People often ask me how I came up with our leave coverage service, or how it started. And honestly, it was sort of a happy accident. When I started Greenline in 2019, I put the word out to a few friends and colleagues. Before I knew it, a friend - who also had her own marketing business at the time - asked if I’d be willing to take on her client load so she “could actually have a maternity leave.” She was having her third and wanted to be able to soak in those sweet baby snuggles. We discussed what it’d look like for both of us in terms of communication and responsibilities, pay structures, and client needs, and I decided to go for it! I appreciated that she trusted me and was happy to have a set of ‘clients’ (so to speak) right out of the gate.

Things went great and just a couple of months after finishing up, another girlfriend came to me and asked “So, do you cover maternity leaves for other people, or was that a one-time thing?” And the rest is history. Greenline quickly became a go-to in our local communities and HubSpot groups for those looking for a better way to take maternity and paternity leave. As mentioned on our Leave Coverage service page, stepping away from creative work can be stressful and overwhelming – for the team and for the person taking leave. Opportunity seized.

We cover short-term leaves for agencies and individual professionals alike. Filling this need for both the individual taking leave and their teams is such rewarding work; we’re often met with gratitude and really great partnerships. Gate 39 Media was no exception.

Gate 39 & Greenline Marketing

Love it or hate it, Facebook has its perks. As a HubSpot Partner, we’re grateful to be part of the HubSpot Partner Solutions group on Facebook; it’s served as a source of inspiration, community troubleshooting, and every so often, a great introduction. That was the case for our partnership with Gate 39. In the fall of 2022, a member of the Gate 39 Media team posted that they were “looking for a HubSpot Specialist to take over my role during maternity leave” in April 2023. After shooting them a message and completing the linked application, we got in touch.

Gate 39 Media is a marketing agency and technology consulting firm serving the financial and agricultural industries based in Chicago. Their team serves some of the world’s largest exchanges, financial advisors, brokerage firms, and agribusinesses. They specialize in marketing and inbound strategy, marketing campaigns and support, web and app development, CRM set-up including HubSpot onboarding for Marketing, Sales, and Service portals, and also offer ongoing support.

After connecting via Facebook, Greenline and Gate 39 had a few virtual meetings so we could answer questions about our maternity leave coverage offering, how we’ve covered maternity leaves in the past, and the extent of our HubSpot knowledge and expertise. We gathered more information about their clients, the type of work they did, the required availability, and what size shoes they were looking to fill. The team at Gate 39 is smart, friendly, and has great clients; that, paired with their open communication made it feel like a great fit.

Now that we’ve been offering leave coverage for agencies for nearly five years, we understand how important it is to have an established process in place specifically for short-term leave coverage. This helps both us and the individual (+ agency!) whose role we’re stepping into to feel confident in taking on these responsibilities. It’s important for both sides to make sure client work is uninterrupted and the entire team feels comfortable coming to us in lieu of their teammate who is stepping back. The formalized leave coverage process with Greenline includes transitioning in at the beginning and out at the end, as well as establishing methods of communication along the way so it’s smooth sailing all around. We review what meetings we need to be a part of (and which ones we don’t), discuss workload, hours, tools and software, and more. No stone is left unturned.

Similar to our Agency Support offering, we’re often covering maternity and paternity leaves as a white-label setup, so we’re truly working as an extension of the team, representing them, their skills and expertise, and maintaining client relationships on their behalf. We take great pride in the fact that others bring us into their fold in this manner, and we don’t take the responsibility lightly.

Maternity Leave Help for Agencies, Made Easy

We wear many hats when it comes to marketing expertise, so we’re often jumping into leave coverages that have different roles and responsibilities, whether it be an Account Manager, Project Coordinator,  Marketing Manager, HubSpotter, etc. Variety is the spice of our lives! In this case, the maternity leave coverage for Gate 39 was very focused on HubSpot management in a variety of formats for various clients, including:

• HubSpot Marketing Onboarding: A big part of onboarding clients with their HubSpot Marketing Hub isn’t just teaching them how the software works and where each tool is, but strategically setting up their HubSpot Marketing Portal so it works as efficiently as possible for their needs. As part of HubSpot Marketing Onboarding, we guided clients through a process of asset development, campaign buildout, and launching email marketing so they could hit the ground running.
  
  
• HubSpot Service Onboarding: Like Marketing Hub onboarding, HubSpot Service Onboarding isn’t a process you want to speed through or skip steps. While explaining the capabilities of HubSpot’s Service Hub, we worked with clients to understand, strategize, test, and formalize service processes for effective use of chatflows, ticket pipelines, knowledge base, and more. Because this onboarding includes elements that are very lead and customer-facing, testing and customizing the tool was imperative.
  
  
• HubSpot Sales Onboarding: Sales Hub Onboarding can be a bit tricky; sometimes we’re working with a marketing team who is leveraging and guiding the use of sales tools, and sometimes we’re working with the sales team themselves, and sometimes both. Like other onboarding, starting HubSpot Sales onboarding by taking time to ask questions and understand their process(es) lays the foundation to ensure there’s a methodical process of prospecting, utilization of all sales tools, and deal pipelines so the team is set up for success.
  
  
• HubSpot Salesforce Integration: Integrating Salesforce with HubSpot is a process that Greenline has been through many times. We’ve assisted with projects that are switching from one tool to the other or would like to integrate the two to work together. Regardless of what the integration looks like, we work through the process with all involved to ensure data is importing and exporting properly, properties are mapping, and ultimately business flow remains uninterrupted. In some cases, our Salesforce <> HubSpot integration knowledge is used for setting up the integration and sometimes we’re troubleshooting and updating.
  
  
• HubSpot Integration Troubleshooting: Those who are familiar with HubSpot know that Salesforce isn’t the only software that integrates with HubSpot. During our leave coverage with Gate 39, we helped their support team field client questions and issues to troubleshoot various integrations as they popped up. If it’s flowing in and out of HubSpot, we’re happy to take a look.
  
  
• Lead Generation Automation: Building HubSpot workflows and automation series is where my orange freak flag flies. No, really - it’s when I totally nerd out! I get really excited about how we can set things up on the back end to work really efficiently for the client. Strategizing lead generation automation and then assisting with the execution in HubSpot is a task I never tire of and am rarely daunted by complex customer or business needs. Lead gen automation is all about taking time to save time, so helping businesses set up these flows can look like email creation, sales rep rotation, internal notification and task setup, and more.
  
  
• HubSpot Data Management: HubSpot is only as smart and as effective as the data is clean and mapping correctly, there’s no doubt about that. When we step in to assist as a HubSpot consultant, we help import data, clean data, map data, build lists or automation with data, understand the data, report on the data, and in some cases, export the data. Keeping a clean house (portal) is a big part of the HubSpot pro game, and we’re always ready to roll up our sleeves.
  
  

Parental Leave? We’ve Got You Covered

We've had our Leave Coverage offering in place and working like a well-oiled machine since 2019. To date, we've covered roles for Account Coordinators, Project Managers, Marketing Strategists, Digital Marketers, and HubSpotters of all shapes and sizes; we've worked in a number of industries from Higher Education to Manufacturing, Finance, SaaS & Fintech, and on behalf of fellow agencies like Gate 39.

"Our agency hired Greenline to support our HubSpot practice while I was on maternity leave. Emily and Bridget were extremely methodical in how they learned about our business and how to best service our clients. They made sure to integrate our approaches to their methods and follow our processes. When I returned from maternity leave, our clients had nothing but positive feedback for the Greenline team!" –Allison B, HubSpot Team Manager

We're well-acquainted with working as an extension of your team, putting agreements in place for both of our comfortability, and digging in so that the day-to-day for your team (and clients!) stays business-as-usual. Yes, Greenline Marketing makes it possible to truly step away and know that an experienced, knowledgeable expert will keep projects moving forward on your behalf.