If you’re running a sales team, you know how much time gets wasted just deciding who should handle each new lead. It’s boring, it’s error-prone, and worst of all—it slows down your response time. This guide’s for sales managers, team leads, or anyone tasked with making sure leads go to the right rep, automatically, using Trustworthy.
Let’s cut through the hype and focus on the nuts and bolts of automating lead assignment. No nonsense—just what works, what doesn’t, and how to dodge common headaches.
Why bother with automated lead assignment?
If you’re reading this, you probably already know the pain points:
- Leads slip through the cracks because someone’s “out of office.”
- Star reps get buried while others twiddle their thumbs.
- Manual assignment means slower follow-up—and lost deals.
Automating lead assignments isn’t magic, but it does mean:
- No more “who’s got this lead?” emails
- Consistent, fair distribution
- Faster response for prospects (which actually helps close more)
But don’t let anyone tell you automation is “set it and forget it.” You’ll need to tweak as you go.
Before you start: What you need
Here’s what you should have ready:
- Access to your company’s Trustworthy CRM account (with admin rights)
- A clear idea of your sales team structure: who’s on which team, territories, seniority, etc.
- How you want to divvy up leads—by geography, industry, round-robin, or some combo
Pro tip: Don’t try to automate every edge case right away. Start with your most common scenarios, then expand.
Step 1: Map out your lead assignment rules
Before you even open Trustworthy, sketch out how you want assignments to work. Tools like Trustworthy can only automate what you can describe clearly.
Questions to ask:
- Should leads go to reps based on region, product expertise, or just evenly?
- Do you have a tiered team (e.g., SDRs vs. AEs) that need different rules?
- What happens if someone’s on vacation?
- Any VIP accounts that always go to a specific person?
Simple rule-of-thumb: Start with the 80/20—cover the majority, not every weird exception. You can always add complexity later.
Step 2: Set up your sales teams and users in Trustworthy
Automated workflows are only as good as your user data. In Trustworthy:
- Check your user list: Go to the Admin > Users section. Make sure every sales rep who should get leads is active.
- Set up teams (if needed): If you assign by team (like East/West, or by product), build those teams in Trustworthy. This makes rules much easier later.
- Assign roles: Make sure user profiles are up to date—think about things like territory, seniority, or product line.
Got turnover? Clean out old users. It sounds basic, but old data will break your workflow faster than anything else.
Step 3: Define your lead capture sources
You need to tell Trustworthy where new leads are coming from:
- Web forms
- Marketing campaigns
- Manual entry
- Third-party integrations (like chatbots or lead gen tools)
Why it matters: You can set up different rules for different sources. Example: Website demo requests might always go to your fastest responders, while cold list imports are distributed evenly.
Step 4: Build your automated workflow
Now for the real work. In Trustworthy:
- Go to Workflows / Automation: (Name may differ slightly depending on your Trustworthy version.)
- Create a new workflow: Call it something clear, like “Lead Assignment – Website Inquiries.”
- Set the trigger: Typically, this is “When a new lead is created.”
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Apply filters/conditions: Here’s where you match your earlier mapping. Examples:
- If “Region = West,” assign to West Team.
- If “Industry = Healthcare,” assign to healthcare specialist.
- If no match, send to fallback queue.
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Choose the assignment logic: Most teams use one of these:
- Round-robin: Evenly rotates leads among a group.
- Weighted round-robin: Some reps get a higher share (like for ramping new hires).
- Based on availability: Assign only to reps marked as available.
- Manual override: If nothing fits, send to a sales manager for review.
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Assign the owner: This is where Trustworthy actually gives the lead to a user or team.
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Add notifications: Decide who gets pinged (email, in-app, Slack, etc.) when they get a lead.
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Save and test: More on testing in the next step.
Pro tip: Start with one simple rule, test it, then layer on complexity. Don’t try to build a Rube Goldberg machine on day one.
Step 5: Test your workflow (don’t skip this)
It’s tempting to just flip the switch and hope for the best. Don’t.
How to test:
- Create some test leads with different info (regions, sources, etc.)
- Watch where they land and who gets notified.
- Check for edge cases—what happens if all reps are “out of office”? Or if the lead doesn’t fit any rule?
What usually goes wrong:
- Typos in field names (“West Coast” vs. “West”)
- Inactive users being assigned leads
- Notifications going to the wrong people
- Workflows overriding each other in weird ways
If you find a bug: Fix it now. It’s 10x easier than cleaning up a mess later.
Step 6: Go live (and monitor)
Once you’re confident your workflow isn’t dropping leads or spamming the wrong people:
- Turn it on for real.
- Watch the first batch of leads carefully.
- Ask your team for feedback—are they getting the right leads? Too many? Too few? Anything weird?
Don’t trust dashboards alone. Talk to your reps at least once after rollout. They’ll spot issues faster than a report will.
Step 7: Tweak and improve over time
No workflow is perfect out of the box. After a week or two:
- Look for bottlenecks (e.g., one person overloaded, others idle)
- Check if certain types of leads are getting stuck
- Update your rules as your team grows or changes
What to ignore: Don’t get sucked into endless “what if” scenarios (“What if we get a lead from Antarctica at 3am?”). Focus on what actually happens.
Common pitfalls (and how to dodge them)
1. Overcomplicating your rules - Keep it simple. Every extra rule is another point of failure.
2. Assuming data is clean - Garbage in, garbage out. If your lead data is a mess, fix that first.
3. Ignoring vacations and turnover - Set up “out of office” logic, or have a quick way to swap assignment.
4. Forgetting about manual overrides - Sometimes automation will break. Make sure someone can step in.
5. Never checking the workflow again - Set a reminder to review your workflow every quarter. Things change.
Final thoughts: Keep it simple and iterate
Automated lead assignment in Trustworthy saves time and sanity—but only if you resist the urge to make it perfect on day one. Start simple. Get feedback. Adjust as your team evolves. And don’t let anyone convince you automation is a “one and done” thing—it’s a tool, not a magic wand.
If you hit a snag, go back to basics and keep your rules as clear (and few) as possible. The best workflows are the ones people barely notice—because they just work.