You invested $30,000+ in HubSpot. You migrated all your data. You trained your sales team. You set up dashboards and reports. Leadership is excited about finally having visibility into the sales pipeline. But three months later, you discover that your sales team is still living in spreadsheets.
They're not entering deals in HubSpot. They're not logging calls. They're not updating contact records. When you ask why, you get responses like "it takes too long," "it doesn't match our process," or "the data isn't accurate anyway." Marketing is frustrated because they can't track lead conversion. Leadership is frustrated because they can't see the pipeline. And you're stuck in the middle, wondering why your expensive CRM isn't being used.
This is one of the most common - and most expensive - problems we see in HubSpot implementations. Research shows that poor user adoption is the leading cause of CRM failure, yet most companies treat it as a 'change management issue' instead of a system design problem.
Here's the truth: your sales team isn't resistant to change per se. They're resistant to change they don't see value in.
Image source: XEN Business Skills
Your HubSpot setup doesn't match their workflow. After working with more than 200 companies on HubSpot adoption, we've identified one of the key reasons sales teams resist CRMs - and more importantly, how to fix it.
Sales resistance isn't always about laziness or stubbornness. It's about friction, misalignment, and lack of perceived value. Here are the real reasons:
The Problem: Your sales process has five stages: Initial Contact, Discovery Call, Demo, Proposal, Negotiation. But your HubSpot deal stages are: Appointment Scheduled, Qualified to Buy, Presentation Scheduled, Decision Maker Bought-In, Contract Sent. They don't match. Your sales team has to mentally translate between their actual process and what HubSpot shows. Even worse, the criteria for moving deals between stages are vague or wrong. HubSpot says a deal moves to 'Qualified to Buy' when the contact has budget, but your sales team qualifies based on pain, authority, need, and timeline (PANT). They're using different frameworks, which creates constant friction.
Why It Happens: Most HubSpot implementations use generic templates or default settings instead of mapping the actual sales process first. Someone sets up deal stages based on what "sounds right" without involving the sales team in the design.
How to Fix It: Sit down with your sales team and map their actual process. Not the process you wish they followed, the process they actually use.
Then configure HubSpot to match that process. Rename deal stages to match their language. Set up required fields that align with their qualification criteria. Build automation that supports their workflow instead of fighting it.
The Problem: After every call, your sales rep has to log into HubSpot, find the contact, create a note, log the call, update the deal stage, set a follow-up task, and update custom fields. This takes 5-10 minutes per call. If they have 10 calls per day, that's 50-100 minutes of data entry, nearly two hours of their day spent on administrative work instead of selling. No wonder they resist. You're asking them to spend 25% of their time on data entry. That's not a training problem, it's a workflow problem.
Why It Happens: HubSpot is configured to collect too much information, too manually. Every field is required. Every update requires multiple clicks. There's no automation to reduce the burden.
How to Fix It:
Reduce friction through automation and smart defaults:
When data entry takes 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes, adoption skyrockets.
The Problem: From your sales team's perspective, HubSpot is extra work with no clear benefit. They have to enter data, but they don't get anything useful in return. The reports are for leadership, not for them. The dashboards don't help them close deals. The automation doesn't make their job easier. When there's no perceived value, there's no motivation to adopt.
Why It Happens: HubSpot is often implemented to serve leadership's need for visibility, not the sales team's need for efficiency. The dashboards show pipeline health for executives, but they don't show actionable insights for reps.
How to Fix It:
Make HubSpot valuable for sales reps, not just for leadership:
When HubSpot makes their job easier, they'll use it. When it's just extra work, they'll struggle.
The Problem: Your sales rep looks up a contact in HubSpot and sees incomplete information. No phone number. Wrong company. Outdated job title. They call the number on file, and it's disconnected. They prepare a pitch for a "VP of Sales" who's actually a "Sales Manager." After a few experiences like this, they stop trusting the CRM and go back to their own notes. This is the vicious cycle of dirty data: incomplete data leads to low adoption, which leads to even worse data, which leads to even lower adoption.
Why It Happens: Data quality problems compound over time. Forms don't require enough information. Integrations create duplicates. No one is responsible for data hygiene. The database becomes polluted, and trust erodes.
How to Fix It:
Clean up your data and implement ongoing governance:
When the data is trustworthy, sales teams start trusting the CRM. When it's not, they build their own systems.
The Problem: Your sales team received HubSpot training during onboarding, probably 6-12 months ago. Since then, HubSpot has released dozens of new features. Your company has changed processes. New team members have joined. But there's been no follow-up training. Your sales team is using HubSpot the same way they did on day one, unaware that features exist to solve their biggest frustrations. They're manually doing tasks that could be automated. They're clicking through five screens to do something that could be done in one.
Why It Happens: Most companies treat training as a one-time event instead of an ongoing process. They invest in initial onboarding, then assume the team will "figure it out."
How to Fix It:
Build ongoing training into your operations:
Research shows that 81% of successful HubSpot users report high adoption[2], and ongoing education is a key differentiator. The teams that succeed treat learning as continuous, not one-time.
When sales teams fully adopt HubSpot, everything changes. Deals move through the pipeline faster. Conversion rates improve. Leadership has real-time visibility. Marketing can track ROI. The CRM becomes a competitive advantage instead of a source of friction. Research shows that teams with unified platforms are 1.5x more likely to outperform their goals. The difference isn't the platform, it's the adoption.
If your sales team isn't using HubSpot, you can't fix it with another training session or a stern email. You need a systematic approach that addresses workflow, value, data quality, and training together.
That's exactly what we do in the Annual HubSpot Review (AHR). In a half-day workshop, experts from XEN, XEN Create, and HubShots will:
Don't head into 2026 with a sales team that won't use your CRM. Fix adoption before year-end..
[1] Enable Services - Top CRM Adoption Statistics for 2025: https://www.enable.services/2025/07/15/top-crm-adoption-statistics-for-2025/
[2] Six and Flow - Does HubSpot Offer the Best CRM Experience: https://www.sixandflow.com/marketing-blog/does-hubspot-offer-the-best-crm-experience
[3] WalkMe - What are the Main Reasons for CRM Failures?: https://www.walkme.com/blog/what-are-the-main-reasons-for-crm-failures/
[4] HubSpot - 2025 State of Sales Report: https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/hubspot-sales-strategy-report