Dealing with Vendors

[jeffgoin]

I have done google searches on "dealing with vendors on hubspot" in various ways and EVERY TIME I see an answer, it's "been archived".

I can add a property but there MUST be a better way?

Every business has vendors. Do they not use hubspot? That's fine, but I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks

[mikebrown]

If I'm reading the OP's question wrong then I apologize.  But I believe what they are asking is how do we treat our own Vendors or Suppliers in Hubspot?  I am looking for the same answer.

Do we enter them in and Make the lifecycle stage "Vendor" which we can now do with customizable Stages and maybe have lead status as blank?

Do we not enter them into Hubspot at all?  The issue with this is if they are CC'd into a logged email then they go in automatically anyway.

Personally, I have tried to keep Vendors out of our Db, but now with the Customizable Lifecycles and Multiple associations features just released, it might just be worth having them in there (as long as you don't automatically set the contact as a Marketing Contact.

I'd love to here some feedback on what other users are doing

Mike

[karstenkoehler]

Hi @mikebrown,

If the main concern is not having vendors tangled up in processes meant for actual or potential customers, then you brought up the right questions and properties, I'd say.

i would not create a separate lifecycle stage for vendors. By definition, they live outside of this property and "Other" would be the best option for them.

Lead status I would simply not maintain.

If you're using personas, then I'd consider creating a vendor persona. This will come in handy in reports, segmentation and exclusion.

The flexible associations feature allows for associating vendor contacts with customers. This is again great for excluding it including contacts in workflows or reports and I'd recommend using them for that purpose.

Does that answer your question?

Best regards!

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @jeffgoin,

Are you referring to managing relationships between customers and vendors? Could you specify what you're looking for?

In general, there are two approaches for this type of relationship management.

Either you create a separate custom object for vendors (next to contact and company). For this you currently need an Enterprise license. This vendor object is then associated with contact and company. This setup requires some custom development, but offers a lot of flexibility, especially in mapping the relationships. Pricing here is of course prohibitive for a lot of companies.

Or you can use the new Association Labels to assign a label to relationships between objects. Currently, it's not possible to associate company with company however. (We might get this feature soon.) You would have to manage vendosr through the contact object, which is not ideal.

In summary, options are currently limited. The best option would be a custom object, if you can afford it. Without an Enterprise subscription, there aren't any clean solutions.

Best regards!