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To Be Human: Hypergrowth 2019

Tom Perry
by Tom Perry - June 21, 2019

On Monday June 10th, Sherpa attended the first ever UK Drift Hypergrowth event. Held in the heart of London, this marketing conference played host to almost 2000 industry leaders and avid entrepreneurs alike, all ready to be WOW’ed by a diverse and inspiring array of speakers. The line-up consists of CEO’s, CMO’s, athletes and an Oscar winning film director; this really wasn’t an opportunity to be missed.

With this in mind and a hot coffee in hand, we braved the relentless British rain and made our way into the City centre.

The speakers are relatable, funny and very ‘human’, keeping us engaged throughout the day with insightful discussions and witty humour. This makes perfect sense as the running theme of the event is the relevance of conversational marketing and why it’s important in this day. Amanda Hill, CMO of Harrods would speak passionately about storytelling and later in the day, Ryan Deiss, founder and CEO of Digital Marketer, would protest the usefulness of sporks, reminding us to focus on what we are good at without trying to do everything. It feels as though this event will have everything covered.

Hypergrowth wouldn’t have truly done its job if we didn’t leave with our heads full of ideas and ready to hit Tuesday morning with speed. Although there were many significant topics raised, 3 recurring themes stood out to us in particular: The importance of genuine and positive human interaction within business, the power of truly listening and that a unique and engaging user experience is better than simply having an amazing product. We’re going to look at these a little bit here.

 

 the importance of genuine and positive human interaction within business

 

Charlotte Pearce is one of the first speakers of the day. She walks onto the stage with a beaming smile and immediately we all want to listen. She’s the CEO and founder of Inkpact, a company that assists businesses in creating and fostering genuine connections with their prospects. She was there to remind us of something that we as busy professionals are often guilty of overlooking– the importance of love, compassion and a genuine and positive human interaction throughout your prospects’ buying journey. Charlotte speaks from the heart and informs us that keeping this at the root of your decision making can turn a prospect into a customer for life. If any doubts were to be had, they were to be quickly snuffed out as Charlotte serves some real-life examples of very successful businesses that do this well.

We were lucky enough to have one of those rare moments in which you find yourself avidly nodding in agreement but with no idea quite how long you’ve been doing it for. In other words, we agreed with everything Charlotte said.  We’ve recently released an E-Book in which we explore the need for a real human touch throughout the prospects buying journey. Our first-hand experiences have indicated that to make the prospects experience the best it can be, it’s necessary that their experiences be personalised, well timed and genuine in nature. If you’d like to join our investigation into this, you can download it here.

 

“the power of truly listening”

 

Throughout the day most of the speakers touched upon the importance of listening however Ryan Deiss arrives to hit a home run and blows it out of the ball park. Ryan speaks confidently on the subject and is initially met with a chorus of sighs. He’s unphased and continues by making a very simple and valid argument in his points defence. “We can’t tell an amazing story if we don’t know what our customers like hearing about. Remove guesswork from the equation by actually speaking to your prospects.”. Although it’s not always possible all of the time, he is right. We cannot possibly expect to really know what our prospects need without their confirmation. Although there are some great technologies around that we can use to view intent data, it’s not always enough.

If we really want to understand what our prospects want and need, we only have to ask.

 

a unique and engaging user experience is better than simply having an amazing product”

 

CEO of Drift, David Cancel makes an exciting entrance onto the stage but before inviting his guest to join him, he asks the audience if anyone there has any intentions of starting their own business one day. The response is timid considering the energy in the room is high though It’s hardly surprising, you get the feeling that anything could happen next, after all, this is a Drift event. David Is joined on stage by Brian Halligan, CEO of Hubspot. It’s very clear from the offset that the two have extensive history together which creates a very warm and open environment for discussion. They speak about past experiences, obstacles faced, how they tackled these challenges and what the future may hold.

Brian reminds us that in an era of technological disruption, “It’s no longer the business first to market that wins, it’s the first that brings the end-to-end experience”. Again, we’re nodding in agreement as it makes complete sense. We will be showing that we value our customers, their individual experiences and their time. This will inspire trust which in turn will become long-term loyalty. It makes the experience a truly human one.

As the final speaker leaves the stage, we are left sitting in the audience open to loving our prospects and customers, listening to their needs and now we are committing to ensuring their experiences are memorable and that they are always delighted. The Drift event did not disappoint in making the most of these 3 points, in fact Hypergrowth UK 2019 was a perfect example of how to execute these. The entire experience from discovery to purchase was engaging, fresh and memorable. We trust them and would certainly attend again.

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