Preparing for Kickoff
A little prep before the first meeting makes the whole engagement faster.
Kickoff is where an engagement gets its footing. A little preparation beforehand turns the first meeting from a fact-finding session into a working one, which means the whole project moves faster. None of this is heavy lifting; it's mostly gathering what you already know.
Line up the right people
The most valuable thing you can bring to kickoff is the right people in the room. That usually means a decision-maker who can set direction, plus one or two people who actually do the day-to-day work in the areas we're touching. The doers know where the real friction is, and their input shapes everything.
Gather the basics
- Goals. What does success look like six months from now? Even a rough answer helps us aim.
- Current tools. A quick list of the systems your team uses today, and which ones matter most.
- Known pain points. The things that clearly aren't working. You don't need solutions, just the symptoms.
- Access owners. Who controls access to your HubSpot, email, domains, and data, so we're not chasing permissions later.
Think through a few questions
You don't need polished answers, but it helps to have turned these over: How does a lead become a customer today? Where does work most often get stuck or dropped? What reports does leadership wish it had? Who on your team is most and least comfortable with change? Your honest read on that last one shapes how we approach adoption.
What we'll bring
We come to kickoff with a plan for the conversation, an understanding of what you've told us so far, and the questions we need answered to move. If you came up through the Diagnostic Ladder, we bring what we've already learned, so kickoff builds on it rather than repeating it.
The mindset that helps most
Come ready to be honest about how things really work, not how they're supposed to work on paper. The gap between those two is exactly where we do our best work, and the sooner it's on the table, the better the system we build.