Deal Registration Association Question

[TLarson5]

Hi there, 

I'm struggling to determine if the following is possible in HubSpot:

We're looking to set up a Partner Deal Registration form/webpage. In my experience, it's tough to get partners to share the actual customer information but they'll share the company where there is a possible deal. 

So on the form, we ask Company Name and the Partner's Contact Info. As an example - they submit "McDonalds" as the company and then they supply their own first name/last name/email address. 

I know I can create a Lead from the action of the form submit using the company name - McDonalds - but I'm wondering if/how I could then associate the partner contact with that lead. 

This way, in theory,  we could reach out to the parnter to learn more about the possible deal at McDonalds that they shared with us without asking the partner to share a whole lot of information with us. 

Any ideas on how I can do this/if it is possible...? 

Thanks, 

-Troy

[HumbleTinker · Accepted solution]

Heya @TLarson5 

There's a lot you can do here, but first, I want to say there's no reason to be shy about making new properties - this is a great use case! You certainly don't want to go overboard and end up with a lot of noise in your data, but from what you've written this seems like a common case in your work.

That said, you could leverage an existing property. Like another user mentioned, that risks overwriting data - but it's absolutely possible.

I'd need to know some further context about how your partner ecosystem works to give you a full solve. But it could be as simple as creating a Contact Workflow, Trigger is Form Submission, and then the action would be "Create Record" and the type of record would be "Lead" (assuming you meant the Lead Object).

By default, that Lead will be associated to the contact that filled out the Form - that might be all you need.

But it sort of sounds like you might have a representative Partner Contact you want to associate the Lead with instead of the person who actually filled out the form? Then, yes, that get's a little more complex, and might start to depend on your subscription level to determine the solution. Let me know a little more if you're still tangled up here and I'll see what I can do!

[HumbleTinker · Accepted solution]

Hmm, alrighty! @TLarson5 

In this case, it really comes down to how big that partner list is.

Let me give you an example - if you only have, say, 5 partner companies you care about, you could make a new dropdown property called [Partner]. 

Then, when filling out the form, the user would then use the [Partner] dropdown and select "McDonalds", "Pepsi", "Raising Canes", etc.

Then you'd create a Contact workflow that follows:

• When this form is filled
• BRANCH for EACH selection in the Dropdown
  • Each branch ends in a "Create Lead" action
    • Within that action, associate the Lead being created to the COMPANY of their corresponding choice.
    • Within that action, also ASSIGN the Lead Owner - This would be based on who should pursure leads for the selected Company.

It's a solution, but it's not perfect. It gets complicated if you have a list of 20+ partners, and it's a little difficult to maintain because you have to directly assign Leads to specific Users.

[HumbleTinker · Accepted solution]

I think we have 2 communication issues here.

1. I'm giving a solution to a scenario where a person could fill out a form, and generate a Lead Object associated to one of the Companies you list in the Dropdown.

2. It sounds like you're not actually talking about Lead Objects, and instead you mean Contacts. These are completely different things in HubSpot. When discussing HubSpot issues, it's crucially important that we always use the correct terminology - no guessing.

To clarify using your format, the form would have:

1. First Name: John 
2. Last Name: Smith
3. Partner Company - Dropdown: Partner A (McDonalds)

This generates a Lead on the McDonald's Company, and assigns it to whoever owns the McDonalds company. But it sounds like you're looking for slightly different functionality.

With that in mind, tell me more about how this needs to work; making up examples is a great way to get that across!

Questions that would help me:

• Is the Form filler FROM a Partner Company YOU ALREADY WORK WITH?
  • And you want them to enter ANY TEXT that would then create a Company in your HubSpot? (and you DO NOT WANT the form filler to be associated to this newly created company)
  • And you want that Company to be assigned to a SPECIFC REP based on what company it is?

[HumbleTinker · Accepted solution]

@TLarson5 Got it - I feel like I have a good understanding of what you're after now.

It is technically possible. But here's where you're going to have the biggest issue:

HubSpot Forms, by their nature, create Contacts - even when you uncheck "Create new contacts" on the form - even when you remove the "email" field from the form. 

That isn't a problem by itself, but within the context of a Workflow, you would need to create a Company (the "Deal Company" they entered). Because you are creating a Company in a Contact-Based workflow, HubSpot forces you to associate that Company to the Contact enrolled in the workflow.

The real issue here is that there's no native Workflow Action to "Remove Associations. It is technically possible to "Remove Associations" by doing an API call in a custom coded workflow action, but at that point, you're really in an uphill battle, especially if you're at all new to HubSpot.

The suggestion would be:

Properties

• Contact
  • [Deal Company] - Call this whatever makes sense, but this is what we'll use to store the NAME of the Deal Company they're referring.
    • NOTE: DO NOT USE "COMPANY NAME" IN THIS FORM.
• Company
  • [Partner Lead] - Single Checkbox. Used to trigger workflow.

Contact Workflow

• Trigger: Form Submission
• Branch for Each Partner Company in Dropdown
• Each Branch Contains:
  • Create Company (use data tokens from form submission to set [Company Name] = [Deal Company] + other details like setting [Partner Lead] = Yes)
  • Custom Coded Action: Remove all Company Associations via API
  • Create Associations
    • Match on Record ID
      • Use Record ID of Partner Company they chose from the Dropdown.

Company Workflow

• Trigger: Record Created AND [Partner Lead] = Yes
• Create Record: Lead
  • Owner = Partner Lead Rep

In the end, whenver you get a submission, it would generate a new Company named after the [Deal Company], and it would generate a Lead on that new Company assigned to your Rep. Finally, the contact who filled out the form would be associated to the Partner Company they chose in the Dropdown.

Long story short, you've found yourself in a bit of a fringe case without a direct solution, at least to my knowledge. HubSpot is a great app in that there's usually alway a way through, but it does get quite complex sometimes.

I wish you the best of luck in your project! I think I've done about all I can without a consultant fee 😉

[RubenBurdin · Accepted solution]

Hi @TLarson5 , you’re not crazy, this is one of those “HubSpot is opinionated” moments.

To your last question: yes, if you want to keep Partner Contact data clean and still capture a free-text “deal company,” you’re almost always going to need at least one custom property (and that’s totally normal in HubSpot, unlike the Marketo PTSD world). The key is: don’t put the free-text prospect into the standard Company Name field on the partner contact. Store it in something like “Prospect company name (deal reg)” and drive automation off that  (https://knowledge.hubspot.com/properties/create-and-edit-properties).

Then you have two sane paths. If you’re OK with creating a Company record for the prospect right away, you can use a contact-based workflow triggered by the form to create a Company (or a Company Lead, depending on your Leads setup), and it will naturally associate to the submitting partner contact.

The limitation HumbleTinker called out is real: natively, you can’t remove that association afterward without code. If that association is “acceptable but not ideal,” this is the simplest route (https://knowledge.hubspot.com/workflows/create-records-with-workflows).

If you really need zero association between Partner Contact and Prospect Company, the cleaner pattern is to store the deal registration as its own record (custom object like “Deal Registration”) and only create the prospect company once your team qualifies it. Quick question: what HubSpot tier are you on, and do you have access to custom objects?

[TLarson5]

Thanks @RubenBurdin. I'm on Enterprise Marketing/Sales Hub. It's good to hear that the additional field thing isn't something that I should be **as** freaked out about as I initially was. 🙂 

Ya not having the referrral rep associated with the comapny they are brining to us (the deal reg compnay) is a pretty big deal. I think at this point we may be better off looking for solutions built buy others (buying something) vs what I was trying to do here (build it myself). 

[HumbleTinker · Accepted solution]

Heya @TLarson5 

There's a lot you can do here, but first, I want to say there's no reason to be shy about making new properties - this is a great use case! You certainly don't want to go overboard and end up with a lot of noise in your data, but from what you've written this seems like a common case in your work.

That said, you could leverage an existing property. Like another user mentioned, that risks overwriting data - but it's absolutely possible.

I'd need to know some further context about how your partner ecosystem works to give you a full solve. But it could be as simple as creating a Contact Workflow, Trigger is Form Submission, and then the action would be "Create Record" and the type of record would be "Lead" (assuming you meant the Lead Object).

By default, that Lead will be associated to the contact that filled out the Form - that might be all you need.

But it sort of sounds like you might have a representative Partner Contact you want to associate the Lead with instead of the person who actually filled out the form? Then, yes, that get's a little more complex, and might start to depend on your subscription level to determine the solution. Let me know a little more if you're still tangled up here and I'll see what I can do!

[TLarson5]

Hey @HumbleTinker - 

Thanks for this. Good to hear that I may be a little too overly concerned with adding custom properties (I come from a Marketo shop before so there's a bit of a different philosphy around custom fields if you're using that tool). 

The goal is the latter scenario you suggested (associating a partner contact with a Lead Company). The idea is to have the partner contact fill out a form, that creates a Lead Object Comapny. In my experience they aren't too forthcoming on sharing thier actual contact at a company. 

So I'm envisioning a form where we ask who the parnter is and the company where the deal may be. This way the form is short and easy and we're then able to contact our example partner "Frank" to learn more about the possible deal at "McDonald's" - or something like that. 

In HubSpot I'd love to have a Lead Object of "McDonald's" so the company is a Lead and partner "Frank" is associated with the Lead. That way our internal partner team can work the Company Lead and make a deal at the end of the Lead Object lifecycle. I feel like that's the cleanest workflow for this. 

And given my PTSD from creating custom fields in Marketo I wasn't sure that something like this was possible in HubSpot. Any ideas you have here is GREATLY appreciated. 

Thanks in advance!
-Troy

[HumbleTinker · Accepted solution]

Hmm, alrighty! @TLarson5 

In this case, it really comes down to how big that partner list is.

Let me give you an example - if you only have, say, 5 partner companies you care about, you could make a new dropdown property called [Partner]. 

Then, when filling out the form, the user would then use the [Partner] dropdown and select "McDonalds", "Pepsi", "Raising Canes", etc.

Then you'd create a Contact workflow that follows:

• When this form is filled
• BRANCH for EACH selection in the Dropdown
  • Each branch ends in a "Create Lead" action
    • Within that action, associate the Lead being created to the COMPANY of their corresponding choice.
    • Within that action, also ASSIGN the Lead Owner - This would be based on who should pursure leads for the selected Company.

It's a solution, but it's not perfect. It gets complicated if you have a list of 20+ partners, and it's a little difficult to maintain because you have to directly assign Leads to specific Users.

[TLarson5]

Hi @HumbleTinker -

Thanks again for the ideas here. Just to make sure I'm following:

1. You're saying I create a field called "Partner Company". In that field we'd list all the current partners we're working with.
   1. Partner A | Partner B | Partner C etc...
2. On the form, we'd ask: 
   1. Partner First Name | Partner Last Name | Partner Company | Deal Company
3. The idea is that "John Smith" at "Partner A" would fill out the form:
   1. First Name: John 
   2. Last Name: Smith
   3. Partner Company - Dropdown: Partner A
   4. Company: McDonalds (The company where John Smith is saying there's a possible deal(?)
      
      With this format wouldn't he be created at McDonalds? I wouldn't want that. I'd be fine with creating John Smith at Partner A - But ideally, I'd like McDonalds to get associated with John Smith at Partner A as a Lead Object Company. 
      
      That way my own internal team can reach out to John Smith at Partner A to ask him what is going on at McDonalds and details about a possible deal we can work together there at McDonalds. 

[HumbleTinker · Accepted solution]

I think we have 2 communication issues here.

1. I'm giving a solution to a scenario where a person could fill out a form, and generate a Lead Object associated to one of the Companies you list in the Dropdown.

2. It sounds like you're not actually talking about Lead Objects, and instead you mean Contacts. These are completely different things in HubSpot. When discussing HubSpot issues, it's crucially important that we always use the correct terminology - no guessing.

To clarify using your format, the form would have:

1. First Name: John 
2. Last Name: Smith
3. Partner Company - Dropdown: Partner A (McDonalds)

This generates a Lead on the McDonald's Company, and assigns it to whoever owns the McDonalds company. But it sounds like you're looking for slightly different functionality.

With that in mind, tell me more about how this needs to work; making up examples is a great way to get that across!

Questions that would help me:

• Is the Form filler FROM a Partner Company YOU ALREADY WORK WITH?
  • And you want them to enter ANY TEXT that would then create a Company in your HubSpot? (and you DO NOT WANT the form filler to be associated to this newly created company)
  • And you want that Company to be assigned to a SPECIFC REP based on what company it is?

[TLarson5]

@HumbleTinker:

Ya, I think I'm confusing things. Let me try again - thanks for bearing with me 🙂 

So we have partners we team up with and sell together with. The idea is that we have a complimentary solution so the "better together" story is a key selling point. 

These partners are tasked with sourcing deals and brining them to use where we will work the deal together. 

In the past, I've never had successess where a partner sales rep shares the actual contact at the "deal company". They always want to guard their source - but they have to share something with us, thus the form focus on Company. 

These partner companies will be companies who we have signed agreements with so, to answer your question, yes they are companies who we will be already working with. 

Yes, we would want them to enter free text of the "deal compnay" on a form. Like I've said before, if there is an opportunity to sell at McDonald's as identified by John Smith at Partner A, I've never had luck with a form fill where we ask John Smith at Partner A to share with us not only that there's a possible opportunity at McDonald's, but also who the contact is at McDonald's. 

So, instead of having incomplete or junk data, I figured I'd simply the form. The goal of the form is to understand that there is a possible joint deal with Partner A at McDonald's. And that the deal was brought to us by John Smith at Partner A. 

This way, our sales team can reach out to John Smith at Partner A and ask about the possible joint-deal at McDonald's. 

So, yes having the ability for all the "John Smiths" to fill out a form where they type in the joint deal company (ex. McDonald's) is important. And yes, we would not want John Smith associated with McDonald's as he doesn't work there, he works at Partner A. If he was created as a contact at McDonald's that would mess lots of things up 🙂 

I was then thinking we could use HubSpot's LEAD feature: 

And have McDonald's be created as a Lead (as well as a Company). This way our team could leverage all the Lead statuses to work the deal and open a deal if there is a deal. This way, I was thinking it won't create a lot of "noise" deals and limit artifically inflating pipline and artifically reducing conversion rates. --- That's why I kept mentioning "LEADS". 

As for routing, all of these referred deals/Companies would be routed to 1 person so routing isn't an issue/complex....yet. 🙂

Thanks again for the team up here!

-Troy

[HumbleTinker · Accepted solution]

@TLarson5 Got it - I feel like I have a good understanding of what you're after now.

It is technically possible. But here's where you're going to have the biggest issue:

HubSpot Forms, by their nature, create Contacts - even when you uncheck "Create new contacts" on the form - even when you remove the "email" field from the form. 

That isn't a problem by itself, but within the context of a Workflow, you would need to create a Company (the "Deal Company" they entered). Because you are creating a Company in a Contact-Based workflow, HubSpot forces you to associate that Company to the Contact enrolled in the workflow.

The real issue here is that there's no native Workflow Action to "Remove Associations. It is technically possible to "Remove Associations" by doing an API call in a custom coded workflow action, but at that point, you're really in an uphill battle, especially if you're at all new to HubSpot.

The suggestion would be:

Properties

• Contact
  • [Deal Company] - Call this whatever makes sense, but this is what we'll use to store the NAME of the Deal Company they're referring.
    • NOTE: DO NOT USE "COMPANY NAME" IN THIS FORM.
• Company
  • [Partner Lead] - Single Checkbox. Used to trigger workflow.

Contact Workflow

• Trigger: Form Submission
• Branch for Each Partner Company in Dropdown
• Each Branch Contains:
  • Create Company (use data tokens from form submission to set [Company Name] = [Deal Company] + other details like setting [Partner Lead] = Yes)
  • Custom Coded Action: Remove all Company Associations via API
  • Create Associations
    • Match on Record ID
      • Use Record ID of Partner Company they chose from the Dropdown.

Company Workflow

• Trigger: Record Created AND [Partner Lead] = Yes
• Create Record: Lead
  • Owner = Partner Lead Rep

In the end, whenver you get a submission, it would generate a new Company named after the [Deal Company], and it would generate a Lead on that new Company assigned to your Rep. Finally, the contact who filled out the form would be associated to the Partner Company they chose in the Dropdown.

Long story short, you've found yourself in a bit of a fringe case without a direct solution, at least to my knowledge. HubSpot is a great app in that there's usually alway a way through, but it does get quite complex sometimes.

I wish you the best of luck in your project! I think I've done about all I can without a consultant fee 😉

[SealaB]

Hi @TLarson5, first off, Welcome to HubSpot Community! We're glad to have you.

To prevent the partner's own company data from being overwritten, I would not use the standard "Company Name" property on your form.

I'd recommend you create a contact property called something like Prospect Company Name for that purpose.

Then you would create a Contact-based workflow triggered upon Form submission to the Deal Registration form.

From there, add an action to Create Record - and select Lead or Deal, depending on your setup - and then use the "Personalization Token" feature to pull in the Prospect Company Name value as needed.

Hope this helps! Tagging @FazleRabbihx and @colinwitt to see if they have other preferred methods for handling partner registration flows.

[TLarson5]

Hey @SealaB - 

Thanks for the idea & reply. Question for you, just to make sure I'm following: is it fair to say that it doesn't really seem possible to achieve what I'm looking to do without creating a custom field? 

I was trying to think / see if there was a way to do this without introducing a new custom field, but the sense I am getting is that's probably not possible.