Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Choosing between GetResponse and Constant Contact for your email marketing needs? This detailed comparison of each tool’s features and pricing can help you decide.

Whether it’s with a single client, a large internal team, or external stakeholders, hosting successful, engaging meetings is an art form.
It takes skill to know how to simultaneously capture attention, inform, be interactive, and leave a lasting impression — it’s really not an easy feat.
The prospect of holding a meeting may become even more stressful when the session is online. As meetings are new to the virtual world, there is no roadmap to hosting a successful one.
However, as nice as it would be, a roadmap is not always the key to success. Sometimes the key can be learning from people who have experience hosting virtual meetings and understanding what they think makes them successful. In this post, we’ll discuss common virtual meeting mistakes and get insight from experienced HubSpotters on how to avoid them.

1. Not acknowledging mistakes.
Nobody’s perfect.
Although many people know that, an all-too-common moment in virtual meetings is pushing mistakes under the rug and acting like they haven’t happened. Unfortunately, when everyone is looking at their screen, most people notice mistakes, and ignoring them can create a sense of awkwardness.
In these moments, it’s important to remember that an increasingly virtual world is new to everyone. We’re all aware that adapting to new processes can be difficult, so of course, there will be unexpected issues.
Jon Dick, Senior Vice President of Marketing at HubSpot, agrees, and his advice is relatively straightforward: “As the old saying goes, ‘If you can’t hide it, feature it!’ Slides not sharing? Children bursting into the room? Not on mute? Don’t stress out — just laugh, relax, and acknowledge it.”

2. No backup plan for faulty technology.
A dysfunctional microphone or PowerPoint won’t derail your in-person meeting, but it will effectively shut down a virtual one. Given this, Ashley Ladd, Manager on the Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging team at HubSpot, says that not having a tech backup plan for your virtual meeting is a mistake.
Ladd says, “Our internet connection is always stable until we need it to be, so having a backup plan ensures flawless execution of your events and less worrying about your connection or having the meeting dropped.”

She says that your plan B can include things like a designated co-host, teammate, or friend to take over if something goes wrong, or while you troubleshoot any issues: “The worst is when you have to spend time fussing with your connection and it interrupts the flow of your meeting.”
3. A lack of discussion and collaboration.
One of the greatest aspects of meetings is the collaboration and discussion that stems from audience engagement. Virtual meetings notably make this harder, and they’re often marked by the opposite.
Becca Stamp, Senior Global Learning and Development Onboarding Specialist at HubSpot, says that a common mistake is not making space for conversation. Her solution is to make a special effort to encourage it: “It’s important to give everyone space to come off mute and contribute throughout the session. Participants can add so much value, both through discussion and chat.”

Jill Noonan, Senior Facilitator at HubSpot, seconds this tip and says: “Create interaction whenever possible. Whether in person or virtual, listening to one person present without any interaction or conversation can be draining for those listening. If you’re presenting in a virtual environment and someone asks a question, open it up for group discussion.”
4. Leaving inclusion and accessibility by the wayside.
Whether your meeting is in-person or virtual, it’s crucial to be mindful of and prioritize inclusion and accessibility.
Opt to use software that adds captions for speech transcription, write alternative descriptive text of images for screen reading devices, and be mindful of the differing experiences that attendees may have.
Ben Perreira, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Program Manager at HubSpot, says that an easy way to show you care about DI&B is to encourage attendees to put pronouns in their profile names. He says, “Add pronouns to your Zoom name as a way of showing up for inclusion during virtual meetings, and encourage your teammates to do so as well.”

5. Trying to multitask.
It’s never been easier to join a meeting, and it’s also never been easier to lose focus during a meeting.
If you’re using a personal computer, it can be especially difficult to stay focused because everything you enjoy is right there in front of you. A quick check of your email can accidentally turn into ten minutes of distractions that take you away from meeting content.
That’s why a common mistake is, or at least trying, to multitask during meetings. Dick says: “Multitasking during your meetings is a sure-fire way to feel uninformed and unaccomplished at the end of the day.” His solution? Easy — “Mute notifications and close email.”
6. Not encouraging speakers and hosts.
Don’t assume that someone may be more comfortable during a virtual meeting because they’re not in front of an in-person audience. It can still be just as nerve-wracking to face a screen full of faces as it is to stare at a room full of people.
However, the support that people receive from attendees during in-person meetings, like applause, can be encouraging and make hosts feel more comfortable. Unfortunately, this support is often missing from virtual meetings.
Even if you can’t clap, Dick says that it’s still essential to show encouragement virtually, as it can feel strange to present without any human reactions. He says, “Hop in the chat window to cheer people on and encourage them when they’re presenting. It’s encouraging and helps people feel like you’re listening.”
7. Leaving no space for networking.
As virtual meetings occur on a digital device, attendees have no further interaction with their peers when they end. Stamp says that forgetting about the hallway chat aspect of meetings can be detrimental, as this time often gives people a chance to network, make connections, and decompress.
She says, about HubSpot employee onboarding, “We have seen incredible value in spending five to ten extra minutes on Zoom at the end of each session. It creates the hallway environment of in-person sessions, and these conversations help us build more community among the cohorts.”
8. Being impersonal.
You may feel pressure to display a more polished side of yourself during virtual meetings. In some cases, like when business executives speak to their teams, it makes sense and is expected that the experience is more corporate and clean cut.
However, being too polished can sometimes dehumanize you, which affects relatability between you and your audience.
Robotic meeting environments can also feel boring and disengaging, which is the opposite of what you want. Noonan’s tip is to display humanity through personalization. She says, “Humanity is extremely important. Knowing when and where to use personal examples or display vulnerability builds trust and shows that we’re all on the same page.”

9. Not using the mute button for all it’s worth.
Nobody wants to accidentally leave their microphone on so everyone can hear them yell to a roommate or ask a pet to stop making noise. It’s not a huge faux pas, but there are easy ways to avoid this short-lived but all-too-common mistake of not using the mute button for all that it’s worth.
Perreira says, “When you’re not talking, mute yourself. The mute/unmute can also serve as a signal to indicate you’re ready to contribute and serve a [sic] helpful way for group members to ensure that those who are looking to speak are given the opportunity to be heard.”
10. Not having fun.
Although hosting can be stressful, Ladd and Stamp say that it’s essential to have fun.
Ladd recalls a BLACKhub community check-in where attendees played a game called This or That. She says, “We did a Black History Month edition, so our game featured Black leaders in sports, film, entrepreneurship, and more. We had about eight different slides, and it was a fun, quick, and easy way to get everyone interacting and participating.”
Stamp makes space for these moments during onboarding meetings as well: “Schedule optional coffee, lunch, or afternoon hang-outs to help attendees connect. This gives our new hires a space to get to know each other in an authentic and more personal way.”
Virtual Meetings Can Still Be Successful, Engaging, and Fulfilling
Although there are quite a few mistakes on this list, they are exactly that — mistakes. They aren’t the end of the world, and nobody will penalize you for them.
Consider the advice from experienced HubSpotters, and you’ll likely find yourself hosting engaging virtual meetings that are just as impactful as those you can have in-person.

At HubSpot, customer experience comes first. Always.
Whether our marketing team is selecting a time at which to send an email or our web team team is choosing the size and location of a button on our homepage, the question we always go back to is: “Will this be a good experience for our customers?”
As HubSpot’s Chief Product Officer, this customer-first principle is my guiding light when it comes to product development. And it’s the reason why we don’t buy technology when we want to deliver a new product to our customers. We build it.
This build-first approach is becoming increasingly rare in our industry. Traditional SaaS companies tend to acquire other companies when they want to significantly expand their product offerings or quickly increase their customer base. This can sometimes lead to a quick uptick in revenue — after all, when a company buys another, it acquires all of its customers — but it’s often a very negative experience for the customer.
When two completely different systems are cobbled together after an acquisition, the burden of making them work together is foisted onto the customer. Each company probably took a completely different approach to product development, resulting in different underlying technology, different processes, and different user interfaces.
Reconciling these differences without causing friction for customers is an almost impossible task. And when SaaS companies apply this approach over time, the friction accrues, technical debt goes through the roof, and the customer experience steadily degrades as a result.
This approach solves for the company implementing it, not the customers it’s supposed to serve. That’s why we do things differently at HubSpot. After all, it isn’t like us to follow the crowd.
When most companies were doubling down on the old outbound playbook, we championed inbound approaches instead. When most businesses were wondering whether remote work could ever work, we saw the percentage of HubSpotters working from home hit double digits long before 2020 forced everyone’s hand. And while our industry was still furiously focused on funnels, we embraced the flywheel.
We’re different. It’s in HubSpot’s DNA. It’s even reflected in our company mission: we help organizations grow better. Not grow according to the status quo. Not grow by adhering to age-old playbooks. Grow better.
Just as we believe there’s a better way to grow, we also believe there’s a better way to build. That’s where the Primary Colors come in.
Meet the Primary Colors
Our approach to product development is simple, and it allows us to create multiplicative benefits for customers that no other CRM platform offers. We focus on five foundational elements that span all of our products, and we work at improving each one of them, all of the time. Those elements are: Automation, Content, Data, Messaging, and Reporting. We call them “Primary Colors.”
Every one of our Hubs – CMS Hub, Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Service Hub – comprises a different blend of the five Primary Colors, meaning that every product on our platform is built on the same underlying foundation.
So when the product team shows up to work every day, the question we ask ourselves isn’t “Which Hub or feature will we work on today?” It’s: “Which Primary Color will we enhance?”

As a result, when we add value to one area of HubSpot, value is automatically added across the entire CRM platform. And that allows us to deliver a steady stream of delight to all of our customers on an ongoing basis.
Here are three ways in which this approach allows us to offer unique value to our customers in the crowded CRM market:

1. Continuous improvement across the platform.

“HubSpot is the perfect, always-improving marketing software” – review on G2
The same five Primary Colors go into building each HubSpot product, so when we improve one Primary Color, we improve every Hub. And every customer of every HubSpot product sees an immediate benefit, whatever part of the platform they use.
For instance, when we invest in making Reporting in Sales Hub more robust, this robustness ripples out to every Reporting tool across the HubSpot CRM platform. So Marketing Hub customers who use our Reporting tools benefit, Service Hub customers who use our Reporting tools benefit, as do CMS Hub customers — all because we invested in improving just one Primary Color.

2. Easy adoption of new products.

“We quickly adopted the Sales Hub Pro and Marketing Enterprise for our growing needs. It has been one of the best decisions we have made” – review on G2
Since all of our Hubs are built on the same Primary Color foundation, our customers can expect a familiar, fast, and friendly user experience every time they add a new feature or product to their tech stack. This means customers can enjoy the benefits of each new addition right away, with no time lost to training, integration, or new-system frustration.

As HubSpot’s co-founder, Dharmesh Shah, puts it: “Our customers’ time-to-joy is reduced.”

Once a customer learns how to use Automation in, say, Marketing Hub, they instantly know how Automation works in all of HubSpot’s products across the CRM platform. So as their company scales and adds new products, features, and integrations to their tech stack, they can expect consistency, not complexity.
They don’t have to relearn how Messaging works or how Data is stored every time they add a new Hub — something they would likely have to do if they were working with a system that had been cobbled together through acquisitions or if they use different tools for different customer-facing teams.

3. The ability to run an entire business on a single platform.

“I can manage the website, CRM, email marketing and all other efforts in one single place. This allows me to have a single location for all my data Reporting and have a single source of truth” – review on G2
With HubSpot, fast-growing companies can run their whole business on a single system, because HubSpot offers the same insights and power to marketers, salespeople, and service professionals alike.
And when all teams at a company are working out of the same familiar system, silos crumble, data is centralized, and information flows freely. The whole team has access to the same valuable insights, allowing them to understand their customers better and deliver a seamless experience across every touchpoint.
For example, when a company’s marketing team uses Marketing Hub and its sales team uses Sales Hub, both teams gain access to the same customer data in a centralized CRM. And because both Hubs offer identical functionality for recording and storing Data, it becomes equally easy for each team to access not only the data they generate, but also Data the other team generates.
This gives marketers and salespeople a holistic view of the customer, enabling each of them to tailor their tactics and personalize their outreach. If a prospect is showing particular interest in marketing content about a certain feature, the sales team can see this information in the shared CRM and will know to focus on that feature on their next call with the prospect.
They don’t need to wait on a marketing report or rely on an impersonal script – they can personalize their outreach and hone in on a prospect’s specific areas of interest, all as a result of both Hubs being built on the same foundation.
Building Differently, Growing Better
The challenges that companies face in 2021 are new, so our approach to building our products needs to be new as well. With the rise of the hybrid workplace, we’re all finding our work lives intersecting our home and family lives, too. That raises the bar on what we expect from business software.

People use HubSpot to power their businesses, to provide for their families, to help their communities thrive, and in many cases, to make the world a better place.

It’s now more important than ever that our CRM platform experience feels like something you’d use on the weekends, not just Monday morning.
That’s why we’re fiercely committed to building software that has enterprise-grade power combined with consumer-grade intuitiveness and an experience as delightful as that offered by the apps we all use in our personal lives.
At HubSpot, our bar is set by what our customers need, not what our competitors have done in past decades. With the five Primary Colors powering our platform and our unwavering commitment to never compromise on customer experience, we are excited to continue to help our customers grow better in 2021 and beyond.