Disqus - Latest Comments for christhesoundguy

Re: How To Keep Your Social Media Buttons From Showing Zero After A Domain Change [WordPress]

Chris Huff — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 09:54:48 -0000

Thanks for posting up this stuff as you work through it.
I opted for a domain name associated with my niche. However, branding a name is totally understandable as well. I"m not sure I've seen many make that switch.

Re: Why The “Make Money Blogging” Niche Is Broken

Chris Huff — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:25:20 -0000

Caring about the customer. Let me say I think you do a good job of that. I find blogging-as-a-business needs to stem from the desire for caring about your customer. For example, if I was to start blogging about wheelchairs, then I better be doing it BECAUSE I want to help people who use wheelchairs.

Over the years, I've seen a lot of business advice on "making money" on the internet. It came down to two schools of thought; 1) Create a business that is in demand regardless of whether it interests you or not. 2) Create a business based on a topic you love.

I'll extend that last one to "create a business based on your desire to help people." This drives everything you do; blog writing, product creation, answering emails, etc.

I don't follow you because I find you are in the "make [me] money blogging" category. I follow you because I see you in the category of "make my online business the best it can be." And that's what the "make money blogging" market is missing...they don't recognize caring for the customer comes first and everything else follows.

Hmmm....I think I'm starting to ramble.

Re: 4 Insights I Gleaned from Building My Own Platform

Chris Huff — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 09:40:39 -0000

I almost gave up two years ago. I decided to give it one last go with all my energy on making a great platform. It paid off. Size-able newsletter list, my own product, and one article syndicated out weekly to a couple big related sites.

Re: TBP003: 15 Productivity Tips For Bloggers

Chris Huff — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 11:08:52 -0000

Related to the timer, I like the pomodoro timer concept. Work for 25 minutes, 5 minute break. Repeat four times and then get a 15 minute break. I find this is good for mental stability. Now if I'm "in the zone," I'll work through a break. However, when I try regularly working for hours at a time, my mind wears out unless I force those breaks.

Re: TBP002: 11 Top Blog Monetization Strategies

Chris Huff — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:28:12 -0000

I don't need a transcript, however, a transcript could be good material for the search engines. Maybe?

Re: TBP 001: Introduction, Step-by-Step Blog Launch Plan

Chris Huff — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 09:19:20 -0000

A suggestion...after you record the next one, run it through an audio program like audacity and roll off a bit of the low end. Speech intelligibility is enhanced by dropped some low end and boosting a tad of the high-end frequencies. I could get into tweaking midrange but I'd rather keep this simple. I'd be happy to help more if you're interested. Let me know.

p.s. loved the podcast.

Re: How To Get A Big Whiteboard On A Small Budget

Chris Huff — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:12:47 -0000

Take them off the wall and run a strip of duct tape up the back. This will hold the two boards tightly next to each other. You might even run a piece of scotch tape down the front side as well. It might not pick up the dry erase marker (I'm not sure) but it would prevent you from whacking the marker on the edge when you write over it.

Re: Your Ultimate Blue-Print for a Better Year of Audio Production

Chris Huff — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:32:58 -0000

Love the "learn every month" idea!

Re: Increasing Productivity with Home Office “Feng Shui”

Chris Huff — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 09:18:10 -0000

Here is a tip for those of you who have a ton of papers, folder, books, etc on your desk....
Sweep it all onto the floor so you have a clean desk. Over the course of a week, if you need something, dig it out. What's left after one week is stuff you can throw away or stuff in a folder called "it wasn't as important as I thought." You'd be surprised at how much you don't really need.

Re: All Things To All People?

Chris Huff — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:44:32 -0000

I think a church (the pastor and staff) need to recognize the congregation for who they are, not who they wish they were. For example, you can't ask a group of introverts to be an evangelical powerhouse. See them for who they are are...that's the first step. let the communications then flow in the right way.

Re: The Must-Read Books on Music Production and Audio Engineering

Chris Huff — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:30:07 -0000

I wrote up a review on Mixing Secrets by Mike Senior you can read here. Pro's and con's.
http://www.behindthemixer.c...

Re: A Gift to YOU on My Birthday

Chris Huff — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:37:09 -0000

Eagerly awaiting...

Re: Labels

Chris Huff — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:27:03 -0000

"One of my favorite authors of all-time is Henri Nouwen" Me, too. After reading a good number of Christian books, I think everyone should only own two; the bible and anything by Henri.

Re: 17 Blogs Every Worship Leader Should be Reading ~ pro WORSHiP.in

Chris Huff — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 13:35:00 -0000

Thanks!

Re: 10 awesome social sharing plugins for WordPress

Chris Huff — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 09:28:11 -0000

SocioFluid hasn't been updated since 2008...no g+ and no testing on anything past WP 2.5.

DON'T LIST OLD PLUGINS THAT HAVEN'T BEEN UPDATED IN THREE YEARS!

Re: Sudden Change, or Lessons From Steve Martin

Chris Huff — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:39:11 -0000

Other maneuvers I've seen at the airport during bad weather cancellations...
1. As soon as it's canceled, the traveler quickly books a rental car. In some cases, a few of them team up - four people and one rental car comes out pretty cheap per person. They can always cancel it but if it's a close enough destination, it might be just as quick to get there.

2. Let the airlines figure out an alternative route and go with it. Maybe they could fly you to an airport close to your destination and grab a rental car from there.

Unexpected changes in anything...
1. Determine if someone in higher position needs to take on the responsibility.
2. Evaluate short term impact
3. Take stock in existing resources (time, money, people, etc).
4. Focus on team mentality.
5. Develop plan based on new conditions.

Re: The Blogger Cycle of Stupid

Chris Huff — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:39:17 -0000

I think I've been on the cycle of stupid from time to time because of creativity. While I might have a creative writing block, I could still tweak my site / modify graphics / etc and feel the accomplishment that comes from "creating." I just got to the point where after a redesign and a few weeks of tweaking, I said "enough." I've also stop visiting blogs on creative web design because it was taking my focus off of content.

Re: Finding New Traffic & Readers – Traffic Methods Ranked In Order of Effectiveness

Chris Huff — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 11:06:22 -0000

An interesting data-point I stumbled on one day was looking at "time spent on site" in my site analytics. When a visitor comes to my site from a certain site that posts my "guest posts", the average time of that visitor on my site skyrockets compared to visitors from other sources.

Re: Shaun King’s Warning to the Church

Chris Huff — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:20:55 -0000

I don't know much about the situation other than the little I read but I do think it brings to light one HUGE question that has to be asked...

What is the role of the pastor to their congregation?

Do you lead them to where you want them to feed or do you lead them to where they are willing to eat?

Feed them and then help them grow their strengths to change the world. Don't assume that just because they eat, they will be ready.

So he quit. I don't see it as a big deal. His model failed.

Re: How Much Stuff Should Go UNDER A Blog Post?

Chris Huff — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:40:37 -0000

Thanks so much for this post as a response to my question!

I've dropped the about box (people could already see my mug/info in the site footer) and replaced it with an opt-in box that also has a couple of social network links. Also moved the article print option in to match. A note on the print option, depending on your market, it might be beneficial to your users. I've got one and my stat's show my users use it. I use the printerfriendly service so they can print to paper or pdf.

Great tip about the newsletter sign-up that then routes to a "best of" page. I'll have to work on that.

I end most of my articles with a question to encourage comments. I have noticed that certain topics get very few comments but a ton of social mentions. I'll have think about that and work up my call-to-action's differently to encourage people to do what they are naturally inclined to do.

For wp users...be careful with WP plugins as some plugins will produce "remotely-related" articles.
I will note that the "related articles" posts can be manual or automatic for wordpress users. Depending on the automated plugin, you can get varied results. Some pull by tags, some by topic and others by a combination. I used to run Drupal and it has a "Related article" module that was spot on.

David, thanks again for this article as a reply to my question. There is still much on your article that I'll have to consider (and definitely test).

Re: Why Nobody Cares About Your Offer

Chris Huff — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:14:44 -0000

I've actually seen this used in a way that dissuaded me from buying / recommending a product. On one of the sales pages, they put it like this "we get asked why we don't sell this for a cheaper rate and to that we say, we have to feed and support all our families here at [xyz]." Suddenly, the reader is burdened with two ideas;
1. Buy from us so we can eat.
2. What is the real dollar value this product?

That being said, focus on benefits to the user.

Re: What Many People Forget About “Making Money Online”

Chris Huff — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:37:55 -0000

I'm in the midst of a whole site redesign and one of the things I've done is refocus my mindset on truly helping people at a certain knowledge level. With that in mind, my site will soon be more oriented towards that group of people - 101 level category at the very front/top, that sort of thing.

It is about helping. If I can't have that mindset, it's not worth doing.

If that person wants to "make money" then they need to buy an existing web business or pay someone to do what they want. Sad, really.

Re: How to Accomplish Anything, Succeed At Anything, And Be Awesome.

Chris Huff — Thu, 26 May 2011 09:35:03 -0000

There is a method I learned long ago and you reminded me I need to return to it. It is a small step method and it works like this;
1. Establish the large goal (example: create your first ebook).
2. Establish medium goals that would need to be accomplished (get ebook cover, add graphics to chapters, write chapters.)
3. Establish the small goals to reach the medium ones (contact ebook cover designer, write outline of book table of contents, write outline of each chapter).

(OH GOSH, I'M DEFINITELY IN NEED OF REST - just re-read your article and you said the same thing.)

So I'll say this - Do what David does because it works. The best "systems" out there are based on this idea. What I will add to it is assign dates to goals. Typically, one goal for each day is good. Now, you can't outline all the chapters for your ebook, but you could easily outline one chapter.

Re: How To Handle Negative or Annoying Feedback (Without Blowing Your Lid)

Chris Huff — Fri, 20 May 2011 13:25:26 -0000

Your site has your name on it, you can do whatever you want. Oh, but wait, what about all the business lessons about talking about the customer and not about yourself? But then there is the whole "make your posts personal?" What's a person to do?

When it comes to sharing stuff about my life outside of my site, I use it only when it relates to a topic such as using it for illustration.

Now, if someone says in a newsletter "I'm writing this as my kids are playing in the park" well, that's up to them. I don't care either way. Want to tell a short story about something that just happened? Sure, as long as your newsletter has other content then I'm cool with it. As a parent, it's fun to hear stories from other parents.

As for dealing with negative feedback, I follow these personal rules;
1. Review it. Do they have a legit point? Maybe I overstepped a line and posted something I shouldn't. If I'm wrong, I take corrective actions and apologize to them.
2. View it in scope. If it's a minor point of debate. I'll write a short response saying we each have our own views.
3. Complete disagreement? Name-calling? If they write a long letter explaining why then I'll read it and respond. Short letter - ignore them. However, when it comes to those longer disagreements, I can either bullet point our differences or be brief. All depends on if I think the relationship can be saved or if they are too far gone.

Re: Replying To Blog Comments – Do You Do It?

Chris Huff — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:03:47 -0000

I reply to most of my commenters. My problem now is writers block!