Every month, Remotish features one employee for a quick chat about HubSpot and life at home. As part of our Client Services team, we would like to introduce Liam Redding, HubSpot Strategist, and family man.

Work-Life

Stephany
Hello and welcome back to the Employee Spotlight. My name is Stephany Russell and I'm a Sr. RevOps Coordinator here at Remotish. Today, we're talking to our newest employee, Liam Redding. Liam is one of our new HubSpot Strategists. We're super excited to have him on board. Liam, can you tell us a little bit more about your role here?

Liam
Sure, Stephany. Thank you for having me on today. So a little bit more about my role. I am a HubSpot Strategist, so that means that every day I'm in the HubSpot software strategizing and problem-solving for clients and working with the team to advise the clients on their best use of HubSpot to solve the problems and goals that they're looking to achieve.

Stephany
Perfect. So I know this, the rest of the listeners don't know, but this is only your first month with Remotish. Tell us about how your first month coming on has been.

Liam
Yeah, the first month so far has been seamless. I love the onboarding process that Remotish has. There is no client work in the first month so, pretty much the entire first month is dedicated to training, learning, and spending time getting acclimated to the new work environment and interacting with the team. I'm looking forward to the next couple of months where I'll be getting into client work and then starting to work on problem-solving, troubleshooting, and strategizing for the clients in HubSpot.

Stephany
So, as a HubSpot Strategist, you are kind of the brains of our company for clients. How long have you been a HubSpot user? What's your favorite thing about it?

Liam
Sure. So, I started using the HubSpot software almost three years ago. I like to say that I'm a lifelong technologist as I've been using computers and the Internet before I could read and write really. When I was a little kid I used to have a notepad that had all my favorite websites on it and I knew if I matched up the characters on the keyboard to what was on a notepad, that I could go to my favorite websites. I've been using technology and I've been building up those skill sets ever since. As far as HubSpot, I was able to learn the software very fast because I've interacted with so many other software over the years. In those three years using HubSpot, I have really developed a deep understanding of how it works and unique ways that you can leverage the tools within the software to achieve different goals and outcomes that are customized for a particular business use case. My favorite part of HubSpot would have to be the automation tools: workflows, and sequences. I like the workflows a lot more. Really, you can do whatever you want within that tool as long as if you can dream it up, most of the time you can build it. HubSpot has hundreds of native integrations that you can plug into the workflow function to tie into other systems and software. I've been able to deliver some really powerful automated solutions for clients in the past because of how powerful that tool is.

Life-Life

Stephany
Nice. I love it. I've got a lot to learn from you. So, switching gears a little bit - we've talked enough about work-life, let's talk about your personal life and lifestyle. What's your favorite thing about remote life because obviously in the name Remotish, we're super passionate about being remote and flexible.

Liam
Definitely, remote work on that life is huge for me. That was a big part of the decision when I was looking for my next opportunity, I really wanted to continue to work in a remote environment. I started working remotely when COVID hit and before that, I was getting burnt out by commuting back and forth with taking my daughter to daycare, waking up super early, and doing that over and over again. It was incredibly draining. When we shifted to remote work, freedom was given back to me and I was able to spend so much more time with family which is the one thing that drives me. I don't think I'll ever go back to an office because of it.

Stephany
Nice. Do you listen to any podcasts or follow any blogs or groups that you would recommend our readers and visitors to follow?

Liam
This is probably one that most people have already heard of, but it's somebody that I've been following since the beginning of my marketing career and he has a lot of great life advice but also just if you're looking for trends and things to follow in the market, a great person to listen to is Gary Vaynerchuk. He has a number of different podcasts and marketing things that he puts together and a great newsletter. He's always coming out with something new, but he does have a podcast that you can access on Spotify called "Ask Gary Vee" or something like that. He is definitely a great person to follow and listen to. Also, there's Joe Rogan. If I'm trying to keep my mind busy while working on something, I'll usually turn him on. I've listened to a lot of really interesting episodes with guest stars ranging from Elon Musk to Mike Tyson. He has interesting guests and interesting conversations. I always learn something when I'm listening to him.

Stephany
You've got to send me the links! Now, when you aren't HubSpotting for our clients, tell us a little bit about what you do when you're not wearing your Remotish hat? I know you are big on family.

Liam
So that's pretty much you know, 95% of what I do outside of work is spending time with my family. I have a three-year-old who's about to be four as well as a four-month-old newborn, at the time of this recording. So, I'm very busy in my home life, but it's beautiful and it's really given me a purpose. I had my oldest daughter when I was in college, and at the time I was doing alright, but I would have never gotten to where I've gotten as fast as I've gotten there if it wasn't for her. You know, just having that motivation to push me every day to be the best version of myself has really led me to this place and I'm forever grateful for that. So, that's really where I'm spending most of my time is helping my wife with the kids and spending quality time with them.

Stephany
Yes, I love that. We are very similar as I told you in our connect meeting. My daughter gave me the same sort of motivational push. Now, do you have any personal mottos or mantras you follow?

Liam
My big thing is just always to look at the positive side of things. I think it's so easy to get caught up in the negatives but even in negative situations, there's always a silver lining. There's always a positive and I think as long as you look at that, that positivity is your North Star. You'll find your way out of those tough situations.

Stephany
Thanks, love that. Do we have any guilty pleasures?

Liam
Yeah, I'd probably say my guilty pleasure is playing video games.

Stephany
What's your favorite video game and what system do you use?

Liam
I just got a new Xbox One. I haven't played in a very long time, I put video games away because I needed to focus on other things. Now, I've gotten to a place in my life where I have a little bit more free time and I've kind of built my foundation where now I'm just enjoying the ride and enjoying the fruits of my labor that I put in early. So, I'm trying to give myself a little bit more free time to do things like video games. I like sports games like Madden where I get on with my friends and then I also play Call of Duty.

Stephany
Nice, I always cheer my boyfriend on while he is playing the game. Do you have any unique talents?

Liam
I do have a couple. I don't think of myself as incredibly talented, but I do have some unique talents. One of them would be that I am pretty good at basketball. I played basketball throughout high school and I had a couple of college scholarship offers, I just ended up not pursuing them because I knew that it was never going to pan out as a career. So, I just focused on school but I still enjoy playing basketball and I'm still pretty good at it even though I can barely get up and down the court nowadays. My other unique talent is kind of work-related, but it's graphic design and videography. That's something I definitely enjoy doing. I've won a couple of awards for my graphic design and videography and I still work on side projects and things like that.

Stephany
We already talked about that and I saw that. You're super talented and that's super cool to have in your back pocket. So, where do you live and why do you love living there?

Liam
So, I live in West Virginia and it's such a beautiful place to live and very peaceful. It's where my home base is for the most part, where all my family and friends are. It's also where I've grown up and it's just a good and safe community. Probably the best thing about living here is the cost of living. We live in the eastern panhandle, which is between Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. So, we're pretty close to DC and we get access to those metropolitan areas but the cost of living is significantly lower. Because of that, we're able to be homeowners at a young age, which is something that I'm incredibly grateful for.

Stephany
That's beautiful, I love to hear about you and your family. Alright, so that concludes today's Employee Spotlight. I want to thank our listeners for tuning in and I definitely want to thank Liam for sharing his super interesting professional journey and personal facts with us today.

Liam
Yeah, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it, Stephany. I'm looking forward to the future at Remotish and continuing to develop my skill sets and provide value to all the clients.

Stephany
If you enjoy this interview, you can head over to remotish.agency, and check out our other Employee Spotlight Interviews. These can also be found by heading to the header of the website, clicking on the resources link, and then clicking on the blog option. This will take you to a catalog of our blogs written by all of our team members including our Employee Spotlights. Again my name is Stephany, and that's it for today. Until next time, Happy Hubspotting!