topic Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021 in Tips, Tricks & Best Practices

How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

Dan1 — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:40:52 GMT

Hi,

Back in 2017, we put together a video detailing how we managed our renewals process inside of HubSpot. In that time it has helped lots of HubSpot users (3.2K views), however the HubSpot CRM has moved on a long way since then and so has our renewal process. We felt it was time to take off the robes once more, in the hope that it might help more HubSpot users with the very latest capabilities in 2021. If you work for or run a SaaS business then maybe the video below will help you.

P.S If you have an renewals tips for us please comment, always looking to improve 🙂

Thanks,

Dan Currin

Co-Founder

OrgChartHub

GeoMapper

OrgChartHub & GeoMapper named in the Top 30 HubSpot Apps

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

sharonlicari — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 14:34:12 GMT

Thank you for sharing this @Dan1 🙂 this information is gold!

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

natsumimori — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 00:55:20 GMT

Great video @Dan1 ! And love the Community T shirt😉

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

Dan1 — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 12:50:31 GMT

Thanks @natsumimori I wear it with pride 🙂

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

Dan1 — Thu, 17 Jun 2021 12:51:49 GMT

Thanks @sharonlicari , hopefully it will help some other customer success teams who work on HubSpot.

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

D4niel — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 01:12:43 GMT

Thank you for for sharing @Dan1 and taking the time to create this video. It's really helpful.
Wondering if you'd be able to help with a couple of questions I had after watching?

1. We often have customers who renew a month or two after the inital renewal deadline. Do you have this issue? How do you handle the renewal deal in this instance? (Thinking maybe a Renewal Delayed stage inbetween Renewal Month and Closed Won)

2. What do you do with the original Year 1 Deal? Do you keep it in Closed Won?

3. How do you manage upsell deal forcasting? i.e. Active deal = $500p/m but we're negotiating upsell to $1000p/m as part of their renewall - I'm considering having an Active deal pipeline that reflects the current plan, and then a seperate deal pipeline for renewals so that we can increase/decrease the deal value of the renewal without affecting the active deal - but wondering if there's better/cleaner way to manage it.

4. How do you manage deals that reach year 3 and beyond? Looks like your workflow handles clients heading into year 2, but what about 3rd and then 4th year (etc.) customers?

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

Dan1 — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 12:50:04 GMT

Hi @D4niel ,

Great name 🙂 Thanks for the message.

1) We keep deals in the renewal month stage until they renew, so occassionally we do get the odd customer who is beyond their renewal date due to failed card etc, that sit in that renewal month stage. I like your idea to create a seperate stage for those instances.

2) Yes we keep the 1 year deal in close won.

3) We're actually trying to figure out forcasting now, as we use another SaaS specific software, which discontinued just 6 weeks ago, it was called Summit. Our latest thoughts are similar to yours in terms of having seperate pipelines for upgrades. We would ideally keep the forcasting inside of HubSpot, maybe we could get a HubSpot CS team member to chime in here. Any thoughts @JenBerenguer on @D4niel 's 3rd question on how to best manage upgrades which still play nicely with reporting MRR?

4) You are correct we don't have a workflow yet beyond the 2nd year, so today we move the deal to close won then manually adjust the next deal so that is updated with 3rd or 4th year name. The deal names do still need a little tidy from time to time as that part of the workflow is not perfect.

I hope this helped?

Thanks again for getting in touch,

Dan Currin

Co-Founder

OrgChartHub

GeoMapper

OrgChartHub & GeoMapper named in the Top 30 HubSpot Apps

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

JenBerenguer — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 08:24:50 GMT

@Dan1 Great video, I'm adding it to my 'Helpful videos from Dan' gallery now 😁

@D4niel

For now, one of the things I'm thinking is considering a combination of properties that can calculate. So if you're using 'Recurring Amount' as the revenue closing in that deal, you could potentially use a second property for the amount that client used to pay and calculate the difference to give you the upsell changes.

Here's a quick demo: https://www.loom.com/share/0f9f1b788aea46519c44cf316432a6bf

Hope that's helpful 😉

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

D4niel — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 00:46:16 GMT

Thank-you! Very helpful 🙂

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

D4niel — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 00:47:37 GMT

Thank-you Jen!

I'll be sure to keep an eye out for news from Inbound 2021 too

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

IProhaska — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 14:34:06 GMT

@Dan1 Just curious why the first deal to be created in the renewal pipeline after a deal in the sales pipeline was closed won would be titled [Deal name] Year 1 and not [Deal name] Year 2. If you closed won a deal in the sales pipeline that is already Year 1, right? So wouldn't the first deal in the renewal pipeline be the deal for Year 2?

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

Dan1 — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 15:13:04 GMT

Hi @IProhaska , we call it Year 1 as its the first year of the customer being on the subscription. When we scan across the renewal pipeline we can quickly see if a customer is in their 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th year of being a customer. I hope this helps.

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

IProhaska — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 15:21:26 GMT

But wouldn't the first year be the deal that was originally created in the sales pipeline? So renewal pipeline should only house deals 2nd year and beyond? Because the only time they can renew is headed into their 2nd year. The first year is that original deal in the sales pipeline.

So for example, if I am looking at a company profile in Hubspot that has been a customer for a little over 2 years, I'd want to see the original deal closed won in sales pipeline (year 1), 2nd year renewal deal in renewal pipeline closed won, and 3rd year renewal deal in the renewal pipeline in its respective quarter. Right?

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

Dan1 — Wed, 01 Sep 2021 12:52:01 GMT

This is just the way we do it, it doesn't mean it's right or wrong. It just works for us and our business process.

The beauty of HubSpot is its flexible, you can name the deals what you want and setup your renewal process how you like. We just put this out into the community as we thought it may help a few other HubSpot users on a topic which is not yet well documented. But ultimately you should set it up the way it works for you and your business.

All the best,

Dan

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

jphilbrook — Sat, 18 Sep 2021 21:26:08 GMT

@Dan1 Terrific video and solution. Thank you! What do you do for renewals after 2 years? Is your plan just to create another workflow for year 3?

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

Dan1 — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 10:08:10 GMT

Hi @jphilbrook ,

Thanks for the message really pleased you like it.

I haven't quite figured out yet the best way to change the titles in the deals for year 3 and 4 etc, as it just adds to the previous title which starts to get a bit messy. At the moment a new deal is created automatically, but we manually change the deal title for year 3 and beyond in order to keep the deal board clean.

If we figure out this piece I will be sure to let you know and likewise if you come up with any interesting solutions then please share.

Kind regards,

Dan Currin

Co-Founder

OrgChartHub

GeoMapper

OrgChartHub & GeoMapper named in the Top 30 HubSpot Apps

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

SKluge — Thu, 07 Oct 2021 21:10:37 GMT

Can I link this automated movement through stages by triggering the countdown from a custom date property added manually by the onboarding team? Any advice?

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

Dan1 — Fri, 08 Oct 2021 14:39:08 GMT

Hi @SKluge ,

You could certainly use another custom date property in your workflow to achieve the same automation.

Kind regards,

Dan Currin

Co-Founder

OrgChartHub

GeoMapper

OrgChartHub & GeoMapper named in the Top 30 HubSpot Apps

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

SKluge — Thu, 14 Oct 2021 15:59:27 GMT

Thanks Dan,

I am curious on how you do your deal creation as well. I currently have an automation set that once a deal hits closed won, it changes to our CS team, and CS onboarding pipeline. I see that you have the automation pull specific properties into a new deal in a new pipeline.

If I send the existing "closed won" deal to a new pipeline with an automated workflow, will I still have reportable data for that closed won pipeline?

Thanks

Re: How to handle renewals in your deal pipeline - Sneak peak into our process in 2021

Dan1 — Mon, 18 Oct 2021 14:49:04 GMT

Hi @SKluge ,

In the video we show the workflow which creates the new deal and how we copy certain properties across, this link takes you straight to that part of the video.

We create a new deal, rather than taking the same deal and placing it into the renewal pipeline so that we still have reportable data in the sales pipeline. If you were to take the same deal and push it into a new pipeline then you would cause reporting challenges.

Kind regards,

Dan Currin

Co-Founder

OrgChartHub

GeoMapper

OrgChartHub & GeoMapper named in the Top 30 HubSpot Apps