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People

Keeping the human connections going

General, People

Yesterday was a delightful day of keeping in touch with new friends and staying in touch with others’ we’ve known longer. For example, I wrote a few days ago about meeting the very talented Rowell Gormon and Jay Shapiro for lunch. Yesterday, while helping Rowell ever so briefly with his blog, I not only got a chance to spend some valuable further time with Rowell, but also with Wendy Zier, another talented friend of Rowell’s.

Even better, I got a chance to introduce my friend Brian Hart to Rowell and Wendy, thus helping to foster even more of these connections and friendships; which can only help all of us.

And best of all, I got a nice long visit in with Brian. We were joined at his house by the rest of my family, including my son Eric who is working with me both as a budding voiceover talent in his own right and as an audio editor.

Voiceover talents Bob Souer, Eric Souer and Brian Hart in front of Brian's house

From the left this is me, my son Eric and Brian all squinting into the blazing North Carolina summer sun in front of Brian’s house.

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More still on Marketing Substance

Career Advice, General, People

Tom Asacker writes a blog on marketing called A Clear Eye. It’s always worth a look and his latest post keeps me thinking about marketing. What I find especially striking about this post is that it’s one of those thoughts that has such a ring of truth about it.
This was my favorite line…

…the more valuable the brand, the less noisy it is…

But, take a moment to read the whole thing. It won’t take long.

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More on Marketing Substance

General, People

There are few better investments of your time than to sign up for Roy H. Williams’ Monday Morning Memo and then taking the time to read each one when it arrives in your email each Monday.

I mentioned this to my friend and fellow voiceover guy, Dan Nachtrab, the other day. I also recommended that he explore the treasure trove that is archives of these Memos.

Today, Dan called my attention to this remarkable paragraph, drawn from the Monday Morning Memo for February 11, 2002.

Thoughts about Thoughts – In summarizing his theories concerning the mental makeup of Man, a famous neurologist recently said, “We are feeling beings that think, rather than thinking beings that feel.” I wholeheartedly agree. (Remember the opening flyleaf of my 1998 book, the Wizard of Ads? “Intellect and Emotion are partners who do not speak the same language. The intellect finds logic to justify what the emotions have decided. Win the hearts of the people, their minds will follow.”)

So, stop reading this blog and go plunge into the accumulated wisdom of Roy H. Williams. Let me know when you surface and what you think.

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Study with Rodney Saulsberry

Career Advice, General, People

I received an email from Rodney Saulsberry this evening letting me know that he still has a limited amount of room available for his most popular teleclass, The Promo and Trailer Teleclass. It will run an hour each of 6 Thursday’s in a row, starting September 20, 2007 at 5:00 PM Pacific, 8:00 PM Eastern. Detailed information and registration is available through Rodney’s site. From this training page, click on the Promo & Trailers tab.

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Who is your worst critic?

Career Advice, General, People

If you’re like me and my friend Brian Haymond, and you’re willing to tell yourself the truth, you know the answer to that question. I am my own worst critic. And as Brian writes about so well on his voiceover blog, he understands he own worst critic is the guy looking back at him in the mirror each morning. Take a few minutes and read what Brian has to say. It’s well worth a few minutes of your time.

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A blog comes back to life

Blogging, General, People

In my efforts to find and link to every blog of relevance to us in the voiceover world, I found one some time ago called Babble-Blog, the blog of the Babble On Recording Studios in Minnesota. While checking out the various links in my blogroll this evening, I was delighted to see that this formerly rather, uh let’s just say, quiet blog has a new look and new activity.

Great to see you guys, active. I look forward to reading what you have to say.

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If you want to do audiobooks

Career Advice, General, People, Tools

In my experience there is no better way to get started doing audiobooks that to take Pat Fraley’s “Two Day Audiobook Master Event.” I received an email from Pat Wednesday with details about the next class, which is going to take place Saturday and Sunday, September 29 and 30, 2007. There are only 12 spaces available in this class, so it would be wise to let Pat know right away. Here are the details straight from his email.

Space is limited to 12 participants.

Cost:
$1400 Cash, Check or Credit Card
Payment schedules arranged upon request.

Where:
World Famous Buzzy’s Recording
6900 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90038

When:
10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday, September 29-30, 2007

To Enroll:
Email patfraleyteaches@aol.com
or call (818) 400-3733

What makes this class from Pat and Hillary Huber (and always at least a few other working pros) so valuable is that you get instruction not just in ways to interpret various kinds of audiobooks, but business ideas about where to find the work. And at the end of the class, you’ll have recorded your audiobook demo. You’ll receive that demo on CD a few weeks after the class. (Less than a month after I received my demo, I had signed with an audiobook publisher for ongoing work.)

It will be money and time well spent, if working on audiobooks is something that really interests you.

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Competition?

Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover, People

Sometimes you have to let someone else say a thing for you, because you’re too close to your own situation or opinions to be able to express what you mean as clearly as you’d like. That was my experience today reading an article from last month on the Future Now blog called grokdotcom.

Bryan Eisenberg wrote this post in response to a question posed by one of the site’s readers, about competition. Here is how Bryan began…

For the better part of a decade, we’ve published hundreds of articles, several books–including 2 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers–trained thousands of people, and consulted with the goal of educating the entire marketplace (including competitors) about the value-of/how-to convert website visitors into sales, leads, subscribers, etc.

During this time, we’ve armed our subscribers, competitors, licensees and friends with powerful ideas on how to better use web analytics, design more effective landing pages, how to use Google Website Optimizer, what makes people buy, why people share things through word-of-mouth, how to make your pay-per-click and search engine marketing more effective, and even about our methodology for pulling all these things together: Persuasion Architectureâ„¢.

We do it happily! As our friend Sean D’Souza likes to say, “Give the ideas. Sell the system.“

This is the key fact at the heart of this blog. I link to all kinds of other voiceover talents, including lots of other men. I link to every voiceover blog and forum I can find. I post ideas here as often as I can, either things I’ve thought about or things I’ve gleaned from other sites, articles and documents because helping you get better at voiceover helps us all, including me. As does helping you find the voice you need for your project, and then directing that voice to give you the performance needed to tell your story as effectively as possible.

You are not my competition, even if you’re auditioning for the same job that I am. If the clients decide they want Bob Souer, there’s only one voiceover talent on the planet who can pull that off…me. If they want you, it really doesn’t matter how well I did on my audition, you’re going to get the job.

I’m not going to keep the juicy stuff to myself and share some fluff now and then and try to dress it up like it’s juicy stuff. I’m going to give you every idea I have, because, as Bryan says so well in his post…

If you gave away every idea you ever had, people would still step up to ask you to help them, or do it for them. The same can’t be said if you don’t share with them at all.

Read the whole article. Then come on back because I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments.

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Three thorns and no rose

General, People

A few weeks ago, a bunch of us voiceover folk in North Carolina had a delightful time together, eating lunch, bowling and then sitting around listening to demos and talking for a few hours. One of our number who couldn’t make that event at the last minute was Rowell Gormon.

So, in conversations via email and the phone in the last few weeks, Rowell and I decided we’d try to just get together somewhere between where he lives in Raleigh and I live in Charlotte. That was today. We had a wonderful late breakfast in the restaurant at the Sheraton Four Seasons in Greensboro. Then spend 3 and a half delightful hours after lunch was finished, just talking and visiting. Joining us was Rowell’s good friend Jay Shapiro, another talented voiceover guy.

Here is a quick snapshot I took of Rowell and Jay.
Rowell Gormon and Jay Shapiro
And Jay was nice enough to shoot a quick photo of Rowell and me.
Bob Souer and Rowell Gormon

We had a delightful time and could have stayed and continued talking for another 4 hours. I look forward to our next visit together, when and where ever that may be.

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A question about studying with Nancy Wolfson

Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover, People, Tools

My friend Gregory Best was talking recently with my friend Kara Edwards about studying with Nancy Wolfson, who is not only Kara’s voiceover coach, but mine as well. Actually, if you’ve been reading this blog for the last 6 months, you didn’t need me to tell you that. I’ve written often about Nancy, and in my view, with good reason.

So, Kara mentioned to Greg that I’m studying with Nancy and he wrote me a very nice email with the following questions (which he has given me permission to quote here)…

Kara says that you have also taken class from Nancy Wolfson. What did you think? Did you feel you got your money’s worth from Nancy?

Here’s my answer to Greg…

Without a doubt, studying with Nancy Wolfson has been one of the best investments I’ve ever made in my voiceover career. The key reasons:

1. Nancy is plugged in to what’s really happening “on the ground” in the voiceover world in LA right now, especially in the commercial voiceover world. She has been a talent agent (she was Pat Fraley’s agent in the past), and today not only coaches all kinds of top talent who are booking commercial voiceover work all the time, she’s also involved in casting work. So, she knows what’s going on now. She’s not teaching something she learned 10 years ago, coasting on old, out-of-date information.

2. Nancy is one of the most searingly honest people you’ll encounter in this business. She’s a very decent, kind human being, but she’s willing to tell you the truth about what’s working, what’s not working and what needs work, as far as your sound, your demo and your reads. And, as I imagine you already know, finding someone who will tell you the plain truth is rare, especially among people you’re paying.

3. Nancy is terrific working with people at whatever level. She works with top pros, mid-of-the-bench guys like me, and even relative new-to-the-business folk.

4. Nancy’s instruction is extremely practical, put-it-to-use-today kind of stuff. She cuts through a lot of the myths and points out what works, what actually books and leaves aside a lot of the nice-to-know-but-not-really-practical stuff. Her instruction is clear, full of encouragement and enthusiasm. If you do decide to study with her, I don’t imagine you’ll finish a single session with Nancy in which you don’t understand more about how to better approach your voiceover work and career.

5. Nancy isn’t just about voice acting. She’s about business. She’s about helping you book work, or more work if you’re already booking work.
I hope this helps.

In the interests of full disclosure, if you decide you want to study with Nancy and you tell her that you are doing so because of me, I’ll get a free lesson from Nancy. So, if you don’t want me to get a free class, don’t tell her you learned about her through me or this blog.

Update: Stephanie has written an excellent post on Vox Daily about Voiceover Coaches. Well worth a few minutes of your time.

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Keeping his promise

Career Advice, General, People

Speaking of audiobooks, the New York Times has an article about Jim Dale, the actor who read the audiobook version of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Not his wife nor even his grandchildren have been able to get Mr. Dale to reveal what he knows. Good for you, Jim. Both on your superb audiobook work and for keeping your commitments.

By the way, my thanks to my voice coach, Nancy Wolfson for sending me the link to this article today.
(edited to fix typo)

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I hope I’ll see you at the Summit

Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover, People, Tools

Since 1996, Dan O’Day has been presenting a 2 day conference that’s called The International Radio Creative and Production Summit. I’ve attended every year since 1997 and have gained an amazing amount of valuable and useful information every year.

Each year is different. Some years the focus is on station imaging and production, some on writing, some on voiceover work. All 3 categories are represented every year, what changes is the emphasis. This year with Pat Fraley, Terry Berland and Don LaFontaine presenting, I think you can tell, voiceover is going to be in the spotlight. You can still save $100 on registration if you sign up to attend before the end of July. Click here for registration details.

And if you do attend, I hope you’ll make sure to say hello. I’ll be the large guy in the long-sleeved white business shirts and ties. I don’t think you’ll be able to miss me.

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A glimpse behind the camera

General, People

My friend and fellow voice actor Joe Rodriguez has been in Savannah, Georgia for the last several days shooting a film in which he is playing the lead. He’s been blogging about the experience. Day 1. Day 2. Day 2 follow-up. Day 3. Update: Joe has added comments about Day 4.

I’ll update this post with additional links as Joe posts his reports. Good for you, Joe. It’s so much fun to share this experience with you as you write about it.

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Study opportunities in Canada and the UK

Career Advice, General, Getting started in Voiceover, People

Deb Munro’s latest newsletter (link is a PDF file) provides these study opportunities in the UK and Canada in the coming few months.

• LONDON UPDATE!! Reminder – MIC & ME in the UK has been postponed to September 28th through October 1st. Contact us at info@debsvoice.com to register immediately. Check out www.debsvoice.com for more details.

• MIC & ME – Creating Voices Level 1 will be in Calgary August 25-26. This class is also filling up quickly. There is only 1 spot left for private coaching or demo sessions with Deb Munro in Calgary on August 24th. Register now to hold your spot. We will be teaching a newer variety of courses for upcoming classes, so this will be the last time for this course for a while.

•MIC & ME – Audition Voice Workout/Demo Prep will be in Regina on September 7/8/9th , Edmonton, Sept. 15/16, Vancouver on September 22/23, Toronto Oct 13/14, Vancouver Oct 20/21 .This popular class is filling up quickly, so advance registration is highly recommended. More dates to come.

•MIC & ME – TeleWorkout At Home each final Wed. of the month. This is your opportunity to learn from home on the phone and your webcam (if you have one). July 25th this month, Aug 29th for next month. Our most cost efficient way for you to stay in practice and discover new skills. All levels welcome. ONLY $75.00 for 2 hours of class time. (more registers means more free time for you.) Don’t forget our MIC & ME – CV 1 PowerPoint/Audiobook Home course. See www.debsvoice.com for more details.

•Special Guest JOYCE CASTELLONAS is coming to VANCOUVER Nov. 3/4/5 Joyce is from L.A. area this is her first time in Canada. Working for many companies such as, Warner Bros. and more, she’s recently started her own company. Joyce is happy to share her secrets, tips and tricks of the TV Promo and Narration world. She is more than amazing. Contact Deb Munro at www.debsvoice.com for more details. Joyce wants to discover more talent and loves to use Canadian talent.

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