Hi, @jackie-schmid. This is a great question, and it may be easier to start by defining your process on the Salesforce side.
HubSpot doesn’t delineate between leads or contacts - the record representing that person is simply a contact. Since lead and contact fields from Salesforce can be mapped to the HubSpot record, what you want to focus on is a well-defined process in Salesforce which can fit easily into a HubSpot contact.
You can absolutely use HubSpot properties mapped to Salesforce to help with this, and it sounds like you’re considering that already. Using the HubSpot lifecycle stage as a qualifier in Salesforce could certainly work.
Work with your stakeholders, and determine the following:
- Which brand-new leads in Salesforce should be owned by users, versus queues? The lower-value, higher-volume segments of leads can be assigned to queues, but you’ll also need to think about which set of Salesforce users should be assigned to that queue to evaluate and reassign leads.
- What is your lead conversion criteria in Salesforce? This is an extremely important question. As Salesforce is really an account-based marketing tool, and leads are an unknown or unverified quantity, the goal is to get leads qualified as quickly as possible, then converted (or quarantined or deleted, if low value). But if your ideas for conversion vary from your colleagues, then you can’t be certain just how qualified your entire universe of leads are.
- Is opportunity creation required on lead conversion? For some orgs, any converted lead could represent an opportunity. For others, it may be necessary to convert technical, billing, or administrative contacts, but may not necessarily be involved with opportunities, so this may not represent an actual opportunity.
Define the process from start to finish. You won’t need perfect agreements, but you’ll want to ensure everyone responsible for the decisions in your org are on the same page. It’s critical to be able to refer to something in the sales cycle, and all parties know exactly the level of qualification and pipeline involved.
If you’re going to be the primary decision maker for this, think about what makes the most sense in terms of the users who are going to work those records, and design a simple and straightforward system for them to use. Whether working with stakeholders or end users, solicit feedback frequently, and keep them involved in as much of the process as you can. Your perfect design is irrelevant if it’s not compatible with what your users are expecting.