Not trying to be a total “Captain Obvious” here, but one of the reasons why agencies find SharpSpring’s business model so attractive is our commitment to helping them grow. Our entire business is built around agencies, so we’re in the same boat, connected at the hip, two peas in a pod. You get it.

While we’ve always supported our agency partners’ sell-through initiatives with content, rebrandable resources, advice on best practices and joint sales calls, we can do more. Beginning in January 2017, we’re planning to significantly throttle forward these partner enablement efforts. If you’re a SharpSpring partner, we hope you’ll feel and appreciate the coming acceleration. If you’re a prospective agency partner, we hope you’ll see how our interests are fully aligned with yours.

First, we’re adding a head of partner enablement to our marketing team.

This “roll-up-your-sleeves” manager will collect stories about how different agencies are selling, pricing and adding value to their clients’ top and bottom lines through SharpSpring’s marketing automation. From the very best of these stories, she will develop content, programs, events and other resources to help agency partners become even more proficient at growing revenues and adding clients. There are tons of impressive stories floating among our more than 1,100 agency partners, so I expect there to be tons of great advice to share. Her job is to help you optimize the value you’re able to generate with SharpSpring.

Second, to carry out this exciting partner initiative, we’ll need insights from our existing partners on two levels.

A. Stories, facts, lessons:

Send me an email, draw something on the back of a napkin, launch a message in a bottle – just tell me a story about your business. I don’t need formal case studies, just the facts, lessons, approaches, strategies, tactics, etc. Our intention is to codify these learnings and map out best practices and insights, which will allow us to help agencies like yours market more effectively and sell SharpSpring to clients. Let us know if we should anonymize the information or whether we can attach your agency’s name to it.

Here are some triggers to prompt the types of insights we’re seeking:

  • How are you pitching your marketing automation services to current clients and your prospective clients?
  • What is your pricing model or range?
  • What is your average lift in per-client revenue after leveraging SharpSpring?
  • How many clients did you add to the platform in 2016?
  • What do you project in terms of revenue growth for 2017?
  • What elements of the platform are you leveraging most effectively to prove your ROI to clients?
  • What is your #1 marketing automation success story?
  • What is your #1 marketing automation mistake?
  • If you could magically snap your fingers and have SharpSpring do something that would earn you a bazillion in new business wins, what would it be?

B. Programs:

As specifically as possible, let me know what you would like from our partner enablement efforts. I have heard from some partners that webinars are great and from others that in-person workshops would be a better medium. How about quarterly workshops on a cruise ship out of Jacksonville, Fla? SharpSpring Break anyone? That’s just one idea. We’re open to everything and anything, and we’re eager to hear your thoughts. To that end, we created this simple survey which will only take you a few minutes to complete. Please, do it while it’s fresh in your mind. It’s for our mutual benefit.

Drop me a line anytime…

Finally, I want to reiterate that my door (and my phone line) is always open. Always. I love talking to current and prospective partners to brainstorm l ideas about helping agencies grow. We at SharpSpring are open-minded when it comes to testing out new concepts, and we double down when something is proven and repeatable. Share. Share often. Share a lot. Add me to your speed dial. JK.

But seriously, let’s commit to working very closely together in 2017 and beyond. Same boat, same mission, same goals.

Onward.

AUTHOR
Andrew Dod
AUTHOR
Lindsey Sherman