Get ready for HubSpot's World Certification Week, May 15-19, 2023! (HubHeroes, Ep. 33)

[00:00:00] Liz Murphy:

Hi. Welcome back to Hub Heroes once again, I am Liz Murphy. That's really the only person you need to know on this podcast. I mean, I don't, I don't, I'm just kidding. Actually, no. I do wanna take a moment to honor one of our hub hero pod uh, podcast hosts.

Uh, Devin, you are not here this week. You are. You are off educating the masses in the great state of Wisconsin. And I wrote a poem. I wrote a poem, but I thought I made a robot write a poem. Are we

[00:01:08] George B. Thomas:

Oh, we're starting with that.

[00:01:09] Liz Murphy:

We're starting with it. Not ending

[00:01:11] Max Cohen:

Does it reference cheese at all?

[00:01:14] Liz Murphy:

sadly. No,

[00:01:15] Max Cohen:

Wow.

[00:01:16] Liz Murphy:

but it okay. It's a hai coup.

Devin. Devin, where are you? Podcast without your jokes bites. Silence ain't funny.

[00:01:27] George B. Thomas:

Oh wow.

[00:01:28] Max Cohen:

Ooh,

[00:01:29] George B. Thomas:

yeah. Of all weeks.

[00:01:30] Max Cohen:

ooh.

[00:01:31] George B. Thomas:

not to be here too, that's what's fun. But

[00:01:33] Liz Murphy:

know even Max said something earlier. Remember we're talking about World Certification Week, the thing that our man Devit got hyped for the last few episodes.

[00:01:42] George B. Thomas:

really hype. 

[00:01:43] Max Cohen:

feels weird not having him here for this

[00:01:45] George B. Thomas:

know, but

[00:01:46] Liz Murphy:

well,

[00:01:46] George B. Thomas:

we're gonna have

[00:01:47] Max Cohen:

Oh, well, we'll get him. We'll get him for the recap.

[00:01:50] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, there

[00:01:50] Liz Murphy:

well, We'll get him for, we'll get what's his name for the recap. That's right, David. He's wonderful. Anyway, hi. Welcome back to yet another episode of Hub Heroes. We've already let the cat outta the bag. We are talking about HubSpot World Certification Week. It is almost here it is, May 15th through 19th.

We've got a ton of stuff going on here. It basically, it's an entire, you know what, George, I'm actually gonna turn it over to you. I'm gonna give you a little bit of mc space, a little bit of lane to

[00:02:18] Max Cohen:

Mm

[00:02:18] Liz Murphy:

here. I wanna, I wanna hear, I wanna hear the George Sizzle describing World Certification Week.

[00:02:24] George B. Thomas:

Oh man. Well thanks for giving me the reigns, uh, to be actually be, be able to talk. Oh, I won't, I won't. I know. It's only temporary. It's only temporary. so the sizzle, it's funny because, um, A, there's so much to actually talk about in this episode, and there's so many good reasons to, uh, like pay attention to World Certification Week, but I have to, of course, you know, draw it down to its simplest form.

And for me, the sizzle is this year, this week, World Certification Week could be the thing that changes your life forever. The amount of certifications that you get. The amount of information that you put, in your brain, the things that you'll unlock for yourself, for the company that you work, with or for, or the agency that you're at, the difference that it could make in the ecosystem of your surrounding. Is what fascinates me. And, and I, I know that people go at this and we're gonna talk about it even as like, well, it's five bucks for certification, and also I'm getting my certs. And I'm like, you know, it's checking two boxes. It's checking more than two boxes. You, you, sometimes you forget that you're a box that needs to be taken care of and checked.

[00:03:33] Liz Murphy:

Hang on. Okay, so we're leading with a pretty powerful metaphor there. Guess what? Everybody we're boxes

[00:03:38] George B. Thomas:

That's right.

[00:03:39] Liz Murphy:

All right. But that's exactly why we're dedicating an entire episode to this. So for all of you, longtime listeners, first time callers, you the, you know, That here on Hub Heroes, like we are huge fans of HubSpot Academy, number one.

But even more importantly than that, we are just overall committed education for humans, advocates, HubSpot, anybody doesn't really matter. So that's why we are taking this week's episode to dedicate an entire. Well episode to the incredible inbound education opportunity that we all have before us. Just in a few weeks, we're gonna be talking about what it is, why it matters, and how to make the most of this opportunity.

But I wanna lead with a question and I, I can just imagine that there's somebody out there in the audience listening right now to this going, okay, y'all. This is a company who is incentivizing people to take certifications on their platform. This is corporate shi written all over it. Gentlemen, what say you.

[00:04:33] Max Cohen:

I mean, corporate schill, I think would be kind of a weird way to, uh, to, to point at it considering they're not selling anything here really. I mean, I guess you could make the argument that more people taking it, more people getting their eyes on HubSpot. Yeah. I'm sure there's nice benefits that'll come from that.

But I mean, here's the way that I'm, I'm kind of thinking about it, HubSpot economy is great. There's like a lot of awesome educational stuff on there. Whether you wanna lean into like the strategy side of things in our universe or the product side of things in our universe, like whatever. But, the thing that's tough for some people is that like, It is, it is, it is overwhelming the amount of stuff is in that's in there and the different paths you can take and the different places you can go and what you can learn and the journeys you can create for yourself from an educational perspective as you bask in the fields of all this, you know, content glory that's in there.

I think like what's really neat beyond the incentive to do these certifications so you can, you know, do it for the kids, right? Get, get that money donated, help HubSpot hit its goals there. but I think if you were ever looking for an excuse to expose yourself to a lot of this content and you've always been in a place where it's either been too overwhelming for you to start, cuz you don't know where you should start, I think what's really interesting is like you're seeing them build all these different like, events around this that just helps you like navigate this stuff, right? Because, you know, sometimes we can get a little bit of analysis paralysis and, and, you know, avoid this great learning opportunity we have in front of ourselves, but like now there's like really no excuse cuz they're really gonna be guiding you and holding your hand through how you should approach all this stuff.

So, think it's a great opportunity for, for even that just by itself.

[00:06:10] George B. Thomas:

And I'll say this like, first of all, if you're full of excuses, cuz I think I heard Max say the word excuses like, I don't know, five, seven times just a second ago. Like you gotta knock that junk off. Like you just gotta realize you have a limited amount of time to absorb the amount of education that you need to get yourself to the place that you wanna be in life.

And by the way, what I'm saying here is we are what we read, listen, or watch. Right, and so I, I like to talk about things, you know, in ways that are kind of weird and in indifferent, but you know, Is this the year that you actually start to subscribe to education Trump's entertainment? Are you gonna use World Certification Week to be the jumping off point of like, I'm gonna focus on all the things that I need to learn to become the person that I want to be.

And I think it's a great opportunity and, and again, Liz, you've talked about shilling for corporate, shill for yourself, freaking shill for yourself for a week. Like, oh my gosh.

[00:07:10] Liz Murphy:

You

[00:07:11] Max Cohen:

And hey.

[00:07:11] Liz Murphy:

why.

[00:07:12] Max Cohen:

Well, well, I was just gonna say is like, yeah. Is this a marketing thing that HubSpot's doing? Yeah, absolutely. But it's also injecting some good into the world, and it's also giving you a really good opportunity to really learn how to wrangle this and take advantage of it. So take advantage of it, right?

[00:07:27] George B. Thomas:

Which by the way, not marketing things aren't bad things. Listen, the World's Certifica, or not the World certification, but the world's largest webinar in 2012, was it a marketing plan or attack or scheme or strategy? Yes. Did it bring a bunch of people in who were the foundation of the HubSpot and inbound ecosystem?

Absolutely. Did it just change the trajectory of where HubSpot is today? Without a doubt, and that's why I'm saying that World Certification, we can be that same thing to you, the listener. It can be that catalyst moment

[00:08:02] Liz Murphy:

Okay. I look sidebar on the word catalyst. Nobody else knows this, but you and I have been battling over the word catalyst for over a year. You already, we, we already hashed it out three months ago. I think. It's a great word. Now I'm on board with it. Moving on. Thank you for rubbing that one in there.

Really

[00:08:19] George B. Thomas:

I had to just say, I slide it in there,

[00:08:21] Liz Murphy: 

I just had to slide it in there. I appre, you know what? Honestly respect, respecting the salt on the wound

[00:08:26] George B. Thomas:

man. I got reigns and respect today, max. I am batting a thousand. I should just clock out right now and let you guys do the rest of the podcast.

[00:08:33] Liz Murphy:

Actually, yeah, that would be great. George, we actually don't wanna hear anything else from you today. That would be wonderful. No, you know what I actually really find frustrating about that question. The reason why I put that question in there is actually somebody asked me that recently, and the immediate reaction I had is, okay, so number one, so what it, yeah, it's a company, but also number two, how cynical.

How cynical of a thought, because here's what I'm thinking, and this takes me back to our HubSpot Academy episode where we were just talking about the idea of HubSpot Academy overall, who says that a for-profit organization cannot be of genuine service and helpfulness to their audience. And I think HubSpot, whether we're talking about HubSpot Academy or we're talking about World Certification Week, really leads by example of.

This is the power of selfless education. Sure, yes, it's gonna bring people to the platform, but people can also earn certifications. They can put on resumes to go to companies that have nothing to do with HubSpot. You can learn about seo, you can learn about website design, you can learn about social media, paid advertising, chat, uh, marketing, like anything you can possibly think of.

You can learn there. And so the reason why I wanted to lead with that is that like if you're listening to this and you're immediately going of World Certification Week, it's an event. It's people making a podcast about an event cuz it's a relevant topic to have. So no, honestly, if this wasn't worth its weight in gold, somehow we would not be talking

[00:10:02] George B. Thomas:

See, and I don't get that. I, I don't understand why people think that way, because Liz, let's be honest. Do you think that Netflix has a TikTok, a YouTube channel, a whatever, because they're like, oh, we just want to give you a little bit of free, like entertainment. No, it's about the subscription, right? So like we, we, we deal with it all the time in other different ways.

So why, when a company. And instead of focused on, uh, entertainment, it's focused on education. Why is all of a sudden there this like negative vibe that heads into the conversation? I don't understand that. I just, I don't get it.

[00:10:37] Max Cohen:

Some people just wanna watch the world burn. Um, but also, like, if you think about it, it's a win for everybody, Like what's great for HubSpot is like sure are, are they, are they getting people to like go and get on their platform maybe for the first time because of this and possibly selling some more HubSpot for sure.

Are they also. Enabling a big chunk of their user base to become even more skilled and proficient with HubSpot so they can go do more with it and keep their companies around longer. Absolutely. But are all those people who are taking advantage of it, learning a lot more skills and being able to do a lot more with their skillset and, and hopefully make more money and get better jobs and further their career?

Absolutely. Right. Is this also gonna generate some money to go to the kids? You bet. No one's losing in the situation. World Certification Week is a big W. Let's go

[00:11:27] George B. Thomas:

But, but Max, we

[00:11:28] Max Cohen:

for everyone.

[00:11:29] George B. Thomas:

we even have to go another layer deeper to that. I don't know if you've been in the space for a while, you might realize there's a little bit of what I would call. Uh, talent shortage. Is

[00:11:41] Max Cohen:

Mm.

[00:11:42] George B. Thomas:

Week actually gonna generate some more inbound humans that we can hire?

Cuz I'd love to see some of those folks that haven't been in the space for eight years and won 150,000 bazillion dollars to work at an agency. But somebody's new, they're in college, they go to World Certification Week, they come out, they're happy to make 40 to $60,000 a year, and they're down with. The inbound methodology and strategies.

Yes. I'll take more of those. Please

[00:12:09] Max Cohen:

Break into HubSpot. Forget break into tech. Just break into HubSpot.

[00:12:13] George B. Thomas:

into HubSpot.

[00:12:14] Liz Murphy:

With a crowbar or with, okay. No, you didn't

[00:12:16] Max Cohen:

With your brain. With your brain

[00:12:19] Liz Murphy:

Ouch. That sounds like it. Herz,

[00:12:21] George B. Thomas:

Ooh.

[00:12:21] Liz Murphy:

I love that you brought, I will love one thing you brought up also, um, max, that I wanna make sure we touch upon. Like they're literally giving money away. To a charitable organization

[00:12:32] Max Cohen:

Mm-hmm.

[00:12:32] Liz Murphy:

for every certification awarded.

So like, I just don't wanna hear. Anyway, so let's switch gears a little bit. You know, when we were riffing before we started recording, you guys were both taking a look at the New World Certification Week website, which just rolled out when we, we started recording this. Talk to me about what you saw there, because George, I watched you multiple times go, Ooh, ooh,

[00:12:53] George B. Thomas:

So, so first of all, and this is gonna sound really design nerdy, um, I don't think I've ever been to a website where I look at the top hero section and I feel like the website is breathing. And what I mean by that is if you go to the website and you look at the orange and yellow bars in the hero section, it literally feels like it's the same pace in which I am breathing, where it's slowly going up and down, up and down.

Inhale, exhale. Like I'm sitting here staring at it and it's just relaxing the crap outta me and it's just a design tasty piece. But at the end of the day, if you go above that, that's where the important stuff lives. Where it talks about grow your career. It talks about learn new skills, get certified during the third annual.

By the way, I can't wait till it's like the 30th annual. World Certification Week, but the third annual World Certification Week, and there's a place where you can sign up. There's even a place that you can add it to your calendar and listen, if you're listening to this, Look in advance, try to block off as much time as you can.

Hit that signup button, add it to your calendar and start to figure out a strategy of certifications you can get. But, but again, past the breathing, Liz, there's like, what is World Certification Week? There's numbers and stats because marketers and professionals like numbers and stats of like the amount of donations, almost $500,000 in donations, 95 plus countries.

Hundred thousand active certified users. There's a world certification across the globe section that you can actually hover and interact with. There's how to participate, a 1, 2, 3 step. Everybody loves a 1, 2, 3 step when they're trying to actually get into something. Explore the free certifications. A good call to action.

Oh my gosh. It's like a marketer. Put this page together, I swear, an events calendar that you can look at. There's which certification should I take? Which, by the way, I am a big fan of this section. Which one should I take? Individuals or partners? And everybody should know that we're big fans of this. We literally did an episode on HubSpot Academy.

We literally dropped an article of like roadmaps that people could take around certifications that they might want to get. And so this is like a nice little bite sized version of that. And then your impact. Go ahead. Go ahead Max.

[00:15:05] Max Cohen:

well, I was gonna say also take a look down at the bottom, built by spin influence, a HubSpot partner. So shouts out to spin influence. Looks like you built this, uh, built this for HubSpot. It's, it's, it's gorgeous. We love it. We love you.

[00:15:18] George B. Thomas:

Well look at that spin influence. I'm

[00:15:20] Max Cohen:

should become happily partners, probably.

[00:15:22] George B. Thomas:

Oh,

[00:15:23] Liz Murphy:

Okay. Alright. Calm down.

[00:15:24] George B. Thomas:

Shilling for happily.

[00:15:26] Max Cohen:

get the, how'd you get the shill in there real quick?

[00:15:29] George B. Thomas:

Oh,

[00:15:29] Liz Murphy:

Has your, has your sh has your, uh, corporate shill members only jacket shown up yet with the Popsicle on it?

[00:15:35] Max Cohen:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Dax is sending it to me in the mail.

[00:15:37] George B. Thomas:

partner for happy

[00:15:41] Liz Murphy:

Look at George pretending to say, I swear again.

[00:15:44] Max Cohen:

well, again, again. Anyone attending World World World Certification Week, you, you should definitely go to this website, especially if one of you were one of those people that I was talking about at the beginning that has been overwhelmed by the amount of content that you're seeing on there. Because you can literally go down to the events calendar and all of the different events that they're running are literally ways that can help enable you on how you navigate the enormous amount of content that you have at your fingertips, right?

So if you're struggling to find that path, On what to learn, why to learn it, how to kind of manage your time and structure your journey. There is plenty of stuff here enabling you on how to figure that out. It's not just the certifications themselves because you're learning lasts past this week, right?

So sure. You could approach this in just the, I'm gonna rack up as many con, you know, uh, certifications as I can so I can brag about it on LinkedIn and get as much money sent to these kids as possible. Sure. You could absolutely do that. But the big value that you're gonna get out of it long term is when you really, really figure out how you structure your journey around this stuff so you can keep making progress on it.

Past World Certification week and not just during this week, cuz it should be a year long year, you know, year round thing. Right, not just one week. Right.

[00:17:01] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, so, and here's another thing I didn't even mention the testimonial section, right? So like, you gotta, because listen, we, we can show, we can say we love HubSpot Academy. Everybody knows I'm a HubSpot Academy evangelist. Never worked for 'em, but love them to death. But to see other folks like Pablo Morales, right?

Uh, say HubSpot Academy has helped me deepen in different topics that. comprise my day-to-day life and are of vital importance. Moreover, it always guides me through the challenging processes to execute them correctly. It is a great support and information center for everyone. Real humans. Wait, wait.

Real humans with real words. I'm just saying words wired.

[00:17:47] Liz Murphy:

Words,

[00:17:48] Max Cohen:

words.

[00:17:49] Liz Murphy:

speaking of words.

[00:17:50] Max Cohen:

Sorry, I keep getting you on the delay. I was just gonna say, you know what, the certifications have a lot of words.

[00:17:57] George B. Thomas:

They do have a lot of words. Yeah. Wow.

[00:17:59] Liz Murphy:

did everybody know? That the word is the

[00:18:01] Max Cohen:

me with the, hit me with the, uh, hit me with the.

[00:18:04] George B. Thomas:

I, you know, I didn't ever really wanna pull this out on the podcast, but that right there really deserves just a, just a, just a big old fat.

[00:18:15] Max Cohen:

Oh, I was hoping I would get the drums.

[00:18:17] Liz Murphy:

Suck it max.

[00:18:18] Max Cohen:

There we go. Oh

[00:18:22] Liz Murphy:

You're welcome everybody. Awesome. So, okay, now that we've done, we've sufficiently spent a lot of time talking about how great this website is. And I'm not diminishing that because I think it was really important to walk through each of those elements. I do now wanna dig into World Certification Week itself.

We've talked about the What of World Certification Week. We've talked about, like how they're rolling it out and what they're talking about. Now let's talk about, we're arriving at World Certification Week, right? Virtually speaking of course. What are you most excited about for World Certification Week this year?

And I'll put, and I'll let you answer either way. Either for yourself or for the masses. Or both.

[00:18:58] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. So I think for me it's actually maybe three different layers of, of excitement, to be honest with you. the first one, And not that it's the most important, but the first one, I'm, I am excited for me because, uh, and almost too pronged on that, to be honest with you. But I'm excited for me because over the last 11 months of, of starting a business, running a business, helping people with their HubSpot, I went from a guy that, um, well, let's just say used to have like what, 40 HubSpot certifications.

To a guy who needs to resert a whole crap ton of him, uh, and, and re-get another whole crap ton of them. Uh, because I'm down to like a handful and I just, I know it's time for me to take that time to reer, rege 'em. Um, because I don't want to be a hip. I wanna make sure when, uh, my clients go into their portals and they look at, people that said, Hey, you gotta talk to this guy.

He's the HubSpot guy. That they don't look and see like a completely blank, like no certifications. How's he the guy? Like that's the proof in the pudding right there. So I'm excited to spend some time personally and, and like get that beef back up. But I'm also super excited for the team, right? And when I say the team, by the way, the reason this is so important, Jorge Fu Fuentes has been kicking butt and taking names and getting certifications, but also.

Unknown to many people. Like I've hired, at this point, what, 75, 80% of my family. And so when I, when I say, when I say team, I'm also talking about my two daughters. You know, uh, my two sons, like I know that they're in the HubSpot Academy. They're all heads. Down, they're all getting certifications, so and so just the amount of certifications we can get as a family, aka the businesses.

George B. Thomas, excites the crap out of me because we know that we're giving to each other. We're giving to the, you know, the kids and the, and the, the $5 per certification and just being, being able to be a person who can give the, the room, the space for, for education to be vitally important. You know, I should probably write an article about that, Liz, like why education as a business owner or agency owner is important and how to go about that.

The third reason that I'm super excited about World Certification is I am a big fan of being a blessing bomber. And the idea of being able to put some work in myself and for the family and us to be able to bless others around the world with what HubSpot Academy and the certifications and the donations are gonna be able to do moving forward.

Like I'm just, again, if you get a chance to be a blessing bomber in life, man, you that's, that's next level stuff right there.

[00:21:27] Max Cohen:

Papa bless. Papa

[00:21:28] George B. Thomas:

it.

[00:21:29] Liz Murphy:

Papa Bless Sergeant Shine.

[00:21:30] Max Cohen:

I'm, I'm excited for anybody who's been plagued by that. Analysis paralysis, but has really, really wanted to dive into the content to kind of get what they need to really start that journey. That's, that's one thing I'm excited about. Personally, I'm excited for me because I am. This is a really good excuse for me to kind of get back into the certification swing of things because, you know, as a, a seven year employee of HubSpot being surrounded by HubSpot 24 7 being literally inside the belly of the beast and at the, the forefront of things changing on the product and having to know it like the back of my hand, I didn't necessarily rack up that many certifications like at all.

Right? Believe it or not. you know what I mean? So, One thing that I've really kind of been struggling with ever since I left is saying like, how do I keep the sh the sword sharp? How do I make sure I'm, I can validate that I understand these things and how can I relearn a lot of this stuff that I've learned in, in, in, you know, more unorthodox ways rather than just getting certifications cuz I was, you know, on the inside, if you will.

so I'm, I'm super excited to kind of start. Racking these certifications up and really kind of testing the knowledge or the preconceptions I've had around a lot of this content, which will be super cool. you know, so I'm stoked to actually start getting into the swing of actually getting certifications again and, you know, being proud of that.

And, you know,

[00:22:50] George B. Thomas:

little challenge. We should

[00:22:51] Max Cohen:

we

[00:22:51] George B. Thomas:

little challenge.

[00:22:52] Max Cohen:

you're gonna

[00:22:53] Liz Murphy:

oh, challenge. Challenge. Yeah.

[00:22:56] Max Cohen:

Ready? Ready.

[00:22:57] George B. Thomas:

who can have the most certifications by inbound.

[00:23:00] Max Cohen:

It'll be you. Um, but here's the,

[00:23:03] Liz Murphy:

no. You know what? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hold on. Max, you Hold on. You hold on. No, George, you and me. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go

[00:23:10] George B. Thomas:

Oh, okay. Yeah. Ooh, come on. You know you want

[00:23:13] Max Cohen:

here's another, a weird deeply, or I'll try, here's another deeply personal one for me, right? This is the first World certification week where I am. I have my sleep apnea being treated

[00:23:27] George B. Thomas:

Oh.

[00:23:28] Max Cohen:

now, the

[00:23:29] Liz Murphy:

I thought you were gonna say like, not at HubSpot. I'm

[00:23:31] Max Cohen:

No, no. Well, yes, true, true. Right. but the reason why that's important, and I'm sure plenty of people were just like, what the hell are you talking about is before started getting treatment for my sleep apnea and using like a C P A P machine.

I couldn't read through a page of texts without falling asleep. I couldn't watch a video at my computer without dozing off, right? So a lot of the educational. Experiences and content that I was interested in, that I really wanted to learn. I literally, physically could not sit down and just consume information for a while cuz I would be like, and literally fall asleep.

And it really sucked because I didn't have the ability to like, Learn the way I used to. And so now since I can actually pay attention and I'm alert during the day and I'm not just falling asleep every two seconds, I can sit down in front of something like a, a certif, like a HubSpot certification. And actually, You know, ingest what's happening and stay awake for the entire thing and, and remember what I'm watching, right. So for me it's, it's, it's cool cuz I'm, I'm in a place where I'm taking care of myself enough, where I can open myself up to new learning and stuff. Whereas before, that was really, really hard for me to do.

[00:24:49] George B. Thomas:

So I'm actually really happy that you went down that road cuz one, I'm just happy. Be for you, my dude. The fact that you know that you're gonna be able to leverage into that. But the other thing is there could be hundreds of people listening to this podcast going, oh God, do I have sleep apnea yet? Hey, if you think you might go get checked out because it's a real deal.

Holy field. I'm just throwing that out there,

[00:25:08] Max Cohen:

Dead acid. It changed my life. Going on a C P A P machine changed my life completely and it saved me. So if

[00:25:14] George B. Thomas:

to help people. Don't, don't be giving us that look. We're trying to help people. People need sleep.

[00:25:20] Max Cohen:

for a reason. Okay. All right. Hub heroes. Part of it's getting a nice good night's

[00:25:24] George B. Thomas:

We are being heroes right now, Liz.

[00:25:27] Liz Murphy:

we're here

[00:25:27] Max Cohen:

Oh yeah.

[00:25:28] Liz Murphy:

we're here for sleep apnea inbound education.

[00:25:32] Max Cohen:

Yeah. Podcast is taking a weird pivot.

Yep.

[00:25:36] Liz Murphy:

Okay, so guys, we're gonna, we're gonna bring it back. We're gonna bring it back for a moment. So I wanna now take us down the line of recommendations for folks who are gearing up for World Certification Week.

And I wanna put two trains of thought in your head. There are going to be the folks. Who are taking the certifications. And then there are gonna be the folks who are potentially managing, leading, running the business, uh, in within which humans may be taking these certifications. How do they prepare? What recommendations do you have?

I wanna double click on one thing first though, George, because I saw you get excited and I'm gonna make you wait this time. I do wanna double click on one thing you said earlier though, which is you made a casual reference to this ultimate. HubSpot certification guide that you created, by the way, it's amazing.

Completely ungated. It goes by, roll by topic. J George gives, I think, more than 35 certifications, hand selected recommendations. Definitely check that out. That'll be linked in the show notes. But with that little bit of table setting, George, please go right ahead.

[00:26:38] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, I think so. I, I, I know you said two veins. I, I really think that I wanna hit upon one. I mean, I, I don't know. I probably will end up going down both, but dang it, my brain is like literally screaming right now to the, um, the owner of the company or the owner of the agency, and being able to, again, give your people the space to become the best versions of themselves possible. And, and again, if you can figure out. What is the future ROI of the education that they'll be putting in their brain versus the revenue that you're spending for this one week period or portions of this one week period? I would, I would beg you to understand that most likely the output or the ability of things that they will be able to do and know will be far greater.

And they will be very appreciative of actually working for a company, a boss that puts something that enables them to be the best human they can be at the forefront of the culture of the organization. And so many times we get, as business owners stuck on the conveyor belt of what needs to be done for who it needs to be done for.

We forget about what we need to do for our employees. And I just think this is a great opportunity to do something great for your employees. Like literally, I'm trying to email all of our clients and ask them to come along for the ride with us. I want the clients to be so focused on getting certifications and educating themselves that they're in the battle with our team as we're getting educated along the way as well.

And so, as much time as I can open as much freedom I can give, uh, the employees, that's what's gonna happen, at least in our organization. Cuz I, I want. I wanna create a space like that and you, you have to sit there and ask yourself, owner or manager, do you wanna create that space for your people?

[00:28:39] Max Cohen:

I'd say. One of the biggest things is, is if, if you are gonna be someone who's taking multiple certifications this week, which, you know, I think that's very much in the spirit of, world Certification Week, try to do what you can to, I guess what's the easiest way to put this, stack your knowledge within certain categories by tactically stringing together.

Certifications that are of similar subject matter in the correct order. Right. So when I say this, um, something that I always used to tell customers when I was onboarding them as an implementation specialist. back then we were mostly working with the marketing tools, right? And back then there was an inbound marketing certification, and then there was a HubSpot marketing tools like certificate, like HubSpot Marketing Software certification, And you know, when you look at, uh, a lot of the, the certifications and content and HubSpot Academy, there is some stuff that is very heavily focused on the tool and it's meant to get you better at the HubSpot product and how to click the buttons and click 'em the right way and do the things with them.

But then there's plenty of content that has nothing to do with the product, and it's all about strategy. But the thing is, Those product-based certifications hit way differently when you have the context of the strategy you're deploying with that product, So what I mean by this is if you're coming into this week and you're going, man, I really want to get the sales software certification, or I want to get the, um, you know, I want to get the, the marketing software certification.

What I would recommend that you do first, if you haven't already, or even if you just need a refresher, take the strategic course first and then do the tool-based course in that category. Because when you go in, like get that nice refresher or learn of like what inbound marketing actually is in its essence and in the strategy and in the, the, the, the ethos of it, right?

When you understand the nuance of, of those marketing motions. And then you go and take a product focus certification where it's showing you how to use all the tools that deploy that strategy. You are gonna be armed with so much more context than if you hadn't done that, that when you go and learn about these tools, you're gonna go.

I know why I'm learning about this now. I can think of ways that I would practically use it, not just know how to use it, but why to use it and how to use everything in more of a symphony rather than just a bunch of different things I can do within the product. Right. So try to layer the strategic to give you the context, right?

The more strategic courses and then the actual product ones after that. Cuz it'll, it'll, I think they'll play very nicely into one another.

[00:31:24] George B. Thomas:

Max, I love all and everything that you just said. All of it. I upvoted. Uh, however I will say this too, I had a chance to be on Agency Unfiltered with our boy Kevin Dunn, to talk about World Certification Week, and I gave him an answer. Very close to what you kind of said in this, like, go call, you got this, and then I jokingly said, or you can just take all of the shortest certifications possible and get as many as you can to which

[00:31:53] Max Cohen:

Do it for the kids.

[00:31:54] George B. Thomas:

which then my brain went to.

Man, it would be nice if, and then my brain went to, oh, actually, can we hack this? And I don't know if anybody pays attention to HubSpot Academy. This much or not. But you can literally go into HubSpot Academy, you can select award type and say only show certifications. Then you can go over to Duration and you can say, show me the certifications that are an hour to two to two hours.

So if you wanted to start, and you're a partner, by the way, cuz some of these are partners, some of 'em are not. If you wanted to. Start with, one to two, there's guided client onboarding, platform consulting and digital advertising. Then all of a sudden you could bump it up and be like, well, show me the ones that are two to three hours.

Well, now, you know, you can jump into contextual marketing, marketing hub implementation inbound and, and the Salesforce integration certification if you have access to that. And then, then you can go and open it up to the three plus, which gives you all the other certifications. But you literally have a little bit of a hack that, let me start with the shortest.

And worked my way to the longer at, kind of towards the ends of the week.

[00:32:55] Max Cohen:

Yep. And hey, here's the thing. World Certification Week is what you make it, right? You can go in with different sets of goals. You might be the person that wants to go and say, Hey, this is the time I really get serious about my education, and if it helps some kids out in the process, that's fantastic. I've got all this extra enablement from HubSpot Academy in terms of how I'm planning this out.

And I'm gonna do it in a, in a, in a very strategic way, and I'm gonna pace myself, right. Great opportunity to do that. But also if you're just like a HubSpot psychopath and you want to go in there and just rack certifications like you're putting deer heads on your wall, right?

[00:33:28] George B. Thomas:

Yes.

[00:33:30] Max Cohen:

You can get it done, right?

And if you just wanna go in there and be a complete demonn and get those certifications, this is your week to shine, baby. Go out there and just take it. Take advantage of it. Carpe the dm, seize the carpe, catch 'em all. It's right.

[00:33:44] George B. Thomas:

'em all. Catch 'em all baby.

[00:33:45] Liz Murphy:

So I have a question. I was really excited originally to have this conversation about World Certification Week, but you guys are just really like, should I pick a more interesting topic? You

[00:33:54] George B. Thomas:

I mean, I need a nap, so,

[00:33:57] Max Cohen:

I mean, I did start talking about sleep apnea, so I guess so.

[00:34:00] Liz Murphy:

You a hundred percent did. All right, so let's flip, let's flip the script here a little bit guys. What are some rookie mistakes that people should watch out for and be careful of? you, you, max just said something interesting there. You said world certification is what you make of it, and that can cut both ways.

It's the good stuff you do and it's the accidentally not so good stuff that you do.

[00:34:19] Max Cohen:

Yeah, I, I would say it's, it's missing out on what this week can set you up for in terms of everything you're doing after it. Right. Um, if you're, if you're. If you're someone who's new to this and you just go, oh, I feel like I need to go get a billion certifications, and like, that's all you do, and you don't take advantage of any of those like extra courses and webinars that they're doing about how to structure your learning journey with HubSpot.

That to me would be a huge l that someone would take in a, in a big mistake.

[00:34:46] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, so for me, uh, a rookie mistake is forgetting to hit the resources tab. Right. So like if I take for instance, uh, Jor Monroe, the HubSpot reporting, uh, literally when you go into the collecting meaningful business data section, which has like five videos in it, there's a resources tab which allows you to download the slides and download the transcript.

So a, you can read it. And you can look at the slides for like the major bullet points they're talking about, but then also under there there's a blog post, the Ultimate Guide to Integrations and Why Your Business Needs Them Getting Started With Data Sync by HubSpot. Demystifying integrations platform, audit worksheet, top-rated apps by like, there's just so much additional resources that you can dive in.

Everybody historically has kind of talked about, at least in circles that I've roam. Maybe it's different for other people, but have talked about the certification being the ending point. The certification is the beginning of what could be a far greater journey if you were to leverage some of those additional resources and keep going in the things that you're actually learning through the certification.

[00:35:51] Liz Murphy:

I love it. It sounds like really the only mistake you can make with this is to just not do anything,

[00:35:56] George B. Thomas:

Well, God,

[00:35:57] Liz Murphy:

little thing. Even doing

[00:35:58] Max Cohen:

don't squander.

[00:36:00] George B. Thomas:

I mean,

[00:36:00] Liz Murphy:

Well, no, but I, come on guys, let, no, I'm being a hundred percent serious. It, it is one of those things where it's like there's this wonderful opportunity there, how much you are able to do.

Cause when I think about one of the biggest mistakes you can make is see, like hearing us go back and forth about the fact that like, we're gonna go out and do this and do that. We're gonna get 18 billion certifications and be Thema fan. Like for you, that win might be just one or two cert. It's one or two lessons, whatever that is.

So I want, my biggest thing is like set realistic goals for yourself.

[00:36:32] Max Cohen:

Yeah.

[00:36:33] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, and share 'em with somebody, right? Because as you're talking Liz, I'm like, yeah, I'm saying all this. And then all of a sudden I got a pit in my stomach right now where I'm like, oh, what happens if I get past this weekend? I didn't get any certifications, and all of a sudden they ask me if I got any certifications.

Oh God.

[00:36:48] Liz Murphy:

Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Do we need a Liz versus George? Hub Heroes HubSpot Certification Scorecard for

[00:36:54] George B. Thomas:

Oh

[00:36:55] Liz Murphy:

leading into inbound.

[00:36:56] George B. Thomas:

Uh oh.

[00:36:57] Max Cohen:

Well,

[00:36:58] George B. Thomas:

yeah, but see, here's the thing. We're setting ourself up for success because we're telling somebody about our goal. We're challenging each other. And I'm curious, like if you're listening to this, can you put something in your organization where you put a challenge? So yeah, you're given $5 to the kids through HubSpot Academy, but is there some type of challenge you could put in your organization for the, the person that comes out of the week with the most learned things?

You know, I don't know. You do what you wanna do. You do ju boo. But I'm just saying maybe, maybe there's a way you gamify the crap out of this in your organization.

[00:37:29] Max Cohen:

Yep. I'd also say for the individual though, right? you know, again, if the numbers are your, are your goal, that's great. But, you know, for, for someone who hasn't taken a lot of certifications, right, I think the best thing you can do is just. Ask yourself what you want to get out of that week versus saying, how many can I get done?

because like ultimately the important thing is, is that you walk away from this week with. Skills and knowledge that you didn't have before that you can tangibly put to use in some way, shape, or form in your career, right? Don't forget you're making this time commitment for yourself. It's great that the kids are getting money.

That's awesome. We love that for them. You're gonna help that hap like make that happen, right? But you also gotta say, Hey, I'm making a big time and commitment here. What is it gonna do for me? How is it gonna help me out? What's a realistic goal I can set for myself? What do I l wanna learn this week?

Right? Focus on that. Everything else I think is gonna be a good byproduct from it, you know? Um, but just don't set yourself up for failure. Cuz the last thing you want to feel at the end of the week is like, man, I put all this time and effort in and I didn't do freaking 10 certifications. It's like, Hey man, just, just learn something.

Right? You, you could do more certifications later. It's not like it shuts down after this week, right? The whole point is set yourself up for sustainable success.

[00:38:42] George B. Thomas:

You can do more certifications later. You can do more certifications later. So there shouldn't be a guilt moment, even if you do set that higher goal, which I hear you Max, cuz I like to go for those Behag goals. Those big, hairy, audacious. Like I'll never reach that goal, not in a way that I'm gonna disappoint myself in a way that I know that I can continue on, even if I miss it.

Cuz if I put a, like if I put a half, okay, goal. Then I kind of feel bad cuz I was like, ah, you know, I probably could have done better, but if I put a like BHAG goal out there, I know I am far further than I ever would've gotten without it. And now I can just chug along a little bit, you know, a little bit longer, 1% each and every day.

Boom. Finally reach that goal.

[00:39:25] Max Cohen:

Yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll tell you my goal this week. I just want to get the, the advan, the, the reporting certification

[00:39:31] George B. Thomas:

Let's

[00:39:31] Max Cohen:

That's it. I've been, I mean, I've been wanting to do that one for years. There's even. A piece of content I made originally when I was a implementation specialist that was used in at least the first iteration of it.

I'm not sure if it's actually in there or not. so that was kind of cool. So I wanna see whatever that evolved into. Um, but like I've been wanting to take that certification forever and I've just never gotten around to it. Well, hey, there's no time like the present, so. I don't have like a crazy number goal of certifications.

I just wanna cross this one off my list that I've been eyeing and eyeing and eyeing and procrastinating. And procrastinating. I want to get it

[00:40:04] George B. Thomas:

Hey, max.

[00:40:04] Max Cohen:

and now I need to, cuz in my new role, I gotta be really good at reporting and I'm, I'm not, so

[00:40:09] George B. Thomas:

Hey, max.

[00:40:11] Max Cohen:

gonna have some tangible stuff

[00:40:12] George B. Thomas:

Max. I'm gonna give you another thing. First of all. First of all, max, just all right, but past that, Now the listeners will have to go watch the, the replay, but from where we're sitting right now, Tuesday, the, uh, let me look at my calendar. Tuesday the second. Okay. yes. No, maybe. Hang on. Yes.

Tuesday the second at 11:00 AM I don't know what you're doing, but there is a reporting deep dive webinar that the Kyle Jepsen super admin hug is putting on that you could actually go register for if you're listening to this. After that, go to the super admin hug page. Because all the historical trainings are on that page.

And if you're like, yeah, max, I hear you on reporting, that's gonna be another place you can get some education.

[00:41:00] Liz Murphy:

Gentlemen, let's round this out. If you could give everybody one piece of advice, and this is the only thing they remember from this entire episode about World Certification Week, what is it and why?

[00:41:09] Max Cohen:

Pace yourself. You could still get a lot done by pacing yourself, But if you pace yourself and not just barrel through this, right, I think you're gonna walk away with a lot more than just a number. Of, of certifications. Right? And that's always gonna be 10 times more valuable, right? So pace yourself.

[00:41:27] George B. Thomas:

Listen, education trump's entertainment. Superman and Lois will be there. Son's anarchy will be there. American Idol will be there. The rookie will be there. Whatever your favorite love island. I'm not. I'm not judging. Maybe it's the bachelorette or bachelor. It'll be there later too. You can stream that junk some other time.

Educate. Educate. educate, execute. Educate, execute. That's what I would ask you to do, and just slow down on the entertainment. Quit flipping through TikTok and every real system that social has and social platform and just,

[00:42:03] Liz Murphy:

Max and I are trying to get engagement on TikTok. Come on now.

[00:42:07] Max Cohen:

it's our tos, like just get off

[00:42:09] George B. Thomas:

nah. I'm just telling you. Just put this in your brain. Education trump's entertainment.

[00:42:15] Liz Murphy:

I'm gonna leave everybody with this parting thought, which has nothing to do with World Certification Week and everything to do with the fact that I was today years old when I learned that Littlejohn and Pit Bull put out a new song everybody should go listen to it. It's a banger.

That's right. I have nothing good to contribute. That is what I am leaving

[00:42:30] George B. Thomas:

It's so funny because I was like real nervous for a second cuz I thought it was gonna be like, oh God, I'm getting like in trouble now. And.

[00:42:37] Liz Murphy:

No. Here's what makes it so amazing. Pit Bull and Littlejohn made a song sample and jump around. It is so good. Go put that on and

[00:42:45] Max Cohen:

What's it

[00:42:45] Liz Murphy:

it while you're getting your certification. Jump in.

[00:42:48] Max Cohen:

Jumping.

[00:42:49] George B. Thomas:

okay. Okay. I now, I'm literally Googling on this now. And who's it by? Littlejohn

[00:42:55] Liz Murphy:

Pit Bull, pit Bull and Lil John. Not little lil. You got

[00:42:59] Max Cohen:

How many times does he say D in it?

[00:43:01] Liz Murphy:

doesn't say Dolly. I was so surprised.

[00:43:04] Max Cohen:

to it then.

[00:43:04] Liz Murphy:

Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Torch out. How long does the tape to type

[00:43:08] George B. Thomas:

yo, yo, first of all, that's not what came up. Like I had to add, uh, pit Bull and, and Little John to it, but it's, it is now up on my screen. am gonna play it very loudly when you finally let us be done with this episode.

[00:43:21] Liz Murphy:

We're Oh, wow. Wow. Hurtful. We're done then.

[00:43:24] Max Cohen:

End of the episode, Liz,

[00:43:26] George B. Thomas:

Peace. Peace out.

[00:43:28] Max Cohen:

us outta this. Hell hold.