HubSpot World Certification Week 2024 + Self-Education Strategies

You know what I love about HubHeroes? Our two year anniversary is coming up in July, which means I get to say things like:

Welcome to the 2nd ANNUAL HubSpot World Certification Week episode, because HubSpot’s World Certification Week is right around the corner, April 15 - April 19, 2024! That’s right, folks! We now have annual traditions, and it warms my freakin’ heart. And, double excitement, HubSpot World Certification Week is almost here!

What is HubSpot World Certification Week?

I’m so glad you asked!

🔎 Related: The true, life-changing power of HubSpot Academy (HubHeroes Podcast)

For one week, HubSpot is encouraging inbounders of all roles and experience levels to dive into HubSpot Academy and earn their certifications — and for every certification you earn, they will donate $5 to an education-focused charity, which is just amazing.

This week-long celebration of learning started back in 2020 as a one-day event. But today, it’s a global self-education and certification party, with events across every region. (You can check out the website for last year's event here, the new site is launching soon at the same URL!)

So, in this episode, we’re going to talk about World Certification Week, why we love it and what our personal goals are, BUT we also have a very special guest joining us — Jorge Fuentes Zapata, George's fellow HubSpot partner in crime — to have a deep conversation about what it takes to prioritize self-education and certifications when you’re an insanely busy marketer, sales pro, business leader, or service rockstar.

Why Jorge? Because this man has 44 active HubSpot certifications ... and climbing! 

What We Talked About

• Why do we love HubSpot World Certification Week and what it stands for?
• What do we think most people either get wrong or don’t realize about HubSpot World Certification Week?
• Jorge is an exceptionally busy guy, so how does he make HubSpot certification magic happen? What are his biggest pieces of advice around creating time for self-education?
• Why are these certifications important? 
• What are our goals for HubSpot World Certification Week this year?
• And finally, what are our challenges for the HubHeroes audience going into HubSpot World Certification Week?

And so much more ... 

Additional Resources

• What is HubSpot Academy? (HubHeroes podcast)
• Ultimate guide to HubSpot Academy certifications (all roles/levels)
• What is HubSpot really? (The answer has changed)
• Why contacts mastery is the key to your HubSpot success
• You need to write (and market) like a human (+ examples)

Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Jorge Fuentes: That's right, Devin. You're on

[00:00:01] Liz Moorehead: That's right, Devin. You're on your own. Anyway, welcome back ladies and gentlemen to another week of the hub heroes. I am your host Liz Moorhead joined as always by George. Devin and Max, and we have a special guest today, but I'm going to get to that in just a second because you know what I love about hub heroes now.

two year anniversary is coming up in July, which is wild,

[00:00:24] George B. Thomas: gosh. What?

[00:00:26] Liz Moorehead: means I now I know, which means I now get to say things like this.

[00:00:29] Max Cohen: Oh, that's

[00:00:30] Liz Moorehead: guys. It is hot. Thank you. So my welcome.

That's right. We need to, you know, we need to do, we need to add a disclaimer to the intro right after the Devin piece.

It's like, and sometimes Liz will say things. Just ignore those things,

[00:00:43] George B. Thomas: And most.

[00:00:44] Liz Moorehead: just ignore

[00:00:44] George B. Thomas: And most times we edit them, but if we miss one, please forgive us.

[00:00:48] Liz Moorehead: I love you all so much, but here's what I wanted to get to. The thing that makes me so excited about the fact that we are now going into, we are ending our second year and about to enter our third is I get to say things like, welcome to the second annual HubSpot world certification week episode, because HubSpot's world certification week is right around the corner April, April 15th through April 19th and guys.

We have annual traditions

[00:01:16] George B. Thomas: That's crazy.

[00:01:17] Liz Moorehead: me so happy.

[00:01:19] Jorge Fuentes: conversation, want to

[00:01:20] Liz Moorehead: Now, before, before we dig into today's conversation, I want to give everybody a quick reminder of what HubSpot World Certification Week is for one week. HubSpot is encouraging inbounders of all roles and all experiences. Experience levels around the world to dive into HubSpot Academy and earn their certifications.

And for every certification you earn, they will donate 5 to an education focused charity, which is just amazing. So flipping cool. What's also neat about this is that this is a week long celebration of learning that actually started what back in 2020 as a one day certification bonanza. But now it's a global self education and certification party with which they're actually doing events this year in every region.

I heard they're also doing like events that are specifically around AI and development, which is. So freaking cool. So in this episode, we're going to be talking about World Certification Week, why we love it, what our personal goals are. But like I said, we have a very special guest joining us to have a deep conversation about what it takes to prioritize self education and, uh, self education and certifications when you are insanely busy.

Busy like most of us are, but I don't want to give this introduction, George. I've got to turn it over to you, my guy, because I want you to introduce our very special guest today, because there is a specific reason why this person is here. Spoiler alert. This person puts everyone to shame. Everyone.

[00:02:55] Jorge Fuentes: shame.

[00:02:55] George B. Thomas: Shame, shame. Yeah.

[00:02:57] Liz Moorehead: embarrassed.

[00:02:58] George B. Thomas: I mean, listen, it's, it's pretty crazy, but let me just get into it. So.

[00:03:04] Jorge Fuentes: with 

[00:03:04] George B. Thomas: Jorge has officially, by the way, I'm introducing Jorge Fuentes for anybody who does not know him, uh, go over to LinkedIn, uh, follow him because he's a mad man when it comes to

[00:03:17] Liz Moorehead: He's the man.

[00:03:18] Jorge Fuentes: pulling

[00:03:18] George B. Thomas: the man, the myth, the legend, I need to literally get him like a mug.

That is like a sidekick strategies HubSpot Academy, like merged mug of like the man, the myth, the legend, uh, certification beast, the guy who's, uh, uh, put me to shame that is going to catch them all. we sit here, if, if my math is correct, as we sit here today and I'm pulling up my, my, my team in the, uh, sidekick strategies portal, I believe, Jorge, you're up to 44. HubSpot certifications.

[00:03:52] Liz Moorehead: Oh my god, Max's

[00:03:53] George B. Thomas: Max's face?

[00:03:54] Liz Moorehead: face! Ha ha ha

[00:03:56] George B. Thomas: Yeah, so, so that's you are here because I don't know, like by the way, if you're listening to this and you have 44 HubSpot certifications or more than 44, not 43! Not 42. If you have 44 or more certifications, I need you to email meGeorge@sidekickstrategy.com orGeorge@georgebthomas.com or send up smoke signals.

Do hit me up on, I don't care what platform if, if you beat Jorge, I need to know your name. You need to let me know. Anyway,

[00:04:33] Devyn Bellamy: we're talking more than just Academy certifications.

[00:04:36] George B. Thomas: these are all just, these are Academy certifications.

[00:04:40] Devyn Bellamy: Cause I was going to say either way, he's got me beat.

[00:04:42] George B. Thomas: Yeah.

[00:04:43] Jorge Fuentes: All good.

[00:04:44] Liz Moorehead: Hi,

[00:04:45] Max Cohen: I didn't even know there was 44.

[00:04:47] George B. Thomas: Say that again,

[00:04:48] Jorge Fuentes: I'm also 44, but,

[00:04:50] Max Cohen: No, no, I didn't even know that there was 44.

[00:04:52] George B. Thomas: you didn't know there's 44? There's more than 44, I think.

[00:04:55] Max Cohen: How many how many do you got left? You got to catch them all.

[00:04:57] Jorge Fuentes: Oh, I still have a couple left. Uh, I think there's, uh, you know, somebody made a decision to make the bootcamps assert also, so I have a lot of bootcamps to go through yet. Uh, and then also, uh, the dev related certs, like, CMS for developers one and two and the architecture one and two starts and then we'll be done.

Yeah.

[00:05:17] Max Cohen: Oh, that's awesome. I'm just working on trying to remember to shower every day, so that's amazing.

[00:05:22] Liz Moorehead: my first question is very similarly related to Max's question here. So Jorge, how does it feel to be better than everyone else?

[00:05:30] Jorge Fuentes: Well, I don't know if that's a, I wouldn't say that's

[00:05:32] Liz Moorehead: and modest.

[00:05:33] Jorge Fuentes: for sure. For sure. I mean, I, I mean, I just have a ton of certs and that's it, but all good. I mean, definitely. Uh, yeah, I mean, I'm pretty happy about, uh, the amount of certs that I've got so far. Uh, I would say, and, and I guess we'll dive deeper into this, uh, but for Uh, the one takeaway I have.

Those far is that hop sponsors have helped me bridge the gap between let's call it technical skills and strategy, but we'll get there definitely, definitely. Right. But I guess, uh, yep, yep, it is, it is, it is what it is. I'm really happy about the amount of search there. And I actually have the link to my connect.

Profile from HubSpot, uh, and it just says, uh, on LinkedIn HubSpot search count. So anybody that wants to count the search, they can just click on it and then, uh, uh, have some fun there. Yeah.

[00:06:18] George B. Thomas: By the way, let's make sure we put that link in the show notes, Liz, so if people want to connect with Jorge. And, and let me just say, like, I, I, I'm excited about World Certification Week because I have plenty. Of certs that I can go get. I'm super interested in what ones Jorge may try to get. Um, because I, by the way, am sitting here in kind of this like weird, proud boss, proud Papa, whatever moment, because I remember back in the day, the, the most I ever got was I think 42.

So he's beat that, but I'm sitting here with 21 right now and going, Oh man, I have a lot to, I have, I, I need to catch up.

[00:07:02] Max Cohen: He lapped you, George. He 

[00:07:09] Liz Moorehead: every other day in slack. He's dropping it So I just got this certification like well, I just managed to make my bed this morning. So whatever Jorge Anyway, we're gonna get

[00:07:20] George B. Thomas: team loves it, by the way, because they see the Slack message and they're like, Jorge B, you're always making us look bad!

[00:07:27] Liz Moorehead: true. But here's the thing. We're not just here to To show off the fact that we're in so many ways inferior to Jorge, one of the reasons we're having him join today's discussion is he's going to talk to us about how to prioritize self education and certifications. When like I said at the beginning of this, we're all very busy people, but before we get into that, I just want to throw this out to the group.

Why do we love HubSpot World Certification Week and what it stands for? Devin, I want to start with you.

[00:07:58] Devyn Bellamy: make sure I was off mute. Okay. So I love world certification week, um, because it lights a much needed fire under the rear ends of some people who have let their professional development slip. It's me too.

[00:08:17] Liz Moorehead: Also me. Hi.

[00:08:21] Devyn Bellamy: the, the thing with, with me is that I used to be the catch em all guy until I started working at HubSpot and then I got lazy.

Um, because, uh, I don't have anything to prove. I already work here, but the important thing, the

[00:08:43] Max Cohen: made it, baby.

[00:08:44] Devyn Bellamy: important

[00:08:45] George B. Thomas: you people that used to love Devin, I apologize.

[00:08:48] Devyn Bellamy: hold on,

[00:08:48] Liz Moorehead: How's the air up there, Devin?

[00:08:50] Devyn Bellamy: let me, let me get the second half in, let me get the second half in, but the problem with that mentality is that you get locked into a mindset when you should be working on, uh, Evolving and growing.

And there are things that I know that I don't know. Like part of my job is demonstrating HubSpot to hundreds of thousands of people on YouTube. But it's like, if I go in there and something looks new, it's like, dang it, I should've gotten a certification. And so I, I definitely recommend going through it and even, especially if it's something that you haven't done in a while, because you'll be surprised how many things change.

Uh, how many, like, I'll remember, I remember what the inbound certification look like in 2015. And I can guarantee you that it is night and day different from what it

[00:09:46] Liz Moorehead: That's the first one I took.

[00:09:48] George B. Thomas: way

[00:09:49] Devyn Bellamy: Back when there was like two and only

[00:09:51] Liz Moorehead: were five.

[00:09:52] Devyn Bellamy: two were free and then everything else was, you know, pay gated, but now it's all free.

Go do it.

[00:09:58] George B. Thomas: Do it.

[00:09:59] Devyn Bellamy: Or you can wait

[00:09:59] Liz Moorehead: what about you?

[00:10:00] Devyn Bellamy: and then do it for charity.

[00:10:02] George B. Thomas: Yeah, yeah, so that's, that's the thing. And I love that you kind of just bumped into that because Liz, you know me. I I love when we can actually do something that impacts the world. And I fully understand that just having a conversation about, listen, don't let your, um, professional development go by the wayside, like focus on entertainment over edgy, like our focus on, uh, education over entertainment.

A little bit more maybe in like the rest of 2024 so that you can, you know, know things and because you know things you can do things like that would be enough of a conversation because I know good things would come out of that. But the bonus here. Is the fact that anybody who does then dive into this does start to learn more so that they can do more.

By the way, when you learn more and can do more, you can earn more. I'm just going to throw that little ditty out there. Like if you're trying to get a pay raise, a couple of spot certifications is going to definitely help with the conversation and the things that you'll be able to do because the things that you're learning, not the certification itself, but the actual brain power that you've.

Invested, but man, do I really love world certification week? Because it's about the money that also is going to a good cause. And so not only are we changing professional lives, but we're just changing lives in general. And so when you can do a one, two knockout punch. For the betterment of the planet. I am always down for that.

[00:11:41] Liz Moorehead: Max, what about you?

[00:11:43] Max Cohen: Well it's, it always serves as a, uh, you know, reminder for me to, for me to get my button gear and actually pay a little bit of attention to my own professional development. Um, you know, I think the thing that I've. I was like, it was so funny. I was like, I was, I was on my way to get a coffee this morning and I was like randomly scrolling, uh, at my like YouTube channel up and I was just like scrolling through like videos that I had made.

And I, I, I stumbled upon, um, you know, this one that I did right at like the beginning of the pandemic where I started like making like content on YouTube. And I was talking about this whole like back middle front, like approach to inbound marketing. And it was so funny because I had like. It's been so long since I've talked a lot about like the strategy stuff that I was like hearing myself talking.

I was like, man, I really understood this like at a much higher level. And I don't think I'd be able to talk about it as eloquently today. Back then when I was like in it talking about it like all the time. Um, you know, and it's just been so long since I've been in an academy certification. I was just sitting there just like, Man, I could really use a good excuse to get a refresher on a lot of these things and see how a lot of the contents changed and the perspectives have changed and the strategies have evolved, you know, ever since I was like talking about this, like during training, right?

Um, you know, I think, so for me, it serves as like a good reminder that, you know, I should be paying a lot more attention to this stuff and it should be a lot more intentional. Right. Um, but I also just love that, like, you know, HubSpot takes it as an opportunity to, Give back to the community or a charity or some I don't know if we covered what they were doing I don't know if they've even announced it yet but you know the fact that they encourage everybody to learn and then turn it into like a Awesome thing to give back to some cause that needs it It's just great and it gives everyone an excuse to tell their boss to say give us time to get this done.

So

[00:13:28] Liz Moorehead: One of the things that I love about HubSpot certification make the most, other than the obvious, like, annual kick in the pants of Liz, I understand you spend all your time in portals, but have you done the certifications to tie it all together and make sure you're using things correctly and know the full capabilities of what you're doing?

Like, I like that part. The other thing I like about it as the content nerd, and this is something I think we've talked about in the past, but, and even if we have, it bears repeating Leads the way and sets a Sterling example of what it means to put yourself out there with selfless education, with the idea of empowering, like Devin, you brought up something really fascinating, right?

It used to be that some of them were paywalled. And I remember that there were one or two, I think it was like HubSpot and inbound certification where we're free. And then the other ones you had to either like. Be part of an agency or you had to have some sort of active HubSpot subscription in order to do it, which is how I ended up with five and that's, I'm like the girl that peaked in high school.

I peaked with HubSpot back when it was five, right? But what I love about it is that, you know, I still have conversations with people who talk about, who get nervous, understandably, if they're not familiar with inbound, they get nervous to be that selfless, be that open with education. And it just, it's the whole ethos.

I think that that attracts a lot of us to HubSpot and the whole inbound community in general. And George, I know you talk about this a lot is that why don't we focus on serving the humans first and then see where we end up. And I, I just love how they do that. I love how they continue to just. Radically give stuff away to create thoughtful, intentional, purpose built, not throw away education.

That's given away for free. People can go and do HubSpot certification week, radically alter the courses of their lives and their careers or their businesses, and never spend a dime with HubSpot because so many of their certifications, while much of it is rooted in the technology, it's not A lot of it is agnostic.

A lot of it is just strategy. George, I see you pacing a little bit. What's, what's on your

[00:15:30] George B. Thomas: No, I D I love the fact that like, man, my brain is going like a hundred different miles an hour, but like adding value to the world is always right. Um, doing the right thing is always right. And when you can do the right thing and add value to the world, like. Again, HubSpot is knocking out the park and they are being a shiny example of what we as business owners can be.

But a lot of the pacing part has to do with, you're talking about how you can change your life and how you can change your business. And if you change your life and you change your business, By the way, you change those around you and I'm talking about your employees. I'm talking about your, your neighborhoods, your community.

Like, like there's always this ripple effect that's happening. And I don't know if HubSpot Academy or HubSpot just in general. Understands the massive impact that they've actually made through like all the individual humans along the way. Like if it wasn't for HubSpot Academy, there would be no theme. If there was no HubSpot Academy, Jorge wouldn't work at George B.

Thomas, aka now sidekick strategies. com. I wouldn't be able to own a business if there were no HubSpot Academy. Right. And so the fact that there's that much power. And then somebody sat in a room years ago and said, you know, we should give it a day. And then some other smart people sat in a room and said, you know, we should give it a week.

And then all of a sudden, smart people were like, and we should donate money for like every one of these. Like it's just it's just amazing.

[00:17:02] Liz Moorehead: Yeah. In fact, I would encourage our listeners if they haven't listened to our episode that just talks about the power of HubSpot Academy in general, outside of certification week, I would highly recommend that as a great deep dive into a lot of what we're talking about here, which is that the certifications are a gateway to possibilities.

And you get to define what those look like. Now, I have another question I want to throw out there to you guys. What do we think either most people get wrong or do not realize about HubSpot World Certification Week?

I asked

[00:17:36] George B. Thomas: just asked anybody.

[00:17:38] Devyn Bellamy: was, it was so quiet. And I'm like, what did I miss something?

[00:17:42] Max Cohen: Devin

[00:17:43] Liz Moorehead: me pick on somebody, aren't you? George.

[00:17:46] George B. Thomas: Why does it got to be me?

[00:17:47] Liz Moorehead: Because you

[00:17:48] George B. Thomas: Which by the way, which by the way, I'll let everybody know there are literally two Georges on this call right now So actually she may have meant the other George and not

[00:17:58] Liz Moorehead: No, I did not.

[00:17:59] Jorge Fuentes: She didn't.

[00:18:00] Liz Moorehead: He's in the hot seat

[00:18:01] George B. Thomas: See, I tried I tried like I was like, um So here's the thing, and I'm going to tie into something that I did for many years, that I'm Kind of pissed at myself that I did and pseudo, uh, ashamed that that's actually the game that I was playing until I realized the real game that we should be playing.

And the thing that I think that people get wrong with World Certification Week is that they just try to get as many certifications as fast as humanly possible because it's about 5 per cert to do that. Um, and so like they just take the test to pass. Instead of put the education in their heart or put the education in their brain or put the education in a way that it's like educate and then execute educate and execute to by the way, Chad's comment of like any comment on the real world portal experience versus amount of search you have.

Yeah. Yeah, it'd be nice if they could go hand in hand. Can you learn on the job? For sure. But when you're learning, especially with World Certification Week, what I would beg you to do is it doesn't ha By the way, remember, there's hundreds of thousands of people that are like, gonna see this, pay attention to it.

And so, like, You getting three more certifications than the two that you should be getting is not tipping, like, the five dollar, you know, wheelbarrow of, like, helping the planet. Like I would suggest that you pick the one or two or two or three that you know you can physically and mentally do in that week period, but more for the education that is inside of the certification, not just to have the badge to show people when you really didn't retain Jack's squat.

Of the badge that you're showing people.

[00:19:58] Max Cohen: I'd also say, uh, it's not a competition, but it is a team sport. Um, I think it's like a really good opportunity, especially if you work on like a team of people and they're involved with any of your inbound efforts or HubSpot or like whatever. Um, you know, it's not like you need to compete with your, your, your coworkers, coworkers to get as many as you can.

I'd suggest a divide and conquer approach, right? So like getting together with your team saying like, Hey, we're going to get dedicate some time, you know, set aside to be able to go through and do certifications. Yeah. Where do we think that, like, we could use some additional knowledge or some different perspectives or be able to like boat up our knowledge around a certain tool or strategy.

And then go ahead and go in there and say, Hey, uh, Jeff, you're going to take this one. Sally, you're going to take this one. Darren, you're going to take this one. And then like, find time, like after world certification, we could do a recap, present it back to your team that way. Like you can. You know, democratize the learning a little bit, right.

Make it so, you know, people can regurgitate what they actually learned versus just going through and getting as many as they can and trying to like look up answers or, or cheat the system somehow. Right. Um, because if you have to present it back to your team, you know, you're going to pay a little bit more attention, like when you're actually going through the certification and then they can learn what you learned and you can have a multiplier effect.

So, you know, it's not a competition, but it is a team sport.

[00:21:19] Devyn Bellamy: I, um, definitely agree with Max. if that's a way that works for you, I definitely would recommend it. I, however, uh, am chaotic. Good. So I am definitely going to make a competition out of it. If I were a business owner, um, it would be a week of just sheer chaos. There would be cash prizes and a minimum of three specific certifications that were the most relevant to my company as a whole that I would make.

Everybody take everybody in their mom would get these three certifications. And if you don't get the three certifications, then you're

[00:21:58] Max Cohen: You're fired.

[00:21:59] Devyn Bellamy: to win.

[00:22:00] Liz Moorehead: You're out,

[00:22:01] Devyn Bellamy: also, uh, shame on you shaking the finger. Um, so I am all for the gamification as far as like any other 51 weeks of the year.

Definitely divide and conquer let's sit and talk and present. Let's share with each other what we've learned how we can grow as a team utilizing our individual strengths. But World Certification Week though? No! We wow! We getting everything! We're saving the planet, we're saving the people, and we're saving ourselves.

[00:22:40] Liz Moorehead: or else.

[00:22:41] Max Cohen: So in other words, he doesn't agree with me.

[00:22:44] George B. Thomas: I feel like it got really, I feel like world certification week got really cutthroat. Like

[00:22:50] Max Cohen: He kind of, yeah.

[00:22:52] George B. Thomas: take you out with my certs.

[00:22:54] Liz Moorehead: that, and that's why Jorge is about to save us from ourselves. Cause Jorge, I want to turn to you for a second, because let's be honest. I know you're not the guy who wakes up in the morning and goes, I want to understand a new way to make other people feel my power, feel inferior basket, my certification glory.

But I am curious. You have 44 certifications under your belt, and I know you're not stopping. You have more left to do, but I'm curious what your mindset is around this. Do you have a specific goal in mind? Do you take it day by day? Like how, because this isn't something where you just randomly woke up one day and you're like, I'm going to get 44 certifications.

This has been,

[00:23:37] Jorge Fuentes: Not every day, but for sure.

[00:23:38] Liz Moorehead: has been you the whole time. This has been you the whole time you've been with Sidekick.

[00:23:42] Jorge Fuentes: Right. And the one thing I will add just to kind of, um, you know, break this down a little bit, uh, search should help you get better at what you've already explored. So that that's where a different type of hunger comes in. Right. So you do have like the initial when. You know, you know, nothing about a certain topic and you just want to discover it and kind of run through, uh, the whole certification.

And then, you know, that's useful. Uh, that's very good. Uh, but then there's a different type of hunger where, when you already have the experience, like the in, in platform experience of doing a certain thing, let's call it service hub, uh, sales hub, uh, marketing hub, et cetera. And then that is what really, uh, has, uh, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the Larger impact on both, you know, your hunger or thirst to kind of get through the search or through the different amount of search and then also, uh, changing, uh, being a game changer at your organization, right?

So I would say that that's, uh, two, that's two different ways that you can go about the motivation of getting the search, right? As far as my goals, like, you know, I would say like, uh, let's call it that realistic slash professional goal would be to yes, at some point, uh, You know, get as many searches I want, uh, and to take the time to do it whenever it becomes relevant for me as well.

Uh, but the real answer to me is like, yes, I want to catch them all and get all of them right. The one difficulty I've been having is, uh, you know, getting to those bootcamp search because they do take a little bit of more time and they, they, you get a, um, you know, go into these, uh, synchronous, uh, Let's call it, uh, meetings, et cetera, with the, with the whole team, et cetera.

Uh, but, but yeah, yeah, I would say that that would be, uh, my goals for that. And then the way I go about getting motivated by, uh, the certifications, um, like I said, Whenever I ran into a specific roadblock with a client or with a, you know, internal team, et cetera, let's call it a reporting issue or like I really wanted to master the custom report builder and had a lot of, let's call it different tasks, you know, around mastering the HubSpot.

Custom report builder. That's when the HubSpot reporting certification got really relevant to me at that specific time, right? Not before, I mean, before I would be like exploring it and yes, let's take that cert, I'll be, you know, doing the lessons, et cetera, but it just gets even more relevant as you actually bump into a specific challenge at work.

[00:26:05] George B. Thomas: It's interesting. I want to dive in here because Jorge, you're literally talking about something that. Pre HubSpot, pre HubSpot Academy, um, that happened in my life where I literally had a job at an agency and listen, they can't fire me now. I own my own company. Um, I didn't know what I needed to know to do the job.

That I had to do. And so I would go home every night and I would watch lynda. com before it was LinkedIn learning videos. And I would, I would literally learn the thing that I needed to learn. Cause it was effing relative. Like I, I mean, I needed to know it tomorrow and I would watch the videos so I could go to work the next day and actually do the thing that they needed me to do.

And so like this education out of necessity. To be the best you can be for yourself and for the clients and for the employer that is actually giving you the opportunity to work with humans and help them pass these hurdles that they have. Like that's a, that's a, uh, a juice that you have to find in yourself of like, Because there's a lot of other people, when I hear you say that Jorge, there's a lot of other people that'll be like, Eh, boss will cover it.

Somebody else will figure it out. It'll sort itself out. But this idea of digging in, because it's relevant to the ish I need to know right now. That's a superpower, bro. That's a superpower.

[00:27:40] Jorge Fuentes: totally. Totally.

[00:27:41] Max Cohen: out to lynda. com for a second. We love you, Lynda

[00:27:43] Jorge Fuentes: Best logo ever for sure. Yeah.

[00:27:45] Devyn Bellamy: There was the time where I was spending more time with Linda than I was with my wife

[00:27:49] Max Cohen: We love Lynda. We love Lynda

[00:27:52] Devyn Bellamy: Woo, that was my girl boy. That was

[00:27:54] Liz Moorehead: Linda, girl, we love

[00:27:56] George B. Thomas: will say, I have to raise my hand. I probably spent more time with Linda than my wife at some point in time too, just saying.

[00:28:03] Devyn Bellamy: um,

[00:28:05] Liz Moorehead: education and

[00:28:06] Devyn Bellamy: uh,

[00:28:08] Liz Moorehead: goals. Anyway, continuing, moving on.

[00:28:11] Devyn Bellamy: uh,

[00:28:13] Liz Moorehead: So Jorge, I want to, I want to stick with you here for a moment because with HubSpot World Certification Week coming up, you know, we have a lot of different mindsets around how some you might want, how some might want to approach it.

We have Max's approach. We have Devin's totally not aggressive, completely neutral way of approaching it. But it doesn't really matter either way. Somebody has to sit down and make self education a priority. And hopefully not just for one week, but I'd love to hear from you. What are some tips or advice based on your experience you have for folks who are equally busy but struggle to make the time to get their certification work done?

Like, do you have, do you have it scheduled on your calendar? Like, how do you do that? What, what do you recommend there?

[00:28:58] Jorge Fuentes: Right. So I definitely do use my calendar, uh, surprisingly to block out time. Uh, and mostly whenever I feel that work gets a little bit slower, like let's call it, uh, Friday afternoon, something like that. Um, uh, but, but yes, yes, definitely. I mean, um, to me it was a matter of exploring the whole platform. I mean, I'm a HubSpot specialist, uh, throughout, uh, you know, since I've been, uh, with George and then, um, say that most of, or all of our clients have a very interesting, um, combination of different hubs, right?

So we got some that have sales hub and the CMS hub, some have the marketing hub and service hub. And so like, um, I really needed to get to an approach whereby I kind of knew or could, you know, dive into any of the specific hubs. Thanks. All day long. Right. And so to me, that was my motivation. And then, uh, making the time for getting those search, even though it was, you know, really busy.

Um, I guess it's a matter of, you know, distinguishing between, you know, the days where you are most busy with a ton of meetings and then, you know. Whenever, you know, do you have a bit of downtime, right? And that's when I would squeeze them in. By the way, I do listen to most lessons at 2x speed, right? So, um, I mean, I would say that's another tip right there.

Like, don't, uh, like if you're able to get through it very quickly with just the lessons, like, I don't mind listening to the instructors in, you know, a very fast paced voice. Uh, but, uh, And yeah, that would be my only suggestion. I mean, uh, definitely it is a thing of, you know, in my specific case, uh, when I joined, uh, George here.

Um, it was just a matter of, you know, any roadblock I encountered with clients, which, which were many at the beginning, and still there are challenges day in, day out, uh, that drove me to kind of like get, uh, In the path of several different certs at a different time, and then you would be surprised. But actually, if you divide, let's say 44 certs over 12 months, that's about an average of 3 to 4 certs per month.

Right. So, I mean, you do get the time to do it. I would say if you kind of like really organize your, your downtime. Right. So be on the lookout for your downtime. And I would also suggest that, you know, make it a. An enjoyable thing for you. Like don't, uh, I mean, if, if you dread joining or an academy lesson or like logging into the HubSpot Academy and you really don't like that, um, that's probably not the way you should go about it.

Like you should maybe go about doing search that are relevant to you. Even if it's just one or two, like the number of search really doesn't matter, but rather the relevance that they can have for you and also making it a, an experience that you actually enjoy, I would say.

[00:31:47] George B. Thomas: So Liz, I want to, I want to jump in here. Um, cause I want to talk to the bosses and owners that might be listening to this. gentlemen, Jorge gets shit done. I'm just going to throw that out there. Like when it comes to, yes, I should have probably beeped it out where maybe we're going to get canceled.

I don't know. But at the end of the day, when clients need something, Jorge is like. Johnny on the spot when they have a question. He, I see him in slack. Like, when, when the, when the stuff is due, the stuff is there. Um, so everything that we're talking about is that he's doing it and getting work done, which means it's possible.

But the other thing I want to say to the bosses and to the owners is that. We also give him space to do the thing like we're, we're not trying to completely optimize every percentage of Jorge's time to be client facing or client work, like, literally, you know, 10, 20 percent of his week, we're fully like, Hey, spend some time educating yourself, spend some time in HubSpot Academy, spend some time anywhere, like build a roadmap to where you're trying to go.

Um, because we are firm believers in our organization on, like, that will make the humans better humans, which then we'll be able to provide better services. Clients will love it more. They'll want to be there longer pay more. And yes, I'm literally tying the fact of, like, we're going to give employees the freedom.

And time to better themselves, because we know that in the long run, we'll benefit from it. And so, work's getting done, time is allotted, and it is possible for you to do that inside of your organization.

[00:33:42] Liz Moorehead: knew I was going to leave runway for that. You give that speech now. What? Every 10, 12 episodes.

[00:33:48] George B. Thomas: It just drives me, it drives me nuts when I see the opposite of that. Because, like, Oof, gosh, I gotta be careful, because I don't want to piss anybody off. But, like, If you're not giving your, if you're not giving your employees the space that they need to actually grow themselves into better humans, you are very short sighted. Plain and simple.

[00:34:08] Max Cohen: Take that.

[00:34:09] Liz Moorehead: Boom.

[00:34:10] Max Cohen: mad

[00:34:10] George B. Thomas: I mean, punch me when you see me at inbound if you have to, to make yourself feel better, but it's just a real fact. Like, The long run is grow humans into better humans, organization becomes better organization and profits and revenue and everything that you're stressed out about that keeps you from actually letting them educate themselves because you're trying to get that 47, 89 percent whatever rate that you're looking at. Just drives me nuts. Anyway,

[00:34:39] Liz Moorehead: George, what do you think business owners and let's be honest, also agency owners are afraid of? Why are they, why do they have such a death grip sometimes on time?

[00:34:47] George B. Thomas: sometimes I think we've outgrown the pants that we should be wearing and therefore we're like. So focused on trying to be profitable with too many people that if we would have just stuck to where we probably should have been, then people would have been happy and people could have educated themselves and we could have created better products for them.

But we're on this, like, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth for growth sake. And we get ourselves in positions that maybe we shouldn't be in yet. Because we're in a hurry up and let's scale it so we can sell it instead of focusing on the actual reason why we're in the room, which is THE HUMANS We got

[00:35:33] Liz Moorehead: There we go. it only took us about 40 minutes to get there, but we got there guys. We did it. We did it. We can go home now. No, just kidding. I have more questions. In fact, I want to start talking a bit about why these certifications are important. And I, I actually want to begin here because it goes back to what Chad was saying earlier, right?

He was talking about, you know, I do a lot of practical work inside the hubs versus the gotta catch them all approach to, to certifications and how well does that fare? And I think it's one of those things of like, I mean, I could, I could build Ikea furniture without the manual. But we might have a couple things in the wrong direction, and it won't be as efficient.

Like, I think there's something to be said for sometimes I gotta just get my hands dirty and just start using things. But I think this idea that everything can be learned, and it, where you are maximizing the potential of all of the tools and your strategic know how, that comes with proactive, Education that comes with saying, I don't just want to be able to know how to use a tool.

I want to understand how they're all supposed to be working together. I want to understand strategically how they're all supposed to be married together. I want to understand the. Full list capabilities, the things I may not see, because when we're doing practical application, when we're just like, I don't have time to get that certification, but let me just get my hands dirty in the hub.

You are only going to explore the places where you actively have work to be done. And that work is only going to be created by folks who have the same limitations as you do, which is. Knowledge or lack thereof of what is truly possible. So I think that's at least to me, what makes these certifications important says Liz, who is so behind on certifications.

It's a little bit terrifying. So that's what, that's what I'll be focusing on this certification week. But Max, I'd like to hear from you first this time. That's why I tried not calling on you guys last time. I tried to just let an organic discussion of develop. And you just all looked at me like deer in the headlights.

So we're back to me just throwing you to the wolves. Max, tell me your feelings.

[00:37:37] Max Cohen: I missed the question. I'm not gonna lie. I

[00:37:41] Liz Moorehead: Jesus.

[00:37:43] Max Cohen: distracted by something really important.

[00:37:46] Liz Moorehead: Where's your steering wheel,

[00:37:47] Max Cohen: worst part, I don't have a serial, but I do have my bug assault.

[00:37:50] George B. Thomas: OH MY GOD

[00:37:51] Max Cohen: So the toy that I brought today. This is a this is a shotgun that shoots salt at flies.

[00:37:57] Devyn Bellamy: It's one of the greatest

[00:37:58] Liz Moorehead: You know what?

[00:37:58] Devyn Bellamy: of mankind's history,

[00:38:00] Liz Moorehead: And, and we were mocking me earlier about the fact that we have to edit so much of me out. I don't think I'm going to be the problem child for our producer this

[00:38:08] George B. Thomas: I feel like I just

[00:38:09] Max Cohen: doesn't get us

[00:38:10] George B. Thomas: drinking

[00:38:10] Devyn Bellamy: out because they're not paying us to be excited about bug assault.

[00:38:13] George B. Thomas: a

[00:38:14] Liz Moorehead: All right.

[00:38:17] Devyn Bellamy: Not

[00:38:18] George B. Thomas: podcast episode. I feel like I need to pour

[00:38:20] Max Cohen: Liz, I apologize. This was a mulligan.

[00:38:23] George B. Thomas: Anyway.

[00:38:24] Liz Moorehead: We're going to start. So, okay.

[00:38:25] Max Cohen: just give me the basic gist of the question again.

[00:38:27] Liz Moorehead: No, it's really short. Why are these certifications important?

[00:38:30] Max Cohen: Oh. Wow.

[00:38:33] Devyn Bellamy: Yeah, all that, all that,

[00:38:35] Liz Moorehead: didn't figure that out from my two minute answer where I'm like, I'll go first. Let me tell you why certifications are. Noah, please cut all this out. So Max, just go

[00:38:42] George B. Thomas: Oh, Noah, Noah, do not cut any of

[00:38:45] Max Cohen: Why are certifications important? I mean, well you gotta think about it, right? Like, HubSpot, the tool, is meant to be deployed in a very specific way, right? Even though it's very flexible and you can do a lot of things with it, right? You got to remember the HubSpot tool was built to deploy a strategy and that strategy is inbound, right?

So while you can learn how to use the tool and you can learn how to deploy the strategy, the best part is when you can combine the two together, right? And I think the beautiful part also of certifications is that you tend to see the certifications kind of split. Into like tool knowledge and strategy knowledge, right?

You can take that strategic knowledge and go use it elsewhere if you're not, uh, fortunate enough to have HubSpot. Right? Which is, which is really cool. You don't have to use the HubSpot tools to be able to do inbound, right? So if you find yourself in a situation where maybe you don't have the best tools available to you, you know, to do this, right?

You at least have the knowledge to go deploy in a different way, using a different toolset, right? Because the knowledge can still be applied, right? But you know, it's really, really important, I think, especially for folks who are maybe stepping into HubSpot for the first time. Right, because you can go take a certification that tells you which buttons to push and what to do.

However, you got to think about nowadays, stepping into a HubSpot portal, how freaking overwhelming it is, you thought it was bad when you used to step into it, and it was just a marketing tool, albeit a very comprehensive marketing tool. And you had to go there and say, Oh, I don't really know how to connect to all this stuff, but then you go get a little bit of knowledge about what inbound marketing is.

And all of a sudden the picture starts to become a little clearer, but think about the poor folks nowadays that are going in there and seeing a plethora of marketing tools. sales tools, service tools, CMS tools, and they're sitting there going, what the wife and doing? Where do I begin? And where do I start?

Right? Well, the truth is, there's a strategy that shows you how to use all of this stuff together. It's called inbound, right? And it really, really helps to get the context of that to be able to put These millions of things you're seeing in front of you and all these levers, you can pull in buttons, you can press into context, right?

So if you're finding yourself a little bit overwhelmed, right? By this giant tool set, you may have just gotten access to or your company just bought and you got put in charge of it. It is very important that you go get your certifications, but don't just focus on tool ones or just focus on strategies.

Make sure you get a healthy mix of both, right? Because one will assist with the other and the other will assist with The one or the other, whatever. You hear what I'm saying, right? It's very important. Put it all in perspective. Because there's a lot to put in perspective.

[00:41:37] George B. Thomas: see, I think there's another layer that I would add to this, and I'll just use this as my answer to your question, Liz. Is that one thing I learned several years back is that HubSpot users are begging for somebody to show them how to connect the dots. And you'll hear things in our, um, ecosystem of like force and friction and upstream and downstream.

And what does that even mean, ladies and gentlemen? Well, it means that usually you're stuck in your little silo and you're the marketing of the marketing place or the sales of the sales place or the service of the service place and there's this fantastic place. We could call it heaven, but we'll call it HubSpot Academy.

We're a marketer can actually get a window into sales, can get a window into service and start to understand the force and friction of sales and service. If you're the marketer can actually start to connect the dots and understand the upstream and downstream effects of an entire organization. The funny thing is when in 2012, when I actually bumped into HubSpot Academy and started learning, I said, I want to grow up to be a marketer.

What's happened over the last almost 12 years though, as I've become one of the most bad ass business coaches, because I understand marketing, sales service, CMS, CRM, RevOps, like I just keep adding to the like plethora of tools on the superhero tool belt, if you will. And that's exactly what they can do.

Yes. You can learn strategy, marketing, sales service. You can learn the tool, marketing, sales service. But if you start to do all of them. Like Jorge with 44. Did we mention that Jorge has 44 certifications? Now all of a sudden you start to create yourself as somebody who understands how to connect the dots.

And I literally put in the chat pane, certifications equals the connective tissue of the entire HubSpot portal that you might be walking into, like Mac said, and be like, uh, what? There

[00:43:37] Max Cohen: Right? Ha ha 

[00:43:38] Liz Moorehead: Uh, can we just also give a shout out to Chad in the comments who just dropped this little gem? We could call it heaven, but we'll just call it. Kyle Jepson's house.

[00:43:46] George B. Thomas: we go! That's what it should be. That boy be giving me a run for my money, I'm telling ya.

[00:43:54] Liz Moorehead: Oh my god. Jorge, I want to ask you something and this is, Max pay attention, this is a question for all of us.

[00:44:01] George B. Thomas: coming up. Ding, ding, ding, ding,

[00:44:03] Max Cohen: didn't take my stratera this morning. Give me a break.

[00:44:06] Liz Moorehead: All right.

[00:44:07] Max Cohen: Go

[00:44:07] Liz Moorehead: So, Jorge, we're going to start.

[00:44:09] Max Cohen: ha ha ha.

[00:44:11] Liz Moorehead: Oh my god.

[00:44:13] Max Cohen: Shh.

[00:44:14] Liz Moorehead: oh my god, put the bug zapper

[00:44:15] Max Cohen: ha ha.

[00:44:22] Liz Moorehead: Are we good gentlemen?

[00:44:23] Max Cohen: back on track. Hehehe

[00:44:29] Liz Moorehead: themed Topic, but I have never felt more like a middle school teacher at an all boys school than I have been in this moment. And I just need to say that out loud. I'm loving it. This is entertaining.

[00:44:45] George B. Thomas: mack I feel like I just got slapped across the back of the head or my hand with a ruler or something.

[00:44:53] Liz Moorehead: George, you've been fantastic. You're dropping knowledge bombs in the comment paint. Max, how are you doing with your weaponry? You good?

[00:45:01] Max Cohen: Locked and loaded.

[00:45:02] Liz Moorehead: Let's go. Locked and loaded with knowledge. That's right. So Jorge,

[00:45:05] Max Cohen: And salt.

[00:45:07] Liz Moorehead: And, and salt. Jorge, kick

[00:45:09] Jorge Fuentes: Right. So the one certain that I do want to get like on this, uh, work certification week is the service hub demo certification. I guess this time that's the one I'll focus on. Uh, really not doing much of a catch them all anymore. Right now at least i've slowed down a little bit on that because you know, I got 44 already So all good, uh, but definitely, uh, yep, that's going to be my focus service hub demo certification Uh, I do have service hub software certification Uh, but just want to dive deeper into service hub and definitely the demo part of it is important to you know In case I do get to explain it to the client and even then having that expertise and knowledge surrounding that specific hub is going to be ideal for sure.

And so, yeah, that's my goal. I guess, uh, I'll just chip in probably just five bucks this time, but all good.

[00:45:58] Liz Moorehead: Devin, what about you? Other than chaotic world domination and forced synergy, what are you thinking about this year for your goals?

[00:46:06] Devyn Bellamy: My goal is to get at least one certification I've never had before. Preferably one that I'm not in. Ooh, like flex. Yeah. I'm in some of the

[00:46:14] Max Cohen: Oh

[00:46:16] Devyn Bellamy: but, um, yeah, no, I, my, my goal is to, to, you know, get outside of the box. Um, and like, I'm really looking at solutions architecture, uh, cause like, I know what I know.

And I remember when we first did the demo. Uh, for the solutions architecture. I took like the very first iteration of the quiz, uh, and it was too easy. So they toughened it up and, uh, I'm looking forward to taking that and giving it a shot.

[00:46:48] Liz Moorehead: George, what about you?

[00:46:50] George B. Thomas: So, uh, I have two goals by the way. Uh, goal number one is kind of like Devin. I want to take some certifications, but it's weird. I've had it, but I don't have it and it's new. And that's one of the reasons why I want to do it. The new email certification. Like. When it was Isaac Moshi, by the way, that did the original like email certification, there's a new one now.

And so I want to, um, do that. Also, there's a social media, too, that I have never been able to get around, but I love how Crystal King did social media 1. So I definitely want to get over to that. So if I can get the email cert and get the social 2 cert. We're going to call it a day, but I'm also going to use that time to double down and try to do some research.

Now, I understand you probably don't get five bucks per research because they're actually not off yet, but I got it. Listen, I got a lot of red exclamation marks scaring, like, staring me in the face, and I'm like, Wooooowee! No, no, no, no. So I want to do a lot of re certing, but then definitely focus on those two certs, email and social too.

[00:48:04] Max Cohen: My goal Is to actually

[00:48:07] George B. Thomas: Take a

[00:48:08] Max Cohen: Make some time for myself Nope! Because Make some time for myself to actually Uh, spend some serious time on it Because I've been doing, but I've been doing nothing lately than demoing, uh, our events app to people. And it's literally just been having the same conversation 45 times this past week.

Um, so I'm, I'm, I'm hoping to give myself a breather, uh, there. Um, oh wait, you know what I just realized I'll actually be on vacation during world certification week. So I'll have all the time in the world to actually get some done. So hopefully if the kids let me, I'll be doing it. However, I will say.

There, a little birdie told me that there is a, a, there's a certification coming that I'm, I'm, I'm very excited about. I'm not going to say exactly what it is because I just slacked him to ask if it would be live by then. And I got back an emoji that said this, which

[00:49:02] George B. Thomas: the way, it's shh for you

[00:49:03] Max Cohen: So I'm not going to say exactly what it is.

All I'll say, all I'll say is there is a very prominent member of the Academy who moved on to a different role. That ended up being, uh, that the, the, the shoes were filled by someone I referred who was a very good friend of mine that I worked with for a while. I'm not gonna say exactly what it

[00:49:27] George B. Thomas: putting pieces together.

[00:49:29] Max Cohen: but let's just

[00:49:30] Liz Moorehead: George definitely don't slack me later.

[00:49:32] Max Cohen: let's just say he's been working on revamping a very iconic certification that has been around for a long time.

And I am extremely excited to see the new and improved version of it. Uh, delivered by a very good friend of mine, and it's gonna be a very, uh, I'm gonna be very proud of him to see it. And I'm super stoked, and I hope you all enjoy it. Yeah, yeah, I wanted to say exactly what it was, but since he sent me a Emoji, i'm not gonna do it.

But my goal is to take that certification and then sit there and just be like I did this But not really all I did was put it in a referral and I just knew it would be perfect

[00:50:22] Devyn Bellamy: of the thought of Liz with a soundboard.

[00:50:25] Max Cohen: Yeah

[00:50:25] Liz Moorehead: Ha ha ha ha ha.

[00:50:26] Devyn Bellamy: everything with you? See,

[00:50:30] George B. Thomas: There you

[00:50:31] Max Cohen: out the whole

[00:50:32] Devyn Bellamy: just have that on demand. It's just right there. It's like, you know

[00:50:35] Max Cohen: Tell them to bring out the whole ocean

[00:50:36] Devyn Bellamy: That's what you need.

[00:50:38] Liz Moorehead: Ha ha ha ha ha. That's my evil laugh. I did it. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

[00:50:47] George B. Thomas: my

[00:50:47] Liz Moorehead: Wow that's really, that's really awkward and uncomfortable. Hi. You're right, Liz. Just,

[00:50:53] Devyn Bellamy: a really awkward evil villain laugh that I had to train myself out of. Didn't even realize that it was an evil villain laugh. Like,

and like

[00:51:05] Liz Moorehead: that's like evil Santa. He's coming to take my presents away.

[00:51:09] Devyn Bellamy: And so I just leaned into it at one point and just added the more hot in the beginning of it. So it started out and it was just, it was, it was too

[00:51:17] George B. Thomas: I'm a little jealous. I'm a little jelly right now.

[00:51:21] Liz Moorehead: Well, in terms of this mystery certification, gentlemen, I, all I'm going to say is George definitely don't slack me later today with your puzzle assembling capabilities. But here is my goal for this certification week. I am going to be taking the content strategy course. I haven't taken it in a really, the certification.

I haven't taken it in a really long time and I'm excited to learn a lot of content things, and I'm excited to see where. My brain disagrees with the collective HubSpot brain about content, because I will say one of the things that has bummed me out is that I think there may be like one or two, or there at least used to be like lessons about storytelling and voice.

And it is just, it is so woefully absent HubSpot Academy. Call me anyway. Uh,

[00:52:06] George B. Thomas: put videos about that if you wanted. I don't know if you've checked out SidekickStrategy. com yet, but, uh, you could talk about voice and tone there. Just gonna

[00:52:15] Liz Moorehead: Oh, I could, I could do that, George. I want you to take us home today.

[00:52:20] George B. Thomas: I am already home.

[00:52:21] Liz Moorehead: today. Oh my God.

[00:52:25] George B. Thomas: Devin left on that one. He's like, I'm out. Yes, Liz, I'm

[00:52:29] Liz Moorehead: trust you with,

[00:52:31] Devyn Bellamy: Your jokes are bad and you should feel bad. Do

[00:52:33] George B. Thomas: Okay, I feel bad. I'm sorry.

[00:52:35] Liz Moorehead: people trust you to help them solve their most pressing business challenges. This is, this is factually true for all of us

[00:52:41] George B. Thomas: Listen, I don't book. This is why, this is why I don't book meetings Friday afternoons, because at this point I'm done. All right, let's wrap it

[00:52:48] Liz Moorehead: You were the one who picked this time.

[00:52:51] George B. Thomas: No, no, I'm saying that's why I do the podcast now. I don't talk to clients now.

[00:52:56] Liz Moorehead: George. Okay. So take us out today. Max, do you want to hit it one more time? Just give us one. Thank you. Is everyone got the sillies out? Are we good? I literally have one more question to get us through guys. One more question. Put the weapon down, Max. Put it down. Thank you very much. George.

[00:53:13] Max Cohen: Sorry

[00:53:14] Liz Moorehead: George, what is your challenge to our listeners this year for World Certification Week, if you could leave them with one bachelorette cry, one challenge, which means I know you're going to give me five, but we're going to start with one and see where we end up.

[00:53:26] George B. Thomas: My challenge for you is, uh, take something you're strong at and make yourself stronger.

[00:53:32] Liz Moorehead: Mic drop. I love it. Anybody else? Challenges for the, for the populace?

[00:53:37] Devyn Bellamy: at least one thing that scares you. Oh, no,

[00:53:41] Liz Moorehead: Oh God, isn't an alpha podcast. Come on, Devin.

[00:53:45] Devyn Bellamy: uh, yeah, no, learn something new. Something that has absolutely nothing to do with your job function. It may be even in a completely different sphere. Just, just try it. Worst thing you'll do is not get certified, but you'll learn something, I promise.

[00:53:58] Liz Moorehead: Jorge, what about you? Oh, look at him holding up a certification.

[00:54:03] Max Cohen: at this guy.

[00:54:05] George B. Thomas: just

[00:54:05] Max Cohen: Expired.

[00:54:08] Liz Moorehead: I like how, even though he's like, check out my certs, he still has this voice and tone that's just like, Oh, Hey guys, how's it going? Just happy to be nominated. Everything's fine. Look at my,

[00:54:19] Devyn Bellamy: It is a wonderful flex voice because like the number of times that you drop bombs in this wonderfully gentle, I am a specialist, respect my gangster is just wonderful. Wonderful.

[00:54:31] Liz Moorehead: Oh, you, uh, Jorge, you need that on a shirt. Respect my gangster. Max, what about you?

[00:54:36] Max Cohen: uh, Just make sure the locks on your door work. Um, you need about 30 to 40 liters of water to last you the week. Bring plenty of meals ready to eat. You can just store them in a nice, cold, dry environment, right? Uh, try to reduce the amount of light. Uh, perhaps invest in a pair of, uh, blue light glasses.

Because you're going to be staring at your computer for a very long time. No, I mean, if you want, if you're going to be doing certifications all week, you got to just go all in, right? Um, shut your phone off, put it on do not disturb mode, right? And do absolutely nothing. But here's the, here's the fun thing, right?

Then most people don't know this. You don't actually have to sleep. You don't. Humans don't need to sleep. You're sitting down, your body's resting. Okay. All you do, it's a myth. Yeah. All you got to just do is just consume knowledge for a straight week. And then by the time you come out, I don't know. You'll be, uh. Certified as f k, right? And that's what the whole point of the week is for.

[00:55:37] Liz Moorehead: You know, Max, um, your comment about snacks did make me think

[00:55:41] George B. Thomas: snacks. He talked about military rations. What are you talking about? Snacks.

[00:55:45] Max Cohen: mean, maybe there's snacks in there.

[00:55:47] Liz Moorehead: maybe their snacks. Anyway, you know, totally related to certifications. Why do we cook bacon but bake cookies? Bothers me. It bothers me. Anyway, here's my challenge to all of you certificate. Whoa, Max, are you okay? It's upsetting, isn't it?

[00:56:04] Max Cohen: I hate

[00:56:04] Liz Moorehead: I, I know I got over park on a driveway and drive on a parkway like in high school, but then somebody said the bacon and cookies thing to me last week and it lost my, I lost my mind. I, I don't, I don't feel emotionally comfortable about it. So here's my challenge about world certification week.

Do not make assumptions About what you think, you know one of the I am a content specialist and strategist and I'm going out of my way to take the content strategy Certification now there there is no one right way to approach certification week. Yes, George. I see you here pacing We'll get to you bud. I know We got you.

You'll bring us home. Here's the thing about world certification week. You can be an opportunity to challenge yourself with things you've never experienced or learned before, but also it is an opportunity for you to level up in the disciplines that you call your passions, that you call your focus areas.

And again, while I made a goof about, we're going to see what I do and don't agree with the reality is, is that I am going in there to learn, to hone my craft and to get better at what I do. Because whenever I take a HubSpot certification, particularly. About the things that I always feel really confident that I know how to do well, those are the ones I walked out the most surprised about. Like, whoa, I learned something that's gonna, like, even if it's small, even if it's fractional, it's that multiplier effect of new skills and ideas. So George, now that you've paced an entire trench in the floor of your home, what do you got, bud?

[00:57:31] George B. Thomas: True masters are always the best students.