HubSpot sales playbook.
Eight steps, from ICP to coaching.
A HubSpot sales playbook defines who you sell to, how a deal moves and how the number is called. It sets the ICP and buying groups, deal stages with entry and exit criteria, speed-to-lead rules, sequences, where Prospecting Agent and Smart Deal Progression help, and the forecast, review and coaching rhythm.
Deal stages with entry and exit.
A deal moves when the buyer commits, not when the rep feels confident.
- Stage 01Discovery
Enter whenMeeting held with an ICP contact
Exit whenProblem, impact and owner confirmed
- Stage 02Qualified
Enter whenProblem worth solving, budget owner named
Exit whenBuying group mapped, decision process known
- Stage 03Solution
Enter whenBuying group engaged
Exit whenFit confirmed by the technical evaluator
- Stage 04Proposal
Enter whenScope agreed in principle
Exit whenProposal reviewed with the economic buyer
- Stage 05Commit
Enter whenVerbal yes and a mutual close plan
Exit whenContract signed
- Stage 06Closed won
Enter whenContract signed
Exit whenHandoff to onboarding complete
A template, not your pipeline. Stage names and criteria are set with your team, then enforced as required fields in HubSpot.
Know who you sell to.
Write the ICP so a system can check it, then map every role in the buying group.
Fit criteria
Industry, employee band, country and current systems, held as HubSpot properties.
Buying group roles
Economic buyer, champion, technical evaluator, users and procurement.
In HubSpot
A fit score in the lead scoring tool, and Buying Groups to map decision makers on each account.
Write an ICP a system can use
Use properties HubSpot holds or can enrich. Avoid adjectives such as “innovative” that no record can carry.
Review the ICP against closed-won and closed-lost deals each quarter, and change the fit score when the evidence changes.
One definition per stage.
Lifecycle stages say where the buyer is. Deal stages say what the buyer has committed to.
Lifecycle stages
Lead, marketing qualified, sales qualified, opportunity, customer. Each with an entry rule.
One pipeline per motion
New business, renewal and partner deals run on separate pipelines, not separate spreadsheets.
Make exit criteria required fields
Set required properties on stage change: next step, close date, amount and decision maker. A deal cannot move without them, so the forecast reads real data.
The first reply wins the meeting.
Route every enquiry to an owner at once and measure the time to the first human reply.
Routing rules
By market, language and segment, with a fallback owner for every rule.
A clock per source
Forms, chat, calls and WhatsApp enquiries each carry a response target.
Reported by owner
Speed to lead by source, market and rep, reviewed weekly.
Set targets from your baseline
Measure current response times for a few weeks before setting a target. A benchmark from another market tells you little about yours.
Personal, timed and stopped on reply.
Sequences in Sales Hub run the follow-up so reps spend their time in conversations.
One per persona and stage
Email, call and task steps, written for the buyer’s role.
Local language
Separate sequences per market, written, not machine translated.
Stop rules
Enrolment ends on reply or a booked meeting.
Sequence hygiene
Every sequence has an owner, a persona and a review date. Retire what does not earn replies.
Respect consent and opt-outs per market, under the data protection law that applies.
Agents research. Reps decide.
Two HubSpot agents take the research and follow-up work off the rep’s day.
Prospecting Agent
HubSpot says it monitors buying signals and launches personalised outreach automatically.
Smart Deal Progression
AI-suggested next steps after every call, written to the deal.
People in the loop
Reps review outreach and next steps before they reach a buyer.
Before you switch on an agent
Give it your ICP, offers, proof points and tone. Start with one segment in one market.
HubSpot reports an average of 65% more sales leads per month and a 26% higher win rate for Prospecting Agent users. Measure yours on meetings booked and pipeline created against a baseline. Prospecting Agent covers the set-up.
One number, called one way.
Forecast categories mean the same thing in every team and market.
Shared categories
Pipeline, best case and commit, each with a written definition.
Forecasting in Sales Hub
By team and market, in each market’s currency.
Adjust in the tool
Managers change the call in HubSpot, with a note, never in a spreadsheet.
Definitions that hold
Commit means the buyer has agreed the close plan. Best case means the path is known but not yet agreed. Anything else is pipeline.
Review by exception, not by list.
A saved HubSpot view surfaces the deals that need a decision.
Weekly team review
Run from one saved view, not a slide deck.
Exceptions first
No next step, past close date, stalled in stage, single-threaded.
Commit deal by deal
Everything else by exception only.
A review agenda
What changed since last week. Deals with no next step or a past close date. Commit deals, one by one. Help needed, with an owner and a date.
Coach on calls, not gut feel.
Call recordings and methodology scoring give managers evidence to coach from.
Capture
Conversation Intelligence and HubSpot Notetaker record and summarise calls.
Score
Sales Methodology Scoring maps calls to your framework.
Guide
Playbooks in Sales Hub put talk tracks and qualification questions inside the record.
A one-to-one rhythm
One call, one skill and one deal per one-to-one. Track the skill over time, not the score.
The checklist.
Every item true before you call this done.
ICP written as properties
And a fit score built on them.
Buying group roles mapped
On every open opportunity.
Stages defined once
Entry and exit criteria for each.
Exit criteria are required fields
Enforced on stage change.
Routing covers every source
With a fallback owner.
Speed to lead reported
By source, market and rep.
Sequences owned and reviewed
One per persona and stage, per language.
Agents measured
Against a baseline, with reps approving.
Forecast categories defined
And used the same way in every market.
Reviews and coaching run in HubSpot
Saved views, recorded calls, one skill at a time.
Questions.
How many deal stages should we have?
As many as there are real buyer commitments. Each stage needs an entry and an exit criterion a manager can check in the record.
Can one sales playbook work across several markets?
Yes. Keep stages, definitions and forecast categories shared, and localise routing, language, sequences and currency per market. Full answer
Build a pipeline you can forecast.
A strategy call maps your stages, routing and forecast against one revenue number.