How recycling works

Recycling is the core idea behind everything Rizer does. It’s the process of tracking lost deals and leads until circumstances change and they’re worth pursuing again. This article explains how the recycling lifecycle works, what each status means, and how to decide when recycling makes sense versus when a deal is truly done.

The big idea

When a deal gets marked as closed-lost in HubSpot, most sales teams move on. Maybe someone makes a mental note to check back in a few months. Maybe they add a task that gets buried. More often than not, that lost opportunity just fades away.

But here’s the thing: most lost deals aren’t lost forever. The timing was wrong. The budget wasn’t there. You were missing a feature they needed. A competitor offered a better price. These situations change. Budgets reset. Priorities shift. Features ship. Competitors disappoint.

Recycling is about systematically tracking those lost opportunities until the right moment comes to try again. Instead of relying on memory or hoping someone follows up, you have a system that watches every lost deal and tells you when it’s time to reach out.

The goal isn’t just to remember that lost deals exist. It’s to work them methodically until they either convert or you make a deliberate decision that they’re not worth pursuing.

The recycling lifecycle

Every deal in Rizer moves through a series of statuses. Understanding this lifecycle is key to using the system effectively.

Here’s the journey a typical deal takes:

A deal is lost in HubSpot — Someone marks it as closed-lost in your sales pipeline.
The deal enters Rizer — Either automatically (if auto-recycle is on) or manually when someone decides to recycle it.
You assign context — A recycle reason captures why it was lost. A callback date sets when to follow up.
Rizer tracks the deal — It sits in recycling, waiting. Rizer watches the calendar and watches for triggers like features shipping.
The deal becomes ready — The callback date arrives, or something triggers it early.
You re-engage — You reach out to the prospect and create a new opportunity in HubSpot.
The outcome gets tracked — If the new deal closes as won, Rizer records it as a recycling success.

This cycle can repeat. A re-engaged deal might not close and get recycled again. That’s fine — some deals take multiple attempts over months or years before the timing is right.

[Screenshot: Visual diagram showing the recycling lifecycle from lost deal to won after recycling]

Status definitions

Let’s look at each status in detail so you know exactly what they mean and when deals move between them.

Pre-recycling

What it means: These are closed-lost deals sitting in HubSpot that haven’t been imported into Rizer yet. They’re candidates for recycling but haven’t started the process.

When you’ll see deals here: If auto-recycle is turned off, new lost deals land here first. They wait for someone to review them and decide whether they’re worth tracking.

What to do with them: Browse the list periodically. For each deal, either recycle it (if it’s worth tracking) or leave it (if it’s not worth the effort). You can also bulk-recycle multiple deals at once if you’re working through a backlog.

If this list is empty: That’s normal if auto-recycle is enabled. Lost deals skip this status and go directly to Recycling.

Recycling

What it means: These deals are actively being tracked. Each one has a recycle reason explaining why it was lost and a callback date for when to follow up. Rizer is watching them.

When deals enter this status:

Automatically when they’re marked closed-lost in HubSpot (if auto-recycle is on)
Manually when someone recycles a deal from the Not in recycling list or from HubSpot

What’s happening while they’re here: Mostly waiting. Rizer checks every day whether the callback date has arrived or whether any triggers (like a missing feature shipping) should move the deal forward.

What to do with them: Generally, let them sit. You can update the recycle reason, callback date, or other details if you learn new information. If you realize a deal isn’t worth tracking after all, mark it as Recycling completed.

This is where most of your recycled deals will be at any given time. They’re not ready for action yet, but they’re not forgotten either.

Ready for callback

What it means: The callback date has arrived, or something triggered the deal early. These deals are ready for your team to pick up and re-engage.

When deals enter this status:

The callback date arrives (Rizer checks daily at midnight in your timezone)
A missing feature linked to the deal gets marked as Completed
Someone manually marks the deal as ready

What to do with them: This is your action list. Review each deal, remind yourself why it was lost and what might have changed, then decide:

Re-engage — Create a new deal or lead in HubSpot and start the sales conversation again
Update and wait — Change the callback date if you want to wait longer

Don’t let deals sit in Ready for callback indefinitely. The whole point is to act on them. Make a decision: pursue or don’t pursue.

[Screenshot: Ready for callback list showing deals with their details and action buttons]

Finished

What it means: These deals went through the recycling process but weren’t re-engaged. You reviewed them and decided not to pursue.

What happens to completed deals: They stay in Rizer for historical tracking but don’t require any action. They’re out of your active queue.

Won

What it means: The success story. These deals were re-engaged and ultimately closed as won.

How deals get here: This status is tracked automatically. When you re-engage a deal from Rizer, Rizer watches the new opportunity in HubSpot. If that new deal gets marked closed-won, Rizer updates the original recycled deal to Won after recycling.

Why this matters: This is how you measure the ROI of recycling. You can see exactly how many deals you’ve won back and how much revenue you’ve recovered through systematic follow-up.

What to do with them: Celebrate. Then look at what made these successful. Was there a pattern in the recycle reasons? How long between recycling and winning? What triggered the re-engagement? Use these insights to improve your recycling strategy.

Lead statuses

If you’re recycling HubSpot leads (not just deals), the statuses work similarly with slightly different labels:

Recycling — Leads actively being tracked with a recycle reason and callback date.

Ready for callback — Leads that have reached their callback date and are ready for re-engagement.

Finished — Leads you reviewed and decided not to pursue.

Qualified — The success metric for leads. These were re-engaged and qualified, meaning they moved forward in your process. This is the lead equivalent of Won after recycling.

The lifecycle is the same. The only difference is the final success status — leads get “Qualified” while deals get “Won.”

Auto-recycle: automatic vs. manual import

One of the key settings in Rizer is whether auto-recycle is turned on. This affects how deals enter the system.

With auto-recycle enabled

When a deal gets marked closed-lost in HubSpot:

Rizer automatically imports
The deal goes directly to Recycling status
AI suggests a recycle reason based on deal notes
A default callback date is set based on the reason
The deal appears in your Recycling list, being tracked

Advantages:

Nothing slips through the cracks
Less manual work
Faster to get deals into the system

Considerations:

You might want to review AI suggestions for accuracy
Some deals might be recycled that aren’t worth tracking

With auto-recycle disabled

When a deal gets marked closed-lost in HubSpot, the sales rep can manually trigger recycling by using the modal that appears or:

Rizer imports it to the Pre-recycling list
The deal waits for someone to review it
You manually decide whether to recycle each deal
You set the recycle reason and callback date yourself

Advantages:

Full control over what gets recycled
You review every deal before it enters the system

Considerations:

More manual work
Risk of deals being forgotten if no one reviews the list regularly

Which should you use?

Most teams use auto-recycle. The time saved is significant, and you can always update deals or mark them as completed if they shouldn’t have been recycled. The AI suggestions are a good starting point even if they’re not perfect.

Turn off auto-recycle if you have a very high volume of lost deals and only want to track a subset, or if you have specific criteria for what’s worth recycling that the system can’t determine automatically.

You can change this setting anytime in Settings > Integrations > HubSpot > Settings.

Callback dates and timing

The callback date is when Rizer should tell you a deal is ready for re-engagement. Setting it well is important — too soon and circumstances haven’t changed; too late and you’ve missed the window.

Each recycle reason has a default callback period. When you recycle a deal, Rizer suggests a callback date based on that default:

You can customize these defaults in Settings > Recycling > Callback defaults to match your sales cycle and industry.

The defaults are starting points. Use a custom callback date when you have specific information:

The prospect said “check back after our fiscal year starts in April”
You know a competitor contract renews in November
A feature they need ships in Q3
Their annual planning process happens in September

Specific knowledge beats generic defaults. If you know when circumstances will change, set the callback for that time.

Thinking about timing

Some factors to consider:

Their buying cycle — When do they typically make purchasing decisions? Budget season? Quarterly reviews? Annual planning?

Your sales cycle — How long does it take to close a deal once you re-engage? If deals take 3 months to close, you might want to reach out before the optimal buying window.

Contract renewals — If they’re locked into a competitor, when does that contract end? Reach out a month or two before renewal when they’re evaluating options.

Organizational changes — If the blocker was a specific person or decision, when might that change? Reorgs, leadership transitions, and fiscal years can shift dynamics.

Feature timing — If they need something you’re building, when will it ship? Link the deal to that feature for automatic triggering.

Triggers beyond calendar dates

Callback dates aren’t the only way deals become ready. Rizer also supports event-based triggers.

Missing Feature Completion

When you recycle a deal with “Missing feature” as the reason, you can link it to a specific tracked feature. If that feature is in your roadmap, here’s what happens:

You link the deal to the feature during recycling
The deal sits in Recycling, waiting
When you mark the feature as Completed in Rizer, all linked deals automatically move to Ready for callback
Your team gets notified that these prospects are ready to hear about the new capability

This is powerful. Instead of manually tracking which deals wanted which features, the system handles it. Ship a feature, and automatically you have a list of warm prospects who asked for exactly that thing.

Manual override

Sometimes you want to move a deal to ready status before the scheduled callback date:

The prospect reached out to you
You learned about a change in their situation
An opportunity came up that’s worth acting on now

You can manually mark any deal as Ready for callback from its detail view. Just expand the deal and click the appropriate action.

Re-engagement: creating new deals

When a deal is ready for callback and you decide to pursue it, re-engagement is how you create a new opportunity in HubSpot.

Why New Records Instead of Reopening

Rizer creates new deals (or leads) in HubSpot rather than reopening the original closed-lost record. This might seem like extra work, but there are good reasons:

Historical accuracy — Your pipeline metrics stay accurate. The original deal was lost, and that’s a fact. Creating a new deal means your win/loss ratios and conversion rates reflect reality.

Clean slate — The new opportunity can have its own timeline, activities, and notes without being cluttered by old history. Your sales team starts fresh.

Multiple attempts — If the first re-engagement doesn’t work, you can recycle and try again. Each attempt gets its own deal record, making it easy to track multiple cycles.

Relationship preservation — The new record connects to the same contact and company, so you keep all the relationship context. You just don’t carry over the old deal’s baggage.

Tracking success

Rizer automatically tracks when recycled deals result in wins.

How tracking works

When you re-engage a deal:

Rizer creates a new deal in HubSpot
Rizer watches that new deal
If the new deal gets marked closed-won in HubSpot, Rizer updates the original recycled deal to Won after recycling
The revenue shows up in your recycling success metrics

This happens automatically. You don’t need to manually update anything.

What you can measure

With successful re-engagements tracked, you can see:

Total deals won after recycling — How many opportunities you’ve recovered
Revenue won after recycling — The dollar value of recovered deals
Win rate by recycle reason — Which loss reasons have the best recovery potential
Time to win — How long from recycling to close for successful re-engagements
Win rate by rep — Who’s most effective at re-engaging lost deals

These metrics live in your Rizer reports and help you refine your recycling strategy over time.

Working with volume

As you use Rizer, the number of recycled deals grows. Here’s how to manage volume effectively.

Prioritizing ready deals

When you have lots of deals in Ready for callback, focus on:

Highest value first — Big deals are worth more effort
Clearest triggers — Deals where you know exactly why they’re ready (feature shipped, contract ending) are warmer than generic time-based callbacks
Best relationships — Deals where you have strong contacts are more likely to convert
Shortest sales cycle — If you need wins soon, prioritize deals that can close quickly

You don’t have to work every ready deal immediately. Prioritize what’s most likely to convert and most valuable if it does.

A few habits help keep recycling manageable:

Review Ready for callback regularly — Daily if you have high volume, at least weekly otherwise. Don’t let deals pile up unreviewed.

Use completed status deliberately — When you review a deal and decide it’s not worth pursuing, mark it completed. This keeps your active queue focused on real opportunities.

Update details when you learn new things — If you find out a prospect changed companies or a competitor raised prices, update the recycled deal. Better information leads to better re-engagement.

Watch the reports — Recycling metrics tell you what’s working. If certain recycle reasons never convert, adjust your approach.

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