Inviting B2B SaaS Partners/Freelancers?

StephanieRoodhouse
StephanieRoodhouse Vanilla Bean
in Talk Community #1

Hi Everyone,

For those of you who work for B2B SaaS companies, how are you approaching partners?

Given some can be selling both your and your competitors' solutions, do you have a separate Community for them? Or are you inviting them in to your customer community?

We are also thinking of offering a community experience for our freelancers. But they are different from our customers. Do any of you have a similar scenario and how are you approaching this?

@Esther @Amanda Petersendo you have any thoughts on this? ; )

Thanks,

Stephanie

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Comments

  • Adrian
    Adrian HLV Staff Alumni
    #2

    Hey @StephanieRoodhouse - great question. Normally I have seen separate spaces for partners and customers. We actually do that here on our success community. Both have different needs. You can have both together, especially at the beginning as long as you have clear guidelines about promotion and solicitation. I will also include this conversation in our newsletter to customers coming out later this month, to see what others think!

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Vanilla Sprout
    #3

    @StephanieRoodhouse, I tend to want to keep them in a separate space. We haven't approached bringing partners in officially yet, because our community is still so young. If you keep them in the space, it may be wise to use permissions to limit what they can do. Example, I could see letting them read but not reply.

    Alternatively, I could see creating strong guidelines so they could participate. Because if they (or you) are looking for conversions and sales, it will kill that community spirit we are focused on.

    Have you had partners approach you about wanting to be in the community? If not, why are you thinking you want to bring them in?

  • StephanieRoodhouse
    StephanieRoodhouse Vanilla Bean
    #4

    Thanks @Adrian and @Amanda Petersen , I appreciate your feedback.

    We definitely don't want partners selling, but do want to foster a larger ecosystem to foster a richer idea exchange that everyone can benefit from.

    Have a great weekend.

    PS, missed you on this week's CommuniTEA, Amanda, see you another time ;)

  • Esther99
    Esther99 Vanilla Flower
    #5

    Hi Stephanie!

    I kind of felt invited to reply to you when seeing the at-mention for Esther even though you might have wanted to reach out to someone else 🙌

    But as we evaluated the option to have a separate space within the Community for partners to ask questions that go beyond the information they can grab from the Knowledge Base, I thought I can jump in.

    However - two important steps are important to consider:

    1. Bulletproof onboarding of the partners that they do not accidentally ask questions in public
    2. 100% Buy-In from the Channel Teams to support the partners in the community.

    If both points are given, I think having a space in the community is a great approach to support them (better).

    👉Also, I think the upcoming feature for advanced notifications and/or Zaps are helpful to not force the Channel Teams to screen the Community manually daily.

    However, we do not have a dedicated area for them as of now, but once we get partner questions we guide them gently to the Channel teams to 1:1 support/conversations. But I am open to get partners on the community too-

    Have a lovely start into your week,

    Esther

  • StephanieRoodhouse
    StephanieRoodhouse Vanilla Bean
    #6

    Oops sorry about that @Esther99!

    My lucky day that I added you though since your response was super helpful, thank you.😎

    @Esther I meant to send this your way. ;)

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