The Essence
The Listing is HubSpot's flexible container — a "blank slate" object that can represent almost anything your business needs to track that doesn't fit neatly into other native objects.
Real estate properties. Job postings. Equipment inventory. Event venues. Media assets. Resource directories. The Listing answers "what do we have available, in what state, for whom?"
It's intentionally generic, designed to be configured for your specific use case rather than constrained to one domain. Think of Listings as the "Other" category made useful — structured enough to have pipelines, properties, and associations, flexible enough to represent whatever your business needs to list, discover, and manage.
"Listings aren't a specific thing — they're whatever your business needs to list and track. The flexibility is the feature."
Unified View Contribution
Business Context
Primary contributor. Listings represent business resources, assets, and capabilities. What do we have? In what state? Available for what purpose?
Customer View
Supporting contributor. Listings associated to Contacts/Companies show what resources connect to which relationships.
Team Enablement
Supporting contributor. Listings with ownership enable team accountability for resources and processes.
Revenue View
Minimal contributor. Listings themselves aren't revenue (that's Products/Orders), but may represent revenue-generating assets.
Sarah's Story
Value-First used Listings in a creative way that benefited Sarah:
The Resource Library: Value-First maintained a Listing of implementation resources — templates, guides, reference architectures, training materials. Each resource was a Listing record:
- Listing: CVP Manufacturing Implementation Checklist - Type: Implementation Resource - Category: Manufacturing - Stage: Published - Format: PDF + Notion Template - Associated To: Product (CVP Implementation)
When Sarah's implementation began, Ryan associated relevant Listings to her Company record. Sarah could see in her portal: "Resources for Your Implementation" — a curated set of materials connected to her engagement.
The Partner Directory: Value-First also used Listings for their partner ecosystem — integration partners, implementation specialists, complementary service providers:
- Listing: ERP Integration Specialist - Midwest Region - Type: Partner - Category: Technical Implementation - Stage: Active - Capabilities: NetSuite, SAP Business One, Dynamics - Region: Midwest US
When Sarah needed ERP integration support, Value-First could quickly identify and introduce relevant partners. The Listing object made the partner network searchable and manageable.
The Event Venue Tracking: For their annual Summit, Value-First tracked potential venues as Listings:
- Listing: Austin Convention Center - Main Hall - Type: Event Venue - Category: Conference - Stage: Under Evaluation - Capacity: 500 - Rate: $15,000/day - Available Dates: March 2025
Venues moved through a pipeline: Identified → Under Evaluation → Proposal Received → Selected → Contracted. The Listing object gave structure to what would otherwise be scattered notes and spreadsheets.
What It Holds
Identity
Classification
Status/Pipeline
Ownership
Attributes
Associations
What It Connects To
Primary Associations
Who owns, manages, or is associated with this Listing? Resource owners, users, primary contacts.
What organization context applies? Training clients, listed organizations, asset owners.
What Products does this Listing support? Resources connected to offerings.
Deals, Services — whatever makes sense for your use case.
Resource Listing Labels
Person who maintains this resource
Contacts with access to this resource
Company this resource is assigned to
Partner/Asset Labels
Main point of contact
Company in the directory
Person currently using asset
Company that owns asset
Labels Depend on Use Case
Because Listings are flexible, association labels should match your purpose. Resource Listings might use "Owner" and "Has Access." Partner Listings might use "Primary Contact" and "Listed Organization." Asset Listings might use "Assigned User" and "Asset Owner." Configure labels that make sense for what you're tracking.
Common Patterns
The Resource Library Pattern
The Directory Pattern
The Asset Inventory Pattern
The Availability Pattern
The Catalog Pattern
Value-First vs. Industrial-Age
| ✗ Traditional Thinking | ✓ Value-First Thinking |
|---|---|
| Spreadsheets for everything else | Structured objects for trackable items |
| Data scattered across tools | Resources connected to CRM context |
| No pipeline for non-sales items | Pipeline thinking for any staged process |
| Items disconnected from relationships | Items associated to Contacts/Companies |
| Custom objects for every need | Flexible container adapted to purpose |
Why This Shift Matters
Traditional CRM thinking reserves structured tracking for sales-centric objects — Deals, Tickets, Contacts. Everything else ends up in spreadsheets, notes, or external tools. This creates data silos: your partner directory is disconnected from your CRM, your resource library isn't associated to customers, your asset inventory has no relationship context.
Listings bridge this gap. By bringing "everything else" into the CRM as structured records, you can associate resources to the relationships they serve, track lifecycle stages for any type of item, enable team ownership and accountability, report on resource utilization, and create portal experiences for discoverable content.
In Practice
Implementation details and configuration
What You'll See in HubSpot
Listings appear in CRM → Listings (once activated). Each Listing has:
- Left sidebar: Listing properties, status, owner
- Middle column: Activity timeline, notes, tasks
- Right sidebar: Associations to Contacts, Companies, other objects
Activating Listings: Navigate to Settings → Data Management → Objects → Object Library. Toggle on Listings, configure pipelines for your use case, and create properties relevant to your Listing types.
Key Properties
Properties depend on use case. Below are examples for different Listing types:
Key Properties
Native HubSpot Properties
| Property | Type | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
hs_listing_name Native | Text | Listing title |
hs_listing_description Native | Text | What this Listing represents |
hs_listing_status Native | Enumeration | Active, Inactive, Archived |
hs_pipeline Native | Pipeline | Which workflow |
hs_pipeline_stage Native | Stage | Current stage |
hubspot_owner_id Native | User | Who manages this |
Value-First Custom Properties
| Property | Type | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
resource_type | Enumeration | Template, Guide, Video, Document |
resource_category | Enumeration | Training, Implementation, Reference |
resource_url | URL | Where to access |
partner_type | Enumeration | Implementation, Integration, Consulting |
capabilities | Multi-checkbox | What they do |
regions_served | Multi-checkbox | Geographic coverage |
asset_type | Enumeration | Equipment type |
asset_id | Text | Inventory number |
current_location | Text | Where it is |
Example: Resource Library Pipeline
Draft
Resource development in progress
Content being created
Ready for review
Portal Experience
If using Listings in customer portal:
Resource Library
Browse by category/type, search by keyword, filter by applicable Product, access resources associated to their Company.
Partner Directory
Browse partners by capability, filter by region/specialty, view partner profiles, request introductions.
"The portal experience depends entirely on your Listing use case — Listings are flexible enough to power various discovery experiences."
See It In Action
Experience in the Value Path Simulator
Key Moment: Listings aren't a specific thing — they're whatever your business needs to list and track. The flexibility is the feature.