One Year at Gold — And Platinum Is Getting Closer

 A year ago, I hit Gold Solutions Partner status with HubSpot.

Here’s what the last twelve months actually looked like.

There’s a funny thing that happens when you hit a milestone,  you spend about five minutes celebrating and then immediately start looking at what’s next.

That’s pretty much how it went when I made Gold Partner status a year ago.

I allowed myself a small celebration (okay, maybe more than five minutes), and then I got back to what I do: building out HubSpot portals that actually work, cleaning up the messes other implementations left behind, and helping business owners get real value out of a platform they’ve been paying for and not fully using.

A year later, I’m still doing exactly that. And I’m a lot closer to Platinum than I was when I started.

What’s Changed (and What Hasn’t)

Earning Gold isn’t a one-time event. Maintaining it — and growing toward the next tier — means continuing to bring in new clients, deliver results, and log the kind of work that HubSpot counts toward partner status. It’s a moving target.

What I’ve learned over the past year is that the badge matters less than the work it represents.

I’ve done some genuinely interesting projects over the last twelve months — including a B2B SaaS company that came to me with broken reporting, over 500,000 duplicate contacts, and a sales team still forecasting out of Excel. We rebuilt their entire pipeline architecture, consolidated their data, and gave leadership dashboards they could actually trust. That’s the kind of work that earns certifications and tier advancement, but more importantly, it’s the kind of work that changes how a company operates.

That’s what Platinum looks like to me: not a bigger badge, but more engagements like that one.

The Honest Part

If you’ve read my post on what the HubSpot partner badge actually means, you already know I don’t think the certification alone proves expertise. Any agency or consultant can chase tier points. The difference shows up in the work.

Over the past year, I’ve had clients come to me after working with other “certified” partners who left them with automations nobody documented, pipelines nobody could explain, and portals that technically functioned but didn’t serve the business. Fixing those situations is some of the most important (and satisfying) work I do.

Gold status means I’m doing enough of the right work, consistently. Platinum means I’ll be doing more of it.

What’s Next

The gap between Gold and Platinum isn’t just about volume — it’s about the scope and quality of what I’m bringing to each engagement. I’m building out the Fractional HubSpot Admin model specifically because there are a lot of businesses that need ongoing, expert-level support without the overhead of a full agency retainer.

So year two of Gold isn’t just about hitting the next milestone. It’s about building the kind of practice that makes Platinum the natural result of doing the work well.

To everyone who’s hired me, referred me, or just shown up here to read these posts over the past year — thank you. You’re a big part of why this is happening.

Now let’s get to Platinum.

Teajai Kimsey is a HubSpot Solutions Partner and Upwork Top Rated Plus consultant serving small and mid-size B2B companies. She works directly with clients — no handoffs, no junior staff. View the HubSpot Work Portfolio, contact Teajai.