Your 2024 Inbound + HubSpot Stop, Start, Keep Showdown
George B. Thomas, Liz, Devin, and Max debate what inbound marketers should stop, start, and keep doing in 2024. They cover HubSpot strategies, AI integration, content creation, and sales-marketing alignment with practical advice for the year ahead.
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 another episode of Hub Heroes. As always, I am your, I mean, well meaning, desperate Hub Heroes wrangler, joined by Devin, George, and Max. Gentlemen, I have to bring something to your attention.
Oh.
Because we are recording this the Friday before Christmas, nobody is in our studio audience today, virtually in the community, which means we are completely unsupervised.
Oh, no.
Max, are you excited?
Let's go. Let's go.
Yeah, I'm kind of sad, actually.
Is that why you wore your fancy hat today, George?
Do you like my hat?
Let me see.
I. I like my hat.
It's a nice hat.
Yes.
Yeah, you know, I had a choice. I had a choice, by the way. It was this hat. Or I could have wore this hat, which literally has elf ears on it, or I could have gone full grown adult beard Santa.
Put that on right now. Put that on right now. Put that on right now. No. Not doing the show until you put it on. You show me that thing. Put it on right now.
Come on, man. How dare you show up.
Let's carry on with the conversation and I'll do wardrobe.
Wow. Wow. So for once, George wants me to do my job. For once, George wants me to do my job and isn't intentionally trying to run this podcast into the ground. Great. Wonderful.
While he's doing that emo here, pointing out just one of these. It'd be funny if, for the intro, we. We had. We had that guy, like, redo the intro for, like, like April Fools, and when he got to the part where he's like, the one tool you need in your HubSpot tool belt, a reticulated band saw from Home dep. And just have it be that one episode.
All right, so I'll just do. I'll just do the rest of the rest of the episode like this. Now, if you're not watching, if you're listening to the podcast, as if I.
Didn'T just grab a screenshot of this. Are you kidding me?
This will be on LinkedIn later. Yeah.
No. You look like you're gonna rob somebody.
Dude. You're Dan Aykroyd. Intriguing places right now. About to shove a bunch of salmon in your mouth.
This is unbelievable.
Yeah. Hey, I wore this earlier today, which, by the way, I could take it to a whole nother level, but we. We put out a video, a Christmas video. I wore this in, but I. I can. Hang on, hang on. I'm not done. And if you're listening, I apologize, but just chatter amongst yourself. I'll be right back.
Oh, if he comes back, perfectly honest.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening in the audience, you just need to know he's not in the least bit sorry. He's not sorry at all. Not even Max. Devin, how you doing?
I'm good. If he comes back with a glass of ice cold milk, I'm gonna die. Oh, my God, yes.
Spring break Santa, dude.
Anyway, yeah, let's go. Let's go. Anyway.
Fortnite.
All right.
Speaking of Fortnite, we're gonna play a little game today. Look at that. I'm a flawless Segway swan.
That was a great job.
Thank you.
Great segue. I went and shaved real quick, by the way.
Yes.
That was terrible. You should feel bad about it. You should feel that. All right, so we actually are going to be playing a game today. It's game I learned back with when I was on the leadership team at a HubSpot agency. And one of the things that we would do once a quarter is we would go around and we would share with the rest of the leadership team what is one thing we should stop doing, what is one thing we should start doing, and what is one thing we should keep doing? So what I thought might be fun for today's episode in which we are all totally focused and don't have holiday brain rotation.
Oh, is there a holiday coming up?
Hey, George, remember that time you told me I could do my job and run this podcast? Remember that? It feels like it was just three minutes ago. Minutes ago, Minutes ago. Have we changed our mind? I can turn. I will turn this podcast around. I will turn this podcast around. Pew. All right, so here's what I'm Thinking today, since clearly in this last episode in which the four of us are together, this is our last episode with all four of us before 2024. Just want to throw that out.
Crazy.
Just want to throw that out there. So here's the game I want to play today. I want each of us to share for our inbounding hubspotting audience what we think their inbound and HubSpot stop start keeps should be going into the new year. What do you guys think?
I love this.
We like.
Yeah, yeah.
Fabulous. All right, so we're gonna do. We're gonna start with the. We're gonna start with the stops.
Wait, wait. Teacher, teacher. I have a question. I have a question.
Yes, Georgie?
Are we gonna have, like, the possibility to do a rebuttal or to double down or say things about other people's start stop keeps, or is it like, they just get to go, and then we have to, like, silently, like, hit our head against a wall?
George, you're acting as if I would be able to stop the runaway freight train that is your brain once you get going, because I don't know why he bothered asking. I don't know. I think it's to hurt me, Devin. I think it's to hurt me. I think that's what's happening right now.
I would never do that. Never do that.
Well, George, how about this? Why don't you kick us off for our inbounding and hubspotting audience? What is the one thing you believe they need to stop doing in 2024? Oh, then we'll go to Matt.
Oh, we're stopping first.
We're stopping first. Stop, start. Keep.
Oh, yeah. Okay, lady gentlemen, if I steal yours, I apologize profusely ahead of time, and.
If I steal yours, I do it with lack of any remorse in my.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah.
It amazes me. Amazes me that at the end of 2023, heading into 2024, the amount of businesses that I bump into that continue to this day to underestimate the power of content, the power of creating valuable content for the people out there that have hurdles, that have aspirations, that. That want to be able to do something that they can't do now, and. And instead, it becomes all about the numbers. And don't get, like, numbers are important. I get it. Don't send me hate mail. But there has to be this idea of nurturing. And that's the thing that I reason. I think I love content so much. I was literally on a podcast, evolve Leadership earlier this week, and we were talking about Kind of what is this native state that I live in in the HubSpot ecosystem is the nurturer, the guy who is willing to help anybody, the guy who will create content until he can't breathe anymore. And so if you're listening to this and you aren't leveraging content and the power of content for your inbound sales, marketing service operation, business revenue, fatter wallet by the end of 2024, or if you know somebody that is underestimating the power of content, then I say to you, stop it. Just stop it.
Okay?
That's my thing.
Well, I'm going to be honest, as the content strategist here, I appreciate you pandering to my delegation. It will be noted.
You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. I'm trying to get Brownie points for 2024.
Yeah, I know. You're getting brownie pants now. Brownie points now, because you're going to probably break my heart at some point later in this broadcast. But that's fine.
I'm sure. I'm sure.
Talk to me, Bobby. What we got?
Pretty simple, guys. We gotta. It's 2024. Let's. Let's stop with the generic Contact Us pages, please. If you just have a form on your site that says contact us, and it goes into a black hole of nothing, nothingness into some generic inbox that maybe one person answers. You know, you're. You're missing out. Please, at least, at the very least, if you're not going to create these, like, easy experiences that people can go through to get to the right people do whatever they got to do, whether they got to buy, sell, become or not sell, buy, or become more, you know, successful, or if they have a problem with your product, like, whatever it is, like, give them these paths that go down, these nice, you know, easy ways for them to kind of interact with people. The generic Contact Us page has got to go. And while I'm on it, let's stop putting OPS behind everything and let's stop putting Bound behind everything. There's too many and there's too many bounds. Sorry now. I had to throw it in there.
No, he didn't understand rules.
That was more for LinkedIn.
Literally, the rules.
George, while I appreciate you doing that. I appreciate you doing that, but you're gonna, you're, you're gonna break rules later. I know.
You're gonna break rules.
Yeah, probably.
You're gonna break rules.
Hey. Hey, Max. What's. What's the Happily website?
Happily.com. go to it.
Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.
Go to it. Go. No, go. Tell me. There's a generic Contact Us page on there. That does it select exactly what you just. And it has a sick workf. Please check the master contact. I was curious exactly where you need to go, no matter who you are.
No, I was curious. So why Devin does this thing. I'm going to actually go onto the Internet and search the page. Please do anyway.
Please do.
Although one could say that using Ops is a suffix is the new Lee. Because for a while there, everything that came out ended in a Lee.
Yep.
Happily, we move along. Devin, what should everyone stop doing?
I need people to stop buying lists. This has been going on too damn long. We've talked about it too damn much. The fact that people are still out here. It's about to be 2024 and y' all are buying lists. You are purchasing. Look, look at. Look at me. You are purchasing lists. You are wasting your money and you're wasting everyone else's time. You're wasting your domain name. Like, like it's bad enough that you are spending money on these lists, but then the fact you want to email these people and they even. They don't even know you. You're going to email them and you don't even know what's going on with them. If I have one more email, if I get one more email about HubSpot Ventures, I don't even know what HubSpot Ventures is, but y' all emailing me about HubSpot Ventures and congratulating me on my new position. I ain't getting no paycheck from email ventures. Well, that tells me you bought a bad list. You got my email address and just sent me the wrong. Stomp it. Stop sending lists to people. We don't want to hear from you. If we wanted to hear from you, we would opted in. We would have contacted you, we would have filled out a form. But you out here just, just, just, just randomly, just recklessly, just messaging people. I need you to stop leaving them lists alone. Put the lists down. Step away from the list.
Oh my God.
I don't even know how we move forward from.
That's gonna be.
That's gonna be a clip on the Internet. Like right after this, I'm going into Descript. I'm gonna pull that out. It's gonna be on LinkedIn. But, but man, I might have taken.
A few screenshots of that as well.
Hashtag truth. Though the amount of people that I should have hired for web design or SEO is ridiculous at this point.
Do you gu.
Other day, am I supposed to follow that? How am I supposed to follow that?
Oh, yeah. Liz, did you know you're up next?
Thanks, George. I appreciate you.
Zoom in, Liz.
Get all up in the screen and stuff. Hello.
Do you know what I need you to stop doing? Blaming HubSpot when you don't have a good strategy, your technology will only be as smart or as stupid as you are. Seriously, I cannot. I can't handle it. HubSpot isn't working. We're not getting organic traffic. Are you publishing content?
No.
Are you making landing pages?
No.
Do you have any sort of attract, engage, delight framework in place? No. Well, Susan, maybe the reason HubSpot isn't working is because you aren't making HubSpot work. It won't. The technology is not your strategy. It will only scale smart or scale stupid, depending on what your inputs are. Please stop it. HubSpot didn't do anything wrong to you. HubSpot didn't hurt you. HubSpot didn't make you pick the wrong things to write about. HubSpot didn't tell you to not. You like to collect a bunch of marketing contacts and then never reach out to them with anything valuable or human. That's right, George. I said human first. Suck it.
You did. You did.
Do you want to give us a good human though, George? Give us one good one.
How about a Susan? Give us a Susan.
Well, yeah, yeah. No, but hang on. So first off, first of all, if you're listening to this podcast and your name is Susan, I apologize for all of us. We love you.
Except Liz whipped out Susan. Right. Like, it's just my go to. And to all the Susans out there, one of my very dear friends is named Susan. It's just a great name to say with like, it doesn't. Like Liz doesn't have the same ring to.
But Susan, listen, at the end of the day, Susans are humans too. I mean, just.
But not all Susans are humans.
Wait, oh wait.
Not all humans are Susans. That's what I want to say.
We're not talking about AI today. We're not talking about AI today. That's what everybody else is talking about. We're doing something different. We're professionals.
We're talking about AI.
Just saying.
I bet we do.
I bet we do.
So, yeah, just to wrap that one up, please stop blaming HubSpot for your lack of strategy. If you have a problem where you're not seeing the results you want to see, do not immediately point fingers at the technology. Take a look at the strategy. You're going to market with George.
Yeah.
As much as I'm concerned, you're up next.
Yeah.
What do you want folks to start doing in the HubSpot and inbound space in 2024? Oh, you're excited.
Yeah, baby. Listen, I need you to start learning, understanding, and leveraging AI in your business today right now. Now, I am talking about all of the AIs that you can do, and I want you to think of all the things that you might use them for for saving time for doing research. Now, am I saying replace human or being human with AI? No, I'm saying use it as. Listen, they sell hammers at Home Depot for a fricking reason. AI is a hammer that a sales rep, a marketer. What? Okay. And I'm not necessarily just talking about generative AI. Like, write the blog article for me so I can, like, sip on a martini and sit the beach. That's what I'm talking about. But I had an epiphany moment earlier. Was like last weekend, earlier this week, but last weekend. And I have been using AI and coming up with, like, an AI formula for, like, creating content and humanizing and how to use it and not use it and all this good stuff. But on the weekend, I was really sad. I mean, sad sad because I'm helping a client that they have this show, and they needed to get all of the videos from a place to the show, and then they needed to generate show notes for the show, and then they needed to do a third step for the show. So there was literally three different steps that had to happen to create each page of the show. And there were 67 episodes of the show. And as the guy who had to put the task in subtasks in there, and you start to think to actually type out, do this for episode one, copy paste two, copy paste three, copy paste four. Oh, my God. I would have been. I almost had a nervous breakdown. And then all of a sudden I was like, wait a second. And I said, chatgpt, create this task, and in this spot, change the episode number from 1 to 67, copy paste. Then my system said, it looks like you want to create 67 subtasks. Is that true? I said, yes, it is. And I did that two more times. And what would have taken me probably 30 to 40 minutes manually, I had done in about a minute and a half. So this is the thing. I'm not just talking about generative AI. I'm not just talking about graphics, which don't get me started on that. And some of the beyond your default.com graphics that we're creating. Anyway, I'm just saying, in your life, how can you use the tool to do the thing that might make you sad, but when you use the right tool makes you happy? So start doing that thing.
Maximus, do you really, though?
You look like you were about to wring my neck. When I said AI at the beginning of that, I got a little nervous.
That's a default state. That's a default.
Okay, okay, okay.
That's just. I just, you know, we're not going to talk about AI today. And then you're like, you know what I want to talk about? I want to talk about AI. So, you know, we're doing great. We're all. We are just one big live laugh love poster right now. And I'm living for it. I born Jewish. You did warn me. I should have listened. I'm so sorry. George. Max.
Hi.
Hi.
I'm. I'm. I'm gonna show, but I'm not gonna show. Oh, come happily.
Is it big Popsicle time? Are you chilling for Big Popsicle?
No, no.
I have a feeling. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. I'm gonna help you because I think I know where you're going. Prank him, John.
Oh, no. What is he getting another hat?
Oh, hey. There you go.
All right, I'm ready.
Yeah. Start buying my hats, everybody. That's. That's what it is now. I am.
Oh, that's not what you're going.
No. But hey, thanks for letting me sneak it in there, buddy. I am going to shill for just Big App in general being the app marketplace. While George shows off another wonderful item we have in our collection@close1city.com. You can get all your.
But stop putting OPS at the end of everything, guys.
Yeah. Yep, Rev Ops is the last one. We all get everybody. We've ran out of things we can put OPS behind. I will make an Ops Ops hat at some point. But anyway, back to the.
Buy that hat.
Yeah, I'm gonna make it. Oh, and there's our Rev Ops God model, all in red. Yep. You can wear that to a political rally and stand right in. Anyway.
I'm loving how we're catering to our audio listeners, guys.
We're doing great. Yeah. Hey, go sign up at george b.thomas.com. you know, go get. Get access to the video. Anyway, I'm going to show for Big App and the HubSpot App Marketplace here specifically because I've been hearing. So I talked to a Lot of partners, right? And something that I hear from partners is, hey, it's really tough positioning, having to buy another thing to get their CRM to do something specific, right? Which I think is understandable. What I'm trying to do is change the overall sort of view on CRMs and apps, right? And I like to do it with an analogy that I think makes a lot of sense. And, you know, I'm kind of stealing this a little bit from the vision that I've seen, you know, HubSpot kind of lay out when, you know, the HubSpot app marketplace was really kind of just getting started and people were starting to build stuff on it. But, you know, it, It. It makes a lot of sense. What I want you to think about is your iPhone. Your iPhone is the way that you as a human being kind of communicate in the. To the world in a very scalable way. It's where you hold a lot of your information. It's. It's how you kind of get a lot of stuff done, right? Your CRM is your business's iPhone when you really think about it, right? It's how you sell. It's how you manage relationships. It's how you connect to the outside world in a number of different ways, right? Especially when you have all these other systems, you know, connected to it and putting information into it and taking information out of it. It's really kind of no different than your. Your iPhone in your pocket for you as a human, right? It's kind of the equivalent there. And, you know, the. The thing is, is, like, a lot of people say, like, oh, if I'm buying HubSpot, I expect it to do every single thing in the world for me, right? I expected to have every single feature, no matter what sort of industry that I'm in. And if it doesn't do this one specific thing, why would I buy it, right? Well, that's because HubSpot or your CRM is not meant to solve every single issue. It's much like your phone, where it's meant to give you a set of apps that accomplish things that are universally applicable to the mass majority of folks out there. HubSpot CRM is doing the same thing where it's giving you a whole bunch of different tools around marketing, sales and service, because most businesses have some kind of marketing, sales and service element to them, right? But, you know, the whole idea is like, on your iPhone, even though it comes with a calendar, you can download a better calendar app, right? You could download an app on your iPhone that makes it do something that it was never designed to do in the first place, right? I want folks to start thinking about their CRM that way, right? And the reason being is like, you know, or the big kind of pushback you get there from a lot of folks is like, well, why doesn't it just have the features built in, right? Because if HubSpot had every single feature built in for every single person, for every single industry, for every single use case, and there wasn't any apps, it was just one tool that had literally everything for everybody, it would be unaffordable, right? There would be. It would be way too expensive. It would do way too many things. It would just be impossible or unscalable to support. It would totally mess up, like the direction and focus on making those core tools great, right? The whole idea of apps, right, is that you're able to get this platform, right? HubSpot's not just a CRM software, it's a platform, right, that you could build stuff on. And what's great is you can go and download apps to make it thing do things that you need it to do and you're not carrying around the burden of paying more for it because it's automatically built to do other things for other people that you're never going to do with it, right? So I would encourage end users of HubSpot to kind of start thinking of the metaphor of your CRM. It's the same thing as the iPhone for your person. You. Right. It's the same thing for your business. Right? And. And you don't think twice about downloading apps on that thing. Paying 10.99amonth for a Candy Crush account, or like whatever it may be, right? It's the same idea, just at a larger scale, right? So, wow.
Yeah.
Your iPhone, your serum is forever. Yeah, me too.
I'm just saying.
I just want candy.
So. So there's another alternative outcome to that, right? Max, if they did everything, it could also end up being like a software that was crap, right? The whole kind of philosophy of, you know, jack of all trades, master of none, that, like, spread out too separated. Like you have to have these niche places where you're really great at certain things. Like just the other day, Jorge and I were having a meeting. Jorge is from our team, HubSpot Implementation Specialist. Give him a shout out. Jorge, let's go. We were talking about how we were actually able to solve a client's problem just by adding this little app, you might have heard of it, called Tik Tok today, that they were having an issue with. It might be a happily app that you can get from the marketplace. I'm just saying it's free.
So, like big popsicle.
I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I don't even work there. Just saying. But my point is, like, these apps can help. They can. They can unlock things that you don't even realize the potential until you actually get it in there and get going with it. So love. Love.
It's just. It's such a foreign thought, right? It's like, oh, I can. It's like, dude, you can download an app on your phone and make it do something different. Guys, we're in the age. You can do that for your CRM too, as well, right? And it's not.
Oh, what do you mean?
I gotta buy something else to get this piece of software to do something else. Dude, you do the same thing for your phone. Yeah, dude, like, that's what it is. So sorry.
So question though. You said iPhone through that whole thing. Like, does that mean all Android users are like salesforce and iPhone is hustle?
Oh, don't go there. Don't you dare throw my beloved Android under the bus.
I would say.
Would you say Androids, like.
No, I'd say. I'd say Androids are cobbled, not crafted.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah, yeah, get cobbled.
Oh, my God, Devin.
Goodbye.
I can't even argue with them. That's the best part about.
That's right. I got a pebbled shower.
I don't have to.
I don't have to summon Steve Jobs ghost if I want to do something different like use my own charger or buy something else. I don't have to give a pint of blood at some sacrificial altar if I want to develop my own app for my own phone.
See, here's the problem, Gavin. I can't hear you over the accumulation of all the bad, fast and furious hot takes you've had over the course of this year. I just. Are drowning you out.
The most happiest time of year.
It's the most wonderful time of the year. Until it isn't. Until it isn't. Yeah, Devin. Speaking of Devin, give us a good take. What should we Start doing in 2024?
I think we should start getting better at prospecting. We should start getting better with our research. Start getting better, like just with the whole process. Just with, you know, prospecting your leads, generating, you know, good introductory emails. Just those just in. Better. Just first contact and doing better research. I think that's because look, if I get another email in LinkedIn, email message just offering me a service that ain't got nothing to do with my job. Like, why are you trying to get me to buy swag? I have nothing to do with swag. I have swag. I've received swag. I do not purchase swag because if I'm purchasing is no longer swag. It is just socks.
That's all it is.
Stop trying to get me to buy branded things. That is not my job. I work in partner enablement at HubSpot. I make partners grow better. I make videos and by the way, yes, make videos. So that means I don't need you to make videos for me. That means you have not done the research, you have not looked at my LinkedIn profile, because if you did, you would see that you are reaching out to the wrong person about the wrong thing. Do better. Start prospecting correctly. Segment between people who are good fit and people who are bad fit.
Yeah.
You know, it's so funny because I've often wondered what life it would be if I actually had the copious amounts of time that those people had to waste doing things that like, aren't gonna work. I'm like, man, it must be nice. Like, these are probably the same people I hear about sitting on the couch, eating bon bons, like watching soap operas in the middle of the day and then they're doing cold outreach in the way they're doing. But also, I love that you brought this up because I have to, I have to start to talk about this in 2024. I'm not sure people know how much of an important thing has happened in HubSpot to the prospecting and pre sales process in HubSpot. Like, it just felt like it was kind of like thrown out there. I haven't heard a lot of talk about it, but the idea of the prospects tab and the lead object and when you actually start to dig in and realize like, it's a fundamental replacement for what was a crutch lead status for so many years in the software. Like, listen, it's forcing me to do things differently. It's forcing me to ask questions about what I'm doing during certain processes. And so this idea of better prospecting and therefore having better tools to do that is like huge for people to pay attention to. Sorry, I know I keep doing this. I'll just be quiet now. Liz.
I thought that was.
I would.
I'm not complaining.
Okay, well, you put the hoodie up and I'm like. She's like, Bethany Zuckerberg or something right now. I was trying to figure it all out. I'm just. I'm trying not get in trouble.
Don't read into it. Basically what's happening is my co working space is slowly starting to shut down because I'm one of the last people here. And it's just getting colder because it's New England and It was like 18 degrees when I left for the office this morning. It was unpleasant. No, Liz is not well. If your email finds me, it will find me screeching like an opossum trapped in a mailbox. Like, I'm not. Not great. I hate it. Okay. Anyway, so my start. I need marketers to start caring about sales more. I need you to start caring about the people on your sales team more. I need you to. This is kind of also a stop. Stop relying on the fact that you can spell sales enablement and conflating that with actually enabling your sales team. We are about to enter another tumultuous year. Whether or not we actually go into a recession, who knows? Because even if we enter into one, they won't confirm or deny that it happened until months later. Especially since it's going to be an election year and I'm not about to go political. I'm just about to say, like, 2024 is going to be another intense year. Like 2023 was and might even be a little bit. So, marketers, I need you to start caring about your sales team more. Stop sequestering yourselves in conference rooms or virtual zoom conferences trying to guess what it is that sales needs from you and start asking them. Start building that trust with them again. Start understanding what it is that they actually need. And if you need a refresher on it, I would highly recommend the sales therapy episode we did with Chris Stillwell of Hub Heroes a few weeks back. If you really want to understand a lot of the pain that sales teams are going through and why they may be a little bit fussy and lacking in trust when you try to get close to them, start there. Your sales team is going to need you more than ever next year. Start being the partner that they actually need. Start showing up for something more than brand awareness. That's my start.
Love it.
Comments, Thoughts, Grievances?
Now I. I double click voted up.
Yeah, we gotta repair the relationship between sales and marketing. Every. Just all the content you see about it. They just seem to hate each other.
Dude, I talked about this. I talked about this at inbound and at B2B forum earlier this year. Did the same Presentation. Both places.
Yeah.
And I talked about it in the light of marriage counseling. Like, marriage counseling for marketing and sales teams.
So here's what I will tell you, though. So back when I was the editor in chief at Impact, which is a HubSpot elite agency, I was. I helped run our very first revenue team, which was meant to heal some of our own sales and marketing alignment challenges. And I think what happens is that we have this expectation that if you have a really toxic or lack of trust, like something's broken in the sales and marketing relationship, you're going to feel. Feel the adversarial nature of it. And that's simply not true. I had friends on the sales team. We were all close. We would get beer together, we would hang out. We actively liked each other as people. But the trust, the lack of trust would only show up when we had those initial conversations. And Max, I love your point about focusing on that repair aspect, because I'll be honest, for the first few meetings, I felt a little bit more like Frasier Crane. Like, go ahead, sales, I'm listening. And like, just kind of letting them unload about the fact that they are. That they're. They are shouldered with the revenue burdens and responsibilities of an entire company. And they're often the last to find out about product updates, service changes, very basic things. They'll be selling things where it's like, oh, well, we're not supposed to be selling that anymore. We're supposed to be selling this, we're supposed to be selling that. And this is not something specific to a single company. Often sales has a marketing trust issue because they have a trust issue not just with marketing, but kind of with everybody. So I agree. You have to go in and acknowledge. Don't go in acting as if you've already earned the trust of sales. Don't go in acting as if they should just be so happy that you're there because you've decided you want to go talk to them, listen to them, talk to them about being their advocate. It's a challenging thing to do. But the reason why I bring that up, George, though, is that because I think sometimes we can think that we have better relationships than we actually do because we like each other as people. Like when I was talking with the sales folks at Impact, they would be like, no, Liz, we know you're really good at what you do. We know you're super responsible and super responsive. But you have to understand, we've had months, if not years sometimes of things starting off great and things completely falling Apart after that, you know? So make it a point to start being there for your sales team. They are really, really going to need you.
Go ask them what they need. That's the other thing. Besides leads, what do you need?
How can I stop saying here, I made sales enablement content for you. Start asking, what sales enablement content do you need? And then don't argue with them. Provide input, Provide strategic feedback. But like, yeah. Anyway, George, what do people need to start or keep doing rather, in 2024?
Yeah, all of the things. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Okay? I'm just gonna be the guy that everybody knows I'm the guy. So you need to focus on the humans and being a human centric business. Okay? Like, the amount of people who have lost sight of the true reason of why we do what we do is mind boggling to me. And if you do nothing else, get the book Marketing Rebellion. The most human companies wins or the most human company wins. It's by my buddy Mark Schaefer. And read that. Think about how you like to be treated. Think about how you are a human and how you have a radar that goes ding, ding, ding, ding, day, night, whenever, when you smell. Well, I don't want to have to beep anything out, so we'll just use the word crap. From a sales and marketing standpoint, we all have a highly effective BS radar. So why, when you enter the walls of your workspace, mentally or physically, if you're remote, why do we shut the human off? I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. Speaking of human, though, shout out to max and your LinkedIn post from three hours ago, which is probably the most human thing I've ever read, which is you ever live so far away from a Taco Bell you unironically start researching franchising opportunities. So be more like a human on social.
Wow.
I need $2 million in liquid assets.
Nice. That's just. Don't you have that laying around?
Liquid assets be in the form of queso question.
Wow.
There's other liquid that comes to mind when I think of Taco Bell, though.
Seriously, like, here's what's funny, Max. I live right by one. I can like get it, freeze it, ship it if you want.
Please do.
I've heard Taco Bell freezes and thaws really well.
The quality. I mean, dude, I mean, I'm literally. I'm in a Taco Bell desert right now. I live in Billerica, Closest one's in lull and so you go on door dash, it's a 20 minute drive to get it out of here. And by the time you get it, it's basically just. It's. It's dog food, you know, so.
Are you sure it didn't start as. Anyway.
Hey. Hey. Good?
No, I love Taco Bell. Don't get me wrong. I have a deep, long standing relationship with Taco Bell up and down the east coast.
Don't get us sued.
It's really good dog food. Anyway. Yep.
Is it better or worse than Android? Question. Just kidding, Max. Continue.
A Doritos Locos Taco is a better phone than an Android. Anyway.
Oh my God.
Okay, I have a Galaxy S23.
It eats your phone and your phone's camera, so deal.
Oh, man. Well, I got an iPhone 13, bro. I'm two years behind.
We totally went sideways. Apple till I die.
We're fine. Shout out R011 we're not sideways, we're human.
Oh. Oh yeah. Let's. Let's be that.
What was I saying? Anyway, continue.
2024. Oh my God.
Yo, Caro Taco. Continue. Anyway, so what I. What I think you should continue doing is investing in content. If it's been hard and it hasn't taken off yet, chill the out. It takes time. Not only does it take time to build an audience, it takes time to get good at doing. It takes time to build it into your, you know, day to day. Going from a business that creates no content to a business that creates content, I've said for eight years now, is the hardest thing to do. Deploying software is not difficult. Turning into a company that creates content is way harder than any migration or implementation or whatever that you'll ever do, right? Getting it right, making it land with your audience, taking a lot of risks. All that stuff is really hard if it's not paying off yet. Experiment. Do different things, try different mediums. Get a little goofy, right? You know, just, just don't stop whatever you do right? Keep pushing. Keep making content, please.
Do it.
Do it. Do it. Do it.
Go write a blog.
Do it.
Do it.
All right, I sound ridiculous. Devin's about to come on here and say continue to buy lists. No matter what I said before.
Wow.
Don't listen to me.
Stop. Start. Continue.
It.
Do it. Devin, what should we keep doing?
Oh my God. Devin, do it now.
Mine. Short and sweet. Keep your. Keep working on your data hygiene. Just short, sweet. Just keep working on your data hygiene. Keep segmenting. Keep. Keep those lists clean. Your. Your, your Smart lists, your static list. Keep. Just keep your, your, your data hygiene up. Especially, you know, importing your spreadsheets from, you know, your legacy CRMs. Just, you know, don't, don't, don't. Don't muddy the waters with bad data like lists. There's nothing. Nothing dirtier.
I was waiting for it.
The fastest way I knew it was coming. The CRM waters is by uploading lists unsegmented. Just. Just bad data. Just ruining your CRM, ruining your domain reputation, just ruining people's lives, ruining their inboxes, all because you have poor data hygiene and poor practices. Because you want to import bad data lists or bad data, don't do it. Okay, that's a screenshot right there.
Wash your.
Wash your data.
Oh, goodness. That's the CRM equivalent.
Wash your goodness.
I need a cigarette.
My head, actually, I'm lightheaded after that, actually.
Start. Everybody start. Hey, listen, if you haven't start smoking in 2020. No, no, no, no.
We do not condone that. No, no, don't. Nope, nope.
No, I swear, if you edit that.
Clean.
Yeah, you could do that. You could smoke a turkey. You could smoke some cheese. You could smoke, like. You could like food. Food items. Then get a smoker and, you know, smoke more in 2024.
But, George, that was a flawless recovery. Flawless.
Trying over here. I'm. Makes it difficult.
Okay.
Yeah. Wait till you hear my challenge.
Oh, it's my turn. All right, kids, mine's going to be short and sweet. Keep learning. Keep learning. That may sound hokey, that may sound silly, but the only way you really fail at this whole HubSpot or inbound thing is you adopt a fixed mindset instead of continuing to learn, continuing to grow, continuing to challenge the way you've always done things. Keep learning about your customers. Keep learning about what they need. Keep learning about the technology. Never, ever stop learning. Just keep doing it. Just keep learning. And HubSpot Academy can help you. It's a beautiful place of freaking endless hours of free education. Could you imagine how many fewer complaints we would get about HubSpot sucking if people just, like, took maybe one or two hours of certifications in there? Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Anyway.
Yeah, that's George.
Yeah.
Susan. I'm watching you, Susan. George, Hi.
Hi.
What's your challenge that you want to leave our listeners with for 2024?
I'm being torn right now.
Like, put yourself back together. You can do it.
Yeah, I'm being torn because there's like the. There's the tactical challenge, right? Like, and then there's the. There's the human side of me.
The what side? I'm sorry.
Oh, I'm sorry. I see. Dang it. The human side of me. Like, tactically, I. By the way, this is my precursor to being able to cheat. But. But tactically, I want to talk about using the tool more and using more of the tool and getting into these pieces of HubSpot that you have purposely ignored because you bought it to just be mailchimp or to be like, whatever monster insights or whatever. Like, whatever miniature thing you thought you're fixing. Like, so use more of the tool. Get to understand more of the tool. Like, that's part of me. I want to go in that direction.
I love that.
But. But then there's the other side of me, right? There's the.
Is this where you break a rule? Because you were supposed to have one.
Challenge side of me. Well, Max did. I'm gonna do it too. So sit down in the front row, middle row, and back row, because here I go. Eat more Taco Bell. That's your challenge. No, I'm just kidding. Okay.
Yo, here's.
Here's the real challenge. What I want people to do more in 2024 is I want them to actually embrace who they are and who they are meant to be. And I'm going to give them the challenge that I was given about the beginning of this year or the very end of last year. And my challenge, you on the human side is just to show up as a whole ass human. Like, you've been pussy footing around your life. You've been kind of shipping in the things that you think you need to ship in. You've been kind of doing the work that you want to do. You've been dreaming about some things that you might get around to. Knock it off. Live your life for who you're actually supposed to be. Chase your dreams, build your goals, and show up for the humans around you as a whole ass human, all of you. Love all of you. Be all of you. I don't know. I want to be like, shine bright like a diamond or some crazy crap like that, but just, just, just.
I'm bright like a diamond.
You like, listen, ladies and gentlemen, everybody else, take it. Just be you and show up as a who assument. That's my human side of this. And then, of course, use more of HubSpot.
There.
There you go.
So, George, honestly, I take back all of my complaints about you doing a second challenge because you quoted me and I did. Honestly, that's fine. Yes, honestly, that's Fine.
It's okay.
Okay, Max, you've kept zoomed in on your face, which is making this even scarier. What is your. What is 2024?
I I my thing is like this is the year you try video. If you haven't yet. Guys, come on.
Like someone break out the statistic.
Even if you break it out, I don't remember what the Cisco 2024 is.
The year of video. Cisco said that since 2016.
Listen, brother, it's always the year. It's always the year. If you haven't done it yet, the year you if is now. Time is now. In fact, don't wait till next year. You still got my math's not good. I don't know, anywhere between eight and nine days left or whatever you're hearing this. If you're hearing this after the more.
Days till the year's over.
If you're hearing this after the new year anyway. But yeah, just. And, and here's the thing. I this challenge goes double for if you think you got a boring industry. Liz, we talked about the whole boring industry last time. Need I remind everybody again? And I'll. Can I zoom in anymore? Yeah. They made crab fishing interesting. Don't forget that. There's like 20 seasons of a show about crab fishing. You can figure it out.
I'm so sad that Chad make a.
TikTok about your accounting company. Just do it.
Just chat. And Chris and Salim and all of our friends from Canada are going to be so bummed that this was the episode they missed. The live recording of in the and if you ever want to join a live recording, all you have to do is go to community.hubheroes.com because we do we do this live. Yes, we do it live.
Yes, we do it live. Dang it.
Devin, challenge us to buy email lists.
I don't think that's gonna be challenge.
Words didn't leave your mouth. No, I'm, I'm kind of struggling here with this because I had one that I wanted to say and then I had a backup and then I had one that I came up with to fly. But the one I wanted to say was push yourself and get HubSpot certifications, but can't say that one. And then I was just going to say, you know, work, life, balance, be a good human, live life. Work isn't everything, but can't say that. And then I was going to go out on a limb and say incorporate video into what you do. Can't even do that.
So.
So I'm just gonna say work with smart people who just read your mind and just get ideas that you have. Because I got nothing. Y' all just took it all for me. Like, all of it.
Like you're magic.
You're about to challenge people to cancel their Zoom info subscription.
Do.
I will straight out challenge people to. You know, here's a challenge. Anytime that you get someone trying to sell you a list, anytime you get someone who is emailing you or LinkedIn and messaging you about something that is completely irrelevant, mark them as spam.
Punish them, or I challenge you to try to sell your product to them.
Oh.
Waste their time.
Let's go. Maybe take their email and fill out some forms. Maybe subscribe them to National Geographic or something. I don't know.
Sign them up for Scientology.
Flip the script on him and be like, have you heard of Bellamy Ventures?
How do you feel about shower vestibules?
Oh, my.
Oh, there you go. That's a throwback.
Tell them to send real quick.
Hotel I was at in Philly was. Was lit. It had rainfall tile floor. It like it. The only problem is that it had a half partition, and so water kept getting on the floor, but I didn't care because it wasn't my floor. But that shower was dope, Liz.
That's what them young say, that it's when it's cool. Lit.
Can we get a score? Can we get a score?
Oh, yeah.
Solid, solid. Seven out of ten.
Yeah, that's a. Well, seven point. What you gotta, you know, 72. That's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a light seven. Yeah, yeah.
So like. Like, in my nine is the lodge Kohler in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
So can we just have this be a new segment every show? Devin, you just come back with, like. So I visited this place. I went to my friend Steven. He didn't know I took a shower there. But Stephen.
Is Stephen married to Susan? I just.
I was probably.
Dude, I might be the first Taco Bell.
Also, take a moment to reflect on the fact that George. Mr. Davenport. Mr. Veronda.
I knew this was.
Tried to educate me on the etymology of lit.
I knew that was coming.
Let that hang there for a minute.
That's just his Rizzo.
Oh, I had to Google that, dude.
Kevin, don't say the quiet parts out loud.
Like, I googled it. And I was like, really? So that's what.
Okay.
And then I saw them doing it. I'm like, but that works like that.
Yeah.
Anyway.
All right, well, here's my challenge to our listeners. Take a freaking break. Take a break. I Know, we spent a lot of time talking today about what to expect in 2024. And there's a lot of things you should be changing and a lot of things that you should be doing and all of that stuff. But like, I don't care if you're listening to this smack dab in the middle of the holidays or if you're listening to it at the start of the year. I don't care. At some point you have to realize your brain and your services will not be of use to anybody if you don't take a fricking break, if you don't take a nap, if you don't go outside and touch grass or do something else. At some point you have to understand that you are, as George put it, or I guess quoted me, I don't know, a whole ass human. Which means you have stuff outside of work, you have loves and a life outside of work. Please, please, please make sure that you take some well deserved time off. Give yourself permission to not think about a KPI for a whole day. Maybe even challenge yourself to just be functionally illiterate for like a week. That's what I do. I've been writing for an entire year. George. You know what I realized? I didn't take a vacation this year.
Oh, no, no.
I know.
No, I know.
Me neither.
Not good.
No, I just.
I did. I don't know how it happened. I. Random days off here and there. I know.
Shame.
I know because I had to go. I had. I had personal matters to attend to. But don't be like me. Don't be like Max. Except in every other way, because we are perfect little specimens.
I knew that was coming.
Yeah, but take. Take a break. You deserve it. And you don't have to earn it as hard as you think you're allowed to. Just take a break because you need a break.
What is the music?
I thought I was trying to perfectly time it at the end of the point she was making and I.
You. You did not.
I thought I was doing something cool.
David Caruso in CSI Miami.
That's the whole point.
That's the whole point.
And I I it up, guys.
You did not. You did not achieve that.
Max, are you ready?
Look at me.
You want to try it one more time?
Yeah.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my hot take. I'm David Caruso. I've been your host today. That's right. Devin. That's right. With the sunglasses. Well, gentlemen.
No, no, no. Not allowed to do that yet.
No. George, what's up?
Oh, first of all. I want to take this opportunity to say thank you, Devon, Max, Liz, for showing up on a weekly basis to add value to the community. I just want to thank all of the listeners and I am praying, wishing, hoping all of the great joys that you have during the holiday season, whether it be Merry Christmas or Kwanzaa or whatever it is for you. Just know that we love you. We're out here trying to support you and so there's much, much thanks that I want to give to people. Also, Liz, I, I said that they should start doing leveraging AI for everything, right? All the AIs that they can. And it's been far too long, far too long since we've had an AI generated poem. And so you'll, you'll get a chance to end us and, you know, skirt us out of here. But first I have to go ahead and give us some joyous thoughts in an inbound sales and marketing way. So in the season of joy where the bells do ring, a tale of inbound sales and marketing we bring where content glows bright like lights on a tree drawing folks in as merry as can be in the digital snow. SEO tracks are clear, guiding the lost to the answer they hold dear While emails like Carol's warm and sincere spreading the message of holiday cheer. Social media sparkles like stars in the night. Engaging and festive, a delightful sight. Personalized journeys wrapped up with a bow making each customer the star of the show. In this season of giving, the strategy is clear. It's about connection far and near. Inbound sales and marketing in the holiday light, bringing success and joy all through the night. Signing off with cheer from the Hub Heroes team, Max, Devin, Liz and George in the holiday gleam. Stay bright, stay insightful, we say with a grin. Happy holidays to all and to all a great win.
You know I'm not topping that. That's it guys. Take a second. Out.
We're out.
We're out.
Okay, Hub Heroes, we've reached the end of another episode. Will Lord Lack continue to loom over the community or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the Hub Heroes podcast? Make sure you tune in and find out. In the next episode, make sure you head over to the Hub Heroes.com to get the latest episodes and become part of the League of Heroes. FYI, if you're part of the League of Heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share this podcast with a friend. Leave a review if you like what you're listening to and use the hashtag Hub Heroes podcast on any of the socials and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human. And of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero.
