(metallic chiming) - Greetings, and welcome to INBOUND 2021. Thanks for joining, and a special thanks to
HubSpot customers and partners all over the world. Now, I had hoped we could be
together in person this time, which is ironic, because I'm not really
an in-person kind of guy. I follow the pajama principle. If an activity requires me
to change out of my pajamas, I avoid it on principle. But even for an introvert like me, the pandemic has been challenging. We've spent a large amount of time with a small number of people. Relationships have been tested,
behaviors have been shaped. And in my case, a copious
amount of pizza was consumed. This led to what I'll
call some personal growth, about 11 pounds' worth. To offset this, I bought a standing desk. Well, in theory, it's a standing desk. In practice, I've never
actually stood at it. I prefer sitting. But as it turns out, in order to get the
benefits of a standing desk, one has to actually stand. Who knew? If only sitness tracking were a thing. On the other hand, there's my son, Sohan. This is a photo of him
when he was two years old beta testing the latest iOS. Sohan is geeky and indoorsy, just like me. But Sohan's 10 years old now, and he's been cooped up for
months because of the pandemic. And so, his indoorsiness was
overcome by his desperation to get some time away
from the parental units. So, Sohan decided to try boating camp. This is where he learned
kayaking and sailing with a bunch of other
equally desperate kids. Sohan enjoyed boating camp much more than my wife and I
thought he was going to, or that he thought he was going to. But then one day, Sohan got back from
camp and said the words that I found super scary. "We need to talk. "Daddy, some of the older kids at camp "have been using age-inappropriate words." And yes, Sohan uses phrases
like "Age inappropriate." So, I sat him down. I said, "Sohan, "you're gonna hear these
words your entire life. "Everyone makes their own choices. "Just because they're using these words "doesn't mean that you
have to use those words." So, we had a good chat,
#prettygoodparenting. Now, the scariest form
of "We need to talk" is when it's followed by
"About our relationship." "We need to talk about our relationship." Have you ever gotten those
words in a text or an email, or even worse, in person? Usually when someone says
that to you in person, they wanna talk. Like, right now. In real life. Talking about relationships
can be uncomfortable. But as my hero Ted Lasso would say, "It's like riding a horse. "If you're comfortable while doin' it, "you're probably doin' it wrong." And speaking of doing things wrong, we have some work to do on
our customer relationships, and it's holding back our growth. In a recent study, it was found that 27% of people had a customer experience
that was so frustrating that it ruined their day. And one out of 10 had such a bad time that it made them cry or nearly cry. We're talking tears, here! Last time I cried is when someone put black olives on my pizza. Who would do that? But there's good news. This is something we can
work on and we can improve, but we all have to get on board and we have to start with a conversation. So, I'm willing to say on behalf
of all customers everywhere the four dreaded words. We need to talk. We need to talk about how this
relationship is so one-sided. The only time you reach out to me is when you want something. It's always about you and never about me. Now, it's understandable
that customers feel this way. The CRM is usually just
something the salespeople use, and making customers happy is the customer support team's problem. In many companies, customers sit at the
periphery of the organization. Instead, they should
be the center of focus for every team across the entire company. Now, one of the things
that gets in the way of customer centricity is
something I call Funnel-Vision. It's like tunnel vision, but it cleverly uses the word funnel, and it's even less fun. With Funnel-Vision, customers become so myopically focused on converting prospects into
leads and leads into customers, and then they stop there. There's a better model. It's called the Flywheel. With the Flywheel, instead of just doing a prospect to lead and lead to customer, it continues in a virtuous loop, and you convert customers
into delighted advocates, people that are so happy
with their experience that they will tell their
friends and colleagues. This leads to, well, more leads. Now, some of you are probably
thinking, wait a second. Didn't Brian introduce
the idea of the Flywheel at INBOUND 2018? Yes, he did. So, why am I bringing it up now? The reason is, at HubSpot, we have embraced
the Flywheel in a big way. The largest team at HubSpot
is the Flywheel team, and it consists of marketing,
sales, and customer service. And we hired our first
chief customer officer to lead that team, and this has worked wonders for us in terms of aligning everyone around solving for the customer. So, if you want productive
customer relationships, stop forcing your customers into a funnel, and think Flywheel. And to get that Flywheel
really spinning well, you have to delight customers. And it turns out a generic
impersonal experience just doesn't delight. So, here's what non-delighted
customers have to say: We need to talk. We need to talk about how
you don't even know me. I know you have other customers,
but I wanna feel special. I wanna feel understood. I want to feel connected. So, why do customers feel
disconnected from us? The culprit is this
insidious, sinister thing I call the underpants gnomes effect. Now, I can't take credit for this Harvard-worthy
brilliant business concept. It's adapted from a "South Park" episode, a source of so much business wisdom. The underpants gnomes
are these little gnomes that go to great lengths to
steal people's underpants. Not just new underpants, all underpants. Like, no underpants left behind. Here's their grand master plan. Phase one, collect underpants. Phase two, question mark. Phase three, profit. So, they accumulate this
giant pile of underpants and they have no idea
what to do with them. Companies have a similar problem, but instead of collecting underpants, they collect customer data. And of course, the goal shouldn't be to just collect customer data. The goal should be to use that data to deliver a more customized, more connected customer experience. So, why do companies fall prey to the underpants gnomes effect? To understand this phenomenon better, we need to take a look
at the evolution of CRM. Way back in 1993, a software company called Siebel launched the first legit CRM, or customer relationship
management system. They took every customer and made it a record in the database, so now the entire company had
this shared system of record. Super useful. The problem was that you
had to buy your own hardware and then install the
Siebel software on it, like a caveman. Seven years later, Salesforce came along, and they had a brilliant insight. There was this thing called the internet and all the computers
were connected to it, and you could use the internet
to deliver software better. Hence came the first cloud CRM. Subsequently all CRMs or most
CRMs are on the cloud now. Seven years after that,
HubSpot came along, and we had a novel insight ourselves. There's this thing called the internet, and not only are
computers connected to it, but people are connected to
it, too, including customers. And we could use the internet not just to deliver software better, but to deliver a more
connected customer experience. Now, what do I mean by a more
connected customer experience? Well, number one, the CRM should connect
teams within your company. Marketing, sales, and service should all be on one unified system. Two, it's not enough just to connect teams within your company. You should connect your
company to its customers. Customers wanna have a window into their relationship with you. They wanna be able to log in and view their data and interact with it. They want to be able to
self-service when appropriate. Customers don't want to just have an emotional connection with you. They wanna actually have
real digital connection. And third, it's not enough
just to connect teams within your company and your
company to its customers. You also need to connect
customers to each other. This builds trust because
customers gain confidence when they can talk to other customers. But more importantly, by connecting customers to each other, they can get the most out
of your product or service because they can learn
from other customers. HubSpot's investing in this in a big way with something we call
the HubSpot Network. The HubSpot Network connects
the millions of people in the HubSpot ecosystem so they can discover each
other, learn together, and help each other grow better. So, some of you are thinking, okay, that all sounds awesome, but we just are not able
to do this at my company. Now, the issue may be the systems. We need to talk. We need to talk about the F'n systems. And no, I'm not using a word from Sohan's expanded
boating camp vocabulary. I'm talking about the Frankensystem. The Frankensystem is a CRM monstrosity cobbled together with software parts, applications built by different people in different companies with
different design goals. It's the result of decades
of mergers and acquisitions. And frankly, it's a disjointed,
bolted-together mess. Too many databases and
too many core applications that all do things their own way. There's no consistency,
there's no cohesion, and ultimately, there's no control. ♪ No control ♪ "Now, it's fine," companies
tell themselves late at night, and it is fine. If you're a Fortune 1000 company with tens of thousands of employees and you have an army of CRM consultants with pitchforks and process
diagrams, it's fine. But for the rest of us, it's not fine, because a Frankensystem causes
us to spend all of our time trying to tame the monster instead of taking care of our customers. Now, if you have a Frankensystem, let me say, it's not your fault. I'm giving you a virtual hug right now. It's not your fault. Nobody intentionally unleashes a Frankensystem in their company. It just sort of sneaks in and it grows, and then it makes it much
harder for your company to grow. And the result of a Frankensystem is a frustrating, disjointed experience and very, very annoyed customers, customers like me. So, recently, I leased a Volvo
sight unseen over the web. Now, you know, I'm a parent
not because I got a Volvo, but because I was excited to get a Volvo. And honestly, the purchasing
experience was awesome. I didn't have to talk to a
single carbon-based life form. And then it came time to make
my first monthly payment. Instinctually, I pulled up the Volvo app. No dice. The app can beam signals into space and unlock my car from
three continents away, but it won't let me send Volvo money. So, I go back to the website
where I leased the Volvo. Strike out there, too. Evidently, it's a marketing
and sales website, not a send Volvo money website. Pro tip, commerce and payments are a big part of the
connected customer experience and commerce is all about convenience. So, I Googled it up. Evidently, there's another
website for payments called volvofinancialservices.com. Yep, that's the actual
super-catchy website name. So, I try to register. It asks me for an account number. I have no idea what that
is or where to find it. And Volvo's online knowledge
base was not helpful, primarily because of its complete absence. So, out of desperation, I contact Volvo. To their credit, they respond promptly. "The account number is in the
letter that we mailed you." "The letter that you mailed me?" I responded, "I have no such letter. "Is there another way?" What I should have said was, "The 1900s called on their rotary phone "and they want their fountain
pen and parchment paper back." Volvo responded: No problem. You can call our customer
service department with your vehicle identification number. They can use the VIN to then
look up your account number and you can use your account number to then register for the website, and then you can use the website
to then submit a payment. Now, I'm gonna spare you the details of what happened after that, because it might make
me cry or nearly cry. This is a ridiculous but true example of what happens when you have
a Frankensystem in place. Your teams are disconnected and your customers are
disconnected from the company. The dream is to have a single, unified,
cohesive, uncomplicated CRM, a CRM that was built for creating a customer-centric, connected,
and customized experience. A CRM that was built by people that care with consistent design goals, one of the primary goals being
easy to use by actual humans. That's the dream. And speaking of dreams, we need to talk. We need to talk about the future. It's fun to dream and to imagine
where the world could go, so let's geek out a bit on
the evolution of the web and how we got here. Way back in the 1990s when Volvo first started mailing letters with account numbers, we got the first generation of the web, and the potential was mindblowing. It made me giddy with excitement
and gave me goosebumps. That early web was read-only. In order to put content on the web, you had to know HTML and
FTP and other acronyms, or you had to have a distant cousin that worked at Best Buy
and knew Dreamweaver. But with this early web, businesses could take
their marketing brochures and turn them into websites. And sure, some of these early websites had ugly colors and blinking text, but they were an important first step towards creating a
connection with a customer in a way that brochures never could. Fast-forward 15 years. It's 2005. Brian and I are classmates
in graduate school. This was the time that
Web 2.0 came on the scene. Web 2 was the new new thing. It was read/write. You didn't have to be a technical wizard in order to get content on the web. Even mere muggles could do it. This made me giddy with
excitement, goosebumps again, and Brian was excited, too. And that's what led us to start HubSpot. Now, some have speculated
that we started HubSpot just so we'd have a
place to play ping-pong. It wasn't that. Well, it wasn't just that. With Web 2 came this massive
shift in buyer behavior, and change equals opportunity. And what we saw was that
businesses could now create a blog. They could engage in social media and they could otherwise
add value to customers before they tried to extract it. We called this process inbound marketing, and it was a game changer. So, over the past 15 years, I haven't really felt that
same level of giddy excitement, no goosebumps like I had
with Web 1 and Web 2, until now. Now I'm feeling this massive shift that feels even bigger than the shift from Web 1 to Web 2. But before we jump in,
a quick cautionary note. This segment is rated
FP, future predicting. I'm going to give you a
peek into what I think the future might look like. It's not a peek into the
HubSpot product roadmap. You'll see some of the amazing progress the HubSpot product team
has made on our CRM platform in just a few minutes. Okay, so what has me
giddy with excitement? What's giving me goosebumps
now, 15 years later? It's what some are calling,
wait for it, Web 3. Shocking, I know. We techies are super awesome
at creatively naming things. Here's what has me excited about Web 3. Web 1 was about information. Web 2 was about interaction. Web 3 is about decentralization. It's about putting power back
in the hands of the people. It's the way the web
was always meant to be. Now, some of you probably
have a few questions. One, what the heck is he talking about? Two, why should I care? And three, what should I do? Great questions. In the current Web 2 model, your data is split up and fragmented and owned and controlled by a handful of massive tech companies running massive networks. In a decentralized Web 3 world, you own and control your data, data like your purchase
history, your preferences, your connections, your credentials. You own and control all this data, so you get to decide which companies that data gets shared with. And if anyone's getting paid
for access to that data, it's you. Now, some of you are wondering, okay, that sounds fine. Why should I care? How does this matter to my business? The reason we should all care is because this new Web 3 model will provide us a new direct way to forge connections with our customers and our prospective customers. Instead of advertising to the masses that we know little about
over these big networks, we can forge direct connections
with prospective customers and we can give them a
customized experience based on data they
willingly share with us. It's a much more efficient and
much more trustworthy model. Now, this future is still years away, but the pieces are already
starting to fall into place. We have cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, decentralized application
platforms like Ethereum, and decentralized social
networks, like BitClout. These all give us a glimpse
into the future that's coming. So, what should you be doing? Don't worry, I am not gonna suggest that you start moving all
your data to the blockchain or that you start buying Bitcoin. What I am going to suggest
is you embrace the idea that we're in the age of the customer, embrace the idea that over time, customers are going to
have more and more power, and they're going to be equal partners in the relationship with us. That's what the future looks like. Now, the future is awesome,
but it's still the future. And chances are, you're kinda thinking
about how to grow today. So, let's come back from the future, get out of our time-traveling DeLoreans, and let's recap what we talked about in terms of customer relationships. Here are things no customer has ever said: You know, I'd love to
introduce myself to you for the 43rd time. I've been meaning to get to know as many people in your
company as possible. Transfer me to whoever you want. You know what this relationship
needs is more management. Customers don't want more management. They want more magic. They want to experience a
moment that makes them smile. They want to tweet about a
company, not at a company. They want to feel connected, and our businesses want that, too. Your growth over the long-term is a function of how much customers love the experience you give them. So, give them an
experience that makes them stand up from their sitting desks, brush aside their pizza, and to gush with friends over coffee about how awesome the experience was. It's time to abandon Funnel-Vision, put to rest the Frankensystems, and put aside the frustrating
underpants gnomes effect. Your CRM platform should help you deliver a better-connected, more
customized experience that's focused on the customer. The CRM should put the
customer first in the design, not just in the acronym, because better customer relationships lead to delighted customers. And that's what fuels
all of our Flywheels. That's how we grow better. And with that, I'd like to introduce members of the HubSpot product leadership team. They'll be talking about
the HubSpot CRM platform and the development
that's happened this year. I could not be more thrilled
with the progress they've made in helping you deliver on the dream of customer relationship magic. Thank you. (upbeat music)
