HUBSPOT CEO! Yamini Rangan 😲 AI Content MUST KNOWS! And how search is changing!| Ep. 443

Jay Schwedelson: We are back for do this, not that, and this is a special one. We got one of the people on this planet you said. Who can you have on the show? You pick anybody? This is who I'd pick. It's true. Uh, don't tell my wife because I should pick her first, but no, I want Yamini.

Jay Schwedelson: Who's Yamini? Who's Yamini? Rangan. She is the CEO of HubSpot. You know her, and if you don't know HubSpot, that's epically weird, but I'll give you the quick rundown. Okay. HubSpot is. The global CRM powerhouse helping millions of people over a quarter of a million customers in 135 countries. It's not just listed as like the best place to work and all this stuff.

Jay Schwedelson: And, and Yamini has not only helped this thing grow like massively leading the charge, but I'm not just saying this 'cause Yi's here, it has to have the best corporate culture on the planet, the best community vibes. I don't know of another brand where people feel so connected to, to this thing and I love.

Jay Schwedelson: I love all things HubSpot. So Yamini, thank you for being here.

Yamini Rangan: I think we can end the show right there. That was perfect. But thank you Jay for having me and we've been huge fans. You add so much to our community, uh, our, you know, community of marketeers learn from you so much. So it is an absolute delight to be on the show with you.

Jay Schwedelson: Wow, that's amazing. I'm gonna clip that and use that. I'm gonna get a tattoo of that. Um, alright, so before we get into all this work stuff, I wanted to. Bring something up. 'cause you and I have gone through a similar life moment recently. We both dropped off our sons at college, and I don't know about you, but this has been like total, I, I wasn't fully prepared.

Jay Schwedelson: How are you handling it? Are you doing well? How are all things going?

Yamini Rangan: Oh my God. I know, I, you know you that, that's your first child as well, right? Yes, yes. It's all new to me, and I didn't grow up in this country. So the whole process from college visit to application to like drop off and dorms, what do you need in a dorm?

Yamini Rangan: I like over ordered everything and I, and, and you know, when we went into the dorm, it was like three people and they were like, take everything back because there's no room for anything. Right? So this whole process has been like new and I've been discovering this whole process. But look, it's like, um, it's exciting and emotional at the same time.

Yamini Rangan: Uh, there was this moment where we literally like, you know, said bye and to my, to my son. When we dropped him off and um, he is never emotional, but he looked like he had a half a tear and then, then my damn like broke and I was like, you know, I could not, yeah. I literally could not even stop it. And I think all the way from drop off to when we were driving to the airport.

Yamini Rangan: As absolute basket case. My husband was a basket case. Yeah. And we both were like, you know, like, you know, it, it was just an emotional moment and then you turn around and you're like, okay, now two weeks later there was inbound, so let's go. So I think like it's really hard to kind of, you know, pause for life moments like that.

Yamini Rangan: While you're doing, you know, things and you know, we still pass his room and we are like, oh my God. You know, he is, he is not there. And you know, but it's also exciting to yes. Launch an adult and hopefully a good human being. Yes. And see. Him like, take off and thrive in a new environment, make new friends and, you know, figure out his passion.

Yamini Rangan: So yeah, it's a, it's all in one.

Jay Schwedelson: It's, it's, it's more than I expected it to be. And I actually apologized. My daughter's a senior in high school right now, and so I apologized her to her the other day. 'cause I realized, like when we eat dinner now, we ask her like, double the amount of annoying questions. I know.

Jay Schwedelson: And she's like carrying the load for him not being there.

Yamini Rangan: I know, I, I have a junior in high school and he's like. He, he sat us down and he said, you guys, this is enough. Like you are all over me and you see how I'm not coming out of my room. It's because you are all over me. Just back off. And we were like, okay.

Jay Schwedelson: Right. I know it's not, it's like you don't even realize, oh, wait a minute. Um, well, it's amazing. I'm so happy that it's going well. 'cause this is a big deal. Speaking of another big deal. Yes. So at this year's inbound, so Inbound is the massive conference that HubSpot puts on, and it just happened recently and this year's inbound.

Jay Schwedelson: What was the, the talk of everything was this. Idea of the funnel that marketers use, that salespeople use, that business owners use to drive their business. The funnel is no longer the thing, and now we are migrating to the loop. Okay? So what's going on here are is, is the funnel dead? What's happening?

Yamini Rangan: Well, I think the funnel is still the funnel, but the point we were trying to make is the shape of the funnel and what you do to progress the different stages within the funnel is changing really, really dramatically. And Jay, I mean, you've followed all of this, but even for us who live and breathe, you know, marketing every single day.

Yamini Rangan: If you just pause and kind of like reflect on how much change we have seen in the last like 18 months, it's pretty dramatic. And think about this at the, at the top of the funnel, you know, we typically call this as awareness. And the awareness, you know, was always built on. Get your brand name out and get people to come and visit your website.

Yamini Rangan: And now it's absolutely not that it is. Be where your customers are and your customers are listening to podcasts like your podcast Jay. They're on social, on Insta, on LinkedIn, on YouTube, and they are reading email newsletters. So I think where awareness is has completely changed and it's actually dispersed to where the customers are.

Yamini Rangan: And then if you look at the consideration phase, what we are we're seeing is that it's a lot fewer clicks coming into your website. It used to be that marketers were obsessed about the volume of traffic that's coming to the website, and that has dramatically changed with AI overview. AI overviews are now giving answers, and so this is like a stat that I saw last week, which is eight out of 10 Google searches end up with no click.

Yamini Rangan: I mean, that is massive. That is like absolutely massive, where eight out of 10 clicks are not ending in search, which means, you know, if you just have the content and you're waiting and optimizing for website traffic, it's just not gonna work. So the middle of the funnel, in terms of consideration where.

Yamini Rangan: People come to your website, that has actually compressed quite a bit. And then the bottom of, uh, the funnel, which used to be the hardest thing, which is conversion. How do you take someone who is looking at your brand, your product, your solution, and convert them into the customer? Well, you can now use AI and you can actually have very hyper-personalized conversations.

Yamini Rangan: To drive much better conversion. So if you step back, marketing has changed dramatically. And we think that there is a need for a completely new playbook, which is what we launched at Inbound, um, the conference we had about a month ago.

Jay Schwedelson: So, okay, so I'm listening. I'm out there and I'm a, a marketing manager, a small business owner, whatever I am, and I'm like, okay, I gotta.

Jay Schwedelson: Change around my idea of the funnel, but here I am trying to figure out do I have the right content piece? I made this PD, I made this report. I use this thing and get a boatload of leads. Is. On a very basic level, does our content need to change or is it just how we are distributing our content? Like what do we have to do if we're living and breeding this every day?

Yamini Rangan: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's such a really important and specific question. If you are in marketing, you know, the first thing is. The type of content that you are building does need to change, and where you distribute that content needs to change. So those are the two things, and let's type talk about the type of the content.

Yamini Rangan: Now, you know, we all optimize the heck out of SEO, which is search engine optimization, and the average number of words. In a Google search is five. So people would say, you know, what's the best marketing podcast? And then, you know, you would, you would still show up in the, in the top five blue links and maybe someone clicks on that blue link.

Yamini Rangan: They get to kind of like your website and then they begin to understand the kind of content that you generate. Well, that is not enough. Now people are asking really specific questions, and the average number of words in an LLM question is 23. So they're not saying Give me the, you know, the best, uh, marketing podcast.

Yamini Rangan: It's like I am trying to learn. About very specific areas of marketing, like content marketing, and I want to use AI better. What should I do and who should I listen to? And that's a very, very different kind of approach. And so what I tell content, uh, marketers is that content is more important than ever.

Yamini Rangan: But specific content with better citations, with better quotations, with better, more, you know, focused case studies and that can answer people's questions are going to be more important. And so content is changing pretty dramatically, but it's how you use that content. That's one. The second part is where the content shows up.

Yamini Rangan: We, we've already talked about it. If you are sitting here waiting for someone to show up in your website, you are gonna be waiting for a while because it's not the way pattern anymore. And that's because way back when internet got formed, it was pretty easy because the thing that happened with internet is it made information searchable so people searched and so people searched and landed on your website.

Yamini Rangan: Now information is ubiquitous everywhere in different platforms, and no one's going to come to your website to search about your product. They're gonna ask their friends on Reddit or maybe G two. They're going to go and look at something on Insta or TikTok and get influenced by that. They're gonna listen to podcasts, and so where your content is needs to be, where your customers are.

Yamini Rangan: And so if you are content marketer. Get specific about your content, drive much more personalization with that content and get the content everywhere before your customers get to your website.

Jay Schwedelson: I think it's a really important message because even as we approach end of year here and people have these like dashboards, like, how are we doing?

is the new thing heading into: 2026

Jay Schwedelson: Listen, it's not about your website traffic. You actually need to have a presence there. It's not like you're checking a box in the past where, oh yeah, we're there. Is this now a must do, uh, for your business?

Yamini Rangan: Absolutely. I, I would say marketing just got fun, you know, uh, the last like five years, if you actually, you know, talk to marketeers, almost everything that you do was just incremental.

Yamini Rangan: You got like point, you know, zero 5% improvement in conversion. You got like. You know, some small incremental gain. I think now it's a completely new playbook. And if, if, you know, I were a marketeer, I'd be like, okay, let's reinvent almost everything, because the faster you move, the bigger the gains and advantage you'll get for your company.

Yamini Rangan: So I do think that it is a pretty, you know, uh, fun moment for marketers. You do have to reinvent though. You cannot. You cannot like wait for, you know, someone to get to you know your page or wait there though. You know, there's something interesting Jay, about the channels that are beginning to work now.

Yamini Rangan: You know, we've talked about it. Yeah. It is like podcasts. Why do people listen to your podcast? You're a personality that people, I

Jay Schwedelson: don't know. I

Yamini Rangan: I know, I know. Because

Jay Schwedelson: you

Yamini Rangan: know it in general. It is because. People trust, you know, uh, sources like you. Yeah. You have higher credibility and people want high credibility sources.

Yamini Rangan: This is why, you know, um, podcasts, uh, YouTube channels, even email newsletters work because they are people and personality driven. It. It used to be just content driven. Now, content needs to also be people and personality driven. And so if you are looking for next year's like marketing plan and you're building strategy, you should be thinking about diversification.

Yamini Rangan: But you should be thinking about who within your company has high credibility, has high authority, can represent to customers and ideal customer profiles, the right kind of messages, and you have to start building that.

Jay Schwedelson: I think that's so valuable for people to hear from you because I fully believe that humanity is the algorithm.

Jay Schwedelson: Right. You know? And that's who we trust. We trust people and, and it's this idea of especially leaders of organizations. It could be a tiny business, big business, doesn't matter that you need to have. A personality, a human, uh, and humans showing that they're real. Like at Inbound, for example, you had Brian Halligan, one of the co-founders of, of, of HubSpot sitting there doing the Hot Wings challenge.

Jay Schwedelson: The hot ones challenge, right?

Yamini Rangan: Wasn't that crazy?

Jay Schwedelson: It was unbelievable. The dude couldn't even watch.

Yamini Rangan: I watched like the hots, like the whole thing. I watched maybe the first three or four, and then I was like, oh my God, this is gonna hurt. I'm, I'm done.

Jay Schwedelson: But I, you know, what blew my mind about is. Brian didn't need to do that.

Jay Schwedelson: You know, he doesn't need to be there doing that. But it just shows certainly that HubSpot gets it. But that businesses in general understand you have to add elements of humanity. That's what we're connecting to. That's what we trust. I mean, to your point, and it's amazing that you said that you wanna do the Hot Wings challenge next year.

Jay Schwedelson: I can't believe you stepped it up.

Yamini Rangan: You're making it up now.

Jay Schwedelson: I, I was trying to,

Yamini Rangan: I'm Indian. I take spies, but not that much. Nope. Yeah. That's crazy. That's not me. Yes, I

Jay Schwedelson: get it. I get it. Well, you know, speaking of humanity, let's talk about AI for a second because. If, if nothing else, HubSpot is like pushing everybody into the world of, of AI in the best possible way.

Jay Schwedelson: And the thing that frustrates me about AI is when everyone talks about ai, it comes from a negative place. Yep. Oh, it's gonna do this to your job or it's doing this to to whatever. But there's so much positive about ai. So what is the positive outlook for business owners, for salespeople, for marketing people, about where it's all going with ai?

Jay Schwedelson: 'cause you have a really good perspective on it.

Yamini Rangan: Look, I, I do think that there is so much hype and there is so much anxiety about ai, but you know, I, I don't start with the tool or what the new technology is. It is what can it help us as humans do better? And we do have a very strong point that AI is not going to replace humans.

Yamini Rangan: It's going to augment. Us to do much better in everything that we do. And if you look at the foundational principle of Loop, which is the playbook that we launched, we said, look, when people start with ai, it's, it's complete spam. It's just garbage. Like, you know, all of us start, you know, saying, Hey, write this email for me, or, you know, write this whole talk track for me.

Yamini Rangan: It's just going to feel very not personalized and complete spam. So you have to start with a human point of view. That's where we come in, taste, clarity, judgment, strategy. That's what we bring, and we have to start with that point of view. And I write a lot, but I never start with ai. I start with what is my point of view that I want to, you know, share and how can I use ai?

Yamini Rangan: That's the first starting point. Once you do that, of course AI can take it to scale. Once you have a clear point of view for your company, your brand, even for you and who you stand for. Of course AI can take it, scale it, personalize it based on the intent data, and then it can help you amplify that message.

Yamini Rangan: But you have to be the starting point. And so my perspective in a in go to market is. Start thinking about new ways of solving old problems in marketing. We could never get to one-to-one segmentation and personalization because it was too hard. That's why we created segments of thousands, hundred thousand people within one segment that you don't need that anymore.

Yamini Rangan: AI can actually do one-to-one relevant messages at scale. And then in sales, think about the problems that you now are able to solve. I started my career in sales and every year I'd get a set of accounts and I'd be able to cover maybe 30% at best, 30% of the accounts. I knew what was happening, what was changing, what was their, you know, top initiative.

Yamini Rangan: But the rest of the accounts, 70% of the accounts I'd never had the time. AI can help you do that. So I look at AI not as, oh my God, there's hype. We need to go after it. But think about the job that you're doing and think about where AI can help And look, our clear point of view is that it starts with human strategy, creativity point of view, and then you can bring in AI to help with the scale, speed, and execution.

Jay Schwedelson: Well, I know that you don't use AI to write your posts because I've never seen an M dash in. This whole M dash thing is so funny 'cause I'm like illiterate. I don't even know how to use an M dash. So now that we're like, you're not really supposed to use it 'cause it's like what AI gives you back. I'm so happy 'cause I don't know how to use it.

Jay Schwedelson: Anyway, I,

Yamini Rangan: I, you know, I, I do use AI for writing, but I clearly have instructions for my ai, which is. You know, don't give me M dash. Sometimes I'm like, I've already told you not to gimme M Dash, and it'll be like, okay, sorry, lemme rewrite this for you.

Jay Schwedelson: I don't get it. Like, what is going on with the MD dash?

Jay Schwedelson: It's so funny to me.

Yamini Rangan: Yes.

Jay Schwedelson: All So you're doing all this stuff, ai, you're doing all the stuff with the HubSpot, but in your free time, do you like, have like hobbies? Do you play pickleball or tennis or know an instrument? Like what are you doing when you're doing other stuff?

Yamini Rangan: So, okay, you, you will appreciate this so.

Yamini Rangan: It for the longest time, people would be like, what are your hobbies? And, and it would drive me crazy because I have none. I mean, I, you know, I'm super dedicated mom. I have two boys, 18 and 16. And mostly when they were young, I just kept them alive and safe and healthy. And I was like running around making sure they're not like getting into some dangerous zone.

Yamini Rangan: Right. And, you know, and then I focused on work. Yeah. And look, I do think that, um, I used to feel really bad because I'd be like, people come in and say, I played this round of golf here, or I went to this thing and I'm like, really good at playing music, and I'm like. Where do you have the time? I, I kind of said very early on, I'm going to be a really present mom.

Yamini Rangan: Yeah. And I'm going to be really good at anything that I do at work. And back then it was not an ambition to get to, you know, the C-Suite. It was like, I wanna be the best. At whatever I do. Yeah. And I kind of like more so just focused on those two things, which meant that I didn't have a time, I didn't have time to kind of build, uh, incredible hobbies.

Yamini Rangan: And at some point in my life, I will, it means that I do have other interests. You know, I love gardening. But sometimes I kill plants. You know, I love, you know, yoga and meditation, but I'm still practicing my shoulder stand, so I'm, you know, I'm kind of like novice to intermediate level in many things that help keep my life grounded.

Yamini Rangan: But I just had time for. Work and my kids and being a decent human being and a good friend. And that's, you know, that's life.

Jay Schwedelson: Well, I, I, I'm with you a hundred percent and I'm also a plant killer. I gotta work on it. During COVID, you know, you couldn't go anywhere. So we got like all these plants, like, we're gonna like grow our own vegetables and stuff.

Jay Schwedelson: And I think I started like the, the fourth sequel to Jurassic Park because like after like two weeks we're like, I don't even want to go a deal. It's gross. Was gross.

Yamini Rangan: I mean, I, I've killed plenty. I do have a little vegetable patch and that's my passion. And I'm like, that's good. Always going there. And like, you know, there, there's a last batch of like tomatoes in the last couple of weeks and, you know, and I was like, happy for it.

Yamini Rangan: But then there were also things that I'd killed, you know, in the side. So,

Jay Schwedelson: yeah. All right, well, we'll do another episode about planting, uh, uh, tips. And it would probably, no one will listen. 'cause like they don't dunno what they're talking about.

Yamini Rangan: No.

Jay Schwedelson: I'll listen. No one believe

Yamini Rangan: it. They should not listen to me.

Jay Schwedelson: No, no, no, no. Me neither. Um, but everyone should follow Yamini on, on LinkedIn. We're gonna put on the show notes. And if there's a human being on this planet, it doesn't know HubSpot. I'm not just saying this. It's the most incredible company, and they also put out the most incredible content. The Hubsoft Media Network is bananas.

Jay Schwedelson: I love it all. So, uh, Yamini, you are wonderful. Thanks for everything that you do for this amazing community that you're leading, and it's just an honor to have had you on the show.

Yamini Rangan: Thank you so much, Jay. You are an incredible creator. I follow you, so if someone is not following Jay on LinkedIn, please do that as well.

Jay Schwedelson: Oh, so kind. All right. I'll see you soon. Thanks again.

Yamini Rangan: Thank you.

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