I was asked recently if I could help out with a HubSpot Salesforce integration project. The company is quite new, they started with their Marketing and sales teams in HubSpot but since have implemented a straightforward Salesforce setup albeit with interesting customer journeys and categories. The question is: "We have a small team and want to keep our setup as straightforward as possible. Do you have any suggestions? I'm sure you've written a blog on this topic so feel free to share".
One solution to the issue with duplicates is to skip the lead object in Salesforce altogether.
When I suggested this to the Sales Operations Manager who asked for integration support, I got a few follow-up questions.
This got me thinking about the biggest challenges in setting up but mostly in maintaining an integration between HubSpot and Salesforce: Sync errors. (queue suspenseful music..) Most errors are easy enough to resolve and usually expose underlying issues in your setup which should be fixed. However, duplicates and overall data hygiene are often the biggest issues and it's the hardest to clean up. The problem tends to start small but builds over time and eventually, you need a coordinated group effort to clean this up. In all my years working in Operations, this has only happened successfully once and it was a long, tedious process with a lot of hands on deck. In most cases you have to live at least with some sort of mess you won't be able to sort through, this of course creates the risk of dropped leads and missed opportunities or in the best case, a Sales team with a very long response time.
What does that look like? There are a few options. One: Prospect in HubSpot using HubSpot's lead object.
Option two: Sync your HubSpot Contacts to Salesforce as Contacts and create an opportunity for your early qualifications. This is not my preferred option as you might have various sources of leads and want to combine inbound and outbound prospecting.
A final option would be to use a third-party prospecting tool for early Sales qualification. For obvious reasons, this would never be my preferred option. More tools, more problems.
In this blog I'll explore the first option.
When Salesforce introduced the Leads object, it aimed to distinguish it as a record for individuals who lacked sufficient information to be classified as contacts. What often happens though, is that the Leads object becomes a dumping ground for low-quality leads either imported or manually created. When a marketing system is connected to Salesforce, contacts generated there will also be added to Salesforce as Leads because Sales need to validate them before we know if they are 'good enough' to be added to Salesforce. Nothing wrong with with, leads get worked and converted and an Opportunity is created.
What often happens is this: All the leads that aren't ready to buy just yet, the ones you can't reach or other data that's not quite ready to be deleted stay put and over time your duplicates start to accumulate. If you have HubSpot and Salesforce integrated and the integration detects a potential duplicate, your contact from HubSpot will not sync anymore as it cannot determine whether the Lead from 5 years ago is the correct record, the imported email address with no company information or the Contact with a closed lost Opportunity from last month. When a rep wants to follow up with this person but isn't sure either, they'll create a fourth record manually, with no source information and little context so the problem only grows.
The Lead object in HubSpot works differently. It's not a precursor to a contact, it's instead a record of the interest your contact expresses in your company, for example, a demo request or an indication that your team would like to reach out to this person. Your reps have a record of every engagement which gives you more context than just the lifecycle stage or even a lead status.
When integrating HubSpot and Salesforce, with prospecting in HubSpot and Opportunity management in Salesforce, this is what the setup could look like.
The lifecycle stage property can be a valuable tool for better funnel management. By utilizing this field, you can track leads in the early stages of the sales process and gain insights into their progression. This field can be synced with Salesforce, allowing for seamless integration between the two platforms.
These are the lifecycle stages I often end up using:
To make the most of the lifecycle stage field, consider customizing it to align with your specific sales process and funnel stages. This customization can help you effectively track and analyze the progress of leads, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions to improve your sales performance.
Lifecycle should be synced bi-directionally and you should create clear guidelines on what each stage means and what the exact triggers are to move a contact to a new lifecycle. You'll also want to think about what happens to an Account or Company when a contact gets the lifecycle stage 'Opportunity' or 'Customer. Does every contact linked to this account get the same lifecycle? Or are there other considerations to make here?
We like to use Lead status to indicate how a lead is engaging with us. The best part is that some of the updates to this property are automatic based on calls, emails or deals created.
It's worth spending some time considering your not ready and unqualified reasons. By creating a list your team will use you'll end up with data you can report on. If you offer an 'other' option I'd enforce a field with an explanation that I'd review regularly and update my list of options if I see recurring explanations for 'other'.
When there is an open or a previous lead, I like to update the 'lead status' on the contact and sync this field to Salesforce for reporting purposes.
Keeping track of your early funnel for reporting purposes in Salesforce should be straightforward enough when you combine the data from these fields:
When you're mapping you have 4 options when choosing how the values get synced:
Before turning on your sync you might have to clean up your properties in HubSpot in order for them to play nicely with your Salesforce fields. These are the compatible types:
| HubSpot property field type | Salesforce field type |
| Dropdown select/Radio select |
picklist, reference |
| Multiple checkboxes | multi picklist |
| Single checkbox | boolean |
| Number | double/int |
| Single-line text | string, textarea |
| Multi-line text | textarea |
| Date picker | date, DateTime |
When it comes to tracking opportunity conversions, there are a couple of options to consider. One approach is to sync opportunities back into HubSpot and set associated contacts to the opportunity lifecycle stage. This allows for easy tracking and management of opportunities within HubSpot.
Alternatively, you can make the lifecycle stage field sync bi-directional between HubSpot and Salesforce. In this setup, the lifecycle stage is set to 'opportunity' in Salesforce when a lead is converted. This ensures that both platforms are kept up-to-date with the latest conversion status.
Choose the option that best aligns with your sales process and provides the necessary visibility and control over opportunity conversions.
Even though this approach might be a simplification of a slightly convoluted process, change is never easy. However, anything worth having is rarely easy to achieve. Implementing a new approach to prospecting requires change management and resources. The benefits will be worthwhile, but certain preparations need to be made beforehand.
1. Obtain Buy-In: Gain agreement from sales, marketing, account management, and executive leadership. Consider involving an expert to convince stakeholders.
2. Change Management: Plan for change, avoid last-minute communication, provide a demo, listen to frontline teams' input, and proactively address potential pitfalls.
3. Solution Design: Collaborate with an expert to migrate lead intake and handle historical data in the new process.
4. Train, Implement, and Iterate: Follow through with implementation, which typically takes 1-4 months depending on team size, data volume, and process complexity. Engage in a debate to address any concerns.
How about you? Is it time to review your HubSpot & Salesforce setup? Feel free to book a time on my calendar for a chat!