Liz Moorehead
OK, folks. Deep breaths. Because somehow, #INBOUND25 is just around the corner.
Not only is this our third annual HubHeroes Inbound prep episode (which, pause for applause, how the heck did that happen?!), but weβre also celebrating a major first! The event is headed to San Francisco. Thatβs right, weβre officially trading the BCEC and familiar Boston haunts for a brand-new playground: the Moscone Center.
And this year's shift isn't just geographic. From the content and programming format, to what you need to be thinking about before you step on the plane (or into the Lyft), the stakes feel different this year.
π Go Deeper: Our "Practical," Unhinged, Big Feels #INBOUND24 Recap Episode
Between a new city, new expectations, and major new feature drops from HubSpot in the last 12 months, this doesnβt feel like an event you can coast into on autopilot.
This episodeβwhich, fun fact, marks Chadβs first Inbound prep episode as an official HubHeroes co-host (!!!)βis packed with real talk and practical advice on how to make the most of your Inbound experience, whether itβs your first or your fifteenth. We also dig into what weβre excited about personally, from after-hours events and sandwich quests to whatβs changing behind the scenes at HubSpot.
What We Cover
-
Our personal #INBOUND25 excitement picks: What each of us is genuinely looking forward to, from the headliners to the hot sessions, and even the chaos weβre bracing ourselves for.
-
How the shift to San Francisco changes everything: Itβs not just a new city, itβs a totally new layout and energy. We share whatβs staying the same, whatβs different, and how to mentally prep.
-
How to plan when youβre flying solo vs. traveling with a team: Different inbound vibes mean different strategies. We walk through the best ways to tackle your agenda based on your situation.
-
Session strategy dos and donβts: From the value of unstructured hallway time to why itβs smart to hit sessions outside your wheelhouse, and what you absolutely should not overlook.
-
The Product Den goldmine: Chad drops a powerful reminder that Inbound is one of the only places you can speak directly with product managers, and actually influence the product roadmap.
-
The return of the hallway magic: We revisit the legendary unplanned moments of connection and learning that can only happen when you leave breathing room in your agenda.
-
Maxβs epic new app drop: You heard it here first! Max announces the launch of Event Hapilyβs lead capture app, a free new utility for HubSpot users debuting at #INBOUND25.
-
Georgeβs Inbound session preview: George gives us the inside scoop on his upcoming talk, which is a deeply human, values-forward take on what superhuman marketing really means in 2025.
-
Tips you donβt want to forget: Comfy shoes, download the app, pack backup chargers, and maybe prep your elevator pitch in case you run into Brian Halligan while eating a bagel.
And so much more ...
Episode Transcript
Liz Moorehead: Gentlemen,
George B. Thomas: Mm
Liz Moorehead: I don't know how this is possible. We are what, two, three weeks away from inbound.
George B. Thomas: I think two, I think. I think it's, is it two
Liz Moorehead: Great.
Max Cohen: but like two full week? Yeah. This week, next week. And then we're there. Oh my
Chad Hohn: we're there.
George B. Thomas: Yeah.
Liz Moorehead: How you guys feeling?
Max Cohen: I'm gonna throw up.
Chad Hohn: Oh yeah.
George B. Thomas: Good, good. Until about 10 seconds ago. No.
Liz Moorehead: HubSpot inbound
Chad Hohn: you said anything.
George B. Thomas: Yeah.
Liz Moorehead: makes us wanna throw up HubSpot. Sponsor us, you'll love us,
George B. Thomas: Hmm. Yes.
Liz Moorehead: which
Chad Hohn: everybody to go.
Max Cohen: I was just nervous. I'm just,
George B. Thomas: Nervous
Max Cohen: I'm just nervous. That's all it
Chad Hohn: What are you nervous about?
Max Cohen: not nervous about anything.
Chad Hohn: Oh, well,
Liz Moorehead: need an emotional support Popsicle?
George B. Thomas: Oh, well, hey, popsicles. Sound
Max Cohen: I had emotional support, belief.
George B. Thomas: Yeah.
Max Cohen: That's what I want.
George B. Thomas: Yeah.
Chad Hohn: emotional support.
George B. Thomas: Oh
Liz Moorehead: not only are we only two weeks away from inbound as we're recording this, um, this is our third annual. Third annual inbound prep episode.
George B. Thomas: Hmm. Wow.
Liz Moorehead: How you feeling about that? George
Max Cohen: Third
Chad Hohn: It's a
Liz Moorehead: Third.
George B. Thomas: yeah, yeah. A third, which, which means like, um, it's crazy that we've been in business for three years, by the way. Just the George B. Thomas, LLC, and then into sidekick strategies and. The fact that Hub Heroes, the podcast, uh, is three years old, um, which means we've done a good amount of episodes, we've added a lot of value to the world.
We've, we've helped some people along the way. And, um, man, just to stop and take a moment to think about that, Liz, to be honest with you, is like, dang, tank on in all the good ways that are possible. Hmm.
Liz Moorehead: That's
Max Cohen: We have touched a lot of people.
George B. Thomas: Yeah. In good ways, max. In good ways. Sheesh.
Liz Moorehead: Once again, not me.
George B. Thomas: Yeah. It wasn't you, it was Max this time. Without a doubt.
Liz Moorehead: I'm so proud of that. Well, let's just kick it off, guys, and you know what? Chad, this is your first epi. This is your first inbound prep episode as an official co-host. So I'm gonna start with you, buddy. Let's,
Max Cohen: Oh, that is true.
Liz Moorehead: into this conversation. So as we're counting down to inbound 25, what are you most excited about?
And whether that's events you're looking forward to, general vibes and excitement, specific speakers, seeing people what, what's getting you prepped and hyped?
Chad Hohn: Yeah. Well, one thing I noticed that they added this year is some, and I think this comes from. I think the, the Kyle Jepson energy when he gets on stage and frantically goes through his list of like 87 million things that he tries to get done in 45 minutes, and they added more sessions where it's like a either an a MA, like ask me anything, which I didn't really see.
Last year, maybe I just missed them. And then they also added like a, like some level of, I forget what they call it, but it's like a do like a do you know, do this session. Like they're gonna do it live. They're doing it live, right. And it's, you know, I, so I've actually registered for a couple of those sessions where it's like, oh, a sales hub, do it live, you know, type of a thing.
Which looks really fun to go in there like, oh yeah, let's 'cause people. Just come up with the craziest stuff to ask you. Like if you're a HubSpot professional, like, oh, how do I do whatever? And it's like, you know, hyper industry specific or something, you know, a lot of times. And then you're like, oh yeah, that's possible.
But you know, maybe whatever. It's, you know, it is never usually just stuff that's like right there about HubSpot. So I think that'll be really, really, really interesting to see some of the product managers in the hot seat
George B. Thomas: Yeah.
Max Cohen: Yeah.
Chad Hohn: of the. You know, people like trying to build out things on the fly from audience questions, which will be pretty cool.
George B. Thomas: mean, listen, as a speaker, that scares the ish outta me for a couple reasons. And I, I don't get me wrong, I would do it, but you gotta just roll with it. It is, it is a, it is a maximum masterclass in Yes. And especially when you're dealing with, uh, conference internet.
Chad Hohn: Yeah.
George B. Thomas: 'cause you just don't know. You just don't know.
Anyway. Yeah.
Chad Hohn: You gotta get a hard wire for that.
George B. Thomas: gosh. Something. Yeah.
Chad Hohn: But yeah, if I was ever, like, if I ever spoke at Inbound, um, I, I would love to do a session like
George B. Thomas: You mean
Chad Hohn: operations hub a MA. Yeah. Yeah,
George B. Thomas: when you do,
Liz Moorehead: Could you imagine the nerdy goodness of that?
George B. Thomas: Yeah.
Chad Hohn: oh yeah.
George B. Thomas: Yeah. By the way, if, if anybody from Inbound is listening, uh, Chad is gonna submit next year, and you should accept him to do a, let's do this in HubSpot session.
Chad Hohn: Oh, that'd be great. I dunno, maybe by that time it's just gonna be like, talk to Breeze and it's just
George B. Thomas: Oh, don't, don't go there.
Liz Moorehead: say that.
George B. Thomas: 26
Chad Hohn: no longer needed. Yeah. Literally.
George B. Thomas: Yeah. No. Okay, let's, let's not do that.
Liz Moorehead: Max,
George B. Thomas: gotta, we gotta keep the ness of
Liz Moorehead: There we go.
George B. Thomas: Yeah. We gotta we gotta keep that.
Max Cohen: I think, um, this is, I think it's, this year's probably the most excited I've ever been for the headliners. Um. Amy Poller, she's hilarious. Marcus Brownlee, he's super cool. I watch his YouTube stuff all the time. Um, and then, you know, Brian Halligan doing Hot Ones is going to be objectively hilarious. Um, so yeah, I'm just super, super stoked on that.
And then we've got a bunch of fun stuff we're gonna be showing people for the first time ever, uh, which is gonna be great. And we're actually also gonna be, we'll talk about it a little bit later. Uh. Maybe building a free tool that everyone's able to use at inbound for inbound you.
George B. Thomas: Ooh,
Max Cohen: So we'll talk about it in a little bit, but yeah, a lot to be excited about and I'm just like, honestly stoked that it's just not in Boston.
Like I love Boston, don't get me wrong, it's great, but the BC C is so played out. Um, I'm so ready to go somewhere else. I mean, I said it right bef in the, in the show last time. I was like, I'm ready for it to be somewhere else and I got my wish, right. Unfortunately, it's right. I'm leaving the day. My kid starts first grade, so I'm gonna miss that.
But you know the things I do for HubSpot, right?
George B. Thomas: yeah, yeah. Right. It, it's, um, I too can say that I'm finally excited. Because I've had this like, mental battle of like, man, I'm gonna miss Boston, but I'm excited. Uh, you know, the wife is gone with me. It's gonna be a new adventure. We're gonna be able to see new things. So like, I've had to pivot my brain to like, well, let's just make the best out of it instead of like sitting here complaining around it.
Um, so I'll just, I'll just roll into this, like, I'm excited about actually a lot of things. So one of the things is we're gonna be doing the customer platform podcast that we do every weekday, usually virtually. We're gonna be doing those live from inbound at 11:00 AM each day. I'll only miss one day because I'll be speaking on Wednesday the same time that that'll be going on.
I'll also be speaking on Friday. To kind of close out the, the end of like 1230 to 3:00 PM basically, uh, in, in the sessions that I'm doing. We'll talk about that a little bit later as well. Um, but also then we're doing the inbound after hours show, not to be confused with the after hour show that I'm excited about that.
Colin Jost, is it Jost or Jost?
Chad Hohn: Oh yeah, I think it's
George B. Thomas: Jost, yeah. Colin Jost is headlining the inbound 2025 after hours. So that's gonna be interesting because that they cracked me up that, that, anyway, um,
Liz Moorehead: is one of the funniest titles titled Memoirs. I don't know if you ever have ever heard of it, but he is written a memoir and it's called Very Punchable Face, and it just made me laugh forever.
George B. Thomas: yeah. So, so.
Max Cohen: It is honestly such a good lineup this
George B. Thomas: It really is. It really is. And so two nights we're doing what has been historically the after hour show where I get some guests. I mean, this year I'm excited 'cause I'm gonna reach out to a couple of the women of HubSpot podcast interviews we've done. See if they want to do, uh, an evening where for like 30 minutes we're talking about their inbound experience.
And then I'm gonna grab for another night, a couple random humans just like I did last year, uh, so we can talk about things that are new and stuff like that. So there's definitely. A lot going on. I get to have a couple client dinners, a couple client breakfasts, and so like just hanging out with humans, um, and, and being able to add value, I think, and be entertained along the way is how I'd wrap this up to what I'm excited about this year at Inbound 25 in, in San Fran.
Liz Moorehead: I love
Chad Hohn: To do.
Liz Moorehead: So wait, George, I am curious though. What gave you friction about San Francisco? Just something new. Someone moved my cheese, that kind of energy. What were we thinking about?
George B. Thomas: listen, listen. Uh, your boy GB t's getting older. Uh, sometimes I, I battle with getting set in my ways 'cause I know it's not a, a good quality of trait. But, um, when I go to Boston, I can go on co uh, just like autopilot. I know where this room is, I know where the speaker lounge is. I know where this is gonna be.
I know where I can go to get my dunkins. I know where I can go get a quiet space to just like chill and maybe have a phone call or like, so like my brain is on autopilot and just like, I just go do the thing. Nah, that ain't happening this year. Like, it, it's you. I just gotta figure it all
Liz Moorehead: Where is the Duncans? Where is your Duncans? Right.
George B. Thomas: close. Um, like here, here's, here's, here's, here's a fun thing. Here's another thing that I'm excited about. Um, on Wednesday, no, Thursday, Thursday the fourth, uh, at 8:00 AM we're having our annual Christians at Inbound Meetup in front of the, uh, Moscone Center, uh, area, right? Um, usually we do Dunking Donuts Coffee and Donuts.
Um, this year, by the way, I'm excited about this. We're doing bagels 'cause there's a dope bagel shop, like real close. And so it's gonna, you know, uh, again, September 4th at 8:00 AM uh, if you want some bagels and some cream cheese and like some prayers before you head in for the day. And some just great conversation, like that's another kind of meetup event, uh, that we're gonna do.
Kyle Jepson will be there. A couple other folks that, uh, we know and love Casey and Ben and all those, so like, come and join us there as well. And get some, get some free bagels and cream cheese and stuff. Coffee
Chad Hohn: But they don't have dunking, do they? Or?
George B. Thomas: not close. Like the, the closest coffee shop is some, I don't even know. I don't remember. I searched it and I'm like,
Max Cohen: I mean, there's plenty of coffee shops. It's like the Dunking is like on the other side of the
George B. Thomas: yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't get me wrong. There's coffee in San Francisco.
Max Cohen: Yeah.
Chad Hohn: of coffee.
George B. Thomas: Dunkin Coffee or, or I could say it's not Dunkin Coffee. Like, 'cause, 'cause humus drink Duncan. Okay. I'll stop. I'll stop
Max Cohen: America runs on.
George B. Thomas: Duncan. Yeah, yeah. No. Hey,
Max Cohen: Don't you
George B. Thomas: it.
Chad Hohn: Oh God.
George B. Thomas: Gotti.
Liz Moorehead: Okay, well, let's decaffeinate this for a moment, or maybe Decaffeinate. I have no idea, but let's pivot from our thoughts about Inbound 25 and what we're thinking. And I would love to hear from you all how folks should be preparing. Right, because sometimes people are traveling alone. Sometimes you are going with a team, but you're not like the leader or the CEO.
You're just there with your people and sometimes you are that business owner, that agency owner, that leader going with your team. George, I actually wanna have you start this round. I would be curious to get your advice if you're talking to folks on their own with teams, what should they be doing right, right now with one or two weeks to go, depending on when they're listening.
George B. Thomas: Yeah, if, if you're alone and you're getting, um, you know, prepared, I would try to find some connections on the LinkedIns or wherever you hang out, uh, to actually have some, like in-person meetups. If you're alone, you may be able to find that. You can have like an inbound buddy. You connect with, and then you can kind of go and do the event together and meet people together.
And, and that might make it easier. Um, if you're going with a team, uh, I would suggest the opposite, uh, divide and conquer. Um, make sure that you're going to different sessions and that you're able to bring the notes back to the team and, and then do that. Um, as a leader, this is kind of fun too, because. I had to last year choose times to be with my team and choose times not to be with my team because there were things that made sense that I should go do and be part of and it like they should be doing something else.
'cause we do different work. We do, we think about different things. And so I think for everybody, give yourself the grace and the understanding of yourself of like. Do I need to find an inbound buddy? 'cause I'm going alone. How do I have the conversation with my team that we're gonna separate and conquer?
And how as a leader can I show up for like nightly recaps with the team, but also, you know, empower them to like, make their own good choices, uh, while they're there. So that, that's where my brain goes initially.
Chad Hohn: Um, especially since this is a new event, locale, uh, definitely check out the map. Like one thing, if you've never been to the Moscone Center before I. Is there is a underground hallway that gets you from one building across the street to the other building across the street. Yeah. So if you didn't know that, like you're gonna need to go down some, and it's like counterintuitive at first, but you gotta go down.
I think it's an escalator. And then you go under the street so you don't have to cross the street and then into the other, I think it's like Moscone West or something like that. There's like, there's another building, I forget the name of it 'cause it's been, I haven't been to the Moscone Center, uh, center since like, I think it was, I did the Cisco show because my wife works in the events industry.
So we did Cisco, which is like networking equipment. They called it Cisco Live.
Max Cohen: thought you were talking about like thong, thong songs, Cisco,
George B. Thomas: No. My gosh.
Max Cohen: what?
Chad Hohn: so
Max Cohen: The Cisco show? What do you mean?
George B. Thomas: two, that's two times max. That's twice.
Max Cohen: I, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.
Chad Hohn: that's too tax max. Uh, yeah, so like, definitely check out the map and like if you can get there early at all. Even just walking around or taking a peek in and getting the lay of the land and seeing all the different buildings before it's even open is worthwhile, uh, in a new location. So whether you are a seasoned inbound professional, or a, uh, new inbound attendee, this is, this is probably gonna be pretty important to make sure you get from place to place.
'cause remember, if you've been before, if you don't get to a registered session. More than five minutes early. Then you just go right into Mr. Standby line and you lose your reservation
George B. Thomas: Terrible.
Chad Hohn: sucks.
Max Cohen: Um, you know, for me, I like sure pack comfortable shoes, number one. That's I think one of my, one of some that we always, uh, say, uh, every year. Uh,
George B. Thomas: yet,
Chad Hohn: of miles.
George B. Thomas: and yet. We see people in like these Claude Hopper boots and six inch heels, and my heart goes out to 'em. I'm like, man, at the end of the day, your dog, they're gonna be barking. I swear to God, ball.
Max Cohen: True. I bought a bunch of Crocs just for this. Um, seriously, man, I'm a sucker, I'm a sucker for buying Crocs on the TikTok shop
George B. Thomas: there
Liz Moorehead: you for real?
Max Cohen: yo. Yeah,
Liz Moorehead: pair
Chad Hohn: gotta get the HubSpot
Max Cohen: for real. I just got to echo the echo clogs,
George B. Thomas: Oh, you're being serious.
Max Cohen: Oh. George, I'm being dead serious. Are you kidding me? I just got the mellow slides.
Those are like walking on clouds, just saying. Anyway, um, so the, I think the, the big thing, you know, and I, and I wish I could do this, but unfortunately I am going to be at our booth having the same conversations 800 times in a row. Okay?
George B. Thomas: Which of course you love.
Max Cohen: I love, yep. Um. I have one, I have one very specific goal when I go to these things and it's get everyone really excited about Happily Apps and that's it.
If I were not in that position right, I'd be setting some goals for myself around, uh, networking and setting some goals for myself around learning some shit, right? Um, so I'd highly encourage people that have the luxury to do that. To do that, right? Um, and, you know, make sure it's like, okay, what am I gonna do this day to go learn some stuff?
What am I gonna do this day to go, uh, you know, do some networking, right? Try to pick at least one thing for both of those, for all of those days, right? See what sort of, uh, time you have left and then just like, keep working some stuff in. But also, if you've never been to San Francisco. Try to carve out some time to do some fun shit in San Francisco, right?
You've already done a ton of fun shit in Boston if you've been going here for a while, so don't worry about Boston, right? But if it's your first time in San Francisco like it is for me, carve out some time to do that. I have a funny
George B. Thomas: Uh, oh.
Max Cohen: I was looking through my
George B. Thomas: we're already living on the edge with Max, but here we
Max Cohen: I was looking through my calendar the other day because Nikki, our marketing director, was sending out a bunch of calendar invites for stuff that we want to kind of go do as a team.
And I was looking at my calendar and I scroll across this calendar invite, uh, or calendar event that I had created. And all it is is on the first day somewhere, kind of like random after I land. There's a little calendar event and it just says sandwich question mark. And I, I was like, what is this? I was like, I dunno, this, I go and click on it in the description there's a YouTube link or a link to like YouTube or TikTok or Instagram or something like that.
And I clicked on it and it is this like food review guy doing this like review of this sandwich shop in San Francisco that apparently I wanted to try.
George B. Thomas: There you go.
Max Cohen: And so I wrote a calendar invite for myself to abide myself to go seek out this sandwich when I get to, when I get to San Francisco, right? But I think that's like a good thing to do is like, remember, you're gonna be at a place that you haven't been before unless you're from there, right?
Like try to figure out some other stuff you want to do ahead of time, right? And like give yourself reminders because. Inbound moves very quickly. All of it happens in an instant, and it's gonna be a giant blur. 'cause you're gonna feel so busy, you're gonna have no time to just like sit down and smell the roses.
Remember, there's more there than just the conference, right? Um, so manage your time well. Try to figure out how to make the most of it. Give yourself some realistic buffer space in between going to stuff because you don't know what it's gonna be like navigating the floor setup that they have. Now, again, listen to what Chad said.
Go look into Matt. Um, but you know, just set yourself some goals and like try to make the most of it is kind what I'm gonna say. And if you go as a team, that's even better. Like remember like, you know, you're if, if, if you're the sole teammates heading there from your company like. Your, your company's kind of trusting you to bring back as much good solid information as you can to impart that wisdom amongst your colleagues.
And so try to divide and conquer, even though it's fun to probably go sit through the same classes with your buddies, like go try to learn different stuff and then put your knowledge together when you come home,
George B. Thomas: Yeah, le
Max Cohen: you know?
George B. Thomas: we say this every year, but this might be your first year listening to the podcast, like leave room for the magic moments in the hallway.
Chad Hohn: Yeah.
Max Cohen: Yep.
George B. Thomas: there have
Liz Moorehead: talk about that every year, George, can you give us a little recap of what that means?
George B. Thomas: I, I mean, listen, there's sessions in all the things and all the parties and all like you, you could, you could easily. Fill up every single day, minute to minute, back to back, and I would just suggest that you don't, um, because when I've given myself like an hour break here or a 30 minute break there to just go and plop down somewhere where people are walking around or where people are sitting.
I'll never forget what one year I sat down in the lobby of inbound in the BCEC. All of a sudden, um, Christopher, uh, Penn and, um, um, oh, who else? Another, like, at that point for me was like, oh my gosh, it's a, it's a professional speaker. Sat down beside me and I sat there and chatted for 45 minutes with these cats who were like, at that point, like speaking at Inbound.
And this was before I was even a speaker. So we're going way back like 20 14, 20 15. Um, Chris Brogan. There we go. There we go. And, and so it was like, oh my gosh. Like, um, and I'll never forget another time we're sitting, took time out, we're sitting there, uh, in the Westin lobby and all of a sudden who comes, uh, strolling by and sits on the couch, uh, but Brian Halligan.
And so all of a sudden it's like Remington begged me, Brian Halligan and like, uh, a couple other folks, and we're just sitting there chilling and talking and like, those are moments that you, you can't schedule that.
Chad Hohn: Hmm.
George B. Thomas: you schedule room or buffer time for that. Um, and by the way, there's times where I was like, Hey, I'm supposed to be at this session, but all of a sudden I'm talking to a person or several people, and internally I give myself the grace to be like, screw it.
Like, I'm gonna stay here. This conversation is going in a good direction. And I'll just, I'll catch the next one.
Liz Moorehead: So buy now. Most folks have probably done a lot of their registering. We're kind of, we're kind of at the tail end of it, so I'd be curious if you guys had any recommendations for folks who may be still toying with their agenda, maybe running a little bit behind the eight ball in terms of registration.
What are our last minute words of wisdom we wanna drop here? George, you look like you're hopping up on the mic to say something.
George B. Thomas: Listen, VIPs, it was like, what, A week or two ago? They, they opened, uh, everybody else I think opened the beginning of last week. Um, at this point, you should have downloaded the app. Uh, you should probably have things scheduled if you're listening to this. Uh, I mean, this is gonna go out like next week. Like, do your best if you're, if you're listening to this and we're trying to answer this question for you right now.
Um, you better get real good at getting in the, like, non-registered line real quick so that, so what that does
Chad Hohn: still get in
George B. Thomas: yeah, that, that adjusts, uh, the amount of time that you have to like, skip out of a session or not book a session because you know that these sessions are now important and I've gotta be like, you know, one of the first so-and-sos in line.
Um, but yeah, like. The other, the other thing too that I wanna say here is like, don't just go to sessions that you're already great at. Like, yes, you should still learn about things that you're great at, but you should go to sessions that pull you into other directions. I think about this idea of like a T-shaped marketer, uh, you know, t-shaped salesperson where you're like, there's something that you're really, really, really good at.
But then you've got like things. That are like the top of the tee for you. Like what, what, what are
Liz Moorehead: breadth of
George B. Thomas: Yeah, the, yeah, exactly. What are some other sessions that will, that'll pull you out into other areas and what is the one session or two that has nothing to do with business that might change your life forever?
Like give space for that as well when you're registering for these sessions.
Chad Hohn: good stuff.
Max Cohen: I mean, maybe I'll announce, uh, something that everyone should be, uh, looking at, uh, or even using rather. Yeah. So we're gonna be
George B. Thomas: or you in trouble. Right.
Chad Hohn: Yeah.
George B. Thomas: Okay. Okay.
Max Cohen: now,
George B. Thomas: Okay.
Max Cohen: especially since this comes out a week before the event, we'll be promoting it by then. So.
George B. Thomas: So I'll make sure that we push this out tomorrow then.
Max Cohen: That's fine. So we're gonna be launching, and this is good because this is a tool that everyone can use. Okay. Everyone's gonna be able to use it for free at inbound. Right. We're launching our first app on the Apple app store. Right. And you know, from your, your mobile devices, I guess, unless you're an Android user, um, maybe it's on Android too.
I can't, I It's gonna be eventually, I don't know if it's gonna be a launch, but we are building a. Event lead capture app for HubSpot, right? It's part of like event happily, but you can use it even if you don't have event happily, right? Um, so basically, uh, what it lets you do is you can scan someone's badge, you can scan a business card.
You can keep track of all the leads you captured at the event, right? So you go in, you say, I'm at this event. You can capture leads,
George B. Thomas: Oh my God. That's three
Max Cohen: It will even write. An ai, uh, generated email for you to send a follow up that includes your meeting link and context from the event and the conversation that you had.
Right. Uh, and then it will give you all of those leads at the end of the event in a spreadsheet that you can then upload into HubSpot and it's already formatted perfectly for HubSpot and all that kind of fun stuff, right? Um, eventually though we'll have it hooked up actually to event happily, but that doesn't matter.
We're giving everyone a free utility that they can use. Uh, that's much easier than the boot. Scoop boot things that we're all used to with the badge things.
Chad Hohn: Clicky.
Max Cohen: the blip, clicky blippy. The blippy, Blippy, Blippy. Um, and so everyone's gonna be able to use it. It's gonna be awesome. We're gonna have a good time.
And if you need to capture leads at the
George B. Thomas: Oh my God,
Max Cohen: an awesome utility to make it happen. There you
Chad Hohn: he said it one more time. So does it create leads, objects? Max
Max Cohen: If you wanted to,
George B. Thomas: No, no. Stop
Chad Hohn: Can you lead me in the right
George B. Thomas: no, no.
Max Cohen: yes,
Liz Moorehead: What about leads
George B. Thomas: Stop it. Stop it.
Liz Moorehead: are contacts,
Max Cohen: that with the app, you can capture leads at the event.
Liz Moorehead: Whoa.
George B. Thomas: need to, we need to
Max Cohen: It's an event lead capture app, Liz, is what I'm trying to say.
Liz Moorehead: But what about contacts?
George B. Thomas: and gentlemen,
Max Cohen: It doesn't capture
George B. Thomas: humans,
Max Cohen: captures event
George B. Thomas: they are
Max Cohen: You go to
George B. Thomas: the people in the hallway, the people that you're talking to, they're humans.
Max Cohen: tell that too, A salesperson, George.
George B. Thomas: want a, if you want an app.
That is by the dope, uh, company. Happily, that is a human connector so that you can connect with humans and you can communicate with them in a streamlined way after the event because you're trying to be more human with the AI assisted email that you're generating than get the Human Connector app. Uh,
Max Cohen: The thing
George B. Thomas: I wanna swear so bad, let capture leads.
Max Cohen: roll off
George B. Thomas: Capture leads. I wanna, I wanna, oh,
Max Cohen: We don't want to capture humans, George, because that would
George B. Thomas: oh. Easy now see? Ah. Just be human about it please. Sales, service, marketing
Max Cohen: if there are human beings you meet at the event that might be interested in purchasing a product that you have, because there are humans and humans buy things from other humans, and you want a better way to get them to book time with you, to have human to human conversations after the event that all the humans are attending, do the human thing and download the event.
Happily human.
Chad Hohn: Connector.
Max Cohen: Connector app,
George B. Thomas: That's much better.
Chad Hohn: And then
Max Cohen: we're code naming. We're code naming the event lead
George B. Thomas: Oh my
Max Cohen: but that's just a code name. Okay. Anyway, it's gonna be free. Everyone can use it. It's gonna be great time.
Chad Hohn: just make sure you upload it. As a human who wants to buy something, object for your reps to reference.
Max Cohen: Yes. George, I'm gonna ask you, have you renamed your contact Object to Humans
Chad Hohn: Yes, of course he did. I would
George B. Thomas: my, my, uh, my contacts are humans and my deals are opportunities.
Liz Moorehead: So let me ask you this. Before someone converts into a human, what were they before?
Max Cohen: Oh, sh
George B. Thomas: An embryo
Max Cohen: shit.
Liz Moorehead: What
George B. Thomas: here, I'll get us in trouble. An egg and a sperm. I mean,
Liz Moorehead: doing, oh my God, no one is ever going to shame me for anything I say on this episode ever again.
George B. Thomas: question.
Liz Moorehead: Dear producer Noah, you will want to keep that in. You cannot keep that in, but you can keep this awkward aside and just shame your dad and it's totally fine by me.
George B. Thomas: I mean, hey, if we have to have the talk about the birds and the bees before humans, we can go
Liz Moorehead: You know what, George? Speaking of the birds and the bees, why don't you tell us about the talk you're giving at inbound to this year? Look at
Max Cohen: Ooh.
Liz Moorehead: segue. Look at that. Look at that.
George B. Thomas: So, uh, the talk that I'm giving this year, I'm super excited because it's, uh, super human-centric marketing. Basically what it is, it's based off of the superhuman framework that, uh, we, Liz, kind of brought to the world on the Beyond Your default podcast from a personal growth standpoint. But I've repositioned it, uh, in a secondary kind of pillar of, well, what if we took the superhuman framework and we said for marketing, and what does it mean if a organization actually lives with purpose, lives with passion, lives with persistence, lives with love.
For themselves, their employee, the people that they're serving with the products and services. And it really takes a very human approach to what this would mean for your mission, your vision, your content strategy, like your sales process. And so we're trying to fit a lot in there, but before we even get to the four cornerstones, we're gonna talk about things that should be apparent.
But with many organizations, we, we have helped. Um, we're gonna talk about value first. We're gonna talk about human centric. We're gonna talk about AI assisted, we're gonna talk about content driven, like these are four things that if your organization is gonna have super human centric marketing, you've gotta have those four pieces in place.
And then you can live with the four cornerstones. And, and Liz, we're talking about so much that we don't even get into the H pillars. Literally the last slide. I'm gonna do that whole like infomercial thing, but wait. There's more. And the last slide is like the gauges, the 10 H pillars. And, and I'm kind of letting people know if they want to learn more about what they've heard in that 90 minute session, that they can, one, reach out and talk to me.
Two, reach out and gauge with our superhuman clone that we've created around all of this stuff as well. And, and or dive into the kind of pillars and gauges and how that would, uh, feel so superhuman centric marketing. That's kind of a nutshell. If you're a marketer, a business owner, solopreneur, entrepreneur, like you should be in the room.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna be bringing energy. Uh, what's fun is with this, with the sections, I've built it in a way where there's a dope quote to start, like purpose quote, and then at the very end of that section, there's three actions you should take and three questions you should be asking yourself as an organization.
So it's very like. Here's the philosophy and here's the tactics to move forward with as well.
Liz Moorehead: I love that. Well, we've only got a couple of minutes left here, folks, and I'm gonna switch things up for the end of this episode. George, instead of just coming to you for one thing, I would love to hear from each of you one final word of wisdom. For our listeners as we head into inbound Max, you look absolutely petrified.
So I'm gonna call on you first, Chad, if you laugh like that again, I'll do that to you next episode.
George B. Thomas: oh
Max Cohen: word of wisdom besides comfy shoes. Booking, booking stuff in advance. Um, oh dude. Make some freaking friends.
George B. Thomas: Oh.
Chad Hohn: Yeah.
Max Cohen: Honestly, make some. Make some friends, like, let's like all these people that you interact with on LinkedIn all the time, like you forget that they're, they're fleshing bones and have stories and these lives that we just never see.
Right. And
George B. Thomas: is from the Convert Leads Guy. Gee,
Max Cohen: this is from the converted leads
Chad Hohn: I almost thought he was gonna say, make some humans, but.
Max Cohen: May Oh, don't do that. Nah, don't do that. Um, I mean, you
Liz Moorehead: I just got us off that track. I just got us
Max Cohen: Got us off that track. That's crazy.
Liz Moorehead: Oh my
Max Cohen: so anyway, um,
George B. Thomas: whoopsie.
Max Cohen: you walked,
Liz Moorehead: Do we just re episode?
Max Cohen: No, we don't, we
George B. Thomas: This is gold.
Max Cohen: 'cause it's so good.
George B. Thomas: gold. Ladies and
Max Cohen: Um, make some friends talk about some shit that's not HubSpot with people too. Like, uh, that's the other thing, like it's, it's gonna be so easy to just like be at the bar and be like, oh, so what do you think of those latest updates to the record creation tool? Like, don't do that. do that at all. Like
Chad Hohn: Yeah, you can have a Zoom meeting for that
Max Cohen: converse with people.
Take this as an opportunity to converse with these people who you only talk about HubSpot with about something else. Go find that person that you see postings and stuff about, you know, HubSpot all the time and just go talk to 'em about anything but HubSpot. Please like learn who these people are as human beings like.
You know, I think it'll, it'll, it'll make your interactions with them much more, more enjoyable going, going forward. And it'll feel a lot more real if we, you know, can interact just as humans, not as HubSpot users. Right. Um, you know, that might be fun.
George B. Thomas: I gotta give you a gold star. Yeah.
So good.
Max Cohen: Anyway.
Chad Hohn: Yeah. Yeah, I think, yeah, I mean, I, I second that for sure. Uh, I would, I would say, you know, as far as just things to be ready for is, um, you know. If there is like one HubSpot feature or product or something that's lacking, like the product managers just. Want to hear the good, bad, and the ugly. Right? And they're like, ready for a thank you may have another, right.
And, uh, if you go to the product end where all of the actual product managers, like I even was able to speak to like different, you know, VP of insert, whatever, you know, uh, of insert whatever product category or specific feature or something, like you're able to speak to those people, the people who actually make decisions.
I would say, I talked to the Commerce Hub team last year and every single thing that I talked to them about is either already built or in progress of being built from last year to this year. Like every single thing that I needed for like a highly specialized and verticalized use case at the time, which a lot of people could theoretically benefit from, but like so much was added and they love.
Your feedback. So don't be afraid to just like, Hey, like who does whatever? And I, I use this and this is my situation. And the product people really wanna talk 'cause they have like all their colleagues there too. Like maybe somebody works on one part of the feature and somebody works on like a database part and somebody works on the UI part.
They're all right there. In the product end for each area. So as far as, uh, you know, absolutely be human and talk to the people, uh, that are there and make opportunities for that. But also like you're there for HubSpot too, and if you can get some of that feedback right to the people who actually make the decisions. That's a great use of time for everybody, and it'll make HubSpot better too because you, your use case needs to be considered in the design and, uh, in the architecture of what they're building.
Liz Moorehead: buddy, take us
George B. Thomas: well, Liz, you've set, uh, during this episode, I'm actually curious if there's like a tip or a thing that comes to your mind around this.
Liz Moorehead: Yeah. Um, here's what I would say. Uh, I've been to a number of inbounds. I'm sadly going to be in Georgia, so I will not be able to attend this year's. But here is what I will say about folks going, nailing your inbound experience is a weird balancing act between. Under planning in the areas you feel compelled to overplan and over planning in the areas where you think you can skate by, right?
Like you shouldn't sleep on registering for session folks, sessions. Folks, you shouldn't panic if you can't get into everything and be open to learning new things. Be prepared to meet new people and come prepared with your elevator pitches, how you wanna show up who you wanna be, but also. Stick around for human conversations.
Don't always try to be selling. Don't always try to do these things. Everybody goes in every year, no matter if you're a veteran or a first time person thinking they have the plan for inbound. I guarantee the plan in front of you will not work perfectly. Something will go wrong. Um, you know, you will miss sessions.
Um, particularly like the thing I can imagine for people going to San Francisco this year is like, I understand that for a lot of people, Boston was played out. I love Boston. I always love going there. At the same time, you're gonna have a lot of new people who are used to going to inbound who, who knew mentally the map of where they were going to be.
So it's a whole new ball game. It's a whole new city experiment. Have fun, learn. Don't be too hard on yourself if things go wrong, try to let the moments take you where you're supposed to go. You're going to have the inbound you're supposed to have.
George B. Thomas: yeah. Love that. So, um, my one thing is, one thing, let me explain. You are gonna have a ton of information coming your way. You, you're literally going to be sitting in multiple sessions of fire hose of information. So my one thing for you of this episode is every session you go into, whether it's your iPad, your, uh, notepad, whatever, however you're taking your notes at the top of your notepad or the top of the document that you're creating for that session, I want you to write hashtag one thing.
And as you're going through this session, I want you to pull out the one thing that you're gonna take action on based on that talk. Because then what you can do when you get home is you can look at the hashtag one things and you'll actually have what in the moment your brain felt was important.
Instead of having 52,000 things and not getting a damn thing done.
