Impact.com, a leader in the partnership economy, launched the Partnership Experience Academy (PXA) in 2021 to provide free online courses and certifications. To ensure its success, they partnered with SaaS Academy Advisors (SAA) from its inception. SAA played a pivotal role in providing strategic guidance, organization, prioritization, and an external perspective. With their expertise, PXA evolved from a bet into a robust, standardized program serving over 25,000 learners, including industry professionals, customers, agency partners, and employees.
Impact.com's goal was to establish a cost-effective and easily scalable learning program, a center of excellence that could benefit ALL members of the Impact.com ecosystem. This program would help them drive value through partnership marketing for their respective organizations.
Impact.com leadership envisioned PXA as the center of excellence for partnership education. PXA aimed to set a standard accreditation for all partnerships-focused employees at Impact.com and for brands, agencies, and publishers throughout their ecosystem. Initially conceived as a product enablement tool for clients, the vision expanded to encompass industry-wide knowledge, adding significant value and serving as a lead generation source akin to HubSpot Academy.
Today, PXA is making a significant impact on careers and partnerships and has become known for delivering value. No longer needing to justify its existence, PXA’s efforts are increasingly ingrained into every facet of the organization.
As PXA began shaping its vision, it became clear that expert guidance was necessary to help build a long-lasting educational program. SAA was chosen for their unique blend of strategic leadership insights and educational expertise, ensuring that PXA's initiatives would align with the broader organizational goals and have a sustainable impact.
Additionally, the decision to partner with SAA, rather than expanding the in-house team, was influenced by the need for an impartial and external perspective. SAA’s ability to provide objective viewpoints helps maintain clarity and focus within PXA, facilitating fact-based decision-making free from the internal biases that often complicate day-to-day operations.
"Hiring a completely separate company to advise us, rather than bringing in another in-house employee, makes so much more sense. Chris offers an impartial perspective that I can't always achieve because I'm deeply involved in the day-to-day operations. When frustrations arise, Chris helps me refocus on the facts with an objective viewpoint. That level of unbiased insight is invaluable, and I wouldn't have it any other way." ~ Samantha Parsons, PXA Director
What truly brought together PXA and SAA was their shared commitment to high-level missions and goals that promote big-picture thinking. This collaborative spirit goes beyond a mere business relationship, uniting PXA and SAA as peers with a common vision.
PXA’s goal has shifted from establishing a cost-effective and easily scalable learning program to surpassing the creation of customer training and aligning with SAA beliefs. The emphasis is on providing education not only for customers but for everyone. This concept of an 'ecosystem' education program means that PXA aims to provide knowledge and skills that benefit all stakeholders in the partnership economy, not just its direct customers.
“Our goal was always beyond the part of being just an education team to the place of being a center of excellence that's an incubator for adding value to customers.” ~ Chris LoDolce, SaaS Academy Advisor
PXA and SAA collaborated to drive the vision of building an ecosystem of learning, rather than relying on a single robust library or a well-known course. PXA aims to be recognized as a comprehensive educational hub, offering knowledge beyond product education to include broader topics. The goal is to provide a transformational experience for anyone interested in these subjects.
The relationship between SAA and PXA has evolved from seeking advice on how to design and launch a program from someone they trust and being more in a listening mode to a client's transformational shift once the program started. Now, as a mature program, PXA is taking more initiative on its own and seeking advice for its new initiatives.
Samantha Parsons joined as the director in 2021, bringing valuable experience from running an agency and offering fresh perspectives as she embraced the CX space demonstrating that success in building a SaaS academy program can come from diverse experiences.
PXA idea was broad and ambitious, yet it needed to start quickly. Leadership had already invested in the concept, with the goal of establishing a robust educational product as the core value. From the outset, SAA provided crucial guidance and support in setting up the academy, working closely with Samantha to build and scale her team while helping to establish the foundational people, processes, and technology needed for growth.
The rapid scaling of PXA was made possible due to SAA’s experience and insights, particularly their expertise in growing and scaling HubSpot Academy. SAA shared lessons learned from their own journey, enabling Impact.com to accelerate its growth trajectory significantly.
“It took us probably twice as long to scale to this phase with HubSpot Academy. But the reason why we've worked with Impact.com is that we've been able to give all the lessons learned, allowing them to scale much faster.” ~ Lindsay Thibeault, SaaS Academy Advisor
SaaS Academy Advisors use a matrix of core functions in their Academy Operating System, which has been instrumental in guiding PXA’s team through each growth stage of their development.
Over the years, SAA has consistently provided long-lasting value to PXA through its strategic perspective and vision that extends beyond mere educational tactics. Their guidance through prioritization and narrative framing has been instrumental in steering the program toward success, instilling confidence in its future.
SAA played a crucial role in helping the PXA team effectively communicate the value of their educational program through QBR decks. By encouraging the team to think beyond their immediate scope, SAA guided them in crafting a narrative that tied their efforts to the broader goals of the organization, making a stronger impact.
"You were really instrumental in helping us tell that story through our QBR decks. You always challenge us to think beyond our team and consider what will make the biggest impact on the organization, helping us tie that into the QBR story."~ Samantha Parsons, PXA Director
SAA’s commitment to fostering strategic thinking extends beyond advising management to include junior team members, who benefit immensely from their expertise. New and junior team members frequently consult with SAA for direct insights and guidance, especially in areas beyond the team’s immediate expertise, such as video editing. SAA effectively bridges these knowledge gaps, providing both strategic vision and practical advice to ensure successful project implementations.
“The value that Chris and the team bring to our junior members is immense. This support is a significant benefit as it ensures continuity and helps us develop strategic thinkers and future leaders, a growth that wouldn't be possible without SaaS Academy Advisors.” ~ Samantha Parsons, PXA Director
The graphic below highlights PXA's key achievements since inception, showcasing the growth of their learning community, audience expansion, enhancement of their content library, and diversification of course offerings.
See for yourself! Create a free PXA account and check out their course library.
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