If you don’t have your data and fields standardized and mapped across all apps in your stack, your tools don’t matter.
I keep walking into companies, pulling back the curtain, and finding chaos in the basics. Something as simple as mapping Salesforce (SFDC) lead conversions into multiple fields so you can track opportunities, contacts, and companies gets missed. Instead, someone thought they could "hack" the setup, and now the entire stack is built on a foundation that doesn’t even track leads correctly.
And yet, I see BI companies pumping out slick revenue reports on marketing performance. Here’s the question: how do those tools work if the underlying data is full of holes? The answer is—they don’t. At least, not accurately.
Set your data up right from the beginning.
Document your mappings. Keep all mapped fields in a spreadsheet. When you map HubSpot to SFDC or any other tool, one spreadsheet becomes your bridge.
Update as you grow. Today it’s HubSpot → SFDC. Tomorrow, you’re adding another tool. Pull up the spreadsheet and document the new fields.
Test relentlessly. First internal users, then external users. If you skip testing, you’ll look foolish when names or leads go missing after you’ve just funded a marketing campaign to drive demand.
This isn’t optional—it’s the only way to do it right.
I’ve been in Silicon Valley for three decades, moving across industries and roles to learn, build, and scale. The number of tools I’ve mastered must be in the triple digits by now—and it keeps growing.
The SaaS model has changed everything. But one truth remains: operations matter.
Data standardization matters.
Documentation matters.
Getting everyone on board early to follow the same rules and structure matters.
The companies that set structure, requirements, and documentation from day one gain a competitive edge. Why? Because they scale faster, route leads better, and integrate more seamlessly.
Case in point: Avi Networks closed its VMware acquisition in under 30 days. A clean stack gets you everywhere faster.
Many companies get lost in the flash. Tools that spit out multi-touch attribution models, magic numbers, and complex-looking reports give the illusion of insight. But dig deeper, and often the math doesn’t hold up. If you never tagged the source, how can you possibly prove attribution?
At best, it’s loose correlation. At worst, it’s fiction dressed up as analytics.
When you set up marketing automation, create fields for sources. Capture them. Track them. Make them readable in Salesforce—the system of record.
If sales can see the data, if marketing can see the same data, credibility grows. But if your “proof” lives in some magical reporting tool, disconnected from the source system, nobody believes you. And they shouldn’t.
Credibility comes from clean data, documented processes, and visible truth in the system of record. Without that, your stack isn’t working for you—it’s working against you.