How to Grow Your Agency Through Partnerships - Alex Glenn, CEO of Partnerhub®

Alex Glenn (CEO of Partnerhub®) has worn many hats during his career. Started out as an agency owner, moved into SaaS, pivoted to consulting, and then he started a partnerships community where a member of the group expressed their operational pains that ultimately led to the inception of Partnerhub®. Now they’ve scaled to 3000+ companies with no signs of stopping any time soon.

The value of partnerships is similar to what a client referral brings - you’re starting sales conversations with people who trust you by proxy. It’s what 80% of users value Partnerhub® for, as the standard handshake partnership is typically not very fruitful due to a misalignment of goals and a lack of an action plan. Alex’s company solves this by vetting their clients, matching the right companies and activating partnerships instead of letting them dwindle.

The movement of adding Partnerships to your go-to-market strategy was largely pioneered by the tech industry. In fact, the term “Channel Partner” was coined by hardware providers to help them expand into foreign markets. SaaS adopted this approach, but with the intention of partnering with other software vendors to help solve large problems by building out infrastructures together. Agencies often build their services on top of these infrastructures, which means reselling and extra enablement become worthwhile activities. 

The purpose of Partnerhub® isn’t just to connect resellers - their goal is to create true partnerships through strategic matchmaking and ongoing guidance that helps their clients turn relationships into outcomes. One of their clients has over 3000 partners in their network (300 active) which is impossible to manage without a sophisticated system in place, and becomes a true pain in case a partner manager leaves their role. 

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to build fruitful partnerships!

HIGHLIGHTS: 
01:13 What led Alex to found Partnerhub®
03:27 Do you really need a partner platform?
06:16 Different types of partnerships 
12:30 The Partnerhub® Journey
17:12 Partner Directory & Partner CRM
19:21 How to build fruitful partnerships 

Connect with Alex - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-glenn/
Connect with Mikael - www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/