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

CRMs and Connection

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Most CRMs will highlight how they enable you to connect with your prospects and customers better. They help you ‘engage’. This can be good and bad. On the good side, it can keep you organised, so you’re freed up to care about people and provide value. On the bad side, it promotes an attitude of insincere activity – in the name of ‘staying connected’. Example:...

AI Funding

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Just noting this here as a timestamp more than anything – AI writing startup Writer raises $100M at a $500M valuation. So many stories like this.

We’re heading into crazy times again. Buckle up.

Assume Everything will be Exposed at some point

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You may have seen the TechCrunch article about Microsoft researchers accidentally exposing terabytes of sensitive internal data when providing access to some AI training data. In summary: This data included 38 terabytes of sensitive information, including the personal backups of two Microsoft employees’ personal computers. The data also contained other sensitive personal data, including passwords...

HubSpot’s CRM Puzzle

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Imagine this (Scenario 1) You’re a sales rep. You log into HubSpot and go to the Contacts view: You click a button in the top right labelled ‘Import New Leads’ You are taken to a screen where you set a number of criteria, including job titles, seniority, location, company size, annual revenue, industry, etc You are shown a list of contacts to select from. Additional criteria is...

HubSpot Guide Creator

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Handy little tool that HubSpot is providing (or at least testing): Guide Creator

Limited to 10 guides per portal at the moment, which seems crazy, but probably indicative that they’re just testing the idea initially.

Classic Example of Nothing to See Here

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News report of WhatsApp mulling over putting ads into the app. And charging a subscription to hide ads. But WhatsApp says there’s no plans for it. There’s no actual news here. Of course they have considered it as an option. As every app and platform is currently doing. Of course they might do it. But when there’s nothing confirmed, it means the news article reporting it is as...

Shared Experiences

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I went to see Extreme on Tuesday night at the Enmore Theatre. They were very good. Uncomfortably loud. But very good. Almost 2 hours on stage, an excellent set, and of course… Nuno. I’ve actually seen Extreme before. Back in 1993 I went to see them with my best friend Mal, and another friend. Mal and I occasionally reminisce about the concert, even after all these decades. We recall...

Amazon Generative AI tools for writing product descriptions

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I’m assuming nobody is surprised by this: “New AI capabilities make it easier for sellers to write engaging, effective product listings, and help shoppers find what they are looking for.” BTW, just quietly, the whole blog post announcing it feels like it was written by AI. The telltale bloat of over-explaining a topic. So I asked ChatGPT to summarise it – here’s all...

Unity and Communication

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I don’t use Unity and don’t really understand what it does, but boy do I know all about the outrage their new pricing model has generated.

A classic example of poor communication causing havoc. The reputation hit is significant.

Another case of perception being more important than reality.

Fear of Becoming Obsolete (FOBO)

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Didn’t realise that FOBO (Fear Of Becoming Obsolete) , but thanks to this Gallop News poll I do now. The article confidently highlights the fears of U.S. workers of becoming obsolete due to AI are increasing (up from 15% to 22%). The ‘findings’ go on to break down the fears amongst age groups (younger people are more worried) and household income (lower salary earners are more...

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