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Bookkeeping Essentials with Danielle Famble Aug 13, 2024

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Discover the keys to financial success in your voiceover business with our latest episode featuring the savvy money boss herself, Danielle Famble. Learn how to categorize your business expenses to maximize tax benefits and streamline your finances. From new equipment to that signature lipstick you love, learn how to turn everyday purchases into strategic business investments. Danielle shares her expert advice on the importance of collaborating with accountants and bookkeepers to ensure every dollar spent works for you, boosting both profitability and business accountability. Our conversation also includes actionable tips for managing your finances effectively, focusing on understanding profit and loss statements. Regularly reviewing your financial statements can prevent overspending and foster business growth, and we provide the know-how to keep your budget healthy. 00:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses, Anne Ganguza here. Are you ready to take the next step in your voiceover career? At Anne Ganguza Productions, I specialize in target marketed coaching and demo production that gets you booked. If you're thinking about elevating your performance or creating an awesome demo, check me out at annganguzacom. 00:22 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, nne Ganguza. 00:41 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, Welcome to the VO Boss podcast and the Boss Money Talk series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm delighted to bring back our resident money boss, Danielle Famble, to the show. 00:55 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Danielle- hey Anne. 00:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yay, welcome. How are you today? 00:58 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Hey, I'm great. How are? 00:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) you doing? I'm doing awesome. Well, danielle, I bought a new lipstick for the show, a new lipstick the new Red Boss lipstick. Those people that know me know that I'm all about my lipsticks and I talk about my lipstick brand and I use my lipstick and my colors for my branding, for my business. And I started to think, well, okay, can I expense this lipstick? Right, can I expense this lipstick? And so I chatted with my accountant to find out if it was possible to do that, and you know what it is. So I am so excited that I can now put lipstick. And we all know about these headphones. I was like, yeah, I know I could have expensed these headphones. It's a business expense, but guess what this lipstick is too. 01:45 And I think it's important for bosses to understand a little bit I think more about. We talked in our last episode about how important education was to the bosses. It's important to educate yourself on the basics of, let's say, bookkeeping for your business, like what sorts of things do you spend money on and how do you categorize them. I think that's an important aspect of bookkeeping. What are your thoughts on that, danielle? 02:09 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Oh yeah, that's really important. It's important to know how your business is working and bookkeeping is sort of the daily ledger of what money is coming in and going out for your business, knowing even the basics of bookkeeping and the basics of bookkeeping. In our last conversation, our last episode, we talked about the bookkeepers or people that you might have on your team, which they may be doing it, but you, as the VO boss, should understand even just the basics of bookkeeping for your business. So you know, when I spend money on this lipstick or these headphones or a new microphone, these are expenses that can be expense for my business. And what are the categories that you can expense things in your business. I recently bought a ticket to go to another one of the voiceover conferences and so I was thinking, okay, how am I expensing this? What account am I using for it? Making sure it's in my business account and it's going to be expense for continuing education. So I know the different categories and what you can expense in your business. 03:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And I think it's so important because before I actually had an accountant and I was trying to do this all on my own and I'm like, well, all right, at least I learned that I needed to have right. We talked how important it was to have that separate business account. 03:20 But, then all of a sudden it was like what are my expenses, right? I just started throwing everything in and then it would always ask me what's the category? And I'm like, oh, I didn't think about what are the categories that are useful in your bookkeeping for voiceover? And I thought, wow, there's equipment, my internet connection. How do I classify that right? Subscriptions. 03:40 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) SourceConnect. Even I pay for extra storage with Google, with my Gmail. That kind of thing can be expensed. The people that you work with. So we talked about the bookkeepers and the CPAs paying them for their services. 03:55 Working with professionals, so professional fees there are so many things. 04:00 That's what's great about running a business is that you get to make money and then you can expense all of these different things and then you're taxed on that. 04:10 It's completely the opposite, for as a person, you get taxed on the money that you bring in, right, and then anything else is sort of just like deductions but like running a business is really amazing. That's why I love getting into the weeds about money and finances and bookkeeping, because once you learn how to sort of not play the game but kind of play the game, you can really make your business work for you much more efficiently. So learning about what it is that you're trying to do and making sure by being educated through a CPA or just finding you know education on your own, making sure that you can expense that appropriately for your business, sure, legally, in a tax efficient way, you can do a lot because we we use our bodies for our business. The chair that I'm sitting in in my studio is like an expensive ergonomic chair that normally I would not have ever purchased, but I'm in this chair for hours and so back support is really important, so that was part of the furniture of my office space. 05:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And even medical that isn't covered by insurance, right? Medical expenses? Because is my Peloton? Is that an expense for my business? 05:19 And I love what you said about knowing these things right and understanding the basics of what can be expense. 05:26 What category am I putting it in? Because when I first started, I all of a sudden thought, oh God, there's categories. And then I didn't really categorize them properly, or I didn't quite know what categories to create, I mean. But in the end, when you look at your profit and loss statement, which is something that's so very basic to any accounting, right, I would look at the number and I'd say expenses, and it would be one big lump sum and I'd be like, well, what did I spend my money on? Right? And so that's where I think the importance of being able to categorize things really comes into play. And the fact is is that when you know about categories and things that you can expense for your business, it opens up the door of so many possibilities. It allowed me to confidently say, all right, I can do this, knowing that I'll be able to expense it for my business, and I think it helps me to actually go forth more confidently and also be more willing to try new avenues to grow my business. 06:21 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, the confidence that comes from the education is second to none. And I will say, the best place to get that level of education for your business, for the business that you, vo Boss, are running not my business or Ann's business, but your specific business is to go to the person who has the knowledge about the numbers of your business it makes no sense to expense everything and who has the knowledge about the numbers of your business. It makes no sense to expense everything and then at the end of the year it looks like you made no profit because, again, the idea of running a business is to make a profit. It's not just to break even. We want to make money. That's why we're here. 06:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And, by the way, if you report to the government that you've lost money for over five years in a row, they're going to start getting suspicious. And then the audit will come and, by the way, I've been audited twice and. 07:09 I'm not ashamed of it because there's no foul play there or anything like that. I mean, literally, it's just when you run a business and you make money, they get a little bit interested in it and you can't have any red flags show up. And if you're going to be expensing everything and not showing a profit for a certain amount of time, then it might get a little bit suspicious. So you really need to work with someone, I think, that has an awareness of what's in the realm of reality, so that you're not necessarily taking advantage, even though I have my accountant. I literally purchased Rocket Money last year because I had so many subscriptions and I lost track of them, and that's like a big thing. Now is everything digital, is you're buying a subscription to it? I had subscriptions I forgot about right, and so I paid, of course, a subscription price to use rocket money. And then the funny thing about it is that if you do rocket money, they'll go and they'll find all your subscriptions, and then ultimately, you can even say at the end I'm like, oh gosh, do I really need to pay seven? I think it was $7 a month. Do I need to pay $7 a month to Rocket Money now Because they found all my subscriptions. They also offer to reduce the amount of money for your subscriptions because they'll go and negotiate with the companies to get a better rate. 08:22 A lot of times you can say you know what I mean, I just can't afford it. I'm getting ready to cancel. And then they'll renegotiate with you. But you can also renegotiate with Rocket Money and say I can't afford the $7. And they'll say, well, what do you feel is fair? And so I said, all right, I can pay $3 a month. And so guess what? I? That's fantastic. But I've already paid them for two years. 08:42 And all of a sudden I realized down at the bottom, I was thinking about canceling. And then they're like, hey, why don't you pay us what you think is fair? I said, all right, well, I can do this. Suffice to say, it's just one of those things that it helps you to really identify, like where your money is going. And so categories to me seem to be such a fundamental part of basic accounting and bookkeeping. And so what are some other like? If you look at a profit and loss statement, like I know some people, their eyes are maybe glazing over Profit and loss. It seems so formal. But what sorts of things are we going to be looking at when we see a profit and loss statement Like what's important for us to know as business owners? 09:22 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) The main thing with a profit and loss statement is it really is sort of the name of it Profit, how much came in? How much money did the business make in this given period of time? Let's say it's a quarter or a month and I've been receiving monthly profit and loss statements. But how much money did you make during this given period of time and how much money went out during that same given period of time? 09:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Inflows, outflows. 09:45 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Inflows and outflows, how much came in, how much went out. I think it's really important to first think about how much came in, because you have a lot of control over that. That could be how much you're quoting for your clients, how many jobs that you've done, what your bookings are like. You have control over that aspect of it and you also have control over the loss side of it. How much is going out? So things like your subscriptions, which for me, I will say, when I really started like digging into my profit and loss statement, when I looked at subscription, I was like, well, what am I spending my money on? This is so much, it's crazy, crazy. Apple. Google Source. 10:26 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Connect Internet connection. 10:27 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Internet connections Internet connections, all the things. Quickbooks, yes, quickbooks. 10:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) My account. 10:32 - Intro (Announcement) All these different things. 10:34 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I mean it's just like I probably just named $100 just in that you know. Yeah, so it's knowing what is going out. Subscriptions for me is huge. Also, sometimes equipment but I don't buy a lot of equipment for my business that often Like, yeah, maybe I'll buy another microphone or an interface or an extra cable just in case For me. 10:57 And again, this is something that a VO boss can look at their business and say, what do I need for my business? And then you'll know, okay, this is the category and this is how it's going to affect my profit and loss. But normally for me anyway, my business with the profit and loss, with the monthly expenses, it's really those subscriptions. And I think I love what you said about Rocket Money, where you can take a look and see like, do I really need all these subscriptions? And then you can kind of tune what is going out on your profit and loss statement. Another aspect would be the people that you pay. So if you have an assistant or a bookkeeper or if you're working with a CPA or whatever else that's going on. And it really is kind of going back to personal finance. It's kind of like looking at your budget for the month how much is going out for your budget every month in your home and then how much is coming in. It's the same kind of thing. 11:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So profit and loss, your profit. And then, of course, what are some other, let's say, terms that you might see on a profit and loss statement, and I'm thinking like expenses right, obviously or inflows, outflows, assets I know I see that term a lot. What do you consider to be an asset in a voiceover, in a VO business? 12:11 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) So, assets are anything that you own, that your business owns. I consider assets to be things like my booth is an asset. I could sell my booth for a certain amount of money, and so that's an asset. My microphone is an asset. My interface is an asset, any sort of like business furniture, that kind of thing those are the assets. 12:33 A physical item, a physical item Like what the business owns. I'm a physical item, but my voice is the business, and so I am an asset of my business as well. I mean, you can't sell me. 12:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You can sell your voice. 12:47 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yes, I license the use of my voice. I sell my voice, but really, assets are anything that your business owns, but those are things that may or may not show up in your monthly profit and loss. Well, they might show up in your monthly profit and loss, but for me, when I'm looking at it, I'm looking at expenses. 13:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, when I'm looking at my overview, I'm seeing assets in there. So that was just a term that I thought oh God, assets. It just seems so foreign. You know what I mean Because I…

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The Realities of Working Your Business Aug 06, 2024

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Immerse yourself in the art of building and sustaining your business. In this episode, the BOSSES highlight the critical role of consistent auditioning and active marketing, emphasizing the necessity of maintaining strong connections with industry professionals. Overcome fears and harness your unique personality and energy to make genuine connections. Get inspired by our creative marketing techniques, including SMS and email outreach, and learn how to ensure you're always top of mind with potential collaborators. The path to success requires more than just setting up a business; it demands passion, dedication, and relentless hard work. Join us and discover strategies to elevate your voiceover business and rock your business like a true boss! 00:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey Boss, talent Anne Ganguzza here with a quick shout out to those who are a little freaked out about marketing VLBoss Blast is your secret weapon making your marketing manageable. Your voice deserves to be heard. Join us at vlbosscom and start your marketing campaign today. 00:22 - Testimonial (Announcement) I've just finished listening to Creative Brilliance with Improv, nne and Law, and all I can say is yes, ladies, improv is absolutely one of my favorite activities, and the life of the pre-life is real. Remembering that the run-in line, or your lead lead in line, does not only exist at the beginning of your read, but throughout, it's a critical activity. The running conversation that has to happen in your head truly makes a difference. So, ladies, thank you so much. I greatly appreciate it. 01:02 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, anne Ganguza. 01:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, hey everyone. Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am here with my boss superpower business buddy, Lau Lapides. Hey, Lau, how are you today? 01:38 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Annie, fabulous, how are you I? 01:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) missed you. I know it's been a while it has been too long Lau, and so I asked how are you? How's it going? I mean, what have you been working on? 01:46 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Well, let me just say this I haven't had a booking in a while. 01:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Really yes. Well, how often are you auditioning? 01:54 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) I'm auditioning every day for like an hour, maybe even two, and I'm waiting for my agents and I have a few agents to send me things and they haven't. 02:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And I'm really upset. Well, I think maybe it's time for us to sit down and have a talk about getting real and really talking about what does it take to get work in this industry. I don't think. Maybe waiting for your agents and you know this as an agent is necessarily something that you want to be doing. I think let's talk about how we can be proactive as actors, because I hear that a lot. I mean, thank you for that little role play Lau. 02:31 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) I was just about to say. I actually spoke with a coaching client this week who gave me that exact conversation and I wanted to role. Play that with you because it's common. 02:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now I have so many students that talk to me and say are we ready to make that demo? I mean, why do I need more sessions? I'm like if you could do some more homework I give homework, I'm a homework girl and so they could be practicing scripts like an audition, like auditions, every single day. And yet at the end of a week they might've recorded one or two. And then they're like well, why am I not any closer to my demo? I'm like well, how much work have you put into it? 03:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So yeah, that's an excellent, excellent topic. 03:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) What does it take? How much do we have to put into our careers? Yeah, get out what you put in. 03:19 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Well, listen, you're taking the words right out of my mouth. Like we're sisters, east West Coast sisters. I was just about to say you get out of it what you put into it. 03:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It sounds so cliche, but I'm telling you, I'm saying that more than ever now, and the truth is. 03:35 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) The truth is we're even grinding more these days for less at times, because of the saturation of competition, so you just have to put that into your equation. 03:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And I like that you brought that up, because now we've got evolving moving parts too, right. I mean, 10 years ago, the industry was a particular way. There were so many people in the industry, but I'll tell you what it's more saturated than ever. I'm not here to say that there isn't work, because there's a ton of work out there. However, my goodness, you have to realize that and I say this how many times have I said this? On how many podcasts Lau when we go to school and learn a skill, I mean we practice that skill for hours. We go to school for years, and so I don't understand why people that come into this industry think that they can just immediately go out and book work as if they've been doing it for years. 04:32 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Well, you know, that's very interesting. You say that, annie, because I'm seeing especially an older set and some have been in it for three, four, five, six years and feel like veterans. Three, four, five, six years and feel like veterans and to some degree they are veterans say, okay, where's my payoff, okay, where's my semi-retirement, so to speak, like it should just be coming in like mailbox money and I don't have to do much, when the truth is, if you look at and I always go back to, like the biggies, the big box stores, they're running advertising, they're running sales, they're thinking up new campaigns. What aren't they doing right? And they've been around for 50, 60, 70 years. Think about that. It's because their competition is shifting, the generations are shifting and they really have to keep up with those tides. They can't sit back and say and they really have to keep up with those tides. They can't sit back and say, oh, but we're Target and we've been around now for 60 years. 05:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, you have some competition now, especially online, and so yeah, I'm glad that you brought that up because it affects everyone. It doesn't just affect new people coming into the industry. It affects veterans in the industry as well, because if they're not moving with the times and they're not paying attention and their eyeballs aren't open and they aren't thinking outside the box these days and that includes, maybe working with different coaches on different genres because every little bit, even though you might be a polished actor and you've been doing this for years I mean, I'm a lifelong learner I think you can always get something from more education, and so I really feel as though it's important for actors to continue their education and continue their quest for thinking outside the box. Days, voiceover industry because it is truly the whole digital online thing has really just disrupted disrupted what used to be, and we need to be prepared for that and we need to be able to roll with the changes, roll with the punches, so to speak that's a perfect word you're using. 06:37 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) That's like the new word disruptor be a disruptor. Well, I'm going to disrupt you right now and I'm going to say you do have to work harder. And that's not welcomed by a lot of people who are being brought up in this ideology of work-life balance. Well, I'm telling you, when you're building business and you're grinding in business, there is not the work-life balance that you would like to have. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You just cannot as much as we try to generationally. And I'm not saying don't take care of yourself or don't be good to yourself and be healthy, but I am saying you will have somewhat of an imbalanced life as you're building business and sustaining and keeping business, because you have to grind, you have to work really hard. 07:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You made a big distinction. I'm going to tag on to that and say that this is your own business and so, yeah, that only needing to put in the work for so many hours per day and not necessarily doing more than that, I don't know if that holds water when you are running your own business, because in reality, it's not like you're depending on someone to give you that paycheck every week or every two weeks. Now you're the one that's going out and doing everything and generating the leads, and so I mean absolutely I'm not saying you can't work nine to five if that's what you choose. However, if you choose that, understand that there's consequences for that, especially when you're first starting out. I mean, in order to get the work, you've got to generate the leads, and a lot of times I mean I think people have to know that they probably have to work harder than they thought to generate those leads. 08:11 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) I think that's really it. Everybody's like well. 08:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm not booking. I'm not booking. I have great demos and now I'm not booking and I'm like well, okay, let's just talk about the first thing. I asked you about auditioning. So, auditioning, how often are you auditioning? How many auditions? Now, I know if people aren't paid to plays, they might get penalized if they audition too much. However, there is a multitude of opportunities out there and I'm not saying you should spend eight hours a day auditioning. However, you've got to go out there and search the opportunities. If you're not auditioning, you should be marketing to people who can give you opportunities. Right? 08:42 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Right. And how many of these folks too, when you really dig a little deep and dive in there, annie, they're not keeping up with their current connections. Oftentimes they haven't flagged them, they're not in their calendar. Maybe they did an audition, a showcase, whatever, a year ago. They haven't been in touch with them. It's this ideology of I'm still waiting for things to come to me rather than proactively going out and getting them. And the building and sustaining of relationships, as you and I know, is really about reminding. It's like think of yourself. 09:18 Top of mind. Hey, I'm here. Yes, think of yourself in terms of advertising. Right, Advertisers have to show you something 10, 15, 20, 25 times in a day, maybe even more right? Well, we do too. 09:29 We have to remind people that we're here, remind them what we do, remind them that we have a relationship together. That's on me, that's on you, that's on the onus of us, right? And you and I are great examples. We've been in our businesses for 15, 16, 17 years. Now you and I are texting each other on a Saturday in the middle of the night, absolutely Now. 09:50 True, we're on different time zones, but we're still obsessively up in the middle of the night thinking, ooh, why don't we do this on Wednesday? And what's next? Exactly so isn't there a part of that like, if we take out the obsessive quality, which I understand, I'm obsessive To your audience, I am, and I admit it but isn't there a part of it that's so fun, that's so much joy, that's like you get a kick out of thinking up new ideas and executing them and going after six people that you haven't talked to in a few months, and I feel like it, authentically, is missing from a lot of people's like persona to do that. They feel like, oh, where's my job and where's my money and where's my credit? Versus where's my process, yeah, yeah. 10:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that you brought that up. 10:40 You need to give a reminder to these people. 10:42 I mean, that's the whole, and I know that people are scared about spamming, but, honestly, if you take a look at the trends now in marketing and email marketing, especially on the retail level right, because I joined a lot of mailing lists and I always encourage people to join mailing lists for companies that they want to work for, so that you can understand how they market and then you can learn a lot from other companies marketing really Retail wisewise I get reminders, I get text messages and I'm trying to think outside the box about okay, how can I SMS text my clients, which is now becoming an option for a lot of the new marketing methods out there. 11:21 I mean, I know the Wix backend now enables you to SMS remind people or text them within your sales promotions, and that's kind of a cool thing that people can, of course, opt out of, but I'm doing a lot of my business via text. So for me, my brain is thinking how can I keep connected with my clients right Via text, so that it's not intrusive, but yet says, hey, I'm here, by the way, and kind of spark that top of mind where they're like. Oh yeah, ann would be great for this job. 11:53 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Yes, yes, yes, I mean anything you can be thinking about, even one new methodology that you bring into your business. It doesn't have to be every single day, it doesn't have to be all day long, it's just one new concept. One new idea can change the whole face of what you do and really how you work. I oftentimes say to folks that we're coaching do you know, if you reach out to one new person or one new company a day, which for you and I is not a whole lot, but for someone else it might be a lot to take on? One, that's five a week in terms of work days, that's 20 in a month, yeah, 20. And then you say, but Lau, I can do three or four in a day. And I say, well, then do it, because then you're going to be 100 prospects richer by the end of the month. Absolutely. 12:42 And why aren't you doing that? And you know what the reason is. I'll tell you one of the firewalls reasoning behind why they're not doing it is, I'm afraid, Laura. Why are you afraid? I'm afraid. I don't know what to say to them. Yeah, yeah. 12:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, I say, let's start off by just being human and making sure that you have done your research on them so that you can make a good introduction and that you're not going to be wasting their time by giving them like paragraphs and paragraphs of all about you, you, you. But really it's got to be about how you can help them. 13:15 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Yes, and one of the things that I can tell you I live my whole life this way that books jobs is your energy and your tone and just like, ironically, how, as an actor, you would read and think about what's my tone for this commercial, this e-learning copy? What's my tone when I reach out to someone, when I talk to someone, and you get hired for your energy and you get fired for your energy or lack thereof. 13:45 And you have to rely sometimes on your personality and say you know that books a lot of jobs if you're likable. 13:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Can I be completely honest and say that your personality, when it comes out in your read right, that's what makes you unique, that…

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How Much? Jul 30, 2024

Show notes

How do you determine your worth as a voice actor, especially when you're just starting out? Join Anne and Tom as we unravel the complexities of setting rates in the voiceover industry. We challenge the misconception that newbies should work for less and emphasize the need for a solid base studio session fee. From understanding SAG-AFTRA and Global Voice Acting Academy (GVAA) rate guides to navigating the nuances of broadcast and non-broadcast work, we provide practical insights that empower you to establish your value right from the get-go. Efficiency and quality are your best allies in commanding higher rates and securing repeat clients. Learn the essential strategies for managing your career, from cultivating new leads and staying updated on market trends to understanding client churn. We'll share actionable advice on how to keep your pipeline full and stay ahead of the curve in this ever-evolving industry. 00:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey boss listeners. Are you ready to turn your voiceover career goals into achievements? With my personalized coaching and demo production, I'm here to help you reach new milestones. You know you're already part of a boss community that strives for the very best. Let's elevate that. Your success is my next project. Find out more at anneganguzzacom. 00:26 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next project. Find out more at anganguzacom. It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. The boss, a VO boss. 00:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Hey, hey, everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguza, and I am here on the Real Boss series with my co-host, Tom Dheere. Hey, Tom Dheere, how are you? 00:57 - Tom Dheere (Host) Hello Anne, how are you doing? 00:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Real boss. Yeah, hey, Tom, as a real boss. How's your year going? By the way, it's gone by so fast already. 01:06 - Tom Dheere (Host) First quarter gone. 01:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, first quarter and tax season is already coming. 01:10 - Tom Dheere (Host) Well, I mean, we filed, I filed and I got paid already. So yeah, oh, very, very nice. 01:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So, speaking of numbers, you're a numbers guy, so how's your year going? 01:20 - Tom Dheere (Host) It's funny because I just did my first quarter analytics financially and I think I'm like literally like $300 ahead of first quarter 2023. 01:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Congrats. 01:33 - Tom Dheere (Host) Can't complain about that. 01:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Being ahead is always a plus, always a plus and myself as well, and I'm ecstatic that I got paid already from the government, so that's good. I'm going to reinvest that in my business. But I love talking real numbers, like real money. So I thought it would be good to talk about real money, because so many times I have students who just get into this industry and they get that first job where somebody's interested in their voice and then they panic and they say, oh my God, they've come back to me and they want to know what I'll charge for this job and I thought we should actually. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about those numbers. How do people come up with those numbers? 02:13 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right. It's funny because, like we could just say, well, just go look at the SAG-AFTRA contract if you're union, or go look at the Global Voice Acting website if you're non-union, and this will be the world's shortest podcast episode. 02:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's it. Gvaa rate guide and SegAftra Boom and you're done. 02:28 - Tom Dheere (Host) But, as you well know, it's a lot more complicated than that. But I want to do a little bit of myth busting real quick. A lot of voice actors coming into the industry think hierarchical. They think vertical, as in. Since they're just entering the voiceover industry, they should get paid the lowest and the people who have been in here the longest should get paid the highest. And that is not necessarily true. I mean, if there's one thing I've learned in the 25 plus years I've been doing this is that the last gig I got isn't always the worst paying gig I've got, and then the next gig I've got isn't always the best paying gig that I've got. 03:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It fluctuates, it just does right. I mean, before the rate guides. Well, I think there was always SAG-AFTRA, but SAG-AFTRA mostly concentrated on things that were national and broadcast right, and so national, regional, local, anything that was broadcast. So what was a girl to do back in the early years when I was there trying to figure out what do I charge? And literally it set myself into a panic and I always, tom, had to pretty much just kind of wing it and guess what? I think that that's even still true today. 03:44 - Tom Dheere (Host) I mean, now we have guides that we can look at as benchmarks, but in reality every job is absolutely different, especially when you're talking non-broadcast rates, so broadcast rates, radio, tv, cable, internet, streaming right, all the front-facing stuff, where there's going to be a session fee, which is how much you get paid to record the voiceover audio files, and then the usage fee, which is how much you get paid for giving license, because you're literally licensing your voice to the voice seekers for them to use your audio files in a certain period of time and in a certain area. 04:31 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely. 04:31 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right. So that's broadcast in the broadest sense, for lack of a better term, and just by giving your listeners that basic explanation. That's what sets up this avalanche of other questions. It's like how big of a market, how many listeners, how long are you getting paid for? It's, in simplest terms, the more listeners or viewers, the more you get paid, and the longer that they're going to air this spot, on whatever medium they decide, the more you get paid. So the question is where do you start with that? So actually, that leads me to a question. Anne, do you have like a turning? 05:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) on the lights fee. Do you have a base studio session fee? Yes, I absolutely do. For me to step into the studio, I have a certain fee and a lot of my work is non-broadcast. So if I am doing any work that's broadcast. Typically that's either handled by my agent, right? Who's negotiating that for me? Which is why it's awesome to have agents, because they handle that and they're always fighting for the most part, if you've got a good agent for your best interests. 05:35 If it's not an agent fighting for the rates, then I have to go to a rate guide to start somewhere and figure out what that is. But for non-broadcast, absolutely. I have a rate for stepping into my studio and that is my studio session fee, which. 05:51 I try to equate everything non-broadcast to the same equivalent on the broadcast side, because these days, with synthetic voices right, I want to make sure that nobody's going to be using my voice for a purpose that it wasn't intended for, and so I will actually put and I'm probably getting ahead of myself on my non-broadcast, I will put an actual length of time, whereas previously this was not something we talked about in perpetuity in another episode. But I want to absolutely address that. For non-broadcast, typically it was you gave somebody a rate for usage of that file and it was forever. And now, with synthetic voices and the fear of getting our voices stolen or used for purposes other than intended, I now put in for non-broadcast. I put in a length of time that they can use that for as a safeguard. 06:42 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right and for certain things I mean there's explainers and corporate and e-learning and stuff like that. 06:47 Most of that stuff isn't evergreen anyway, because, like an explainer video, for example, the company's branding may change, the name of the company may change, the product, the service, the widget may change, so they're going to need a new explainer video. 07:03 If they have just like one explainer video which is parked on their website and their social media channels just saying we are this company, this is what we do, in two, three years, maybe five at most, they're going to need a new video and they may go to you and they may go to somebody else. But when you see non-broadcast in perpetuity, you want to be smart about it. You want to give it some form of shelf life, and that's a big part of this conversation, anne is how do you communicate this? How do you educate your clients? By explaining, like look, in a few years you're going to need a new one of these anyway, because I've noticed that for like non-broadcast, most of them want it in perpetuity, not because they want to synthesize your voice or because they want to hose you financially, it's just because they just don't want to be bothered. They just want to do this and it's done, and it's there and now they can go focus on other things. 07:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, they say that it's theirs. 07:49 - Tom Dheere (Host) And they say it's theirs. For non-broadcast genres there's a whole bunch of different ways to charge. Sometimes you charge by the finished minute. If it's an audio book, you charge by the finished hour. If it's long form e-learning modules, you could get paid by the word. 08:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Exactly, I mean, those are the big ones there used to be per page but I don't remember the last time I got paid per page and you know what. I'll be completely honest, tom, I don't remember the last time I quoted an e-learning module on a per word basis, because most of the companies or most of the people that I'm working with I'm not on a roster that is paying on a per word basis or working with an instructional e-learning company, that usually is on a per word basis. 08:31 Whenever I get e-learning clients, I always price them on a per hour, per finished hour basis and I get paid the same for e-learning as I do for corporate pretty much. 08:41 - Tom Dheere (Host) Yeah, I mean they're both informational, non-broadcast, so in the broadest brushstrokes they're pretty much the same genre-wise, with the exception that e-learning is usually used to train students and new employees and corporate is for internal communications, like an HR video or a memo, or here's how you pick your employee benefits, and stuff like that. 09:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Or even a corporate narration video. That's what I meant. Corporate training and e-learning to me is the same. Do you know what I mean? Corporate training and academic e-learning rates are the same to me, except most educational institutions can't afford what a company can Right. 09:15 It's harder for them to get the money, but I think one thing that I want to emphatically tell the bosses out there that are just beginning for non-broadcast is that really every job is unique and we don't always have a rate guide to go to, and it's up to you as a business person to understand what would be an acceptable market rate for that and price it accordingly to that and also know your worth because, again, like you had mentioned before, you think that just because you're newer, you should charge less, and that is probably not the. That is not the way I would be thinking about it at all as a new person into the industry. Because you're being paid for your voice right, you're being paid for your voice. You can get just as much as I can or Tom can for that voice. It is your business. 10:11 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right. Here's the thing about that is that a lot of my students immediately devalue themselves. Yeah, and you shouldn't do that to yourself, because, think about it on the other side of the equation is that if you're a voice seeker, do you care how long the voice actors have been doing voiceover Really? I mean in the abstract. Well, of course we would like an experienced narrator, but when it comes down to the audition, within two, three seconds, either they like you or you don't. It doesn't matter how long you've been doing voiceover. 10:43 Now there is obviously a correlation between the ability to tell a story effectively and how long you've been doing this. But ultimately, if you've got quality training from Anne and a quality demo and that demo is submitted and you've been trained by Anne to audition effectively for projects, I'd say 90, 95% of the time, it's a level playing field. Regardless of how long you've been trained by Anne to audition effectively for projects, I'd say 90, 95% of the time, it's a level playing field regardless of how long you've been in the industry, and I agree with you there, completely agree with you. 11:10 So you take that data point and then you extrapolate that. Well, if that's the case, then that means everybody should get paid the same who's auditioning for that, because if one of my students auditions for an e-learning project and I audition for an e-learning project, if I book it, I shouldn't necessarily get paid more than they should. 11:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I agree with that, completely agree with that. Again, they're paying for the voice. They're not necessarily paying for the experience. However, in dealing with the client, your level of experience might have a part in it because after you get the job, in order to maybe keep the job or have the person keep coming back, that's where your experience and customer service comes into play and that's where I feel that you can command. And again, you can command just as much if you can give them a good experience. 12:00 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right. This is what I tell my students is that your talent will book you the first gig with a client. Your project management skills will book you the next gig with the same client, because if me and a student are auditioning for the same gig and they book it. Great, they should get the same that I get, but then they better deliver the goods, communicate the retake policy, understand how to use their DAW, understand how to edit and deliver the audio files, being able to take direction if it's a live setting those are skills that. 12:31 Yes, there is a correlation between your experience level and the ability to execute good project management, but if you work with Anne or if you work with myself, part of our jobs is to teach you that and how to be able to be professional and communicate effectively and do all those things, because it's not just getting the first gig, it's getting the next gig and the next gig and the next gig without auditioning. 12:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Exactly. And it's funny because it reminds me of a conversation I had in my Voices in Podcasting Clubhouse the other day with Jodi Krangel and Cheryl Holling, where we got into this discussion about acting right, because a lot of coaches these days will say it's more important now more than ever to have your acting skills so that you can separate yourself from the synthetic voices. And Jodi said you know, I don't know if I'm completely convinced about that, because in reality it also has to do with your customer service. And I'm…

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Epic Voiceover with Jon Bailey Jul 23, 2024

Show notes

Get ready for an epic conversation with the one and only Jon Bailey, the voice behind Honest Trailers and one of the voices of Optimus Prime. Jon shares his unique journey into voice acting, from his unexpected start and overcoming the early hurdles of being labeled "just a YouTube voice" to establishing himself as a renowned actor in the industry. We discuss the importance of performance background and how platforms like YouTube have become integral to shaping modern voice-acting careers. Authenticity and resilience are the cornerstones of lasting success in the entertainment industry. This episode illuminates how maintaining a genuine persona can inspire others, with practical advice on consistency, branding, and leveraging mentorship. 00:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, bosses want to be that well-rounded talent that's always in demand. I offer coaching in a variety of genres, including commercials that grab attention, medical narrations that educate, corporate scripts that inspire and e-learning modules that engage. Find out more at anganguzacom. 00:24 - Intro (Host) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, anne Ganguza. 00:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am so excited to have a very special guest in the studio with me today Epic voice guy of the four-time Emmy-nominated Honest Trailers, the sixth voice of Optimus Prime and over 20 other Transformer characters and voices for Marvel, disney and many, many more and the credit list just goes on and on, but this is a finite amount of time that I have with you, so I am going to let you talk. Welcome, Jon Bailey. 01:17 - Jon Bailey (Host) Thank you. It's good to see you again after 100 years. I said 500. 01:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So, yes, we go way back. At least we were just discussing it like 16 years it is. I said 500. So, yes, we go way back. At least we were just discussing it like 16 years, gosh, when you first got into voiceover and I have watched you over the years become this incredible success. Bosses I mean, this is the VO Boss podcast. We are talking very boss-like. We are talking very boss-like strategies and hard work. Jon, I am so, so happy for all of your successes and so proud of you, my gosh, because I know in the beginning it was a struggle for you. So maybe for the bosses I don't know anybody that probably doesn't know who you are, but in case they don't, tell us a little bit about how you got into the world of voice acting, it's good to be back. 02:06 - Jon Bailey (Host) Thank you for having me back on. It's been a hot second. Yeah, it was all kind of accidental. I had background in performance from school, all the way from, I would say, kindergarten, through college and public speaking and improv and things like that. 02:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) In fact, I think that's how we met is through Rebecca's love. That, oh, yes, that's right. Oh my gosh, I feel like that had something to do with it. 02:27 - Jon Bailey (Host) It's been so long ago I don't 100% remember, but I feel like that may have been how we connected. So that was back in my R&D days, which was two years before I even did anything professionally and, like you had said, before, we started the show. Seriously, I would go in, for my first manager kind of found me on the Internet by accident because I'd started YouTube out of boredom. 02:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) really, Little did you know? 02:49 - Jon Bailey (Host) Yeah well, the main reason why I did it was because I saw other people taking old cartoons and dubbing over them and making funny things out of them. I was like, well, that's what I wanted to do. If they can do it, then why can't I do that? And I had this small following just based off the comedy stuff that I put together involving Transformers and the movie trailer voice, the inner world guy and my first manager, family from that video. And then I ran into the problem with him, like he pitched me to Sony because I would feel like we've heard your voice before and something. I'm like, oh, cool. I was like, well, I did this little tiny thing online and caught on his trailers and they, oh, because you're not a real voice actor, you're a YouTube voice actor. And I was like there's a difference. 03:30 And it's so funny how much just changed in a decade, because now that's considered a major platform. 03:36 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That is what is so impressive, Jon. You just forged through, because I remember that they're like oh yeah, honest Australia's. You're not a real voice. I remember that and I remember your struggles and your frustration with that, and you have like a trillion followers. I mean literally. 03:50 - Jon Bailey (Host) Not that I'm inflating. 03:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But you got what? 03:52 - Jon Bailey (Host) over a million, over a million, yeah, combined across all platforms, which is impressive. For voice actors, yeah, who haven't been the main character in some major popular anime or cartoon or whatever game? I kind of coined the phrase recently where it's like I'm the guy everyone's heard but no one's heard of, right. 04:10 Because I'm so in everything like my manager, my agents, whoever, or sometimes just directly from the clients. They just throw everything at me and I'm just willing to give everything a shot. I know that can't hurt to try, so as long as it doesn't violate my personal faith. There's some things I'm just like no. And other things I'm like well, I'll check it out, but I can't make any promises and some stuff. I'm just like you know, don't bother me with this stuff because I'm not going to work on it. 04:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, so you've worked on such a wide range of projects. I mean, what would you say, say I mean outside of? I know in the beginnings were really like getting started and getting your feet wet and getting known. Talk about some of the biggest challenges that you've had as a voice actor, because, gosh, we all run into what we think are challenges. But I feel like just with the amount of exposure and the amount that you've grown over the years, I mean your challenges I feel must equal almost sometimes your follower size. 05:04 - Jon Bailey (Host) I think my challenge is there's been a lot of them, but I'd say if I had to narrow it down for an interview with you, I would say that you really need to have some organization to your personal life, because if you don't have the availability for this job, you're wasting your time because you really can't do anything else. 05:24 You have to find a way to work around their schedule instead of your own and be available for them, and that often leads to that thing between voice actors where it's like why did they get the job instead of me? Well, it might've been because they had a home studio and you didn't, and they had immediate availability and you didn't. Or they might've decided to move to a town like Los Angeles rather than the middle of nowhere, because sometimes it doesn't matter how great you are for the job, it really doesn't. For some reason, some people out here are just too scared of change and they would rather have a real human person that can show up at their studio at a specific time and day and record the thing. And unfortunately, you have to sacrifice a lot. I mean, you have to kind of give up your freedom, so to speak, and I'm thankful that technology has changed, where there's mobile options now, where I don't feel like I'm stuck in this particular physical space 24-7. 06:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, I was just going to ask how much do you actually go in studio now? 06:21 - Jon Bailey (Host) Still probably more than me, I would say it's more than it used to be only because I'm booking more, but I would still say, you know, 90% of the time it's still here. In fact a good percentage is. Just to look at the bookings for this coming week, I have four bookings the first week of June and half of those are in studio and half of those are home studio. So it sometimes varies, but I would say the majority of the time I still feel like the majority of it is here. But certain projects they really want to work with just the studios that they've already recording all their other actors at, because they want the quality to sound the same. It makes sense to me, but at the same time people's home technology has gotten so good they don't really need it anymore. 06:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) COVID kind of proved that. Yeah, exactly Now. Did you have to do any upgrade? I'm sure you probably had a great studio already, but did you have to do any upgrading to your studio? 07:08 - Jon Bailey (Host) I mean it's still the same booth. It always was this one I've had, for I would say I've had this one for at least five or six years. Todd Haberkorn's misfortune was my fortune. He got this booth for his place, which is not too far from here, and he moved here from West Hollywood, which it fit perfectly fine in his old place, but it just happened to be a few inches too big for his new place. So he had to sell it for a third of what they normally run and I'm like well, I can make payments. 07:36 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And he was cool with that. 07:36 - Jon Bailey (Host) He just wanted to get rid of it because it takes up so much space and it's so heavy and so bulky and big. It's bigger than I need. It's an 8x4 and I don't recommend anything bigger than 4x4. But the truth is you really don't have to have a booth that looks like yours, no offense, but it looks beautiful on camera. That's great. 07:52 That's one of the main reasons why I had it, because if I want to make content and look like a pro, it needs to look like a pro. And no matter how great the audio quality is, no matter how many studios or clients that you've worked for, when it looks like the inside of a closet you don't look like a very good pro and I guarantee people out there it sounds better in that ugly closet than it does in that fancy studio of yours. Even the guys from VoiceOver Body Shop they recommend you don't have to have a whisper room, you can just have that freaking closet. But I figure that half my career is content creation. Freaking closet, but I figure that half my career is content creation. Half my career has been voiceover, so it might as well upgrade that because the opportunity presented itself for such a low price. 08:31 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, and I agree with you that image, I mean, it's how you present yourself really. 08:36 - Jon Bailey (Host) They don't teach you about how much branding is important. 08:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Back in our day, when we first started. 08:40 - Jon Bailey (Host) Branding was not part of the education. It was all about the voiceover, the career. They never really talked about, like your social media presence or having a color scheme. Well, you were developing that. We were still figuring it out. 08:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) We were, and I remember like first time physically meeting you at a VO Peeps meetup. We were talking about how important it is to start branding and things were just getting popular on the internet. They were starting gosh. We're talking back in our day when we walked to school 10 miles. I know it's funny, that was only 10 years ago I know, I know, and it's incredible how it's grown. 09:12 And you know, you mentioned content creation, which, wow, I mean, like I said, you were ahead of your time back in the day on YouTube, and so I concur, yeah, you were ahead of your time, and I like to think of myself as being a little ahead of my time because I was broadcasting from my living room back when people weren't broadcasting on the Internet. 09:31 My VOP's made up and, that being said, I feel like we're kind of pioneers together, forging our own little paths in our business, which is why I'm so excited that we're talking today and you mentioned content creation. So let's talk a little bit about content creation and what it takes for you on a day-to-day basis, creating the content that you do, because, gosh, I've been following you for the longest time. And then I have another question that I'm going to talk about in a minute, because you have transformed. Not only have you voiced transformers, but you have transformed yourself. But let's talk a little bit about content creation and how important it is for bosses today and people wanting to build a successful business. What does content creation mean for that business? 10:11 - Jon Bailey (Host) Well, the one thing I learned and I have always been a trial and error person People always ask me every freaking day. I would have said you need to find reliable, trustworthy coaches that are affordable and just get coaching, instead of trying to do this the cheap, free way and learning it all the hard way through trial and error and just free research on the internet. 10:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It can be done. 10:39 - Jon Bailey (Host) I'm proof that it could be done, because I didn't get any coaching until I'd already been at this job for like almost a decade and I just didn't see the point because I'd been. Unfortunately, a few not so great coaches can ruin it for everybody else. I'm like I don't hear anything here that I couldn't find on the internet. 10:55 I personally have a theory that when we got started, people were gatekeeping the information. I think people were only telling they were so insecure in their own careers they were afraid if they shared this information, this is going to create more competition, which is going to screw me out of work, and I don't think that this is the kind of career where you should have to worry about that because it's so freaking huge. There is enough room for everybody in this job. 11:19 And if you're great at the job and you do a good job and you take the time to grow your brand and create content, do all the things that you need to do in order to be able to show what you're capable of, you'll be able to get work. There's no doubt in my mind. I've always been kind of ahead of my time, but I've been that guy that like I'll do it and until some huge voice actor does the same exact thing after they've seen me do it, then all of a sudden it becomes popular. I was one of the first voice actors to stream my own video games on Twitch. It didn't really go anywhere and I was like you know what and I told a few other voice actors about it. I said this is a great idea. Now all of them are actually making a separate income from doing the same thing I was doing, but nobody even showed up for me. 11:57 I was also one of the few people out there like I should create content about what I do, or just do career centered content. That's entertaining slash, maybe a little informational way to show what I do, just to promote myself. Because the thing, like I started off, the thing that I learned by making content, was that your representation. They will never represent you as well as you can represent yourself. And when I found out that my agents only just get the auditions and sometimes they'll have some relationship with clients and they'll pi…

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Sirius XM and Pandora Radio with Steve Pogatch Jul 16, 2024

Show notes

Join us as we sit down with Steve Pogatch, Senior Manager of Voice Over Operations at Studio Resonate, SiriusXM and Pandora, to uncover the transformative journey of voiceover and audio advertising over the past decade. Prepare to have your perceptions of podcast advertising turned upside down. We dive into the fascinating differences between host reads and announcer reads. Gain valuable tips on delivering standout performances, crafting compelling commercial reels, and handling ambiguous scripts with finesse. Steve underscores the importance of prompt communication and reliable turnaround times while highlighting the industry's efforts to protect voice talent amidst the rise of synthetic voices. Finally, discover the impact of the Sonic Diversity Initiative, a significant step towards inclusivity in voice casting. 00:03 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses, upgrade your voiceover game with VIPeeps and access our extensive library of over 350 hours of pre-recorded workshops. Whether you're interested in commercials, audiobooks, corporate narration, video games, promos, our workshops cover it all. Plus, as a VIPeeps member, you'll enjoy a 15% discount on current workshops and complimentary monthly workshops to further develop your skills. Join VIPs today and take your voiceover career to new heights. Find out more at vopeepscom. 00:39 - Intro (Host) It's time to take your business to the next level the boss level. It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, anne Ganguza. 00:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, anne Ganguza, and today I'm very excited to have with me in the studio a very special guest, senior Manager of Voice Over Operations of Studio Resonate, which is SiriusXM Media Pandora Stitcher, Steve Pogatch. In addition to producing thousands of high-quality audio ads in the past 10-plus years that he's been at Pandora, steve has been the go-to guy for all things VO casting, direction and quality. He's responsible for recruiting, auditioning and curating new talent for the Pandora VO roster, as well as managing that roster. Steve, I am so super excited to have you with us today. Thanks so much for being with us. 01:42 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. I feel like I've reached the upper echelon of the VO world now that I'm on the Boss podcast. 01:52 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So thank you so much. Well, thank you, thank you. Well, we're super excited to glean all of your years of wisdom and I'm just so excited that we had this opportunity that I saw you in person. I had to see you in person to beg you to come on the show. So let's kick off things by talking a little bit about your journey at Pandora. You've been there for 10 years and I know in the past 10 years in my voiceover career, I've seen a ton of things change. Talk to us a little bit about what you've seen as far as changes in audio advertising, casting and voiceover. 02:24 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Sure. So yeah, about 10 years ago when I started I was just a producer and our voice roster was maybe about 60 talents or so Wow, and yeah, when they started their advertising department they were getting talents off of Craigslist and other places that I really didn't know. So when I got there, that roster was on an Excel spreadsheet really and it was just filled with all kinds of information and it was really hard to manage and navigate. But a lot of the voices were that terrestrial radio, you know announcer-y style voice. 02:56 And one overarching theme is that voices and everything we've been doing for the past 10 plus years has really just escalated from the announcer-y like hey, pandora listeners, you know like radio style, to hey, pandora listener, you know it's like instead of talking to a group of people talking to one person, you're interrupting their music flow, you're tapping them on the shoulder. You know you're in their earbuds and you just hey, let me tell you about this Tide detergent or Cascade dishwashing liquid or something like that, and just the gentle approach. So it's really gravitated from the super announcer-y, terrestrial radio style to super conversational. The directional word I love to use nowadays is casual a lot. Everyone's sick of conversational already. They're like oh yeah, you're talking to a friend, blah blah, blah, you know yeah. 03:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You know, what's so funny is just my own personal feelings about it is, I get that Like I think they're just sick of the conversational word, but in reality we have conversations with each other every single day, and so there's all different styles of conversational. It could be authoritative conversational, it could be like super casual conversational. I think that when it comes to advertising, though, one of the reasons why it's kind of gotten to that in your ear one-on-one sort of, I think that's what sells and I think that's the evolution of advertising over the years. Would you say that that's true? 04:18 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Yeah, I think so it's. You know, the more personal you can get, or targeted, you know, with an ad, or I mean not to the point where it's creepy, but to the point where it resonates with the listener. You know where it's like, oh yeah, the same thing with VO talent getting into a script and connecting with a script. It's like you want to connect with that listener, like, oh yeah, I do use that dish soap every night. 04:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, yeah, I want to. 04:40 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Oh yeah, that sounds interesting to me, you know. 04:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So then I guess my question would be is and this is probably something you're very familiar with is that they ask you to have that casual, like engaged, sort of sound, but yet they don't always write it so that it's easy to achieve that? Do you find that, in terms of the copy that you're seeing come across your desk over and over again, like people still want it to be very, you know, like you're talking to your best friend or that casual, but yet sometimes it's written like super announcer-y? 05:08 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Yeah, and that is hard. That is really hard when you get the bullet point style our orange juice has 100% fresh pulp and made from only Valencia oranges. It's like there's three other facts attached to that and you're squeezing that into 30 seconds spot. It's like there's three other facts attached to that and you're squeezing that into 30 seconds spot. It's like how do we get these bullet points to be super conversational? 05:30 - Intro (Host) That is hard. 05:31 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) That is very hard for a talent and for a copywriter. So we do have some great copywriters on our team on Studio Resonate that actually really write great scripts and whenever I can get scripts with humor in them or stuff like that, it just really makes the whole experience better. 05:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now in the studio, are you always writing the copy, or do the clients come and provide copy as well, or do you make suggestions? Let's say, when they come with copy and then they ask for a super casual read, or they have 5,000 words when they need it in 30 seconds. 06:02 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Yeah, that happens. The struggle is real. 06:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) The struggle is real. 06:06 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Yeah, I'd say I don't know the exact percentage, but from where I sit I don't do the writing, but it feels like maybe half and half half are our copywriters and half might be the clients, and sometimes we'll actually take the clients and go here, let us try and rewrite this in a Pandorified way or something like that. And sometimes again, it's like those bullet points-y stuff that really need to get in there and don't even get me started on like some like pharmacy disclaimers and stuff like that. 06:32 - Intro (Host) You probably know from medical narration and stuff like that. 06:34 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) It's just like woo. You know, it's like 90 words in a 30 second script. 06:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, but they're changing too. It's interesting if you actually listen to some of them now I don't think they're as fast as they used to be, because I'm almost positive that because it's a legal disclaimer that they have to be, like, understood by the listener, and so sometimes if they're talking too fast then it's not clear, or because I've really noticed that trend and I don't know if it's the same in terms of I've seen it on television at least. 07:04 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Yeah. 07:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I don't know about Pandora, but very interesting. So then my question is is the casual read dying? Are people coming back to announcer style, or are you seeing variations on the type of casual? 07:20 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Yeah, I hope it's not going back to announcer, because we've really worked hard on this whole gentle approach. Yeah, exactly, and you know personally, when I meet a voice actor who's locked into that whole radio world like I have 27 years of radio experience how do I get on your roster and I just kind of go well, how do I let you down gently? 07:41 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, exactly Because you're looking for an actor. 07:44 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Some talents and again talents who haven't really evolved with us in the 10 years that I've been there at least, or may not be on our roster anymore because there has been that evolution. But yeah, it's really difficult for some people who have been locked into that radio world to actually shift and change and it's part of their muscle memories. 08:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right Interesting. I know that even when it comes to, like, long format narration, I know that just reading it it doesn't cut it anymore. I mean, you have to be in their ear and that's super hard, given you've got more than a minute's worth of copy and it's not always written in a first person kind of way, so that I know the struggle is real for that as well. So, in terms of advertising, would you say that there are more advertisements from 10 years ago today, or how are you seeing the trend? Because I know in podcasting there's a lot of people who, like they find advertising annoying and so they fast forward quickly, and so I'm just curious to see how advertising is received in terms of listenership and in terms of popularity of people. Yeah, let's advertise on Pandora. 08:49 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) It's funny because when I first started this job, I would meet people at like a party or something like that, or a dinner, you know a get together, and they were like oh, where do you work? 08:57 - Intro (Host) I'm like, oh, I work at Pandora. 08:58 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) They're like I love Pandora, and then I just sit back and wait for the next sentence. They take a breath and they go, but the ads, yeah, exactly. 09:14 - Intro (Host) You, he knew it. And then I go, hey. 09:15 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) I make those ads and then talk about like an awkward. You know you can hear a glass drop in the background, but it's just like, well, we're trying to you know to make these ads gentle and not as abrasive and in your face like real radio ads. 09:22 And then they turn around and they start to agree with me. I'm like yeah, yeah, you know, okay, but I think the Free Pandora, you knowora, has really kind of survived on the advertising and I haven't really done a count in a while, but I don't think it's that many ads. I don't think it's really changed over time either, like in terms of an ad pod and an hour listening session. 09:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, I think it is what it is. I mean, you have to support the medium and I know that for myself, like on the VO Boss podcast, I've had sponsors which I wait until the end typically to say anything about the sponsors. But lately I'm like gosh, I've had this podcast for seven and a half years and I've never done any advertising, and so now I'm kind of doing my own ads. Now we'll see how that turns out. But my question to you is is that podcast advertising is now really started to become a thing just because podcasts are now becoming a thing? So what are your thoughts on that? Are you seeing trends? Are you seeing changes in how people tolerate ads and podcasts? 10:16 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Yeah, I mean, I actually am guilty of fast-forwarding through a podcast ad recently, when I was listening to a podcast. 10:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It better not be mine. 10:23 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Shame on me. 10:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's like a voice actor who fast-forwards through a commercial on television. 10:27 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Right, it was their own. No, no, no. 10:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, I don't watch commercials Really. 10:34 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) But since SiriusXM bought Stitcher a few years ago, they were a podcast company. So we had to kind of figure out okay, we're going to do a lot more podcast ads now, so what does this sound like? So I feel like in the past few years we've been kind of sculpting this. There's a couple of different versions of what we work with in our group, on our team, and one is host reads. You know, it's like you have your Conan O'Briens and they're just handed a sheet of bullet points and they're ad living. 11:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, yes, and I think that's effective. 11:02 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Yeah, if you ever listen to Conan O'Briens ad reads, they're incredible. 11:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, it's smart list. I'm going to put my vote in for SmartList. Okay, Really, really excellent. It's Sean Hayes, Dustin Bateman and oh my gosh, Will Arnett. 11:15 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Yeah. 11:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And so each one of them take turns. And you're right, they get the bullet points and they add them. They're amazing, they're funny. That's the best yeah, and so I agree. So that's just so so interesting yeah. 11:25 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) So that's the host read, and then we also do this thing called announcer. 11:29 Read now again that word announcer is not used in the same context that I just told you that we've evolved from. It's just quote announcer read, it's another package or whatever. So we've been trying to sculpt what does this announcer read sound like? Well, in my eyes it's like an offshoot of the conversational, because you're listening to a podcast and it's usually two hosts, you know, or whoever the hosts are, they're just shooting the breeze, you know, talking to one another, you know, we've all heard that. And then boom, a podcast ad comes in. So how do we want that ad to be? And it's the same thing as interrupting someone's music flow Again. But this is like. So we just want that super casual approach. 12:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But you can still tell the difference, because it's not necessarily ad-libbed right Like a host Right. 12:14 - Steve Pogatch (Guest) Yeah, you can definitely yeah, but we're trying to write that way as well, and we've been working on this…

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Your Financial Team with Danielle Famble Jul 09, 2024

Show notes

Explore the intricacies of financial success in your voiceover business with our new series "Boss Money Talks," featuring special guest Danielle Famble. Discover how assembling a team of financial experts, like accountants and CPAs, can help you track expenses, handle taxes, and ensure consistent profitability. The BOSSES highlight the benefits of separating personal and business finances and the advantages of having ongoing relationships with professionals. They discuss the benefits of quarterly meetings to assess profit and tax liabilities and the complexities of running a business, including payroll and compliance. This episode is packed with actionable advice to help you build a reliable financial team and set a solid financial structure for your voiceover business. 00:03 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey boss listeners. Are you ready to turn your voiceover career goals into achievements? With my personalized coaching and demo production, I'm here to help you reach new milestones. You know you're already part of a boss community that strives for the very best. Let's elevate that. Your success is my next project. Find out more at anganguzacom. 00:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, anne Ganguza. 00:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, hey everyone, Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguza, and today I am so excited to start a new series called Boss Money Talks with the one and only Danielle Famble. I am so excited, Danielle, to have you on the show today to talk about something so important to our businesses, and that's money. Welcome, hey. 01:10 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Anne, thank you so much for having me on. This is really exciting. 01:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, I have to say it is my honor to have you. When I interviewed you and bosses if you didn't catch our last episode together I was just blown away by your savviness financially and, of course, voice actor and all that other good stuff. But it's very rare to find someone who really is all about the financial aspects of things and you're just right on top of everything. And I just was so excited to ask you to create a series with me on this because I think it's really important for the success of any boss out there for their business. 01:47 So, kicking off the first episode, I thought maybe we should talk about forming your team, because I recently spoke to my accountant and she handles things for me and I absolutely love it and I said it so many times across many, many episodes how important my accountant is to me. I thought, wow, we really need to like go over this again for any bosses that are out there really starting their own business how important it is to get your finances in order. Do you have a team of people that work with you? I mean, I know you have background in finance, but do you have a team of people for your business? 02:22 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I do. I think it's really important to talk about having a team, because as a solo entrepreneur, you want to do everything yourself, and some things you could do yourself, but it's just better to have an expert in that field. Oh, I so agree, and so, for me, I think I am the expert in the business in voiceover, in what I do, and so I want to bring in experts who are good at what they do so they can help educate me on how I can run my business better, because the main point of having a business is to create a profit, which is more money coming in than goes out, and if someone can help you exactly that's like kind of the basic, that's what we're doing here and if you can have someone who can help you exactly. 03:03 That's like kind of the basic. That's what we're doing here, yeah, and if you can have someone who can help you understand the profits and the business and what to do with the money and how to handle your taxes, all of that stuff, like having that team will help you grow and scale your business. 03:19 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, and I think accounting isn't something that I love to do. I mean, that's like one of my biggest reasons for when I got my accountant was that. Not that I wasn't financially savvy, but it certainly wasn't my main focus. I didn't go to school for it, and so when I started my own business, I was like, oh my gosh, I have to keep track of all of these things, like I'm spending money on equipment, I'm spending money on coaching, I'm spending money on demos, and God, I have to report this at the end of the year, right, and it just. 03:46 I remember I didn't really have great record keeping in the first year. Now, granted, I was doing it part time, but still I had to account right for the money that I expensed and the money that came in, even though it wasn't a whole lot. That first year, I wanted to make sure I was taking advantage of the fact that I gave up the corporate job. And now, all of a sudden, I've got to account for things, because at the end of the year, uncle Sam is going to want to know what I've been doing and when I waited too long to be very organized in my expenses and accounting, I, at the end of the year when I got ready for taxes. It was hell. It was just pure hell. 04:23 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) No one wants that. Like two or three months or two or three weeks I've been there of like just the worst possible aches in your stomach because you're like, oh no, in, like March or April, it's just horrible. 04:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's like oh God, tax season, it's here. I got to do this. I got to do this and I was using oh gosh, back in the day, I was using QuickBooks, but on desktop, and so it was like I want to talk about like 15 years ago, and it just was like one of those things where, like God, I got to enter another transaction. 04:55 It was just one of those things that just became very tedious and I was like I really don't like this. And ultimately I was very fortunate to have a recommendation for an accountant that could work with me. And that first year because again it was so long ago QuickBooks wasn't online or anything and, as a matter of fact, there was that whole stigma of you don't want to do anything financial online because it's scary and your security and that kind of thing. But how lucky are bosses in this day and age you know what I mean to kind of have that advantage that now things are so much more secure. Now you might say, well, is it really secure? But I have to say it's a whole lot more secure than it used to be, or at least I was always comfortable. 05:37 I remember in the 90s paying my bills online and I was one of the few people to do that. I mean, in the beginning I was just like, look at some point, you just have to trust the technology at some point and it's so much easier to pay things online. When I got my accountant for my business here, it was like magic. It was like we would meet once a week and she got to know my business and she got to know, like, what sorts of things were expenses, what sorts of things were income, and especially important was separating those expenses so that it wasn't all I had one account. I mean, I think when we talked before in our past episode we talked about how important it was to have a business account. Talk to us a little bit again about business accounts and what's important about that. 06:20 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) The most important, especially when it comes to taxes, but really just for simplicity, is to be able to separate your personal life from your business life. Your personal life, hopefully, is affected by your business life, as in your business, pays you to do the job that you do for your business. But keeping them separate is going to be very helpful, especially when it comes to taxes, and it will be easier for your financial team, as you build it, to be able to say okay, this is tax, this is business and this is personal. Here's how we keep them separate. There may be tax implications. You may be able to write certain things off if it's business, whereas if it's personal you can't. So it's helping you, but it's also helping your team keeping everything separate. 07:07 It's like legally, you kind of have to. I mean, imagine if, like any major corporation, the CEO of that corporation is just like swiping their own personal credit or debit card, Like you've got to treat your business, no matter the size or the scale of it, the way that other businesses are treated because they are taxed similarly. So this isn't necessarily just about business practices, but for me, with money, all of it I think about is like, come April 15th or come like the quarterly tax period. How can I set myself up for success now so I'm not feeling crunched and stressed for a couple of weeks during tax time when my CPA is probably not as available to me because they've got other people to work with? So keeping it separate will help you with bookkeeping. It will help you with, like the way that you think about your business and personal, how you can pay certain bills on time. Just keep it two separate accounts one for your personal and one in your business name. 08:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Sure, now question for you. Now my I guess I would call her my bookkeeper. She also does my taxes, so I don't know if yours is one in the same, but what I found to be super helpful and convenient is that I literally just have her on retainer. She does everything for me, and what is wonderful is that now we use QuickBooks online and so literally we can have a meeting and the two of us can be on the phone talking on a weekly basis or whenever I need to meet with her regarding okay, what is this? Is this a new category or is this an expense? And she pretty much knows my business because she's been doing this for me for about 10 years, so she pretty much knows what's going on and it makes it so easy. I cannot tell you that this year at tax time and the last few years really have been like oh yeah, hey, oh, it's April. What do you need from me for the taxes? Do you need anything specific? Because she also does our personal taxes as well as my business taxes. 09:07 And so in reality, like we barely have to do anything except send her the paperwork that we get and boom, she's done, I mean, and it's so stress free, I don't ever have to worry, she's got a good handle as to where I am. The other thing is that she's got a good handle as to where I am at any given point during the year, like how am I doing profit wise, how am I doing compared to last year? And she can generate reports and so she can really keep me up to date on what's happening in my business. And then I can say, all right, maybe I need to cut back here or I need to invest more here, and so it's really so helpful. And for me then she is the one person I guess you would say on my team that handles pretty much everything. But let's talk about creating a team. Who do you feel is necessary to have on a team to set yourself up for financial success in your business? 09:56 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I think this is a situation where you can expect to grow as you go. So I would say the first person to add into your financial team, your money team, is a CPA or some sort of accountant who is going to be helping you specifically when it comes to your taxes. But you made a really good point because you have an ongoing relationship with your accountant and for me in the past I would only go to my tax person when it was time to do my taxes once a year. 10:27 But if you can plan to have an ongoing relationship and I also have my accountant team on retainer so they know where I am throughout the course of the year we have quarterly meetings where they give me quarterly reports on where's the profit, what is my potential tax liability as of that time of the year, as of that quarter. So, looking past just April 15th and saying, okay, this is a relationship that I'm going to have with a person ongoing For me. I didn't realize that in the beginning and that's something that I've more recently figured out. So I would say to bosses out there make sure that the relationship that you have with your accountant is not a once a year relationship. 11:11 This needs to be an ongoing relationship throughout the course of the year, because then they can help you with tax planning and if you're forecasting for what's happening in the future, then you won't feel so shocked. I've been there. You won't feel so shocked when it's time to write that check or maybe you get a refund. 11:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I mean hallelujah if you do Absolutely, and you know what else too is that a lot of times I'm shocked by the state of California and taxes. But you know, that's just a whole other issue that has nothing to do with my lack of preparation for it. But anyways, the other thing too depending on the type of business, if you have a DBA or you know an LLC or an S-corp which I do I also have to pay myself, and so I have to do that on a regular basis, and so she takes care of that as well. 11:57 For me, she took care of the registering of it, and anytime I get a letter from the IRS or from and which happens a lot with this S-Corp because, they're either keeping me up to date on the newest things that are happening or maybe, for whatever reason from two years ago, they always seem to find, like you owe us $1.30. And I'm like, really, like you couldn't tell me that like $1.30. And the funny thing is is that my accountant has always been so. On top of it, she's like, no, actually, no, we paid that and so she will take care of all of that for me. I'll just have to like scan the paperwork that gets sent to me directly because my business is here at this address, and then I'll say, ok, what do I need to do? And she literally will say, ok, here we need to go to the IRS and we need to file this or do that, and it's more than just what you owe. 12:42 I'm talking about all the paperwork that needs to be filed for running an S-Corp for me in the state of California and as well, as she pays me so that, again, I'm not surprised at the end of the year and as a matter of fact, I've not been surprised really. I've been surprised when I actually got more refund than I thought, which is great, but I've never been like, oh God, I have to pay money, which always makes my stomach twist and knots, because we've planned so well. And a lot of times she's up on the laws, right, because that's what she does, right. This is why I'm like why try to do it yourself? She's up on all the laws and so she'll say okay, so this year or now they've introduced something new where you can expense so much of your mileage or so much of your medical expenses, and so she's up on all those things, and that way we can take full advantage, because who wants to pay more taxes if you don't have to? That's all I have to say. 13:35 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Exactly, and it's not even just about taxes as well. You go back to what you're talking about being an S-corp. I didn't know when it was the right time for me to be an S-corp. And so getting that information, if you can find in your accountant, your CPA, whomever you're working with, find someone who has the heart of a teacher. Dave Ramsey says that. And find somebody who can…

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Business Building Blocks Jul 02, 2024

Show notes

Grow your voiceover business with actionable insights and expert advice from THE BOSSES! We dive into pivotal resources and strategic investments necessary for your success. The BOSSES share transformative coaching strategies that can shift your whole perspective on script interpretation and character understanding. By aligning your unique strengths with market demands, you can stay relevant. We emphasize the lifelong commitment to ongoing training and professional coaching, along with the need for top-notch demos and a polished website. Your website serves as your professional storefront, boosting your visibility and credibility with potential clients. Practical advice on budgeting, wise investments, and cutting unnecessary expenses will help you navigate financial challenges and maximize your resources to grow your voice acting career. 00:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, bosses want to be that well-rounded talent that's always in demand. I offer coaching in a variety of genres, including commercials that grab attention, medical narrations that educate, corporate scripts that inspire and e-learning modules that engage. Find out more at anganguzacom. 00:22 - Testimonial (Ad) As I was getting more and more into the voice acting industry, I started realizing that it'd probably be really good to start specializing in certain sectors. I started talking with Anne and we realized that corporate might be really good for me, both in the way that I thought about things and in the aspect of the industries around me, what would be good for me to market with. So we decided to go with corporate, and it only took a handful of sessions with Anne for me to realize that with. So we decided to go with corporate, and it only took a handful of sessions with ann for me to realize that I was looking at sentences differently because of the way that she was teaching me, um, the way that I had to think about my character in the mint in the middle of like a paragraph or in the middle of even just the sentence itself. She really drove home the fact that you have to think about these things. There might not be a place given to you whenever you get the copy. There might not be a person there whenever you get the copy, however, that has to be there. There has to be some sort of connection in order for you to really understand that character in your corporate narration. 01:18 Moving past that and into other sides of different industries, I started doing more video game work and realized that the way that she taught me about sentences, the way that she taught me about my character and realizing that there is another person there even if it's not in the copy, there is another person there it was almost revolutionary. I absolutely love the way that I look at sentences now and the way that I go about my work, and she really changed all of that. I have to give her as much credit as I can. I know I know it sounds weird saying that the fundamentals were revolutionary, but the way that she teaches it, the way that she makes you think about it, it was revolutionary to me and it definitely has helped me a lot in my journey. 01:55 - Intro (Announcement) even now, it's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, anne Ganguza. 02:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Boss Superpower Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with my lovely special guest, co -host Lau Lapides. Hey Anne, hi Lau, how are you Fabulous? How are you? I am awesome. Thank you so much. Ah, Law, I've had a busy week, a busy week with students, and I've made an observation that I might have mentioned to you before, but the observation to me is that lately, especially with the economy not being the best, I've had a lot of students who spend time talking to me about how they're very frustrated that they've not been able to move ahead, and that they know that they need coaching, or they know that they need more coaching, or they need a new demo, or they need a website, but yet they can't afford it, and so I wanted to like maybe talk to the bosses about resources and how maybe we can wisely utilize resources in order to grow our businesses, because I just have been hearing it so so much lately, Lau. 03:20 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Me too. I mean, when we work with students and have clients, it's a constant state of conversation. And it really is true, it's a bad economy and we understand inflation. 03:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) We're the starving artists, we know what's going on. 03:32 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Yeah, exactly yes we understand how much milk and eggs cost, like everyone does. We can't shove that under the rug. It's real. It affects everyone. There's an impact. We totally get that. But I'm of the belief system and the training and background that we have to make money. Yeah, so we have to make money before we make money, right. What I mean by that is we have to create it like an alchemist out of nothing. We have to make it happen so that we have those resources to go out and do what we need to do. 04:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right, I like that, yeah, we need to have money so that we can invest money, so that we can grow our business, and if we don't have that money, there's got to be ways that we can create that money. As you said and I like to manifest it right Come from abundance right, and not necessarily have my dark cloud over my head saying it's not possible, I can't do this. I really think that the mental state has a lot to do with it, as well as being resourceful. So I know that for some of my students, when they talk about what are they doing to invest in their business and Lau, what are the absolute essentials that people need in order to run a successful voiceover business in terms of things that money that they have to invest? What are the things that are the absolute essentials? 04:49 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Right. I think we all can agree those of us who are in the industry that training, coaching, classwork, is just a basic. It's just the most rudimentary that we have to have, and it's something that is a lifelong learning. It's not just five weeks, six weeks, one day's something that is a lifelong learning. It's not just five weeks, six weeks, one day. It really is a lifelong learning, and so we have to be careful how we invest in that, because we know it's for the long run. It's not just a quick hit, overnight success and go. It really is going to be throughout your career that you're going to need retraining, you're going to need to upscale your training, and so we have to be careful how we plan for that and how we utilize our resources. But I would say training leading to your production work of your demos is baseline. 05:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, yes, I am a coach and a demo producer and so, of course, I'm going to agree with that. But I agree that I mean honestly not just because that's part of that's my livelihood, but honestly, bosses, your product is your voice, right, and you need to showcase that product to your potential clients. And so the best way to do that is to make your voice the very best that it can be. And I mean, how else do you do that outside of getting training and coaching and practice and classes and workshops and that sort of thing? And then you need to have the medium in which to showcase that range of talent and that range of acting skills that you have, and that is, more often than not, your demo, and it has to be able to be available for people to listen to, right, so it needs to get in front of people's eyes, it needs to be distributed so that you can then sell it as a product. 06:25 And so the very essentials I'm right there with you are the training to get your voice to be the product that it needs to be, to be competitive right in this industry and to be competitive so that you can make money with that voice, and you need to have the demos so that you can showcase that. And a lot of people will say to me well, do I really need the demos? I do auditions right. So my answer to that is yes, you need to also audition and do the custom auditions that your potential clients want. But also you need to have that medium that sits in your online storefront or somewhere on a roster, like on a pay-to-play, on a roster, in all the places that it can sit while you're sleeping, so that other people can listen to it and make their decisions and say, oh, I need that voice. 07:13 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Yeah, case in point and we had a big job, big client come through about a week ago and we did the call and it was right on the script, the audition was right on the script. Sure enough, they came up with two of our people that they wanted to shortlist and they said we need to hear their demos, yeah, yeah. Now if we came back as agents and said sorry, they don't have demos, can they just record something for you? Already your credibility goes down the drain Because they're thinking of course you have demos, you've selected them for your agency roster, so they're sitting there ready to go right, which they are With these particular people. They are, and we sent it, we expedited that right out. It wasn't a question, it wasn't a problem. And so the least amount of problem that you can cause, the least amount of friction that you can cause in terms of having the best practices ready to go, well, you have to pay for that. That's one of those resources you just have to pay for. You have to have it. 08:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, you have to have the training, you have to have the demo, and that showcases your product. 08:16 Then, once you have your product right, you have to have a storefront right or a way to distribute that product, and there's lots of different mechanisms to do that. 08:24 The first and foremost that I can see is, if you're a business today, you have to have a website, and so investment into a website. So it means the hosting of the website, it means the creation of a website that deems you as a professional right, so that it looks as if you are a professional voice actor and that's what you do for a living. And so I did not go to school for website creation right, and even though I did try to do it myself I mean, I managed a website a long time ago but I'm not a graphic artist so I do believe that you can invest some of your money into having somebody help you make a beautiful place to showcase your product, because for me, it makes a difference. The packaging makes a difference. I don't know human nature, right, I love pretty packaging and a website that is done well and done professionally and is efficient so that you can sell that product, is absolutely worth the investment. 09:15 So that would be my next thing I would say that is so important is your online storefront, and so that includes somebody who's going to host it, and that's typically going to be like a monthly or a yearly cost. You have to buy that domain name too, which is yet another like yearly cost or monthly cost, and then you have to have somebody that designs that website and maybe maintains it or keeps it up to date, and if that's something that you can do, then that's fine, but I would say, if it's not something that is your specialty, I say that there's another worthy investment, right. 09:47 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) And of course it goes without saying, but we have to say it and that's having some sort of home studio set up. Oh gosh, yes. So for all of the new folks who are listening in right now, I know it's so obvious to us, but a lot of new people are coming into the industry and saying how do I set that up? What do I need at home? How much money do I spend? Well, I'll tell you. You have to have the basics for your home studio setup, and that does include SourceConnect. 10:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So now, when we sign a talent under a contract, they have to have SourceConnect, it has to be available to them. Now I have so many people that say that they have SourceConnect but they're like, look, I'm going to wait until I get the job and then I'm going to get SourceConnect Right, just having SourceConnect myself. I mean, unless they've changed things considerably, it's not an easy thing to do within a short amount of time. I mean, I know that there needs to be ports opened up in your router in order to allow the stream and not be firewalled out, and so for me, the setup I mean required some time, and I would hesitate to say wait until you get that job before you invest in it. I mean, I invested in the one-time fee and there's also a monthly option so that I'm at the ready whenever I'm needed, and so it sits there waiting for my client, and so I would say don't skimp on that. And so, yeah, I can't believe I like. That just eluded me. I just assuming everybody has that studio. 11:09 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) I know right, and yet a lot of new people coming into the industry don't know yet. They really don't know. And I would say okay, if you want to wait, you wait. But I'm telling you this it's a psychological decision you're making, because what you're saying is I could wait on an excellent mic. I could wait on a good computer. I could wait on almost everything. I, a good computer, I could wait on almost everything. I could wait until I'm working. But which came first, the chicken or the egg? You have to have good stuff. You have to invest in yourself before others are going to invest in you. 11:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, and these days you have to have great sound. 11:42 I mean you have to be able to—and, like you know, with our audition demolitions. When we are judging and giving feedback and criteria, the first thing that will make me throw out pretty much unless if somebody's completely botched up the name of the file, because there is a specific way to name the file that most casting directors prefer, and so if you can't follow directions, that's number one. But number two is if the first thing I hear is that you have a poor studio sound, I'm throwing that audition out the window, because that's something that I need right to be pristine. Hear is that you have a poor studio sound, I'm throwing that audition out the window, because that's something that I need right to be pristine. 12:16 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Yes, absolutely, absolutely. I also would say you need to invest in some sort of SEO in terms of your marketing. I know that's the big buzzword now. Everyone marketing, direct marketing. Half the people don't know what that means or know what that is. And I say listen, don't think of it as marketing, Think of it as building relationships, Like you're connecting with people, you're connecting with prospects, you're connecting the dots so that you can work. That's really what you're trying to do. Well, that's expensive and time consuming. After a while, Just think about this how much do you pay for Wi-Fi? How much do you pay for your computer access? That's all stuff you pay for. You can't do it without paying for those things. Right? Those are your investments. 13:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I've got to piggyback on that and say technologically right, pay for an internet connection that is stable and allows you to communicate efficiently with your clients and potential clients. So don't…

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To Brand or Not to Brand Jun 25, 2024

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In this episode, Anne Ganguzza and Tom Dheere dissect the key components of building a robust online presence. From identifying customer pain points to harnessing the power of color psychology in your website design, The BOSSES explore what it takes to convey competence and reliability. We also delve into the subtle yet vital aspects of maintaining an easy-to-navigate, professional website that establishes credibility and trust. Learn how consistent visual cues and coherent storytelling can make or break your brand's effectiveness in today's competitive market. Finally, The BOSSES tackle the nuances of maintaining a consistent brand across social media platforms. We underscore the importance of professionalism and how off-brand or controversial content can jeopardize client relationships. 00:01 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. 00:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Real Boss Series. I'm here with my special guest co-host Tom Dheere. Hey, Tom Dheere, how are you? 00:30 - Tom Dheere (Host) Hey Anne, I'm good. How are you? I'm awesome. 00:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Thank you very much. 00:34 - Tom Dheere (Host) You look fabulous today. 00:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Why thank you? So do you. I love your coloring. 00:39 - Tom Dheere (Host) Thank you, it's one of my Hawaii shirts because my wife's from Hawaii, so we go to Hawaii all the time. 00:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) There you go. It's very boss. 00:45 - Tom Dheere (Host) Thank you. I love your blue because it kind of matches the coloring in the background. You look very branded today. 00:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Why, thank you. You know I have multiple brands and multiple colors for my brands, and so it's interesting because red is typically my boss brand. But I thought, you know, let's work a little A&G and Guza brand in here as well, which is my blue, my signature blue. So I'm kind of combining them right now. And, yeah, I've been branded for a while yet, but I don't know, tom, what are your thoughts? I think we should talk about branding, because it is a big discussion among voice actors and it's like everybody makes a big deal like oh my God, I have to like figure out my brand, and they and it's like everybody makes a big deal Like, oh my God, I have to like figure out my brand and they stress out over it. And so let's talk about brands. I mean, how important is it for voice actors to brand these days? 01:33 - Tom Dheere (Host) Well, my thoughts have evolved on this quite a bit over the past 15, 20 years or so. I used to be of the mind that every voice actor absolutely must brand themselves. They should design a logo, they should pick a font, they should pick a color scheme and then their demos, their business cards, their website, their social media content, all of their outbound marketing content newsletters and things like that should be 100% branded. It should be 100% aligned. 02:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well then, I fit the bill there for you. You're perfect. Okay, you're perfect. 02:08 - Tom Dheere (Host) But over the years when I had that perspective, I was focusing primarily on direct and indirect marketing strategies to get the bulk of my voiceover revenue. 02:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I agree, myself included. 02:21 - Tom Dheere (Host) I have representation. I'm on casting sites, but for me, direct and indirect marketing was the place and it's like the old mentality. It's like Anne, why aren't you wearing my glasses? Because they help me see better. So obviously they should help you see better. But gotten a little older, hopefully gotten a little wiser, and just looking at myself and looking at all the students I've had over the years and watching what other successful voice actors do, I don't know if everybody needs to brand themselves. 02:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, gosh Tom, for many years there was no branding, right, there was no internet. Well, I shouldn't say there was no branding, but it wasn't as visible. And so how did voice actors in the 80s stand out? 03:02 - Tom Dheere (Host) They didn't, they just auditioned and booked. 03:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) They were managed by their agents, right or managers. And so they didn't have to necessarily brand their businesses. They became known for their voice and their agents were out there kind of branding for them, right. 03:20 - Tom Dheere (Host) Yeah, their reputation was built solely on the quality of their auditions and the quality of the experience when they were in the recording studio working with the clients. And that was it. The value promise was the audition Sure, the value delivery was the recording session. Yeah, platforms on top of that. Most voice actors feel obligated in a way that they have to brand themselves because they have to be on all of these social media platforms and they have to be spewing out content all the time in the hopes that they will catch somebody's attention to stay top of mind to get them into and through the sales funnel and all of that stuff. 04:01 But to your point, if representation was the only casting portal in the industry, no, we wouldn't need to brand. There are online casting sites too pay-to-play sites, voice123, voicescom, vidalgo, what have you? You don't need to brand yourself on there either, because all it's about is the value promise of the audition and the value delivery of the recording session or delivering the files properly formatted, with the proper amount of takes, and you took the direction on the casting notice or whatever. You know what I mean. 04:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) What about Fiverr? Just out of curiosity. I know we've had this, I know that's a bad F word but I think it depends on how the platform is marketing you right, or how are people finding out about you right On the platform? 04:38 - Tom Dheere (Host) Yeah, and it's interesting because Fiverr and Upwork, which are technically online casting sites, they weren't designed as voiceover casting sites like Voice123 and Voicescom, but they seem to be conducive for voiceover casting. There's very little auditioning happening on Fiverr and Upwork. 04:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) People come and look and listen. 04:55 - Tom Dheere (Host) It's direct bookings. So, with that in mind, yeah, your branding actually is very important. 05:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Your headshot's very important, I agree. 05:05 - Tom Dheere (Host) Your tagline, the verbiage, how you package and present yourself. Yeah, branding is important. 05:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So then, if you're direct marketing, right, I feel that a brand is very, very important. If you're direct marketing and if people are finding you online, let's say at your website, like for me, tom, and we have different businesses, right, you and I I have multiple brands. I don't have a ton of time to audition, except for my agents, right, which that's a whole different way that I obtain my job, and I don't have any time literally these days to audition on pay-to-plays. However, I do exist on pay-to-plays because I want to make sure that I know the platform so that I can recommend to my students. So for me, my branding is still relevant, I would say, because that's how I get a lot of people that say, oh, the Ann Ganguza brand or Ann, I see you everywhere, and that's good, because that's kind of my purpose. 05:53 - Tom Dheere (Host) Yeah, I have two brands. I have the Tom Dheere the H is silent, but I'm not voice actor brand and then I have the VO strategist brand, and both of them serve different needs. Well, obviously, one for me as a voice actor and then one for me as a voiceover business and marketing consultant and coach and mentor. What's interesting, and tell me, if you have this experience, is that your branding as Ann Gangu's a voice actor greatly informs your reputation and branding as Ann Gangu's a voiceover coach. Because, with a very precious few exceptions, like a Maurice Tobias or a Mary Lynn Wisner, you need to be a boots on the ground, successful, consistently working actor to be taken seriously as a voiceover coach. Absolutely, absolutely. 06:39 So a part of my branding as a VO strategist is go check me out at tomdeercom, listen to my demos, look at my YouTube channel, see all the work that I've done, because the fact that I've done a bunch of e-learning modules is one thing, but the fact that I was the voice of Inspector Gadget in the Inspector Gadget video game last year gives you a lot of street cred. So that attracts certain types of voice actors who want to do that sort of business. And even if they don't. They grew up on Inspector Gadget, so I'm writing the coattails of the brand of Inspector Gadget when I brand myself as Tom Dheere voice actor, because I was Inspector Gadget, which also then feeds into well, if he's able to book work like that, he's competent as a voiceover business and marketing coach. So they all feed into each other. 07:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that. You said that you branded on the coattails of another brand and I think that's definitely a strategy. I mean he used to talk about that all the time is that to get credibility? If you are the voice of a brand that is out there and that is heard and seen, then that is your brand right, gaining credibility from another brand, and so it's kind of a strategic partnership. However, I think you can get that strategic partnership. It doesn't necessarily mean like oh, I'm Ann Ganguzza, I have to have blue. That's only a visual part of my brand, that is one part of the encompassing brand when people come to my website. But people if they don't see anything right. So there's a visual part of your brand, there's an audio part of your brand and then there is, I would say, an in-person, physical part of your brand as well that all contributes to who you are and if people decide if they want to work with you or not. 08:20 Right, there's that personality, part of your brand that says I'm reliable, I'm fast, I am accurate. I have the voice that can work with your brand and make it come alive. So there's so many aspects to branding besides, let's say, a website, which is what I think most people think. When they talk about branding, they think, oh, I've got to have that tagline Gosh. I gave up my tagline years ago because it just wasn't pertinent for my particular brand. It just wasn't, and I was out there showing my photograph a long time ago because for me it worked. I felt like people wanted to connect with a person and not necessarily an image of a microphone. 08:59 - Tom Dheere (Host) Sure, it's funny that you say that, because I've been teaching branding for well over 10 years and I've always told my students that branding is telling a story what is the story of you? But also there's usually two ways that you can tell your story as a voice actor from a branding perspective. You can brand your sound or you can brand your personality. So the more distinctive your sound is or the genres that you can do, the easier it is to brand in that direction. If you've got a particularly young voice or particularly deep voice, or if you do movie trailers primarily, or if you do military fiction, audio books exclusively or almost exclusively, it's a lot easier to brand. But the branding of your personality is what is the experience of working with you? So for years I used you as one of my examples of, yes, branding your personality using your tagline are you ready for awesome? 09:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's true. Are you ready for awesome? I like that. I did use that and I haven't used that in a while, so let's talk about that. Tom, tell me, what was it that attracted you to that particular aspect of my brand? 10:06 - Tom Dheere (Host) What attracted me to that is that you were setting expectations of what the experience of working with you was is like. So there's the value promise. Like I said, value promise and value delivery. This is about the value delivery. If you work with me, you're going to have a great experience. You're going to be working with a professional, intelligent, excited, ethical, prepared voice actor. That's what are you ready for. Awesome means to me. 10:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Geez, maybe I'll bring that back, Tom. 10:36 - Tom Dheere (Host) I mean, why not? 10:36 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that, I like that it meant something to you and yeah, absolutely, and it's not that I actually got rid of it, tom. Before that one, I had Dream Out Loud. That was my tagline, and I thought Dream Out Loud didn't do anything for me, necessarily because Dream Out Loud was kind of more focused on me rather than my client. Right, in terms of like, are they dreaming out loud? No, they need somebody that's not dreaming, they need somebody that can speak. Their brand, right, and so therefore, are you Ready for Awesome, kind of helps out their predicament in a much better way. So, yeah, actually I think that that's a great brand. I'll have to talk to my web person. 11:15 Your webmaster, business coach my webmaster to maybe bring that back. And it doesn't have to be all over my page, right it can be in certain parts of my page or in, let's say, in my signature file. It could be in a lot of different places, but I like that. You're right. It basically tells people this is what you're going to be working with. 11:32 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right, and one of the key aspects of any successful brand, regardless of whatever sector that you're in healthcare, automotive, beverages or whatever is that an effective company is able to identify the pain points of the customer. What do you need, what are you struggling with? And then your branding helps you tell the story of how you can solve their problems, how you can address those pain points, how you can cure what ails them, so to speak. Are you ready for awesome is a great way of letting them know that if you work with me, everything's going to be okay, Everything's going to be taken care of, you're going to have an awesome experience and you're going to get what you need, which are quality audio files delivered on time, properly formatted and that help you tell the story of your company's brand most of the time right. 12:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now I do believe that people visually see that text, they read it, they comprehend it. There's also something to be said for your website in general, and we can have a whole other podcast on websites. But I do believe that, like when I go to purchase something from a website, I have to see that website and feel that I trust it and that the people behind that website have a valuable product and I can purchase that without fear that I'm not going to get that product delivered in a timely and quality manner. And so I assess a lot visually the product by looking at a website. If the website is not constructed in a professional manner, of what standards are today, I hesitate to click and buy. And so I do feel that if you are a voice actor that has a website out there and people happen upon your website, at least have it functionally and visually professional enough so that it instills trust in your potential client, so that they…

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Special Guest - Heidi Rew Jun 18, 2024

Show notes

Anne welcomes Heidi Rew, commercial voice actor and co-founder of Atlanta VoiceOver Studio. Heidi shares her journey from radio to voiceover and offers insights on booking jobs and finding success in the industry. The BOSSES emphasize the importance of perseverance and training, highlighting their own experience of steady climbs in the industry. They also discuss the qualities of a good coach and the value of personalized instruction. They advise newcomers to discover their unique voice and niche through training and collecting feedback. The BOSSES share their thoughts on overcoming self-doubt and the importance of perseverance in the voice acting industry. They emphasize the need to uncover personal insecurities and fears in order to succeed in business The BOSSES also discuss the importance of demos, online presence, and easy accessibility for potential clients. Anne (00:01.142) Hey everyone, welcome to the V.O. Boss podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I am so excited to have very special guest, Heidi Rew, joining us to the show. Hey Heidi, yay! Oh, awesome. So a little bit of information about Heidi for the bosses who are not familiar with her. She started her career on air in radio, but was introduced to voiceover by her coworker who eventually turned into her husband. Heidi Rew (00:12.922) Hey, Anne! So glad to be here. Anne (00:29.922) She is mainly a commercial voice actor and has voiced national TV commercials for Jiffy Lube, Secrets Resorts, Redfin, Kohl's, Danimals, and Baker's Chocolate, excuse me, and probably many, many more. And about eight years ago, she and her husband started the Atlanta VoiceOver Studio, a training and recording studio. Heidi, thank you so much for being with us today. It's so exciting. Heidi Rew (00:54.092) Oh, I am so excited to be here, Ann. And we already talked, Ann already talked, she was our guest on the Atlanta VoiceOver Studio podcast. And it was so good, we had to do a part two, which is the first time that's ever happened. So yes, I'm so excited to be here, Ann. Anne (01:09.166) Well, thank you so much. And I'm actually going to just turn around and ask you some of the same questions that you asked me. For those bosses who are not familiar with Atlanta VoiceOver Studio and Heidi, why don't you start off by talking a little bit about yourself and what that journey was like going from radio to VO? Heidi Rew (01:15.77) Okay. Heidi Rew (01:25.654) Yeah. Yep. I always wanted to go into radio. That was kind of my career goal. And this handsome coworker came in my studio one day and was like, hey, do you do voiceover? Because I could listen to your voice all day. And I know. He always says that's like his one and only line. But it worked. And he told me all about the voiceover industry, kind of got me going. Anne (01:44.754) What a line. I love it. I love it. Heidi Rew (01:55.554) And I really did think, oh, this will just be something that I do on the side. And then five, six years after that, things were changing at the radio station. And at that time, then Mike and I were married. And so to find on-air jobs in another city for both of you is really, really almost impossible. And so. Anne (02:13.527) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (02:20.19) things had just changed and Mike was like, why don't you just quit and just do voiceover and on camera stuff full time? And so that's what I did. And there we go. Anne (02:28.658) And there you go. Now, when we were talking before, we were discussing about agents, and it took you four years to book a job with your first Atlanta agent. Let's talk about that journey, because I'll tell you, for me, when I started, I'm gonna date myself, I literally, I was working for four years before I even thought. Heidi Rew (02:36.059) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (02:39.622) Yep. Mm-hmm. Anne (02:53.406) about an agent because back then we didn't really have like Facebook groups or there was there wasn't a lot of ways to communicate with other people in the industry, which I believe is one of the reasons why you might have started your studio as well to like see people face to face and Heidi Rew (02:57.088) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (03:07.075) Yeah. Heidi Rew (03:10.734) Yes, totally, and have that community. Yeah, I had a great agent here in Atlanta. And I would get auditions and everything, and just wouldn't book. And I thought, I really suck at this, obviously. And I would ask my agent, I said, you know, gosh, why? Anne (03:12.939) Yeah. Anne (03:18.091) Mm-hmm. Anne (03:22.903) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (03:30.026) Richard, it was Richard Hutchison management who's, he's retired at this point, but I said Richard, why haven't you dropped me at this point? You know, and he said Heidi, because you're doing good auditions. It just sometimes takes time. Just keep going, keep going. And I did. And then year five was when I started booking a lot. It's when I booked a national spot that ran three years, gave a sag health insurance for three years. Anne (03:32.215) Mm-hmm. Anne (03:41.91) Mmm. Mm-hmm. Anne (03:54.754) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (03:56.162) So it was just one of those things where it just took some time. And I had some other clients on the sides from self-marketing and a smaller agency that I was with in Florida. But yeah. Anne (04:03.817) Mm-hmm. Anne (04:07.862) Now do you think that it had, I mean, was there, was it possible that maybe you were needing feedback? I'm assuming four years your performance, you know, was improved, you know, and that is, takes a lot of resilience sometimes. I mean, I remember my early career as well too, and it was difficult. I mean, when you didn't get feedback or you didn't book, it was kind of like, oh my gosh, now. Heidi Rew (04:16.995) Oh yeah. Heidi Rew (04:21.658) Yeah. Heidi Rew (04:24.986) Mm-hmm. Anne (04:36.734) Now what do I do? I mean, do I even belong in this industry? I mean, did you ever run into any of those feelings? Yeah. Heidi Rew (04:39.154) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (04:42.794) Oh gosh, yeah. I mean, I would tell Mike, like, you liar. No, I'm just kidding. Like, what in the world? I don't have a good voice, obviously. But he really was always, he's always been an encourager of mine. But a big part of it was, you know, I was doing radio full time, full time. And also, you know, I was on air, so I was doing like events on the weekend. I mean, it was busy. And so I really. Anne (04:47.524) Hahaha! Mm-hmm. Anne (05:02.187) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (05:09.322) voiceover was a side thing. I didn't do the kind of training that I needed to do to get to that level. I was very lucky to even get on with Richard at the very beginning because, I mean, you know, all I had kind of was Mike's training and tutelage. And that is why I say to so many people, too, that, you know, one, you never know how long it's going to take to book, so keep going. But also, right, but also, Anne (05:11.106) Mm-hmm. Anne (05:16.514) Mm. Anne (05:24.76) Mm-hmm. Anne (05:32.142) Right? For that overnight success. Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (05:36.982) you do need to train and I, you know, if I had trained more, who knows that four years could have been shortened to a much shorter time frame. Anne (05:41.559) Mm-hmm. Anne (05:45.91) Well, you know, it's so interesting because, you know, I just was looking at your website again, and your studio offers, gosh, everything. And you have a team of coaches that basically covers every genre. You know, I think anything that anybody ever would want to do in voiceover, you guys cover at your studio. So let's talk about coaching because we had a discussion about it on your podcast. What is it that you feel Heidi Rew (05:56.08) Yeah. Anne (06:17.387) key qualities or qualifications of a good coach and what you look for your own team and for yourself. Heidi Rew (06:19.407) Yeah. Heidi Rew (06:23.83) Yeah, well, you know, first of all, one of the things that we really look for is for people that have a heart to teach and that aren't just in there to make extra money or to be known that they really care about the students that they're trying to reach. And then a big part of that is we Anne (06:33.996) Mm. Heidi Rew (06:48.898) With Atlanta Voice over Studio, we have three values that we run our decisions through and really have just kind of been the compass for our business. And one of those values is grace. And Mike and I define that as meeting people where they're at. And so we always talk about that with the instructors of like, you have no idea where somebody is gonna come in, whether they walk through the door or they appear on the screen. Anne (07:03.691) I love that. Anne (07:12.106) Yeah. Heidi Rew (07:14.458) You know, you have no idea where they're at. And so our goal is to find out where they're at and how do we get them at least one step closer to their goal, if not two steps. But that's the goal. It's like really meeting people where they're at, which was huge during COVID. Like that, oh my gosh, that was so helpful to remember. So those are some of the biggest things and just being able to really personalize the... Anne (07:23.086) Mm-hmm. Anne (07:30.878) Oh my goodness, yes. Heidi Rew (07:43.01) the instruction to each person, which kind of goes with that meeting people where they're at. It's just not everybody responds to the same type of technique or you know what I mean? Like you really have to find what works for that person, you know? Anne (07:45.205) Mm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Anne (07:48.938) Sure. Yeah. Anne (07:54.414) True. Very true. Anne (08:00.702) Yeah, and it's very much a personal journey, I think. Because it is a creative journey, and I do feel that that. Heidi Rew (08:04.868) Yes. Anne (08:10.934) Gosh, everybody reacts to it differently. Everybody learns in a different way. And I know that just from my years of teaching in front of the class, that you do have all different types of students. And I think it's even more important to meet them where they are when you're talking about something as a creative endeavor that is so deeply personal to them. Because any, you know, any... Heidi Rew (08:20.804) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (08:28.098) Yes. Yeah. Anne (08:34.218) any frustration or any kind of like, you know, roadblock can be really devastating. And that can, you know, that can affect performance like this. And so I think it's so important that you have teachers who care that I love that, that you have, I mean, that's where I always talk about. Heidi Rew (08:41.064) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (08:45.57) Oh my gosh, yeah. Yes. Anne (08:54.238) My students with eLearning, you've got to be that teacher that has a heart that cares. And that's important when you're... It's a journey you're taking these students on. And it's a delicate journey. Yeah. Heidi Rew (08:58.364) Mm-hmm, yeah. Heidi Rew (09:03.962) Yeah. Yes. Because your voice, that is really important. And there have been some people that come in that have been told certain things about their voice or believed certain things about their voice that are not right or not correct. And to be able to show them, like, hey, you actually have power in your voice. And you thought that maybe you didn't, or you thought that it was. Anne (09:15.547) Mm-hmm. Anne (09:24.438) Mm. Anne (09:31.303) Yeah, yeah. Heidi Rew (09:33.65) You know, some of the biggest ones that we've had come through the studio is like I always Was kind of told that I was weak because of the way that I sounded Man that does that does something? Yeah That is hard. So to be able to help them discover that and how do you? How do you find that empowerment through your own voice? You know, that's That's really crucial Anne (09:42.374) Mmm. That's a hard, that's hard to take. Yeah, gosh. Mm-hmm. Anne (09:56.844) Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. So then let's talk a little bit about then as they're on their journey discovering, like where, you know, thinking about where do they feel the most passion or joy or where does their voice fit in the industry? What advice can you give, let's say people just entering in this industry in order to find their niche? And I don't know if like, I think niches can be ever evolving, I don't know about you, but you know. Heidi Rew (10:15.182) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (10:23.458) Yeah. Heidi Rew (10:27.939) Oh, 100%. Yeah. Anne (10:28.994) How do they discover that? What's your best advice for that? Heidi Rew (10:32.894) So one of the things that we do that's really important, but you can do this whether you're working with a private coach or whatever, but we have one of our foundational training is called the Beginner VoiceOver Intensive, and it's a three month thing. It has like this curriculum that goes with it. So one of the weeks that we do, you go into the booth to record and you do just a bunch of different spots that are in different types of tones and specs and everything. Anne (10:57.719) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (11:00.022) And then your class and the instructor will write down what they feel like is your natural three top reads. Just you as yourself and that you can just, as you're speaking, it just comes so naturally. You don't have to push it or force it or anything. And then they also write down descriptions about your voice. So maybe it's like, you know, Anne (11:09.158) Mm. Mm-hmm. Anne (11:17.614) Sure. Heidi Rew (11:27.314) grandfather that always has a funny joke. You know what I mean? Like it's like that warmth caring but also he can be funny and you know what I mean witty. So they write down all that stuff so then that person that comes out of the booth they have all this vocabulary of some of their strengths with their voice right which is kind of just the step one of figuring out like where do I fit you know what is that uniqueness that I can bring to the table. Anne (11:30.955) Mm-hmm. Anne (11:43.571) Yeah. Anne (11:50.812) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (11:55.334) So you can do that even with like a private coach. They can help you discover that. But another thing that's really important, I think, is just be a collector of data, you know, yourself. And because it's, we forget so quickly when people give us like specific encouragement or things of like, oh, I really love, you know. Anne (12:08.289) Yeah. Anne (12:18.698) Mm. Heidi Rew (12:22.294) the way that you've got that texture in your voice. It kind of feels like a warm blanket or whatever. Anytime somebody says something about your voice, write it down. Collect that data because then you're going to have this whole data set of stuff that you're like, oh, this is me. This is who I am. This is what I can bring to the table. And then when you do that, then you can kind of figure out, okay, what is, what are the specific genres that maybe Anne (12:25.08) Mm-hmm. Anne (12:32.911) Mmm, great idea. Anne (12:42.19) Mm-hmm. Anne (12:50.379) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (12:51.627) that I would fit in the best. So, yeah. Anne (12:53.214) Yeah, that would cater to those qualities. Yeah, it's so hard to assess. It's kind of like, I think that's why self-direction is so difficult, right? I mean, you have to assess where you're at by yourself. And I think that I love the fact that you have a whole class where you have other ears involved in the process and other people helping, saying, well, this is what I hear. And it can really help you to help define where your space can be and where your niche can be. Heidi Rew (13:05.437) Mm-hmm. Heidi Rew (13:16.315) Mm-hmm. Anne (13:22.826) and also where you might want to grow. Because I think there are a lot of times somebody will say something about your voice that you didn't expect. Like somebody wil…

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Practice Makes Perfect - Refining Your Craft Jun 11, 2024

Show notes

The BOSSES talk about practice this week! Through personal anecdotes and expert advice, they reveal that practice isn't just about refining technique—it's a journey to discover new habits that can benefit your career. The BOSSES talk about why many voiceover students skip practice sessions and how accountability partners and workout groups can be game-changers in your pursuit of vocal excellence. The BOSSES discuss the risks of practicing without professional oversight, and how it can lead to bad habits that are tough to break. They shine a spotlight on the undeniable advantages of participating in structured groups like Audition Demolition and VO Peeps, which offer both expert feedback and the kind of networking opportunities that can kickstart a career. We equate voice acting to mastering a musical instrument, asserting that progress requires commitment to practice beyond the four walls of coaching sessions. 00:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses. Anne Ganguzza, you know your journey and voiceover is not just about landing gigs. It's about growing both personally and professionally. At Anne Ganguzza voice productions, I focus on coaching and demo production that nurtures your voice and your confidence. Let's grow together. Visit Anne Ganguzza.com to find out more. 00:33 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Ann Ganguza. 00:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Boss Superpower Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with my special guest co-host Lau Lapides. Hey, Lau, hey. 00:58 - Lau Lapides (Host) Annie, it's great to see you, as always. How are you Wonderful, ready to talk and chat it up? 01:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Awesome, awesome. 01:06 - Lau Lapides (Host) So, Lau. 01:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) As you know, I am a coach, and as well as you, and it seems like every week I have a few students that they always want to do live reads with me during our sessions, which I think is wonderful. But, as a coach and a former educator, I always assign homework, because I want people to get the most out of their sessions. 01:25 So I feel like it's very important that they have different scripts that they can read, they can record, they can practice getting used to different styles, and I want to make sure that in between sessions they are doing that on some sort of a daily basis. I think that's super important for their growth and development. It amazes me Lau how many times I will have students say well, I got really busy and I get it. Like life happens, there's families, there's things that happen and you can't always practice, but sometimes there are students who just never seem to take the time to really work in between sessions. I thought we should have a discussion about that. 02:03 - Lau Lapides (Host) Yeah, it's a good point. It's a good point. I used to think, and my team used to think and oftentimes mistake, when that happened, and it happened quite frequently with us as well that they didn't care, they weren't engaged, they weren't serious, they were lazy, all of those things. Sometimes, it is true I don't know if that's it or they procrastinate, procrastination was very, very big. 02:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's a whole other episode. 02:27 - Lau Lapides (Host) It's a whole other episode, but I mean, I have found that the learning process of how you cement technique and how you utilize your tools and how you really discover organically who you are as a performer is through the practice session and there's different methodologies that you've got to look at to make it successful for yourself. And, of course, one which is very hot today the accountability of having at least one other person, one partner, out there that's going to meet you, that's going to be with you, live real time and work you through. It has typically been very successful for people that their schedules match. Sure, they're well matched together, they enjoy being together, it becomes a professional friendship for them and it can work. 03:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, now you're talking about accountability like an accountability group, right, that can just say all right. So what did you do this week to further your business? So I want to make sure that we're talking not just accountability in terms of hey, what did you do this week to secure more leads, to get more? 03:32 - Intro (Announcement) work. 03:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) We're talking accountability for, let's say, if you want to get better at the craft and I think there's lots of things that you can do to help yourself get better at the craft- and now it's hard to have an ear when you haven't developed an ear yet, and so sometimes I'll give homework and people will get very upset if they're like, yeah, but I did the homework, but now that you've told me these things, you shouldn't listen to that homework anymore. But, honestly, the homework that I gave or the scripts that I give, no matter what performance level you're at, right, there's so many good reasons to do the homework. 04:09 - Lau Lapides (Host) Oh, no question about it. 04:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Because even if you don't have an ear yet, there's many advantages of you experiencing and attempting to record by yourself and get things submitted on time. Gosh, there's just so many things right, it's like auditioning techniques. 04:28 There's editing techniques you're getting better at, you're experiencing different styles. 04:32 I mean you could be within a genre and have multiple different style scripts come your way that you have to analyze and figure out. 04:40 And so, for me, if you don't have a discipline of doing something voiceover every single day performance-wise right, I think you're kind of missing the boat. And I'm not going to say that you're lazy if you don't do it, but I am going to say that having something that you do every single day is important because it helps you learn, as you said, who you are. As you said who you are, it helps you learn like, oh, if I record a script in the morning, I realize, oh, I have a lower voice in the morning, or I have more energy in the morning, or versus recording after a long day at work, right, oh, I sounded a little bit strained in that performance. So it helps to know who you are as a performer by having those practice, having the exercises, having the homework, whatever you want to call it. And also, yeah, I think having an accountability buddy is very helpful. And also, la, let's talk about workout groups. 05:33 - Lau Lapides (Host) Oh, absolutely. And I'll tell you, you know, before this idea of accountability, buddies came in, which really came from other industries, completely like the gym. Working out at a gym, you'd have an accountability partner at a gym. You know, way before I knew about it for voiceover, I always learned it as an actor In conservatory level. You would always be in rehearsal. We didn't call it practice sessions, we called it rehearsal. You were always rehearsing your roles, always. And could you rehearse alone, rehearsing your roles always. And could you rehearse alone? Of course, and you have to rehearse alone at times, but when you can be with another person, that level of energy and stimulation and fun factor I think helps to cement a discipline of saying I got to come to it every day. It's like I have a class that I'm going to yes. 06:23 I have to get to that. I have to do that. I'm being held to that. So then, when you go to your workout classes, you have a lot to bring to the table because guess what, you're not just relying on the workout class to give you everything You've already been working out on your own right. And then you're bringing that in for your director or your coach or your facilitator and saying here are things I've been working on, here are things I've been coaching and practicing and rehearsing every day. Now let me work through it with a live group in the room. 06:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely, and I think that that gives you yet another level of practice that can really help you develop auditioning skills, and it can, again, it makes you accountable. 07:06 You're like, well, I don't want to be a complete fool, I should probably right, I should probably work on my technique or my performance, so that when I get in front of the group, right, I'm not going to necessarily seem like I don't know what I'm doing. And so I do want to say one word of caution when working out with peer groups right, peer groups without necessarily someone that can really guide along the peer group that maybe have more experience might be just floundering, shall I say, or misguiding. If that's the case, if you have a bunch of new people in a workout group and you're all directing one another, sometimes you can get direction that may not be helpful because everybody is new. So at least if you're working out with a group of people, if you can try to have a leader of that group that can oversee or that has some experience, some casting experience, some coaching experience that can help guide, if there is feedback that may or may not be helpful to you for your performance. 08:03 - Lau Lapides (Host) I couldn't say that any better, annie. I'm not a fan of pair workout groups and the reason is because it's not that you can't have professional friends and you can't help one another, you can. But I get concerned about and I'll bring it back to the gym again, because it's an easy analogy that if I meet up with two or three or four people and we're all lifting the 50-pound weight or whatever and I'm just not doing it properly and they're not aware of that, they're not catching that, they might even be saying great job, lau. Oh my God, look at your biceps. And meanwhile I'm straining my back, I'm hurting my lower back. I'm hoping that the facilitator or the coach or the trainer has that knowledge base to say hey, hey, hey, no, no, no, no, we don't do it that way. 08:49 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Here's your proper technique, here's your proper form. 08:51 - Lau Lapides (Host) That's my biggest concern. And the other concern I have about a peer workout group as well is be careful, like, have your gossip antennas up. We shouldn't be going into a practice rehearsal, performance group to talk about the business or gossip about other people or whatever. And oftentimes it can go down that road of like oh, who did you audition for today? Oh, I got that script. Oh, what do you think of her? How come she sent that out? And then all of a sudden all sorts of things are said in that room which are not appropriate, makes people feel really uncomfortable and is completely off topic from what you came in to do in the first place, which was practice. 09:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, yeah, and we're talking again bosses. We're talking performance and techniques, not necessarily business meetings, right, we're business accountability and in that place I think you can talk about the business, the industry as it exists. And I agree with you. I think gossip we have to be very careful about gossip, just because I don't think gossip serves any useful purpose really, and it is one of those things that gets to think of let's gossip around the water cooler. It happens. 10:00 I mean, we do it, we do it, but I think that business accountability groups or performance groups should probably steer clear of that, if it's possible. I don't think it's really constructive in a lot of ways. And in regards to workout groups, I mean I can't sit here on the VO Boss podcast and not say we have an audition, demolition, which is a really wonderful group where you can work out, and we have a simulated audition and you can get feedback from coaches, lau and myself and also work up your live performance skills as well. As I have the VO Peeps, which has a workout group that happens once a month. That is part of the group and you've got TIC right. 10:39 - Lau Lapides (Host) Then you have workouts that happen for your group, lau, yeah, we got weekly workouts happening and I wanted to say about Audition Demolition, when we came up with that, Annie, like I don't even think we realized really the impact that that kind of a live directed session has. And I'll be honest, I mean you can edit this out later. It's educational, it's developmental, it's social. But let me be honest, I have pulled a few of those people for my roster that were amazing people that came in that I said, oh my goodness, they need an agent or they need representation, like ASAP. So whenever you go into a professional work experience like this, you're in a room, you're auditioning, You're actually auditioning. It's the real deal. It's not a mock audition, it's not a mimic audition, it's a real Well, even though we say it is, but it is real. 11:31 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's not a mock audition, it's not a mimic audition, it's a real. Well, even though we say it is, but it is real, it's real. 11:35 - Lau Lapides (Host) Annie could be casting something or have a friend that's producing something and she may be thinking about you because she just saw you in the room. So I'm just saying come in and really experience the live directed session and observe Also observe what's happening with others with your colleagues. It absolutely. And observe also observe what's happening with others with your colleagues. It's fabulous. 11:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And with your weekly workouts as well as mine. I have guest directors that come in on a regular basis and I cannot tell you the amount of times where I've had a casting director come in or a talent agent and I can never promise right. As a matter of fact, I even have to have a disclaimer saying that this does not guarantee you representation at all. However, there have been a number of peeps that have come into my workout groups and performed well and they have been signed with an agent or they have struck up a relationship with a casting director and then gotten hired. So I think that these are the things that I think are very beneficial for bosses out there in really growing in the performance aspect of your career, and it's so, so important because I am a business owner, I am a coach. If you say to me, I want to do live reads every time we meet, of course I can do live reads, but I also want you to be working on them in between sessions, because otherwise it's going to take you a really long time to get to the point where you're going to be ready to, let's say, record a demo or ready to really get out there and do work. It's kind of like I used to take piano lessons back in the day and if I didn't practice in between my lessons, boy did my teacher know it, because she would give me music to practice during the week. And so when I would meet with her the following week, if I didn't practice, it guess what? It was very painfully obvious, and she could take my money week after week. And if I didn't practice, well, my mom would be angry, because you know she's like why am I spending all that money on these sessions? And if you think abou…

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