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In the Details: Unpacking Partner Kickoff 2021

Consider 2021 officially kicked off! This page has all the resources you need to dig deeper into the changes and opportunities coming in 2021.

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Katie Ng-Mak-6-1

Partner Kickoff Wrap-Up

During Partner Kickoff 2021, we outlined the strategic investments and shifts we’re making to our program to fuel our next phase of growth together. This page gives a more in-depth overview of these changes and what they mean for partners. If you’d like to watch the recording of Katie Ng-Mak’s (VP, Solutions Partner Program) keynote, you can do so below.

The Opportunity Awaits

  1. The world changed a lot in 2020. As customers shifted from being digital-ready to digital-first or digital-only, digital transformation didn't just accelerate. It took a giant leap forward. This means customer expectations changed, too. Customers increasingly expect systems to be easy to adopt, easy to align, and easy to adapt. 
     
    HubSpot has the product and the methodology to meet this moment. In partnership with your expertise and services, we’re primed to help our shared customers embrace this digital world together.
     
    That’s why our focus in 2021 will be scaling better, together with partners.

Overview of Program Changes

We are on a multi-year journey to evolve the Solutions Partner Program and realize this opportunity. We started in 2020, and will continue in 2021 in a few core ways:

Reducing conflict to sell and service as one team

Expanding requirements in order to scale with qualified partners

Investing in world-class enablement, community, and diversity, inclusion and belonging (DI&B)

Reduce Conflict

One of the first and most important steps on our journey to sell and service as one team is to reduce conflict between our partners and internal sales team. To do that, we’ll evolve our systems, capacity rules and enablement in 2021.

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    New Deal Registration System With Shared Selling Interface

    Today, all partners use a domain registration system to sell with HubSpot — but this system has its challenges. Registration requests often get rejected and while partners can still work a deal tied to a rejected domain, CAMs have to log it manually. This makes collaboration difficult and gives partners minimal visibility into the deal.

    Coming in 2021, we’ll roll out a new deal registration system globally. This system gives partners a path forward with deals even if the domain is already registered, by creating a shared deal through the shared selling interface. This means partners can easily collaborate with HubSpot right within their account.

    Watch this demo walkthrough to see how deal registration will work. We piloted this system in 2020, and the feedback so far has been very positive from both partners and HubSpot reps.

     

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:

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    Reducing Capacity

    When everyone has large domain capacities, registration rejection rate is high. This leads to conflict between partners and our direct sales team.

    To give partners ample space to register their qualified leads, we’ll be lowering capacity for everyone (including our sales team).

    This chart shows the new domain capacities by tier.

    New capacity goes into effect April 15, 2021. We won’t deregister any domains when this change goes into effect, but partners need to be at the new capacity limit by July 1, 2021.

    Review our checklist on how to audit your existing registered leads to get a head start.

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.

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    Investments in Enablement, Training and Systems

    To reduce conflict, we need to enable partners and our HubSpot sales teams to sell better together through rule clarification and better training and enablement. 

    In 2021, we’re training everyone on our newly clarified sales rules, rolling out a new co-selling framework for our internal teams on how to sell with partners, and investing in new processes to measure and reinforce this framework. 

    We’re also rolling out an improved enablement system for our internal teams, and we'll use the same system to enable platinum, diamond and elite partners starting in Q2.

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:

Expand Requirements

We want to scale services with partners by putting them at the center of our service delivery strategy. Our customers need partner expertise to grow. To do this successfully, we need to expand our requirements and provide partners with the right tools to support our shared customers.

  1. Changing MRR Targets for Solutions Partners

    We’ll be making changes to tier targets this year for all partners. 

    Tiers are an objective and external measure of a partner’s track record. As we add new products and partners continue to sell and manage more, we’ll need to raise targets to match your collective performance, so that tiers continue to maintain their value in the market. 

    This chart shows the new targets, which will go into effect on July 16, 2021.

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    In 2021, we’re also introducing a set of new tier targets for our growth markets at 50% of usual requirements across all tiers. 

    Partners have given us feedback that the tier targets are challenging for markets where HubSpot is still establishing brand presence. The aim of this adjustment is to make targets more equitable in regions and countries where HubSpot is in earlier stages of growth.

    For growth markets, these new tier targets will go into effect on February 15 at 50% of current targets. When the targets go up on July 16, they’ll be 50% of those new targets. 

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.

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    Building a “Center of Excellence” Within HubSpot Services

    Our HubSpot Services team will serve as a "Center of Excellence," focused on expanding the services market and establishing service opportunities for new HubSpot products. We will package and deliver training and enablement on these opportunities so you can take the lead in providing these services to customers.

    In 2021, we will begin building this “Center of Excellence” division within HubSpot, with the goal to expand in 2022.

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.

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    Expanding our Investment in Credentials

    Establishing a more comprehensive credentials program will help us scale with partners by validating partner expertise.

    Today, we primarily have a certification program for customers, with only a handful of certifications for partners. There isn’t enough differentiation between credentials or ways for partners to signal their expertise. 

    In 2021, we’ll revamp and expand the program into three types of credentials, increasing in difficulty and benefits: badges, certifications and accreditations. This includes launching several new certifications.

    These credentials will help validate partner expertise, and more importantly, provide partners with more tools to meet the needs of our shared customers.

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. 

Invest in World-Class Enablement and Programs

Community makes our program special, and we want everyone to benefit from that value. Our partners are located all around the world, speak countless languages, go by different pronouns, and have unique racial identities. In 2021, we're getting proactive about supporting diversity, building inclusive programs and fostering a sense of belonging among all partners.

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    A New Virtual Events Strategy With Many More Touchpoints

    Events are important to our partner community, and the collective need for virtual connections is strong right now. Our goal is to better enable partners, their teams, and our global community in a variety of channels and mediums.

    Expect more live and on-demand virtual events with regionally friendly times, and more peer-to-peer and partner-to-HubSpot connection opportunities. 

    In 2021, we’ll host two types of events for partners: 3-4 large scale events for the entire partner and provider community and 6-8 exclusive events for elite, diamond and platinum partners only.

    Read this page to learn more about our investments in partner events.

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    Making Connections in Our Community

    We’re evolving our networking and enablement strategy to support our global partner community in a more expansive and virtual way. 

    To start, we’re expanding HubSpot User Groups (HUGs) from 150 city-based HUGs to 400 city and interest-based HUGs. We’re also now encouraging our partner leaders - with guardrails - to pitch their business and expertise during meet-ups.

    We’re also launching a new networking program, called Partner User Groups (PUGs), to help build more equitable connections among partners and between partners and HubSpot. 

    Plus, coming soon we’ll be opening a new private partner-only space in the online HubSpot Community for partners to connect with each other and HubSpot.

    Head to this page to learn more about our investments in community, including how you can get involved. 

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    Supporting Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging

    Diversity, inclusion and belonging (DI&B) is a top priority for HubSpot and that commitment extends to our partner community. 

    To promote diversity and inclusion, we’re establishing a new sponsorship program for partners that identify as minority-owned businesses.

    We’re also increasing diverse representation in our Partner Advisory Council and adding a new Impact Award celebrating partners doing great things in the DI&B space.

    Our investments in DI&B are a multi-year commitment, and this just the beginning.

    Learn more about our investments in DI&B, including how you can get involved.

What to Expect Next

We hope you’re excited about the opportunity ahead of us, and you understand the changes coming in 2021. We’ll continue to share regular updates with you through events and proactive communications. Our goal is to make sure you understand these updates and feel confident in the direction we’re headed. If you have feedback or questions specific to your business, reach out to your CAM or CC.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Your contact information and deal stages will sync automatically once you have access to the deal registration system, but you can select which notes you’d like to share with others involved in the deal outside your organization like partners and HubSpot sales reps. This means if you typically capture your “secret sauce” in the notes section, you don’t have to sync your notes to HubSpot’s CRM. 

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. 

We are considering evolving tier requirements in a more fundamental way to account for things like service quality and credentials. We are working on a project to explore that in 2021. More to come on that later this year!

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.

Yes, we’re investing more in non-English partner content. In the second half of 2021, HubSpot Academy will be expanding the team of International Professors who will be dedicated to localizing partner education content into French, German, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese.

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.

When it is safe and makes sense to do so, yes, we will most likely incorporate in-person events into our approach again.

They still exist. In Academy, you’ll continue to access formal and public courses and credentials. The existing PRC will still host non-confidential information, including our “how to sell” resource pages for existing products.

You can still use those tools if you want to, but over time, we are going to invest more and more in the online community platform, and given the large customer presence, we want to enable you to be there, too.