Inbound 2023 was Interesting
Join us as we talk through our experiences at Inbound 2023. Joining us for this exciting discussion are Jesse, our esteemed CCO/VP, and Catelin, a highly accomplished Account Executive. During the event, we will discuss their travel mishaps, our favorite sessions and share our general thoughts on how the conference went.
Hurricane
This week, we're all sipping on a refreshing hurricane! Its blend of rum, passion fruit syrup, and lemon juice, is the perfect combination of sweet and tangy flavors that will transport you to a beachside paradise.
- 4 oz rum (usually aged rum or equal parts aged and white)
- 2 oz passion fruit syrup or fassionola syrup
- 2 oz lemon juice
- Orange slice and cocktail cherry for garnish
Steps:
- Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with a couple of small pieces of ice.
- Shake until the ice has dissolved, then open and pour the cocktail into a hurricane glass filled with crushed ice.
- Top with more crushed ice, and garnish with an orange slice and a cocktail cherry.
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Episode Transcript
Catelin: Give us the old hair we are. That's the old thumbs up.
Rich: Nothing like asking when we're going to start recording and learning that we've started.
Catelin: We're doing it now. Um, yeah, this is Cocktails, Tanzans and Answers. Thanks for coming back. We're going to talk about inbound. I'm finally allowed to share my opinions.
Rich: Yeah, so you are guest.
Catelin: She's off the leash, kids, and we're hosts.
Rich: today we're giving Caitlin a double job, which means she will talk twice as much. Um, probably not. Probably the same amount of talking Um, but yeah, so this is part two of our inbound episodes.
Catelin: Discussion.
Rich: Caitlin, this was your first time at inbound. It was, and so we're going to talk about that.
Catelin: And I got to tell you it felt like we were in a hurricane, which is a good, old fashioned segue to this week's cocktail. Oh yeah, fantastic Um our notes say that this simple and refreshing rum cocktail was originally just rum, lemon juice and passion fruit syrup.
Rich: Yeah, that's the classic.
Catelin: Yeah, yeah, I got to say I um, rum is not what I would do, it just uh, I'm coming around to it because that is what my in home bartender has been on to lately. So I think, um, he'd be really into this. We could. We could sure try it. We could try a cocktail hurricane. I think actually got him hurricane glasses like two years ago for Christmas.
Rich: Yeah, I mean, hurricanes are good. Um, we used to pretty when I lived in Omaha the first time back in the nineties. Uh, there was a restaurant called Butsy Ladoo's. It's not here anymore, Um, but it was a Cajun restaurant.
Catelin: I can't imagine why Butsy Ladoo didn't last.
Rich: Butsy Ladoo did like it was like $ hurricanes on Thursdays or something. But they had two sizes of hurricane glasses. You didn't realize this until you kind of got into it. They were shorter on Thursdays for the $ versus.
Catelin: Well, yeah.
Rich: I think they're regularly like $ or something and they were tall, it might have been cheaper than that, what is?
Catelin: what is two nineties dollars in , dollars?
Rich: I don't have that math, um, but they were cheap and I was younger and had no money, so we would go there because we could walk, because we lived across the street, like Kitty Corder.
Catelin: Oh, that's so responsible of you. It was.
Rich: And we got completely lit. Uh, because we were in our twenties and thirties and that's what we did. But the fun thing was we went there so often that the staff realized that if we got drunk we would stay and eat dinner because why not? And then we would overtip because we are drunk and we had dinner. So, like the third or fourth week that we were there, they started bringing us the $ canes and the big glasses, because they're like this will work out for me on my tip. So that could be why. But see, let you isn't there anymore because we ran them out of business by drinking.
Catelin: You drank them under the table, literally. Uh $ in is worth $. today.
Rich: Oh, okay, so it's still a pretty cheap cocktail by today's terms.
Catelin: A $ knockout I'd be. You know, cause like a hurricane is not nothing.
Rich: No, and it's pretty much booze. I mean a little lemon juice.
Catelin: Yes, four ounces of rum aged or equal parts aged and white. Two ounces of passion fruit syrup or fashionola syrup. I would also submit that you could sub in my new favorite liqueur, which is canola, and that is a passion fruit liqueur, delightful and beautiful.
Rich: And fashionola is a blend.
Catelin: That's what I was asking you.
Rich: Like it's a blend of juices, that's typically in your hurricanes invented by you, by some people, I think, named fashionola, but I don't know, I don't think so, probably not.
Catelin: I think it was just a, I think it was a, a port ban too of passion and fashioned into, if I had to guess.
Rich: Okay.
Catelin: Passionola like passion. Anyway. Four ounces of rum, two ounces of passion fruit syrup of your choice, two ounces of lemon juice and an orange slice and cocktail cherry for garnish. Add all of the ingredients, aside from the garnish obviously to a cocktail shaker with a couple of pieces of ice. Shake until the ice has dissolved, which is called dilution Interesting. So, you're going to shake that for a hot minute?
Rich: Yeah, so it does say small pieces of ice, though, so don't put in like big giant cocktail balls in there. You're going to be shaking for a while.
Catelin: No, it was like cubes.
Rich: Yes, but your arms are going to look fantastic if you're shaking.
Catelin: Yes, this is where Tyrell really wants a pebble ice maker, because hurricanes look really pretty with the, the sonic ice, if you will.
Rich: Yeah, it doesn't take as long for them to break up and dissolve.
Catelin: No, it's well and that's so. Typically like tiki drinks are really overproof, but they're sweet and so they're. They're deceptionally sweet and will knock you on your butt, but that's why you serve them over pebble ice, so that they get diluted over time. They're not meant to be crushed, because that's how you, that's how you end up over tipping at butzzy ladoos and that's that. Yes, so there you go, shake into a shake until the ice is dissolved, stir it. I don't know why you would stir that. In fact, I have questions about your, your instructions. Pour it into a cocktail glass filled with pebble ice and garnish with your slice of orange and a cocktail cherry. I swear the string wasn't me this time. It was just inspired by the episode, because last time.
Did you?
Rich: did the AI tell you to stir this drink, Zach? I feel like maybe that happened.
Catelin: No AI, no AI.
Rich: All right, no AI on this one.
Catelin: It doesn't do a good job of drinks. That's what I've learned.
Rich: You're coming through my headphones. A little bit hot there, Mr.
Catelin: Oh sorry, I got too close to my mic. That's all right. Zach's just excited. He's like are you going to?
Rich: talk again on the intro, all right. Well, speaking of talking again on the intro, I think that we will not belabor this one, because we've got a lot to talk about and you're one of our guests, caitlin. So we've got you and we've got Jesse: Glade, our chief creative officer, who his first time at HubSpot . He was going to go, or inbound. He was going to go last year, I think, or was it two years ago, and then he had a baby. It was last year, I think, and he had a baby and that was just not a good idea to leave his wife with the infant for a week while he left.
Catelin: Leaving your wife with a two-year-old is better, I mean, you know or leaving your husband with a three-year-old. Madison is a saint, she is we love her.
Rich: So let's just take a little break and we'll get into it with you and Jesse: on your first year at HubSpot . And we are back. I'm going to play host because, Caitlin, you are a guest.
Catelin: I'm a guest. I'm a guest in my own home.
Rich: You are, and you are in your own home right now. It looks lovely behind you I love your kitchen color too, by the way, that nobody can see. But let's talk about things. My favorite thing when a radio show talks about something they're looking at or like we're watching this video. You describe it Don't do that You're a radio show Stop.
Catelin: All right, really experienced hosts will describe it. They'll say, like tell me what you're looking at right now and I'm like you really know what you're doing. Ari Shapiro, you brilliant genius.
Rich: You're actually since Jesse is here, I think he would agree. On my screen anyway, you look fairly branded because I think it's a black wall behind you but it looks pretty navy. And then you've got like that sea foam green going on. We just need like an orange stripe and you're good to go.
Catelin: You will not probably find any orange stripes in my home unless they have been put there by a two-year-old with a, a three-year-old with a crayon.
Jesse: It's like a nice bowl of oranges and your kitchen would be.
Catelin: There we go, there you go. Okay, that could be on board or Clementines, you know it would actually be on brand for us in terms of agency and also my home is like a giant bowl of Cheetos. That yeah.
Rich: I was going to say goldfish crackers, but Cheetos would be.
Catelin: Oh, that could also work. Yeah, there's a lot of no those are all smushed into my carpet.
Rich: Oh well, that's exciting. So your carpet kind of looks. If you had navy carpet it would look like our office carpet A little orange flex.
That's perfect, yeah, all right. seconds into it and we still haven't even talked about what we're going to talk about. So the point of this is you both went to Inbound this year with Jessica. We talked to her already, old news Done with it. We want to get your opinions as first timers, because you both went to Inbound for the first time. So first question is was it also your first time to Boston?
Catelin: Yes, no.
Rich: Okay, so yes for Jesse:, no for Katelyn. But Jesse:, you have family in Boston, I heard.
Jesse: I do. I have a cousin and his wife and three kids, so I got to hook up with him. We went and had supper one night, which is really fun. Don't get to see him very often, so it's fun. That's my favorite part. I've done that too.
Rich: I've got some friends out there on the East Coast. I stuck away one night and got dinner with this friend of ours and had a really really good time and got caught up with him. So good, All right, Well, cool. So my biggest question is so you go and do the registration and that's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So one of the four things that I'll give you is you're en clergy before you head to PCS.
Jesse: So if you have a good experience, it's a good practice.
Rich: We ran I mean it's a good practice, but then we're finger covered up. Well, and it was. I think they said it was like , people this year. Yeah, that is a lot of people. I mean, the town I grew up in was only , people, so I mean four, four denizens.
Catelin: Yes, I mean, it was a building.
Rich: I worked in in Chicago. A building I worked in Chicago had , people in the building, so two of my town could fit in that building, which was bizarre.
Catelin: No, I am. I had been. I've been to industry conferences before I did. I'm the professional photographers conference, like in ,. Well, it would have been . And so I knew kind of like what an ex-boyfriend would look like and what the sessions would. You know what to expect a little bit in terms of the number of people and like what you know a trade show might look like in that regard.
Rich: So did this feel pretty standard then, or did it feel like they'd gone over the top with some areas?
Catelin: It definitely felt a lot more fun. Yeah, like the, the food offerings on the floor and the kind of lounge seating and the. Yeah, yeah, there was definitely like a Much more laid-back vibe to some of that. Obviously, like your sales booths are gonna be salespeople and you know they are trying to talk to you and give you socks and a tote bag and and whatever, when really what they want is for you to use their product, which, yeah right, branded umbrella.
Rich: Branded tiny umbrella, like the thing is like six inches long, but it's a big umbrella when you open it and it's from Mountain, which is Ryan Reynolds, right, yeah, his Digital TV service that he owns because he owns an agency. He owns that. He's Deadpool, he's everything, but yeah. So I also got socks from them, but I gave those to somebody else.
Catelin: I wonder if, that's, you try to give me socks this year too.
Jesse: I got a guy came by. They were from a different place.
Catelin: Yeah, he's like, do you want some socks? And I looked at him I said no, I don't.
Rich: Thank you. Are those socks filled with cash? If not, then no.
Catelin: Also, it was like I just went through a major closet declutter. I don't want your socks. Thank you so much.
Rich: I will never wear those so fairly typical expo lots and lots of people, but a little bit more fun. Like I know a couple years ago I might have been actually might have been last year they had a bathtub that had like ball pit balls in it, like kids ball pit balls, and it's like, and of course I look at it and go, well, that would be fun, but I am. There's no way I'm getting in that in front of all these people, like even fully closed, everything the other thing.
Catelin: Race you. The other thing I really appreciated because I am crispy on the inside I automatically was like, oh, this is a lot of money on like Stuff that gets tossed or like the all of the decor pieces and things. And Jessica actually Said that last year to what would have been last year, because I think they didn't do in person the last you know whatever before that. But she said that they actually, in their sustainability plan, make it a point to reuse a lot of the decor and things. So that really Was encouraging, because my first thought when I walk into stuff like that is always like Ah, that's so much garbage, like we're making so much garbage.
So, I was really Heartened to see that they had thought about the earth when they were doing all of the like big Color block decor and lights, and they reuse stuff from year to year. So yeah you inbound. Thank you so much.
Rich: They have a sustainability pledge, that they have what they go for and like. What's really fun to me is the giant inbound letters. It's the same letters. They just do something different with them every year, so they'll be painted or they'll look like shrubbery or you know whatever they do, but the base of it is is the same Very cool. So I've done other conferences in that exact same space. We used to do conferences for LPL in there. So it was wild to me the first time I went, because it was very familiar and I'm like oh, this is the room where we did all of our live tweeting from and blah, blah, blah.
Jesse: But then it was so fun and unique as well, yeah, one thing that I really noticed, too, was how well branded the whole place was. Like they were, they were on top of it Like signage, wayfinding, like it was so consistent, really well thought out, like the whole place just looked like HubSpot, which was pretty impressive considering the size of that Expo Center. Yeah, so really really nailed that part of it for sure.
Rich: Yeah, now you know why the tickets cost what they do, Very one ticket pays for one coat of paint. On last year's light up letters just on one letter, though just on half of the no, I did something I like too. It's very organized. So how did you guys feel about, like, finding things, getting to the sessions, finding food, how was that for you guys compared to other conferences or just in general?
Jesse: Considering how many people there were and how big that place was, it was surprisingly easy. Yeah, whether that was the the way finding thing that I mentioned, or like the people that they kind of had directing traffic, I Thought the app it in all of its kind of shortcomings, the the map was actually really handy. I think I use that a lot. So if you weren't by, like, I would look up where I was going on my To my next session, like at the end of a current one, and that kind of helped. So I Didn't really have a lot of trouble there.
Catelin: I am not the person to ask about directions. I just always would stop and be like hi, can you help me get here? Like I tried to use the app and the live map and I'm like, but which way? Where am I? Where am I? I couldn't figure it out.
So, but I will say that the event staff and I obviously Office extrovert made it a point to stop like six of them over the course of the three days and be like you are Doing a great job. All of the people in the turquoise shirts were Spectacular, like the event staff, because they don't obviously all work for HubSpot or inbound, it's like a hired team of people but they were spectacular, so spectacular like cheerful for the most part, and there had to have been probably like three or four hundred of just the event I mean like tons of event people. So like, managing a staff of that size is Insanity, right, but they were so cheerful, they all knew where stuff was. They were happy to help, like even if you stopped for a second, you were like looking they're like hey, do you need help finding something?
So like staffing wise I you can't like overstate how spectacular the the event team and like the Tech people and the speakers and just like that vibe was very cool for sure.
Rich: Nice, yeah, they're very, very helpful. I just I'm just realizing, as you're saying, that I completely forgot to give you my double top secret restrooms that nobody uses. I that's super valuable information and I discovered your voice down.
Catelin: Mackey, that's an offline conversation.
Rich: I will not tell anybody if we go again, like when we will go again? We've got tickets for next year already for at least a couple people. But but yeah, so that was my big thing, because sometimes even the men's bathroom lines would be super long. I'm like what is this? Like a Opera during rent or whatever. Like it's good Lord, there's never this many men in line for a bathroom.
Catelin: Yeah, um, but then when you find that many men in line at rent either, let's be honest.
Rich: Well, it depends on where you're at in Chicago.
Catelin: I suppose that's, true.
Rich: So let's get into content that, yeah, what was your, I guess, what was your favorite like big room session, like when you guys were all on the main stage. And I'll tell you, jessica talked about like the Brian and and I Mesh yeah, I was like blanking on that.
They just were really on. You can tell they've known each other forever. They had really good chemistry, but they also were being very useful and very attentive to the audience. So so that was kind of one of hers. Yet others as well, but she said that one was surprising because in previous years that, like the main stage session, they haven't always done it together. They've done it separately sometimes and it kind of like falls a little bit flatter, because they play off each other well.
Mm-hmm so that gave you time to now think about what main stage session you enjoy.
Catelin: I liked Reese Witherspoon a whole lot, just because I think she is a super interesting study of women in business and like leveraging your power for good and also being like smart and savvy, and she talked a lot about how, because of the WGA strike, she wasn't able to talk about like her past projects, but she was able to really go deep on her production company and then also her clothing company and she talked about like learning business terms and finding a mentor and not being afraid of asking questions, and I found that very interesting and respectable about her. It's actually not the first time. I realized this when we were walking out, reese and I were at the same Taylor Swift concert in Nashville, so I texted my best friend and I was like me and Reese are hanging out again.
Oh my goodness.
Rich: It was interesting with the celebrities that they bring in that they would be kind of barred from talking about certain things because of the strike, especially when you've got like a Reese Witherspoon. She's got all these shows. I mean, there's a brand new season of the Morning Show on Apple TV but she can't talk about it because you've got to wait. And then you've got others that have been skirting the rules and not doing well with that. So good for her.
Catelin: Yeah.
Rich: Yeah, I think that keynote that they do at the very end one. It always annoys me because when you're getting back to the Midwest and you're flying to the West it is very difficult to get out of.
Catelin: We're not talking about that. We're not talking about getting home.
Rich: I could say another episode.
Jesse: I'm just talking about schedules and answers after dark. We should have done an episode from that hotel.
Catelin: Oh my God, could you imagine we were punch drunk in the Revere, massachusetts. Four points by Sheraton.
Rich: I'm not hurricane. Punch drunk, unfortunately.
Catelin: No, just like slap happy. It was the most ridiculous.
Rich: All right, I was just talking in general. Every year it's so late that you've got this tiny window to get to the flight that will actually get you home, like before am or before an airport closes out here, and you can't land anymore, but yeah, that's always a really, really good one. Okay, okay, Jesse:, what was your favorite?
Jesse: I really like the Founders one. They you can just tell that they get along really well. There was some good stuff that they said, like giving each other performance reviews and stuff that was you could just tell that they they have a really good working relationship, which is good to put on on stage in front of a lot of people.
Catelin: But I probably would say Anthony Huberman. I wondered if that was going to be yours.
Jesse: It was just a lot different than all the other ones it kind of switched from like a working, like working focused and like all the tools and because you just got kind of tired of that by the end of the day because it was three days of all that. So that one was more of a reset like how to you know healthier habits, how you can, how you can be a little bit healthier, and it was just kind of refreshing.
Catelin: Like taking care of yourself and optimizing your brain and your. What was it?
Jesse: Yeah, what was even the title of that one. I can't, I don't think.
Catelin: I had no idea, I was just listening in that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and he didn't have like slides or anything either.
Rich: So it wasn't like you were like oh, I'm gonna write down these four bullet points. Yeah, yeah that's kind of cool.
Catelin: I. What I really appreciated about Brian and Darmesh, too, was that they talked about like points of potential failure early on, where it was like what were your shortcomings, like what came up in your performance review and I can't remember if we talked about this or not, but it was like we did a little bit with Jessica, yeah.
Yeah, where it was like they they admitted some things that were problematic for them and then kind of what they did or how they they worked to address that and change that for the betterment of themselves, but also their like company and their company culture, and I just I think there's not enough opportunity for us to say like, oh I, you know I have this problem and I'm actively trying to fix that about myself.
Rich: Yeah, I think that introspection is hard and I think especially at their level I mean they're a traded company. It's worth billions of dollars. It can be rough to be vulnerable like that. But I mean Brian going through his, you know, nearly dying I think, probably did a pretty good reset and he had a skiing accident.
One of the things that struck me and I'll bring this up for Jesse: mostly, but Jessica brought up that I think is interesting and something for you guys to think about as we look at, you know, a five or year transition plan that we're talking about is how they were equal partners, right, so they were , but one of them had veto power if they couldn't agree, because you can't just not do things in business, you've got to move forward, and that's one of those that's really interesting. In which areas does who have veto power?
Jesse: if you're a organization and having been in some of those and not had that, it's like oh, didn't they say they only had to use it, like one time I think is what they had said which and then they like went through all the background on that and that that was like and they agreed upon thing like years before that and they never had to use it until that moment. And then they did.
Catelin: Did they say what it was? Was it small to media? No, that wasn't it. They had, like, really worked to identify that they wanted to serve small and medium businesses, that they didn't want to be an enterprise company. I can't remember if they identified that or not. I might go back and watch their video.
Jesse: I think they did too, but I can't remember exactly what it was like. Clearly it was not important, a shift in something, and they went one direction instead of another. Split in the road.
Catelin: And then they said like, ultimately, we would have been successful either way, but we're, we stand by the choice we made and sometimes the other place. Well and it was like two kind of divergent, like business strategies or so I can't remember. I wish I can remember what it was, but that's right. That introspection to of saying like, yeah, we made this choice and it changed the trajectory of our business, but I stand by it, like I think that's also very admirable.
Rich: And I think that can be hard, like saying like, yeah, I made this choice, I mean it's, it's a parent thing, it's a business owner thing.
Jesse: It's a leader thing.
Rich: It's a boss thing where sometimes you have to say I made this choice and I'm standing by it and we're going to see where we go and even being able to admit well, maybe it wasn't the right choice or maybe there were other options that might have played out better, but this is the choice I made and this is the path we're going down, so let's go.
I had a boss who said, who basically used the bus metaphor, and he said you know, this is the bus. I'm giving the bus direction on where to go and if you want to go there, get on the bus. If you don't want to go there, nobody's stopping you. Get off the bus. Which he might, which you can quit, or I can fire you.
Which was interesting, and there were some big contentious things with like rebrands and product changes that happened in a couple of companies I was at and there were people who opted to not get on the bus and you know what? The whole organization was better off for it, because they made the decision.
Catelin: And you're all rowing the boat in the same direction, or you don't really manually power a bus anyway.
Jesse: It's like like the Flintstones bus.
Rich: Maybe it could be how about the beer, the driving drink.
Catelin: The petty cab. What a petty cab thing.
Rich: So what about favorite sessions? So, aside from the big stage stuff that you guys all did, like smaller sessions and things, what was your kind of aha moment? Give me an aha moment from one of those sessions.
Catelin: One of the things was All of the stages in your sales pipeline have to be an action that is completed, like every time you move some. It's not like a holding or like a I was like, oh, that's really good when you're talking, like that has stuck with me that it's like, once the action is completed, they move on, and it's not like a oh, I have to do this or have to do that. It's like it's a, it's like a consumer action that is completed to move them through your sales pipeline.
Rich: We're gonna have a view looked at our sales pipeline to go through and be like, hey, we need to change this thing.
Catelin: No, because I've been trying to like implement some of this stuff and then also Remember all of the things that I thought I knew before.
Rich: I think most of ours are, though, because it's like meeting, scheduled meeting happened, contracts, decision-maker body, and like it is something that has happened that moves you forward. Sorry, I just bumped my mic, hopefully that wasn't super loud. All right, so it's a concession, Jesse nugget, aha moment, something that stuck out for you.
Jesse: I don't know if I had any like big, like eye-opening things. I there was a good one that Jessica and I went to on Friday. That was like tips for productivity and scaling your business. So they did. I think it was five like personal productivity tips and then five like business ones from two guys. That were really good and there was just a lot of good stuff. Got a added a few books to my reading list from that. I'm about halfway through one already, so Getting some good Wow.
Catelin: What's the book?
Jesse: traction. Okay the like EOS, like Business implementation thing, so that that was a really good one. They just had a lot of like really good little things in that one. Like they mentioned the inbox zero thing, and then I'm flipping through my notes here. They had a really good the four quadrants of like do, plan, delegate and eliminate. Mm-hmm, I'm trying that out on my like to-do list this week, so don't not going too bad. I think I could get used to that.
Catelin: So if you like a lot of small little things, just for those of us that have many emails, what is inbox zero? You just like? Try to have no emails in your inbox, that's yes, it's beautiful.
Rich: Yeah, so you have to. The idea is that you deal with everything that comes in. So everything that comes in either needs a response now, a response later, to be forwarded, to be deleted or to be filed, and so you do. And there may be other ones, but you do all of those things. So the idea is that if you've got something that needs to be done later, you actually put it in a folder that is to do like it's a tomorrow or a next week, etc. If it is deleted, you delete it. If it needs archived, you archive it. If it needs forwarded, you forward it and then file it and get rid of it.
So the idea is at the end of every day, you have nothing in your inbox. So there's a piece of software called superhuman that I've been working with. That is an email software that it doesn't work with HubSpots Widget thing so it'll still do the logging with the BCC, but it won't track, unfortunately. So I use I don't use it for everything, but the idea is that you've got separate boxes right. So there is this just other box that you don't even pay attention to. That's where all the stuff you don't care about goes in.
But you've got your VIP box your priority and then, in that you can hit short codes to like file something and Remind you tomorrow at am, remind you next week at am, and so what happens is it disappears from your inbox and they hide it and then it comes back when you need it, which is really cool.
It's something I can show you guys sometime, but it's not cheap, but it's not super expensive, and if it helps organize things it could be really good. Interesting that like Not not surprising at all, but interesting that an organization and structure Type of a thing was something that you gravitated toward. You are the most like buttoned up, like process driven creative I've ever met in my life, which I think I've said on this podcast before truly spectacular, but I appreciate it like yeah, they mentioned that inbox zero thing.
Jesse: I was like, oh, I kind of do that already anyway.
Catelin: Yeah.
Rich: Yeah, it's really about getting rid of stuff. Like a lot of times I'll just be like, oh, I don't care about that and I'll just let it ride and it'll float through the inbox. But then I think I'm like, oh, I should just hit delete, like I should just delete that just delete it yeah.
So we're probably coming up on time. Given this session, I feel like we could do like six more sessions like this. But since you guys, this was your first year, think about the whole conference in general and I've got some ideas. But what tip would you give to somebody who next year is their first time, just coming to inbound next year for the first time?
Catelin: I have to, I have two good, we'll take them.
Well, three. I have three tips. First tip Pack some snacks, which I did. Beef jerky no, not the beef jerky that I bought because apparently it's not good. The meat that was buying snacks for this trip is different than the meat that eats snacks, and I don't really eat beef jerky. But I was like what if I am locked inside of the convention center for two days and cannot find any other food? I must have protein to sustain me. So I bought like three bags of beef jerky to bring with me.
It was dumb, I would do that. Anyway, bring a granola bar that you actually will eat. Put that in your backpack. Number two wear much more comfortable shoes than you think you're going to need. It's so much. Walking the convention center is huge. That feels really stupid, but just. It's miles a day.
Rich: You can walk five miles easy in a day there, yep.
Catelin: And then the third thing is not specific to conference, but it is specific to a thing you should do in Boston, and that is go to Cantina Italiana in Little Italy and eat literally anything on their menu, and you will be so happy, so happy. All right, those are good ones we could do just a food and beverage episode of Inland. America, I would only talk about the pasta that I ate there. It was spectacular All right.
Rich: Jesse newcomer tips. Yeah, I can talk about the food and stuff.
Jesse: I would say, gosh, that's a probably. Just go through the agenda. And so this is what I did like a week before, went through the whole agenda and I just added everything that was interesting. So I didn't care about time or day or where it was and just added like a bunch. So just add everything that you think is interesting, save your seat, add it to your calendar or whatever, and then, once you've gone through that whole list, then go to your calendar and say, like, look at things that overlap, look at which.
And then you can kind of start to narrow down and say, okay, these two are at the same time, this one seems good, but the other one is a little bit more interesting. Or leave them both on there and make a judgment call like five minutes before on which one you're going to. There was a couple that I did that too, like, oh, I have both of these on here. I think that helped cure some of the overwhelmingness of it. Oh, there's so many sessions like what's going on? It's like here's everything on my calendar is what I'm interested in, so I don't have to worry about anything else, and that kind of helped keep everything straight.
Rich: That's so much better than how I usually do it, like I'm going back and forth between calendar thing, calendar thing like I'm going back and forth, but I love yours.
Just dump it all on your calendar and then, if you decide you don't want to do something, you can just back out of it or keep them both overlapped, hold your spot in both of them and then decide which one you want to go to, and somebody will be grateful in the standby line that you gave them a seat at the one you didn't go to. That's a good one. And mine is do that early Watch for when they publish the agenda and get some of your stuff, especially the critical stuff on there right away, because some stuff does fill up, some doesn't, but some does. So that's one of mine is do it or start early. Same thing with hotel. As soon as they release the hotel blocks, grab one.
My trick is always to take the hotel you guys stayed at actually is the one I typically do it. It's just about a block or two away from the convention center. We book their refundable rooms early and then when they publish like I actually could go do that right now when they publish their rates, then I can always cancel my rooms and book at their rate, assuming it's lower. It usually is one year. It wasn't though. But yeah, definitely get that hotel. That's walkable. The shuttles are terrible, you don't want to do that. Boston traffic is a nightmare. So that's one. Get a hotel nearby and do it early to preorder your stuff from Dunkin Donuts, so you just have to walk up and grab it and leave. I mean you will do Dunkin, not Starbucks.
Catelin: We got burned. We got burned on our first day and I couldn't forgive them yeah they just did.
Jesse: You both had a bad cause. Yeah, both.
Catelin: Jessica and I were like this isn't good and I was like Duncan is dead to me. Caraboo forever.
Rich: Fair enough. And then my last one is it's a food one. It's eat it gather. Oh it's good and drink it gather server.
Catelin: There was my favorite part. He was not ready for the level of shenanigans that I, Jesse:, was also on his shit that day. It was spectacular. Jesse's like, how many ounces are in your beer tower? And the guy was like I don't know.
Jesse:
Like nobody's ever asked me that before.
Catelin: He's like it's like eight beers and Jesse's like. So I shouldn't drink that by myself. And I was like not if we're walking out of this restaurant. All right, so maybe take a forklift to get Jesse: home after your tower or bring someone else who likes the same beer that you do, because that's Jesse's problem. Is Jessica and I are both like I'll take a fruity cocktail. Thank you so much.
Jesse: Just spicy margarita was good.
Rich: Yeah, start coordinating now for who you're going to take with you to help you with the beer.
Catelin: I should also go on record, I know.
Rich: I know Saxon for a good beer. If you're still on the East Coast. You're a cheap flight or drive. We just have to get your ticket. We'll see.
Catelin: Jessica told me not to say this out loud. She's like don't tell Rich: that He'll take you up on it. I was like ready to purchase my ticket for next year. On the plane, I was like sign me up, I'm coming back. End of story.
Rich: Purchase your inbound ticket or your plane ticket. Yeah, inbound.
Catelin: I don't think plane tickets for next year are on sale.
Rich: Well, we have two, and we'll get a free one again, because we'll stay platinum, and then we'll get a discount, and we'll see if it's or percent. We lowered that discount this year, otherwise we might have sent another person. So you missed it, zach. If they would have kept that discount at percent, we would have sent another person. I do think that, though, from a content standpoint, it would be really interesting for you. There's a ton of content stuff, ton of videos.
Jesse: There were a lot of really good content, ones that I just couldn't get to, yeah.
Rich: My dream is I would love to just close the agency for a week and take everybody I don't know, as though that would be possible.
Jesse: I don't think Boston's ready for us.
Rich: Could you imagine?
Catelin: No, I'm picturing the of us at UNOS. So when we checked into the hotel this is my closing story when we checked into the hotel that we had to emergency book because there was weather along the entirety of the Eastern seaboard, we could not get home. So I was like let's just call it, we're going to book a hotel here. We'll get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow. So I picked the first hotel that had reasonable rates and an airport shuttle. In the morning we check in and the first thing is this hotel had a sign in the lobby that said welcome back to Boston. I was like we didn't fucking leave.
It was so funny. The poor reception, I don't know. It guessed a . The attendants at the desk were like what is wrong with these people? But so then I looked at him and I was like Julie, miguel, because obviously I remember their names. I was like do you have a bar? And Julie, sweet Julie, was like in the parking lot, which in this part of the country means somebody's got a cooler in their trunk, and I was like I perfect where.
Rich: Jesse was like done. What are they? I don't care what they're sort of.
Catelin: It's Sam Adams seasonal and everyone wins.
Jesse: I could have done a beer tower by myself that night.
Catelin: That night, oh my God.
Rich: I think when Jesse was at you and I that went on those video shoots and everywhere we went there was a restaurant like a bar in the parking lot of the hotel.
Catelin: Yeah, I looked at all your hotels. You're like great job, that's right.
Rich: They all had a really good, like one head of Buffalo Wild Wings and something else, and we were like this is great because we go back to the hotel.
Jesse: We could walk like feet and we were within lots of food.
Rich: Fantastic, all right. Well, I'm glad you guys had a good time. I'm glad you feel like you want to go again. I know you're waiting for your Queen of Inbound Crown. We'll work on that and see if we can get that done.
Jesse: Thank you so much, but yeah, thank you so much.
Rich: It was great to talk to you guys and get your perspective. I'm glad it was worthwhile because it's expensive, costs quite a bit of money to send four people out there.
Catelin: Yeah, three people, we were only three.
Rich: I was like we were only three. You were only three, right, we sent three people, never mind.
Catelin: Yeah, so I think that's where it's valuable, like when you talk about rooms and stuff. Like Jessica and I shared a room and that was fine, so it's like I generally don't.
Rich: I would never require somebody to share a room, but if you volunteer, I'm like, yeah, I'll save the money. That's great.
Catelin: I mean, we used some AMEX points and Jessica and I are both like yeah, yeah.
Rich: We get five X points on digital media. So all our digital media goes on the AMEX and we get all of that. So we'll have more flights for next year, so we'll see what we can do and how many people can go.
Catelin: All of the people, let's all go. Let's all go.
Rich: And that's a wrap for another episode of Cocktails, tangents and Answers.
Catelin: We hope you had as much fun as we did.
Rich: So if you'd like to connect and have more fun, you can find me on social media at Rich: Mackey it's just my name, super simple and easy. And you can find our agency at antidote, underscore seven, one that's A-N-T-I-D-O-T-E, underscore the number seven, the number one, across all social platforms as well.
Catelin: As for me, catch me at home sipping a craft cocktail expertly prepared by my in-home bartender, who happens to be my husband.
Rich: Stay tuned because we'll be back with another episode every other week featuring a brand new cocktail recipe, more tangents and, of course, we'll do our best to answer all your burning marketing questions.
Catelin: And if you have a question you'd like to send our way head to ctapodcastlive to shoot us an email.
Rich: Or, even better, leave us a voice message For those Caitlin on our hotline at --. Your question might make it into a future episode.
Catelin: For now. Make sure to like subscribe and join us again next time for more fun and insightful discussions. Thanks for tuning in. Cheers.