My Top 5 HubSpot Playbooks Of 2024

Automated workflows, reports, and templates you can implement today.

👋 Hey, I'm Stuart – welcome to the final ConnectedGTM newsletter of 2024!

Become a paid subscriber to receive additional newsletters each month, every playbook in the archive, and attend monthly office hours 🆕.

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As the year comes to an end I want to say a big thank you to everyone who has read, subscribed, implemented, contributed or in any way supported ConnectedGTM.

Over the last six months of this newsletter, I’ve shared dozens of specific workflows, dashboards, and automation solutions for HubSpot.

Today, I want to highlight my 5 favorite playbooks of 2024 – all things you can build in your own HubSpot portal in an hour or two.

In the new year there will be new step-by-step playbooks along with more walkthrough videos, playbooks you can deploy in 1-click, and a ConnectedGTM first…

…a deeply researched guide to CPQ in HubSpot featuring multiple solutions partner perspectives and app partner integrations to compare.

If you’ve enjoyed the newsletter or have some raw feedback for what you’d like to see change for next year drop me a “reply”, I’d love to hear what you think!

Here’s to more playbooks, more connected GTM experiences, and growth in 2025.

See you next year,

– Stuart

p.s. I’ve added links to the complete step-by-step walkthrough for each playbook down below 👇

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Playbook #1: Analyze Closed-Lost Deals

Closed lost deals are a huge opportunity most teams are missing 😩

When a deal is lost do you:
1. Consistently note the reason in your CRM?
2. Identify which stage the deal was lost from?
3. Retro the deal journey to identify how to improve the experience for future deals?
4. Engage lost deal contacts with a relevant nurture sequence?

This playbook covers how to improve your visibility into how and where deals are lost.

👉 Get the step-by-step playbook 👈

What’s included in the playbook:

1. Required properties for closed lost deals

2. Automated workflow to create a “Last Stage Before Lost” property

3. 4 custom reports for closed lost deals

   → Deals by Closed Lost Reason
   → Monthly Closed Lost Deals by Reason
   → Lost Deals By Last Stage
   → Monthly Lost Deals By Last Stage

Playbook #2: Build A Zero Duplicates Dashboard

Identifying and resolving duplicates accurately and consistently in HubSpot is a prerequisite to any effective strategy that leverages CRM data.

This dashboard will provide visibility into the number of duplicate records, sources of duplicates and causes of duplicates in HubSpot that can then be fixed either manually or automatically using a native HubSpot app like Koalify.

👉 Get the step-by-step playbook 👈

What’s included in the playbook:

1. A dashboard called “Zero Duplicates”
   

2. 12 reports to surface duplicate contacts and companies as they occur:
   → Count of duplicate contacts
   → Count of duplicate companies
   → Text content - why do we care about duplicates 👀
   → Duplicate contacts by source
   → Duplicate companies by source
   → Duplicate companies by create date (monthly)
   → Duplicate contacts by create date (monthly)
   → Duplicate companies by owner
   → Duplicate contacts by owner
   → Contacts by deduplication rule
   → Companies by deduplication rule
   → Contacts by deduplication property
   → Companies by deduplication property
   

3. 2 views to identify duplicate records
   → Koalify Duplicate Companies
   → Koalify Duplicate Contacts
   

4. 2 workflow actions for automatically merging duplicates

Playbook #3: Identify Expansion Opportunities With Product Usage Data

Increasing revenue (and all important revenue retention metrics) in a usage-based pricing model requires a deep understanding of how your users interact with your product.

Using product usage data, we can identify high-value customers, personalize outreach, and strategically target users who are most likely to upgrade.

👉 Get the step-by-step playbook 👈

What’s included in the playbook:

1. Custom properties for integrating product data using tools like June or Hightouch

2. Calculated properties for product utilization

3. Email template for automated usage snapshots

4. Automated workflow for proactive upsell outreach

Playbook #4: Define Multi-Level Approval Workflows

Create sophisticated approval workflows based on quote characteristics like discount level, deal size, or product mix. This playbook ensures proper oversight while maintaining efficient quote processing through automated approval chains and notifications.

👉 Get the step-by-step playbook 👈

What’s included in the playbook:

1. Quote rule implementation in quote•hapily

2. Automated approval actions in a HubSpot workflow

Playbook #5: Build A Pipeline Health Dashboard

Ensuring a clean and accurate pipeline requires discipline.

You could click into and review every deal record to understand recent activity (or lack of it). But who has time for that?

👉 Get the step-by-step playbook 👈

What’s included in the playbook:

1. Required fields to define stage entry/exit criteria
   

2. Dashboard to identify deals with missing data
   → Report #1 - Deals Missing Next Steps
   → Report #2 - Deals Missing Amounts
   → Report #3 - Deals Missing Next Steps
   → Report #4: Deals getting pushed
   → Report #5: Stalled Deals
   → Report #6: Stalled Deals by Stage
   → Report #7 - Deals Missing Data by Rep
   

3. Deal tags to visually highlight deals with data issues

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