:33]** now this you know domain of expertise and the you know level in which like AI

**[36:39]** really really accelerates your ability to fine-tune build create launch deploy

**[36:45]** support it really got me excited about it and not to say like oh we're never

**[36:51]** gonna go with deal hub or subscribe again I think there is absolutely cases

**[36:55]** in which you are 100% going to do that I think for an organization that is very

**[37:01]** AI heavy very AI focus very agent savvy this is a great option because you can

**[37:06]** continue to evolve it support it make simple changes I think every change that

**[37:11]** we made post-launch took about 15 minutes and it was live tested in

**[37:16]** production good to go reps are ready so that that got me really excited about

**[37:22]** doing it the only thing that I was a little bit nervous about is is the the

**[37:27]** battle-tested portion of it can 50 people beyond this and it's not going to

**[37:31]** break and that's where I brought the engineering cloud of lean scale and to

**[37:35]** really look at it and give me the honest answer and they're like well no like the

**[37:39]** way that the code works on the back end it's gonna be very stable because you're

**[37:44]** not having all these different instance they're not all logging into the same

**[37:47]** instance everything is individual to the deal itself hmm walk me through maybe on

**[37:53]** the build versus by scenario I mean this sounds super robust it sounds like it's

**[37:58]** scalable you're not gonna run into any issues it's on hub spots you have all

**[38:02]** the permissioning and everything that you'd expect when when does it make sense

## 38:06 — Build vs. buy: when custom isn't enough

**[38:08]** to say hey this isn't going to be enough for what this company's quote to cash

**[38:13]** process is and we do need to go with something like a deal hub or subscribe

**[38:18]** or new or whoever name your solution of the of the week what are those nuances

**[38:26]** or thresholds or specific things to that company that would say hey this isn't

**[38:30]** gonna cut it I need to go look for a vendor the billing software billing and

**[38:35]** subscription software is going to dictate a lot of that depending on how

**[38:39]** depending on which one they have depending on like which billing and

**[38:43]** exactly exactly so if you're on stripe you need the CPQ and the CRM to work a

**[38:50]** certain way if you're on you know anything else if you're on maxio if

**[38:57]** you're on pandadoc payments there's a lot of bill it real it's honestly one of

**[39:01]** my favorite if I can you know give a tool shout out real it has been one

**[39:04]** that's been on my mind a lot but they took the they took billing and made it

**[39:09]** really simple they don't require a whole lot from the CRM it's actually

**[39:14]** probably the smallest data mapping that we've done I mean for from a revenue

**[39:22]** perspective or from an invoicing setup perspective but I think that is gonna

**[39:27]** dictate a lot of which direction you go when it comes to a CPQ native something

**[39:34]** that that if you don't if you want a standalone solution you don't want it

**[39:37]** native in the CRM that is another potential you want to be fully

**[39:41]** integrated Salesforce and HubSpot are pretty well integrated across the CPQ

**[39:48]** ecosystem right now but that's another thing to keep an eye out and then

**[39:51]** specifically for build versus buy do we have the team to support it long term do

**[39:58]** we have someone that can understand if there's if an issue pops up I'll give

**[40:03]** you a really good example HubSpot just went through their legacy app platform

**[40:08]** upgrade so they gave everybody four weeks and or sorry four months when we

**[40:14]** first became about the update that everyone is going to have to move to

**[40:18]** the platform upgrade that they're doing I believe end of August now is when it's

**[40:23]** going live one of the biggest components of that and this might scare people away

**[40:27]** from the build side of it is they were going to be going away with the

**[40:31]** serverless serverless functionality which being a react application in

**[40:37]** HubSpot that serverless functionality was was crucial so they were gonna be no

**[40:43]** apps were gonna be allowed to use that and that was a you know an aha moment

**[40:49]** for me of like okay I need to make sure they're prepared to actually be able to

**[40:52]** support these types of changes that might come up and I decided with them I

**[40:59]** decided I want to see if this actually goes through so anytime that HubSpot

**[41:03]** puts out a controversial update I always look at the forums I want to know

**[41:08]** exactly what the what the customers are saying and people were grabbing their

**[41:13]** pitchforks and you know lighting the fires and running down the door but I

**[41:17]** had a feeling that they were gonna make a shift and they even in their their own

**[41:21]** announcements we're starting to say like hey we're gonna look at potentially

**[41:25]** reintroducing this and a later update so two months later they came out and they

**[41:31]** said okay now with the new update there is gonna be serverless functionality and

**[41:34]** you can import you know update it and move everything over this way that update

**[41:39]** took 30 minutes I think to get it done get everything moved over to that new

**[41:44]** environment but for an organization like you need someone that can support that

**[41:49]** that understands that they can keep their eye out and really can jump on it

**[41:53]** really quickly because that's an update we had four months to prepare for but

**[41:57]** there's other ones that are going to come an API update for example that you

**[42:01]** don't get to prepare for it just hits you middle of the night and you have to

**[42:05]** jump on it as quick as you can so that makes sense where you don't want to have

**[42:11]** all your eggs in one basket if you will and then the billing integration so it

**[42:17]** sounds like if you're on real it you could probably take a custom built

**[42:21]** pretty far is there anything around the process or blueprint of how outside of

## 42:27 — The maintenance tax: the HubSpot serverless scare

**[42:30]** maybe the tech stack but just are there any complexities of pricing and

**[42:34]** packaging that would make you think a company should go towards a vendor

**[42:40]** solution versus building their own or does it all have to do with the

**[42:43]** surrounding ecosystem like can you take a custom-built app to 500 reps a thousand

**[42:49]** reps you could you could but I would lean on the enterprise-grade softwares

**[42:56]** in those in those cases because you want somebody that is going to introduce

**[43:01]** innovation to it one deal hubs probably my my top rated CPQ out there for if

**[43:08]** you're going with a standalone option they have something called a deal room

**[43:12]** and a deal room is a great way for you to interact especially across enterprise

**[43:15]** deals where you have lots of documents going back and forth lots of people

**[43:20]** multi-threaded into that particular sales process I would say in those cases

**[43:25]** like the more complex the products the more people you have or if you don't

**[43:32]** want to manage a lot you go with an option like that if you have some some

**[43:36]** simplicity from a from a product standpoint every single product is going

**[43:39]** to have very complex billing configurations but from a you know packaging standpoint

**[43:46]** from how products pair together the dependencies like that I would say if

**[43:52]** it's simple or like a medium level then a hundred percent you can get through

**[43:56]** with a with a you know custom-built option in Salesforce or in HubSpot the

**[44:02]** the high high volume fast-paced SMB they need to get it out quickly those

**[44:09]** enterprise systems are gonna slow you down a little bit because they're all

**[44:11]** working through API's typically the the guided selling gets just overly built

**[44:17]** and you just want something that's fast that's accurate fast and reliable and

**[44:21]** custom options probably going to be really good in that case yeah I'm

**[44:28]** thinking it's like there's two forces here one AI capabilities are going to

**[44:33]** continue to grow and then I think the CRM infrastructure is like Salesforce

**[44:37]** going headless I'm sure HubSpot will be forced to go that way may open up more

**[44:45]** capabilities and at the same time you're right these enterprise grade platforms

**[44:50]** are introducing innovation that's kind of outside of just the business logic so

**[44:54]** but I do think it's a much more nuanced conversation than it ever used to be and

**[45:00]** the other thing that is developing as well that I'd really like you to shed

**[45:06]** some light on is the rest of the tool ecosystem outside of the CPQ so that CPQ

**[45:11]** tends to be the brain of everything and pushing the information everywhere where

**[45:15]** it needs to go but what other mission critical tools are there is it reasonable

**[45:21]** to build custom solutions for some of these are there some where you have to

**[45:26]** go with more of a vendor strategy and then what are your favorites so let's

**[45:33]** start with the next step after you get the numbers and the the the numbers

**[45:39]** generated in the CPQ which is how you surface a document and send it to the

**[45:45]** prospect or customer in case of renewals and expansions so the first where I like

**[45:50]** to start there is looking at the actual sales process the sales lifecycle every

**[45:55]** company is a little bit different on what they surface and when some do

**[45:59]** proposals very early on some do very just standard pricing tables very early

**[46:04]** on the I like to look very heavily at the contracting period what does that

**[46:09]** look like is their procurement do you allow red lines do you have you know

**[46:15]** really robust MSAs or you know legal requirements that you would want to

**[46:19]** bring on a professional grade contract lifecycle management system like an iron

**[46:24]** cloud which I really really like ironclad just for how they handle documents and

**[46:29]** really robust lifecycle across the contract but I want to dig into all of

**[46:35]** that and I want to look at all the contracts over the last you know 12

**[46:39]** months I want to look at how they've changed over the last six months and how

**[46:42]** that relates to the last three months so we go into every single contract to see

**[46:46]** how they're being structured how they differ across reps what should be

**[46:50]** locked down what shouldn't be locked down what requires an approval before you

**[46:54]** even gets to that point of sharing a document so we I really like to look at

**[46:59]** the lifecycle and where documents first appear and then from there there's more

**[47:05]** there's more setup I would say I a lot of customers describe that as probably

**[47:10]** one of the biggest pain points in quote to cash is just the level of like

**[47:15]** customization setup that you have to do to set up a ironclad or a panda doc or a

**[47:20]** doc you sign it's also something to be aware of too is when you're making

**[47:25]** changes to the CPQ and those changes are going to impact the you know the way

**[47:31]** that the contracts are built or handled that's gonna be really important that

**[47:34]** you have someone that that knows that and owns it and can make sure that those

**[47:38]** processes are keeping up with one another once you have that all mapped out

**[47:42]** you know all the agreements that need to go out you know all the approval

**[47:45]** processes the type of documents that need to be handled maybe have different

**[47:49]** tiers of service level agreements that need to be attached to these documents

**[47:52]** that's where you then get to do the fun part which is building it out and you

**[47:58]** know building out the template the creative side usually falls on like the

**[48:01]** marketing brand or creative folks I've gotten to do a couple of them I I

**[48:06]** wouldn't say I'm a creative but I really enjoy that stuff I enjoy making things

**[48:10]** look really good and when they don't have the time or resources I'll go in

**[48:14]** there and do it and present it and kind of similar to like the MVP option like

**[48:18]** great let's use that so it's like we just save them some time and it's a

**[48:22]** document that thousands of businesses are gonna see it's it's fun to be a part

**[48:27]** of that and I've always really just I've enjoyed that part of it but yeah the

**[48:34]** the the contract and the document handling is really really important but

**[48:39]** the the North Star for it is I want to see the CRM data the contract data lock

**[48:44]** step like those are fully working operational they're consistent they're

**[48:50]** accurate we can reconcile those against each other that's the North Star of that

**[48:54]** whole process is that those are perfectly aligned the other part too is

**[49:00]** the lifecycle stage like automation how do we automate the lifecycle so reps

**[49:08]** don't have to manually move a stage can we move it from say you know stage three

**[49:13]** which might be like technical evaluation or it might be a POC can we move it to a

**[49:19]** you know negotiation or proposal set or proposal negotiation step based on that

**[49:25]** document going out once it gets closed one or sorry once it gets signed what

**[49:31]** happens after that are we immediately moving it to closed one and having

**[49:34]** finance come in is there a deal desk step or deal desk team that's in the

**[49:38]** middle of all that that is going to you know check everything once over and make

**[49:42]** a good I feel like if you do your if we if the setup is done correctly and

**[49:47]** you've covered every angle and you've looked at looked into the future you

**[49:51]** should have a lot of confidence in that that contract lifecycle automating those

**[49:56]** stages across the board so that that's the contract lifecycle part do you want

**[50:03]** to dig into anything else on that side no I think I think a lot of people don't

**[50:09]** think about that part but like getting everything approved getting a document

**[50:14]** out the door getting it signed getting that signature on it and then once it is

**[50:19]** then pushing that to invoicing and billing and I think that's a big a big

**[50:27]** part where people miss or it's very manual so maybe as we wrap up the full

## 50:28 — The last mile: invoicing, billing, and reconciliation

**[50:34]** quote to cash process what does that last mile look like when you're actually

**[50:38]** getting in an invoice prep sent on the right time and and getting billed and

**[50:44]** collecting collecting revenue yeah it starts with a conversation with the the

**[50:51]** tools technical team or support team so you can understand top to bottom the the

**[50:59]** data mapping between the two systems these are all the types of ways that we

**[51:04]** sell these are all the types of ways that we bill what data do you need in

**[51:09]** order to have a successful billing system and in order for invoices to get

**[51:14]** set up correctly that you know one time end of the year discount how does that

**[51:19]** need to be passed over to your system what objects can you pull from I have a

**[51:24]** horror story from one of our customers of trying to adapt a CRM and a CPQ to a

**[51:31]** billing system which I would I would never recommend because it creates a lot

**[51:37]** of complexity in the system that is unnecessary so be aware of that be aware

**[51:42]** of adapting custom objects to a billing system just because that's what they

**[51:48]** need always look for solutions outside of that but the data mapping exercise is

**[51:53]** the most important then once you understand that then you start to layer

**[51:57]** that into the CPQ into the contracts into everything that is eventually going

**[52:02]** to feed this billing and subscription system I think the something that's like

**[52:08]** a underrated part of quote to cash is just reconciliation and alerting and

**[52:15]** monitoring that's not something that I would recommend doing on a quarterly

**[52:20]** basis if you can automate like alerts of things that you expect to come up and

**[52:24]** there's a lot that could potentially come up you want to make sure that you

**[52:29]** surface those things immediately so to give you an example not you know calling

**[52:35]** out anybody specifically but if a deal gets climate use that actually most

**[52:40]** basic example to explain the point but if a deal gets closed one and you know

**[52:45]** exactly how much that invoice schedule looks like let's just you know make it

**[52:49]** easy it's $100,000 and you have the billing system tied back to the company

**[52:55]** or the account record in your CRM you should be able to reconcile that very

**[52:59]** easy but if you see that that number on the company account side is staying at

**[53:03]** zero you want to be alerted to that immediately if you see that it goes five

**[53:07]** days past the day that it should have been billed that's almost five days two

**[53:12]** lakes and you have this awkward conversation with the customer sending

**[53:15]** them an invoice they were expecting probably weeks ago so setting up the the very

**[53:20]** granular alerts of issues that may pop up is really really important and when

**[53:26]** you get to the billing in the subscription side I would also look at

**[53:31]** the sink to make sure your data map is correct I actually just had an example

**[53:36]** last night when I was working of a stripe sink to HubSpot that was

**[53:42]** overriding the contact first name and last name with the business name because

**[53:46]** of how stripe is set up as a billing system so stripe as a billing system

**[53:51]** they're typically used to subscription which is a typically a person the the

**[53:57]** billing account which is typically an email and they interpreted that when

**[54:02]** they set up the sink as like oh name that's the business name but it's like

**[54:06]** no no no they're solving for the PLG side right they're not the B2B side and

**[54:10]** B2B like your company name is you know what you're going for but that's not

**[54:15]** going to be surfaced and in the way that the sink to HubSpot works with stripe so

**[54:20]** just little like things that you you look out for that it seems great right

**[54:23]** stripe is well connected with Salesforce with HubSpot you know let's get

**[54:28]** this thing set up and start pushing invoices transaction and account records

**[54:32]** but it doesn't miss necessarily mean that the system is set up correctly to be

**[54:39]** able to handle B2B be able to separate out product lead versus sales lead yeah

**[54:47]** and I think a lot of things people don't recognize when they're talking about

**[54:52]** these systems in this process is that if you don't have this streamlined then you

**[54:59]** have a really really tough time getting getting revenue in the door and it could

**[55:06]** compromise certain deals so this is not like oh these are nice to have

**[55:11]** automation so that way we can not have to do as much work this is oh if we don't

## 55:13 — Why this isn't nice-to-have — it puts deals and reputation at risk

**[55:18]** do this it could put deals at risk if billing looks funky it could put our

**[55:21]** reputation at risk it doesn't look good to a customer if you send a bill with the

**[55:25]** wrong name or don't bill them and try to build them later it just looks like you

**[55:28]** don't have your house in order and that's a reflection whatever product and

**[55:31]** service you're offering too and then same with the the reps in the field that

**[55:36]** you've put quotas on if they're running through mud to get quotes out the door

**[55:42]** deals out the door decisions on whether they can quote something or discount

**[55:47]** something you want to be able to empower them as much as you can and the more you

**[55:50]** can it has a massive impact on conversion rate sales cycle shared number

**[55:58]** of closed one deals and then of course downstream effects of cash position and

**[56:03]** collections and everything as well so I think when people are thinking about

**[56:07]** this process sometimes it's seen as oh these are some nice to have automations

**[56:10]** they have real business impact they do they do and to your point it's as much

**[56:18]** about having a great tool that can support your team and reduce friction as

**[56:22]** it is about reliability and trust in the data and I would say that last part that

**[56:28]** the trust and reliability of the data is where a lot of teams setting up quote to

**[56:33]** cash CPQ they don't go to that level of detail and that's a big miss because if

**[56:39]** you're not thinking about that part of it how the data is going to be impacted

**[56:44]** across the systems and it's not just the one deal it's future deals it's future

**[56:49]** expansions it's future churn auto renewals it's future you know early

**[56:55]** renewals or upgrades upsells like all of that is coming off this one deal so

**[57:00]** getting it right is really really important but that's that's where I

**[57:04]** think it falls short they start with the best intentions of hey we want to get

**[57:08]** them a really cool tool it's going to speed them up it's going to eliminate

**[57:10]** some friction but where it gets where you fall short is when you don't look at

**[57:16]** that that next thing that data the data the trust that you want to have in the

**[57:20]** data and just the reliability overall of the system to fit within your go-to

**[57:24]** market and that's where I wanted to spend the most time when it comes to

**[57:30]** quote to cash because it touches so many things you have to go into that level of

**[57:35]** detail with every part of it it can't just be the CPQ you have to look at the

**[57:41]** document handling you have to look at the billing and subscription potentially

**[57:46]** you have to look at the accounting system forecasting commissions being

**[57:51]** able to track that accurately and reliably and so everybody has trust in

**[57:55]** the numbers that are that are feeding the machine that's where I wanted to be

**[57:59]** really good in an expert and that's where I spend most of my time because

**[58:03]** I'm confident in my you know non-designed background design

**[58:07]** capabilities to build something that is seamless and user-friendly I focus

**[58:12]** heavily on the everything that happens after which is let's build trust let's

**[58:16]** build confidence in this system and I think naturally with that you know the the

**[58:21]** reduction of friction the increase of speed velocity all that just starts to

**[58:26]** fall in line with it well Derek this has been a master class on quote to cash and

**[58:33]** specifically on CPQ I'm so impressed I know the customer that you worked with

**[58:39]** is very impressed as well that we've been able to build a custom CPQ

**[58:43]** solution built off of deep discovery deep understanding of the business

**[58:48]** process leveraging cloud code to deploy to HubSpot so you can use it in CRM and

**[58:54]** something that's actually production grade and scalable so I appreciate you

**[58:59]** sharing everything you did it's so much fun to do it with somebody on the team

**[59:03]** who's out in the field building real things every single day and I can't wait

**[59:09]** for the next one and you mentioned earlier in the conversation quote to

**[59:13]** cash is only evolving and changing every single day so we're gonna have to do a

**[59:17]** refresh probably every three months or so of what the latest and greatest is

**[59:20]** I'm on I'm in for that a hundred percent