Why I Hired My Plumber: How’s Your Voice-Over Business?

Our water heater died last week. Sniff. Not only that, it was kinda leaking everywhere. After two days of hoping my husband’s efforts with the wet-vac would buy us some time (ha!), I knew I had to call in an expert.

What Does This Profession Tell Us About VO?

So what to do? Audition plumbers? Post a project and consider dozens of prospective plumbers? Yikes. What a pain that would be!

Nope. I did what most of our voice-over clients want to do: Hire someone they trust to do the job professionally, reliably, skillfully – to their satisfaction.

The Odds: Auditioning vs. Marketing

Yep. I firmly believe that many of my VO clients and prospective clients never even listen to a good portion of the auditions they receive.  Would you? Just go to voices.com or voicebank.net and put yourself in the client’s shoes.  Listen to some demos, even the top-rated ones. How quickly have you had enough?

Value Exceeds Cost: The Designer Voice Talent

The project specs say: Client is very budget focused.  Um..okay. But what does that mean? Sure, so you can go on fiverr.com and find someone to read words for, well, five bucks.  But – what’s the value?

Consider this: How long is takes to get the sound and attitude you were looking for, how much creativity the voice talent brings to the project, how easy he/she is to work with, and your satisfaction with the final product.

If someone calls your phone system, sees your video, takes that virtual tour – what will that potential customer’s first impression be of your product, project or company?  They may not be aware that a sub-par voice created a sub-par first impression, but it will be there.

One recent client told me, at the end of a phone patch session for an awards show, “Working with you guys is always a pleasure because it requires the least amount of intervention on my part.” Thanks!

What does an experienced and/or well-trained newbie voice talent bring to the project? Here are a few of those things:

• Responsiveness. If you say, “can you make it more authoritative, but still friendly, and just make the tempo a bit faster – oh, except on this line…” – we can do that for you.
• Creativity. If you ask, “I don’t know. Just try something.” – we can do that for you, too. Five different ways.
• Fun. We have a professional fee scale because many of our clients are regular customers. Part of that is that we are fun – and easy – to work with. We’ve been at this long enough to bring confidence to the session.
• Professionalism. We meet deadlines, honor commitments, have spent time and money on home studios, take care of our voices, invest in “continuing VO education” to keep our skills sharp – vocal, technical, and business.
• Uniqueness. Like every actor.

To paraphrase an old L’Oreal ad (and date myself in the process): Sure, I’m expensive. But you’re worth it. Designer voice talents make a client’s work easier, and the final product something to be really proud of. And that pays off, in many ways, in the long run. That’s the value.

—

“Randye ‘gets it.’ She has a way of sensing the right level of assertiveness, compassion, playfulness, sarcasm (or whatever is being called for) on the first take so that subsequent takes are more a matter of fine-tuning. Recommending Randye Kaye to my clients makes me look good!” – Walt Graham Productions, Norwalk, CT

“Randye has worked with Fairview Media on multiple projects with tight deadlines, and rapidly changing requirements. She has always been right with us, through easy clients, and not so easy jobs, remaining on track and on time, giving her expert knowledge of professional voicing to us. Randye is an asset that I will continue to keep in my ranks for the future.” – Eric Oppegaard, Fairview Media

Randye is the consummate storyteller. She is among the best voice actors we’ve ever recorded…a real pro.”

— Daniel M. Welsh, President and Publisher, Spoken Arts Media, NY

Back to Basics: The Fun of Voice Acting

Yeah, we know – these days a voice talent wear sooooo many hats, the first of which is the hat of a small business owner.  The wonderful Dave Courvoiser, who is a way more prolific blogger than haphazard l’il ole me, has a fabulous CourVO  post that explains this beautifully: A New Hat.

We all have days where the last hat we get to wear is the one that sold us on this profession in the first place: the task of bringing the words on the page to life for the benefit of the listener. I am fortunate enough (and, yes, have worked hard enough) to say that I get to do this just about every day now – sometimes for 12 hours, sometimes for 15 minutes – and each time a client is happy with the result, it reminds me of why I love this job as voice talent:

I love the challenge of lifting the written word off the page and turning it into a conversation with the listener. I love this!!! And if you don’t – well, there where’s the payoff for the work you do when you are wearing those other hats?

And that’s why we chose to do this work, most of us.  Believe me, it wasn’t because it was an easy path to the first gig, or for the guarantee of quick big bucks that some think awaits them like a pot of gold at the end of some rainbow (wherever that is…)

Frequent Faffers: Why We Can’t Wait for Faffcon 5

Two weeks from now I’ll be back with fellow Voice Talents, this time in Charlotte, NC.

loving faffy the mascot

My name is Randye and I am a frequent faffer. (everybody all together: “Hi, Randye!”)

Why? Why spend hard-earned voiceover income on plane fare, hotel lodging, and a registration fee? WIIFM? (“What’s in it for me….?”)

Oh, so much. That’s why I am doing it for the fifth time. Yes, I am not only a frequent faffer, I guess I’m kind of addicted.

If you are saying, “huh?”, allow me to explain.

This is from the official info department:
Voice talent from around the world (Australia, Great Britain,

some founding faffers – we were in Portland OR in 2010!

Canada, United States) have come to FaffCon since it began in 2010. The objective for participants and guiding principle behind FaffCon
is very simple- “Get What You Need, Share What You Can”. FaffCon continues to provide a very educational, interactive and fun environment that encourages peer-to-peer professional development for
all unconference contributors (who are nicknamed “Faffers”).

So, it’s a gathering of Voiceover professionals, only about 100 of us (hence the waiting list every year, and many of us camping out by our computers until registration  opens).

Why I’m Not a Voice Over Superstar- Yet

I recently heard from one of my agents, someone who represents me in Chicago. We hadn’t had any contact in awhile, so I was checking in to see if we should “break up” or not.  You know. Weeding.

What she said was both reaffirming and a wake-up reminder:

The reaffirming part: “You are an amazing talent.  I was just on your website and it is incredible.”  (Thank you!)

The wake-up call? : “In our market – most all clients want to audition in person... They won’t accept taped auditions.  I have had clients hear your voice and like it but want to record locally and not by distance.” (Aha!)

Jumping Up a Voice Over Level

There it is:  Sometimes you’ve gotta live in the Big City if you wanna get work there.  If you want to jump the level, like in a video game.

At Edge Studio, yes in NYC

Honestly, I am really happy with my voice-over career so far. I have regular clients, new interest in my work every week, several agents, local/national/international clients – and, most importantly, I pay the bills doing what I love while also being there for my family, friends, and other passions of my life.

Pretty fortunate, right?

Persistence and the Ping-Pong Ball: Voice Over and Business

Last night I taught “Extended Studies” class #4 (of eight) at Norwalk Community College, on The Basics of Voice Acting. Although the topic was “Acting Skills plus Technique: Variety from Both sides of the Brain”, so many of the students needed to hear the VO Business info again that we spent almost an hour reviewing the fact that, yes, it will take work to get work! It reminded me of this article I wrote for Technorati about how my book got to publication at last – and these principles apply to Voice Over as well – or any goal.

Article first published as Persistence and the Ping-Pong Ball on Technorati.

My book, Ben Behind His Voices: One Family’s Journey from the Chaos of Schizophrenia to Hope has launched. Suddenly I have an author’s page on Amazon, and I’m being asked to serve on panels about “how to get published” – on the success side of the table. (Wow. Really? Me? You want my advice?)

Persistence and Publication – (and Voice Overs too)

Well, OK. Here’s what I know, at this point in time, about success.
• Know your gifts. Recognize that feeling in the zone – when you love doing something enough to keep at it, just for the joy of it.
• Improve your skills. Make sure that thing you love to do is good enough to present to the world. We all know someone who thinks he can sing. Enough said. If self-belief is really self-delusion, you are going down a dead-end road.
• Partner. As you’re improving, get some trusted peeps to chime in with their expertise, advice, encouragement, and support. Let yourself be accountable to them. Hard to give yourself a deadline – at least it is for me.
• Persist. This alone will not work without the other three qualities. But the other three won’t get you anywhere without this one. To remind myself, I use a ping-pong ball.

Voice 2012: Why Connect in Person?

Sure, Voice Talents communicate all day – but often to imagined listeners,  while we are alone in our VO studios.  Yes, we have facebook, skype, google + hangouts, twitter, e-mail and (oh yeah) the phone…but there’s  nothing like gathering together, face-to-face, to learn, laugh, gather inspiration and revel in the  collective energy of one of the most amazing work communities ever: voice over professionals.

Why do it? Why spend $$ to fly to California, spend nights away from our studios, maybe prepare a session to present, risk laryngitis talking and laughing by the firepit until 2 AM?

Here are some really good reasons, from VOICE 2012.

FUN – watching Disneyland’s World of Color with a bunch of  other people who also pretend for a living is a blast. Children at heart. I almost cried three times.

CONNECTION -  yes, other folks are crazy enough to give up a closet or a bedroom in order to talk into a microphone for a living.

INSPIRATION – How did others get where they are? What obstacles did they overcome? What keeps them inspired, professionally and personally? This is way deeper than e-mails.

with Joe Cipriano at the Garden Party playing “travel mic”

LIFE-SIZE connection – as much as I value my “online” friends, there’s still something about shaking hands, hugging, laughing, looking into someone’s eyes and having an in-person conversation.

SHARING – still the most gracious, respectful, fun, giving community I’ve ever been a part of. Where else do you get to hear folks give away the secrets that have resulted in their success?

LEARNING -

some tweet-worthy quotes from presentations and conversations – and when I download the audio from the other sessions, I’m sure there will be more.

Marc Cashman:  always ask a question sincerely.

Trish Basanyi: Make tweets 70% business, 30% fun.

Pat Fraley …on copy analysis and acting choices: Before you perform, you have to be a professor. On prep…Protect your process. The engineer has a house because you take your time.

Stephanie Ciccarelli: Write your voices.com profile in third person.

Crispin Freeman: Acting is playing pretend. Do it so well they pay you to do it.

Bettye Zoller:  If listeners know there’s a script, we’ve failed.

David Goldberg (Edge Studio) : Be relevant. Know the changes in the voice-over industry and react to them.

Bill Farmer: (voice of Goofy) You have to LOVE what you do!

International Panel: Australia has a standard VO rate card – we all use it.

and thanks to Mike Raphone, who tweeted this quote from my presentation, “The Script is a Treasure Map”: “If you don’t open your mouth for a reason, you’re just reading” -Randye Kaye

Still absorbing. Still following up with new and old friends. Still putting new info into action. Thanks to all – and I miss you already! But I can remember, when voicing that next script in my studio, I am not the only one talking to my imaginary friends and getting paid to do it.

Voice 2012 confirms what we already know: the Voice-Over Community Rocks!

Voice-Over Customers: Always Right?

Are your voice over clients always “right”?  If they direct you (in-studio, on phone-patch, via e-mail),  is the sound they want always right for the copy in your eyes (ears)? Have you ever had a client give you a line-reading, which you mimic perfectly, only to hear, “that’s not what I meant!”.

Sigh.

The answer is – well, there is no clear answer.

This much I do know.The client has the right to ask you to voice the project

Leads to Happy – and often Repeat – Clients

any way they want. It is their baby, their vision. Sometimes they ask for our input – and many of my regular clients love that collaboration once they know and trust me – but sometimes, especially at first, our job is to deliver whatever it is they think they want.

Trouble is: sometimes the communication issue comes into play. How to say, in words, what it is the ear wants to hear, the heart wants to feel, in playback?

That’s part of the challenge of voice-over. And, often, part of the fun! And, sometimes, part of the frustration. But when you nail it so that everyone (especially the client) is happy, then it feels like sweet victory. Even if you don’t always agree with the client’s choice. We, the talent, are not always right either.

Voice Over Marketing: Front Burner, Back Burner?

Contrary to what some of my friends think, I do not live, breathe and think Voice-overs 24 hours a day.  In fact, one of my favorite things about this business (and I’ve been making a living at it for over 2 decades…yeah, I’m that old…) is that it has given me the flexibility to work in other aspects of my life, as things unfold. And – those things contribute to making me a better, more well-rounded, voice talent.

Don’t get me wrong – as with any successful small business, I value my VO clients and serve them well.  That’s why over 90% of the jobs I do are for repeat clients.  But all VO talents know that to grow your business, the rest of the time must be spent- um, making new friends. Aka marketing. Keep that other 10% flowing in, and keep your best customers happy.

And that’s where the burners fit in – and the size of the flames under them.

Voiceovers: That’s What I Like About You

So you wanna be in voice overs? Yes. Well, read up, person with that lovely voice. Just check the archives at voiceoverXtra, Edge Studio, or any of the number of fab VO blogs out there, and you’ll get the truth: becoming a professional voice over talent takes lots of training,  hard work, marketing,creating business goals, scheduling action steps, investments of time and money, and an effort to always think ahead.

When I teach Investigate Voice Over classes for Edge Studio, or in answering the inevitable cocktail party  “so how can I get into VO?” question, I make the hard work clear: Voiceover is a business. I don’t care if you have an agent or not – it is still a small business you must run yourself – as talent, salesperson, marketing team, accountant, perpetual student, networker, and often editor and producer.

So – why do we do it? What’s the payoff? The other side of the coin?

Faffcon VO Fun

Like in any relationship that needs work, sometimes we need to be reminded of why we fell in love in the first place. So, dear newbie or pro, here’s my love list.

Why I Love being a Voice Over Talent:

1. Fun! This morning I got to play a baby owl (who spoke English – yeah, animation), this afternoon a16-year-old girl for an audiobook, and then a medical expert who could explain fibromyalgia. That is a blast.