HubSpot Lifecycle Stage Definitions

Standardized definitions for each Lifecycle Stage in HubSpot, established during a sales ops alignment session between Mark Hope and Jacob Jones. These definitions provide clear, objective criteria for contact classification and progression through the funnel.

Overview

The Lifecycle Stage property is the primary mechanism for managing contacts in HubSpot. Clear stage definitions prevent misclassification, reduce database noise, and enable automated workflow triggers (e.g., auto-promoting a contact to SQL when all BANT fields are checked).

As of this alignment, the database contains ~40,000 contacts — many poorly categorized — with a goal to convert, enrich, or remove contacts that don't meet stage criteria.

Stage Definitions

Subscriber

• Criteria: Opted into the newsletter or a list, but minimal profile data is available.
• What we know: Email address only (or very little beyond that).
• What we don't know: Title, company, phone, LinkedIn, intent.
• Action: Nurture or enrich; do not treat as a sales target until promoted.

Lead

• Criteria: Known email address, but missing key qualifying information.
• What we know: Email address; some partial data.
• What we don't know: Job title, company, phone number, or other profile fields needed for outreach.
• Action: Enrich via ^[1] (Clay + Xero Bounce) to promote to MQL, or remove if unresolvable.
• Current volume: ~28,000 contacts — goal is to convert or purge this cohort.

MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)

• Criteria: Sufficient profile data exists for targeted outreach, but no direct conversation has confirmed fit or intent.
• What we know: Email address, phone number, LinkedIn profile, and company/title.
• What we don't know: Budget, authority, need, or timeline (BANT) — these have not been confirmed through direct conversation.
• Action: Pursue outreach to qualify; promote to SQL upon BANT confirmation.

SQL (Sales Qualified Lead)

• Criteria: All four BANT criteria have been confirmed through direct conversation or qualification activity.
• BANT Fields (custom checkboxes on the Contact object):
• ☐ Budget — Contact/company has confirmed budget available.
• ☐ Authority — Contact has decision-making authority (or confirmed access to it).
• ☐ Need — A clear, confirmed need for the product/service exists.
• ☐ Time — A defined or near-term timeline for a decision exists.
• Promotion logic: When all four BANT checkboxes are checked, the contact should be promoted to SQL (manually or via automated workflow).
• Action: Hand off to active sales pursuit; move to Opportunity when deal activity begins.

Opportunity

• Criteria: Actively working to close a deal with this contact/company.
• What we know: Full BANT qualification; a deal is in progress.
• Action: Manage via Deals pipeline; track in CRM deal stages.

Customer

• Criteria: Deal has been closed; contact is an active paying customer.
• Action: Exclude from prospecting outreach; manage via customer success workflows.

Churn (newly added)

• Criteria: Was previously a Customer but is no longer active.
• Rationale: HubSpot's default stages do not include a post-customer exit state. "Churn" was added as a custom stage to distinguish former customers from active ones and prevent inappropriate outreach.
• Action: Exclude from standard outreach; may be targeted with win-back campaigns separately.

Stage Progression Summary

Subscriber → Lead → MQL → SQL → Opportunity → Customer → [Churn]

Related

• ^[1]
• ^[2]
• ^[3]