Content in 2024: AI, Brand Storytelling, + Content Program Breakdowns (an AMA with Liz)

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. Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by siloed apartments? 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. And 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's 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.

Welcome back to another episode of Hub here with George.

You hold on a second, okay?

You hold on a second, okay? Because I gotta have a moment. I gotta have a moment. Dan Moyle of Impulse Creative. How are you, buddy? Hi. I had you later in the intro to say hi, but, you know, we're gonna start pulling you in early, so, like. George, I'm sorry to interrupt, but, like, we want Dan talking as soon as.

Yeah, no, I agree. Really? We're having this episode because Dan said he would be here, and we want to talk about something that we all love. I actually was going to be kind of dumb for a second. I know that surprises you, but blown away, I think I need to actually have the intro. Redone because that part, like, you know, the Devin part where it's like Devin, by the way, every time I hear that I'm like, I want to just like put it down for a second, be like, yep, still works at HubSpot and then like put it back up. But I think we need to add like YouTube God into that somehow. Like works at HubSpot and is currently a YouTube God. Somehow, some way we got probably got.

To add that literally. What did I comment to you the other day, Devin? I wrote, I knew him when. Look at him. Go look at him. So, so like, okay, for the folks at home, Devin, can you give them the quick rundown of like your YouTube godness? Just quick.

Sure.

What are you doing?

So I have in 2024 accepted the reality that I am in fact a YouTuber.

Yes.

I have a 12 year old little brother who thinks I am the coolest person on earth.

Yes. That's amazing.

But yeah, I'm saying I. I have been on the Spotlight preview both internally for partners as well as customer facing on the YouTube channel and of course the other product videos that are out right now. And another podcast that I'm not on but I am producing is Good Morning Ecosystem with Brian Garvey and Karen Ng. Our first guest was Yamini Rangan and we.

Oh, you started out small for that. Yeah, yeah, you know, just, you know, yeah, real.

Just low hanging fruit. Nothing big, nothing major.

Just. Just so lob it.

Fine.

But yeah, and now we also have a HubSpot ecosystem YouTube channel that we are soft launching. And so you can actually go right now and just look up HubSpot Partners or go to YouTube.com forward/HubSpot partners and pull up the YouTube channel, catch all of the episodes of Good Morning Ecosystem and see that I am not just a pretty face who knows a lot about HubSpot. I also know a lot about video production too.

Yes. Love it, love it. Okay, now we can move on from Devin's God.

We have so many. No, we have so many famous people. We have Devin, YouTube God. We have Dan Moyle here from Impulse Creative also. Speak George. You're. You're the one and only George B. Thomas. You're. You're. You're inbound in human form and, And I'm Liz.

Don't do that. You're not allowed to do that.

I write words on the Internet.

You're Liz, the content therapist that everybody needs to meet when they want their words to actually matter. There you go.

Oh, thanks, buddy.

Put that on a brochure.

I know, right?

That was awesome.

Thanks, buddy. Are you guys ready, though? Because I. Oh, I. Actually, you know what? I'm gonna be honest. I'm not sure I'm ready. And here's why. No. Okay. I feel a little bit broken because I don't. I don't know where time is going right now because. Okay, it feels like only yesterday. George, Devin, we were sitting here recapping inbound 23, right?

Yeah.

We were talking about George just slaying it in Boston with his entire family there for the first time ever. Devin killing it at Partner Day as the emcee Max, and the great Popsicle keeper for happily.

Hi, Tony.

Hi, Tony. And Or John.

We're not sure.

We love you. I'm still not sure to this day. And then there was me sitting at home, sobbing quietly into a microwaved burrito, totally in no way bitter about the fact that I wasn't there. And that's fine. But you know what? It wasn't yesterday when that happened. That was seven months ago. That was almost seven months ago. Which probably not a big deal, except for the fact that here we are right now for the first Inbound 24 preview episode. I. What?

Yeah, Time is weird.

Time is a social construct. I have no idea what's happening. But yes, we are here today for the first preview episode of HubSpot's annual Inbound event. It's happening September 18th through 20th in Boston. They've already dropped the first sneak peek of the agenda.

But also, hang on, because if. If you're a partner and listening to this or watching this, partner day on the 17th, so you'll want to pay attention to that. Might be part of your vacation or travel or inbound plans, as well as a partner. So just add that piece in.

Well, don't hop off your mic just yet, George, because there's a reason why we're excited. Dan Moyle is here, and I figured since this is a special reunion. The Impulse Boys. Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna turn it over to you for a minute before we get to Trigger.

Yeah, listen, listen. I have been blessed and cursed, and I never talk about this other side of it, but I have been blessed to be able to speak at inbound since 2015 and cursed to watch a lot of my friends try to speak at Inbound or have spoken and then not be able to get back on the stage year after year after year. And when I saw a LinkedIn post, I did a frickin happy dance in my office. Nobody knows I did a happy Dance. But I was like, touchdown. Score. Like, whatever you can do when you're excited. This was me in the moment because I saw the fact that Dan being able to put out the announcement that he was coming back to the inbound stage, that he was going to drop knowledge and value. And to me, I was like, yes, a good human being able to do good things at a great event. This is a spectacular day. And so at that moment, I was like, okay, when we talk about inbound, we got to see if Dan's available. I definitely want to somehow just bring this all back together, because again, as folks who used to work together and. And. And have these conversations of like, hey, dude, what are you going to apply for this year? Like, what's your. Like, I can remember strategy sessions of Dan sitting us sitting together and be like, well, what if this description? Or, like, start the title with a number and, like, all of these things, and now we're here, and it's like, Dan Moyle, the one, the only, the man, the myth, the legend hitting the inbound stage.

Yeah. Don't call to come back.

He never been there. He's been there. So I'm. I'm just excited. Super excited.

See, this is the kind of hype squad you need in your life. I appreciate all of that, George. Thank you.

Wait, can I be, like, groupies for you guys speaking this year? Like, in your rooms?

Like, go, George.

It's all about the. What? It's all about.

Oh, oh. It's all about the humans.

That's what's up. That's what's up. All right, guys, before we dig into our first preview episode, are you guys down for a little bit of trivia? You don't have a choice.

Scared the crap out of me, by the way, when you told me about this earlier, I tried to feverishly look for where you might have put the question so I could, like, oh, hidden.

In an Apple Notes document. You're not seeing. There's no scarier place than the Notes app on a girl's phone. And that's where these trivia questions.

I am not competitive at all, but I was trying to cheat real hard. I was like, let me find these questions.

Well, let's start with an easy one, shall we? Gentlemen, what was the first year of inbound 2012?

See, I think it was 2010. I think it was a HubSpot user.

So 2008.

Wait, what?

So the correct answer is, Dan, the first official inbound conference was in 2012, and that's not even one of the trivia questions. And we're already off to a great start. Good job, guys. All right, I have three questions about the first inbound ever.

Oh, in 2012.

2012. Yeah. Okay. Sure, sure, buddy. Who was the musical guest that year? You have three options. Was it A, Biz Markey, B, Cyndi Lauper, or C, Belinda Carlisle, Bismarckie.

I'm going to go with Cindy, but I don't think that's right, because I think it was actually the. The. The. The band that was made up of HubSpot employees.

Yeah, that's the thing. I don't think you put the right answer, because I think that's right.

I think Dan's right.

Cyndi Lauper was years after this, because I literally remember seeing her, like, do an acoustic version.

She was also in 2012. Unless they messed up the press release regarding the 2020 or 2012 inbound conference, she was there. That's right. Your girl went digging. In the original press release from PR Newswire. She is listed as the musical guest.

Okay, now, now, now my brain is broken.

Get off of that. No, no, no.

You got.

No, you can't bring it up because the other questions are from there. You can't do that. No.

Oh, shoot. Well, no, but there literally is. If you type in Cindy Lauper inbound, There's a freaking YouTube number one search result. A minute and 21 seconds. Cindy rocks the house in Boston. Son of a gun.

Thank you.

12.

It was 2012.

I'm old. I'm old. I forget stuff.

So I'll.

Liz, I Defer to you. 100.

Okay.

We're watch some hubspotters gonna come for me and be like, they released the press release. The press release was wrong. She actually couldn't make it. She stubbed her toe. I'm just telling you, Whip, I think what PR News. I'm going with PR Newswire. All right. True or false? True or false. During their joint keynote, Dharmesh and Brian unveiled HubSpot 3, which promised making, quote, Amazon, like, personalization possible for all marketers.

No, no. 2012 was the year of. Don't call me a customer. Call me human. One plus one equals three. I think was later. I swear to God, if I'm wrong on this, I'm gonna just.

I think that was in 12.

I think that was in 12. 12. See, this is why I don't play these games. I knew I should have found the answer to these.

Ah, sneaky, sneaky. All right, last question. We're all doing great.

Can I refuse to answer this one?

You're more than welcome to do whatever you'd like, George. Technically, this is your podcast.

Give it a shot, I guess. Devon, I haven't heard any answers from you, by the way. You're quietly just sitting there like he has been.

He guessed my key.

Well, I've been wrong every time I'm here.

Oh, so we're.

We're completely. I. I know.

We're all rising and falling together.

Okay.

The Thursday keynote speaker of inbound 2012 brought the house down with a talk they called Care Immensely or Die, in which they challenged marketers to market more from the heart rather than their head. Who was this keynote speaker?

I want to say it was Gary Vee. That's what I want to say. I feel like I'm fundamentally wrong again, but I want to say it was Gary Vee.

I'm gonna support you on that one. Say Gary Vee. I think that's right.

Now, see, I'll just go against and just say, I don't think it was GaryVee. I've been wrong every time so far. So I guess he might be right this time. Yeah, we'll see.

Devin.

Yeah.

Your streak continues, George. You are vindicated. It was, in fact, one Gary Vaynerchuk.

I knew it.

There we go. Now we're talking.

All right. That was fun. I always love enjoying. I. I love watching you guys squirm in your seats.

Oh, it's over.

I don't know if anybody. The trivia is over. You can't leave the episode.

I was just tired of looking like an idiot, so.

I mean, that's pretty much my daily jam, so whatever.

Well, how about this, guys? Are you ready to look really stinking smart?

Let's do it.

Let's go.

All right. All right. George and Dan, I actually want to start with you two. You're both speaking at Inbound this year. What are you talking about? Are you excited? Are you running laps to prepare? Like, what. What's going on in your brains right now?

Go for it, Nan.

Okay, so, yes, speaking. Super stoked about it. We actually. So, as George mentioned, I've been trying to get back to Inbound. I was invited the first couple of years to speak. I spoke on the bold stage the third year. It was incredible. Almost like a TED Talk type thing with Laura Fitton or Pistachio. Incredible experiences. And then they started to take applications. So each year I've tried to find that nugget that will bring what I brought the first time to an audience. So this year, I thought, I'm not doing it. I'm done. My heart's been broken too many times inbound. I can't do it. Well, then, Josh Curcio from is it Protocol 80, right? Another HubSpot partner reached out to a few of us in the community, the top solutions authors, and said, hey, what if we did a panel? And I said, okay. So Karsten, the number one solutions author, can't make it. He decides to not become because of ecological, environmentally friendly. He doesn't like to travel, so he doesn't travel. Okay, so it's the other four of the top five. So Josh, Phil, myself, and then Jennifer Nixon are going to be on this panel with Kyle Jepsen moderating to just talk about how HubSpot and community bring so much value to partners, users and everybody in the ecosystem.

Oh, ladies and gentlemen, if you're not in that room, if they do not have to do an encore, add TVs simulcasted at the three bars next to the BCEC.

Like, I'm gonna line up like it's Black Friday.

Those humans in that room being emceed by that man. Like, it is sure to be fire. Fire.

I'm stoked. I can't wait. I would love. Like I've said all along, and George knows this, my. My deep dark secret is that while I do love being helpful and there is an altru realistic point to me speaking on stages, the little ego side of me wants like hell to be on that main inbound stage. I was in front of it once, in front of 20, 000 people with David Meerman Scott. But I want to be on it. And so I want our little panel to have so much interest that they go, you know what? Put them on the main stage.

Oh, dude, dude. First of all, that would be dope. Second of all, I'd be pissed. But. But because you know that it's actually one.

And that's called friendship.

Friendship. I would high five you and then like flip you the. No, I'm just kidding. I wouldn't flip anything. But. But because you two know that, like, that is one of my goals. And the. The bigger inbound has gotten and the level of speakers that they've been able to pay for that goal has gotten harder and harder and harder over the years to hit that main stage. But no, I would. If I hope I. As a matter of fact, I'm going to do all that I can do in my power to make everybody want to go to that session so much that that's the only place it'll fit. Because then that would Be amazing. It would be an amazing moment in time for you and the folks who have given over and over and over to thousands and thousands of people inside the community. So it would be well deserved. Well deserved.

Well, I appreciate it. See, hype school. Yeah, you got to have a hype squad. You have friends that challenge you, support you, and then flip you the bird when you are successful.

Thank God, because you got a challenge. Yeah, I inspired him too much. Dang it. No, I would never be that guy. So, Liz, I'm super excited because so Inbound has different types of sessions. They have like these 45 minute sessions and then they have like these 30 minute sessions and they have like speakers and panelists and then they have these things called deep dives, which deep dives, I believe are like 90 minutes that you actually have the stage that you can do these things, which I am thankful for every one of the stinking minutes that I have for the deep dive that I'm doing this year. Because I'm talking about future of content, AI, harmony and human touch and.

And what?

Human. Oh, shoot. Human. What are you doing? Yeah, yeah. So I. Well, you know, I'm. I'm whatever. I messed it up.

You're excited.

I'm excited. And, and so what's fun is behind the scenes, I've been really nerding out for a lot of years on human communication, being human, happy, helpful, humble, human, Human first internally. Human first internally. And for the last year, year and a half, I've really been nerding out behind the scenes on AI for image generation, writing all sorts of, like, optimize, optimizing my day with AI. And so I'm. I'm excited to be the guy that can take the human side of who I've been and then add in this AI conversation, but in the right way. We've had many conversations on this podcast of like, too many people when they're creating content, are looking for the easy button. And I'm going to show you how you might be able to build a little bit of an easy but better button for when you go to try to do this thing. And I'm so excited that I've actually already started to build my presentation deck, meaning this is the first. Like, usually I'm the last guy. Like, they're like, george, you were supposed to send it a week ago. And I'm like, sorry, I. I'm trying, but.

But I've literally been the girl who was a speaker there though, who walked up during the conference and said, here's a USB key with my most recent updated version of my, of my presentation. Thank you so much.

Yes, I've done it. So, so I've already started to build it out and what's fun is it's going to be part presentation deck, part like sharing actual things of me doing things because I have 90 minutes. I'm, I'm, I'm looking at this deck and I'm like, this is going to change people's lives. Like when they get this information, they're going to walk away and go, holy crap, this is what's possible.

I've got to be honest. You know, we're about to start digging into what we're all really excited about for Inbound, especially since they've started releasing the names of some of these sessions, including your, yours. I've got to do a double click on George's. I got to be his hype squad for a second because I have had the privilege over the past, what, two months or so and in particular over the past few weeks we've been really hammering home on this and some of the stuff that he has developed and he is building it is, it's out of this freaking world. Like this is a session that people should not miss. I, I, it's a, it's a session where I'm like, this should be required given the amount of crap that quite frankly we're seeing come out with people using AI in a lot of cases, incredibly well meaning companies, incredibly well meaning marketers. But we've had this conversation now numerous times over the past few weeks in different episodes. Like AI is great, but we, Houston, we have a problem and it's robot shaped. So like we need to talk about that. So I am so excited for both of your sessions. Now granted this is only the beginning of what HubSpot will be sharing. And again, this is inbound.com agenda for you folks following along at home. And they are going to continue to drip updates, drip exciting announcements, drip out new speakers, new events, everything that's going on. But I'd be curious. Devin, let's jump over to you for a minute. What are you excited about from what you've seen come up so far?

From what I've.

Okay, so, oh, he's doing that thing where he can't talk about things.

That's the challenge. That's the challenge.

See, I can always tell when it's close to Inbound because there, there's this palpable excitement in the company and everybody, regardless of what team you're on, we.

All have.

A Dog in the fight. When it comes to doing something in inbound, you know, so what I will say, I'm super excited to see everybody. I. That for me is the best part of inbound because for those you know me know that I'm a hermit. I don't, I don't like people, I don't like being around people, I like doing things. I don't like human beings in real life with the exception of when I'm at inbound. When I'm at inbound, it's like I become this gregarious, outgoing, outspoken, just having a great time. Love all you people for the next three days. And then I spent another year charging.

My social batteries as someone who literally hissed at a client earlier like a cat on a call. And George can back me up. That is, this is a fact, this is the thing that actually happened that resonates with me very deeply on a spiritual level. I spend a lot of time hiding behind a keyboard and then Liz has to crawl out of her cave and remember how to human again. But you know, Devin, I would love to hear from you specifically coming from this perspective, right? Like there are a lot of people where there's that, there's that internal push and pull, right. Like they want to connect, they want to find more people like them. But big networking conferences, particularly one that continues to boast tens of thousands of attendees, that's really emotionally overwhelming. So to folks out there who might resonate with some of what you've said about like, hey, like I'm not the networking kind of guy, but inbound Christmas comes once a year. What makes it worth coming out of the cave for? What makes it actually still a place that celebrates us introverts and us nerds who are finally coming out from behind our keyboards.

The biggest thing is one, it's an environment that is friendly for people who are neurodivergent. So like for instance, I have a friend who can get stimulated very easily, over stimulated. There are rooms where you can go that are like quiet and dark, that are specifically for decompressing and getting away from that. But the biggest thing is that if you just flat out just don't want to be around people. It's also a digital experience. Nothing compared to in person, but you can still experience part of it. But there's nothing like being there in person and meeting like minded individuals who nerd out about what you nerd out about. That that to me was like the most exciting thing was like meeting people who are passionate about the same thing. And so if you have the, the social ability or, or the social battery enough to go to a. Your local comic book convention, you have more than enough to go to inbound. You don't even have to dress up.

I mean, you could because you could. You'll see some people do and you'll see orange suits and stuff. So you could if you wanted to.

Dan, what about you? What are you excited about?

Plus 1,000 to Devin, I. It is a family reunion. I started going. You know, we had the trivia about when it started. Officially 2012 was the official inbound. But Devin, I mean, all the way back to probably 2008 when they first started, they probably had a gathering that first year, right? HubSpot. I've been going since 2011 before it was actually inbound. I've been enough times, like, I'm never not learning, but I've been enough times that the sessions aren't the end all be all. For me, it's the connections, right? I go to a few sessions, I learn some things. But like Devin said, you can get that online sometimes. There's nothing like a George B. Thomas interactive deep dive. You're not going to get that online, so go to that one. But there are plenty of sessions that you can see online. I could see Michelle Obama speak from her YouTube page. I don't have to be there to see her, but it is absolutely for me, 100% the connections. Walking in and seeing HubSpot community members that you interact with, seeing HubSpot, HubSpot user group leaders, hug leaders, seeing clients that are there that have never been to an event and they're like, oh my gosh, you saved my business. Let me take you out for lunch or something. Like all of that is absolutely why I go. And I'm an extreme extrovert. So I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum probably than Devin. I am kind of a hermit, but I'm also like, I love, I love being around people. So for me it's easy, but it also is still exhausting. So 100% support the introverts. Find your place, find your peace. But my goodness, that connection is exactly what I'm looking for.

Every black cat needs a golden retriever. Introverts and extroverts go together.

It's.

How did you know it was a golden retriever? I feel, I feel so seen.

There you go.

I'm always kind of in the middle. Like, I, I will never call myself an ambivert and I'm not an introverted extrovert, but what will happen sometimes is that if I'm not around people for long, like for extended stretches of time, because I live by myself, the minute I see a person, I'm like a golden retriever up against the glass, like, seeing it. So, like, you've only been go for eight hours. It's felt like forever. Where have you been? So, anyway, George, what about you?

Well, first of all, I'll tell you what I'm excited about, but it's funny because I listened to Devin and Dan, and I realized that God made me different because I am so comfortable being a hermit. An example. This week, my family has been gone. I have been in this house by myself with the pets that we have, and I have loved every minute of it. I have not had to go outside really, to do anything, to talk to anybody. I've. Now I miss my family. Yes. And I love them yet. But I. I could be a hermit, but I also love the energy of the stage and the audience and the community and the. The networking. Okay. So I'm not going to, you know, surprise anybody. I'm excited for inbound because of the humans, but I'm gonna get very specific to why I'm excited this year about one individual human. By the way, yesterday we booked our hotel room for the Westin, so we will be hanging out in the Westin lobby as. As one who attends inbound should do as one does. And we started investigating flights because I am flying one Jorge Fuentes to Boston because he was able to get his visa earlier this year.

Yes.

And I get to see Jorge in person, live and in living color. And we get to hang out and do inbound together. I'm just. I'm so excited about that because he has added a ton of value to the organization, became a great friend along the way, and has turned himself into this certification HubSpot beast that he's becoming with his own brand. And I'm just uber excited to bring him to this experience, bring him in, in. In life, to the community and to the event. I don't care how much it costs. I don't. I just don't care. Now, with that said, nobody else from the theme is coming this year. It's just Jorge and I. Everybody else is staying home. And what's funny is it was actually one of my daughters who said, dad, I think it should just be you and Jorge so that you two can have that experience together and not be in the shuffle of everything else that would be going on. And I said, I like the way you think.

I'll Be there to bug you too.

Yeah, of course we'll have all of the other 10, 20, 50, 60, 100 and however many thousand people there. But we are going to have fun walking around Boston as the two Georges or the two Jorge's, whichever way you want to look at it.

Dos Jorge.

There you go. Sounds like a great beer, by the way. Dos Jorge would be a great beer.

To be honest that I just leaked what my thing that I said I would say I'm actually going to be there. I have not been there in three years. I have not been to inbound in three long wow years.

How real is that fomo?

I cannot. I photoshopped myself into a picture with George and Max.

She did that. She did.

And it is a real thing that happened. And I made it my profile photo and was like, see guys, I'm totally there. This is fine. And I am acting with normal psychological behavior right now. I am.

Which, by the way, we laughed our butts off when we saw that photo. We're like, this is hilarious.

You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm excited to see my fellow hub heroes in person. I'm excited to see everybody. Personally, I am really excited, excited about the lineup. So I know we've only gotten a limited snapshot into the lineup for this year, but it's like they started hearing my cries in. I keep trying to open it. They have heard my cries in the darkness about the things that I have been looking for, the things that I want. Guys, we actually have more stuff about content this year. This is the thing I have been complaining about. I have been complaining about this. You missed it last year, Dan, when I was talking in our recap and our lead ups where I was like, we are not talking about content enough now. Could we be talking about content more? Yes. I still fundamentally believe the great flaw of the inbound ecosystem is that we spend a lot of time talking about how important content is, how to create ideas for content creators, what to do once you have the content, but not necessarily the missy middle of how content actually gets made. It's like we assume wizards are going to do it. There are no wizards. There are only lizards and some robots. You know, so. So that is. That is still HubSpot. Call me. Yeah, happy to talk about this, but what I do love is seeing the diversity of content that's in there. The fact that we are talking about content. I've got to admit, I was a bit anxious about the idea of a 90 minute deep dive because I'm like, man, this when you have so many sessions that are possible to attend at Inbound. 90 minutes is two other sessions. But I am now finding myself in a position where and I really encourage people again, inbound.com forward/agenda. Really taking a look at what some of these deep dives are, you have a chance to not just walk away with some topical abstract inspiration. It seems like they're really going out of their way to give people more tactical takeaways, more blueprints, more things they can actually take home. Things that cannot be accomplished in 45 minutes. I loved seeing that. We're going to be talking about messaging this year. Finally, finally we're talking about messaging. We're talking more about the words that you're actually putting out there and making sure that they actually matter. But that's what I'm excited about. Other than seeing everybody and then giving Devin one one hour long.

Oh, that's like just. That's a long hug.

One of the breakout sessions. One of the breakout sessions is actually just Devin quietly saying like, can someone please help? And I'm like, no, no, no, no.

Warn me when that's gonna happen. I'll find.

It's on the main stage. It's actually the Thursday morning keynote.

Yeah. Liz, hug on the keynote stage. Nice, Nice.

It's a literal HubSpot user group hug.

So I can press the panic button. George will be instantly notified.

Liz is here. Oh, no. Where are you going, George? It's the middle of your deep dive. Liz missed. Devin.

Yeah, I need, I need to go.

I know, right? So, okay. I can imagine that some people right now might be listening to this and going, guys, it's April. It's not even close to September. Is it too early to be preparing or thinking about Inbound? Okay, clear. Everyone's shaking their head no. So, you know, I'm going to throw it out to the group guys. Why isn't it too early? And what should preparation look like now?

Let me jump in on this really quickly. People who have never been to Inbound, people who've never heard of inbound, may not realize that inbound, a free inbound, ain't even cheap. The ticket prices, as the event draws closer, go up. And it's not a time based thing. It's. We have a certain number of tickets available at this price. Certain number available, this price. And we've already sold out of the first two prices.

Yes, you have.

So there's still one more price tier left before it hits the highest price. And then, even then, waiting until last minute, this is an event that has sold out. This is an event that has a capacity. So don't wait to, to, to get your ticket. So that, that's, that's first and foremost why it is not too early to be thinking about inbound.

Yeah. Which by the way, has.

And on the budget side of things.

It hasn't always been that way. Like they used to just let people just. Not anymore.

Too many people. Yeah, it's, it's the, the hotel room's not cheap. Like you gotta get a flight or a train or something in the hotel rooms. Go fast. You end up staying somewhere outside of the seaport area, which is fine. It's not like you can get places. But then you gotta Uber. They used to have, for several years they had shuttles. Last year they didn't have shuttles anymore. So you've gotta prepare for that kind of stuff. So. Yeah. And then just like I remember the first couple of inbounds, I set up a, like a spreadsheet, like a calendar and said here's all the sessions I want to go to start color coding them by priority. That like. And so it just takes a lot of planning to figure out your days. You don't want to over schedule yourself because you got to make sure you got time in there to decompress, to have some conversations, to have serendipity happen. But yeah, you gotta, you gotta start planning.

And not only that, but planning and paying attention. Because like Dan, you're mentioned the spreadsheet and like you if you're not paying attention now and all of a sudden they release of like, hey, you can go sign up for the session. Even though you did all that planning, if you're not paying attention to when that date is and going into your app and signing up, you might not get to the actual sessions that you want to get to. The other piece that I'll throw in there. Yes, by the way, hotel rooms. I was ecstatic that I could still get a room in the Westin. I know that won't be in the next month or a couple weeks. That won't even be a possibility. Yes. I spent enough to probably put one of my kids through college in Uber payments last year because there were five of us and we had to take two Ubers and we're not small people, so we didn't take small Ubers. Anyway, you do the math. What that actually equaled out. If I would have just went ahead and got us closer to the convention center last year. But listen, right now you should be thinking about what Is it that you are great at, that you want to get better? And what is it that you want to add to your tool belt? And how can you look at the sessions as they're coming out and start to build that plan of attack for both of those lanes of your educational future? You can't do that like one day before the event.

George, I want you to stay on the mic for a second, okay. Because I have a question specifically for you. I want to talk to George. You. Now, as the newly minted HubSpot partner agency owner, you're never a man to shy away from doling out challenges. So this is your opportunity. What is your challenge? Your call to action, if you will, for business owners and other agency owners like you out there who may be on the fence about sending their people to inbound, because I know this is a particularly hot topic for you.

First of all, you shouldn't be on the fence. And I get there's a couple directions this conversation could go, meaning can you send everybody. No. Did I bring the entire family as the theme, AKA family and team, last year? Yes. Was it expensive? Yes. Do I ever plan on doing it again? Maybe.

Maybe.

We'll see. Did I have to turn one of the employees, slash one of the family members down this year because I wanted to slim it down to. This is the focus point that we have to go at? Yes. With all of that said, though, it should never be a thing of. Is the cost of these tickets, hotels, food, whatever, worth the cost? Because the answer will be yes, the person that they will become after they attend inbound. If you as a good leader, lead the direction in the right way and listen to some of the things that we're saying here on this podcast, it's going to be transformational. I mean, listen, in 2012, I was a designer developer building websites when somebody would shove a pizza under the door and a six pack of Coke and a WordPress website could come out the other side. I went to one inbound in 2012. Well, and you can just see the difference of where we're at and what we're doing, right? Web developer, designer to agency owner and a little bit of a brand inside of the HubSpot ecosystem because I attended Inbound.

Little bit of a brand, a little bit of a brand scosche, right?

Just a tiny dabbling in a brand just so. So like it will be transformational to them in ways that you probably can't even measure and may not ever be able to measure.

Dan, let's flip the script here a Little bit. How do you encourage marketers, maybe other agency wonks, or anybody who's an inbound practitioner of any way to talk to their bosses, their agency owners, their leaders about going to inbound? What tips do you have from making that case?

I mean, I don't think George is speaking hyperbolically. This is not hyperbole that he's speaking. It is transformational. Again, you can't send everyone. You can't send everyone every year, necessarily. But sending someone to an inbound connects them with the community that's there, connects them with thought leaders, injects into them inspiration. It's not always for everyone. I can think of a particular friend of mine, a former colleague friend, used to actually work for me at one point, who often would say, I don't need to go to conferences to see inspirational speakers. I'm inspired by just doing good work. Okay, great. Maybe it's not for that person. No worries. But honestly, for 90% of everybody else, I feel like. Like it is. So if I would go to my boss and say, look, I want to do this thing, I am willing, you know, if it's a matter of cost, I'm willing to find the cheapest hotel room that I can bunk with someone. Maybe we can get an Airbnb and share it with some people. I don't know. I'll figure that out. To try and get a discounted ticket in some way, maybe. Right. There are sometimes people who are selling tickets at discounted prices, or if you're really involved in things like the HubSpot community, you might find a. A discount available from someone. But it's worth every penny just to go and pay full price even. It is very. It is informational, it is inspirational, it is transformational. So if I'm trying to convince my boss, I'm going to talk to them about those things, I'm going to get ideas that I never would have had sitting here by myself. I can bring ideas back to the team. I'm willing to give a presentation back to you with all the notes that I took. Right. I'll bring this back to our team. So that's. I mean, do it.

It's interesting because this idea of compounding interest, the compounding interest of the three to four days of those humans being at inbound and going through the inbound experience, the ROI over the years. And again, it could be for your organization. You know what? Actually, here's what I would say to leaders. I would ask you to think about when you're making a decision. Are you Mapping it out on the ROI that will be returned to your organization or the ROI that that human will be able to put into the planet and then make your decision.

Hopefully they're already thinking that way. Right. Like, I know a lot of leaders. I've had managers before where, like, I don't want you to get better because you might leave. Well, right. Like, if I, if I train you too well, you're going to leave. If I give you too many things, you're going to leave. But if you don't, I'm going to stay. Isn't that worse?

Right.

Right.

What kind of message is that sending to people? I want you to be average and mediocre just the way you are right now. Don't reach too high, don't push too hard.

However, it is many organizations that's you that you might step foot into, unfortunately.

Oh, yeah. So question for everybody. And Devin, I don't know how you answer this other than I can't tell you anything because I have all the secrets, but I want to throw this out to the group. What are we hoping for HubSpot to deliver this year? Whether that's something different from last year, something we want them to do again, or something new that we want to see. Personally, I'm just. Again, pleasure to be nominated. Happy to be there for me.

It's the same thing every year. I want to see Ryan Reynolds.

Oh, yeah, that's all true. Listen, I honestly.

Humble request. Why isn't it already happened? Did you ask Yamini that on your podcast?

I mean, did you.

His media company, his media buying company is, is a sponsor. They have a. They have booths there every year, so.

Oh, this needs to happen.

Ryan, where are you? Where are you?

And, and slight spotting of a certain superhero would be absolutely amazing.

Not mad about that.

My family would be jealous.

If he needs me to bring the superhero, I'll.

I'll do it. There you go.

Screenshot.

Screenshot it. If you're listening to this, I apologize. You should be in the live audience or go to community.hubheroes.com and watch the video version because Deadpool has just arrived on the Hub Heroes podcast. Just saying.

My gosh. Yeah, that screenshot is good. I'm gonna. You know what? I'm gonna take down every family photo I have and just put up that screenshot because that was beautiful. That was beautiful.

I love it.

George, Dan, what are you looking for from HubSpot to deliver to this year?

That's. That's a, That's a big one, right? I. I Look for them to deliver the same thing they do every year. Connection. Right. And it's not like HubSpot. The company does a great job with their inbound staff, event staff and everything, but it's the humans within there. It's running into the Devins, it's going into the community area and running into some of the professors that you see and they, you know, they've interacted with you on social and they get to see you. So I expect them to bring that connection. So that'll happen. What I would love to see at some point is a. I don't know how you do this with this big of an event. A better run sessions, logistics.

Right.

I'd love to see them deliver a better experience there. What George said about like, you got to sign up for your. Your sessions, that's helped, but it's still just tough. And I don't know, I don't have a how to solve it idea. But if they can deliver that to where it feels like those first few years in some way, that'd be amazing.

Yeah. If I could get anything I wanted, I would ask for an inbound boosted board so that I wouldn't have to do all of the walking and I could just zoom by everybody. I'm just kidding. I. That I would probably reckon to people I would need a helmet and I would look weird as I'll get out. I always look forward to the food trucks, by the way. Not because I like to eat, but I just like what it causes in the actual area of like the. The picnic tables and the swings and the food trucks and like this, like, idea of breaking bread together, which is like a deeper level of like, familia. Right. The family is together. And so I like that. Hope that inbound pays attention to what used to never happen, but has really happened over the past year and dare I say, two years. The amount of. I wish I had a beat button. I don't. Anyway, the amount of sponsors stuff. Yeah. That tried to get a hold of me before and the amount of sponsors that try to get a hold of me after. It never used to be a thing, but it's quickly becoming a thing. And I'm like, ladies and gentlemen, we are at an inbound event. We are talking about being magnets. We are trying to teach people how not to detract from the brand. And yet I feel like the week or two before inbound and the month or so after is a little bit like somebody's reached in and used the LinkedIn strategy that most people are Using and just sending me shit I don't care about. So inbound. If we could try to figure out how to fix that, get a little bit more segmented, a little bit more. I only hear from people that I might have actually said I wanted to hear from. I don't know how we do that. Also, can you let me bring home my inbound badge? Because the fact that I don't have two years of an inbound badge hanging behind me because I had to return a little freaking click thing because you wanted to track me around. I'd really like to be able to keep my inbound badge. I'm just saying that bums me out.

That's one of my favorite things to do. Like it. Like something.

Get over it.

Running medals. I have my conference thing.

Yeah. Nope. Get over it.

Why do you deprive us HubSpot? Why?

Anyway, But I will gladly wear that badge around for the entire event. I'll take it off while I'm speaking, but I just wish I could take it home with me.

I freaking.

Oh, by the way, by the way. Sorry. Sorry, Liz. I'm sorry.

How dare you.

Celine, in the chat asked a question about correspondence program. I have it on good authority that that is still a thing that most likely will be happening. So, Saleem, you know how to get a hold of me.

Ooh, heard it here first. That's what's up.

Just saying.

All right, quick final question. This is selfish. Oh, this is me. This is. This is what some girls on the Internet wearing pink felt hats call manifesting. I guess. Are we finally going to have a hub heroes get together in Boston, complete.

With pickles and peanut butter?

Yes.

No, no, that's not what I mean. That's not what I mean. I'm talking about, like, a happy hour. I'm talking about a live record. I'm talking about an extended group hug where I make everyone uncomfortable.

First of all, Liz, we don't. First of all, pickles and peanut butter is a happy hour. I'm just going to throw that out there like. Devin was ecstatic. He loved every bite of it. He was like, this is the most amazing Devin ever.

Devin, is this just you wanting me to go through the pain is actually yes.

Yeah, it is. As far as I'm concerned, it's a right of pass. One person has yet to. To tow this line.

Right. Right. But yes.

Not in country. We eat peanut butter and pickle sandwiches.

Nick. Nick from Fargo just popped in to say hey. And he loves us, buddy. Hi, Nick from Fargo. We love you. I'm sorry. Being in the live audience for these recordings, it's the best. It's my favorite. So, yeah, we have to figure this out. I have had people ask me about this. I know people want to do an official or unofficial get together. I'm still waiting for HubSpot to call us. Could you imagine a live recording of Hub?

I mean, two things need to happen. One.

What?

One, we need to figure out a restaurant or a place to say, meet us on this day at this time for, like, this section of an evening, so we can just, like, hang out as. As Hub Heroes. Two, if anybody from HubSpot or anybody from Inbound, Courtney, Andrea, I don't know anybody. If you want to put us on the podcast stage or the podcast area, we would be glad to show up and actually do a live episode of the Shenanigans that we do from our homes. We. We would be happy to do that for you.

I won't hiss at anybody, I promise. And with that gentleman, you'll probably have.

To sign a disclaimer or something for that. Some sort of NDA something, because you're probably. I'm sure somebody in the audience. You'll just see it coming.

I love it. And George, let me get this straight. We've gotten to the end of the episode and you don't have anything clever to take us out on? Well, cutoff game. So strong.

I've been waiting because you made a term, and I was like, oh, I don't know what that is. And so I figured you might close us by explaining what an agency wonk is.

It just means someone who's been in the agency world for a long time. So, like, a wonk is just like a nerd.

See, now I went down like, the Charlie, like, and the chocolate factory. Like Wonka, not Wonka, you know, so.

It'S kind of like. It's. It's a term you hear a lot in the D.C. area, which is where I'm from. Policy, wonk, healthcare. Like, anybody who's like a super niche deep cut nerd in a particular area.

Oh, see, I thought it was something that geese did. 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 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 HoverOSpodcast on any of the socials and let us know what strategy conversations 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. 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 define defeat him in the next episode of the Hub Heroes podcast? Make sure you tune in 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 pop 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 safe.