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

Critical thinking time

C

Last week I flew up to Brisbane to spend the weekend with my business coach and 9 other businesses (who are also working with him). It was an entire weekend away from day to day stuff, and instead concentrating on future stuff – planning how to grow our respective businesses. I’m pretty dubious about group activities like this – it tends to be the blind leading the blind unless...

Test and Measure

T

In our podcast, Ian and I are always reminding our listeners to ‘test and measure’ – that is, to continually test new things and check if they work. If they do, double down. If they don’t, testing something else. Here’s an example of Instagram making changes based on analysing results. You don’t need to understand the actual item in the Insta example, instead...

Changing your mind

C

More from Rory Sutherland, this time on the benefits of business as a means for changing your mind: And herein lies one magic quality of business. It is the only area of human activity where you get paid to change your mind.In politics, in punditry, in academia, there is great value attached to consistency. Changing your mind risks loss of face. Your ability to deliver plausible generalisations...

Paving the cow paths

P

A good reminder of two things in this article in The Spectator: Things are so much better now than they were decades agoTry to rethink and improve, rather than just rehash In particular I learned the phrase: paving the cow paths which basically means automating something without actually thinking about whether it’s the right thing to do. The phrase’s origins appear to be: When the...

HubSpot post on chatbot strategy

H

Sometimes I worry about posts like this from HubSpot. The opening sentence references Gartner predicting that by 2020 customers will manage 85% of their enterprise relationships without interacting with a human… Interesting stat. Turns out it is from a brochure for a Gartner event in 2011: Which is not to say it isn’t true and accurate… perhaps it still is. But I’d love to...

Alcohol advertising

A

I wonder* how long it will be before alcohol advertising is banned in Australia – on television, radio, magazines, bill boards, bus shelters, online, etc. And further, how long before it is banned from TV shows in the form of regular activities (ie normalising). In Australia we banned tobacco advertising in 1976. The topic itself is complex, as are the costs to society. Part of the problem...

That’s all for WeWork for now

T

I’m just as sick of the WeWork shenanigans as you are I’m sure. So will make this my final (I hope) link to a WeWork story for a long, long time… “We have decided to postpone our IPO to focus on our core business, the fundamentals of which remain strong,” WeWork’s newly appointed co-CEOs Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham said on Monday. “The...

Revegetation on Lady Elliot Island

R

Such an encouraging story – about the regeneration of Lady Elliot island from pretty much a dustbowl, to a thriving ecosystem. Everything about this story is sooo good, from the initial plans of just planting trees, through to the goal self-sufficiency by this Christmas. However the real triumph is that it is possible for anyone to accomplish: “So, for me, let’s fix Lady Elliot...

Archives