Hubsessed Office Hours: HubSpot Super Admin

Audience as the stage before Lead

Chris Carolan · Friday, October 16, 2026

What do you call your first stage when "new" tells you nothing and Lead isn't true yet? Casey Hawkins brought a situation, and my suggestion is a stage like Audience, moving away from the usual stage names. Audience fits people we care about and have brought into the system, or who found a way onto our radar, and it makes sense to have them as a record because they've seen us, interacted with us and engaged with us, or we want to do that for them. A hand raiser can be the next stage. Casey pushed back, fairly: "that first stage it can be new. It can be audience, that one's a little more flexible right now." And George B. Thomas made the point that renaming things people already know is hard. My answer is that as long as there's space in that first stage to use a word that makes more sense than pre-lead, that's enough for me. You get a way to name the first stage, and what to weigh before you do. What would you call the people you care about before they've said a word? October sessions are free; all you need is a free Hubsessed subscription. Replay clip from Hubsessed Office Hours: HubSpot Super Admin. George B. Thomas and I hosted as equals. Clip page: https://www.hubsessed.io/clips/hsa-2026-10-16-audience-as-the-stage-before-lead