Unbound Unlocked: Jillian & Victoria

One of the best things about the Insider Program (and the HubSpot platform) is the diversity of users. We range from decade long users to first years, conference experts to first time rookies, and span almost every industry you can imagine. 

That's what makes these insights valuable! There is always someone you can talk to to get a new take on HubSpot usage. This week, with Vic and Jillian, we hear about how they have individually utilized the platform across their different teams, internships and clients. 

Check out this episode on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

• Episode Transcript

  Mark: Hey, everybody. We are here on The Sound of Inbound in our special summer series we're calling Unbound Unlocked, and we have 2 very cool folks today. Um, so why don't you talk about them, Mark?

  Aaron: I think with Vic and with Jillian, and with a lot of the people we'll have on Unbound Unlocked, what I'm really excited about is the fact that we're bringing insiders together. There's so many different types of HubSpot insiders, and so many different things that they're gonna all be doing at the show, and getting them together to talk about their ideas and talk about HubSpot as an evolving platform is really exciting.

  Mark: Yep. So, uh, Jillian comes from an elite partner agency called Blue Frog, and Vic actually comes from a company called Pearson, and she also has her own entrepreneurial little b- business on the side that is super fun to hear about, so you should stick around and hear about that. She's also the first time visiting and, and attending the Unbound conference, so really cool to hear her perspectives. And Jillian, of course, is coming back for her 5th year, so she's hitting the 5timers club.

  Aaron: Oh, yeah. And I, I asked them if they would, like, make us smoking jackets so we can all, like, start to celebrate how many times we've been visiting Unbound.

  Mark: You'd have, like, 3 jackets. At, at this point, yes.

  Aaron: Yeah. I would. That's 15. Right. Uh, okay.

  Mark: All right. So here we are on The Sound of Inbound. Please join us as we welcome Jillian and Vic.

  Aaron: Unlocked is where it's at. We're here to chat. It's all the things you want. So hang around, let's open that door.

  Aaron: Hello, everybody. We are here on The Sound of Inbound with our special summer series called Unbound Unlocked, and I have 2 very special guests joining me today. They are both gonna be joining this year's conference as Unbound Insiders, and I have Jillian Olsen and Victoria. And Victoria, I wanna make sure I'm pronouncing your last name correctly. Is it Palacios?

  Vic: Palacios.

  Aaron: Palacios. Okay, Palacios. So, uh, Jillian comes from a company called Blue Frog, and she is the director of research and training there. And Victoria, you are at Pearson working in customer success, but you also have your own venture called, uh, is it Stogie Sesh? That's the name of your podcast. Uh, we'll talk about that in a minute, but it's fantastic that she's also her own entrepreneur and doing so many other things outside of just HubSpot. Really cool this year is that we have folks that join us on this podcast that don't have a lot of experience in HubSpot, but have been living in the ecosystem for at least a year, and that's the case with, um, with Vic here. Uh, and I think it's really cool to get her perspectives on going to a show for the very first time. And then for, um, for Jillian as well, I think she has some experience in HubSpot for 6 years, I think you told me right before the podcast started, and you're also returning to Unbound now. It used to be called Inbound, so we can talk about the perspectives of going from old to new. So first off, thank you so much for joining me here on today's podcast. Uh, I love it, so thank you both.

  Jillian: Great to be here.

  Aaron: Yes, it's great to have you both. So Jillian, maybe starting with you, just give us a little bit quick background on you at Blue Frog.

  Jillian: Yeah. So, um, I've been at Blue Frog for about 6 years now. Um, it's actually my first job right out of college. I was obsessed with data, so my first role was actually in, like, the data analyst side of things, looking at our clients' websites. Our clients naturally use HubSpot, so I just fell in love with the HubSpot platform and eventually became the person who knew everything and everything there is to know about HubSpot. So now my role is to make sure our entire company and our clients know how to get the most out of the system. That's kinda my evolution.

  Aaron: Vic, Victoria, she wants me to call her Vic, I'm gonna call her Vic, uh, we love your hat. I know that has nothing to do with anything, right? Uh, but give us a little quick take on your background if you don't mind.

  Vic: Sure. Well, first off, the hat has everything to do with everything, 'cause we are all just trying-

  Aaron: It does-

  Vic: -to make it through the day. Um-

  Aaron: It does-

  Vic: -secondly, I have, uh, worked with Pearson, been with Pearson about 8 years. I'm also a full-time Western Governors University student, which is how I got involved with HubSpot. I've done about 5 HubSpot internships, uh, all from last year, March. So very, very new to the HubSpot game.

  Aaron: And I'm assuming you've learned a lot since that time, yes?

  Vic: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've, uh, got to see the system a lot of- We did a lot of the beta testing too. We were the guinea pigs for a few of the things, uh, that are in there now, so that was, um, interesting and fun.

  Aaron: Yeah, so I think one of the things that a lot of people ask is if HubSpot has a tight or a very high learning curve. And so maybe just starting with you really quick before we get into some of the marketing speak, I mean, what's been the experience for you? Has it been a very tall learning curve, or do you feel like the user experience wasn't so hard for you?

  Vic: I think when you initially get in there, it's just overwhelming if it's a system you've never used before, which it's one I've never used before. More so if you've never used a CRM, you're gonna kind of freak out. But honestly, once you get over that little hump, it's, it's easy. It's very user-friendly. Everything's kind of self- For me, it's self-explanatory, so yeah. I, I enjoy it.

  Aaron: Jillian, how about for you?

  Jillian: Oh, I think it's one of the more user-friendly platforms out there. I kind of equate the difference with, uh, skiing. If you've ever heard the difference between learning how to ski versus snowboard, HubSpot would be the skiing where it's easy to learn, a little more challenging to fully master, like there's so much to it. Where snowboarding, it's hard to learn but easier to master. It's like I equate that to more of the Salesforce side, like you're gonna spend a lot of effort getting used to it before you can get anywhere. But HubSpot is so easy to just get started, but it takes a lot of digging and playing around and trial and error to really become a master of, "I know exactly how to build this workflow," the first time.

  Aaron: Yeah, so okay. So what I thought to do just get f- everybody get to know you both is we do this little game. Uh, little game, I mean, we just wanna get your hot takes on some specific types of marketing com- marketing themes and questions that I have. So bear with me with little hot takes. Come on. Uh-huh. It's time for some tasty hot takes. Takes. So this is gonna be just a couple of quick questions I have for you both, and, uh, you just jump right in with your, uh, with your opinion about it, okay? So the first one here is nothing is better than email marketing.

  Jillian: I, I agree. I think it's still a classic, and it still works. I don't think anyone likes to do phone calls anymore.

  Vic: I mean, I agree with the fact that nobody likes phone calls anymore, but to be honest, my email marketing a lot of the times just ends up unread or in spam or another cyber space that I don't even know exists.

  Aaron: 'Cause you know, 1, one of the interesting things about this question I just realized just now is that HubSpot actually started off as a system that was just meant for email marketing. And you're both taking a very different, uh, angle on where it comes from. Okay, next question. The future of search is asking, not searching

  Jillian: You know, since I came from an SEO background, I think it's always been very question-based. It's just it-- the way to go about searching wasn't to ask your question, it was to use fewer words. So I think just the way people are searching now is changed, but it's still the same underlying foundation, if that makes sense.

  Aaron: It does. It does. And how about you, Vic?

  Vic: I find that I ask questions when I'm in my search. Like, I will ask a full-on question to Google or Gemini or whatever it is that I'm using. So yeah, I, I agree with that.

  Aaron: I think that AI is underutilized, so I feel like people might not realize that they could be having the open conversation with the tool that they're putting their standard search in. So it's not, "I need to find a place for dinner." It could be so much more than that. Um, so people don't realize. They're just putting that question into AI. But Google is trying to get people to think and realize you could switch modes and get a deeper conversation going, which is kind of an interesting way to teach the world how to use AI. All right, next one. PDFs are forever.

  Jillian: Oh, gosh. I hope not. Like a living, breathing website page that you can keep up to date, less people involved to update it. No, thanks.

  Vic: Yeah. I'm not a fan of PDF. I, I agree with Jillian. I'm just like, I, I'd rather not use it.

  Aaron: I, I love that, and I agree as well. Okay, next one is forms are dead.

  Vic: I, I don't think they're dead 'cause I use them a ton with school and, and HubSpot actually, after my internships. But I think some people need that guidance, and I might be one of those people, you know, hot mess, trying my best here. So I need someone to, like, guide me through questions, and forms is where it's at for me.

  Jillian: Yeah, I think they're still valuable. I think that the strategy behind them is just a little different. Instead of more top of funnel, you're getting a little more bottom of funnel 'cause people are doing all their research ahead of time, so you can ask them more questions that you maybe would've shied away from before.

  Aaron: That is extremely insightful. I think that one of the things I was curious if people might interpret this question is that a conversation is more possible now than a form. And so in the conversation, you start to collect a lot more information from it. I wasn't trying to, like, lead you guys down a different path here, but I do feel like forms are hidden in a lot of the things that we might say is not a form. Uh, so I don't think forms are dead at all. I think we're trying to, like, glean information out of people any which way we possibly can, so therefore, we're still collecting the data, just not through the traditional sense of a form. Um, okay. How about this one? Company blogs are making a comeback.

  Jillian: I don't love when a company tries to keep a blog going just for the sake of the old SEO practices or for the sake of the AEO strategy of, "We just need to have content out there so AEO sees us," especially if they're using AI to write their blog. Now it's just a bunch of AI slop. What I prefer is when a company leans into the thought leadership. Like, I wanna hear your thoughts and perspectives on this, not just what it is. I feel like that's what we're getting a lot more of is just, "This is what this means." I don't want that. I want to actually read the way you think.

  Aaron: Yeah, just write for the sake of writing. I actually think that there's-- This is where some companies get too excited about using AI tools to just, like, draft blogs. That said, moving for a moment with you, Jillian, y- 'cause you're familiar with HubSpot pretty well, I'm assuming, on the ca- side of, like, AI, AI tools. If Have you been using the new AEO toolset that actually makes recommendations of what to write about? Have you used it in any way? Like, have you actually followed its examples of what to try?

  Jillian: I have, yeah. It's, it gives good ideas 'cause it's looking at your competitors and what people are searching. Like, I love that tool. What I'm hoping people shy away from is just having AI then write all the content for you. Like, I always believe in at least, or at most 80% AI should get you 80% of the way. Put your human touch the rest of the 20. Put your perspectives in there, your thought, um, 'cause the last thing we need is just AI learning from AI. Becomes AI slop, just in, in such feeding, feeding on itself.

  Aaron: Yeah. Okay, so how about you, Vic?

  Vic: I enjoy company blogs. My company does a great job at it. it. Um, they don't just do AI slop, and it's so many different people that are writing the blogs with intent. So that's-

  Jillian: Mm-hmm

  Vic: -that's what I love about it. It's, it's definitely with the intent. And to your point, Jillian, with the, with the HubSpot AEO, it is a tool, and a lot of people don't wanna utilize AI just as a tool, meaning you use it to help you, you don't use it for the whole thing. And I think that's where a lot of, like a lot of the friction comes into play is 'cause people wanna utilize it for everything.

  Aaron: The Y- you, you caught on a keyword there. It's like if it's written with intent, then I think it actually becomes a very useful tool for organizations, um, and it's not slop, you know? That, that to me is very insightful when they do that, and you get to learn about a business you never would even able to get to see a certain side from before. Um, but gosh, how many agencies I could probably think of thousands of them right now, just basically were writing about all these generic topics for years and just flooded their websites with just tons of things that just everybody else wrote about, and so it all sounds the same. Sea of sameness, as we say. Um, okay, how about this one? Community will outperform content in the next 5 years. So community engagement would outperform content engagement over the next couple of years. What do you guys think about that?

  Vic: That's interesting to me, and I kind of agree, only because I do- I'm very involved in the cigar lifestyle. I do have the podcast, "Dogi Sesh." Uh, that's what we do. We do a lot of community events within the lifestyle. It's a huge community just here where I'm based. That's not including, you know, outside of Texas. So I think because I've seen it already, I, I agree with that. I definitely agree.

  Jillian: I think community is what builds a brand more than anything these days. I mean, I even look at HubSpot. Most of the time it's not the brand that is getting the most engagement online, like LinkedIn, it's the people within the brand, and you almost take that with you wherever you go, too. Like, I think the community is more important.

  Aaron: All right. I love that from both of you. So this, this last question I'll just ask is kind of a twist: personal brands will become more influential than company brands.

  Jillian: I think so. Yeah.

  Vic: Yeah? I agree.

  Aaron: It's true, and I believe this quite wholeheartedly when you think about how organizations try to promote themselves on every social media channel. The individuals do so much better than the companies do. Uh, would they post anything? Um, but when you have that kind of influence as an individual, how do you train or ask that your entire team consistently push a certain brand out there? Because they're all now frontline, and they're representing the company as a whole, so do you rely on one person, or do you rely on the team? How, what would you guys, what would you guys think about that? Would you think even with the companies that you're in right now, like Blue Frog, would you have one person wanna represent it all, or would you want your whole team to do that? And the same thing at Pearson.

  Jillian: I think it's important to make sure it's not just one person, 'cause you don't want your entire brand reputation saddled to one person. And I think it more so comes down to just who you hire and the culture that you create at the company. You can't just hire people because they are a personality hire. Great to have personality hires, but, like, you have to make sure that you are cohesive as a company. Again, I look at HubSpot as an example. They have people posting all the time, Yamini, Dharmesh, Kyle Jepson. They all have their own personalities, but you can see the brand presence behind the meanings, if that makes sense.

  Vic: So with Pearson, it's really great because they provide us with the tools to post. You know, we'll get like, "Hey, you can post this on LinkedIn. You can post this on your other socials." So it's within the Pearson branding, but we're also able to give our own spin on it in terms of our caption. Um, so it keeps it cohesive, but it also gives us our individuality on top of it. So yeah, but at the same time, as somebody who kinda has a parallel career, I do 2 very different things. I have to be very conscious of the Pearson job. That is my job. That is what pays the bills. That is, you know, that's the bread and butter right there right now. So anything I do with "Dogi Sesh," I still need to make sure that I am portraying myself in a way of integrity to where nobody can go back to Pearson and say, "Hey, y'all have this employee that's kind of questionable." Like, no, I can't do that. And so it does start to blur the line a little bit between, like, your personal brand, like what you're doing on your own social medias, versus your corporate brand a little bit. Like, where does that line get drawn for companies is evolving. So, okay, q-

  Aaron: one more quick question before we move on. I'm curious from both of you, so if you had to represent your business on LinkedIn, would you expect the rest of the team to share the company posts and to repost them and comment them and like them? Do you expect that from your teams?

  Vic: No, you do not. I think, no.

  Jillian: No. Sorry, team. I'm talking to my team right now.

  Aaron: I always encourage them, like- 'Cause w- I do f- I've said this on a few other interviews recently, where I'm just feeling like we're shouting into the abyss, and it helps when other people on our team re-share our work because it goes to their network too, and it doesn't just stop with what me, I might put out or what the company puts out. So having the ability to have some friendlies on the inside that are pushing out our message seems to help carry. Um, but I don't know if I'd say that that's like a mandatory thing, but I, I do have that expectation that if the content's good, my team would share it.

  Jillian: I think I would see it happen naturally if they are engaged well with the company and they have their own perspective on the content. I'd prefer that. But if it's just kind of a company expectation on them, I could see them not putting the effort or thought leadership through that you would want them to.

  Vic: I agree. I am fortunate in the sense that everything's just kind of organic and natural in terms of Pearson and, you know, we all share each other's posts. Even if it is like a, a personal thing, anything that I've posted on LinkedIn that has to do with something I did great at school. You know, I have some of my sales reps go on there and they repost it and, you know, we just, we share each other's stuff because like you said, it's about reach. And we wanna get as far as we can with the reach and so it's just kind of implied but it's not forced or expected.

  Aaron: I do think it's important to now talk through about what's going on with Unbound this year. So Vic, for you, I wanted to get started because I'm assuming you've been to other conferences before, correct?

  Vic: Yes. Sorry.

  Aaron: If you hadn't been, it's, it's good anyway. But the HubSpot folks have talked about this conference being an unconference. So just wanted to start with you. What's your expectation that makes a conference not a conference?

  Vic: I mean, the only thing that comes to mind is casual. I don't expect to go in there and be really, you know, rigid or structured or like I can't go up to somebody and talk to them or ask questions or, you know, whatever the case may be. Whereas some of the conferences that I've been to have been very structured and rigid and it's like, you know, there's a time and place for everything. That's what I'm thinking I'm walking into. I could be wrong.

  Aaron: I think in some sense you are walking into a place where, um, one of our other guests said this so well the other da- said this earlier to us is that there's something for each of the different types of learners that are coming, and that also could be for personality as well. So if you're a different certain kind of networker or a certain kind of learner, there's different kinds of experiences that you could just select from and not feel like it's so rigid. So if you don't wanna follow the agenda, there's a lot of other things that you could do. So it's not like those very small conferences where everybody must be in the theater and then you leave and there's networking and you're back in the theater and that's all you get. Uh, this is so much more asynchronous than that. So in that way, I do think there's some opportunities for you to be very exploratory. So that's cool. Okay. So Jillian, you're coming back. Uh, and so moving from Inbound to Unbound, it's now an unconference. What are your thoughts about what makes this not a conference?

  Jillian: I like what Vic, you said about n- the rigidity of a conference, and HubSpot does not have that at all. You can make it as rigid as you want. You can have your entire day packed with session after session, but you're gonna have a good time regardless. If you have no sessions that you attend to and you're just wandering the floor, you're gonna have a good time. If you go to every session, you're gonna have a good time. I think that's what makes it not a conference is that you get to kind of pick your experience. If you wanna just hang out at the labs area and let the HubSpot folks teach you everything, go for it. You get to pick your adventure.

  Aaron: So Jillian's referencing the Academy. Um, I've also talked about this before too, but HubSpot's Academy is, is quite robust. Uh, and it's free education for people that are interested in getting into leveraging platforms and thinking about techniques and strategies to use for marketing revenue operations, sales op- all sorts of things, the customer experience. Uh, so at the show, they have these little workshop classes that are going on, and they also have one-to-one sessions as well you can speak to people. Uh, it's very hands-on and you're right there in the software. Uh, it's very, very helpful, uh, in how quickly it becomes insightful about what you can get out of the system. So that's what she's referencing. But there's other workshops too. Have you been involved with the workshops, Jillian?

  Jillian: Not the workshops, but um, I've definitely attended a wide variety of sessions over the past 4 Inbounds that I've been to. And what I love about it is some of them are very conceptual and theoretical, like here is just the framework that you could work from. But y- you have to kind of figure out how to apply it to your own business or process. Then there's those HubSpot Academy labs we were just talking about of I wanna just show you how the tool works, like the nitty-gritty in the weeds of it. You have the whole spectrum there, and I love that.

  Aaron: Yeah. That's exactly, that's the way I feel about it too. Okay. So from both your perspectives, uh, I was just kind of curious, you're both in Unbound Insiders. I keep wanting to say Inbounds. You're both Unbound Insiders and it's important to think about what people's, what people kind of might get from your perspective and how you might approach that position this year. I was thinking of it in one, one kind of light that we're kind of like the press corps, you know, we're reporting on things. But traditionally that's like we see other things happening and we report on what we see, but it's also this time I think the whole point of the program is to understand your experience. Um, so it's not about just what you're hearing, it's about what you're experiencing overall and the kind of things that you might be learning as well. So it could be subjective if you want it to be. I'm just curious from both your point of views and especially starting with you, Vic, like what you hope to share with people as an Insider this year?

  Vic: Um, just the first, I mean, it's my first Unbound. I-- like I said, I don't know exactly what I'm getting into, so I plan on sharing that real time if possible. You know, any time that I can, I'm all about, I wanna do real time, you know, POV. I do Meta glasses a lot.

  Aaron: Are you-- So you're gonna be wearing them throughout the week?

  Vic: Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna wear them and go live when I can and just record when I can. I do the same thing with, uh, my podcast. It's, it's a great experience because you really bring your audience and your viewer with you. And for something like this, where I've never been and I'm experiencing it for the first time, I just think it's a really cool tool to utilize and bring the audience with you for the first time as well, so they're, they're in it with you.

  Aaron: Okay, so just to educate me for a second, you said something about going live. So you can wear the glasses and be live streaming?

  Vic: Yeah.

  Aaron: Oh, I didn't realize it actually supported that. Is that just through the Meta platform and only on Facebook, or is it any other platforms as well?

  Vic: Um, I've only used it on Instagram. I'm primarily on, on Instagram, so I go live on there and, yeah, I can just stream with the glasses, so that's pretty cool.

  Aaron: Uh, I was today years old when I knew you could do that. Okay. I mean, but it's fun 'cause I've, I've seen some comedians like go through the airport wearing these things, and it's hysterical when they're recognized and their whole- And they're so generous, so it's kind of fun that they're showing what their whole experience is about, and people are so kind, and it's great. It's a really good vibe. I'd never thought about that at a show like this, but when you're thinking about the networking piece and kind of exploring the shenanigans that are happening on the main floor, which you will experience there, Vic, uh, there's just all sorts of like things that are happening that are, I think, again, very atypical for many other conferences, uh, which are fun. You know? And so it's not just based on sponsorships and who's on the floor just kind of doing demos of software. Some of it is truly just for fun. All right, so Jillian, how about you?

  Jillian: I personally, because I'm in this like director of research and training role and trying to figure out HubSpot's next move with every update or announcement that they make, a lot of my content is on LinkedIn, and it is written. So I don't do a lot of videos. I'm gonna try and dabble this year in some more video content. Um, but what I like to do is talk about like what was said and then my own perspective on what that means or how I could see that be applied to all of the clients or kind of if you're wanting to go down that path, here's something you should do first or make sure you have done in order to get there 'cause, you know, everyone's all excited about the new shiny tools. There's usually something you gotta do first to make sure you're ready for those. So that's the kind of content I like to put out there.

  Aaron: Uh, the new shiny tools. I'll wanna be reading about your perspectives on that. There's gonna be a lot of shiny tools this year. So you've been going for a number of years now. I think you said 4. Did I get that right? Okay. Um, so from your perspective, Jillian, is there some point that you can remember over the last few years that you're just like, "Oh, that was really inspirational," something that you remember, a speaker that you got to see or any, any other kind of experience or class that you took, uh, that you feel like, "Oh, that was really special and it's carried with me"?

  Jillian: It seems kind of trivial to say this now, but, um, the one that I remember the most was the very first Kyle Jepson session that he did at Unbound, Inbound like 2022 or something. Um, it was like things every HubSpot admin should know. It was the very first one. People only really knew him as one of the academy professors, but his personality just shone through so much. And I'm a person who loves to be in the weeds in the tool, just show me how it works, show me everything. So the fact that he just went and was like rapid fire demoing on this session for like an hour was my favorite thing. Like, I wanted to see the tool in action and truly what should every am- admin know. And now that's come blown up. He's his own LinkedIn superstar now. So that one's the big thing that I took away 'cause I just love that kind of content.

  Aaron: Yeah, Kyle is a little, uh, mini HubSpot rockstar. And for those that wanna check it out, last year at, uh, HubSpot's conference, uh, he did join us on our podcast during the show, and you can see the energy, uh, that he brings to the table whenever he's talking about HubSpot. He's so passionate about everything, and he wears this now iconic orange hat, uh, in his videos, and I think it's part of his little personal brand logo. And he's, he's very excitable, and he also tries to make sure everything that he puts out there, if it's a short reel or if it's a longer video, it does have something you're gonna learn from it, uh, as quick as it might be. So there's never anything that you're gonna get from just entertainment value. It's that, plus it's educat- education as well. I love it. I was gonna say for myself, just to share for a half a second, is some of the people that I've been ex- uh, you know, I would say so fortunate to be in the room with have been tremendous. I think Simon Sinek was one year. He spoke, and I didn't know about all of his books and everything else that he had done and his influence in the world and all sorts of other things, and I was like, "Wait, who is this guy?" And then I found myself becoming a massive fan. And then they've also brought all sorts of other people through the ages from every other kind of industry you could imagine. Uh, one fun experience though to mention for you, uh, Vic, is, um, do you know a, an artist named Janelle Monáe? The music artist? Okay. For a couple years in a row, they would have this night where they would bring in these musician artists to come and perform They've switched that out to comedians now, which is kind of fun. And the comedians are usually the ones that have either hit just last year or they're about to hit, and you're just like, "Uh, this person's hysterical. How are they not a superstar?" And then wait 6 months and they are. Uh, but one year I was, I was going to the event a little early, this was the, in the middle of the week, and they had this artist, these, these artist performances come in, and they had cleared out the entire st- um, kind of the main theater, main stage area, and made it into just no seats, just total, like, open, and it was Janelle Monáe. And I knew who she was, but it's like nobody else did. And I'm like right in the front, and she's basically singing in my face the whole time, and at 1 point she jumped off the stage and I helped her, and it felt like so amazing. I'm like, "Oh my God, Janelle Monáe." And then when she came back, she found me, and she found this other guy and we actually helped her back on stage. It was great. Uh, but it's like, where do you get these kind of experiences, uh, unless you go to these concerts? It's just like, it's the TED Talk plus the rock concert plus all of these nice little workshops and sessions all wrapped into one. I will say though, hey Jillian, I want your take on this one. Food trucks.

  Jillian: Oh, yes. I do love the variety of food trucks out there. I think-

  Aaron: But what about the lines?

  Jillian: You know, you just gotta time it right. Don't go during lunchtime. Go at like 1 or 2 o'clock. Just change your timing.

  Aaron: That's right. Okay. So the power tip there is gonna be, uh, yes, great food trucks, wonderfully curated, just don't go out during the normal time. You gotta find the one with the shorter line. They're still delicious. So there's, uh, in Boston, they have a place called the Lawn on D, and they bring in all these different food trucks from all around Boston, and it is usually very, very well curated. But, uh, if you don't time it right, you could be standing in line for a while.

  Jillian: We actually have earned clients from being in line at the food trucks. Like, you just strike up a conversation. You're not- We weren't pitching ourselves by any means, but they're just like, "Oh, what do you do?" And you start talking and then they became a client of ours like a year later.

  Aaron: This is an important take to have, uh, as far as, um, our relationships with HubSpot. So for you, Jillian, Blue Frog is a solutions partner, and, uh, tiered obviously. They're like in the top 3 to 5% of 8- Maybe I even have that low, even higher than it should be. Uh, but you're in the very top tier percent of, of agencies, so you guys live, breathe, and sell a lot of HubSpot, train a lot of HubSpot, deploy a lot of HubSpot. Um, and so the brand I'm, I, I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly, is pretty high out there. Um, there's a few other ones. I think Salted Stone is one. Is that another one I can remember? And there's a few others that are in that very, very elite class of, of agencies. For you, Vik, you said you've interned with HubSpot. Of course, you guys are a direct client of the system, correct?

  Vic: Yeah. So we- It, I don't know. It's, it's kind of confusing because we interned with HubSpot, but for like 2 or 3 of the internships, we've taken on clients, and each student has their own client through HubSpot.

  Aaron: Oh, wow. So you've had the experience of both being your own user and also training on others?

  Vic: Yes.

  Aaron: Oh, that is fantastic. Okay. Do you have a certain s- focus area on marketing, sales, operations? Do you have a certain area that you focus on for training?

  Vic: Marketing. Just 'cause, yeah, just because I'm going to school for marketing, so a lot of the internships I've done with HubSpot have revolved around marketing.

  Aaron: All right. Last question for both of you bo- for both of you is just to get into what we're excited about. So people wanna know how to like, you know, take best advantage of a conference like this Unconference that we're going to. Um, so I just wanted to get your quick takes on what are you most looking forward to that you wanna hear about to bring back to your teams? So maybe Vik, you go first.

  Vic: Everything. Um, I recently looked at the agenda, and I saw so many sessions that I was like, "Wow, I got, I gotta go, I gotta go check that out." And I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm gonna be so busy." But I'm just like in awe at the speakers, the sessions that are available, the labs. I was really intrigued by the labs and the fact that they have that there in real time, so I'm definitely gonna take advantage of that, for sure.

  Aaron: It sounds like the dog pack is also excited about it too. Um, and they're, they're ready to go. It's all good. It's all good. All right, Jillian, what are you looking forward to?

  Jillian: Yeah. One thing I've been enjoying the last couple of times I've gone are the meetups. So if you're someone who really loves networking and just having conversations with people, they're more than just a bunch of people standing in a room chit-chatting about anything. They are very structured, like, "Here's a prompt. Discuss at your table on this particular topic." And you just get a lot of new ideas and perspectives that you maybe wouldn't have gotten by just listening to a panel discussion, which I also love, or like a dedicated speaker session, 'cause it's just real people using the tools the same way you do every day.

  Aaron: Yeah. This year, instead of doing those brain dates, they have these zones that are i- identifiable by, identifiable by role, um, by market, how you identify yourself. They just have a couple different places that you could just go and strike up a conversation with folks. It is definitely a, a community-like environment in those zones, so that even if you feel like it's not really a place where you've, like, if it's not great for Type A personalities, but I think that's not true. I think for folks that are not Type A, uh, it's still a very nurturing community. So even if you just go to these zones, uh, or even in the academy labs, they will strike up a conversation with you too. these zones, uh, or even in the academy labs, they will strike up a conversation with you, too. Uh, and you can ask any question, 'cause people are experiencing a very similar kind of thing. It's really amazing how similar all of our experiences are and how much we can learn from each other, even though we're coming from a lot of different places, role or industry or whatever it might be. Uh, there's a lot of cool things to kind of glean from it. So, uh, I think, uh, l- last thing I wanted to say for both y- you and, you Jillian and, and Vic, is, um, y- you became an Insider this year, which is fantastic. Uh, and I'm sure that's kind of an exciting element as well. Um, is there anything else that you wanna share from folks, to folks that might be listening that said if they do follow you this year, how your perspective might be a little different than others, and what y- the kind of things that you wanna glean from the show to share with everybody on social? I love the first-person perspective, by the way, Vic. That's hysterical. So if you are gonna share, share this on social media, you might be getting a true first-person perspective from Vic. Uh, so Jillian, how about you first before we go?

  Jillian: One thing I like to do is find some of the hidden gem opportunities around, specifically in the HubSpot community elements that they've got going on. So, you know, the HubSpot Academy booth, I'm there a lot just trying to figure out what's next for learning opportunities. What are they doing? Um, and then I do like to hit up some of those, like, deep dive sessions and just figure out, like, where are people wanting to focus most of their time, and give my perspective on, like, where to go from there. Those are kind of my, my jams.

  Aaron: Love that. Okay, and how about you, Vic?

  Vic: I mean, you said it, first person, my first time there. Like, I really have to play off of that for sure. Might follow Jillian to those hidden gems.

  Aaron: I just think of, like, every sim game and every other funny game, uh, that has that FPV, like, that, you know, first person- I, I- This is gonna be hysterical. Um, I was definitely the man on the street the first 2 years ago, like, walking around with a camera, but I never thought about wearing the glasses 'cause that would just be-- If you guys saw the, um, me just walking up to random people and asking them to do the podcasty thing with us, that alone was entertainment, and I didn't capture any of that. But you would have that if you did it. Okay, this is fantastic. Okay, so Jillian with Blue Frog, and we'll put up her inform- information here on, on the screen, and Victoria with Pearson, and she also has her other podcast called Stogie Sash. So you should, we pr- should, we should put the ca- um, the link up for that, too. Uh, and if we're gonna follow us online, everybody can check out the hashtag Unbound26Insider, I believe is the hashtag we'll be using on all the social media platforms. And so you can get the FPV from, from Vic, and the, um, very astute and acutely focused, um, very insightful pod- uh, blogging from, uh, from Jillian. She will share all sorts of interesting insights coming back for the 5th time. Uh, she's in the 5timers club now. We should get, like, nice little cigar, like, smoking ve- smoking jackets from you, Vic, if we get to that 5year thing, just like they do on SNL.

  Vic: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We'll work that out.

  Aaron: I think that would be fantastic. You should bring it. You should wear a smoking jacket this year. That would be a great way to brand yourself at this year's show. That would be fantastic. But thank you both for joining us here on the Sound of Inbound special summer series of Unbound Unlocked. We really do appreciate it. Again, all their information will be on screen. And for you, all you guys that are following along, please check out all the rest of our, um, all the rest of our podcasts on soundofinbound.com. Thank you, Jillian. Thank you, Victoria.