If you’re not familiar with Twitter and are wondering what all the fuss is about, here’s a little intro into why people are talking about it.

Twitter can be used for many reasons from keeping up with the activities of friends to growing to business and even making money.

As a new user you can start finding and following Twitter users from around the world who interest you,  and share skills and interests while avoiding using websites who ask you for your Username and Password and then send you more than you bargained for.

If you’re familiar with communities like Facebook then you’ll already understand this territory where you get the benefit of keeping up with friends and finding new people, but need to control the amount of ‘flow’ coming your way.

With Twitter that’s as easy as selecting ‘unfollow’ (you can always choose the follow them again later)

For corporations and small business users, you can search for negative comments made about your services or products by Twitter users around the world and be pro-active in improving your product or service. You can even ‘follow’ Twitter users who evangelize your products or services to build relationships with people that are helping your business grow. Doing these activities can help you grow a solid Twitter following that is highly targeted to your business.

If you’re working from home Twitter can bring back that community feel that most home workers miss after leaving a normal job where there are people around and watercoolers to chat near

If you read my recent posts about having marketing legend Mark Joyner drop by for lunch you’ll already know I’ve found personal and business benefits from using Twitter.

So, it’s free, you really have nothing to lose and a lot to gain by giving it some attention.

When you do - follow me!

You’ll find me at http://www.twitter.com/andyhenry
Andy

Hi,

As a follow up to my recent post and video of Mark Joyner stopping for a visit, here are some pictures from that afternoon too.

The Singapore Posse (Andy behind camera)

Andy Mark and Ewen in Singapore

Jazlai and Mark

Hi,

Recently I started work on a new book (physical book, not ebook) and researching publishing options etc.

Twitter suddenly started presenting me with ‘tweets’ from people talking about their books and publishing, which I thought was a nice ‘coincidence’ and a few people I’ve helped have also ‘coincidentally’ had some sort of book or publishing connection.

Since I’m an avid reader of anything sales, marketing, psychology, business or success, I’m always reading a couple of books myself.

One of the books I read very recently was ‘The Irresistable Offer’ by Mark Joyner. Mark is one of my silent heroes of Internet Marketing (I’ve read most of his work over the years) and reading the book reminded me just how much I liked his approach.

Then a few days after finishing that book, I found Mark on Twitter - Cool, he’s only just started using it.

Within another few days Mark ‘tweeted’ that he would be in Singapore few a one day stop-over while traveling on business. Not only that, but that he would be around during the day if anyone wanted to meet up with him - Wow!

Now the thing that makes this even more remarkable is that I usually come to Singapore once or twice a year to see my sister, but she only moved back last year so my visits have increased recently. In the beginning of the year she was diagnosed with breast cancer and so I asked the Universe to figure out how to get me out there in a positive way. Obviously it happened because I’m here
It’s been fantastic seeing my sister so much during her treatment and things are going well for her.

I came out with an initial 3 months in mind, so in the 2 months I’ve now been here I’ve been organising meetings with fellow Internet Marketers.
The group that I’ve come to know while being here were the first people I told about Marks visit.

The outcome - Mark came over and we had about 16 people turn up to spend the afternoon with him and a great time was had by all.

As for Twitter - I used it as part of my news spreading to let the others know and it was defininely responsible for some of the attendees getting my short notice message about Mark and the venue for lunch.

Mark’s up to some really interesting things and I read his Integrated Marketing ebook again before I went out that morning so that I would be able to discuss his recent work from an familiar perspective.

We had some interesting conversation ranging from diet and fitness to bringing businesses together around the world to make it a better place for everyone to live.

Meeting Mark was really cool and it reinforced my view of him as one of the good guys and out to change the world for the better, so if you’re not familiar with Mark - Google him and read his books, you won’t regret it.

Andy

Now, if you know me you’ll know that I’ve been teaching people how to blog successfully for quite a long time and I don’t usually promote blog related things of other peoples since I rarely see any that I don’t already provide.

The other thing you may or may not know is that I hate paying for something every month. In fact, if I want something and someone is charging monthly I usually just pay to create my own version rather than have the leetching my money every month.

With both of those things said - I’m very surprised to say what I’m about to say……

I think you should go (right now) and check out a blogging resource of someone elses. It’s called Firepow

The guys name in Andrew (nice name) Hansen and he’s just released the best blogging resource I’ve seen.

I love to help people that help themselves and this is one of those times. Andrew has put so much value into his offer that I actually feel like I would be doing a mis-service to you by not telling you about it.

Like I said, I hate monthly payments and this is one, but there’s just so much value that if you have an online business it’s a no brainer.

I rarely find anything that I think will apply to almost anyone, but this is so good even I bought it and I’m already doing the things he shares - but he’s automated so many tasks that it’s worth me buying just to save so much time (and not have to pay other people to do it for me either).

There’s a ton of information and different levels for different needs and budgets (plus great promotional resources for affiliates), so I’m not going to go over the things he tells you on his site - just go there and see for yourself.

http://turntoandy.com/topblogging.htm

Wow, that’s so weird to be telling people to go buy someone elses blogging stuff but I feel better for it.

Andy

Hi again,

 I’ve been thinking for a while now about starting a series of offline marketing ideas for you. As usual I don’t want to make assumptions about what you know, don’t know, or need to know so I thought I’d just ask.

If you’d like me to start suggesting various offline marketing strategies which you can combine with your online business just post a comment to this post and let me know.

These ideas will range from showing you how to use the keywords people search with as words in your offline newspaper adverts, to creating viral offline tools to drive business to your website(s).

If you’re interest I can even include some suggestions for offline businesses or franchises that you may like to consider alongside your online business to protect yourself from sudden changes in your online business revenue.

Just let me know what you want.

If you want to know about something specific to Internet Marketing or you have a problem you want advice about, post a reply with the details and I’ll suggest some approaches to move you forward.

Regards,
Andy

Hi again,

I’m currently sat in the sun by the pool at my condo is Singapore and have been thinking about what type of information you probably could make most use of right now.

I decided that the biggest problem many people have is that they struggle to easily put together nice-looking websites quickly.

I know that you need to get traffic and make sales, but unless you can quickly and easily make the virtual real estate on which to build your business you can end up staying a one-man/woman show and never able to build the sort of empire that can create significant regular revenue for you.

Obviously you can use blog tools and such to get going but at some point you need to build brands and brand awareness if you’re ever going to be able to sell your businesses and cash out to go on to better things.

I don’t usually recommend specific website creation tools as there are lots and quite often it’s just a case of personal preference, but if you’ve been with me for a while you’ll remember over a year ago I gave you a heads-up about a new piece of software called XsitePro.

It was created by my friend Paul Smithson and I’d had a sneeky preview from Paul one day while we were having lunch together in London. I was blown away by the tool and lots of you ran off and bought it and came back to tell me how much you loved it.

Since then, thousands of people have become huge fans of that software and it’s in use all over the world now.

So, back to my reason for todays post while I’m getting some sun - Paul has released the next version of XsitePro. It has some massive changes and he’s spent the last year taking feedback from website owners and Internet Marketers about what their wish list for a tool would be - and he’s added almost every feature you can think of.

Now, since Pauls software has become so popular you may have already heard about it in your email inbox so I’m not expecting that this time I’m the first person to tell you (which I was last time), but since Paul’s a friend and this tool is excellent it wouldn’t be right of me not to tell you about it.

I don’t want to send you off to a sales page or anything and Paul knows I don’t just promote any products, so he’s set up a series of webinars to demonstrate all of the cool things that his new software can do.

There’s no cost and you won’t get anything but a great insight into what can be done.

I’m already using the tool myself (and yes I paid full price for it even though Paul is a friend - it’s that good).

So, if you’re already a fan of the new version - post a comment here and share your thoughts.

If you’re not yet a fan of this tool - go and check it out or get on a webinar and see what you’re missing.

click here to register for a webinar

Now I think my shoulders are burning in the sun so I’ll leave you with that message for now.

Regards,
Andy

Hi,

Here I am again writing to my blog from a hotel room in a different country. Today I’m in Dublin (Ireland) and it’s 6am. I’ve been awake for over an hour and the sun is already indicating what a lovely day today will be.

I’m running a seminar/workshop for most of the day today and I was speaking with a friend last night about how it can be difficult to share a lot of information without overloading people.

We’re referring to differentiating messages within a competitive market and it reminded me how this applies to IMers as much as anywhere else.

It’s easy to have lots of great things to say about your products and services, but how important is it HOW you say what you say?

As you probably know our brains are very receptive to metaphor or stories and sometimes a short story that conveys a simple message in a way that people can overlay all of the details of their specific situation/needs can be the most effective way to share what you’re trying to say.

It’s well accepted that people buy because of benefits and justify their purchase with features, so combining this with the metaphor issue, this tells us that describing benefits in the form of stories or metaphor will be particularly effective.

My friend and I were able to come up with the concept for a short video which covered every major benefit that was currently causing a problem for us in that there was too much to say and not enough space to say it all in a clear and attractive way with traditional marketing material in the situations we were considering.

So, while I don’t tend to get dragged into fads just because other people think it’s great, using video to cover benefit-laden metaphor can make a massive difference to how much information you can get across to your customers and prospects.

Just consider the prospect/customer and the possible benefits they’re after, then consider how to tell a short story over which they can overlay their own situation and details to come to the conclusion that you understand their problem and have the solution.

Until next time.

Andy

Hi,

I’m back from Nice now and back to getting some IM work done.

While I was away I was reminded about the importance of consider the destination when starting your online business.

 Way too often I hear people talking about being confused about the details of what they should be doing for their online business, but when I ask them what they’re trying to achieve - the answer is fuzzy and general, like “I want to earn ‘good’ money”, or “I just want to be able to leave my job”.

Just as often, when I say ”so, what lifestyle is this business intended to bring you and when is it going to be ‘done’?” they look at me as if to say “done? it won’t ever be done”. The idea that you can create massive income and spend your time doing what you love with the people you love seems to still be what draws many people into considering an Internet based business, but when you ask people what they’re actually trying to achieve - it’s almost never anything like that dream, basically because they don’t believe it can happen to them so they’re doing it but expecting poor to average results.

Guess what - that’s what they get.

As I was walking to a restaurant in Antibes (near Nice, Monaco and Cannes in France), I wandered past some nice boats in the harbour and it reminded me that these things cost many Millions of dollars - but most of the people starting out in Internet Marketing dream of these things but never actually expect massive success. Even worse, the longer their evidence supports this, the more likely it becomes that they’ll fail to get their dream to be reality.

So my comment for today is - THINK BIG and expect success!

Andy

Hi,

Yesterday I found out that my sister has cancer.

Last night I had a good cry and spent a few hours on the Internet researching breast cancer and everything related to it.

Today I spoke to my sister.

She sounds amazing. Really positive and upbeat.

After speaking to her and hearing how focused she was on trying to make sure I was dealing with it ok it made me think seriously about a few things.

One of them was the fact that last night I’d been feeling like a victim.

Here I am with this amazing sister and yet wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself and her situation.

She isn’t feeling like that.

No-one ‘made’ me feel like that. It was ME doing it all.

It felt like I had betrayed my sense of self. I’ve always been a really positive person and have always advocating that you can do anything. It’s been my belief that mind over matter is more than a saying.

So this disparity between how I thought of myself and my behaviour was disturbing.

It reminded me of a saying “the map is not the territory” which relates to the view we form of the world being our individual ‘distorted’ version based on our experience, preconceptions, biases etc.. It’s not the actual world, just our map of it.

On my map I was this positive person who attracted positive things and believed that it’s not what happens that matters, but how you respond to things.

So, with all that taken into account I couldn’t believe that but behave differently and so I stopped being a victim and started thinking of how to become the best person my sister could possibly get from me - the person I want to be.

It’s not something I was intending to share, but then I remembered that it’s little things like this that are what have got me to the position where I even see these incongruences so that I can fix them.

So, this post is for anyone who’s so focused on something negative in their life that they’ve forgotten they have control over their world.

If you feel bad - decide to feel better and start looking for ways to do it. Getting fresh air can help. If like me you’re musical - play something or listen to something that energizes or inspires you.

I just bought an electric piano and I’m about to spend a couple of hours just playing it and enjoying how that feels.

Andy

Abraham Lincoln was made the quote above.

 He was referring to the fact that if you have natural skills, abilities, preferences it’s much easier to find something that uses them and that you enjoy than to do something else because you think it will bring you more money.

There’s often a huge focus on finding things that will make money.

When it comes to being successful in every way, I believe Abe had it right - don’t try and fit a round peg into a square hole.

Sometimes we can get so wrapped up in just ‘getting by’ that we lose sight of what our core preferences and skills actually are.

If that’s the case for you, you’re probably feeling frustrated right now or even depressed. You can’t go against your core nature without repercussions in the same way that if you marry someone who doesn’t want to travel and  you do (or some other fairly big difference) - at some point it’s going to become a problem.

When it comes to making money, we start off by going through an education system that is designed to provide people with the skills that their government require, so right away we may have core competencies suppressed.

The longer in life these suppressions continue, the more chance there will be of an underlying unhappiness in our life - no matter how good things ’seem’.

Whether it’s your job, your relationship or just the way you spend your free time - try to get everything aligned to your core preferences.

It’s amazing how great life can be when you have no internal supression driving it.

You only get one short space of time in which to live your life, so if you’re waiting for things to get better - NOW is the time to change them.

Feel the fear and do it anyway!

Andy

Hi,

 I often tell people that having a negative mindset results in a natural tendency to miss opportunities.

Well I saw this video today that illustrates exactly the point I’m trying to make.

Hi,

Andy

Now that I’m back in the UK for a little while (2 weeks anyway), I’ve had some time to settle back into a routine.

I’ve been doing some more testing with Squidoo.

The results are pretty amazing so far.

I created a new Lense a few days ago and it’s currently in the top 100 (it was 64 last time I checked).

You can see it here: http://www.squidoo.com/FunnyName

I’ve also been using a nice little utility for checking it’s progress which you can use too - it’s here: http://www.squidaholic.com/

 Have a look around and play with that (free) Squidoo tool.
Andy

Hi,

Welcome to my blog.

If you just found this in a search engine and you don’t already know me - double welcome to you.

My name is Andy Henry and I’m a 38 year old Internet Marketer living in the UK.

I’ve been working online since 1999 and I’ve seen pretty much every type of Money Making method there is.

I’ve also tried most of them and wasted a lot of time and money finding out what works and what doesn’t.

I’ve been to a lot of offline seminars and met most of the current ‘Gurus’ in the niche.

I’d studied marketing offline and online for the last 10 years and have helped many people and businesses find success online.

This is not my first blog, but I decided to relaunch and effectively start from scratch to address the current mass of struggling business owners and marketers.

If you remain a loyal reader of this blog you’ll get advice and tips not found anywhere else on the Internet. You’ll get free gifts and discounts to other peoples products.

I’m going to cover the things that I know you need to know, but feel free to comment or request specific subjects that you’re currently struggling with. My aim is to make this blog as useful to you as possible, so the more information you give me about what you need - the better I can help you.

Thanks for reading.

To you success!

Andy