Career Advice

My friend Blaine Parker, who runs Slow Burn Marketing with his wife Honey Parker, writes a weekly email newsletter. I’ve asked his permission to re-publish this week’s edition because it’s so extremely valuable to those of us doing voiceover work.

—————————————
SEARING WHITE HOT BRAND

Sunday afternoon, I stumbled upon a Food Network series that tells the stories of their TV personalities.

The episode in question was about the life and career of Guy Fieri.

What came out of that program was a striking lesson in brand authenticity.

If you’re not sure who Guy is, you may have seen him hosting one of the single most popular shows on the Food Network, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. He’s a loud, happy, joking guy with spiky blond hair, a goatee, and a fondness for wrap-around sunglasses, bowling shirts and bling.

Guy’s own cooking is wild. His Johnny Garlic Pasta Grill restaurants offer a bold and brash menu of items like deep-fried artichoke hearts, Cajun chicken Alfredo, and Lava Shrimp Sautee. His Tex Wasabi’s Sushi BBQ restaurants are as twisted as it gets, ranging from ribs & steak to nigiri & maki to items like the Jackass Roll, which is a rice & tapioca paper sushi roll of barbecued pulled pork, French fries, and avocado with a garlic chili mayo sauce.

A JACKASS CASH COW

Of all the celebrity chefs who populate the Food Network’s programming, Guy Fieri is the one whom you’re most likely to want to sit down and have a beer with.

That, or you find him the most infuriating.

Guy Fieri’s brand simply isn’t for everyone.

But the thing that’s really stunning about Guy is that his brand is The Real Deal.

He is not a manufactured personality. He isn’t the product of executive consultation. He is exactly who he appears to be: a tattooed nutcase with a kitchen ladle.

His menus reflect that.

And his personality permeates everything about the Guy Fieri brand.

AUTHENTICITY IS KING

Previously, we’ve talked about how important brand is to even the smallest business. Knowing who you are and how you’re going to convey that to your public is key.

So many small businesses, especially in radio advertising where so many of us live, have no brand identity.

They think because they have a logo or a jingle or a lame slogan, they have a brand.

“For all your widget needs” is not a brand. It’s lazy, sloppy thinking.

A brand is huge.

A brand is who you are and what you mean to people.

In the case of Guy Fieri, the brand is a crazy guy with a nutty sense of humor who feeds people in a fun, bold and flavorful way.

GUY FIERI REALLY IS THE GREAT OZ

That’s why he’s such a great example of branding: the wild and crazy restaurant brands of Johnny Garlic and Tex Wasabi would be forced and inauthentic and probably not too successful–if there weren’t an equally wild and crazy man behind them.

When Dorothy & Toto pulled back the curtain, they found a pathetic old man pulling levers and blowing smoke.

You pull back the curtain at Johnny Garlic’s, and there’s a wackjob whose flames are even bigger than in the kitchen.

That’s not to say every business owner is Mr. Toad, and every business’s brand needs to be his Wild Ride. That would be silly.

The point is that every small business brand is in some way a reflection of the business owner’s personality–and that personality typically infuses everything that happens in the business.

TAKE 10% OF YOUR PERSONALITY, AND MAGNIFY IT 100 TIMES

This is actually a piece of advice that a popular Hollywood comedy coach gives to aspiring stand-up comics.

Her lesson is that stand-up comedy is all about persona.

To be more marketing-oriented about it, stand-up comedy is all about brand.

Is your preferred brand Larry the Cable Guy, Steve Martin or Andrew Dice Clay?

Each of those comics has a distinct onstage personality. Their comedy reflects that personality. There is no confusing the brands. And each brand means something specific to the customer.

The Virgin airlines brand is in so many ways a reflection of Richard Branson. And like Sir Richard, the brand is sophisticated yet approachable, with equal parts refinement and fun.

OK, you ask. What about companies where the man running the company isn’t out front and isn’t a big personality?

YOU ARE NOW FREE TO MOVE ABOUT THE BRAND

Look at Southwest Airlines.

Herb Kelleher is the co-founder and former CEO. He is a tall, gray-haired man who, if you called up Central Casting and asked for a grandfather, would land on your soundstage.

He is not Guy Fieri, Steve Martin or even Richard Branson. He’s a lawyer from Haddon Heights, New Jersey who’s married with four grown kids.

But his no-nonsense, down-to-earth approach to the idea of Southwest Airlines informs everything about what happens there and has happened there since 1969.

Herb Kelleher is a pragmatist with a colorful personality, and Southwest is a pragmatic, colorful airline.

The airline reflects his personality and his mission to keep prices down while keeping a sense of humor about business.

Southwest and Virgin might be big companies. But what happens there also happens in every small business everywhere–as evidenced by Johnny Garlic and Tex Wasabi. They are distillations of Guy Fieri’s personality.

EVERY SMALL BUSINESS HAS A BRAND WAITING TO BE UNCOVERED

And most small business advertising professionals never take the time to uncover it.

Branding is a process of sugaring down.

In the making of maple syrup, “sugaring down” means boiling 10 gallons of sap until you finally have one quart of actual maple syrup.

That’s a 40:1 ratio of raw material to end product.

In working with a small business, the advertising consultant needs to gather roughly 40 gallons of brand identity sap and boil it down until they finally find the essence–that one quart of potent, flavorful syrup that becomes the brand.

And it’s always going to start with the business owner.

That individual’s personality is the core of the brand.

How they run the company, what they choose to sell, how they treat their customers, their philosophy on life–everything about all those business choices is the basis for brand. That, and the kind of person the business owner is. These are gold.

ACTUAL GOLD–NOT FOOL’S GOLD

These are not things you can fake.

These are the essential components to brand authenticity.

And they MUST be found before any truly effective advertising campaign can take place.

To borrow from a Fortune magazine article written in May of 2007, “Playing the authenticity game in a sophisticated way has become a requirement for every marketer, because the opposite of real isn’t fake–it’s cynicism.”

I would argue slightly with the wording here. I’d say the opposite of authenticity is fakery, and it leads to cynicism.

But I’m splitting hairs.

Because the real challenge is that we already have plenty of cynics listening to our advertising.

Wouldn’t it be nice to melt those cynical hearts to the point of unfreezing their wallets–and in the process of creating brand giants of small business?

Brand is essential, authenticity is king, and you can take that to the bank wrapped in a Tex Wasabi Jackass Roll.

As always,

Blaine Parker
Your Short, Fat Creative Director in
Park City
—————————————

In our email exchange about my request to republish this article Blaine commented that many voice talent have become commodities. My reply to that thought was:

Commodity. That is one thing I am not and do not ever wish to be. The only answer to that dilemma is to pursue the voice work that’s for me, not the voice work that’s for a “middle-aged guy with a nice voice.” I am the world’s exclusive source for voiceovers by Bob Souer; but, there are tens of thousands of other middle-aged guys with nice voices. So, if you’re looking for a middle-aged guy with a nice voice, yes, I fit that description. But listen to my demos. If that’s the sound you’re looking for, call me. You won’t find that anywhere else.

(edited to fix typo)

 

Bob Fraser sends out a series of email newsletters to his new subscribers. Over the last few years I’ve been re-publishing them (with his permission) here for folks who don’t subscribe.
============================================================

YOU MUST HAVE A WEBSITE

by Bob Fraser

A while back I posted an old actor’s joke to the many acting groups I belong to. The joke goes like this: How many actors does it take to screw in a light bulb?

100. One to screw it in and 99 to sit around Starbucks saying, “I could have done that – if I could only get a break.”

The reason this is a funny joke is that it reveals an underlying truth – a truth about actors’ attitudes. The joke, however, caused many actors to react negatively.

“That’s not funny,” was a common response.

Anyway, it caused a little stir.

I posted the joke because the attitudes it reveals are so widespread among actors, that they have become fodder for jokes. Look, the fact that you know how to do a job is not sufficient grounds to be offered the job. And please don’t wait for someone else to take action in order to have your dreams come to fruition. My friends, if you do, you’ll be waiting a long time – like forever.

There is a lot of grunt work involved in convincing others to hire you. If you don’t do the grunt work, your avid aspirations will not suffice.

“Could have” is no consolation for a dream neglected. Don’t ignore the truth just because it’s in a joke.

On another subject, I have also made it clear, on occasion, that I think every actor should own a computer – since it’s helpful for keeping records, printing résumés, sending emails, finding auditions, sending and receiving faxes and many other day-to-day chores.

I’ve also urged all actors to get a web site. There are nay-sayers, who rail against the computer and all its works.

One recently posted opinion stated that having a web site was of no help to an actor. The main point of the post was that casting directors were not out there, hiring actors off of websites.

And no one was looking for actors’ websites, in hopes of finding the “next big thing.”

There are two false assumptions here.

One, that casting directors hire actors – they don’t. (Producers hire actors. Casting folks are the personnel office.)

And two, that the whole idea of a website is that people will look for it.

If you approach this website business with the idea that, “if you build it, they will come” – you will be sorely disappointed in your results. Doing that is like putting a bumper sticker on a car in Oslo, Norway and hoping that a big important director will eventually see it.

A website is nothing more than an electronic brochure. It gives you “space” to promote the benefits of your product – trying to land a contract for your services.

Once you realize that your website is an opportunity to sell yourself – and you begin to use it to sell – you will start getting better results. It is worth doing your homework to learn how to sell with your website. There are lots of free guides about how to do that – out on the digital highway.

A FEW RULES …

1. Get your own domain name — HarrisonFord.com is much better than the free “HarrisonFordareallygoodactor/Yahoocommunities/Hollywood.net/hford.html (… and you should use your name instead of Harrison Ford, because that one
is already being used.)

Your own domain name is not expensive. It costs between 60 and 90 bucks a year to have space on a web server – and when you order from most companies, they will throw in the registration of your domain name for free. There are also places that sell domain names for as little as $4.95 a year (when you buy ten years – which isn’t a bad idea if you are planning to stick with one name during your career.)

2. Get professional help – there are thousands upon thousands of people who do web design. Get one of them to help you. Again, it’s not really expensive. I’ve seen designers who will do the basic job for under a hundred bucks. Try looking on google for one near you.

3. Don’t wait for people to find your site. Remember, this is an electronic brochure and like all brochures you have to “hand it out.” Put your web site address on your resume, on your cards, on your headshots, and heck, even a bumper sticker on a car in Calcutta – or NYC if that’s closer.

When you talk to casting directors, directors, other actors, etc., make mention of your website. Make it part of your schmooze. Think of your website as a ‘silent salesman’ who is at work 24/7/365 – selling you. BTW, that’s why it should be done professionally.

There’s no point in sending people to an amateur-ish site – it just makes you look, well…

– like an amateur.

============================================================

PERMISSION TO REPRINT: You may reprint articles from Actor’s Tool-Kit, on your website or electronic newsletter.

However, in order to comply with my copyright, you must also include the following paragraph with your reprint:

“Reprinted from ACTOR’S TOOL KIT, the email course just for subscribers of Show Biz How-To — The Free Actor’s Monthly. Get your own free subscription by going to: showbizhowto.com Copyright © 2006 Bob Fraser Productions All Rights Reserved”

============================================================
PRIVACY STATEMENT: Bob Fraser Productions will NEVER share your personal information with anyone. Ever. Period.
============================================================

My friend and mentor, Roy H. Williams (better known to some as the Wizard of Ads) publishes a weekly newsletter he calls the Monday Morning Memo. A few weeks ago for the first time in the 15 years he’s been writing and distributing this newsletter, he repeated an issue. It’s the Magic of ELBs. Take a few minutes to read or listen. You’ll be glad you did.