This time I’m reviewing the Inbound class from Hubspot Academy.

I chose this class over the Inbound Marketing class because I thought that this would be a good introduction to the Inbound methodology before diving into the more focused Inbound Marketing class.

• Class: Inbound
• Author: HubSpot Academy
• Duration: 2 hours plus 1 hour exam
• Certification: Yes

While this class provides a good introduction to the Inbound methodology, I do not feel like it is a class that’s required before taking one of the Inbound Marketing, Inbound Sales, or Inbound Services classes. This class is targeted more to the executive in charge of Marketing, Sales, and Services/Operations.

The class gives an overview of the Inbound methodology (Attract, Engage, Delight) and covers some business basics, such as mission statements, goals, personas, and buyer’s journeys. The class is divided into multiple sections. Each section has several video lessons and a quiz to help you understand the material. They provide a study guide that is mainly an outline. I recommend that you take a lot of your own notes.

I like how the class promotes a simpler buying process than the Pragmatic system (3 steps vs 5 steps). Awareness, Consideration, Decision. The steps are a little counterintuitive to what I’m used to and had to readjust my brain a bit. Awareness isn’t gaining awareness of my product or organization, it’s the persona gaining awareness that a problem exists. Consideration isn’t the persona evaluating my product and organization, it’s them identifying all the possible solutions to their problem. Decision doesn’t start with the decision being made, it ends with it. Evaluating solutions occurs in the Decision step, not the Consideration step.

At first, the Inbound buying process, like with many others, seems to miss the post-decision step of the buyer’s journey. The part where you turn customers into advocates and potential upsell opportunities. However, they address this with their flywheel concept, which not only shows how to turn existing customers into new prospects and drive growth but also shows how Sales, Marketing, and Services/Operations should work together for the benefit of the customer. I’m looking forward to seeing how the Inbound Marketing class expands on the flywheel concept.

The Inbound buying process may feel like goes against the traditional buying process taught in other classes, I like how it brings a focus to on the persona is solving their problem instead of focusing on how they interact with my product and organization. I believe marketers need to look at both angles of the buyer’s journey to be effective.

This class comes with an exam for certification. It was 60 multiple choice questions and 45 correct answers are needed to pass. They say it’ll take an hour to complete the exam and you’re given 3 hours to complete it. If you do not pass, you have to wait 3 hours to take the exam again. The exam wasn’t too difficult. I completed it within 45 minutes and got 55 correct. I recommend that you take a lot of notes during the class. You’ll need to understand the concepts of the class to pass the exam, not just regurgitate facts.

Overall I think this class is pretty good. There are only a few times where it felt like I was watching a sales pitch. It doesn’t go into the Hubspot software, which I appreciate. Too often when I attend a webinar to learn about a specific industry, audience, or marketing technique, I found out that it’s just a sales pitch for some company’s product or service.

I do wish that the class description was a little more direct as to who this was for. I thought this class was an introductory classes that needed to be taken before the more focused Inbound Marketing/Sales/Services classes. Instead it was more an overview class for the executive level who would not be taking one of the more focuses classes.

I would recommend this class to executives looking to rollout the Inbound methodology to their organization and small business owners looking to get started with business and marketing fundamentals.