When does the company lifecycle stage sync with an associated contact's?

[SteveMatlick]

Hi,

When does HubSpot sync a contact's lifecycle stage to its associated company?   We just added a contact to an existing company that had not prior contacts associated and advanced that contact's lifecycle stage to Sales qualified lead manually.   The company's lifecycle stage is still blank and not updated.

The description of the company's lifecycle field from HubSpot is:

• Lifecycle stage: the most advanced lifecycle stage (Subscriber, Lead, Marketing Qualified Lead, Sales Qualified Lead, Opportunity, Customer, Evangelist, or Other) of any contact associated with this company.

as per this page:

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/articles/kcs_article/companies/hubspot-crm-default-company-properties

Why wouldn't the company's lifecycle stage update?

Thanks,

Steve

[Phil_Vallender]

Hi @SteveMatlick 

The documentation about this is a bit, I think, misleading. 

Contact and company lifecyle stage are not connected by default in HubSpot. 

Moving a contact will never change the associated company's lifecycle stage. 

If a contact and a company are both associated with a deal, then they will both move to opportunity and, if closed won, to company at the same time. 

There is a setting to sync company lifecycle stage to associated contacts, but it is one way, and moving contacts still will not update the company. 

The only real solution to this is create a workflow that updates the company when the contact changes. 

@jennysowyrda documentation around this and the company contact sync setting could really be improved. 

Hope this helps.

[JuliaMongeau]

Hi @Phil_Vallender !

I’m a member of the Self-Service Docs Team here at HubSpot. We create and maintain documentation on the Knowledge Base.

Thanks for the feedback on our docs about the company and contact lifecycle stage sync setting! I will review this feedback with the team. 

Also, if you have specific feedback on this, please feel free to direct message it to me. 

Best, 

Julia 

[SteveMatlick]

Hi @Phil_Vallender ,

Thanks for the reply.  This all makes sense, we do have the Lifecycle Stage sync turned on but, as you stated, that's from company to contact (parent to child).   

From a workflow perspective, what would be the best approach to handle this if a company has multiple contacts?   Especially if they all have different lifecycle stages for some reason (e.g. company has three contacts, two are marked as lead and one is marked as Sales qualified lead).   I would agree with the documentation that the company should be tagged as an SQL based on these contacts, but what would the workflow look like?  Is it a bunch of nested IF's, so to speak?

Thanks,

Steve

[Nicoladeliso]

Hi @SteveMatlick ,

I come across your problem and I'd like to know if you have managed to find an "elegant" workflow to update the company lifecycle stage when there are several contacts belonging to the same company but with different contact lifecycle stage. 

Thanks in advance for you answer!

Best

[jimhuang_0531]

This question bothers me a lot as well. Have you figured out any solution or alternative to solve this problem?

[MShah2022]

Hi @Nicoladeliso, 

I have a similar issue as you did in 2020. Were you able to resolve the issue with the workflow to update the company lifecycle stage when there are several contacts belonging to the same company but with different contact lifecycle stage?

Thanks a lot in advance.

Best  Regards

[PamCotton]

Hello, @MShah2022 I would like to share this knowledge base with more details on how to update your company's lifecycle stage. More information is here.

Are you able to reproduce these steps? The more information, screenshots, and details you can provide, the better I can advise on the next steps.

Thank you,

Pam

[Phil_Vallender · Accepted solution]

Hi @SteveMatlick 

Actually, because Lifecycle stage can't move backwards unless cleared and can be used as a re-enrolment condition, you may be able to get away with a very simple workflow that triggers when ever contact lifecycle stage is known/changed, and copies it into the company lifecycle stage. 

Hope this helps.