In the Details: Unpacking Partner Kickoff 2021

For the moment, deal registration will exist in addition to domain registration. We expect to fully retire domain registration once we are confident that the new process is providing the right value to partners, and partners have had a chance to provide feedback.

Here’s a sneak peek of what the interface will look like:

Domain capacity is the limit for how many domains a partner can register to retain exclusivity. Both partners and the HubSpot direct sales team have a capacity.

In considering these adjustments, we looked at:

• How capacity correlates to partner success. We found that with capacities as high as they are, there’s no correlation between a partner’s capacity and sold MRR. 
• What capacity is needed for a partner to uptier. We took into account average ASP, close rates, and sales cycle, and made sure we added a healthy buffer for partners to be successful.
• The average capacity partners currently use. When we looked at the data, we saw that only about half of deals where partners received sold MRR credit came from domains that they registered. 

And remember, when deal registration launches, partners will be able to register domains in addition to registering deals. 

If a partner isn’t in capacity by July 1, 2021, commissions will be withheld until they are back within capacity. This is to keep things as fair as possible among the partner community. Partners will have a few months to review their registered domains and meet the new capacity.

In 2021, we’ll approach these changes in 3 phases: 

• Phase 1: We’ll kick off with an updated sales rules page for partners and our teams. We’re rewriting our internal rules so it’s clearer what deal qualifies as a deal our team refers versus a deal that partners bring to us. This will bring clarity to which deals partners earn commissions on and how to work a collaborative deal with their Channel Account Manager and our direct sales team.
• Phase 2: We’ll train everyone on the shared selling interface and on a new co-selling framework - Scope, Match, Align, Close - that will help our internal teams build new muscle on working with partners. 
• Phase 3: We'll measure effectiveness, reinforce and make adjustments as needed.

Plus, our new enablement system for platinum, diamond and elite partners will allow us to more securely share exclusive information, such as early product previews, campaigns and program announcements. Using the same enablement system as our internal teams will help drive greater alignment between partners and HubSpot. 

Take a look at a preview of what this system will look like:

Review our 2021 Tiers and Benefits Guide to see all tier requirements and benefits in one place.

Last year, we made changes that allowed partners to get credit and commissions for some cross-sell and up-sell deals they didn’t get credit for in prior years. That change alone led to a 22% increase in sold MRR attainment. We also added new products to sell that created more opportunities to tier up.

Many partners are actively seizing these opportunities. In fact, 7 out of 10 of partners who met the requirements for their tier in December also meet the new 2021 requirements for that tier.

The uptiering and downtiering run on July 15, 2021 will use the current tier targets. That means if a partner achieved the platinum tier based on the current targets before July 15, 2021, they can keep their platinum tier until at least January 2022 even if they don’t meet the target after July 15, 2021.

Partners in growth markets can start uptiering based on the new targets starting with the monthly uptiering on February 15, 2021.

Looking to the future, we’ve kicked off a project internally to re-think the tier structure. Tiers are valuable to partners for differentiation and getting new business. However, we recognize that they don’t tell the whole story when it comes to expertise and success with customers. 

Selling will continue to be an important part of tier structure, but we envision including new criteria like service quality, customer success and credentials. We’ll also account for specialist partners to support building a partner ecosystem with diverse expertise.

We’ll share more details with you on this soon.

Today, the difference between HubSpot professional services and partner-provided professional services can be confusing. This results in HubSpot sometimes unintentionally competing with partners. 

Going forward, we want to maintain the innovation and customization benefits that partners bring to HubSpot services, while addressing those challenges.

Our goal with this “Center of Excellence” is to make it easier for partners to figure out what services to offer, easier for customers to find partners, and easier for partners to find business.

Our expanded credentials program will have three types of credentials: badges, certifications, and accreditations. A few of these may already sound familiar.

Badges are launching soon and will be the lowest level and easiest to obtain. They’ll reward lesson or course completion, completion streaks, and membership in various corners of our community.

With certifications, our goal is to have a full curriculum for every hub, from selling through implementation. In the future, having certain certifications will make partners eligible for waiving HubSpot onboarding for their clients on our Enterprise products and lay the groundwork for participation in accreditations.

By the end of 2021, we will launch the following new certifications designed specifically for partners, including:

• Objectives-based Onboarding (OBO) Certification, a Hub-agnostic course to help educate partners on HubSpot’s onboarding methodology.
• Marketing Hub Implementation Certification, which teaches partners how to project manage implementations and onboard customers to Marketing Hub Enterprise.
• Sales Demo Certifications for Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub and CMS Hub.

Accreditations (formerly known as advanced certifications) are the most complex and will validate skills and expertise through practical application, such as a client roleplay facilitated by HubSpot. When a partner achieves an accreditation, it will mean that HubSpot has validated that their organization has a specific set of skills and can deliver a service according to a HubSpot standard. 

Yes, we also evaluated and reduced capacity across our direct sales organization as part of annual planning.

In 2021, both domain registration and deal registration will exist. Any deal that you register will successfully register as a deal. The system will attempt to register the domain associated with the deal at the same time. If the domain is unowned, it will successfully register the domain to you. If the domain is owned already, you can still create the deal. The shared selling interface will allow you to collaborate with your CAM and the HubSpotter who owns the domain, even if the domain is not registered to you.

This is a new requirement this year because when we reduced capacity last year, not everyone complied and we want to keep things as fair as possible among partners. 

The Solutions Directory is one of the main ways we surface partner credentials to the public. We get a lot of feedback on the directory. Ultimately, this is a customer-facing tool, and solving for the customer user experience will always be the lens in which we make decisions. We know that sometimes conflicts with what some partners have in mind. We’re continuing to learn how to make these decisions and how to best communicate with you, so we welcome your continued feedback. Having said that, our core investment in scaling through partners this year is really in credentials and the Center of Excellence described above.

In 2020, we transitioned ownership of the directory to the product team who's responsible for all directory infrastructure. This was the first time HubSpot had owned the directory as a true product (think UX, research, dedicated developer support). With this transfer of ownership to the product team, we were able to complete all of the milestones we committed to for the phase one rollout. We'll share details on our investments in 2021 on the Partner News blog in the coming months.

No, not in its traditional in-person format. We will have many other virtual touchpoints for partners this year.