Contact "referral source"

[#1]

How can I relate one contact to another contact that referred it? 

Use case:

If Jill referred me to Jack, I wanted to add a property "Referred by" that would lookup other contacts, and enter Jill as that value on Jack's contact record.

I  want to add a custom property that is a lookup field of other contacts (that is apparently not available).  

Anyone?

[#2]

You'd have to create two custom properties, one that holds a unique code for each contact and another that holds the code of the person that referred them. 

This blog should walk you through it fairly easily. 

https://blog.hubspot.com/customers/how-to-generate-leads-from-referral-contest

[#3]

Can I just use the Hubspot "Contact ID", that displays on exports, as the "Referring Contact Code" (step 1 in the blog post)?

[#4]

I'm not sure. A quick Google search is saying (as of 2018) that the contact ID is only retreivable through the API and so wouldn't be able to be used in the tools you'd need for the program (lists,workflows ect)

[#5]

How would you do this simply if we used the Jack/Jill example? Not on scale like you are describing. The end goal is to run a report that I can see where my referrals have come from.

[#6]

I was thinking the results of a query for contacts where referral partner is known, including the contact name field and the referral partner field, and then a pivot on referral partners.

I think this could be submitted to hubspot as a recommendation for product enhancement.

[#7]

@rissole2390 unfortunatly the link I provided is the only way I could think to pull this off. 

@Phil_Vallender @MFrankJohnson any ideas?

But I do agree there should be an easier solution built in. @sgagliano if you post it to the Ideas Board there's a better chance the dev team will see it. Let me know if you do and I'll upvote it and I'm sure others will too. I've seen this request come up a couple of times now. 

[#8]

I think here is where someone has posted already. Definitely needs more upvotes though.

https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Linked-Referral-Sources-to-Deals-Just-like-Contacts/i...

[#9]

Q: How can I relate one contact to another contact that referred it?
I want to add a custom property that is a lookup field of other contacts (that is apparently not available). ?

Short A: Contact-to-Contact relationships do not exist in HubSpot. Nor does HubSpot have any ability to build these relationships within the platform directly -- see HubSpot ERD (March 2019) for confirmation.

Longer A:

Long ago, we implemented a drop down list of HubSpot users as a referral solution for a client only to learn that it quickly became unmanageable due to human error. Since then, we only use Single Line Text fields for this purpose.

Single Line Text fields still allow many issues (including human error). However, Single Line Text fields don't 'break' things as is the case with dropdowns when their options are changed on live records.

Hope that adds to the conversation.

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Best,
Frank

Chief HubSpot Consultant

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MFrankJohnson.com | Perfect HubSpot Series | Connect on LinkedIn

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