In 5 years, I envision myself as a go-to HubSpot automations and RevOps expert. Here's what I want to develop in 2023 to get there.
During a session with my mentor recently, we both came to the conclusion that I need to be more intentional about my development. As we discussed all the leadership goals I had initially listed as part of the mentorship program, she discovered I already had the elements of leadership in place. Her question to me then was: "Do you have a vision for what your life is going to look like in 5 or 10 years?"
This is the perfect question to reflect on as we head into the last month of 2022. And the great thing about becoming so active in the HubSpot community these past few months is that I can see all these different pathways to my career growth, making this question easier to answer compared to last year.
One thing that stood out to me was how positive everyone has been about the complex and creative automations I've built using workflows and low-code platforms, so I really want to double down on that in the next few years.
I'm writing this down now. In 5 years, I envision myself as one of the go-to automations and RevOps experts in the HubSpot community.
Based on this new goal, I want to go over all the skills I want to develop and why. So here we go.
A quick, scrappy hand-drawn flowchart I made for my LaMetric video. I make proper Lucidcharts for clients, I swear.
I mentioned this in a LinkedIn post a couple of weeks ago: I am terrible at documenting the solutions I develop. I've been so used to working in small teams where I'm the only person who needs to know how things work. And in most cases, I become a victim of overconfidence, thinking I will remember what I built a few months down the line.
I do not, in fact, remember what I built a few months down the line.
This habit is a bad one because documents like these are more likely to guarantee an onboarding project's success. I worked on too many projects this year that stalled because we didn't properly go through this planning process. The more HubSpot implementation and onboarding courses I go through, the more I realize how important this part of the process is.
I'm really hoping that by improving this skill and turning this into a required step in our projects, we'll have smoother implementation projects in the coming year!
Actual picture of me while working on integrations.
The more I come up with wild integration experiments, the more I realize that I cannot rely on low-code platforms to have all the answers. Low-code platforms have been great but I'm starting to hit walls more often now.
Some apps simply don't end up on any of these platforms because there isn't enough demand. I've also discovered that some platforms take ages to update their modules with the most current API versions for certain apps. This means that some of my ideas get stuck in limbo and some projects may end up breaking with no means to fix them.
In 2023 and beyond, I'd like to be more self-sufficient instead of relying on these low-code platforms. I think they'll always have a place in our tech stack, but I want to work with APIs and manipulate data on my own in cases where I need to.
Gareth and I roleplaying an awkward integration request call during one of our China HubSpot User Group events.
The first two focus on hard skills. Here, I'd like to focus on a key soft skill. After all, what's the point of knowing all those things but not being able to communicate them to others? The mark of a true master is when you can teach someone what you know or at the very least effectively convey its value, even if they don't completely understand the mechanisms behind it.
As someone who's worked in small agencies, client-facing communication isn't foreign to me. You get dragged into it when there's no one else to rely on. But even though that's true, my current role as a Solutions Engineer has changed the nature of these conversations.
Communicating why marketing tactics are important is comparatively easy because shiny marketing metrics, like counters and ranking numbers provide instant dopamine. Everybody loves that. It's a whole 'nother ball game, however, when you have to convince a non-technical person why a pricier custom integration is much better than what's available in the app marketplace or why their process can't simply be "copy-pasted" into HubSpot.
As one of the more senior members of our org as well, I also have the responsibility of upskilling our team and instilling that "WE CAN DO THIS" mindset, so they're confident enough to face even the most complex of problems. So yes, communication is even more important to me now than ever before.
Though I've listed a few resources I'm using to help improve this, I know much of the work will come from putting myself out there and getting more experience.
This seems like a pretty big list of resources to go through in 2023, especially in addition to all the other leadership, managerial and HubSpot skills I'm developing at work. But maybe it won't be too bad.
I've found so much more motivation now from seeing all the amazing HubSpotters I follow on LinkedIn. Posting about stuff I'm working on has given me so much drive recently, so I'm fairly confident I can make significant progress in all three of these areas.
How about you? What skills are you looking to develop in 2023?
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