A HubSpot Elite Partner's Approach to Setting Up The Lead Object

Within Six & Flow’s strategy process, we always say to clients that when you are setting up your pipeline stages, if there are actions in that stage that can be skipped, it should not be a deal stage (it is a step within a stage).

Before you begin to set up the lead object, you're going to want to review your pipeline and ensure it's optimised for sales enablement best practices.

Why? Because a cluttered sales pipeline can obscure valuable insights.

When setting up your pipeline stages, remember this golden rule: if actions within a stage can be skipped, it shouldn't be a deal stage. For instance, sending a sales sequence shouldn't be a pipeline stage. Here's why:

1. Clarity: Clear stages avoid an inflated view of the sales process.
2. Efficiency: Reducing unnecessary stages highlights the macro aspects of your sales process.
3. Accuracy: Proper staging improves the accuracy of your conversion rates.
   

By following this approach, you maintain a clear and actionable sales process.

Macro vs Micro Stages

Breaking down your sales process into essential macro stages avoids clutter. Micro-stages or steps within a stage can be tracked separately, ensuring each stage represents a significant step towards closing a deal.

Fewer stages in your deal pipeline mean actionable data and clearer insights.

Lifecycle Stages and Lead Status Before The HubSpot Prospecting Workspace

Before the HubSpot  prospecting workspace, sales leaders relied on lifecycle stages and lead status to manage prospects. While effective and they still have their purpose, the prospecting workspace gives an area for your salespeople to focus their daily activity on.

The prospecting workspace and lead object change how sales teams approach daily activities.

From managing overdue tasks to scheduling meetings, these tools provide a home base for sales reps, enhancing productivity and focus.

What is the HubSpot Lead Object?

The lead object in HubSpot allows sales teams to manage leads and accounts before a deal is ready to be created. The tool can (and should be used) in combination with target accounts in HubSpot and even before identifying a contact within a company.

This functionality is crucial for targeted outreach, enabling teams to create leads at the company level and integrate contacts as they are identified.

Best Practices for Setting Up The Lead Object

If you were a client of ours, this is how we would go about setting up your lead object, so follow along closely!

Step 1: Map your Processes

Mapping your customer journey is a step often overlooked, but trust us it can bite you in the a** (bum!) later down the line.

The lead object offers great functionality that helps you standardise your sales process which can lead to cleaner data, a stronger deal pipeline, and ultimately, better sales outcomes.

Step 2: Setting Up Stages in the Lead Object

Now that you have your processes mapped, you have a standardised approach to pre-sales pipeline stages.

By default, HubSpot sets the following stages: New, Attempting, Connected, Qualified, and Disqualified.

But you can go in and change these by navigating to settings > Leads > Pipeline.

Step 3: Adding Conditional Properties & Automation to Lead Stages

Conditional properties help you have better data! Better saves lives! Well, not literally. But it saves time, helps your team follow a standardised approach, and again can result in better sales outcomes.

Referencing your process map, you should now have an understanding of what data is important at which stages. We all know the burden of sales admin, so make sure you are only adding conditional properties for data that is important at this stage.

For example, if a lead comes into your dashboard, you might want the BDR to immediately identify who the lead belongs to and what the label is.

In terms of automation, HubSpot has some great templates for you already. For example:

1. Create a new lead if a contact moves to a specific lifecycle stage, like Lead or MQL.
2. Follow-up if the disqualification reason is bad timing or budget constraints.
   

But, you can also create some workflows from scratch.

Lead Object Automation Use Cases We Love

1. When a lead reaches the stage, "Qualified", create a deal using the properties "company name" | " Lead Pipeline". Now a little bit of deal admin is saved for your team, no deal gets missed, and you have a standardised name.
2. When a lead reaches the stage, "Disqualified", set qualification status on the associated companies qualified out. Now, your data (once again) remains in good shape.
   

3. If a lead has been in the stage "connected" for a certain period, and no activity is scheduled, remind the lead owner to re-engage with a call.

Activity Tracking

Using the lead object, not only does the rep get a simplified view of activity tracking, but during forecasting reviews or coaching sessions, managers can easily monitor activities and planned activities, ensuring no detail is missed.

Filtering Labels and Identifiers

Labels help identify target accounts and track sequence enrolments. This categorisation ensures that leads are nurtured appropriately, enhancing the chances of conversion.

Connecting your Lead Score to the Lead Object

We touched on how lifecycle stages can trigger leads to be created in the lead object.

But what about connecting your lead score to lead labels?

For one of our clients, we built a simple workflow where a lead score would update the lead label.

We develop three lead-scoring models within HubSpot:

1. Fit Score: Based on explicit data points such as industry, annual revenue, and company size.
2. Engagement Score: Measures the prospect's interactions with marketing assets, including the website and marketing emails.
3. Relationship Score: Evaluates reciprocal communications, such as email responses, meeting bookings, and calls.

Based on scores from each model, a workflow determines the ideal customer profile fit using the following scale:

• 0 to 10 = Poor fit
• 10 to 20 = Medium fit
• 20+ = Good fit

Based on these fits, a lead label is automatically assigned. The lead record will be marked as hot or cold accordingly, making it crucial to have both positive and negative engagement scoring criteria.

For sales leaders and HubSpot users, mastering the lead object setup is not just a best practice—it’s a competitive advantage.