General

One of my favorite on-going projects is the 4 times a year project from the Office of Science and Technology at the Embassy of Austria called “bridges.” Each issue I prepare a number of the published articles as podcasts, which can be found on this “bridges” podcast page. The latest edition, “bridges” Volume 32, is now live.

You’ll find some solid advice from Kevin Delaney about a key way to grow your voiceover business in a blog post called Who Are Your “Red Velvet Rope” Clients?

From a recent post at The Simple Dollar:

“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
– Winston Churchill

I just learned about the terrible tragedy that has befallen voice actor Dan Green. On November 25, 2011 his wife died in childbirth, right after giving birth to their twins, a boy and a girl. You are welcome to offer your thoughts and to make a financial contribution to help Dan and his new babies through The Dan Green Guestbook.

My thanks go to my daughter, Karen, for sending me a note about this story.

All this month, I’ve been growing out my mo (mustache) as part of Movember. Here is the photo my wife Cinda took of me this morning, the final day of the month:

Movember is raising funds to fight prostate cancer and other cancers that afflict men. If you’re willing to contribute $5 (or more) to the cause, please click through to my Movember page. And thank you! Our team, which we’ve called the MO-VOs, has raised $2185 for the cause as of this moment. I’m hoping we can bring that total still higher and with your help we can.

During November this year, I’m taking part in the Movember movement to raise funds to fight prostate cancer and other cancers that primarily affect men. Here’s my latest photo, taken with the webcam in my new laptop:

As I mentioned above, I’m growing this mo (mustache) to raise funds to fight prostate cancer. If you’re willing to contribute $5 to the cause (or more), please click through to my Movember page. Click through on the donate link there. I’m part of the MO-VO group, a bunch of guys and a few gals from the VO-BB, who jointly have raised $2097 for the cause, thus far.

For this fourth part of my series called Invite the Avalanche, based on a talk I’ve given at Faffcon, I want to focus on the subject of persistence.

Persistence is important, but what most people don’t tell you is that it’s not just being persistent, but being wise about being persistent that is the real key. What do I mean? Simply plugging away, pursuing your dream of a full time voiceover business isn’t enough on its own. In fact, you can have a measure of success, doing what you’ve been doing that was successful and find yourself in the deep weeds with very little to show for your efforts if you’re not careful.

The thing you have to be persistent about, more than anything else, is continually improving.

Yes, I mean about how you do voiceover work. Styles change. One kind of voice or vocal style will be really hot for a while and then things will begin to shift and before long something else is the hottest thing going. Being able to deliver your very best performances is critically important. It’s because I want to keep my performance skills sharp that I continually study. I’ve worked with Nancy Wolfson and with Marice Tobias. I’ve taken workshops on audiobooks and performance skills with Pat Fraley.  Whomever you choose to work with, keep your performance tools sharp.

But I would submit there’s something else that’s equally important. The way you approach and run your business must constantly improve. When I did my first voiceover job in 1974, the Internet didn’t yet exist. Personal computers were barely in their infancy. Almost all voiceover jobs were booked through agents. No one auditioned from home. The MP3 audio format wouldn’t be invented for almost 20 years.

Needless to say, much has changed. And those changes influence so many things about the way we run our businesses. Yes, I still book a bunch of work through agents, but I also do a huge amount of work that comes to me directly. However you elect to conduct your voiceover business, whether it’s anything like I do mine or not, you need to keep current with the tides of change that sweep through our business constantly. While some of the voiceover coaches I’ve mentioned about can help you, this is something you really have to stay in touch with on your own.

As you remain persistent at keeping your tools sharp, both your performance tools and your business tools, your avalanches will come.

Here’s the latest on my Movember mustache:

The grey in there still makes what I’m growing almost invisible, but it’s coming along. If you would be willing to contribute $5 (or even more) to the Movember cause, which is raising funds to fight prostate cancer and other cancers that afflict men, please go to my Movember page and click on the “make a donation” link. And whether you contribute or not, thank you!

I also need to give a word of thanks to the entire MO-VO team, of which I’m a part, for their support and inspiration.

Kevin Delaney has an excellent blog post out that talks about something everyone doing voiceovers needs to give some thought to: Being Able to Live Up to your Voiceover Demo.

Last month I began writing a series of blog posts called “Invite the Avalanche” which is based on a talk I gave at Faffcon. I suppose before I continue much further it might be helpful to mention how this “Invite the Avalanche” idea got started.

Almost a year ago my friend Cris Dukehart reached out for some help with a large audiobook project she was narrating that had a pretty tight deadline. She got in touch with me because our mutual friend Nancy Wolfson suggested that she ask me to put her in touch with my son Eric for some help with the audio editing the project involved. In the email Nancy sent to Cris about this she told Cris she needs to not be afraid to welcome work, that she should “invite the avalanche” and locate the people who could help support her in her efforts rather than consider turning away work.

When I read that note Nancy had written to Cris, something clicked in my head and my heart. I realized that this phrase “invite the avalanche” was exactly what I had been doing for several years now, I just never had a name for it. It was some weeks later that I was at Faffcon2 in Atlanta when I decided to speak publicly about these ideas. Then after leading a discussion about them again at Faffcon3 in Hershey, PA I decided it makes sense to prepare a series of blog posts on the subject.

So, having given that bit of background, here’s more of the substance of the subject. One of my guiding principles is “never do anything JUST for the money.” Yes, there is dignity in all work, but doing work only for the money you’ll make is no way to find true satisfaction and joy in your work. Money, in whatever quantity you want to specify, will never satisfy. Not in the long run. Instead, concentrate on making dreams come true. The better you get at helping other people realize their dreams, the better you’ll get at making your own dreams come true.

How do you do this? Instead of having “how much you’ll make” your primary focus, answer calls for help. There are people you all ready know who need someone like you to provide a voice for them, they just don’t know that it’s you they need. As you answer their call for help, you’ll run into more and more people who need your help. The more people you help, the more opportunities you’ll find. The relationships you build with the people you help will begin to accumulate over time.

As I’ve mentioned previously in this series, it’s going to take time; but it will happen as long as you keep moving forward.

Here is the latest photo from my Movember efforts:

Movember is an effort to raise funds to fight, and awareness of, prostate cancer and other cancers affecting men. Each of us who are participating are growing out our mustaches for the month of November. If you are willing and able, I would be grateful for a $5 donation to the cause. You can contribute through my Movember page.

If you haven’t seen this yet, or even if you have, you’re going to love this:

For some time now there’s been an effort to raise funds and awareness in the fight against prostate cancer and other cancers that attack men. I’m taking part in one of those efforts this year called Movember. There are a bunch of us voiceover guys all taking part.

The photo here is of me clean-shaven on the 1st of November. I will not be shaving my upper lip all this month as part of this fundraising effort. If you’d like to help, this is my page on the Movember site. If you’re willing, I’d be very grateful if you would pledge at least $5 to this very worthy cause.

I’ll post update photos each week. Thank you for whatever you’re able to do, even if it’s just watch as things progress.

(updated to fix typo)

I will be there. I hope you will too!

Four times a year, I am delighted to work with the Office of Science and Technology at the Embassy of Austria, preparing podcast versions of a number of articles in their online journal “bridges.” Vol. 31 is now published. All of the podcast articles are collected together on this page.

From Trent Hamm’s Simple Dollar blog:

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.
– Thomas Jefferson

It’s been over a week since I posted here. I deeply regret this long silence, far and away longest I’ve gone without posting in the move than 6 years I’ve been writing this blog. I could offer all sorts of exuses, but I don’t like excuses so I’m not going to do that. I have been working on more of the Inviting the Avalanche posts and will get back to posting them shortly. Thank you for your patience.

At Faffcon, I’ve talked about what it means to me to “Invite the Avalance.” In other words, to be so buried in work you’re not sure how to deal with it all. I’ve thought about this subject quite a bit in the last 9 months or so. I like working and I love telling stories for people so having more voiceover work is something I am always ready to welcome.

You may or may not agree with me about the ideas I’m going to present over the next few blog posts and that’s OK. These are simply my ideas. If you’re able to take something from them, good. And if not, then I hope you’ll find your own path to an avalanche of work.

The first thing to mention is that when you’re standing at the bottom of a mountain and an avalanche falls on you, it’s not fun. In fact, it’s a very long way from fun. If you survive the experience, it’s going to take a lot of energy, effort and time to dig your way out. The same can be said about an avalanche of work. If you take on more and more work, to the point that you’re buried in it, you’re going to have to work very hard to get it all done on time.

And may I insert here that one of my cardinal rules is that I don’t miss deadlines, no matter how hard I have to work. And if it appears that there’s a risk of missing a deadline, I keep the lines of communication wide open with my client so they know exactly where we are and how things are going. Being cavalier about deadlines is one of the quickest ways to ensure you will never be buried in an avalanche of work. Or never have a second such experience if you do get there once.

So, invite the work. Welcome the work. But make sure you’re going to be able to deliver the goods or the work will go away a lot faster than it came.

You might also want to start making plans now for how you’re going to be able to deal with the avalanche. Do you know some people who can help you with digging out? In my case, I hired my oldest son Eric to work with me on audio editing for the many long-form projects I narrate. Audiobooks. eLearning. Corporate narrations. That kind of thing. Eric has been working for me since before he graduated and continues to work with me all the time.

Then, when things got even more busy, I added my daughter Karen into the mix. She does a fair amount of content direction which has saved both me and my son Eric a ton of time on editing because we catch nearly all of the mistakes on the first pass. We end up with very few fixes. Which saves us all a lot of time and unnecessary work. And I’ve added a few more members to the team over time to make sure we meet our deadlines and deliver excellent quality work, consistently.

So, invite the avalance; but understand it’s not going to be fun. Not at first and maybe not for a very long time. And prepare some help before you need that help, otherwise you’re going to have to scramble to deal with both an avalanche and not enough help at the same time.