Best practices for managing companies that are both partners and customers in lifecycle stages

Smart CRM & Sales Hub CRM
1

Hi,

In our CRM, some companies are partners, some are customers, and some are both. We are currently tracking their status using lifecycle stages with customers and evangelists.

My question is: if a company is both a partner and a customer, what is the best practice for managing their lifecycle stage? Or any other way to track?

Any guidance or examples would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

2

Hi @ozgesilla,
Thank you for posting to the Community!
Tagging in some of our Top Contributors to see if they have any suggestions on this.
Hi Champions! @Mike_Eastwood @ScottPennwood @karstenkoehler I hope you all are having a great Wednesday! Do you all have any ideas on this for @ozgesilla?
Cassie, Community Manager

3

Hi @ozgesilla,

I would recommend working with a “Contact type” and “Company type” property that differentiates partners and customers.

Depending on your other requirements, you could then either only use the lifecycle stage for regular prospects/customers (direct sales, not partners) to keep things clean – as the lifecycle stage is meant to track how contacts and companies move through your buyer’s journey.

Or you use it for both, in which you need to make sure to differentiate in reports by contact / company type, which should be easily possible if you maintain properties as mentioned above.

It really doesn’t have to get more complicated than that if you don’t have any additional requirements.

Best regards

4

Hi @ozgesilla ,

The best practice is to keep Lifecycle Stage focused on the buyer’s journey (lead → opportunity → customer → evangelist) so reporting and funnels stay clean. For scenarios where a company can be both a partner and a customer, I’d recommend adding a custom “Relationship Type” property at the company level.

Make it a multi-select field with options like Partner, Customer, Vendor, etc. That way, a company can hold multiple roles at once without forcing lifecycle into a use case it wasn’t designed for.
With this setup, you can:

  • Segment in lists/reports (e.g., Partner + Customer).
  • Trigger tailored workflows (different onboarding for partners vs. customers).
  • Keep lifecycle stages consistent for sales and marketing attribution.
5

Hi @ozgesilla

That’s a smart question, it’s a common grey area when a company wears two hats. In HubSpot, lifecycle stages are designed strictly around the buyer’s journey (from Subscriber to Evangelist), so using them to also represent partnerships tends to distort your reporting (Use contact and company lifecycle stages )

A cleaner setup is to keep lifecycle for your customer funnel and introduce a separate “Relationship Type” or “Company Type” custom property at the company level.

Make it multi-select with values like Customer, Partner, Vendor, etc. That way, a company can have multiple roles simultaneously while your lifecycle and attribution data remain consistent. You can then use that property in reports, lists, and workflows to tailor engagement or onboarding logic (see property creation guide:

Create and edit properties )

Hope this helps you keep things clean and flexible as your ecosystem grows.