Latest / The Life-First Solopreneur / 131. ⭐ Biggest Takeaways for Solopreneurs from INBOUND 2024 with George B. Thomas

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131. ⭐ Biggest Takeaways for Solopreneurs from INBOUND 2024 with George B. Thomas · The Life-First Solopreneur

• 0:00
  Carly Ries: This podcast episode is being released in early October 2024. And just over a week ago, HubSpot hosted their massive annual conference that covered the latest trends and tactics in marketing, sales, and AI. And we had 2 people attend who are ready to give you the biggest takeaways from the event that apply specifically to solopreneurs. My co host and founder of LifeStarr, Joe Rando, attended, and our very own George B. Thomas not only attended, but presented multiple times. So you have some very credible sources sharing their insights today.
• 0:33
  From groundbreaking strategies to fresh perspectives on automation, AI, and scaling small businesses, this episode is packed with golden nuggets for solopreneurs who wanna stay ahead of the curve. Whether you're looking for new ways to generate leads, streamline your processes, or take your customer experience to the next level, this episode has all of these for you. You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about taking that step into the world of solo entrepreneurship. My name is Carly Ries, and my cohost Joe Rando and I are your guides to navigating this crazy, but awesome journey as a company of 1. We take pride in being part of Lifestarr, a digital hub dedicated to all aspects of solopreneurship that has empowered and educated countless solopreneurs looking to build a business that resonates with their life's ambitions.
• 1:26
  We help people work to live, not live to work. And if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the show for you. So if you're eager to gain valuable insights from industry experts on running a business the right way the first time around or want to learn from the missteps of solopreneurs who've paved the way before you, then stick around. We've got your back because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. You guys, I put this on a Facebook kind of post on Facebook, on a LinkedIn post last week, about having FOMO about a conference.
• 1:57
  And, you know, nobody's ever like, oh, I'm so sad I'm missing these sessions or this or that. And I was genuinely and I know it's my decision to not go. So this is not, the blame is not on either of you. It is on me, but I had genuine FOMO. I was like, oh, what are we
• 2:12
  Joe Rando: I would too. Right now. I would too.
• 2:14
  Carly Ries: I am so happy that you guys got to go, but also jealous, again, my own decision. And before we hop in to your biggest takeaways for solopreneurs from Inbound, HubSpot's biggest conference that talks about marketing, sales, automation, all the big names in those fields are there. I just had to say at, George, I told you I'd take any opportunity to do this today. But at the time of this recording
• 2:41
  It is George B. Thomas's birthday and just scare our audience. But I will say happy birthday. Oh, thank you For spending it with us today.
• 2:51
  George B. Thomas: Yeah. I appreciate it. I mean, there's no one else other than my family because if this gets out to the public and they listen to it, other than my family, I would love to hang out with you folks during my birthday. So it's it's exciting.
• 3:02
  Carly Ries: You guys get to hang out together in person. For those of you that don't know, Joe and I have worked together off and on since 2016. I have never met you. George, you and I have been all of us have been working together for a few years now.
• 3:16
  I've never met you. It has to happen,
• 3:19
  George B. Thomas: fix that. We gotta have, like, a LifeStarr retreat or something at some point.
• 3:23
  Joe Rando: I was just thinking of, you know, Inbound San Francisco
• 3:26
  George B. Thomas: There you go. 2025. Yes. I like that.
• 3:29
  Carly Ries: Good segue into the topic for today. wanna make sure we dive in.
• 3:34
  Joe Rando: So Let's do it
• 3:35
  Carly Ries: Let's get at it be like, offline.
• 3:37
  Joe Rando: I'm just really psyched we didn't have to sing. Right.
• 3:41
  Carly Ries: We have an event after this, and I might make you sing now
• 3:43
  Joe Rando: just because Oh. Dang.
• 3:45
  Carly Ries: And bring up electric guitar. But we talked about, a few of the things that were biggest takeaways for you offline. And so let's dive into the first one. You mentioned that a big focus was that AI is shifting from acceleration to transformation. Joe, why don't you kick things off?
• 4:03
  What do you think about that? George, I want to speak to you after.
• 4:06
  Joe Rando: Well, just this was Yamini Reagan, who's the CEO of HubSpot, making this claim that right now, we're working faster, getting more done with, with AI. Right? So you need to write a blog and, you know, if you're smart, you're not letting AI write it for you, but maybe you're letting AI either review your blog or give you ideas for topics that you might write about, you know, content you might write about the topic. And it's accelerating us, and you're getting more work done in less time. But she's arguing that the next phase is going to be actual transformation, and we'll dig in probably in more detail about those kinds of things.
• 4:40
  But AI is going to start doing stuff for you. So, I think in terms of like, you know, answering your emails or scheduling meetings and these kinds of things that are coming very quickly, according to her. So it's really claiming that it's gonna be a different world, and I'd like George's take on it before I wax on.
• 5:02
  George B. Thomas: Yeah. I definitely think it's, we are on the precipice of transformation. And Joe, I gotta be honest with you, when I was sitting there and listening to Yamini talk about this shift, because we've, by the way, been accelerating our business with AI for a while now. And to hear her talk about transformation, I actually started to think about the solopreneurs and the power in which is going to be in their hands moving forward. And especially when I was watching Andy Petrie and he was releasing a couple products in particular, one, I thought about the solopreneurs when they were talking about the social media, agent, basically, where it'll and I mean, it's not just like it's smart enough to post for you, but they were showing how it would, like, know when to post based on the platform and what was popular before, so therefore, what to do in the future.
• 6:00
  And for solopreneurs who are out there and they're they're strapped for time, Heck, I even know solopreneurs out there, Joe, that don't like social media. And the thought of being able to have an agent that would do the social media for them is probably more exciting than the fact of, like, how I nerd out about it. But this idea of adding to your team but still being a solopreneur because, again, there's the social media agent. Another one that excited me, especially for solopreneurs, is the prospecting agent, where it'll actually do some sales prospecting for you. Again, when we do things like success sessions or problem solvers here at Lifestarr, we're always hearing how, generating leads or following up with leads is a pain point.
• 6:48
  And so now we're moving into this transformational period that there's gonna be these agents, that solopreneurs who embrace the ability to transform their one person business, it doesn't have to be through humans. It can be through these agents that help assist them.
• 7:07
  Carly Ries: So let me ask this. I wanna know if they addressed it when they were there. So we have solopreneurs of all types tuning in right now. What if they're like, but I'm a virtual assistant or but I offer people sales coordination, and I do the prospecting for people. Should they be concerned, or can these still be tools just to enhance their business?
• 7:28
  Joe Rando: They better be tools because it's gonna get very noisy with people that aren't putting a human around this technology. And it's it's gonna get very hard to get noticed compared to even what it is now because so many people are gonna be just spewing up stuff. And that was my next point on this topic is you're going to have to become really authentic, really be yourself, and learn how to put that out there using the AI to basically do your work for you in some ways, but not be you. George, I always think you would agree with that. Right?
• 8:01
  George B. Thomas: I absolutely agree with that, Joe. Honestly, it was literally part of my talk, that I did about AI and humanizing the future of content and your humanity. And Carly, I love the question because there's there's some fear narratives that are out there of, like, AI is going to take my job. Listen. AI cannot replace your creativity.
• 8:25
  AI cannot replace your strategy. AI cannot replace you and your empathy and the understanding of everything from micro Internet actions to micro in real world actions that we that we pay attention to. What it is is it is a tool that can be used. So if you are somebody that does, the prospecting for an organization, well, then you have an assistant to you being their to the prospecting that you do streamlining your process. And I could just list more and more examples of how you can use that tool.
• 9:02
  And one of the things that really hit home with the folks that were in the audience is I said these words because, again, I'm not a big fan of fear. I'm a big fan of embracing change and acting upon it in the right way. One of the things I said is you've never heard a construction worker complain about a hammer stealing their job or a surgeon complain about a scalpel stealing their job. So these marketers, these solopreneurs, these business owners, it's not a replacement . It's a tool to augment and expand their capabilities over time.
• 9:39
  Joe Rando: But it's gonna require some adaptation.
• 9:41
  George B. Thomas: Oh, yes.
• 9:42
  Joe Rando: The surgeons that didn't have scalpels, I'm not sure if that was ever a thing?
• 9:47
  But well, the ones that operated with their hands, remember those?
• 9:51
  George B. Thomas: But, anyway. In the day.
• 9:54
  Joe Rando: you know, before we had true hammers, I mean, you know, you had to learn. let's think about something more more real, like, you know, a bulldozer. Right? Or a backhoe. Yeah. You know, we did lots of construction without those, but when we developed those, new skills were required because the people that learned how to operate those machines became in demand.
• 10:14
  And it's no different now. It's not gonna take your job, but it's good it's gonna require you to adapt.
• 10:20
  George B. Thomas: It's interesting, Joe, because when you say that, my brain goes to because we started this with, like, AI shifting from acceleration to transformation. What we're talking about here is transforming you, the human. Like, understanding what you need to become to be successful in this new world with these new tools. I love that mindset for solopreneurs moving forward. Absolutely.
• 10:48
  Carly Ries: Listen. Well, I think we could talk about AI all day, you guys. So I want to, go on to the next point that you that you really took away, which was the traditional growth strategies are dying. And I would love to know what that means and what's replacing them.
• 11:06
  Joe Rando: Do you wanna go, George? Do you want me to talk first?
• 11:09
  George B. Thomas: I'll go with this one and then because here's the thing. As soon as you ask that question, I go to a session that I know Joe and I both were in, and it's a session where Marcus Sheridan was the speaker. He's he's spoke at INBOUND for years. He's famous for They Ask You Answer. He's famous for the big 5, which is like cost price versus best, like, type of articles that you should be writing.
• 11:33
  But when I sat in his session, I started to get fired up because we really are in a world where traditional growth strategies. I'm gonna do blogging and everybody's gonna show up at my website because it's gonna be an SEO play. Well, Google's kinda changing the game, and therefore, you probably should too. And what I love about this where the traditional growth strategy are dying, every time something dies, something is born. And even I have been kind of pushed out of my comfort zone because one of the things that Marcus was talking about is the sticky 5.
• 12:11
  And what the sticky 5 is, it's obviously a play off of his big five, but it talked about short form video content. Now, I, as a marketer, love to create video content. But you know what I don't like to create? I don't like to create short form content because I'm not used to that method. I'm not used to that that madness.
• 12:32
  That muscle memory isn't there for me because I've been creating video, long form video, tutorials, interviews since 2014 before video was even cool, but I have to take some of my own advice from the thing that we just talked about. It's time to transform George into somebody who gets the muscle memory of these short form videos. And by the way, this is only one example. Like, there are so many things that you've historically done as a solopreneur to try to grow your business, or things that you haven't done that you need to start doing? Like, again, let's just go back to this is a time of transformation based on things that used to work don't, and things that you thought wouldn't work probably do.
• 13:18
  Joe, what are your thoughts?
• 13:20
  Joe Rando: Well, yeah. I mean, I agree with everything that you said. The, you know, the problem is that we always have this this kind of view that if we can put some content out there, that people are gonna find us. And I know that's not as much of an expectation from solopreneurs because, you know, look, we're we're not big companies. But still, I mean, there are a lot of solopreneurs that have managed to get in whatever niche they've picked noticed on Google, and the problem is now Google is gonna answer those queries with an answer instead of with a list, and, you know, the way it was put that I thought was very eloquent is that Google search gives you a research project.
• 13:57
  I go in and I search Google, then I get a bunch of web pages. I go in and I go to dig in, blah blah blah. Now with the with the AI, it's giving you an answer that's going to be wrong sometimes because it is. I mean, AI is wrong sometimes. If you don't believe it, go in and ask it some questions and watch what comes back because it will it will hallucinate, you know, with with just freely.
• 14:19
  So you gotta watch out for it. But regardless of the fact that it's not always accurate, people prefer it to the research project. Because you know why? Because people are lazy. And if you don't think people are lazy, I don't know what to tell you, but people are gonna go with the easier option.
• 14:34
  I'm no exception. And even though I know, sometimes it's wrong. Yeah. So so that's that's kinda what's happening and then you have to figure out what are your strategies in order to to get around that. And the things you need to do are kinds of content that AI cannot kind of summarize and present.
• 14:51
  So if you've got a worksheet, I showed you guys today, I went in to AI, said, Write me, code for HubSpot's CMS that will take this spreadsheet and put it into my into my web page. And I just basically had this little spreadsheet I made about calculating return on investment and it created the code. I popped it in. Boom. There it is.
• 15:13
  What's what's Google AI gonna do with that? If I'm going, wait a minute. What kind of return on investment can I get with a CRM? Your thing shows up. Now you're in.
• 15:20
  So that kind of strategy is the way people need your thinking. But with AI and with your own insights into what the needs are of your industry, you can, you know, win that battle, but not by doing the same old thing.
• 15:31
  George B. Thomas: See. And I think I wanna double down on this because another thing that Marcus was mentioning and and definitely solopreneurs need to think about is this idea of we've we've historically created website pages, created content, whatever level you've done so that you could be found in Google. But what are you doing right now to actually be found in AI? Like, are you creating content in a way that you can educate the model? Because by the way, even though it is a large language model, it does not know everything.
• 16:01
  I literally opened up a free account because with a Teams account in chat gpt, not to get too nerdy, your data doesn't, get used to actually teach the model. I opened up a free account so that I could start putting content or having conversations with the AI model so it would start to learn about who is George b Thomas, the HubSpot expert? What is the superhuman framework? Like, what are the sidekick strategy products and services? So, like, if you're not actively figuring out, like, how can I create content in a way that AI picks it up, therefore, there's a link in a conversation with a human on the other side of the planet that goes back to my website, like, these are the type of things we need to start to think about?
• 16:47
  Carly Ries: Can you guys elaborate? Because the other points you 2 wanted to make were about how content still matters and AI is a copilot, and I feel like we have discussed that. But a question that I have based off what you were just saying is SEO, we all had rules that we could follow, like, put it in the h one tag, do the meta description, blah blah blah blah blah. Where is AI pulling from? Like, what are these optimization techniques that people could should be focusing on?
• 17:12
  Because I now use AI chat GBT more than Google, but I have no idea where the source is coming from.
• 17:18
  I'm not looking at the search engine results pages anymore. What do people need to be doing?
• 17:26
  George B. Thomas: Yeah. Joe, you wanna go?
• 17:30
  Joe Rando: I don't know the answer.
• 17:31
  George B. Thomas: So here's the thing. What's funny, Carly, is you actually started out with talking about a set of rules. And the funny thing is even back when you were paying attention to those rules, the cardinal rule that you should have been paying attention to, and I know you were, by the way. I'm speaking more broadly to the audience, is that you were creating content that was for the humans. You were creating content for the searcher and the search engines.
• 17:58
  So, yes, there was a set of rules that you knew you had kind of had to pay attention to of, like, title length and meta description length and, you knew that Google had the this is what valuable content is, and so you wanted to play by those rules. Listen. If you've been playing by those rules and creating content for humans and you know what valuable content is, creating that, it doesn't change. It's just that now you're training the large language model to the content that you're creating, who you are. Think about things about what do I believe?
• 18:35
  Like, what are my core values? Like, how do I navigate the world? And when you start to, like, inject that in, all of a sudden it starts to show up in places. Here's the fun part, and I don't have the link ready, but maybe we could put it in the show notes, is, HubSpot literally came out with you you you remember their website grader, where you could go and you could put your website in, and then it'd give you, like, the grade? They have an AI grader, where you can go in and put, your business and it'll tell you if it can find it in different AI systems or language, like, or if you're prepped to be that.
• 19:11
  So there's literally a tool already starting to be built. I, obviously, it's in its infancy. I would call it beta. But still, it should excite the crap out of business owners, especially solopreneurs, that at least there's a place I can go test if the things that I'm testing to get into these models is working or not and kind of pivot and transition as needed. Cool.
• 19:34
  Carly Ries: And for anybody that's, like, I don't wanna go look at that shout outs, it's hubspot.com/ai-surg-greater backslashaihyphensurghyphen greater. It will be in the showroom, but, there it is as well.
• 19:45
  Joe Rando: Hey. Just a quick point on that, though. I just wanna make one point. Regardless of all of this talk about AI and about this, Neil Patel, who is pretty much a leading authority on SEO, that's kind of what he built his business on, says that human generated content is right now getting 5.4 times more traffic than AI generated content. So going back to that, yeah, AI is a thing.
• 20:10
  You need to understand it. But that human purely human generated traffic, which is only about 12% of all content being created now, gets 5.4 times more traffic. So that's where your opportunities open up. Right? There's more stuff, more and more stuff, but if you do it you know, if you can become somebody that, you know, can represent your own real self and put out that content from you, you're gonna have that chance, even with all this extra content, of getting that lift of up to 5.4 percent times because it's generated by you and not an AI.
• 20:42
  George B. Thomas: Joe, I love a couple things. 1, that you named Neil. 2, that you put in some stats there. And 3, that you talked about fully human. Like, there is something special when whether it's in real life, your blog, or whatever, if you can show up as a whole human.
• 20:59
  I usually throw another word in there, but I don't like to curse on podcast. But if you can show up as a whole human. Right? Here's the thing. One of the things that we taught again in our session was how you can actually bookmark your human or bookend bookend your humanity, but still put AI to work.
• 21:18
  And what I'm talking about is any solopreneur that's listening to this right now needs to realize that the mindset should be human powered, AI assisted. So bookend on the left side. I need to do research. I wanna know some topics I could talk about. I'm tired of have writing blocks, so let me get a starting point.
• 21:37
  Bookend. I don't need, by the way, AI to be a writer. I just need AI to be the typest the fastest typest for $20 a month humanly possible, because it's gonna be my human creativity. It's gonna be my human direction. It's gonna be my human strategy.
• 21:51
  Solopreneurs, it's gonna be your creativity strategy direction. And then the right end, bookmark is now there's a checklist. By the way, we literally gave this checklist away for free for anybody who attended the inbound session, but I wanna give it away for free for any solopreneur that wants it. You can go to sidekickstrategies.com/inbound24, and you can get the AI toolkit where we talked about this checklist and the 5 things you need to do in the exact order you need to do it so that you're spitting out a human piece of content even though it was AI assisted.
• 22:27
  Carly Ries: I love that. George, I feel like you were made for the AI era because your bread and butter is human first.
• 22:33
  George B. Thomas: Oh, I've been talking about the humans for forever.
• 22:37
  Carly Ries: This is, like, your thing. I mean, I feel like you've always had a spot in the spotlight spot in the spotlight. I don't know. That's good. Said that.
• 22:45
  But you know what I mean. But now is, like, really your time to shine because George has always been known to put humans first no matter what best practices come and go. It's human first and foremost. So, congratulations, George. You have predicted the future.
• 23:00
  George B. Thomas: No. Listen. God has a plan. I'm just along for the ride, but I am having fun because I agree with you, Carly. It feels like there's this, thing that is just happening around what we've built our personal brand around, the humans, what's happening with AI and technology, and what's actually gonna win moving forward.
• 23:21
  We just we're in a really good place, so thanks for noticing that.
• 23:25
  Carly Ries: Yeah. Well, and to tie it all that back together so, obviously, we've been talking about humanization, personalization. One thing that we mentioned offline was that podcasts and newsletters thrive on personalization. I wanna talk about those two things specifically.
• 23:39
  Can you guys dive into that a little bit?
• 23:41
  Joe Rando: Sure. I went to the session with, John Lee Dumas and Alex Lieberman. Alex Lieberman cofounded the Morning Brew, which is, I think it has, like, 4 and a half 1000000 subscribers to the newsletter. And, John Lee Dumas has one of the most popular podcasts called Entrepreneurs on Fire. And they obviously are experts in in these things.
• 24:03
  And, basically, let's start with the podcasts. John Lee Dumas' podcast was, he interviews entrepreneurs. And he said that, today, interview format podcasts are not the way to go. He said that it's just not worth the data is not pointing there. The way to go now, if you're trying to launch a podcast, is to focus on finding, like, you said, find 50 problems that your target customer has and then do short episodes addressing and solving individual problems.
• 24:36
  And, you know, the more niche, the better. So that but that was his advice. Just make these short episodes addressing a problem. That's what's getting traction. He also said to, you know, look at at, YouTube as a podcast outlet because some podcasts are growing faster on YouTube than they are on the podcast platforms.
• 24:55
  So that was, an interesting piece of advice. With respect to newsletters, had a similar, you know, basically, Alex Lieberman said that you want to really niche down. So he said these these really niche y, just, you know, he used the word weird. Weird newsletters on these specific topics. Like, he didn't list any examples that I can remember, but, you know, it could be something like, you know, people who collect, you know, matchbox cars, of of Volkswagens or something.
• 25:27
  The more the more niche, the more likely you are to get some traction, and that's what's really growing right now. And and he's just really, really saying that, you know, this idea of keeping it keeping it really, really focused is the only way to really get noticed. He said, you know, to think about things like either doing news or analysis or, possibly, you know, some kind of other kinds of insights to give people something. But he's what he said was whatever you choose to do, try to be indispensable because that's the secret to to growing a newsletter.
• 25:59
  George B. Thomas: Yeah. Couple things on that, Joe. First of all, how did you know that I collect, matchbox cars of Volkswagens? That's really weird that you picked that out.
• 26:08
  Joe Rando: you're joking.
• 26:08
  George B. Thomas: Yeah. I am joking. But Okay. Anyway.
• 26:11
  Joe Rando: because that would have been so cool.
• 26:12
  George B. Thomas: What's funny? Yeah. If I just pulled one up and put it in camera shot, people are like, oh my gosh. But but here's the funny thing. You went to the session.
• 26:20
  I actually had a chance to sit in the 30 minute q and a that they had after the session. And there's a couple of things that I just wanna hit upon, especially for solopreneurs who are watching or listening to this. One thing, Joe, you mentioned focus. Yes. Like, focus, focus, focus.
• 26:40
  The thing that I really took out of the q and a though was also consistency. Right? People are, creatures of habit. So the newsletter goes out a certain day at a certain time. The podcast happens at a certain day at a certain time.
• 26:53
  But also this this idea of becoming an expert consistently. And what I mean by that is John Lee Dumas, and again, Entrepreneur on Fire is a great podcast, but what was crazy is he did it as a daily podcast. And so he was telling the story about how for most mere mortal humans, solopreneurs, they're gonna start a podcast, and maybe it is a short form video answering questions, like you said, Joe, and they're gonna do one of those episodes a week. And for them to get to a 100 episodes, it's gonna take them, well, let's just say a while. For John, because he was doing it daily, he got to a 100 episodes in a 100 days, which means he went from sucking because by the way, when you start a newsletter, when you start a podcast, it might have to suck at first, but it can get better over time.
• 27:47
  So iteration. Right? Focus, consistency, iteration to get it where it needs to go. But because he did a 100 or the daily episodes in a 100 days, it it was, like, from crappy to great. Yeah.
• 28:00
  And so I want solopreneurs to think about, a, like, do you even have these things that we're talking about? And if not, why not? And when you get started, at what rate should you maybe start doing them so that you can get better at them quickly and then go back or fall back to a regular cadence of what you want to do? Just some things to think about. It was very intriguing to me that q and a, session with those 2.
• 28:29
  Joe Rando: And, you know, on that, you know, his when he started his podcast, speaking of that that niching down, there were other interview shows with entrepreneurs going on at the time. Yep. But they were weekly or biweekly, and he was the only one that did it daily, 7 days a week. He had a podcast 7 days a week. And there were there was a subset of the audience that wanted one every day instead of waiting a week.
• 28:53
  And that got him noticed. So his thing wasn't, oh, I'm doing something different in the sense of the content as much as it was I'm doing something different in terms of the frequency. Yep. So there are a bunch of different ways to to kind of, you know, focus your your offering, and it's I imagine it's the same for newsletters. So yeah.
• 29:11
  Cool. Yep. Cool stuff.
• 29:13
  Carly Ries: Oh, you guys, I'm taking so many notes mentally right now. Luckily, this is all recorded because it's a podcast, and I can post it as many times as I want. But is there anything we haven't touched on that you would want our listeners to know that you learned about at INBOUND?
• 29:28
  George B. Thomas: So this isn't gonna be shocking or as shocking as it could have been since Carly was like, George, you've always been about the humans. But the thing that I learned, this year was it really is all about the humans. I had the pleasure to actually speak 5 times this year at INBOUND. And I don't say that being braggadocious, I say that humbly, but, what that means is there were humans in an audience. There was humans that I was walking around with.
• 29:55
  There were humans that I talked to. I think there was, like, 12,000 or I don't know. There was a lot of humans. But it's all about the humans. But in particular, I wanna pull out one story. And I wanna pull this story out because I want the solopreneurs to know that sometimes it makes sense to invest in yourself.
• 30:14
  Sometimes it makes sense for you to go to an event even though you might be stretching budgetary, means to get there. Because I was able to bring, my sidekick, and I don't mean my wife because my wife was there too and she's my lifelong sidekick. But I was able to bring, my sidekick, Jorge. We flew him in from Mexico. He came to the inbound event.
• 30:39
  And after the event was over, we had a chance to sit down and eat dinner, my wife, him, and I. And we're sitting there talking and I said, hey, what do you think about oh, at first, it was overwhelming, but it's great. And I love the people, and I love the learning, and all the things that he loved about it. And then I asked him this question. I said, Jorge, so now that you've been at Inbound, what's your next dream?
• 31:04
  And he goes, oh, I just want you to realize because I've come to Inbound, I believe I can dream. And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, I just got goosebumps. And to understand that an event, 3 days, could dramatically change his life, his outlook, perspective of who he was, who he could be on the planet. If I could wave a magic wand, every solopreneur watching this or listening to this, I'd wave a magic wand that they could hit an event and then have a belief in themselves and a belief in their future that they didn't have before that event occurred.
• 31:46
  And for us, many times for me, that's been Inbound. And so that for me, again, it's all about the humans and it's all about going back to our first thing. It's about the transformation of the humans through the time spent in an educational situation.
• 32:05
  Carly Ries: George, I don't know if you saw me shaking my head when you teed up that story because you told me that story a few days ago. I got teary eyed on that call, and when I was shaking my head, I started welling up again. I was like, oh my gosh. I'm gonna cry on camera during our podcast.
• 32:20
  I just love that. And for listeners, Jorge is the best human being ever. We adore him, so shout out to Jorge. Joe, your turn to top that story.
• 32:30
  Joe Rando: Yeah. I really should've gone first. I don't have anything to compete with that. I will say that I think
• 32:40
  there's a lot of other things that I learned there.
• 32:43
  I come out of this so pumped up. And then Monday morning, I have this kind of weird state that I'm, you know, now realizing how hard it's going to be to implement all these great ideas. So it's a little bit of a, you know, bittersweet. But, yeah, we got I get very inspired there as well. I think my my thing was, you know, which was just good old fun, was getting to meet in person, Nancy Harhut and Jay Schwedelson, 2 people that have been on the podcast, 2 people that I I love, talking to, you know, communicating with us on LinkedIn and and, any chance I get.
• 33:19
  So that was just great to kinda meet them in person. But, Yeah. I got nothing to top the Jorge story, but I agree. Jorge is a fine human being and also one of the most decorated, HubSpot certification people on the planet as far as I can tell.
• 33:38
  George B. Thomas: It's it's funny. I really wasn't trying to make it a competition. But, yeah, but but Jorge, 50. 50 HubSpot certifications, which is crazy. It's but, again, solopreneurs, it it is about what you do in your business to impact those that you serve, and you have the abilities to do what we've talked about today.
• 34:04
  Like, you have this new world that is AI assisted, you, the human powered, that you can have these successes. You can do these things that maybe once before you couldn't do.
• 34:21
  Carly Ries: And, George, I could not wrap up this episode better. That was the perfect way to end this show. So inspiring. I have loved everything you both have said today, both from an educational standpoint, but now I'm gonna be signing off and, like, I can do this. I have I have the knowledge.
• 34:40
  I have the tools. Like, bring it on AI. Bring it on competition. Let's roll. So I just appreciate both you.
• 34:48
  Joe, looks like you wanna say something really quick.
• 34:50
  Joe Rando: No. Just if people are inspired, you know, join us. You know, at lifestarr.com. Come in. the solo suite intro is free.
• 34:59
  We've got events where we network and get together. We've got a community that we can chat on anytime we want. So if this is inspiring, you know, interact with us. We can share more ideas. We can get ideas from you. I just wanna say that because that's really where the rubber meets the road on this stuff.
• 35:18
  Carly Ries: Yes. I agree. And people not looking at the show notes, it's lifestarr.com
• 35:23
  all of that will be in the show notes as well. But, George, it's so funny. We have all these guests that come on and we really enjoy these interviews and and they're wonderful, wonderful people, but it's so nice to hang out with you too even though we spoke literally an hour ago in a separate meeting.
• 35:38
  I just like hanging with you guys. So INBOUND 2025 San Francisco
• 35:43
  George B. Thomas: Let's go.
• 35:44
  Carly Ries: We'll go and be like, we are the 3 best friends that anybody can have, and we'll just go in skipping. So, can't wait for it. I guess I'm ending the show there instead of on the high note that, George locked in.
• 35:56
  Joe Rando: Image of all of us skipping. Okay.
• 35:57
  George B. Thomas: Yeah. I like that. We definitely need to have a videographer that can, videotape us skipping into inbound 2025 together. That would be awesome.
• 36:06
  Carly Ries: When they do the big, yay, and they jump in the air.
• 36:09
  Joe Rando: Yeah. We're bringing Cian. Cian's coming along.
• 36:12
  Carly Ries: Cian is our editor. You will hear this, so that's happening. But the way I actually have to end this show is listeners, this has been great for us. We hope it was just as great for you. We would love that 5 star review.
• 36:25
  We would love the subscription on YouTube. Any of your podcast platforms, please show your love. We so appreciate it. Otherwise, we will see you next time on The Aspiring Solopreneur. Take care.
• 36:35
  Bye. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At Lifestarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs.
• 36:58
  Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.