Observations

Make it easy for your clients to want to refer you

27 August 2010

Since Drew now is a Divemaster in the Dive Immersion Program at the Georgia Aquarium — a job, by the way, which seems to beat out voiceover talent for the coolness factor in the minds of other people — he no longer needs a home office. We are converting his office to a man cave, and we need some additional storage space.

We decided we could accomplish our storage needs by adding one more cabinet to our garage. A few years ago, in our ongoing quest for beautiful organization, we hired Premier Garage to renovate our garage. As repeat clients, we thought it would be a quick, easy, and painless process for them to install the new cabinet, especially since the company has an office and manufacturing facility about 2 miles from our house.

What could be simpler than installing a new cabinet

in a beautifully organized garage of a repeat client?

To date, Premier Garage has been to my house an astonishing 4 times over multiple days, with a 5th trip scheduled next week, for this cabinet installation! Yes, the job should be simple, but this company is too disorganized to plan and execute it.

1) The tech arrived with the wrong size of cabinet and no door handles. What happened to the adage of “measure twice, cut once”?

2) The tech came back another day with a replacement cabinet, which was STILL the wrong size. I wondered why they didn’t bother to check it before they left the office.

3) On the third attempt, the tech came with the right size of the cabinet shell, but the doors were the wrong size. He also didn’t have the interior shelves.

4) This morning, the guy was were here to install the correct doors. Again, we have no handles and no shelves! In addition, the cabinet has holes in the back wall caused by incorrect drilling that must now be filled. “Measure twice, cut once” is definitely a foreign concept to these folks.

In addition to the various screw-ups with the actual cabinet installation, the techs have irritated me in 2 other ways that demonstrated a lack of respect and concern for their customer:

On 3 of the 4 visits, we were given an arrival window of a 30-minute time period, yet the techs still showed up late without even a courtesy call.
Today, the tech backed into the driveway up to the garage threshold and left his truck running while he worked, which filled my garage with the lovely smells of gas fumes and truck exhaust on a day that promises to be quite hot.

The easiest and most gratifying voiceover job for me is one with a repeat client. I look at the last session for that client and copy the same Pro Tools settings to the new session. I know the type of file transmission that the client prefers. I communicate about the turn-around time at the project outset and then work to beat the deadline. The client has no concerns about the quality of my recordings or my speed and efficiency in completing the job for them because I proved myself to them the first time and pride myself on maintaining a consistent high level of service.

In short, a job with a repeat client is an opportunity to exhibit consistency and reliability. If you are reliable and consistent, a client will turn to you automatically when they need voice talent. What’s more, they are happy to refer you to other people who could utilize your services.

In his excellent and highly recommended book titled Work Like You’re Showing Off: The Joy, Jazz, and Kick of Being Better Tomorrow Than You Were Today, Joe Calloway refers to consistency as the gold standard:

You can count on me. You can believe in me. If I say I’ll do something, I’ll do it. Put it in the bank. Bet the farm on it. It doesn’t matter whether or not I’m in a good mood, have a headache, forgot to pick up my clothes from the cleaners, had a fight with my daughter, lost my keys, or didn’t sleep last night. If I said I’ll do it, then I’ll do it.

What’s more, I’ll do it every time.

If you can say all of that, and back it up, that’s more than showing off. That’s delivering the goods. That’s the gold standard. If you consistently do what you say you’ll do over a long period of time, the world will beat a path to your door. Nothing demonstrates the essence of showing off, in the most positive sense of the phrase, than rock solid consistency. There’s an old saying that goes, “Amateurs work until they get it right. Professionals work until they can’t get it wrong.”

We love people who do what they say they will do. Consistency is the foundation of success and the great business builder. Consistency is the definition of integrity.

I told the tech on-site today that Premier Garage is not making it easy for us to want to refer them due to their inconsistent, unreliable, and sloppy approach on this job. Hopefully, you can learn from their many mistakes and make it easy for your clients to want to refer you! If you have other tips about gaining referrals, please leave a comment on the blog!

Thinking about starting a voiceover career?

22 July 2010

The following message was left as a comment to my post The feel-good voiceover blog of the summer! I copied the message exactly as I received it because I felt the answers to the questions deserved to be their own entry.

I’ve been considering launching into this field—and really want to know what it takes and what to expect. The best way to find out the pros and cons of any occupation is to talk to others who actually do it…..So, I’m open to whatever info you think would help me so I don’t invest a lot of money and energy needlessly. My first question is, “Do you like voiceover work?” and “How difficult is it to break into this business?” I’m thinking it may take a few years…Is there really that much work out there for new talent?
— Elizabeth

Do I like voiceover work?

I don’t know of any person who would say they didn’t like the voiceover part of the job.

Voiceover is like any career in that you like some parts of it better than others. Of course, I love the actual act of reading the words on the page, interpreting the author’s meaning, and recording the author’s words with my voice. I love employing all sorts of marketing tactics that do not require me to make cold calls. I love writing articles on my blog and responding to reader comments (hint, hint!). I love connecting with other voice talent and clients in person and on-line. I love the immense satisfaction of hearing my voice at work in different media for various companies, and, yes, the coolness factor of this occupation is pretty hard to beat.

Perhaps a better question is: “Are there things that you don’t like about being a voice talent?”

Editing the recordings is not my favorite task, especially since editing takes far more of my time than recording. Auditioning for countless projects and not even getting a response can be very depressing. Chasing down payment from clients who are at least a month late in paying for completed work is downright annoying. The situation with late-paying clients is even more stressful when that money is needed to pay one’s own obligations.

Also, you’ve probably read about voice actors who brag about recording in their pajamas. What they didn’t tell you is that they are wearing their pajamas because they are working early or late hours or on the weekend in order to meet a client deadline. If you want a structured, 40-hour-a-week job, you will want some other career choice than being a voiceover talent.

How difficult is it to break into this business?

How difficult is it to start any career that inherently means you are a self-employed business person? Becoming a voice talent necessarily demands that you will spend time, energy, and money as part of the start-up and continuing operational costs of your business. There are NO shortcuts!

I actually have a couple of mathematical formulas for figuring the method to become a voice-over success story. I wrote about the first one here, and the second one is below.

Take your age

Add to it the number of car payments you have left

Subtract the number of pillows on your bed

Divide by the square root of Pi

The answer is the number of seconds you’ll spend figuring out any logic in this formula.

My feeble attempt at humor merely illustrates that the question can’t be answered because every person’s path into and through a voiceover career is different.

So, how does any start-up business become a thriving enterprise? Obviously, the business’ chance for survival — much less prosperity — depends on the people who work there and the product they are selling. The time, energy, and money you invest in developing your technique, demo(s), web site, and marketing plan will be the deciding factors in your chances for success in starting and maintaining your voiceover business.

My questions for you

Anyone contemplating any career — whether as a voice talent, computer programmer, or Sherpa on the mountainside — should ask themselves as many or more questions than they ask other people. Whatever career you pick will require substantial amounts of time and energy; chunks of money are also required when you are considering starting a business. Spend some introspective time determining your answers to the kinds of questions I list below, and your answers will help you decide if voiceover is a good career choice for you.

What are your values? Values are different than goals. For instance, if you value security as highly as I do, you’ll probably want to have a day job with healthcare benefits and a 401K plan at least until your voiceover income consistently exceeds that of the day job and you’re able to insure yourself and plan your retirement.

What is your passion? If you don’t know, what activities make you happy? When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? (If you want to see some great books that will help you find your passion, check out these books by Barbara Sher .)

What about voiceover work is appealing to you? Do you think it’s an easy and glamorous way to make money? Do you love to read? Do you love to learn things? Is technology your friend? Do you have a desire to help people? Do you work well in isolation? Do you work well on multiple projects at one time and under multiple deadlines? Do you have an inner calling to do a certain kind of voiceover work? Have you ever actually recorded your voice and listened to it?

For an excellent reality check about starting a voiceover business, I highly encourage you to read Peter O’Connell’s Voiceover Entrance Exam. Peter is a veteran voice talent and savvy marketer who gives you the straight scoop on this business in a free e-book.

A final question on my list

Whatever happened to saying “thank you”?

People frequently fire off questions to me without including the simplest acknowledgement that my valuable time will be needed to answer them. I don’t expect compensation — not that any is offered in most inquiries I receive. I supply my advice as a service out of a true desire to help others. However, I’m constantly amazed by the number of people who overlook the small courtesy of saying “thank you”.

Therefore, my parting advice is to develop an attitude of gratitude, starting with every communication you have with another person about your career choices.

The feel-good voiceover blog post of the summer!

18 July 2010

In a world….

When the legendary voice talent Don LaFontaine uttered those famous words on a movie trailer, you would be ready to go to a quiet, dark theater to escape — escape the weather, escape obligations, and escape the chattering voice in your head. That inner voice can be especially critical to a voice artist who is feeling discouraged with her progress. Since my brain has come up with numerous scripts having that kind of negative inner dialogue, I thought it might be helpful if I shared 3 techniques for keeping a feel-good mentality about your voiceover career as you direct the movie of your life.

Stop the Comparisons

I’m a lot better about this one than I used to be, but even I occasionally still fall in the trap of negatively comparing myself to other voice talent. For instance, I recently read a review of an audiobook voiced by a talent whom I know. While I truly am thrilled for that person’s success, I admit that I also had the thought of wishing for both the recent audiobook narration gig and the favorable review.

It’s one thing to make comparisons as part of a learning process. We all can improve in a variety of ways, and analyzing others’ success is a good way to start. I’m talking about the kind of comparisons when you think envious or discouraging thoughts like, “I just can’t get a break-through. I never win any auditions. I’m not good enough. It will never happen for me.” These kinds of thoughts can be debilitating and will actually slow or completely stop your progress.

If you have these kinds of thoughts, the first one may appear on its own. You may not have been in control of that first thought, but you ARE in control of the second one. Remind yourself of the steps you have taken toward your dream. If you feel frustrated, find some action that you can do that will propel you forward. In all cases, think/write/speak what you WANT into being.

Ask For and Review Your Testimonials

When other people comment about the great voice-over work that you have performed for them, I hope that you ask them for a testimonial that can be included on your web site. Not only do these comments from past clients serve to convince potential prospects to hire you as a voice talent, but they can bolster your self-esteem if you feel down on yourself.

In addition, I notate my accomplishments and review them as my own evidence about the manifestation of my dreams. If I feel a hint of discouragement because the level of success I envision in voiceover is taking a while to appear, I only need to take a quick look at things I’ve done in just over a year — recorded a new commercial demo, launched a new web site with new branding elements, and gained several wonderful new clients, all while mourning the loss of my mother and dealing with my parents’ estate. When I stop to review all that I’ve done, I feel pretty darn good about my place in the voice-over world!

Maintain NOW Thinking

This morning, as I walked Yogi, our adorable miniature schnauzer, I was thinking about the message that I wanted to write in this blog entry. I also was thinking how Yogi lives completely in the moment. He sleeps, eats, and plays without dwelling on the past or fretting about the future.

Once we returned home, I turned on the TV and scrolled through the program guide. For some unknown reason, I felt compelled to watch Joel Osteen’s oration today for the first time. This choice is all the more unusual since I’m not a religious person and normally would steer clear of televised church services.

The reason was clear to me from the first moment I heard Osteen speak. He was talking about living in this moment with the constant expectation of receiving the good that is on its way to you, no matter how long it takes to arrive. He encouraged his audience to awake every day with the thought that “THIS could be the day!”

Osteen used Mel Fisher as an example of this type of positive thinking. I, too, have drawn inspiration from Mel Fisher and can’t believe that I haven’t written about him previously.

You see, Mel Fisher was absolutely convinced that a Spanish ship laden with treasure had sunk off the coast of Florida in the 1600s, and he was determined to find it. Each day, he told his crew, “THIS will be the day!” Every night, after they didn’t find the ship, Fisher would tell the crew, “Tomorrow will be the day!”.

Fisher maintained his positive outlook and searched for the ship for an incredible 16 years. He faced innumerable odds, including an array of critics and doubters. I read once that his son died during the search efforts. Still, Fisher pressed on, doing things each day toward his dream and feeling perpetually confident of the good that would come to him.

Like so many people, the realization of his dream was far bigger than Fisher could have imagined. He found the Spanish Atocha, with treasures of gold, silver, and gems worth over $500 million!

Fisher proves that patience and persistence are the keys to realizing your dream. People expect instant gratification and are disappointed when nothing seems to happen. However, you have to maintain the hope and expectation each day since the manifestation of dreams rarely occurs on our timetable! Whether it takes a day, a month, a year, a decade, or longer, you need to have the unshakable inner KNOWING that the fruition of your dream is on its way to you.

Osteen said you should ask for things now and live life today, knowing that your desires may not be fulfilled immediately. He pointed out that things can suddenly change for the better. Finances can suddenly change. Relationships can suddenly blossom. Dreams can suddenly materialize.

For a voice talent, a new client could suddenly book you. You could suddenly have extra money to get that fancy microphone. Your latest blog article could suddenly capture the interest of the media and catapult you into the recording booths at Disney, Pixar, and other animation houses. (It could happen!)

By using these 3 techniques, I hope you will be able to silence the inner critic. As the star and director of your life’s movie, consistently feeling good about your voice-over career will enable you to live happily ever after!

Movie clapboard photo credit: TPopova/iStockPhoto.com

Julie and Julia cook up 5 voiceover tips

13 February 2010

Bonjour! You may think the movie Julie and Julia is only about Julia Child, Julie Powell, Paris, and cooking. While those are reasons enough to watch this excellent and highly enjoyable movie, you may be surprised to learn that the movie also contains 5 lessons that will benefit voiceover artists:

1) Neither Julia Child nor Julie Powell became cooks and writers simply to make money. Both answered an inner calling and pursued their passions. Both women also had additional income to support them when they started their endeavors.

Many people enter the voice-over industry under the mistaken belief that it is an easy way to make money. They view voice-over like a part-time job at a fast food restaurant, where they have no start-up or ongoing costs and need no particular skills in order to make money. Anyone could come in off the street, fill out an application, and begin work.

As I’ve written numerous times, voice-over is a business. I wouldn’t say it follows the 80/20 rule; it’s more like the 95/5 rule — 95% of your time is spent in activities to develop and enhance your delivery and interpretation skills, market your services, and build client relationships that will enable you to obtain the 5% of the jobs where you actually work as a voice talent.

2) Julie didn’t give up her day job. I know this item seems like take two of the same script. However, I added this tip to remind you that there’s no shame in having a day job. It can actually enable you to pursue your voiceover dreams.

3) When Julie compared herself to her friends, she felt small, insignificant, and depressed. I know of no quicker way to feel bad than to start comparing myself to other people. The cure for these spiraling negative thoughts is to take charge of your thoughts and words, which should inspire you to take positive action.

4) Both women created their own work. Did Julia Child wait for a restaurant manager to hire her to cook? Did Julie Powell wait for a magazine or book editor to hire her to write? Figure out the kinds of projects that you enjoy voicing and create them yourself. You can create your own commercials, movie trailers, audiobooks, or whatever you desire.

Whether you show the finished product to anyone or make any money from it is irrelevant. The point is to feed your passion and exercise your creativity on a regular basis. The more you do what you want to do and enjoy it, the more you become the person you want to be. Also, I’ve had a couple of occasions where I created something for my own enjoyment and skill practice. I loved the process and ended up using the finished piece as a demo from which I landed new clients.

5) Julie and Julie exemplify Thoreau’s famous quote. Henry David Thoreau wrote this gem, which is as true now as it was in his time:

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams
and endeavors to live the life he has imagined,
he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.

To me, it means that the energy you put out in the world will come back to you in ways you didn’t imagine — and be better than you could ever dream possible!

May all your voiceover endeavors bring you joie de vivre!

6 ways to show you respect another person’s time

19 January 2010

Yet another person called me today because of a desire to get into voiceover. While I have always endeavored to provide assistance to people considering a voice-over career, several things about this exchange left me feeling more irritated than helpful. Therefore, I want to turn my negative thoughts into some tips to help others approach me and other voice talent in more respectful manner.

1) If you must leave someone a voice mail, tell them the purpose of your call in your message.

2) If you leave a message and must leave the phone immediately, state a good time to return the call.

Today’s caller left me a message saying she wanted to talk to me. I called her back a mere 13 minutes later and had to leave a message. In my message, I said she could send me an e-mail to cut down on phone tag. (Phone tag is a HUGE time-waster!) As Murphy could have predicted, I was unavailable when she called the second time. Again, she didn’t tell me the purpose of her call. I knew at that point she was either trying to sell me something or wanted to quiz me about becoming a voice talent.

3) Get on-line.

After I told her in my voice mail that she could send me an e-mail, she stated in her second voice mail to me that she didn’t really care for e-mail. Since the entire voiceover industry is increasingly on-line, you will quickly be left behind if you don’t want to communicate through e-mail. When people send me e-mail expressing interest in working in voiceover, I can respond at my leisure — requiring less time on my part — while also offering far more details and links to info than I could give to a prospective voice talent over the phone.

4) Do your own research.

Drew is now working for me in my voiceover business, so I asked him to call her back the second time. He also had to leave a message. (Did I mention that phone tag is a waste of time?) Once they finally were on the phone together, he spent 14 minutes patiently answering this newcomer’s various questions, like:

Since LA and NYC are the big spots for voice-over, can you do it anywhere else? What’s the market like in Atlanta? (Drew’s answer was the same as mine would be — are you currently working in voiceover, or are you looking to get started?)
Who’s a good agent? (I mentioned agents on my advice page on my web site. Basically, you need to have appropriate training, a well-produced demo, marketable skills, and probably a number of bookings before an agent will even listen to you.)
Can you make $50,000 a year? (Yes, but most people starting out don’t make that much.)
Is it possible to make $100,000? Did he know anyone who made that much in voiceover? (Yes, anything is possible. Your earnings are based on a wide number of factors, not the least of which is your audition ratio. A voice talent’s real jobs are auditioning and self-marketing to generate work and consequently income.)
What’s the phone number for Nancy Wolfson (after Drew said I had been studying with her)? How much does Nancy charge? (If you want to talk with Nancy or any other voiceover teacher, look them up and contact them personally.)

Drew referred the caller to my advice page, but she said it looked more like a blog. Obviously, she had not read that page, any of the 100 or so articles on my blog, or any other of the millions of pages on-line that could have answered the questions she was asking.

5) Request an informational interview.

If you want to have an informational interview with anyone currently doing a particular job, send a courteous request for an appointment that has a pre-defined amount of time of no more than 15 minutes. Calling a person and expecting them to take time from their busy schedule just to talk with you when it’s convenient for you shows a total disregard for their time and business. Don’t assume that the person you called can stop their current activity to talk to you.

6) Be prepared with questions.

When I talk to newcomers on the phone, I ask first if they have read my advice page and blog and then whether they have specific questions about the info that I have written. I have a business to run; I don’t have time to man the information desk.

A friend called as I was writing this entry. She summed up the underlying reason for my irritation over today’s events exceptionally well:

Do you want to make money, or do you want to earn it? People who want to make money are out to get rich quick through any means possible and using anyone they can. People who want to earn money are willing to undergo necessary training, proceed methodically, and persistently perform the necessary business aspects such as marketing and accounting to build a career.

A voiceover career definitely falls in the category where you earn money.

Voice-over career requires time and energy

26 July 2009

Karen’s narration of this entry

Nothing lasts forever.
The most unforeseen circumstances will swamp you and baffle the wisest calculations.
Only vitality and plenty of it helps you.
–WASHINGTON A. ROEBLING
Washington Roebling’s name may not be familiar to you. He’s not in the voice-over industry. In fact, he has nothing to do with voice-over or entertainment. However, I recently read about him and his monumental accomplishment, and his quote applies to anyone pursuing a big dream, including a career in voice-over.

You see, Washington Roebling was an engineer — not just any engineer, but the chief engineer behind the famous Brooklyn Bridge. I recently read David McCullough’s fascinating and extremely well-researched novel The Great Bridge, which describes the people, risks, relationships, political environment, and long processes involved to build that bridge. It’s the sort of sweeping, satisfying book that I would love to narrate, but these historical books are usually about men and therefore narrated by men in the audiobook. But I digress …

Part of the story that is so remarkable is that Roebling fell seriously ill and wasn’t even on-site during much of the construction, yet he pressed on until the Brooklyn Bridge was completed and his dream realized. With his wife’s admirable and steadfast assistance, Roebling wrote such an incredible collection of notes and designs that his assistant engineers were able to complete the work to his specifications without his supervision.

The on-line Merriam-Webster dictionary defines vitality as physical or mental vigor especially when highly developed. I can’t agree too much with Roebling’s assessment that vitality is necessary to accomplish anything of importance, especially a voice-over career. However, I would also add time to the equation.

Many people jump into voiceovers with the expectation that a lucrative and easy career awaits them. Unlike an engineer, they don’t study the landscape or make calculations about the best way to proceed. They may give up before achieving the level of success that they seek.

I have often heard that entertainers and sports stars who are considered to be an overnight success usually have been working diligently and learning their profession for 10 years or more. This passage in John Maxwell’s book Put Your Dreams to the Test: 10 Questions that Will Help You See It and Seize It better explains that theory:

Author and speaker Jim Rohn points out, “The twin killers of success are impatience and greed.” I believe they are often the killers of dreams as well. Most people want results that are quick and dramatic. However, the reality is that most dreams are achieved very slowly, and the results come about unspectacularly. If you have achieved any major goals in your life, then you already know that realizing goals can be less thrilling than imagining them. That’s why you need to learn to take satisfaction in the journey and find fulfillment in the small steps along the way.Drew and I visited New York City for the July 4th holiday, and we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Although I’ve seen it many times, I could only fully appreciate its immense size, strength, and beauty while actually standing on it.

Karen Commins walks across the Brooklyn Bridge 7/4/09The construction process took 14 years, which was 2-3 times longer and at a far greater cost than the original estimate. Had Roebling not maintained his vitality and persevered through unimaginable obstacles over long stretches of time, this masterpiece of American architecture would not be standing.

I thought again about the time and energy needed to complete a dream while we watched Macy’s July 4th fireworks on the Hudson River. We were treated to a spectacular 30-minute show, but the tremendous planning and coordination, including the actual fireworks manufacture and testing, must have started as soon as the festivities were finished last year, or perhaps even earlier. I created a short video of some highlights from the fireworks and added music from my royalty-free library. I am posting the video here for your viewing pleasure.

[KGVID width=”480″ height=”272″]http://www.karencommins.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/NYC-Fireworks-7-4-09.m4v[/KGVID]

Time and vitality have been necessary ingredients in my voice-over business since its inception. Like anyone, I have had and continue to have personal challenges, like the losses of my dad in 2003 and my mother just 2 months ago in May. In the past couple of weeks, Drew and I were shocked to learn that his position as a lead software engineer has been eliminated after 12 years of employment with his company, so we unexpectedly are starting a new chapter of our lives.

I don’t bring up my personal obstacles to gain your sympathy but to point out that vitality is needed to sustain the momentum in my voice-over career while time marches on. You may have noticed that even my blog entries lately required an unusual amount of time and energy to complete. Many days, I have to judge my progress on my voice-over dreams based on incremental forward movement. However, like Roebling and his bridge, I continue to focus on my vision of success, counting my blessings and victories as I go along.

What kind of correlation do you notice between time and energy in pursuing your voice-over goals? I’d love to hear from you with comments on the blog!

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™