Deal Stages, in the context of Lead Status and Lifecycle Stages

[EmilyRivera]

Hi all - reformed, previous Salesforce Enterprise admin for our SaaS company here... 🙂

I was tempted to change everything to match how we did things on SFDC, but I stopped myself to try to learn first, and once I did, I understand the beauty of many of the things that HubSpot does.

I think the default Lifecycle Stages make sense for us, and we aren't going to change those at all.

Lead Status generally makes sense, although I can see being a little more granular - for example, with different DQ reasons that might trigger future tasks, correcting bad contact info, a "left company" status that might trigger manual outreach to try to find them at the new company since we all know those can be great leads.

So I guess it's Deal Stages that are hardest for me right now to wrap my head around how to integrate into our process.

Sorry to bring it up again, but in Salesforce, just for context, we had the general "Status" flow of: Suspect --> Marketing Engaged --> Automation Qualified --> Tele Accepted --> Tele Qualified (meeting set) --> Sales Accepted (AE reviews BDR qualification and accepts or not) --> Sales Qualified (meeting attended, opportunity valid) --> Opportunity Created --> Closed Won/Lost.

Of course, within "Opportunity Created", there were a number of opportunity/deal stages and associated probabilities: Discovery & Demo Completed --> Quote Sent --> Project Approved --> Verbal and Paperwork ... (simplified a bit obviously).

So back to HubSpot Deal Stages... I know they can be customized, but looking at the defaults, I wonder if I'm just completely missing something about the whole Lifecycle Status/Lead Stage/Deal Stage paradigm and best practices.

If we followed the defaults, for example, I can't imagine creating a deal, and putting it at 20% probability for "Appointment Scheduled" (not even Attended!) As I discussed above, we would only have the AE create an Opp *after* the meeting, and *if* qualified.

(We don't have our BDR Department do very much qualification - not my call and don't agree with it, but such is life since they hire them young and inexperienced here. I suppose if we did heavy BDR qualification, the above would make more sense.)

So I would generally think that given this, we would want to add the "Meeting Scheduled" and "Meeting Attended" statuses into Lead Status, and then have our Deal Stages start with a "Qualified to Buy" type of status and progress from there?

I realize that we wouldn't have visibility into lead/meeting quality and associated metrics if that part wasn't done in Deal Stages, but I'd rather manage that separately anyway.

At least I think I would rather do it that way ... there's lots of brilliance within HubSpot and its community, yet the default is "Appointment Scheduled" at a 20% probability.

So that's why I'm thinking it's ME not thinking about this correctly. Any thoughts appreciated, thanks in advance for reading my novel.

[franksteiner79]

Hi @EmilyRivera 

I think you are overthinking the default deal stages. The appointment scheduled stage is not intended to be the first ever meeting, and ultimately HubSpot needs to provide some defaults.

Across the 100+ customers I have worked with, not one is working with the defaults and ideally deal stages should represent each companies individual sales process(es) and represent completed actions, e.g. "proposal sent" vs "send proposal".

Hope that helps.

Frank

[EmilyRivera]

Hi Frank - no doubt about overthinking, I'm very good at that.  What you said makes sense about "Appointment scheduled" not necessarily being the first-ever meeting. 

That's what had me questioning everything ... thinking that maybe that's how other people were using the system, so what the heck was I thinking in trying to change things.  But now I get it, so again, thanks.

[Shadab_Khan]

Hi @EmilyRivera,

I am pretty aligned with what Madison recommended, here's a resource that will help you visualize the overlap and the connections (includes lead stages if applicable)

Stay Awesome & Keep Doing it BIG 🔥 

[EmilyRivera]

Thanks very much!  I created something very similar when I took over Salesforce at the previous place, and absolutely intend to do that here, once things are more settled - which they are much closer to with everybody's help here.  Thanks again!

[MadisonMoniz · Accepted solution]

Hi @EmilyRivera - I love a good read! Thank you for sharing this context and allowing us a peek into your HubSpot understanding. You are making great progress, and I would love to help continue your learnings!

For starters, lets dive into these properties.

• Lead status: the contact and company property that indicates where the contact or company is within a buying cycle as a lead. Learn about the difference between Lead status and Lifecycle stage. 
• Deal stage: deal stages allow you to categorize and track the progress of the deals that you are working on. Learn more about setting up and customizing your deal stages. Ideally, these stages should represent the key stages that occur after a lead is qualified and a deal is created, which could start from “Qualified to Buy” rather than using earlier stages like "Appointment Scheduled."

I would recommend that you customize your Deal Pipeline, for example:

• Qualified to Buy (e.g., 30%): After a meeting is attended and the opportunity is qualified.
• Discovery & Demo Completed (e.g., 40%): Once a demo or discovery call has occurred.
• Quote Sent (e.g., 60%): After a quote or proposal is sent.
• Negotiation (e.g., 80%): When the deal is in active negotiation.
• Closed Won/Closed Lost: The final stage, marking success or loss.

This approach helps avoid creating deals too early and ensures their pipeline starts with qualified opportunities.

From here, you could utilize the Lead Status for early stage tracking. For example, to address your desire for granularity without crowding up the Deal Stages, you can use these Lead Statuses to capture those earlier steps, such as:

• Meeting Scheduled
• Meeting Attended
• Bad Contact Info
• Left Company

This way, you can keep qualification details in Lead Status, which maintains clean Deal Stages focused on real opportunities.

It's a dance - but I would be happy to continue a conversation more tailored to your unique account if you need!

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[EmilyRivera]

Thank you VERY much for taking the time to read my long post, and to provide such great detail.  I'm thinking this through right now, but it is pretty late, so I want to think more tomorrow, and I might have a question or clarification, but I will be back to close the loop.  Thank you again!