HubSpot Hack: How to See, Understand and Manage Stuck Leads in HubSpot

The challenge
Sales teams often don’t know which leads have gone quiet or lack a planned next activity. Identifying these leads manually is time-consuming and inconsistent.

Step 1: Build a Segment of Stuck Leads

1. Go to Contacts > Lists (now called segments).
   
   
2. Create a new active list with these filters:
   
   
   • Lifecycle Stage: Marketing Qualified Lead
     
     
   • Date Entered Marketing Qualified Lead: More than e.g. 60 days ago
     
     
   • Last Activity Date: More than e.g. 60 days ago
     
     
   • Next Activity Date: Unknown
     
     
   • Optional: Filter by contact owner or team if needed (e.g. excluding recruitment owned ones as needed who may slip in inflating numbers).
     
     

This segment shows the current volume of stuck leads and can also be used as a report to see trends over time or identify owners with a high number of stuck leads.

Step 2: Create a Workflow to Manage Stuck Leads

1. Go to Automation > Workflows and create a contact-based workflow.
   
   
2. Set the enrollment triggers to match your stuck leads criteria:
   
   
   • Lifecycle Stage = Marketing Qualified Lead
     
     
   • Date Entered Marketing Qualified Lead > 60 days ago
     
     
   • Last Activity Date > 60 days ago
     
     
   • Next Activity Date = Unknown
     
3. Action 1: Notify Owner
   
   
   • Send a notification to the contact owner
     
     
   • Include a custom property showing the Date Entered Marketing Qualified Lead
     
4. Delay: 1 week (or your team’s preferred timeframe)
   
   
5. Action 2: Rotate Owner (if still stuck on branch logic)
   
   
   • Rotate contact owner among a specific team or users
     
     
   • Send notification confirming the lead was previously stuck and ownership has been rotated
     
     

How it works in practice

• Leads are flagged automatically once they meet the criteria.
  
  
• Owners receive notifications to review and take action. You can even pin a note on the contact record for audit purposes.
  
  
• If the lead remains idle, the workflow rotates the lead to another team member, ensuring it doesn’t sit stagnant.
  
  
• Teams can track progress and reduce bottlenecks systematically.
  
  

Result
This method gives your team visibility, accountability, and automation for stuck leads. Over time, it improves pipeline flow, reduces lost opportunities, and ensures leads are actively managed rather than slipping through the cracks.

By Carl Griffiths