Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

Karen Commins

Michael Palin’s thoughts on integrity

Happy new year! I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season and are enjoying this day. Each New Year’s Day, I strive to engage in activities that I want to occur all through the year. Symbolically and realistically, I can start the new year by focusing attention on things that matter to me. For instance, I went to the gym first thing this morning, and now I’m writing a blog entry before recording a script.

In mid- to late December, Drew and I took a holiday trip, which may provide musings for future blog entries. During the trip and in recent days, I have been catching up on some reading for pleasure. While I encouraged you on this day one year ago to look forward, today I want to tell you about a commercial script that was written almost 30 years ago.

The commercial in question wasn’t mine, but rather one for Michael Palin, member of the hilarious Monty Python team, fantastic travel writer, and charming TV documentary host. As a longtime fan of Monty Python and avid journal writer, I was excited to start reading Palin’s Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years. In numerous entries, he has mentioned various voice-over roles. Palin does not indicate whether the commercial discussed in his entry transcribed below was for voice-over or on-camera work, but I certainly admire his refusal to perform it.

Wednesday, April 19th [1978]

Arrival of the Pascall Bon-Bon script over breakfast. I read it and straightaway felt slightly nauseous. Jill had mentioned a figure exceeding 20,000 for this commercial, or possibly two, and what I had just read was a 30-second piece of trivia — worthless, unoriginal and banal. It looked as though it had been written in four minutes after a drunken lunch. Yet again my mind boggles at the huge discrepancy between money and talent.

I could so easily pick up the phone to Jill and say yes. Yes, I will ignore all my creative and artistic instincts. I will get an injection from the doctor on the morning of the commercial which will render me intellectually numb for the period of a day — at the end of which I will have done the horrendous deed, and be thousands of pounds better off.

Quite a temptation. But I realise that if I did this script I would be committing a crime against all the principles that concern me — honesty, value, integrity — all would be totally compromised. Helen read the script and agrees. So I have to phone Jill and withdraw my toe from the seductive waters of advertising yet again.

Fortunately Jill has seen a script and is equally unimpressed, so the problem of hurting her doesn’t arise. She phones the agency. An hour later the director calls back and asks if I would still be interested if the script were entirely rewritten.

While you may think that Michael Palin is a big name who can afford to make a decision to turn down a lucrative offer, the power to say NO rests with each of us. Palin wrote in his 4/13/78 entry some words that I hope will give you pause throughout this coming year and throughout your voice-over career:

So John has polarised his life into earning (routine, no great pleasure) and non-earning (creative and artistically satisfying). A dangerous set-up, I would say. I believe the only sane and satisfying way to live is to fuse the two and avoid, wherever possible, cheapening yourself for money. In that way talent gets eradicated.

I write in my journal almost every day, but I can only wish I had written something so profound. By sharing his journals with all of us, Michael Palin is a teacher to voice-over artists and performers everywhere.

In 2008 and beyond, may your every voice-over job and your entire life bring you artistic fulfillment, prosperity and happiness!

 

To the parents of aspiring voice talent

Since Drew and I love to travel, it’s no surprise that we enjoy watching The Amazing Race on TV each week. The show routinely starts late during football season, so we sometimes catch part of 60 Minutes while waiting for the Race to start. A story from 60 Minutes a few weeks ago has been on my mind because I have noticed a growing trend among the questions I receive about getting started in a voice-over career.

Morley Safer reported on the work habits of the generation known as the millenials those born between 1980 and 1995. The following direct quotes are points raised in the story:

  • They were raised by doting parents who told them they are special.
  • They have climbed Mount Everest. They’ve been down to Machu Picchu to help excavate it. But they’ve never punched a time clock. They have no idea what it’s like to actually be in an office at nine o’clock, with people handing them work.
  • Zaslow says that the coddling virus continues to eat away even when junior goes off to college. “I heard from several professors who said, a student will come up after class and say, ‘I don’t like my grade, and my mom wants to talk to you, here’s the phone,'” he says. “And the students think it’s like a service. ‘I deserve an A because I’m paying for it. What are you giving me a C for?'”
  • And dear old mom isn’t just your landlord; she is your agent as well. “Career services departments are complaining about the parents who are coming to update their child’s resume. And in fact, you go to employers, and they’re starting to express concern now with the parents who will phone HR, saying, ‘But my little Susie or little Johnny didn’t get the performance evaluation that I think they deserve,'” Crane says.

I’m sure every generation thinks that it is the one with hard-working folks, and everyone younger is lazy. I also believe that 60 Minutes targets an older crowd. Many of the statements are generalizations that don’t apply to an entire group of people. Still, I found one kernel of truth in the report: some parents are entirely too immersed in their adult childrens’ lives.

I receive a steady stream of e-mails and calls from people who want to start a career in voice-over. I frankly was shocked when I received the first message from a mother who asked for advice for her son, who was in college. It was the first such message, but it wasn’t the last.

My first thought when receiving inquiries from parents is:

Why doesn’t Johnny or Susie contact me on their own, or, better still, read a book about voice-over?

I am a firm believer in doing your own research and making your own way in this world. If you’re not motivated to discover and learn those things essential to advance yourself, why should I or anyone else be inclined to help you?

In one case, the language of the e-mail made me wonder if the child was old enough to be making career decisions. If the young person is of an age to work, s/he should make the decisions about the course of their life, including their work. However, if a parent is asking about voice-over on behalf on a young child, I question whether the parent is trying to live their own dreams instead of pursuing something that the child has wanted to do.

Johnny and Susie also need to face the cold reality that voice-over or any career in the performing arts is tremendously competitive. In fact, I think all career paths are extremely competitive among the people interested in that type of work. Voice-over has the added perceived attributes of glamour, simplicity and wealth to incite even more people to flock to it as a career choice.

Most people have no idea of the amount of training and equipment needed to become financially successful in this career. Dedication and perseverance are essential character traits. Through countless auditions, you will hear ‘no’ exponentially more than you will ever hear ‘yes’…if you even hear anything. Like any profession, it can take years to go through the appropriate education and become fully established.

In addition to the performance aspects, the voice talent must become proficient with managing a business. Even when you hire staff to perform duties such as accounting, engineering, IT support, marketing and shipping, you are the CEO of the business and must make all decisions related to your business.

Finally, I can’t imagine any scenario in which queries from mom and dad present a professional image of the prospective voice talent.

If you’re a parent who is eager to help your child start a voice-over career, the best help that you can give is to cut the cord and step out of the spotlight.

Johnny or Susie should be the one to investigate their chosen field. It’s a perpetual cycle to contact people, take classes, make a demo, and perform the marketing activities needed in this career.

The Amazing Race is like voice-over in that people must use their wits and skills to overcome obstacles and challenges while competing with others who are after the same prize. While the show observes the competition between 2-person teams, voice-over by its nature is a solo competition. Certainly the aspiring voice talent will need and want a good support team which may include mom and dad. However, the aspiring voice actors are the only people who can take the steps necessary first to become a working voice talent and then to sustain a career.

 

A page from my book

I treated myself to an early Christmas present by purchasing Rodney Saulsberry’s book Step Up To The Mic. It was a present in more ways than one. Saulsberry is a well-established voice actor who attributes his success to a positive attitude. It’s the sort of uplifting book that I would have liked to have written.

A positive attitude is not just about thinking nice thoughts or being nice to people. As Saulsberry explains, a positive attitude encompasses all of your thoughts about yourself and your abilities in voice-over work. While The Secret brought the ideas of the Law of Attraction to the masses, it’s an age-old principle that, to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson,

We become what we think about all day long.

Chapter 8 is my favorite chapter in the book because Saulsberry presents “Empowerment Exercises”. I particularly enjoyed the affirmations on page 82-83, perhaps because I used one and was delighted when it came true!

One thing that I don’t recall seeing in this book is the firm advice to write down your goals although Saulsberry does mention the steps used in goal-setting. I am an advocate of writing down goals, especially after reading the book Write It Down, Make It Happen: Knowing What You Want And Getting It by Henriette Klauser. Klauser wrote about dozens of examples of people writing their goals as a roadmap to their lives.

However, with multiple computers, journals, a smartphone and various scraps of paper in both the studio and office, it wasn’t always easy for me to remember my great ideas and plans. I had wonderful ideas for marketing my voice-over business, but I couldn’t find them.

After listening to David Bourgeois on the Voices.com Voice Experts podcast a few months ago, I decided to follow his method for creating a business plan. I bought a Moleskine notebook and tabbed it with headings about everything related to my voice-over business.

I currently have 10 sections in my voice-over planning book. If I see a promotional product that I want to send to people, I clip out the picture from the catalog and put it in the Marketing Ideas section. If I have an idea for a blog entry but don’t have time to write about it (as is so often the case), I make notes in the Blog Ideas section. I also have ideas for podcasts and e-books that I want to create. I carry the book with me everywhere and find myself constantly adding to it. Just looking at my voice-over journal makes me happy!

Given the books that I read and the one I am now writing in, it’s easy to maintain a joyful outlook and positive attitude about my voice-over career!

V-OJournal.jpg

 

How to achieve success in voice-over

The dictionary is the only place where Success comes before Work.

A couple of recent situations made me think of this phrase. I believe that you can achieve any goal you set for yourself ASSUMING that you are willing to do the work necessary to achieve it. I also know that no one can do your work for you, and no shortcuts exist on your journey.

I have previously commented and voice-over coach and actor Peter Rofe noted in an article this week:

There are a lot of people who want to get into voice-over work because they have the misconception that it’s a get-rich-quick scheme, that they can stay at home, record their voice in their pajamas, unshaven in a T-shirt …
and make lots and lots of money.

Now in some cases, that’s true, but usually for well-established voice artists.

I frequently receive calls and e-mails from people who want to get started in voice-over, study with me, request demo critiques, ask my opinion on teachers and classes, etc. A few weeks ago, I saw a message on a forum where I’m a regular contributor. Like so many other people who contact me personally, this person wanted to get into voice-overs because she has always been told that she had a nice voice. A forum member directed her to search for my posts, read what I had written and perhaps send a private message to me if she still had questions.

At 12:24pm, she responded that she would take those actions.

At 12.30pm, I received a private message from this same person. She wrote that she posted the question in the forum, and someone suggested that she contact me.

I responded to her first by quoting the advice to read what I’ve already written. I added: That’s my suggestion as well. While I can appreciate and understand your excitement, you would find the answers to many of your questions with a little research.

A couple of Saturdays ago, I received a phone call from someone who introduced himself and then said, I need an agent. During his somewhat lengthy voice mail message, he proceeded to do a few impressions for me and told me how to find him on YouTube. He also told me about a holiday CD he had created that he said the people loved.

If I had to predict which of these 2 people would be successful in realizing their voice-over dreams, I would pick the second person without hesitation.

Person One seemed unwilling to do even the least bit of work. A mere six minutes elapsed between the times that she learned about me and I received her message. She did not search for my posts and read absolutely nothing before firing off a message to me. I also was not pleased that she misrepresented to me the forum poster’s advice.

Person Two, however, already was doing some work, had looked at enough of my web site to learn my agent’s name and obviously was not afraid to enthusiastically promote himself. Calling a fellow voice talent, especially on a Saturday, was an unusual tactic to employ in his quest for agent. I don’t fault him for making the effort. He had an idea and took action; you never know when an inspired action will bring results. When I returned his call, I told him that I am a voice talent marketing myself, and I wouldn’t be able to help him get an agent.

As I tell everyone who asks, you will achieve your dreams by putting one foot in front of the other and taking some small step toward your goals everyday. Just remember — your success is defined by your work!

 

Trick…or Treat?

Today is Halloween, a day that kids throughout the land adore because it means they get free candy, just by saying the magic words Trick or Treat! Judging from an e-mail forwarded to me from a friend, trick or treat also may be the outcome when dealing with a service provider like a voice talent, or, in this case, a cake decorator.

The story, according to the e-mail, was as follows:

We had a “going away” party yesterday for a lady
at our Little Rock claim office.
One of the supervisors called a Wal-Mart and
ordered the cake.
He told them to write: “Best Wishes Suzanne” and
underneath that write “We will miss you”.
As the picture shows, it didn’t quite turn out right. It was
too funny not to keep it.

The moral of this story is: You get what you pay for!

Whether shopping for a cake decorator or the voice talent for your next project, do you really want to go to the place that promises the lowest price and tries to be everything to everybody but doesn’t do anything particularly well? Or, would you rather consult with someone who is a specialist in their craft, carefully collaborates with you on your exact requirements and guarantees your complete satisfaction? Remember, the one offering the lowest price may also be offering the highest number of mistakes. As a professional voice talent, I always want my clients to feel that working with me was a TREAT!

Just some food for thought for adults on this day when food is on the minds of the kids….

 

Need help in creating a marketing plan?

Atlanta has been in a severe drought, and, and long last, we finally have some rain. With nothing planned for today, the temptation is great on this cool and drizzly day to read a book and take a nap.

Even when I’m not working on voice-over projects, though, I am still working. I have written many times on this blog about the importance of marketing your services. Marketing activities should be planned and consistent so that you can move forward in your voice-over business. You don’t want to think in terms of one event, like a mailing; you want to think in terms of a system.

However, I frequently receive questions and read forum posts from voice talent who find the marketing process to be very daunting and mysterious. They don’t know how to set goals and create a system of marketing tasks designed to reach those goals. The object of marketing is to get the same people to hear about you over and over so that they feel comfortable with you and hopefully compelled to do business with you.

I have some suggestions to help you create your marketing plan.

My first recommendation to anyone confused about marketing is to read the outstanding book Get Clients Now by C. J. Hayden and published by the American Management Association. Hayden not only gives you bountiful ideas for specific tactics that you can implement with success in your voice-over business, but she outlines a structure for your plan. She proposes that you create a 28-day marketing plan based on your current goals. She uses a cookbook model by advising you to think of the plan as your action plan menu, where you choose the appropriate strategies as your recipes for success.

I have read many, many books on marketing, including Michael Port’s bestseller Book Yourself Solid : The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling. When I want to rethink or revitalize my marketing plan, I immediately return to Hayden’s book. I always achieve fantastic results when I fill out and apply the action and tracking worksheets in Hayden’s book. She breaks up the tasks depending on whether you want to contact new prospects, follow up with existing prospects and clients, or close more sales.

One comment is this book was particularly liberating to me:

Do you hate cold calling?
Don’t put it on your plan. Instead, build your Daily Actions
around warm calling and referral building.
Hayden includes strategies for personal contact and networking, writing, public speaking, advertising and web-based marketing, which build on the other strategies to reach a potentially larger audience. Some people like to throw marketing tasks out in all directions like spaghetti flung on the wall, with the thought of seeing what sticks. I believe that scattered thoughts lead to scattered actions and results. Just as I can’t be and don’t want to be all things to all people in my voice-over work, I prefer to concentrate on a few related marketing activities at one time.

For instance, I currently am focusing on marketing activities related to the Internet. I therefore was excited to learn this week that Stephanie Ciccarelli at Voices.com has created a new e-book titled Internet Marketing for Voice Actors. Ciccarelli is a superb on-line marketer, and she has outlined many of her proven strategies in this 35-page guide.

The first part of the guide provides some useful information about voice-over business descriptions, as well as an admirable analysis of the market and trends for voice-over services. While Ciccarelli briefly mentions some marketing strategies, half of this guide discusses search engine optimization and on-line networking. Ciccarelli provides an excellent analysis of various linking strategies and a terrific list of web sites containing search engine tools. The section covering on-line social networking is equally good, with descriptions of several major sites and a list of sites that I never knew existed.

Since I am a perpetual student of marketing and long-time computer geek, I did not discover any other revelations in this guide. I was surprised that Ciccarelli did not include a detailed list of the various press release sites since I know that she utilizes them. Of course, on a given day, most voice talent would not have a need to submit press releases. I also would have liked a list of sites Stephanie has used to syndicate her articles.

Still, I think most voice actors would benefit greatly from reading and applying the concepts in this new e-book, especially as a companion resource to a general marketing book like Get Clients Now. After all, marketing over the Internet is just one facet of a total marketing plan.

I just looked out the window and noted that it looks even more dreary than when I started this entry. I think I will re-read these 2 marketing books for a bit before taking a much-deserved nap!