I’m looking for some best practices (resources) when it comes to using the prospecting space as a B2B SaaS business. One of the main issues we have is that some of the reps forget to create leads when they reach out to contacts/companies so they don’t show up in their prospecting workspace. We usually create leads from companies (since we’re a B2B business) so another issue is that for every lead, a contact must be associated manuall after creating the lead.
Do you have some best practices how to use the prospecting space and how to work with leads in general? Any automations to automatically create a lead when you e. g. make a call or send an email to a contact? Anything else that makes salesreps stay in the propsecting space rather than going through their list of companies and doing the outreach from there?
One of the things that has worked well for our clients is taking the time to set up target accounts strategically so that when the reps are using the list they aren’t constantly skipping over ones that aren’t relevant or shouldn’t be there. When that starts happening is when reps start to revert to old ways use what they’re comfortable with.
When I say setting up Target Accounts strategically, I mean:
Use the ideal customer profile tier and any other properties so that they can use filters as needed
Show them how to edit what is shown in their column so they can get as much value out of the main screen prior to getting into a record
Make sure that they know when a contact is identified that they are associated with the target account and their buying role is set
Without doing this, it makes the filtering of the activity-based filters less helpful
In short…just make sure that every aspect of that tool (or as much as possible) is relevant to their day to day so they can work efficiently
As far as automation for lead creation goes, I would suggest using something that indicates they are an actual viable lead or not. For example, a lead can be created when the lifecycle is marketing qualified lead. Marketing qualified lead is automatically set because of a specific score or engagement (or manually by the rep). When the lead is created, tasks are also created to remind the rep to follow up with the new lead accordingly. From there, the automated last engagement and lead status will help them maintain the proper lead status.
These are just a couple of the best practices that I’ve seen work to make the Sales Workspace helpful for reps, therefore increasing adoption. I’m interested in hearing from others as well!
One idea is setting up a workflow that triggers a reminder (or task) if a rep logs a call or sends an email without creating a lead. HubSpot doesn’t auto-create leads from activity yet, but a light automation like that can at least catch the missed steps.
Also wondering if you could guide reps to do more outreach from the prospecting workspace itself. Maybe set up filtered views—like leads not contacted in 7+ days—so they don’t feel like they need to go digging through company lists.
Sequences could be another fix. If reps start their outreach through sequences, it keeps everything cleaner and properly associated with the lead/contact.
And maybe a simple playbook or internal step that reminds them to associate a contact when creating a lead from a company? Just something to reduce the “oops, forgot” moments.