If Sales reps create deal for MQLs, Lifecycle Stage becomes Opportunity?

[LSieveking]

Hi,

I have a question about the order and automatic setting of lifecycle stages.

My goal in marketing is to generate demo bookings with our Sales reps. But if they create a deal too early, good leads are kicked out of the funnel.

The setting is the following:

• As soon as someone booked a demo, the Lifecycle Stage is set to MQL.
• After the demo, the Sales reps are supposed to decide if the MQL is entering the sales funnel or not, which means setting the Lifecycle Stage to 'SQL' or 'Unqualified' or leave it to 'MQL' if they are not ready yet.

But the reality is:

Sometimes, the leads are so good that a Sales rep creates a deal just after the call. Hubspot then puts them on Lifecycle Stage 'Opportunity' which means they miss out the SQL stage.

As a result, they are kicked out of my funnel reporting and there are no conversion rates MQL > SQL as well as SQL > Opportunity for this lead.

So how can I make sure that no contact just jumps (is set) from MQL to Opportinity?

[LSieveking]

Hi @karstenkoehler ,

thank you for your answer.

I was just wondering about your sentence "TheLifecycle stage"Opportunity" is automatically set by HubSpot when a contact or company is associated with an open deal.This cannot be deactivated." as I found the following toggle (Settings > Objects > Deals) and this seems to me as if I could deactivate it:

If so, I could create workflows to change SQLs to Opportunities in case there is a deal associated, and MQLs first to SQLs and then to Opportunities.

Or am I misunderstanding or missing something?
Are there any pitfalls I need to be aware of?

Thank you!

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @LSieveking,

You're right, I had forgotten about this setting. I've updated and corrected my earlier post. With this, contacts should not jump to the opportunity stage.

Best regards!

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @LSieveking,

One option would be to disable the below checkbox in the Settings > Objects > Deals > Setup:

The Lifecycle stage "Opportunity" is otherwise automatically set by HubSpot when a contact or company is associated with an open deal.

Generally, if you notice that contacts are skipping lifecycle stages, you could hypothetically use contact-based workflows to spot contacts who skipped stages (Became an opportunity date is known but Became a sales qualified lead date is unknown, for example), clear the Lifecycle stage field, set it to SQL, and afterwards set it to opportunity. The contact would then be shown as having been a SQL – and be displayed correctly in your funnel report.

Without workflows, this is not possible. You would either have to train your sales team (not optimal, I know), or adjust your reports to this reality (not optimal either, I know).

With a Professional subscription, you could adjust your funnel report to also show a MQL to Opportunity rate (removing the SQL stage from the report). This would show you a part of the actual reality and you'd always have to check two reports.

Hope this helps!