Allbound: Is It Inbound vs. Outbound Anymore? Do Even Labels Matter?

Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by siloed departments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Are you held captive by the evil menace Lord Lack, Lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt knowledge. Never fear, Hub Heroes. Get ready to don your cape and mask, move into action, and become the hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the League of Extraordinary Inbound Heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute Hub Heroes. It's time to unite and activate your powers. Before we begin, we need to disclose that Devin is currently employed by HubSpot at the time of this episode. Recording. This podcast is in no way affiliated with or produced by HubSpot, and the thoughts and opinions expressed by Devin during the show are that of his own and in no way represent those of his employer.

There's no reason for that. Like, I can't wait till he's back. And I think he will be coming back. I can. Yes. And I can play the intro fully, but for right now, there's just no reason. I know, dude. Devin. Yes. I was. I was talking to Liz about this the other day. I like, man, where is he? Like, come on. But, you know, it is what it is.

Hold on. Is this just one thing? Is one. One thing that I want to. That I want to witness at Inbound this year?

Oh.

Only thing that I have any vested interest in seeing happen is not products on this. Like, new products on the stage we didn't hear about. It's not, you know, seeing friends and all this stuff. It is watching the moment where Devin meets Ryan Reynolds.

Oh, do you think. Do you think he'll wear the Deadpool suit better?

Because if he doesn't, I don't know what he's thinking.

I would be shocked. Yeah, I.

That is just. Devin, if you're listening, I need to be there at that moment just to see what you do.

I'm in. I'm envisioning like, like a. Like, you know how girls, like young girls are like a Bieber fan. Or like. Or like, like back in the day, it was New Kids on the Block.

Or.

Or like, I'm just. I mean, I was New kid. Yeah. Yeah. I'm envisioning like. Or like a Swifty. Like, I'm envisioning Devin, like, me not even knowing kind of who he is.

He's a pulley.

The first couple minutes of like, ah.

Like that Glover. It. Like, Like Donald Glover when he Was Troy in community and he meets Lavar Burton for the first time and he just stops.

That's what I think. I think it's going to be silent.

It is.

It's going to be a statue, a Devon statue in the middle of inbound.

Like, oh yeah, nature will be healing, folks. Nature will be healing. But we, we have a different, we have a, we have a different conversation we need to have today. And I'm so excited because, George, when we, when we said the word of what we were going to be talking about today, you're like, yes, I like this. Max went, I don't like this word. Not necessarily what it represents, but we are going to have a little bit of a semantic argument. And Max likes. We don't need to get into them. Yes, we do. Yes we do. Because ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about the marriage of inbound and outbound today. Yeah, that's what we're talking about. And this is a topic we've not necessarily danced around in that we've been avoiding. Avoiding it. It's more that, you know, we've had, we've had guests on who represent more outbound opportunities. Right. We've talked about direct mail, we talked about SMS texting. We even George, you and I with our clients, we talk about the marriage of using paid advertising strategies to amplify inbound strategies, bringing those things together. And then when you and I had our conversation a few weeks ago with Kyle Jepsen talking about how HubSpot had changed, how inbound is evolving, he brought up a term that I love, a good branding term. I don't like things like smarketing, but he said the word all bound and I went, huh? And there's Max's feeling. Max, Max, before we get into the conversation around the blending of inbound and outbound, could you, could you put, could you put some words to those sides?

Like let's what, you want me to define them? I have no friggin idea how to define them. I mean this is like one of those things where it's like, I remember we had that person on to come around and explain, you know, what account based marketing was. And I don't know if like we were all thinking the same thing, but I was sitting there just being like, this guy just explained inbound. Like it wasn't even like avm, you know what I mean? And like we talked about it, we had a conversation around it. But like, I don't know, the all bound thing. Like if all bound is just doing in. I mean I don't. I don't know how people are defining it, but if the answer is it's doing inbound and outbound at the same time, I'm kind of sitting here just wondering, like, hey, when we were like, getting all these people into the idea of, like, doing inbound, it's not like they stopped doing outbound. So, like, is this really a new concept? You know what I mean? And I feel like it's just another one of those things to just be another marketing buzzword to fuel, like, the next generation of, like, AI assisted, you know, know, scraping and stuff like that. That it's just like, I don't know, it's kind of freaking me out a little bit, but I also don't know what it means, but I just hate, like, what did. Has everyone already forgotten about Near Bound that we were talking about, like, not too long ago with the whole partner le motion? Exactly.

I am today years old hearing about that.

Was here, right? Especially when Reveal was talking about. There was this whole nearbound thing. And then I heard Matt Bullion over at super, who I love talking about, like, surround bound and like, all this. I'm like, dude, how many bounds do we freaking need, dude? And it's just like, so there's too many. And I'm just like, stop calling things. It's the new putting.ly or.IO at the end of your, like, business's name, like, what's name? I'm gonna say there's no dot. Right? But we're not. We're. We're no better. Right? But like, I don't know. Just maybe I don't know what all. But so.

So here's the thing. Like, first of all, I think we're gonna have that conversation of kind of what it is or at least when. When I hear the word and when Kyle says where my brain goes, because I want to step back for a second, I want to talk about humans. And usually us humans are good at one thing and not necessarily good at another. And what I mean by that, Max, is most humans, if you stop and think about it for a second, we're really good at living in the land of or. We're going to do this, we're going to do that. And I will tell you that I can remember when people started talking about content marketing. Then inbound marketing showed up. You would see articles about how print design is dead and it's dying and people quit placing ads in magazines and you can drive down the road. And because of what happened with inbound There are a plethora of wooden large boards that have nothing on him down the freeway because people did. Or we're going to do inbound because we're not going to do what. What we thought we were doing no longer works. This is the new way. And again, humans live in the or what. What I think we're talking about today is that business has, especially in today's environment. It's. There's no other word. It's freaking challenging. Like things are always changing. Humans are changing. Like it's just crazy. And so I think what we're almost saying at a fundamental level is have we have reached a point? Not have we but we have reached a point where like it's less about or. And it's more about. And but, but when we're talking about the inbound and outbound, it's inbound and outbound with modern buyer human human centric servant based strategies that can be measured in ways that historical air quotes. Outbound people weren't doing. So like it's this and this with 2x3x amplifiers on the thing that we left behind long ago.

So here's what I want to jump in here for a moment so I know we're getting caught up in the semantics of it here. And Max, I do hear what you're saying. It's like every what, two to.

There's a new bound.

Some marketers. Yeah, somebody's.

Somebody's running my turn out of a.

Yeah, somebody's running out of a. Of a meeting going, I've got it guys, I've got it. I spent a bunch of time with whiteboard and a marker and I figured it out and they have a new name for something of something that we're already do it.

Are you making fun of me right now?

No, you just, you just like take a nap and found Whiteboard. Like I have to watch. I can't, I can't leave you alone for too long or I'll start getting things like hey look, I wrote a whole book while you were asleep.

What There might be a fourth company on the way, by the way. But anyway.

Okay, what's the third?

No. Well, we've got George B. Thomas llc, we've got Sidekick Strategies, and we've got beyond your default. We literally already have three companies. But there might be.

And then George's Wacky All Bound Emporium, it's going to be a new one.

Yes, that's Wacky waving inflatable tube men.

Hang on, let me, let me, let me check the. Let me Check the domain if that's available.

George's. George's Wacky Wild allbound Emporium.

I'm. I'm going to trademark that can.

He set up a booth in club inbound with wacky waving inflatable.

See if someone's already bought. All boundly, please. I guarantee. No, no. You know what? I'm checking it. Let's do it. Yeah, I'm looking it up.

All bound, guys.

All bound. Delete if it's available.

There's a party happening. Like, we're gonna be reached.

Let's see. Let's go to.

I'm going to go, daddy. Let's see what they got. What do we have?

Real time domain searching. That's what you signed on for, ladies and gentlemen. We're. We're literally.

Remember that time I was driving. Remember that time I was driving the car?

Oh, my God.

It's unavailable.

It's unavailable. Somebody bought it.

I. Oh, my.

Hate everything, dude.

I. I might slightly be getting sick to myself.

This is like, so, like. Oh, God. And you know, they've probably gotten like 7. 7 offers for like a million dollars for that domain. I literally hate everything. Yeah. Oh, wow. IO's available according to Chad. That's wild. That's gonna be gone in two seconds. Chad. Buy it. Make a bag.

Dude, let me go. Buy right back, guys.

Oh, my God.

Okay.

All right, well, Chad, grab that domain. I'll pay you back in sandwiches.

I'll pay you back $7,000.

Pickle and peanut butter sandwiches, whatever that sandwich is at.

Inbound. Yes. Yeah. Let's go, brother. So excited to know why we're here. We should. We should. Who's driving this car, dude? Liz, I don't know.

The captain now.

What are you talking about? I don't.

I don't even think we're in a car right now.

No. Well, let's get away from the semantics of it for a second because I think you bring up a really good point, Max. Like, we have this kind of, like, nomenclature. Like, do we like the name? Do we not like the name? It doesn't really matter. Let's step away from the name for a moment and talk about the principles behind it. Because we started in the inbound ecosystem of, like, outbound's bad. Don't do it anymore. The only way is inbound. You have to earn everything. And we're starting to see this creep back toward the center, this starting to creep back toward moderation. So, George, I actually want to start with you for a moment. Has your position evolved with the Idea of inbound versus outbound or inbound and outbound. Like, did you start as a purist and then bring outbound methodologies back into the fold, or have you always been a. An all boundly kind of guy?

No. God, no. Literally, when 2012, HubSpot inbound, I was like. And by the way, you have to remember, I come from like print design. Like, first, like, that's my mentor, Eric Jacobs, literally was like, we were design. And then in 2012, learning about HubSpot and inbound, I literally was a or guy Max. That's why I brought that up. Like, I'm like, oh, let's go do this thing. It's shiny and it's bright and it's inbound. And it makes sense because I hate freaking phone calls when I'm eating dinner. And I, I hate spam messages and direct. Like, yeah, let's hop on this train. And so literally, to the point if, and if you, if you've been in this space for a while, there didn't always used to be an ads tool, because ads wasn't inbound, ladies and gentlemen. Like, and then all of a sudden the ads tool showed up. No, no, no. There was many a year where ads was looked at by inbound purists of like, oh, that's kind of like a. I don't know, that's interruptive. Interruptive doesn't even matter.

Yeah.

And. And, and so, so like, I think about this and I, I literally was like an inbound purist. And then all of a sudden, ish started to change and like, some of the things that were just die hard tried and true inbound strategies, all sudden you start to hear people, which sometimes they were doing it for effect. XYZ is dead. And you're like, well, that's part of in.

Yeah, the best part. The best part was when you'd see inbound marketing is dead and go read my blog post and download my ebook to tell you why. And it's like, you're insane.

Like dude or dudette. You're like an idiot. You're literally using the channel to talk about the thing that's dead. Anyway, so.

No, my personal favorite. Hold on. My personal favorite is when everybody was going after SEO is dead. Here's why. But it was called SEO is dead because that's the term that people were searching for.

Yes.

So they were only getting all the traffic to the SEO is dead content by optimizing for SEO is dead. I just love it.

So here's the thing though, right? If I think about this. Then all of a sudden I started seeing things working with clients where all of a sudden there was these massive successes. Like one historical client, we went ahead and did a print ad in a magazine and we sat back and we had like a oh, God moment. I have another client right now that one of the best sources for lead generation billboards. I kid you not. And so all of these, like historical outbound tactics that people left to the wayside that all of a sudden got real quiet because there wasn't a lot of competition. Now the folks who that are, are, have embraced inbound, embrace the methodology philosophy of inbound, but also are starting to play or tease in these other non competitive areas that still have viewerships. Eyeballs can gain attention. Now all of a sudden there's becoming this understanding that there's actually probably a healthy mix of certain strategies on both sides that when combined, create potentially a more powerful strategy mix for a business than just inbound or just outbound. And therefore we get to coin a phrase that makes Max itch called All Bound.

Tell me more how you love that phrase, Max.

I don't love the phrase. I, I, I mean, so it might just to like, make sure, like I'm understanding how we're defining it is like, are we saying all bounded? Oh, my God, it's a huge spider. Oh, my God. I don't like that at all.

Oh, yes.

God, how am I gonna do this now? Oh, anyway, all right, so I mean, is the way that I'm under huge, huge spiders?

Are you just gonna be worried the whole time you're gonna sit here, try to dispense like inbound advice? You're worried you're about to get eaten alive?

I hate spiders so much. Dude. Holy crap. Okay, what was I saying before I saw that dog walk across my wall? I think like the, you were saying.

Like, how, how are we defining so.

Like, you know, if we kind of had to smooth brain this down just for me, like, is it.

Yeah.

Are we just saying, like, all right, all Bound is like you're doing inbound, plus you're not doing shitty outbound.

Well, here, here, here's the deal. Like inbound marketing.

Hold on. Because I feel like that's what I was telling everybody to do forever, even if they were doing inbound. So like me and sitting here, I'm.

Just like, wait, you might have been the creator. You might have been the creator of All Bound. You just didn't name it.

Founder.

Of.

I was just deploying common sense because when I would get customers that would have the marketing hub and say, cool, here's a great way to like, you know, get folks leads that actually want to talk to you. And they're like, you know, I don't think anyone ever said, should our salespeople stop doing what they're doing? And if they ever did say, I'd be like, no, this is just another way that they can get, you know, better leads back then, like, well, well.

First of all, we got to be careful because as much as I love the humans, sometimes when we use the word common sense.

Yeah.

It'S not so common sometimes because we, we're again, we're really good at getting blinders on and following the shiny object and having the squirrel moments. But, but Max, if I can step back for a second, like when I think about inbound marketing. Inbound marketing revolves around creating a mad, a magnetic force. Literally. If you remember back many, well, several inbounds on stage, they've had some type of magnetic or magnet in a, in a PowerPoint presentation that. And it's, it's to naturally draw customers to your brand. It's by offering helpful, relevant content. And it positions your business as a trusted advisor, guiding potential customers through their decision making process. We call it the buyer's journey. And this method is more about engaging with the customer on their terms in a way that feels natural and organic. Okay, so if we take that thinking and then we're just like, let's run over here real quick to outbound. Outbound marketing is the classic approach where businesses broadcast their message to a broad audience, hoping to capture the attention of potential customers. It's more aggressive strategy often associated with pushing products or services directly to consumers, whether they're actively looking for them or not. While it can be effective for brand awareness, immediate sales, it often lacks the personalized touch of inbound marketing. So here's where we get to the crux, because now we've like looked at inbound. We've looked at outbound. When we use the word, I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna start doing that for Max just to give him a little extra oof with it. But all bound marketing.

I wasn't on mute when I just screamed, did I? Because normally I try to keep myself on mute.

You are not muted. You're like, oh my.

That was violent. That was violent.

So all bound marketing is this comprehensive approach that recognizes the strengths of both inbound and outbound marketing, but redefines them through this. And this is, I think, the important part that I would want everybody to get it redefines them through a customer centric lens. And it's about using outbound tactics in a way that feels as personalized and valuable as we've been doing with inbound and making sure inbound efforts are as scalable and impactful as historical outbound ones could be. The all bound strategy ensures that every touch point with the customer is designed to add value, foster trust, and be measurable, creating a cohesive experience that aligns with the customer journey. This approach not only drives growth, but also builds lasting, meaningful relationships with your audience. That's how I would take and chunk these three out amongst each other.

I have a question. Even though I'm the one.

Yeah. Asking questions.

I have another question now. So. Okay, because I kind of. I see what Max is saying in that we're putting a fancy label on something that I think a lot of people also naturally, organically doing. But is this a situation where we spent what, almost a decade saying that inbound was not only the way, it was the only way, and we, we rejected everything else and now we're trying to kind of walk it back and be a little bit like, so, my bad.

Wow.

We don't want to get rid of everything. You can. We don't want to get rid of everything and, and now we're putting a nice label on it and pretending like we founded something new.

Wait, I mean, you could, you could. Well, first of all, we gotta be careful because while we might have been thinking this way, I can tell you that I've worked with hundred, if not hundreds of businesses that have not been thinking this way. But if I go into what you're kind of laughingly saying, Liz. Yes, we could, we could sum this up in.

Whoops.

One might say that, yes. Like that's, that's where it gets real. That's where this gets very interesting for me because. And what you just said there, right. I have not gone a single day, month, week, or year in the inbound space without having a client or having a conversation where a blended methodology was either recommended, considered appropriate, or there was pushback on the just totally pure inbound only forever and ever type of approach. Right. And so it's. It, it. I'm. I know this is kind of like a half baked idea that I'm getting at, but it's like, did we just take ourselves to all bound therapy and figure out as the practitioners of this that maybe we should have a more diverse toolbox?

I.

Well, yes, I do believe diversity in strategy, especially in the world that we live in right now, is At a, it's paramount because trust me, as somebody who is trying to do this and have happy humans inside, happy humans outside, and figure out all the ways to make it successful, I, I, I need more strategies. I need more ways to do.

Can you, can you read the tail end of that, like the last thing you were saying of how they were explaining, like the sales side of all Bound where it was like providing value at these touch points throughout the like, what was that last, like, sort of bit?

Well, so now that's interesting because you said sales and I never said sales. But, but I said.

Well, was it, wasn't there a bit of that definition that was talking about.

The sales side of it or the outbound sidebound? Outbound talked about the sales being more aggressive.

I guess I'm just thinking when I think outbound.

Yeah, yeah. Which, and that's the thing. We literally did a whole video. I'm trying to think if we released it yet. But the outbound marketing versus inbound marketing and how many.

And we have an article about it.

And how many people think what outbound marketing is actually outbound sales and outbound sales and outbound marketing are totally different. And I immediately, when we created the first video, I go, holy crap, we probably need to do a video that is outbound marketing versus outbound sales. I mean, because people just so, so for some reason lump it all in like it's the same thing. It's not. But to get back to your ending that you asked for, it's the very last sentence of it says this approach not only drives growth, but also builds lasting, meaningful relationships with your audience. But and there's a part about value and fostering trust and all the part.

Before that, I think it was like the part before that where it was like saying what you did by like valuable touch points, points or something like that.

Or so here. Allbound marketing is a comprehensive approach that recognizes the strengths of both inbound and outbound marketing, but redefines them through a customer centric lens. It's about using outbound tactics in a way that feels as personalized and valuable as inbound, and making sure inbound efforts are as scalable and impactful as outbound. The all bound strategy ensures that every touch point with the customer is designed to add value, foster trust, create and be measurable, creating a cohesive experience that aligns with the customer journey, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So you might like that last part is just like, I feel like that describes every single strategy like this that we hear about. Like, right? And like the Other part, too, is like the outbound side of things to me also feels a lot like. I mean, remember when we had the inbound sales certification, right? Like, seems kind of familiar. You know what I mean? But it's just. Again, it's just like. That's why I just get so. There's like a big piece of me that it's just like when you say or like when I hear that, I'm not saying this is your definition. I'm saying when I hear that, I'm just like, we've heard this before. Like, just plain old describing inbound, right? Like customer centric, valuable touch points, deepened relationships, like all this kind of stuff. But it almost just feels like they added the word outbound in there and called it all bound. And it's like the same definition of inbound. Because if you were to say all that back to me again without the word outbound in there, I feel like it's also still just describing inbound, right? Or am I crazy?

Well, I don't think you're totally crazy, but I think there's a subtle mind shift in slight directions both ways. And again, I think maybe the bigger part of this is trying to embrace the fact that. And I started with this by the way, we live in a world that instead of. Or we need to focus on and. And when we focus on and it's. How do we. I think of, like, what's that? Strengths, weaknesses, like SWOT analysis.

SWOT analysis.

How do you swat analysis inbound and how do you swat analysis outbound? And how do you make both of them for your organization, Be the dopest, most human centric, strategized, measurable thing that now you're. You're living, like, in this kind of. I'll call it different world or different mindset, because it's almost like. And again, I'm. I'm going in analogy mode, right? It's almost like firing on six cylinders instead of four or eight instead of four. In this case, is there's a piece.

Of me that wonders and I think, I guess I'm okay with it if this is, like, the case. But do you think HubSpot kind of very intentionally introducing this all bound concept? Because here's the thing. Have you heard, like, can you go on HubSpot's website and see the word all bound? Like, is that a thing?

I've never seen it. I've never tried to find it on.

You haven't you haven't. You haven't seen Brian Halligan spin an all bound Flywheel. Right. They haven't, like, said, we're all bound, we're all bound, we're all bound. But all of the sudden, they release a card with the word all bound on it. The All Bound timeline card. Right.

That's the only thing I just found.

And very interesting because 1. Talk about a completely pointless name for a CRM UI card. Right? Because all. Hold on. You know, I know, I know, I know. It's inbounded, outcoming stuff. I get that.

Right, well, but be careful because HubSpot has not said this yet. The CRM is only a small portion of. Of what is a customer platform.

I know.

And if you are building a customer platform, you must pay attention to that. Some of your customers come from inbound and some of your customers come from outbound efforts. Therefore, you need to have a card that measures all bound in your customer platform.

Yeah, but.

But versus your CRM, that is the holding space for all data.

But all Bound is this big, beautiful definition that we just gave the card is saying, here are things that you sent out. Here are things they sent you. Is that like. You know what I mean? And so what? I almost wonder. No, no, it's just like, you could just call it like the income. Like, you could just call it like the communication time, like the calendar. I don't know. There's. I think there's.

Well, even Nick said just a timeline. Yeah, he literally just said just exactly.

Right.

But why did they give it this name? Right? And there's almost a piece of me. Because here's the thing. When you look at it and you see all bound, which is this big fancy word that none of us really have been using, and all of a sudden it's a card in there. It's kind of awkward to name it that, because then it almost seems like when I first saw it, I was like, oh, is this like an integration with some other tool called All Bound? Right. And that's immediately what I thought. I was like, oh, wait, no, this is just like a native extension showing incoming and outgoing emails and calls and stuff like that. Right? In this, like, kind of awkward way. Like, I get it, it's cool. But it's like kind of an. It's like, here's a horizontal version of the thing that you're looking at that's just up and down, like. And I almost feel like it was a way for them to test putting the word all bound out into the universe and see how it was received. Right.

Yeah.

Because I think what HubSpot has probably found Itself in is being locked into this inbound narrative while the outside world is saying, it's not just inbound anymore, it's outbound, led inbound and surround bound and near bound, and all these other bounds and inbounds getting left in the dirt. And I feel like HubSpot's noticing that. I think they're probably saying, hey, we have to change the perception that we're not just this inbound marketing tool. We also have all of these great outbound sales tools, and we're building a whole, you know, huge investment in AI. We went out and purchased Clear Bit. We did all these, like. We're doing all these things and putting all this investment into saying, like, hey, we kind of realize people want more than just to, like, create content and get people to come to them. They also want their salespeople to be absolute vipers and have the tools that they need to go, go, go, go, go, go, go, and go outbound. Right. Because not everyone's going to get inbound spun up so quickly, and we've got to be able to sell the CRM on its own without marketing Hub. Right. So, like, you know, because. So then where's the inbound thing there when you're just selling, like, sales hub. Right. And so, like, what I think they're probably doing is they're like. It just seems like kind of like a lot to call that time card, this big word that we've never seen that is way different than the one word we've always seen. Right? Yeah. I almost feel like they're testing the waters to see how the community reacts to it. And I think one day they will ditch inbound for all bound. And I think this was them testing this because they realized it can't just be an inbound tool. It has to be an outbound tool. But outbound's a yucky tool for us.

It's now a customer platform. It's not an inbound platform.

It's a customer platform. Yes. So, Matt, now you've had an epiphany moment.

I'm a conspiracy theorist right now, is what I'm being. Okay. Yeah.

Well, that. But it's good. That's. That's good. So how does it feel to be the first person creating a piece of content that's going to be testing the waters that we're paying attention to, what they're challenging and we're challenging, and we're using inbound SEO words that Max hates to put an article in an episode.

I love the word inbound. It's the og it's all about the ranch dressing.

But how does it feel to know that you're part of a piece of content that we're creating right now in the moment that we will have? People will come and read, come and listen, and they'll be able to weigh their opinion on if they love the idea of all bound, if they've been always using a mixed strategy, if they are some of those humans that live in the world of or instead of the world of. And, like, we're on the ground floor of understanding customer platform, the new position of CRM, the fact that there is a new card in there with this term in it.

Like, why do you think we're here today, dude? Like, I feel. I feel great. It's cool talking about it. I'm also slightly terrified that maybe I'm uncovering some massive conspiracy and a hit squad can show up to my house because I'm, you know. But. But here's blowing up the hub Illuminati here. Yeah, but.

But here's the thing. I love that kind of stuff. Like, I love being able to create stuff and lean into what we think might be happening. Because, like, here I. I told somebody the other day, the day that HubSpot launches the HR Hub, I have a clip from like four or five years ago where I said, the next hub needs to be the. I will release that on the Internet and be like, told you. Same thing here. Like, I'm working with Chris, Carolyn. We have a HubSpot customer platform hug. We're knee deep in the trenches. We're paying attention to all the conversations that need to happen there.

We're.

We're looking at, like, oh, my God, things are shifting and changing. And when things shift and change, it's. It's from words and associated words and software start to move around and, like. And I don't think enough people realize what is shifting underneath our very feet from a SaaS platform because they're paying attention to how the modern customer is buying and what they're paying attention to and where they're paying attention to. And they're doing their best to build a platform that fits all of those needs for businesses.

So I want to interject here, because I think what is interesting is that this reminds me of a conversation that you and I, George, have a lot with one of our clients where they get really squirrely when we use words like always or never. Right? And you know who I'm talking about. Shout out to Sean and his team at qds. We love you guys.

And gals.

Hi. You know, and. And he brings up a good point because you never want to put yourself into a kind of an. Box yourself into an absolutist corner because they're very strong in terms of the language they use about we keep our promises, we have penalties around our. Like they are very. They are absolutist in that way in their purpose, in their mission, how they fulfill those promises. But Max, you're bringing up a really good point here in that we have and George as well. We. We did we absolutist box ourselves into a corner with inbound. And now we're seeing the reaction, the expansion that going back into this idea of, you know, when I was first writing this episode and thinking about what I wanted to talk about today, that one of the questions I have here is, and you guys are already answering this, is it either or anymore? And the answer's no, it's not.

Yeah.

And I think that's what we're realizing here.

George, take it well, but be careful because what we have to realize is what we may have needed in the moment was inbound.

We needed an intervention.

We needed an intervention. Inbound was an intervention. It was, it was a movement. It is a movement, still should be. There was a methodology. There was literally a bible, the methodology to the religion inbound. Right. If you, if you really want to break it down. Here's the thing though. Over this last 10, 12, 14 year period, cultures have changed, humans have changed. There was massive chaos, you know, years back that just changed the way that we think, the way that we act, the places we work. And so maybe now the smart people that knew we needed an intervention are realizing there's a next level, there's a new intervention, there's a shift, there's a change. Which by the way, if you pay attention to Brian Halligan's this is not an inbound episode. But if you pay attention to Brian Halligan's historical keynotes, it was always about what was changing. And they were, let us say, letting us know it was changing before we actually kind of knew it was changing. And then all of a sudden we paid attention to that, it was changing. Very interestingly, we need to know things are changing and they'll continue to change. And those of us that can pivot and become transition specialists in our business again, what we're talking about today is all bound lean into a more. And Liz, I can't get away from it now that I'm starting to use these H frameworks, a more holistic approach to what we're doing from a marketing and sales strategy.

I just can't help this feeling though, that like, if any of our clients are listening right now, they'd be like, well, duh, this is not brand new information to us like our inbound marketers just waking up from a fever dream. That's. That's what. Because I'm genuinely challenging myself here. I can't think of a single single client I work with, a single business I work with out there where I would be breaking their brains open in some sort of like lightning rod way saying, so, you know, we could do both.

Wild.

You know, it's very rare that I say something that makes you both silent. I've got to know what you're thinking.

Well, I thought Max started to say something, so I was like, let me hear what he. Where homies at right now?

Oh no.

You just love this conversation. I can feel it with every fiber of my being. Or are you still hiding from the spider looking?

I'm actively seeking a spider because I was kicked out.

Is that.

Yeah.

How did you not notice?

He got the. A while back he brought that in and I think it was Chad was like. Or maybe Nick was like, do you feel safe now?

I do feel safe now.

Does he Safe?

Kind of a little bit safe. My dog's here, so hopefully she'll fight it or something. Oh, the dog, the dog, yeah. Where? Delete the dog. I don't know. It's pretty big. Yeah. I don't know. It's like, I do think it's. I do think it's just another example of like, you know, hopping on the. We need a new name for something to make it sound new. But we're doing the same thing, right? Like, I don't know, like if they, like if they, if they, if they do a whole new like all bound flywheel or like some other methodology thing. I don't know, I'm probably going to lose my mind because it's going to end up just being the same version of the same thing. Much like the, you know, when they changed from the inbound methodology to the flywheel, it literally was the same thing, only they just combined two things and turned into a circle. Right. And it's like, I really just hope because like the flywheel is just, it's honestly just. It's perfect. It's perfect. And I don't think it can. It needs to get more complex than that. Right? But like if we do something weird with an all bound flywheel and it's different or something like that and it just makes it more complicated than it needs to be. I'm not going to be happy about it and I'm going to be verbal about it, but I don't know, I'm just. I'm just so sick of bound. Bound, bound, bound, bound, bound, bound, bound. Like, I'm just so over it.

We should make a song and just use the word.

Town.

Oh, that's actually already a song. Is that what you're doing?

I was doing Barbaran, but that's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Beach Boys, actually.

Hold on. I do love this take from Nick and Chat. It says all bound is a way for them to reclaim inbound without being tarnished by outbound stigma. I agree completely. Like, I don't, like, I don't think HubSpot wants to like, do the defeatist thing to say, like, oh, you know, we were so hard on inbound the whole way. Right. And. And if there were any sort of public sense of like, here's what we want to do to help Outbound. What happens is the public backlash from that was like, oh, they were rugged the whole time about inbound and us sales, bro. Do it Outbound. Smashing the phones, smiling and dialing and using AI driven lists we scraped off of, you know, the back of a van or whatever was like, awesome. Warm up those IP address guys. Let's do some cold email outreach. Like, they just don't want to look like they're losing to that crowd, right? It's like what I feel like.

Yeah.

So, you know, and they're not losing to that crowd. That crowd is cringe. Like, totally. It's cringe. But like, you know, they're creating tools that like, serves that audience and serves those customers that want that stuff, that still don't want to do the tough work that inbound is. Right. Like, you know, say what you want about all the stuff that we've done with, you know, AI and content hub and like all this stuff. It's like creating content and doing inbound marketing is still 10 times harder than blasting a billion emails out, like, to a list of people. Right? Like, it still is harder to do, you know, while. Sure, there are things that make that stuff easier. Like, you still see people deploying it in like, a really terrible way. Right. You know, because humans are. Humans are great at human, right? Yeah, totally. And it's just, I don't know.

This is the whole reason for the other side of things that we do. Humans are going to.

Humans are going to human.

So we, so we created beyond your Default.

But, like, the thing is, is, like, I don't think HubSpot needs to get away from inbound. Right. Inbound can be a strategy within a group of strategies you're deploying. Right. I think that's okay. I don't think we need to totally rename the idea of what all bound is. Because all bound, if it means all things, then it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. It takes away the physical fundamental difference of what inbound is. Right. People coming to you instead of you just going to them. Yes. Your salespeople are going to have to deploy a certain amount of going to them without them coming to you. There are good and bad ways of doing that. Sure. Right. But the fundamental process of saying, hey, are we creating reasons for people to find us, consume our stuff, trust us, and buy? Like, buy from us? Right? Because they're coming to us. Right. They're finding out we exist when they have no idea that we exist. We are helping them figure out that they have a problem that they didn't even know they had. We are educating them. We are creating things for them. We are building things for them. That is a whole thing by itself, I think, to just say, oh, yeah, it's all that and plus, like, better ways of, like, getting your sales reps to go outbound on people. I think it totally value it, like, almost makes it. That is that much more important and that much easier than this other big thing when the truth is that whole outbound thing is also really, really tough if you don't already have a good inbound motion. Because where's all this, like, wonderful content they say to use to create these valuable touch points with people going outbound if you have no inbound motion, creating that content? Right. Like, I just like, inbound amplifies outbound so much. Right?

Yeah.

That it's really hard to just stand out outbound on its own without expecting to just, like, spend a ton of money on, like, paid lists or use some weird, sketchy data scrapers or, like, really do some crazy invasions of privacy. Right. But it's like, oh, it's all fine because it's AI assisted and it's this and it's that and it's whatever and it's the next big thing. I just don't want the art of inbound to be devalued by saying the same thing as the. I'm a. He is purist, dude. I am.

He is an impression.

I'm a little bit. I'm realizing this now. I am really? Yeah, he's an imbalance, but that's not me. I think a purist is someone who says, you just do this and you don't do that. I'm not that person. I'm an inbound realist, my friend. Where. Yeah, okay.

Movement. We're moving from, like, inbound impressionism to realism.

Yeah.

Because dude, dude, inbound is based a lot on, like, just the reality of how things work. I talk about inbound physics all the time. Right. How's someone gonna find you if they don't know you exist? They're not. Right. So they're looking for other stuff. Okay. Make that stuff that they're looking for. Right. That's realism. Right. Another part of the realism is like, yeah, sure, your marketers and your team and your whatever could do the whole inbound motion. Right. But one, is it going to take time to get off the ground? Yeah. Bet your ass. Is it going to take a lot of experimentation to figure out what works? Yep. It bets. You bet your ass. Right. But do your salespeople need to sell in the meantime and also be deploying their own efforts in, like, different ways that they can do it without totally relying on what marketing's doing? Because, hey, guess what? Maybe you hire some inbound marketers, right, and they don't do that good. And it takes a little while to figure out how to get the right people on board that have the talent to create the content, put it all together in a good story, deploy it, get the right software, do whatever. Salespeople still gotta be salespeople without a hundred percent relying on marketing to just feed them MQLs. Right. So you do gotta figure out the right ways and the wrong ways of doing inbound. You gotta do both at the same time. That's realism, not purism. Right.

So. So there's a couple takeaways here. I just want to unpack this a little bit. One, it almost sounded like you said inbound enables outbound, which it like marketing. Inbound marketers enable or, you know, sales to do better, be better because of the content. So I love that piece. The other thing I heard is next week on Hub Heroes, Max is going to do the physics of all bounds. He's got a slide already built out for it.

But.

But here's the thing. I also. Give me a second because I. I want to jot a note down in my travel guide.

What?

I officially have decided that I need to pack a defibrillator to bring the inbound, because when Max is in the audience and somebody from stage, Andy Petrie, Dharmesh, whoever it may be, all about Yaminy. When. When all of a sudden, from the stage, somebody says the word all bound, I will run over, I'll use my defibrillator, and, brother, I will save your life in the middle of the crowd at inbound. Because I think you would have an aneurysm or a heart attack if you heard the word all bound come from the main stage.

It's gonna. Dude, it's gonna. It's gonna happen. I'm telling you, man.

Like, this is that.

What an unnecessary name for that CRM card, right? Like, it confused me, right? And it's just like they're testing the waters to change the name of it. That's what I feel, you know? Yep.

I don't disagree.

I mean, think about how. Think about how we heard about it, George. It came up so organically and naturally during our conversation with Kyle and we.

Somebody who works at home.

So they're sending. Hold on. Kyle's the goat. I love Kyle. So they're sending their people out there to workshop the name and reporting back to. I want I wonder part.

But here's the thing. I don't know if it's the Illuminati. Yeah. I don't know if it was on purpose. But here's the thing. For someone to use the word like they're used to using the word, they have to have been hearing the word. So it makes you wonder, which, again, is why we're here. There's a card with it. We heard it dropped for a brief second in another episode. And. And I was like, liz, inbound versus Outbound versus All Bound. We got to do an episode. We got to unpack.

Next it's gonna be next. It's gonna be Found Bound. And it was just like a lead you found on the side of the road. You decided to go Found Bound is just when you find business cards and you call on the crowd.

It's when you. It's when you pull all of the pants and pants pens and stickers and all those things that you got at the, like, inbound one year, and you're like. You just start cold calling people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's when you. It's when you cold DM, people go, oh, I found your profile LinkedIn. And I saw that you're also in the Internet technology space.

Wait, hold on. Question. Do I need to create a custom object for Found Bound? Is that like a separate channel?

Yeah, dude. Found Bound. That's the next one.

It's right next to the gum underneath it.

Dude, you know what it is? It's clown bound. My guy clown bounded.

Hey, George, ask me again, who's driving this episode?

Liz, who's driving this episode?

I have no idea because we've abandoned the outline long ago. We have. We have gone found bounding on the side of the road.

I almost can't keep going because Chad. I don't even know if I should say this, but Chad, I hope we don't get canceled, but Chad literally said it's the number on the inside of the stall that's found bound.

Call found bound for a good time.

Oh my God, help us. Oh, geez, dude. Yeah.

Well, George, why don't you help me land this plane here as best we can. I would love to hear from you because this was a conversation we knew we needed to have and I knew that there was a 50, 50 risk of like, I. I will just start setting the outline on fire within five minutes of the. The episode. Well, because it's highly. It's not a highly experimental topic, but it's just. Just one of those things of like, we all have a lot of feelings about this.

Yeah.

And it is. It is a conversation that we needed to have, and I think we're going to have to have it again. I. It's one of those things where I'm like, I wish Devin was here, but I almost want him to listen to it and then come back and read us the riot act in a way that only Devin can do with his eyeball an inch from the camera where he yells at us and then we say we're sorry.

Yeah, it's George. It's either going to be a slack message that says, yes, you guys are awesome, or what the f are you thinking?

No, it's.

See, that's why. Hold on.

That's why he's not here. Because they're putting him through some like, you know, all bound. All bound brainwashing boot camp.

No, that is not why.

Anyway, is it.

Is that like one of those things where, like, remember like at like Outward Bound where, like you have to go. It's like outward found bound. Like, is that what we're doing here now?

Now? Like, that's. That's what we gotta. It's like you just. It's. It's. You're doing inbound, but you're doing it in the wilderness.

You have to attract. You have to attract the campfire to you.

You can't go out and create your mosquitoes.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

I'll write a blog to the mosquitoes. Yeah, here's why you shouldn't bite me. So, George, land this plane for us because obviously we, we need help. Don't land it.

No, I need to land this bad boy. Holy crap.

George, I would be so curious to hear what your takeaways are from this conversation because you and I both came into this conversation on a fact finding mission to find out what we actually feel about this.

Yeah.

So what are the things that you learned that you want our listeners to be paying attention to?

Yeah, so there's a couple things. One, we now know that Max, his new title at Happily will be Inbound Realist, will be instead of Chief Evangelist of Happily. So we're going to change his title. But, but in all honesty, for, for me, it's interesting because I didn't know where this conversation was going to go. I was excited to see where this conversation would go. The fact that Max is paying attention to micro pieces of the software and saw the card, the fact that we aligned because of something we heard on an episode and we're able to sit here and create this piece of content that people will be able to listen to, have their own feelings, have their own opinions, that serves the purpose that I'm actually trying to get here. My big takeaway for the listeners though is, and it's funny because, Liz, you said you haven't met a client that wasn't thinking of it from a this and that process or pushed against. I can tell you I've met many that the only thing they were doing was like inbound slash content marketing and they had left to the wayside this piece. My takeaway is those days are over. I don't give a rat's caboose what you call it, but you need to be playing and teasing out the idea of things that you once thought were off base. Have you sent postcards lately? Have you done a print brochure, like a booklet style, and actually tried to put it on, you know, a decision maker's desk? Have you, have you actually tested billboards? Have you done a calling system in a way that is different than the historical way that we hated? Like, if you're sitting here and you can't say yes to any of those things that historically were outbound or traditional marketing or traditional sales, I would challenge you to test it again. But test it in a way that aligns with the methodology and philosophies that we've picked up over the last 10, 12 years of being a good human, of adding value of building trust, of it being an interaction that is more based on future relationship than immediate transaction.

Max oh, I Did you get the spider buddy?

I thought he was gonna end the episode on that because it was epic and now you got me just awkwardly being like, what? I didn't have anything to say.

Okay, Hub Heroes, we've reached the end of another episode. Will Lord Lack continue to loom over the community, or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the Hub Heroes podcast? Make sure you tune in and and find out. In the next episode, make sure you head over to thehubheroes.com to get the latest episodes and become part of the League of Heroes. FYI, if you're part of the League of Heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share this podcast with a friend, Leave a review if you like what you're listening to, and use the hashtag Hub Heroes Podcast on any of the socials and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human. And of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero.