Use HubSpot Better

Hi, I’m Craig Bailey and this is my personal blog where I write about technology, business systems, HubSpot, marketing strategy and general life experiences. You can read my posts here.

(If you are looking for the Content is King post by Bill Gates it is here)

I’m involved with three agencies in Sydney:

  • The first is XEN Systems. We help government departments and mid-large B2B technology companies with their sales and marketing strategy, including implementation and training in HubSpot 
  • The second is XEN Create. We provide premium graphic design services to companies, with a focus on using the latest AI tools, including Midjourney
  • The third is XEN Solar, where we help high quality solar companies (dealers, installers) with their sales and marketing processes.

I also co-host HubShots, the podcast and YouTube show focussed on getting the most out of HubSpot. We are the creators of the HubShots Framework.

Craig Bailey presenting

Latest stories

Networking Event thoughts

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If you know me, you know I’m not the ‘networking’ type – instead I’m the ‘hide in the corner’ type. But, tough as it is, I’ve been trying to attend a few in-person events lately and ‘network’ with people. A quick note: Our head designer created two simple images for me: An overview image with a QR code that I use as my iPhone wallpaper...

Inefficiency

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Went with my wife to a medical specialist appointment yesterday (she’s fine, all routine). It was at a Health Hub (healthcare in Australia is wonderful), very modern and new. You know the kind, where you get confused using touch panels to call the elevator. Went up to the floor, walked the beautiful corridors, and entered the specialist’s rooms. Expensive, modern finishings, amazing...

Annual Strategy Review

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I thought I’d share a few thoughts about what I’m doing this month. It’s not related to HubSpot directly, but is indirectly, because it goes a step higher and thinks about business strategy. Every year, usually in May, I take four weeks off to clear my head, read, learn, and think about the business – where it’s headed and where I want it to head. I try do this in...

Should You Build Your Website on HubSpot? A Comprehensive Guide

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An In-Depth Look at Scenarios, Pricing, Features, and Considerations for Choosing Your Web Platform Introduction: Setting the Stage – The Age-Old Question Welcome to this comprehensive guide based on the insightful discussion from HubShots episode 312, “Should You Build Your Website on HubSpot?”. In this guide, we aim to answer a question that frequently arises for businesses of...

The Empty Restaurant Paradox

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People outsource their thinking all the time. You. Me. Partly because we need to (there’s too many decisions to make daily) and partly because we’re lazy. Sometimes we outsource our thinking and mistakenly think we’re embracing the so-called ‘Wisdom of the Crowd‘. A quick example. Two Asian noodle places are located nearby. One has a big queue outside and the other...

Cut through

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In Marketing, we have this tired idea of cut through. We’re told we need to ‘make a stand’, ‘take a side’, cause division, etc because ‘if everyone agrees with us then no one agrees with us’ (and other cliches)… so we need to make a claim that interrupts people. That, we’re told, is how we can capture attention. We call this ‘creating...

84 to 85 = shoulder pain

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I’d been wondering why I was getting pain in my right shoulder recently. Nothing sharp, just a dull ache by the end of the day. I realised (by accident) that it was the height of my standing desk. I’d bumped the height switch a few days prior and the height had gone from 84 up to 85. And in the following days the shoulder pain started. I took it back down to 84 (ie 1cm lower), and the...

Game Changer

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Game changer Definition: Any new feature—no matter how basic or specific to a particular area—which is talked about breathlessly on social media as if it’s going to unlock some amazing new level of productivity or performance. Usually accompanied by at least one fire emoji. Ideally, if it is in beta, that makes it more of a game changer. Bonus: if it’s a private beta, then it’s...

Why I cancelled Duolingo

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I’ve been using Duolingo for a while. I pay for the Premium (Super) version. But I cancelled this week. Not because I don’t use it. Not because I’m replacing it with another tool or ChatGPT. I cancelled it because I’m sick of so much upsell. The bottom set of icons used to give me access to different features. Now two of the six are just for upsells. I’m fine with...

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