Every HubSpot partner has the same website. Certified, results-driven, a tier badge, four logos and a case study with a percentage in the headline. The pitch meetings are also the same, because everyone has read the same advice about pitch meetings.
Here is what we would actually ask, including the questions that would be uncomfortable pointed at us.
Seven questions
Who does the work, and are they in this meeting? The oldest problem in agencies. You meet the senior person, you are delivered by whoever is free. Ask for the name of the person who will be in your portal, ask how many other accounts they hold, and ask to speak to them before you sign.
Show me a portal you built. Ask for a screen share of a workflow and a dashboard they actually built, with the reasoning, rather than a case study. Thirty seconds of this tells you more than a deck. The ones who build will enjoy it. The ones who subcontract will suggest a follow-up call.
What did the tier badge require? HubSpot tiers reward sold software and managed revenue as much as craft. A Diamond partner might be brilliant, or might be a reseller with volume. The badge is not the answer to the question, so ask what it took.
What would you switch off? Ask what they would remove from your current setup. Anyone who only proposes additions is selling scope. Good operators are as interested in what to stop as what to start.
Tell me about one that went badly. Everyone has one. The answer you want is specific, takes some responsibility and explains what changed afterwards. "The client wasn't ready" is a bad answer. So is "we can't think of one."
What happens if we bring it in-house in a year? The right answer is that everything is documented, the admin seat is in your name, and handover is a meeting. If there is hesitation here, you are being asked to depend on them rather than to hire them.
What will you report, and how often? Get the actual metrics before you sign. If the answer is traffic and leads with no line to pipeline, you will have this argument in month six instead.
Signs worth noticing
They ask about sales before they ask about marketing. Anyone who wants to know your average deal size, cycle length and who signs off understands where marketing work actually gets judged.
They say no to something in the first meeting. A partner who agrees with every idea has not got a method.
They give you a number early. A range, before you have signed anything. Refusing to indicate cost until meeting three wastes everybody's time. Ours is on the pricing page.
They are specific about tiers. Plenty of the work we do assumes Marketing Hub Professional or above. A partner who does not raise licence tier before scoping will raise it later, as a surprise.
Two things that do not matter as much as you think
Sector experience. Useful, oversold. What matters is whether they have worked a sale of similar length and complexity. A six-month considered purchase is a six-month considered purchase.
Agency size. Small teams can be excellent and fragile. Large ones can be well resourced and junior. The question underneath is who does the work, which is where the list started.
The honest bit
We would fail some briefs on these questions. If you need a large team across many markets simultaneously, we are not that. If you want somebody to run campaigns while you keep the portal, that split works and it should be written down at the start.
What we are good at is the technical half plus the content, for complex B2B businesses with a considered sale, sitting alongside the PR practice when a client wants both. The FAQ is a reasonable test of whether that sounds like your brief.
