HubSpot Sales Setup & Contact Database Cleanup

Meeting date: 2026-03-19
Attendees: Miriam Framson, Melissa Cusumano, Karly Oykhman, Mark Hope (Asymmetric)

Overview

This meeting finalized the HubSpot sales qualification workflow and approved a major contact database hygiene initiative. The sales pipeline setup is nearly complete pending a few field corrections. A full database cleanup was greenlit to address email deliverability issues and reduce the ~$20k/year HubSpot subscription cost by cutting the 8,200 marketing contacts by at least 50%.

Key Decisions

• BANT scoring simplified for rollout: Budget, Authority, and Need must each score 3; Timing must score 3 or 4. The team can add more nuance later once adoption is established.
• MQL → SQL automation fix approved: The trigger field must be changed from Are you juicing currently? to Are you already juicing? with all existing data mapped over.
• Contact database hygiene run approved: Full cleanup to proceed — hygiene run first, then AI-assisted segmentation, then enrichment for high-priority contacts.
• Newsletter switched to engaged-only segment: Sending to unengaged contacts ("gray matter") hurts deliverability and skews open rates. Engaged-only going forward.
• Sales rep list consolidation: Melissa will own the rep list for both HubSpot and the sales portal to prevent future data drift.
• APS success story will use generic K–12 imagery to avoid the lengthy client approval process; targeting the April newsletter.

HubSpot Sales Workflow — Status & Fixes

Contact Card View

The global contact card view was reorganized for clarity:
- Top section: Core contact info (name, email, phone)
- Bottom section: Marketing info (lead source, lead source detail)
- Side panel: Payment links, Subscriptions, and Invoices removed; Playbooks moved to bottom; Tickets and Attachments retained

Lead Source Fields

The redundant Inbound Lead field will be hidden. The new two-field structure:
- Lead Source — high-level category (list upload, sales rep, trade show, website, other)
- Lead Source Detail — granular detail (specific trade show with year abbreviation, specific rep, etc.)

Karly will map all existing Inbound Lead data to the new fields and align the website contact form and the HubSpot create-contact form to the new structure.

MQL → SQL Automation Fix

• Problem: The MQL → SQL workflow is triggering on Are you juicing currently? — the wrong field.
• Fix: Change trigger to Are you already juicing? and map all existing data from the old field before hiding it.
• Owner: Karly Oykhman

BANT Scoring Model

Simplified thresholds for initial rollout:

Can be made more granular (point-based minimums) in a future iteration.

Lifecycle Stage Automation — Bidirectional

Confirmed (pending Mark's verification) that the deal/lifecycle stage automation works in both directions:
- Path A: Set contact lifecycle stage → Opportunity → deal is created automatically
- Path B: Create a deal directly → contact lifecycle stage updates to Opportunity

Contact Database Cleanup Plan

The Problem

• 8,200 marketing contacts out of ~10,700 total
• $20,000/year HubSpot subscription cost ($5k/quarter)
• Unengaged contacts ("gray matter") are degrading email deliverability and inflating bounce rates

Approved Cleanup Process

1. Bulk email hygiene run — identify all undeliverable email addresses and delete the email value (not the contact record) to prevent accidental sends and protect sender reputation
2. AI-assisted analysis — export contacts via API; AI categorizes by engagement history, industry/domain type, and other signals. Data is anonymized (no client attribution) before processing.
3. Data enrichment — use Hunter (and similar tools) to find missing phone numbers, LinkedIn profiles, and correct emails for high-priority contacts only
4. Segmentation for review — compile categorized lists (high-priority, unengaged, no-email) for Miriam to review and approve deletions or non-marketing conversions

Goal

Reduce marketing contact count by at least 50% (targeting ~4,000 or fewer) to drop to a lower HubSpot subscription tier and save ~$10k/year.

External Email Sending (AWS SES)

Mark introduced an option for sending bulk nurture emails outside HubSpot via AWS SES, with activity synced back to HubSpot via API. This keeps non-pipeline contacts as non-marketing contacts in HubSpot (no cost) while still tracking opens, clicks, and engagement. Miriam requested more info before deciding.

See also: ^[1] (to be created)

Sales Rep List Cleanup

Reps to remove: KLH, HRI, Total Source (all entries), William Flannery
Reps to keep: John Moehrer, Ian, Alliance/Butkvich, Jeff Kaufman

New process: Miriam notifies Melissa of any rep changes → Melissa updates both HubSpot and the sales portal. Single owner prevents data drift.

Other Updates

X-Pro Juicer Launch

• First unit shipped; strong interest at AFS show with a potential second order incoming
• Disney resort inquiry in pipeline
• Key selling points: futuristic design, screw-less assembly (eliminates lost-parts problem)
• Citro Casa Fantastic Series redesign expected ~2027

Fishbowl–HubSpot Integration

Miriam pays for a Fishbowl connector integration (renewed every two years, ~$600 on the Fishbowl side). Integration is deferred until HubSpot sales setup is fully complete. Future goal: HubSpot won → quote pushes to Fishbowl → Fishbowl syncs to QuickBooks.
- Next step: Miriam sends Fishbowl integration details to Mark; Mark will need Fishbowl login to configure the API.

Action Items

Related

• ^[2]
• ^[3]
• ^[4]
• ^[5]
• ^[6]