TL;DR: Quick Reference
- What: A comprehensive guide to navigating the complex procurement cycles when selling HubSpot into financial services organizations
- Key Benefit: Reduce deal cycle time from months to weeks with proactive preparation and parallel processing strategies
- For: Sales teams selling into financial services and financial services buyers evaluating HubSpot
- Bottom Line: Prepare documentation early, establish a procurement working group, and submit all materials simultaneously for fastest approval
Author: Vantage Point | Category: HubSpot, Procurement, Financial Services, Sales Enablement
If you've sold software into financial services before, you know the pattern: the business team loves the platform, the demo went well, the economic decision-maker is aligned — and then the deal enters procurement, where it lives for weeks or months while compliance, cybersecurity, legal, and vendor management conduct their reviews. For sales teams used to closing deals in 30-60 days, financial services procurement can feel like hitting a wall.
At Vantage Point, we've guided dozens of HubSpot deals through financial services procurement. The deals that close efficiently are the ones where both the selling team and the prospect understand what's coming and prepare for it proactively. The deals that stall are the ones where procurement is treated as a surprise rather than a planned phase.
A typical financial services organization — whether it's a wealth management firm, asset manager, bank, or insurance carrier — will put a new technology platform through several review stages before approving the purchase. The exact sequence varies by organization, but you should expect some combination of the following reviews.
The cybersecurity review assesses the platform's security posture, including encryption standards, access controls, data handling practices, and incident response procedures. The reviewer will want to see HubSpot's SOC 2 Type 2 report, their security documentation, and potentially their penetration testing results. For organizations with formal security frameworks, they may map HubSpot's controls against NIST, CIS, or their own proprietary security standards.
The data privacy review evaluates how the platform handles personal data, including where data is stored, who can access it, how data subject requests are handled, and what subprocessors are involved in data processing. For European firms, GDPR compliance is the primary framework. For US firms, SEC and FINRA data retention and privacy requirements apply. This review typically involves examining HubSpot's Data Processing Agreement and their subprocessor list.
The legal review covers the commercial terms of the agreement, including liability provisions, indemnification, service level commitments, and termination terms. Financial services legal teams are typically more rigorous about contract terms than firms in other industries, and they may request modifications to HubSpot's standard terms.
The vendor management review assesses HubSpot as a going concern — their financial stability, their business continuity plans, their customer support SLAs, and their track record with similar financial services clients. As a publicly traded company, HubSpot's financial information is readily available, which simplifies this review.
For a mid-market financial services firm with a standard procurement process, expect four to eight weeks from the time the deal enters formal procurement review to final approval. Larger enterprises with more complex governance structures may take eight to twelve weeks. Organizations in highly regulated subsectors — broker-dealers, registered investment advisors subject to SEC examination, banks under OCC oversight — may add additional time for regulatory-specific reviews.
The key to managing the timeline is parallel processing. The cybersecurity, data privacy, legal, and vendor management reviews should be initiated simultaneously rather than sequentially. At Vantage Point, we help structure the procurement process so that all required documentation is submitted at once, enabling the different review teams to work in parallel.
Preparation is the single biggest factor in procurement cycle speed. Before the deal enters formal review, you should have the following materials compiled and ready to submit.
HubSpot's SOC 2 Type 2 report — available through the HubSpot Trust Center to customers and prospects — addresses the majority of cybersecurity review questions. Their SOC 3 report is publicly available and provides an overview for stakeholders who don't need the full SOC 2 detail. HubSpot's Data Processing Agreement should be prepared, along with their subprocessor list and Transfer Impact Assessment for firms with EU data concerns. The HubSpot security program documentation, including their encryption standards, access control policies, and incident response procedures, should be packaged together. For firms that require it, HubSpot's business continuity and disaster recovery documentation — including their 99.95% uptime SLA and multi-region infrastructure — should be included.
On the services side, your implementation partner should have their own security documentation ready. At Vantage Point, we maintain cybersecurity policies and procedures that align with financial services compliance expectations, and we're prepared to submit our security documentation alongside HubSpot's platform documentation when we're part of the procurement review.
The most common objection is the legacy perception that HubSpot is not enterprise-ready for regulated industries. This perception is outdated but persistent, and it requires factual rebuttal. HubSpot's SOC 2 compliance, enterprise-tier security features (field-level permissions, IP restrictions, two-factor authentication, SSO), and their existing deployment across financial services organizations globally provide the evidence needed to address this concern.
The second common objection involves data residency, particularly for European firms concerned about data leaving the EU. This requires walking through HubSpot's EU data center in Frankfurt, the subprocessor landscape, and the legal transfer mechanisms in place. Having a prepared data flow diagram that shows where data resides and what limited circumstances might involve non-EU processing helps procurement reviewers complete their assessment faster.
The third objection relates to the services provider — particularly if the implementation partner is smaller or less familiar to the procurement team. At Vantage Point, we address this proactively by submitting our security documentation, insurance certificates, and financial services client references as part of the procurement package.
The most effective approach is to establish a procurement working group early in the sales cycle — ideally before the deal reaches formal procurement. This group should include a representative from the business team (your internal champion), a procurement or vendor management representative, and the implementation partner's project lead. Having this group aligned on what documentation is needed and what the review timeline looks like prevents the common scenario where procurement returns with additional requests weeks into the review.
At Vantage Point, we offer complimentary procurement support for financial services deals, including preparing documentation packages, participating in security review calls, and providing reference clients who can speak to their experience with both the platform and our services. This is an investment in the relationship that pays dividends in deal velocity and partnership trust.
About Vantage Point: Vantage Point is a boutique consulting firm exclusively serving financial services organizations. With 400+ engagements across 150+ clients and a 95% retention rate, we understand the procurement expectations of regulated industries and help both sales teams and prospects navigate them efficiently. Learn more at vantagepoint.io.