The hidden cost of “just forward it.”
Each new “Contact Us” submission used to bounce through partner inboxes for an average of six minutes before anyone took ownership. Over a year that equals nearly 240 partner hours – time that should be spent on billable work and client strategy, not email roulette.
Mapping Industries and Areas of Interest
The fix starts at the form. Summit CPAs added two required pick-lists:
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Job Industry – Construction, Healthcare, Nonprofit, Real Estate, and nine more.
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Areas of Interest – Tax, Audit, Advisory, Outsourced CFO, and five niche services.
With those two properties standardized, the workflow can make smart decisions instead of guessing from free-text.
Building the HubSpot Workflow step by step
| Step |
What happens |
Why it matters |
| 1. Enroll on form submission |
Trigger whenever the “Contact Us” form is filled. |
Guarantees every inbound lead enters the automation instantly. |
| 2. Stamp lifecycle stage |
Sets Lifecycle Stage to Marketing Qualified Lead and tags the contact with the campaign ID. |
Aligns marketing and sales reporting from the first touch. |
| 3. Add to MQL list |
Places the contact in the “Website Leads – MQL” static list. |
Enables segmented nurturing for ops and marketing. |
| 4. Immediate alert + review task |
Sends an internal email “New Contact Us Lead – Review Needed” to the new-business coordinator and creates a task due within 2 business days. |
Nobody misses a lead and the task creates accountability. |
| 5. Wait until the task is completed |
The workflow pauses until the coordinator marks the review task Completed (monitored via an event-based wait step). |
Ensures data is verified before assignment. |
| 6. Branch on Industry first |
A 13-branch List Branch checks the Job Industry value and assigns a dedicated owner ID for Construction, Healthcare, Nonprofit, and so on. |
Vertical specialization means better first calls. |
| 7. Fallback branch on Area of Interest |
If no industry match, a secondary branch assigns based on Areas of Interest such as Litigation Support, Private Client Services, or M&D Advisory. |
Catches specialty service leads that span multiple industries. |
| 8. Assign owner + create deal skeleton |
For each branch the workflow sets hubspot_owner_id, then creates a zero-value deal in stage “New Lead” with a close date 90 days out and associates it with the contact and company. |
Gives the partner pipeline visibility from day one. |
| 9. Notify the new owner |
Parallel internal emails and Teams pings go to the assigned CPA with all lead details merged in the body. |
Partner sees the lead within five seconds of submission. |
| 10. Exit with reporting tags |
Every path ends by tagging the lead and deal with the campaign ID for attribution. |
Closed-loop reporting ties revenue back to the website form. |
Entire execution – from form submit to owner alert – averaged 3.8 seconds in HubSpot logs.
Results after 30 days
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First response time – Down 93 percent (75 min → 5 min median).
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Partner hours reclaimed – 20 per month.
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Lead-to-meeting rate – Up 18 percent.
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Pipeline visibility – 100 percent of web leads now generate an associated deal record.
Schedule your 30-minute strategy call
Still forwarding leads by hand? In half an hour we will map your industries, service lines, and ownership rules, then show exactly how this sub-five-second workflow plugs into your HubSpot portal.
Ready to reclaim partner time and win deals faster? Book your free strategy call now.
