Hi, I’m Craig Bailey and this is my personal blog where I write about technology, business systems, HubSpot 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

Side effects

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I suspect most people focus too much on the side effects of doing something, versus the side effects of not doing anything. For example:  The side effects of vaccines (eg 2 out 100,000 get heart side effects from COVID vaccines, versus the side effects of not getting vaccinated – you can ‘do your own research‘ on this one) The side effects of exercising (injuries, muscle tears...

Company Meetings or Corporate Sabotage?

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Thanks to Dare on Threads for this gem. Via the comments, a link through to the CIA’s blog post on simple sabotage, which in turn links to the PDF of the OSS 1944 Field Manual. And this screenshot from page 28: As Dare and others quip – this could be the agenda for most corporate meetings these days. There’s specific advice for managers and supervisors as well: The whole PDF is...

Mark Zuckerberg’s Hawaii Compound

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Perhaps the most ‘interesting’ part in this Wired article about Mark Zuckerberg’s $270M compound, is how uninteresting it is… Not a single interesting photo, no drone shots, no actual blueprints or plans. Definitely not any internal shots. Nothing except anecdotal stories from locals about the secrecy, some workplace related injuries, and correlations between philanthropy...

How to build a HubSpot List of Contacts with Free Email Addresses

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How to build a list of contacts using a free email address in HubSpot A quick reminder on how to do this – since it has come up in a few client calls recently. Here’s the video walkthrough, and here’s the HubSpot KB article I reference. And here’s the online replace tool I used. Of course, in an ideal world HubSpot would have a default property on contacts that had this...

Using Formula Fields in HubSpot Custom Reports

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Using Formula Fields in HubSpot Custom Reports to group contacts into buckets based on how many Marketing emails they’ve opened. This is an example of using Formula Fields (currently a Public Beta) in Custom Reports Here’s the video walkthrough: There’s other ways to do this (eg using calculated properties, or Operations Hub Enterprise functions) – this example...

Content Quantity starts to repel

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I’m a big Alex Hormozi fan. Have been for a while. However, I’ve noticed a change in my response to his content, as it has grown in quantity lately (ie last year or so). Whereas before I used to watch all his clips, especially YouTube, these days there’s soooo much content that I don’t watch any of it. There’s a strange feeling of overwhelm that dilutes the perceived...

Bond films

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As I noted on Threads, I’ve been rewatching the Bond films. The stakes are higher in some than others. The Spy Who Loved Me: Bond stops Stromberg from destroying the world Moonraker: Bond stops Drax from destroying the world View to a Kill: Bond stops Zorin from destroying Silicon Valley Die Another: Bond stops Graves from starting a war in Korea Casino Royale: Bond stops Le Chiffre winning...

HubShots 305

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Ian and I have released our final episode for the year, you can watch it here and read the full show notes here. This episode we dive into: Preparing for a Fast Start in 2024 Quick shots (Loom, Clearbit acquisitions) Active lists of non-marketing contacts who used to be marketing contacts How to build a list of ZoomInfo contacts Adding images in meetings in the HubSpot app Using LinkedIn Sales...

Apple Notes

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Just a quick note to record that Apple Notes is working for me. I moved over at the start of the year after years of using Evernote. Not that there was a functionality problem with Evernote, but I was very concerned when they were acquired and the new company didn’t give much confidence the product would be maintained. Since using Apple Notes, I’ve also adopted Tiago Forte’s...

Automation shouldn’t add new stuff, it should first automate existing manual processes

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In the HubShots Framework, Stage 3 is focussed on automation in HubSpot. That is, automating as many processes as appropriate. The key word to note here is: appropriate. Many companies try to add completely new stuff using automation, before they’ve even automated their existing manual processes The trap they fall into is automating a bunch of processes that add little value (eg mass spamming) to...

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