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

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Part of living life well, it seems, is intentionally thinking through what we pursue more of, and what we pursue less of. Sounds obvious, until we consider the signals society streams at us, and the temptation to just go along with the flow (we’re all so overwhelmed after all). Because in society’s playbook, more is almost always deemed a good thing. More...

HubSpot and Claude distraction

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A quick observation There’s a surge of social discussion (LinkedIn, Twitter mainly) about connecting Claude to HubSpot for tasks that HubSpot already handles natively, often more effectively. Why doing it inside HubSpot is often better HubSpot Assistant (or is it Breeze Assistant?) can query across your portal, create properties, pages, and lists, and act on deals/lists directly...

Substack

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I’ve been posting every month or so on Substack. My longer, more thoughtful pieces. (Where as this blog is much more ad-hoc, short and long) I quite like Substack, and have found that I spend a reasonable amount of time there each day, reading through articles. It feels like it is the only place I can find long form pieces these days (pour one out for Medium which had such potential and...

inflAItion

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Two typical ways companies charge for AI: Consumption pricing — you use an agent, you pay per use. Transparent, fair, expected. Subscription inflation — ‘features’ get quietly baked in, then cited as justification for price increases you never agreed to. The first is fine. The second is the rort. The pattern: Company adds small AI enhancements you never requested (assistants, inline helpers...

Temu HubSpot

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Most of the vibe coded CRM ‘products’ I see breathlessly announced on social (mainly X, but I see them as screenshots on Threads funnily enough) seem to be just Temu HubSpot. There’s a market for these vibe coded CRMs, just like there’s a big market for Temu shit no doubt, but even Temu doesn’t pretend the crap they sell is quality. Will be interesting to see if the rising token costs (and...

Consolidation

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Part of streamlining life and business is the action of consolidation. It can start with simple things, just to get the ball rolling. Here’s a few simple examples I’ve actioned in my personal life this year: cancelling a bunch of domain registrations I’ve had for years, but know I’ll never end up using cancelling streaming services reducing the number of skin care products...

Overwhelm

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People are completely overwhelmed. In their personal lives. In their professional lives. From the simple basics of everyday life (which toothpaste to buy) through to the news they consume, the advertising they are blasted with, the ‘advice’ they are subjected to on social, the streaming services they watch, the inboxes they avoid, people are struggling to… think, let alone make...

Complexify

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The process of adding new features, tools and AI garnish to a software platform, with the effect of overwhelming and alienating the original customer base who loved it for its intuitiveness and ease of use. Usually followed by a series of paper cut pricing increases to ‘reflect the added value’ of the ‘enhancements’. Enterprisification The finale stage of complefixying...

Health Profit 

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As a business owner it can be easy to fall into a reductionist mindset and assume everything is a business problem to be solved. Sometimes that’s useful, other times not. Here’s an example (which I probably saw on social somewhere*), which you may find useful (I did), maybe not. It’s about your health. Treat your body as a business with a health profit & loss. Income = sleep exercise strength...

Strategic Grind

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Doing what you Hate so you can do what you Love I’ve been chatting about strategic grind with the team lately. Every business owner and team member has things in their day they don’t like doing. It’s part of work. In this column, we’re going to discuss the kinds of work you don’t like doing – but still should do. What Is the Grind? The grind is all those tasks you do, projects you work on...

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