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SQL demotion back to MQL when associated deal goes stale or lost

One of 565 written HubSpot workflow specs, by a collective of independent HubSpot consultants.

Professional

Seat pricing: Professional edition. To build it, a GTM Seat or an Ops Seat (an Ops Seat cannot create marketing emails or sequences). Per-hub plans: Sales Hub Professional.

Contact6 stepsUpdated for HubSpot seat pricing
OutcomeA contact whose only open deal is marked Closed Lost, or has gone quiet past your stale threshold, gets moved back from Sales Qualified Lead to Marketing Qualified Lead automatically, keeping funnel reporting honest instead of carrying dead SQLs forward indefinitely.
Workflow mapmarketing-ops-013
Associated deal marked Closed Lost or flagged stale leads to Contact still Sales Qualified Lead?. Contact still Sales Qualified Lead? leads to No: No action; Yes: Another open deal associated?. Another open deal associated? leads to Yes: No action; No: Set lifecycle stage: Marketing Qualified Lead. Set lifecycle stage: Marketing Qualified Lead leads to Set demotion reason. Set demotion reason leads to Notify sales rep and marketing ops. Notify sales rep and marketing ops leads to Remove from SQL-only lists. No Yes Yes No Associated deal marked Closed Lost or flagged stale Contact still Sales Qualified Lead? Another open deal associated? Set lifecycle stage: Marketing Qualified Lead Set demotion reason Notify sales rep and marketing ops Remove from SQL-only lists No action
Associated deal marked Closed Lost or flagged stale leads to Contact still Sales Qualified Lead?. Contact still Sales Qualified Lead? leads to No: No action; Yes: Another open deal associated?. Another open deal associated? leads to Yes: No action; No: Set lifecycle stage: Marketing Qualified Lead. Set lifecycle stage: Marketing Qualified Lead leads to Set demotion reason. Set demotion reason leads to Notify sales rep and marketing ops. Notify sales rep and marketing ops leads to Remove from SQL-only lists. No Yes Yes No Associated deal marked Closed Lost or flagged stale Contact still Sales Qualified Lead? Another open deal associated? Set lifecycle stage: Marketing Qualified Lead Set demotion reason Notify sales rep and marketing ops Remove from SQL-only lists No action

One of 565 written HubSpot workflow specs, by a collective of independent HubSpot consultants.

When to use it, when not to

Use it

  • Use when Sales Qualified Lead is meant to reflect an active, open deal in progress, and you have seen contacts stay tagged SQL long after their deal died.
  • Use alongside deal-hygiene-001 (stale deal alert), which is what actually marks a deal stale in the first place; this fiche reacts to that state on the contact side.
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Skip it

  • Do not use this if a contact can have several deals over time and staying SQL while one deal closes is expected and correct. The suppression rule below handles the common case of another open deal, but confirm it matches your actual sales process before enabling.
  • Do not use this for company-level qualification tracking; that needs the same pattern built on the company object with company-associated deals instead.
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The rest of this spec

Prerequisites · 5 items

Every property with its label, internal name, type and options, plus the assets the workflow needs.

Enrollment · 4 parts

The trigger, the criteria as ticked in the UI, the re-enrollment rule and the suppression list.

Steps · 6 numbered actions

Each action in order with its parameters, branches and delays.

Known pitfalls · 4

Traps seen in production, each with what breaks and what to do instead.

Test plan and UAT script · 2 cases, 3 variants

How to prove it works in a test portal, one case per branch, and a sign-off sheet.

Files · PDF, Markdown, JSON, CSV

The properties JSON creates the fields in one call. The workflow JSON documents the build.

Install · 1 click, switched off

The installer creates the properties and the workflow, switched off, then opens a task for what it cannot create. Nothing is deleted, enabled or enrolled.

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