Although Amy’s been attending for a decade and Anna’s been several times, this year was my first INBOUND – surprising considering my tenure in the marketing agency world. Going to a conference like INBOUND is very overwhelming but the opportunities to learn in our industry specifically within the Hubspot platform excited me.
I wanted to see it all - which is literally impossible unless you can clone yourself or own a jetpack to zoom around the conference center! But Amy, Anna and I divided and conquered throughout our four days to ensure we brought back the right tools for our team.
For AK Operations, this isn’t necessarily a networking conference. Instead, we go on behalf of our 30+ current clients to learn how Hubspot is evolving, hear how other leaders in our industry are talking about inbound, outbound, and GTM, and ensure we are using the right tools to service our clients the best way possible.
It is no shocker that AI was the big topic of conversation but what has changed since the launch of Chat GPT, Claude and others like it is the fact that humans still need to finesse what those AI tools are populating. If we want to create content that lands on the first page of Google or inside of an inbox, we need to humanize the final draft.
The same goes for GTM Automation with personalization at scale. Utilize the new AI Agents within Hubspot to track down the right contact(s), conduct company research, and create a custom email based on those findings. Then launch that high-touch stategy to those quality prospects ensuring you hit inboxes and receive a response. To say our wheels were turning is an understatement! This is a major win for our scope and clients - offering personalized high-touch business development on a personalized level at scale thanks to our partnership.
I could go on and on about what we learned but here are our top 18 takeaways:
- As mentioned, Hubspot’s release of Breeze Agent and Co-Pilot. We will be implementing Agent to Prospect with personalization at scale!
- A prediction shared states that the next 6 weeks before the election will come with extremely abnormal marketing rates.
- We must un-AI our content ➡️ AI offers context, people offer the connection
- Practice this sales email schedule: Give, Give, Ask
- B2B buying teams have upwards of 20 people now emphasizing the importance of campaigns targeted at the company, not just the people
- 54% of sales closers are claiming times are harder than ever while 71% of leaders say they have to do more with less
- There are two types of GTM mindsets ➡️ "Growth at All Cost" and "Efficient Growth at Scale"
- The CEO is responsible for GTM (as all 3 teams contributing to it roll up to them - marketing, sales and customer success).
- According to Pavillion's Benchmarking Report, only 31% reps hit quota because there's a 44% increase in deals that are slipping into the next sales period this year.
- An average mid-market rep with a $20K average deal size should be executing 15 sales-oriented meetings a week to be considered "full".
- Event spending is back on the rise! But the biggest opportunity for this channel is sophisticated, strategic, pre and post-follow-up.
- Profitable Efficient Growth!!!!! Doing more with less is not going away any time soon. You must invest in supporting your best people. Hiring to scale just simply does not work - we have to stop doing this.
- 84% of consumers believe that design consistency across all touchpoints reinforces the brand's credibility.
- In the spirit of sustainable growth, we will have several deep dives within our own team to determine priorities for each client. Do we have a top funnel issue, a closing issue, a retention issue, or an upsell issue? Which priority creates the biggest revenue impact for each client?
- The mindset of "Growth At All Costs" (GAAC) is dead. We will continue to evolve our program into a personalization at scale model thanks to new advancements in AI and GTM.
- GTM Efficiency should be every company's new North Star. Companies do not scale with headcount - this is the top contributor to the ridiculous amount of bloat we've accepted with the GAAC mindset. The companies that keep lean with a high-impact operational backbone will generate true, qualified pipeline -- and thrive through the next 5 years.
- Jacco van der Kooij from Winning by Design is hands down the best part of #INBOUND24! If you're not following him, you're missing out.
- Sam Jacobs from Pavilion continues to bring a true, pragmatic POV to the business leaders and GTM teams across the world. We were very thankful to be with him live.
While it was my first experience, our seasoned veterans, Amy and Anna, noticed a few missing topics, leaving us with some gaps:
- A Deep Dive for Early Stage Founders/Teams: A lot of talk around leaner, longer teams but not enough about how to build the right team for that type of structure. What are the expectations of those roles, how to keep them motivated and not overworked? We all agree that the Predictable Revenue model is dead, so there should have been a session about the options of today - deciding between fractional partners, FTE, overseas support, etc.. A meet-up-style session would be perfect for a topic like this.
- Domain Changes: Given all of the domain updates throughout the year, we were certain that someone would mention it and acknowledge the struggles we all have been seeing. Zero - not a peep! We know that Hubspot isn’t responsible for all these changes but hosting a deep dive on email infrastructure to highlight domains, DNS entries, do’s/don’t of deliverability, and how open rates are no longer reliable. We have navigated a lot of these changes in a silo so it would be nice to hear from others on their issues and more importantly share solutions.
- Practical Applications for Reps: We love to hear when something new is launching or when something useful is no longer the best tool, but was glaringly missed on this topic were solutions or ways to utilize these new tools. Breakouts that were led by non-Hubspot employees didn’t really touch on this. Some examples include post-call follow-up, account saturation recommendations using ClearBit, quick sequencing, etc.
This all being said, it was a great week! We are excited to learn that INBOUND 2025 is headed to the West Coast. Our advice as you start to plan for next year’s conference season - book your hotel early, buy new tennis shoes, and bring some work friends to experience all that you can. You won’t regret it!