Phil's blog

Ever wondered how to record your computer screen to make simple videos that you can use to promote your business, create information products ogenerally make more money?

Well, a chap on the Warrior Forum asked me that very question today, so I figured I’d create this video to help others…

Let me know if this is helpful by leaving your comments below

Peace and Lemon Meringue Pie

Phil Ainsworth

Giveaways… I bet you’ve heard that these are a great way for newbies to build a list, maybe you’ve even used them? Well, check out another KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) guide to listbuilding methods…

As always, leave your comments below and let me know what you think

Peace and chocolate buttons,

Phil Ainsworth

Hey again,

Adswaps – I’m sure you’ve heard of them, but if you don’t know what they are or how they work, check out the next in my KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!) Super Simple Guide to Adswaps below…

As always, let me know what you think

Peace and carrot cake,

Phil

Hey there,

If you’re anything like me when I first started online, you probably get confused with all the terms and jargon all Internet Marketers throw about… Well here is my KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!) guide to a great list-building method: Solo Ads!

Let me know what you think

Phil

‘Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello,

What’s this crazy idiot talking about fast food for? Well, probably picking the marketing brains of some of the smartest marketers in the world… a couple of multi-national brands that you may have heard of….

As always, let me know what you think, and share the love by tweeting or passing on this link!

Peace and cinnamon waffles,

Phil Ainsworth

Hey there,
I just got this brand new list building system from Igor Kheifets….

If you want to grab the product (and I thoroughly recommend that you do!) grab it by clicking here!

http://philainsworth.com/InstantListBuildingFormula

Peace and chocolate fudge cake ,
Phil

Wotcha

Hope you are doing really well, sorry it’s been so long since I updated but I am INCREDIBLY lazy when it comes to blog posts.

There, I said it. The truth, no “too busy” excuses.

I promise to be less lazy in future

So I just wanted to share with you all that I have taken the brave (and some would say stupid) step of quitting my full time job to become a full-time IMer! I am loving the new found freedom and extra time this step has brought me, but it’s also pretty terrifying at the same time :-O )

Anyway, you guys are going to benefit from this as I now have lots more time to create lots more cool free stuff to give you (and of course, the odd paid product too

Currently in my product creation lab:

A free video detailing the reasons behind my massive decision to quit my job (warning – I’m going to bare my soul here!) and how you can too.

A free ebook on List-building – how you can get started quickly and easily on building a list of raving fans and paying customers to bring you in wonga (or cash, if you’re not from the UK) on autopilot.

A low price, high-value series of training modules with TOP marketers on “Lightning-Fast List-Building” where they share their secrets with you on SUPER SPEED listbuilding. The 3 guys in the modules have grown lists that total 280,000 subscribers between the three of them! And fast too… the subject in module one grew a list of 8,000 subs in his first 30 days online!

My first membership site, which will be dedicated to advanced listbuilding strategies. Obviously, I can’t share too many of the details until its ready… but this will be a based around the idea of a club of listbuilders who all help each other, on top of all the regular listbuilding training that I will deliver to you. coaching calls and interviews with top listbuilding experts. This is going to seriously ROCK. And don’t worry, it’s going to be really inexpensive too.

If you want to be kept posted about all these things, make sure you keep an eye on emails from me and I will make sure you are the first to know about it… If you’re not on my list, enter your name and email in the form to the left of this post and grab a free couple of ebooks from me as a thankyou for your trouble.

Peace and blueberry muffins

Phil Ainsworth

Hey everybody,

Hope you are all well.

I just found out I made my first ever online sale!!!!!

And now I want to help others do the same…

2010 others in fact…

Let me explain…

The second half of last year I felt like i was banging my head
against a brick wall, it was as if no matter what I did: I couldn’t make
that first sale. What made it even more infuriating was that I
had sworn to myself that 2009 would be the year I “made it”

Now, at first “making it” meant “making millions”, as the year progressed
that became “making enough to quit my job” and then down to
“just making ONE FLIPPING SALE!!”

So, I spent the New Year feeling a little dejected – I hadn’t achieved
the sort of online success I wanted… nowhere near it in fact!

Not even one piddly little sale.

OR SO I THOUGHT….

After just checking my affiliate stats , I am
absolutely overjoyed to see that I actually made my first online sale
on Dec 29th! Made it with a full 2 days to go!!

See – I genuinely had stopped believing it was possible…

BUT HOLD ON….. THIS IS NOT AN EXERCISE IN SMUGNESS!

Oh no

See, as it is the start of a new decade and we’re all full of enthusiasm
and resolutions – I want to invite you, my faithful readers to be
a part of something that’s going to take the IM world by storm, this year.

Lets set ourselves a massive challenge, and (in achieving it) become IM superstars!

See, now I know how good it feels to make that first online sale… I want to help
as many other people as I can to get there too. My target is 2010 people
by Dec 31st 2010.

That’s right, I want to help two thousand and ten people make their first sale
online by the end of the year. And I don’t want to charge them a penny, either.

Yep, no charge – free service.

Sounds crazy doesn’t it? But just imagine how much publicity we can generate
if we can help 2010 people start to turn their lives around…

So – you are either in one of two camps right now, you’ve either made money online
or you haven’t.

If you have – GREAT! Help me to help others by offering something to
help them – a free interview, a free ebook, a free system or just a few hints and tricks.

Obviously in return you will get the publicity from being associated with this and also
we can promote any other products and services you wish to sell.

Just leave a comment offering to help, include your email and I’ll get in touch

If you haven’t yet made your first online sale – GREAT!

Sign up for the challenge by posting a comment below and dont forget
to start your challenge by putting your name and email address in the box
on the top left of the screen and I can start sending you your free training

SWEET, eh?

Peace and good luck to everyone,

Phil Ainsworth

Hey there,

As you know, I love blogging, Twitter and all sorts of general online things.

I am trying to make a living it out of it, but I don’t like the whole “hard-sell”, “ram it down people’s throats” thang that I see people doing all over the bleedin’ Internet – and all the spamming!

In fact, what I’d love to do is make a modest income, nothing slly, but just enough for my girlfriend and I to quit our day-jobs and spend our days doing other, cool stuff. Ie, we’re not greedy

So, I’m going to buy this, and put it into action, and I’m hoping it’s going to work!

From TWITTER no less!

My fave social networking site only went and flipping well suspended my account!

And there was me thinking that it was only dirty spammers and evil peeps that got into Twitter trouble!

All is fine now though – and there are no hard feelings between me and Twitter

The problem is sorted and my account has been reinstated – so all is fine now, but I thought I’d use the silver-lining from this social media cloud to help my beloved readers – yes, YOU! (doofus)

So, if this ever happens to you – here’s what to do:

1 – Dont Panic! You could have been suspended for a large number of reasons, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve done anything wrong (like me – I hadn’t done anything wrong either!) Twitter operates a “play it safe” policy with what they call “suspicious behaviour” on your account, much in the same way that your bank might give you a call if they notice “suspicious activity” on your bank account – they’re doing it to protect you, so be cool with them!

2 – Send an email to suspended@twitter.com. Keep it very friendly, and just mention that you have noticed your account’s been suspended and you’d like them to review the decision. You could add that you understand the need for them to protect their users from bad evil spammers, but you are confident that they will see (from reading your tweets and looking at your account) that you are not one of those nasty types. I did just that and it seemed to work.

3 – You will receive an automatic response from Twitter explaining a few things about suspension. It’s pretty interesting stuff, so have a read, it will help you from getting suspended again (once your account is re-instated)

4 – Give it a day or so, (I know – this is the worst part!) then try and log on again. At this point my account jumped back into life, but if yours is still down, reply to the automated email from Twitter, restate your case and ask for them to look into the matter. Ask them to help you to avoid the situation again by letting know what you’ve done wrong. (Remember that email as a communication form lacks the subtext and tonality of normal conversation – so try extra hard to come across as keen to learn rather than defensive – ultimately they are the ones who will be making the decision to try not to pee them off!)

5 – Remember they are just trying to protect all their users! Approach them from that angle rather than “I hate you, you spolied my fun” and you should be ok. Unless of course you were being a dirty spammer, in which case you deserve all you get (not that any of my readers would spam – oh no).

6 – If all else fails – start again! Open a new account with a new name and “get back on ya hoss, cowboy”. It might be a pain to buid up your following again, but you’ve learnt a lesson, and at least you get another chance.

Ok, so now you’ve got your account back up and running, here’s how to avoid it happening again (or even prevent it in the first place):

1 – Watch what you Tweet! So many people try and post sales links and affiliate links in their Tweets and DMs (direct messages), and I genuinely despair at this! I know why they do it – they don’t know any better and they think they need to – but ask yourself this – do you go onto Twitter/Facebook etc to shop? No? Neither does anyone else in the world. They go to Amazon, ebay and a whole lot more besides but not social media sites!

No, like you and I, most people use social media sites to have fun, make new friends and chat! (and maybe to grow their businesses as well) So, post fun, interesting things that are of use to your readers and followers, tweet your blog posts, and tweet “@” messages to others to engage them in conversation. The more you do this, the more you can send people to your blog/site, and direct them to your mailing list and webinars, where you CAN sell to them. This is the best way to “sell” on social media and also to avoid account suspension.

2 – Be careful how quickly you unfollow people after following them. Now this is a bit of a grey area: most twitter experts acknowledge that the quickest way for us non-celebrities to amass a large following is by following lots of others, and then unfollowing those who do not follow back after a few days, allowing you to follow more, etc.
Now if you’re doing this on a small scale, you should be fine, but if you’re following 100s of people a day, and then unfollowing a load the next day, this might be viewed by Twitter as “account abuse”. Best thing to do is leave it around 3 days before you unfollow someone ( this is common sense too – you’ve got to give someone a fair chance to follow you back!)

3 – If you’ve used the “follow loads then unfollow the non-followers after a couple of days” method of growing your followers, DON’T then try to make yourself look really popular by unfollowing all of your followers at once! I know why people do it (if you’ve got 10,000 followers and you’re only following 30, it DOES look impressive, i agree) but Twitter can punish you for this. Basically, respect the people who have shown you the courtesy of following you and you’ll be fine.

4 – Be cool. In other words, treat other Tweeters how you would wish to be treated, watch your language and don’t have a rude piccie as your avatar. This is partly because Twitter will suspend people who get a lot of complaints against their name or those who get blocked by a lot of other people. It’s also partly because it’s a good strategy to have! Even if others are uncool to you. Seriously, social media is all about those all important social skills. Remember – be a Fonzie (and for those of you not old enough to get that reference… I envy you!)

5 – You’re not a robot – so don’t Tweet like one! If you’re constantly posting the same content over and over again, or passing off other people’s Tweets off as your own (ie WITHOUT using “RT” at the start of the Tweet) then you’ll find you might get suspended. Basically, keep your Tweets fresh and interesting – this’ll help grow your following too!

Hope that helps – oh and if you want a copy of the email I used to get Twitter to reinstate my account – sign up to my newsletter over to the left, and reply to the email i send you with “suspended!” in the title – I’ll send it straight to you.

Peace and maple syrup drizzled pancakes

Phil