Steps, tips, best practices on how to turn a lead into a deal.
About Inbound Leads from the Website or Customer Service
When a prospect completes a website form relevant to sales, HubSpot automatically assigns it to a contact owner (alternating between owners) and makes it a Lead. The prospect receives an email from the contact owner and the sales team receives a notification that a Lead has been assigned to the contact owner. The Lead will appear on your sales dashboard. If the Lead is the existing customer of someone else, the lead should be reassigned.
If the Lead is received through the Customer Engagement Team via phone, email or webform, a HubSpot Ticket will be created and assigned to the Advertising and Sponsorship Specialist.
The Advertising and Sponsorship Specialist will take the ticket and create a Lead and assign it to the appropriate Sales Manager, then close the ticket.
Lead Actions
There are two actions you can take "Reach Out" or "Add to a Sequence." Unless you have enough information to add the prospect to a sequence, click "Reach Out."
If you want to add the customer to a sequence before you reach out, click "Add to a Sequence" and select the appropriate sequence.
Step 1
To open the Lead, click "Reach Out" then change the Lead Status. If you know what product they are interested in, select that, or choose "New." You may also choose to enroll them in a sequence from this screen.
You should contact the prospect within one business day to determine the quality of the Lead and understand what products they are eligible for and interested in, their timeline, and the potential deal amount. All of this information should be logged in HubSpot. If your Outlook is connected you and you have HubSpot as an app in Outlook, you can link the email to the HubSpot contact. You can also choose to send and receive emails straight from your HubSpot account.
Best Practice: Utilize the HubSpot Email option and this makes sure all correspondence, inbound or outbound, will be saved in the Activity Tabs of your ticket or deal.
On the same screen, in the right column, check to verify that the Lead is associated with a company. If not, search the company and connect the contact to it.
On the same screen, in the right column, select the plus sign next to the word "Lead."
- Under "Lead Stage," select the most appropriate option (new, attempting, connected, qualified, disqualified). You will change this status as you move through the lead funnel.
- Under "Custom Lead Type," select the product the prospect is interested in
- Under "Lead Type" select new business, upsell, re-attempting
- Under "Lead Owner" you can change the owner if you have determined it should go to another member of your team
- Click the button "Create Lead"
The lead will now appear on your Lead dashboard, and you will begin working the lead.
Step 2
Labeling the Lead – Prioritize the Lead by choosing cold, warm or hot based on engagement behavior and information you've gained when communicating with the prospect.
- If the Lead is cold but potentially could buy at a future time, the Lead should be put on a list to be handled by marketing. (See Lead/Deal Follow up after Closed Won or Closed Lost)
- If the Lead is warm but not ready to buy, you could choose to enroll the Lead in a sequence, if you haven't already. The sequence will nurture the Lead and remind you to check in with them.
- If the Lead is qualified and interested in learning more, use the next step to create a Deal. (See Building a Sales Deal in HubSpot)
Step 3
Create a Deal - Move the Lead to the Deal Pipeline to reflect progress in the sales process.
- Change the Lead stage to "qualified."
- This will automatically cause the Create Deal screen to pop up.