Allbound: Is It Inbound vs. Outbound Anymore? Do Even Labels Matter?
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 Devin is currently employed by HubSpot at the time of this episode's recording.
Intro: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.
George B. Thomas:There's no reason for that. Like, I can't wait till he's back, and I think He will be coming back. I can yes. And I can play the intro fully, but for right now, there's just no reason.
Max Cohen:Miss him.
George B. Thomas:I know. Dude.
Liz Moorhead:Miss you, Devin.
George B. Thomas:Devin. Yes. I was I was talking to Liz about this the other day. I'm like, man, where is he? Like, come on.
George B. Thomas:But, you know, it is what it is.
Max Cohen:Hold on. It it's just this is one thing. It's one one thing that I wanna that I wanna witness at Inbound this year.
Intro:Oh. Oh.
Max Cohen:The only thing that I have any vested interest in seeing happen. It's not products on this like, new products on the stage we didn't hear about. It's not, you know, seeing friends and all this stuff. It is watching the moment where Devin meets Ryan Reynolds.
George B. Thomas:Oh. Do you think do you think he'll wear the dead pool suit to inbound?
Max Cohen:Better. Because if he doesn't, I don't know what he's thinking.
George B. Thomas:I would be shocked.
Max Cohen:Yeah. I that is just Devon, if you're listening, I need to be there at that moment just to see Mhmm. What you do.
George B. Thomas:I'm in I'm envisioning, like, like, a like, you know how girls like, young girls are, like, a Bieber fan or, like, or, like, like, back in the day, it was new kids on the block or or, like, I'm just Oh, yeah. I was new kid. Yeah. Yeah. I'm envisioning, like or like a Swifty.
George B. Thomas:Like, I'm envisioning Devin, like, me not even knowing kind of who
Max Cohen:he is for Cooley.
George B. Thomas:The first couple minutes of, like, ah. Like, that means Like
Liz Moorhead:Donald Glover, it like like Donald Glover when he was Troy in community, and he meets LeVar Burton for the first time, and he
George B. Thomas:just stops. That's what I think.
Max Cohen:I think it's gonna be silent. It is.
George B. Thomas:It's gonna be beautiful. It's just a statue. A Devon statue in the middle of invalid. Well Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:Nature will be healing, folks. Nature will be healing. But we we have a different we have a we have a different conversation we needed to have today. And I'm so excited because, George, when we when we said the word of what we were gonna be talking about today, you're like, yes. I like this.
Liz Moorhead:And Max went,
George B. Thomas:I don't like this word.
Liz Moorhead:Not necessarily what it represents, but we are gonna have a little bit of a semantic argument. And Max likes, we don't need to get into them.
George B. Thomas:Oh god. Yes. We do.
Liz Moorhead:Yes. We do. Because ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about the marriage of inbound and outbound today.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:That's what we're talking about. And this is a topic we've not necessarily danced around in that we've been avoiding it. It's more that, you know, we've had we've had guests on who represent more outbound opportunities. Right? We've talked about direct mail.
Liz Moorhead:We've talked about SMS texting. We even George, you and I with our clients, we talk about the marriage Yeah. Of using paid advertising strategies to amplify inbound strategies, bringing those things together. And then when you and I had our conversation a few weeks ago with Kyle Jepsen talking about how HubSpot had changed, how inbound is evolving. He brought up a term with that I I I love a good branding term.
Liz Moorhead:I don't like things like smartening, but he said the word all bound. And I went
Max Cohen:Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:And there's Max's feeling. Max, Max, before we get into the conversation around the blending of inbound and outbound, could you could you put could you put some words to those sides? Like, let's What?
Max Cohen:You want me to define them? I have no freaking idea how to define them. I mean, this is, like, one of those things where it's like I remember we had that, person on to come around and explain, you know, what, account based marketing was. And I don't know if, like, we were all thinking the same thing, but I was sitting there just being, like, this guy just explained inbound. Like, like, we didn't it wasn't even, like, ABM.
Max Cohen:You know what I mean? And, like, we talked about it. We had a conversation around it. But, like, I don't know. The the Allbound thing like, if Allbound is just doing in I mean, I don't know I don't know how people are defining it.
Max Cohen:But if the answer is it's doing inbound and outbound at the same time, I'm kinda sitting here just wondering, like, hey. When we were, like, getting all these people into the idea of, like, doing inbound, it's not like they stopped doing outbound. So, like, is this really a new concept? You know what I mean? And I feel like it's just another one of those things to just be another marketing buzzword to fuel, like, the next generation of, like, AI assisted, you know, scraping and stuff like that.
Max Cohen:That is just like I don't know. It's kinda freaking me out a little bit. But I also don't know what it means, but I also hate, like what? Has everyone already forgotten about Nearbound that we were talking about, like, not too long ago with the whole partner led motion?
Liz Moorhead:Yeah. Exactly. I am today years old hearing about that.
Max Cohen:Was here, right, especially when, Rosie was talking about. There was this whole nearbound thing, and then I heard Matt Bolian over at Super, who I love, talking about, like, surroundbound. And, like, all this I'm like, dude, how many bounds do we freaking need, dude? And it's just like So there's too many. And I'm just like, stop calling things down.
Liz Moorhead:Sounds threatening.
Max Cohen:It's the new putting dot l y or dot I o at the end of your, like, business's name. Like What's name of your company? Not saying. There's no dot. Right?
Max Cohen:But we're not we're we're we're we're no better. Right? But, like, I don't know. Just maybe I don't know what all round is, but go ahead.
George B. Thomas:So so here's the thing. Like, first of all, I think we're gonna have that conversation of kind of what it is or at least when when I hear the word and when Kyle says the word, where my brain goes. Because I wanna step back for a second. I wanna talk about humans. And, usually, us humans are good at one thing and not necessarily good another.
George B. Thomas:And what I mean by that, Max, is most humans, if you stop and think about it for a second, we're really good at living in the land of or. We're gonna do this. We're gonna do that. And I will tell you that I can remember when people started talking about content marketing and then inbound marketing showed up, you would see articles, about how print design is dead and it's dying and people quit placing ads in magazines. And, you can drive down the road and because of what happened with inbound, there are a plethora of wooden large boards that have nothing on them, down the freeway because people did or we're gonna do inbound because we're not gonna do what what we thought we were doing no longer works.
George B. Thomas:This is the new way. And, again, humans live in the ore. What what I think we're talking about today is that business has, especially in today's environment, it's there's no other word. It's freaking challenging. Like, things are always changing.
George B. Thomas:Humans are changing. Like, it's just crazy. And so I think what we're almost saying at a fundamental level is have we have reached a point, not have we, but we have reached a point where, like, it's less about or and it's more about and. Mhmm. But but when we're talking about the inbound and outbound, it's inbound and out bound with modern buyer, human human centric, servant based strategies that can be measured in ways that historical, air quotes, outbound people weren't doing.
George B. Thomas:So, like, it's a this and this with two x three x amplifiers on the thing that we left behind long ago.
Liz Moorhead:So here's what I wanna jump in here for a moment. So it I know we're getting caught up in the semantics of it here. And, Max, I do hear what you're saying. It's like every, what, two to six months bound. Some marketers yeah.
Liz Moorhead:Somebody's somebody's running
George B. Thomas:My turn.
Liz Moorhead:Out of a yeah. Somebody's running out of a of a meeting going, I've got it, guys. I've got it. I spent a bunch of time with a whiteboard and a marker, and I figured it out. And they have a new name for something of something that we're already doing.
Liz Moorhead:Are you making fun of me right now? No. You just you just, like, take a nap and found a company. Like, I have to watch it. I can't Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:I can't leave you alone for too long, or I'll start getting things like, hey. Look. I wrote a whole book while you were asleep.
George B. Thomas:I'm
Liz Moorhead:like, wait. What?
George B. Thomas:There might be a fourth company on the way, by the way. But anyway okay.
Liz Moorhead:What's the third? No.
George B. Thomas:I mean, well, we've got George b Thomas LLC. We've got Sidekick Strategies, and we've got Beyond Your Default. We literally already have three companies, but there might be one
Max Cohen:that I'm not gonna work. George's, wacky, all bound emporium. It's gonna be a new one.
George B. Thomas:Yes. That's the next
Liz Moorhead:wacky, waving, inflatable, or wailing tube men?
George B. Thomas:Hang on. Let me let me let me check the, let me check the domain if that's available.
Max Cohen:Yeah. George's George's wacky, wild, Allbound Emporium.
George B. Thomas:Oh, I'm I'm gonna trademark that.
Max Cohen:Can you
Liz Moorhead:set up a can you set up a booth in club inbound with wacky waving inflatable See
Max Cohen:if someone's already bought All Boundly. Please. I guarantee it.
George B. Thomas:All Boundly.
Max Cohen:All Boundly. No. No. You know what? I'm checking it.
Max Cohen:Let's see. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:I'm looking it up. All Boundly. Guys?
Max Cohen:All Boundly.
George B. Thomas:If it's available, there's a party happening. Like, we're gonna top off.
Max Cohen:Be reached. Let's see. Let's go
Liz Moorhead:I'm going to go daddy. Let's see what they got. What do we have?
George B. Thomas:Real time domain searching. That's what you signed on for, ladies and gentlemen. We're we're literally
Liz Moorhead:Remember that time I was driving? Remember that time I was driving the car? Yeah. It's unavailable. Oh my god.
Max Cohen:It's Guys, it's unavailable.
George B. Thomas:Somebody bought it.
Max Cohen:I hate everything, dude. I I'm slightly getting sick
George B. Thomas:to my stomach.
Max Cohen:Everything. This is like so like oh god. And you know they've probably gotten, like, seven seven offers for, like, a million dollars for that domain. I literally hate everything. Yeah.
Max Cohen:Oh, wow. IO's available according to Chad. That's wild. That's gonna be gone in two seconds. Chad, buy it.
Max Cohen:Make a bad day.
George B. Thomas:Chad, let me go buy it, and I'll be right back, guys.
Max Cohen:Oh my god.
Liz Moorhead:Okay. Alright. Well
George B. Thomas:Chad, grab that domain. I'll pay you back in sandwiches.
Max Cohen:I'll pay you back $7,000.
Liz Moorhead:Pickle and peanut butter sandwiches,
George B. Thomas:whatever that is in inbound. Yes. Yeah. Let's go. Brother.
George B. Thomas:So excited to know why we're here. We should we should who's driving this car?
Max Cohen:Dude, Liz.
Liz Moorhead:I don't know. This is the captain. No. What are you talking about? I don't know.
Max Cohen:I don't even think
George B. Thomas:we're in the car right now.
Liz Moorhead:No. Well, let's get away from the semantics of it for a second because I think you bring up a really good point, Max. Like, we have this kind of, like, nomenclature. Like, do we like the name? Do we not like the name?
Liz Moorhead:Doesn't really matter. Let's step away from the name for a moment and talk about the principles behind it because we started in the inbound ecosystem of, like, in outbound's bad. Don't do it anymore. The only way is inbound. You have to earn everything.
Liz Moorhead:And we're starting to see this creep back toward the center. This starting to creep back toward moderation. So, George, I actually wanna start with you for a moment. Has your position evolved with the idea of inbound versus outbound or inbound and outbound? Like, did you start as a purist and then bring outbound methodologies back into the fold, or have you always been a an all boundly kinda guest?
George B. Thomas:No. God no. Literally, when 2012, HubSpot inbound, I was like and by the way, you have to remember, I come from, like, print design, like, first. Like, that's my mentor, Eric Jacobs, literally was like, we were designed. And then in 2012, learning about HubSpot and inbound, I literally was a org guy, Max.
George B. Thomas:That's why I brought that up. Like, I'm like, oh, let's go do this thing. It's shiny, and it's bright, and it's inbound, and it makes sense because I hate freaking phone calls when I'm eating dinner. And I I hate spam messages and direct like, yeah. Let's hop on this train.
George B. Thomas:And so literally to the point if and if you if you've been in this space for a while, there didn't always used to be an ads tool because ads wasn't inbound, ladies and gentlemen. Like and then all of a sudden, the ads tool showed up. No. No. No.
George B. Thomas:There was many a year where ads was looked at by inbound purists of, like, oh, that's kind of like a, I don't know. That's interruptive. Interruptive. Doesn't even matter. Inbound.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. And and and so so, like, I think about this, and I I literally was like an inbound purist. And then all of a sudden ish started to change. And, like, some of the things that were just die hard tried and true inbound strategies, all of a sudden you start to hear people, which sometimes they were doing it for effect, x y z is dead.
Max Cohen:And you're
George B. Thomas:like, well, that's part of inbound.
Max Cohen:Like, that was The best part the best part was when you'd see inbound marketing is dead. Go read my blog post and download my ebook to tell you why. It's like, you're insane.
George B. Thomas:Like, dude or dudette, you're like an idiot. You're literally using the channel to talk about the thing instead. Anyway
Liz Moorhead:So no. My personal favorite hold on. My personal favorite is when everybody was going after SEO is dead. Here's why. But it was called SEO is dead because that's the term that people were searching for.
George B. Thomas:Yes.
Liz Moorhead:So they were only getting all the traffic to the SEO is dead content by optimizing for SEO
George B. Thomas:is dead. Crazy.
Liz Moorhead:I just love everything.
George B. Thomas:So here's the thing, though. Right? If I think about this, then all of a sudden I started seeing things, working with clients, where all of a sudden there was these massive successes. Like, one historical client, we went ahead and did a print ad in a magazine. And we sat back and we had, like, a oh god moment.
George B. Thomas:I have another client right now that one of the best sources for lead generation Billboards. I kid you not. And so all of these, like, historical outbound tactics that people left to the wayside that all of a sudden got real quiet because there wasn't a lot of competition, now the folks who that are are have embraced inbound, embrace the methodology philosophy of inbound, but also are starting to play or tease in these other noncompetitive areas that still have viewership's eyeballs can gain attention, now all of a sudden there's becoming this understanding that there's actually probably a healthy mix of certain strategies on both sides that when combined create potentially a more powerful strategy mix for a business than just inbound or just outbound. And therefore, we get to coin a phrase that makes Max itch called allbound.
Liz Moorhead:Tell me more how you love that phrase, Max.
Max Cohen:But I don't love the phrase. I I, I mean, am I so am I just to, like, make sure, like, I'm understanding how we're defining it is, like, are we saying all bound oh my god. It's a huge spider. Oh my god. I don't like that at all.
George B. Thomas:Oh, yes.
Max Cohen:I love spiders. God. How am I gonna do this now? Oh, anyway. Alright.
Max Cohen:So, I mean, is the way that I'm under dude, it's a huge, huge spider just swept by this.
Liz Moorhead:Are you just gonna be worried the whole time? You're gonna sit here trying to dispense, like, inbound advice. You're worried you're about to get eaten alive.
Max Cohen:I hate spiders so much, dude. Holy crap. Okay. What was I saying before I saw that dog walk across my wall? I think, like, the
George B. Thomas:You were saying, like, how how are we defining So, like,
Max Cohen:they may you know, if we kinda had to smooth brain this down just for me, like, is it is are we just saying, like, alright. Allbound is, like, you're doing inbound, plus you're not doing shitty outbound?
George B. Thomas:Well, here here here's the deal. Like, inbound market is
Max Cohen:because, like, what because vaults you around. Because I feel like that's what I was telling everybody to do forever even if they were doing inbound. So I'm like, me sitting here, I'm just like, wait. You might
George B. Thomas:have been the creator. You might have been the creator of Allbound. You just didn't name it.
Liz Moorhead:Founder. Founder. Dot I o.
George B. Thomas:I was just deploying common sense.
Liz Moorhead:L I.
Max Cohen:I was just deploying common sense because when I would get customers that would have the marketing come and say, cool. Here's a great way to, like, you know, get folks leads that actually wanna talk to you. And they're like, you know, I don't think anyone ever said, should our salespeople stop doing what they're doing? And if they ever did say, I'd be like, no. This is just another way that they can get, you know, better fleets back then.
Max Cohen:Like
George B. Thomas:Well well well, first of all, we gotta be careful because as much as I love the Humans. Sometimes when we use the word common sense Yep. And, it doesn't even seem so common. It it's not so common sometimes, because we're we're, again, we're really good at getting blinders on and following the shiny object and having the squirrel moments. But but, Max, if I can step back for a second, like, when I think about inbound marketing, inbound marketing revolves around creating a mag a magnetic force.
George B. Thomas:Literally, if you remember back many well, several inbounds on stage, they've had some type of magnetic or magnet in a in a PowerPoint presentation that, and it's it's to naturally draw customers to your brand. It's by, offering helpful, relevant content, and it positions your business as a trusted adviser guiding potential customers through their decision making process. We call it the buyer's journey. And this method is more about engaging with the customer on their terms in a way that feels natural and organic. K?
George B. Thomas:So if we take that thinking and then we're just like, let's run over here real quick to outbound. Outbound marketing is the classic approach where businesses broadcast their message to a broad audience hoping to capture the attention of potential customers. It's more aggressive strategy often associated with pushing products or services directly to consumers, whether they're actively looking for them or not. While it can be effective for brand awareness, immediate sales, it often lacks the personalized touch of inbound marketing. So here's where we get to the crux because now we've, like, looked at inbound, we've looked at outbound.
George B. Thomas:When we use the word All bound. I'm gonna I'm gonna start doing that for Max just to give him a little extra oof with it.
Max Cohen:I thought you dare. But allbound marketing all
George B. Thomas:allbound Wait.
Liz Moorhead:I wasn't on mute when I just screamed, did I? Because normally I try to keep myself on mute.
George B. Thomas:You are not muted. You're like, oh my.
Liz Moorhead:That was violent. That was violent.
George B. Thomas:So outbound marketing is this comprehensive approach that recognizes the strengths of both inbound and bound outbound marketing but redefines them through this. And this is, I think, the important part that I would want everybody to get. It redefines them through a customer centric lens, and it's about using outbound tactics in a way that feels as personalized and valuable as we've been doing with inbound and making sure inbound efforts are as scalable and impactful as historical outbound ones could be. The allbound strategy ensures that every touchpoint with the customer is designed to add value, foster trust, and be measurable, creating a cohesive experience that aligns with the customer journey. This approach not only drives growth but also builds lasting meaningful relationships with your audience.
George B. Thomas:That's how I would take and, chunk these three out amongst each other.
Liz Moorhead:I have a question even though I'm the one Yeah. Ask the question. Yeah. So okay. Because I kinda I see what Max is saying in that we're putting a fancy label on something that I think a lot of people are also naturally organically doing.
Liz Moorhead:But is this a situation where we spent, what, almost a decade saying that inbound was not only the way, it was the only way, and we we rejected everything else. And now we're trying to kind of walk it back and be a little bit like, so my bad. Well we don't wanna get rid of everything.
George B. Thomas:You can tell me that.
Liz Moorhead:Don't wanna get rid of everything. And and now we're putting a nice label on it and pretending like we founded something new.
Max Cohen:But but
George B. Thomas:I I mean, you could you could well, first of all, we gotta be careful because while we might have been thinking this way, I can tell you that I've worked with hundred, if not hundreds, of businesses that have not been thinking this way. But if I go into what you're kind of laughingly saying, Liz, yes, we could we could sum this up in
Liz Moorhead:whoops. One might say that. Whoops. Like, that's that's where it gets real that's where this gets very interesting for me because and what you just said there. Right?
Liz Moorhead:I have not gone a single day, month, week, or year in the inbound space without having a client or having a conversation where a blended methodology was either recommended, considered appropriate, or there was pushback on the just totally pure inbound only forever and ever type of approach. Right? And so it it's it it I'm I know this is kind of like a half baked idea that I'm getting at, but it's like, did we just take ourselves to all bound therapy and figure out as the practitioners of this that maybe we should have a more diverse toolbox?
George B. Thomas:I well, yes. I do believe diversity in strategy, especially in the world that we live in right now, is at a it's paramount. Because trust me, as somebody who is trying to do this and, have happy humans inside, happy humans outside, and figure out all the ways to make it successful, I I I need more strategies. I need more ways to
Max Cohen:do this. George, can you can you read the tail end of that, like, the the last thing you were saying of how they were explaining, like, the sales side of allbound where it was, like, providing value at these touch points throughout the like, what was that last, like, sort of bet?
George B. Thomas:Well, so now that's interesting because you said sales, and I never said
Max Cohen:sales. Sales.
George B. Thomas:But, but I said, well,
Max Cohen:was it wasn't there a bit
George B. Thomas:bit of that to sales.
Max Cohen:Definition that was talking about the sales side of it or the outbound
George B. Thomas:side of it? Outbound. Outbound talked about the sales, being more aggressive.
Max Cohen:I guess I'm just thinking sales when I think outbound. Yeah. Yep.
George B. Thomas:What which and that's the thing. We literally did a whole video. I'm trying to think if we released it yet, but the, outbound marketing versus inbound marketing and how many Yep.
Liz Moorhead:And we have an article
George B. Thomas:about it. How many people think what outbound marketing is actually outbound sales, and outbound sales and outbound marketing are totally different. And I immediately when we created the first video, I go, holy crap. We probably need to do a video that is, outbound marketing versus outbound sales. I mean because people just so so for some reason, lump it all in like it's the same thing.
George B. Thomas:It's not. But to get back to your ending that you asked for, it's, the very last sentence of it, says this approach not only drives growth but also builds lasting, meaningful relationships with your audience. But and there's a part about value and fostering trust and all
Max Cohen:that stuff. I think. It was, like, the part before that where it was, like, saying what you did by, like, valuable touch points or something like that? Or
George B. Thomas:So here, allbound marketing is a comprehensive approach that recognizes the strengths of both inbound and outbound marketing but redefines them through a customer centric lens. It's about using outbound tactics scalable and impactful as outbound. The outbound strategy ensures that every touchpoint with the customer is designed to add value, foster trust, and be measurable, creating a cohesive experience that aligns with the customer journey, blah blah blah blah. So you might have been chasing the spider.
Max Cohen:Like that last part is just like I feel like that describes every single strategy like this that we hear about. That, like right? And, like, the other part too is, like, the outbound side of things, to me also feels a lot like I mean, remember when we had the inbound sales certification? Right? Like, seems kinda familiar.
Max Cohen:You know what I mean? But it's just again, it's just like that's why I just get so there's, like, a big piece of me that it's just like when you say or, like, when I hear that I'm not saying this is your definition. I'm saying when I hear that, I'm just, like, we've heard this before. Like, just plain old describing inbound. Right?
Max Cohen:Like, customer centric, valuable touch points, deep into relationships, like, all this kind of stuff. But it almost just feels like they added the word outbound in there and called it all bound, and it's like the same definition of inbound. Because if you were to say all that back to me again without the word outbound in there, I feel like it's also still just describing inbound. Right? Or am I crazy?
George B. Thomas:Well, I don't think you're totally crazy, but I think there's a a subtle mind shift in slight directions both ways. And, again, I think maybe the bigger part of this is trying to embrace the fact that and I started with this, by the way. We live in a world that instead of or, we need to focus on and. And when we focus on and, it's how do we I think of, like, what's that? Strengths, weaknesses, like SWOT analysis.
Liz Moorhead:SWOT analysis. How do you SWOT
George B. Thomas:analysis inbound? And how do you SWOT analysis outbound, and how do you make both of them for your organization be the dopest, most human centric, strategized, measurable thing that now you're you're living, like, in this kind of, I'll call it, different world or different mindset because it's almost like and, again, I'm I'm going in analogy mode. Right? It's almost like firing on six cylinders instead of four or eight instead of four in this case.
Max Cohen:Is there's a piece of me that wanders. And I think I guess, I'm okay with it if this is, like, the case. But do you think HubSpot kind of very intentionally introducing this all bound concept? Because here's the thing. Have you heard like, can you go on HubSpot's website and see the word all bound?
Max Cohen:Like, is that a thing?
George B. Thomas:I've never seen it. I've never tried to find it on how to do it.
Max Cohen:You haven't you haven't you haven't seen Brian Halligan spin an all bound flywheel. Right? Yeah. They haven't, like, said, we're all bound. We're all bound.
Max Cohen:We're all bound. But all of the sudden, they release a card with the word all bound on it. The all bound timeline card. Right?
Liz Moorhead:That's the only thing I just found.
Max Cohen:Yeah. And very interesting because, one, talk about a completely pointless name for a CRM UI card. Right? Because all all the I you know. I know.
Max Cohen:I know. I know. It's inbound and outcoming stuff. I get that.
George B. Thomas:Right? Well but be careful because HubSpot has not said this yet. The CRM is only a small portion of what is a customer platform. I know. And if you are building a customer platform, you must pay attention to that some of your customers come from inbound, and some of your customers come from outbound efforts.
George B. Thomas:Therefore, you need to have a card that measures all bound in your customer plat
Max Cohen:Yeah. But but
George B. Thomas:versus your CRM that is the holding space for all data.
Max Cohen:But all bound is this big beautiful definition that we just gave. The card is saying, here are things that you sent out. Here are things they sent you. Is that, like you know what I mean? And so what I almost wonder That's simple.
Max Cohen:No. No. It's just like you could just call it, like, the income like, you you could just call it, like, the communication time, like, the, calendar. I don't know. There's I think there's Well,
George B. Thomas:even Nick said just a timeline. Get it.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Just a timeline.
George B. Thomas:He literally just said just a timeline.
Max Cohen:Right? But why did they give it this name? Right? And there's almost a piece of me. Because here's the thing, when you look at it and you see Allbound, which is this big fancy word that none of us really have been using, and all of a sudden, it's a card in there.
Max Cohen:It's kind of awkward to name it that because then it almost seems like when I first saw it, I was like, oh, is this like an integration with some other tool called Allbound? Right? And that's immediately what I thought. I was like, oh, wait. No.
Max Cohen:This is just like a native extension showing incoming and outgoing emails and calls and stuff like that. Right? In this, like, kind of awkward way. I could get it. It's cool, but it's like kind of an it's like here's a horizontal version of the thing that you're looking at that's just up and down.
Max Cohen:Like I in and I almost feel like it was a way for them to test putting the word all bound out into the universe and see how it was received. Right?
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Max Cohen:Because I think what HubSpot has probably found itself in is being locked into this inbound narrative while the outside world is saying, it's not just inbound anymore. It's outbound led inbound and, surround bound and and near bound and all these other bounds and inbounds getting left in the dirt. And I feel like HubSpot's noticing that. I think they're probably saying, hey. We have to change the perception that we're not just this inbound marketing tool.
Max Cohen:We also have all of these great outbound sales tools, and we're building a whole, you know, huge investment in AI. We went out and purchased Clearbit. We did all these, like, we're doing all these things and putting all this investment into saying, like, hey. We kinda realize people want more than just to, like, create content and get people to come to them. They also want their salespeople to be absolute vipers and have the tools that they need to go go go go go go go and go outbound.
Max Cohen:Right? Because not everyone's gonna get inbound spun up so quickly, and we've gotta be able to sell the CRM on its own without Marketing Hub. Right? So, like, you know, because so then where's the inbound thing there when you're just selling like Sales Hub. Right?
Max Cohen:And so, like, what I think they're probably doing is they're like, it just seems like kind of like a lot to call that time card this big word that we've never seen that is way different than the one word we've always seen. Right? And I almost feel like they're testing the waters to see how the community reacts to it. And I think one day, they will ditch inbound for allbound. And I think this was them testing this because they realized it can't just be an inbound tool.
Max Cohen:It has to be an outbound tool, but outbound's a yucky tool for us.
Liz Moorhead:Now a customer platform. It's not an inbound platform. It's a customer platform.
George B. Thomas:I I literally I I yes. So, Matt Yeah. Now you've had an epiphany moment.
Max Cohen:I'm I'm I'm a conspiracy theorist right now is what I'm being.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Well, that but it's good. That's that's good. So how does it feel to be the first person creating a piece of content that's going to be testing the waters that we're paying attention to what they're challenging, and we're challenging, and we're using inbound SEO words that Max hates
Max Cohen:to put an order in an episode of. I love the word inbound. It's the OG. It's the original. It's all about.
Max Cohen:It's all about. It's the ranch dressing.
George B. Thomas:But how does it feel to know that you're part of a piece of content that we're creating right now in the moment that we will have people will come and read, come and listen, and they'll be able to weigh their opinion on if they love the idea of all bound, if they've been always using a mixed strategy, if they are some of those humans that live in the world of or instead of the world of and. Like, we're on the ground floor of understanding customer platform, the new position of CRM, the fact that there is a new card in there with this term in it. Like, why do you
Max Cohen:think we're here today, dude? Like, I feel I feel great. It's cool talking about it. I'm also slightly terrified that maybe I'm uncovering some massive conspiracy and a, hit squad could show up to my house because I'm, you know, I'm I'm But
George B. Thomas:but here's the thing. Blowing
Max Cohen:up the the Illuminati here. Yeah. But but here's the thing.
George B. Thomas:I love that kind of stuff. Like, I love being able to to create stuff and lean into what we think might be happening because, like, here I I told somebody the other day, the day that HubSpot launches the HR hub, I have a clip from, like, four or five years ago where I said the next hub needs to be the I will release that on the Internet Yeah. And be like, told you. Same thing here. Like, I'm I'm working with Chris Carolyn.
George B. Thomas:We have a HubSpot, customer platform hug. We're knee deep in the trenches. We're paying attention to all the conversations that need to happen there. We're we're looking at, like, oh my god. Things are shifting and changing.
George B. Thomas:And when things shift and change, it's it's from, words and associated words and software start to move around and, like and I don't think enough people realize what is shifting underneath our very feet from a SaaS platform because they're paying attention to how the modern customer is buying and what they're paying attention to and where they're paying attention to, and they're doing their best to build a platform that fits all of those needs for businesses.
Liz Moorhead:So I wanna interject here because I think what is interesting is that this reminds me of a conversation that you and I, George, have a lot with one of our clients where they get really squirrelly when we use words like always or never. Right? And you know who I'm talking about. Shout out to Sean and his team at QDS. We love you guys.
George B. Thomas:And gals.
Liz Moorhead:Hi. You know, and and he brings up a good point because you never wanna put yourself into a kind of an box yourself into an absolutist corner. Yep. Because they're very strong in terms of the language they use about we keep our promises. We have penalties around our like, they are very they are absolutist in that way, in their purpose, in their mission, how they fulfill those promises.
Liz Moorhead:But, Max, you're bringing up a really good point here in that we have and George as well. We we did we absolutest box ourselves into a corner with inbound? And now we're seeing the reaction, the expansion, the going back into this idea of you know, when I was first writing this episode and thinking about what I wanted to talk about today, the one of the questions I have here is and you guys are already answering this. Is it either or anymore? And the answer is no.
Liz Moorhead:Yeah. It's not.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:And I think that's what we're realizing here. George, take it away.
George B. Thomas:But be careful because what we have to realize is what we may have needed in the moment was inbound.
Liz Moorhead:We needed an intervention.
George B. Thomas:An intervention. Inbound was an intervention. It was a it was a movement. It is a movement. Still should be there.
George B. Thomas:There was a methodology. There was literally a Bible, the methodology to the religion inbound, right, if you if you really wanna break it down. Here's the thing, though. Over this last ten, twelve, fourteen year period, cultures have changed, humans have changed. There was massive chaos, you know, years back that just changed the way that we think, the way that we act, the places we work.
George B. Thomas:And so maybe now the smart people that knew we needed an intervention are realizing there's a next level. There's a new intervention. There's a shift. There's a change, which, by the way, if you pay attention to Brian Halligan's this is not an inbound episode. But if you pay attention to Brian Halligan's historical keynotes, it was always about what was changing, and they were let us letting us know it was changing before we actually kind of knew it was changing.
George B. Thomas:And then all of a sudden, we paid attention to that it was changing. Very interestingly, we need to know things are changing, and they'll continue to change. And those of us that can pivot and become transition specialists in our business again, what we're talking about today is all bound, lean into a more and and, Liz, I can't get away from it now that I'm starting to use these h frameworks, a more holistic approach to what we're doing from a marketing and sales strategy.
Liz Moorhead:I just can't help this feeling, though, that, like, if any of our clients are listening right now, they'd be like, well, duh. This is not brand new information to us. Like, our inbound marketers just waking up from a fever tree. That's that's what because I'm I'm genuinely challenging myself here. I can't think of a single client I work with, a single business I work with out there where I would be breaking their brains open in some sort of, like, lightning rod way saying, so you know we could do both.
Liz Moorhead:Wild. You know? It's very rare that I say something that makes you both silent. I've gotta know what you're thinking.
George B. Thomas:Well, I thought Max started to say something. So I was like, let me hear what he what where homies at right now. Oh, no.
Liz Moorhead:You just love this conversation. I can feel it with every fiber of my being. Or are you still hiding from the spider?
Max Cohen:Looking. I'm actively seeking the spider because I was kicked out.
Liz Moorhead:Is that Yeah.
Max Cohen:I brought I got my bug in. So how did you not notice that?
George B. Thomas:He got the a while back, he brought that in, and I think it was Chad was, like or maybe Nick was, like, do you feel safe now?
Max Cohen:I do feel safe now.
Liz Moorhead:I feel very safe.
Max Cohen:Kind of. A little bit safe. My dog's here, so hopefully, she'll fight it or something. Oh, the dog deleted it. Yeah.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Or delete the dog. I don't know. It's pretty big. Yeah.
Max Cohen:I don't know. It's like, I I do think it's I do think it's just another example of, like, you know, hopping on the hey. We we need a new name for something to make it sound new, but we're doing the same thing. Right? Like, I don't know.
Max Cohen:Like, if they like, if they were if they if they do a whole new, like, all bound flywheel or, like, some other methodology thing, I don't know. I'm probably gonna lose my mind because it's gonna end up just being the same version of the same thing. Much like the you know, when they changed from the inbound methodology to the flywheel, it literally was the same thing, only they just combined two things and turned it into a circle. Right? And it's like, I really just hope because, like, the the flywheel is just it's honestly just it's perfect.
Max Cohen:It's perfect. And I don't think it can it needs to get more complex than that. Right? But, like, if we do something weird with an all bound flywheel and it's different or something like that, and it just makes it more complicated than it needs to be, I'm not gonna be happy about it. And I'm gonna be verbal about it.
Max Cohen:But I don't know. I'm just I'm just so sick of bound bound bound bound bound bound bound bound bound. Like, I'm just so over it.
George B. Thomas:We should make a song and just use the word Bound bound
Liz Moorhead:bound bound bound bound.
George B. Thomas:Oh, that's actually already a song. Isn't that a Valentine? I don't know. Is that what you're doing?
Max Cohen:Oh, Barbara.
George B. Thomas:I
Liz Moorhead:was doing Barbara Ann, but that's
George B. Thomas:fine. Barbara Ann. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Beach Boys?
Max Cohen:Actually, a lot. I do love this tape from Nick and Chad. It says, allbound is a way for them to reclaim inbound without being tarnished by outbound sig stigma. I agree completely. I like I don't like I don't think HubSpot wants to, like, do the defeatist thing to say, like, oh, you know, we were so hard on inbound the whole way.
Max Cohen:Right? And and and if there were any sort of public sense of, like, here's what we wanna do to help outbound, what happens is the public backlash from that was like, oh, see. They were robbed the whole time inbound inbound, and Us sales bro doing outbound, smashing the phones, smiling and dialing, and using AI driven lists we scraped off of, you know, the back of a van or whatever was like, awesome. Warm up those IP address, guys. Let's do some cold email outreach.
Max Cohen:Like, they just don't wanna look like they're losing to that crowd. Right? It's like what I feel like. Yeah. So, you know, and they're not losing to that crowd.
Max Cohen:That crowd is cringe. Like, totally, it's cringe. But, like, you know, they're creating tools that, like, serves that audience and serves those customers that want that stuff that still don't wanna do the tough work that inbound is. Right? Like, you know, say what you want about all the stuff that we've done with, you know, AI and Content Hub and, like, all that stuff.
Max Cohen:It's like creating content and doing inbound marketing is still 10 times harder than blasting a billion emails out, like, to a list of people. Right? Like, it still is harder to do. You know, while, sure, there are things that make that stuff easier, like, you still see people deploying it in, like, a really terrible way. Right?
Max Cohen:You know, because humans are humans are greater human. Right? Yeah. Yes. Totally.
Max Cohen:And it's just I don't know.
George B. Thomas:This is the whole reason for the other side of things that we do. Humans are gonna human.
Max Cohen:Humans are gonna human.
George B. Thomas:So we so we created Beyond Your Default.
Max Cohen:But, like, the thing is is, like, I don't think HubSpot needs to get away from inbound. Right? Inbound can be a strategy within a group of strategies you're deploying. Right? I think that's okay.
Max Cohen:I don't think we need to totally rename the idea of what allbound is because allbound, if it means all things, then it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. It takes away the the physical fundamental difference of what inbound is. Right? People coming to you instead of you just going to them.
Max Cohen:Yes. Your salespeople are going to have to deploy a certain amount of going to them without them coming to you. There are good and bad ways of doing that. Sure. Right?
Max Cohen:But the fundamental process of saying, hey. Are we creating reasons for people to find us, consume our stuff, trust us, and buy a like, buy from us? Right? Because they're coming to us. Right?
Max Cohen:They're finding out we exist when they have no idea that we exist. We are helping them figure out that they have a problem that they didn't even know they had. We are educating them. We are creating things for them. We are building things for them.
Max Cohen:That is a whole thing by itself. I think to just say, oh, yeah. It's all that and plus, like, better ways of, like, getting your sales reps to go outbound on people. I think it totally value. It, like, almost makes it that is that much more important and that much easier than this other big thing when the truth is that whole outbound thing is also really, really tough if you don't already have a good inbound motion.
Max Cohen:Because where's all this, like, wonderful content they say to use to create these valuable touch points with people going outbound if you have no inbound motion creating that content? Right? Like, what I I I just like, inbound amplifies outbound so much. Right? Yeah.
Max Cohen:That it's really hard to just stand out outbound on its own without expecting to just, like, spend a ton of money on, like, paid lists or use some weird sketchy data scrapers or, like, really do some crazy invasions of privacy. Right? But it's like, oh, it's all fine because it's AI assisted, and it's this and it's that, and it's whatever. It's the next big thing. I just don't want the art of inbound to be devalued by saying it's the same thing as you.
Max Cohen:I'm a He he is. Impurist, dude. I am.
George B. Thomas:He he is an impurist.
Max Cohen:I'm a little bit I'm realizing this now. I am real. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. He he's an inbound purist.
Max Cohen:No. No. No. But that's not me. I think a purist is someone who says, you just do this and you don't do that.
Max Cohen:I'm not that person. I'm an inbound realist, my friend. Oh. We're yeah.
George B. Thomas:Okay.
Max Cohen:The This is like an art movement.
Liz Moorhead:We're moving from, like, inbound impressionism to realism.
Max Cohen:Because, dude, dude, inbound is based a lot on, like, just the reality of how things work. I talk about inbound physics all the time. Right? How is someone gonna find you if they don't know you exist? They're not.
Max Cohen:Right? So they're looking for other stuff. Okay. Make that stuff that they're looking for. Right?
Max Cohen:That's realism. Right? Another part of the realism is like, yeah. Sure. Your marketers and your team and your whatever could do the whole inbound motion.
Max Cohen:Right? But one, is it gonna take time to get off the ground? You bet your ass. Is it gonna take a lot of experimentation to figure out what works? Yep, you bet your ass.
Max Cohen:Right? But do your salespeople need to sell in the meantime? And also, b, deploying their own efforts in, like, different ways that they can do it without totally relying on what marketing's doing? Because, hey. Guess what?
Max Cohen:Maybe hire some inbound marketers. Right? And they don't do that good, and it takes a little while to figure out how to get the right people on board that have the talent to create the content, put it all together in a good story, deploy it, get the right software, do whatever. Salespeople still gotta be salespeople without a % relying on marketing to just feed them MQLs. Right?
Max Cohen:So you do gotta figure out the right ways and the wrong ways of doing inbound. You gotta do both at the same time. That's realism, not purism. Right?
George B. Thomas:So so there's a couple takeaways here. I just wanna unpack this a little bit. One, it almost sounded like you said inbound enables outbound, which it like, marketing, inbound marketers enable or, you know, sales to do better, be better because of the content. So I love that piece. The other thing I heard is next week on Hub Heroes, Max is gonna do the physics of all bound.
George B. Thomas:He's got a slide already built out
Max Cohen:for it.
George B. Thomas:But but here's the thing. I also give me a second because I I I wanna jot a note down in my travel guide.
Max Cohen:What?
George B. Thomas:I officially have decided that I need to pack a defibrillator, to bring it inbound because, when Max is in the audience and somebody from stage, Andy Petri, Dharmesh, whoever it may be Here's
Max Cohen:the allbound pedigree.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Yamini. When when all of a sudden from the stage, somebody says the word all bound, I will run over. I'll use my defibrillator, and, brother, I will save your life in the middle of the crowd at inbound Oh god. Because I think you would have of an aneurysm or a heart attack if you heard the word all bound come from the main stage.
Max Cohen:It's gonna, dude. It's gonna it's gonna happen. I'm telling you, man. Like, this is the what an unnecessary name for that CRM card. Right?
Max Cohen:Like, it it it confused me. Right? And it's just, like, they're testing the waters to change the name of it. That's what I feel. You know?
George B. Thomas:Yep. I'm I don't disagree. I
Liz Moorhead:mean, think about how think about how we heard about it, George. It came up so organically and naturally during our conversation With? With Kyle.
George B. Thomas:And we Somebody
Max Cohen:Oh. Who
George B. Thomas:works at home.
Max Cohen:So they're sending hold on. Kyle's the goat. I love Kyle. So they're sending their people out there to workshop the name and reporting back to it. I want I wonder if Kyle's part of the conspiracy.
George B. Thomas:But here's the thing. I don't know if it was Illuminati. Yeah. I don't know if it was on purpose, but here's the thing. For someone to use the word like they're used to using the word.
George B. Thomas:They have to have been hearing the word. So it makes you wonder, which, again, is why we're here. There's a card with it. We heard it dropped for a brief second in another, episode, and and I was like, Liz, inbound versus outbound versus allbound. We gotta do an episode.
George B. Thomas:We got to unpack.
Max Cohen:Next is gonna be next is gonna be found bound, and it was just like a lead you found on the side of the road, and you decided to go. Found bound is just when you find business cards and you call
Liz Moorhead:on the crowd. It's when you it's when you pull all of the pants and, pants, pens and stickers and all those things that you got at the, like, inbound one year, and you're, like, you just start cold calling people.
Max Cohen:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's when you, it's when you cold DM people and go, oh, I found your profile on LinkedIn, and I saw that you're also with the Internet technology space.
Liz Moorhead:Wait. Hold on. Question. Do I need to create a custom object for foundbound memes? Is that, like, a separate channel?
Max Cohen:Yeah, dude. Foundbound. That's the next one.
George B. Thomas:It's right next to the gum underneath the tree.
Max Cohen:Dude, you know what it is? Oh, it's clown bound, my guy. Clown bound, dude.
Liz Moorhead:Hey, George. Ask me again who's driving this episode.
George B. Thomas:Liz, who's driving this episode?
Liz Moorhead:I have no idea because we've abandoned the outline long ago. We have we have gone found bounding on the side of the road. Captain now.
George B. Thomas:For beautiful I almost can't keep going because because Chad I don't even know if I should say this. But, Chad, I hope we don't get canceled. But Chad literally said, it's the number on the inside of the stall. That's found bound.
Liz Moorhead:Call found bound for a good time.
Max Cohen:Oh my god. God help us. Oh, jeez, dude. Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:Well, George, why don't you help me land this plane here Oh
Max Cohen:my god.
Liz Moorhead:As best we can. I would love to hear from you because Yeah. This was a conversation we knew we needed to have. Yeah. And I knew that there was a fifty fifty risk of, like, I I will just start setting the outline on fire within five minutes of the the episode big.
Liz Moorhead:Yeah. Well, because it's highly it's not a highly experimental topic, but it's just one of those things of, like, we all have a lot of feelings about this. Yeah. And it is it is a conversation that we needed to have, and I think we're gonna have to have it again. I it's one of those things where I'm like, I wish Devin was here, but I almost want him to listen to it and then come back and read us the riot act in a way that only Devin can do with his eyeball an inch from the camera where he yells at us, and then we say we're sorry.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. It's But, George It's either gonna be a Slack message that says, yes. You guys are awesome, or what the f are you thinking?
Max Cohen:No. It's see, that's why
George B. Thomas:you wanna
Max Cohen:hold on. Hold on. That's why he's not here because they're putting him through some, like, you know, all bound, all bound, brainwashing boot camp or
Liz Moorhead:something like that.
George B. Thomas:No. That is not why. Anyway
Liz Moorhead:Is it is that, like, one of those things where, like, remember, like, at, like, outward bound where, like, you have to go it's like outward found bound? Like, is that what we're doing
Max Cohen:here now? Outward bound bound. Like, that's that's why we gotta it's like you just it's it's you're doing inbound, but you're doing it in the wilderness.
Liz Moorhead:You have to attract you have to attract the campfire to you. You can't go out and
Max Cohen:create your mosquito
George B. Thomas:repellent. Oh
Max Cohen:my god. Oh my god. You're too
Liz Moorhead:scared to be mosquitoes.
George B. Thomas:Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:Here's why you shouldn't bite me. So, George, land this plane for us because, obviously, we we need help. Don't land it. Just keep flying.
George B. Thomas:No. I need to land this bad boy. Holy crap.
Liz Moorhead:George, I would be so curious to hear what your takeaways are from this conversation because you and I both came into this conversation on a fact finding mission. Yeah. Find out what we actually feel about this.
Max Cohen:Yeah.
Liz Moorhead:So what are the things that you learned that you want our listeners to be paying attention to?
George B. Thomas:Yeah. So there's a couple things. One, we now know that Max, his new title at Happily will be inbound realist. Will be hit instead of, chief evangelist of happily. So we're gonna change his title.
George B. Thomas:But but in all honesty, for for me, it's interesting because I didn't know where this conversation was gonna go. I was excited to see where this conversation would go. The fact that Max is paying attention to micro pieces of the software and saw the card, the fact that we aligned because of something we heard on an an episode, and we're able to sit here and create this piece of content that people will be able to listen to, have their own feelings, have their own opinions, that serves the purpose that I'm actually trying to get here. My big takeaway for the listeners, though, is and it's funny because, Liz, you said you haven't met a client that wasn't thinking of it from a this and that process or pushed against. I can tell you, I've met many that the only thing they were doing was, like, inbound slash content marketing, and they had left to the wayside this piece.
George B. Thomas:My takeaway is those days are over. I don't give a rat's caboose what you call it, but you need to be, playing and teasing out the idea of things that you once thought were off base. Have you sent postcards lately? Have you done a print brochure like a booklet style and actually tried to put it on, you know, a decision maker's desk? Have you have you actually tested billboards?
George B. Thomas:Have you done a calling system in a way that is different than the historical way that we hated? Like, if you're sitting here and you can't say yes to any of those things that historically were outbound or traditional marketing or traditional sales, I would challenge you to test it again. But test it in a way that aligns with the methodology and philosophies that we've picked up over the last ten, twelve years of being a good human, of adding value, of building trust, of it being an interaction that is more based on future relationship than immediate transaction.
Liz Moorhead:Max?
Max Cohen:Oh, I
Liz Moorhead:Did you get the spider, buddy?
Max Cohen:I thought he was gonna end the episode on that because it was epic. And now you got me just awkwardly being like, what? I didn't know if anything was done.
George B. Thomas: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 thehubheroes.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.
Creators and Guests
