G2

Verified User in Computer & Network Security

Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

11/1/2026

"Unified CRM and Automation That Fits Our B2B Cybersecurity Sales Cycle"

4.5/5

What do you like best about Upsales Sales and Marketing Platform?

I value how Upsales rolls CRM, sales activity tracking and marketing automation into a single, cohesive platform that fits our B2B cybersecurity sales cycle really well. I’m Gruenewald Gudgel, Security Operations & Admin Coordinator at Orange County Cyber Defense Group in California. My day-to-day work includes managing our security tool stack, running internal audits, vetting new SaaS platforms, and helping our sales and technical teams get set up on tools smoothly. Before we started using Upsales, prospect and client data was spread all over the place. Our sales team logged follow-ups in one place, sent outreach from another, and stored security assessment notes in separate cloud folders. It was slow to pull up full context before a discovery call with an IT manager, and we wasted a lot of time copying notes between systems after scoping calls and proposal reviews.

What clicks for me is how easy it is to build custom contact records and automated outreach flows without heavy technical lift. I was able to create segmented lists for IT decision-makers, MSP partners, and existing clients, and add custom fields to track things like vulnerability scan status, quote expiry dates, and compliance audit timelines. A few months back, I built a nurture sequence for leads who reach out about our penetration testing and security assessment services. After someone submits an inquiry, they automatically get our service overview packet, a gentle check-in three business days later, and unresponsive leads get flagged so one of our sales engineers can step in for direct outreach. I put the whole workflow together myself, no outside developer support needed — that flexibility matters when our pipeline moves fast and we can’t afford delays around proposal deadlines.

I also like that every email open, link click, and campaign interaction lives right on the contact timeline. If one of our engineers jumps onto a call, they can quickly see what resources the prospect has already reviewed, so they don’t waste time repeating information. The reporting views are straightforward to pull during our weekly pipeline meetings, letting us see which outreach pieces are driving consultation requests and which ones need reworking.

As a lean cybersecurity team of 11–50 people selling managed security and compliance services, Upsales gives us a unified hub to manage leads and client relationships. It stays focused on B2B sales workflows and doesn’t pile on unnecessary consumer-facing marketing tools that would add no real value to our security service sales process. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Upsales Sales and Marketing Platform?

My biggest pain point is that Upsales’ journey builder and automation logic are built around generic B2B sales stages, and they do not adapt well to the specialized milestones of cybersecurity service scoping. Our sales cycles track granular events: discovery call wrap-up, statement of work draft status, penetration testing kickoff dates, evidence deliverable deadlines, and compliance report review timelines. Although I can create custom fields to record these details, stacking layered conditional rules quickly grows tangled and hard to govern. A few weeks ago, I attempted to build a workflow to streamline our scoping outreach. It was meant to send tailored follow-up materials right after a discovery call, pause all automated messages once an SOW went out for signature, and kick off a re-engagement track if the prospect opted out before reserving a testing window. Unfortunately, the nested logic kept triggering incorrectly, and we mistakenly delivered a quote reminder to an organization that had already elected to put their security project on hold. That error created an awkward moment with the prospect and required extra outreach from our sales engineer to clarify. Since then, every new automation we build goes through several rounds of manual testing and peer validation before activation. This extra review burden piles on administrative work when our team is already occupied with security monitoring, internal audits, and active client scoping.

Document management is another notable shortcoming for our workflows. We routinely exchange large scoping packets, vulnerability testing methodology documents, sample compliance reports, and fully executed SOWs with prospects and clients. Upsales’ native file storage has tight capacity limits, and it lacks purpose-built version control to separate draft scoping materials from finalized, approved deliverables. There is no straightforward way to tag uploaded files with actionable status labels such as “awaiting client signature” or “ready for test execution.” Before kickoff meetings or formal assessment starts, if our engineers need to retrieve the official signed SOW package, I have to leave Upsales and navigate our **SharePoint** repository to locate the correct executed version. This constant context switching eats into valuable time, especially when we are working against tight testing windows and compliance review deadlines. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Upsales Sales and Marketing Platform solving and how is that benefiting you?

To break it down, Upsales fixes the disjointed lead tracking and inconsistent follow-up problem we ran into while nurturing prospects for penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, and compliance services at Orange County Cyber Defense Group. I’m Gruenewald Gudgel, Security Operations & Admin Coordinator, and my work covers administering our security tool stack, running internal audits, and vetting SaaS platforms to support our sales engineers and technical delivery teams. We are a lean cybersecurity team of 11–50 people, and before Upsales, prospect notes, sales tasks, and outreach threads were scattered across separate email inboxes, spreadsheets, and our **SharePoint** document library. Our sales engineers tracked follow-ups on their own schedules, so it was easy to lose track of where a prospect stood after a discovery call or SOW review. We’d sometimes repeat outreach to parties already in active negotiations, or fail to circle back before a quote expired — risky missteps in the competitive cybersecurity consulting space.

Upsales’ combined CRM and campaign workflow builder addresses that core challenge. I can configure custom contact fields, set automated reminders, assign tasks, and build nurture sequences without dedicated developer support. A few months back, I set up custom contact profiles for IT directors, MSP partners, and in-house security leads, tagging each record with key scoping details such as preferred test dates, compliance framework requirements, and quote expiry timelines. I built a workflow that sends targeted follow-up resources after a discovery call, holds outreach once an SOW is sent for signature, and re-engages leads if they stall out before booking an assessment. The workflow runs quietly in the background, even when I’m pulled away to coordinate tool audits or triage internal security alerts. We no longer rely only on manual check-ins to keep leads moving through our scoping pipeline.

I also value the centralized activity timeline. Every email open, link click, and logged task attaches directly to the contact record. If one of our engineers jumps onto a last-minute scoping call, they can quickly review all prior outreach and feedback without digging through separate folders. The built-in dashboards give us a clear view of engagement trends for our weekly pipeline syncs, so we can spot bottlenecks before quotes slip.

I do recognize its limitations, as I covered earlier. Its automation engine is built for standard B2B sales stages rather than cybersecurity scoping milestones, layered conditional logic can fail unexpectedly, native storage lacks robust version control for SOWs and assessment reports, and clean syncs with our security tools like Huntress and Duo Security are not available out of the box. We run strict manual testing on every new journey and keep finalized deliverables stored separately in SharePoint. Even with those tradeoffs, the platform delivers meaningful value. Upsales eliminates blind spots in our sales follow-up cadence and cuts down repetitive reminder work, freeing me up to focus on security operations, vendor evaluation, and supporting our team to deliver assessments and compliance work on schedule. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.