Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

Marketing

Cruising for a competitive advantage

A new audiobook project and new office furniture have kept me from writing a blog update in the past couple of weeks. Just after posting the last entry, though, Drew and I went on a fabulous Alaskan cruise which left from San Francisco. The scenery in Alaska truly is amazing — one snow-covered mountain peak after another. It’s hard to believe magnificent pristine environments like those we saw still exist when all of the land in Atlanta seems over-developed and commercialized.

Mountain Reflection.jpg

We’ve been on 9 cruises and already have the 10th one scheduled. While on our trip, I was thinking about the overwhelming choices offered by the abundant number of cruise lines. How would a person actually pick the ship and itinerary?

Like those who think all voice-over artists are the same, much about each ship and cruise seems the same. However, the cruise lines distinguish themselves and gain repeat customers through their competitive advantages and marketing strategies. Every business owner, including voice-over actors, would do well to set sail with this philosophy in mind.

A while back, I read a book by Larry Steinmetz and William Brooks titled How to Sell at Margins Higher Than Your Competitors: Winning Every Sale at Full Price, Rate, or Fee. The authors suggest that your competitive advantage boils down to one or a combination of these 5 fundamental attributes:

  • price
  • quality
  • service
  • advertising/promotion/salesmanship
  • delivery

In this eye-opening book, the authors assert that people who make buying decisions solely on the basis of price are not people whom you wish as clients for these compelling reasons:

1) They take all of your sales time.

2) They do all of the complaining.

3) They forget to pay you or are notoriously slow payers. To quote the authors: Anybody to whom money is so important tends not to settle accounts quickly. Anybody who is willing to beat the daylights out of you for an extra one quarter of 1 percent is more than willing to take that extra discount in the form of the time-value of your money by slow pay of your account.

4) They tell your other prospects or customers how little they paid for something. The authors wrote: Bragging about what they’ve bought from you and how little they paid for it, perhaps, is the most debilitating thing that price-buyers can do to you. Not only have they beaten you up on price, but they encourage other prospects to do the same.

In thinking of the many people we have met on cruises, I can testify about the truth of this statement. A cruise line may change prices for the same sailing depending on many factors, including exclusiveness of itinerary, advance bookings and unsold cabins. Some people seemed interested in talking with us only because they wanted to find out how much we paid for our cabin and tell us about the great deal they made.

5) They are not going to buy from you again, anyway.

The authors listed 4 other reasons to avoid price-shoppers, and the entire book is devoted to tactics for selling your services at your stated price. They discuss many techniques that prospects use to get you to cut your price. They also provide you with methods to combat price resistance and finalize the transaction. I cannot recommend it highly enough for any voice talent or other business owner.

If you decide — as I have — that you aren’t going to lower your prices to meet a potential client’s demands, you’ll have to compete on some other basis. The authors list 20 things a buyer would like besides a low price, including:

  • an easy, “no-brainer” relationship
  • total product offerings
  • reliability and dependability
  • breadth and depth of quality
  • knowledge, competence and follow-up

Your voice itself is part of your competitive advantage. We are all unique, and no one thinks or speaks in the same way you do. In Michael Port’s excellent book 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, you will find an impressive list of questions that will help you identify other ways that you are unique.

Once you have defined your unique offerings, Port steps you through defining a target and niche market based on your unique attributes and the types of clients that you want to attract.

To continue the analogy with the cruise lines, we could argue that the cruise lines seem to offer similar service, quality and delivery. Their competitive advantage seems to be in their advertising, promotion and salesmanship. Each line has defined a target market and then advertises to that market. Norwegian Cruise Lines appeals to the non-conformists. (Those who know me could readily guess that NCL is my favorite cruise line.) Royal Caribbean shows ads featuring families with diverse interests. Princess Cruises aims to lure the couples wanting a romantic getaway. Carnival Cruises attracts a younger crowd seeking sun and fun.

As a voice-over artist, I specialize in audiobooks, narrations and podcasts. Sure, I enjoy creating character voices and would love to be the next big star in a hot animated movie. After going through the exercises in Port’s book, though, I determined that my marketing efforts are better suited toward e-learning modules, corporate narrations, etc.

Having a MS degree in computer information systems and over 20 years of experience working in IT positions doesn’t really help me in landing roles as a character voice actor. However, these same attributes become huge competitive advantages when marketing to an e-learning target market and information technology niche market. By taking the time to assess my strengths and build marketing tactics around them, I can steer my voice-over career to exciting new places and heights.

 

How to sparkle like a diamond

 

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds.
Discard them and their value will never be known.
Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson
I love this quote! I have written numerous times about spending my spare moments in the improvement of myself in my voice-over career. Today, the word diamonds from the quote made me think about the advertising habits of two jewelry stores here in Atlanta. I decided to write about them so others can learn from this example.

As a person with a passion for marketing and promotion, I constantly analyze all forms of advertising broadcast commercials, billboards, magazines and even direct mail pieces — to see what I can apply to my voice-over business. It’s especially beneficial to examine how competitors choose to hawk similar commodities in a full marketplace.

In this case, both jewelers both specialize in diamond wedding sets and are continuous radio advertisers. Both enterprises utilize the company owners as the voice talent in their ads. Both establishments sell upscale jewelry, and Jeweler B also sells Swiss watches. They are true to their brand in their advertising.

Beyond these similarities, though, they run very different types of ads. First, they appear to be targeting different market segments. Jeweler A seems intended for those who appreciate and are willing to pay for elegance, while Jeweler B seems to be directed at the price-conscious crowd.

Jeweler A has a distinctive nasal voice. He always talks about new or featured product lines, gift ideas, his money-back guarantee, etc. Sometimes he relates a story based in a testimonial. He quietly talks about the benefits and pleasures of shopping with him and consistently gives you reasons why you may want to do so.

The ads for Jeweler B often feature the 2 men who own and run the business. Sometimes they mention advantages of shopping with them, like the number of graduate gemologists on staff and their longevity in the market. They make jokes like they want to appear that they didn’t think about the spot in advance. I suppose they want to convey the ultra-casual atmosphere of their stores where the sales people wear jeans and t-shirts.

In other ads, Jeweler B airs fake game shows where one of the contestants is someone poorly imitating Jeweler A. The nasal voice is always accentuated, and the imitator is always made to sound stupid and bumbling.

When listening to the ads from Jeweler A, you would never think that another jewelry store even exists. You certainly wouldn’t think that the owner is worried about competition in a saturated market.

Since Jeweler B often mocks Jeweler A in their ads, it’s obvious that they are keenly aware and perhaps even afraid of their competition. In fact, many of their ads border on personal attacks although they are presumably meant to be humorous. On a personal level, I do not want to deal with anyone who makes themselves sound or feel better at the expense of other people.

Every marketing book will tell you to focus on the benefits for the target market in your communications with them. Jeweler A consistently highlights in his ads those things important to his target market, where Jeweler B concentrates on them only half of the time.


The lesson for voice-over artists is that we also need to continuously highlight the benefits of working with us.

If you can’t articulate attributes of value and service that your target market considers important, how would your prospective clients ever be able to discern that you are the best fit for their needs?

These benefits are also known as your competitive advantages. I have a few thoughts on that topic as well, but that sounds like another article for another day. 🙂

In the meantime, spend your spare moments improving your own skills rather than worrying about, or worse, maligning those of your competitors. Polishing your skills will enable you to sparkle like a brilliant diamond in your marketing efforts and will make your life as a voice talent all the more useful.

 

Saying “thank you” after the gig

Seattle voice talent Jeffrey Kafer recently wrote a terrific blog entry about ways to go above and beyond in your service as a voice talent. While I do several of the things on his list, the most important one is expressing gratitude for the voice-over gigs that come my way.

Whenever I first work with a client, I always send that person a hand-written note and include a small gift card. I have been surprised how many people respond by thanking ME for the gesture! They truly seem touched by the thoughtfulness. Apparently, many people emulate Don LaFontaine’s view of thank-you notes and gifts:

Don’t suck up! Please! Don’t spend a lot of your time and money finding little gifts for your clients or sending thank-you notes after each session. I know this advice flies in the face of other opinions, but it’s what has always worked for me. Think about it. You don’t receive much more than a Christmas card from the people who work for you, like your mail carrier, your paper delivery boy, or your dry cleaner. There is no reason to be overtly grateful for the work. You’re doing them as much of a favor by performing consistently as they are in giving you the job in the first place. It’s a very symmetrical synergy.
 — Don LaFontaine, Secrets of Voice-Over Success, p. 20

While I don’t pretend to have the stratospheric demand or accompanying financial blessings of Mr. LaFontaine, I disagree with his statements about thank-you gifts on several points. First, voice talent cannot compare themselves to postal workers. American postal workers are salaried employees of the US federal government who automatically earn a paycheck and benefits. As I worked for much of my life as a federal employee, I can also state that federal employees are prohibited by law from accepting gifts exceeding a very modest value, and all gifts received in a calendar year count toward that value.

Aside from these monetary issues, the bigger difference between voice-over artists and postal carriers is that the postal service has a monopoly. If you want to receive mail and have it delivered to your house each day, you know you must contact the postal service.

Someone choosing voice talent doesn’t have such a clear-cut decision. The decision-maker could search for the ideal voice-over specialist through millions of individual web sites of voice actors or on various on-line casting sites. The person looking for voice talent may decide to contact a talent agent to narrow the field, or they may be influenced by the marketing efforts of a particular voice talent. Perhaps the person asks someone in their industry for a recommendation.

Regardless of the manner through which they decide to hire me, I am well aware that my clients had a choice. When they have another opportunity to contract voice talent, I want to do everything in my power to ensure they choose me again. My thank-you note may signal the end of the first job, but often, it is the bridge to a long-term relationship.

In the big picture, gratitude is a critical attribute for attracting prosperity and abundance. How can you expect to receive more of anything — including voice-over jobs, wealth and prestige — if you don’t convey constant gratitude for everything that you already have?

Showing gratitude today will not only set you apart from other voice talent, as noted by Jeffrey Kafer, but more importantly, you will put the right kind of energy out in the world. As I continue to read and learn from works based on the Law of Attraction, I understand more and more that what you put out in the world will come back to you and probably in ways that you didn’t expect.

Because of the energy that I am sending forth into the universe, I expect someday to achieve the level of success in voice-over currently enjoyed by Don LaFontaine. Even then, I would still send a personal thank-you note to each new client.

 

Are on-line casting services for you?

Newcomers to the voice-over industry frequently ask me and other established talent whether they should join an on-line casting service such as Voice123.com or Voices.com. I think that many people are afraid to plunk down some money, especially for a service that cannot guarantee work. In the past, I have answered this question by recommending the person should search the archives of VO-BB.com, the Yahoo Voiceovers group or other Internet discussion groups devoted to voice-over as the topic is a common and hotly-debated one.

Marketing guru Jay Abraham noted that everyone in an industry tends to do everything the same way to grow and sustain their business. In voice-over, standard income-producing processes include promoting oneself, having an agent and joining an on-line voice-over casting agency.

While you don’t pay an agent until you book work, you must pay an on-line casting service for a yearly subscription. If a majority of people in your industry are participating in some marketing endeavor, like a casting service, it makes sense to participate in at least one service as well.

You have to determine a marketing budget for your voice-over business and from it, decide which, if any, services you should join. The subscription fee is an investment in my business, just I as also invest money in continuing education, equipment upgrades and other forms of marketing.

Asking individual people about their results with a particular casting service will not yield useful data. Car manufacturers will tell you that your mileage may vary depending on numerous circumstances; the same is true with one’s success in obtaining voice-over work from web-based services. Some people will never book anything through these services, while others land a steady stream of jobs.

To me, an on-line casting service is just another avenue of potential work and another way my name shows up in the search engines. With an on-line voice-over casting service, I know that I will have an on-going opportunity to decide which projects look interesting, practice scripts and communicate with potential clients. Jobs and clients gained through these services are just added bonuses.

My greatest source of work has been through my own self-promotion, in which I follow Jay Abraham’s theory:

In order to engineer true breakthroughs in those 3 areas of your business [marketing, strategy and innovation], you must travel outside your industry or your current business to look for the breakthroughs.

Abraham states that you’ve got to switch your thinking from tunnel vision — which is the way that everyone does things within your own industry — to funnel vision. Create a funnel of those success processes in other industries which you can pour into your own business.

It’s okay to be in the same place with everyone else in your industry. It’s so much better to be some place where you are the only voice talent. It’s up to you to figure out that location based on your assessment of your voice and where it fits in the marketplace.

I view each marketing activity I undertake as a test. If the test is effective, I will continue with that tactic. If it isn’t, I will do something else. A subscription to an on-line voice-over casting service can be considered a test of one of the tactics in your marketing plan. You will never know how well a service or any marketing tactic will work for you unless you commit the time and money to implement it.

 

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!

 

Has your ship come in?

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Barry Manilow. You may have heard his name lately because he is promoting a marvelous new album. One reason behind his longevity in the music business and his millions of fans is that Barry is constantly involved in some new venture, and he isn’t afraid to let people know about it.

      I was thrilled to speak with Barry over the phone
for a couple of minutes when he visited a local radio show as part of his continuing promotional efforts. While I could barely speak in my excitement, Barry’s words are true and clear. When the host told Barry “you don’t stop,” Barry replied with words to inspire any creative person and especially this voice talent.

Rodney Saulsberry, a voice talent known for his work in commercials and movie trailers, agrees with Manilow. Saulsberry wrote in his fantastic book You Can Bank on Your Voice: Your Guide to a Successful Career in Voice-Overs:

The voice-over business is a high-stakes, competitive industry,
and there is no time to be modest when it comes to letting
potential clients know you are the person for their next project. 

Many people seem to be more passive about ensuring their career success. I have heard many voice actors and others using the expression “when my ship comes in”, meaning that your luck, opportunities and hopefully your fortune have just become more positive. I read a story once about the origin of that phrase.

In the time of world exploration hundreds of years ago, a ship coming in to the harbor was a big deal. The monarchs and wealthy patrons who financed the explorers did so with the knowledge that the ship might sail away and never return. If the ship did return, it might be damaged. At the very least, the explorer might return with nothing more than a bad case of sunburn and stinky clothes to show for the adventure. However, the financiers of these operations would continue to send out ships, hoping that one would return with the motherload of treasure.

The point of the story is applicable to voice-over talent or anyone in business for themselves:

If you want your ship to come in,
you have to keep sending the ships out.

Some of your ships will never return. Some will return carrying letters like the one I quoted in a previous entry. A glorious few will sail in with a new client on board!

Like Barry Manilow and Rodney Saulsberry, I send out as many query and promotional ships as possible in as many directions as possible. You can be sure that when my ships come in, I’m not at the airport, but sitting in my stunning soundproof studio and ready to get to work!