IN THIS ISSUE 🌱
Good Morning {{first_name}}!
It’s Monday - and that means it’s time for your CRM Dispatch - an issue where we talk about things that your CRM is going through…or is about to go through.
Last week, HubSpot quietly released a new feature that many in-house teams have been waiting for. Pipeline rules now apply to contact and company lifecycle stages.
What does that mean? HubSpot can finally enforce rules that your team was supposed to follow. You can now force your teams to enter information into every stage of the lifecycle loop so you can get data from every stage.
CEO? Happy. Sales team? Maybe not so much. Will this be messy? Absolutely. 🍸
Let’s dive in.
YOUR FUNNEL IS MOVING, BUT… ✨
CRM FOUNDATIONS THAT BREAK THE SYSTEM
Spotting your gaps
You’re a CEO. You see deals closing. You also see deals that don’t close.
What you don’t see is how your reporting on the pipeline accuracy and velocity is wrong. Why? Because sales folks may have different criteria for when they add deals to the pipeline.
Some people will skip SQL completely and move it into opportunity, taking it from lead and straight into the pipeline because they know there’s a high likelihood of closing.
In addition, some reps will put in deals the same day they close, missing all previous steps. And you just lost all visibility into what got the deal to close in the first place.
MISSING STAGES IMPACT YOUR CONVERSION NUMBERS 🌊
THE PROBLEM
The compounding effect
When a contact moves from Subscriber to Customer without touching MQL or SQL, your CRM records a conversion that never happened the way the report says it did.
In short, your MQL-to-SQL rate looks very high, and your SQL-to-Opportunity is the most efficient in the history of sales. Seconds, really. When you pull that back to marketing, it looks like your leads are closing very fast and efficiently through certain channels. This is, of course, all false.
Of course, this kind of behaviour compounds over time.
THREE REPORTS THAT BREAK WHEN STAGES ARE SKIPPED ⚡
BREAKING DOWN THE FIX
The effect of skipping stages
Conversion rate by stage is your most corrupted report. If contacts are skipping MQL entirely, your Lead-to-Customer rate looks stronger than it is. You are measuring a shortcut, really. And marketing is completely left out. Nurture impact? Zero.
Attribution reporting loses its connective tissue. Stage timestamps are how you trace which campaigns moved contacts forward. No stage entry, no timestamp. No timestamp, no attribution. The campaign that "worked" may have no record of the contacts it actually touched. How would you go about replicating that success? You can’t really.
Forecasting inherits the mess. Pipeline projections built on lifecycle stage data are only as reliable as the stages themselves. If Opportunity-stage contacts never passed through SQL, your forecast is built on records that skipped the qualification step entirely.
GET THE INSIDE SCOOP 🧪
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RUN THE SKIPPED STAGE AUDIT THIS WEEK ⚡
YOUR HOMEWORK THIS WEEK
Segment off those who have shown interest
Pull up your lifecycle stages on the backend under settings. Go to properties, contact and lifecycle stages and click on the breakdown to see where your contacts are currently sitting. If you have a high lead, but low MQL and SQL count, and high customer count, it could be that your team is skipping important stages.
Now, you know you have a problem. It’s time to build a process and get marketing and sales aligned on what that looks like.
44FJORD COMMUNITY ✨
WHAT’S HAPPENING INSIDE OF 44FJORD
Looking for a partnership?
If this is the conversation you have been putting off, 44fjord works with teams to build the foundation that makes these numbers trustworthy. If you want to talk about what a partnership could look like, reach out to the team using the contact form on 44fjord.com/contact
CLOSING THE LOOP
💡 Final Thoughts
TL;DR
A skipped stage may feel like a small thing in the moment, but small things and habits compound quickly. And when multiple people on a team do it, it becomes a snowball.
You don’t understand what is actually moving the needle and what has an impact on your sales cycle. You start to lose grip on what lead sources perform the best. And all of your reporting becomes a fog.
How was this issue!?
P.S.
When you pull that audit, do the blank MQL and SQL fields surprise you? Where is your heaviest load right now?
Hit reply and let me know. I genuinely want to know how widespread this is.
Until next time!
Ships three times a week.