The post Interview with Ryan Imel on Heart Internet appeared first on WPCandy.

I’m very pleased to say that I recently had the opportunity to interview Ron and Andrea Rennick. They are two very valuable contributors to the WordPress project. Their expertise is WordPress Multisite, and much of their business today is around Multisite plugins, WordPress ebooks, and development specifically for multisite.

If you’d like, jump straight into the interview:

Download audio file (Ron-and-Andrea-Rennick.mp3)

The download link and information about the discount code are just after the jump.

Ron and Andrea shared what’s going on with WPEbooks, WPMUTutorials, and GenesisConnect, which are all parts of the newly formed Rennick Media. Ron gave us some insight on his involvement as a core contributor with the transition of MU to Multisite in WordPress 3.0. Andrea also talked a bit about the book she has coming out, WordPress All in One for Dummies, which she coauthored with Lisa Saban-Wilson, Kevin Palmer, Cory Miller, and Michael Torbert.

Ron and Andrea are also celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary today! In honor of it, they have provided a discount code exclusive to WPCandy that will run to the end of March for 21% off of purchases at WPEbooks. This is a great deal, and we talk more about some of their most popular products at WPEbooks in the interview. The discount code is at the end of the podcast.

This was my first ever interactive interview and audio recording, so I hope you all enjoy it. My dog, a one year old great dane, graces us with her presence a few times during the interview.

The Rennick’s are extremely nice folks, and I had a great time getting to know them better. Be sure to follow them on Twitter at @andrea_r and @wpmuguru, because you’ll learn a lot about WordPress, multisite, quilting, and stained glass.

You can download the interview in MP3 format here.

The post Interview with Ron and Andrea Rennick, WordPress gurus (plus a discount code) appeared first on WPCandy.

I was very excited last night to get to sit down with the three authors the brand new Professional WordPress Plugin Development, Brad Williams, Ozh Richards, and Justin Tadlock. All three were kind enough to join me on the WPCandy Stream and record an interview with me, which you can listen to below.

Download audio file (Professional-WordPress-Plugin-Development-Authors.mp3)

In the interview we discussed how it came about that they all collaborated on this book, what they learned during the process, and how they practically managed the collaboration process. I’m also happy to say that this interview was the first time the three have shared a phone call. Think about that one for a second.

Of course if you read WPCandy, you should absolutely purchase Professional WordPress Plugin Development. While I can’t officially review it yet (my copy’s in the mail), knowing the quality of work that these guys do individually I expect only the best from their book.

The interview runs about 45 minutes, and of course concludes with their own individual WordPress plugin picks at the end. Oh, and a few times in the interview I reference a video Ozh made to assist people pronouncing his name, which is why I might pronounce it halfway decently in the recording.

So who has their book already headed their way?

The post Interview with the authors of Professional WordPress Plugin Development appeared first on WPCandy.

There have been days for all of us where we have been sitting at our desk in the office and the thought of chucking it all and just setting up our own shop crosses our minds. No lame meetings, no politics, just doing what we are passionate about and ditching lame clients. Come on, admit it.

What has held most of us back is that pesky notion of paying bills and eating that really gets in the way of following our dreams. If you have ever had your own consulting business you are painfully aware of the “feast or famine” effect that makes us rethink the whole thing. If you are considering a career freelancing with WordPress one question you are likely to have is: Where will I get exposure and find clients?

Today we are interviewing Brian McDaniel (aka BK MacDaddy) a WordPress freelancer that has been pretty successful at keeping himself busy with the help of social media. In the interests of full disclosure, Brian and I were following each other on Twitter and we found mutual interests and eventually met up based on what we were tweeting about. When Brian announced he was moving back to San Francisco on Twitter, via a series of messages we ended up getting together for a couple of beers with a few other friends.

Read the full interview just after the break.

First things first: why WordPress?

I actually started designing websites without a content management system back in the mid-90s. At some point I had a client who requested a Joomla site, so I taught myself the framework and started recommending Joomla to my new clients. Eventually I dabbled in Drupal a little for the same reasons, and then stumbled onto WordPress about 4-5 years ago. The more I used it, the more I loved it, and by comparison there is so much more I could do with WordPress from a design and theming aspect. Most importantly, my clients’ are far happier with WordPress’ intuitive UI and ease of use. I actually wrote a post in more detail about this, if you’d like to reference it.

Big question: where do you get most of your business?

I have a partnership with a consulting firm that generates a lot of my business. Outside of that partnership, all other clients come from either Twitter, Facebook, Google searches or my blog (in that order). I always ask where new clients heard about me, and those are the results.

Have you actually got business from your social media efforts?

Absolutely! In fact, almost 90% of my clients over the past 18 months are directly attributed to my social media efforts. Social media has become the ultimate word-of-mouth advertising for my business. The best part is that I am not an aggressive self-promoter on my social media channels. Instead I try to offer resources and assistance, which in turn has built my reputation as an authority in my field as well as (hopefully) just a nice, trustworthy person. This approach has apparently opened the door for those in need of web and graphic design to hear about me from others that I may have interacted with. Most of my new clients either follow me on Twitter or know someone via Twitter that has recommended my services. I really don’t promote my services at all, but instead allow others to do it for me based on their experiences with me.

Do you get more business from your blog & social media than traditional marketing efforts?

A resounding, unequivocal yes. I do not use any traditional marketing efforts at all. I have never paid to place a print or online ad anywhere and I don’t even have anything in the phone book. Instead I focus my efforts on building my online reputation, and the best advertising for me is the recommendations of others.

How many projects do you work on in a typical month?

I am usually working on anywhere from 2-8 projects of various sizes per month. In general I am always working on at least two different WordPress websites, along with designing and coding email templates and campaigns, at least one logo design or identity package, and any maintenance for existing clients. Depending on the size and functionality of each project I do more or less simultaneously.

I usually am at my desk from 5am to sometime between 3-5pm Monday through Friday. I try to take weekends off, but I usually will put in a couple hours on Saturday and/or Sunday mornings before my family wakes up. Of course, those hours at my desk also include social media updates, breaks for lunch, or errands, or taking a few minutes with my kids when they get home from school, or just helping around the house. So it’s not an overbearing 10-12 hours per day of nonstop work.

How long did it take to get over 12,000+ in followers on Twitter?

It’s been just under 2 years since I started on Twitter. After the first few thousand followers I stopped being so concerned about the numbers, so I can’t really give you an exact timeline because I don’t know. I do know that once I hit about 8,000 the growth has slowed down quite a bit.

The blog on your site: is it just for you and your readers, or is there a business reason?

I actually started the blog on my site shortly after I took the plunge into social media only because I needed a creative outlet for my writing. It was completely self-serving at the time. It didn’t take long for me to almost accidentally realize the potential benefits of blogging, especially when paired with other social media tools. So I made the transition into a more strategic approach, writing about things that I thought would not only be helpful but could be interesting enough to be shared by others via social media. Ultimately I only write about things I feel very passionate about, as writing is a way I enjoy expressing myself, my thoughts, my emotions and my opinions. I am still developing my strategy for blogging, and hope to improve my consistency, but I cannot imagine having the same business growth without it.

Do you think it would be a good idea for WordPress consultants to blog?

I think it’s important for anyone who does anything to try to blog. It’s an excellent tool for building your online presence, reputation and authority in your field. By writing about things you are interested in, sharing who you are and what you’re passionate about, and providing resources and knowledge in your field, you can generate interest and respect that may have otherwise never been tapped. I don’t blog enough – sometimes only as much as one post per month – but I have actually gained clients from certain blog posts. One client read a post I wrote about WordPress that he found in a Google search, and it convinced him to hire me. I consider blogging a social media and SEO tool that, when used in conjunction with my other social media efforts, creates additional opportunities for colleagues and potential clients to get to know me, and vice versa.

Any advice to the newbies?

In a lot of ways I still consider myself a newbie. The world of web and graphic design is always changing and growing, and it’s a challenge just to keep up! I guess I can offer the following advice to others, as well as a reminder to myself:

• Patience: overnight success in this business is a myth. Stay the course and pursue your dreams with patience and they will eventually come to fruition.
• Passion: Figure out what you are most passionate about doing and then go for it with everything in you. If you are not passionate about it, but instead you’re just trying to get rich or chase some other fleeting experience, you most likely will not make it. Achieving the fulfillment of your passion is more rewarding than anything else ever could be.
• Perseverance: don’t give up and don’t slack off. If you really want to do this thing you have set your mind to, you must give it your all. There is no easy shortcut. Hard work will always reap better benefits than searching for a quicker path.

Thanks Brian for sharing your tips.  You can follow him on Twitter or on Facebook

The post Interview with Brian McDaniel: Getting WordPress gigs from social media appeared first on WPCandy.

Last week saw a pretty huge announcement: WordPress.com is now offering premium themes, one from WooThemes and the other from The Theme Foundry. And by all accounts the Automattic Theme Team plans on adding quite a few more paid themes to WordPress.com yet this year. We dug into the announcement and background information last week, but still had a few questions. So we sat down for a few minutes with Lance Willett, of Automattic, to see if he could share a bit more with us about the latest addition to WordPress.com.

Lance Willett is a Theme Wrangler at Automattic. The Theme Wranglers, also referred to as the Theme Team, spend their days and nights thinking about how to improve WordPress themes. In the interview, posted below, we discuss the response they’ve seen to the themes on WordPress.com, theme pricing, and even Automattic’s plans to throw their hat into the paid theme market.

The post Interview with Lance Willett of Automattic on WordPress.com premium themes appeared first on WPCandy.

I had a great time interviewing David Perel of Obox Themes recently. We discussed how Obox started out, where the name came from, and how they decide what project to take on next.

David and his brother came to WordPress in an interesting way, actually from working primarily with ColdFusion a few years ago to working almost exclusively with WordPress now.

The full interview is after the jump, don’t miss it!

The post Interview with David Perel of Obox Themes appeared first on WPCandy.

There is no question that WordPress jobs are huge nowadays. Recently self-proclaimed WordPress fanatic Jerome Degl’innocenti launched WPHired, a new WordPress jobs board. He put it together during his spare time, and hopes it will help those interested in finding new WordPress opportunities.

In this interview we talk about why he decided to build it, how he did, and what he is looking to do in the future. Oh, and you get to hear me butcher another name. So good for you.

Full interview is after the jump.

Also, be sure to check out WPCandy’s own listing there.

The post Interview with Jerome Degl’innocenti of recently launched WPHired.com appeared first on WPCandy.

So there’s Ptah Dunbar. I feel like every WordCamp I see him at (and this makes two) I end up saying: “It’s not fair. You can either really know your code, or be really slick. You can’t be both, it’s just not fair.” Ptah actually wrote a couple of posts here back in the earliest of early days at WPCandy, so clearly his is very, very cool.

Today Ptah is developing the WP Framework theme, consulting full time, and cooking up some fun collaborative stuff over at DevPress with Justin Tadlock, Tung Do (Small Potato) and Patrick Daly. In the interview we talk about all of these things a little bit, as well as what he would like to see out of WordPress in the future.

The interview is after the jump.

The post Interview with Ptah Dunbar of WP Framework and DevPress at WordCamp Phoenix appeared first on WPCandy.

This year at WordCamp Phoenix was also the first time I met Dre Armeda (I’ve been saying that a lot lately, haven’t it?). Dre runs Sucuri Security and CubicTwo; the first is a malware scanning and removal company and the second is a WordPress development shop. You can safely add Dre to the list of WordPress folk that’s very busy, working on a lot of awesome things.

Wait, what am I saying? The lazy guy should totally start a few more companies.

Interview is after the jump.

The post Interview with Dre Armeda of Sucuri Security at WordCamp Phoenix appeared first on WPCandy.

I enjoyed meeting Jeff Milone and David Morgan this weekend at WordCamp Phoenix. They started both Organic Themes and Kahuna Host, and live in Hawaii. Talk about the life, right?

We talked about their theme work, how they each came to WordPress, and a bit about what they do for fun in Hawaii. Check out the quick interview just after the jump.

The post Interview with Jeff and David of Organic Themes at WordCamp Phoenix appeared first on WPCandy.