Automatic lifecycle stage assignments

[#1]

Hi,

Probably another newbie question, but is there a way to stop Hubspot from automatically assigning contacts into lifecycle stages?

Not all contacts are 'leads', which can include lawyers, insurance, etc.

From Business Development point of view, this is quite annoying and messes up contacts. If possible, I would like to automatically assign my contacts to 'others'...

Any suggestions?

Thank you,

TT

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hey @TT first off - welcome to the Community, secondly - there's no such thing as a 'newbie question' 

1. What is a Lifecycle Stage?

Lifecycle Stage is a default HubSpot property, designed to designate where contacts are in your marketing funnel. Each stage represents a transition down the inbound sales/marketing funnel - they cannot be customized, but you can determine HOW they are applied.  

2. The first lifecycle stage of a contact depends upon how the contact was created in HubSpot:

- For contacts added manually in the HubSpot CRM, the default Lifecycle Stage is always Lead.

- For contacts who were added by converting on a  HubSpot marketing form or lead flow, the default lifecycle stage is Lead unless otherwise specified on the form.

- For contacts who are imported in using a .csv file, you will have the option select a default lifecycle stage during the import process. Learn more about importing contacts here.

3. How HubSpot CRM updates the lifecycle stage of Contacts/Companies:

- The CRM will update the lifecycle stage of Contacts or Companies when they first become associated with a deal and when that deal reaches a deal stage with a 100% probability (Closed Won).

- When a Company is associated with a deal, the lifecycle stage will update to 'Opportunity'. 

- When a Contact is associated with a deal, the lifecycle stage will update to 'Opportunity' provided they do not have their lifecycle stage set to 'customer', 'evangelist', or 'other'.

- Once a deal associated with a Contact or Company reaches a deal stage with 100% probability (Closed Won), then the lifecycle stage will update to 'Customer'.

You can manage this setting under Settings > Deals > toggle the setting to turn it off or on.

Note: When the lifecycle stage of a Company is updated, the lifecycle stage of all Contacts associated with that Company will also be updated if 'Lifecycle stage sync' is enabled within Settings > Companies.

...There's a lot to digest there, but what I hope this helps clarify how Lifecycle Stages are designed to work in line with the HubSpot product and sales methodology. I've seen a few experts on thsi Community - CC @Samantha_Alford @Josh @kcooper - provide some great insights on CRM best practices.

All the information above is pulled directly from HubSpot's Knowledge Base. 

[#3]

Thanks for your kind words @Anonymous!

@TT, this wouldn't be considered best practice, however we recognise that HubSpot's power is valuable for purposes way beyond what Brian and Dharmesh originally envisioned and in addition to managing marketing and sales contacts, it has become quite a useful broader contact management tool, not just to register and nurture leads through the marketing and sales processes. That's how we and many of our clients use it also.

There is a way to assign all new contacts to the 'Other' Lifecycle Stage.  This assumes you have at least Marketing Pro so that you can use workflows. It is possible to do it with the Basic app also but that will require the use of the API, so if you use the Basic app, let me know and I can fill you in on that also.

I'd create a workflow that has it's Enrollment Criteria as Contact Property -> Create Date -> Is Known (ie. as soon as the contact's create date is set, which happens as soon as the contact is created, enrol them into the workflow). If you only want YOUR contacts to be set to Other and leave other user's contacts set to Lead (for example), just add another enrollment criteria to say that the HubSpot Owner is your username.

Then just add an action which is a 'Set a contact property value'  and select the Lifecycle Stage property and set it to 'Other'. (I've attached an image of the workflow below).Set Lifecycle Stage to Other

The downside of this is that Lifecycle Stages can't go backwards without clearing the Lifecycle Stage property first.  Since 'Other' is at the end of the Lifecycle Stage line, if any of these contacts become leads, marketing qualified leads, sales qualified leads etc, you'd need to clear the Lifecycle Stage property before giving them the new stage.  To do this, you'd have to set up another workflow that is based on whatever enrollment criteria is appropriate (or manually enrol the individual contact).  Then do a Clear Contact Property action and then a Set Contact Property to whatever stage you want.  (See the second attached image).Change Lifecycle Stage backwards

I hope this helps and doesn't confuse you.  Feel free to ping me here if you need me to clarify further.

Cheers,

Sam

[#4]

If you know what makes a good lead vs bad lead, I would definitely recommend lead scoring. You can use your lead scores to help with your automated adjustments.

However, depending on the size of your sales force and how many leads come in, I would consider a more manual approach - still using lead scoring. This will ensure that you aren't automatically ruling someone out that shouldn't be ruled out. Using lead scoring you can make a predetermination as to what may or may not be a good fit and then do a quick once over of the lower scoring leads and adjust lifecycle stage from there.