Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to the Women of HubSpot, a podcast celebrating the voices shaping marketing, technology, and the ever-evolving HubSpot ecosystem. Hosted by George B. Thomas from Sidekick Strategies. Each episode brings you the stories, strategies, and superpowers of the women driving this industry forward. It's their time. It's their mic. This… is Women of HubSpot.
Welcome to the Women of HubSpot Podcast, the show that celebrates the voices shaping marketing, technology, and the ever evolving HubSpot ecosystem. Hosted by George B. Thomas from Sidekick Strategies. Each episode brings you the stories, strategies, and superpowers of the women driving this industry forward. It's their time.
Intro:It's their mic. This is Women of HubSpot.
George B. Thomas:Oh, I am so happy. And there's a couple reasons why I'm so happy, listeners and viewers. One, it is a Friday, and I get to do a Women of HubSpot podcast on the eve of the weekend and relaxing. Two, I'm happy because I know it's gonna be a great conversation because I'm here with Sarah, which we'll let her talk a little bit more about who she is, what she does, where she does it in a minute. But the third reason is because we get to be at least for the next thirty to forty five minutes human.
George B. Thomas:And that's all I ask of you is just try to be the most human you can be as you move forward in your life. But where did this idea come from, by the way, not of being human, but of the Women of HubSpot podcast? Listen. I'm gonna give you the short synopsis. If this is your first episode, it was a Super Bowl a while ago.
George B. Thomas:There was a quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. He had an all woman's team. I was talking to my daughter, and she was talking about how it was amazing, and she loved it. And I saw the excitement in her face. And I said, why?
George B. Thomas:And she said, because they're getting recognition right now because it was being talked about in the news. And I thought to myself with zero strategy, why are we not giving more women in the HubSpot space the same light that is happening here? And so I ran over to LinkedIn. Well, I didn't really run. I picked up my phone and I started to do a post and I said, hey, if you know somebody, tag them in.
George B. Thomas:And, Sarah, to be honest with you, it is the most engaged post that I've had in probably the last three years of being a HubSpot guy. And I was like, okay. I sat with my wife and my daughters. We gotta create something, and that's why we're here today because we wanna shine a light on the females that are using HubSpot, work for HubSpot, who are super smart, who are super passionate, and just share their stories. So let's start real quick, Sarah.
George B. Thomas:Explain to the listeners, the viewers, if they don't know, who the heck are you? What do you do? Where do you do it? All of that kind of stuff. And then we'll get into the rest of the conversation.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Yeah. So I'm I'm definitely one of the HubSpot Women. And I started working in automation and kind of tangentially in ops back in probably 2012. So it's it's been a been a while now. But HubSpot over the last few years has really become my home.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And, so I run my own agency for strategic consulting for b to b businesses, that are small to medium, but going through kind of stages of change where we're needing to optimize for efficiency, we're needing to actually get processes that reduce friction for the humans involved in the business buying cycle. So whether that's friction for our customers, friction for our prospects, or our sales reps themselves. Right? We just want our processes to be really fluid so that we can focus on what matters most. So that's what I do is helping solve those problems in the day to day, and I'm obsessed with it.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And I love hearing if something can't be done, that's that's where I wanna be. So Yeah. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:I love that tenacity. Is that the word I'm looking for of like, oh, tell me it can't be done. I'll figure out a way to do it in HubSpot. I love that. So people, if they're interested, because you did just give a a dope list of, like, if you're facing this or you want somebody to help you do this, like, name of the agency, place they can find it, maybe even, like, your LinkedIn information real quick.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Sure. Yeah. So it's Lane-Hawn Consulting. It's my last name. LinkedIn, honestly, is a great place because you can just message me directly, and I'm I'm there.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Right? So Sarah Lane-Hawn. I also use the hashtag mops fairy a lot, because I showed up to inbound one year in four foot fairy wings, and that kinda took off. So but, yeah, lanehongconsulting.com if you really wanna go be formal and go to a website. But just, you know, contacting me directly is fine, and I'm also in the HubSpot services directory and and and things like that.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:But find me on LinkedIn because then we get to actually chat. That's way more fun.
George B. Thomas:Get to have a human conversation. I love when those happen. Okay. So let's go ahead and get on this journey. Sarah, if we could go back in time and we could meet young Sarah Han just starting out, what would we see and what would she be most surprised by about where you are now in life?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:So young me, when I first started my career, I was a civilian worker for the Navy as a cost analyst. So I got my mathematics degree, started working for the Navy right away, and very smart, very confident, very socially inept, had no idea how to navigate a professional workspace whatsoever. And so I think, honestly, the most surprising thing for her is that I have my career focused on human interaction. Like, everything I do day to day is working with people, helping people understand concepts and collaborating with other people in my space, and that I'm very freely admit that I don't know things. I very freely admit to making mistakes, and really just in general owning my humanness.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Like, think all of that would be very surprising to her because she was such a perfectionist of what she thought other people's perception needed to be of her, that it was a very heads down, I'm gonna go do the work and do it perfectly every time, and that's what my career is gonna be founded on is this, you know, perfection of intellectualism. And then now my career is founded on my mistakes and solving things that, because they are so complicated, don't have a right answer, and working with people to, like, help encourage each other to reveal our flaws and embrace those. So all of that would be completely shocking to her.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. By the way, there's so much good in there. So complex they don't have the right answer, but that doesn't mean that an answer or possible answer can't be found, which is amazing. I love the humanness of it. I'll be honest with you, you immediately triggered my brain at the very beginning when you used the word civilian because I'm like, Oh, that is a is a word that does not happen in conversation very often.
George B. Thomas:But I immediately went back to the fact of, like, military? Oh, oh, civilian working for the Navy. Because I was in the Navy, by the way. At at 17, I I went into the Navy and did boot camp in a school in San Diego, California. And so just interesting kind of connection to your story.
George B. Thomas:As soon as you said that word, it, like, took me back. Oh, young George. Like, how would young George answer this question? Not why we're here, but how would young George ask actually answer this question? Okay.
George B. Thomas:So just to give you a forewarning, some of these questions, I've I've lovingly called them, like, we go down into a valley, then we come up to the peak of the mountain as we kinda go through this. And so I'm super curious, this journey that you've been on from, like, civilian worker for the Navy to, like, owning your own agency consulting, figuring out answers to problems that might not actually seem to have the right answer. Along the way, who have been some of your biggest inspirations, mentors, partners along the way? Like, how did those folks who are they and how did they kind of help you navigate this journey?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Yeah. I love reflecting on this, partially because for me, I don't feel like my answers fit within the standard template here. The word mentor was always really foreign to me, and it felt like, again, one of those kind of, like, elements that you had to go establish this person that you were gonna model yourself after and that was gonna partner with you for the rest of your career, and that was a very overwhelming concept to me as a as a young professional. But along the way, looking back now, I can tell you that there were people that were popping up in really surprising places that ended up helping shape how I viewed professional life and how I viewed what I could accomplish. One of those people is Phil Bosley.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:He's the owner of Tactical Marketing, an agency that works within all automation platforms. But at the time, he was my customer success rep at a company called Act On. And so when I started, I was in marketing, and I was using automation for the first time. He was the person I was on the phone with every couple of days trying to break the system to do weird things because I'm creative and didn't wanna play by the the rules. And, we ended up forming a great professional relationship, stayed in touch for years, ended up partnering with them for a while, but that was one of those, like, I found a brilliant person.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:They were effusive in encouraging me in what I was capable of, and so that ended up really helping me realize not only that I loved automation and that this was not a normal skill set to have just naturally, but also that working in tech was an option, that that was that was a career path I could maybe go down. And so that actually that relationship is what shifted me into tech and pursuing working for eye contact as a customer success strategist. And when I was there, the the next person that influenced me, her name's Megan Hall, and she was on the support team at the time and then, ended up being one of the solutions engineers there. But her influence was a very quiet influence. She is one of those people who just has, like, zero ego, like, just super humble and brilliant, and doesn't even probably still to this day, I think, know how brilliant she is.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:But I loved watching her seem to just take everything in stride from a work perspective, and it didn't matter the title she had, it didn't matter where they sat her, she was just there to help. She was there to solve the problems, to be a helpful person. And for me coming into everything as this intellectual mindset of I have to accomplish the most and that needs to be where I'm at. Seeing someone that's brilliant, not at least personify that pressure, and instead just exist in their brilliance was a really nice, like, maybe there maybe there's a home for just like sitting into this a little bit. And I found a little bit more of that, working at a couple other places.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:My friend Polly, she was the marketer when I was still working in client strategy at a startup. And then, she transitioned to another company, and then I ended up on her team later on. And that's when I switched fully into operations. Her influence on me was, again, another brilliant person that I just come into contact with, was that she was so ready to admit that she didn't know things, so ready to admit to mistakes and own it and then find the solution. There wasn't even a pause.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And it they'd never felt like she needed to prove herself to anybody. And yet everyone loved her. Everyone respected her abilities everywhere she went because it was so clear, the value that she provided the company and the people, but it never looked like striving on on her part. And she, I think, really taught me what a good manager was because she supported me in knowing all of the things that I already knew. She didn't need to babysit any of that.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And then she would just check-in and help me more with my actual professional development. And I thought that that was was a big turning point, I think, like moving into operational. Operations is my full time career with with her influence over me.
George B. Thomas:Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you have your notepad open, I hope that this is a rewind point for you already in this episode, because at the end of the day, there's something power about a quiet influence. There's something powerful about not needing to prove but provide. There's something powerful about not needing to know but being able to find. And all of that wrapped up into this, like, helpful or, like, servanthood mindset that I kept hearing from, like, these brilliant mentors that you have. Like, if you just jot down a couple of those notes and pull those threads on your own life and how you, like, interact with the world.
George B. Thomas:Alright, Sarah. Let's keep digging into the conversation. I'm sure the answer is yes, but, of course, I still gotta ask the question and and get into the kind of crux of your story. Along the way, this journey that you've been on, have there been any hurdles or biases that you've had to overcome in your career? And if so, maybe what were they and really kind of how did you navigate those moments in life?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:This is a hard one because I think that a lot of us don't even necessarily register some of those struggles that we've been through because we just have lived them, right? And they're not always loud, they just are part of our existence. I definitely haven't been through the same things that fully marginalized people groups have been, right? Like I have I have, I guess, the privilege of being a white woman in this world, and so there's a lot of biases that I don't have to go up against. The first one that I do remember was actually pre career, and it was going into college.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:I'm from North Carolina, and I grew up in a really small, town. I had a very thick accent growing up, very thick southern drawl. It's come out a little bit now that I I live back here in North Carolina again, but it's still way flatter than it ever was. When I went to college, I went to college in, North Of Richmond and quickly found that a lot of the professors there had a prejudice or a bias against a really thick accent. I was perceived as ignorant, and I wasn't being listened to when I would meet with them, and I found that if I flattened my accent in a meeting with a professor, that I was listened to.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And so that influenced me very early on that, okay, my intellect will not be seen or heard if I sound like myself. And so I very quickly flattened my accent on purpose, taught myself to speak, really without a dialect. And in some ways, that was really beneficial to my career and that I could work in customer success and be easily understood and work with people around the world, and my accent did not become, you know, an issue for interpretation. Right? There's a benefit to that, but there's also the loss of my identity and where I came from and the pride of knowing that this is what intelligent people sound like from where I grew up, and that's okay.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:So that was really, really difficult for me. I think acknowledging it and realizing that that was not okay has been kind of a healing thing in my life. And I no longer listen for the accent. So like when it does naturally come out, that's a happy surprise, right? And like kind of a little revisiting of my younger self.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:But you know, that was probably the first bias. There are some other ones, but any any comments or questions on that one?
George B. Thomas:No. I I I do have so it's funny because we've lived in North Carolina for almost the last twelve years, And some of my fondest memories of being down here are, like, language moments. Like, Sarah, for instance, I'll look at my wife occasionally, and I'll be like, dang, girl. Like, did you just hear yourself? Because you're from Ohio.
George B. Thomas:Right? But you but you did not sound like you're from Ohio. Or, like, our next door neighbor, I'll never forget when he was he was gonna turn nine, her son, and he goes, I'm fixing to be nine. And I was like, oh god. Like, I love you so much right now because of what you just said.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. And there's just, like, a a good, you know, a good y'all or yuns. Right? And, like, bless her heart. Like, there's just things from the South where, like, you need to embrace.
George B. Thomas:And it pained me to hear you tell your story because anything that takes you away from being able to show up as a whole ass human and be who you are and from where you came from is a travesty. So first of all, thanks for sharing that. And while it seems like it might be insignificant, what's what's funny is you are the second guest who has talked about accent, though, because one was a Bostonian accent that they muted and stayed away from for very similar reasons. So come on, world. Okay.
George B. Thomas:Let's let's continue into this. I want you to take me back to a moment where maybe you felt underestimated, overlooked, maybe even out of place in the industry. What was that time? What did it look like, feel like, and how the heck did you handle it to kind of move forward?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:This one's a hard one for me. I don't think I tend to be underestimated when I meet people. If anything, I think I can come off a little bit too strong. But out of place is just a theme for me in life. I'm definitely one of those people who have never felt like I I have fit in or been easy to navigate social networks and spaces.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:So, one of the things that I remember was as I was starting my company, I went to a local networking thing, was terrified, hate networking, it was awful, and decided that my strategy was gonna be to introduce myself to one person and then ask them to tell me who else in the room they knew and see if I could just, like, then, you know, hop from person to person that way without having to continually, like, introduce myself as, like, a cold introduction. So I thought it was a great strategy, except for the very first people that I met pointed out this guy and were like, that's the guy you need to talk to today. If you don't talk to anybody else, you need to talk to him. If you don't walk out of here with some tangible business opportunities from that conversation, I'll be super shocked. Right?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:So I, like, completely hone yeah. I completely hone in on this guy. And I don't know if he, like, overheard that statement or, like, what his relationship had been with these other people, but every time I got within, like, two people from him to kind of like hover and wait for my opportunity to introduce himself, he turned his back and walked away. And so did I learn? No.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:I stalked this man for the entire like next forty five minutes of this networking event trying to get my opportunity to talk to this person who clearly wanted to avoid me. And so it was terrible and awkward, and I did an awful awful job there. But those, I feel like, are mainly my moments of being out of place in the industry is not necessarily in your face, like, you know, being turned down or not being included in something. It's more my own, like, awkwardness of, like, I don't know how to even approach this, and I don't know how to walk away from this. So now I'm just stuck here, and here we are.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. It's it's interesting because it's almost leaning into what I think is a superpower for some folks, and and some don't have this. But, like, you your strategy, let me talk to this human. Oh, you gotta talk to this human. And then instead of talking to other humans, it was focused on just talking to that one human, which didn't work out.
George B. Thomas:And, like, sometimes in life, ladies and gentlemen, you've gotta be able to realize, like, oh, this this strategy is not working. Like and what I what I think is interesting is just the power to be able to pivot and transition to, like, you know what? I'm gonna go back to those first humans I talked about and be like, great. Who's the second most important human I should talk to? Because this ain't working.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:That's not working. Yes. 100%. Pivoting is really hard for, for my brain. Just like how it how it works is really difficult for me.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:So it's something that I do have to, like, very intentionally pause and be like, oh, pivoting's necessary. That feels upsetting. How do I do it? Okay. Here I go.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And, like, I'm really good at that in, like, big areas of life. Like, if I need to pivot huge life elements, not a problem. But in the moment, pivoting, like, we're trying to go to a restaurant, and for some reason it's closed, and I have to pick another restaurant. Like, oh my gosh. No.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:I can't. What do you mean? No. We give up. We give up.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:We're driving through Cookout and getting a burger now. Like, there's we can't do that. Yeah. Was a plan.
George B. Thomas:I was halfway through this meal that I've wanted for the last
Sarah Lane-Hawn:fourteen date. Yeah. Exactly. The last twenty minutes. It doesn't matter how long it's been planned.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:There was a plan. We have to follow it now.
George B. Thomas:That's funny. I love it. Okay. So let's dive a little bit deeper here into, again, a lovingly called valet question. Have you ever experienced, like, a significant failure or a setback?
George B. Thomas:Or some people call it a gut punch in life. And and again, what was that and maybe what did you learn from that moment that you kind of carry with you today?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:In my professional career, but they've all kind of they've all landed right in a place of being unemployed. And regardless of what the circumstances were, whether it was moving, whether it was layoffs, it doesn't really matter how it happens. I feel like almost all of us go through a season of grief where we're doubting ourselves, where we're trying to figure out, like, am I in the right space? You know, am I good enough for this? Is the competition too harsh?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Should I do something different with my life? Is this even what I wanna do? Right? We we go through all of these these questions when we're in that space, and what I've found to be true is every time that that's happened and I have kind of this crisis of reevaluating where I wanna go, what brings me back and and moves me forward is kind of leaning into my own values, and finding out what does really matter to me. And so I'll I'll usually sit down with a piece of paper and just like start jotting down what do I care about in terms of a job.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And what's been interesting is that throughout my career, title, income, specific progression of a career has never made it on the list. Like, it's always been just, want to be useful. I want to use my mind. I want to be able to provide for my family. Like, it's all very kind of simple things, but that can sometimes make it really hard because I've never been the person who's been like, No, I really want to be a doctor.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And that's what I'm going to center my life on is making this happen. So, you know, that is really hard. And I think for anybody who's in that space of, like, evaluating what you wanna do next and where the right fit actually is for you, like, if you're not tied to a specific title or industry or, you know, tactical thing, then taking time to be okay to be open and that, like, you might end up somewhere really weird, but if it still supports the values that you have in life, then that's a great stepping stone. It's not a stepping stone on a corporate ladder, but it's a stepping stone in your life and the path that you're taking. I mean, last year as I was really getting my agency geared up, I was working at Whole Foods in the bakery at the same time.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And that was because I knew that no matter what happened month to month with clients, my mortgage was paid. That was what mattered. And so I enjoyed that job, and I made good friends, and I learned things there. Because it wasn't about, oh, this isn't on my career path. It was just, no, this is what I'm doing right now.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And, like, while I wait for a full client load, I'm gonna eat really good bread and, like, make friends with my colleagues here. Right? So, like, yeah, I think each time you have those setbacks, it's just coming back to yourself is more important than coming back to a plan.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Love this. First of all, I love the idea of breaking and eating good bread. But more importantly, I love this idea of coming back to yourself, really understanding kind of your core values, your purpose. You know, it's funny, the older I get, Sarah, I've realized there has been an undertow to the decisions that I've made.
George B. Thomas:So, like, HubSpot guy, what's oh, he's helpful. Youth pastor, helpful. You know, camp counselor, help. Bouncer to bar, believe it or not, helpful. Like, all all all of these things have, like, always been about, like, how do I help humans?
George B. Thomas:And so when you keep it simple because I like that other piece that you talked about, like, if it's the simple things, it can almost mean anything. And so because it can almost mean anything, because it's out of the simplicity of who you are, then the reflection to take the right step into what it should be is very important. I love this. Okay. So next question is, and we're kind of heading up the mountain now at this point.
George B. Thomas:What does empowerment mean to you and how do you pass that on to others that you might work with or in your field or clients? Like what? Let's get a shared definition of empowerment.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Yeah. And I love this question. Because when I did manage others on Teams, like, I think this was the core of my management strategy was, like, how do I empower you? Not how do I get you to go a direction or get a certain amount out of you, but how do I actually equip you as a person? And so for me, empowerment is being able to encourage the intrinsic value that somebody has, helping them to see it, helping them to embrace it, and live into that, and then also providing the access to knowledge.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:So it's the bothand. You need to be able to actually hand useful knowledge to someone in a way that they can receive it, utilize it to move themselves forward. And then but they also need to recognize that just showing up has its own value. That being who they are and then showing up every day, what is the value that that brings? Because there's gonna be days where your knowledge fails you.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Like, it's just gonna happen. It doesn't mean that that day you were of no value as a person, for sure, but also to a company. There there was still value in you showing up that day. And so, like, as in a from a management standpoint, that was kind of has always been where I wanna be is, like, how do I help you understand how your brain works, how you are as a human? Here are some just, like, ways in which you make this a better team.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And then how do I give you the knowledge to go do all the tasks and, you know, cross cross the things off the list that we have to do? But it's it's both of those pieces.
George B. Thomas:I love that so much. So now that we have a shared definition of what empowerment is for you, I'm super curious. Like, was there a moment in your career where you felt especially empowered and proud of something that you had achieved?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:One of the things that comes to mind was my first job in ops for a company. At the time I had like a marketing manager title, but my director, they were going through a merger and agency that they had hired to help with all of the database merging had kind of just stalled out. So they were like, you know, doing the biweekly meetings, nothing was really moving forward. And from a marketing perspective, we needed certain aspects to to work. And so she sent me in from a marketing perspective, but then she told the company, hey.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Sarah's migrated things from Salesforce instances. She's done integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot, so she's got this. And they threw me in, to this corporate large scale, data migration of multiple multiple Salesforce instances being merged of needing to integrate HubSpot for the first time correctly, having multiple, you know, sub companies. Just it's a very very complex data architecture piece. And here I am with, you know, little manager me and then this agent who's been hired to actually lead this work.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And I'm going, hey. Let's get some things on paper. Here's where I'm gonna start, and put it all down and give people a working place to actually start the conversation moving forward so it's not all just theory. So we were able to knock out in a couple months what had been stalled for, like, a year and get it done, get it working, get it functional. And so that was, like, an extremely empowered moment for me because, one, I didn't go looking for it.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Somebody just threw me in, saw my value, saw what I was capable of without me having to advocate for it or even know necessarily that I could do it. They decided I could. And then giving me the floor to actually speak and be listened to and use my influence in a positive way, that was an extremely empowering move to make. I think if I had just been put in the room and didn't know that there was an expectation of me participating, it would have taken me a lot longer to get frustrated enough to to kinda take the reins. And so, yeah, I I think just kind of, like, sometimes putting people in uncomfortable places that you know that they can succeed is another way to help empower them in that.
George B. Thomas:I love that so much. That story, again, maybe a second rewind spot because as you were talking, my brain was like the understanding of your capability to navigate complexity, to command the change that is needed for for, like, what is happening and what what no matter what that be in your organization. But listen, You had me, like, intrigued at multiple Salesforce instances. I'm just gonna I'm like, oh god. Like, help us.
George B. Thomas:So that's
Sarah Lane-Hawn:that's amazing. As somebody who's never actually worked in ops. Right? Like, I am a marketing manager, and they're just like, Sarah's gonna handle this, like, complete migration and integration project. And I'm like, I know things.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:I do know a lot of things about data and how it needs to work. I do I do know stuff, but yeah. No. It threw me in the deep end and I succeeded, that's what, like, catapulted me into, like, full time's op work was was that project.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. I I think back when I got started in HubSpot space, would have been like, I can spell Salesforce. Does that matter? Like, okay. Alright.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:That's good. And it helps, right, that I came from just an automation, like, background. Right? So I had been working at iContact running, forward with their kind of pro platform and handling really big enterprise clients, and so most of them had Salesforce. So we were doing Salesforce integrations all the time in that system.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And once you do it in one place and, like, have a good understanding of data architecture, like, those same principles apply anywhere. So while I hadn't done it in HubSpot, I have done enough other tangible things that, like, I had amassed enough skills to be okay. I mean, I'm sure if I built it today, I would build it completely differently. But, like, you know, one to one is not always what you need in terms of experience.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. I I love this idea, though, of the architecture or the principle or insert, like, said kind of word like that of, like, once you've done it here, you can probably do it there. It might look slightly or smell slightly different, but you have the core building blocks that you need to move forward with. Think that's very intriguing. Okay.
George B. Thomas:I want to give you a magic wand moment. If you had a magic wand and you could change one thing about how women are supported in the industry, what would that one thing be?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:It's a hard question to come up with what the one thing would be that would create the change. But I think the thing that I would look for to know that the change had happened is more t shirt messy bun moments. So I don't know if this is something that you notice from your seat, but in the tech space and in HubSpot space too, there's a lot of tech bros that are listened to, that are seen, right? And there is a level of respect they are no matter if you're in a t shirt and a hat. Like, that's fine.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:It's tech. We're very informal here, right? Meanwhile, if you look at women on tech stages, and who is actually listened to, and even in the workspace, which operations leaders are listened to, we're still in a power suit space with women. So women are still having to really force this idea of being a professional in order to gain any sense of, okay, they're worth listening to. Whereas I think we're gonna have equality in that space when we get to a point where you see women standing up in messy buns and t shirts and they're being listened to.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And I'm not seeing that yet, but that to me is the trigger of like, okay, we're actually letting women show up as just themselves in the day to day and respecting what they have to say no matter what they're looking like. So I can't wait for the magic wand to say what will cause that change, but that for me is what's gonna trigger like, okay, we're we're here now.
George B. Thomas:I love that insight. And I immediately went to, like and not that he's a tech bro, but I immediately went to, like, Gary V back in the day, like, where it's, like, jeans and a t shirt getting on stage talking to people. Nobody cared. He didn't care. They didn't care.
George B. Thomas:I also my brain transported me to for the last two inbounds, I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna step on stage in a hat and a hoodie because I'm a hat and hoodie guy. And my daughters are they absolute Sarah, they freak out. They're like, no. Like, you have to have a a dress shirt and, like, you know, and, like and I'm like, oh, oh, okay.
George B. Thomas:You gotta be professional. And I tied that conversation to what you just said. And I'm like, my daughters need to realize, like, I accept them in t shirts and messy buns. I don't care. Like, therefore, like, just show and it almost even ties back to how you were, like, the power of just showing up.
George B. Thomas:And and also ties back to, like, just being able to be the the authentic, whole ass human of you. If you pull that thread, listeners and viewers, like, of those three things how they're kind of connecting, it's it's very, very interesting. Okay. This is Sarah called the Women of HubSpot podcast. I have to at least ask one HubSpot related question during the podcast.
George B. Thomas:So I'm curious. Are there any particular HubSpot tools, strategies, trends that you're seeing in HubSpot or the inbound ecosystem that excite you right now?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:I think I'm excited for b to b ops, like, in general right now because things have changed so much in the last year that I think we have the opportunity to be extremely creative in ways that before we were really limited on the tech side, and so you were having to kinda take your strategy of what you wanted to accomplish and then, like, jam it into what was possible. Right? And that's always gonna be slightly the case. But things have changed enough now that I think we can actually refocus on the human experience of whatever it is that we're trying to accomplish and just let the tech be tech. And it's gonna require a huge shift in thinking for people to get there.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:But for instance, like, right now, there's the capability of us targeting accounts that we really want to go after. Right? We can auto enrich them. We can analyze them for fit. We can then start a tailored physical gifting campaign all automatically, all to the individual, and then simultaneously surround the buying committee with geo fenced ads at a, you know, big event that they're all at and give targeted thought leadership to their c suite.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Like, there's so much that we can do to surround people in the way that humans receive information, share information, right, want to receive things from a business, and we no longer have to be like, okay. We have to pick and choose. Who who is it that we're gonna talk to? Do we really know that they're the right fit? If not, we just gonna wait around until they fill out enough forms for us to find out if they're the right fit.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:You know, do we know if it's worth spending the money to do a physical mailer? We don't know, so we just won't do that as a media anymore. Like, there's so much more now that is just like, hey, we can kinda do everything, And we can do it on small scale. We can do it on large scale, and we can do it to anyone because we have so much data enrichment available and we can automate all of it. Like, it's just, I think it's a really exciting time for the people who wanna be creative and wanna kinda step out of the old norms.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:So that's what I'm most excited about is that, on the flip side, I think with there being so much potential and with how most of us are have trained our brains to function, I think there's a huge risk of the shiny features taking over and us then missing out on the true value of what we can accomplish because we're too busy wanting to use things and wanting to use technology. And it's like, it's okay if there are certain things you never use if it doesn't serve the end goal well. Right? So I think it's the both end. Like, I'm excited about all of the potential because of having so much enrichment available in ops now, having so many different systems and softwares that can tie together easily for automation.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And then I'm also very worried for a lot of businesses because they're going to use talk to text to say, hey, AI agent, go build this for my company, and it's gonna be terrible, and it's not gonna work. How you need it to work because you don't know the right words to do the right prompts, to do the right things. So that's my soapbox for the moment.
George B. Thomas:Yeah. Listen, ladies and gentlemen, if you weren't jotting copious notes on that last section, Sarah just gave you gold in so many different ways and directions. Would say rewind point probably number three, especially about the enriching geofencing. Anyway, there was just a ton of good in that whole section. Sarah, you've had this amazing journey.
George B. Thomas:We've been able to conversate, about a lot of it today. If you look back, what has been the most rewarding aspect of your career?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:In general, it still is the solving the unique problems. Like, I just crave doing impossible things, and it's so much fun to break through that barrier and be able to say, No, we've got it. And you can accomplish just about anything from a tech perspective. Right? Like, you might have to do some really weird stuff within HubSpot, but you're gonna be able to accomplish it if you can think of it.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And so that day in, day out is what keeps me doing this, is just kind of that enjoyment of of the puzzle solving.
George B. Thomas:I wake up to solve puzzles because I enjoy it. I I love that mindset. It it ties into this thing I say, I don't go to work, I go to play, which gives me a totally different mindset than most when I show up at the desk and and move forward. Okay. Sarah, what advice would you give other women who might wanna choose a career path like the one you've chosen?
George B. Thomas:What's what's your big, like, you should probably think about this moment?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Yeah. I think the main thing for me is to go ahead and take up space. Just know that you deserve it. Know that you're bringing something to the table. Even if you haven't fully figured out what it is that you're bringing to the table, just take the seat at the table anyway, figure it out while you're there, because that's what everybody's doing.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And so don't feel like you're an impostor. You're not an impostor, you're a human, and so is everybody else at that table. So that's my advice is to just go ahead and take up the space and figure it out as you go. Don't lose your joy. Don't lose your curiosity.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And I'd say the other thing about being specifically like in the HubSpot space and the tech space is if the bros aren't your people, that's great. There's so many other people. So just because you're being pursued for networking and you're being pursued for relationships and conversations, if there's not a fit there, you don't have to keep those connections going. There's there's a whole lot of different little niche kind of groupings of people, I think, in the HubSpot ecosystem, and it's one of the things that I love is that I've found my people here, and I've found the collaborators who are the helpers, right, who are the people who just wanna support others and don't take offense and don't look for competitive advantages when they're in conversation. It's just about showing up, and so find your group of people and don't feel like you have to change who that is or or change your standards for who you're gonna network with.
George B. Thomas:That's it. I love so much about that. But the the fact of, like, find your people. And then you really had me with, you're not an impostor. You're human.
George B. Thomas:Like, if more people could embrace that and just roll with it, it'd be so good. Okay. As we as we land the plane here on our conversation for today, I got a couple questions left. First of all, because, again, it's all about your journey and where you've been, where you're at. What are Sarah's long term goals?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:So I love this question right now because the answer is this. This is my long term goal. I'm I'm in it. And that's an incredible place to be because I've never been somebody who has the five year plan, who has the future vision, like, just never have done that. And yet I've landed exactly where I want to be, and it feels right, and it's working.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:And I'm sure it's gonna take some different shapes, right, in the future, and so I'm very ready to slowly make those decisions for pivoting as we talked about earlier. But but, yeah, this is what it looks like. It looks like being able to work from home, have some flexibility, take on the clients with the projects that I am ridiculously excited about, right, and do that day to day and and continue to be a solo owner strategist. That's that's what we're doing.
George B. Thomas:I love it. Right where I'm at. That's my long term goal. Continue to do the thing that I love. Okay.
George B. Thomas:A little behind the scenes baseball here, listeners and viewers. In the green room, Sarah said, George, I hate this one question or or a question that I have a problem with. And I said, Sarah, let's see what happens when we get there. We're gonna have a journey. And so guess what, Sarah?
George B. Thomas:We've arrived at the moment where I get to ask that question that you share with the viewers or listeners a surprising or a little known fact about you that other humans might not expect. So where does your brain take you now?
Sarah Lane-Hawn:So it it takes me to the same place where it's been. It has not pivoted on that one, which is that I don't know what's surprising to other people. Like, I'd I'd be curious to hear what is surprising to other humans about me, because, to me, everything about me is a little surprising. You know, like, people don't expect necessarily that I'm gonna have a math degree, but then when you talk to me, it's like, oh, that makes complete sense. And, you know, like, people don't expect that I'm queer because I'm in, like, you know, a straight appearing relationship, but then you talk to me and you go, oh, that makes sense.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Right? Like, anything about me, they don't expect that I was in youth ministry for years. Right? But then you talk to me and it it makes sense again. So, like, there's so many aspects of myself that I think could be surprising, but, like, I'm such an open book that it's only surprising if you haven't talked to me yet.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:Because if you've talked to me, you're gonna know all these things, and then there's not much left to surprise you with.
George B. Thomas:Oh, man. That by the way, that was like a that was like a knockout punch. Like, listen, ladies and gentlemen, I just want you to think about the way that Sarah just ended that of, like, if you take time to know me, not much will surprise you. I'm gonna let that hang for a second. Okay.
George B. Thomas:Sarah, finish this. Finish this sentence for me. Success to me means blank.
Sarah Lane-Hawn:For me, daily solving a problem, daily helping someone, and then being confident that I'll be able to pay myself a salary six months from now. If I can do those three things, total success.