Month: May 2008

More Twitterings

I’ve done a little more work with Twitter, you can now see my latest witterings in the side bar of this blog.

And because I’ve done that, I’ve also at long last realised why I like it so much.

It’s a teeny tiny little blog, and I like blogs and blogging, I think they’re a good idea.

As an aside, I just ran a little test, and purely by spending around 3 hours on Saturday finding and commenting on other people’s blogs (which I enjoyed doing), I added 24 new subscribers to my mailing list – 17 on Saturday and 7 on Sunday.

If you’re not doing this already, why the blimming heck not?  It’s easy.  People regularly say they can’t build a mailing list, but I find it’s a fairly straight forward thing to do.

My experience with Twitter (while I’ve been using an anonymous test account the last few weeks) is that it will work for me in much the same way as blogging and blog commenting.

If you make an interesting post, then you’ll certainly get people signing up to find out what else you have to say.  And the great thing is, the effect is cumulative.

Just like your internet business…

The more you work on it, the better it all gets.  Amazing isn’t it?

People will be finding my ever increasing blog posts for years to come while doing searches.  Every time someone lands on my site, they get the chance to sign up.  Lots do.

This is because just by the mere act of writing, I’m creating sets of key words, either purposely or accidentally that people will be searching for.

Twitter works in much the same way.  Just by using it (which takes seconds), things get better.

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business

The POD Report

In the wake of the recent eBay slap at ebook sellers, it’s become apparent that us internet business owners now need to either use the eBay suggested classified ad format, or sell our ebooks on CDs and DVDs.

It would also appear from some reports that you need to make sure you don’t mention ebooks when selling your CDs and DVDs, or the eBay darlings will give you a more personal slap. It seems that “ebook” is a bit of a taboo word on eBay at the moment until the staff get more understanding of what the new rule actually means.

More on that in another post.

Going with the idea of creating “multimedia” CDs and DVDs I think appeals to most people (from what I’ve seen), only time will tell if this format is the one that is most popular.

So I’ve created a short report called “The POD Report” which you can find below as a PDF.

It’s a freebie, so please feel free to share the report with any other internet business owners you think might benefit from it.

Inside the report, you’ll find mention that SmartDD has Kunaki support built in. This is true of V3 which you can get a free version of from http://www.SmartDD.com/. If you’re a V2 full version owner, you can upgrade to V3 for just $27 in the members area.

Back to The POD Report.

Either left click to view it in your browser, or right click and choose “Save as…” or “Save link as…” to download it to your hard drive.

The POD Report

Enjoy.

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business

Twitter Witter

I’ve had a few people write to me over the last 6 months or so asking me what I spend my time on, and where I focus my energies.

It’s difficult to look back and say exactly what and where I spent my time, and then someone asked me if I had a Twitter account.  Well, I’ve been playing a bit with Twitter the last few weeks using a test account (learning the ropes), and I finally decided to create a real live account in my own name.

The way Twitter works is, you get 140 characters to enter in just what you’re doing at that moment in time.  So it’s not a lot of information, but it’s just enough to give people a taster of what you’re doing.  It’s a nice idea.

I have to admit, I really didn’t like the concept of FaceBook when I heard about it, especially their actions with people’s private data, and their initial refusal to delete any of it (European Law changed that).  I’m very glad I didn’t go any further than a test account to find out how much I really didn’t like it.

But as I said Twitter is a nice little idea, and it’s dead easy to use.

So now, if you want to see how I spend my time, you can just check my Twitter to see what I’m doing at that particular point in time.  Hint – it’s not all work…

If you’d find peeking over my shoulder at all interesting, then please just go to my new account at http://twitter.com/FrankHaywood to see what I get up to.  It would be good if you signed up to Twitter yourself and “followed” me to keep up to date with what I’m doing.

I do have to say I won’t keep it religiously up to date (I’m human and I forget stuff), but if there’s enough interest, then maybe I’ll post a little more detail and a little more often.

And maybe if it does become popular, you could tell me what kind of thing would interest you about what I do day to day in my internet business.

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business

Unblocking The Flow

What do comedy improvisation and a successful internet business have in common?

Well…  As unlikely as it may seem, quite a bit.

This is more of what you might think is “semi-religious self-improvement psycho babble” (let’s call it SSPB) – it definitely isn’t junk.

One of the things I was taught early on is that it’s important not to “block the flow” in order to be successful.

What the heck does that mean?

It all boils down to not being negative, and accepting whatever comes your way and using it to further your business or your career or whatever it is you’re pursuing.

I like to think of it as “every cloud has a silver lining”.

Example.  The recent eBay slap.  To read what some people were saying you’d think the sky was falling – what a load of old fuss about nothing.

I read the new rule, chuckled and thought “yee-haa!”

See, I knew it would get rid of all the junk on eBay and also get rid of a lot of people who were selling ebooks etc. without understanding what they were doing.  Those people were just making it difficult for the real marketers.  You couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

I sincerely hope you weren’t one of those people who didn’t know what they were doing…

eBay knows that people like to market on their site (and not just sell), and it seems that for now they’re okay about it, which is a refreshingly enlightened attitude for a corporation their size to take.

They’re not blocking the flow.

So eBay have now disallowed the selling of digital products as digital downloads.  And what they’ve done is suggested that marketers use the classified ad format instead.  That’s really cool of them and it opens up a whole wealth of opportunities.

But if you listen to the doomsayers, the golden age is over.

What nonsense.  Things are just different.  And better.  Less competition for starters.

Let’s get back to the original thread.  What about comedy improvisation?

If you’ve ever seen a group of comedians improvise, it can be something magical to watch.

You know how they keep it all going?  They don’t block the flow.

They accept whatever premise the other comedians give them and they just add to it and pass it back.  And forth.  And so on…

The kiss of death to their act is to say no, or refuse to accept the current idea.  They all know that if that happens, they will falter and stop.  So all of them accept what they’re given and use it to their advantage.

It’s a simple rule to follow, and works just as well in business, in relationships, or whatever else you care to think of.

Accept what you’re given.  Make it better.  Put it out there.  And keep the flow moving.

-Frank Haywood

Posted by Frank Haywood in internet business