Are ABM + Inbound Mutually Exclusive or a Match Made in Heaven?
Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by siloed departments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Success? Are you held captive by the evil menace Lord Lack?
Intro:Lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt, knowledge. Never fear, hub heroes. Get ready to don your cape and mask, move into action, and become the hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the league of extraordinary inbound heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute. Hub Heroes, it's time to unite and activate your powers.
Intro:Before we begin, we need to disclose that Devin is currently employed by HubSpot at the time of this episode's recording. This podcast is in no way affiliated with or produced by HubSpot, and the thoughts and opinions expressed by Devin during the show are that of his own and in no way represent those of his employer.
Devyn Bellamy:I feel so special that I have my own section in the intro. It's just it's wonderful.
Liz Moorhead:I want my own safe harbor language. I'm I'm gonna advocate for this once more. Liz represents everybody. Liz's opinions represent the globe.
George B. Thomas:The world.
Liz Moorhead:Get in line or get out.
George B. Thomas:The world has its own thoughts. So does Liz.
Liz Moorhead:I have a few. I dabble in some thoughts. Also, guys, can we just talk about we are stacked today. We have five Man. Five people rocking the mic today.
Liz Moorhead:Max, how are you feeling? You look you look excited to be
Max Cohen:here. Yeah.
Max Cohen:Yeah. I'm stoked. I wasn't here last week for some sad stuff, but I'm back now. And it's, happy stuff. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. I like happy stuff.
Liz Moorhead:I like happy stuff too. You know what makes me happy? Guys, we have a guest today. Yes. We do.
Liz Moorhead:George, hit up that applause.
George B. Thomas:Oh. Let let's get the vodka
Liz Moorhead:here done. I can't hear that. With an engine.
Max Cohen:Kid developer of applications and programming, you know, that kind of stuff. My first business was an IT company, so I ran that until I sold it to Gateway Computers, and then I, jumped into the sales and marketing world, and, kind of spiraled up to eventually being a, an elite partner for HubSpot. So, you know, we have about 40 somewhat employees here, and, we're we're rocking it every day. Nice.
Liz Moorhead:That's amazing. Just I like how you just slid that in there, brother. Just sold to a little company called Gateway. Yeah. No what?
Liz Moorhead:Yeah. You know, we we always
George B. Thomas:You probably haven't heard of them. You know?
Max Cohen:No. No. Not anymore. Cow boxes. No one knows that anymore.
Liz Moorhead:Oh my gosh. Hey, Prodigy. Remember that, guys? That was fun. I'm not dating myself.
Liz Moorhead:This is totally fine. Yeah. That I am Today's conversation is gonna be very interesting. Normally I say I'm so excited about today's conversation. And don't get me wrong.
Liz Moorhead:I totally am. But today's conversation is fascinating because in many ways particularly in the inbound community, I wouldn't necessarily say it is controversial but there are definitely people who have a lot of opinions about the two different things we're gonna talk about and how well they do or do not play together. We are talking about ABM, account based marketing, and inbound. Are they mutually exclusive? Or are they a match made in marketing heaven?
Liz Moorhead:And to be honest, let let's be real here. If for a lot of people at inbound agencies, they maybe know the how to spell ABM.
George B. Thomas:Oh, I mean, not that one.
Liz Moorhead:Quite under I I
George B. Thomas:got But you got all that?
Max Cohen:I and mangoes. No? We missus.
Liz Moorhead:Yes. Yes.
George B. Thomas:Great shopping list.
Max Cohen:That's Love it. And a good diet too, by the way.
George B. Thomas:Keeps you regular every day.
Max Cohen:Oi. Okay.
Liz Moorhead:But what my favorite thing about how inbound has evolved is that back in the early days of inbound, there was a very kind of purest mentality about it. Right? There was inbound or there was outbound. You didn't you didn't cross the streams like in Ghost like, you just didn't do it. You kept everything separate.
Liz Moorhead:And what's been fascinating is that as inbound has continued to evolve, we're starting to see some blending of these methodologies. We're starting to see that some of the methodologies and approaches that we considered, like, not part of the inbound club actually have a little bit more in common with us than we originally expected. So, Kevin, I know you spoke at inbound, which is how the hub heroes, this family got to know you. Yeah. We're really excited to have you here today.
Liz Moorhead:But I wanna start with the just I wanna just start with the basics. Let's get everybody on the same page to make sure we're all talking about the same thing.
Max Cohen:K.
Liz Moorhead:What the heck is ABM actually? And has that definition changed at all over the years?
Max Cohen:Great question. I kinda, you know actually, the first thing I did with my in my session at inbound was I, asked a bunch of marketers out there what they thought email was, and I got a whole bunch of, answers. And I started off with, well, if you ask a thousand different marketers to define ABM, you most likely are gonna get a thousand different answers. And it's really because the diversity stems from the fact that, companies kinda shape their definition of inbound around their own products and services and their personal interpretation of the theory rather than the actual implementation of inbound. So, I mean, at the core of inbound, it's basically or at core of, ABM, it's basically tailoring, you know, one's marketing efforts, you know, to a specific audience.
Max Cohen:And that's really not new, you know. I mean, the term maybe didn't exist back then, but the ideology around ABM has kind of been prevalent for, I mean, centuries. You know, marketers and for generations have kind of thought to, you know, zero in to specific audiences and align their marketing strategies, you know, accordingly. You know, although, you know, kind of modern advancements, in sales and marketing technologies have kind of revolutionized the way we approach ABM. And gone are the days that we relied solely on these broad methods.
Max Cohen:Like, I mean, I guess you could say like TV and magazines and newspapers to disseminate information. Now, you know, kind of thanks to evolving technology, we can identify our target customers and our prospective buyers, more easily. And ABM kind of refines that process ensuring that individuals receive content that's, you know, more precisely tailored to their needs and their preferences. And with the, you know, advent of like AI, you know, bringing that into the mix, that really allows us to personalize our content and information even more. I mean so, I guess if I if I were to sum up, you know, ABM, ABM is like refining your audience in such a way that the the customer journey becomes kind of a unique experience that makes your target audience feel emotionally connected to your product, your service, and your brand.
Liz Moorhead:George, I wanna ask you a quick question. And Max and Devon also feel free to chime in. George, when you and I were talking about this topic initially, because you and I have been batting the ABM acronym around as a topic for long before we actually met Kevin. Thank goodness you came along, bud. We needed you.
Liz Moorhead:But, George, you mentioned that you were excited to be here in many ways as a learner alongside our audience. So I'd be curious, again, to all of you. What was his answer what you expected?
George B. Thomas:No. So it, like, it wasn't because here's the thing. Like, I I'm listening to Kevin, and I'm like, bro, I call that content marketing. Like, I I call that being specific to the audience. And so, like and then I'm always I get this question, and I've got it historically, and I've never really known how to answer it.
George B. Thomas:It it because when I and maybe I'm wrong, like, in my thinking, and I totally could be, by the way. That's why I'm excited to be here today. It's like when I think about account based marketing, where my brain immediately shoots to is I have a business. I'm sitting there, and I know there's only 727 companies that I can sell my thing to. And so, therefore, I know that I have to get really good at understanding who those 727 companies are, and I I don't need to know anything about anybody else.
George B. Thomas:And so I do I believe that Kevin was like, hey. That's how you would do the content strategy for this thing. But I was expecting, like, to understand a little bit more of, like, when are you a right fit to even think about doing this thing they're calling ABM? Or when is it, like, no. You're just supposed to be doing general content marketing.
George B. Thomas:That's kinda I don't know about anybody else, but that's where my brain kinda went in that first little part.
Max Cohen:I think I was always taught with account based marketing, and I'm I'm trying to, like, think back, like, when this information even entered my brain or if I just made it up when I heard the word account based marketing. But, you know, at least the you know, I I was learning about it when I was onboarding HubSpot customers. Right? And it was around that time that ABM started to become much more of, like, a buzzword. Right?
Max Cohen:And everyone's like, oh, I wanna do account based marketing. I wanna do account based marketing. And, you know, they were always coming to the table saying, like, hey. We've got these x amount of very specific companies that we wanna go after, and we have, like, these big giant logos that we're trying to sell to. Whether it's a situation where they're selling to, like, multiple franchises of a specific company, or there's just like, hey.
Max Cohen:We've got these 20 big accounts we wanna land and that's it. Right? And, you know, what I was always taught is, like, you you're you're going after these specific companies, but the big risk that's involved is that, like, you'd spend a ton of time and effort putting together these, like, very specific campaigns to go after these very specific logos. And a lot of the time, this content wouldn't even be seen until someone from this company, like, you know, actually interacted with it. Right?
Max Cohen:And what's funny is that the more conversations I've had with people where I've asked them, like, what does ABM mean? It's actually more in line with what you said, Kevin, versus this, like, hyper specific going after only certain target accounts sort of methodology that, like, I was taught. You know? So it's it's interesting to hear you say that because that's more in line with what I've heard other than, you know, versus, like, what I thought it was, I guess.
Max Cohen:Well, you're you're both right. I mean, George, you're right in the sense that, you know what? It is content marketing. It's more personalized content marketing. It's basically you take that content and you personalize the content to your specific audience.
Max Cohen:So if you have 600 and some odd companies you wanna go after, there's gotta be a differentiation between them. Yeah. And what is the differentiation so you can speak to them directly and make them feel like they've been hurt and understood? And then also when you talk about that, you know, Max, when you're talking about, you know, these these specific companies that you're gonna go after. Imagine if you won some of those specific companies.
Max Cohen:That's that you know, we start with a one to many going down to a one to few to a one to one approach. That one to one approach, that could that could be a huge part of your business. And we've landed some of those businesses by developing our personalized content specifically to a customer, and, you know, we won that business. Yeah. And, you know, it yes.
Max Cohen:It takes a lot time and effort. You're right.
Max Cohen:I guess. Because there's like a and and that makes sense. I mean, there's there's risk and reward with anything you do in in marketing, and we've talked about that a lot on the podcast. But, yeah, I know it was it was always funny, like and maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here. But when HubSpot released those ABM tools, right, they always seemed a lot more like account based selling because, like, when that stuff came out and everyone was like, oh, we could do account based marketing now.
Max Cohen:I was always sitting here just being like, well, I mean, what was ever stopping you from saying, oh, we wanna sell in a specific way to Pepsi, so we'll create a bunch of content and email that's just aimed at people from Pepsi. And when people from Pepsi fill out forms, they go into this workflow for people from Pepsi. You know what I mean? It's like you could always market to, like, hyper specific slivers of the audience or the market that you're trying to get to. You know?
Max Cohen:I I wasn't, like, sure how, you know, HubSpot's, like, targeted accounts tool or ABM tools, like, really added much more other than, you know, saying, here's targeted accounts and, like, here's how much they're interacting with you. Right? I don't know. So I thought it was funny. I thought you could always do it with HubSpot.
Max Cohen:But
George B. Thomas:So you did better with me than me, Max, because when they launched the tools, this was I was like, that was my response. Right? I was like
Liz Moorhead:Once again, I can spell ABM. Yeah. I'm here.
George B. Thomas:I'm like, what happened to my tool? By the way, we do have to take a moment out to let everybody know that Pepsi is not sponsoring this podcast even though Max said Pepsi at least 57 times in about
Max Cohen:thirty seconds.
George B. Thomas:But Pepsi, if you're interested, call a guy.
Max Cohen:You're better than you're better than Coke. Alright. Anyway, go ahead.
Liz Moorhead:So, Devin, where does your brain go with ABM? Like, was that a surprising answer to you? Do you have more familiarity with it? What's your relationship with ABM overall?
Max Cohen:Well, we basically I mean, our relationship with it is that, you know, we utilize it on a regular basis for ourselves as well as everyone else. This is
Devyn Bellamy:literally the story of my life.
Max Cohen:Devin rhymes with Kevin. Devin rhymes.
Devyn Bellamy:The entirety of my life.
Max Cohen:Did Devin oh, did Devin jump in there? Well
Liz Moorhead:No. I was asking Devin. Kevin.
George B. Thomas:Kevin. Liz. Liz. Hey. Liz, for the rest of the for the rest of the podcast, Liz, you're gonna have to pronounce the Good.
George B. Thomas:Enunciate.
Liz Moorhead:Mark after dark. We're back in the mark after dark scenario. Alright. No. Kevin, though, I am very glad to know that you are in a deeply committed relationship with ABM.
Liz Moorhead:I was concerned. I saw an it's complicated on your Facebook status, so I'm glad we at least got that cleared up. But, Devin, for you, what is your relationship historically been with ABM?
Devyn Bellamy:When ABM first appeared in the marketing zeitgeist, I I was a huge fan. Sangram's Flip My Funnel podcast was like like a daily sermon for me. For me, ABM is about not just, you know, we're just gonna create target and content or I mean, the logos that you're going after, that's that's part of it. But the thing is is that it goes back to that idea with inbound of finding out what's keeping these people up at night and use that to initiate a human connection. So if there's, like, problems that you've uncovered, and and trends that you've uncovered, with this group, then you can start tailoring your content to target that group.
Devyn Bellamy:Now that doesn't mean that that that content is exclusively for that group. What you can do is you can use that to go after them specifically and then continue to do that hyper segmentation, of your, CRM and your contacts, in order to, disseminate highly relevant, highly specific, highly valuable content about what's keeping them up at night. And I always like to, to, put an addendum on that that talking about what's keeping them in up at night is not the same thing as talking about the problem that you're solving. Because the problem that you're solving may not have anything to do with what's keeping them up at night, but, at least not directly. But you can still position yourself as a thought leader in their nightmares, and helping them to, get towards
Liz Moorhead:The way you're friends.
George B. Thomas:I know. It's like you're the Freddy Krueger of their marketing dreams. Outdoor nightmares.
Devyn Bellamy:And and how, what they'll call me. So now I wish I had my buttons, there on my other computer. But, just being able to address those problems because, like the saying go, there's nothing new under the sun. The same problems that these people are having, somebody else is gonna have. And so in that fashion, the content is still evergreen, but being able to target your efforts, and specifically generate those, content around, the trouble that those logos or that segment are are facing, is is how I utilize it and how I understand it.
George B. Thomas:So, Liz, I know you're doing a great job of herding cats. Am I allowed to am I allowed to ask a question real quick?
Devyn Bellamy:Your name's on the board.
Liz Moorhead:And you're getting a gold you're getting a gold star for me and I Beautiful. So Gold star for me and I
George B. Thomas:I can't let it go. I was trying to let it go. I really was. I was like, just let it go, George. Let it go.
George B. Thomas:But I can't. Never gonna happen. I can't. Max said something, and I was like, wait a second. Wait a second.
George B. Thomas:Max said account based selling, and we're on a podcast to talk about account based marketing. And we've got a pro here, and so I really want to know, like, are they one in the same? Are they
Devyn Bellamy:Right. Nice.
George B. Thomas:Really different? Like, when we're when all of a sudden we're gonna drop a word in there of, like, account based selling versus account based marketing, like, what is one to do with both of those terms sitting there together?
Liz Moorhead:Potato potato or is it potato Yeah. Like Mashed potato.
George B. Thomas:So Well Anyway, Kent, like, what Yeah.
Max Cohen:No. No problem. The the first thing you gotta do is you gotta bridge the gap between your sales and marketing department so they're actually working together to, you know, develop out a strategy cohesively, which is usually the challenge.
Liz Moorhead:Align it.
Max Cohen:That's usually the first challenge we run into. We've had customers that, you know, have had real problems with that. But as far as account based selling, what we do now is we turn the the account based marketing on, and then as it pushes over the problem is is it pushes over to the sales team, the sales team are still just sending out generic stuff, you know, through their sequences and things like that. So we now will set up the account based selling piece associated to that by now separating out their sequences into multiple industries and micro verticals associated to industries and updating their content so that we're actually developing out an account based selling strategy for the sales team along with the marketing team so that the journey is cohesive across both, departments. So that's how I look at the account based selling the way it is today, is, you know, maintaining that same cohesive structure and process from marketing into sales.
Max Cohen:Isn't it?
Max Cohen:There's no
Max Cohen:That's an interesting point because, like, does it always mean if you're account based marketing, are you always account based selling? And do you have to be doing one to do the other? Right? It's an interesting question. Yeah.
Max Cohen:It's a it's it's actually for the customer. The customers, you know, go through this whole, you know, where they feel seen and heard. Right? And then all of a sudden, they get to the sales team, and it's all this generic stuff. Yeah.
Max Cohen:So it changed them. You know? Yeah. Kinda gotta keep them together. So great question.
Max Cohen:Hopefully, that answered it for you.
George B. Thomas:No. I love that. And it's it's funny. I'm glad I asked that question, first of all. But second of all, words matter.
George B. Thomas:Words are important. And, Kevin, it was interesting. When we were talking about account based marketing, you said the word hypersegmentation. Right? And I I'm just pointing that out to the listeners.
George B. Thomas:When you're talking about, account based selling, you said micro verticals. So the moral of the story is whether it's marketing or whether it's sales, this is a a deeper level. It's a more strategized, plan. It's a, thing that probably should be working together, in the minutiae versus the and what I like to say historically is, like, this is one of those scalpel moments instead of a sledgehammer moment.
Liz Moorhead:It's interesting too. And just going to the chat here for a minute, Salim actually brought up something really cool here in the way he thinks about it. He always imagined account based sellers like the secret agent running a mission, and the account based marketer is the computer guy hacking the surveillance systems and guiding them on where to go.
George B. Thomas:Let's go.
Max Cohen:I like that.
Liz Moorhead:I love that.
Devyn Bellamy:Not inaccurate. That's fantastic.
Liz Moorhead:So what's interesting is that where I wanted to take this conversation, it sounds like we've already answered one of the big questions, which is that why do so many people see them as mutually exclusive? Yeah. One, we're gonna get into how inbound mindsets apply to ABM strategies here in in a second, but I it sounds like it's also just a lack of understanding. There's, like, the natural evolution of outbound and inbound principles converging as they have been, I would say, probably over the past decade. Like, we're just continuing to see more blending happen naturally as people get more dimensional in their strategies.
Liz Moorhead:But it sounds like also just in general, I don't understand it, so it's a no. Like, that's kind of like like I think that's where a lot of it seems to come from. But I'd love to hear from you, Kevin, when you think about because you spoke at inbound. Yep. You are an you are a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Liz Moorhead:You're like, this is where I'm supposed to be. This is with my people. And I'm here speaking at inbound about ABM. When I ask you what types of inbound mindsets can apply be applied to execute great ABM strategies, where does your brain grow go? To quote one George b Thomas.
Max Cohen:Yeah. I think that's that's a great question. I mean, how you know, I think HubSpot is primarily known for its inbound capabilities. But it offers so many different powerful tools that leverage ABM strategies. I mean, you have your target accounts and other areas that you can utilize.
Max Cohen:But if you think about traditional inbound type of strategies, content obviously is one big part of that. But it's just creating more personalized content, more personalized landing pages, content tailored for specific accounts and industries and micro verticals associated those industries. This ensures that your target accounts receive the content that's most relevant to their needs. And there's also other features. I mean, so as those that are thinking about inbound, they should be thinking about like personalization.
Max Cohen:But we have smart rules. Right? Smart rules can serve up different type of content based on the data and information that's already within your platform. You know, the industry and the other piece of information. So use those smart rules.
Max Cohen:Nobody's sorry. Not many people are using and doing that. You create all this amazing content. Why are we not using it to share it with those individuals and make them feel like we're actually speaking to them? Another thing that I think people could be using is lead scoring.
Max Cohen:The whole lead scoring strategy allows you to change your content based on behaviors and as they move down the funnel or you know move down the process from a one to many to a one to few to a one to one, that lead score can serve up different content based on where they are within their journey. Still content that's more specifically defined and developed out for, you know, for that account or, you know, that type of individual. So that's another tool that I think is available to them. Also, across the board, we talked about, you know, like the, you know, sales automation. There's the service hub.
Max Cohen:There's all the different hubs that we have that all work together within the side of the platform. That integration between each of those allows us to kind of again serve up information that's gonna help us to target and pinpoint content that's gonna really get the customer educated and to understand the value that that, you know, that we as an organization might provide. So I and I look at it, HubSpot just isn't an inbound prop, platform. It's it's kind of a suite of tools that when, you know, executed or leveraged in a hybrid approach, you know, combining the best of both inbound and outbound along with ABM, you know, tailors that experience to targeted accounts while maintaining the kind of fundamental principles of inbound marketing. There's
Max Cohen:I I love that you brought up smart content. That was the that was, like, the cool move that, like, I would always show people that weren't quite thinking about it that way, where it's just like, alright. You're gonna create a whole bunch of, like, landing pages for, you know, brand x that you're really trying to, like, capture or franchisee x, like, whatever it may be. Like, imagine if you just did a smart content module on your home page that was based on a list of that contact having a certain email address. Right?
Max Cohen:And, like, they hit your home page and all sudden it says, see how company x uses product y to do whatever, and they go, oh, that's me. Like, that is crazy unexpected. It's a huge pattern interrupt. It's insanely personalized. Right?
Max Cohen:And, like, people just, like, aren't thinking of using someone, like, the most simple features that HubSpot has to, like, deliver exactly what you're talking about. So yeah.
Max Cohen:That's that's the future. The future is that type of personalization. When we design websites now, the future is to create that using smart content to, you know, again, serve up information. If someone comes to our website that's in health care, I want them to see everything health care. If they come to our website and they're from a tech back background, I wanna see them to see everything tech based.
Max Cohen:That allows us to be able to do that. Yeah. You know? Using smart content.
Liz Moorhead:So Kevin.
George B. Thomas:So I Oh, don't don't jump off of that, because quite Oh, no. I wasn't.
Liz Moorhead:I wasn't jumping off of it, but George
George B. Thomas:Because as as, if we're talking about the future and we're talking about hub heroes, what what we need to enable them with is you're gonna go to the Internet and you're gonna type in smart content or something. I don't I want you to head to marketing. In other words, if you type into Google or we'll probably put in the show notes the link to the HubSpot Academy certification on contextual marketing, which will teach you all about smart rules and the places that you can use them in HubSpot if you're not doing so right now and allow you to embrace what we're talking about as the future of this and the way to communicate in this with actually the knowledge to be able to execute the thing based on the education you'll have. So, again, link in the show notes or search HubSpot contextual marketing certification.
Liz Moorhead:Oh, that will be linked in the show notes. Well, George, the best part is is that you you answered the question I also wanted to hear from Devon on. So we're staying on the right track, which is really understanding Devon from your perspective as the other guys, you seem to have more of a a plug in to ABM. That's something that's been in your DNA as an inbounder longer than, say, Max and George. Right?
Liz Moorhead:So I'd be curious as someone who has been consuming this type of content, thinking about ABM, how do you think about inbound mindsets applying to ABM strategies? Where does your brain go with that?
Devyn Bellamy:You you and and I'm sorry, George, because you haven't said it yet, but I'm a go ahead. You gotta focus on the human.
Liz Moorhead:Now Do you wanna give us a good humans? Do you don't worry. We're gonna be talking about humans here in just a minute.
George B. Thomas:Okay. So I wanna go after this then. I wanna go after this because there was a worm in my brain that I wanna unpack, but go ahead, Devin.
Liz Moorhead:Do you wanna give us one good humans, though, George? Just like one really Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, Devon is about to talk about the humans. Oh, yeah. Oh.
Liz Moorhead:That's what stopped right there. That's the good that's the business. Devon, continue.
Devyn Bellamy:So when you're thinking about inbound, like, on a macro level, you're thinking about, you know, your target personas, and you're thinking about the challenges, the watering holes, things like that. When you're thinking about when you're doing it with ABM, it's like Kevin said, it's it's like hyper segmentation and focusing specifically on a group of individuals who may or may not be at the same company. And you want to focus on that challenge and and to allude to the topic that we had before about the integration of account based marketing and account based selling. If you keep that customer centric mindset, the idea is that you're catering to this person and their needs, before and notice I'm saying person and not people because you're doing this one person at a time, one interaction at a time and using tools like HubSpot to automate that process. But you're focusing on the needs of that individual and meeting their needs one to one throughout the entirety of the customer journey.
Devyn Bellamy:So when we're talking about incorporating inbound and ABM, it's to me very close to the same thing but on a smaller scale, more targeted. And so you're you're you're taking these challenges and like we were talking about, before with smart content, the way I used ABM personally, and incorporated smart content into it was when I was working for a shower manufacturer, specifically shower bases. I know entirely too much about shower bases. I judge hotels based on them. So
Liz Moorhead:No kidding.
Devyn Bellamy:Oh, absolutely. I've made TikTok videos about
Liz Moorhead:shower Can we do a power ranking for inbound twenty twenty four of the of the shower bases of hotels in and around the Boston Convention Center? I get
Devyn Bellamy:I get into it. I'm talking materials Yeah. Tiles, solid surface, whether or not you have pebble, whether or not there was
Max Cohen:pepperoni, shower bin.
Devyn Bellamy:Oh, yeah. Of course. If it's not clean, I'm not even gonna Cleanliness. Anyway,
George B. Thomas:I'm out.
Devyn Bellamy:The thing is is that with something as simple as you would think of shower bases, different verticals refer to them in different ways. Some say shower base, some say shower pan, some call them receptacles, some call them floors. And the thing is is that depending on the vertical you're trying to address, the naming structure and nomenclature is completely different. What you can do is use your smart content to, look at who they are, what vertical they in, or what pages they've gone to, And then make your content just ever so slightly adjusted so you're speaking to them in a language that they understand in
Liz Moorhead:terms of
Devyn Bellamy:the word-of-mouth.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Devyn Bellamy:And so it can be as simple as that. But getting into the more nuance and granular applications of it, at that point, we're talking about the actual challenges that they're facing. Like, for instance, in a mental health setting, they're thinking about non ligature and basically keeping people from hurting themselves using the equipment versus, when you're looking at, dorms and residence halls who are experimenting with unisex bathrooms, then their challenges are floor to ceiling partitions so people can feel comfortable when they go into the space that no one's looking at them, no one's crawling under, no one's crawling over. It's basically a room within a room. But at the end of the day, we're talking about showers, And they might all come to the same page looking for completely different things.
Devyn Bellamy:And I'm able to segment my content, and, identify the problems, and potential solutions, without them ever leaving, just because I've adequately identified the verticals or the logos that I'm going after.
George B. Thomas:So thank god that was dope,
Devyn Bellamy:first of all.
Liz Moorhead:Devin Bellamy shower receptacle thing. I'm like,
George B. Thomas:I I just my next business, I'm gonna open something to do with shower pans and get Devin
Liz Moorhead:to have a hard time. Moment, though. When I literally for those who are in the audience watching this live, you could see it happen. But Devin just spit straight fire for, like, four minutes. And both Kevin and George at the same time were like, well, who's gonna follow that?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Well so I do I do wanna follow that though because I have this bug or worm in my brain where it it when we were gonna talk about account based marketing and even when Max was talking about Pepsi, I was getting sad because and we've we joked about this, but you all know I like to talk about the humans. And I felt like I made the assumption, which one should never do, that this conversation would actually lean into some strategies of how we should be, approaching, engaging, or paying attention to the company more than we should actually the humans. And I was gonna ask the question of, like, well, shoot. Like, is this and then Devon steps in and goes, hey.
George B. Thomas:I'm surprised we haven't said the word. And all of a sudden my brain You have
Liz Moorhead:no idea where we're about to go.
George B. Thomas:Let's do it. Because we're
Liz Moorhead:we're going deeper down that or hope because Yeah. George, I love that you brought that up. I'm glad that you interjected with it because when Kevin and I were prepping for this conversation, he and I were talking quite a bit about, like, what do people get wrong about this? Where do do what are the connotations of ABM that people fundamentally do not understand? And one of the things that really jumped out at me, Kevin, when you and I were talking is that, like, the first thing the first word that he brought up in the conversation was human.
Liz Moorhead:Absolutely. He talked about how in the world of ABM, the human connection is often seen as a critical element. And so, Kevin, I'm gonna have to just like spoiler alert this. You have, like, a hilarious dating analogy that goes along with this that, like, literally, I had to kind of I had to pause for I had to pause.
George B. Thomas:Oh, is this gonna be, like, a TikTok moment here in a hot minute?
Liz Moorhead:I am in I don't know. I don't know. Nobody say anything. Nobody interrupt him. So that way we can get good social video.
Liz Moorhead:Anyway, no. But I would love to hear you talk about why building strong human connections is essential to ABM success. Because George, your point right there, I think is where people struggle. They're like, well, I'm just focusing on the company. No one needs people.
Liz Moorhead:You know? Like Yeah. Like that's that's and that's why we're having this conversation. So Kevin, talk to me, boo.
Max Cohen:I'm gonna go two ways with that. First, I'm gonna start with the building the human being. So we have to think about it. You know, we as humans. Right?
Max Cohen:We yearn everyday for authentic connections. Not just with people around us, like all of us connected to each other together, but with the brands that we engage with everyday. So every purchasing decision that we make in so many different ways is has an emotional component to it. I mean, yeah, logic we know logic kind of plays a part, but the emotions kind of weigh in to tip the scale, of, you know, how we make the decisions on what we purchase. You know, it could be either nostalgia that maybe a a brand evokes within us or or maybe like the trust that we feel towards a certain brand or even even the way it resonates with our values.
Max Cohen:But these these emotional trends bind us to our choices. Now if you wanna transpose that into ABM, we are not targeting faceless corporations. You guys said that. We're reaching out to individuals. You know, Max
Liz Moorhead:is so happy right now.
Max Cohen:Each has their unique preference and their emotions, and and we need want to genuinely engage with them and foster their trust so that we need to be able to tap into their inherent human desire for connection. Because at the end of the day, before the any transaction occurs, you know, there has to be an engagement of trust. And trust as we all know it is the kind of the foundation of connection. So while all this technology and data and strategy and all the stuff that we do, the Pivotal, the ABM, all that good stuff, we can't underestimate the power and the importance of human connection and human touch all back to what Devon was saying in the beginning part of that process. Now I I could go on further about kinda what I talked about at inbound.
Max Cohen:Liz, do you want me to do that? Or you wanna kinda talk a little bit about human connection first?
Liz Moorhead:Talk to us a little bit about inbound. I think everybody needs to experience a little bit of the magic that I got to experience, and then let's dig into that human connection piece. Alright. Because I think it's part of it. Because the way you told the story, it kinda talks about human connections are built upon Yeah.
Max Cohen:I did. I kinda I likened the whole inbound connection to and there's various phases of of ABM strategy, and I'll talk about the phases. You know, we'll get into that a little bit. But, you know, it's it's how we undergo I kind of likened it to how we undergo the realm of human relationships, from online dating to the expansion of the family. It's like this journey, much like love.
Max Cohen:Right? Where we consistently work to understand that that deeper connection with with each other, with humans. So, you know, if we start with, like so there's five phases, first of all. There's five phases. Brand awareness, building the pipeline, pipeline acceleration, customer retention, and customer expansion.
Max Cohen:Those are the five phases of ABM on how we deliver out an ABM strategy. But when you look at the first one, brand awareness, it's like online dating. Right? So when you're when you're doing online dating, what you have to do is you have to kinda first, you know, type in all your information, you put all your stuff in there, then you're swiping right and swiping left, and you're engaging with somebody. Right?
Max Cohen:Well, similarly with ABM in the brand awareness phase, what are we doing? We're building out content that tells all the greatest stuff about ourselves, and then we're pushing that out to an audience and hoping that they engage with it. So it's like that first level. The brand awareness is like that first level of online dating. Whereas when we transition to building the pipeline, that next phase, that kind of reminded me of the process of dating to moving towards exclusivity.
Max Cohen:You know, you moved beyond the initial interactions of the whole kind of, you know, online dating part of it. Now you're delving deeper into understanding each other, the needs, the aspirations of the other person that's sitting in front of you as you're going through the dating process. Yes. We're dating now. In the ABM world, this is where you start to engage with these accounts more deeply.
Max Cohen:You know, your content changes. You're providing them a richer understanding of your products and services. You begin to evaluate them through behavior based content. That's all part of the process. So that's the building the pipeline.
Max Cohen:I can, if you guys wanna comment on any of that, or I I can go on to the next stage. Alright. I'll I'll jump into to the next one. So pipeline acceleration, that feels like entering that committed relationship, you know, where you're you're
Liz Moorhead:Getting going steady.
Max Cohen:That's right. Now you're establishing trust. You got this deeper emotional connection. Similarly, like with ABM, this is the phase where your potential leads actually become genuine opportunities. They're moving into the pipeline.
Max Cohen:Right? You know, you've engaged enough that they have a genuine interest. And now it's about nurturing that interest and guiding them towards the purchase to where they eventually become the customer, to where you put a ring on it. And this is the point of marriage. You're making that decision.
Max Cohen:That's the long haul ensuring the relationship thrives and grows. And it's funny, it's a common mistake of so many marketers that they stop engaging after they sale the sale and they go back to start again. They go back to the brand awareness. It's like, wait a second. You just got married.
Max Cohen:Does it mean you kinda kick back and say, Graham, you still watch football? No. You gotta still dig in. You still gotta get all those that that care and the love that you did through the dating part process. Mhmm.
Max Cohen:So we gotta be able to manage the customer retention piece. Now the final one, customer expansion. It's about, growing together, evolving together. And it's akin to building like a family. You know, where you have that deeper relationship and you're you're you're buying a house, you're building a family, you're having kids, depending on what you want in life.
Max Cohen:Right? You know, and if I were to use, let's say, my company as example, it's as a business, it's where I wanna continuously offer more value. If they started off with an onboarding, I wanna now take them into a full time relationship. I mean, ABM just isn't about selling. It's about building a bond, a connection.
Max Cohen:And just like in love, the journey matters just as not if if not more than the than the destination. Yeah. There's my 2¢ of it all.
Max Cohen:Yeah. And I think it it it it it that kinda goes into the account based selling piece a bit too. I mean, like, I would think that if you're a company that was really going into an account based marketing model, it's probably because you have these bigger customers that you wanna have that you can continuously sell to during the entire relationship, not just sell them one thing and then you're done. Right? So, like, you know, in in that account based sales motion, building those human connections is so important because you gotta figure out how to navigate all the people there.
Max Cohen:Like, if you're selling to you know, if your company is selling something to McDonald's, right, you're not selling something just to McDonald's once. You're probably getting McDonald's to agree that you can sell to them, and then you're figuring out how to build all the relationships with all the franchisees and all the regional, you know, holding companies and all the places that are, like, buying from there because you've become a vendor of choice for them or whatever it may be. Right? So it's like you're you're having to constantly deploy that flywheel tons and tons and tons and tons of times on your individual customers, like, when you're when you have to sell or or market in that model. Right?
Max Cohen:So, like, the human stuff, I think, is so important. And, you know, just like just like it is with inbound, like, I've you you guys have heard me say a billion times. You're there's no such thing as b to b. It's always b to h or hab to hab, humans and businesses to humans and businesses. Like, it's all, you know, you're you're you're talking to people and, like, that calculus doesn't change just because you're doing account based marketing.
Max Cohen:Right? It still ends up being people that you're selling to at the end of the day, and you can't forget about that. So I just like how you you weave that into everything you talk about when you're going through it. People forget it, man. It's crazy.
Max Cohen:Like, again, the the you said, like, faceless organizations. Like, I was I was called it, you know, you're not selling to sentient buildings with arms. That's that's how I kinda characterize, like, you know, what people thought they were selling to when it's b to b. It's like, no. There's people in there.
Max Cohen:Absolutely.
Liz Moorhead:George, you are being surprisingly hurtable right now Yeah. Which means you're processing something Yeah. And I also don't trust it. Like, I just frankly, I don't trust this right now.
George B. Thomas:No. So so no. I am processing because it's funny, because I'm taking in what Kevin was stating, the five phases. Right? And, and and what was five phases explained as ABM.
George B. Thomas:But when I heard the five phases and when what was happening there, there were two things that are happening in my brain. One, I was wondering if we should start another podcast that has to do with relationship advice. Mhmm. But the true thing that I was curious
Liz Moorhead:Call her. Yeah. But Stop waiting three days to cut back.
George B. Thomas:Call her. Buttering on it. But but the real thing that was going through my brain is is this one of those areas where and and and back in the day, I did this with, we talk about the buyer's journey, and we talk about the customer journey. And the buyer journey and the customer journey are actually one thing, but smart people decided to crack it up into two different things and talk about it, which to me is weird. And so when I heard Kevin talking about the five phases, I was like, oh, okay.
George B. Thomas:That's ABM and ABS or account based marketing and account based sales. Because if you're gonna put a ring on it, you just bought something, baby. And so my brain was literally trying to process, like, the conversation around the five phases to the entire account based journey versus it just being the marketing journey or the sales journey of that account based conversation that we're having. That's why I was easily heardable. I'll start throwing in some more shenanigans so that you can get
Liz Moorhead:I wasn't saying that, George. I wasn't saying that. I was just try I was just trying to get ahead.
Max Cohen:Okay.
Liz Moorhead:I was trying to steer into the skin.
Devyn Bellamy:Oh, okay. I was
Liz Moorhead:trying steer into the skit. Turn right
George B. Thomas:to go left. Turn right to go left.
Liz Moorhead:I look. I saw Devin and Max also get, like, start laughing. We were all uncomfortable. When George is suddenly very quiet, it's like, what has he started another company in his head? Are we already volunteered for another podcast?
Liz Moorhead:Like, what's happening?
George B. Thomas:That doesn't happen in a moment, by the way. Like, I'll
Liz Moorhead:Those happen in a moment and then I get a my favorite part is when I get a Slack message on a Saturday that's like, no need to respond to this until Monday. I'm like,
Max Cohen:oh, yay and oh, no.
George B. Thomas:True facts. True facts.
Liz Moorhead:Okay. So I know we don't have too much time left. What I do want to wrap this conversation up with other than the obvious of like, Kevin, would you like to be our friend and come back sometime to talk about more detailed ABM approaches? Because I think what's been really fascinating about this conversation is the light bulb moments I've been watching George and Max and to some extent Devon have throughout this converse. Well, he's the shower receptacle king with an ABM backbone.
Devyn Bellamy:Okay. See, I didn't know how to take that at first. Like, it can I not have light bulbs? But No.
Liz Moorhead:You know, you were you were the light bulb creator today.
Max Cohen:Oh, you dim
Liz Moorhead:my dear. A light bulb creator. I mean, if the light bulb
Max Cohen:I started thinking about my the shower this morning, what type of flooring I had. You know what I heard that conversation?
Liz Moorhead:Pebbled her kid out.
George B. Thomas:I actually That's what
Liz Moorhead:I would I did go.
Devyn Bellamy:Literally pebbled her down.
Max Cohen:I went I went into my bathroom, and I sent Devin a picture of my shower basin to get him to rate it. So
Liz Moorhead:Oh my god. No. It's not good. Is that where are you
George B. Thomas:west? Went.
Liz Moorhead:I was wondering, like, remember that time you said that you're gonna be super focused during today's conversation? I was being tired of that.
Devyn Bellamy:God. He actually did.
Max Cohen:He did
Devyn Bellamy:it. And don't show this to anyone ever again.
Max Cohen:Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Liz Moorhead:Wait. Wait. Wait. Rate Max's shower. I mean, we'll get to ABM in a second.
Liz Moorhead:Rate Max's shower. I'm gonna
Devyn Bellamy:give it a five because he has jets in his bathtub.
Liz Moorhead:Mhmm. Five out of what?
Devyn Bellamy:Oh, out of 11.
Liz Moorhead:Five out of five, five out of 10.
Max Cohen:I have some paint scraping out of the bottom of it that I don't quite know how to
Devyn Bellamy:deal with, so I wanted to Yeah. I wanted to make Devin cringe a little bit. About that. Yeah. Like, there there are questions there.
Devyn Bellamy:Actually, I'm gonna give it a six, and here's why. Your floor is pebbled.
George B. Thomas:That's a
Devyn Bellamy:safety thing.
George B. Thomas:Okay. Pebble. Powerhouses,
Devyn Bellamy:move bathtubs, total safety hazard. My my bath my, I have a a house that I'm renting. My bathtub is not pebbled. My two year old jumped in it and slipped and then slid around like it was a cartoon after he landed. And after he was okay, I did laugh a lot.
Devyn Bellamy:But the thing is that's why you need pebbles. You can't do that in a pebble tub.
George B. Thomas:So, Liz, I'm I'm gonna
Liz Moorhead:ABM strategies and parenting advice. Yeah. We're doing great today.
George B. Thomas:Gonna send you the latest ebook for you to download on how to truly herd cats, so you can download it before next week's episode.
Max Cohen:Sure. Oh, he's targeted. Ouch. That was an ABM approach right there. He targeted right there.
George B. Thomas:Very specific. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:He targeted with a knife in my back. That hurt, man. Hold on a second. No kidding. Alright.
Liz Moorhead:So, Kevin, I'm gonna give you a different last question than everybody else. Alright. What do you get? Everybody else, this is your warning. I want you to think about George, I'm not even gonna bother telling you one thing because you'll give me 80 regardless as to whether I tell you
Devyn Bellamy:I know you said one thing, but
Liz Moorhead:I have said that before. I was talking to you. But here are five other things. Gentlemen, I want you to think about something you learned today that genuinely surprised you. Kevin, what is one myth you hope about ABM people are walking away with today completely debunked?
Max Cohen:That it's a heck of a lot easier to put together than it, than they thought it was. That they could actually do it in less time, especially with artificial intelligence and all the new features built into the HubSpot platform. You can now knock an ABM strategy out in weeks rather than months and years what it used to be like.
Liz Moorhead:That's incredible. Yeah. Gentlemen, George, are you ready with your 80 things? Or Max, would you like to go first?
Devyn Bellamy:I won't even ask Devin, but that's nice.
Max Cohen:I'd like to hear Devin's.
Max Cohen:Do you know
Liz Moorhead:what I love about today's episode? It's less chaotic, but more catty. We're doing great, guys.
Devyn Bellamy:No. My thing is I didn't realize that people, didn't think of inbound as an intrinsic part of ABM, but maybe that's just because of how I learned it, that I I learned I learned them as two integrated, two integral aspects of the same process. And so having the content focused mindset going into your account targeting or vertical targeting, that was that was how I learned it. It. And then that combined with, this is the first time I've heard the term account based selling, because I figured technically all selling is account based selling.
Devyn Bellamy:But, the fact that you need to incorporate, that's another thing that I I didn't know that people didn't know was that you need to incorporate your your sales process as a part of your, marketing process in order to be truly successful with ABM because it's it's a very human centered approach. Just like inbound is a human centered approach, HubSpot is completely built around the human centered approach. You want to be able to take that information that you've gathered and continue that level of interaction throughout the entire journey.
Liz Moorhead:Devin, that was a bright bulb answer if I've ever heard one. The brightest bulb in the box. Who wants to follow that?
Max Cohen:Say it's it's I don't think it's ever a situation where you're saying, are we doing inbound or are we doing ABM? If you're doing ABM, you're doing inbound. It's they're they're they're they're kind of the same thing, only you're changing up, like, how you're actually focusing that audience. Right? Like, that's that's the thing.
Max Cohen:You're you're still creating content. You're still focusing on attracting, engaging, and delighting, but you're you're doing it in a way where, you know, you you have specific targets that you're going after. Right? But you gotta make sure you're, you know, you're you're doing that because, again, the the thing that the thing that is is the same between account based marketing and just doing, you know, general, you know, larger audience inbound, I guess, is what you you'd call in comparison to that, is that it's still human beings that you're selling to. That's the variable.
Max Cohen:It doesn't change. Right? It's the constant. So, you know, just keep that in mind. George.
George B. Thomas:Now I know you said one thing.
Liz Moorhead:What?
Devyn Bellamy:So You're
Liz Moorhead:so funny.
George B. Thomas:So listen. The the company humans mindset for me was was a thing. Like, I'm like, okay. I I can get behind this just a little bit more than where my brain let me go before. But also the shocking thing about this episode is we spent what I thought was gonna be a an obnoxious amount of time talking about the HubSpot target accounts, ideal client profile, company recommendations, like the tools, and we really didn't talk about the tools at all.
George B. Thomas:And this might be one of the highest humans mentioned episodes that we have. So that's where I'll leave it, is that it was less about tool, total mind shift around companies, and it really conversation that I love is about just create great content for humans that needs your help.
Liz Moorhead:See, that's why we need to have Kevin back because what I love about this episode I had the same thing. You know, I knew in this episode coming in that we were gonna be talking about the humans, our favorite little humans. You know, doing all their human things and making sure people understand that companies are just made up of humans as well. Humans with needs and pains and fears and goals and challenges and all of these different things. But one of my favorite things about this conversation is that we have a bunch of inbounders and a bunch of ABMers who need to understand we're all on the same team.
Liz Moorhead:And I think there's an assumption that is often made that we are speaking the same language when we are not. Like, we've had this episode on the calendar for weeks now, and Devin didn't realize that all of us were sitting here going, so ABM and inbound, those are different. Like, we consider them separate and different. And I think that's why I wanted this conversation to start here and why we will have Kevin back to talk about Tannus.
Devyn Bellamy:Why I need to check the
Liz Moorhead:I'm saying this live and recorded so you can't get out of it, Kevin. You're welcome.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:But that was really, you know, the big thing that excited me about this episode. I would say the biggest surprise for me and the biggest takeaway is that, honestly, it's really challenging me to rethink how I think about inbound in general. I think we tend to think about the reason why a lot of people think that inbound and ABM do not play well together is because they're operating with a 2,012 mindset. It's like, well, inbound, it is a blog, then it is a landing page, then it is an ebook, then it is a this. And inbound is is the reason why we talk about mindset so much on this show and in this episode in particular is that inbound cupcakes really is a state of mind.
Liz Moorhead:It is about genuinely being of service to people. And ABM is just taking that with more specificity a step further to be genuinely helpful. Because when we think about the things that we didn't like about traditional outbound approaches, it's not just the fact that we were getting spray and prayed in the face with a bunch of ads from companies that didn't care about us. It's because they were not showing that they genuinely cared about us at all. ABM is just caring very specifically about very specific humans.
Liz Moorhead:But, you know, whether you're a pebbled or a not pebbled type type of shower receptacle guy, you know, Kevin will be here for you. And on that note, thank you so much, Kevin, for joining us this week. George, you were very docile. It was terrifying. I'm sure I will pay for that next week.
Liz Moorhead:And to our listeners, love us. Leave us a review on your preferred podcast platform. Helps us get found. Also, I'm an only child who loves affirmation more than breathing. So, like, you know, throw us a couple times.
Max Cohen:Throw us six
Liz Moorhead:times a week. Anyway, but until next week. Validation. Until next week. Bye, everybody.
George B. Thomas:That was quite a Oh, that was Okay, hub heroes. We've reached the end of another episode. Will Lord Lack continue to loom over the community, or will we be able to defeat him in the next episode of the hub heroes podcast? Make sure you tune in and find out in the next episode. Make sure you head over to the hubheroes.com to get the latest episodes and become part of the league of heroes.
George B. Thomas:FYI, if you're part of the league of heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox, and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share this podcast with a friend. Leave a review if you like what you're listening to, and use the hashtag hashtag hub euros podcast on any of the socials, and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human, and, of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero.
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