Managing partner leads and partnerships in Hubspot
SOLVE
Hi!
Does anyone have any examples of how to manage partnerships and partner generated leads in Hubspot? We are struggling with this a lot.
The lack of lookup fields makes it impossible to related incoming partner leads (Contacts) to the partner (Company) who has given us these leads.
Our current solution is something like this:
- We are using a Hubspot form that partners fill with the lead's details to collect the leads.
- We have a Channel Partner property on the Contact as well as Deal objects. It's a dropdown list of all our partners but we have to manually update both properties whenever there's a new partner (as opposed to just creating a new Company record for the partner). We use this property to indicate on the Contact/Deal object whom of our partners has given us the lead (that has potentially ended up as a deal).
- On the Company object we have a property called Channel Partner too which is just a checkbox, indicating if that Company is a partner or not.
- Paying commissions to partners based on their leads is a cumbersome manual process, involving data sheets. This is something we'd like to solve too.
The way we have solved this for other customers who have partner and channel programs:
1. For each partner we setup a HubSpot Free CRM account which includes 1 deal pipeline.
2. We deploy a script that keeps the main HubSpot account in sync with the HubSpot Free accounts.
This way leads can be shared with partners and your channel managers can keep track on the status of the lead, what deal stage it is, they can share notes between each other, and work the deal together. If the deal moves to won, then commission can be calculated using a calculated field and a deal stage can be used for when it is paid.
Managing partner leads and partnerships in Hubspot
SOLVE
Yes - so the first deal stage is "new lead", and then move onto something like "lead contacted/qualified", and then into the usual deal stages you already have.
We created an administrative interface for the customer we have done this for, so that every time they have a new reseller, they enter the HubID of the new portal and it automatically connects the free portal and sets up the deal stages.
They have found this easy, and the partner account managers have found this useful as they can have their regular status meetings with their customers and can easily visualise deals they are co-selling on.
Wanted to provide an updated answer on this as HubSpot has now released their object "Leads" (which we integrate already with).
We're helping companies to collaborate with their B2B partners in shared spaces based on HubSpot CRM data meaning you could display and collaborate on 2 things:
Create Leads (after form submission)
Deals (whenever the company turns into a deal)
You can easily share this link with a simple URL with your partners (we're doing 2-way verification their e-mail to keep it secure).
Here's an example of a shared pipeline (the same can be done for leads, contacts, companies, custom objects,...)
If you have Sales Enterprise, you can create Partners as a Custom Object. You can associate custom objects with multiple companies, contacts, and deals, so you can link Partner records with the Company records of the customers those partners have registered or brought to you as leads, associate your Partner records with multiple Contact records, and associate the Partner record with any Deal records the partner has brought you.
We are working with Integrate IQ for the development and implementation of our Custom Objects.
Managing partner leads and partnerships in Hubspot
SOLVE
This sounds useful. Couple of questions: - What does 'Integrate IQ for the development' mean.. Does this relate to building an interface for the creation of these objects, as opposed to using the API?
- If a partner object was created, would removing the 'partner' tags from normal companies be recommended to avoid confusion
Managing partner leads and partnerships in Hubspot
SOLVE
@Hixster - I apologize for the delay in my response. I must have missed the email in my inbox when you replied. To answer your questions:
Integrate IQ is a HubSpot partner, and they develop solutions for customers using HubSpot's API and/or custom code.
Yes, for our engagement creating a custom object for channel partners, we have decided (per recommendation from Integrate IQ) to distinguish our channel partners:
Channel partners associated with a Deal record (as the channel partner for that deal), will have a Channel Partner record created with our new custom object feature where the channel partner's information will be stored as it relates to operating as a channel partner for our organization.
If the channel partner is ALSO a customer of our company, there will be a secondary record under Companies where the channel partner's information will be stored as it relates to being a customer of our organization.
If you were to move in that direction, Integrate IQ can help you with what kind of data you'll need to provide them for the engagement. It is quite a bit of work up-front, but once the system is in place, it should be worth it to be able to report on channel partners just like you would contacts, companies, or deals.
Managing partner leads and partnerships in Hubspot
SOLVE
Yes - so the first deal stage is "new lead", and then move onto something like "lead contacted/qualified", and then into the usual deal stages you already have.
We created an administrative interface for the customer we have done this for, so that every time they have a new reseller, they enter the HubID of the new portal and it automatically connects the free portal and sets up the deal stages.
They have found this easy, and the partner account managers have found this useful as they can have their regular status meetings with their customers and can easily visualise deals they are co-selling on.
The way we have solved this for other customers who have partner and channel programs:
1. For each partner we setup a HubSpot Free CRM account which includes 1 deal pipeline.
2. We deploy a script that keeps the main HubSpot account in sync with the HubSpot Free accounts.
This way leads can be shared with partners and your channel managers can keep track on the status of the lead, what deal stage it is, they can share notes between each other, and work the deal together. If the deal moves to won, then commission can be calculated using a calculated field and a deal stage can be used for when it is paid.
Thanks for sharing how you have solved this for other customers! Really helpful and interesting!
So in essence you use the Partner Deal Pipeline(s) to manage both Leads and Deals? E.g. a partner gives us a Lead by creating a Deal record for them which is then in the Deal Pipeline and this Lead progresses to an actual Deal the same pipeline is still used and the record just moved forward in the (custom) stages?
Have your customers found this solution easy to maintain?