Meeting Your Match: How to Choose a HubSpot Co-Seller

Reps who connect with a co-seller stand to outperform their counterparts, but not all partners are created equally.

Why risk picking a dud?

These are the ground rules for choosing the perfect HubSpot partner, so you align with an agency that accelerates your sales, instead of slowing you down.

The Perks of a Partner

Lone wolves, listen up.

Flying solo for your sales is fine, but we all know that prospects get hung up on what comes next. Once the deal is done and it’s time to onboard and implement, who will they turn to?

You can answer that apprehension easily if you have a trusted agency partner on your side. Linking up with a co-seller is a tried and true way to watch your sales stats soar.

How do you choose the right co-seller when there’s a whole roster of HubSpot Partners? The right fit for you is out there, but not every partner will make a winning match.

And the wrong choice can cost you your reputation and repeat customers.

Don’t risk it. Critically vet a potential partner based on what they bring to the table.

What to Look for in a HubSpot Partner

Look at their sales enablement resources.

The right partner will make your sales smoother, which, in turn, funnels more deals to your partner. It’s a symbiotic relationship. And since you know what you bring to the table as a sales rep, you should be asking “what’s it in for me?” early on. 

Look for free sales enablement resources like videos, downloadable guides, and blogs that provide much-needed demonstrations and explanations for you. Whether you use them to brush up on your HubSpot knowledge or pass them on to your prospects, a wealth of enablement tools will strengthen your sales pitch.

They can demonstrate how to implement a process that is important to your prospect, show a feature in action, or give them ideas about what’s achievable if  they move forward with their HubSpot purchase. And all you have to do is forward the resource to your clients, instead of creating your own screen captures or how-to guides.

In short, a reliable bank of sales enablement resources saves you time while enriching your pitch. Everybody wins!

Plus, resources from your potential partner give you a glimpse into their level of expertise. Handing off your freshly-closed sales to a team of total neophytes who know nothing about HubSpot is bound to come back and bite you.

Any partner you choose needs to demonstrate their knowledge before you commit.

Things to keep in mind as you search:

• What resources does this partner have for me?
• Are the resources reliable and factual?
• Do these sales enablement resources meet my quality standards?
• Would this information be useful for my prospects?

Check out their clients.

You wouldn’t take your clothes to a mechanic or your car to the tailor, would you? The same is true for HubSpot builds. Trusting an enterprise B2B specialist to delight your nonprofit clients could be a recipe for disaster.

Meanwhile, a partner who specializes in helping charitable organizations make the most of HubSpot may not have the know-how to help a rapidly scaling software-as-a-service company. You get the picture: Your clients need experts who understand their industry and the nuance of their use case. 

Browse your potential partner’s site for case studies that put their success stories in the spotlight. Try to find a few of their clients whose initial needs match the pain points your prospects are reporting. You may need to dig a little deeper if you come up empty-handed. Scour the partner’s socials to see who they mention working with, or go the old-fashioned direction: just ask.

Any partner who wants to work with you is bound to bend over backwards to prove they know their stuff in your sector. They may even have a list of industry-specific examples of their work lying around for you to take a look at.

Questions to ask a potential co-seller:

• What kind of clients do they work with?
• Do they have experience migrating from your client’s current CRM?
• What integrations are they used to?
• Are they comfortable creating custom solutions?
• Can they prove their expertise in your prospect’s industry?
• How do they compare to other industry/sector competitors in customer satisfaction?

Consider their reviews.

Who cares if your potential partner has previously gotten their hands in a million industry-aligned projects? Knowing the ropes in a certain sector simply isn’t enough. It only matters if they’ve done an awesome job keeping those customers happy.

And the best place to find the truth is to read their reviews.

A potential co-seller’s website is a good place to start your search for testimonials, but you’ll need to look elsewhere too. While their website may be overflowing with happy customers, they could have suppressed the less positive ones left by others. Yelp, Glassdoor, and Google can give you a clearer peek behind the curtain to see what’s really going on. 

We’re also not going to be satisfied with the standard atta-boys here. You have high standards!

Look for a partner agency that gets high praise for what matters most to you and your prospects like fast response times, great training, and creative solutions.

Take into account their HubSpot Partner level, too - it can tell you a lot about how consistently a co-seller works with HubSpot clients and the level of expertise they have to offer.

What to look for when you review their reviews:

• Can they prove consistent customer satisfaction? 
• What are the traits, services, or experiences you see called out in multiple positive reviews?
• What are the traits, services, or experiences you see called out in negative reviews if any?
• Based on their reviews, what can we glean about the partner’s most popular and successful services?

See what services they offer. 

Alright, you’ve found a co-seller who understands the industries you serve and keeps their customers coming back for more excellent service. But do they offer the services your clients need? Can you count on them to enact the HubSpot potential your prospects bought into?

Obviously, you need to get a resounding yes in this category for any co-seller to seal the deal. 

Return to their website to investigate the services they are advertising. Checking their social media can show you which offerings they promote the most, too. Try to identify the important packages that your prospects often need like HubSpot training, management, or optimization. 

How to spot services worth partnering for:

• Do they offer services, packages, or solutions that match your prospect’s reported pain points?
• Are their services affordable for your clients?
• Do they offer customizable packages and solutions to match your prospect’s needs?
• Can their offerings accommodate HubSpot users at various stages of growth from initial onboarding, to implementation and ongoing management?

We Lead by Example at Digital Reach

Picking the right partner sets you up for success. The wrong partner can derail your sales by being unresponsive or uncooperative. Who you choose makes all the difference.

We know what a good partner looks like because we’re Diamond HubSpot Partners ourselves.

Our teams specialize in helping HubSpot reps maximize the platform's value by proving to their prospects that HubSpot has it all.

We'll be waiting for you when you’re ready for a partner who sets the standard and ticks all the boxes.✅