5 HubSpot Workflows Your Startup Needs (And Why)

Introduction

Workflows are the backbone of any successful business. These automated task sequences allow companies to increase productivity, reduce costs, and improve customer satisfaction.

For startups, knowing how to establish a foundation of strong, scalable workflows is essential to staying competitive, both with other startups and enterprises in your industry. But not all workflows are necessary for every business, and startups in particular should be spending their limited resources building the most essential workflows first.

After several years working with SMBs and startups at HubSpot, and now serving as the founder of Howly.io, a workflow visibility and auditing app for HubSpot, I’ve seen first-hand the difference that thoughtfully implemented workflows can make for new companies.

I believe in the power of workflows. HubSpot has built an amazing tool that can automate so much of your sales process thanks to workflow functionality. But unless you have the fundamentals set up properly to begin with, a lot can go wrong, and workflow mistakes can be detrimental to your business.

Because revenue is essential for proving traction and scaling as a startup, the first five HubSpot workflows that startups build should focus on revenue. With the following workflows in place, you’re setting your startup up for success.

Why workflows make or break an early-stage company

As a startup, you can’t just outspend your competition. But you can reduce manual work and use automations to do more with fewer resources.

That’s where workflows come into play. For startups in the HubSpot ecosystem, workflows allow you to fully tap into HubSpot’s powerful tools for CRM, sales, marketing, and more. At the same time, you’re saving your team time and money, improving conversion rates, and reducing churn, all while giving customers the best experience possible.

This may sound too good to be true, but the truth is that startups who put in the effort to build strong, foundational workflows can reap massive benefits.

First, study up on how to set up workflows in HubSpot, then read on for the first five HubSpot workflows you should build as a startup.

Workflow 1: Capture interest and turn it into a record instantly

As your startup scales, you need a way to capture and record interactions with potential buyers to avoid anyone slipping through the cracks. Rather than juggling random emails and phone calls, set up a form or content download that captures contact information automatically and creates a company record. Capture workflows should also automatically assign each user to a team member.

For instance, when a prospect comes to your site and makes any first-touch action, such as submitting a form, booking a demo, or downloading a piece of content, a workflow should kick off immediately. HubSpot automatically creates the record, but through the workflow, you can score the lead based on what the user submitted. A demo booking would score higher than a content download, for example. That score then routes the lead to the correct rep for follow-up.

This workflow helps prevent duplicated data and ensures every possible lead, even if it’s a low-intent buyer, is tracked from the earliest point possible. This workflow should be the first one you set up, because each following workflow actually depends on clean captures.

Workflow 2: Nurture top-of-funnel users until they're ready

The reality for many startups is that customers may be interacting with your website long before they’re ready to make a purchase. People need time to explore use cases, evaluate fit and build trust.

If a contact was created but isn't showing any sales-ready signals in the first 48 to 72 hours, this is your opportunity to stay top of mind with nurture workflows. These workflows push content to contacts based on their first-touch actions, and it’s important to utilize HubSpot’s automation tools to make all content at this stage still feel personalized, not generic.

The content could be educational, such as a how-to or a case study, complete with a CTA to get in touch with sales. This sequence creates a fresh opportunity to rescore leads and see which cold leads are now warming up. When users are ready to make a decision, your brand is top of mind thanks to two to three personalized emails that recall each user’s initial intent.

For example, at Howly, we have a how-to guide and top use cases. By the time someone is ready to book a demo or hop on a sales call, they already trust the brand because we have provided so much value upfront, without asking for the sale right away.

Workflow 3: Close hot leads with correct routing

Now, let’s put that pipeline on autopilot. Set up a HubSpot workflow that triggers when each deal moves to a new stage, which will auto-update the contact record properties and notify the assigned sales rep as the user moves down the funnel.

Within this workflow, it will create follow-up tasks and trigger stage-appropriate emails to customers; again, you want to stay top of mind to buyers without feeling spammy or generic.

Suppose a lead goes from cold to marketing-qualified to contract-ready. You can create tasks, such as automated internal Slack messages, that ensure sales teams follow-up with these leads and send contracts when ready.

The result of having the pipeline on autopilot through an operational workflow like this is that deals never stall. Nobody will drop the ball. HubSpot ultimately becomes the source of truth for all leads, and every potential buyer feels taken care of, even before they’re ready to make a purchase.

Workflow 4: Onboard new customers the right way

Congratulations, you’ve moved a buyer from a cold lead to a closed deal! That doesn’t mean you stop nurturing the customer, though. They shouldn’t just be receiving a receipt in their inbox. Don’t leave a customer wondering what’s next after they’ve paid for the product.

HubSpot’s closed-deal workflows make it a highly hands-off, automated process to onboard and check-in with customers.

After a deal closes, the immediate next steps in the workflow are to send a welcome email, route the onboarding task to the customer service manager assigned to this new customer, and schedule a kickoff call. You can also automate a check-in to happen part of the way into the onboarding process to see if the customer has questions or needs help, then automate a 30-day success milestone trigger.

Onboarding is where churn is won or lost. Somebody can try your product and sign up for a month, but what happens if they churn after that month? It negatively impacts your MRR and ARR.

Onboarding is where you need to continue to build that trust. Automating the process makes you, as a startup, also seem a little more enterprise than you really are and allows the team to focus on the next deal in the pipeline.

Workflow 5: Retain customers long-term

Every startup needs a re-engagement workflow to respond to dropping engagement signals, such as declining email open rates, fewer logins, or increasing support tickets.

A churn risk re-engagement workflow within HubSpot flags at-risk users and reduces their lead score, indicating that these customers are about to churn. Churn costs startups big money. In fact, acquiring a new customer can cost five to 25 times more than retaining an existing customer, so reducing churn is essential to reducing startup costs.

This workflow allows you to address churn well in advance of a customer actually leaving. HubSpot allows you to pull multiple signals into one workflow trigger, saving startups time in re-engaging these users. You can setup a trigger for a personalized re-engagement email or to set up a call to hear the customer out and help face their concerns head-on.

When it comes to churn risk, a lost deal from a key client can make or break your entire company. So, schedule those important calls, have those conversations, and allow HubSpot to be your system of record for retaining data, flagging risks, and automating responses in a timely manner.

Conclusion: Establish strong workflows early to scale with ease

When you properly set up sustainable workflows to capture contacts, nurture leads, close deals, onboard new customers, and flag churn risk to boost retention, these efforts are ultimately what secure your revenue.

For startups, establishing workflows within HubSpot saves your team time, helps reps focus on closing deals, and allows you to operate like a company twice your size. But most importantly, it helps you protect your revenue and scale it.

And once you’ve set up dozens or even hundreds of workflows, a tool like Howly helps you keep track of and organize these workflows and update them as you grow and scale. Working with HubSpot and Howly makes automation easier than ever for small but rapidly growing startup teams, and these tools allow you to set up foundations that grow and change as your startup does.