Partner Day at Inbound and Wednesday Day 1 is behind us now and the event hasn’t disappointed. At Partner Day we heard about the new Elite Level of Partner. To qualify for this level, you’ll need $50,000 in trailing 12-month sales and at least $150,000 in monthly managed revenue.
The response from the Diamond Partners I spoke with wasn’t very positive, but I think HubSpot needed to do something to identify top partners. I also found out there will be between 5 and 10 partners who already qualified for the new Elite level.
As I’ve said many times, I don’t recommend any agency manage their companies to reach a certain partner tier. Most customers don’t know the difference between Diamond, Platinum or Gold. It’s very unlikely they’ll know the difference between Elite and Diamond.
You keep doing you and your partner tier will follow.
Enhanced Certifications
On a more positive note, they are adding additional qualifications based on expertise that I do think is important. CRM Enterprise certifications for agencies who have the capabilities, skills, and expertise to handle larger CRM projects and website certifications for agencies who excel at building more complex websites for clients.
Both of these agency certifications should help clients find the best agency for their needs which should always be the goal.
Today I’m hosting the Agencies 2 Inbound Meet-Up at 1 PM in the Food Court, Level 2 at the Convention Center. I’ll post an update after we get together.
Here’s a video from Inbound. Thanks for everyone who came by to say hi. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone today at the Meet Up.
More Take-Aways
Some of the more interesting takeaways from Day One are not surprising and not new news. Video continues to be a focus for anyone creating content. Video is going to be a major component of the Square 2 and MAXG marketing strategy for the fourth quarter and well into 2020. You can expect more regular videos, videos that are part of a content strategy (think TV show) and video services as a focus for our clients.
Personalization of the marketing and sales experience is also key going into 2020. Brian Halligan talked about “experience disruptors” as a way to describe companies who are disrupting their markets with enhanced experience as opposed to technology disruptors, which had been the major way to do disruption.
Something we’ve been doing with clients for a long time is making them remarkable. Often that means looking at the experience their customers are having and recommending ways to make those experiences even more remarkable for their customers.
There has been a lot of interest from new agency owners I’ve met at Inbound for an Agency Cohort in late September or early October and additional interest in an Advanced Agency Cohort for that same time-frame.
If you’re considering getting into a cohort now is the time. It’s likely that the next time any new cohorts launch will be 2020. Click here or click the button to let me know you might be interested in joining one of those cohorts.
Start Today Tip – Take a long look at the services you’re recommending to clients and services you’re providing to clients. Make sure that these services are aligned with the changes we saw at Inbound. Consider how your clients are disrupting their industries. If they don’t have anything remarkable to say to their prospective customers, why say anything at all. Finally, try not to be distracted by your partner tier. Give clients the right advice. That might be HubSpot or it might be some other options. Don’t make agency practice decisions based on a desire to sell any partner software. Give clients the right advice and your agency will grow.
Agencies 2 Inbound – Helping You Grow Your Agency Beyond Your Expectations!
