Karen@KarenCommins.com

Karen Commins

Award Winning

Atlanta Audiobook Share-rator™

Voice-Over

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!

 

Plugs for a day job and the environment

Al Gore typifies my motto of “things happen for a reason.”

I like Al Gore, and I voted for him in the hotly-contested 2000 Presidential election. While millions of Americans were immensely disappointed and even angered that he didn’t win the election, we can see that it was better for him personally that he didn’t become the 43rd President of the United States.

If Gore had become President, he would not have had the time or energy to lead the crusade for the environment. In 2007, Gore has achieved rock star status. First, he won an Academy Award for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and now, Gore is the co-recipient of the coveted Nobel Peace Prize. You don’t have to agree with his assessments about the environment or his politics to be impressed by his monumental achievements.

So what do Al Gore and his push to save the environment have to do with you as a voice-over talent?

Whatever you are doing today
will prepare you for what is to come tomorrow.
Al Gore didn’t suddenly wake up one morning and think he wanted to make a positive difference in others’ lives. Carrier pigeons didn’t deliver covert messages from citizens to him to tell him about environmental issues. I somehow doubt Hollywood executives were camped on Gore’s doorstep, begging him to make a movie of his PowerPoint presentation.

EVERYTHING in Gore’s past – every class he took, every political office in which he served, every speech he gave, every decision he made – helped shape him as a person and give him the knowledge and contacts he needed to move his passion about the environment from his mind to the masses.

I think that we don’t realize and appreciate that every moment has meaning. We waste time moaning and groaning about current situations instead of reacting to them with gratitude. For instance, many voice-over talent complain about having a day job, when that job actually is a great blessing.

I had day jobs on my mind for a topic this afternoon because I listened to the .mp3 from my coach Nancy Wolfson and national voice talent Anna Vocino titled Acting for Advertising part 2. Anna made a point to say that you should not be ashamed to have a day job. It pays your bills, which helps prevent you from sounding desperate in your voice-over auditions and marketing efforts. As I have written previously on this blog, desperation is not an attractive quality!

Rather than feeling like the day job is keeping you from your voice-over activities, I would encourage you to look at the many other ways that a day job can benefit you:

  • It can provide you with health insurance.
  • It can bankroll your purchases for your studio equipment and your voice-over classes.
  • Depending on where you work and your longevity there, you may be able to contribute to a 401K or other retirement plan. If your employer provides a matching donation, be sure to contribute at least as much as the percentage your employer will match. It’s a 100% return on your investment!
  • You can gain computer, time management and networking skills that will help you with your voice work.
  • You may gain subject matter expertise that will make you even more enticing as a voice actor. For instance, I have a MS degree in computer information systems and over 20 years of experience in the IT field. I can perform technical scripts with complete authenticity because the subject matter has been stamped on my brain. Walking out of an employer’s door doesn’t mean that the knowledge is forgotten; you take everything you learn with you.
  • You don’t have to turn your world upside down to start your voice-over business. I think it would be extremely STRESSFUL to quit a job that is providing for your sustenance and lifestyle to embark on a new business venture. Any audition you perform while still employed elsewhere is done without pressure on your part to get the job. You can build your business gradually with the confidence that voice work will always be available.
  • Get accustomed to thinking of yourself as a $100K a year voice actor who occasionally may work at another job. You need to have the mindset of your prosperity and goal achievement in place before it will ever occur in reality.
  • Even if you never make the leap to a full-time voice-over career, your life is richer and fuller because you are following your dreams. No one said that following your dream means you must make any, much less your complete, income from it!

I love life/work coach Barbara Sher’s philosophy about having a day job, or what she calls the good-enough job:

THINK OF THE GOOD-ENOUGH JOB AS SUBSIDY TO YOUR ART!

I chose to use Al Gore as an example in this post because today is Blog Action Day, where bloggers are united to write about the environment. Obviously, his previous day jobs and his experiences have brought him to the attention of world leaders and concerned citizens today.

Since so many voice talent have day jobs, I have 5 suggestions for being more environmentally friendly on the day job:

1) Take public transportation or some other energy-conserving method to your job whenever possible. The money spent on gas could help fund your voice-over classes.

2) Ask your employer to work from home. (Ssshhh! Don’t tell your employer, but you just might be able to sneak in some voice-over auditions on those days!)

3) Ask for an alternate work schedule. I know some people who still work 80 hours over 2 weeks, but they do it in a different manner than 5, 8-hour days a week. They might work 10 hours a day for 4 days. Others work 8 9-hour days, 1 8-hour day and have a day off every other week. The days off are days that you can press into service for your voice-over marketing.

4) As a voice talent, you need to stay hydrated. Rather than buying water in plastic bottles that will end up in landfills, you can buy a Brita pitcher with water filter. Not only are you being environmentally conscious, but the money you save could be spent on your voice-over marketing or equipment!

5) Use less paper, and recycle the paper that you do use. Don’t print your e-mails and my blog entries unless you absolutely must. If you are allowed to use your work computer to print scripts for auditions, use recycled paper for that purpose. Also, your employer may have a recycling program for paper, soda cans, etc.

If you have more ideas how voice talent can help the environment from their day jobs or in general, please post a comment!

None of us — including Al Gore — could have predicted in 2000 the kind of year Gore would have in 2007. If you remember that every moment has meaning, including your time spent at a day job, you will have peace. Why be anxious about your voice-over career when you can be happy and actually enjoy your life?

 

Working with a portable studio

If it’s possible, I love traveling as much or even more than my voice-over work. In the past, I haven’t taken equipment with me on my trips. Since the beginning of this year, I have changed my equipment so that I can voice auditions and projects on the road. I now have a Macbook Pro laptop with Pro Tools LE running with a Mbox Pro mic interface. To facilitate the usual work here in my stunning soundproof studio, I just bought a Tranzport wireless workstation control, which will allow me to control and edit Pro Tools from within my booth while leaving the computer and other equipment outside the booth.

A while back, I had read Harlan Hogan’s excellent article about creating a portable booth. I couldn’t find the Reisenthel Home Box pictured in Harlan’s article at my local Container Store or at that company’s web site. However, I did find and order the box from Amazon.

The company shipped it out immediately. It arrived this week, so I haven’t tried using it as a portable booth. I do have a lot of Auralex foam left over from the days when my recording booth was in a walk-in closet. I had planned to leave my Neumann TLM 103 mic here in my recording booth and take my CAD condenser mic on road trips. The CAD mic is too heavy, and I’m now looking for a smaller, lighter mic to use in my portable configuration.

I also have decided to sell my Telos Zephyr ISDN codec. I really don’t have much occasion to use it since I mostly work in long-form narrations and audiobooks. If you’re looking to buy an industry-standard ISDN unit, let me know soon! Otherwise, I will post the unit for sale on eBay.

Speaking of travel, I need to travel away from home right now in search of brunch!

 

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!

 

Your voice isn’t right for us

After another summer of sweltering heat and daily smog alerts, I especially enjoyed the weather today here in Atlanta. It’s one of those glorious pre-fall days with postcard-blue skies. I say “pre-fall” because the temperatures are still in the 80s, but the late date on the calendar gives me hope that the crisp air of fall is soon on the way.

I was in the car earlier this afternoon when I heard a radio spot that sounded very familiar. I admit that I always feel a flush of pleasure when I unexpectedly hear my voice on the airwaves. Today, though, it was someone else’s voice presenting copy that I also had prepared in a recent audition. Since I obviously was not selected for that job, I listened closely to discern what the producer might have been thinking during the casting process.

A voice-over actor will audition far more than she will be hired. I don’t think about auditions unless I am selected for the job or have one of those lucky times like today when I hear the voice talent in the produced spot. In those cases, I like to analyze the coloration and stress on words and compare the broadcast spot with the audition that I submitted. One time, I heard a man’s voice on TV reading copy the same copy I had used. It’s easy to understand the differences between my read and a man’s version! It’s not so easy to distinguish between my performance and that of another female.

Today, I thought the reads between my audition and the produced spot were very similar. We were closely matched with our phrasing. She stressed one word that I didn’t stress in my audition. Maybe that stress was her idea, or maybe she did it due to direction. The last line was changed, so I don’t know whether the writer modified it or the talent perhaps ad-libbed it in her audition. In either case, I did think it was a better ending line.

The biggest difference I noticed was one I heard with her very first word — the difference of tonal quality. Her voice was a higher pitch than mine. C’est la vie. Another talent being chosen for that job or any job doesn’t take anything away from me or cause me any negative feelings.

While I audition relentlessly for voice-over roles with the scripts from my agent and on-line casting services, much of my work is obtained through my own marketing efforts. Following an inquiry several months ago, I received an e-mail that stated the following:

We appreciate your interest in [this company].
However, at this time, the creative team did not feel that your voice was a fit for our voicing needs.
 

So what exactly does that kind of letter mean?

It means I need to make more inquiries with other organizations. I also could follow up with this company at a later time as their needs may change. It does not mean that I was rejected in any way.

I don’t accept every project offered to me. I may have a conflict, know the client to be a price-shopper or not feel comfortable with the words that would be coming out of my mouth. Yes, the scripts are all acting, but it’s still me who breathes life into the words and utters the sounds. I don’t want or need any job badly enough to compromise my own integrity.

By the same token, I know that my voice is not right for every project. My age and vocal tone passed the 20-year mark…well, let’s just say that birthday was a while back. The writer often has an idea of the pitch range for the words. The producer may have hired someone with a voice like mine in the past and wants something different. If a true 20-year-old voice is wanted, I won’t be the one who is hired.

It would be oh-so-easy to feel rejected when I don’t win the job. I don’t know why I am not selected for the jobs, but I don’t lose sleep over them. My job is to market my talents and audition to the best of my ability. Negative feelings about my performance or skills will only cause my performance and skills to degrade in reality. I choose to feel that I am selected for those parts and projects that are right for me.

The best explanation that I have heard about the selection versus rejection philosophy is in the Voices.com Voice Over Experts podcast with Joan Baker, in which Joan Baker and her guest Rudy Gaskins discuss the myth of rejection. Baker rightly describes the notion of

rejection as a self-imposed punishment that no actor has to take on!

The changing weather reminds me to be grateful that I can enjoy each new day. With each new day are new opportunities to market myself, audition and perform voice-over jobs. Believe me, those conditions create a forecast for a bright and sunny career!

 

Talk like a pirate

Avast ye maties! I’m sure ye’d be knowin’ that this be a special day! Aaarrggh, it be Talk Like a Pirate Day, like it be every time the September sun rises on the nineteenth day.

Another lass and I were discussing this auspicious occasion yesterday, and we wondered why you never see any female pirates in the movies. She advised me that peg legs throw of your balance when you’re wearing stiletto heels. I added that stilettos wouldn’t be very safe when walking on wooden planks. Also, women tend to pursue more hygienic habits and environments than men. Of course, there’s that whole “women considered property through the ages” thing…but I digress.

I have a theory that one reason that the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were so incredibly successful — besides the action-filled storylines, brilliant acting, magnificent scenery, compelling musical score and dentistry appropriate to the time period — is because of the perfect casting. Geoffrey Rush not only looked the part of the pirate, but you have to agree that his pirate talk made ye shiver in yer timbers! Johnny Depp, meanwhile, belied the pirate stereotype and spoke in a completely unexpected manner.

I think a lot of men enjoy creating pirate voices that sound like Geoffrey Rush. If the man is a voice-over actor, he might be tempted to put that pirate voice on his commercial demo. It’s the same for women imitating Margaret Hamilton as the infamous Wicked Witch of the West. We all want to show our range, and some part of us likes to play the villain.

It may be fun to talk like a pirate or a witch, but don’t put those voices on your commercial demo if you want to get booked.First of all, do you ever hear pirates and witches when you listen to TV and radio commercials? The only time witches and pirates seem to invade the airwaves is around Halloween. I wince to admit that my first commercial demo way back when included a witch voice that probably sounded very much like Hamilton. The copy was from a furniture chain’s ad that ran at — you guessed it — Halloween. I later learned that pirate and witch voices are overdone on demos to the point of being trite.

About this time last year, Mary Lynn Wissner of Voices Voicecasting critiqued demos for 19 members of Susan Berkley’s Inner Circle coaching program. I learned much from hearing her comments to other talent. She said you should have a separate animation track only if you can do a lot of voices and can nail the voices perfectly.

Listed below are 7 of Mary Lynn’s tips from that critique session for creating your commercial demo:

  • Get a great director for the commercials demo. Narration demos are easier to produce on your own.
  • Make sure the first spot is your voice, and it jumps out. If the first spot doesn’t grab her attention, she would delete the file. She can hear right away whether you can act, if a voice is interesting or the read is compelling.
  • People get bored within 10 seconds, so a trained ear gets the voice print in 10 seconds.
  • The demo should be no longer than 60 seconds.
  • The 5 foundations of commercial voice-over direction are Warm/Friendly, Wry/Dry, Cosmetic, Authoritative and Real Person.
  • Make the segments short and have variety between each spot so that the voice quality sounds different. Her frequent comment was that the demo contained too much of the same sounding voice.
  • If you’re trying to obtain work in a particular niche, only send the demo appropriate for that niche. In other words, don’t send the commercial demo to the audiobook publishers and training departments.

I do have facility with character voices. I can talk like a pirate or just about anything else you can imagine. I have learned to let those character voices come out to play when it’s time for an audiobook.

In fact, my commercial demo contained a few character voices. Mary Lynn liked a couple of them but then said they sounded like people she knows in Los Angeles. If you use real copy on your demo (which may be another topic for another day), be careful that you don’t use something that people in the business will know is voiced by someone else. She repeated that comment to another group member who had used the “Mastercard…priceless” copy on his demo.

You will notice that I currently am not promoting my commercial demo. I switched to my current coach Nancy Wolfson in large part because I knew that my commercial demo was overdue for an overhaul. With her keen ear and branding expertise, Nancy listened to my demo. Like the barmaid said to the drunken pirate, Nancy said my demo was not serving me. I made that demo walk the plank, and I won’t raise the flag for it until a new one comes aboard.

Two of Nancy’s observations about my last commercial demo may help you:

  • She said my authentic voice was hidden for almost 40 seconds. Busy casting directors won’t listen that long to hear your money voice.
  • Just because you were paid for a spot doesn’t mean it has any place on your commercial demo. Outdated styles of copy and/or production issues like improper volume or musical choices can easily send your demo to Davy Jones’ Locker.

Me hearties, I be supposin’ that this be enough talk about demos and marketing for one day. In the words of me favorite pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow: Now bring on that horizon.