Dan Moyle's HubSpot Insights from INBOUND 2024

Welcome back to another exciting episode of the Sidekick Strategies expert interviews. And this, of course, is an Inbound Talks edition where we dive deep with thought leaders, innovators, and experts from the world of marketing, sales, and business growth. Today, we have the incredible pleasure of speaking with none other than, well, a friend of mine and a previous colleague, Dan Moyle. Dan is not just your average marketing and HubSpot expert. No, no, no, he's not. He's a storyteller, trainer, and a powerhouse when it comes to customer education. As a HubSpot advisor at Impulse Creative, Dan helps businesses leverage the full potential of HubSpot to elevate their marketing, sales, and customer service efforts. Known for bringing heart and authenticity into the often mechanical world of digital marketing, Dan has made it his mission to put more love into the world through meaningful business connections. I love that part, by the way. At Inbound 2024, Dan participated in an insightful session titled HubSpot x Community Insights from Top Solution Partners. Nobody could figure out what number of things they were going to add because it was a room full of valuable humans adding value. He shared his Wisdom on leveraging HubSpot's tools to maximize growth and community collaboration along with Jennifer, Josh, Phil, and my man, Kyle Jepsen. Now, today, we're thrilled to explore Dan's journey, dive into his key takeaways from Inbound, and gain actionable insights on how businesses can thrive by creating authentic connections. So without further ado, because that was like an intro for my man, let's give a warm welcome to Dan Moyle. Dan, I need.

I need that every time I walk into a room, man. That was great. Make my kids hear that right.

Around every day. You bet, dude. You did. Welcome to the show, by the way. I'm super excited to have you here. I was super excited to see you at Inbound. Maybe even more excited to see you back on an Inbound stage, adding value to the people who are walking around and trying to figure out what they should learn. So just super happy for you and again, glad you could be here today.

I appreciate it. It was great to return to the stage. As you know, it's great to return to Inbound every year. I love being at Inbound. I love being in Boston. Although next year we'll say that a little differently. But. Yeah, right, but no, I mean, but I loved. I loved especially returning to the stage to be able to, as you said, bring that value. Right. One of my favorite things is when you're done with a presentation, you're walking around and somebody will come up to you and say, I heard this from your presentation. I heard this from your panel, whatever it was. Thank you so much. You know, what do you think about that? Whatever. And it's just, I love that connection. So it was, it was great to be back.

Yeah, it is great to connect and it will be interesting next year. Inbound 2025 in San Francisco, by the way, which is kind of crazy and nuts, but we're here to talk about inbound 2024. You participated again in this panel around Community. Let's just start here. Dan, could you give us kind of a high level overview of what this panel was all about and kind of what it aimed to achieve as you guys were on the stage?

Yeah, it started with Josh Curcio who said, hey, and he reached out to, like, a few of us top SOL Solutions authors in the community. So we are those who answer tons of questions. Our answers often get marked as solutions. So we have the most solutions out of all. Community members reached out and said, hey, I kind of want to see if we can do a panel inbound. What do you all think? Of course, Josh and Phil and I all thought, yes, we want to do this. We had invited Carsten Colder, who is in Europe and doesn't love to travel because of the carbon footprint. Like, okay, cool. I said, hey, we need another one, another, another voice on the stage. Let's, let's include Jennifer Nixon, who's another rising star. And so we just decided that was where we started. Like, we are community members who love helping people. What value can we bring to Inbound? We brainstormed and we thought, you know, there are a few questions people ask us about being community members. Is, is there value to us? Like, why do we do it? How do we do it? What are some of our favorite stories? What's. What's something crazy? What does everybody ask? Or what's something crazy people have asked? So all these questions came up and then we decided to reach out to Kyle Jepsen. As you mentioned, our buddy Kyle so graciously gave a little bit of his time and he was our moderator. And so we just talked about what that all looks like. And then on top of that, how does community in general help businesses? Because as all of us either are business owners, we work for a business, or we're freelancers, or as Jennifer is at this moment the top one draft pick because she's looking. So all of us find value in that. And so how can we add value to our own businesses? Just being community minded so that was the genesis of all of it.

I love how it came about. I love all the humans that you mentioned in all of those words. I actually had a chance to talk to Kyle as the event was over and we were walking back towards the hotel. And it's funny, you mentioned, like, gave some of his time. My dude spoke five times at inbound this year. Kyle Jepsen was on fire. He was all over the place. I love it. I do want to actually dive into something that you said because I think it's an important piece of life, and that is. Dan. I'm sure you all had different answers, but when. When you're in commute. Well, I'll just go to the question, Dan. Why. Why do you spend the time that you spend in the community helping humans that you help?

You know, when I first started with HubSpot, way back in 2010, it wasn't that big of a software, but there was still things that you had to figure out and ask questions about or whatever. And what I noticed early on is that any other HubSpot user who had more than like a day, more than I was in there, was willing to help me understand it. Right? So there were HubSpot users all around the country that I connected with through social media or through email or whatever. There are people in my local hometown in southwest Michigan that would get together and work things out with each other. And I just. I recognize that there was this community already around it, this informal community, and I really appreciated getting the help. So the more I learned, the more I want to help someone else who would ask. Who would ask questions. So as that developed over the years into the official community in different iterations that it's been and different variations of community groups or whatever, I just. I see so much value in helping others, you know, in my. In my personal life, George. You know, I. I love to volunteer. I give my. My time with organizations, nonprofits, this kind of thing. I help people. We help people in our. In our little hometown. I. I just love helping. I think. Why. Why not? Right. Part of my. My just being is that my faith tells me to help others. Whatever you want to look at, I just want to help. So all that to say that's. That's my goal in community, is to help others. So if I can give a resource that I know of or an answer that I've done or connect them with someone who has the answer, I'm going to do it. I just love doing that.

Yeah, I love this idea of being a servant, showing up to serve to help. I love this concept of giving people a hand up because you've actually made that part of the journey and it really kind of makes me just understand what is so good about the HubSpot community. It is, it is multiplied by the individuals who have the same mindset as Dan, what you just listed out. And, and that's why when you think about getting into HubSpot as far as your SaaS software, you have to realize you're also bringing in this large community of like very servant focused, helpful humans. Now it. I do need to dive into another question though that you leaned into in that very beginning piece that we were talking about because I also have spent time in the community. But Dan, there's so many people, there's so many problems. By the way, I'm not saying problems with HubSpot, I'm just saying humans trying to figure out how to leverage HubSpot or a thing in HubSpot. And so you mentioned the why and you said the how. How do you do it? Like how do you manage the time or pay attention to it or, or make it. I'll use this word. It was another podcast we did earlier this morning. We use the word persistence. How do you stay persistent at helping the humans in such a eight lane highway of HubSpot help if you will.

The persistence comes from consistence. I feel like the consistency, consistency of just doing it. So here's, here's a very, very tactical thing that I do super specific every morning. My, my day starts around 8:30 according to our company rules. But I'm a little bit of an early riser so I go for my morning walk. I listen to some podcasts, whatever, listen to the daily news, this kind of a thing. Get back to my, my, my home office here. I work from, from home and by, by 7:30, 8:00, somewhere in there, I'm ready to start working. The first thing I do is open up HubSpot community and I spend 30 minutes a day that first thing in the morning when I'm fresh, I'm ready to like go just answering questions. Now that 30 minutes a day, four days a week, I spend Fridays doing other stuff. So like there's two hours a week right there that I'm just answering questions that adds up so fast. The other thing is like so, so that's like how I do it. But what do I look for? For answers is another what I think you asked. And when you go into HubSpot community, especially as a member who wants to answer questions, you can just Go through and filter questions that haven't been solved or questions that have no responses. Easy filters to look for in those and you can then answer them. But I also know. So here's the secret weapon for me and a few of us HubSpot champions. The more you answer and help, the more value you bring, the more the community moderators and community managers see you. And I think you get added to a secret list. I don't think it's a secret list, but like they know you. And when you start to get known, they'll say, oh, this is about, you know, content. I know that Dan can do that. This is development. Jennifer can do that. I know, like, so you start to get known and you get tagged by the community managers. And so that's a real helpful thing to just go, oh, I've been tagged in these four questions. I'll answer those first. Then I can go look for others. So there's that. I do have one piece of advice though. Yeah, I'm stealing this from Jennifer Nixon. She taught me this. And I love this part of it. Just because a question has a response, even, even if it's a solution, doesn't mean that you can't go in and give some perspective. Now don't be one of those folks who just re states the answer in hopes of a solution, like, don't do that. But if you have another perspective, like, you know, when I go in and see the Jennifer's answered something or Phil's answered something or Josh has or you have, I'll go in and say, I love that answer, you know, plus one for George's answer. And also, have you thought about this? Or I'll ask another clarifying question, whatever. So I look at it as it is community. So there's all of us there. So they're not going just to Dan's website or Jennifer's website and asking one of us question. They want all of them so answer more than just the ones that haven't been solved.

Yeah, I love this because when I hear you say that, Dan, it's like one of the things I love about HubSpot is there's like 12 different ways to do the same thing that you might be trying to achieve. And some might be difficult for others and some might be simple for others. And community should equal conversation. And what I love that you just said is like, I want to put my piece of the conversation because I feel like it might be valuable or it might not. Take it or leave it. But here, this is something else, some context Some perspective that you can be thinking about. I love that so much. Now I have to nerd out on on the man who is Dan Moyle for a second in this next question because I know that you've been a champion for creating authentic connections even in traditionally boring industries. See what I did, I called back to like maybe the first time you're on stage at inbound, so. But traditionally boring industries like mortgage banking. So here's my question for you. In that being ingrained in your brain, how did you bring that perspective to the inbound stage this year? Like, is there anything that you kind of brought along the way as a presenter?

You know, you're absolutely right, George. I. My first inbound presentation, my first two actually back to back years were all about how to do cool marketing or not terrible marketing in a boring industry. Here's the thing, what that taught me back then was that we all think that our industry is boring. I mean, maybe unless you're selling like sports cars or something, you know, but we all think that, especially B2B, right? I hear so often. Well, yeah, but that's like B2C marketing. I can't be on TikTok because I'm on B2B. Nobody. Like that's. And so bringing that thought of we all think we're in boring industries, to me the transfer is we all think that we don't really have much to say, right? Like, well, somebody else has answered it. Somebody else has a better perspective. I don't know that much more. But realizing that we're all in this together, figuring this out together, we all have perspectives. I might know just a little bit more than you, not much, but I've been there for maybe a week longer or whatever. I've got a perspective. So we all think that we're in industries that can't use this, can't use community. I can't build a community. And we all think that as a community member, maybe I don't have much to say, but in reality, like there's, there's space for community and there is space for all of us to bring a perspective and help each other out. So yeah, I think that's what, what, what, what I brought from that early, that early experience.

I love that, I love that one of the things that you all talked about was overcoming HubSpot challenges and, and you're in the community. So much curiosity is one of like, I think it's one of my superpowers. It's either that or it's the thing that gets me in Trouble the most, but the jury's still out on that. But I was curious because you are in the community, like what are some of the most common challenges you see HubSpot users facing? It could be 1, 2, 3, totally up to you. And, and are there like simple ways of like wow, like we, here's how you would just address those things. But almost everybody finds issues with XYZ abc.

I mean I think one of the biggest ones is some of the technical stuff, right? So many us HubSpot users, we aren't developers, we're not, you know, it geniuses. And so connecting your sub domain, Do I need a subdomain or a regular domain? Somebody told me subdirectory, I'm not really sure what, what do I do? Right. So those kind of questions, those types of questions of the are, are very common because we're not those folks, we're marketers, we're salespeople, we're maybe leaders of those organizations, of those departments, those teams, whatever. And so we don't have all those answers. So that's a, that's a big one, right? Those technical ones. And I feel like the secret to those is just searching through community to find those answers. Like you don't have to go ask the question, you can search in that bar to start to ask it and it'll bring up an answer for you. So there you go. And then teaching yourself how to do it. The other thing I see is one of the biggest, one of the ones that I see quite often that comes to mind when you ask that is automation, workflows and sequences and everything that surrounds those right now. I know like you've talked about this before, when to use them differently, what are sequences, what are workflows, how to use them differently. So that's a big one. But also just the power that you have with workflows. They started off as this very simple tool of sending automated emails. After an action they have become this tool that can do so much and so people just asking questions about those and there again like how do you find those answers? How do you figure those out? So as someone who answers the questions, a couple of things that I'll do is I'll go to the knowledge base. First of all, the HubSpot knowledge base is like I say all along that I'm, I'm not the all knowing oracle, I'm more of a librarian. So as a librarian I'm going to help you find those resources. So I'm going to go find links to knowledge base articles I'm going to pull up quotes, I'm going to use that now. I don't think I've told anybody this one, George. So here's the exclusive for you, my friend.

All right.

Some of the new tools out there in the world are really good to use as well. Trust but verify. As our friend Remington says, Perplexity AI is one of those generative AI tools that will give you answers with links. So sometimes you can go there and find a bunch of other resources. Now again, I think like that's fine if that's all you want but I think asking community is still very powerful because you then also get the perspective and the use cases. But as someone answering those questions, I might use Google, I might use Perplexity, I might use just the knowledge base. I might go use the community to find other links. So as a librarian, community member, that's what I'm going to do. So anyway, there you go.

I, I love this so much because I, I have said historically I don't need to know everything. I just need to know where everything lives to actually pass it to the and it's such a powerful, freeing piece as like a coach or a consultant or trainer and I'd love to Dan, what I heard you saying and of course you're speaking my love language based on what I talked about at Inbound. But it's like community and human meaning human powered. But even you are dipping into there may be some AI or tech perplexity, Google assistance. And so being able to augment yourself as a human with this AI or this tech to then come back to the human powered piece of perspective of the curiosity of the fixing the problem of the hand up of being the blessing bomber, if you will, inside the HubSpot community is absolutely amazing.

Yeah.

So you know, I know like this is important, right? In the panel y' all talked about the power of community in problem solving and being able to do what we're talking about here right now. What do you say? Or how do you get companies to build a strong community around their HubSpot ecosystem? Like, why is it so important that you're like, what do you mean you haven't jumped into Community? What do you mean you haven't jumped into Academy? Like, talk me there. I'm a, I'm a CEO C suite and I'm like, we just bought a staff software that's all like and so we'll use it. Like talk me into that. Like here's why. They need to build a strong community around or inside of the HubSpot ecosystem.

So I've used other software. I've used, you know, a big HubSpot fan, obviously I'm wearing the T shirt, for crying out loud. But I've used Salesforce and Pardot, I've dabbled in Marketo. I've used WordPress. I've used all these other tools and they're fine, no shade. But what I have noticed is that in when I was a Salesforce user, their trailhead, that whole academy type customer education focus, it didn't, it just didn't feel the same as HubSpot. And that's just a feeling. Maybe I'm just. Maybe I just prefer orange over blue. I don't know. But what HubSpot has built, it seems way more organic, authentic and helpful rather than like just difficult or whatever. I don't know. I just, I prefer it. Why not see if there's a community already that exists and how can you empower them to keep connecting and to do more and can you invest some money or time into it? Right. What I don't necessarily agree with is this like forced community. We're going to build a community because we know that they need it. Let's go see if it exists first. Right? Do a little social listening. Is there a LinkedIn group? Is there, you know, is there some chatter on Instagram? Is there, you know, are there ticker? And I think that's what HubSpot did really well.

Yeah, I love that idea of like, see if there's something you can be part of. And my brain also went to. And if you don't find it, then by all means, probably create it. Because there's something magical about. You said the, the magic in the hallway. Right, the hallway moments. And, and there is something magical about being able to create your own digital halls for those magic moments to be happening. And so again, see what the landscape is and then go in the right direction for your business. And, and it's funny because we're talking about community and building community, the importance of community. But I also think that this directly aligns with like, strategy and more importantly, strategy to, like, scaling businesses. And of course, we're here to talk about Inbound and HubSpot. So, Dan, I'm just gonna go a little bit sideways, but maybe not really that much and ask you, like, strategies for scaling business using HubSpot. Like, could you explain how HubSpot helps the companies that you're helping train and coach? Like, scale efficiently, I think is a key word I want to put in there. So just HubSpot business scaling. Talk me through it.

I mean I think it go. I, I would call back to the collaboration side of it. How can any of our clients that, you know, when I do a HubSpot training, a workshop, an onboarding experience, I always suggest using HubSpot's community to find collaboration, to find answers, to find use cases, to find inspiration. So it may not be a direct like here's the steps 1, 2 and 3 and how you scale 10x. I don't know that community is ever that to be honest. And I think if you're asked, you're asking the wrong thing, I'll say that. But what I do think it does is it does help you scale organically and scale in different areas of again, connection, collaboration and education. You know, one of the things you said earlier, like in my intro is about I'm a big proponent of customer education. I have thought of this for a long time without the words. But recently I started to explore the idea of customer education as an industry, as its own. Like it's, it's, it's, it's a thing and it has been for a long time. This is not me, this is not new. I recognize all those who have come before me. But I've realized that this whole idea of helpful marketing, helpful sales, instead of being a salesperson, you're an educator. That's customer education. And that happens in community. And you don't have to, you, you don't have to run it right, you can encourage it, you can foster it, this kind of thing. But as a business looking to scale and you're using HubSpot community is where you find all of that, that customer education and inspiration and use cases and everything.

I love all of that, all of that. So I want to nerd out on the man that is Dan Moyle again for a second because I know there's a wolf around it and that is storytelling, right? And so when you think of storytelling, and I'm going to ask this in a couple part question, you can ask the parts that you want. When I think of Dan Moyle and I think of storytelling and I think of engaging with a community, I think of teaching HubSpot tools, I think of like sales and marketing teams, like how do you use storytelling throughout your daily life? And also then how can businesses infuse.

I think there are two kinds of storytelling that I think of in my day to day. The easy storytelling is simply relaying an experience. So when I see a question in HubSpot, for instance, and in community that is, how do I, X, Y, Z. I might say, well, when I did this, for this example, here's what I did. And so it doesn't have to be super complex. It doesn't have to be a long and drawn out story. This is not a hero's journey epic. I'm talking about Luke and Yoda here. It's just simply, here's what I did. And I really like that kind of storytelling. It's simple. And so I think businesses can use that quite a bit. And when I say businesses, it's the people within them, obviously, right? If you are someone telling a story, if you're a salesperson trying to connect with somebody, hear what they're saying, actively listen, and then relay back to them what they said. And maybe if you can tie something else that you know and experience or whatever, right. Storytelling. The other side of storytelling is that longer storytelling. Can you help your folks who are reading your stuff, watching your stuff, listening? Can you help them see themselves in what you're talking about? Can you make them the hero? If you can do that, you're going to elicit emotions and connect with them more deeply. So those are the two ways, big picture that I see storytelling being used. And you're right, I love storytelling.

So, Dan, I want to wrap this thing up, land the plane, if you will, and I'm going to ask you again. I'm not a big fan of two part questions, but I'm going to ask you this question in two parts. I really want to know because you went and had this in.