HubSpot Is Now a Customer Platform ... But What the Heck Does That Mean?
Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by siloed departments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Are you held captive by the evil menace Lord Lack? Lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt, knowledge.
Intro:Never fear, hub heroes. Get ready to don your cape and mask, move into action, and become the hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the league of extraordinary inbound heroes as we help you educate, empower, and execute. Hub heroes, it's time to unite and activate your powers. Before we begin, we need to disclose that
George B. Thomas:Nope. We don't need need that. Also, by the way, before before I get into the actual true intro, ladies and gentlemen, the chat pane. Can I just say first of all, Chad, he says, can I just say that after a difficult week, I always love coming to sit, to the live recording of the Hub Heroes podcast? This is a place where I can really enjoy a great conversation between leaders in the industry and relax while still growing as a working professional.
George B. Thomas:Chad, can we just please get that as an actual testimonial and put it on the Hub Heroes podcast page? Also, Max, he says, where's the croutons and the racing wheel exclamation mark.
Max Cohen:No. Don't. He wants to know. Listen. I'll get the croutons.
Max Cohen:He wants
George B. Thomas:to know. He wants to which by the way, if you're watching this live and you're like, croutons, go back, watch a historical episode. It's a whole crouton episode.
Chris Carolan:I'm I'm participating live, and I'm like, croutons.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Croutons. So okay. Let's go ahead and get into the the real deal Holyfield. So we've been talking a lot over the past few months about how the HubSpot platform has changed.
George B. Thomas:I mean, we've been going at this, conversation from a number of different angles, if you will. We've talked about the rollout of the new content hub and what that means for the future of HubSpot as a CMS platform platform for businesses. We've even talked about how the inbound methodology has evolved over the years, both due to advancements in technology and global events, as well as added complexities around what the customer experience, with your brand should look like. But what has been very interesting about the messaging of HubSpot is a subtle shift in how they are talking about what HubSpot itself is. You see, for many of us, HubSpot began as an inbound marketing platform.
George B. Thomas:Then it was for, marketing and sales, and HubSpot began as this, like, you know, growth marketing and sales platform. And and and if I'm honest, I could just say and so on and so on and so on and so forth to the place that we're at now with all the hubs that we have. They started, even pushing this idea of grow better as a battle cry for businesses. And because it's not just about making money, growth should be sustainable and should be a result of creating genuine value. You know, solving real problems, not those imagined ones that some of us maybe see other organizations creating noise and nonsense around.
George B. Thomas:It's about genuinely being of service to the humans. That's right. I got it in right in the intro. Through education and whatever it is that we do or sell. Now we've all recognized that these changes have occurred, but it's only recently that HubSpot has put a more defined label that represents the shift.
George B. Thomas:They now call themselves a customer platform, and this is a much broader and more holistic term than we've ever heard used before. What makes this even more interesting is that in many ways, HubSpot has expanded to provide automation tools and internal, for internal teams. Now perfect example of this are the commerce hub and the operations hub. Hubs that on their surface do not seem to be customer facing, and yet here we are with HubSpot and the customer platform. And, Chris, as you know, I talked about this in the super admin training today for over ninety minutes of the, the commerce hub and how it kinda fits into customer experience, customer platform, and things like that.
George B. Thomas:So what is this subtle shift in how we talk about HubSpot, what it is really mean, and what is a customer platform anyway? Why does understanding this language matter, and how will this shift what we think about HubSpot as we go forward? That's exactly what we're gonna be, talking about today with one of our favorite friends of the podcast, Chris Carillon. Hey. Today that's right.
George B. Thomas:Give us some applause, Max. Today, we're thrilled to have you here, Chris. Let me just tell if the viewers, listeners don't know, from what I've gathered, you're a seasoned expert in the industrial marketing and revenue growth. Chris is also the founder our cofounder and head of revenue at Conveying Your Message, an agency dedicated to helping manufacturing companies thrive in the digital age. Fifteen years of experience.
George B. Thomas:I think I saw 15 HubSpot certifications over there too. And you you have a unique background that spans, material quality control, analytical instrument sales, and digital marketing. So I guess that makes you not just a marketer, but he's a problem solver, I think, too.
Max Cohen:Do you
George B. Thomas:like to solve problems?
Chris Carolan:I do. I do.
George B. Thomas:And you know the intricacies of HubSpot and the industrial business. Chris, is there anything that I should have added or I missed in your intro to so people know a little bit about you?
Chris Carolan:I mean, all that to say, I have been waiting for HubSpot to serve this whole platform role effectively ever since 2017 when they started rolling out Sales Hub and Service Hub and you know? But in your intro, when you say it's not just about the revenue and and cash anymore, it's actually never been about the revenue inside of HubSpot until you had access to something like Commerce Hub. Right? Now we can actually see and feel it. Because I can tell you on the outside of the marketing and sales department, when people are working in accounting systems and ERPs, I don't I don't care what your deal says for closed one amount.
Chris Carolan:That doesn't matter to me. Now we can bring that stuff in. We can start bringing those teams in. It is a great time to be using HubSpot, and I love it.
George B. Thomas:I love that. So, Chris, I'm actually gonna start with you because as everybody now knows, the topic of today's podcast is HubSpot as a customer platform. And and I wanna know what why are you excited to talk about this topic? Because one could say that it's well, it's a label or HubSpot is creating a category. But why is this important?
George B. Thomas:Why are you excited to have this conversation today?
Chris Carolan:Oh, man. I bet Max has never in his life been been in the role of the man. Right?
George B. Thomas:What? The man.
Chris Carolan:Yeah. Who's the man? But in the case of, like, this, you know, what a customer platform is versus the DNA of the ecosystem being very point solution, and it's the marketing tool. Right? When I hear Max, I think it's like, you know, but you could use it for for just, you know, emailing people if you wanted to.
Chris Carolan:Knowing that Max prides himself on customer satisfaction and Wait. Setting expectations, I'm not sure that we can tell people anymore that you can just use it for one thing. Because if you try to use it for emails
George B. Thomas:it's like, what's happening?
Chris Carolan:Hold on. Get smacked in the face When? With
Max Cohen:When? Oh, you could use this. Have you ever told me it's okay that I ever said it's okay to just use it for email, Chris? I I you you have any idea how much I fought that battle when I was doing implementations, and people were like, we got it to send a newsletter. And I'm like, what the you doing?
Max Cohen:Don't no. You know I'm not okay with that.
Max Cohen:Do do
Chris Carolan:I have to
Max Cohen:You know I'm not okay with that.
George B. Thomas:Do I have to separate the items?
Max Cohen:I love No. This is
Chris Carolan:why I talk to you.
Max Cohen:My boy right here.
Chris Carolan:You've been hitting on this several times and for good reason because we're running into this stuff all the time now, bad onboardings, just bad expectation setting because a lot of people just aren't familiar with what customer platform means. And, like, hey, When you're you still can buy HubSpot, and people will sell you HubSpot just to do emailing or sales.
Max Cohen:Right. Yes. Yes. And that that's a there's a problem there because sales reps, I love them. HubSpot sales reps, I love you.
George B. Thomas:I love how you looked at the camera for that piece right there.
Max Cohen:Love you, baby. Love you. Anyway, so the the the there is a problem, and it's I don't think it's because of of how HubSpot sales reps are. They're the ones that sell the product. Right?
Max Cohen:But their incentive is to say, what's the specific problem that you have? Yeah, we can solve for that. Do you want to buy it? Not what's the specific problem that you have? Yeah, totally.
Max Cohen:We can do that. But like, we can also do all this other stuff. You should be super excited about it. Make sure when you get it, that you're also doing this to get the most out of the thing that I'm selling you to accomplish your basic thing. Right?
Max Cohen:And it takes a certain type of person that can see that and get other people super jazzed up about it and excited, but the sales rep's job is to get the deal over the over the hump and get it to close one. Right? And the thing that gets problematic with that, and I suffered of this when I was a solutions engineer because I was the guy that came in that said, Yeah, sure, you could do all this stuff. But, like, there's so much more you can do with it that you're not even thinking about. The problem with that is that gets them overthinking it, right, and slowing deals down.
Max Cohen:In in this economy, companies don't wanna do that. Right? So it's it's it's tough. The other thing too is, like, HubSpot sales reps, they don't understand the depth of the sorry, most of them, especially newer ones. Right?
Max Cohen:They haven't played with this thing a lot. Right? You know, don't understand, like, the depth of what you can actually do with the thing. Right? Because how can it?
Max Cohen:Just the hugest tool of all time. You cannot expect the sales rep to come and be like, I know what every single corner of this thing can do. So it's it's hard to expect them to be able to do that like someone who's been consulting it for for a long time and sees the bigger value of it. Right? And you compound that with your job is to close pipeline, and you need to do that in the fastest, most efficient way possible.
Max Cohen:That means it's gonna leave it up to folks like us to get them to expand their mind on it. Right? It's hard to do in the sales process unless you have a partner guiding you through the first initial purchase of HubSpot that can see the forest through the trees, see that, oh, you you came to be saying you wanted to send a newsletter. But, like, that is the last thing you should be thinking about. Right?
Max Cohen:This all this other stuff. You know? So it's a weird dynamic, but, like, I agree with you, but that's, like, what's causing that. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Max Cohen:So I
George B. Thomas:love this idea of expanding, their mind and expanding the knowledge, which, by the way, as I ask this next question, I am gonna there's there there are some amazing words that happen in the chat pane, and I'm so happy that now because of some updates to the platform that we use, we can share it with the audience. Chad says the cash hitting the bank is king, by the way. So everybody can jot that down in your notepad. But but here's the thing. This is for all of us, but I'm gonna ask the question.
George B. Thomas:Maybe, Chris, you go, Max, then you go, and then I'll follow-up, on this one. And that's the when when we hear the term and maybe we go from the angle when we hear it or when customers hear it, HubSpot customers or potential HubSpot customers, the term customer platform, in your mind, what does that actually mean? So, Chris, you go first, and then, Max, you can follow-up.
Chris Carolan:The customer platform is the place where your customer processes start and end.
Max Cohen:Damn.
George B. Thomas:Just that ends. That's
Max Cohen:it. Damn.
Max Cohen:Okay.
Max Cohen:I'm, I oh, man. You this is tough because you guys are gonna probably cook me because you're the you guys are the customer.
Chris Carolan:That's what
George B. Thomas:makes a good show.
Max Cohen:That's what makes a good show. I can't wait. You guys are gonna yell at me so passionate.
Max Cohen:I I, I
Max Cohen:don't know. Right? Because, like, the thing there's part of my brain that's just like, is this like a new term that we're we're we're trying to come up with to make it seem more special than a CRM system, which it is, obviously. Right? Because it's like You know, the most basis example is, like, when is the tool that builds your website also powered by your CRM?
Max Cohen:Like, no one else does that. Right? At least that I know of.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Right?
Max Cohen:Yeah. And and part of part of your customer's whole, like, experience and, you know, experience isn't in the word customer platform. Right? So I almost think there's, like, some ways that that terminology hurts it versus helping it. Right?
Max Cohen:Because you gotta remember, like, you you gotta keep up with what customers are actually calling this thing. Right? They're looking for a CRM system. Right? And it just goes, well, we're not a CRM.
Max Cohen:We're a customer platform. And that might make people think about it on, like, a nuance level go, oh, well, then that's not what I'm looking for. I gotta use CRM. Right? And the other thing you gotta think about too is, like, where your customer processes start and end.
Max Cohen:I like that because I think you're a % right. But the question is is, like, are you doing anything differently now that it's a customer platform versus, like, what it has been? And I think I don't know if they call themselves a CRM or if they've officially kinda changed the name to customer platform yet. But it's it's not so much like, oh, well, you're still doing all the stuff that you're doing in HubSpot today, but we're calling it a customer platform. So, like, what does that really change?
Max Cohen:Nothing. I think it helps change the mindset of the users, though, which I think is incredibly important. Right? Because it gets them out of the idea of, like, oh, this is the tool our team our sales team uses to log their opportunities. Right?
Max Cohen:And it gets them more to the mindset of you create the entire experience journey processes, all of it within one system, and it touches all these things that need to be touched. Right? Your customer service and success process, your whole sales process, how your marketing team is operating, all that kind of stuff, plus the outward facing stuff that your customers are experiencing, your website, any sort of web experience that you create, all this kind of stuff. It it touches everything. Right?
Max Cohen:So I just don't I don't know. Because, like, I remember for a while ago, like, I remember hearing Dharmesh talk about it. Right? Where he's like, you're gonna see HubSpot move from customer relationship management system to a customer data platform. Yeah.
Max Cohen:Right? That was the kind of big CDP. Right? And there are other CDPs out there. Like, that is a category.
Max Cohen:Right? But a lot of it is, like, you know, really high performance data store and, like, you know, tracking a billion different, like, events and plugging all these other things that are feeding stuff into and stuff like that. But it's not a CRM like HubSpot is.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Max Cohen:Right? It's more like data housing and using that data and how you get it different places and sucking in and and, you know, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So, like, that didn't describe HubSpot. I don't think even though that was also when the whole conversation of, like, you're all on one platform thing was also kind of getting out there.
Max Cohen:Right? And then so when you think customer platform, I get it. I I sure think you could call it that, and that describes it. But the question is, does the outside world understand what that means? They've already had a tough enough time wrapping their heads around what HubSpot is today.
Max Cohen:Right? So I'm not sure. I don't have a while to put it.
George B. Thomas:A couple of things, and I I love by the way, I, personally, Max, am not gonna cook you. We'll see if Chris decides to still cook you after this. But here's the thing. There's so much that I love about what you said.
Max Cohen:Cooked me in his intro. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:There there's there's so much. I know. He was kinda going for you. It's like, in the right corner, beer number one in this yeah. So here's the thing.
George B. Thomas:There's so much that I love about what you were talking about. One, you're right. Originally, there was words like customer data platform being thrown out there. Those already exist. By the way, there's already customer experience platforms.
George B. Thomas:Those exist. So the fact that we slimmed it down and it's just a customer platform, I love this idea. I love the terminology. And, Max, to your statement of, we they don't know what it is. Sweet.
George B. Thomas:That's why, Chris, myself, and other HubSpot partners are making it a venture to actually educate people what a customer platform is. Hence, why we even started a HubSpot user group that is around, customer platform. So literally, you can go to YouTube. You can go look at the first, HubSpot user group that we had where it was like a conversational group. We were really talking about what the heck is a customer platform.
George B. Thomas:And, Max, the thing that I love most about that you were rattling around in your brain, and I was, like, thinking of you historical episodes and Devon historical episodes because you brought up the whole well, I'm looking for a CRM, but it's not a CRM. No. No. It's a customer platform that has a CRM, a CMS, and all of these other AI assisted by AI tools. Right?
George B. Thomas:So it's literally the launching pad for the things that you can talk about that it is. But what I think it being called customer platform helps is this problem right here, recreating your historical platform in HubSpot. Because now what happens is you're not mentally thinking CRM to CRM, so let's make it just be what we had, but in here. You're not thinking, email to email, so let's just make what happened there over here. You're literally saying as an organization, if it's positioned right, if it's educated on right, oh, we're moving from a and I'm using air quotes for all of you that can't watch this and are listening, a dumb CRM to a smart customer platform.
George B. Thomas:We're moving away from a dumb CMS, air quotes, air quotes, to a smart customer platform. Right? And we're, where we are moving to a customer data platform. We are moving to a customer experience platform, but it just happens to be called the HubSpot customer platform. So there are actually so many good nuggets in what you were saying, and I'm like, yep.
George B. Thomas:Yep. Yep. So, Chris, what were your thoughts?
Chris Carolan:Yeah. Like, one of the reasons I'm so passionate about, like, okay. It's gonna be customer platform. Let's try to define it. Is I got lucky a little bit after inbound when I first became aware of this phrase that they had it you know, it's one of it's one of those casual, like, slide ins are gonna start.
Chris Carolan:We're changing what HubSpot is as a category now. But I got to be on this AMA with Andy Petrie, and there was only, like, five people on the call. So it's, like, face to face, and I just got to ask him, like, why? What what's the plan? Like, are you guys
Max Cohen:Wouldn't that be a triple a? Ask Andy anything? Oh. Yeah. There you go.
George B. Thomas:I like that.
Max Cohen:Alright. Sorry. Anyway, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Chris Carolan:Go ahead.
Max Cohen:I'm hooking. I'm hooking yourself.
Chris Carolan:And he said, like, it was very purposeful. Right? They're not it's not a CRM anymore. I'll say outside of the usual spaces, Max, you say CRM. CRM doesn't have a lot of street cred, you know, in some of the manufacturing spaces.
Chris Carolan:So I'm fine with not trying to play that game, especially when you have ERPs and Monday.com, and everybody's a CRM all of a sudden. Right? Yeah. So
Max Cohen:I like what Nick said in the chat, though. CRM is a noun. It's not a verb or isn't a noun. It's a verb. Right?
Max Cohen:Where it's like, it's something you do customer relationship you manage customer relationships in it. And I think you still do that if it's a customer platform. Like, that's the action you're performing when you do any of that stuff. Right? But, you know, yeah.
Max Cohen:So, like I'm I'm my my brain churned up.
Chris Carolan:Because of of who I try to serve, I'm constantly trying to protect HubSpot from, you know, these other systems that say they are CRMs or do customer management or whatever, like ERPs especially, and what's been successful is basically if you're using CMS or not. Right? If you're not using CMS and it's not contextualizing your website, then then it is a customer communication platform that you're using. Because I haven't seen anything yet. I haven't heard of anything that can touch HubSpot when it comes to true communication management across all internal and external stakeholders.
Chris Carolan:Right? If you add CMS on top, now it is a customer experience, you know, management platform. And that seems to, like, get the attention because the next step and what I realized early on is, like, if I can't get the CEO or C suite to understand what HubSpot can be for their business, they they can't stop looking at it from a quick wins perspective. And it's like, oh, great. We we saved this we saved the sales team some some time.
Chris Carolan:Oh, we got we got to send more email blasts. Like, oh, that's where it's like at that point, it is a point solution accessory tool that is not integral to the business. And if I can get them on board, and they usually make it there to this customer process. Because, like, we can use, like, customer process or CRM, like, marketing automation, like, all these different terms. But for the people that don't that aren't in SaaS and don't know a lot of this stuff, if you say define your customer process, they will always be able to answer that question.
Chris Carolan:Right? If you try to go, like, how do you manage your CRM or customer relationships or like, it just adds a lot of different stuff to it. And that's what you know? So that's where I've had success, like, understanding that, it can be a bunch of things. So I do think it's the challenge.
Chris Carolan:Like, there is nothing out there called, like, customer platform only. Mhmm. And that's why, like, I love the path, and that's where it is our it's on us Yeah. To to define it.
Max Cohen:So this is this is so what what's interesting here is, like, like, I think, you know, if you're someone who's selling HubSpot, and I think this is more for, like, a partner to do because I don't know if direct reps are gonna, like, do this just because the nature of what their metrics look like. They have to close pipeline. Right? And then they have to do it fast and in complicated, frictionless way. Right?
Max Cohen:But, like, I think getting people to see the bigger picture. Right? It's the conversation that needs to happen is it's not what's ailing you right now. Right? It's like, oh, like, I, you know, I I cut my finger.
Max Cohen:Right? Well, what you need is a Band Aid, but I'm gonna sell you a whole hospital, right, that has a Band Aid in it. That's not great. Right? But I think what you need to be asking folks is more so regardless of the software you use, take software out of the out of the conversation.
Max Cohen:Right? What's, like, the long term goal for the business and what's stopping you from getting there? Right? Because it's what's stopping them from getting there is not like the sales reps hate sending the same email over and over again, and so we have this thing called snippets. Right?
Max Cohen:It's this is where I wanna get the business to, and here's all the things in between that are stopping that from happening. And when you know what that is, right, then it's easier to get to someone to be like, okay. All those things you just described that are gonna that are impeding you in your progress down the yellow brick road to, like, get to this ultimate place you wanna be going to ours. Alright. This platform solves for all of those things.
Max Cohen:Right? Sure. Your your your sales reps need to be more efficient. Like, whatever it is, great. But, like, if if you wanna be able to sell someone the vision of what a customer platform can do and what HubSpot can do as a whole versus just saying, I've got this point solution inside of this gigantic solution that solves a million other things.
Max Cohen:Right? When you only need that point solution piece, they're never gonna get the full value or see the full picture or get the full understanding of it. Right? So a lot of times, like, how you frame the conversation. Problem with sales reps is they're not gonna do that.
Max Cohen:They can't do that. Like, that that just slows everything down for them, and it makes it really, really tough. So they have to do the, let me sell you a hospital to fix the cut on your finger instead of just the Band Aid. Right? Or disguise the hospital as a Band Aid, which is impossible.
George B. Thomas:And it and it's interesting, Max. You say sales reps, but my mind this time when you said that, and it hadn't historically done this. Sales reps could make mean HubSpot sales reps. Sales reps could mean actual partners who have sales reps who are trying to do demos. And so so, like, this isn't just a HubSpot problem.
George B. Thomas:This now becomes a a ecosystem problem because it threads out through the partner, ecosystem and conversations as well. Okay. Okay. So I wanna I wanna dive on what I'll think is a layer deeper because my question and it's kind of a two part question, but really the main point is the last question I'm gonna ask. And that's like, does seeing HubSpot as a customer platform now opposed to whatever we thought it might be before mean anything?
George B. Thomas:And what I'm really asking in that is, does this mindset shift from what we thought it was to now it's a customer platform, does it translate into any increased ROI of any kind?
Max Cohen:I know a cool app you made recently that that does that. Oh, does it? Yeah. Do you? Yeah.
Max Cohen:It's pretty safe.
George B. Thomas:Who who made it?
Max Cohen:So wait. Wait. Wait. So wait. I'm I'm trying to like, Chris, if you have thoughts on this, go because I'm trying to understand fully the question because I hate talking about
Chris Carolan:ROI every way possible. That's it. Nothing's a perfect science. Problem. Like, ROI and this is a part of this challenge.
Chris Carolan:ROI
Max Cohen:is one of the hard like, it's always the
Chris Carolan:thing that, like, black and white. It's like, oh, yeah. This is, like, 10 x, like or or you're gonna cut it by 10. It's like on paper, like, especially before this, like, seat pricing change where, like, it was no contest almost anytime you compared HubSpot to Salesforce straight up. It was like, you're gonna save a bunch of money.
Chris Carolan:Like, why are we even talking about this? But ROI, since it's not easily, like it requires calculation. So, inherently, it's just a harder conversation to have because everybody views return and investment differently. Yes. This is
Max Cohen:And it's sometimes stuff you can't put into a math equation. That's the problem.
Chris Carolan:And that's where, like, one of my favorite places to go that that should work, and it it just it doesn't for all the a lot of the reasons that we're talking about is, like, payment links. Right? Everybody that is a HubSpot user has access to this tool
George B. Thomas:Yep.
Chris Carolan:For free if they're willing to use HubSpot payments in Stripe or Stripe. Right? And I was testing this back in 2021, and I got CFO approval immediately. Right? But I had to start talking to the financial team, which Yeah.
Chris Carolan:Is, like, 95% of the ecosystem is not used to doing, and they actively try to avoid exactly when because I had to tell them. I was like, hey. I'm not asking for a whole, like, sale process change here. This is what's gonna happen. We're gonna get, like, 10 extra transactions, and this person who does reconciling at the end of the month has one extra statement.
Chris Carolan:It's gonna take her five minutes to reconcile. Yeah. If we do this, we are satisfying our sales team who is tired of of quoting these simple parts, our service teams who's tired. These processes take days. It's gonna impact, you know, resell metrics, upgrade, all the goals that we say that we have, right, for this tool that we already have access to.
Chris Carolan:Right?
George B. Thomas:For free.
Chris Carolan:And that's where, like, that's the difference. That's why I think Commerce Hub is so impactful and why it's actually different now because that would that revenue clarity was not in HubSpot. It just wasn't. And that automatically reduced the value of HubSpot to everybody after close one. Right?
Chris Carolan:So that is a difference. But, you know, kind of bringing everybody in, it's like the same people that are asking customer facing teams to work out of an ERP. Like, that's should click right away. It's like, oh, they get to work out of HubSpot instead. Of course, there's time, effort, ROI there, but it just never works the way that we want it to.
Chris Carolan:Right?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Max, your thoughts.
Max Cohen:Well, yeah. I mean, kinda like Chris said, it's like, I always thought the ROI conversation is so it's I'm not I don't wanna call it pointless. I always just think it's silly. It's a trap. Yep.
Max Cohen:But, you know, again, some people when they say, well, what's the ROI of HubSpot? They literally mean, how much more money am I gonna make, right, based in you know, compared to what am I spending on this thing? And it's like, how how the hell should a should a sales rep have any or, like, anyone have, like, any sort of authority to answer that question? Because, like, you like, how am I supposed to know how well you use the thing? Right?
Max Cohen:How am I supposed to know, you know, the future? Right? Like, what happens if things outside of it happen and, like, you you know, that you can't HubSpot can't control, all of a sudden you can't sell anything. Right? We had something happen recently that probably threw off a lot of people's ROI production, right, called the pandemic.
Max Cohen:Right? Like, it's so it's so goofy because I could never feel, like, genuine answering that question because I'd be lying to someone. Right? And, you know, this and and even too, like, I I just felt like when I got asked it, I the majority of people that would ask me that question, when they would just say, what's the ROI of HubSpot? It's like, do you even know what you're asking?
Max Cohen:You know what I mean? Like, do you literally mean, like because because to ask that question means I know how much more money this person should know how much more money my reps and my folks and my whatever is gonna generate in the future. Right? Which, sorry, no one's a psychic. That that that doesn't exist.
Max Cohen:Right? Like, so it's just such a goofy question. And then on top of, like, what Chris said too, I I would have people that say, what's the ROI of HubSpot? And I'm like, oh, well, I could give you, like, the HubSpot marketing, like, ROI calculator on the website, which is just like don't get me wrong. Well designed, totally beautiful, really simple.
Max Cohen:But, like, only an idiot is falling for that. Like, only an idiot is falling for that. Right? And someone who doesn't really care about the genuine, like, what can we do that could be really great with this thing? It's like, oh, I gotta justify it to people that are asking what the ROI is because it's a question you gotta ask to check the box.
Max Cohen:Right? And the other thing too, so, like, sometimes, like, wait. Are you asking for ROI from, like, a money in money out, this much more increase, whatever perspective? Or are you saying and is is like, what is the return to you? What is the investment?
Max Cohen:What does that mean? Is the investment literally what you're paying for the software? Or is it in the investment in the time and the effort and the whatever it takes to get to do something? And is it return more, oh, well, now you can do this this thing easier or better or more efficient, or you can communicate with people in a diff is that the return? Or are we literally talking to I hate the conversation so much.
Max Cohen:And maybe it's because I'm too stupid to understand that. I am totally okay with that being the case. Right? I failed all my accounting classes in college, but I just I it's so cringe because there's no way I could give you a genuine answer, and I don't lie to people. I don't.
Max Cohen:And it's it's like I couldn't do that part of the sales process because it's just like, I know it's all, you know, bullshit, and it's it's whatever. But I don't know.
George B. Thomas:So I'm So it's funny because, I I love where you guys went with this, and I'm gonna go ahead and just kind of what you all what both of you have been dancing around, is this idea of ambiguity. Right? And and so here's the thing. What's the ROI of a football? In my hands, not much.
George B. Thomas:Walter Payton, Tom Brady, a metric but ton. A metric I did it for you, Max. A metric but ton of ROI. What's the ROI of HubSpot in your hands or mine?
Max Cohen:Okay. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Because in my hands, there's gonna be a lot of ROI. In your hands, depending on who you are and how long you've been using the system and what you know from tactic, strategies, and building relationships, I don't know how to answer that. But so we gotta be careful because I agree there's this level of ambiguity. However, what I will say is that when I think about HubSpot and when I think about this, transition to customer platform and I think of return on investment, where my brain has gone for years when I hear that is I I am with you too. I hate ROI, but I love ROR, return on relationships.
George B. Thomas:And here's the thing. The customer platform will allow you to build better relationships because you're gonna be focused on creating better experiences for what HubSpot is calling the customer platform, but I today am standing out on a mountain and letting you know that it's a human platform. Right? It's a human platform that you're gonna use to build relationships, which then you're gonna actually drive more revenue, and then you can say, woo wee. We got a lot of ROI out of that their HubSpot customer platform.
George B. Thomas:That's how this is gonna go. Alright. So the other thing, though, that I wanna hit upon is, Chris, you talked about and, I mean, dude, you went right by it. Like, just threw it out there and kept on rolling. You started to have conversations with humans that you hadn't historically had to have conversations with, the finance department.
George B. Thomas:This goes into I have been talking Max, I think the first time I said it was, like, a couple months ago on one of our podcast episodes. Stop using HubSpot like it's HubSpot because it's not HubSpot anymore. It is a different beast.
Max Cohen:And so This ain't your granddaddy's HubSpot.
George B. Thomas:This ain't your granddaddy's HubSpot. So so what I wanna lead into is where does your guys' brains go in terms of how the idea of HubSpot customer platform shifts our mindset of how we think about and more importantly, how we use HubSpot because now we start to, in our mind, think about it as a customer platform that happens to have a CMS, that happens to have a data platform, that happens to have a CRM, that happens to have service sales and marketing tools in it? Like, what what are the changes in the brain that need to happen?
Chris Carolan:I'm a let Max get this right away.
Max Cohen:The change in the brain, I think, like, it's dude, you know how many people that I've talked to that have just been stuck in the Salesforce universe that still just think HubSpot's a marketing tool? Right? That's the thing. People won't be able to wrap their head around customer platform because they they they forgot everything. They didn't see everything HubSpot turned into.
Max Cohen:Right? So it's easier for people who have been in the ecosystem and watched this for a long time. Right? And and go, oh, oh, oh, brick by brick. This thing is being able to be a lot more than just like a a marketing tool.
Max Cohen:Right? But it's
Chris Carolan:Who who is it easy for? I'm not seeing anybody out there.
Max Cohen:No. I'm just saying the people that I'm I'm talk dude, I'm talking about the people that, like, follow this and, like, lick lick the screen every time someone comes
Chris Carolan:up with a video.
Max Cohen:You know
Chris Carolan:what I mean? They still don't know
Max Cohen:how to sell
Chris Carolan:off the car.
Max Cohen:For those it's easier for those people than the folks who've been living in the in the big blue cloud land forever and just think, oh, this is the thing that makes leads show up in my Salesforce. Right? Obviously. Like, it's gonna be easier for those. And the thing that I think of, Salesforce is gigantic.
Max Cohen:I feel like there's a lot more people in that category than a lot more, you know, you know, people who look at the product updates page and, like, check it first thing every morning when they're having their their coffee. Like, there's a total difference between those folks. I'm just saying it's easier. I'm not saying you got it all figured out. Right?
Max Cohen:But there are at least people that have paid attention attention to the evolution of this thing versus people that could be great users of HubSpot and could be great champions of HubSpot, but they've existed in the world that has told them for years, this is just like the marketing tool. It's kinda better than Marketo or Pardot or whatever. Right? And and they don't know what the has happened over here while they've been living in Salesforce the entire time. And And just hearing tons and tons of people go, oh, you grow out of HubSpot eventually, or, oh, it doesn't scale, or, oh, it doesn't do this.
Max Cohen:Right? Like, you know, brainwashed. Right? So that's what I'm thinking.
Chris Carolan:Yeah. It would be nice to have some help from HubSpot on this one. Like because they've definitely created this problem by making a magnificent product very quickly that's way different than it ever was before. But they clearly have no control over the narrative of what HubSpot is and the position of HubSpot in the ecosystem right now or in the in the market. Mhmm.
Chris Carolan:Right?
Max Cohen:Why do you think all the spicy comment wars that happened between Salesforce super users and HubSpot super users are sometimes the only thing you see on your feed when you're existing heavily in any of these ecosystems? Right? It's because they think that we're playing with a Fisher Price, you know, cooking set. Right? When we're over here with a, you know, a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Diablo v five, whatever the heck.
Max Cohen:Right? They still think we're playing with toys. Right? Because all they know is, like, we're on the superior platform. Like so
George B. Thomas:yeah. So So there's a couple of things. One, y'all drove me to download a new sound. Like, hey. If you hear that sound, if you it's go to your corner.
George B. Thomas:Holy crap. It's beard versus beard on this podcast.
Max Cohen:We're not fighting. I'm I'm actually agreeing with
George B. Thomas:this guy. So so here's the thing. There's there's so much goodness, though, in this episode around this thing. Max, it's funny because literally you're making me recall a conversation that I had with one of our clients who we were doing onboarding for. And he literally said, why would I drive a blue pickup truck when I can drive an orange Ferrari?
George B. Thomas:In the understanding that the ecosystem has changed around the way that you have to think about these tools and platforms that you're putting into your your, business. And so so I'm I'm loving this conversation. We're gonna keep it going because, and, again, I I think we've created these questions, and we're throwing them out in a way that you you guys I am personally passionate about this.
Chris Carolan:Good job, Liz.
Max Cohen:Well, George And George, hold on. George, I think I cut Chris off, though, when I went on that last diatribe. So I wanna make sure, Chris, you finish your thought if I did cut you off, but I can't tell. Ow. I felt like I did.
Chris Carolan:To this next one.
Max Cohen:Alright. We're good at it.
Max Cohen:Alright. Beautiful.
George B. Thomas:Beautiful. I like how flexible you are, on the show, Chris. That's amazing. That's amazing. Okay.
George B. Thomas:So It
Chris Carolan:tries to
George B. Thomas:make it better than Humans. Oh oh, crap. Crap.
Max Cohen:Humans.
George B. Thomas:Historically hate change. Right? So when we think about this change, what do you guys think about the shift in what HubSpot has become and where it's seemingly, presenting itself that we're going? Like, I'll just ask that first. Like, what do you think about where we've been to where we're going?
George B. Thomas:When I when I ask that question, what are your thoughts?
Chris Carolan:I mean, it's
Max Cohen:This is Spokane. Already Mhmm.
Chris Carolan:It's already where it needs to be for me in terms of, like, it's it's circled the square. It has closed loop, at least in baby step functionality to actually provide a unified view of the customer, like, has never existed before, like, in any other platform in a way that you can deliver it to somebody and they can maintain it themselves. They don't need some managed services agreement, which automatically makes it the most affordable way to do it than has ever existed before. So now it's literally when when I saw them going this route, but also I'm always paying attention to this knowledge gap, the only thing that stops success at this point is HubSpot and its own ecosystem. Like, this this tool is so good.
Chris Carolan:Yeah. Obviously, I'm I'm excited about where we're going and the way they've integrated AI, like, and just, like, how lucky are we to have somebody like Dharmesh that can just, like, spin up and just focus on AI and and start just manhandling it into the platform. Right. Like, man, we haven't
George B. Thomas:So, Max, what what are your thoughts?
Max Cohen:Yep. Like, of where the platform's going?
George B. Thomas:Well, where it's been to where it's going. Like, in the journey. What do you think of the journey?
Max Cohen:Yeah. Oh, the I mean, it's been really cool to freaking watch of how it's just, like, you know, it it said, okay. Cool. We got really good at getting people here, which was like you you seeing the marketing hub mature, you know, to this point. And then it was like, okay.
Max Cohen:Cool. All these people are getting here. All these contacts are coming in. All this attention is being created, and this demand is getting generated. But, like, we didn't really have a way to then have the people that actually do the selling, like, talk to them.
Max Cohen:Right? So, like, the CRM came out. Sales Hub started to come out. Right? It's like, cool.
Max Cohen:We could start getting the sales reps, like, super efficient and everything. And then, like, the kind of end of the road there was like, oh, shit. These people turned people into customers. Right? It's like, well, how do we take care of that?
Max Cohen:Right? It's like, oh, Service Hub came around. Right? And, like, the whole customer journey could go get extended and a little bit further and, like, we could handle more of it. Right?
Max Cohen:And so what's interesting is if you look at it as the flywheel, right, which I still think is, like, you know, the ultimate basic you have to at least do these three things to, like, survive at all as a business. Right? Like, it it it has that full circle. Right? I think what's gonna be interesting is, like, how it goes deeper into the different chevrons of that circle.
Max Cohen:Right? You know, and, of course, they do things more, like, around customer experience with stuff. It's just how much better the CMS is actually getting or sorry, Content Hub is actually getting, like, with all of that. Right? And I think that's a really good example of them taking this thing that already existed, but going, like, 10 times deeper onto it.
Max Cohen:Right? You know, I think a lot about things like your your your delivered platform, Chris, where it's like, I can't imagine the amount of custom dev work that goes into build something like that. But dude, when is it gonna be where it's like, you can build these customer, you know, experience, like, applications, what's the word, declaratively, right, where it's like, I don't have to hire a dev to come in and, like, do all this stuff. Right? That's going to be really, really interesting.
Max Cohen:And then, of course, yeah, the advances with, like, AI and stuff and and and, you know, more big brained applications of how we can use information from all over the platform versus being, like, a specific feature for, like, one specific sliver of the tool up in a million different times. Right? Because it's it's everywhere. That's gonna be really neat. Like like, I talk about all the time where it's like, man, I can't wait for the day where someone that comes in to audit a portal and you can just say, hey, portal.
Max Cohen:What's wrong with you? And it goes, man, let me tell you. These guys suck at creating properties and actually using it. Or, like, whatever it means. Right?
Max Cohen:Like, that's gonna be crazy. But it's like, I have a hard time visualizing, like, what's the next hub besides something that feels more of like an ERP type hole. Right? HR. Where it's like or HR.
Max Cohen:Right? Well, you do user objects, your sets gotta be around the corner. Right? So it's more like seeing a lot of front office. Is there a need for them to index on the back office now a whole lot more?
Max Cohen:Right? And actually, like, help it become the operating system for your business for sure what your customers can see, but then all the stuff that your customers don't see, but you as the business leaders and people at the business see Yeah. And need to run. Right? Because it's like the flywheel stuff is, like, really how you're interacting with your customers.
Max Cohen:But there's lots of elements of running a business that you don't see on the flywheel. Right? Just because it has nothing to do with how your customers perceive you or go through some kind of journey. It's more like how you operate, right? And so I used to say this thing to people who would ask like, Oh, what are you most excited about?
Max Cohen:It's like, when I said, It's gonna be really wild when you see what HubSpot has learned about how it interacts with the outside world and takes all that knowledge, experience, ideas, and stuff they built and turn it inward. Yeah. Right? And, like, that's where I first started thinking about, man, user objects should be a lot better. Right?
Max Cohen:And you're seeing it fucking happen, which is crazy. We just got custom properties for user objects. Like, that is that was a huge, huge stepping stone. It seems so basic. But, like, when you when you when you watch HubSpot for a long time and you see how they build things brick by brick by brick by brick, and then all of a sudden they can do this big monumental thing, it's happening.
Max Cohen:The fact that people really cool.
George B. Thomas:Fact that most people aren't even understanding that workflows and lists are now objects in HubSpot and what that might mean in the future. Like, there's just so so but here's the thing.
Max Cohen:Okay. I mean, think about this. Think about one day if, like, HubSpot handles, like, how you pay your employees and then it can automatically factor in commission from deals because it's all in there. Right? Like that.
George B. Thomas:Or if it's HR and it's actually payroll because you're getting paid and paying out right in HubSpot. So here's the thing. I I got a couple more questions I wanna ask. But, Max, I love your flywheel analogy, and what's funny about this is that I actually I don't know why. My brain works in a weird way.
George B. Thomas:But you talked about, you know, the things that you don't see on the flywheel, and that's because it's either the stick or the air. Those teams are the things that actually stabilize the flywheel or make it move. That's what those other teams are doing. So they still have a part to play in the flywheel moving. So it is a it is a unified, full circle, customer platform that we're headed down into.
George B. Thomas:K? But Yep. We've arrived
Max Cohen:Someone's gotta hold the flywheel up is what you're saying. And if that person, like, loses a leg, it's gonna be harder to balance. If that person, you know, is is is waving around, it's not gonna, you know, catch the wind perfect. Like Yeah. Yeah.
Max Cohen:So Yeah. Now
George B. Thomas:I can't wait. I'm gonna hang on. Yep. Yep. It's still working.
George B. Thomas:It's still working. So we're here. We've arrived at that this point right now. What makes you guys nervous?
Chris Carolan:Lack of education. Like, it's just and this is where, like, I think they've got so many of the pieces in play, and I, like, I hope to god before they do any any back office stuff. Like because I don't think anybody truly realizes like, as long as it's difficult to explain what HubSpot is and what it can be for a business, it confuses the market and puts everybody as to selling it as to sell it in the point solution mindset because that's the only possible way I'm gonna be able to sell this thing easily. And I feel like they've got this just ginormous product team, which happened to be super knowledgeable about the products that they are building. So could we just just, like, you know, just just tap the brake or just let up on the gas just for, like, a month or two and get some of those experts on their products to just tell us about what the hell they're doing so that Kyle Jepsen is not the only person doing it.
Chris Carolan:Like, that's what makes me nervous because we hear it every day right now. Onboarding's going bad, you know, just misrepresented expectations left and right. And not I guarantee not everybody is finding one of these, you know, knight in shining armor agencies that we also can't stop hearing about to clean up the mess that somebody else made. And, you know, this agency might be great at cleaning up messes, but then this agency is talking about how bad that agency is creating messes. Right?
Chris Carolan:Clearly, this is happening enough where it's like, how I I just want them to care a little bit more about that. I don't I know it's a challenge.
Max Cohen:How do you incentivize care when you're incentivized by a a commission payment? It's hard.
Chris Carolan:Well, no. That's where it's it's not on the sales guy. It's not on the customer success people. It's this is a leadership thing where that's where, like, hey. Maybe there's enough money in enterprise and mid market, and we've got a timeline and just acquisitions, and that's clearly Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Here's what I'll say. Here's what I'll say before because, by the way, Max, you're not getting off the hot seat. I I wanna know what makes you nervous too, which, by the way, it sounds like what makes you nervous, Chris, is what you wanna see more of. But I'm gonna circle back around here in a minute and ask that question as well. But if you are I wish I had a Zoom in like Max.
George B. Thomas:If you are a HubSpot employee and you work on the product team, call us. We will have you on the show. We will ask you dope questions. We'll create amazing content together, and we'll educate the masses together so that they can truly align their brains to the awesome products that you're creating. It's hard to stay serious when Max is zooming in like that.
George B. Thomas:Oh my god. Okay. Max, what?
Max Cohen:Hit up your bonus. I'm on I'm on LinkedIn live every day.
Chris Carolan:You can have as many slots as you want. Like
Max Cohen:We're here. There's there's no there's nothing that'll make me clear a calendar slot quicker than a a a HubSpot product manager wanting to share their extremely valuable time with me. Yeah. Right? Like, you want feedback?
Max Cohen:I got I got buckets loads. Bucket loads. Of feedback, my guy. Yeah. Right?
Max Cohen:And always willing to share it with you guys. So please, my my time is your time. I will do anything for you. There you go.
George B. Thomas:Okay. Max, what makes you from us arriving here now, what makes you nervous?
Max Cohen:I mean, nervous about the well, yeah. I get nervous, like, it it make it relevant to the whole, like, customer platform naming thing. What I mean what gets me nervous is, like, did we fully see the transition of them being recognized as a CDP when they wanted to do that? No. I don't know if it was something that they tried to, like, very publicly, like, push or if it was just more internal conversations happening, say, we're gonna but, like, is when when is HubSpot going to, like, solidify its identity?
Max Cohen:Because we just moved to Smart Sierra.
George B. Thomas:Right.
Max Cohen:Right? We just started it was a new thing in inbound last year. Right? And, you know, I remember, like, talking to SEs being like, yeah. So we didn't know about this smart CRM thing now.
Max Cohen:And I got people coming up to the booth for a demo saying, well, what makes it a smart CRM? And they're like
George B. Thomas:give me a second. Google something real quick.
Max Cohen:It helps you not do dumb dumb stuff in it. Like, you know what I mean? And so it's it's tough because getting everybody behind a complete, like, identity shift of something as big and gnarly as HubSpot is. That is hard. So there's a piece of me that gets really worried that, like, it'll never land it where its identity is.
Max Cohen:I don't know if that's not a problem because maybe, you know, the identity of something that's constantly changing every single freaking day, it's okay to kinda say it's this now, but it's gonna eventually be this. And one day, it will be something else. Maybe that's okay. I just I don't I don't know. Right?
Max Cohen:So that freaks me out. I don't know why it freaks me out as much. But, you know, the big thing that we we talk about is, like, oh, how do we get everyone on the same page on what the heck this thing freaking is? But maybe we don't have to if it's different things for different people. Right?
Max Cohen:So Business one zero one. Oh god. Here we go. Ring the bell. This is
Chris Carolan:+1 01.
George B. Thomas:A minute.
Chris Carolan:Positioning. Right.
Max Cohen:Like like, if you aren't clear on your that's how every plan is supposed to start. Like, how many posts
Chris Carolan:have HubSpot themselves? And they I can't find anybody in there right now that can give me a clear definition of their position.
Max Cohen:So here's the but here's the pushback that I give for you. Some businesses just can't straight up can't afford what it is as a whole. Oh. You know what I mean? They can only afford a couple seats of the sales hub, and maybe that's what they need at that moment.
Max Cohen:Right? You know what I mean? So it's it's it makes it tough because it's like, yeah. Sunspot is this big, awesome, big,
George B. Thomas:beautiful thing. Now.
Max Cohen:But, like, are you gonna are you gonna be able to afford the
Max Cohen:whole thing?
Max Cohen:It's like a tiny startup with no budget. You're not gonna be able to.
Max Cohen:But that's the beauty of it, though, guys. That's the beauty of it.
Max Cohen:You can start small, and
Max Cohen:you can get better.
George B. Thomas:And No. As you
Max Cohen:need it and you evolve and as you succeed, you can add on more stuff and make it the thing you need at that point. No. Right? Yeah. But but also need to be in the mindset that that's the future.
George B. Thomas:Well, but here's the thing. Here's the thing. It kinda falls apart.
Max Cohen:Well, I gotta I have to push back I have to push back a meeting out right now. Just keep going. I'm lost.
George B. Thomas:No. We're almost done. We're almost done. I'm here's the thing. I can have rooms in a house.
George B. Thomas:I still know it's a house. So, like, you can have what needs to happen is the house, HubSpot, needs to be known, the identity of it. And, sure, you can sell it in a way, which by the way is I'll go back to what you've heard me say a couple times on this show. It happens to have this room that is a CMS. It happens to have this room that is a CRM.
George B. Thomas:It happens to have this room that is a data layer. It happens to have this room that for sales to be awesome and marketing to be awesome and so, But it's a house. So here's the thing. We're we're basically structuring the house as a customer platform. But now please educate us.
George B. Thomas:Give a Zillow listing of what the frick that means on this house. How many acreage? Does it have AC? Does it have a pool? Like, what the is it?
George B. Thomas:It still can
Chris Carolan:be a house. House.
George B. Thomas:It can still be HubSpot and have rooms.
Max Cohen:Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Okay. Here's the thing. Quickly, what do you wanna see more of? And then I'm wrapping this bad boy out so Max can get to his meeting and everybody else can get to the rest of their day.
Max Cohen:Pertaining to HubSpot, by the way.
George B. Thomas:Holy crap. I forgot Max
Max Cohen:on the podcast. See more of?
George B. Thomas:Pertaining to HubSpot, what do you want more of? Because it isn't croutons. The answer is not croutons, Max.
Max Cohen:I want I want them to, like, double down on their investment in the ecosystem thing. Right? You know, especially when it comes to, like, app stuff. You know, it it doesn't it doesn't run like, you know, the App Store on the phone oh, yeah, on your iPhone does. It doesn't, like there are a lot of things that, like, make it clunky and, like, difficult for app developers to kind of, like, you know, do what they need to do.
Max Cohen:I'm not gonna get into, like, the whole list or anything. But, like, if they want that marketplace to succeed, they've gotta double, triple down on that thing and, like, really make it change the narrative of, like, you know, it's, you know, the product's gonna do, like, a, you know, a lot of different things or universal more people, but, like, the point is you install apps, you install other stuff to make it unique to exactly what you need to accomplish whatever it is. And I don't know if, like, the HubSpot, you know, community in the in a in a massive sense is kind of, like, thinking about it that way, which is, like, funny because that's how it's always been with Salesforce. Right? You know, so I I don't know.
Max Cohen:I think there just needs to be a lot more done on, like, the ecosystem side of things. I wish I had a more specific answer. What do you want, Scott?
Chris Carolan:I think that's the answer too. And to help with the education, you know, maybe there's something like a HubSpot coach, you know, partner type out there or something to kinda fill this gap. Like, we definitely need people out there. Like, don't get me wrong. We need lots of people out there selling and servicing HubSpot because people are buying it and they need that help.
Chris Carolan:But not everybody needs to buy more HubSpot, and they can build stuff themselves. There's nobody in the ecosystem right now, incentivized to help them help those people.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And and and you know what, Chris? Just to add something real quick because I I got my stuff pushed back.
Max Cohen:It's, like, at first, when you were explaining that idea to me, I was like, it sounds like a solutions partner to me because they're consultants, right, in a certain sense. I know it's I know. I've reversed
George B. Thomas:my
Max Cohen:thinking on this, and I agree with you. Because the other thing you gotta think of too is what's the entry point for one man army consultants that don't have the bandwidth to do everything that a full agency with, like, a team of developers and a team of delivery people and a team of sales folks do. How do those people break into the ecosystem as someone who can really sit down and help someone craft out their vision and change people's minds and get them to look at HubSpot in a different way? Right? That's one.
Max Cohen:Gonna probably be more affordable for smaller companies or even bigger companies that, like, you know, need to be able to, like, afford, you know, a one person army versus, like, a giant team of devs and and and all these other people that just need to build something out and, like, give them the keys. Right? But it's also just, like, how do folks just getting into the ecosystem and are passionate about maybe one day being a partner agency or or or, you know, being able to make a name for themselves? How are those people getting, like, surfaced and and getting a spotlight on them and getting endorsed by the community? Because that is a very different thing than, you know, a, you know, a a HubSpot, you know, sensei that understands, like, how it all works and can have the right conversation with folks.
Max Cohen:For people who wanna be able to say, hey. We don't want someone to do it for us. We want someone to enable and empower us and make sure we're going in the right direction. I do think that's something different than just a HubSpot solutions partner that's gonna go do a bunch of custom work and build some stuff and hand you the keys. Right?
Chris Carolan:She hit the
Max Cohen:So and I know that it's not how all partners
Chris Carolan:do it.
George B. Thomas:Applause button. Right? I know. We need the we need the applause button on that. Oh, so so it's funny because, Max, I totally agree with you.
George B. Thomas:As somebody who has been teaching people how to fish since 2014 pertaining to HubSpot, there needs to be more of what Chris is calling for coaching. By the way, this is what I would want too. I would want more coaching. I would want easier, ability to build things. I would want, easier ability to build relationships, easier ability to drive more revenue, easier ability for it to be visible across the entire organization, adding transparency and unification to the internal humans.
George B. Thomas:But here's the thing, ladies and gentlemen. We have had a great conversation. What I love about this episode of the podcast is we went from the battle of the beards to them actually agreeing with with with each other at the end. So, hopefully, you agree with us. Let us know.
George B. Thomas:By the way, let us know what platform you're watching this on as we're now going live and have the audience chat, and we're super loving it. But remember, until next time we meet, by the way, next Friday at 3PM on the live channel that you're watching now or we'll watch because we'll tell you why.
Max Cohen:Wait. Wait. Wait. Aren't we aren't we Wednesday next week? Aren't we scheduled for Wednesday next week, or I'm I insane?
Chris Carolan:That's
Max Cohen:Yeah. Hub heroes on the thing. Nerd. Because it's July 4 weekend. Oh, my guy.
Max Cohen:Oh. American. Okay.
Chris Carolan:Got this got this extra level to plan for now.
George B. Thomas:That's right. That's right. So next week, it's Wednesday because there is
Chris Carolan:a
George B. Thomas:national holiday for us Americans, but, usually, it's Friday at 03:00. Until we see you next Wednesday, remember
Max Cohen:oh god. I get to do this. I get
George B. Thomas:to close because usually Liz does something in a poem. But ladies and gentlemen, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human and do some happy hubspotting along the way. Oh, I love doing that. Okay. Hub heroes, we've reached the end of another episode.
George B. Thomas: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. 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.
George B. Thomas:Leave a review if you like what you're listening to, and use the hashtag, hashtag hub heroes podcast, on any of the socials, and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human, and, of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's hero.
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