Why You Must Automate Life Cycle Stages and Lead Statuses in HubSpot

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If you're still manually updating life cycle stages and lead statuses in HubSpot, it's time to rethink your approach. There's no excuse for keeping this as a manual task—it’s extra work for your sales team that doesn’t contribute to their success.

The reality is simple: Your CRM should work for you, not the other way around. Automation ensures data accuracy, improves reporting, and lets your sales team focus on what truly matters—closing deals. In this post, we’ll break down why 100% automation is the goal and how you can implement it in your HubSpot account.

The Role of Life Cycle Stages in HubSpot

Life cycle stages in HubSpot are designed to move forward only. This means once a contact reaches a certain stage, they should never move backward. Yet, many businesses make the mistake of resetting life cycle stages, which leads to data inconsistencies and reporting issues.

Why Life Cycle Stages Shouldn’t Move Backward

Think of it like reconnecting with an old friend. If you’ve known someone for years and suddenly they introduce themselves like you’ve never met, you’d feel awkward, right? That’s exactly what happens when you move life cycle stages backwards in HubSpot.

For example, if a contact was once a customer and re-engages after a few years, treating them like a brand-new lead is a terrible customer experience. Instead, use lead statuses to track where they are in the sales process while keeping their life cycle stage intact.

Key Takeaway:

• Life cycle stages should only progress forward.
• Lead statuses should be used to track cyclical movement.

How Life Cycle Stages, Lead Statuses, and Deals Interact

Understanding the relationship between life cycle stages, lead statuses, and deals is crucial for automation. Here’s how they work together:

1. Lead Statuses Rotate: A lead might cycle between engaged, in-progress, or closed-lost multiple times.
2. Life Cycle Stages Move Forward: A contact should never revert from an opportunity to an MQL.
3. Deals Reflect the Sales Process: When a contact becomes an SQL, a deal is typically created and progresses through a pipeline.

With proper automation, these transitions happen without manual input. HubSpot has built-in properties that capture activities like email replies, website visits, and demo requests—you can leverage these to automate movement across all stages.

Automating Lead Statuses and Life Cycle Stages in HubSpot

How to Automate Life Cycle Stages

Instead of relying on sales reps to update contact records, let HubSpot’s system handle it. Here’s how:

✅ Use default properties to trigger movement: If a lead opens a marketing email, they can automatically move to MQL.
✅ Leverage engagement tracking: When a contact replies to a sales email, their lead status updates to Engaged.
✅ Move deals automatically: When a contact reaches SQL, a deal should be created and linked to their record.

How to Automate Lead Statuses

Instead of manually updating lead statuses, use rules and workflows based on actual engagement:

✅ “In Progress” → When a contact is first engaged (email reply, call, meeting booked).
✅ “Engaged” → When there’s an ongoing conversation.
✅ “Re-engaged” → When a past customer comes back.

This ensures that your sales team can focus on selling, not updating CRM fields.

Why Automation Improves Revenue and Data Quality

The biggest problem with manual updates? Bad data. If your CRM isn’t reflecting real-time engagement, your reporting and analytics suffer. And when your reports are inaccurate, it’s impossible to make informed decisions about sales strategy.

With Automation, You Can:

🚀 Identify real opportunities – Know who is actually engaged and ready to buy.
📊 Get accurate analytics – Trust your reports without second-guessing data quality.
🔄 Scale effortlessly – Free your sales team from unnecessary admin work.

If your CRM isn’t automated, you’re losing deals and wasting time.

Automate or Fall Behind

If you’re not automating life cycle stages, lead statuses, and deal stages in HubSpot, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Manual updates create data inconsistencies, hurt customer experience, and slow down revenue growth.

What You Should Do Next:

1️⃣ Review your current HubSpot setup.
2️⃣ Define clear life cycle stages and lead statuses.
3️⃣ Set up workflows to automate movement.
4️⃣ Stop relying on manual updates and let the system work for you.

If you need help automating your HubSpot CRM, our team specializes in building seamless automation to improve your sales process. Book a call with us today, and let’s optimize your CRM for success!

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