At least according to my friend Peter O’Connell (the mild-mannered secret identify of the super hero known around the world as AudiO’Connell), who blogs with great clarity and insight about his marketing efforts to promote his free e-book for beginners in the voiceover business, The Voice Over Entrance Exam.
From scouting to voiceover, be prepared are words to live by as Kara Edwards demonstrates with great clarity in her blog post today about Lightning and The Zap Cap.
With thanks to my friend Melissa Exelberth for posting the link on the VO-BB, there’s an interesting article in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal looking at the question of why Google Radio didn’t work.
My friend Bryan Cox has published a white paper for voice actors. The bold promise is that his free paper (donation requested by not required) will point you to making 1000 plus per month in your local market.
It takes a certain kind of bent sense of humor to get my friend Philip Banks. Here’s seeing if you have the sort of bent I mean.
Hilarious, Mr. Banks. Totally! And I’ll say again, it was ever so much fun seeing you again this weekend.
VOX 2009 wraps up each year with a lovely British breakfast buffet. I called a halt to my evening the night before just after midnight, which was long before the festivities ended. But, given my rather jet-lagged state I thought it best not to try to push things too late. I’m very glad I did because I was able to rise this morning and head down to the breakfast nice and early. The main benefit of which is that when I arrived, I was invited to sit at the largest table in the room with a number of other early risers for a very pleasant chat about all kinds of things including many new insights into the voiceover business in the UK. Then as the morning wore on, I kept re-filled my cup of tea while those at the table left and were replaced by other faces.
Toward the end of the morning I had the pleasant company of DB Cooper, Philip Banks and Sarah Parnell.
Sarah was facing a long journey home to the South of England involving 4 trains and a bus transfer so since I had to drive almost that far myself to get to my hotel this evening I offered to give her a lift, which she reluctantly accepted. Dropping her off at her home added only an extra hour to my driving today, which might be a lot of UK standards; but didn’t phase me at all. And provided time for a very pleasant chat in the bargain.
It’s been a really delightful trip. At least a few of the producers I met over the weekend indicated that they were looking for new voices from the States, so that’s a promising sign.
(edited to fix typo)
The flight across from Charlotte to London’s Gatwick airport went very well as did the drive up to England’s Midlands earlier today. Not long after I arrived, I ran in to DB Cooper and Philip Banks.
I had a most delightful time of conversation with them and several others. Then it was time to walk down to where all the afternoon’s activities took place.
This hotel is set is some truly beautiful English countryside.
A bit over 2 hours were spent talking with one producer or writer after another. It’s called Speed Networking and was sponsored by Voiceovers.co.uk. It was unlike anything I’ve ever taking part in before, but great fun once I got in to the swing of things.
Then we had a bit of a break before the evening’s activities kicked off in earnest. As you can see, I was the first to arrive at the table assigned to me and a group of others.
Then others began to arrive. Elisa Canas and Philip Banks were at the table.
As were DB Cooper and David and Lindsay Monteath.
It’s been a great day with a breakfast yet to look forward to in the morning.
(edited to fill in missing details)
I’m in a fabulous hotel in England at the moment, a place called the Chesford Grange Hotel. A bit later in the day, an annual event for producers and voice actors called VOX 2009 will be taking place here and running through tomorrow morning at breakfast. I’m looking forward to meeting a great number of UK voice actors and several producers in the next several hours. Photos and other thoughts will follow as time and opportunity present.
Kristine Oller is a brilliant organization consultant. She publishes a newsletter every few months that are chock full of good information. There’s some excellent counsel in her last edition on bringing order to a cluttered workspace.
With thanks to Tom Asacker for linking to this article by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, check out the surprising number of times that underdogs win, especially if they don’t play by the conventional rules.
My friend and mentor Pat Fraley is a great teacher as well as a great voice actor. One of the very best things I did for my voiceover business was taking Pat’s Audiobook Master Class about 3 years ago. It’s paid huge dividends ever since.
Now, even if you can’t make a trip to Los Angeles to take one of his rare audiobook classes, you can get some personal audiobook coaching from Pat. Details are on his web site but the essential facts are that if you buy Pat’s Billion $ Read audiobook and companion workbook, you’ll get a chance to get a personal evaluation on a part of your audiobook work from Pat.
For years, so the story goes, selling has been a numbers game. Because if you have to interrupt people to tell them your story (your sales message), you have to interrupt a lot of people to find a few who will pay attention long enough to even notice, much less respond.
As Seth Godin points out in a blog post called Strangers and friends today, that’s selling to strangers. Which is no longer the only way to sell. Now you can sell to friends, but …
You need to treat friends differently at every step along the way. First, don’t confuse the moments you’re supporting them or connecting with them with the moments when you are doing business. Second, understand that the most powerful win is when your friends tell their friends about you. This is worth 1000 times more than you talking about yourself.
I can’t begin to express how brilliant I think this point is. So, it doesn’t have to be a numbers game any more; but if you’re going to play the non-numbers game, you have to play by the new (which are really very old, when you think abou it) rules. What do you think? Comments are open.
J.S. Gilbert has extensive experience as a voice for video games along with lots of other major league voiceover work. He’s written a couple of articles on video game voice work for VoiceOverXtra. Part 1 is The Floppy Years to Today’s Exploding Voice-Over Games Genre. Part 2 is A Playbook for Winning Jobs. Enjoy.
What a wonderful day I’ve had today. Spent most of it in the studio with my friend Rowell Gormon and then visited with Rowell and two other good friends, Donovan Corneetz and Adam Creighton over dinner. Sadly I neglected to bring my camera to document the day (thought about it 60 miles too late) but can’t help at least leaving links and a few thoughts here.
Donovan and Adam are two of the brightest marketing minds I know, so I always learn something valuable when I interact with them. This was my first time to meet Adam in person. Donovan and I have spent many excellent hours together. Some of them in North Carolina where we both live. Some in Los Angeles and Las Vegas at various conventions and seminars. And Rowell is a guy who has forgotten more about acting and voiceover than I’m ever likely to learn.
To top it off, as I drove back to Charlotte in the evening, I was able to listen to a truly fabulous tele-seminar led by Dan O’Day on the subject of getting things done. This was a bonus class added to the month long series of tele-seminars Harlan Hogan and Dan O’Day are holding this month. (The class is closed now.) The focus of this bonus session was on Getting Things Done. This tele-class was so useful and valuable I truly cannot imagine how my time could have been better spent. It was, without a doubt, the most valuable set of things I’ve ever learned from Dan O’Day and given that he’s been part of 13 years of my professional growth and development, that’s saying a lot. If you ever get a chance to hear Dan speak on this subject, don’t missing it. Seriously.
Maybe if Dan gets enough email, he could be persuaded to make the MP3 of this tele-class available for purchase? I don’t know. But, if he does, grab it. Yes, it’s that good. I’m going to listen to the whole thing again tomorrow and since I won’t be driving this time I’ll be able to take notes. There will be lots of them.
From my manager and friend, Stacey Stahl, comes this bit of wisdom today …
If you are too busy to say thank you, you are too busy.
— Alan Cohen
Think long and hard about the blog post by Tom Asacker today. It’s called Great brands: Storytellers or story enhancers? I suspect it will start your wheels turning. It certainly has mine.
I am a story-teller at heart, have been for a long time now. But, the stories I most enjoy telling aren’t my own. They’re yours. The stories of my clients, friends and family. (Not always in that order, of course.)
If you are my client it doesn’t matter if the story you need to have told is a long, complicated instructional talk about the paving industry or a short message about new options in health insurance, telling your story is a great joy to me. Here’s a key quote from Tom’s blog post …
When you’re being interesting, you’re really doing it to enhance their stories, not yours
Exactly. Voiceover work isn’t about me. It’s about you, my client. Ultimately, eventually as time goes on, my friend.
My friend Peter O’Connell has written a very useful e-book called The Voice Over Entrance Exam. It’s specific goal is to help you figure out if working as a professional voice talent is for you. In my opinion, Peter has written an excellent tool that should be must reading for anyone thinking about trying to do professional voiceover work. Along with everything else, you’re going to love the price: free!
Thomas Rohe is the founder of SunSpots Productions. A voice actor himself, he blogs about voiceover at the SunSpots blog. In a post from a few weeks ago he offers some survival thoughts for touch times that I think is worth a couple of minutes of your time.
My friend Frank Frederick provides the voiceover for the video about the Electric Hummer H3. Very nice work, Frank. And a mighty cool vehicle.
Roger King is the president of PN Agency, a voiceover talent agency in Canada. Roger also blogs about voiceover. He recently provided a vivid illustration of how not to go about finding representation.
