HubSpot is one of the most popular CRMs for a reason. It handles contacts, deals, pipelines, and reporting well. But if you have spent any real time in it, you know there are gaps. Small things that slow you down every day. A lookup that requires three clicks. A field you have to copy from another tab. A follow-up task you always forget to create.
These gaps add up. A sales rep switching between LinkedIn, HubSpot, Airtable, and Slack dozens of times per day loses hours to context switching alone. The workflow is not broken, but it is not smooth either.
This article covers 5 practical ways to extend HubSpot and automate parts of your sales process by connecting it to the tools you already use.
1. Look Up HubSpot Contacts Directly from LinkedIn
This is probably the most common pain point in outbound sales. You are on a LinkedIn profile and want to know: is this person already in my CRM? What is their deal status? When was the last touchpoint?
Instead of opening a new tab, searching HubSpot, and scrolling through results, you can surface that data right on the LinkedIn page. A small panel or button that queries HubSpot by name or email and shows you the contact record inline. No tab switching, no copy-pasting.
This turns a 30-second interruption into a one-click check. Over a full prospecting session, that saves real time.
2. Save LinkedIn Leads to HubSpot in One Click
The reverse flow matters just as much. You find a promising prospect on LinkedIn and want to add them to HubSpot. Normally that means copying their name, title, company, and LinkedIn URL, opening HubSpot, creating a new contact, and pasting everything in.
A better approach: a button on the LinkedIn profile page that grabs the visible information and creates the HubSpot contact automatically. It fills in the name, company, job title, and LinkedIn URL, and you can add custom fields like lead source or campaign tag before saving.
This is especially useful during high-volume prospecting sessions where you are reviewing dozens of profiles.
3. Surface Airtable or Notion Data Inside HubSpot
Many teams keep operational data outside HubSpot. Project timelines in Airtable, product specs in Notion, customer notes in Google Sheets. When a sales rep is working a deal in HubSpot, they often need to reference this data but have no way to see it without switching tools.
You can solve this by adding a data panel inside HubSpot that pulls live information from Airtable, Notion, or other tools. Match records by email, domain, or company name, and display relevant fields right in the deal or contact view. Some teams use this to show delivery status, onboarding progress, or account health scores alongside the CRM data.
4. Automate Follow-Up Task Creation
Reps are supposed to create follow-up tasks after calls, demos, and meetings. In practice, this step gets skipped more often than anyone wants to admit. It is a manual process that feels like busywork in the moment but costs you deals later.
One fix is to add a quick-action button that creates a HubSpot task with pre-filled defaults. One click creates a "Follow up" task associated with the current contact or deal, due in two days, with the right priority. You can customize the template: different actions for post-demo follow-ups vs. post-call check-ins.
5. Capture Leads from Google Maps to HubSpot
For sales teams that do local prospecting or territory mapping, Google Maps is a goldmine of business data. But getting that data into HubSpot is tedious. You find a business on Maps, then manually copy the name, address, phone number, website, and rating into a new HubSpot company record.
A one-click capture that grabs all visible business data from a Google Maps listing and creates a HubSpot company or contact eliminates this friction. Add a tag for the campaign or territory, and your CRM stays organized without the manual data entry.
The Common Thread
All of these ideas share one principle: the best workflow is the one you do not notice. Every time you switch tabs, copy-paste data, or perform a manual step that could be automated, you lose focus and time. The goal is not to replace HubSpot but to remove the friction around it.
With Drop in, you can build most of these enhancements yourself by describing what you want in plain English. No code, no complex setup. The features you create live right inside the pages you already use, and they persist across sessions.
If your sales process involves HubSpot and you are tired of the repetitive parts, try building your first Drop. Start with the thing that annoys you most. That is usually the one with the biggest payoff.