Owning the Outcome

Samuel Banks, Head of Implementation at Fuelius—a solutions partner who has been awarded three accreditations, joins the podcast to share how he identifies the work his team does as being well aligned with a specific accreditation, and how others can determine their readiness and eligibility. He shares the actual application preparation process, including who was involved across the team, the project management approach applied, the time and bandwidth required, and how to leverage the preparation resources made available. He also goes into application design, with his tips and strategies for building applications with a greater likelihood of success. And we wrap with a discussion on prerequisite certifications, and how Fuelius assigns, tracks, and manages that process.

We’re less than ONE WEEK away from World Certification Week 2023—so George B Thomas, owner of George B Thomas, LLC and longtime HubSpot Academy advocate, joins the show to walk us through the role HubSpot Academy has played throughout his career and life journey, and the impact he’s seen from achieving certifications by the dozens. We get into this year’s World Cert Week event, what his plan is, and his recommendations for others to approach it with intention. And knowing George has navigated nearly all of the HubSpot Academy catalog, he offers up his tips for operationalizing the pursuit of certifications—including how he keeps up with new additions and updates, how he determines what to take and in what order, how to keep recertifications manageable to maintain certification status, and how to improve exam pass rates overall.

The countdown to World Certification Week 2023 has begun! From May 15th through the 19th, HubSpot will donate five dollars for every certification awarded during that week to nonprofits dedicated to expanding access and opportunities for education around the world. So it makes sense that for this week’s episode, Penina Shtauber, a Director of Digital Marketing at ScaleOps, comes on the show to talk about her team leverages HubSpot Academy certifications to scale new hire onboarding efforts and reduce the ramp up time for the team. She shares the benefits behind certification assignments, both for the team and as a pull-through to their clients, how assignments are handled between company directives and self-selection, and how they continue to layer in for continued employee development.

Rod Moynihan, CEO of B.A.C., joins the show to share insights from his years of experience sitting on both sides of the SaaS partnership table. He offers his perspective on what solutions partners need to operationalize to be ready to engage with corporate, enterprise, and upmarket buyers—and how they can “earn the right” to have a seat in those discussions. We discuss the importance of deeply understanding your customers, domain, and industry—and how those evolve from serving SMBs and midmarket organizations. Rod also shares what partners looking to move upmarket should anticipate on changing—from their service offerings, sales process, and overall go-to-market strategy. We wrap with performance management and how success tends to be defined in upmarket engagements—and how citable % shifts in efficiency gains can go a long way.

Sam Anderson, CEO and cofounder of Origin63, joins the podcast to discuss her journey in becoming a technical consultant for upmarket HubSpot customers. Sam walks us through the team's original pivot to technical consulting services and how the needs of upmarket business change, become more specialized, and require thorough, post-implementation support. As Sam mentions, the actual implementation of technology is only 50% of the actual rollout—and successful change management is what truly ensures long-term success for businesses—so she explains her team’s approach to change management and post-implementation support, and how it positively impacts Origin63’s bottom line.

Yamini Rangan, HubSpot’s Chief Executive Officer, joins the show to share her vision for the HubSpot solutions partner program, HubSpot’s own strategic objectives for 2023+, the opportunities ahead for solutions partners, and her recommendations for how partners can thrive in the ecosystem. We start by checking in with her original vision statement for the partner program from a few years ago—and get her take on how HubSpot and partners are doing in realizing that vision together. We then dive into the big bets HubSpot is making in its long-term strategy development—from product development (including generative AI), to its upmarket strategy, to its own flywheel strategy across marketing, sales, and services teams. We wrap with her recommendations for solutions partners, including recommendations around depth of knowledge on things like CRM customization and extensibility, collaborative selling and servicing of customers with HubSpot, driving customer value with deep connection and engagement, and a ton more.

Jim Delaney, CEO of Traction.ai, who’s here to talk about his perspective on revenue operations, HubSpot’s Operations Hub, and the importance of a connected platform. We start with Jim’s definitions for both connection and revenue operations—and the relationship between the two. He also shares how businesses can self-evaluate when their business may be ready for RevOps support (or the types of questions partners should be asking to uncover the need). Jim also shares how he sells the value proposition and key benefits of outsourced RevOps support, including tips on how others can improve their own offerings and positioning. We then pivot over to Operations Hub, where Jim shares some of his favorite Ops Hub-powered automations and RevOps activities, what it’s been able to do for his clients, and the types of powerful use-cases other partners should be seeking out.

This week, we have on Dustin Brackett, CEO and Founder of Hive Strategy, and author of the brand new, just-released book “Market Like a Human”. In our conversation, Dustin explains what it means to "market like a human" and how a focus on quality over quantity can solve the problems prevalent today in marketing and sales strategies. We also talk about the crisis of disconnection and how Dustin’s methodology helps reestablish connection with your audience. He also shares how he thinks about the underlying pillars and values of this framework, like authenticity and transparency, and how they should manifest in GTM strategies. We wrap with his read on the current servicing landscape—and how other partners can leverage human-centricity to cut through the noise of a saturated market of inbound services.

This week, we have on both Connor Jeffers, Founder and CEO of Aptitude8, and Brandon Greer, Head of HubSpot Ventures, to discuss the launch of hapily. Last week, HubSpot announced an investment into A8 Labs, the app studio founded by Aptitude8, to launch as its own software company—which has now been rebranded as hapily. Brandon walks us through the history of HubSpot Ventures and his perspective on hapily’s addition into our investment portfolio. He shares what sort of criteria the team looks for when analyzing investment opportunities and what the relationship looks like between HubSpot and the companies within the HubSpot Ventures portfolio. He then shares what he’s most excited about and the value he sees the hapily investment bringing to the HubSpot ecosystem. Connor then walks us through the hapily announcement from his side, including both the rebrand and the launch as its own, independent company. He shares how the team has historically positioned itself within the HubSpot Ecosystem—and how, if at all, he sees that changing with this investment. The one thing that remains unchanged is hapily’s goal to enable partners in building higher margin services, an expanded menu of services, and improving their capabilities to both sell and service better. We then look ahead to the hapily roadmap for 2023 and beyond, thoughts on how other solutions partners should be thinking about the app ecosystem at large—including the opportunities that exist for them as both app builders and technical consultants.

We're joined by Patrick Biddiscombe, CEO of New Breed, who just recently was announced as HubSpot’s North American Partner of the Year. Patrick joins the show to talk about New Breed’s shift from traditional marketing agency to a revenue performance management firm. He offers his perspective and definition of revenue performance management, what led to New Breed’s shift, and how it has impacted service offerings, ideal client profiles, prospecting and pipeline management processes, and his team’s overall go-to-market strategy. Patrick then discusses how his team has interpreted, and pivoted alongside, the shifts within the HubSpot ecosystem over the last decade—and how others can plan to do the same. He revisits some of the most impactful changes he’s seen in year’s past, how his team adapted, and how others can codify a means for keeping pace. We then look ahead and discuss his expectations and predictions for the future—and how he, and others, can prepare themselves to survive and thrive. We wrap with big bets Patrick has in mind—and what HubSpot’s NAM Partner of the Year has their sights on next.