Is HubSpot Content Hub Still a Business Website CMS? (HubHeroes, Ep. 81)

Are we back with yet another conversation about the HubSpot Content Hub? Yes, we absolutely are, and for good freakin’ reason, too! Over the past month or so, we’ve had exhaustive, exciting conversations about the AI-powered promises of HubSpot’s newly minted Content Hub … and we’ve engaged in a handful of AI-rooted debates as a result, along the way.

But here’s the thing, folks.

⏰ #INBOUND23 HubHeroes Time Machine:

• HubSpot Content Hub: a Candid Look at What It Is + What It Isn't
• HubSpot's Content Hub: a Guide to Unlocking Business Growth
• Brand Voice + Tone Deep-Dive with HubSpot Content Hub

The introduction of HubSpot Content Hub was as a replacement for the HubSpot CMS Hub, which was previously touted as the HubSpot’s Website CMS product for companies who wanted to build their full website on-top of HubSpot’s powerful marketing, sales, and service CRM automation platform. 

But since the introduction of the HubSpot Content Hub about a month ago, while it’s generated some well-deserved excitement, we’re hearing from a lot of folks that the replacement of the HubSpot CMS Hub, on its face, is confusing. So, in this episode, we're digging in to answer the question we're hearing the most from HubSpot users:

"Wait, is HubSpot still a website CMS?"

Also, warning, warning! This episode is chaotic. But we mean that in the best way possible.

Key Takeaways

• HubSpot Content Hub is a CMS solution that goes beyond traditional website building and offers a range of content management and creation tools.
• Clear messaging is crucial to avoid confusion and ensure a consistent understanding of what Content Hub is and its capabilities.
• Content Hub incorporates AI tools but is not solely an AI platform. It allows for human-driven content creation and management.
• There is a need to align partner-facing and customer-facing messaging to avoid confusion and provide a unified understanding of Content Hub. The rebranding of HubSpot CMS as Content Hub has caused confusion and debate among customers.
• While we love the direction HubSpot is moving in, we have to acknowledge there is a disconnect between what customers are looking for (a CMS solution) and what HubSpot is offering (a content optimization system).
• Sales reps should have a good understanding of HubSpot's offerings and be able to explain them accurately to customers.
• Clear and effective communication between HubSpot and its customers is crucial for avoiding confusion and misunderstandings. The rebranding of HubSpot CMS as HubSpot Content Hub has caused confusion and challenges for partners and users.
• Content Hub includes various features and tools, including AI capabilities, but the core focus is on content creation and management.
• Consistent messaging and education are crucial for partners and users to understand and effectively communicate the changes and benefits of Content Hub.
• Future rollouts should involve tighter beta testing, clearer communication, and opportunities for partners to provide feedback and insights.
• Suggestions for improvements include a codeless CMS module builder and better communication of updates and new features.

And so much more ... 

Additional Resources

• HubSpot Content Hub: a Candid Look at What It Is + What It Isn't
• HubSpot's Content Hub: a Guide to Unlocking Business Growth
• Brand Voice + Tone Deep-Dive with HubSpot Content Hub

[00:00:00] George B. Thomas: So Liz, before you get into the intro, I, I contemplated since I was having this kind of day that maybe every time we said the words or letters CMS, that maybe I would just take a sip of, of my beverage today.

[00:00:15] Liz Moorehead: Okay. Given the conversation that we're having today, I'm not sure you'd make it to the

[00:00:23] George B. Thomas: Oh, oh, well, why not?

[00:00:25] Liz Moorehead: Look at you. You know what? George, you get an A plus for like perfect segways assist. I love that, George. I'm so glad you asked. Welcome back to Hub Heroes, everybody. I am Liz Moorhead, your host, as always joined by George, Max, and Devin. Are we here to have yet another conversation about HubSpot Content Hub?

Yes. We absolutely are, but it's for a very, very good reason. So, over the past month or so, we've had exhaustive, exciting conversations about the AI powered promises of HubSpot's newly minted content hub. And we've engaged in a handful of AI rooted debates along the way as well, and that's fine. But here's the thing, folks.

I know, Max, did you just have like a little, little flashback there?

[00:01:11] Max Cohen: trauma

[00:01:12] Liz Moorehead: Tch, trauma. We're doing great. We're, we're thriving as a family. The thing about the intro, the introduction of HubSpot Content Hub though, is that it was a replacement for the CMS Hub. Which was previously touted as HubSpot's CMS product for companies.

Okay. You know what guys, I'm going to have to take this part again. Stop fricking with the document. Who is in there messing with,

[00:01:41] George B. Thomas: Doesn't it make it hard to read when they bump the lines down on you? It's like, it wasn't me. It was, no, I'm pink. Remember who's Mr. Green, Mr.

[00:01:52] Liz Moorehead: Devin!

[00:01:52] George B. Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Put your notes at the bottom homeboy.

[00:01:56] Max Cohen: anonymous liger Alright,

[00:02:07] George B. Thomas: Oh, this is the type of Friday shenanigans we're having on this one. All right.

[00:02:13] Liz Moorehead: was so close to getting through it that I held it together pretty well, but I'm like, my

[00:02:17] Devyn Bellamy: so focused on it and i'm like I have to

[00:02:20] Liz Moorehead: Words keep moving.

[00:02:20] Devyn Bellamy: this have to ruin this.

[00:02:24] Liz Moorehead: My god.

[00:02:25] George B. Thomas: leave that all in all of it.

[00:02:28] Liz Moorehead: my god.

[00:02:29] George B. Thomas: and gentlemen, take two. Do you live in a, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just, just kidding.

[00:02:41] Liz Moorehead: That is one official demerit to Devon. I will see you in my office after class.

[00:02:45] Devyn Bellamy: I ain't even mad at it. I'm not

[00:02:48] Liz Moorehead: know, I know. Honestly, let me be clear. I'm proud of you. Like, I'm not even, I'm just like, I did, I never thought of this. I'm so proud of you, Devin. I'm proud to know

[00:02:58] George B. Thomas: how to, how to mess with a host. One Oh one, just hit the enter button.

[00:03:03] Liz Moorehead: It's fine. And I'm fine. And this, you know, if anything, you guys, you are just making it so that we are cementing my therapist steady stream of income for at least a few more months. So, Dr. Nash, if you are listening, you have these jokers to thank.

[00:03:22] George B. Thomas: You're welcome.

[00:03:23] Liz Moorehead: I love you guys so much. I really love you guys so much. It is my favorite part of the week, but okay.

[00:03:29] George B. Thomas: the, somebody's loose.

[00:03:35] Devyn Bellamy: Oh,

[00:03:36] George B. Thomas: get

[00:03:36] Liz Moorehead: right, Max. You're right, Max. We're all screaming. We're all screaming because HubSpot Content Hub used to be CMS Hub. Okay, back,

[00:03:45] Devyn Bellamy: Way to bring it back,

[00:03:46] Liz Moorehead: back. Everybody back.

[00:03:49] George B. Thomas: Oh, I, I'm sorry. For the live audience, it must just be a day.

[00:04:10] Liz Moorehead: Really though, are you really sorry though? This is the perk.

[00:04:13] George B. Thomas: the perk of

[00:04:14] Liz Moorehead: What are you talking about? This is what it means to be a human, George.

[00:04:18] George B. Thomas: Oh, yes. And we know here in Hub Heroes, uh, we love the humans.

[00:04:24] Liz Moorehead: Okay guys, we actually have to help some humans on this episode today. Are we good?

[00:04:28] Devyn Bellamy: let's do

[00:04:29] Liz Moorehead: everyone okay?

[00:04:30] George B. Thomas: Yes. Let's do it.

[00:04:31] Devyn Bellamy: Let's do 

[00:04:33] Liz Moorehead: this. Uh, George, I'm actually gonna turn this over to you so that way if things go horribly wrong, they're messing with you. But also this week's conversation stemmed out of a conversation you and I have been having over this past month, which is that when HubSpot Content Hub came out, it replaced the CMS hub.

Right? And now we have been hearing from clients. That there's just confusion. Yeah. They're excited. Yeah. HubSpot content hub. It seems to have a lot of promise, but I want to turn it over to you for a second. There is confusion. Is HubSpot content hub still a website CMS? So can you paint the picture of what you've been hearing over the past week or so with clients in

[00:05:20] George B. Thomas: Yeah. I'll answer that, uh, question. If you just say CMS one more time. Okay. All right. Let me put my cup down.

[00:05:29] Liz Moorehead: Max, how are you holding it together there, buddy? I see you, like he's got part of his face covered to keep him like an adult.

[00:05:36] Max Cohen: I'm doing my best,

[00:05:38] George B. Thomas: here, here's, here's the deal. Um, I knew that we had issues and this was about a week and a half, maybe two weeks ago. When I was going through the process of upgrading from the HubSpot CMS that I have loved and adored and used and sold and built websites with to Content Hub.

And then I assisted one of our clients through that journey as well. And I saw an email from my client to a HubSpot human not to be named on this podcast. And the question was, so is content hub, just a set of AI tools, because the rep had sent a YouTube playlist of HubSpot AI, I immediately was like, Oh, crap.

[00:06:31] Max Cohen: what I wanted to do,

[00:06:32] George B. Thomas: Yeah. And, and, and by the way, the person not to be named actually responded to the email and it was like a, And I was like, oh, crap, to which then I responded to the email and was like, hey, client that I love, let's hop on a call and I can explain to you. So 1, it's fundamentally confusing when you change the name of anything.

Imagine if I just showed up as Bobby, all of a sudden, like, oh, crap. For the rest of the people be like, who's Bobby? They'd be confused. And, and,

[00:07:09] Liz Moorehead: might be Tony from Happily with the Popsicles, right?

[00:07:12] George B. Thomas: Tony,

[00:07:13] Max Cohen: my boy,

[00:07:14] George B. Thomas: he's,

[00:07:14] Max Cohen: that's my boy,

[00:07:15] George B. Thomas: So I'm just saying,

[00:07:16] Liz Moorehead: name is

[00:07:17] George B. Thomas: yeah. And if you don't know the Tony story, you just got to go listen to historical episodes. But so there's, there's this level of confusion.

There's information that's coming out. That isn't quite right. I won't say a hundred percent wrong because yes, there is a large bit of AI and yes, there is a. Podcast tool. And yes, there is still the foundational, hang on, let me get ready for this. Elements that make it a CMS.

[00:07:45] Liz Moorehead: Okay. Before we go any further, I want to just get this out to the group. Let's clarify for the listeners at home. When we say, George, get your glass ready. When we say CMS. What are we talking

[00:07:59] Max Cohen: what's that,

[00:08:01] Liz Moorehead: Yeah, brother. Uh,

[00:08:03] Max Cohen: what's that brother,

[00:08:05] Liz Moorehead: brother, uh,

[00:08:06] Max Cohen: was that a question back to George

[00:08:08] George B. Thomas: No, you

[00:08:08] Max Cohen: of us.

[00:08:10] George B. Thomas: we're

[00:08:10] Max Cohen: I mean,

[00:08:11] Liz Moorehead: I can read HubSpot's definition. So HubSpot says, and I, I think this is the one that we all agree with, which is that CMS is. It's a software application that allows users to build and manage a website without having to code it from scratch or know how to code it all. So that's like the basic foundational CMS, take a drink George, uh, definition, but I would be curious if you guys would add anything to that.

Like when I say CMS traditionally before this change, what comes to mind? Maximus.

[00:08:43] Max Cohen: kind of interesting is that like, when you, when you hear, oh, uh, this thing is a CMS, oftentimes what it means is this thing is a website builder, right? Not necessarily managing content, right? Uh, you know, if anything, all the new features and stuff that they've added to content hub almost makes it more of a true content management system.

Um, Just because of the pure amount of content you can create and manage. Right. And it's not just a website builder, right? Sure. Can you build websites? Absolutely. You can build website pages, landing pages, making pages, all kinds of pages, whatever pages you want to make, you can make on it. Right. But it truly does give you, I think, not only.

The tools to be able to manage the content better. And when I say manage, you know, it's, it's, I think, you know, you could, you could FOIA that into the creation of the remixing of, and the, the embedding and the hosting of, right. Um, you know, so I think it's, it's, it's super interesting and it's kind of graduated out of that, you know, sort of, uh, stigma that a CMS has.

Oh, it's a website builder, uh, to a lot more. It's a content builder. It's a content. Manager. It's a content hub, right? So,

[00:09:59] George B. Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. So here's, here's the thing. Um, and I get where we're going because have I built. Things other than websites with the HubSpot CMS. Yes. Are there multiple directions that you could take this if you're an out of the box thinker and yes, but do we need a brand new name to do said out of the box thinking so like I live in this world where if it looks like a duck and it smells like a duck.

And it quacks like a duck. It's a duck. And Max, to your point, um, it's a, it's a CMS. And, and Nick from Fargo even jumps in and he's like, let's go with three exclamation marks. 100 percent I vote Max. It's more of a CMS now than it ever has been. And,

[00:10:57] Liz Moorehead: what about Chad's suggestion that we just call it chub?

[00:11:00] George B. Thomas: Oh,

[00:11:01] Liz Moorehead: you're talking

[00:11:02] Max Cohen: Oh,

[00:11:02] George B. Thomas: uh, no, that's Hey, we, we are kid friendly here at, uh, the hub heroes.

So

[00:11:10] Liz Moorehead: about. That is just merely

[00:11:12] Devyn Bellamy: We could just shorten it to the C Hub if Chubb is not working.

[00:11:17] Liz Moorehead: cuh hub.

[00:11:19] Max Cohen: Ooh.

[00:11:19] George B. Thomas: do,

[00:11:21] Devyn Bellamy: Start every video with like a Oh, no drum solo's been done. We can do like an accordion solo or something

[00:11:27] Liz Moorehead: So gentlemen, all I'm going to do, because we are a family friend, friendly podcast, is I'm just going to say,

[00:11:32] Max Cohen: we, Liz, are we?

[00:11:34] Liz Moorehead: the most rea I have tried. I have been scolded in previous episodes and been censored. Thank you very much.

[00:11:40] Devyn Bellamy: animaniacs was family

[00:11:42] Liz Moorehead: Fine, then Chad called us the chub heroes. I was

[00:11:45] George B. Thomas: Oh my

[00:11:45] Liz Moorehead: look at the comment.

I wasn't going to read

[00:11:47] George B. Thomas: Nope. Nope. Uh, nope. That's not, that's we're not rebranding. See, unlike, unlike HubSpot.

[00:11:56] Devyn Bellamy: animaniacs

[00:11:57] George B. Thomas: Um, unlike HubSpot.

[00:11:59] Devyn Bellamy: is more

[00:11:59] George B. Thomas: We're not rebranding.

[00:12:01] Devyn Bellamy: and I loved

[00:12:01] Liz Moorehead: All right, so here's the thing let me bring this back around here because George I get it's funny I agree with Max. I agree. I agree with Max and I agree with George. On the one hand Max, I get what you're saying from a progressive sense. We need to expand what our definition is of a CMS because aren't technically all of these things CMS.

On the other hand, George, I get what you're saying. as well, where it's like, can we just call the duck a duck instead of a weird squeaky walking feathery

[00:12:33] George B. Thomas: Well, yeah.

[00:12:33] Liz Moorehead: Like, do we really have to change the name? And it reminds me of when they changed the content strategy tool to the SEO tool. And I'm like, what, but why did you do that?

It was, it was a content strategy tool. Oh, Devon.

[00:12:51] George B. Thomas: Mm.

[00:12:52] Liz Moorehead: Yes.

[00:12:52] Devyn Bellamy: i've been chilling on this conversation

[00:12:55] Liz Moorehead: Oh boy.

[00:12:55] Devyn Bellamy: let me start by saying um That, uh, that legal jargon was in that opener for a reason. It's because everything I'm about to say is this is, this is Devin's take.

[00:13:08] Liz Moorehead: We love you HubSpot.

[00:13:10] Devyn Bellamy: so first thing first, the emotions and the feelings that were felt over here in front of my computer when you told me What that person said about content hub being an AI tool.

[00:13:28] Max Cohen: Ugh.

[00:13:28] Devyn Bellamy: I I Almost walked away. I Almost walked away, but I was afraid that I wouldn't come back I was afraid that I start saying something that I would regret so Let me start by saying it is it is more than Than an AI tool or or even a suite of AI tools But also you can't call it CMS hub because it's more than a CMS.

CMS is part of the category of suite of, of services that content hub offers. CMS hub was about the CS CMS content hub is about the content. You want your CMS to be hub spot. Fantastic. You want it to be WordPress. Cool! We can do all the same stuff! We're gonna embed content, you're gonna be able to write content, you're gonna still gonna be able to use chat spot, you're gonna be able to do all those fun things.

Have half your site on WordPress, half your site on HubSpot, however you want to roll. A third of it on Shopify,

[00:14:34] Liz Moorehead: Please don't do that. Please don't.

[00:14:36] Devyn Bellamy: Get

[00:14:37] Liz Moorehead: Huh. Huh. No. So wait. Okay. Let me throw this

[00:14:42] Devyn Bellamy: an

[00:14:42] Liz Moorehead: there then.

[00:14:43] Max Cohen: Yeah, you could be. You could be B, you could be, you could be by CMS. You will

[00:14:51] Devyn Bellamy: But, but the point is, is that you

[00:14:54] Liz Moorehead: Oh no.

[00:14:55] Devyn Bellamy: the, the goal is, is that regardless of whether or not you want to move your entire website, um, whether or not, and, and, and keep in mind that WordPress isn't the only thing that content hub, uh, interacts with, you

[00:15:11] George B. Thomas: Yeah.

[00:15:11] Devyn Bellamy: Um, and, uh, it's just, it's a tool to get your content out there because people are talking about AI content, AI content, AI, let's talk about, you know, human developed, human driven content, but delivered in the best way possible.

That's what you get with Content Hub.

[00:15:27] Liz Moorehead: Do you know what I keep thinking, George? Cause the answer to, cause the answer to this next question I had was, so is HubSpot Content Hub still a CMS solution for businesses? Obviously the answer is yes. It sounds like. We just straight up have a messaging strategy problem where they weren't, there's a lack of clear messaging on what Content Hub is, unless George, you think that there's a different answer to that question of is HubSpot Content Hub still a CMS solution?

[00:15:54] Max Cohen: To be fair, the word content has a billion different definitions, though.

[00:15:58] Devyn Bellamy: Can I, can I jump in? I think the confusion might be more in our ecosystem than it is externally. I think the Because this is a conversation that I've had about our, uh, customer facing messaging versus, uh, partner facing messaging. Um, with our partner facing messaging, we're talking a lot about get CMS out of your content, get CMS out of your everything.

It's not CMS up anymore. Um, when we're talking about new customers and people who are new to it, they just see content hub, uh, for content, but for existing customers, I can see why there there'd be some confusion.

[00:16:32] Liz Moorehead: Hey, quick question. And this actually should be cut. Devin, are you in a different mic than usual?

[00:16:37] Devyn Bellamy: I don't think so.

[00:16:38] Liz Moorehead: Okay, I don't know if it's coming through. We have the

[00:16:41] Max Cohen: Chat's complaining.

[00:16:43] Liz Moorehead: Chat is complaining.

[00:16:44] Max Cohen: Chat, chat is getting, getting, getting angry about the audio.

[00:16:48] George B. Thomas: Chat said Devin turn your stuff

[00:16:50] Max Cohen: Got a bunch of, got a bunch of audio engineers in the chat today.

[00:16:53] George B. Thomas: Wow.

[00:16:54] Liz Moorehead: I just thought I'd mention it. All I was going to say, Steven, you do sound a little lower to me than usual, but let's keep going.

[00:17:00] George B. Thomas: Club.

[00:17:00] Devyn Bellamy: thing is that, um, Noah is an engineering rockstar

[00:17:05] George B. Thomas: Yes.

[00:17:05] Liz Moorehead: Yes, it is. But you have been heard, audience minions. We love you.

[00:17:11] Devyn Bellamy: Thank you. F's in chat for my shitty input.

[00:17:18] George B. Thomas: Oh my gosh.

[00:17:19] Max Cohen: Well, well, Chad put an F in so they can clearly hear you. Anyway, continuing. Guys.

[00:17:27] George B. Thomas: Oh, wow. It's this is best episode ever. So

[00:17:32] Liz Moorehead: and loving looks

[00:17:33] George B. Thomas: think it might be a little bit of that, that in a little bit of a, that in a little bit of single pot, still Irish whiskey, but you know.

[00:17:41] Max Cohen: Yeah, we've got that extra large Tweety Bird energy shirt today. Our Tweety Bird

[00:17:45] Liz Moorehead: Is this the, is this the first time you've been drinking just actively on the podcast?

[00:17:49] George B. Thomas: the first time, but, but

[00:17:51] Max Cohen: first time you've known

[00:17:52] George B. Thomas: here's the thing. No, it's the first time that I've actively been drinking on the podcast. Um, and I, and I, the good thing, the good thing is, um, the only place I have to drive is to my living room, ladies and gentlemen. So don't worry. Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere, but,

[00:18:06] Max Cohen: Usually when you drink and drive you could end up in some living rooms George, so it makes sense

[00:18:11] Devyn Bellamy: of the ladies man.

[00:18:12] George B. Thomas: Like, like, listen, I knew going into this, like, and Devin, I, I, I hear you. I, I believe all that you said and like, but at the end of the day, a burger's a burger. Whether I sell it to an F an employee, or I sell it to somebody who comes to the drive through. And so there's still an issue because if the people who are on the front lines are getting the wrong messaging, they're delivering the wrong messaging.

And what I'm saying is we are on the front lines as partners, and we have to have these conversations with the humans. And as soon as there's a. Uh, point where internal HubSpot vocabulary doesn't match up with external partner vocabulary. Uh, we have a problem. And I, and I knew too, Liz, that this, this conversation was going to be a fun conversation, which is by the way, why I think we're having so many shenanigans is because we want to talk about it, not want to talk about it.

Like we, we, we see the elephant in the room, but we don't want to address the elephant in the room. And by

[00:19:22] Liz Moorehead: But also shaganigans, also shaganigans, also shaganigans.

[00:19:26] George B. Thomas: but, but here's the deal. It's not like this is the first time that this has happened. This whole naming thing. Anyway, I'll just, I'll just be quiet,

[00:19:34] Devyn Bellamy: well, I think the thing to understand is that. It's not just changing the name. These are two completely separate things. CMS is no longer a hub. CMS is now a feature. And so it's not about where. You're hosting your final website. You want to do it on a HubSpot. Fantastic. We got you. If you want to do it on WordPress or if you want to do it on any, whatever, we got you.

It's like, we'll find a way to make it happen. It can be something as simple as putting a text in the header. So we're scraping, uh, and, and, uh, putting in, uh, analytics. And, uh, or it can be as just straight up in putting the, uh, cookie in or the plugin into WordPress. Uh, there's other CMS where you can have a direct integration with HubSpot.

Um, or like I said, HubSpot CMS in general, this, it's like, This takes the CMS conversation out of the equation. It's like, at this point, it's like, where are you most comfortable? Having like, like, is, is there an objection to having HubSpot? Like one of the reasons I've had struggled so much getting people off of WordPress and onto HubSpot is because they couldn't wrap their heads around the sunk cost. It's like, they think that the website is free forever. And it's like, Oh my goodness. No, like, I don't even do consulting anymore, but I have these like. Never ending contracts with certain people where I have to make sure that their WordPress site is up and running. And this has been going on for like two years and it is so frustrating.

And I wish I could just get them to get on HubSpot, but you know, they wouldn't. So it's whatever. Um, but if that is the only thing keeping you from getting HubSpot as a CRM and getting these Other massive suite of content tools, then. All right, let's take CMS out of the quick, just stay where you're at.

Be happy. Let's, let's just give you all the other cool stuff that we got. And if you want to move over to HubSpot CMS, great, but CMS is not the center of our focus anymore. We're, we're focusing on content and in customer experience.

[00:21:55] George B. Thomas: which I can,

[00:21:57] Devyn Bellamy: always been about,

[00:21:58] George B. Thomas: and I can get down with both of those. Like I'm all about some content and I'm all about customer experience. Anyway. Okay.

[00:22:05] Liz Moorehead: George, I want you to stay on the mic here for a minute because I, what I'm finding fascinating listening to this discussion, here are my thoughts, but then George, I have a specific question for you, which I'm sure will kick off another just flurry of totally not unhinged discourse and discussion. On a serious note, though, what I'm finding fascinating about what you're saying, Devin, is that this is, this is the direction in which HubSpot is focusing and the direction in which, like, we're, these are what we, the things that we're prioritizing.

But one of the things that has been a challenge that I've observed with HubSpot customers, just in the conversations I've observed as people are trying to make decisions, trying to understand what HubSpot Content Hub really is, is that the entry point for many people for HubSpot. Is that they don't realize those are the solutions they should be looking for.

Their entry point often is, well, I need help. I need a platform to build my website on. I, I understand that you have all these amazing, beautiful, wonderful things. But right now I need a canoe and you are giving me P. Diddy's or not. Wait, cut that out. Not P. Diddy's yacht. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I need someone else. I need somebody else. I need somebody else famous.

[00:23:16] George B. Thomas: Branson.

[00:23:17] Liz Moorehead: This needs to be cut. This needs to be cut.

[00:23:20] George B. Thomas: Branson's yacht? Cause that would be

[00:23:22] Liz Moorehead: Okay. Can I just say that please?

[00:23:23] Devyn Bellamy: loves Richard

[00:23:24] George B. Thomas: yeah,

[00:23:25] Liz Moorehead: let me say it. Let me say that clean. Cause that was, I was literally listening to TikTok this morning by Kesha. That's why it was in my head. Um, okay. The thing is though, is that we have folks who are coming to this discussion looking for solutions that are like, I need HubSpot to help me build my website.

I am coming here looking for a CMS solution. You are offering me Richard Branson's yacht when I just really need right now a canoe or maybe like a solid little speedboat. Do you know what I mean? So it's, there's that conflict.

[00:23:54] Devyn Bellamy: play, let's role play.

[00:23:55] George B. Thomas: Oh,

[00:23:55] Devyn Bellamy: Okay, alright, here we go. Yeah, buckle in people, buckle in. Alright, so Um, you be the customer, okay

[00:24:05] Liz Moorehead: okay.

[00:24:06] George B. Thomas: have fun, Liz.

[00:24:07] Devyn Bellamy: rep. Here we go.

[00:24:09] Liz Moorehead: I'm fine. And not at all uncomfortable.

[00:24:12] Devyn Bellamy: So I understand you need a CMS website. All right. And this is like something you need quick, fast in a hurry.

First thing, what's your budget?

[00:24:20] Liz Moorehead: Geez. Uh, I haven't, I don't know right now. I know that I'm probably looking, I'm trying to role play as a customer. I haven't been on these conversations for a while when I think of, would say 10 to 20, somewhere around there.

[00:24:36] Devyn Bellamy: 10 to 20. Okay, fantastic. So,

[00:24:38] Liz Moorehead: I'm looking to do a website redesign project and I'm looking to have a CMS migration as a part of that because we're currently on hub, um, WordPress and it's just not working for us.

[00:24:47] Devyn Bellamy: all right, well, if WordPress isn't working, boy, do I have a solution for you? So now this is where the conversation would progress down the path. Of, uh, HubSpot and we would talk about why WordPress isn't working. We would talk about, you know, the updates, the, the hacks, the, uh, uh, the, the zero day vulnerabilities or whatever.

Um, and, and then I would talk about how all of that is not an issue with HubSpot. And getting it set up with the new tools, especially in content hub is a breeze. Now, let's say you had been on the other end, you graduated college in 2004 and learned hubs are learned WordPress and never learned another thing again.

And so you are in the team that WordPress is the greatest thing since sliced bread. And you want to WordPress redesign. Um, but you don't want to have a conversation about anything else. Okay, fine. Okay. Let's talk about it. And while I'm getting to know you. I'm going to get to know about everything else that's going on.

Uh, and then I'm going to learn about why it all sucks. And then I'm gonna create a presentation at the end of your website redesign about why it sucks. And by the way, we can take the marketing strategy because we've done the front end of your conversion path. What happens after that? Let's have that conversation since you love and trust me.

And we've been developing this website for six to eight weeks.

[00:26:14] Liz Moorehead: George and Max, I'm curious what your thoughts are on that role play.

[00:26:16] George B. Thomas: Well, um, 1st of all, for any of you out there that are listening to this, uh, if you come and say 10, 000, know that you're probably not going to get much of a website. So, that was just a that was just that was just a.

[00:26:30] Devyn Bellamy: I just let

[00:26:31] George B. Thomas: Yeah, that was that was just a fun number fun number.

[00:26:35] Liz Moorehead: Don't, don't have,

[00:26:37] Max Cohen: I'll make you, I'll make you a great, great website for 10k. I need money.

[00:26:41] George B. Thomas: Max, I'll do it. Max says he'll do it with some duct tape and baler twine. Like, but, but here's the, here's the other piece that I'll throw out there is, um, I hear what Devin's saying, and I even started to lean into like, okay, I can see where I could use CMS as a, uh, launch pad, but then the amplifying conversation could be, there's these other things that we can do to make your content more successful.

However, I want to rewind back to something that Devin said, and he said, and again, it was all Devin's thoughts because we have that legal disclaimer. He said, that's not our focus anymore. And what I want everybody to realize when I heard that my brain said, Oh, so websites, CMS, not a focus content and helping people amplify their content focus, um, and I go into this like paradoxical moment where I'm like, I kind of, and I get it, I could go WordPress, I could go.net nuke if I wanted to, or Jula or Drupal or whatever I could.

But, but my me as who I am fundamentally goes, but I need this to do that. And of course, the way that I'm made, it's like meaning I need a HubSpot CMS website to be able to amplify my content. With the content hub. So, but I, but I hear Devin and you're starting to change my brain and how I'm thinking about the conversation could be.

Cause again, remember this started with, it was just a jacked up conversation that I was like, Liz, we need to do an episode on this.

[00:28:28] Devyn Bellamy: Yeah. Cause the thing is, is that. What you gotta do is you gotta look at the features. And, and one of the reasons why it's so easy for me to be ten toes down about Content Hub is because I've had to generate

[00:28:41] George B. Thomas: man. Somebody screenshot that right there. That is, oh dang it. We lost it.

[00:28:46] Devyn Bellamy: Hub.

[00:28:46] Liz Moorehead: You're fine.

[00:28:49] Max Cohen: froze for a second in an awesome way. You froze like this.

[00:28:53] Devyn Bellamy: Okay, so the

[00:28:57] Max Cohen: So go back to whatever you were doing when your mouth was like this.

[00:29:03] George B. Thomas: He was being a human.

[00:29:05] Devyn Bellamy: That

[00:29:06] Liz Moorehead: There we go. Somebody

[00:29:09] Devyn Bellamy: somebody chat, somebody help remind me, what was I saying? What were we talking about?

[00:29:13] Liz Moorehead: it in the chat. We'll bring it back to that. George, I'm going to come back to you for a second while Devin gathers his thoughts, okay?

[00:29:18] George B. Thomas: Yeah.

[00:29:19] Liz Moorehead: So, this is not the first time we've been in this kind of sticky situation where there's been a powerful, progressive HubSpot rollout that has created confusions and questions.

Cause George, if memory serves, there was the great COS update debate of yours. You want to take us down memory lane there

[00:29:37] George B. Thomas: yeah,

[00:29:38] Max Cohen: wait, hold on. Hold on. Can I just,

[00:29:40] George B. Thomas: because, because I think that's why, I think that's why maybe I, I have such a visceral feelings and response, um, because we've been here before, but in a different way, right? So, um, we had this HubSpot tools that was the website tools, and then all of a sudden we went from, okay.

It's not going to be a website, ladies and gentlemen. This literally was like an inbound, like. At Inbound, they started to talk about this thing, and all of a sudden it was like, Now it's the COS. It's the Content Optimization System.

[00:30:20] Max Cohen: Oh, so pretentious.

[00:30:22] George B. Thomas: that lasted for a brief time before it all of a sudden kicked it back around and like, PSYCH!

It's the HubSpot, it's the HubSpot CMS. And so like when all of a sudden, while I was, by the way, part of the conversations and being interviewed and like, Oh yeah, these would be dope features. And I'd love to do this thing. I did not know that I was adding to the, and we're going to change the name conversation. like, because we've been there before now, maybe I'm kind of licking my wounds that we're here again and wondering. Do we get down, and I hope not, and I think not, but do we get back to the point where all of a sudden it's the HubSpot CMS a year from now?

[00:31:10] Liz Moorehead: guys, what's going on?

[00:31:11] George B. Thomas: I think Devin's mic,

[00:31:13] Devyn Bellamy: Sorry, I thought I had muted it. My bad.

[00:31:16] George B. Thomas: But your audio's way better. Put a, put a C in the chat for, uh, Devin's better, uh, better audio. There we go, Selene was right on it.

[00:31:27] Liz Moorehead: There we go.

[00:31:28] Max Cohen: in the chat. I remember, uh, Just when I was doing implementation, that's, that's when it was the content optimization system. And that was just the most awkward thing to say. Uh, you know, they'd go, Oh, can you show us the CMS? I go, well, actually it's the content optimization system. Uh, and then they go wide. I'd go, cause it, cause it optimizes your content and they go, Oh, how?

And I go,

[00:31:59] George B. Thomas: By by optimizing it.

[00:32:01] Max Cohen: I go smart content. I don't know.

[00:32:07] Liz Moorehead: He starts smashing buttons on the

[00:32:08] Max Cohen: yeah, it was like, it was the SEO tools, right? It's like the, the SEO, like, uh, you know, suggestions, right? Which, you know, I get it. It was, but it was just like, I don't know. That name was so, so pretentious.

[00:32:21] Liz Moorehead: Max, I don't want you to hop off the mic here for a second, because I've been watching you be our nice little, um, Soundboard ninja all throughout the episode, but I would be curious to get your thoughts on this whole debate. Do you think that we're just sitting here worrying about nothing? Is there no there there, or do you see any sort of disconnect or pull or push between people are looking for a HubSpot CMS, but now it's Content Hub.

[00:32:49] Max Cohen: Uh,

[00:32:50] Liz Moorehead: this whole situation?

[00:32:53] Max Cohen: yeah, I think we should chill out. It's fine. I mean,

[00:32:56] Liz Moorehead: End of episode. Thank you everybody for coming. We really appreciate you. This has been delightful. Yep. Thank you.

[00:33:02] George B. Thomas: hashtag one thing. Just chill out

[00:33:05] Max Cohen: I mean, the thing is, here's, here's, here's what needs to happen. Honestly, here's what needs to happen, right? I, when I, when I hear George say, I asked my HubSpot sales rep, what content hub was, and they basically said it was a bunch of AI features. a former solutions engineer at HubSpot whoever you were You are so lucky.

I wasn't your solutions engineer for that deal because God That is

[00:33:33] Devyn Bellamy: Like, and just so you know, if you're listening, I'm not going to ask George to forward me the email because I was, but I changed my mind. You're welcome.

[00:33:43] Max Cohen: george forward it to me forward. I want

[00:33:44] Devyn Bellamy: Don't don't nobody for me. Nothing. I'm not trying to get fired. We don't have to change the intro again. Don't for me. Nothing.

[00:33:52] George B. Thomas: Yeah. I'm, I'm not forwarding any emails and, and if you're listening to this episode, I really wish you would just go over to community. hubheroes. com and watch the video version because the faces that Max and Devin made at the same time during that last portion, oh Liz, we should have done a screenshot of that.

[00:34:12] Max Cohen: You're in

[00:34:13] Liz Moorehead: mean as if I haven't already been taking them? Please. You know none of you are ever safe from my screenshot thing. It never happens.

[00:34:19] Max Cohen: So I will say HubSpot sales reps have a product knowledge problem, right? And it's part and parcel of the nature of the role, right? I can't tell you how many times when I was trying to push how important product knowledge was doing new hire training. The folks who didn't believe that it was important would say things back to me.

Oh, the sales reps don't need to know the product. They just need to understand the value. Wrong. Incorrect. Because I have sales managers that also tell me my best sales people are the ones that know the product the best, right? And here's the thing. Do you have to be a product expert as a salesperson? No, but you should at least be able to accurately explain what the one of the hubs are.

Right. Um, you know, and so what I would encourage, uh, any HubSpot sales reps listening to this, uh, episode, uh, or,

[00:35:09] Liz Moorehead: eye contact with the camera and it keeps making me very uncomfortable. Hi.

[00:35:12] Devyn Bellamy: I keep refusing to make eye contact with the camera because I can't even bring myself to look at them But i'm, sorry, go ahead max

[00:35:19] Max Cohen: Yeah. Sorry. Anyway. Um. You need to be able to do this for every single hub is be able to explain each hub in one sentence. Right? So you understand the role that it plays when it comes to spitting that flywheel. Right? The content hub just helps you build all of your content. The marketing hub helps you market said content.

It's that simple. Right? You don't have to know all the ins and outs of it, right? But you should at least be able to have a general explanation of what the heck this giant chunk of the product is, right? Uh, so I would encourage any customer facing HubSpotters Watching this right to kind of come up with your script, your, your unique way of explaining it, right?

As long as it accurately explains like what it is, uh, you kind of owe it to the HubSpot community to be able to do that. And it's only going to help you, I promise, right? You want to sell more HubSpot, be able to explain it succinctly and not lie about what it is. Not lie about what it is, but not incorrectly explain what it is.

[00:36:22] George B. Thomas: I mean, let's, let's, let's be honest, okay? First of all, uh, side tangent but not side tangent, you officially have 11 days of the day of this recording to switch your navigation to the new navigation. By the time this goes out, you'll have about 9 days to switch your navigation to the new navigation to the sidebar navigation.

I want to just say something for a second. If I click on what is the content, link for the content hub, because there's the marketing and there's the commerce. And if I click on content at the very top, it says website pages. After that, it says landing pages. After that, it says blog in mine. After that, it says podcast.

It's in beta, ladies and gentlemen, but it's going to be dope when it's done. I actually talked to one of the PMs earlier this week and I'm super excited. After that, it's got embeds. After that, it's got knowledge base. After that, it's got customer portal. By the way, has anybody heard anything that has anything to do with freaking AI?

That's after that it's hub DB. Then it's got remix. Which is by the way, an AI feature that helps you make content confetti and helps you amplify your content and create content faster than SEO and design manager out of a list of what nine, 10, 11. I don't know. I didn't count on the way through me looking at this.

There's one. AI tool. Now, is there AI tools in the blog? Yes. Are there AI settings for your voice and, uh, brand or your brand voice? Yes. So there are things salt and peppered in this, but when you look at the core piece of what it is in your main navigation, there's literally one AI tool. So to go back to the original conversation, so content hub is basically a glorified AI hub. No, no, it's not. It's not. Ewww. Anyway, I'm a little bit passionate about this lady. You know how many websites I've built since I opened my business and like, and we just were happy with calling it a CMS? did.

[00:38:33] Liz Moorehead: I love it. So George, as we wrap up today's conversation, you know, the, the Genesis for this totally normal completely professional G rated episode of the

[00:38:46] George B. Thomas: Mmm, questionable.

[00:38:48] Liz Moorehead: I was leaning into Noah's super powers of production, but

[00:38:53] George B. Thomas: Yeah, yeah that.

[00:38:55] Liz Moorehead: we have tested you.

[00:38:56] George B. Thomas: Yeah, we've tested. Like, he's gonna be super happy, then I'm like, bro, uh, get ready with the scissors. Like, you're gonna be cutting.

[00:39:05] Liz Moorehead: Chop, chop. But George, the, the Genesis for today's conversation. Really centered around the fact that you were experiencing confusion with your clients.

[00:39:17] George B. Thomas: Yeah.

[00:39:18] Liz Moorehead: And you wanted to have this more zoomed out conversation to bring you clarity as well around how we should be thinking about and talking about HubSpot Content Hub, RIP, HubSpot CMS Hub.

Have your feelings or perspectives changed on this topic since the start of our conversation?

[00:39:37] George B. Thomas: Yes and no. Um, do I believe That, uh, the CMS portion of the conversation is a good launching pad. Yes. Do I believe that content hub gives us other things to talk about and also a direction to go and make, uh, the HubSpot SAS software better and therefore helping people make better content? Yes. Do I still think.

That there's going to be a billion and one people searching C. M. S. yes, as somebody who builds websites on a C. M. S. does it make sense for me to change the name of every article or video that I've created that talks about the difference of C. M. S. wordpress or C. M. S. and X. Y. Z. I, I, I want to start twitching.

Because I can create the content to align with the brand messaging of HubSpot. But does that then mean I'm not creating the content to the intention of the searcher? And ladies and gentlemen, that scares the ish out of me.

[00:40:50] Liz Moorehead: the way I think about it as someone who's been creating a lot of content about it recently, Devin double clicked on what my instinct was, which is that it is the HubSpot content hub that is what we're leading with, but to his point, the CMS. Is a feature. It's not that HubSpot is no longer offering you a CMS solution.

It's just that is not the posture. That is not the way they're leaning forward with it. So for example, I was working on articles this week, as you know, about the HubSpot CMS, whether or not it's the content and the way I've described it is the HubSpot CMS features now HubSpot content hub. Like I'm still leading with that because to your point, we have a situation where.

There is the place that we are leading people to from a conversational aspect. And when I say we, I mean HubSpot, right? HubSpot is saying, this is what we're prioritizing. We are the HubSpot content hub. But the, by the means by which they're going to get there is, well, I'm looking for a CMS. That's where I'm looking to

[00:41:48] Devyn Bellamy: So, I, like, like, 50 to 55 percent agree with George on switching up the content. Here's why. Um, so, it can be nightmare for video, wouldn't even bother. Um, I don't think it makes sense to try and completely scrub the internet of it. But number one, of course, be mindful going forward. But two, even going back and changing it to me, I see it as repurposing the content because now you're refreshing old content with a new name that isn't really out there yet.

On top of that, if you have been a good human being, you wouldn't need the word CMS Hub in it. To qualify for people who are looking for CMS because everything about CMS plus the word CMS outside of the word CMS hub, if the content is about helping people who are looking for a CMS solution, um, regardless of where they are.

[00:42:56] Liz Moorehead: though, I'm not calling it the CMS Hub. I'm just merely saying that there is a CMS component of HubSpot that is within

[00:43:03] Devyn Bellamy: Yeah. And, but what, what I'm talking about is the, the, the repurposing, one of the things that George said was, uh, going back and changing the video and changing the content. And losing, uh, searchers because of that, what I'm saying is that I think the content will still be as strong. If the content was strong beforehand, the content should be able to stand on its own.

If we're talking about the product, then changing the content, uh, changing the name of the product doesn't diminish the, uh, the value of the content. If the content is primarily about CMS solutions.

[00:43:36] Liz Moorehead: Gotcha. Okay. All right, final

[00:43:39] Devyn Bellamy: If we're talking, sorry, just real quick. If we're talking 2008 Google, absolutely. Shoot yourself in the foot, but today, Google.

[00:43:46] Max Cohen: I complain for a second?

[00:43:48] Liz Moorehead: Yes?

[00:43:49] Max Cohen: I think, I think it is an absolute crime that they do not have a link in the content navigation to HubSpot video. So, it's insane to me that I need to go to files. And then sort by video to see the video, right? And it's not just under content and especially with how sick the video module is. For HubSpot video on CMS pages.

I literally had no idea until this very moment

[00:44:36] George B. Thomas: Wait, what?

[00:44:37] Max Cohen: that, no, no, no, oh, I, I, I did not have any idea how much You could do with a HubSpot video on a CMS page. You can change the size. You can make it full width. You can have it be the original size. You can add subtitles. You can drop in a CTA. Put it behind a form.

You can loop it, mute it, autoplay it, and hide the controls. And then you can even choose what color the f ing play button is.

[00:45:08] George B. Thomas: hey, but you

[00:45:09] Max Cohen: Why are we hiding it? I don't know. From the navigation! It's insane to me. Anyway.

[00:45:16] George B. Thomas: agree there needs to be some like

[00:45:18] Max Cohen: Swing and a miss!

[00:45:19] George B. Thomas: Needs to go in that direction. Here's the thing max you even missed one that I love Is that you can do the top and bottom spacing of your player so that when you put it in like the middle of a pair, a couple paragraphs in your blog article, that you don't have to do extra just returns or paragraph returns because you can literally do the spacing at the top and bottom of your player to like, I love the player.

[00:45:44] Max Cohen: Like, it's, like, it's just, it's just, it's hidden. It's hidden away. It is tucked away. The, the most, one of the most important formats of content is just hidden away. Come on,

[00:45:58] George B. Thomas: Come on. Hey Liz, did you know that you have something highlighted in pink in our show notes?

[00:46:03] Max Cohen: Stop messing with the doc, George.

[00:46:05] George B. Thomas: It's not me. I'm just looking at it. I mean, that's where we started is I was being asked why I had something highlighted in the document. And

[00:46:11] Liz Moorehead: I was asking because I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any questions you had before we went live. I was trying to be a good host and a facilitator.

[00:46:18] Max Cohen: one for this.

[00:46:19] George B. Thomas: we're going.

[00:46:20] Max Cohen: I have one for this.

[00:46:22] Liz Moorehead: What, the question I'm about to ask,

[00:46:24] Max Cohen: Yeah.

[00:46:25] Liz Moorehead: Okay, cool. That's, I'm really ha I will.

[00:46:28] Max Cohen: you ask it.

[00:46:30] Liz Moorehead: yeah,

[00:46:30] Max Cohen: Okay.

[00:46:32] Liz Moorehead: now that we've made a case to HubSpot as to why we should absolutely be allowed to do a live show at

[00:46:38] George B. Thomas: Oh, without a doubt.

[00:46:41] Liz Moorehead: hire us, call us. Here's My last question to you all, and Max, you can start. What would we like to see from HubSpot when it comes to future rollouts?

Are there ways as HubSpotters should be educating ourselves when HubSpot rolls out big changes like this, uh, or both? Do we want something from HubSpot or should we be doing something differently? Max.

[00:47:04] Max Cohen: Okay. All right. So, I've been thinking about this a lot lately, uh, because of how much I've been playing with Evette Happily, and because of my, uh, my, uh, uh, job having a lot, I don't know how I'm supposed to say this, because I've been setting up a lot of demo portal stuff, right, I've gotten very familiar with the way Dynamic content works on CMS pages for content hub pro and above, right?

Uh, we've had dynamic content before it was, it was part of HubSpot CMS even before. Um, but what's really cool if you guys don't know what dynamic content is, it basically lets you turn on a setting on pages that you build, uh, in the, in the website page or landing page tool. Where it will basically let you use modules that you've created that suck in information about records in your database, right?

The only downside is, is you need a CMS developer to custom code those modules. What I would love, love to see in content hub is if they had like a CMS Module codeless builder, right? Or a codeless CMS module builder where it's like, cool, what do you want to display? Oh, I want to display information about this kind of object, or I want to be able to display, you know, uh, information about associated objects to whatever object this page is dynamically set up to use or something like that.

Right. And then being able to like, Build modules that are like cool. Do you want to show it as like a card or like a gallery or like a Whatever or a listing or something like that like they can totally do something where you could build like modules Codelessly just by using like a drag and drop editor or something that sucks in data From your, your, your CRM records, that would be so cool because then you could start to build some really, really, really powerful stuff without having to get a developer to code it right.

And at least just like basic stuff. Sure. It doesn't have to do everything in the world. Right. But to be at least be able to say like, Oh, I want a module that will show, you know, uh, listings of objects that like meet a certain criteria or something like that. Like that would be so cool. And such a great addition to content.

Um,

[00:49:25] George B. Thomas: All right. Yep. So what would we like to see from HubSpot when it comes to future rollouts or are there ways us HubSpotters should be educating ourself when HubSpot rolls out big changes like this? I'm going to go with the second one. That's the one I want to answer. There needs to be a little bit more of a ecosystem in which we get the time and we get the access as partners to play with these tools, because if we truly start to know them. And use them and then if we become the voice of customer for the people who are going to write, like, write the copy, or at least part of the voice of customer for the people who are going to write the copy that the front end sales team and engineers and whoever is going to use. You have humans in this ecosystem that have 10, 20, 30, 40 years of business experience that could give you some very vital insights. And granted, I know that we get a partner thing to fill out once a year to like the ego, I get it, but this is different. This is different. Um, now do I also realize that that might get a little chaotic?

Then. Be choosy on who you pick to be the alpha users or the beta users or to have in the conversation that is the voice of customer. But at the end of the day, the training has to be there immediately as well. Like HubSpot has gotten better at this, but we reached a long time ago where it was almost impossible for HubSpot Academy.

To keep up with product updates and product, uh, launches. And that's why Kyle Jepsen has this job, by the way, because somebody realized it's a human's full time job to be talking about all the stuff that's happening. Well, guess what? You have thousands and thousands of partners that it's our job as well, to be talking about what's happening. So getting that education quickly for any of these massive rollouts, to me, is a huge portion of it. Like, I'll give you an example. Uh, we launched, uh, Super Admin Training on sidekickstrategies. com. In it, one of the week's modules was the CMS. Now, it won't be about the CMS. It'll be about the Content Hub.

But in the content hub week, we'll talk about the CMS and we'll talk about other tools. I can only do that because well, one, we make a show every week too. I'm an idiot. And I go to product updates every single morning with my first cup of coffee to look at what's happening in HubSpot, but not mere mortal humans, even partner agencies, not everybody can do that or does that. So there's something there about like getting our voice and also escalating the training to the humans. I gotta be careful. I say this, but that matter that we get it in their hands first. Okay. That's enough.

[00:52:51] Liz Moorehead: I agree with you, George. And in fact, that's, I'm going to double click on your answer here. I think, I think the answer is twofold. I think HubSpot is changing in very big ways. And five or 10 years ago, when they used to make big changes, they were quote unquote big, but the ecosystem itself was much smaller.

So I think we're feeling the ripple effects of that. And I think also that this is the whole idea of change, right? It change, even when it's positive is disruptive. You know, it's the, who moved my cheese? Thing, right? The cheese is still there. It's just on a different table. Just move. You know, the other piece of it though, is that to your point, George there.

There has to be a way to bring certain partners along in this process, because part of successful adoption and excitement around the platform is going to hinge upon your evangelists, your ambassadors, your partner agencies, who, uh, your solutions partners, they have to be able to speak with authority And confidence and should never end up in conversations where they're like, you know, I have the same questions myself, but I'll get back to you.

And I think that's where we run into this tricky thing. Now I know that's in a lot of ways, easier said than done. And HubSpot does a really great job of working hard to foster those partner agency and solutions, partner relationships. My knock isn't on that. My challenge is that what. The ecosystem is much more complex.

We have more people who are going to have more opinions than ever about what these changes are and how they feel about them. And simply changing a hub name is going to create unhinged discussions, just like this one born of four people who have been in this ecosystem for over a decade.

[00:54:34] George B. Thomas: Yeah.

[00:54:34] Liz Moorehead: And that I think says something.

I think it's, I think it's a both and I agree with you, George, but I think I would love to see from HubSpot ways in which they go out of their way to say, Hey, you're about to get a lot of questions about this. You're about to have a lot of people who potentially may be confused about this. These are the things that we're doing.

These are the things that we're talking about. I am a content strategist who has been in the HubSpot ecosystem for more than a decade and content hub should have been the. Biggest headline coming over the horizon for me. And I didn't know about it until it was already here. I'm not saying I'm particularly special, but my point

[00:55:10] George B. Thomas: We think you are. Mmm.

[00:55:14] Liz Moorehead: out there like me, plenty of other agencies out there like me, plenty of other solutions partners out there like me, where it's like, Activate us, make us your evangelists, even if you're only giving me crumbs, just so I know it's coming and I know how to talk about it.

Because when it got here, I'm like, I am very confused. I'm hearing AI powered, I'm hearing it's still a CMS, but it's not a CMS. I'm hearing the, I'm hearing everything Devin is saying. And I completely agree Devin, by the way, a hundred percent with the things that you're saying, but there's just this, it was a waterfall of information and I was not given a compass by HubSpot.

In which to have informed conversations with HubSpot customers who are coming to me with questions. Because George, you're not the only one who's been getting client questions about that. I've been getting it too. And I'm like, well, if we look, oh, the new navigation, right? Like,

[00:56:00] Max Cohen: ha ha ha ha

[00:56:01] George B. Thomas: Yeah.

[00:56:02] Liz Moorehead: yes, I too am fluent in all of this, you know?

So that's my thinking on it. Devon, love, light of my life. Take us home. What are your thoughts on the answer to this question?

[00:56:13] Devyn Bellamy: So, um, that used to be a running joke with me for a long time. Um, is that you always find out about HubSpot updates when you're on a demo call with customers. Um,

[00:56:27] George B. Thomas: Pin

[00:56:27] Max Cohen: hmm.

[00:56:28] Devyn Bellamy: and, uh, but that's something that has been heard and has been acted on. Um, which is why we are doing spotlights. The most recent one was the spring spotlight.

Uh, and these are opportunities. To, uh, showcase, uh, the big, you know, future product releases. Uh, the most recent one was, uh, you know, April 24th was the big product spotlight. however, prior to April 24th, there was a 45 minute long video that went out to partners. Um, uh, about, uh, the, it was, uh, the spring spotlight.

Now, granted it didn't go out to everybody, but it, uh, yeah, it went out to a lot of partners, uh, about it. Um, but, um, those were in detail. Also, um, these things were talked about in the partner digest, um, and. Um, so I understand that we can have more of a conversation around these, you know, feature products.

Um, but that's one of the things that we're focusing on with Spotlight. Um, between the Spotlight and the open betas, there are ways, especially partners that you can enroll. And these open betas, uh, and, and check them out, get signed up. Uh, and plus we love the feedback on the tools. Um, but yeah, that's, that's, um, the, the two sides of it, uh, that we are getting significantly better, but also like exceedingly frustrating with the, uh, answers from the internal person.

Um, because we have an internal wiki, we have all the, everything detailed and right at our fingertips. And not only, uh, to inform us, it's literally verbatim what to say about it to other people. Um, and so like that's still frustrating and shouldn't happen, but, uh, yeah, they're getting better, they're getting better and I can say we're getting better because I'm a part of it.

Is

[00:58:41] George B. Thomas: I

[00:58:41] Max Cohen: Yeah, um, Liz, I'm realizing I grossly misunderstood the question when I came in with a feature request, because when we said rollouts, I thought you meant, uh, that. But, um, I think, the only, the only thing I would say, right, Cause I think Spotlight's a really good example of how they're like rolling stuff or like rolling stuff out, right?

Um, you know, there was a lot of people after Spotlight that was like, you know, just, you know, the rabid HubSpot community, right? The folks that, uh, literally wake up in the morning, roll over, grab their phone and bring up the product update page, uh, or the folks that lick the screen when Kyle is doing his product update videos, right?

The, the folks that. Just so intentionally what the hub hawks, right? They're, they're watching hub spot so intensely and they know a second and update comes out so they can plug that thing in a chat GPT and make like an update, update post about it on LinkedIn. Right. We all see it. Obviously spotlight wasn't for those people.

However, the thing that was kind of like a miss and if there was any feedback that I would give for the team. Is that instead of having those folks go out and go spotlight was so awesome. Look at all this new stuff What they did is they went and posted being like, uh, you already knew about all this stuff, right?

And that's where I feel like that kind of fumbled a little bit, right? Granted there was a couple new service hub features that no one has seen yet And that was super cool, right? And it was the way they delivered it the production value Unbelievable, right? Spotlight is amazing. But what I think they should do to really make sure it has a punch, right, is be a little bit tighter on the betas, right?

Like you don't need to immediately push stuff into open beta, public beta, like you can, you can hang back. I know, but listen, I'm just, I'm marketer's perspective, right?

[01:00:39] Liz Moorehead: Hold on, Max, I can fix this. George, CMS.

[01:00:45] Max Cohen: they really, really want to make a punch at those or like, cause the thing is, it's also okay to say this is product spotlight.

It's where we bring together all the most recent important updates and tell you how fricking awesome they are. Right. And put them into context. That's fine. If you want to do that, the tough thing is, is they made us all think that there was gigantic brand new HubSpot like products coming right? And then we all showed up and saw three new service hub features and went, uh, Oh, here's an AI video.

Like, and it was a little, you know, well, I thought it was sick for a lot of people, you know, you would have much rather had them sharing and saying, this is awesome versus like, I felt cheated by spotlight. Right. You don't want that. So like, you got to figure out a way to get those people to go amplify that stuff.

You know? And I think, you know, if you're going to say you're showing new stuff, you got to show a lot of new stuff. Right. So some feedback for the future.

[01:01:39] George B. Thomas: Love it.

[01:01:40] Liz Moorehead: Well, that's why messaging strategies are so important. Let's go back to the beginning of this episode when we had the HubSpot solutions person who shall not be named with the AI messaging. I think I watched the light go out of Devin's eyes. And his soul escape his body when he heard it. I think where we get challenged from a partner perspective and an internal perspective is making sure we're all saying the same thing, that we're all aligned on what it actually is, what problems it solves, and what are the promises it actually intends to keep.

Because you can have the greatest product in the world, but if there is not clarity, On what exactly it is, and it's not, it's not talked about in a consistent way. That's where these things get tripped up. And that's why one person can make such a difference. You may have most of the people inside a HubSpot talking about it perfectly fine, but that one person will leak through.

I'm sorry, I get really up on my soapbox about messaging. Devin, yeah?

[01:02:34] Devyn Bellamy: So, okay. Two things. One, uh, on one for the internal person. I'm sorry. There's no excuse. And, uh, I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm going to die on that hill. Um, but as for externally, there's one aspect of the messaging, um, delivery that I touched on. But didn't really dive into what's that? Not everyone got it. Um, one of the things that, um, I know that we, uh, are doing is clamping down on information that goes out, um, because there have been too many people with loose lips, not respecting the confidentiality agreement.

And, um, and, and it's like, it's not like, like, we don't know who's doing it. It's just that there are certain things that we just cannot afford to get out. Um, until, you know, we're ready, especially like, you know, you got people snooping around. There are people that will literally go up to partners and ask them about it just so they can speculate on the market.

And it's just, it's, it's, it's sad, but that's what we're dealing with. Um, so those are the things that we have to balance. So we have to balance, you know, delivering, uh, this quality education. Um, but at the same time, you know, we, we can't let the cat out of the bag. And, and, and, and, and it's something that we, we've done like the joke at partner day when it was like, you know, what's the one thing everybody has in common?

You all signed a confidentiality agreement. Stop taking photos of the dang slideshow, man. Like,

[01:04:07] Liz Moorehead: if I want to hang them up later in my parlor?

[01:04:10] George B. Thomas: Yeah, no.

[01:04:12] Devyn Bellamy: well, there was a slide of me that was like full face. So that one, absolutely. If you want me in the Kangol in my office on your wall, I'm all

[01:04:22] George B. Thomas: Oh, yeah.

[01:04:23] Liz Moorehead: See, Max has a soundboard. I, my, my mouth is my own soundboard

[01:04:27] George B. Thomas: when, when I sit on my veranda, I want to see Devin and his hat from

[01:04:34] Liz Moorehead: near the Davenport.

[01:04:35] George B. Thomas: Davenport. Um,

[01:04:37] Devyn Bellamy: what to get you for Christmas.

[01:04:39] George B. Thomas: the thing. There you go. So, so, so here's the thing. A couple takeaways for everybody as we close this bad boy out, because Liz, that's where we're at, right? Closing this bad boy out.

[01:04:49] Liz Moorehead: We literally, I was so, I just want to throw this out to the audience. When I asked this last question, I'm like, man, we're going to come in under, we did a really great, we have been on this one last question. Yes, George, take us home, buddy.

[01:05:00] George B. Thomas: things that we should have learned this episode. One, loose lips, sinks, ships, knock it off, partners. Jiminy Christmas. Uh, two, don't listen to Max, release all the betas that you want to release. Cause I sign up for every single one of them, HubSpot. Number two.

This, uh, label of my red, uh, breast, uh, has not been cracked or opened, but it sure did make for great TV. My water bottle's empty, and man, I gots to pee.

[01:05:30] Devyn Bellamy: Well, I figured.

, which is where I'm from, policy wonk, healthcare wonk, like anybody who's like a super niche, niche, deep cut nerd in a particular

[00:50:10] George B. Thomas: oh. See, I thought it was something that geese did. Wonk, wonk, wonk.