I do not see an option to add several Contacts to a Lead from the Lead entity. You can add a contact to a Lead once you create it and have a warning sign next to it with something like “Add a contact.”
Once you add a contact, it seems this contact becomes a primary one. Once you click to see a lead in a Prospecting workplace, you see a contact and an option to associate other contacts with this contact (What for?), but not with a Lead, which is weird.
You can associate the Contact with a Lead but from a Contact directly. Still, those contacts that are associated with a Lead are not visible from a Lead in Prospecting tab. Why?
This is simply how HubSpot decided to release this product and we can only make assumptions as to why it was released in that exact way. There isn’t a higher logic or feature you’re missing.
Generally, the assumption behind the lead object seems to be that it is related to one company and/or one contact exactly – not multiple companies, not multiple contacts. This obviously does not reflect the business reality in all companies but as of now, that’s how the prospecting / sales workspace is enforcing it.
It currently means that, if you want to pursue multiple contacts at a company, that would involve creating (pursueing) multiple leads. As far as I know, there isn’t any way to switch the associated contact once the association is made.
Again, this is a comparably new product, and it will likely evolve over time.
I would like to be able to remove a lead’s current contact association, then associate it with a new contact - but when I try to do this, the lead disappears after the primary contact association is broken.
It seems to be possible to add a second contact association to a lead via the contact page, but when a primary lead-contact association is broken, the primary badge jumps to the company, not the second contact.
Hey @KLai8,
Thanks for following up here on @karstenkoehler’s accepted solution!
While I can’t find any official HubSpot documentation on this, I came across this recent Reddit post, which also inquires about the capability to update a lead’s Contact association. It appears that this unfortunately is still the case, as the comments note the following:
“You’re right, in HubSpot, the lead object (or contact before it’s converted) doesn’t allow changing the “primary contact” the same way deals do. The usual workaround is to update the lead’s contact record directly and associate the new primary company/contact manually, or convert the lead to a contact/deal first and then set the primary contact there.”
As there’s an obvious value in this functionality, I’d recommend posting this directly in our Ideas Forum. It would allow other users to upvote your idea, expand on it, and present the need directly to our Product team. You can also attach the URL to your idea here, and we’d be happy to start upvoting it for you!
Shane, Senior Community Moderator
