Getting started in Voiceover

If you’ve been reading this blog of any length of time you all ready know that I’ve attended Dan O’Day’s International Radio Creative and Production Summit 11 years in a row, and that I’m going to be at this year’s event, coming up August 8 and 9, 2008 in Los Angeles. Yes, that’s the same weekend as the VOICE 2008 conference. I’m going to attend both, I’m just going to miss some of VOICE 2008 to attend the Summit.

You may well not want to try to attend both conferences. So, how can you decide whether the Summit is the conference for you? You can spend some time going through the respective web sites. Maybe email each of the people behind both conferences. But, Dan O’Day has also provided you with the opportunity to ask him your most important question about the Summit in a free teleseminar on Wednesday, June 25, 2008. Actually there are 2 teleseminars. One earlier in the day, at 2:00 PM Eastern/11:00 AM Pacific. One later, at 9:00 PM Eastern/6:00 PM Pacific. You can sign up for either one. Just click through on the link for the time you’d prefer.

One last thing to mention, if after taking part in one of these teleconferences, you decide to register to attend for the first time, you can put my name down in the comments section of your online registratoin form. If you do, I’ll receive a commission from Dan for your attendance. But, if you don’t want me to get the commission, don’t put my name in the comment field. Either way, your price will be the same. And I hope to see you in Los Angeles in August.

I received an email today from Judy Steidl, letting me know that the site for VOICE 2008 has been updated, with the program schedule in place.

Jonathan Fields writes a very interesting blog about growth, career, entrepreneurship, health and happiness called Awake at The Wheel. I try to visit every few days because there’s always a bunch of thought-provoking stuff there.

Recently, Jonathan told the story of two individuals who walked a very similar path, and to each of whom he gave some time and salient business advice. While Jonathan’s post doesn’t have anything specific to do with voiceover work, as you read, I think you just might conclude as I did that it actually does.

If you’ve been in the voiceover business for any length of time, at any level, you all ready know that one of the keys to doing well is marketing your services. So what kinds of marketing choices are you making right now with the economy running at less than top speed?

My friend Blaine Parker publishes an email newsletter every Monday. Today’s edition quoted extensively from Marketing Consultant David McBride and a newsletter he’s recently sent to his clients. I’ve been given permission by both Blaine and David to republish this information here.

HOT POINTS for the Week of June 9, 2008

OK, THE ECONOMY STINKS—HOW ABOUT YOUR MARKETING?
Some months back, you may recall a discussion of advertising in a recession. The evidence shows that businesses who advertise in a downturn end up being winners. The businesses who circle the wagons and stop advertising are the big losers. In that discussion, there was some evidence provided.
However…

Through the efforts of Marketing Consultant David McBride, we have a new truckload of documentation. These facts will make stout-hearted advertisers quake in their boots, will send women and children fleeing for the exits, and—best of all—will make savvy marketing folk rub their hands in glee. Much of the following information is excerpted, with permission, from Mr. McBride’s own column to his clients.

A hearty thanks to Mr. McBride for allowing the use of these golden arrows. He has proffered bold bullet points to help keep smart businesses at the table.

HISTORICAL FACTS
These tidbits solidify the notion to advertisers that we aren’t making up a load of self-serving tripe. Since 1854, there have been 29 recessions, on average one every 4-5 years. During each recession over the past 50 years, consumer spending went up, not down. During the above mentioned 50 year period there have been nine periods of economic recession ranging from seven months to sixteen months – an average of eleven months per recession.

A sales comparison study conducted among 200 companies in 1923 (some cut advertising and some increased it) revealed that those that had the largest sales increases were those that advertised the most. So, we have plenty of recessions from which to draw examples.

We also have plenty of recessions to prove that smart businesses survive the downturn.

WHAT’S IN YOUR CEREAL BOWL?
As a consumer packaged good, there is little more reliant on marketing than breakfast cereal. Walk through the cereal aisle and look at the ingredients listed on the box. You will find precious little difference between the products. It’s all packaging and marketing.

One famous story of recession advertising involves Kellogg’s and Post cereal companies in the 1920’s. Both were vying for the position of #1 in the breakfast cereal business. When the Great Depression hit, Kellogg’s kept advertising steadily while Post scaled back. When the depression ended, so did the struggle for number one. Kellogg’s emerged dominant; and remains there today.

LIKE GLADYS KNIGHT SAYS, KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON
A study initiated in 1947 follows the performance of companies through successive recessions in 1949, 1954, 1958 and 1961. The study compares their annual advertising spending with sales trends and profits before and after the recessions. The results?

Companies that cut back experienced a decrease in sales and profits. But wait—there’s more. And worse. Those same companies continued to fall behind the companies that maintained ad spending levels.

Ouch.

Similar studies done in 1970 and 1974-75 reached similar conclusions. Companies who cut back their advertising lose, plan and simple.

HERE NOW, THE “COMMON EXPERIENCE OF COMPANIES THAT CONTINUED ADVERTISING”
That quote comes from Vice President for Research at McGraw-Hill, Dr. David Forsyth. It’s also reflects the common experience every business wants to enjoy. In 1974-1975, companies who continued advertising experienced sales growth 15% higher than those who cut advertising. By 1978, companies that continued advertising had sales of 132 percent above 1973 sales levels.
Other figures from the same study analyzed 600 U.S. companies between 1980 and 1985. Firms that “maintained or increased their advertising expenditures” during the 1981-1982 recession averaged “significantly higher sales growth” both during the recession and for the three years following. And in 1985, sales of “aggressive recession advertisers ” were 256% higher than those companies which “did not keep up their advertising.”

For anyone not interested in doing the math, that’s almost double the 132% advantage in 1978.

Hmm. Spending money means making money. How ‘bout dat?

PULL THE PLUG ON YOUR ADVERTISING, AND YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE PULLING THE PLUG ON THE DRAIN
And the subsequent sound is that unseemly sucking as business circles the bowl on the way to the bottom. Mr. McBride points out that…
Economic downturns, recessions, depressions, whatever the case, the experts agree: this is no time to pull the plug or even scale back advertising. Those companies that become more aggressive have the opportunity to bury their competition [emphasis added] and build momentum. You may have heard this before, “A rising tide lifts all ships”. Hear that, ALL ships! And in a robust economy, that’s fine, but you now have the opportunity to be the lone ship rising in your category.

That’s a good one. “Be the lone ship in your category.” How many advertisers ever think about that possibility? As Mr. McBride warns…

“DON’T LOSE THIS OPPORTUNITY”
After we pull out of this one, we probably won’t have another chance like this for several years to come.” It’s like capitalizing on any boom. Or, in the case, capitalizing on an implosion. Recognize it early, then do the smart thing. And history has proven, time and again, the smart thing is aggressive, ramped up marketing in a media market where the competition is cowering in fear and has left the building.

THERE ARE PLENTY OF WAYS TO CUT COSTS DURING A RECESSION
Advertising is not one of them.

Better bookkeeping, smarter spending, cutting waste, negotiating terms with vendors and lenders—Mr. McBride notes that all of these are places where costs can be controlled. And frankly, even in the best of times, these are places where costs should be managed well.

But advertising? Cutting that is the same thing as firing your best salesmen. And exactly how does that help you sell anything? Full speed ahead and enjoy the ammunition.
As always,

Blaine Parker
Your Short, Fat Creative Director in
Los Angeles
www.shortfatadvertising.com

I hope you can see the connection with your voiceover business, or for that matter your any kind of business. If you decide to cut back on your marketing and advertising now, because you’re feeling the pinch of the economic slowdown … you’ll continue to feel that pinch long after the economy recovers.

Again, my thanks to Blaine Parker and David McBride for this excellent material and for permission to use it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli has posted on Vox Daily about the firestorm currently raging over the new opportunity members of the Voice123.com have to anonymously tag the demos of other talent. Lots of people are very upset. Many are concerned that giving other talent the ability to add tags (or keywords) to demos is a very bad idea. They fear that some unscrupulous talent may choose to add harmful or negative tags to the demos of other talent, knowing that these tags or keywords will influence the way those demos show up in searches on the site.

This is certainly a very real possibility. In theory, if everyone who does the anonymous tagging takes a professional attitude toward the process, there could be some value to the experiment. The idea, as Voice123.com presents it on their blog, is that both the talent doing the tagging and the talent being tagged are anonymous to one another. Here’s a snip from their blog …

This is currently a community experiment, giving talents the unique opportunity to anonymously tag a description of another talent’s demo, also anonymous.

Now, Stephanie, over at Voices.com’s Vox Daily, asserts this experiment is designed to add search engine optimization information to the Voice123.com site …

Why does [Voice123.com] want you to tag demos?
Simply put, they want their customers to do their search engine optimization for them.

I wanted to get the straight scoop on what this whole deal is about, so I clicked through the announcement email I received the other day to see how this tagging process works. Within a matter of minutes I could see at least 2 flies in the ointment that I don’t think the folks at Voice123.com thought through very well when they started this entire project.

First, not everything is as anonymous as the folks at Voice123.com suggest it will be. Why? Because many voice talent have slates on their demos. If you can hear the person’s name, he or she isn’t anonymous anymore. I discovered this because the third demo I tagged had a slate. So did the seventh.

And second, in the comments to their blog post, the Voice123.com team suggests that this community tagging experiment is analogous to StumbleUpon. I’ve been part of StumbleUpon for about a year and I can tell you the key difference is that there’s nothing very anonymous about StumbleUpon. If you’re a member, you can learn the user ID of everyone who has tagged or reviewed your sites.

But, at the end of the day, this is a big deal only to folks who see Voice123.com as one of the key components in their voiceover career. If you are a serious professional, I hope you’re not putting all (or even most) of your eggs in the Voice123.com or Voices.com baskets. I’m a Premium Member with both sites and make well more than enough to renew every year; but I am not counting on either site to provide most of my work. Some of my work comes through these online casting services. Some comes through my agents. Some comes from people finding me directly on the Internet. Some from existing client references. Lot of different sources. At the end of the day, it’s my responsibility and no one else’s to find my work.

I’m not going to get all that worked up over this latest move by the Voice123.com team any more than I get terribly worked up over a bad rating on an audition at Voice123.com (yes, I’ve actually had a one-star rating for one of my auditions there) because Voice123.com is not the be all and end of my voiceover business. (Nor is Voices.com.) Besides, if some malicious folks decide to put bad tags on my demos it can hardly hurt me. At present a search on Voice123.com for North American English speaking middle-aged male voice talent has me somewhere around page 114 of the search results.

As my friend Philip Banks says, there is a move toward quality among the people doing the hiring, as the great flood of new, inexperienced talent has washed through the Internet tides. Rather than expend a tremendous amount of worry and energy on what Voice123.com is doing, turn your energies and attention to honing your craft, your marketing and your work. The dividends those efforts pay will make all of this other stuff fade into obscurity.

Dan O’Day will hold a conference call on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 2:00 PM Eastern (also known as 11:00 AM Pacific) to answer your questions about Summit 2008 . If you’ve been thinking about attending, but having yet made up your mind, here’s your chance to get all your questions answered. And with plenty of time left to make register before the price goes up on June 1st.

If you decide to register, Dan has an affiliate program this year. So if you are attending the Summit for the first time and you put my name as your reference in the comment field of the registration form, I’ll get a commission from Dan. But, please, if you’d rather I DIDN’T get the commission, then DON’T put my name in the comment box. Your price for the Summit will be exactly the same regardless of whether you put me down as referring you or not.

I hope I get to see you in Los Angeles in August.