As Seth Godin points out in a recent blog post called The end of the diva paradox there’s a big upside to being nice to people. As my friend Phliip Banks would say “Think on!”
Career Advice
One important word
My friend Jeff Tobin is a superb business coach who blogs about business and marketing. Now and then what he writes will really hit me between the eyes. His blog post yesterday is one example. It’s called One Word That Changes Everything. It’s well worth a few minutes of your time.
The sound of the meaning
Here’s another superb free voiceover lesson from Nancy Wolfson.
How important is the end of the sentence?
Nancy Wolfson, one of my most favorite people and a world class voiceover coach, offers this quick video tip.
The most important marketing
I don’t know about you, but for many years the single thing that kept me from really moving forward with my voiceover business was a lack of confidence. Oh, I knew that I had a “nice” voice. I knew that I was pretty good at reading technical copy and sounding like I knew everything I was saying. But, fundamentally, I didn’t really believe I was good enough to accomplish everything I was hoping to accomplish.
Two people have made a huge difference in my thinking over the last few years, and that has made all the difference.
Nancy Wolfson. And Marice Tobias. These two ladies, through their superb coaching, helped me understand that I am enough. I just need to do what I all ready know how to do and simply be myself. Their methods are different, but between the two of them, the message finally sank in.
Now, I mention all of this to introduce you to a recent blog by Seth Godin called Conflicted. It’s well worth a couple of minutes of your time.
You see his key point? The person you most need to market to is … you. You have to believe, really believe, you are enough before you can truly moving forward the way you want to move forward. In fact, all of the other marketing and selling you may be trying to do? Until you understand that you really are enough, isn’t going to get you anywhere near what you’re looking for. But catch hold of this simple truth and the momentum will begin to build.
Try it. You’ll see.
(edited to fix typo)
Your personal brand
My friend Blaine Parker writes a weekly screed he calls HOT POINTS! He’s given me permission to republish today’s edition, which I think is chock full of valuable insights for all of us voiceover types.
HOT POINTS for The Week of March 5, 2012
COULD HOT POINTS HELP SOME POOR SOUL YOU KNOW?
Subscription to this relentless weekly screed is now available to anyone you might deem worthy. Just send your victims to the newsletter signup page at Slow Burn Branding.
THE POWER OF OMISSION IN YOUR PERSONAL BRAND
In these relentless weekly screeds, we’re frequently ranting about the ingredients required for building a business’s brand.
We don’t typically spend so much time talking about personal brand.
Perhaps we’ve been giving personal brand short shrift. Maybe it’s time we looked a little more seriously at what personal brand can mean to your business.
Especially if you’re a sole proprietor or a consultant, your personal brand is significant. A powerful personal brand can change your life.
A powerful personal brand can help you leap tall buildings and change course of mighty rivers.
Metaphorically, of course.
But it can do all this only if you’re smart enough to leave stuff out.
BRANDING FOR LAUGHS AND PROFIT
We’ve talked previously about how successful comedians represent the power in personal branding.
For example, compare Andrew Dice Clay with Jeff Foxworthy.
Dice is not nice. You wouldn’t ask him to babysit your three-year old. You might call him and say, “Hey, I need a creative and vile way to talk about sex with animals. Any ideas?” You will not take your mother to see Andrew Dice Clay unless she wears a leather jacket and keeps a pack of Luckys rolled up in the sleeve of her T-shirt just above the “live to ride” tattoo.
But the kinder, gentler, “you might be a redneck if…” happy-go-lucky hick Jeff Foxworthy? Sure. You could ask him to babysit your three-year-old. You might even go to
church with him. You can be fairly certain that he helps old ladies cross the street without pushing them in front of a bus.
Two very distinct, different and polarizing brands. Two very successful brands.
And if you’re a faithful reader to this relentless screed, you also know something else about Mr. Foxworthy.
You know about one of those important things that he knew to leave out of his brand.
HE’S A COMPUTER GENIUS
Foxworthy went to one of the nation’s finest institutions of higher learning, majored in computer engineering and used to work on IBM mainframes.
It’s definitely something to be proud of.
You also haven’t heard about it in his comedy.
In fact, you probably haven’t heard about it at all unless you’ve researched his life.
That’s because Mr. Foxworthy apparently understands the power of omission.
“You might be a redneck if…” does not jive with juggling the zeroes and ones inside some of the largest and most powerful computers in the world.
And Jeff Foxworthy is not alone in this kind of skilled omission.
Other personal brands have deceived you through their ability to omit irrelevant info in deference to honing the keenly honed blade of brand.
HOW’S YOUR BRAND IN FRONT OF THE CAMERA?
Just to show that this power-of-omission branding is nothing new, let’s venture back to the golden years of Hollywood.
There’s an actress whose brand was one of great beauty. She was always cast as glamorous and seductive.
If you’re a fan of film, you probably know who she is. Born to assimilated Jewish Austro-Hungarian parents in 1913, her given name was Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler.
We know her as MGM’s silver screen stunner, Hedy Lamarr.
She was gorgeous. She was always cast for her looks. The glamorous and seductive beauty was her brand.
She certainly wasn’t known for her brains.
Which is why it might come as a surprise to find out that Hedy Lamarr was co-holder of a US patent for spread-spectrum communications and frequency hopping.
COME ON UP TO MY PLACE FOR A LITTLE POWER FLUX DENSITY LIMITATION, BABY
Yes, indeedy.
In a pre-digital age of analog radio communications, Hedy Lamarr designed a way in which radio signals could be spread across a frequency domain with the express goal of
guiding US Navy torpedoes to their targets in a way that couldn’t be jammed by the Nazis.
She presented it to the Navy. Know what they said?
In essence: “We appreciate your interest in the war effort. You’d be better suited to taking your glamorous brand on the road and raising money from an adoring public.”
They had no interest in her technology.
But they did understand her brand. That might even be why they had no interest in her technology.
Had she handed her spread-spectrum torpedo guidance plans to John Barrymore and sent him into that meeting in a white lab coat, things might have been different.
Hedy Lamarr’s personal brand was wildly successful, and that brand precluded her from being seen as a brainiac.
Being brainy is something to be proud of. But the studio knew genius didn’t have a whit to do with her brand and it was left out.
See also, Jeff Foxworthy: not a computer engineer as far as you know.
IS THAT AN INGOT OF AUSTENITIC NICKEL-CHROMIUM-BASED SUPERALLOY IN YOUR POCKET OR ARE YOU JUST GLAD TO SEE ME?
Another profession not known for bringing super geniuses to the runway is modeling.
Instead, the modeling business is known for creating that iconic creature known as the super model.
Periodically, there are certain women who become globally exulted as the most beautiful in the world, and they are endlessly paraded before us draped in all manner of
overpriced designer wear that looks good on nobody but tall, skinny women who get paid big money to parade accordingly.
You would not think about sitting down with a super model and having a game of chess.
Which is why it’s all the more interesting to find out that the fabulous Cindy Crawford, she of the prominent mole, was (a) valedictorian of her high school class, and (b) was accepted to Northwestern University on a chemical engineering scholarship.
Yes, had she stuck with chemical engineering, Ms. Crawford could be toiling away somewhere in an obscure laboratory, figuring out a new process for separating impurities and various non-methane hydrocarbons and fluids from natural gas in order to make it pipeline quality.
Instead, through the magic of YouTube, she will forever be with us as the host on House of Style.
Proud to be a genius? Perhaps.
But not too proud to leave it out of the brand.
OMISSION IS ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL TOOLS IN BUILDING ANY BRAND
Big brands thrive on intense focus.
Your personal brand is no different.
One of the frequent challenges I’ve faced in working with small business owners on their advertising is an unwillingness to Leave It Out.
Typically, it’s ego talking. “This makes me important and people will care!”
Well, it might make your mother care.
Often, it’s fear-based. “I’m afraid that if I don’t say this about me, people won’t like me!”
Well, if you’re trying to sell widgets, knowing that irrelevant thing about you isn’t going change their opinion about you re their intrinsic need for widgets.
As with any other exercise in branding, the Prime Is Imperative.
What is the ONE thing you want to be known for?
AND THAT IS INTENSELY DIFFICULT TO FIGURE OUT FOR YOURSELF
Because with an entire lifetime under your belt, there are uncountable things to be known for.
Figuring it out takes hard work.
It often requires assistance.
But knowing what to leave out is vital to figuring out The One Thing.
Hedy Lamarr’s glamour and beauty.
Cindy Crawford’s gorgeous, all-American mole.
Jeff Foxworthy’s redneck roots.
Geniuses, all three.
And part of the genius is that the genius always stayed behind the curtain.
As always,
Blaine Parker
Your Lean, Mean Creative Director in
Park City
Follow on Twitter @blaineparker
An Intermediate level on-line voiceover class
Juan Carlos Bagnell, otherwise known as Some Audio Guy, is going to hold a 4-week series of voice acting classes starting in April. Details are on Juan’s blog.
Pat Fraley in Dallas this month
Pat Fraley is holding a voiceover workshop in Dallas the weekend of March 10th and 11th at Cakemix Recording in Dallas.
Talking to one person
A bit of conventional wisdom you’ll often hear about how to be more conversational or more “real” in your voiceover work is to “just talk to one person.” But, as my friend Juan Carlos Bagnell (also known as Some Audio Guy) points out in his recent blog post Stop Talking to One Person, there’s a lot more to doing a good voiceover than applying that one bit of conventional wisdom.
Mentoring
My friend Karen Commins asked me the other day to offer some thoughts about being a mentor to other voiceover people. She also asked my permission to use those comments in a blog post she was preparing, permission I gladly gave. Karen’s blog post is Are you looking for a mentor in voiceover? Â Like all of Karen’s blog posts, it’s thoughtful and well-written and is well worth your time.
What about me?
As you scroll through the tweets and Facebook updates from your friends in the voiceover business, you might be tempted to despair because it seems like everyone else is getting lots of work and you aren’t. A check of objective reality would quickly demonstrate that things are not always what they seem.
Now, I’m not running down anyone who excitedly posts about something they’ve recently booked or accomplished. I genuinely love seeing my friends do well. I’m just trying to say that comparing what you are doing by yourself with what 100 of your friends are doing in the aggregate isn’t an accurate or fair comparison. At any given moment someone else is always going to be a bit busier than you are. By the same token, at any given moment you are more busy that some others are.
What I’m leading up to with the above, is to revisit a point I’ve made previously about the value of generosity or selflessness. Seth Godin has written brilliantly about this subject in his recent post titled The sad irony of selfishness. Do not fear being generous. While you may seem to fall behind now and then as you pass along to others what you cannot or should not do yourself, in the long run you will gain more than you give. No, as Seth points out in his blog post, this isn’t guaranteed. But, isn’t all of life full of risks? And aren’t those who win big always those who also risk big?
(edited to fix typo)
New article at VoiceOverXtra
John Florian has just published an article I wrote called The Secrets To Becoming Exceptional for his excellent VoiceOverXtra site.
SAG Foundation Voice-over Summit 2012
The SAG Foundation presents an event benefiting the Don LaFontaine Voice-over Lab. The series of discussions on the art and future of voicever is broken down into two sessions. Each session is presented over 4 different days, starting February 21st. All the details are available at this special page of the SAG Foundation site.
How mobile are you?
This question could lead to a discussion about being able to record voiceovers while you are traveling, but this time that’s not where I’m going with this question. (I’ll come back to that one another day.) No, this time I want to point out that if you aren’t thinking about how your website looks on a mobile device, it’s time to start.. To get prime your pump, here’s an excellent article called Go Mobile or Go Home on the Fame Foundry blog.
What you believe is vital
Take a few minutes to read Dan Friedman’s latest blog post called What Do You Believe? These are sage words of advice that I hope you will both read and heed.
Invite the Avalanche – part 6
Yesterday I wrote about the pitfall of being average. Now, let’s get very real for a moment. No one, no matter how talented and dedicated and industrious is going to be able to excel at everything. We’re all going to have areas of weakness and average-ness. Even in our professional lives, some things are going to be outside of not only our comfort zone, but our ability.
Having established that, here’s what I also know. You can be exceptional if you will take the time and exercise the humility needed to learn what you need to learn in order to become exceptional. Once you’ve begun this process, stick with it. The main thing that can derail you on your journey to being exceptional is to change directions or change focus. Doing so will derail your efforts every time. Needless to say, quitting will also derail you.
And once you’re on your way, here’s something you won’t hear from a lot of people. Don’t be afraid to say “no.” Know yourself, your strengths. You can’t please everyone. You really can’t be all things to all people. So don’t even try. Say “no” to the things that aren’t right for you. I do this all the time.
But, when you say “no,” keep in mind that this can still be a win for you. Refer a job that isn’t right for you to someone it is right for. In fact, when you do so, it’s a win for not just you, but your friend who gets the job and the client who gets what he or she needs. Do that often enough and you won’t know what to do with all the work you do have.
What? Turning down work leads to more work? Yes. Because at least some of those people to whom you refer work, will refer things back to you. And at least some of those clients you helped are going remember you, too and when they have something that is right for you, who do you think they’re going to call? Yep. You.
The more you concentrate on doing the work you are best at, the work you most enjoy, and turn down everything else by referring that work to someone else, the bigger your avalanche is going to grow.
(edited to fix typo)
Playing the averages
Average is just that, average. As Seth Godin points out in a piece published at Business Insider, being average not only isn’t good enough any more, it’s much worse than that. This is true in the voiceover business as much as it is in any other business. I need to keep raising my skills. So do you. This isn’t so much to get ahead as it is to simply keep moving.
The real secret to avoiding “average” however, is to be you. If you’re trying to be the next whomever, stop. Find your voice. Build your business around the things you love voicing. Not only will you be happier, you’ll almost certainly be better paid, too. Just as I am the world’s exclusive source for voiceovers by Bob Souer, you are the world’s exclusive source for voiceovers by you.
The Actors Library
While it’s not just for voice actors, there’s a ton of valuable information available for us voiceover types at Kristine Oller’s The Actor’s Library. Highly recommended. As is Kristine herself. Oh, The Actor’s Library is completely free!
New additions to Pat Fraley’s Free Lessons
Pat Fraley is a top flight voiceover talent, a superb and thoughtful coach, and a friend. He’s also prepared a number of free voiceover lessons on a page at his website called, originally enough, Free Lessons. He’s just recently posted 3 new lessons on demos, confidence and flow, but really if you haven’t visited the page in a while, it’s well worth exploring.
Fees and things
My friend Derek Chappell writes a very fine voiceover blog. Recently he posted some thoughts about rates and fees that is well worth a few minutes of your time.