Problem: Your Sales Team Isn’t Talking to Qualified Leads

Your sales team is stuck in a frustrating cycle:

• Leads are coming in, but they aren’t qualified.
• Too much time is wasted chasing leads who won’t buy your product.
• The qualification process is slow, manual, and inconsistent.
• By the time you identify a good lead, they’ve moved on.

You know speed to lead matters. The longer it takes to qualify a lead, the lower the chance of closing the deal. But right now, your team is spending too much time and energy sorting through leads instead of selling.

Solution: Send a Text to Qualify Them Before Sales Books a Meeting

Fix it by qualifying your leads instantly with one quick texting conversation.

Instead of waiting for a response to an email or playing phone tag, automate your lead qualification with SMS. A simple text conversation can:

✔ Instantly identify who’s serious and who’s not
✔ Gather key details without a lot of back and forth
✔ Route hot leads to your sales team in minutes, not hours

Example messages:

• After a lead signs up for a demo: "I see you just signed up for our sales demo. What do you hope to get out of it?"
• When they reply: The response helps qualify their needs and prioritize follow-up.

Want a real-world example of how this strategy works? Read our case study from SaaS Academy right here.

Before You Start:
Pre-work #1: Connect your Salesmsg account to your HubSpot account.

Go to Settings > App Marketplace and click to connect your HubSpot account. Then once you press connect, it will redirect you to your HubSpot account where you can connect your HubSpot account or create a new one.

For more details on configuring your HubSpot settings and syncing your contacts, be sure to read this article first.

Prework #2: Get permission to text on your sales demo web form.

Before sending texts, you must have explicit permission from your leads. To get that permission, we suggest asking on your web form.

On your demo form:

✅ Ask for your leads’ phone number.

✅ Add an unchecked checkbox with the compliance language to ask for your leads’ permission to text them. Here’s an example of compliance language with all necessary items included below. Every sentence is important, so be sure to include all copy and links to your Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

(Unchecked checkbox) “I agree to receive recurring automated text messages at the phone number provided. Msg & data rates may apply. Msg frequency varies. Reply HELP for help and STOP to end. View our Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy.”

✅ Ensure leads can submit the sales demo form, even if they don’t opt in for your texts.

Here’s an example of what a sales demo form looks like with this unchecked checkbox and compliance language.

At Salesmsg, we ask for permission to text our leads right on our sales demo web form.

Important Note: To build this workflow, you should create your form inside HubSpot too.

Please keep in mind: There’s many ways to build a HubSpot workflow.

For this example, we’re going to show you how to build a workflow that checks if your new sales demo leads opted in for text messages or not.

To add this functionality to your workflow, you can build a custom property inside HubSpot that’s connected to your HubSpot opt-in form. This property will specifically check if your webinar attendees checked this box that says “I agree to receive text messages…”

To create this form, go to forms inside HubSpot. Create a form that asks for your lead’s first name, email and phone number. Add a single checkbox to your form that will ask your leads to opt-in for texts. Drop in the exact opt-in message you see above that starts with “I agree to receive recurring automated marketing text messages…”

On the form, create a new connected property. Give it a name like “opt-in” or “Salesmsg opt-in.” Then you can use this connected property in your workflow.

📌 Done? You’re ready to build your workflow.

How to Build a Workflow to Qualify Leads

Here’s a look at what we’re building:

Step #1: Build a workflow for leads who sign up for your sales demo.

This HubSpot workflow should be triggered when a lead submits any web form on your site to register your sales demo.

Step #2: Add an and/or branch.

Insert an And/Or Branch based on whether your leads are current customers or non-customers.

• Current customers will not be scheduled for a sales demo.
• Non-customers will be sent to the next step, so they can join your sales demo.
• Why? Your sales team has limited time. They want to spend that time running demos for non-customers—not customers who already bought.

Step #3: Email customers other resources.

If customers sign up for sales demos, they likely have questions about your product. You can help answer those questions by emailing them customer-only content.

For example, you might send recordings from past demos, webinars or onboarding videos. Or you may send an email with a personal invitation to your office hours, customer-only training, or offer to set up a call with a member of your support team.

To add this email to your workflow: 

• Click the plus sign under Current Customer. This opens the “Choose an Action” menu.
• On the Choose an Action menu: Scroll to “send email.” 
• Choose an email or create one.

Step #4: Set your non-customers as your marketing contacts.

You’ll want to follow-up with non-customers later, so add them as marketing contacts.

• Click the plus sign under branch 2. This opens the “Choose an Action” menu.
• On the Choose an Action menu, scroll down to marketing. 
• Click on set marketing contact status. Set your non-customers as marketing contacts. 

Step #5: Add an and/or branch under non-customer.

• Add a And/Or Branch based on whether the registrant opted in for text messages
• Non-customers who opted in for SMS will receive this follow-up SMS message.
• Non-customers who did NOT opt-in for SMS will receive email only.
• To create this branch, click on “add criteria.” Then “contact properties.” Then search for the name of your custom property (like “SMS opt-in.”) From there, mark the criteria as “yes” as we did below.

When you’re done, you’ll create a branch that looks like this:

Step #6: Qualify leads who did opt-in for SMS with one text:  

Add one text message to the SMS branch 1 of your workflow.

• This one text message will start a conversation to qualify this lead.
• In this text, ask an open question like: “Hey (FirstName), It’s (your sales rep’s name) from (your company). I saw you just signed up for a sales demo. What do you hope to get out of it?”
• Once your new lead answers, either your support team or sales team can text back and forth with that person through Salesmsg’s platform. In doing so, they can discover if that person is a good fit for your product or service in one brief texting conversation. 
• Note: You can also use AI Agents to respond for you, if you don’t have a team member for this. But for this example, we’re going to stick to a human team member responding.

How to add this text message to your workflow:

• Click the plus sign under the SMS branch. Open your “Choose an Action” menu.
• On the “Choose an Action” menu, scroll down to Salesmsg SMS Texting & Calling.
• Click “Send SMS/MMS text message.” This will add a SMS to your workflow. 

How to customize this text message for your workflow:

• Click on “Send SMS/MMS text message” in your workflow.
• Fill in all properties for how you’ll be sending your SMS.
• Under “phone number property” - add both “mobile phone number” then drop in a comma, and “phone number.” (The comma is important. Be sure to include it.)
• For the “send from” - the best practice is to send your SMS message from “owner” instead of an inbox. This allows you to scale and send thousands of texts at once.
• Owner property: Drop in “Contact Owner.” (This is important. Your workflow will not run from an owner if you don’t say “Contact Owner” in the owner property.)
• Write your text message. “Hey (FirstName), It’s (your sales or support rep’s name) from (your company). I saw you just signed up for a sales demo. What do you hope to get out of it?”

Pro Tips: 

• Add personalization by addressing your contacts by their first name whenever possible.
• Always introduce your rep’s name in this first text message. It helps your lead immediately make a connection with a person on your sales team. You can do this quickly just by saying “Hi FirstName, It’s Jackson from the Salesmsg team…”
• This is likely your first SMS message to this lead. Click the “Add an opt-out message” to ensure your text message is compliant. That means your text message will automatically say “Reply “stop” to opt-out.”
• Only send text messages to valid numbers: Click “PhoneChecker” to check all numbers.

Step #7: Email non-customers who did not opt-in for SMS.

For non-customers who didn’t join your SMS list:

• You can still send these leads an email to help qualify them. 

To add this email to your workflow: 

• Click the plus sign under branch 2 email only. Open the “Choose an Action” menu.
• On the Choose an Action menu: Scroll to “send email.” 
• Choose an email or create one.

Step #8: Looks good? Review and publish.

That’s it! Just need to review your workflow and publish. Then your leads will automatically be enrolled in this workflow when they sign up for your sales demo.

Why Texting Works to Qualify Leads

A slow qualification process kills deals. A fast one closes them. Here’s why texting is the ultimate tool for lead qualification:

✔ Faster than email, easier than a call – No waiting around for replies. Just quick, simple responses.
✔ Filters out bad leads instantly – Instead of spending time on the wrong prospects, your team only talks to high-intent buyers.
✔ Keeps sales focused on selling – Less time chasing leads, more time closing deals.

Want to implement this today? Try Salesmsg free for 14 days and start qualifying leads faster.