Chris Handy

This photo is titled: “In 2017, Tex Handy escaped from Shawshank prison. All they found of him was a muddy set of prison clothes, a bar of soap, and an old rock hammer, damn near worn down to the nub. I remember thinking it would take a man six hundred years to tunnel through the wall with it. Old Tex did it in less than twenty.”

My buddy @salvaton is hopping around stage and dropping some knowledge at #INBOUND17

So let me get this straight @handybethany. When you decided to realize my lifelong dream of picking pumpkin, did you know that you’d be pulling the rug out from me mere moments later? Did you decide before or after you crafted this cruel joke to rub my nose in it with positively leaning emoji? If you don’t want to take me pumpkin picking, I get it. It’s a strange request. But please don’t get my hopes up like that. This is an important issue to me so I have decided to settle it in public, here on Instagram. Thank you for your time.

Libby caught me by surprise during an attempted dual self portrait.

A simple litmus test before you start pulling your hair out.

Can we help people who view this page…

1. ...get where they want to go faster by customizing calls-to-action and links?
2. ...understand our value proposition better by tailoring our messaging to their role or industry?
3. ...take action by presenting that prospect's next immediate action in our sales process

Have other use cases for simple applications? Disagree? Let me know…

I see a lot of dusty HubSpot machines.

When I first look at HubSpot accounts that have been actively used in a company for a while, there is a common trend. Cobwebs.

HubSpot is so robust, and yet so many people only use a few (sometimes just one or two) of the tools. I’d really look at why you bought HubSpot in the first place if this is you. Using HubSpot Enterprise because they have a form builder does not justify the cost in 2017.

So What?

I’m here today to help surface one thing that I seen most unused that can have the greatest impact on your business. “Lead Status”

You’ve likely been using HubSpot for a while and have generated a few leads; or maybe you are using the CRM and are adding them from offline sources. The good news is that “Lead Status” is available to you.

Before we talk about what Lead Status is, let’s talk about what it isn’t.

It's not Lifecycle Stage.

Lifecycle Stage has a finite and fixed number of states (subscriber, lead, MQL, etc…). This is a finite and fixed number of states that a contact can be in that represent where they are in a perfect inbound marketing/sales funnel.

To learn more about Lifecycle Stages, here is a HubSpot Academy Project to help you get the most out of them.

OK Chris, I got it. Now what are Lead Statuses?

I’ve spent a strange amount of time thinking about the lead status. I’ve recorded two podcasts on the topic.

Lead Status is a lead management tool. It does allow you to customize the “stages” and can be used for any purpose. In my experience, the Lead Status is the status for indicating what’s next for the sales rep for this contact, rather than who the contact is, or what the contact has done on the website.

According to HubSpot Academy’s page about lead status, “The default options for the Lead Status property are New, Open, In Progress, Open Deal, and Unqualified, but this property can be customized to work with your sales team and process."

“To customize the options for your Lead Status property navigate in the CRM to Settings > Contacts > click Manage for Edit your Contact Properties or Add New Properties. Find the Lead Status property and click the gear > Edit > Edit Options. “

It can be a very powerful tool for both reps, and for marketers who need to segment their lists. When coordination between sales and marketing is difficult, marketers can remove some barriers by allowing their reps to indicate what is next for the contact, and even which contacts are a bad fit.

In this episode of HubSpot To Go I’ll discuss building smarter better lead management in HubSpot CRM with lead status stages. I suggest changing the default statuses.

www.togo.fm/wp-conten…

• New (Inbox):

  This is the Inbox that should be cleared daily. No contact should live in this status for more than 5 business days.

• Working (In House):

  This is the Connect & Qualify Queue. These are the prospects that are being actively researched. Reps are currently attempting or are in contact with the prospect. The goal here is not to generate a sales opportunity, but to determine if there is an opportunity in the next few months. Set a next action based on the next deal stages.

• Open Deal

  This status removes the lead from the Connect & Qualify Queue, and should reflect the current open deals.

• Check Back Quarterly

  There could be an opportunity here someday. Accounts with this status should be checked on each quarter.

• Dead Opportunity (Deal Gone Dark)

  Accounts where a deal falls through, but could have happened should live in this section and “re-prospected” from time to time.

• Bad Fit

  For whatever reason, these accounts are not a good fit.

• Current Customer

  This is to avoid current customers

• Duplicate

  This keeps the history intact while signifying to avoid contact via this record

I even came back the following year and added another one.

www.togo.fm/wp-conten…

• Prospect

  Leads who haven't taken an action with us, but we are targeting.

I hope this gives you a good primer on my thoughts on the subject.

If we are choosing sides, I’ve always been more of a Pitted Google Cherry man.

I am meeting lots of incredible socially conscious undergraduate entrepreneurs at the Values & Ventures Reception.