“I think I just felt like if I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it.”
That's how Clarinda Ulliott explains leaving a senior consulting role to start her own HubSpot business. She already knew she could deliver the work really well. Sales was the part she still had to figure out.
If you're great at HubSpot and new to selling it, you know that gap. I've been there. Here's where Clarinda started, what she'd hold off on, and what's working two months in.
Clarinda is the founder of Clavaro Consulting, based in East Yorkshire. She's got about a decade of hands-on HubSpot experience, including four and a half years as a senior consultant working with enterprise teams at BBD Boom, an Elite HubSpot partner in the UK. Now she's a solo founder, just over two months in, helping companies understand how the business works before they build the CRM, the data, and the reporting.
It's their time. It's their mic. This is Women of HubSpot.
What You'll Take Away From This Episode
- Find your first paying client in the network you already have.
- Know why cold outreach can wait. Clarinda calls it "a long-term game" that costs money and takes time.
- See a real solo founder week: about half sales, half delivery, and sometimes more sales.
- Spot why attribution projects get big. If your data can't support the answers you want, the cleanup comes first.
- Borrow her pattern of stepping out of her comfort zone, again and again, until it built the career she has now.
From Singapore to Sydney to Accidental HubSpot Champion
I always start this show by asking guests what they'd tell their younger self. Clarinda didn't hesitate.
“I would say don't be afraid to go out of your comfort zone to try new things, because that's where I've gotten to where I am now.”
She was born and raised Singaporean, in what she calls a very structured upbringing: go to school, get good grades, get a good job. Travel opened another path. She studied marketing and TV production in Australia, interned in LA for a couple of months, and learned that film wasn't the career for her. She lived in Sydney for seven years.
Her first "proper big girl job" was office manager at a virtual reality production studio. She was a little bored, so she spent her free time teaching herself how to grow a business through online courses. When she got let go, she applied for an SEO specialist role with no SEO experience beyond what she'd taught herself. She got it.
That company got most of its customers from cold calling. Partway through her three or four years there, the owner decided to try inbound marketing, bought HubSpot, and picked Clarinda to run it.
As she remembers it, the message was simple: "This is the new software you're using. Like, you're gonna figure it out for us, set it up for us, and teach us how to use it."
She found out she loved scoping what people needed, setting up workflows, and building emails a lot more than she loved SEO. As I told her on the show, becoming an accidental admin is for sure a thing that happens to a lot of humans on their HubSpot journey. Then COVID changed everything.
Three Suitcases, a Cat, and a Border That Closed Overnight
“When I lived in Sydney, I thought that was gonna be my forever home.”
She and her now husband, Mike, planned to stay. They had an apartment and a cat. Then, early in COVID, Mike flew to the UK for his half-sister's wedding, and Australia shut its borders with not even 48 hours' notice. Getting him home in time wasn't realistic, and they ended up separated for six months, with nobody knowing when the borders would reopen.
At the six-month mark, they knew something had to change. She was on a working visa, so leaving her job meant losing the visa too. She left a job she loved, where her best friends were her colleagues, packed their entire lives and the cat into three suitcases, and flew to be with him.
She says it wasn't necessarily a career hurdle. But it cut off the career she could see in Australia, and it led to "this whole other HubSpot thing that I'm now doing, which I really enjoy." I called it a life hurdle on the show, and what struck me was how she handled it: she looked at what she could do, what she couldn't, and she just kept going.
What came next:
- Freelancing. She became a freelance HubSpot consultant when that "wasn't really a thing at the time," and found work through LinkedIn and Upwork. Clients trusted her to figure it out, and she learned data migrations, automations, and how different businesses operate on the job.
- BBD Boom. When she and Mike moved to the UK for good, they needed full-time income to prove they could get a mortgage. She joined BBD Boom and stayed four and a half years, working with enterprise teams. Once again, people kept giving her the chance to do something "beyond my skill set and just go for it."
The Food Truck Mentor Who Never Meant to Be One
As a student in Sydney, Clarinda worked part-time on food trucks, selling spiral fried potatoes. Nina, a truck owner she worked alongside, ran a Dippin' Dots truck and a portable VR ride. Nina kept paperwork and spreadsheets for every location she'd visited and documented her profit, so she knew which events to go back to and why.
Clarinda got curious about how it all worked and started pitching Nina ideas for marketing and SEO. Nina listened, saw the interest, and made her believe she could do it.
“It was the first time where I really thought like I could actually make something out of myself, like rather than just kind of following a typical journey.”
I learned a phrase from Marcus Sheridan for what Nina did: the Columbus principle. Your words let the other human think they discovered their own America. Nina never said it outright. She let Clarinda find it.
What Two Months as a Solo Founder Actually Looks Like
Here's the honest version of a day at Clavaro right now:
- About half sales, half delivery. Sometimes more sales than delivery, which still surprises her.
- A couple of her own clients, plus contracting through partner agencies for steady income while the pipeline builds.
- In-person meetings. At BBD Boom, the office was in Bournemouth and she's in Beverley, near Hull, a six-hour journey. Now she meets local business owners face to face in an area she says isn't as HubSpot-dense.
- A BNI group. She joined BNI before she officially launched. It's been valuable, and "not just from a business referral point of view." It gave her new friends who are also business owners.
Partner agency owners gave her the same advice over and over: keep meeting people, get yourself known, and put yourself out there, because it's a long-term thing. In her words, "It's not something you're gonna turn around in a week."
She went straight into sales because nobody else was going to do it, and there was no money to pay anybody. Her options included LinkedIn (which she's doing), her old network, vertical events, and cold outreach, and she's still testing what sticks. When she listed all those options, the back of my brain was yelling, "But what should I do?" That's her stage right now: sorting the shoulds from the coulds.
She didn't start from zero, either. Upsell conversations at BBD Boom taught her some sales skills, and she's long studied sales through Instagram, YouTube, and online courses. Right now her favorite is sales content that's "super tactical" and easy to adopt and apply. Her takeaway: selling is also how you package your offer and find the right people to work with.
Why Cold Outreach Isn't Her First Move
When I asked about the biggest misconception she's hit, she had one ready: cold outreach is really hard. Online gurus sell it as an easy way to get leads.
“The reality is, that is a long-term game and it costs money and it takes time.”
The time isn't the one email you send. It's experimenting with and testing your messaging, plus the technical expertise to set it all up. If you hire someone to do it, it costs money instead.
She planned to start with cold outreach because "everyone says it works really well." Then she talked to people who'd actually done it. Notice how careful she is here:
“I'm not saying it doesn't work, like I'm sure it works if you do it right, but it's just not as easy as it seems.”
Her point is about timing. For someone in her position right now, other kinds of sales would give a better return.
Start With the People Who Already Know You
So where should a consultant start when the pipeline's blank? I put her in mentor mode, and she went straight to your current network.
If you haven't launched yet, build up your LinkedIn profile, start having a bit of a presence, and connect with everyone you've ever known or worked with. When you launch, reach out to them first.
“They already know you, they've warmed up to you, they've maybe worked with you before, they know that you're good, and they'll be more willing to work with you.”
Her advice to any woman starting out in marketing, sales, or HubSpot is just as practical: don't be afraid to reach out on LinkedIn and ask for advice. She did exactly that before starting Clavaro.
“You'd think like they're so successful, they're probably too busy to spend any time with me. But pretty much every single one I asked actually gave me the time of the day, which really surprised me, and I'm so grateful for their time.”
She says it goes to show that everyone just wants to help, and she'd happily give that time back. If you're weighing the solo consultant path, Casey Hawkins's episode on being a helpful human pairs well with this one.
Business Before the CRM: Why Attribution Projects Get Big
I asked about a sales conversation that surprised her. She didn't have one story, but she had a pattern. Companies come in wanting to attribute their marketing leads better or qualify leads better, and they don't always realize how much work it takes.
HubSpot has standard properties that already handle some attribution. But a lot of businesses want to track specific channels those properties don't allow for. That's when Clarinda starts asking:
- Which channels? What channels do you want to track?
- What's in place? How are you doing that in HubSpot today?
- How clean is it? Is it really messy? Do we have to clean up your data first?
- Where does it end? Once those channels are set up, how do we track a lead all the way back to its source and attribute it to revenue?
“If your data cannot support the answers you want, it can be a big job.”
She thinks some teams treat HubSpot implementation like a quick fix. I loved that she puts that question on the table: does your data need to be cleaned up first? In 99% of all conversations, the answer's probably yes.
Confidence, Community, and Choosing Now
Ask Clarinda what empowerment means and she keeps it simple: confidence. "The confidence to speak well, to present yourself as you want to."
She felt it when she started a Facebook group to teach small business owners SEO. She asked members what they wanted and ended up running live online trainings, which she'd never done before. After one of the first sessions, a stream of positive comments came in.
“It gave me the confidence to feel like I could actually do it properly and I could do it and I was actually helping people.”
When I handed her a magic wand and asked what she'd change about how women are supported in this industry, she was honest. She doesn't have evidence that women need more support than anyone else. She's sure it exists, but she hasn't experienced it herself. The HubSpot community has been very supportive and welcoming, and she's never felt discriminated against because she's a woman. Her answer brought me great joy.
So why now? She'd assessed the situation and decided it was a good idea. She'd also needed stability to grow her family, which is why she worked full-time for quite a few years. With two kids and no plans for more, she said, "if I'm gonna start my business, this is the time to do it." Starting Clavaro has been the most rewarding part of her career so far.
“I'm finally making a decision that's fully my own. I get to call the shots. The world is my oyster. I don't know where this is gonna go, but I'm really excited to see where it's going.”
It's her first big, proper business, even after a couple of side hustles, and she's proud of it, even while it's still small. I told her to live in that. Big doesn't always equal success.
Frequently Asked Questions
How should a new HubSpot consultant find their first clients?
Start with your current network. Clarinda recommends building your LinkedIn profile before you launch, connecting with everyone you've worked with, and reaching out to them first, because they already know you're good.
Is cold outreach worth it for a new solo consultant?
Clarinda's view is that it can work if you do it right, but it's not as easy as it seems. It's a long-term game that costs money and takes time to test messaging and set up, so other kinds of sales may give a better return early on.
What does a typical day look like for a new solo HubSpot consultant?
For Clarinda, two months in, it's about half sales and half delivery, sometimes more sales. She serves a couple of her own clients, contracts through partner agencies, and meets local business owners in person.
Why is HubSpot lead attribution often a bigger job than it looks?
HubSpot's standard properties cover some attribution, but many businesses want to track channels those properties don't allow for. If the underlying data is messy, it has to be cleaned up first. As Clarinda puts it, if your data can't support the answers you want, it can be a big job.
What does Clarinda Ulliott mean by empowerment?
Confidence: the confidence to speak well and to present yourself the way you want to. She felt it most after positive feedback on the first live trainings she ran for a Facebook group she started.
What is Clavaro Consulting?
Clavaro Consulting is Clarinda Ulliott's HubSpot consultancy, based in East Yorkshire. It focuses on helping companies understand how the business works before they build the CRM, the data, and the reporting.
About the Guest
Clarinda Ulliott is the founder of Clavaro Consulting in Beverley, East Yorkshire, near Hull. She's got about a decade of hands-on HubSpot experience. She started as the accidental HubSpot champion at a Sydney SEO company, freelanced through LinkedIn and Upwork, and spent four and a half years doing senior consulting for enterprise teams at BBD Boom, an Elite HubSpot partner in the UK. Born and raised in Singapore, she lived in Sydney for seven years before moving to the UK, where she lives with her husband and two kids. She used to be a competitive swimmer, goes to the gym, and says she's really nerdy about business.
She's always on LinkedIn and checks her messages multiple times a day. Follow Clavaro Consulting on LinkedIn or visit clavaroconsulting.com, and tell her you heard her on Women of HubSpot.
Take Action Now
- Map your warm network this week. List the humans you've worked with or for, connect with them on LinkedIn, and make them your first sales conversations.
- Price out cold outreach before you start it. Write down the time to test messaging, the tools, and the setup skills it needs, then decide if it's the best use of your time right now.
- Ask one person ahead of you for advice. Clarinda reached out to HubSpot partners on LinkedIn, and pretty much every one gave her their time.
- Audit your data before you ask for attribution. Write down the channels you want to track, check how HubSpot tracks them today, and clean up what's messy before you build the report.
