HubSpot #INBOUND24 Is Almost Here! (Yes, We're Very Excited + a Little Nervous)

Hi, everybody. George, normally open the show by going, liz, I know you're about to talk, but I want to say something. So I was actually just trying to get ahead of it by leaving you the birth to do.

You were trying to give me the space to tell you that I have officially had chat gbt. Write me a song about grapes in the toilet. Okay, sweet. I did. But we'll talk about that later.

You do realize for the audience at home who does not join us live, they have no idea what it is that you're talking about. Right. Which means I now have to say it. So I have to say it's going.

To be Noah's fault.

Yeah, yeah.

Because the recording button was hit context.

When I was a child, George.

Yeah.

When I was a child, I was.

Not the situation list.

So most parents who are dealing with kids, little kids going off to school right now are dealing with kids who are crying on their way and those who are screaming as soon as they get back home because how dare you leave me to learn letters and. And numbers and shapes and blocks and sharing and. And friendship pictures. I was not that child. When I was dropped off at school, my mother apparently would try to, Elizabeth, have a good day. And I went, bye, Mom. You can go, you can leave. Apparently, at one point I turned around, said, why are you here? And then I just ran off into the school. And then I was either when she came to pick me up, refusing to get in the car because I would be on top of the jungle gym because I had decided I did not want to go new home, or there was one particular occasion where my mother couldn't find me on the jungle gym. So she went inside and asked, where is Elizabeth? Well, Elizabeth is currently flushing grapes in the toilet.

Yeah, we're going to talk about that later.

To which my mother, you know, just the inquisitive woman that she was, why is she doing that? My teacher apparently replied, unclear, but Elizabeth was on a mission and she's not one to be derailed. Oh, and that was kind of.

That hasn't changed.

Yeah, I feel like that is a pretty good description of you.

Yeah. One not to be derailed.

We do not derail, Liz.

No.

Is your session planning for inbound going, Max?

Not well. Not good at all.

Not well. No. No.

Chats, Fire.

No. That train. That train has derailed.

In fact, was it ever on the tracks?

I completely missed it. And I don't even think I went to the station. I didn't even make it to the station to see it going off into the sunset.

You got there and the train is already on fire.

I saw a LinkedIn post that said registration opened up 40 minutes ago. And I said, geez, I should hop in there. And then I saw that the post was posted four days earlier. And I said, might be in trouble. I up because I was like, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to register for Georgia's session this time because I want to go and see it. And so I went and went to check it out and it is books.

Register for the encore. Register for the encore. There's an encore?

There's an encore.

Yeah, there's encore's book too.

Just told me the chat encores book. So, yeah, I don't know. You know what, George? You might have to invite me up to the stage just to sit there with you.

Will you be my bouncer?

Special guest and I'll sit there and do absolutely nothing.

Sit on the stage and flush grapes down the toilet.

No, no, you're not sitting on the stage and flushing. There is no toilet on the stage. But Max, will you be my bouncer?

I'll be your bouncer. If I.

All right, there we go. There we go. I can get you in there.

Cool. I'll check everybody in with the van. Happily.

You're the content strategist. I guess it's funny because I'll just be like, yeah, my content strategist, my bouncer, my wife, like, she yells at.

Me and asks me existential questions about my childhood and she says blog posts come out of it.

Wait, Chad says. My wife runs the staffing. I'll get you in.

What? Wait, what?

Chad, is this true?

Wait, how? Wait, what? No, wait.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen at home, while they are waiting and wowing their way to glory, welcome to the frantic one week countdown to inbound.

Never knew this.

Where we have.

Okay, my God.

Get Chad. Get Chad in the room. Let's have him as a guest.

Do you ever have. Sorry, Liz. I know this is like herding cats and we're going to talk about inbound, I promise.

But.

But have you ever found out something in your life that you didn't know and then you're like, how did I not know that? And then your brain explodes and you don't know where to go from there. That's me right now. I never. How the. Go ahead, Liz.

Liz. Liz is not hurting.

Catch.

She's hurting two nasty pigs on a farm that are not well behaved.

Hurting two drunk kangaroos with super soakers full of Gatorade. Going. Why? What's the problem, Liz? What could possibly be wrong? Just setting everything on fire.

We're so screwed.

So welcome, listeners.

Inbound Shot Challenge. Every time we say inbound, we take a shot. Is that what I heard?

I got gin somewhere.

Do it.

To be honest, Inbound.

This chaos represents the energy I think all of us are feeling with one week to go to inbound, which is why we are having this conversation, because we have George, the planner. Yeah, right. The ringmaster. Who, I'm going to guess you didn't have a problem signing up for sessions. George, you were. You were there, ready to rock and roll.

The ones I wanted to get to. I am signed up for the.

Meanwhile, Max is watching in the distance, a train that he was supposed to be on catch on fire, thinking he was supposed to be on a plane three days later. So here we are, ladies and gentlemen. The full range of the human experience. Yeah, welcome one and all sorts of. So let's just jump right in. How y' all feeling?

Great. And excited and confused all at the same time.

Yeah, I'm also those things.

How about you?

Great podcast guys. What? Great podcast guys. We'll just cut. Are we done? Are we done here? No, I'm just joking.

Well, no, no, I'm actually. I'm so stoked for him. I, like, I can't wait. It's gonna be awesome. Like, I. I'm still peeved it happens in September just because it's, like, right when, you know, kids are going back to school. My wife's also a teacher. She's going to school. So it, you know, we just get into the new routine, and I'm like, see ya. And I'm gone for a week. And I feel, like, super guilty about it. But, you know, I mean, it's. Dude, this is our summer camp. This is. This is Hub summer camp reunion.

Yeah.

Inbound prom. It's all of those things all mixed into one, and it's going to be freaking awesome. I can't wait.

Just excited because I get to go.

Yes.

This is a very.

You did not get to go last year.

Yes.

Or the year before. Or the year before. I haven't been. Geez, I want to say 2019.

Well, that's like grandpa in Internet years.

It's been a minute.

It's been a hot minute.

That's right. And this granny is going to whip us all into shape today. That's right.

Yeah.

So I am also excited. There is an element of great flushing confusion. I don't know what to do with myself. I I don't know where to go. I got some sessions, not all of them because I was somewhere in between George and Max, where it's like I wasn't four days late, but Liz was definitely running after the train and like hurling her. But like Keanu Reeves in Speed when he has to jump on the bus while it is in motion. That was me getting into my session. So I'll admit that. But I am freaking pumped. But we're all freaking pumped for different reasons. Because, George, you're showing up as a speaker.

Yeah.

Max, you're showing up as both big popsicle of happily.

Yes.

And also a former big orange sprocket shill. Right. You're shilling bipops. And I'm just. I'm there for the vibes and the learning and for me. And I love that. George, I want to start with you.

And to see your. Your baby. Your baby boys though too, right?

I go huggy so much. I think I'm taller than both of you, aren't I? Because I'm taller than George for sure.

Well, God, you're definitely taller than me because I'm short.

I'm 6ft tall.

I am also 6ft. Then we are tiny George sandwich.

The same height.

Yeah.

Any George sandwich.

Let's not do George sandwich. Let's squish. I know when to run. At least now I know when to get my exercise at inbound. When I see Liz and Max together, that means run, run, run.

Because you're gonna get squished. We are going to squish with friendship.

Yes. I bet this isn't making any of our listeners uncomfortable at all whatsoever.

I mean, it's making me uncomfortable. Does that matter?

So, George, let's switch to something. Maybe either it's going to be more comfortable or less comfortable. You are speaking and your session filled up so quickly you now have an encore presentation. And for the listeners at home, your session is really exciting because you're giving a tactical real world, practical playbook of how to create human powered AI assisted content. And I would love for you to just take us behind the scenes a little bit. How's preparation going? How are you feeling? You are one week out as an attendee and a speaker. What's that like?

Yeah, I'm. I'm super excited for the session. Both sessions. Actually three sessions. But I'll get into that here in a hot minute. Actually three sessions and two late night shows. Anyway, I'll get into that.

Six seasons in a movie.

Yeah, it's. It's crazy. Like, I mean, Inbound is quickly becoming like content creation Mecca. But again, we'll, we'll talk about that in, in the future in this episode as well. Liz the preparation is going good. It's probably one of the best presentation decks that I've ever created, just in general, but for sure, Inbound, the use of graphics and plain text and it's, it's just sexy. But also I love the fact that this is going to be the first time that I'm not really strapped down to just the presentation deck because it is a 90 minute session that has some workshoppy, like three to four workshoppy areas where I get to pull up my screen, I get to share with people how I do stuff in real time, how they can do stuff in real time, how they can interact with their assistant, how they can leave the easy button where it belongs, not on their desk, not on their computer, probably in the closet somewhere. How they can embrace their humanity, their power, maybe even the power that they don't yet know that they have and the augmented, like energizing expertise that they'll have at their fingertips after the session. So. So I'm just excited to hopefully be that catalyst for people who are trying but stumbling are maybe possibly afraid and keeping it or giving it the Heisman. And even he dipped the toes in the water of like more advanced stuff that people are like, oh, I didn't know we should be using that when we're doing that. So it's just, I'm excited because it's going to be a big nerd fest and it's all about the humans and it's all about empowering them to move forward with better content in the future.

So I want to throw something out there though, that you haven't really mentioned, which is I think most people attending Inbound or maybe who haven't attended in the past couple years or so, we're used to the standard. It's a 45 minute session. No, we're not going. You are doing a 90 minute session. Twice.

90 minute sessions, yes, twice.

So Twix. Yeah, I want to go behind the scenes. How do you even prepare for that? Is it dry heating into a paper bag for no weeks straight and then just praying?

No, it's actually using AI as my power assistant for the last two years and have not been talking about it online and trying to be an expert at it and just simply being able to finally share with the world. Here's all the stuff that I've been playing with. Here's all the stuff we've been doing. By the way, here's the stuff we've been doing. And not near one of you that reads our blog or knows who we are. Have ever said that smells like AI. Nope, nobody. And so I'm just. Again, I'm not dry heaving. Uh, listen, I've been doing 90 minute sessions 12 weeks in a row for the super admin training that we do. So the time length is like, whatever. I, I can talk for that long, I can teach for that long, and there's just so many good, juicy areas that we can get into. My biggest fear is that we'll get into a pocket of juiciness and like miss out on some of the stuff. To be honest, if I'm worried about anything. But yeah, 90 minutes, two different times that people can join us. And it's again, I, I am, I am challenging myself. I'm challenging myself. He's gonna be a juicer. I'm challenging myself to make this the best ever inbound talk that I've ever given. What you're saying a lot.

So here's my question though. And this is where I, I'm someone who's a big fan of how the sausage gets made. And I know when I've gone and seen like really big talks like this, like, if somebody were to ask me, you know, Liz, what have you been working content for the past two years? It would be a three hour run on sentence and nobody would have any idea what I'm talking about. So how do you synthesize all the work that you're doing into a 90 minute presentation that doesn't break all, like, all of our hearts? Right? Because I think when I go to Inbound, for the most part, I feel really excited. I feel like I'm learning things, things that I can take away and immediately, like, use. Right? But we've all been in sessions where it's like, why am I here? Why are any of us here? What is happening? The stuff where there's all fluff, no substance, all promises, no payoff.

There's, there's, there's no fluff in this bad boy. I'm allergic to fluff. By the way, I literally was on a podcast earlier today where we were doing a nice dope kind of interview about the journey that we've been on here at George B. Thomas llc, Psychic Strategies BYD and Now Superhuman Framework. And like that that came up where they're like, yeah, we just know that we're never gonna get fluff from George. Like, we're gonna get what we need to hear. And what's. What's supposed to be said. And I'm like, that's just. And so, Liz, there's two things. One, there is no fluff in this presentation. I'm not fluffing to be able to make 90 minutes. The other piece is no fluff.

No. No fluff.

Guff.

What about marshmallow fluff?

There's no marshmallow fluff. Although somebody come back and make the peanut butter sandwich. No, no, no. Marshmallow fluff. And peanut butter is a too.

But.

Yeah, but milking your eggs.

Here's. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here. Here's the thing. I believe, and I've been told historically, one of my superpowers is being able to simplify the complex. And, man, did we have to simplify the complex when we were building out this presentation and the things that we're going to talk about, because it would be way easy to just go over everybody's head. But that's not what we're doing.

Liz, you looked so concerned looking off camera to the right there.

She's looking at her whiteboard.

Do you want to know what the real answer is? Do you want to know what the real answer is? I looked over at my whiteboard.

I wish you were staring at a ghost, if I'm being honest with you.

You were like, this is where I'm going to show my ass as a word nerd. I looked at the board, which is a scribble of brainstorming notes, things that will never see the light of day. There are internal use only. Will never be published on a website. And I spelled a word wrong, and I felt like an idiot sandwich when I caught it out of the corner of my eye. That is legitimately what happened.

Well, that's not that big a deal. I spell stuff wrong all day and people still love me.

It's not a don't love the way you spell.

No, they don't love the way that I spelled, but they love me anyway. This is. You spelled with enthusiasm, not accuracy.

You spell with enthusiasm, not accuracy.

He spells with his heart, not with his brain.

Facts, facts, Max.

Okay, so you're coming at this from the other side, right? Because you're like, well, I never made it to the train. The station is on fire. What are sessions? But you're there and you are busy. So how are you preparing on that? Because you're the chief evangelist to happily, right? So how are you preparing? What are you doing?

Preparing mentally is what I'm doing.

Like, does your brain do push ups.

Well, I mean, last time we went, I wasn't expecting necessarily to be spending six hours outside both days handing out popsicles to people and misnaming people freak when I did. But, like, I mean, now at this point, I'm just like, kind of going into it being like, listen, I know my schedule is not going to be my schedule. I'm going to get pulled around in a thousand different directions and have to do all these different things and make all this content and, you know, shake, shake hands, kiss babies, do all this different kind of stuff. And so I'm just. I am just going to clear my calendar completely, assume it's going to be total chaos and not make any commitments, because I'm sure there are going to get overlapped with some other stuff that I have to be at.

Right.

That, and I'm also just, like, awful at planning ahead, too. So I think, like, the ADHD in my brain is just like, you know what? Just be there and talk to people at the booth and that's going to be enough.

Be the happiest popsicle around.

Yeah. It's like, it's like I can just plan to be at the booth and tell everybody how awesome our apps are, and maybe I'll walk around and get a Sodi Pop and say hi to people, but that's all I can handle. You know what I mean? Instead of just being like, man, I'm going into it and I have all these, like, things I have planned and all these things on my calendar, and I'm not going to have enough time to get between them, and I'm going to get stopped by people walking to the bathroom and, you know, and so I'm just like, I need to. I'm. My. My brain is just doing everything it can to just say, stress out about it. Just be there, don't have any obligations, nothing. You know, I tried. The one thing I put on my calendar to block out for myself was when I knew George's thing was happening. The one thing I neglected to do was actually book a seat at the session. So, you know, George, I'll be there in spirit, I guess, unless apparently Chad can make me the bouncer or something.

Yeah.

So here's. Here's the thing, though. I want to double down on that because anybody who's listening to this, like, I'll say inbound. But attending any event should not be a reason for anxiety and mental breakdown. Like, when I think about inbound. And if you want to get the most out of inbound or the most out of any event that you go to, you lean into serenity, serendipity. Like, yes, you make a little bit of a plan. Yes, you set a few expectations. Of course you're going because you want to learn things. But opening your brain up to that, not everything you will learn, and maybe not even the most important thing that you will learn will be from a keynote stage or a breakout stage. It may be in the. In this case, the Weston lobby, drinking a, you know, zero Coke Zero or a Bloody Mary or whatever beverage you like. And you might have a conversation that just changes your life, changes your business, changes the way that you think about everything that you historically done, and it was not from a professional speaker. Because we all have the ability to add value to those lives that we're going to meet at these events.

I mean, George, you brought that up.

Last year with magic in the hallways.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's a true fact. Listen, I've. I've seen it happen over and over and over again, like, and again. There's a lot of great speakers, There's a lot of great sessions. There's a lot of places that I want to be, but I am always opening and. Or open and listening to. Ooh. This might be more important than that. Let me go ahead and take time out to go do this thing. Like, for instance, if I get a chance to talk to Tony this year, I'm gonna talk to Tony this year. I'm just saying because I heard a lot about Tony last year from Max.

I heart Tony shirt.

Yeah. He's my boy.

Yeah. If you don't know what we're talking about, go back and listen to last year's episode where Max talks about Tony.

Friendship and definitely 100 getting people's names right on the first try.

Name is John.

His name is John. I'm like, no, it's not.

Anyway, moving on.

I love that. So, George, I actually want to stick with you here for a moment because you're starting to dig in.

I feel like I'm in hot seat. Good Lord, you are.

I'm not prepared. Max, how do you feel to talk about. I have anxiety.

Max, how do you feel present?

I'm here. I'm here, and I'm excited. And I'm also staring at my calendar next week, and I just don't want next week to have to happen anyway.

I mean, to be honest, though, Max, how many people right now do you think are listening with kind of a similar. I'm excited.

There's excitement.

Yeah. There's packing and there's flights and there's all sorts of stuff in the middle of.

I just don't want to drive. I just don't want to drive.

Knock us off the ledge, George. While I stressfully clutch dry erase markers. Yeah, talk Max and I and our listeners off the ledge about it's okay to be a little, you know, calm down. What should be doing. What should we be doing this week leading up to inbound? What should we be doing right now?

Yeah, I think there's a couple things and we can get to the like, micro pieces, but from a macro level. And again, this is hard to maybe imagine and somewhat hard to do, but I literally have Thursday and Friday, the week before we go to inbound, mostly blocked off. I have some important meetings, but I have it mostly blocked off for what I would call the decompression of information that I don't need in my brain. Meaning if I'm about to go fill up, I need to like, make some space. I need to think about, like, what can. What cannot be on my brain that I might be thinking about? What things can I close out so that I'm not using that energy? How do I free myself to have a four day experience, a four day human centric experience, and not have these, like, lingering pieces that I'm thinking about and worrying about? So literally, like a. How do you drain the brain a little bit so that you can refill it with the stuff that's going to happen at inbound? I'm also during this time, what should I pack? Do I have comfortable sneakers? Do I have enough hoodies? Do my hoodies match my hats? Like, the important stuff, like, do you have the right jewelry to go with your outfit? Which, by the way, I too am.

Worried if my hoodies match my hat.

Listen, listen, you have to dress comfortable. So like, that's the one thing. It's funny the amount of times that inbound the team has messaged people that it's like casual, professional, like, make sure you have comfortable shoes. Like, don't wear your cowboy boots. Probably don't wear your high heels. Like, be comfortable. Because again, it's, it's, it's about the experience of the humans that you're going to be around and the education that you can bring into your life. And so there is a level of packing, there's a level of decompressing. But I was telling Max when we got started, I love Max's guest appearance of his dogs on the podcast every now and then.

I'm sorry.

No, you're fine. We keep it real here. We keep it real. So here, here's the real thing though.

That.

And I talked to Max about this before we hit the record, Liz, before you got here. Right now what everybody should be doing is, is mentally thinking about how they can absorb as much energy as humanly possible into their body, their spirit, their psych, whatever. Like I'm, I'm for the next week I'm like charging up to have the energy that will be expended over that four to five day period. So like drain the brain, infuse yourself with energy, take lots of vitamin C before you get on the dang plane and spend time with about a bazillion other humans. Make sure you pack properly, then go for it. And I would treat inbound, and I know I mentioned serendipity, I would treat inbound, your inbound experience like a four day roller coaster. Let it take you where it's going to take you. Try to stay on the tracks that you created the most you can. But just enjoy the dang experience.

I love that. George, you're also prepping for something a little bit extra special that's outside of your two sessions. Are we allowed to talk about it?

Yeah, we can talk about it. Which by the way I keep referencing three. I have two sessions that I'm doing the 90 minute sessions. And then I want to also mention, because I need to mention for the other human that is going to be part of this, we are doing a debate and, and it's an AI debate. And I could have swore. Yeah, yeah, here it is. Debate AI in marketing pilot or co pilot. And so it's going to be myself and it's going to be Doug Davidoff and it's going to be Dale Berndrand and we're going to be talking about AI pilot or co pilot. So I'm excited about that. But Liz, I don't think that's what you were mentioning. I think you were mentioning the inbound late night show with George B. Thomas. Yeah, so it's happening two nights, Wednesday night and Thursday night from 5pm to 5:30. There is a location, a stage that we will actually be able to be on. It's like a news anchor desk that has like four chairs. We're gonna have different humans in those chairs. Wednesday and Thursday. I think Max is going to be there Wednesday or Thursday. Liz might be there. I've got Chris, Carolyn, I've got other people that were inviting to be part of this. Heck, it might even be a little bit of a round robin. Sit down, get up, let somebody in during the 30 minute session. But we're going to break down all the things that we're loving about inbound, things that we're learning, things that people should be thinking about. We're going to do our best to make the audience that is present laugh and enjoy and some additional education. But really we're going to try to. We'll see if we can pull this part off. We're going to try to do a LinkedIn live for each of those nights so that people who couldn't make it to the inbound could actually, what we're talking about, see the different guests, see kind of around the experience that we're going to be in the middle of. So I'm excited because a couple years we have done this show like audio only in hallways, in the yard, in what felt like a broom closet. One year. So the fact that we're actually going to be on stage and there can be an audience for this 5 to 5:30, Wednesday and Thursday inbound late night show. I'm pretty psyched to see where it goes and what we can do with it.

We need to have a live recording of Hub Heroes next year. And I do solemnly swear that I promise not to get us canceled or to say anything. No, all I'll do. All I'll do. The worst I'll. The worst I'll do is flush grapes down the toilet. Okay, that's the worst I'll do. And Darmish.

Yeah, that just. We.

Anyway, I really can't be trusted, can I?

No, not really. Not when it comes to.

We actually do. I would be. Okay, so you're telling me I could keep it together? I can do it. I'm in a.

I believe in you. I believe in you. I think you can do it. I trust you. We can do it.

So what. What everybody's listening to right now is the mental collapse of my psyche, what I perceive myself to be, and the realization of who I am. I believe and aspire to be a functional adult human. Hey, I am in reality a literate chaos gremlin. And that's fine.

It's. Everybody needs to be who they are. As long as you're showing up as a whole ass human. I love that whole ass gremblin. Yeah, just don't feed them after midnight or get him wet, I guess is what they say.

But what if I want ramen after midnight?

I like. See, I like ramen. But anyway. Yeah, we need. Okay, we need a. We officially need a T shirt that just Says whole ass Kremlin.

Whole ass Kremlin.

Chad put in the chat. Whole ass Kremlin.

Whole ass. That. That would be lit. That would be me. I'm a whole ass human. Before midnight. After midnight, everything's fine.

I know that we. I'm assuming we're getting on to some of the things that we're excited about beyond some stuff we've already talked about. I don't know. I'm not sure if I missed that boat. Kind of like I missed all my sessions yet.

Let me get this straight. You were four days late to signing up, and now you are. You are, quote, unquote, being the responsible one getting us back on track.

I mean, I. I was.

You know what I was. I was the one that said, I hope that question wasn't asked, and I forgot to answer it. And this is me casually bringing it up.

Just. Max, it was the first question, and you said you had.

About what we were excited about.

You said you didn't know that's how we got onto the train.

No.

All right, Max, how about this? Max, for the very first time, never been asked before, how are you feeling about Inbound this year? What are you excited about?

Well, I thought that was different than, like, what specific things happening at Inbound are we excited about? I thought there was going to be a whole conversation about which sessions and stuff like that, but maybe I've completely missed all of it. I just want to say am particularly per. I am particularly excited about the product spotlights this year.

Yes.

Because I don't want to say anything that's going to get me in trouble. There's a couple of things that I have been privy to that I. And I will not. I will not name any of my sources. I will not give any hints to what it is. All I know is there are things that the, you know, that are coming that are very, very, very exciting. I was caught a little bit off guard with all the AI stuff that happened last year, which was really cool. But there are some really, really big things that I've at least known are coming down the pike that are going to be super cool. And so I'm very excited about the product spotlight stuff this year. I just want to say that. And I'm going to leave it there because I definitely can't talk about what it is. But, yeah, it's going to be cool. It's going to be a good one. Everybody buckle. Buckle the up. It's going to be an awesome product spotlight.

I feel like that's payback for earlier when we would share something with you. But, you know, I'll take it. I'll take it.

Yep, yep.

Because I never get to be the one with secret.

I think some of this might be like super nerdy stuff that maybe the general public may not appreciate as much as me, but as someone who eats, breathes and drinks and sleeps HubSpot, you know, really big fundamental stuff that's gonna be.

Oh, man, now I'm really in the.

Okay, so.

So this is where I want to go with you, George. This is the journey I want us to go on. Because we talked about a bit, kind of more in the abstract about how to prepare for the event. But there, in addition to the sessions, inbound is also where we see product reveal product updates. Although last year I remember it being kind of strange because you guys reported from the front lines. We had big products spotlight, and then they launched a whole ass hub without telling anybody.

Yeah, yeah.

Remember that?

Yeah. Well, yeah.

How do you keep. How do you. What is your approach going into this year of how to make sure you're getting all the product updates you need? How to absorb, synthesize, take away the right thing? How would you advise our audience to do the same?

Yeah, well, so first of all, I would say the days of waiting for inbound to pay attention to HubSpot product updates are long gone. Like, how do I prep for Inbound for product updates? I read the product Updates inside the HubSpot thing almost daily and sign up for betas as they're released. And so I'm curious to how much will be a beta that I already turned on that they're talking about, but I'll be looking for. Then the, the nooks in the nooks and the crannies or however you say that whatever you don't say.

Nooks and wait.

Crannies.

Nooks and crannies inside the hot spot. English muffin. Yeah.

Yes, yes, I'll be looking for that because there I. I feel like especially after Max's thing, there's going to be some like, hidden gem secrets that all sudden will like, kind of. So I'll be paying attention to the micro because for the rest of the year I've been paying attention to the macro that's been happening of hundreds of updates and almost hundreds of betas. But there, but there are certain directions where I'm trying to see threads that are continuing. For instance, one of the things that I'm excited that I want to try to get to is a session called Money Moves and it's how to sell like a pro with Commerce Hub, because it's Jack Cooper Smith who's actually doing the session. And I feel like he's the type of guy that will say about as much as he humanly can about what you could do and will be able to do in the future with the Commerce Hub. So I'm excited about that. So, like, there's even one. I think it's. I'm trying to think if it's Mark Hahn or Kyle Jepsen or there's literally like one that's called updates from Q3 that you could go to and literally pay attention. Which, by the way, when you're doing an updates and you got to limit it to a quarter of updates to do a presentation on, it's like, okay, so, like, that's. That's the thing. You could look for that Q3 update session. You could look at the hubs that you love because there's certain ones that are. There's speakers that are HubSpot employees that are going to dive into the. The minutia and nerdiness of those. That. That would be my suggestion also say.

Only if there was a weekly show every Monday morning. Chill, brother Max and Kyle. That meticulously went over each and every single new product update and put it into perspective.

Was that a thing?

It might be a thing. It's called the Monday Morning Briefing and I hosted with Kyle Jepsen every Monday, and we go over every single one of those.

And where can you see that at, Max, If I'm listening to this and I don't know, hypothetically speaking, if this.

Beautiful thing were to exist.

Yeah, if it were to exist, we do it live on LinkedIn every Monday. Right? And we. LinkedIn is like, so stupid in the way that, like, you schedule lives and stuff like that. But if you go follow the HubSpot tips and tricks LinkedIn page, that's where we go live from every Monday at 10:30 Eastern.

We'll make sure we add that to the show notes.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

Me and Kyle, we just literally bring up the product update panel. We sit there with our coffee and we just go, what do we got? And we, you know, and 8 very intentionally don't pay attention to product updates until that because I try to give my genuine reaction on it. And I also just like, literally have no time to even look at that panel. So I'm just like stumbling across people talking about it, like during the week, like in their, you know, LinkedIn posts and stuff like that. But you know, me and Kyle are gonna try to do something to figure out what's the best way that we can kind of synthesize, you know, everything that, that drops and inbound the, the week after. So.

Is it terrible that I have fomo? I mean, is it terrible that I was like, as you were explaining this, I'm like, I wish I could sit with Max and Kyle on a Monday and talk about product updates, but you.

Should join us for one.

I, I don't know if I could add one more thing to my plate, but I was literally having FOMO knowing that. But I can at least go back and watch the recordings. Yeah. Anyway, I digress.

I love that for all of us that I digress. Honestly, you want to. I love product update. I feel honestly a lot more relieved hearing you, George, talk about them. And same with you, Max, because I think again, I made it as a joke earlier, but we do kind of have the full spectrum of experience here at the virtual table of going to Inbound, with the exception of someone who's never been. Although quite frankly it's been so long, it kind of, it's so different. He is the first time. Right. But when I think about what it used to be like, what go leading up to Inbound, all of the big things were going to get revealed there. Now it's a bit more of a wild west situation where you open up the portal. It's like, well, where's this to us gone now where's this? It's different, but every day you're kind of like opening a door and now there's a new room on the other side. Or the wallpaper used to be pink and now it's orange. And you're not really getting notified of these changes. But then we'll have weird little blips like last year where we did have a lot of announcements and they're just like, oh, and also, by the way, there's a HubSpot commerce. There it is. Hello and goodbye. Right, so hearing you talk about that really makes me realize that, you know, Inbound is still the event to connect, to learn, to see what the next evolution of HubSpot is going to look like. Where we are, where we're going, how we're going to get there. Yeah, but you're reinforcing an important thing that I think some people have forgotten. We have to self educate. We have to make it a point to stay connected.

Without a doubt to learn.

Yeah, no, I do have a couple other.

Well, before you jump in there, because this is Actually, a perfect segue, Liz, because people might have heard you say that and they're like, well, it's not even me. That sounds uncomfortable. If you just heard what Liz was talking about and it sounds uncomfortable to you, then you should check out Jay Schwedd's session at Inbound. That is thriving in discomfort. How being uncomfortable fuels growth. I'm just saying that might be the session for you if when Liz said that you have to do those things, you're like started to twitch.

I make people twitch on a regular basis. I completely understand. Now, George, here, I have a question. That is for Max, but also for me because I wasn't late, but I wasn't on time either.

Yeah.

So there may be folks who either missed the train on scheduling their sessions, did not realize there was a train they even needed to catch, or some sort of horrible in between limbo state. What do you do if your sessions aren't booked yet or you're only partially. But what's your plan of attack if you were in our situation?

Yeah. Be really, really good at getting first in line. And what I mean by that is every session that is booked out right now, they leave a percentage of empty seats for people who can make it into a line, for people who don't show up even though they booked the session. So as full as full could be, it isn't really full. And so if there's like one, three or seven sessions that you're like, the train just went on. Just figure out how to map your running from one to the other to be first in line and you'll probably make it into the room. Now, if you're in that mode, I would.

What time is your session again, George?

Yeah, so let's see. The first one, you know, for friends.

For our listeners, right?

Yeah, let's see. Let me look here real quick.

Max, you're so selfless for the listener.

So Thursday, it's at 9:45, so you probably want to be there at about.

Adding that back.

9:30, probably to get first in line. Friday, it starts at 12:45. So you'd probably want to be there at 12:30. Which, by the way, I didn't even mention that. I'm excited that I'm just gonna. I'm gonna be like Liz for a minute. She had a year where she said, I opened for John Cena the. My Friday session. I'm basically opening for Ryan Reynolds. I just want everybody to know that it's me.

Isn't that the best thing? Because technically it's true.

It's true.

Technically, it's true.

Yeah.

He's coming on to the same stage that you're.

No, not the same stage, but it's. Shut up after me.

So, you know, if someone were to look at the agenda, they would have seen that Liz Murphy. Warhead. Whatever. Liz was the last session on the last day, the last thing you watch before you and your suitcase go see John Cena.

I have a kind of similar experience. The closest thing I've ever gotten to this is back when I played competitive paintball a whole lot. There was actually a time where Nessen, which is the New England Sports Network, which is like where you watch all your sports on tv, if you like, live in New England, came out and they filmed one of the events, like to do it on the set. Have you ever heard of, like Dirty Water? It's like a Boston TV show where they do like a lot of local stuff.

Okay.

And. And they filmed the event and I actually had. They interviewed me because I was like one of the players and nice. Played a whole thing and all that kind of stuff. And like, I was one of the first clips at the beginning. Guess what aired directly before that on that channel? Patriots football post game conference with Mr. Tom Brady.

Wow. Yeah.

So Tom Brady opened for you.

Wow. My good.

Yeah.

Holy.

Yeah, we have messing down here. Not necessarily. Well, obviously it's New England Sports Network. Mid Atlantic Sports Network.

Yeah.

The only. So I actually do have. I do have one bragging. Right. That I usually don't talk about, but I would love to show because it's a real one. It's not like I open for John Cena. So one time I had to give a talk in front of Dharmesh, which is fine and not at all something that makes me want to.

I know where this was. I know where this was. Yeah.

Yeah. It was at Hartford. It was an impact. Black and Kathleen Booth, who I was working with at the time, who now is the. She's over leading up marketing at Pavilion. An incredible online community for CRO and marketing leaders.

Absolutely shilling. Slightly shilling.

I don't even work for them. She's just a nice person. Anyway, so I get off stage and I'm a little bit panicked because I knew it went well, but I had. I went a little bit over time. I was a little freaked out. I was teaching people about pillar content for the first time, which is something people think is like homework. I thought I had made it fun and engaging. And Kathleen pulls me aside and says, you need to check Twitter. And I Said, why? And she said, well, yeah, bro, Dharmesh was in the audience, and he was on his laptop. And then about two minutes into your session, he closed his laptop and started watching. And then later on, he picked up his phone. And then I went on Twitter, and I saw that Dharmesh tweeted, liz is funny. And that's a lot for me. That's a lot coming from me because I have Netflix. I printed it out and hung it up on the wall.

Right. Yeah. As one on your LinkedIn.

Are you kidding?

Like, I don't. I just, you know, sometimes I get really sad. Like. But that one time back in 2017.

Yeah. What's your claim to fame? Dharmesh thinks I'm funny.

Boom. Dharmesh was in the chat of the last Monday morning briefing that we did, and I almost died.

Yeah. Nice.

I was like, oh, he's watching us. Like, I'm like, I'm gonna put all the best papa inbound of myself that I can.

I feel like he's always watching, though. Like, somehow, some way, like, he'll just appear in places and be like, I see you first time.

Long time. Yeah.

Y.

Whenever I see him, I want to say hi, but apologize at the same time, and I have no idea why. Not a clue. Anyway, back on track.

Nick. Nick from Fargo said he has an agent for that.

Yeah.

Spot is everywhere, but.

Yes. So that was my. That was my claim to fame, my excitement. But. Okay, I need to know this. We've talked a lot about do. What are the don't. What are the absolute don'ts? I actually want to start here on this one. I want to start here. I actually. I finally have some advice. Instead of staff, don't beat yourself up about a number of things. You have likely all been connecting with people you haven't seen in a long time, and you're hoping to see them at the big show. You will see some.

You will not see other booth you didn't know about.

Yeah.

Talking to another partner or seeing someone that you've only seen on LinkedIn before. Like, give yourself the space to do that, you know?

Yeah.

Use the bathroom.

Like.

Yeah, yeah. Please. Yeah. One of the biggest don'ts. Don't pee in the middle of a keynote stage. Don't pee in the public. Yeah. Without a doubt, but for sure. Nick from Fargo says, I'm sorry, and.

I'm the one who gets this canceled.

Yes, yes. So whatever. So here's the thing. Here's the thing again. Nick from Fargo. Yes.

Human time.

That's what you Want to pay attention to human time. But, Liz, I don't know if you covered the biggest don't of inbound.

Maybe I left it for you.

The biggest don't of inbound is don't get drunk the first night.

Or do if you like.

You hear me? Don't get drunk the first night. Because then all you do is you walk around as a human with a hangover for the next two days and you're like, why did I do that? I can't learn anything. I don't really want to talk to anybody because I need three Advil and, like, some tomato juice or something. Like, listen, there's go to the parties, have fun. But like.

A good night's sleep.

Yes.

Get a good night's sleep the first night so that you're energized and prepped and ready. I can't tell you the amount of years I've gone there and I've gone out, like, just because we're going to eat and stuff and had what I call boy moments where I'll see somebody that I know has an inbound tag and I'll be like, boy, like, that person's in trouble. Like the rest of their. Like they might be. I know of a human that spent half their time in their hotel at inbound.

Not a quote unquote.

She's gonna start this story saying, so I was playing shuffleboard with Shaquille o'.

Neal on top of didn't want to wake us up. The problem is, is the bathroom was a giant echo chamber. So for about where it was, just giggle. And then when I went into the bathroom in the morning, there was a hamburger.

Don't put hamburger buns in your shower. That's a don't.

So don't put grapes in your shower.

Make memories. Make extrovert. Who's going there on their own. You might be a leader who's there with your team. And you have to lead your team, get sales, but also empower your people. People like, they're going to be lots of different ways in which you are challenged to show up differently than a way that is your usual, your natural, your default. Right. But I would say, because inbound is so big, I think it has. They have done a really good job of creating micro networking station networking opportunities. Right. They also have quiet room. They have created spaces whether you're just. For example, whether you're naturally introverted or maybe you have a neurodivergency where you might get overly stimulated in a way where you need to find a Way to reset. Right? Those spaces are available. But then also you have the ability to go back to your room. Right? Like, if you just need some time to take a beat, take a beat. But don't be afraid to go there and meet people. Conferences are scary no matter what. They are scarier for introverts. I can understand that for sure. But it is a place where there is a concerted effort to genuinely create opportunity for everyone. No matter who you are, how you learn, how you like to interact to grow better together.

Love it. Love it.

That's what I would say.

Yeah.

One quick do. I have one quick do because. Because I have to go soon. Is speaking of that go because it'll. This will make you do.

Do.

Get a Porchetta sandwich from Penny packers or Chicken and Rice guys. But if you can get a Porchetta sandwich from Pennypackers, which is one of the vendors, one of the illustrious vendors that they're going to have at the food truck circle, do it. You will not regret it. Thank me later.

Or do this. Get a lobster Mac and cheese from Yankee Lobster. It's a hole in the wall, but omg. You know what, Liz?

I. I thought that is my inbound tradition.

Yeah, it's Liz. I thought, is this a dream Or a twisted fruity fate? Why are they in the water when they should be on my plate? Grapes in the toilet what a crazy sight Bobbing and weaving in the porcelain light I don't know how they got there but now they're making waves Life's got funny moments like these Grapes in the drain did they roll off the counter in some midnight race or did someone decide this was their final resting place? Her name might have been Liz I could see them bobbing gently like they didn't have a care I laughed so hard thinking how'd they get there? There's no rhyme or reason no sense to explain Sometimes life's just silly like fruit down the drain.