I’ve posted previously about the excellent voice-over business webminar I took part in with Freddie Bell last fall. At the time, the earlier webminar by Peter Rofe about how to approach and break down copy wasn’t available. They both are now. And, both of these webminar’s from Voice123.com (link goes to my custom page) are well worth your time.
General
Lighter even than normal
Awards, not
For years now, I’ve had the great pleasure to work with a number of very fine people who have won awards for their writing and/or production work, at one level of remove or another.
An example of someone a step or two of remove would be Blaine Parker, the Creative Services Director for Salem Los Angeles. (Here’s his Amazon profile. He doesn’t seem to have his own website.) He’s a Mercury Award winner from a few years ago, and for a few years he and I both worked for the same company, Salem Communications. While we never worked in the same building together, we did collaborate a few times via email.
More directly, I worked for a number of years with Darren Eliker, about whom I’ve written before a time or two (look through the archives around the middle of 2005). He was a Mercury Award finalist and has won numerous awards in Pittsburgh for his writing and production.
I work with Cliff Barrows just about every week on his radio program Hour of Decision. His most recent award was the Milestone Award given by the NRB for more than 50 years of continuous radio ministry. According to his official bio, he’s also in the Gospel Music Hall of Fame and the NRB Hall of Fame.
And also given an award for his production and writing work is Albert Swanson, who received an iNRB award for Best Radio Drama in February of 2006.
I’m sure the list goes on with other names that I can’t bring to mind at the moment. But, the point of this post is to give just this little bit of extra attention to these fine men with whom I work or have worked in the past. It’s an honor knowing you guys and an even greater honor to be numbered in your company.
I enjoyed this quiz quite a bit
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You scored as Moya (Farscape). You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes.
Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) |
I suppose it’s no great surprise that I ended up tied among my three favorite SF television shows, with the tie-breaker putting me in the Farscape camp.
30 cents worth of rice
Life is filled with experiences that we bring to our voice-over work. Each experience providing some further texture and context to the performances we give. Voice-over, after all, is voice acting. So, I share the following story as simply one glimpse into another world. One you probably don’t inhabit. I know I don’t.
Last week I was in Manila, Philippines for a business trip. I stayed in the Manila Hotel, a very nice middle-class hotel just across the street from where I was working. On Sunday afternoon I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood near the hotel. Setting off, I walked along the street which bordered a golf course. A few blocks along the way, a young Filipino man started walking with me. He didn’t know a lot of English and I knew no Tagalog, but he pointed out a few of the buildings we were walking past, a museum, the Presidential residence (called the White House, just as it is in the USA), the main newspaper’s headquarters, and so forth.
A few blocks further along and I could see that the street was trending into a neighborhood that seemed quite a bit more seamy, so I turned around and began walking back the way I came. The young man kept pace, continuing to chat cheerfully. A block or so after we turned around, he spotted a street vendor, a woman carrying a large flat basket filled with packets of rice wrapped in some sort of broad green leaf. The young man asked me if I would buy him some of the rice. He said, “I’m very hungry.” “Two, please,” he asked. At that point, we stopped the woman. I asked how much. “6 pesos each,” she replied. I had 4 coins in my pocket, each worth 5 pesos. I gave her 3 and told her to keep the change.
At 51 pesos to the US dollar, the transaction cost me about 30 cents. For that slender sum, the young man had his meal and the old woman got a bit extra for her efforts. And I got the memory of both of their smiling faces.
New class from Pat Fraley
I’ve written before about Pat Fraley and what a tremendous amount I’ve learned from him in the two classes I’ve taken from him in California over the last two years. And earlier today I received an email notice from Pat about a new class he’s teaching this winter called The Disney Way. It’s a master class on ADR and looping and if you have any interest in this kind of work, you should click through on this link and sign up for the class. It will be time and money well spent.
The Challenger Disaster
(updated) I was in the middle of a long voice-over session at Domain Communications in suburban Chicago. The producer had just called a short break and I walked out of the studio and noticed the shocked looks on the faces of several of the staff. I asked, “what’s wrong” and one of the guys in sales pointed at a television in the corner of the office and said, “The space shuttle just blew up.” As I turned, the images were at that moment being re-run of the explosion.
Truly, a very sad day.
And yet, we had to finish the session, so we did. It wasn’t easy.
With a hat tip to Michelle Malkin, here is President Reagan’s address (video, audio and full transcript) to the nation following the disaster.
(Further update: At the National Religious Broadcaster’s convention 2006 in Dallas, I ran into my friend Jim Draper. (His contact information is on this page.) He was there at Domain that day and when I mentioned to him that I’d written this post, he told me that he had been listening to the launch on the radio in his office. When he heard the description of the explosion, he was the one who had the office staff turn on the television.
AudioRazor
I’ve written a number of times before about Dan O’Day, especially about the International Radio Creative and Production Summit, held each year in August in Los Angeles.
But, just a few days ago, I bought something new from Dan’s website that I think you should know about, especially if you ever need to stream audio. It’s called AudioRazor. It’s a small, inexpensive, but very powerful Flash application that’s incredibly simple to use.
How simple? Well, it took a whole 20 seconds to set up the audio player for my demo that’s here on the right side of my blog. (updated to correct reference to demo location)
Sharpening my voice talents through writing
A big part of the reason that I started this blog, and continue to post to it however sproadically, is because I firmly believe that writing is one of the keys to being able to do voice work well.
Why? Because writing, at least good writing, requires finding a voice or a character, and then expressing that voice or character in thoughts and words. Because thinking about the way I want to string words together helps me think about, and understand, the way they are strung together in the scripts I read. Because writing exercizes at least some of the same parts of the brain where all language is processed and understood; thus furthering my ability to express myself verbally. Those are a few of the reasons. I’ll post more as I think of them.
So, what are you writing?
Long-form rates
Today let’s think about what to charge for a long-form recording, like a CD-ROM, an interactive DVD or a large Internet training site.
Some of my friends charge by the “finished minute” for a long project. (e.g.: 60 minutes times $20 per minute = $1200) I’ve never done things that way, but you might find the approach useful as a way to start thinking about the rate you would be comfortable charging. I don’t think there’s a standard rate for this per minute kind of thing.
Here are the AFTRA rates for “non-broadcast” recordings of this sort. The rate is $720 to $904 per day for just the recording, depending on the specific kind of project.
For myself, I look at a project like this and try to calculate how much time and effort it will take and then quote a rate that represents what I consider a fair price for that time and effort. A good rule of thumb is that it takes 1.5 to 4 times the finished length of a project to record and 2 to 3 times the length of the project to edit. (updated)
Some kinds of projects, medical for example, tend to run to the longer end of that margin. If the script is filled with a LOT of very technical jargon (e.g.: polysyllabic chemical and medical terms) In such cases, I add a bit extra for the time it will take to find and verify pronunciations.
Books of the future
This post isn’t directly about voice-over, but (with a h/t to the Instapundit) I think Michael Hyatt has written some very thought-provoking words here.
And the connection to voice-over? I imagine the continuing growth of audio books is another indication that Mr. Hyatt is on to something. What do I mean? Here is the Amazon.com page for audio books on CD.
Numenorean
I read about a quiz that I thought would be fun to take, determining which of the races of Tolkien’s Middle Earth I would be. Here is the result:
Numenorean
To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
brought to you by Quizilla
Thanksgiving Day 2005
Here are some posts I’ve read over the last 24 hours that I think are well worth reading on this Thanksgiving Day.
Let’s begin with RedState.org, which has reproduced a couple of historical documents from the Founding Fathers of the USA.
At HughHewitt.com, there’s a link to a very funny Thanksgiving e-card from the American Greetings company.
Michelle Malkin offers a recipe for Thanksgiving pie and a few links to chew on.
And Tom Asacker, as always, offers some thoughtful comments well worth reading.
Several years ago, I interviewed Pastor Chuck Swindoll about Thanksgiving. I asked for the interview because I had heard him comment about how he likes Thanksgiving more than Christmas. During our conversation, Chuck talked about all the things he likes about Thanksgiving; but especially how it’s a holiday that hasn’t become loaded down with commercial enterprise, like Christmas has.
Like Chuck Swindoll, Roy Williams says Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday. I agree.
This is our third Thanksgiving since we moved to Charlotte, NC. Last year because of a special last-minute deal offered by US Airways, the family was able to fly back to Minnesota to spend a good bit of the weekend with our extended family there; but this time as we did during 2003, we’ll be grateful together here in Charlotte, just us and our kids.
UPDATE: If you have any affection for the traditional Thanksgiving hymn We Gather Together, don’t miss this post at the online edition of the Wall Street Journal.
Feedback on auditions
I noted previously that I’ve just joined Interactive Voices as a member of their talent roster. Until recently, the only Internet based audition service I was a member of was Voice123.com; which I’ve posted about several times before.
One thing I noticed right away about Interactive Voices that I really liked was the feedback system. At this writing, I haven’t been a member there long enough to get any feedback yet, still it’s nice to know they collect feedback and that the information is shared publicly. I immediately wished that Voice123.com had something similar. And, now I’ve learned that they do, but it’s not visible.
Evidently what happens is that feedback is given by the client after reviewing a submitted demo. There is some kind of a rating system from poor to very good. So, after a talent submits a demo (even a custom demo), the client gives a feedback rating to that talent and his or her demo. But, neither the talent nor the public can see that feedback.
What I propose to Voice123.com is that they change their feedback system so that everyone can see the ratings. As paying members, we should receive the feedback information that our demos generate. It should not be some exclusive secret kept from the public and certainly not from paying talent.
The best on-line feedback systems are those used by sites like Amazon.com, eBay.com or NewEgg.com. There, each person who provides feedback is identified, the rating (individual and cumulative) is visible to everyone, room for comments are provided and on eBay.com, you can even post a response to what you might see as an unfair rating.
As a client of both of Voice123.com and Interactive Voices, it’s interesting to see those things that I prefer at each site. For example, I very much like being able to see how many other auditions have been submitted for a given job when I log in to Voice123.com to respond to an audition opportunity. If the budget isn’t that great or my interest isn’t that high, I can skip the audition if there are already 200 auditions listed. With Interactive Voices, one is left in the dark.
Voice123.com ought to, at minimum, provide us with some way to see our feedback. This is part of the process of working as a professional, being given access to information that can help us improve our work and our business. But in any case, I’m willing to risk negative feedback in order to have the opportunity to audition for paying work.
Interactive Voices
I’ve just signed up with a second Internet talent site called Interactive Voices. It seems like a well designed site. There are a number of jobs posted for which I’ve auditioned. It will be interesting to see how this site compares to Voice123.com, at which I’ve connected with a number of paying clients.
What business are we in?
My eyes have been opened regarding the answer to this question. The occasion was a webminar hosted by Voice123.com. The presenter was Freddie Bell, a long time pro who not only is a voice-over talent and radio personality; but he’s worked in radio sales and station management as well.
Freddie’s notes and the audio of the webminar will eventually be posted here. What follows are my notes taken during the presentation, typing as quickly as I could, then going back and cleaning up the notes. I’m sure there’s much that I didn’t capture, but this is what stood out to me. (You’ll find the answer to the question posed in this post’s title near the end.)
—notes begin—
We begin with an important definition: Prospecting is the process of meeting people who will purchase our product.
Types of prospecting:
1. Cold canvassing – This method assumes that everyone is a prospect. And if you make enough contacts you’ll eventually reach good results. It’s very time consuming because there are lots of people who don’t need our services right now.
2. Internet (for example: Voice123.com) – This method provides a steady stream of non-qualified leads. It’s more targeted than cold calling. One advantage is the constant presence of the Internet. 24 hours a day, prospects can find me. Also, contacts can be instant. There are no geographical limits. And I get plenty of practice doing and delivering auditions.
3. Mailings – Direct mail is also effective, assuming we mail to select target markets. This may be one of the best ways to solicit an agent. Include a return card for replies. Use in conjunction with cold calls and Internet.
4. Referrals – This method is based on building relationships to so that we can leverage those relationships to find leads.
Ratios: what are my numbers.
1. Number of opportunities I create each day.
2. Number of appointments.
3. Number of auditions (may be the same as appointments)
4. Number of paying jobs booked.
Let’s look at some sample numbers. If I find 100 unqualified leads per month. Of those, I do 35 auditions. And of those, I book 1 sale per month, at a session rate of: $100. I will be making less than $3.00 per audition. Not a good ratio. However, if I double the number of auditions I do, that should should lead to double the results. (It takes 2 prospects to replace one sold client.)
Referral and Non-referral leads: Referral leads close twice as often as non-referral leads. So, to dramatically improve my business I need to look for more qualified or referred leads.
Here are ways I can increase my voice-over earnings:
1. Increase the number of non-qualified auditions.
2. Increase the value of the quotes, or the amount I bid for each audition.
3. Increase the number of referred, qualified leads.
4. Find more streams of income.
5. Or, spend more time on any or all of the above.
Referral prospecting. What do I use it for?
1. To find an agent.
2. To find business directly.
3. To find a producer.
4. To grow my business exponentially.
How? Let’s say I wanted to specialize in car commercials. I would pick a car dealer. I would then call and say something like: “Hi, I specialize in voice-overs for car dealers. Could I send you a demo of my work?” If the answer is “yes” then ask if they want an MP3 or a CD. If they say they work with an agency, ask for the name. Then ask if I can use his or her name as referral for why I’m calling the agency.
At that point, call the agency. Again, explain that I specialize in car commercials and ask if I can send a demo. Regardless of the answer, follow-up with a note to the person I spoke with at the agency. Also, follow-up with “thank you note” to referring person at the dealership.
Another idea: List everyone in businesses that I know. Call and ask for information about people who could use my services. Ask if it’s OK to use their name.
More: At the end of a live audition, ask for referrals. Send a note of thanks to agent for audition opportunity. Send a thank you note to the engineer/producer. [ed. note: I strongly agree with this suggestion. I’ve booked many sessions because I made friends with engineers over the years.]
To review, we’ve discussed several different methods of prospecting. Using just one method will lead to large gaps in my income. Use the prospecting methods with which I’m most comfortable, but use more than one.
The voice-over business is a sales business. I need to calculate my ratios, just like I would if I were in any other kind of sales work. Then find ways to improve the ratios that need work. Use a follow-up and tracking system.
80 percent of our time is spent looking for work in the early stages of our career. But that ratio gets better and we learn to prospect more effectively. Become proficient at various prospecting methods. (Mailings, which should include a response card, are one method of cold prospecting.)
—notes end—
Again, the presenter of this information was Freddie Bell. You can email him at: freddiebell@voiceunique.com or check out his web site at: www.voiceunique.com
Passion
I ran into a friend today that I haven’t seen in years. His name is Kenny Marks. When I first met him in the mid-1980s, Kenny was an artist on the Word Records label. You can find chord information to a number of Kenny’s songs here.
But, this is a blog about voice-over; not Christian music. So, why mention running into Kenny? Because as we talked this afternoon, I was reminded afresh about one of my convictions: you have to be passionate about what you’re doing. Kenny isn’t a full-time musician signed to a record label these days. What he’s doing is good stuff, things that he enjoys and it stretches him in ways that his music didn’t. But, as we talked I could hear that he misses being a musician, a full-time musician. He even said so at one point, confirming my guess.
I had a similar conversation yesterday with another man. Years ago he worked “on the air” on radio. His career path has taken him away from that for a long time now, but it remains one of his abiding passions. He very much wishes he could still do a live radio show. For my part, I told him that from the time I first learned about production and voice-over work, I lost nearly all of my desire to be “on the air” live.
But, giving voice to someone’s story, either through the crafting of the words or even more through the telling of that story in a recording studio? This I love with a deep and abiding passion.
Getting paid, part 2
Ann writes the following in response to my last post:
Bob,
Your emails have been very comforting for me at a time of confusion. Thank you. I will take your advice on this.
[snipped details about specific project]
Very best,
Ann
P.S. Why oh Why does Voice123.com advocate billing upfront with 50% down if this is not the standard among VO talent? I have asked a few other talents and each person is pretty much doing it as you are, nothing upfront. Is Voice123.com in the dark??? I think they need to be en-LIGHT-end about this one before they cause talent to lose work over this detail! Of course, my feeling is if you do the work you should get paid right away… But if that’s not how this business works, well… I need to know that!
My reply:
Ann,
Another very good question. Since I’d never noticed this recommendation from Voice123.com, I thought I would check the site and see specifically what they are saying. As far as I can tell this is the article to which you refer, the paragraph right after the sample “bid” language. (If I’m wrong, please let me know and I’ll revise my answer to you based on the corrected information.)
Yes, that article is posted on the Voice123.com site, but Caryn appears to me to be simply one of the many professional talents on the site. I don’t know that we can surmise this is the official position of Voice123.com; rather the opinion of Caryn as posted there.
But, there’s a more significant issue here. I suppose growing up in the farm country of Minnesota has left me hopelessly clueless; but I think that it makes most sense to treat one’s clients with the same measure of trust you expect them to have in you. In other words, I disagree with Caryn’s initial premise. If I don’t trust that someone will keep their word regarding payment, then why do I want to work with them at all? My standards about the kind of voice-over work I will do include the idea that I will only work on projects that promote legal, moral and ethical products and services.
I just don’t think it makes sense to begin with an adversarial point of view. The message I get from Caryn’s sample bid post is “I don’t trust you to pay me if I release the audio to you first; so you have to trust me to release the audio to you after I’ve been paid.” I don’t want to find adversaries, I want to find partners, people who like my work, and want to work with me again. I want to leave a sweet taste in the mouth of my clients, pleasant memories of how easy it was to work with me, and how well I gave voice to their stories. People who will hire me again and again. Leaving the impression with my clients that I don’t entirely trust them doesn’t help that happen. Indeed, just the opposite.
Even so, this voice-over business is a business as Freddie Bell points out so effectively here and as he underscored very well in his Voice123.com webminar (which will be available here one of these days). So, we should deal with our clients the way any business does.
We are a service business. In general, a service business bids on a project; performs the service and then gets paid. (Yes, there are lots of exceptions.) But, for example, if you hire a company to come clean your carpets, do you pay them before or after they actually do the work? What about car repairs? Hair stylist? Etc.?
Again, I hope this is helpful. And I’m delighted to hear about your work. I’m sure you’ll do a great job.
Be well,
Bob SouerPS: Years ago, I often had to wait 90 days to get paid for my voice work. Now, it’s most often only 30. But, I’d rather have a client who hires me 6 times a year and takes 90 days to pay, than a client who hires me (for the same rate) once a year and pays in 30 days. Best of all, of course, is to have both as clients; but if I have to chose just one, it’s a ‘no brainer.’
Getting paid
My correspondent Ann asks an important question:
Hi Bob,
I just got a lead through Voice123.com and was wondering if you would please advise as to how to bill. Should I require 50% upfront and the remainder due upon delivery of finished VO? They want it by Sunday.
I was asking previously for 50% down, but another Voice Talent advised against doing this, stating that it can turn some people off.
What do you think?
Thanks,
Ann
My reply?
Ann,
I’ve been doing voice-overs professionally since 1983. Not once in that time have I ever asked for any money up front. I do normally ask that payment be made “Net 30” or if that’s not likely that I be given a reasonable estimate of when payment can be expected. (Net 30 means that payment is due in full by 30 days after the date of the invoice, which is normally the date of the recording session.)
I too would advise against asking for any payment upfront.
By the way, in all of this time, I have only been left “unpaid” twice. Once by a furniture store that was going out of business. Once by a man I thought was a friend. On the other hand, during that same stretch of time, I’ve been paid by literally thousands of different clients.
I hope this helps.
Be well,
Bob Souer
Dealing with rejection
This comment was e-mailed to me by my frequent correspondent, Ann, in response to my previous note to her:
Thanks Bob. The only problem I have is in getting discouraged after doing so many auditions, competing with a ton of other people. It starts to feel like a waste of time.
Are you familiar with Taldia? I came close to getting work with them. I did all these auditions they wanted only later to find that my bid was rejected for being too high! I tried to negotiate at that point. In fact I didn’t even remember my original bid. I do know it had to have been within their budget. It just seemed really unfair that they would expect me to submit all this extra audition work, only to tell me later that my bid was too high!!
And here are my thoughts in response:
Ann,
Your comments underscore one of the most significant attributes required of someone who is going to work in the voice-over business. You have to be able to deal successfully with rejection.
No one (at least no one healthy) likes being rejected. But, as you are learning, being rejected is the single most common experience in this business. And this is the pivot on which it all turns: you can either see each rejection as something happening to you personally. Or you can see each rejection as a way of discovering which opportunities aren’t right for you at this time. In other words, each time you get rejected, you’ve eliminated one more obstacle between you and a paying job. Once you’ve cleared away all of the remaining obstacles, you’ll reach your immediate goal: getting that paying job. That leads to the next quest, which is finding out how many obstacles remain between you and your next paying job. As so on, and so on.
You’ve mentioned that you have a couple of children and a husband. I suspect that means that there are some areas of your life that, no matter how well or how often you do them, still need to be done again and again. Dishes? Laundry? I don’t want to be sexist in my assumptions, but pretty much every mom and wife has some areas of recurring responsibility of one kind or another. Whatever the case, these are simply examples of other areas of your life where this same principle applies.
The challenge, in other words, is to manage one’s expectations. Yes, it’s unfair to ask you to audition multiple times only to reject your bid as too high. But, at the very least, you received several additional opportunities to hone your auditioning skills. You made it through a number of levels of the process. By the way, at least for me, anyone who rejects my bid because it was too high is someone I don’t want to work for anyway. I want to concentrate my efforts on people who value what I have to offer, not on those who are just trying to get something cheap.
I want to be encouraging to you, Ann, not discouraging. I hope that comes through in what I’ve written here. It is tough being rejected again and again and again. But, stick with it and you’ll find some fruit for your labors.
Be well,
Bob Souer
And I hope these thoughts have been encouraging to you, as well.