How to Bulk Edit Contact Details in HubSpot Like Lifecycle Stages

Bulk editing allows you to update contact details for multiple contacts at once. This applies to any field within contact records. However, this post will illustrate using the lifecycle stage field. For instance, after qualifying contacts, you will wish to advance them to the next lifecycle stage and may need to manually update the records. 

• In 'contacts', check the name(s) of the contacts. A new menu will appear directly above the list of contacts.
• Select 'Edit'

• Scroll through the various fields to 'lifecycle stage'. 
  
  
  
• Select the lifecycle stage (like lead, prospect, opportunity, etc)

CONTENT RELATED TO CHANGING LIFECYCLE STAGES

• Benefits of CRM for business
• Set up new users in your HubSpot CRM

Setting Up New Users in HubSpot

If you wish to add workers as 'new users' on your HubSpot CRM account,  you will need to register them before their work can become integrated. For instance, even if you give team members the BCC forwarding address to log emails, their emails will get logged into the CRM only after you have already registered those team members. Additionally, when adding these workers as new users, you will also need to set their permissions. For instance, regarding your list of contacts (leads), you must establish how much access you grant workers to view your contact list, communicate with and edit the contact details. Some activities are listed below. This post will illustrate the setup process. See more

To add new users

• In your HubSpot account, click the settings icon in the main navigation bar.
• Click Users & Teams in the left sidebar menu. 
• Click Create user.
• Enter the email address(es) into the 'Add email address(es)' field. (If you are adding multiple users at the same time, separate email addresses with a space. Then click Next.). 
• Your team member / new user will receive an email message in your inbox from HubSpot (as pictured below)
  

To change team assignment, make a new user the super admin or remove the user

• In your HubSpot account, click the settings icon in the main navigation bar.
• Click Users & Teams in the left sidebar menu. 
• Click the name of the user.

To set permissions for new users
There is a range of settings that range from 'owned only' on one extreme to 'everything' on the other extreme. For instance, workers with the 'owned only' permissions will only see those contacts records they 'own' (ie were assigned to) when they access their contacts dashboard. 

See how to set not only which deals a new user can see but also what 'properties' (ie fields) within each deal (s)he can see.

If you want the new user to see unassigned contacts (ie contacts to whom team member user ownership has not yet been assigned), select the 'Unassigned' checkbox.

• In your HubSpot account, click the settings icon in the main navigation bar.
• Click Users & Teams in the left sidebar menu. 
• Click the name of the user.
• Use the tab and tab content options as checklists. For instance, below illustrates options for 'Contact access'. Go through each item within each tab before advancing through other tabs (like Marketing). In the example below, the new user will view only those contacts that (s)he owns.

CONTENT RELATED TO ADDING NEW USERS / TEAM MEMBERS IN YOUR HUBSPOT CRM

• See how to set not only which deals a new user can see but also what 'properties' (ie fields) within each deal (s)he can see.
• How to Assign Ownership of Contacts and Deals to HubSpot CRM users / virtual team members
• Bulk editing fields within HubSpot (like lifecycle stages for multiple contacts at once).

Create Deals & Sales Pipelines in HubSpot CRM

Previously, we introduced and discussed how to design a sales pipelines. This post illustrates how to attach each sale to 1) a deal and 2) a sales pipeline in HubSpot CRM. For instance, your prospects-turned-'deal opportunities' Jack and Jill show express buying intent for your products X and Y respectively and partners Peter and Paul (repeat customers) have just just called about more of your product X, you may associate the following elements. Notice that you can attach multiple contacts to a single deal. Additionally, since all activities with a contact are not necessarily associated with a specific deal, the association must be made manually for each new activity (email, logged calls, etc). Additionally, be reminded that although attached, deals and contact records are still viewed separately. After all, an individual attached to a company and that company's deal may have other activities that are unrelated to that deal, like emails about personal log in issues, other deals and so on. Consequently, keep this in mind when associating activities.

• Jack: 
• Deal named 'X Jack '
• 'A sales pipeline' (for regular customers) 
• Jack's individual contact record
• Jill: 
• Deal named 'Y Jill' 
• 'A sales pipeline' (for regular customers)
• Jill's individual contact record
• Both Peter and Paul: 
• Deal named 'X Peter-Paul'
• 'Renewal sales pipeline' (for repeat customers of product X. Create new pipelines for each unique scenario for which the sales process and, in turn, the sales pipeline differs). 
• Peter's individual contact record
• Paul's individual contact record

This post illustrates how you may do this. However, note that, the free version of the HubSpot CRM allows you to create only 1 sales pipeline. 

To create (or edit) a sales pipeline (or ie deal stages)

• decide on the sales process for a product or service.
• In your HubSpot account, click the settings icon (that looks like a gear wheel) settings in the main navigation bar.
• In the left sidebar menu, navigate to Sales > Deals.
• Scroll down to the 'Deal Pipelines and Stages' section. 
• Using the buttons available in this section, create, delete or edit sales pipelines.
• (For more details on customizing the default sales pipeline, see HubSpot's illustration)

To create a deal 

• Be prepared to create a deal whenever a qualified lead or prospect takes an action that could lead to revenue, like booking a meeting to discuss your product or service.

In your HubSpot account,  click 'Deals' (in the main navigation menu). 

• Click 'Create deal' (in the upper right-hand corner).

• Enter deal details. 
• Enter a descriptive name. I usually use client rank, name and product (which is unlike personal contact records that always start with the first name). If my products involves a sequential components which a client can choose as the entry product, I select the entry product. So if there are other components afterwards, I put a '+'. In short, you can be creative in ways that add value to your ability to understand your clients. Example: 'TCP Peter - Service X+'. In this case, I have not only qualified the prospect but also ranked him as having my target customer profile (TCP). Since hubSpot's deal 'board' displays the names and thumbnail image for each deal when viewing an entire sales pipeline, this type of name gives a lot of quick insight.
  
• Notice in the image immediately above that you are allowed to select from all of the available sales pipelines in a drop down menu.
• Close date relates to when you closed or expect to close the deal.
• Scroll down to the 'Contact' and or 'Company' drop down menu to associate pre-existing contacts to the deal. You may even create a new contact from here.
• Attach previous activity, preferably before doing activities. NB. When you create a new deal and associate existing contacts (and companies) with it, previous activities logged on the contact(s) (and companies) will NOT automatically appear on the deal record. However, you can edit the associations for existing activities that you'd like to see on the deal record from individual contact or company accounts. Associating activities with deals appear to be possible almost only for new activities and not activities that occurred prior to connect a deal and contact.
• Contacts (in top menu)
• Contacts
• Click on the contact
• Within the contact's account, click the tab for the activity you are about to do. As pictured below, a 'new note' was selected in this illustration.
• Click the 'add a deal' link. Once you begin to enter the details (in this case, typing the new note), the link 'add a deal' option will occur as highlighted below.
• Select the deal from within the drop down menu.
  

To control what agents / virtual assistants see
You can not only 1) limit access of your agents to deals in which (s)he is involved but also 2) specific data fields within such deal. 

To do step 1, the new agent's permissions are established and then an invitation is sent for him / her to become a 'user' (and not a 'contact') so that you can find him or her in your 'teams & users' list (not contact list). Afterwards, you can connect that agent to the specific deal and specifics of the deal. Here are the steps.

• Settings
• Users & Teams
• Select 'Create User'
• Type in the agent's email address and set the permissions accordingly. Specifically, allow 'owned only' which allows the user to see details of deals to which they are specifically assigned.
• Follow the instructions to send an invitation to the new user.

 

NB. The following steps automatically allows the new user access to see and track activity associated with assigned deals. You will therefore not need to manually create other settings to this end. 

• When the new user has accepted the invitation, go into Deals
• Select the specific deal to be affected
• In 'Contacts' (in the far right section on a desktop), select 'add a contact'
• Type in the name or email address of the new user. It should appear if the invitation has been accepted.
• Select the contact. You should see the names of all the users associated with the particular deal listed in an adjacent column
• Save

To complete step 2, ie limit what new users see for each contact's records, ....

• Settings
• Sales
• Deals
• Select each of the following 'Manage' options, the first of which is highlighted in the image immediately below.

In the following example, assistants can only see the 4 fields (aka 'properties') listed in the right column.

CONTENT RELATED TO CREATING DEALS AND SALES PIPELINES IN HUBSPOT CRM

• Intro to Deals and their Stages (aka Sales Pipelines)
• Associate deals with individual contacts (and or companies) as soon as possible, preferably before any activities associated with a deal. Most activities done before making the association can NOT become associated with the deal afterwards. As shown above, only activities that occur after the association can be easily added to the deal (while logging them).

Integrate Email into HubSpot CRM

Every email sent or received by any registered sales team member can be automatically logged in the HubSpot CRM.

To log incoming messages in the CRM

If a lead sends an email requesting information to one of your email addresses that is not already automatically linked to your CRM, you can log that email by forwarding it to your HubSpot CRM account. To forward this email, you must use a HubSpot account-specific CRM 'forwarding address' which is essentially a special email address. Within a few seconds, a newly logged message will occur as follows. 1) If the contact is new, a new contact account will be created within your CRM. You will be able to verify this in the 'Contacts' list. Otherwise, for pre-existing accounts, the email will be logged as a new event against the preexisting contact. 2) The email will appear on the 'activity' timeline of the contact's account. In fact, anyone with access to the CRM account can click an 'expand' link to read the entire email directly within the CRM.

You may ask sales team members who are not yet linked to your CRM ac to forward emails this way.

To register a team member.

Emails will be logged only if a team member is registered beforehand. In order to ensure their emails are automatically logged into the CRM, set them up as users in your HubSpot account. Rest assured that you may customize their permissions.

• In your HubSpot account, click the settings icon in the main navigation bar.
• Click 'Users & Teams' in the left sidebar menu. 
• Click 'Create user'. 
• Enter your team member's email address.
• Select the type of access you wish to grant the new user

To find the CRM forwarding address, make the following selections

• Settings (in the top menu)
  
• Sales
• Log emails in CRM
• Copy the forwarding CRM address. The ending is always as highlighted here. Your unique account number will appear as the prefix, like a 7-digit number. 1234567@forward.hubspot.com
• Without yet sending, create a forward email from the lead's original email. Paste the forwarding CRM address into the 'to' field and then send.
• To check the email was logged, select the following. 'Contacts'; click the name of the contact within the list; if not yet activated, click the 'activity' tab. Scroll through the activities. The email should appear at the time you (not the lead) sent it.

To log outgoing emails in the CRM (if you are sending from your email server's platform, like Gmail)

There are 2 options; 1) you can automate the process by sending leads emails directly from within CRM. However, you will need to link your email account (like gmail, Office 360 or other IMAP) account with the HubSpot. 2) Without linking the sending email account with HubSpot, you can send the email as normal but also include a BCC to the CRM account. NB, the BCC must be sent at the moment you are sending an email to your customer (and not after the fact). The contact record that is created is the one in the 'to' field of your email.

To find the CRM BCC address

• Settings (in the top menu)
• Sales
• Log emails in CRM

To log outgoing emails in the CRM (if you want to send messages directly from within HubSpot)

To be able to send emails through your HubSpot CRM, you must connect your email inbox. This will also allow your HubSpot CRM to automatically log and assign all your incoming and outcoming emails against the appropriate contact account within the CRM. Let us assume that the account is in Gmail. Do not worry about emails appearing in only one of the platforms (Google or HubSpot) because when you send an email in either of the platforms, the email will appear in both.

Make the following selections

• Settings (in the top menu)
• Integrations
• Email integrations
• Connect an inbox
• Select 'Google' (and follow the instructions)
• Complete the integration steps
• Start to compose an email. If the integration occurred correctly, you will see some new options appear within the email template. For instance, below the subject line, you will see a check box to 'log' and 'track' the email.

CONTENT RELATED TO INTEGRATING EMAIL INTO HUBSPOT CRM

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 101
• MailChimp basics
• Broadcast email marketing
• Autoresponse email marketing
• Integrating Tawk.to messages into HubSpot CRM

Schedule Meetings in HubSpot CRM

The Hubspot CRM meetings tool allows you to schedule meetings with contacts to eliminate the time-consuming back and forth usually required otherwise. For instance, if you want to set up a first meeting with a contact, you can insert an automatic link into your invitation email with the meeting invitation. Your contact will see only those dates and time ranges within which (s)he can book a starting time. The times will even appear in your contact's time zone (ie the current location of your contact's computer). Furthermore, if you connect your CRM with a calendar like Google calendar or Outlook 365, it can also consider other prior engagements to prevent double booking. The contact’s booked meeting time will be automatically logged not only in your CRM but also your connected calendar(s) like Google calendar. Finally, if you set it accordingly, the CRM tool will even send reminders to each attendee.

HubSpot CRM also allows you to include a pre-meeting ‘lead qualification’ form. This facility is possible even for the free version of the HubSpot CRM. However, the free version allows you to create only 1 type of meeting. Consider using the first meeting to rank your leads into tiers. For instance, tier 1 will be the most potentially valuable clients while tier 3 clients are potentially least valuable.

Step 1: Connect your HubSpot with Google calendar

• Sales
• Tools
• Meetings. 
• You should get a prompt requesting that you connect with your calendar (like a conference line, Google or Outlook calendar). 
• Follow the instructions

Step 2: Set up the details of the meeting

• Make the following selections within your HubSpot CRM
• Sales (from top menu)
• Meetings
• Create meeting
• Edit

• In ‘Details’
• Upload your logo or head shot
• Enter a ‘meeting headline’ like ‘Your Solar System Needs'.
• Enter the ‘meeting name’. The default usually specifies the time duration (like '15 min meeting'). I usually qualify with something like ‘15-min intro meeting’.
• Duration.
• Save
• In ‘Configure’
• Enter the ‘location’ as a link for a live chat page, Google maps, etc
• In‘Invite subject’, enter the email’s subject line. I like to personalize the message by inserting the contact’s first name as follows. By clicking the ‘contact token’ dropdown menu, you can select the first name (and or a few other fields). Keep the messaging as short as possible, especially considering that the word ‘invitation:’ will precede your subject line.

Use the ‘description’ field for a short description, agenda of the meeting and or instructions for attending (like the need to click a given link at the time of the meeting)..

• In ‘Availability’
• Set a time zone. Regardless of the time zone you select for this meeting’s time range, HubSpot CRM will automatically convert the time range according to each invitee’s local time zone. CKED. However, when you receive email confirmations, the Gmail inbox email confirmations may use the meeting’s pre-set time zone, and NOT that of your current location while the HubSpot CRM will use your local time. Avoid confusion by setting the meeting time to you current time zone.  
• To adjust the time range, you will need to drag the edge of the bars that cover the bars on the time graph.
• In ‘Form Questions’
• This section can be adjusted only for paid versions of HubSpot CRM
• Adjust your qualifying questions. 

Step 3: Invite leads to schedule a meeting

You can invite leads to schedule meetings in multiple ways; 1) send an email link 2) insert the hyperlink onto a webpage or contact form and or 3) embed the form into a webpage. NB the embedding option is available for only the paid version.

Make the following selections

• Sales
• Meetings
• In ‘Actions’, select as follows
• ‘Copy link’ to insert the hyperlink onto a webpage, contact form or into an email (via manually pasting the link).
• ‘embed’ to embed the form onto a webpage

To send an email invitation (without having to copy and paste) the link

In Gmail, click ‘compose’ to create an email

Click ‘Meetings’ link (that appears in an embedded menu bar as pictured below)

CONTENT RELATED TO SCHEDULING MEETINGS IN HUBSPOT CRM

• Leads VS prospects. Scheduling meetings with leads can help you to qualify them as noteworthy prospects.
• As an option, schedule meetings using Calendry.

Import Tawk.to Contacts into HubSpot CRM Contact List

Import Tawk.to Contacts into HubSpot CRM Contact List

One way in which contacts may be imported into HubSpot CRM is by use of a csv file. However, as at late 2018, Tawk.to does not allow account holders to automatically generate csv files of all leads received via live chat sessions. However, the following provides a useful workaround.

Normally, in order to integrate all incoming emails into your CRM, you will need to forward them using your CRM account-specific forwarding email address. You can therefore use this facility with Tawk.to's ticketing system which usually involves sending emails (to leads). To integrate tawk.to with your HubSpot CRM, you simply need to send a ticket email to that forwarding account. The forwarding email always looks like this. You can set up Tawk.to to use the CRM forwarding email as the default address.

[YOUR UNIQUE HUBSPOT CRM ID NUMBER] @forward.hubspot.com

Step 1

• Copy your HubSpot CRM forwarding email address. See how to access your HubSpot CRM forwarding email address

Step 2

• Log in to the Tawk.to dashboard
• Select the relevant 'property'
• Go to Admin (by clicking the "gear" icon, usually at the left sidebar of the Dashboard). Click 'Mail Notifications' within the properties options.
• Paste the CRM forwarding email address into the field ;add other agents or any email address' within any or all of the sections 'all chat transcripts', 'offline form notifications' and 'missed chat notifications'
• If you have several agents, consider repeating this step for each agent's respective property.

CONTENT RELATED TO IMPORTING TAWK.TO CONTACTS INTO HUBSPOT CRM CONTACTS LIST

• See how to access your HubSpot CRM forwarding email address
• NB. There is no facility for dealing with pre-exising contacts. (Do not confuse the 'ticket forwarding email' address in your 'property settings'. It is not related to the objective of this article. Rather, it relates to receiving emails directly into tawk.to when customers respond to tickets or simply as a tawk.to property-specific email inbox for everyone using the property.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0KsdPXGzzY }