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Overview
HubSpot workflows can power sophisticated outbound sales motions—but most teams barely scratch the surface. Beyond basic lead nurturing, workflows can automate prospecting triggers, sequence enrollment, data enrichment, and multi-channel coordination. This guide covers the five workflows every outbound team should have running.
What we'll cover:
- Workflow 1: New lead qualification and routing
- Workflow 2: Enrichment and data completion
- Workflow 3: Sequence enrollment automation
- Workflow 4: Re-engagement triggers
- Workflow 5: Account-based coordination
Workflow 1: New Lead Qualification and Routing
The moment a new lead enters your system, this workflow takes over—qualifying, scoring, and routing to the right rep.
Trigger
Contact is created (filter for relevant sources: form submissions, imports, API creates)
Actions
- Enrich missing data: If company size or industry is blank, trigger enrichment (via integration or webhook)
- Calculate lead score: Apply your lead scoring rules
- Branch by score:
- High score (80+): Route to SDR team immediately, send Slack alert
- Medium score (40-79): Route to SDR, add to qualification queue
- Low score (<40): Add to nurture sequence, no SDR assignment
- Create follow-up task: For routed leads, create task with deadline
Why It Matters
This workflow ensures no qualified lead sits unworked. Speed-to-lead drops dramatically without automation—manual routing simply can't match instant workflow execution.
HubSpot doesn't enrich data natively. Connect to Clay, Clearbit, or Apollo via workflow webhooks or native integrations to fill in company data before routing decisions.
Workflow 2: Data Enrichment and Completion
Outbound effectiveness depends on data quality. This workflow keeps your database complete and current.
Trigger
Contact property is updated OR contact is created with missing required fields
Actions
- Check for gaps: Branch if company size, industry, or key fields are blank
- Request enrichment: Call external enrichment provider via webhook
- Update properties: When enrichment returns, update contact properties
- Re-evaluate scoring: Trigger score recalculation with new data
- Flag failures: If enrichment fails, add to manual research list
Advanced Pattern: Waterfall Enrichment
Call multiple providers in sequence until data is found:
- Try Provider A (cheapest)
- If no data, try Provider B
- If still no data, try Provider C (most expensive)
This maximizes coverage while minimizing cost. For sophisticated enrichment patterns, see coordinating Clay, CRM, and sequencer.
Workflow 3: Sequence Enrollment Automation
Automatically enroll qualified leads into the right outbound sequences based on their profile.
Trigger
Contact enters lifecycle stage "Sales Qualified Lead" OR lead score exceeds threshold
Actions
- Branch by persona: Check job title, department, or persona property
- Select sequence: Enroll in persona-specific sequence
- VP Marketing → Marketing Leader sequence
- Director Sales → Sales Leader sequence
- RevOps → RevOps sequence
- Set sequence context: Update properties used for personalization
- Notify owner: Alert assigned rep that sequence has started
Preventing Duplicate Enrollment
Add enrollment criteria to prevent contacts already in sequences from being enrolled again. Check "Currently in sequence" status before enrollment.
For generating persona-specific sequences programmatically, see generating targeted sequences for every persona.
Workflow 4: Re-engagement Triggers
Dormant leads sometimes come back to life. This workflow detects re-engagement and triggers appropriate action.
Trigger
Contact visits website (after 30+ days of inactivity) OR opens email after being marked "Disqualified"
Actions
- Check current status: Branch based on lifecycle stage and last activity
- For dormant leads:
- Update lifecycle stage to "Re-engaged"
- Create high-priority task for owner
- Send Slack notification
- For disqualified leads:
- Flag for review (don't auto-requalify)
- Notify manager for approval
- Add context: Log what triggered re-engagement (which page, which email)
Why It Matters
Re-engaged leads often convert better than cold leads—they already know you. Catching these signals quickly maximizes the opportunity. This aligns with event-driven sequence strategies.
Workflow 5: Account-Based Coordination
For ABM motions, coordinate outreach across multiple contacts at target accounts.
Trigger
New contact created at target account (company marked as target) OR existing contact at target account shows high engagement
Actions
- Identify account owner: Check company owner property
- Assign contact to account owner: Ensure all contacts from account go to same rep
- Check buying committee coverage: Count contacts by role at this account
- If gaps exist: Create task to research additional stakeholders
- Coordinate sequence timing: Don't blast all contacts simultaneously—stagger outreach
- Update account engagement score: Aggregate contact engagement to account level
Account Engagement Scoring
Create a company property that sums engagement across all associated contacts. High account engagement signals buying committee activity.
For comprehensive ABM workflow design, see orchestrating automated outbound for ABM.
Implementation Best Practices
Start Simple, Add Complexity
Don't build all five workflows on day one. Start with qualification and routing (most impact), validate it works, then add others.
Monitor Workflow Performance
Check workflow analytics regularly. Which branches are triggered most? Are there bottlenecks? Are actions completing successfully?
Document Your Logic
Complex workflows become unmaintainable without documentation. Record the business logic behind each branch and action.
Test Before Launch
Use test contacts to verify workflow behavior. Check that enrollments, assignments, and notifications work as expected.
As workflows multiply, maintaining consistent logic across them becomes challenging. Teams often extract core logic—scoring, qualification, persona mapping—to external systems. Tools like Octave can serve as the central GTM brain, pushing decisions back to HubSpot for workflow execution. This keeps workflows simple while centralizing intelligence.
Frequently Asked Questions
Multiple workflows can process the same contact. Be careful about conflicting actions—two workflows trying to set different owners, for instance. Use workflow goals and suppression lists to manage overlap.
Lifecycle stage changes (to SQL) or lead score thresholds work well. Avoid triggering on contact creation alone—qualify first, then sequence.
Use workflow goals and suppression criteria. If a workflow updates a property that triggers another workflow that updates the original property, you'll get loops. Design triggers to be specific.
Conclusion
These five workflows form the automation backbone of effective outbound sales in HubSpot. Together, they ensure leads are qualified, enriched, routed, sequenced, re-engaged, and coordinated across accounts—all without manual intervention.
Start with qualification and routing, validate results, then layer in additional workflows. For teams outgrowing HubSpot's native capabilities, consider how external context engines like Octave can handle sophisticated logic while keeping HubSpot as your execution layer.