INBOUND24 preview: HubSpot’s annual marketing shindig

Brenda -  
Welcome to another episode of Little Talks, your weekly dose of marketing news and insights from Littlefield Agency.

Sam -  
Welcome back, buddy.

Roop -  
Thanks.

Sam -  
It's good to be back.

Roop -  
I feel like it's been three months.

Sam -  
Feels like it's been three months. It's only been one week.

Roop -  
I've been to two weeks. It was John last week. John a week?

Sam -  
No, dude. So I haven't seen you in two weeks before last week. I know, I know, he didn’t, but I haven't seen you in two weeks. Wow. This is crazy out here. Yeah, I know, I see you all the time, but, hey, it's good to see you, buddy. We are super excited today for this episode because it is the inbound preview and it's going to be amazing.

Sam -  
Before we get to that, Claude, don’t even think about hitting some bells. We took a shot of Celsius before this, Roop got it in there. It’s actually pretty tasty. I can't drink a whole one because to be completely honest, it just makes me jittery. But it’s giving me some good mental clarity. Hey, we have a team down in Austin, Texas.

Sam -  
Chelsea, Rocco, and Brock are kicking off the Velocity Credit Union relationship, which is super exciting. A great client down there in Texas. Austin, Texas. Not Boston, Austin. Crazy enough, I celebrated my eight-year working anniversary at the agency. Thank you, Claude. Weird, right?

Roop -  
I don't know if that feels like a—

Sam -  
How does that feel to you? You've been here for 13 years.

Roop -  
12. I’ve been here for 12 years.

Sam -  
Yeah. So when I do that math, I’m like, “Oh, I’ve only been here for five.” And he’s been here longer than I’ve not seen. It’s weird to me.  

Roop -  
Yeah, long time or short time. But I think when you go back and look at photos from eight years ago—

Sam -  
I know. Let's not bring that up, buddy. I had a lot of hair then. Come on. But, yeah. No, it's been a good eight years, a fast eight years. I think ever since the pandemic, right? Maybe that’s it, it just kind of expedites everything.

Sam -  
Anyway, so we are here to talk about all things inbound because we are not going to Austin next week.

Sam -  
We are going to Boston. We are so excited. Claude, let’s talk all things inbound.

Roop -  
I can’t believe it’s already here.

Roop -  
I feel like we’ve been talking about it off and on for six months.

Sam -  
So should we get into our one and only? Topic number one: Inbound Boston 2024. So, Roop, you and I have been talking about inbound for years. This is your third inbound.

Roop -  
Yeah.

Sam -  
Would you give our listeners just a preview of what in the world inbound is?

Roop -  
So inbound is a marketing conference put on by HubSpot, which is a CRM that we love.

Sam -  
We’re a certified partner.

Roop -  
Yeah, and we have several clients that work inside HubSpot. But it’s a marketing conference, so yeah, anywhere from, I think, 22,000 people sit in downtown Boston for this three-day event. They usually close out with a huge speaker or some type of entertainment. The first year I went, it was Barack Obama, last year it was Reese Witherspoon, and this year it’s Ryan Reynolds.

Sam -  
Ryan Reynolds, man.

Roop -  
Who owns a marketing agency. So, he’s a big-name celebrity, but there are also tons of B2B sessions, email sessions, and AI sessions where you learn about the platform and marketing trends.  

Roop -  
The first year I went, I went by myself. I don’t want to say I was overwhelmed, but—

Sam -  
You were a little overwhelmed.

Roop -  
Yeah, you can't possibly soak it all in yourself. There's just too much.

Sam -  
So you came back from 2022 and you were like, "Sam, you’ve got to go."

Roop -  
Yeah, immediately. It was like, there need to be two of us there. You were supposed to go last year.

Sam -  
And then I looked at my calendar and I was in Florida on a pre-planned family vacation. That’s my bad because I planned the vacation.

Roop -  
Florida vacation?

Sam -  
I don’t know, man. So I couldn’t make it last year. You went again, and here we are.

Roop -  
My year three. Your year one.

Sam -  
Yeah.

Roop -  
We’re rolling deep. Joy Holder from the agency is coming with us. She’s bringing her client, Adriana, from Williams, which is awesome. So we’ll have Adriana rolling with us. We convinced Sean Hubbard to come along—it was a last-minute decision. He was in and out, in and out, and then decided, “Hey, I’m in.” He’s coming with us. We’ve got two clients with us. It’s you, me, and Joy, and it’s going to be a hell of a time.

Roop -  
Yeah. So three years, we went from just me to five.

Sam -  
Yeah, to five of us. And here’s the cool thing—Ryan Reynolds is a great example. Serena Williams is also speaking this year. Amazing. Some really, really incredible humans. They’ve been successful athletes and actors, but they’ve also become entrepreneurs.  

Sam -  
So you get speakers like that, but then, I’m looking at my computer here, we have a jam-packed schedule Tuesday through Thursday. I come home Friday early, but you’re staying a little later to see Ryan Reynolds. What are your top 2 or 3 sessions you’re looking forward to next week?

Roop -  
Yeah, so the way it works is there’s so much happening. They try to organize it with an app.  

Sam -  
You’re showing it to the camera right now.

Roop -  
So you have this app, and you schedule your favorites, and reserve your seats.  

Sam -  
I wasn’t available when these came out. My dear Lord, they went fast.

Roop -  
Yeah, so you kind of put together a schedule of what you want to attend. But sometimes you get there, and a session may not be what you expected, so you switch. Even the ones without reserved seats can fill up, so you need backups.

Roop -  
Last year was all about AI, which made sense because it was a hot topic. This year, there’s also a lot of AI. HubSpot will announce new products and services as well.

Sam -  
And as a reminder, last year, you came back and told me, “Sam, you have to step up your LinkedIn presence.” You weren’t always a fan of LinkedIn, but you came back a believer.

Sam -  
And now, you love it.

Roop -  
And you’ve been enjoying LinkedIn too, right?

Sam -  
I live on LinkedIn now. I really do. I love it. But you met someone last year that you’ve really come to admire—Josh Watson. He’s a keynote speaker this year.

Roop -  
Yeah, he’s got three sessions.  

Sam -  
I think I got into two of them.

Roop -  
I got into all three.

Sam -  
Nice.

Roop -  
He’s incredible. He presents really well and gives great insights on email marketing and other areas. Neil Patel is another big one.

Sam -  
Neil Patel! Yeah, I’m going to that one. There’s also a session on how to build a seven-figure B2B media brand. I’m looking at that on behalf of our clients.  

Roop -  
There’s a lot of value there. You’ll also see big vendors like LinkedIn and Google.

Sam -  
I’m so excited about the learning and networking opportunities. I’ve already been solicited by a bunch of people wanting to meet up. Tell our listeners about how you exchange LinkedIn profiles by tapping badges.

Roop -  
Yeah, you’ve got this badge with a little electronic deal. You tap the badges, and your LinkedIn profiles connect. It’s a really easy way to network.  

Roop -  
I met someone from Germany last year, and we had some interesting common ground.

Sam -  
Our plan this year is to cover more ground with five people. You’re going to one session, I’m going to another, and we’ll all compare notes later.

Sam -  
We’ll have Joy on the podcast afterward to debrief, and probably Sean and Adriana as well, to get everyone’s perspective.

Sam -  
If you’re going to inbound, drop us a note! We’d love to connect.

Roop -  
Please don’t offer us free AirPods, though.

Sam -  
Yeah, I got someone blowing me up for free AirPods. Holy smokes. But it’s going to be a great week.

Sam -  
These out-of-office activities are great bonding times.  

Roop -  
I always come back from inbound really energized. It’s like my Christmas.

Sam -  
I love

 it. If you’re going to inbound, hopefully, we’ll see you there. If not, we’ll come back with all the info, excitement, and energy to get ready for Q4. Crazy.

Roop -  
All right.

Sam -  
Sounds good right here.

Claudia -  
Shotgun Celsius.

Sam -  
Oh, that’d be awesome. That’s a nice way to start. Okay, we will see you in two weeks. Thank you for listening.

Roop -  
Just—

Brenda -  
And that’s a wrap. We hope you’ve enjoyed our little chat and found ways to grow your own marketing strategies. Remember to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and follow us on social media at Littlefield Agency.