Dan Morris – Audience Industries

First Day of the Year Blogging Tasks

1. Change copyright on email and website footers

Dani Meyer suggested this option for code monkeys. . .a dynamic footer you never have to change.

2. Write down all your social media numbers – set goals

The only way you’re going to know how awesome you are tomorrow is if you write down how much you suck today. You are not going to be able to figure out how many YouTube subscribers you had on January 1st. . .so go write it down. Twitter, Pinterest. . . you know. And maybe your Clubhouse followers. You might want to skip your age and weight. . . those tend to get worse. 🙂

3. Get the Evernote App (or receipt app) on your phone to photograph receipts

If you aren’t the best at keeping track of your taxes and stuff, time to kick that into gear. One of the great things about Evernote is the app allows you to take pictures, tag them and save them in your Evernote account. What’s even better? Evernote recognizes text in images. So if you write on the receipt “business lunch with Helga” you’ll be able to find it later just by searching “Helga”.

4. Put a brown paper sack in your car

Take a white piece of paper and staple it to a brown paper bag. And put it in your car. Then when you need to keep track of your mileage, just write it on the paper. And if you need to keep track of a receipt while you’re out, put it in the bag.

Or, if you’re a smart phone user. .. there are a ton of mileage tracking apps.

5. Create new folders in email for receipts

You’re going to need an email folder called “Biz Receipts 2023”. Sometimes an email confirmation is all you get. Whether you buy a shirt on TeeSpring, a new computer on Amazon or make an online donation, you’ll want a place to keep those emails. Get that set up.

6. Add weekly tickler to calendar to do your tax tasks/books

The CEO side of digital marketing isn’t the most fun, but it is necessary. Set up a time each week to meet with your team, to go over your numbers, your tasks, your goals. Talk about the benchmarks you need to be hitting. If you’re going to grow YouTube by 1,200 subscribers this year that means 100/month. Talk about that.

Also do your books, record your expenses and see what your profitability is. Force yourself to become an awesome manager of your business.

7. Assess your risks and what measures you must take

Do you have a back-up system like CrashPlan from Code42? Do you need to renew it? What about the life of your computer. Going to need a new one this year? Look at all your risks. Is your site prepared to thwart attackers? Know what you’re going to do if you suddenly get tons of traffic and your hosting plan can’t handle it? Now’s the time to figure out this stuff.

8. Determine Your business’s capital needs

What are you going to need money-wise this year? VA, New Computer, Conferences, Upgraded Hosting? Forecast your capital needs. What are you going to do to create this capital?

9. Change passwords

Now is as good a time as any to change all your passwords.

10. Login to your Domain Registrar and note dates

When are your domains expiring? Do you really need them or can you part with them? Losing your domains is almost the biggest disaster we potentially face. Make sure you renew in plenty of time.

11. Re-assess your editorial calendar for the next 18 months

Did you read our Campaign Assessment ebook? From 2021 you should have all the plans you need to dominate your campaigns this year, knowledge of where you need to step it up and ideas to fill in any gaps. Make sure your plans still fit your site and audience.

12. Begin (if not already) tasks for your Jan/Feb campaign

What are you doing for your audience this month? What keywords are you targeting to attract new visitors? Where are you directing them and how are you making their lives better? If you haven’t taken our 21 Day SEO Challenge, this would be a great time to really think through your SEO Goals:

13. Assess 2022 expenses, look for ways to cut costs in 2023

A dollar saved is a dollar earned. What can you do to save money in 2023? Got two different stock photo subscriptions? Paying for things you’re not using? Not using things that could be making you money? This last year we reduced the cost of printing our Blogging Concentrated books from $9 to $2.50 by switching to Create Space. What can you do?

14. Organize your computer to make sure 2023 files are easily found

Need to change anything for 2023? Tax folders? Clean up your desktop? Rearrange? No better day than today to work on these things.

15. Update your Gravatar and all your avatars online

Unless you’re a Realtor, most people assume you’re going to look like the picture on your business card or Facebook avatar. Only Realtors can get away with putting a 20 year old photo on their signs. Show everyone that new smile.

16. Refresh your About Page . . .your kids are not 3 anymore

Does your About Page still say you have 2 kids when your youngest of 5 is already 8 years old? Does it say that you got married last year, in 2010? Head over to your bios and About Pages on your site, LinkedIN, Facebook, etc. . . Update those things. You never know who’s reading them.

17. Stick some testimonials in your content

You’ve got another year of social media love and people saying nice things about you. Find those testimonials and add them to your services pages, About Us page and product pages.

18. Fix your banking

If you don’t have your personal business account separated from your business checking account, tomorrow is the day to do that before your first dime is deposited. Get everything set up correctly.

19. Handwritten notes change lives

Anybody do anything super special for your business in 2023? Provide lots of referrals? Champion your biz? Bring lots of smiles. Maybe, just maybe sending them an actual thank you card that comes in the mail would be great. Think about it. Who wouldn’t love that?

20. Get a top to bottom website review

From your social media messaging, engagement, post schedule and strategy. . . to your monetization execution, products, ads, sponsors . . . to list building and overall growth direction . . . a deep dive website review will give you things to work on instantly in improving your business.

10 Best History Podcasters

There are not many ways to learn about the best History Podcasters. There are a few conferences like the Intelligent Speech Conference where you can meet some of them. And then Podcast Magazine features a few history podcasts each month, but that doesn’t mean they’d all be among the best history podcasters.

So after years of listening, meeting and seeing their successes, we’ve compiled the Top 10 History Podcasters:

1. Dan Carlin of Hardcore History

Dan Carlin is an American political commentator, actor and podcaster. Once a professional radio host at KVAL, Carlin eventually took his show online, and he now hosts three podcasts: Hardcore History, Hardcore History: Addendum, and Common Sense.

Beyond the podcast Dan is a regular keynote speaker, commencement speaker and virtual event leader.

2. Malcolm Gladwell of Revisionist History

Malcolm Timothy Gladwell CM is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996.

3. Karina Longworth of You Must Remember This

Karina Longworth is an American film critic, author, and journalist based in Los Angeles. Longworth writes, hosts and produces the podcast You Must Remember This, about the “secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century.”

4. Dan R Morris of Tracing The Path

Dan R Morris, married to best selling author Rachel Marie Martin, is a digital marketing expert, dad, and produces the podcast Tracing the Path. He also runs Blogging Concentrated, Audience Industries and co-owns FindingJoy.net.

5. Jon Hagadorn of 1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories & Mysteries

Jon Hagadorn is the producer of 1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories & Mysteries Podcast. Podcast Appearances. of 1001 Heroes, Legends, Histories & Mysteries, fast-paced, well-researched weekly podcast covering a wide range of historical events, persons, places, legends, and mysteries.

6. Mike Duncan of History of Rome

Mike Duncan is an American political history podcaster and author. A self-described “complete history geek” grew from an interest in ancient civilizations as a child, with a particular affinity for Roman history. After not finding any Roman history podcasts in 2007, Duncan began The History of Rome.

7. Mike Rowe of The Way I Heard It

Michael Gregory Rowe is an American television host, narrator, and former opera singer. He is known for his work on the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs and the series Somebody’s Gotta Do It originally developed for CNN.

9. Kevin Stroud of The History of English Podcast

Kevin Stroud is a storyteller, explainer, and historian of the English language. He is also host of The History of English Podcast.

10. Scott Allsop of History Pod

Scott Allsop studied history at the University of Cambridge and is the host of an iTunes Top-100 daily history podcast. He is an award-winning history teacher who was nominated for the UK’s national Teaching Awards and short-listed for the BBC/Historical Association History Teacher of the Year award.

Steve Hartman Podcast – Stories from CBS Sunday Morning

Yes, I started my podcast because I love Steve Hartman from the CBS Sunday Morning program called “On The Road”. As I mentioned in my earlier posts about Paul Harvey and Charles Osgood, these gentlemen tell stories in a narrated fashion that just draw you in.

I think it’s the pacing and tone of Steve Hartman’s stories that I really love. There’s no hype, no crazy voices, no yelling, no laugh track. It’s just great storytelling.

With my Tracing The Path Podcast, I wanted to capture the essence of Steve Hartman’s stories. Unlike Paul Harvey’s stories which leave you in awe, On The Road is really about stories that warm your heart. I have always felt there was a way to combine those two things.

I think Steve Hartman’s basketball team stories are where I was first introduced to his voice, to his style. In one story the autistic student basketball team manager gets to play in the final game. In another a basketball team from a juvenile detention center enters the arena filled with fans they didn’t know they had.

My goal with Tracing the Path is to fill a void between CBS Sunday Morning episodes and since Paul Harvey/Charles Osgood are no longer on the air.

If you’re a fan of those, I challenge you to check out Tracing The Path for yourself.

A Charles Osgood Inspired Podcast

I loved, wait I still love them, Charles Osgood stories. Sunday Mornings were the best. I think Charles Osgood on Sunday mornings was better than cartoons on Saturdays to me. That’s why I started my podcast “Tracing the Path”. . . I mentioned the other day that Paul Harvey was the reason but really, it was the whole generation of story tellers on the radio.

Bruce Williams, Charles Kuralt . . . Wobegon Days. I think I just missed those days.

So what I wanted to do was to create a story telling podcast that taught you stuff about things you thought you knew. The way Paul Harvey told us stories about people we knew but didn’t know well enough.

I love how Paul Harvey, Jr. could write those stories with that twist, giving enough details but not quite enough. That’s still pretty amazing. Not sure I could do that but I also don’t want to copy, so my stories are a bit different. You know from the beginning who it’s about, you just don’t know how they’re connected to everything else around them.

So if you loved Charles Osgood, I think you’ll love our podcast “Tracing the Path“.

A Paul Harvey inspired Podcast: Tracing the Path

I used to listen to Paul Harvey in the car . . . his show was a bit like a podcast I’d say. I can say this, even if I was fully parked and late for a meeting I wouldn’t turn the car off until it was over. I just wanted to hear the end.

But it wasn’t just Paul Harvey, Charles Kuralt and Charles Osgood on Sunday mornings, so good too.

I just love the stories. The Rest of the Story was great with the surprise ending. Ya know Paul Harvey, Jr. wrote all of those. In fact if you don’t know that story I told it on the podcast. What I don’t know is how he masterfully crafted the story so you didn’t know. The perfect details that didn’t totally give it away but certainly all fit in the end.

I learned from Charles Kuralt that I didn’t always need the twist. The stories were just fantastically crafted. I’m not them yet, but I can say that the stories I’ve discovered are pretty darn amazing.

The first episode, the one that went viral instantly was about Apple’s tipping point. Why aren’t they just a small computer company. Something must have happened to make them tip from small garage Cupertino start-up to goliath. I guess I could have left Apple’s name off till the very end, but I loved talking about things Steve Jobs did along the way.

But my really favorite part of Tracing the Path is the connections. Is connecting the dots between people, companies, ideas and success.

I’m not Paul Harvey. But I do wish he and his team never stopped doing what they did.

Subscribe to Tracing the Path and listen to some great stories.

Different Ways to Price Sponsored / Paid Content

There is no right or wrong way to price your work or yourself. There are just options at your disposal and then your self-worth and knowledge to figure out which method you want to use. HEre are the options:

Here’s some hourly cost standards to give you an idea:

1. Costs + 10% + Tax = Price

(Cost would be based on your supplies. 10% is for gas and all that stuff related to getting supplies. This is for people who want to make sure they don’t lose money when they go to Michaels to buy supplies. )

2. Costs + 10% + Tax + The Cost of Your Time = Price

(This is for people who value their time and costs. Your time is valuable. If you are running your blog as a business, you must include the time.

Virtual Assistants range from $12 to $25 per hour
Social Media Managers get $20 – $60 per hour
Web Designers range from $40 to $200 per hour
Video editors range from $65 to $300 per hour
Marketing Strategists get $100 – $250 per hour
Speakers get paid $350 – $50,000 per hour

Where do you fit?
)

3. Costs + 10% + Tax + Time + Goodwill = Price

(This is for people who value their time and their costs. Plus they know that their influence and name have a value above and beyond that. Goodwill is the accounting term for the value of your name. If you are a household name, like Kleenex, you can charge a lot just to leverage your name. If you are just starting out and your name isn’t that big yet, then you probably haven’t earned the right to charge Goodwill)

4. $50 / 10,000 Pageviews.

(This is a pretty common standard for pricing based on pageviews. You can certainly up the price if there is something very “niche” about your traffic. If you are pitching Huggies to do a sponsored post and 95% of your traffic comes from “baby” related keywords you can pitch how much more valuable that exposure is for them. )

Free online logo design

Recently I was asked where to get a free online logo design in our Facebook Group. I was actually curious myself so I did a little research and came up with some ideas for you.

From a business risk standpoint, I really wonder if getting a free online logo design is where we want to be skimping on our budget. If you’re just going to go out and get a Starbucks for $4 – $6 anyway, why don’t we figure out how to save money on something temporary like coffee and put that money into something permanent like the logo?

Since the logo of the product or the business or the idea becomes the face of that thing. Becomes the identifying mark. Becomes part of the brand in the minds of our audience, trying to get it free means the cost is more important than the symbol.

But wouldn’t it make sense to try and get the very best logo design we can get, figure out what it is going to cost to get that, and then figure out how to make or save the money to pay for it? That way we get the very best design AND we walk away as if we got a free online logo design we love.

So, let’s look at three good options:

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If you know what you want the design to look like, and want to do it yourself, then I’d use Gimp. Gimp is a free version of PhotoShop. It’s got a learning curve for sure, but there is not a question YouTube can’t answer if you need help. We made virtually every one of our logos AND remade some of our logos on Gimp.

Not only is it a good tool for logos, but also for banners, headers, photos and any other thing you need to do to a graphic. You can’t make a clickable spot within an image, but I think you can do just about everything else.

The drawback to Gimp is the learning curve and time. Is graphic creation really your best use of time?

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If you know what you want the design to look like and can draw or describe it, but want someone else to do it then I’d recommend Elance or Fiverr. Both of these sites aggregate freelancers who have design skills. You just post your product asking for bids and freelancers tell you what they would charge to get it done.

On Fiverr, it’s a bit easier. You search for a guy who will do a design for you for $5 and send him the drawing. Then you get the drawing made into an online logo design. It’s not quite free, but $5 ain’t bad.

The only real catch to Fiverr is that the freelancers are hoping to turn the gig into a higher paying project. So they may give you a 400 x 400 pixel image and ask that you pay a bit more for a large-scale, high res version. There is not much leeway in terms of making revisions at the $5 rate. So have a good drawing to start with.

Elance on the other hand is true professionals bidding to be your personal logo design consultant. They bid on the drawing you upload, the description you give them. . whatever you can provide. It costs more than $5, but sometimes no more than $30.

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If you need a design quickly and want to be highly involved in the creation of that logo, then we’d say use $99 Designs. We used $99 Designs for the creation of the Blogging Concentrated logo and were delighted with the result.

To start we paid for their $299 package which got a lot more designers involved. The idea behind $99 Designs is that you post a job request and the designers actual create a finished product for you right away, as opposed to drawing up a proposal. And then over the course of 3 days you have the option to comment, reject, accept, ask for changes to every logo design that comes in from artists.

Over the course of our 3 days we commented on just about every idea that came in. I believe we had 266 renderings to look at, some of which you can see here.

The critical piece to $99 Designs is that you must be active with the designs. Failing to comment and provide further direction to the artists just stalls everything. If you are respectful, appreciative and helpful in your comments they are more than willing to take your ideas and translate them into new ideas.

It is a whirlwind of amazing.

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If you really just want an expert to do all the work for you, then Deluxe Logo Design is a great option. With Deluxe you have a phone call with a real designer, fill out a questionnaire and give some preliminary ideas. Then in a few days you get around 10 designs to look at.

If you like one, you’re done. Otherwise you use the preview page to inform them which one you like, ask for revisions, give comments, etc. . . And then a few days later you have a completed online logo design in hand.

Unlike the previous 3 where you are deeply involved in the design, with Deluxe the designers are degree’d professionals with many years experience so you don’t have a lot to worry about. And being professionals the designs they come up with are varied to give you a real good shot at making something you’ll love.

I also liked that Deluxe could immediately put your logo on checks and other personalized products. . . if that doesn’t jog your memory then perhaps I should remind you that Deluxe is the company that’s likely been printing your checks for years. You’ve seen their ads in print publications for decades.

The downside to Deluxe, which may not be a downside to you at all, is that Deluxe is a bit old school. They want to have a real conversation with you about your design needs before they start. I kinda wanted to fill out a quick form and be on my way. I certainly do appreciate have spoken to someone directly and am sure the logo design we got is much better because of it.

I sometimes like my “microwave culture” and want to just press an anonymous button.

Hashtag it up with Sucuri

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Today we spend time with CEO Tony Perez of Sucuri talking hacking, pharmahacking, security, priorities and protecting your web business. This talk is eye-opening to say the least. All the tech, social media and blog headlines that Bloggers love, need and use everyday.

Listen to the latest from the Amplify Podcast

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