Overview of the Foundational Onboarding Plan and What's Included

What Is Foundational Onboarding?

Foundational Onboarding is a hands-on, collaborative onboarding experience designed to help you confidently use HubSpot for your Marketing, Sales, or Service teams.

This program is highly client-involved. We guide, teach, and advise—you build alongside us. The goal is empowerment: by the end of the project, your team understands not just how HubSpot is set up, but why.

You’ll leave with:

A solid HubSpot foundation aligned to your business goals
Clear processes and best practices
The confidence to continue building and optimizing on your own

The EAT Framework

Your onboarding follows our EAT Framework (Enable, Align, Transform), designed to get your team into HubSpot as quickly as possible, then layer on automation, process rules, and advanced functionalities.

This "crawl, walk, run" approach prioritizes quick onboarding so your team is up and running with essential tools and workflows from day one.

What All Foundational Packages Include

Regardless of the Hub selected, all Foundational Onboarding packages include:

45-minute Kickoff Call: Align on goals, confirm scope, and review the rollout plan
Live Working Sessions: Interactive, hands-on sessions tailored to your Hub (Marketing, Sales, or Service)
Participation Required: You’ll complete setup, configuration, and light build work during or between sessions with our guidance
Handoff Call: Review what was completed, confirm next steps, and discuss ongoing support options

What's Included in Your Plan

Your Foundational Onboarding includes the following components. The specific number of workshops, training sessions, and implementation hours depends on your Hub (Starter, Pro or Enterprise) and the Hub you purchased.

Important Scope Note

Foundational Onboarding programs are enablement-focused.

We do not perform work inside your HubSpot account outside of scheduled calls, except where explicitly stated in an Empowerment Package
Additional requests or build work cannot be added to this project timeline
Any work outside the defined scope must be quoted and scoped separately

This structure protects your timeline and ensures a focused, high-impact onboarding.

Marketing Hub Foundational Onboarding

Includes 12 core sessions, 2 Empowerment Packages, and 1 Marketing Strategy Session.

Session	Session Topics
Session 1 - HubSpot Orientation & Campaigns	Overview of HubSpot objects and tools Inviting users and assigning permissions Introduction to the Campaigns tool and how to use it
Session 2 – Technical Setup	Subdomain connections and core settings Tracking code installation and internal traffic filtering Email sending domain & CAN-SPAM configuration Email types, social connections, branding, and App Marketplace review
Session 3 – Building a Lead Nurturing Campaign	Key components of a nurture campaign CTAs, conversion points, emails, and workflows Lifecycle stages overview
Session 4 – Audience Segmentation	Buyer personas Audience segmentation strategy Lists and workflows for segmentation
Session 5 – Lead Scoring	What lead scoring is and why it matters Common best practices How to build lead scoring in HubSpot
Session 6 – Driving More Traffic	Traffic generation strategies SEO fundamentals and HubSpot SEO tools Content strategy and topic clusters Social media best practices
Session 7 – Automate + Personalize Your Marketing	Identifying automation opportunities Smart content and personalization
Session 8 – Event / Webinar Optimization	Event marketing review Automation opportunities Event platform integrations and follow-up
Session 9 – Marketing + Sales Handoff	Defining handoff agreements Expectations, timelines, and ownership
Session 10 – Reporting + Dashboards	Key reporting requirements Report library overview Custom report builder introduction
Session 11 – Open Session	Dedicated time for questions or deeper dives
Session 12 – Handoff Q&A	Full review of what was covered Support and next-step options
Session X – Marketing Strategy Session	Strategic, non-HubSpot-specific session Led by a ThinkFuel Marketing Strategist Includes 3–5 tactical recommendations you can apply immediately

Sales Hub Foundational Onboarding

Includes 6 core sessions and 2 Empowerment Packages.

Session	Session Topics
Session 1 – HubSpot Orientation	Overview of objects and tools User access and permissions
Session 2 – Technical Setup	Subdomains for meetings Inbox and calendar connections User profiles and branding Tracking code, currencies, and App Marketplace
Session 3 – Sales Pipeline Strategy	Review of your current sales process Pipelines, deal stages, and lifecycle stages
Session 4 – Sales Enablement	Automation opportunities Line items, quotes, templates, and sequences
Session 5 – Managing the Sales Cycle	Tasks, playbooks, and deal automation
Session 6 – Reporting + Dashboards	Reporting requirements Report library and custom reporting

Service Hub Foundational Onboarding

Includes 6 core sessions and 2 Empowerment Packages.

Session	Session Topics
Session 1 – HubSpot Orientation	Overview of objects and tools User access and permissions
Session 2 – Technical Setup	Subdomains and settings Conversations inbox and shared emails Tracking code and branding Ticket intake forms and App Marketplace
Session 3 – Ticket Pipeline	Ticket pipeline design Inboxes, forms, and ticket automation
Session 4 – Customer Success Strategy	SLAs and tracking Customer feedback collection
Session 5 – Knowledge Base	KB structure and branding Private articles and chatbots
Session 6 – Reporting	Reporting requirements Report library and custom reporting

Empowerment Packages (Quick Wins)

Empowerment Packages allow our team to take on specific build work for you. Availability and quantity depend on the Hub selected.

Marketing Hub:

Create and replace up to five forms/pop-ups with HubSpot forms
Create 2 marketing email templates - One newsletter style and one nurture style drag and drop style.
Create a landing page template using your current sites header and footer design (Requires Content Hub).
Development of 2 buyer personas
Setup leading scoring property, notifications, and segmentation
Setup of 4 custom behavioural events (Enterprise only)
Setup multi-touch revenue attribution (Enterprise only)

Sales Hub:

3 personalized sales team training sessions
Build out of 1 sales pipeline with required fields
Creation of up to 3 sales sequences
Creation of a 1-page quote template
Setup of up to 10 meeting links
Setup of sales goals and forecasting
Creation of 2 sales playbooks

Service Hub:

3 personalized customer service team training sessions
Setup and branding of your knowledge base and categories
Build out of 1 ticket pipeline with required fields
Setup and branding of your client service portal
Setup of 2 customer feedback surveys and trigger events
Setup of ticket creation form and inbox
Creation of 2 customer service playbooks

Cross Hub:

Import your contacts, companies, deals and tickets from a CSV file.
Connect and configure 2 integrations from the App Marketplace
Create up to 20 custom properties in HubSpot
Creation of up to 10 active/static lists
Create 3 workflows up to 25 steps each
Setup of 2 dashboards with pre-built reports and up to 5 custom reports
Setup of a chatbot or live chat
Setup of a custom object and up to 10 properties (Enterprise only)
Setup of 5 custom user permission sets (Enterprise only)

What’s Not Included

Unless explicitly stated in your Scope Document, the following are not included:

Custom integrations or API migrations
Ongoing managed services after onboarding
Data cleanup or normalization
Additional build work outside scheduled sessions

If you need any of these services, please speak with your Strategist about adding them to your scope.

Questions?

Reach out to your ThinkFuel Strategist if you have any questions about your plan or what's included. We're here to help!