Episode 004

Dan:                          Well, flywheel is force and friction, right? And in 2019 right? The key to any company scale isn’t really the product. It’s the way in which you help people position it. The sales and marketing process, and you and I were talking about, it’s not really sales and marketing like it was in 2003 smarketing.

Shaina:                    I’m Shaina. I love dogs. I trip a lot and I happen to have a knack for making videos for businesses, but the more videos we made, the more questions I got about how video and other content can be leveraged to make a bigger impact in their marketing. I mean, 44% of marketers say that producing content is their biggest challenge. Get content marketing is 62% less expensive than outbound and produces three times more leads. Now I know a lot, but I certainly don’t know it all. So I made it my mission to talk with content, kings, Queens, and bosses to learn as much as I could about crushing content marketing. And I’m taking you along with me. Welcome to the content coalition.

Dan:                          All right guys. I am super, super excited about today’s episode of the content coalition. I have the man, the myth, the legend Dan tire. Ooh, we’re always excited. It’s not just me. It’s not just the coffee either. I, right. Well, I’m generally excited, but I’m like extra, extra, next level excited. That’s what I’m told for. It’s all the big energy, right? I could like say like dopey things and people would still chair the last presentation I did in Scottsdale, that was unbelievable. I keynoted a in front of 500 consultants, so they gave me a standing ovation before I got on this. I’m like, wow, I need to take this audience with me everywhere I go. Right. Super Fun. And uh, where are we? We are at galvanize. First of all, this place isn’t, it’s in Phoenix downtown. It’s an incredible space. It was so cool because when we called and we were like, hey, Dan was thinking about doing the interview there.

Dan:                          They were like, yes, yes, yes. Anything that you want. So Nice. So Nice. And this space is amazing, right? There’s dozens of entrepreneur companies, fast growing companies that are here. It’s right behind, um, chase ballpark right here in downtown Phoenix. And, uh, I know, you know that the Phoenix entrepreneurial ecosystem is, it’s so cool. And it changed so much, right. In five years, right? We’ve gone from a bunch of white guys talking about real estate to now we got, uh, women with head scarves, Brown people, black people, tons of women entrepreneurs, lots of Maria. Yeah. Right, right. So Phoenix is a great place to start a company. The entrepreneur ecosystem continues to grow. We’ve got all these competitions. We got, uh, venture badness. We’ve got Phoenix startup week and a couple of weeks, right? We’ve got all of the, these coworking spaces that all lend to a, a great environment for people to grow a business.

Dan:                          And I mean, the founder of galvanizes female. That’s true. Right? I Know Heidi, right? Yeah. Unbelievable. Uh, Diane Power, uh, who I met walking in. Uh, she’s always so gracious and empathetic and supportive of the community and that just leads to more and more of these companies starting and then growing. And then, uh, some like going public, I’m just generating a good economic base for all of Arizona. Yeah. Heck yeah. Well, awesome. Well, for those of you who don’t know who this amazing guy is next to me, Dan, you were employee number six. That’s right. And hubspot. That’s right. I know. I’m the luckiest guy in the world. Uh, I’ve been married for 29 years. What you’ll recognize is that most of the smart thing I say, I clipped right from my beautiful wife. Hey me. Right? She was like, no, we’re sitting at breakfast the other day and I’m like, Ooh, I gotta write that one down.

Dan:                          And she’s like, don’t steal my content. My wife said that. I know, I know. You should. She should be sitting right here. She’s a great yoga instructor. She does programs all over the, and um, so I’ve actually done five startups. Uh, I was a bass player and a heavy metal rock and roll band when I graduated. My hair was actually a little longer than your shit. I know, I know. I know who’s here. I really, I kind of liked long hair on men and I loved long hair on me except it’s, you know, it takes a little while, right? Like I’m out of the shower and I’m going like this and I’m ready to go. I know you got a little bit of time, you got to comb it out and like the curls and things like that. But um, being a bass player is actually an awesome foundation for business.

Dan:                          Right? June. No, any musicians I play the piano or guitar. Awesome. Okay. So, you know, guitar players and singers, a little bit of an ego. I don’t know about you Shane maybe, but like they’re like, I need more spotlight and they elect to do it for the personal graduate bass players are totally different, right? Right. Bass players you never hear of, they’re just in the background. They are playing with the drummer and they’re the foundation and they’re even keeled and they’re all about collaboration and they’re all about explaining to the guitar player why he shouldn’t be in the spotlight, but like 99% of the time. And, uh, those lessons. In fact, I should read a black part blog article on that have lasted like the last 38 years. Right. And then, uh, I’m just super lucky. I do a lot of things, but I super lucky.

Dan:                          Uh, my first like real job out of business, I was selling computers. It was 1983. You weren’t even born in 1981. You were like a baby, right? While you were in your crib. I was selling computers in downtown Boston and uh, I did it for a year. I was highly successful. My boss said, okay, we’re, I’m moving to a startup. I’m like, what’s a startup? He goes, it’s a company that small, it’s going to grow very quickly. I’m like, okay, have a good time. He goes, no, no, no, no. I want you to come with me. And I’m like, I got a job. He goes, I’ll give you $2,000 more money. I’m like, okay, I’m in. Let’s go. And we started this company called business land, right? They had a, their corporate headquarters is in San Jose, California. Right. Um, uh, which is a super awesome, and we were the first three employees in Boston and the company grew from a couple of million to 1.4 billion over the next time.

Dan:                          And it was super fun. I went all over the country, did a lot of different things for Rob’s, but did a lot of turnaround stuff in different areas. And, uh, I fell in love with hypergrowth. Right. Um, then, uh, I left and I started my own company in my dining room. Grew to $25 million, sold it to a Phoenix space company here. It was on the board of directors, um, and the EVP of sales. And that was super fun. My third startup went bankrupt and well, it was amazing. You know, I’m this hard charging guy and facing bankruptcy and having to do that. It taught me business planning and humility. Right. And I’m telling you, it was a seminal part and a lot of the advising and mentoring I do now is to make sure people have a plan and understand what’s going on other than my fourth startup got bought out by Microsoft.

Dan:                          That was super fun. Uh, and the vice president of sales of groove network was this Guy Brian Halligan. And when I worked for Microsoft for a year, he went to school at Mit. He met Dharmesh. And in 2007, they called me and said, all right, we’re starting this company. I’m spot. We want you to join. And I’m like, okay, but I live in Phoenix and you’re going to start it in Cambridge. Uh, and he goes, ask your wife, they both went to the same college. So I say, can I be in Boston four weeks out of the month? She’s like, no, I, we have two kids. I’m like, how about three weeks out of the month? She’s like, no, I got two weeks of the month. She’s like, nope. I go, how about one week out of the month? She goes, maybe. All right. So I call that bride. I go, one week out of the month, he goes, it’s 2007 we can make it work.

Dan:                          So just by luck, I was the employee number six at ups for the first 10 employees. All Mit chain, right? I’m not an MIT guy. Right. And I’ve asked our mass, she was the co founder, why did you guys reach all the way out to the other side of the country? And he’s like, Halligan. Said you were a good salesperson, a great startup guy, all that energy. And we thought even if the product wasn’t good, you could sell it. And uh, it was amazing. I worked for this guy, um, Mark Roberto, he wrote a book called the sales acceleration formula. He was the greatest vice president I ever knew right before Hunter Madelaine, who is the current vice president of hubspot now, he took the company from zero to a hundred million Mit Sloan School Grad, a big empathetic heart. And what made him so good? He’s not a sales guy.

Dan:                          You know, sales guys can be a little pushy and mean. This guy was empathetic, he was super smart and he looked at the hub, the sales process, like an engineer, right? He would focus on the critical success factors. And that’s not the way you ran businesses before 2007. And so for, um, for me it was a great, great, like a second act, right? For the first 25 years of my business career, we ran our businesses on gut feel, right? This is what I think we should do. Let’s try this. After that, it was all data and analytics, right? And um, so hubspot, 12 years in $450 million in sales, publicly traded at 3000 employees leaning into diversity and inclusion, which you and I were talking about earlier. And just a super fun. The main point is that everything changed in 2007. Right. That it was a key inflection point, right.

Dan:                          When people’s buyer behavior started to change. Right. Do you remember before 2007? Yes. How would you buy something before 2000 as you walk into a store, Zach? Right, exactly. And remember the guy in the polo shirt would come around and said, Shana, are you looking to buy before the weekend? Right? In the little hairs in the back of your neck or like, sometimes you’re like none and I need help. Sometimes you’re like, I just need the education. And you couldn’t get that education unless you talk to that guy. Right. And sometimes they were like really helpful and they would give you all the text specs and sometimes they were a little annoying, right? Then after 2007, like Google became a thing, right? So now you would like Google stuff and before you make a purchase, do typically like review stuff a month? Why? Because I need to know everything.

Dan:                          I want to know before I make a decision. Also, the educated decision is the way to go for me, for everybody. Uh, the statistics from hubspot research says 97% of all purchases, right, are start with either social media where you’ll go to your friends and go, does anybody have a good accountant? I need a new lawyer. My, I need a babysitter in this area. Right? You see those all the time on linkedin and stuff or with a Google search, right? I don’t know what the other 3% to right, but 97 is a huge lever. That’s crazy. Google just announced earnings, um, last week, uh, $8 billion in profit, right? Mainly from the Google ad words that you say. And so this is not like a blip. This is a huge change in buyer behavior. So before you had a sales funnel, right? And the sales guy, you had to talk with me and I was going to put you through that funnel and I don’t care, Shane, I was going to qualify you and it was up to me whether you move to the next step.

Dan:                          So I had all the power. Right? Today you have as much information as I do, right? You know my price book, you know my competitor’s price book, you know what we do in the organization. So that transparency has a huge impact and, uh, we’ve requires companies to really understand the buying process. Now it’s not a sales funnel. Now it’s what we call a flywheel. Or are you a potter? Do you do any pottery? No, I don’t. Okay. Do you know how to fly, know if you ever see the movie ghost, right? It’s it ghost with Demi Moore where they’re like holding the exactly right. Yeah. Every woman I’ve ever talked to her, they all see that guys like not into Patrick Swayze, but it was pretty good luck. It, and then, uh, she would like push on this wheel and it would go around and we’ll fly wheel is force and friction, right?

Dan:                          And in 2019, right. The key to any companies scale isn’t really the product. It’s the way in which you help people position it. The sales and marketing process. And you and I were talking about it, it’s not really sales and marketing like it was in 2003 smarketing, right? Say It smarketing. Wow. Like Shana, you’re not from New York. I had to know, okay. Marketing with the sales and marketing push together, which I invented. I invented that term in 2007 with Mike Volpi who was the Cmo of hubspot. And um, I used to cold call for Hubspot, which is insane because we’re all about not cold calling. And I would pick up the phone and it’s been 90% of my time like talking with people and uh, trying to convince him to move. And then we started to get people to drop their contact information on our website and we’re like talking about a, I’m not like, oh, this is Dan from hubspot.

Dan:                          And their luck. Oh yeah, it was just on your website. And I smiled just like you did. I was like, oh my God. Really? Right. And they’re like, yeah. And so we’d have these conversations were a little less prospect or be more value. And I’m like, Mike, we need more of these inbound leads. And he’s laughing. He’s like, I know we started a company so that we can help other companies like build that process. And I’m like, no, no, no, I need them now. I got to hit this number. And uh, he’s like, well I need to create content and I don’t have any head headcount. I’m like, okay, you can have sales headcount. And uh, he was drinking a scotch at the time. He put his scotch down. He said, wait, is that you’ll give me sales headcount for market? And I’m like, Yep, it’s not sales, not marketing, it’s smarketing.

Dan:                          And I was just being like a little bit of a wise guy. And um, but it was true. And uh, it was easy for me to say, cause it wasn’t my head count. It belonged to row bear. She ran the sales organization, but um, there was a professor at Harvard Business School, Thomas Steenberg who uh, wrote an article about sales and marketing alignment in 2007 and it’s never been more impactful than it is in 2019. Right? Marketing people, Shell actually everybody sells marketing is actually everything, right? And smarketing. Like you have to have your marketing department create those emails. They have to do the workflows they have to nurture. People aren’t quite yet ready yet and those marketing emails are super impactful for the way you get more qualified leads and sales people have to use the best practices and have to be attuned to all the data and analytics to make sure that doing the right thing and the companies that have that alignment according to Gartner and Aberdeen and all the companies that like really dig into it all say that if you have that a alignment you’re going to do Monday, you’re going to grow more quick.

Shaina:                    All right guys. We all know that the dream, the absolute dream would be to have a ton of inbound leads that are qualified and that convert. And hubspot is the tool that will help you do that. Their big mantra is what’s good for the business has to be good for the customer and what other way to get great leads and to get people influxing then with a software that understands how to make that relationship work. Now, hubspot is an incredible platform. We’ve been using them for a really long time. The great thing about it is they have free services and then they also scale with you depending on how massive your marketing strategy becomes. So go check out hubspot would get a link for you in the description. They are incredible and you won’t regret it. So what is the best way now then to give people the information that they need in order to get them? Yeah. Ooh,

Dan:                          great question for the sale. So there’s a couple of things. First of all, you have to treat people like human beings, right? If you ever send me an email, dear valued customer, right? Forget about it. I know it’s humorous. I know it’s humorous like, but two years ago, Shane it, if I sent that to you, just like, okay and put it in your spam. Spindled now your meat, like you’re angry, you’re like annoyed, right? The over the last two years, there’s been a phenomenal change based on the fact that there’s more competition. The fact that on your phone you get what you want like immediately, right? And that’s what you’re used to. And if somebody doesn’t understand you and who you are and what you want, right? You’re like, no, no, wait. Right? I’m Shana. This is what I want. And there’s a high expectation for everybody, B2b.

Dan:                          B, to see that that happens. So the first thing is we’ve got to treat you like a human being, right? We got to make sure that we know who you are, that we’re a respectful and we’re providing as much value as we can. The second thing is we want to help, right? So the more information that we have about you, the better we can help. I don’t want to be pushy. You get to decide, right? And so in the last two years, this things like chat bots that if they’re properly constructed, you get exactly what you want. Do you, do you like chat bots right there? See when they’re helpful and they give you what you want. You don’t have to talk to a human being, right? Right. And like you’re a nice human being, but sometimes you just want to boom, get right to the point, right? You don’t want to say hello, how you doing? How’s the weather in Phoenix? We’re just too busy. That’s the world we live in today. And so helping people turns out to be a very good at like, um, business strategy. That’s why we wrote the book inbound organizations more than just sales and marketing. And the best way to help people now is to give them free stuff, right? Do you like free stuff? Who doesn’t like, but you like it? Why do you like free stuff?

Dan:                          So we’ve thought like, we dig into that a little bit and like, you’re right, everybody likes free stuff. But the reason people like free stuff is first of all, you feel like, wow, I’m special. Right? Oh my goodness, all these other people are paying, but I get it for free, right? And it goes on in everybody’s brain. Second of all, it used to be you downloaded content. Lots of people still do that, but now you can get the value more quickly. If I give you a free CRM, for example, or free research or free training, hubspot academy offers 84 hours of free training to everybody, right? Thousands of people a week download this and you don’t have to pay a dime. You could move at your own pace and people love it. They’re like, oh my goodness, I’m so much smarter. That’s part of the aesthetic of the inbound revolution, right?

Dan:                          Give them all this stuff. If you give them free software, right? It’s more beneficial for us because first of all, we have hundreds of thousands of people out there using that software. Second of all, you get to decide when you want to go to a paid plan, if you want to use the free stuff or that. I have people like in airports. First of all, it’s, it’s amazing to be Dan tire, but I’m like walking through airports and people were like, stop me and go, wait a second, I saw your video. Or like your Dan Tire. It’s because I wear the same t shirt all the time. Right? I’ve got sent. So I know if I ever, if I wear my inbound organization tee shirt, they don’t recognize him, but I’ve been wearing, I have six of them, but I’ve been wearing them for like 12 years. Right?

Dan:                          And they’re like, oh my goodness, I am so sorry. I’m like, what are you sorry about. And they go, I’ve been using your free stuff. I’ve never paid you a dot. Right? We’re like, hey, that’s the way it is. We’re actually happy that you do that. First of all, you’re getting value of it. Second of all, you’re an advocate, right? You’re telling people to use hubspot, right? Third of all, in today’s economy, it’s not always about, um, like making more money. It’s about helping people grow better. That’s Leb spot tackling grow better, right? That’s what I want to do as individuals, as leaders, as podcasters, as Viagra offers, as businesses, as companies, as managers, and we are all in to help any way we get and free software does it very, very well. So that freemium model for our listeners, we always say if there’s anything that you can find, whether it’s content or a checklist, I mean you could do the uh, videographers or the content checklist of how to do a great video, right? All that stuff you sent me, right? You put that on your website that would have value to have tons of people who are just getting involved in video and now they’re going to say, oh, that lady Shana, she helped me. Right? She was the person. And that creates, I don’t care if you call it Karma or the golden rule, the law of attraction or just helping people out. It is amazing how that works and like hubspot has been able to do it at scale and it’s been super cool to be, pardon?

Shaina:                    Yeah. And well, what’s great about that, like the free entry model, however you want to call it, is especially if you’re educating alongside of that, then the right people will end up wanting more out of your platform. Exactly right. Cause you’ve taught them how to use it, right?

Dan:                          Is that a daily basis? First of all, uh, people will pay me and say, all right, I think I’m ready for the next step and write it. And they don’t even have to come to me. They can do it touch. Honestly, they just go into their system and they upgrade and um, there’s this, uh, process where there’s no push, right? That’s the friction in the flywheel. What you want to do is you want to make sure it’s super easy. People get access to your free stuff. Second of all, you want to make sure that they move at their own pace. Right? Um, I wrote a famous blog article called always be closing is dead, right? Uh, how to always be helping 2015 they ever see the Glen Gary Glen Ross movie. Okay. With that.

Shaina:                    Yeah. Alex Baldwin,

Dan:                          you know Kevin Spacey’s in that as well and head hair. We can’t talk about Kevin’s spacey, but an says, uh, but like all these luminaries, right? Um, uh, incredible and a, that one scene is the one everybody remembers, right? Where he’s like leaning on the salespeople to push a little harder. And um, I worked as a salesperson for hubspot twice. The second time in 2015 I came back to Arizona, worked in Arizona territory and it was amazing because people had changed, right? There was no push. And so I started just saying, no, no Shana, my name is Dan and I’m here to help. If people were like, what do you mean you’re here to help? I’m like, you get to decide. They, they were like, they’re like, what? I’m like, I’m here. I’ve got all these resources. I just want to let you know you move at your own pace because I got no juice when it comes to, when you decide, as you move to consideration, just let me know what you need.

Dan:                          Do you need a trial? Do you need a like videos? Do you need help? Do you need guidance? Do you need technical analysis? Anything you need. Yeah. Right. And they were like, that’s awesome. Right? And so the reputation built, I wrote this blog article, it drove, uh, like uh, thousands, tens of thousands of lead, 3000 hubspot customers. Turns out by writing this blog article, people were like identifying with that was the second change. The first one is 2007, the second is 2015 and then the third and the most important is in the last 18 months or two years, right? What goes on in your brain, amazing that you want everything just served up to you that rate that 70 and have one that hyper personalization. And so companies need to realize that and if we establish that valued relationship with you, you will either use the free stuff for as long as you like or when you’re considering moving to the next stage, you’ll at least consider us.

Dan:                          And that’s how we’ve propelled the multibillion dollar market cap cub while you’re doing something. Right. Right. So, cool. I’m a huge hubspot fanboy, right? Um, we now have almost 3000 employees, right? As some companies as they grow, right? The quality of the employee, uh, sometimes, um, takes a step back. That’s not the case. Right? And hubspot, the people we hired today are so smart, so dedicated, so, uh, effective that I don’t know if I could get hired by hubspot in 2019. It’s amazing. And, uh, we use analytics. It’s hard to get into hubspot, but we appreciate everybody who tries, right? We appreciate the entire ecosystem of our partners. We have 5,000 partners worldwide, um, of our customers. Of course, a 50,000 paying customers, hundreds of thousands of like free stuff. And it’s been like amazing, uh, to be part of that and to help more people. I’m speaking of working at hubspot and like, well, one question, I guess I’m going to lead into this.

Dan:                          Yeah. How do you feel about transparency in marketing? Okay, so super important, right? Right. Everybody sees your stuff anyway. Right? On Glassdoor. Are you familiar with Glassdoor? Right. Do you ever look at glass door? Why? All the time. But I mean, I look at when he, I should be paying like what’s competitive of course. And you get a feel for our company’s culture. And if you’ve ever had somebody turnover, it’s likely that they have your price book and there is like businesses different today where, um, you can do two things. You could be like closed minded and try to like keep everything internal in which case you you’re not going to be successful or you can just be transparent. We were talking about, um, in 2018, hubspot has what’s called an m spot and in the book we’ve got to give a plug at the end, right.

Dan:                          A widely published in 2018, my coauthor Todd Hockenberry that’s coauthor in the history of books. Right. He is amazing. Um, we have a chapter called the m spot and the spot is your mission, your strategy, your plays, you’re omissions and your targets right in hubspot has had an m spot. It’s something we took directly from us about the book has lots of stuff on hubspot in it. Um, we interviewed JT sh Sherman, who’s the CEO. Brian Halligan read, wrote the foreword and uh, we moved diversity and inclusion into the m spot. Right? It’s a big thing for them. Yeah, for sure. And um, Katie Burke, who’s our chief people officer who is amazing, right? Uh, Halligan has called her the most valuable employee at hubspot and I have to agree very much like right up there, um, she came out and published the diversity statistics for hubspot. It, I think it was in 2015 the first time.

Dan:                          Right. And, uh, they weren’t particularly good. Right. Um, we were dominated by a certain demographic and there was an intent to change that. Uh, but the results weren’t that good. But by putting that out there in a blog article, diversity and inclusion statistics at hubspot and are a need to improve, right. Uh, we went from one woman on our board of directors to three. Right. And a person of color, hubspot is one of 20% of publicly traded companies that have three women on their board of directors. How does that make you feel? Incredible. I felt a woman don’t have women leaders. And then it seems logical and you and I talked about this, but it’s 2019 and if 80% of the companies don’t like, think like that, then we’ve got to work harder to get there. Um, and then, uh, we started measuring how many managers, how many executives were, um, uh, for gender, ethnic equality, age equality.

Dan:                          Um, in an effort to improve that in three years ago it was about 25%. Women were managers. The next year it was 38%. Next year it was 45%. And we release our diversity statistics next week publicly, right? And hopefully we’ll see continual progress on all of those different areas and it’s never quick enough and we always want to lean in. But it’s an example of that transparency. When you put that out there, now all of a sudden it’s super impactful. And I told you a diversity and inclusion is super important for me personally. I do 50 speaking engagements a year on behalf of hubspot. Uh, always, uh, first of all, I won’t speak on, um, uh, a program unless they have at least one person of color. And a, um, a woman on the diocese, what do they call them? All man panels manuals. I think they can all, yes, not anymore.

Dan:                          Right? We are just doing a podcast for a a or a Webinar for a Phoenix based company and there was two white guys and I’m like, no, no, no, no. We have to find a way to in its diversity inclusion is this stuff that we’re super serious about and uh, we, we have to make every effort we can to, um, and so they were very adaptable and decided to change it. But I put that in my, uh, at least one slide in all of my presentations, right? Because we got to tell the world we’re not making enough progress. You’ve got to move more quickly. It’s not just I’m spot thing. It’s a like a humanity thing. This is the 21st century, right? We get to do whatever we want to do. Right? And this is super impactful for society, super impactful for businesses, super impactful for results.

Dan:                          All of the information you get on diversity is if you have a diverse workforce, right? You dominate. Yeah. Right. And it’s hard, right? But it, now’s the time to start some digging in my heels, making sure that everywhere I go, it’s one of the top three things that I talk about and a super proud of the progress that we’ve made at hubspot and like lots of stuff. What I love about that is that like, I’m sure posting that first post with the statistics was a little hurtful to do. Yeah. But I think that what’s so great about it is like owning where there are issues to improve on, I know forces you high now and now make change and make it better. And that, and you guys had done that leaps and bounds I think because that’s the only way to grow really. It was hard.

Dan:                          And uh, it’s gonna continue to be hard. It’s hard for everybody, right? But people tell me all the time, I can’t find good people and you’re just not looking in the right places. Right? Uh, if you want good people, you have to make the extra effort. If you want a diverse work force, you have to make the extra effort. And actually the diversity part is a little bit easier. You can find people of color and uh, gender diverse folks and um, different types. It’s making that, um, culture inclusive. That’s really the hard part because I think most people are oblivious about how that works and what it’s like to be a woman in sales and a or a transcender and in sales or, um, uh, an ethnic minority in sales. And so everybody’s got to work a little harder to get them. I love that.

Dan:                          Yes. So let’s chat about this book. First of all, you sold like how many copies of this place in the first couple of months. And then for some reason there’s been a resurgence in the last 90 days. We just had a call with Wiley and the publisher and they’re like, what are you doing? And I’m like, well, we speak all the time. Uh, Todd and I go all over the world, but in the last three months we sold more than we did in the first six months of launch, which I’m not. I’m the same thing. I know that’s what everybody’s saying. It could be the audio book. We did the audio book, which was amazing, and went to Times Square. I felt like Jay Z, right. I’m walking in a, so the story is, uh, why we said, all right, you, you’ve sold enough copies, we want to do the audio book.

Dan:                          And they, they, um, like we’re managing that. And I like, all right, I want to do my own audio book. And they were like, oh, we don’t usually let the authors, you’re going to have to like audition. I’m like, I’m all in. I’m all in. I always wanted to do it. And I know, I know, I know. But I guess a lot of authors, um, little bit more maybe monotone and a little bit more cerebral and that’s not me. Right. The reason Todd is the best coauthor if in the history of books is cause he’s kind, he’s logical, he’s a good writer and I’m none that, right? I’m like all over the place. And, uh, we would, we, we wrote like, uh, took hundreds and hundreds of hours. Uh, but we got nominated to do the audio book and then, so I auditioned for my own book and they’re like, okay, you can do it.

Dan:                          And it was so much fun. You go in there, I had in my own, uh, like audio engineer and this lady sitting there and she’s like, all right, you burped in that last sentence. And I’m like, no way, no way. But when you listen to the tape you get here, and I had, uh, somewhere around 162 mispronunciations cause I tend to go a little too quick. I know. So I had to come back and do it, but it was super fun. And a, so the audio book I told Todd The reason the audio book was selling very well. It’s cause none of my friends can read. Right. They’re all like, you’re a podcast person. Yeah. Right. So people, I find people on the east coast are more podcast podcast people then that I think as good as they do it when they shovel snow or anything like, exactly.

Dan:                          Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I’m a podcast guy when I like travel around, but um, so we, we did the audio book. That was great. And um, the kind of the story of the book is that, uh, I speak a lot on inbound and the inbound revolution, what we were talking about, right? Treating people like human beings, the segment of one, understanding that it’s the process of how you engage with somebody rather than the actual product. And people would say, okay, I get it. I want to be an inbound organization. How do I do it? And I’d say, well, there’s a few things that I can offer. And they’re like, they’re writing that down. And I was giving a speech in southern California in this guy, Todd comes up to me, I’ve known him for 10 years. He goes, you know, you should write a book. I’m like, I know, but I’m super busy.

Dan:                          He goes, but you should write a book. I’m like, I know I’m super busy. He goes, but I talk about many of the same things. Let’s write it together. I’m like, I’m in. I go, all right. I thought about it for like eight seconds. I’m all, let’s go. So, uh, and it was a very, very impactful, Wiley was super supportive, right? Um, they’re actually for inbound books, inbound content by Justin champion, which is great inbound PR by my friend Iliana Riva. She’s a Bulgarian and she wrote a great book for a PR companies and then inbound selling by Brian Signorelli. He’s been a hubspotter for 10 years. And I wrote the foreword to that book that was Super Fun. Uh, and then inbound organization about how to grow and build your organization with inbound, uh, aesthetics with culture of how to like do the right thing and um, it’s been super successful and go all over the world doing workshops and teaching people how to do it. And um, it’s really, inbound is really had a significant change on like everybody, right? Not only that people are using the hubspot software, but like people who understand the best way to help people in the 21st century, the best people to the best way to grow their business, the best way to treat their employees. And we talk all about that. Like the key components of of doing that in the book. Yeah. And what’s cool is if you go to the website and we’re going to have that, it’s somewhere in the show notes,

Shaina:                    it will prompt you through like it will, there’s a section that it’s like take the assessment and it’s like 33 hardcore questions of if you’re applying this or if you have the mindset to even apply it. Yeah. And some of those questions, I was like, we crush this. And some of them were kind of humbling because you’re like, yeah, okay, yeah. Okay, I see where I can use some improvement. Yeah. So it’s not about where you are today, right. You’re going to improve. Right.

Dan:                          Do is take an analytical approach so that all stages of companies could review the questions and understand how to start a, we periodically run these two day workshops, right. For folks to come in and to build their m spot. Like, so that on one page they have their mission, their strategy, their plays, there are omissions and their targets, and then they build what we call an inbound operating system, which is the way in which you instruct everybody in your organization how to stay on the same page. Uh, and their sales and marketing. There’s backed office. Uh, hubspot has this, um, our general council is this Guy John Keller, her right. And he is amazing, right? He has videos about how our legal department is helpful to not only to us internally, but all also our clients. So he has an inbound legal department, right? Which I mean, a unbelievable inbound backoffice inbound finance and a, it’s a real eyeopener for a lot of people because, um, if they’re not moving in that direction, it’s quite possible that they’re going to start stumbling.

Dan:                          Right? Uh, one of Todd’s great quotes is a, everybody wants to grow, but no one wants to change. Right. And, uh, the inbound revolution has been like out there for 12 years. It’s got another 25 years to go for sure. Right? It. These things take like 30 years, but if you ever want to lead from the Internet, if you want ever want to connect with somebody that wants to buy your stuff right. By helping them, by giving them free stuff, by being a human being, by recognizing and understanding who they are, you’ll have a huge advantage and that’s what we’re trying to that kind of thought process out of the university.

Shaina:                    That’s awesome. I love that we talked high level. I’m like just treating people like humans, like everything that you had just said about inbound. We have an episode later with Wilkerson and he literally like the whole episode is about how he uses hubspot with his content and I’m still like, if this isn’t like intriguing to you guys who are listening, watching, whatever, like that episode is going to blow your mind. It’s really long because he’s super excited and I was asking a billion questions but like funny haircut, right? He’s got well, yeah, yeah. Gina

Dan:                          like a 30 year old guy with that hair cut like that, but he’s a good friend. He’s been a huge inbound advocate even before he started using hubspot. Uh, I’ve spoken at many of his events and, uh, the guy has educated thousands of people in the event space and he gives away all of his stuff for free. So he’s like an icon now. Everybody wants to hear a little bit about, well, in his business has done great. And uh, that’s a perfect example of applying it to what some people would refer to as a traditional market. Right. And like lots of the SAS companies, they all get it. They have to be online. Lots of the software companies, they all get it. Um, the traditional companies sometimes are a little harder to like transition. Um, but uh, I always ask, I do a lot of board level work, right? Cause I got the gray hair. Right. You wouldn’t say the same thing, but they wouldn’t quite trust you in the same way for some reason. But I don’t blind in my head.

Dan:                          Maybe it’s just the way human dynamics. But when you walk in and you guys already got 38 years of business experience, I’m like, all right, do you want to get found for people who are looking for your stuff online? And they’re like, yes. I’m like, uh, okay. Well today you’re invisible to Google, right? There is no way you’re going to get found unless you changed. And they’re like, that doesn’t sound good. And like, let’s get the data and the facts. I go, if you want to connect with people, then you’ve got to treat them like human beings. And these guys get it. I’m like immediately. Right. It just needs to explain it. Be explained to their vertical market and the way they can. Right, right. For sure. So we talked a lot about tactics in that episode, but one thing that I promised everybody is that they will have some sort of actionable thing that they can do in the next 48 hours.

Dan:                          Yeah. That will put them ahead of where they are today. Okay. So here’s the thing. Uh, I deal with a lot of options for nurse, right? Uh, I speak with them, um, all over the world. Uh, I a mentor about 20 companies on the board of directors of three companies. Um, and the biggest challenge for entrepreneurs today is to focus, all right. You know what I’m talking about, right? This focus is really hard because, um, for many, many years, lots of companies were generalists. They dealt with a lot of different, uh, types of companies in a highly successful at. But, uh, one of the things that we’ve seen in the last 18 months is that everybody, if you’ve got a stomach ache, everybody wants a gastro, uh, enter analogist, right? Somebody who immediately understands it’s what you were saying about the speed to solving the problem, right?

Dan:                          And you don’t want like to meander, you want it soft very quick. So I’m choosing a niche, right? A very specific niche. The niche here, the better is both frightening, but very, very, uh, empowering, right? Because, uh, if you were going after, um, workspaces in Phoenix that had at least a 10,000 square feet and, uh, we’re here in, um, like maybe southern Phoenix, um, that gives you a very defined niche. And if you were able to grow a market share that you would get all the business right because everybody in their brain would think not in or just got to Shana. She’s the person who deals with those type of, uh, like, um, group work spaces in that particular territory. And uh, it doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t be able to help other people, but the more the riches are in the niches and if you really focus on that niche, right, and you’ll build more value for your company, you’ll have better customer satisfaction, you’ll be able to get more customers to refer you to other customers and it will have a significant impact in your business.

Dan:                          Okay. That’s awesome. What’s, what’s one way that somebody could start dialing in what their niche can or could? Excellent question. So you start with looking at your personal background and your other, um, like founders or principles. The next thing you do is look at your customer base, right? And, uh, look at your really good fit customers. Hubspot has a free tool called make my persona where you can go out and uh, you can see that information where you can actually create a persona of who you’re going to market to. And then, um, you want to get as niche as possible that would have, I don’t know, between a hundred or 200 a potential prospects that you can go after. And then, uh, you want to see your current customer base and you want to try to lay the customer base over the target audience and a, then just spend a little bit extra time going in and trying to make that connection. And even if not all of your customers are going to come from that particular niche, if a majority does, then you’re going to create more value for them, for yourself, uh, and get a little bit more traction.

Shaina:                    That is so awesome. Thank you. That’s a great action item. I appreciate it. I know. No worries. Well, thank you so much. This has been incredible. I learned a ton. I was just super excited to have Dan on here and now we have all this knowledge to go with the episode, so thank you so, so much. You’re welcome. Happy to do it. Yeah, thanks for being part of the Arizona entrepreneurial ecosystem. Yeah, super excited to be here at galvanized and I’m talking to your audience and look forward to helping. Anyway. Again, thank you. Thank you so much. All right guys, you are welcome for dance higher today. Oh my gosh. I’m an awesome week and we will talk to you on the next one. Thank you so much for checking out this episode of the content coalition. Now, whether you’re listening or watching, make sure that you subscribe to the Youtube Channel and to whatever platform you’re listening to it on because you’re not going to want to miss out on the incredible things that I’m learning with these amazing content marketing pros. So make sure you subscribe and we will talk to you next week.