In the cutthroat arena that is sales, "pipeline visibility" often means "discovering which deals died while you weren't looking," HubSpot has finally acknowledged that we need more than colourful dashboards and motivational webinars to close deals.

 

The Evolution of Deal Management (Or: How We Stopped Pretending Excel Was Enough)

Let's be honest, your previous deal management strategy probably involved some combination of memory, luck, and frantically scrolling through email threads at 11 PM. HubSpot's new features, Guided Actions and Deal Risks, are essentially an intervention for your chaotic sales process.

What These Features Actually Do

Strip away the marketing speak, and here's what you're getting:

  • Deal Risks: Little warning symbols that say "this opportunity is quietly dying while you chase that long shot whale"
  • Guided Actions: HubSpot's way of saying "perhaps you should actually follow up on that demo request from last week"

The Real-World Application

Picture this: You're three drinks deep at a business dinner when your boss texts about a deal that's supposedly closing tomorrow. Previously, this would trigger an under-the-table email panic. Now, you can calmly respond, "Already addressed the pricing objection this morning, as flagged by the system." Crisis averted, drinks enjoyed.

Why These Visual Indicators Actually Matter

If you're managing more than five deals simultaneously (and who isn't expected to juggle twenty these days?), these indicators serve as:

  • Digital versions of the notes you'd stick to your monitor if you were still in the office
  • Evidence to show your manager when they ask why you're focusing on certain deals
  • A way to prioritise work without resorting to "whichever client yelled at me most recently"

Implementation: Surprisingly Not a Complete Nightmare

For once, a CRM feature that doesn't require a certification course to use:

  1. Go to Settings
  2. Navigate to Objects > Deals > Deals Table
  3. Marvel at the new icons that have appeared, like digital barnacles on your deals
  4. Click them and pretend you knew they were there all along

The Strategic Advantage (Beyond Just Covering Your As*)

These features offer legitimate benefits for those who can be bothered to use them:

  • Preemptive Damage Control: Fix problems before they become your next performance review topic
  • Opportunity Prioritisation: Focus on deals that might actually close instead of the ones with the biggest potential commission
  • Plausible Deniability: "The system didn't flag it as at-risk" is now a valid excuse

Actual Results You Might See

Early adopters who aren't just using this as another place to store contact information report:

  • Fewer "whatever happened to that deal with the company that makes the thing?" moments
  • Reduced instances of deals ghosting you without warning
  • More accurate forecasting (though still not accurate enough for Finance to stop rolling their eyes)

The Future of Deal Management

HubSpot's introduction of these features suggests a future where CRMs actually help you sell rather than just documenting your failures in exquisite detail. Revolutionary concept, truly.

Getting Started Today

These features are available now, which means you're already behind competitors who implemented them while you were reading this article.

By embracing these intelligent indicators, you might just reclaim enough time to remember what your family looks like or, more realistically, take on even more deals because that's how sales works.

Your deals table just got smarter. Now it's just waiting for you to catch up.