7 Reasons Why HubSpot’s New Leads Object is a Total Game Changer
7 Reasons Why HubSpot’s New Leads Object is a Total Game Changer
Forget everything you thought you knew about lead management. HubSpot has just added a new leads object to Sales Hub, and it's about to revolutionize how you manage your leads.
1. It’s built different
Anyone with even a tiny bit of experience working in Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics 365 probably shudders at the thought of working with another leads object. Not to worry – HubSpot’s new leads object completely redefines how leads function in a CRM environment.
Here's how it works: The new leads object is a new object that acts just like deals or tasks. However, note that leads can't stand alone; they need to be associated with an object like contacts or companies. And so, leads in HubSpot are records you create and attach to your contacts to help track and manage the prospecting activities needed to qualify them.
GIF of manual lead creation flow
2. It just makes sense
When you create and associate a lead with a contact in HubSpot, it signals the potential to sell to that person. So, it never made sense to us why some CRMs limit you to converting a lead just once. Throughout their lifecycle, there will likely be plenty of selling opportunities. That’s why in HubSpot, we made sure that a single contact can have multiple lead records associated with them.
Here's how it works: Let's say you worked a lead and had to disqualify them because of budget constraints. Now, next year, you can simply create a new lead for that contact, which indicates that there’s renewed potential to sell to that same person. The great thing about this 1:many relationship between contacts and leads is that it keeps your previous qualification attempts as historical data on your contact records.
Screen of contact with multiple lead records
3. It works seamlessly with lifecycle stages
If you’ve worked in HubSpot at all, you know how essential customer lifecycle stages are. They not only define the relationship a contact has with your business but also foster alignment across your customer-facing teams. For instance, it helps marketing teams signal to sales when they’ve successfully nurtured and qualified a new lead. Because when their stage hits MQL, sales better be ready to work them. We didn't want that to change, so we made sure that the new leads object works on those exact same principles.
Here's how it works: During the setup, you’ll be prompted to configure whether leads should be automatically created or not. You can define at what lifecycle stage you want HubSpot to generate lead records for your reps; and vice versa what lifecycle stage a contact should have when they have an associated lead record. So consider at what point in the lifecycle stage your sales team should get involved when setting it up.
Screenshot of lead settings
4. It automates data entry
We know that sales or business development reps (SDRs/BDRs) are most successful when they can stay focused on one activity at a time. If they have to update records, log outcomes, and jump between tabs while making calls, the risk of getting distracted and losing momentum increases. HubSpot’s new lead object automates a lot of the administrative busywork so your reps can stay focused on their prospects.
Here's how it works: Lead stages will automatically update based on how your reps interact with their leads. For instance, let's say they sent a cold email or left a voicemail, that will make the lead stage for that record jump from ‘New’ to 'Attempted'. And when they respond or log a meeting, the stage will automatically go to 'Connected'.
GIF of auto-update lead stage
5. It seamlessly converts prospects into pipeline
The new leads tool also brings your BDRs/SDRs closer to your account executives. The new leads object makes it easy for your reps to hand off leads to your account executives. This doesn’t just reduce your sales cycle but also removes friction from the customer experience.
Here's how it works: It's very simple. As soon as you mark a lead as qualified, HubSpot will open up a deal creation panel. All that’s left for your reps to do is fill out some required fields. HubSpot will automatically associate the right records to the deal so your account executive has all the information to quickly start closing that new deal.
GIF of auto-deal creation flow
6. It’s opinionated
Prospecting is hard, and for someone working leads and carrying out prospecting activities on the daily, it can be difficult to understand what’s most impactful. Luckily, the new lead management tools provide your reps with guidance on what actions they should carry out and when.
Here's how it works: Throughout the prospecting workspace, you’ll find areas where HubSpot will highlight suggested activities. It could be as simple as logging a meeting outcome, but you’ll also find prompts to reply to emails, suggestions to block time to make calls, reminders to reach out to newly assigned leads, and directions to schedule the next activity.
Screenshot of schedule next activity button
7. It empowers data-driven coaching
When it comes to sales, having deep insights into your lead management performance is crucial. HubSpot's new leads object comes with robust reporting capabilities, enabling your managers to make data-driven decisions on how to optimize their sales processes and coach their reps.
Here's how it works: With the new out-of-the-box lead funnel report in sales analytics, you can easily track and analyze the progress and success rates of your leads through different stages. Customize the report to align with your preferred lead stages and filters, and gain valuable insights into conversion rates, rep efficiency, and sales outcomes.
Screenshot of lead funnel report
Ready to revolutionize your lead management?
With HubSpot's new leads object, you have the ultimate tool to revolutionize how you manage and nurture your leads. Let Sales Hub boost your sales team’s productivity while empowering them with context and relevance to connect with more leads.
Thank you @jbogaert for these awesome insights, the new prospecting dashboard (?) and lead object really help simplify things for sales reps - and love the coaching aspect, signing up for the Lead Funnel beta now! 🙌
Does anyone have recommendations for what is intended with the Lead once they're Qualified? Obviously we try to sell, but do the Leads just remain as 'qualified' forever or is a lead intended to also have a status like 'won'. Or should I think of the Qualified stage as the hand-off point to Sales?
IMO, all these should be a "property" to a Contact rather than a separate object. This could totally replace "Lead Status". It is totally confusing to see Leads as a separate object, with just Contacts and Companies, it was simple.
It's like you said. We designed it in such a way that marking a lead as qualified triggers the hand-off to your account executives. You can disable this setting, but by default a deal creation panel as soon as you click "qualified".
Hi @economize! No need to worry, it still is simple 😄 You can still use the old wayof managing leads. This is just an alternative out-of-the-box kind of solution.
Jan, we'd really like to use this new lead object to help track journeys of existing customers as they consider additional products or upsells. We couldn't really use the standard Lead Status for that reason, as you well understand. However, many HubSpot customers have to use Saslesforce as our CRM alongside HubSpot, so we don't have Sales Hub as it is too expensive for just a few needed features. Can you point me to any good solutions for capturing those new lead journeys and getting better pipeline reporting and attribution? I'd like to collect all of the data in HubSpot and match it up to a SF Opportunity that has synced back to a deal in HubSpot. Thanks!
One feature that's not working as expected is when Opening a Deal after Qualifying a Lead, the Associated Company and Associated Contact fields are not filled automatically. These are filled if creating a Deal from the Contact page, and the Lead should be associated with the Contact, so it doesn't seem like there shouldn't be any barrier to implementing this. In general (I know this is another feature request and exists elsewhere) the "Create a Deal" form needs to have a way to auto-populate fields that have known data values.
We are struggling with working out how best to use this as unsure how we best share leads between reps?
For example, rep 1 identifies a new lead for rep 2 within a different product stream. So rep 1 wants to create a new lead and allocate it to rep 2 to follow up.
If you update the Lead Owner, it doesn't seem to update what is visible on the new owner's Lead view in Prospecting?
@jbogaert what happens if a lead is created based on asscoiated contact lifecycle stage = MQL, is then marked as disqualified and down the line the prospect re-inquires? Will Hubspot automatically create a new lead since lifecycle stage of the associated contact already equals MQL and the old lead is disqualified or will we need to create one manually?
If I understand correctly, the Lead conversation works now in Hubspot similarly as in Salesforce. I am wondering what happens in the following scenario. I have a Company (called Solaris), where I have a Contact, called John Smith. John purchased before product A. Via an e-mail campaign John raised his interest in product B, so he is identified in this case as a new Lead. I work on this new Lead and in case of it is qualified, I can create a new Deal (as described above at point 5.)
I am wondering what happens with this new Lead? Can I somehow assign it to the existing Contact, so I can see that the person behind, John Smith has already purchased product A and now there is a Deal for product B? Or do I miss this info with the new Deal creation?
I’ve noticed is when opening a Deal after qualifying a Lead, the Associated Company and Contact fields don’t auto-fill. These fields do populate when creating a Deal from the Contact page, so it seems like the Lead association should carry over. It would be great if the 'Create a Deal' form could automatically pull in known data values, which would really streamline the process.
Has anyone had luck actually adding the Lead Funnel report to a dashboard? Since we can't create reports based on leads and when we try to add it we keep getting sent to Create Report, we are stuck. Thanks!
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