The Most Bomb-Diggity.com #INBOUND23 Strategic Success Framework For Individuals + Teams

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.

Welcome back to the Hub Heroes podcast. George. Max, quick question before we get started. Hi. Yes, Max, I see you hiding in your hoodie. It's not going to save you but. So gentlemen. Gentlemen. Gentlemen. I'll be the first week's episode. However. Are you all unwell? Happened. I disappeared weak and anyone do we want to.

I'll just throw out the unique. He did it. Not point he did it.

Don't even remember what we did last.

Week or album time is a construct man, which you're referring but I will say I have Amazon for a new cable.

There we go.

So yeah, that.

That was the most adult version I've ever heard of. Of what Lamp. Well, good news, kittens.

Yes, I'm back.

Welcome to the Hub Heroes podcast. If. Yes. My name is Liz. Apparently I'm the same one of the group but I'm also a content strategist and a Hub hero wrangler. I'm joined as always by George, Max and Devin. Gentlemen, I am so excited about today's episode that I'm just gonna dig right into it with. I'm pretty sure historically speaking is the longest title George, you and I have ever developed and let's just. Let's do it. Bomb diggity.com a hashtag inbound23 strategic success framework for individuals and teams. Yes, that is the title. We are sticking to it. George, do you have any. Do you have any thoughts on the.

Yeah, yeah. I just give zero craps about SEO for this episode. To be honest with you. It is. It is going to be enough just to throw out there about Inbound and the. The fact that we're Going to have a success framework.

Nope, not a survival guide.

Survival guide. And they're not going to the wilderness. They're going to Boston. And what they need to do is be successful in their education to grow their business. That's why. So anyway, don't care about SEO.

We have, we have trees out here.

Okay, well, as far as SEO is concerned, I think that this episode and the content therein is going to be so impactful that we're going to be first page for Bond.

There we go.

That's. That's what I'm thinking.

You heard it first. We did it now. Okay, now I've got to be fair though. And before we dig into this, I have knowledge that I could have done. People are like going, wait a minute, guys, Kittens, it's May. Inbound isn't until September. What are we doing talking about this? So you haven't time traveled. You are absolutely correct. It is May, and inbound is in September. But we're about to tell you why we were having the first of a handful of conversations on this about this event. Because right now, thousands of hubspotters around the world, that's including all of us here on this podcast, those of you listening right now, every hubspotter, every HubSpot agency, we, we have been sitting here watching our inbox day after day, week after week pile up with exciting announcements about the upcoming event in September in Boston. For example, just a few days ago, HubSpot shared a lot of mainstage speakers who are pretty exciting. We've got Reese Witherspoon, Derek Jeter, and Morgan Debon. And as a result, though, I don't know if any of y' all are getting like lots of questions from friends like, how do I actually get somebody to like my boss? I would love for them to send me to inbound. Is inbound worth it if I'm an easy owner to really send my employees or just as a business? I don't want to just survive inbound. How do I actually. Most of it, George like that.

I don't want to just survive. I want to thrive.

That's what we got.

Just don't. Yes. No, we gotta go there. We gotta go there.

Liz.

Don't just survive, but thrive through inbound. And by the way, I want to throw this in there and then I'll be quiet. You can continue on for me, May. Okay, that's cool. Proper planning prevents piss poor performance. We're trying to help you out, people. That's all we're doing here.

You do Know, though, that saying surviving, not surviving, but thriving at inbound is like the inbound equivalent of the live, laugh, love. Like, you know, that's what you are right now. You're like an inbound marketing homegoods.

George is feeling rather basic.

Wow.

Okay.

Yo, that's what the B stands for, George. Basic Thomas.

I didn't say that. Now, to be clear, I didn't choose violence. Max did.

Hang on. I gotta go out and get my tissue box before I start crying here.

While you're doing that, my other two favorite questions we've been getting recently number are which donkeys should I go to? That's very, very important. And also one of my favorite things that I've heard you say, George, and I'm. I haven't heard this question from other people. The other people is me. I am this person. Is it true when they say the magic happens in the hallways at inbound? And what does that even mean? So that is why we are here, ladies and gentlemen. Guinea pigsmever you are. We are here in May on the mic, telling you to throw out all of the inbound survival guides you've seen in the past as we look into September. And instead, again, let us talk about the most bomb diggity.com inbound 23 success framework. Oh, dear Lord. Success framework for individuals and teams. So you could start.

You got to take a large right now. Like, you got to enhance a lot before you're gonna, like, attack that title. I'm just saying.

Yeah, I know. I'm working. It's still happening, but let's dig in. All right. Also, do we want to take any bets by the. How many times George is gonna over accepted?

Zero. Zero.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I'll take those.

I'll take it.

So tell me about what kind of magic happens in the hallways, George. What kind of. What kind of magic? Yeah. Okay, that's what I thought. First, let's talk about the two most common questions. I know we hear a lot about inbound. And what's funny is that they're two different questions, but they're two sides of the same coin, Right? How do I get my boss to send me to in. Is it even worth sending my people to inbound? George, I see you nodding, and I don't want to start the episode with you complaining.

So first of all, y' all already beat me down. There's no complaining here. For the rest of the episode, I'm just trying to survive and make it out alive, to be honest with you. But here's here's the thing. The fact that this question even gets asked sometimes just blows my mind because the amount of things that you can do, attend, talk about, build a foundation from that happen at Inbound is crazy to me. And here's where I think that sometimes it goes off the rails. And Liz, you even started with, like, these grandiose people are going to be on the main stage, and that's what people focus on. I go, well, what's the value of that? Excuse me, but the value is in all the workshops and the breakout sessions and like, and again, we will talk at some point about the magic moments in the hallway, because it's a true fact anyway. Like, if you just focus on that and if you as a team start to think about a framework of what you want to learn and why you want to learn it, you'll quickly be able to pair something in those regular breakout and workshop areas that you're like, oh, this is going to be money well spent. Not to mention. Not to mention. And then I'll be quiet. The way that I historically have felt as an employee being sent to Inbound makes me feel special. Makes me feel like somebody believes in me and wants to invest in my growth, which then dramatically changed the output of who I became. You got to remember, my journey starts with we won tickets, not an investment. I totally get it to Inbound, but every year since then, somebody has invested in me to send me to that, to grow, to who I am and who we have become. Right. As a hub hero community.

That. And you know what? Actually, it reminds me of it because I've heard the same thing, like, every time I've heard somebody complain. And whether it's an agency employee, agency owner, you know what it reminds me of? Like, yeah, HubSpot's Inbound is drastically different than it was in, what, 20, 2012 and 2016. Right. But I almost feel like we're penalizing our favorite band for going mainstream and becoming successful. So they still have all of the, what, hundreds of breakout sessions. They're getting much more particular, much more dimensional, much more quality threshold in terms of what those breakouts look like. And they're bringing in big speakers, but that's all they hear, right? Well, what's the point? I'm going to spend a bunch of money to have someone go learn how to do a marketing campaign for Reese Witherspoon. If that is your point of the whole Devin Max Rocket contingency and form a big sprocket contingency.

Devin, I'm. I'm Going to let you go in a second, but there is literally two helicopters flying over my house.

Last week it was bees.

Is that Big Sprocket is Big Sprocket.

Last week it was bees, now it's Apache helicopters. Come on.

Two giant Apache helicopters with like missiles and stuff.

Max, if we get on the podcast next week and you say the wiggles are outside your window, we're drawing a line. You're you, we're buying you a shade. We're closing it. You're not allowed to look outside anymore.

Wait, let me get this straight, George. Hold on. We. We have to stop the podcast for a second. So let me understand this Apache helicopter. Okay, but we draw the line.

I mean, if I could draw a shade right now, I draw a shade. But you know, he's already seen the helicopters, he saw the shiny object, he's now focused on it. We're in trouble, Devin.

No, it's not totally.

Okay, well, the thing is that I know it's not us because he didn't say they were orange Apache helicopters, so.

No, they were mine. They're mine. I'm keeping them all in line. Two are on the way to you.

But the thing is, like, for me, the very first year I went to inbound 2016, we got them as a per our contract, right? Which was great, but every job that I've had since then, I've had it included in my employment contract that they inbound every year. And the thing is, it's like Liz hit it right on the head. We talk about the big names that'll be there and they're great, but I can't tell you how much they are. Not that I'm going to go like, Reese Witherspoon is a gem, Derek Jeter is a status, but I also don't care. My thing is, I'm looking at the.

Max, are you alright, buddy? Do you need a moment?

I'm a Red Sox fan. How do you think I feel about Derek Jeter?

Just fix your gloves like Nomar and move on.

I'm not even going to address.

But the thing is that there are over 200 other seekers that are going to be there and the people that are going to impact you, your life and your career the most on the headlines. What you should be doing is looking at some of these talk tracks when they come out, some of the titles. Keep in mind that literally thousands of people apply to speakingbound every year. And this year it's. They've selected the best and the bright options. And if you're going to reasons to go. You can look at just past session titles, you can look at some of the, the, the past agendas and seeing the things that you have the opportunity to learn. Reese Witherspoon, Derek Jeter. That's icing on the cake when we're talking about all the cool stuff that happens on Thursday nights. That's. All of that is just the sprinkles on what is an amazing, an amazing pastry Inbound is going to make you a better marketer, a better sales and a better manager. If you go to the breakouts, if you're just there to have fun or since George can't network, then you're, you're only getting a piece of the pie. You're not seeing what is truly remarkable.

I'll keep it true. And I think it's just like there's no other opportunity that occurs that has this much tration of HubSpot inbound and anything in between and surrounding this world that we all live in than, than the on conference, right? So there was really like no better chance to come and kind of learn from other people in the community, right? Not just Your, your, your HubSpot Academy certifications, but other people who are kind of living in the same roles as you, having similar experiences but doing it from different angles and learning from their mistakes and on through and what they've, you know, there's no better place to do it, especially if you take HubSpot or Inbound or Rev ops or anything like that seriously in any capacity. Right? So it's worth the trip out here, it's worth the networking that you, you're gonna get, but also like, you know, just be able to kind of come together like amazing community by itself. Like it's such a special thing and I can't wait to finally do it in person after.

It's gonna be awesome quick. Even if don't care about HubSpot, even if you're not a HubSpot user, even if you have no intention to get HubSpot, it, it doesn't matter. It's still going to be one of the most impactful experiences. The, the, the sessions that have affected me the most and it helped me grow the most have absolutely.

Yeah. And let me jump in here too because I want to get very tactical and specific for a second because one of the questions that led us in here was how do I get my boss to sen Inbound? I have one word for you. Spreadsheet. Now hear me out. What I want you to do is I want you to get A spreadsheet out and I want you to list out the actual speakers and topics that you're going to go to. I want you to strategize and plan your trip because what it comes down to is what are you going to learn and how is that going to pay off at the end of the day, what the missing metric is the roi. What is your boss's return on investment in. In you to go to Boston to inbound, the hotels, the travel, the whatever. But if you can show, look, I'm going to get X, Y, Z better at what I already do. I'm going to learn 30% of what we actually need to move into. If we're going to say like top of mind and in the like upper echelon of our industry and I'm even going to do 10% that forces me out of our comfort zone because who knows, in 10 years or two years or two months we might need to know about NFTs or maybe not, but we're going to spend 10% of the time to actually educate ourselves on that. Again, spreadsheet strategy plan and come from the mindset of your boss. You need to prove the ROI of the time spent doing the things that you're mapping out.

Question for you before we move on. Does it hurt your soul that you have humans yet?

Could use one. We could use one right now.

Then I'm, then I'm gonna want to say that humans need to network when they're at inbound. I'm just saying.

Yeah, that was so great.

I do what I can.

I loved it. Really big fan related to this conversation, guys. What do you think most people misunderstand about the inbound experience. I want to actually dial that question deeper with the real roi because that's what you talked about there, George, right there.

Yeah, let me jump in real quick. The thing that people miss about the inbound experience is they think it's all about learning and working with HubSpot and HubSpot. HubSpot users will benefit immensely from going to inbound. But there are things, tips, tricks, stories in opportunities that, and I can't stress this enough, have nothing to do with HubSpot. And if you go into it thinking, oh, that's that HubSpot conference, right, you're complet missing the point. There is so much that is going to make you a more well rounded professional coming out of it. Like I don't go to any of the hub, I can count on one hand how many HubSpot centric breakouts that I'VE been to going to Inbound because there's so much more about learning the why behind what it is that makes you a professional and the why behind, you know, learning analytics or optimizing your conversion path. And as you can do these with any tools, it's learning these foundational things that make you a good marketer, a good sales professional, a good manager, a good operations person that have absolutely nothing to do with HubSpot. Can you go there and see HubSpot in action? Can you learn HubSpot? Can you talk? Of course. But it's not just about HubSpot. That's why it's called Inbound, because it's not. We're going to HubSpot.com, max is thinking.

I'm trying to give Max room here. Just so I'm buffering.

I'm buffering, I think, because I'm trying to. I don't know if I kind of said this already, but, like, it's such an amazing chance and to go stand, like, shoulder to shoulder with people who are either dealing with the same exact problems you're dealing with in your business or people that have dealt with the same exact problems and found creative ways to solve them. Right. And so, like, when you talk about, like, that networking piece, if you're going inbound, chances are you're dealing with a lot of the similar situations that other people have that are going there. And it's a great way to see different perspectives and get new ideas on how to solve those problems. Right. Regardless of if you're using HubSpot or not. Right. We're all pretty much there because we're in business in some way, shape, or form. Right. And a lot of those problems that we have are kind of shared across. They just take on different shades.

Wait, does that mean I can stand up, like, in the middle of Club Babybound with a bullhorn and be like, blogs, am I right, guys? And everybody's just like, yeah, security pulls.

You out of there and takes you out.

Yeah, I don't know if I'd recommend that, but technically it is possible.

Okay, okay. Let's not shame the host. The host can get poetry. We're going to continue.

We're going to move on.

One thing about Max's point that I want to point out is not just about hearing other people's problems and standing shoulder to shoulder with people who are either going through or may have experienced it. But one thing that you're going to notice is validation. You're going to get so much validation on the stuff that you deal with on a day to day that you think is unique to your company, that literally almost everyone else is dealing with. Like, oh, the sales team, am I right? And it's going to be like they're trying to solve the exact same problems that you are. And it's going to happen time and time again to a point where these are going to be like your new digital drinking buddies because you have.

All right, listen, it's LinkedIn in real life.

No, nope, nope. It's cancelled.

Canceled.

Okay, listen, listen, I got to, I, I got to get this out. Yeah.

Security.

Somebody, somebody come get him. Take him away. But, but here, listen, listen. Here's. Here's the real deal. Holyfield. Okay? You guys have been dancing around the entire time. I've heard each and every one of you say it. And that is, it's an experience. Now I want you to think about that. When you have your 18th birthday or your 21st birthday or your 50th birthday, it's an experience. You go on to Niagara Falls, right? And you, you're on vacation, it's an experience. You happen to get married, maybe it's an experience. You have your first child, it's experience. It's these experiences that actually shape us into who we become. And so to think about that, everything I listed is like a personal experience. I want you to think about how many, and hopefully there are some great business professional experiences that you have had in your life. And understanding that inbound could be one of the most magnificent experiences that inbound is. Inbound is the human side of HubSpot. And the experiences that you could create while you're there will dramatically change not only your business, this, but yourself. And again, we're going to get into those magic moments in the hallway and I'm going to tell you a story about Doug Davidoff and George B. Thomas at Inbound. Man, I'm just telling you like it's about the freaking experience. It's not just about the education. Yes. Can you get educated? Yes. That's part of it.

George, why don't you just go ahead and tell the story?

Yeah, we're here now.

Let's do it.

Stop teasing me, buddy.

No, because. Stop it. Stop teasing me. Stop. Lord. I want to know what the magic in the hallways is. That is why I'm here. Honestly, it's. The only reason I showed up today is I want to know what that means.

And you got to give space for this, right? So don't. When I told, I said spreadsheet earlier don't fill it full. Leave some room in it, okay? Because when you can sit at the Westin and have conversations, which, by the way, I could literally go into the time where we're sitting at the Westin and Brian Halligan came and sat down right next to us and just started having a conversation like we were best buds.

I sat next to him.

Here's the thing, though. Here's the thing. I'm gonna kid you not. I. I sat outside of the Starbucks and it was myself, it was Doug Davidoff. I think maybe Remington Bag and maybe Doug's son was there and we were talking about, like, just some straight up stuff. And I won't say what Doug said on the podcast, but Doug had one of those moments where he said something to me and it went in my brain and it ripped out wires and plugged them in in different place. A sudden I was like. I mean, I. I was melting. And everybody sitting there could tell that I was mentally melting. But in all the best ways. All the best ways. The only thing that I can closely equate it to Liz so that you'll know. And. And so at some point, we'll probably have to tell the same story or a different story is when you and I were going through our voice tone workshop and you said to me, what would it be like if you showed up at, like, a whole ass human? And that, for me, was a moment in time. It was an experience that I knew for, like, moving forward. I was going to be a different dude. If I wouldn't have been at Inbound, if I would have been sitting around with Doug Davidoff, if I would have opened myself to the magical moment of him being able to put into me the words that he said. Who knows where we'd be? And that's the thing. There's somebody you're gonna meet at Inbound that's gonna say something that they weren't a breakout. They weren't a main stage. They paid for a ticket just like you. And you're gonna take it back and be like, that was the freaking gem right there.

You know, George, you have literally made up for everything that you did as the chaos king in last week's episode by saying the whole assume it was.

It was. And I just want everybody to know that I made it through that entire spiel. And I didn't say networking one time.

But now I want to talk about networking, guys. I want to actually talk about it, because there are like eight. Like, my favorite part is, like, you know how there was that Joke. Winter is coming. We are about to have the onslaught of 8,000 thought leadership pieces about how to survive networking as if it's some sort of like demon spawn. Networking is just being with other people who have like minded interests and maybe, just maybe you can help each other. I don't think that's a bad thing. Some of us, Devin, you and I can hide somewhere in Club Inbound after security has failed to find either of us.

Well, the thing is, for me, and most people who know me know this, but those of you who are listening might be new to me. Hi, I'm Devin and I have social anxiety issues. I went to a conference in Wisconsin and these are people that I know and I, I have a stress meter on my watch and it was maxed out the entire time. And I was even talking to one of the conference organizers and he was like, how are you feeling? I was like, well, I'm better now, but check this out. And I showed him the spread the graph on my phone that shows what my stress levels are like through the day and during the networking portions. It was completely maxed out. Like it was a hundred percent. You are about to have a heart attack because you are completely stressed out. And, and the thing is, is that I don't like meeting new people. I don't like talking to people, which kind of sucks because I'm, I'm fairly well known at inbound and people always want to talk to me. But the thing is, is that what gets me out of my shell there is that I know it's, it's unlikely that there will be any other time of the year where I'm going to be surrounded by people who do what I do, love the things that I love and can have conversations and be passionate about the same problems that I'm facing. And there are so many opportunities for networking, be they in the hallway at a networking event or if you don't have it, you can start your own. Which is one of the things that I'm known for was starting Black and Inbound, which is just a networking opportunity for all the black professionals that are there to come together and talk. And it started from 13 people and now there's hundreds. And it has its own team of people that manage it. And all started with the need for a conversation. And so when it comes to talking and introducing yourself and all that stuff, for me it's terrifying every day of the year, with the exception of when I'm at inbound. When I'm at Inbound, it's literally the Only time that I'm an extrovert. It's the only time I feel comfortable in my skin because I know that these are my people. It's like if you've ever been to a comic book convention. Do you feel shy at comic book conventions? No. Because you're surrounded by a bunch of nerds who nerd out the same way you nerd out. And you just gotta find the flavor of nerd that nerds out about the same things you nerd out about. It's literally the exact same thing at Inbound, only people smell better. So what you should do is find people and just. And just talk about whatever it is that you're excited about when it comes to marketing and saying you're going to find that all these people are like, yeah, I know. And then you start vibing and telling stories and saying things like conversion path metrics and I don't know how to define my KPIs. When we're talking about social media and everyone around you will be like, nerds, but you'll be like, no, we're the cool ones. Because you're an inbound.

Oh, it's like the Olive Garden when you're here, your family.

Yeah. And completely unhinged. I love that so much. It's interesting because I wish people would. I wish people wouldn't look at it as networking because, Devin, you said something in there. You're like, conversations. That's all you're doing. You just. You're just gonna go have some conversations. I feel like sometimes people who say, I'm gonna go network, they have a hidden agenda. And network actually means I'm gonna go suddenly sell some stuff. No, no, no. Just go have some conversations. Just meet people, just listen, just be human. And if. If there happens to be a reason for there to be a need to have another conversation, a need to assist them with your product and service, well, great. Serendipity wee. But to go in and be like, I'm gonna go do some networking and be a networking robot. Have you been keeping count? Anybody doing shots? Then. Then you're doing.

I just know that I already won my bet, so, yeah, go ahead.

I'm obliterated.

Then you know that you're going about it, dare I say, without getting hate mail, the wrong way.

So wait, let me. Okay, you might have just subtly dropped a nice little hot take there, because I think we all know companies, agencies that go there, and it's like, yeah, you can totally go learn employees, but you have a sales quota. You have to make while you're here. And they aren't necessarily sponsors either. So I'm not talking about people who are on the floor. Right? I'm talking like we, if you're on.

The floor, you got a job. Well, first of all, if you're on the floor, you got a job to do. Hopefully there's a nice rotation. Hopefully everybody's getting what they need, all that good stuff that I, I wouldn't slight anybody for spending 30, $50,000 and saying, let's go to work. Right? Yeah, we're going incognito. Like, you know, hey, let's go do some educating. By the way, here's brand new business cards. Here's your script that you're gonna say to everybody that, no, I am probably.

Gonna try to sell some hats.

I mean, my plan is I'm just gonna be giving pins away. I'm just gonna give pins away the entire time. Just so everybody knows. That's all I'm gonna say.

I apparently am just gonna be running from security the whole time between the Westin and club immediately, I won't. And I'm six feet tall. Like, I'm not exactly subtle. So this is gonna be a real good time. It's gonna be like the easiest for game of Where's Waldo. But speaking of Where's Waldo, Terrible segue. The last thing I really want to get into today is something that, quite frankly, it's part of the title. It's why we're here today. Kids. What are the differences between planning to go as an individual versus planning to go as a team? Whether that's the do's, the don'ts, the mistakes, the strategic thing, the strategy. Right? So, George, you pointed at the screen, but Devin, you sound like you're ready.

To drop the bomb there. I am so ready. All the bombs. Okay, so first you're going there as an individual only. Spend 50% of your breakout sessions on things that are relevant to your job. Spend 25% on things that are relevant to your Life, and spend 25% on things that have absolutely nothing to do with your job. Things that are completely outside of your job function. If you're a marketer, go to a sales thing. If you're a salesperson, go to a marketing thing. Go to leadership things. Even if you're an individual contributor, do things that are gonna take you outside of your box, outside of your comfort zone. Because even if they don't directly enrich you personally, what they will make you do is communicate with better with people who are in those and help you understand the struggles that they're going with and it'll expand your mental horizons. And if you're going with a team, don't clump up. I cringe every time I see a clump of T shirts from the same tech company. It's like you're doing it wrong. Everybody split up, take notes, share together. After inbound, you don't even have to do it. At the end of the night, you can split up and basically just go and absorb as much knowledge as possible. And then when you get home, then you can do a team wide debrief on, hey, here are some of the things we learned. You can have Google Docs where you're actually taking notes in one area and everyone can see what everyone else is learning about. And you can ask questions about the other person who's in the other session if you happen to not be in. And when you see something and it's like, hey, I have more questions about this, you can give minor presentations back at the office about some of the things you've learned. What you don't want to do is be all clumped up with your buddies, people who you see all day, every day, all year, split up, go experience new things apart, and then bring those experiences together so you can benefit as a whole instead of like, you might as well just gone by your damn self if you're gonna do that.

Yeah, I. So I love this so much because divide and conquer. I agree with you. You know what gives me anxiety when I see like 50 pink shirts walking down the hall together and I feel like I'm just gonna get run over because. But here's the thing too. I'll say I love the idea of a morning or an evening. Hashtag one thing. Like, what's your one thing from today? Just share it around with the group real quick. Okay, let go. The other thing that we have historically done, and I believe this was at Impulse Creative with Remington Big and that team, is we'd have an inbound Slack channel where we could dump little quick quips of things that we wanted to make sure we talked about when we got back. So there was like a running thread of information. What's fun about that? It was a running thread not only for those of us who attended, but people who actually weren't there that then could ask like additional questions if there was something that popped up, interest them, and then we knew we could have conversations when we got back. So I love all of what you said, Devin, around that. Here's the thing, because we're talking about teams, right? Teams. I've seen the exact opposite. The exact opposite. Get to inbound and you don't see them jokers the entire time. What is that? Why are we. Why are we running away from everybody when we land and not taking the time to actually have a dinner together or, you know, brain dump together as. And then, like, sure, I agree with the divide and conquer, but please do me a favor and don't go on the polar opposite end. Like, find a middle ground of what Devin and I are talking about right now, because sometimes I get a little sketched out. Hey, has anybody seen Jackie the last four days? Or is. Is Jackie checking out? Like, yeah, you know that place, the Paul Revere thing and the duck. Where's what?

Everybody just needs to get a WhatsApp and make sure you're checking.

Text each other or slack each other. I mean, and my way works, especially if you hate your coworkers. But yeah, doing the networking thing and. And brain dumping and connecting. I mean, you can treat it as also a. A, you know, your company retreat. Like, I literally went to inbound for my honeymoon. That. That's how much that I am.

There we go. Hey.

Yeah, but we're getting a divorce, so who cares?

Different episode.

Yeah, but the love. But, you know, your marriage with. No, but your marriage with imbalance.

There we go.

There you go.

Absolutely.

Max, before you go, I do have to throw something out there. Small disclaimer if your name is Jackie. I was not talking about you. Okay, There we go. I was just pulling a name randomly out of the ethos. I love all Jackie's in the world, so the ether.

But at the same time. At the same time, Jackie, you know who you are. You know who you are.

All right. Can't control the weather, Jackie.

I'm sorry.

All right.

Stay out of the penguin pit at the aquarium.

Anyway, so wait, there's a penguin.

Oh, there's a penguin pit.

Hold on.

No.

Forget about all penguins all the time.

All right?

One story from when I was a kid. We definitely went to the. Is it New England Aquarium? Boston Aquarium? I can't remember. We definitely went there when I was in middle school. And 100%, I swear on everything. I love that. When we were on the ride back in the bus, a kid pulled out a penguin from his backpack. I don't know how he got it, but apparently he jumped down into one of the little services. I don't know penguin size, but it was a penguin in a backpack.

I'm sorry, did you just say penguin size?

If you're going to Boston and you're looking for a souvenir, I mean, the penguins are there.

Penguins?

Yeah. I mean, I was gonna kind of say divide and conquer as well. Georgie kind of stole the.

Kind of.

The only thing I had to say about this. But, yeah, like, hey, remember, listen, there's a lot to do in the city, right? There's plenty of donkeys. You could go on coffee runs, too, as well. So make sure you get some time outside, you know, spend some time with your co workers. That may not be that easy to spend time with when you're all, like, working remotely and not in the same place. Right? I'd say use it as a great team bonding activity. Right? I mean, especially in the world when we're no longer in the office anymore, there are rare moments where we actually get to come and work together and be around each other. So I'd say this year is probably a really great time to take advantage of that. And sure, you get some work done as well. But, yeah, divide and conquer. Like, if you can grab someone from, like, another department where maybe you're having, like, issues working together or solving a problem between departments. Like, if you're a sales director, why don't you take your marketing director and go to a session that helps solve problems between sales and marketing alignment, right? Get really tactical for what you choose to go to and who you choose to go to it with, because there's probably plenty of problems between the way that you work with your co workers or between departments apart departments that could be solved by going and seeing a new perspective together and then having a chat about it when it's fresh in your mind and taking those learnings back once inbound is over. So, you know, just, just, just. Just think about what you go to and who you go together with, right? And just make sure there's, like, something that you guys can get out of it.

I love that. Hey, Max, quick question, because you got me thinking about penguins. What do you call a happy penguin? A penguin?

I don't know.

Yeah. Hey, hey. Do you know how to. Do you know how.

Good night, ladies.

One more, one more. Do you. Do you know how to get in touch with a penguin? You just give him a little wing.

Oh, I was gonna say you put him in your backpack.

I'm sorry, Noah. I'm sorry for everything.

Noah's our producer.

The Rails.

Sorry for everyone.

The Rails.

You know, just when I think recording on Friday afternoons when everybody's clearly totally fine and totally, you know, we're doing great all right. And. And on. On that note, I don't even have a poem.

Oh, my gosh.

Like, that's what's happened.

Victorious.

I know. I will ruin your lives. I will ruin your. Oh, that was dumb. You should feel dumb and you should feel bad. You are. I'm so excited to record with you next week.

I'm in trouble.

It's going to be so much fun. And on that note, I do have one last question to take us out then. Since George has sucked the life out of me. As a poet, what is the one thing you feel like everybody should be talking about about Inbound right now that they aren't?

For me, it's the learning opportunities. Like, I am the marketer I am today, largely in part because of what I've learned at Inbound. I and I. I've talked about this specific breakout session numerous times. But Christopher Penn, Building the Data driven customer journey. Inbound 2016 changed the way that I do marketing, changed the way I report on marketing. I literally just in Wisconsin was teaching on a lot of the concepts that were introduced to me during his session. And there are so many opportunities, like just things that are just revelatory and groundbreaking in the breakout sessions, and we don't talk about them enough. There is just so many different ways for you to become a better professional and a better human being. But like, you know, Derek Jeter, Reese Witherspoon, yay. That's all well and good, but it's like. It's like continuing education. You gotta do it.

All right. So for me, I was a little confused, to be honest. I put a post out a couple days ago about a thing that talked about going to Inbound in person or virtually, to which then somebody threw back. It's only in person. There's no virtual portion of it this year, which I was like, oh, wow, I missed the memo. I want to actually say, though, if you go, and this is why I'm talking about it, because I don't know if enough people are talking about it because if all sudden there's like this cyclone of like, it's only in person happening, wherever that's coming from. If you go to inbound.com forward slash, which, by the way, check out this word after the diatribe that I went on experience, and you scroll down the page, you'll literally see a big block that says live Stream. Watch Inbound 2023 live via YouTube in September. We understand that not all attendees can make the trip to Boston, which is why we're excited to bring Attendees a front row seat to main stage Spotlight and what's next? Speakers and programming live through HubSpot's YouTube channel. Our three day live stream will feature over 20 plus sessions, English closed captioning and ASL interpretation. Sounds kind of virtual to me. I'm just gonna throw that out. Like at least you're gonna be able to get to some of it, not all of it. So I want people who are like sitting here going through here's my ultimate success plan. And I've tried to get my boss to let me go and maybe it falls just a slight bit flat. Not all is lost. Check out the YouTube channel.

Max, Bobby, talk to me.

Maybe this is like we say, what are people talking about that they're not talking about or that they should be talking about? Maybe not along the lines of like public discourse, but I think maybe internally, like at your company, with your peers. Right. I think a lot of the conversations are probably talking about, oh, so excited, can't wait to go. And less of the conversations are on why are we going? What are we going to do? What are we looking to get out of it? And like really thinking tactically about it. So if you haven't like sat down with your co workers who are going to this thing, like take the time to put together like a game plan and like plan ahead. Like all the speakers in the sessions are on the website right now. There's no reason why you guys can't start chatting through it, coming up with a game plan instead of doing it last minute when you're on the plane flight there, right? So start talking about it now. Come up with a game plan, go crush it, have a good time, go steal a penguin, get a large French vanilla iced coffee, regular. You know, all the things.

Oh my goodness.

Oh my gosh. Okay. And I'll leave it with this. The one thing I wish more people were talking about with Inbound is I wish people who are going, who have gone in the past, if you are around people who maybe aren't bought into it, maybe are new or whatever. I don't know if you will. Maybe this is making the assumption that a lot of people are like me whenever I go to Inbound. It's not that I've forgotten why I do what I do or why I'm part of the this community. It is that boost. It is the most epic intersection of professional development, fun, excitement, and like dopamine and like all of the good that feel good chemicals about why I am doing this work in this community and not going somewhere else. It's that. It's that thing we always talk about, right? Like, what's the reason you showed up and what's the reason you stayed, Whether that's in a company, a friend group, a network, whatever it is that we're talking about. And so the one thing I would really encourage you to do is that if you are someone who feels like me and what I'm saying to you resonates with you, tell that to other people. Don't be shy. Don't assume people won't listen. Maybe not everyone will listen to you. Maybe a few people will be like, yeah, you know what? HubSpot sold out and now they have Reese Witherspoon. Like, but there's going to be someone who's going to hear you, and it will change their life because they will listen and they will go and they will thank you. Except they won't thank Max because they will be in prison for stealing a penguin. Hold up, gentlemen.

Hold up. No, no. I want to give. I want to give one last networking, networking, networking tip. Okay, I do not hear the one networking tip. Why did the two networking penguins jump when they first met? Because they were trying to break the ice.

Oh, yeah.

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