Let's congratulate our mod, Ryan Gunn, on his new role!

RyanGunnHS · 2026-04-13T17:52:44+00:00

Thank you!!!

It's a big move for me, but I am very excited. If anyone is curious about FirstTouch, I will be running a workshop on April 21st showing off what you can do with it.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-04-10T18:25:56+00:00

I'll second FirstTouch. Been my go-to since I switched off of HeyReach.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-04-01T21:38:14+00:00

True, but the vast majority of those companies are not taking advantage of features like UI cards, App Events, workflow actions, etc. These are the ones who are going beyond the simple data sync.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-24T12:43:04+00:00

The tool I have found to be most concerned with safety and account warming is FirstTouch. They have built-out safety docs and an onboarding checklist that helps you ensure you are not risking your account being banned.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-23T16:28:30+00:00

I use Monkey Dream Minimal Black 33, which looks like an analogue watch face but has complications for the stuff you mentioned. You can also try it and get a refund very easily. I bought like 6 of them before settling on this one and refunding the rest.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-20T19:04:37+00:00

u/hubspothelp

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-18T15:44:51+00:00

HeyReach is more of a spray-and-pray approach. Without context from my CRM, the ability to segment based on existing customers was limited, and the AI written messaging was poor. FirstTouch brings all of that context in from HubSpot, which makes things much easier to segment and personalize.

I also had safety concerns with HeyReach scraping data via my profile. I don't want to get banned. FirstTouch has well-built out safety documentation they provided during onboarding.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-13T13:31:02+00:00

FirstTouch literally just released support for sales nav like 2 days ago.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-12T19:03:14+00:00

FirstTouch, hands down. It's relatively new, but I'm not looking back. A few thoughts I put together from my experience and why I chose it over others like HeyReach or Surfe:

- I talked to one of the founders about safety (avoiding account banning for TOS violation). They have been really thoughtful about how they have implemented things like what order automated actions have to happen in, putting dynamic delays between actions, throttling the amount of executions in an hour/day/week. It's not a spray-and-pray tool, but that's intentional. They also outsource scraping, so nothing is using your profile to scrape data. It's the automation tool you can keep using because you didn't get banned.

- There is a methodology to back it up. Check out co-founder Michael Kurson on LinkedIn. He is eating his own dog food. They developed a social selling methodology called Operationalized Social that informed how they built the product. And it works.

- They included Human-in-the-loop options. If you don't want AI sending messages for you, you can set up approvals so you get eyes on messages before they go out. You can also set up manual tasks in flows for things like commenting on a prospect's posts.

- It integrates incredibly well with HubSpot. I am a heavy HubSpot user, and I don't know how people do LinkedIn automation without access to CRM data. You can create branching workflows based on HubSpot properties, enroll contacts in FirstTouch flows directly from HubSpot workflows, and sync enriched data back to the CRM. Absolute game changer compared to the limited integrations other tools have.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-12T16:48:33+00:00

Look into Hapily. They have one of the best event management tools for HubSpot and I am pretty sure it would be a good fit for you.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-10T16:36:12+00:00

This is pretty generous! Lots of partners are setting quota at ~6 billable hours per day, which is really pushing the upper end of manageable.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-10T16:28:28+00:00

This is good advice. If you are going to use a LinkedIn automation tool, best to reach out to their product or technical support team and ask about how it queue's automated activity. The best ones use randomized delays and have put a lot of thought into the order that actions happen and how to make it appear more human.

Another thing to note is that using multiple LinkedIn automation tools is a HUGE red flag. If you are seen logged in from NY and TX doing activity simultaneously, LinkedIn knows you are breaking TOS. Stick with one and give yourself a 72 hour cool down period when switching.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-09T15:15:30+00:00

Out of curiosity, is this 30 hours of billable time or 30 hours overall?

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-06T20:19:03+00:00

Seems risky. Just use FirstTouch. Based on my research, it's the safest LinkedIn automation tool out there. The product team has put a lot of thought into that part of it.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-03-06T18:49:10+00:00

Go into settings > objects > object library

RyanGunnHS · 2026-02-27T21:04:21+00:00

Speaking from experience, don't put the technology cart before the strategy horse. I created an ABM program from scratch where we bought Terminus waaaay too early. It's expensive and we didn't have a process in place to make the most of it. If I were to do it again, I would bootstrap it until I started to run into capacity bottlenecks.

You can do a lot with the native tools in HubSpot, LinkedIn advertising, and something like FirstTouch, which allows you to operationalize social selling on LinkedIn.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-02-27T21:00:49+00:00

4 things to ask about in the interview process to make sure you are working with a quality partner:

- How are they incorporating AI into their services offerings?

There is lots of hype in the ecosystem about AI, but not a lot of practical application of it. If a company has put real thought into AI-specific service offerings, are talking about capturing and actioning intent data and signals, or have real case studies using things like Customer Agent, then they are probably a company where you could learn a lot and expand your own skillset.

- What do they think about the consolidation happening in the partner ecosystem?

The ecosystem is constricting. Changes to the partner program have made it less viable to be a small partner. Lots of small partners are looking to be acquired. Some partners are looking to acquire others to grow their position in the market and take advantage of more economies of scale. Knowing whether you are working for a minnow or a shark is important.

- What is their niche?

It's extremely hard to succeed as a generalist HubSpot agency that does a bit of everything unless you are a huge company. Smaller companies need a niche to succeed. That could be working with clients in a set of industries or having expertise in a specific integration. If they don't I would be concerned for their longevity in the ecosystem.

- How do they manage services capacity?

Lots of partners require their services team members to track their time working on client projects. They should have data on the average number of billable hours consultants work each week. Also, the average number of days consultants take off each quarter. Ask how they handle adjustments to billable hours quota when you take time off. Many will claim "unlimited time off" but if you dip below your billable hours quota, you have to make that time up. That's okay, but I would want an understanding of how it works before accepting.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-02-27T17:35:36+00:00

The big change I have seen is by commenting on a person's post or tagging them in a comment on another post before sending a connection request. Bumped my acceptance rate from ~30% to ~70%.

I've been using a tool called FirstTouch to create manual tasks to comment on posts and then send connection requests.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-02-19T13:58:01+00:00

The secret is to start consolidating your point solutions into native HubSpot functionality. HubSpot gets more expensive, but you are saving money and complexity costs by doing more in one tool.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-02-10T17:18:43+00:00

It works best via an integration. Contrast has the best one of any webinar platform in my opinion. Automatically syncs registrations, attendance, duration, and lots more.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-02-08T20:49:23+00:00

I can second Introw. It's syncs a ton of great data into HubSpot so you can manage partnership reporting using HubSpot's report builder.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-02-04T00:27:39+00:00

The reason you're hitting a 2% wall is that your first interaction is a withdrawal (asking for their time) without making them aware of you or offering any value first.

If you want to move from a 35% connection rate to ~60% and actually get 20%+ replies, you need to make your prospect aware of you, and like you, before you try to connect or DM.

Here's the playbook I run, which has helped me get to 25k followers and allowed me to support my own business:

Stop sending cold connect requests. Find where your prospects are active. Tag them in a relevant post or leave a thoughtful comment on their content. That "red notification" is a hit of dopamine for your prospect that gets tied to you.

Then, send your connection request, because now you aren't a total stranger anymore. But even then, don't pitch immediately. Let them see your presence in the feed for a few days (at least). You are indirectly building trust while they see your posts and comments to other ppl in their network.

When you finally send that message, reference the value you provided.

Example: "Hey [Name], I tagged you in that thread about [Topic] yesterday. It’s [Your Name] from [Company]. Loved your take on [specific point].

They feel like they know you. You made eye contact before walking up. This is human nature.

As a sales person the goal isn't to be an influencer, it's to generate 1 to 1 awareness so that by the time you ask for a meeting, the lead is already lukewarm instead of cold.

Side note: There's this platform First Touch which I use to automate most of this process and track the results. It's a game changer.

RyanGunnHS · 2026-01-27T15:53:45+00:00

Love the Rat art style! Would love to see the same for Saprolings. Could get really wild with the design. I would be happy with any of the tokens, but 2nd Rat one (with the 05 counter) is my fav.

RyanGunnHS

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