Tech industry veteran Miles Austin
In the world of digital marketing, "The Web Tools Guy" is a name that carries weight. It’s a title Miles Austin earned not through a fancy marketing campaign, but by accident when a colleague at a Sales 2.0 conference couldn't remember his name and simply referred to him as "that web tools guy". For over 18 years, Miles has been the voice behind the Fill The Funnel blog, guiding professionals through the ever-shifting landscape of sales and marketing technology.
But today, he has a confession to make: After nearly two decades of loyalty, he is leaving WordPress behind.
Miles Austin describes himself as an "old fart with new parts," a seasoned veteran who has seen the evolution of technology from the days of the Commodore Vic 20 and Radio Shack TRS-80 to the birth of Microsoft in Redmond. His philosophy is simple: technology always changes, and you should never be blindly committed to a single platform.
Living in a "cabin in the woods" in North Carolina, Miles’ only professional requirement is a fast internet connection. From this remote base, he has realized that even the most established tools can become limitations.
For 18 years, WordPress was the backbone of Fill The Funnel. Miles can build a WordPress site on his phone in the back of a taxi—that’s how automatic it has become. However, the "plumbing" of WordPress—the endless cycle of buying themes, hosting, and connecting disparate plugins for email and sales funnels—became an unnecessary burden.
The decision to migrate to System.io was driven by the need for an all-in-one "elegant" solution. System.io integrates blogs, email marketing, sales funnels, and course platforms into one interface. For Miles, this move isn't just about a new tool; it's about consolidating 18 years of content and dozens of training programs under one roof to simplify his lifestyle and his business.
While many are apprehensive about Artificial Intelligence, Miles views it through the lens of an opportunist. "AI is telling the news people what the hot stories are... we are all being driven by AI whether we know it or not," he explains.
His confession? He doesn’t just use AI; he builds tools with it to solve his own "pain points."
Twice in his career, Miles was targeted by big image firms like Getty Images for inadvertently using copyrighted photos, resulting in thousands of dollars in settlements. To solve this, he developed Visual Marketing Magic, an AI tool that generates unique, custom images in seconds. Now, instead of hunting for photos, he types a sentence and gets a unique graphic that belongs entirely to him.
Even an expert copywriter faces the dreaded white screen and blinking cursor when trying to write an email series. To fix this, Miles uses an AI tool where he can simply input a URL of a product or course. The AI then generates a complete, multi-part email series in any tone—friendly, professional, or casual—allowing him to focus on adding personality rather than staring at a blank page.
The biggest confession from the Web Tools Guy is that it’s already too late to put the AI "Pandora" back in the box. His advice to anyone in business is to stop fighting the evolution. "Rather than ignore it and fight it, open your mind and just listen," Miles suggests.
Whether it's migrating your legacy blog to a faster platform or using AI to handle your creative heavy lifting, the goal is always the same: simplify your life and do a better job at what you love. If you stay entrenched in your old habits, you will be left behind.
