Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:01:40 PM
@here @Kasey Bayne lets start from your questions! What tools are you using to manage and run your partnership program?
Kasey Bayne
August 01, 2019 01:02:14 PM
Thanks @Jenna E! I've used Ambassador before, but a lot of times it's mostly good ol' Google Sheets
Kasey Bayne
August 01, 2019 01:02:21 PM
I know there's something better out there!
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:02:50 PM
what are you using google sheets for? tracking? payouts? new partners?
Jacquie Sandberg (DeepCrawl)
August 01, 2019 01:02:53 PM
Google Sheets here, too!
Kasey Bayne
August 01, 2019 01:03:39 PM
All of the above! I have my partners set up as a special category in Hubspot, so that makes things easier for tracking
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:03:48 PM
@Jacquie Sandberg (DeepCrawl) would love to learn more about how you are using them! can you share some of the things that are working and arent?
Himali from Miro
August 01, 2019 01:04:51 PM
Do you have a Google sheets templates you're willing to share @Kasey Bayne @Jacquie Sandberg (DeepCrawl)?
Jamie Tharp
August 01, 2019 01:05:08 PM
I'm using Google sheets, Hubspot and Airtable
Kasey Bayne
August 01, 2019 01:06:05 PM
I'd love to hear more about Airtable, @Jamie Tharp
Dmitrius Garcia
August 01, 2019 01:09:26 PM
Have you all heard of xAmplify?
Dmitrius Garcia
August 01, 2019 01:10:05 PM
its a partner enablement and marketing automation platform designed for channel marketing
Dmitrius Garcia
August 01, 2019 01:10:52 PM
I may or may not work for xAmplify sunglasses rolling_on_the_floor_laughing
Dmitrius Garcia
August 01, 2019 01:11:14 PM
but you all have time, ping me.. garcia@xamplify and we can talk greater detail
Dmitrius Garcia
August 01, 2019 01:11:30 PM
we are also a certified accelerated partner with Marketo
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:04:46 PM
breaking this out into a separate question as I know there are lots of hubspot users here! @Kasey Bayne can you tell us more about how you are using hubspot? and whats working and isnt using the tool for partners?
Kasey Bayne
August 01, 2019 01:06:25 PM
I use it mostly as a CRM for partners, and for reporting.
Kasey Bayne
August 01, 2019 01:06:55 PM
It's a bit of a workaround to have their referrals tracked in a clean way (feature request sent a few times, haha), but it's helpful in getting more in-depth on each partner
Kasey Bayne
August 01, 2019 01:07:20 PM
I'm also able to do some basic reporting, but I'd love to be able to do full revenue/payout reports, which is still a bit manual for me now
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:07:33 PM
do you send your partners reports? or do they have a way of accessing them in hubspot?
Kasey Bayne
August 01, 2019 01:08:24 PM
Right now it's manual updates in personalized emails. I like the personalization, but need some automation! We are at very small numbers, so it's manageable, but not scalable, so I'm excited to hear what others are using
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:05:57 PM
@Jamie Tharp - i've heard airtable come up a few times! Can you share how you are using it? and any tips you have for others leveraging the tool?
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:06:16 PM
@Kasey Bayne airtable thread simple_smile
Jamie Tharp
August 01, 2019 01:06:49 PM
happy to-- I'm copy pasting partner-driven MRR into an airtable and then using sums and rollups to assign partner tiers
Jamie Tharp
August 01, 2019 01:07:10 PM
I am not good at Airtable though and rely heavily on Marketing as a sales ops crutch
Jenna Ochoa
August 01, 2019 01:10:52 PM
For our partner program, we use Airtable to: - track available partner co-marketing opps - see scheduled co-marketing opps - assign and manage tasks related to ^^ - track MRR - track partner engagement I'm sure there's more I'm missing which I can add when they come to me. Full transparency: I also rely on team members to build out our sheets, but we integrate with Hubspot via Zapier and other customer integrations with Airtable via Zapier simple_smile
Briana
August 01, 2019 01:17:50 PM
We also use Airtable for partner management for tracking integration progress and a central location for all of our partner contacts and partner data
Nikita
August 01, 2019 01:09:10 PM
Curious but are anyones partners involved in any decision making around what tools to use?
Ryan Threndyle
August 01, 2019 01:19:12 PM
Also interested in knowing from everyone how much influence their partners have in deciding what tools to use?!
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:11:40 PM
@Jenna Ochoa thanks for bringing up Zapier - I feel like a lot of people here use it to connect their systems. Are people using it to connect their partner tools? what about connecting your partner tools to your other internal systems?
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:11:57 PM
^ I personally love Zapier, so would love to hear how other people are leveraging it simple_smile
Kasey Bayne
August 01, 2019 01:12:39 PM
I'm a big Zapier fan as well! I'd love to find more ways to use it.
Joseph Fung
August 01, 2019 01:12:47 PM
Zapier is our primay way of getting things from a tool into Slack, which has been super helpful at having streams of info around spcific topics
Joseph Fung
August 01, 2019 01:12:58 PM
e.g. new leads, new events, usage thresholds
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:13:20 PM
@Joseph Fung do you also track partner activity in slack?
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:13:41 PM
@Tyrone Lingley i think you mentioned at the conference this year you do, would be awesome to share how its helped you
Joseph Fung
August 01, 2019 01:21:59 PM
We do, although our partner community is still very small (we only just began formalizing partner relationship)
Joseph Fung
August 01, 2019 01:22:53 PM
We created shared channels with each of our partners (all named partner-NAME) making it easier to share and collaborate, and we have a stared channel for partner-activity where new leads and deals from partners show up as well
Joseph Fung
August 01, 2019 01:23:01 PM
That helps our team treat those opps accordingly
Joseph Fung
August 01, 2019 01:23:16 PM
Disclaimer: our team is very small still so not sure how well this will scale
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:24:10 PM
Awesome, thanks for sharing! I think its a great idea, but definitely interesting to think about how to scale
Joseph Fung
August 01, 2019 01:26:15 PM
@Jenna E Oh - also we're a little different as we use our own software to enable our partners (playbooks, messaging, customer stories). Several of our enterprise customers do the same, using their paid account for internal use, and our free accounts for partner enablement
Dmitrius Garcia
August 01, 2019 01:12:10 PM
Dmitrius Garcia [10:09 AM] Have you all heard of xAmplify?

Dmitrius Garcia [10:10 AM] its a partner enablement and marketing automation platform designed for channel marketing

Dmitrius Garcia [10:10 AM] I may or may not work for xAmplify sunglasses rolling_on_the_floor_laughing

Dmitrius Garcia [10:11 AM] but you all have time, ping me.. garcia@xamplify and we can talk greater detail

Dmitrius Garcia [10:11 AM]
Dmitrius Garcia
August 01, 2019 01:13:26 PM
We are also an Certified Accelerated Tech Partner with Marketo -- with full integration
Himali from Miro
August 01, 2019 01:15:01 PM
I'm curious to know how long folks are in beta or using manual processes before switching to a PRM? What are your key indicators that tell you it's time to switch?
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:23:15 PM
Some indicators I've seen include 1. A specific $ metric 2. A specific number of partners (I find these two are more driven from leadership teams asking the partner teams to make metric driven justifications)

I think the more important ones to consider are 1. what is your partner experience without one? are your partners happy? are they getting what they need? 2. what is your experience without one? what are you spending your time on and what could you automate?
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:15:08 PM
@here how else is everyone using slack as part of of their toolset? I know partner-specific channels has been a popular method. Curious to hear what else!
Jamie Tharp
August 01, 2019 01:16:13 PM
Currently using Slack for a few top partners: their main contacts + our main contacts
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:29:22 PM
@Jamie Tharp what are the main things you discuss in the channel? do you also have set schedules for calls etc with your top partners?
Robert Rand
August 01, 2019 01:36:06 PM
We're doing the same at JetRails. On a case-by-case basis we've begun giving some high-volume partners private Slack channels for support. It's something that we're careful about though, because it's important that we keep a lot of support information tracked in our ticket system for future reference, and for transparency with end-users of our services.
Robert Rand
August 01, 2019 01:36:44 PM
At nChannel, I was using private Slack channels them more for sales enablement to help quickly field sales questions with minimal friction.
Robert Rand
August 01, 2019 01:39:39 PM
It can be excellent as a supplemental (and sometimes primary) communication channel, but I've never found it to replace phone meetings and face-to-face check-ins, especially for top-tier partners where you need to keep relationships strong. It might cut down on the frequency of calls, but in my use cases, it's not a replacement for more personal communications.
Jamie Tharp
August 01, 2019 01:16:43 PM
Have not created a Slack channel for "All Justuno Partners" bc it could easily become a support nightmatre
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:20:19 PM
@Jamie Tharp do you use slack to track any partner activity e.g. new lead submitted?
Jamie Tharp
August 01, 2019 01:29:48 PM
No not really--haven't not found a scalable way to do this
Jamie Tharp
August 01, 2019 01:30:08 PM
just for quick conversations but not for mission critical or tracking critical data
Bryn Jones
August 01, 2019 01:22:40 PM
What part of running your partner program would you like to automate if you could?
Kasey Bayne
August 01, 2019 01:29:35 PM
Payments! Tracking and paying
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 01:28:19 PM
@here reposting the hidden message from @Bryn Jones "what is your tech stack not doing that you'd like it to do?"
Jenna E
August 01, 2019 02:06:44 PM
Thanks everyone who has contributed so far! Feel free to keep the questions coming simple_smile
Kasey Bayne
August 01, 2019 08:44:46 PM
Thanks again for hosting, @Jenna E!
Jake Wallace
August 01, 2019 03:25:12 PM
@everyone Just a friendly reminder, if you can go in and fill in your Slack profile that would be awesome. That way people can _always_ learn about what you do or who you work for. You never know, a partnership could hatch as a result. simple_smile
Joseph Fung
August 01, 2019 07:06:07 PM
Can I suggest adding a few more fields to let people add things like URL, LinkedIN, and Partnership Program URL? The fields are pretty minimal right now simple_smile
Jake Wallace
August 01, 2019 03:25:22 PM
Who has their profile already filled out?
Alli Holt
August 01, 2019 03:47:57 PM
Thank you for the reminder - just filled mine out! simple_smile
Susan LePlae Miller
August 01, 2019 05:31:45 PM
Thanks for the reminder - I just did a quick update
Alex Glenn
August 01, 2019 04:46:24 PM
Reading through this - great stuff @Jenna E raised_hands