VO BOSS

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Visual Branding Jan 16, 2024

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Get set to embark on a riveting journey into the world of visual branding, specifically tailored for voice actors. In this enlightening discussion, the BOSSES will empower you with a comprehensive understanding of the critical role visuals play in effectively communicating your brand. We unravel the nuances of building a robust visual presence, which extends beyond just your attire and accessories and dives right into the realm of headshots and text titles for demos. Throughout the episode, we impart our own experiences and valuable insights, showing you how to leverage visuals to connect more deeply with your clientele. 00:01 - Introduction (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 (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with my lovely boss co-host, Lau Lapides. Oh, hey, Annie. 00:31 So good to see you, how are you Fabulous, how are you? I'm great, I have to tell you. All right. So I apologize for being late to our little recording this morning because I was trying to coordinate the outfit law. Now that we are a visual kind of a brand and we've got video, I'm like all right, so now am I going to wear silver jewelry? Which glasses shall I wear? I'm trying to get that visual brand out there and I've got a set of headshots coming up, oh gosh, in a couple of days. And so I have been literally making a list and coordinating outfits because it is such a big part of my brand and I thought, wow, we should really talk about this for voice actors out there. How important are visuals, how important is that branding and those visuals to your brand and your business? 01:19 - Lau (Co-host) I love that topic and I'm so glad we're going to talk about that today, but I have to bring up the fact that you're on the West Coast. I'm in the East Coast, 3,000 miles away, and yet the mental telepathy of like what you chose to wear today and the fact that it's kind of color coordinated with what I chose to wear is like same way. 01:39 They go great, same wave. Like I'm all over the visuals, I do do do think it's important these days, and you and I do remember the days when the voiceover would hide ourselves, we would not be seen we would never have a photo of us out there ever, because we would be worried about a potential client looking at us and saying, wow, they look like this, but they sound like this. 02:02 - Anne (Host) I'm not going to cast them, right, right it was a thing I mean I remember distinctly when I got into voice herers like you know what I don't want to be in a career that's based on what I look like, okay, and I want to be able to be creative, I want to be able to act, but I don't want it to be dependent on me being young looking or beautiful or anything like that or how I look, and so I was very much into the voice acting. 02:25 However, as I've evolved my business throughout the years, I've really kind of settled into the fact that, as people, we need to connect with other people, and so the visual I've changed my mindset so that I don't have to feel like I look perfect or a particular way. However, for my business and for my brand, I take a lot of care and I take a lot of pride in that, and so I actually strategize. I mean gosh if I tell you I literally been making a list, a list of the outfits, the colors, the props that I'm going to use for my headshots, because I'm envisioning my website right, representing me, who I am, knowing that my clients want to connect with the person. Yes, and I want to stress that it's not about necessarily what you look like. It's about conveying who you are as a person, who you are as a brand, who you are as a business Right. 03:20 - Lau (Co-host) Listen, we can't get out of the fact that we live in a world. A lot of it is visual, it's what we see. Most people are visual learners, so when they pick you up, they're picking you up in 10 seconds less than that visually. So when we're meeting a client, when we're meeting a talent, when we're meeting a prospect, they're going to look at you. If they see you, sure, if they visually see you, okay, what's the first thing we see? It may be a website, it may be a social media post. It may be something that is not physically you. So thinking about what that visual brand is from the start, I think is wise and necessary and important in a visual society. 03:57 - Anne (Host) And when you do have those photos right that are showcasing you in action in your studio and again mine aren't just gonna be your typical headshot, like I mean I will have those, but typical, like from here up they're gonna be like lifestyle shots, they're gonna be shots of me, literally law. I am bringing a desktop boom arm with my microphone, with the headphones, with the laptops and the cables by the way, and the cables. 04:23 And I am dragging that all to the studio where I'm going to get my headshots, because I want those shots to represent who I am in my business and how I interact right with clients in my business and showcasing that so that ultimately people get a sense, a visual sense, because if they do come to my website first, right before they connect with me either on the phone or on a video call or even just hear me, they're seeing me in action and they're seeing my business in action and I think it's so very important for voice talent to really understand that. And again, it's not all about like that typical, like headshot, which it can be, but I really want that to show more about who you are. How is that headshot going to reveal your personality, your business? Because, again, our voices are product right, but our visual brand can also showcase that product. 05:17 I always talk to people about their websites and make sure your demos are above the fold. But, like, when you're placing your demos above the fold, put a text title by the spots that you have in that demo, because otherwise they don't know what's in that demo, they can't see it right, they just see that. Oh, there's an audio file that I can click on and listen to, but three quarters of the way into that audio file I don't know that. You have a Toyota spot right, and so if you're listing those spots out visually right, really it's just text that also helps with your SEO, but that can really, at a glance, somebody seeing oh, she's done work for Toyota right, that can make an impression. 05:54 - Lau (Co-host) Now here's my question of the day. I'm seeing a lot more demos that are video-based demos, so I know the people that that's their real jobs. They have a right to show it. That's their actual jobs and they're utilizing that because it's been aired. Others are creating these visual elements to their demo. I wanted to run that by you and see how are you feeling about that these days. Do you like that trend that's happening? Is it fun and exciting, or do you feel like it's a little edgy showing those visuals that they haven't really been a part of? How? 06:27 - Anne (Host) do you look at that? I'm a big fan. I mean, I've read in the forums. Some people are like, well, are they really giving you a return on your investment? I'm here to say, look, our demo is a marketing product, right? And it's kind of the same question Do we put produced spots or do we put sound effects and music behind an e-learning spot? Because typically there isn't. I'm like, well, this is a showcase, this is a marketing piece, this is a demonstration. Yes, there are times that you'll have music behind your e-learning. You may or may not know that. You don't know what the client is doing with it, necessarily afterwards, and so they're very well-could be, and I've actually seen a lot of e-learning modules where it could be character-based, it could be storytelling, video-based, it can be a lot of different ways to get the interactivity or the engagement with the listener. So, yeah, why not? I mean, it is a marketing piece, and so I feel like a video demo is yet another way to showcase your product. It's not the only way, I feel the same way. 07:26 - Lau (Co-host) Yeah, I feel the same way. I think we're living in a day right now where your visuals mean a lot. I oftentimes say to talent listen your voice actors. So don't be surprised if you have people at a showcase that are a producer or an agent type or even just some corporate prospect, say hey, are you an on-camera actor? I would like to use you in a print ad along with your voice. I would like to use you in this and that, and be prepared for that answer whether you welcome doing on-camera commercial work on-camera TV, film work, print work. 07:58 I think that throws a lot of talent off who only identify as a voice over talent. And don't get me wrong, that's fine, you can just do voiceover and specialize that and don't do anything else. But there's a whole bunch of people that are really open to that idea of doing more. Like, if I get signed by an agency and they want to sign me across the board and they say, hey, we're going to submit you for everything theater, tv, film, voice over, whatever I say, why not if you're interested in pursuing that, yeah, I agree, I agree. 08:30 - Anne (Host) Now let me ask you what sort of tips would you give to people who are really trying to figure out their visual brand? Do you have any tips? 08:40 - Lau (Co-host) I love that and I'm so glad we're talking about that today. I just got out of a coaching session looking at a Vio Talent's first headshot shoot and we were talking about what happens in the face, what happens in the eyes, what people are reading very, very quickly out of that. 08:58 So I think that it's very important to talk to people that are specialists in particular areas. So, for instance, a stylist that's really good may wanna provide for you a look book before you go and take your photos of some fashion looks, some professional looks, some business looks, some whatever looks, so that you can start to mimic those looks that would be right for your styling and your branding. It's hard to come up with that yourself. 09:28 - Anne (Host) I don't think I could even come up with it myself. It's so funny that you mentioned that because literally I just spent a weekend with my very good friend. She's always been a style icon. I've always considered her a style icon. In the last year she's gone into the business and I'm gonna give her a plug. Styled by Gianni yes, gianni, g-i-a-n-a-i yes, styled by Gianni. She's amazing. She's got all different types of packages, but she's sustainably conscious. I mean, she's located in LA. She can work with you remotely. She can work with you in any capacity. She's got all sorts of cool things. If you're just open to a consult, she can chat with you and then discuss colors. If nothing else, right, what colors, what color palettes? What's your body type? She'll take your measurements into consideration. I love it. What type of clothing would be best suited for you? And again, it doesn't necessarily just have to be about you and your clothing and your look, but it can also be about colors, colors that reflect who you are. 10:23 Colors that reflect who you want to be or what you want your business to be. And again, I've got multiple colors. We all know that red and black is the color for VO Boss. However, ink and guza is blue, and I've got a different color for VO Peeps, which is a teal blue, and I love those colors and it's one way that the brand is separated. So think of me. Now I'm gonna go to my photographer, my head shot artist. I'm gonna call her and I'm gonna go over there with I've got three different brands to represent. Literally, if I could ever come to my house, you could just like take photos in my closet, because I've got all these options of clothing and all these options of colors. 10:59 And some of the colors may or may not even have to go with my brand, but they go with my personality, right, I also think too, people are not thinking about the fit of things, so your stylist needs to help you with. 11:11 - Lau (Co-host) I might love this color, but how does it fit my body? Is it showing my body off? I know women, especially younger women, have a tough time with this and oftentimes we'll have things that are too big and baggy or have things that are too tight or showing a mid drift or whatever. Whatever the case may be, that may not be appropriate for your particular branding. So you need someone who understands style but also understands the brand that you want in terms of your fit, your color. Are you trending? Are you moving forward? Do you want to do retro? 11:41 A lot of VO's are very retro. They like doing fifties, forties, voguing stuff. Absolutely, I would say you know what, annie, and this is something you do really well. I would have fun. So many people. It's such a drudgery to go through this kind of thing and I'd say wait a second, especially the talent who are animation artists who are having fun. They're being outrageous a little bit. What if you had one shot on your website under your cartoons where you have little bunny ears or you're doing cosplay, anything, right, right? Who am I thinking of? 12:14 - Anne (Host) Jessica Rabbit. 12:15 - Lau (Co-host) No, no, no, the famous singer piano man. He started out wearing costumes Elton John, Elton John. 12:22 - Anne (Host) Elton. 12:23 - Lau (Co-host) John. Who could be more prolific and serious now? Yeah, really serious about everything. Started out wearing bunny suits, oh my gosh. 12:31 - Anne (Host) And now, if you're going to talk about that, you can talk about Lady Gaga and all of her outfits, cher. 12:37 - Introduction (Announcement) It's endless. And all of her I just saw Cher who looks amazing. 12:40 - Anne (Host) By the way, Awesome she does not age, she does not age, she doesn't age at all, barry. Manilow. I just watched the. 12:45 - Lau (Co-host) Holiday Special of the Dream Lighting. 12:48 - Anne (Host) Yeah, all the icons. 12:50 - Lau (Co-host) I'm getting the clem to it that one, barry Manilow, but I was just thinking about, like an Elvis Costello. If anyone knows Elvis Costello, he was very forward thinking by retching back oh, david Bowie, in his cool black and white suits. You know, david Bowie. So the point is, you don't have to be a pop star, you just have to be authentic to you, your personality, the kind of work you do Absolutely, absolutely, and they work that into their brand. 13:15 - Anne (Host) I mean the way they dress, the way they style. I mean even rock bands, if you remember back in I'm showing them age, but you know, like Kiss, right Makeup and platforms, that kind of thing Anyhow, aren't they doing? 13:26 - Lau (Co-host) I just saw them on TV. They're doing their last. What is it? Madison Square Garden, their last concert? Yeah, their last tour and retiring. It's just pretty amazing. But the point yeah, they were in mask for how many years you never saw their real faces. So the point is is like get yourself to start out, wean yourself into it. Get a good headshot. Just start with a good headshot so that for your PR, if someone says hey, mike, susan, jay, I n…

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Receiving Jan 09, 2024

Show notes

Prepare yourself to delve into the beautiful dance of giving and receiving - a balance, when maintained, that can have profound impacts on both your work and personal life. We'll explore the joy of giving and the ripple effects it carries for both the giver and recipient, as well as the importance of receiving recognition in the business world. As we navigate this conversation, we'll also challenge the constant need for validation and discuss how rewarding achievements can foster healthier self-esteem. Join us as we explore the complexities of acknowledging one's worth and the importance of fair compensation. Essential listening for anyone who struggles with receiving, this episode promises to enlighten and inspire. 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 VEO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. 00:19 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VEO Boss podcast and the Boss Superpower series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with my amazing, awesome, most wonderful boss, co -host Lau Lapides. Hey, Lau, hi, hi, Annie. Happy Saturday, yes, happy Saturday, Lau. You know, Lau, it's a new year and I am full of promise and full of motivation and inspiration and we've just come off the season of. I like to call it the season of giving, because I love to give gifts and I love to donate to my favorite charities. And you know what? I also like to receive gifts, but we don't always talk about that. We talk about giving, but what about receiving? And sometimes Lau those gifts, they're not in a box. So let's talk about the gift of receiving, shall we? 01:14 - Lau (Host) It's so interesting to me. I love this topic and because there's so many cultural differences of how we receive. There's gender differences, there's age and generational differences and I don't hear anyone really talking about how do we get something, receive something, take something, and how do we behaviorally deal with that. Yeah, like something is simple. I'll tell you what's in my brain right now. When someone comes into my home or my studio, the first thing I do and this was in my training was to offer them something. I offer them a hot drink. 01:51 - Anne (Host) I offer them a warm beverage. 01:52 - Lau (Host) I offer them a warm beverage of their choice, right, and that is definitely generational, but it's also cultural because that's the background Eastern European background. We are gift givers. We give a lot to others, right, and there's different schools of thought business-wise as to how you receive that, and how I train my clients is take it, take it. You don't have to drink it, you don't have to want it, but take it because it's giving a message to the person who's giving it to you that you are cordially receiving something that they're offering to you. 02:29 That's part of their protocol and they're etiquette right. 02:32 - Anne (Host) Well, I'll tell you one thing that's always been hard for me to receive and I think a lot of maybe women, maybe a lot of people share. This is a compliment I'm just saying that is so difficult for me, without downplaying it, and honestly, the best thing you can do to receive that compliment is to receive it with gratitude even if you don't feel it right. 02:55 I mean, how many times do people send a compliment your way and you're like, oh no, it was nothing. Or, and especially, though, when it comes to our businesses too though, isn't it funny. When it comes to our businesses, I am more than happy to take a compliment from a client. Do you know what I mean? If a client's like, oh my God, great job, right, I'm very happy about that. Inside, I'm bursting with pride and joy and hopefully that's every boss out there when they get a compliment or good feedback from their client, and I think that you must receive that. And if you receive that, that really speaks volumes to professionalism, right and courtesy, and understanding what it means to the other person when they're giving you something such as a compliment doesn't have to have monetary value, of course. 03:37 Well, like to have gifts of gold but in addition to that, gift of a kind word is really something I think that is truly like giving of the other person, and if you reject it, then that's a little insulting and hurtful. 03:53 - Lau (Host) I think you hit the nail on the head too when you said, especially with women, how we're not always in the mood to receive that or expecting that or even deserving of that. In our mindset, it's a little bit of that imposter syndrome that comes in when someone gives you that compliment and that moment of like oh, how do I take that? Do I deserve that? Oftentimes we'll say, oh no, I just got this dumb outfit. 04:19 - Anne (Host) You know it was on sale. Anyway, you look terrific, you look great and I throw it. 04:22 - Lau (Host) This old thing, yeah, this old thing, it's been hanging in my closet Doesn't mean but you look terrific, you look amazing. We'll throw it right back at the other person, which they don't realize oftentimes. That is a passive aggressive non accepting value, because it's not just a compliment, it's showcasing your value. 04:43 - Anne (Host) It's almost like when you throw it back and it's not that you don't mean it, but sometimes when you throw it back immediately, it's almost like you don't accept what they're giving to you and you're like, oh no, you look great. And so then it becomes that kind of a battle of maybe, well, who's giving here and who's the gracious receiver right? 05:00 - Intro (Announcement) There's gracious giving and there's gracious receiving. 05:03 - Anne (Host) And I truly believe that it needs to be within our boss superpowers to be able to receive and something that's we're talking a little more on maybe a loftier level in terms of nothing that has monetary value, but definitely has value like a compliment right, an act of kindness, that sort of thing. What about money Lau? I mean, how hard is it sometimes for us to accept for a job Well done, I'm happy to accept money, but thinking about, am I worth the money, am I asking for enough money? And what if I get more money? And is that hard for me to receive? Because, again, we have some of these mental issues sometimes with accepting money and that really kind of, I think, goes back to our value or our feelings of self worth. 05:47 - Lau (Host) Yes, yes, yes, yes. And you know what that money may be in money form and it may go towards an actual gift right. And I recently received. One of the gifts in the mail I literally just got within a week ago was from a client of mine who sent me one of those beautiful boxes for a holiday for. Thanksgiving that was chock full of coffee, beans and caramel and just everything under the sun. 06:09 - Anne (Host) And. 06:09 - Lau (Host) I was so surprised when I opened it up. I was so amazed that someone was thinking of me in that way, but how I reacted to it now, on retrospect, when I look at that, what did I do immediately? I thanked her, I loved it, and then I immediately started to give it away. I immediately started to offering to my clients coming through that. 06:29 - Anne (Host) I see to my family. 06:30 - Lau (Host) Oh, here, let me share, let me, here, let me give this to you. Let me share this to you. And I oftentimes wonder is a gift really meant for you when it's given to you, or is it meant for you to do what you see fit with that gift? So, if you get the monetary cash and you want to give it to charity, how would that person, how would the giver actually feel about that if they really wanted to give it to you? That's an interesting question. 06:56 - Anne (Host) Yeah, that is an interesting question. Well, you know what I think? That if a gift is given, it is because or at least for me, the person that is giving it wants to extend a gift for the other person to experience joy, I would think, and appreciation, and I feel like for me, whatever they choose to do with it, I mean, unless I feel like they secretly hate it and they gave it away and they're like, oh gosh, this is like what is it called? 07:21 - Intro (Announcement) An elephant gift. An elephant gift yes exactly. 07:24 - Anne (Host) And so then I would be a little hurt if I knew. But I think my intentions are to provide a token of appreciation, a token of here's how I feel about you. And if the other person doesn't accept it for themselves graciously at first, and then I realize, oh, maybe they've immediately given it away or something, then I would be hurt. I would be hurt by that Feeling like they've rejected my gift. 07:45 - Lau (Host) But, annie, let's be honest, we've all done that. Haven't we all gotten that scarf? Or those gloves that are just the ugliest thing in the world, do you think? Oh, they're itchy, they don't really fit me. Well, let me, elephant, gift that to someone who will appreciate it. And if not, you notice people are starting to say if you don't want it, it's okay, pass it on. I'm like a donate. 08:05 - Anne (Host) The other thing would be like here's one things that people have made for me. Now, this could be homemade food. This could be homemade gifts. This could be my grandmother knitting me a sweater, or my mother knitted me. 08:18 I'm gonna get me all teary, but my mother, she knitted me afghans and blankets, and my aunt used to so close for me, and it reminds me of the bunny suit on a Christmas story with Ralphie, and so you accept that and you're grateful for it, because there was thought and love put into the gift and so receiving that means that you're receiving that love. You're receiving that gift. 08:41 - Lau (Host) You're receiving it, you're suck it up. You do you do. You're totally, because it's not the color of your bedroom and it just is not the feel that you wanna put on your body, but you love it. You put it on display somewhere. You just have to appreciate that, right. What about this one? What about from a philosophical point of view? As we live our lives every day around the holiday season, how are we viewing gifts that are given by others or by the universe? Are we recognizing any gifts, gifts? 09:09 - Anne (Host) from the universe Locke. Let's delve deeper into that. So what gifts from the universe? What would be some examples? I like that. 09:16 - Lau (Host) Well, I'm a New Englander, so on the New England track. I think all of us can relate that come from cold weather climates and when I have more, temperate weather or. I have a winter where we're not like snowed in and killing ourselves with the slush. To me, I recognize that as an immense gift. 09:35 - Anne (Host) Nice and Californians are very grateful for rain. 09:38 - Lau (Host) Yes, oh yes, yes, yes, yes. How about the gift of looking in the mirror and seeing yourself for what you actually see, not for what you want to see? So that is, as you age, seeing the wrinkles, seeing the imperfections, seeing the scars, but then feeling like, wow, there's a gift in there for me of understanding. 10:02 - Anne (Host) That represents my life, my heart. Here I have to tell you because my own personal experience. I have lost a little bit of weight and so I look at my body, which is now kind of a wrinkly because I got some skin, and I look at that and I'm like, ok, that could be considered by some to not be attractive, but for me it's almost like it's a battle scar. It's like you know what I'm proud of? 10:23 my body I am proud, I am grateful. I am actually so grateful for my body, for being resilient and for the things that my body has been through, and I think that we can apply this to our businesses as well right, our journey as our businesses. But, like my body has been through a journey, my mentality, my entrepreneurship has been through a journey, and I'm grateful for all of it because I've survived it and I've been able to come out the other side more joyful and educated and more motivated to do even more. And so I really try to take a look at that and be grateful for that gift from the universe right that I have received. And I love that we kind of brought the gifts from the universe into this discussion, because I think we have them every day and we don't always recognize them for what they are and we aren't always receiving them or acknowledging them with the amount of gratitude or thought that I think we should. 11:23 - Lau (Host) Right, or even just mindfulness, conscientiousness of seeing it and observing. We talk about it from an actor's point of view, but from a human point of view, are you really seeing what is in front of you? What are you uncovering? And since we're diving deep, I'll go one deeper, because you're not only surviving and you're thriving in the gratefulness and recognition, in the gift of that, and that's what makes you so beautiful, both aesthetically but also inside. There's a beauty and a light that happens in you. To me that's very recognizable and I'm going to dive even deeper. I'm going to say I have someone very close to my family suffering from a very deadly illness and eating it and I watch it every day go into remission and I watch it turn around and I watch it Now, from the outside, this person is somewhat suffering and all of that. From the inside, I see that little soul, that little spirit winning and I'm like a gift a gift, a gift, a gift every day. 12:28 - Anne (Host) It's so true. 12:29 - Lau (Host) If I lose the job, if I don't look good one day, whatever, this is the gift that I'm going to keep coming back to, of course, and I totally identify with that. 12:38 - Anne (Host) I mean it is, and we've talked about this before. 12:41 I mean, yeah, when someone that you love or someone you're close to is going through a challenge mental challenge, health challenge, whatever that might be I mean, in reality, it really points us towards knowing and understanding what those gifts are. And I've said it before, when I was going through my own health challenge, I mean, once I got back in the studio, I was like gosh, what was I ever worried about? You know, here I was thinking, oh, my voice doesn't sound in a particular way or I'd worry about those things, and I'm like my gosh, I have just been given this immense gift and I'm here to be able to experience and here to be able to just do what I love in this booth and just be, just be and be grateful. And well, I'll tell you what that comes through in our voices, doesn't it? It emanates from us and, as performers, I think that it behooves us to be good receivers, right Of the gifts that are being given to us, because it just absorbs into our energy and just radiates out from our performances. 13:39 - Lau (Host) It so does, and I mean the gift of knowledge of how to give as well, so like, for instance, when it comes to philanthropy and charity. I love that. I'm big in that. I'll give a quick plug to our 100 voices who care. 13:54 - Intro (Announcement) We love. 13:54 - Lau (Host) Claire and the gang we love so much. I'm a member and to me it's such a relief, it's such a relief gift to me to figure out how to give in a very safe and impactful and thought away. And as long as I…

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Something New Jan 02, 2024

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Are you ready to become the architect of your own success? This episode is a catalyst for inspiring business transformations. Anne and Lau uncover exciting possibilities that come with starting something new, and guide you on how to kindle creativity for innovative ideas. Discover how the power of writing can become a game-changer for your creativity and personal development. Delve into how expressing your thoughts and ideas on paper encourages new, innovative ideas. Learn why feedback is crucial, and the profound impacts a business mentor can have on your business. The BOSSES emphasize patience, persistence, and maintaining an abundant mindset when investing in yourself and your business. From successful direct marketing strategies to the creation of tangible proofs of concept, we've got you covered. Let's level up your business together! Transcript 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 (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VEO Boss Podcast and the Boss Superpower Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with my amazing special guest co-host Lau Laupides. 00:33 - Lau (Host) And how are you? Welcome to be back. I'm fabulous. How are you? 00:37 - Anne (Host) It's a brand new day. Lau, it's a brand new day. It's a new year. I am excited, Speaking of new. I think it's time for us to maybe talk about setting goals, starting something new. I always get a great thrill, a great anticipation and excitement when I start something new, and I think it's something that can really help bosses to grow their businesses, to be continually moving forward and progressing, and I think it's wonderful to challenge ourselves. What about you? I? 01:06 - Lau (Host) love it. I would love to do some tips on how we can start something new, because it's that feng shui of your soul, your spirit, your closet, your studio, your whatever, your car, your relationship. It's like how do I not only cleanse and clean things out, but how do I make the fire happen, how do I create it? And do it on a reguLaur basis as a soloprenor, as an entrepreneur? That's what our job is. It's really to constantly create things. Create, that's why we're creatives. That's why we're creatives. 01:37 - Anne (Host) Yes, and we really need to embrace. Embrace the creativeness, even if you feel that you're not creative, right, and you feel, and it's scary, I'll tell you a lot it's scary to start new things, because what if we fail? Right. 01:49 - Intro (Announcement) What if it doesn't work? 01:51 - Anne (Host) What are we going to do? And so I think that there's a lot of anguish that happens before we start something new, or goodness gracious knows that I can procrastinate along with the best of them right, but once I get a focus right. 02:04 I'm focused, but I'll tell you what. Getting started and starting something new A lot of times I know that bosses will be like I don't even know where to start. So what are some tips on? How can we generate new ideas right? I mean, some of them can come from within ourselves, but I'll tell you what. There's technology out there that can help us to maybe spur some new ideas for how to grow our business right. 02:26 - Lau (Host) I would have a little something, a little trinket, a mechanism, a toy or whatever. That is your reset button, that's your little thing that you go to. I used to have staples button. 02:35 - Anne (Host) When I worked with staples. Yes, that was easy. 02:37 - Lau (Host) I literally hit it on my desk and go boom, that was easy, so you need something physical in your environment whether it's a stuffed 02:46 animal, whether it's a little bell, a little bell or something. It sounds ridiculous, but I'm telling you your brain takes recording really well. Ironically, we're in the business of recording everything. We do, everything we say, every move we make. We're being recorded. So every time you do that little Pavlovian dog behavioral thing, your brain goes something good is coming, something new is happening. I'm going to accept it into the reality that I want safety, I want comfort and I want to know exactly what's coming up. So it's going to reset that for you, so that you've got a mindset focus reset before you do anything. I think that's really important. 03:26 - Anne (Host) I feel like we could do a search on Amazon or something and something like a reset button or a new button or something that will help us. So if you're looking for that physical thing, that button to push, or there's always the staple, that's easy button, which I love. 03:39 - Intro (Announcement) I had a bell and that kind of thing. 03:40 - Anne (Host) But, yeah, I like that. That's a good start now. So what? What are we going to do? That's new. How are we going to come up with ideas? I think a lot of us have ideas on what we'd like to do to move our business forward. Oh, build a new studio. Maybe there's roadblocks, right, but these roadblocks can actually, I think, motivate us to get started on something new, because we can then work towards achieving our goal, and I don't want this to necessarily turn into the goal achieving episode but it's very simiLaur. 04:07 Because what if? Okay, I want to start something new, I want to go into a different genre of voiceover, or I want to build a new studio, or I want to rearrange my office space right so it's more conducive to working more efficiently? Whatever it might be, I think it starts with the idea and it starts with that little thing. Here we go Right now. What are the steps that it's going to take to get there right, To start this, to actually accomplish this? 04:35 - Lau (Host) By the way, you could go very Eastern philosophy. You could do either a gong or you could do some chimes. I love the chimes. The chimes is really cool to my ear. I have tincture bells. 04:44 - Anne (Host) I don't know if those of you out there. 04:45 - Intro (Announcement) I love tincture bells. 04:47 - Anne (Host) Tincture bells are, I think, very good vibrations and good energy, and tincture bells are just a beautiful sounding bell. 04:53 - Lau (Host) All right, I have a really cool exercise, annie, that I use for a number of the soloprenore cLausses that I teach, that I myself love doing, and that is we put on some really cool music. My favorite is bonobo. We put on some fabulous music and we do like a timed brain dump, and the timed brain dump usually for me is six minutes, but it could be whatever you choose, and it's a time where we put on that music. We focus our pen or pencil on the paper. Now we are not allowed to pick the pen or pencil up for six minutes, meaning I don't allow critiquing, I don't allow editing, I don't allow review. It's not grammatically correct. It is a creative writing exercise for you to dump out everything in your brain, refocus. But, most importantly, Wait. 05:41 - Anne (Host) You don't pick up the pen until six minutes, and then, after six minutes, you pick up the pen. 05:46 - Lau (Host) No, it doesn't matter what you're writing. You're allowing your subconscious to drain itself. So that you and your intellect have nothing to do with it. It's really about so you're not writing. You're dumping, You're writing. You're actually writing what you're dumping. 06:00 - Anne (Host) Oh, I thought you said you don't pick up the pen. 06:02 - Lau (Host) Well meaning, you don't pick up the pen to stop writing, you keep your pen to the paper. 06:06 Oh, I see, I see, I see and you write and it can be tiring, it can be physically demanding for people who are not used to writing, but it's important because we get in the way so much of the ideas Like we got to get ideas out there before we can dissect them or critique them and sometimes nothing comes of it. But oftentimes there are things lodged in our brain that are either exciting us, bothering us, sticking, coming back, that we need to awaken and pay attention to, for that new idea. 06:37 - Anne (Host) Now, during this exercise, you're writing everything that's coming into your brain Everything, Even if it's not a new idea right, even if it's like oh my gosh. What are we going to have for dinner tonight? Or I'm hungry. Or okay, even that. 06:48 - Lau (Host) Okay, it's a total stream of consciousness. They used to use this in psychotherapy, where you would speak it out loud, but I like the privacy of being able to write it because you're not necessarily sharing it with anyone, absolutely Unless you choose to. It's really for your own purpose of writing everything out, so it might look like oh, I'm hot right now and I need a banana and that coffee hurts me. And he sucked. And why did he break? 07:12 - Anne (Host) up with me and I don't have money for a microphone. I need a banana. I need a banana right now. 07:18 - Lau (Host) Right, but see, notice that banana jumped out at you. That may be my next creative idea about the banana, about the banana. 07:26 - Anne (Host) I love it. No, I love that. Okay, and so after six minutes, then what happens? We've got a bunch of writings on our paper. 07:32 - Lau (Host) Well, that's up to us how we want to facilitate that. We can either leave it alone, put it in our corner where we put our writing and just feel like we've been drained a little bit, we've been fungshuated a little bit, or we can look at that in my coaching. I'll look at that a lot, circle and have people pick out yes. Emphasize the words, the ideas that resonate to them in that moment. 07:54 - Anne (Host) I love that. 07:55 - Lau (Host) And usually there's a couple in there. I love that. Usually there's like hate my mother oh, that's interesting. Hate your mother Okay. So let's look at that right. And then that can go in many, many directions. It could be anything. It could be comedy, sure. It could be absurd. It could be not even a reality in your mind. It could be a podcast on your mother Right. It could be something. It could be the evolution of a podcast on your mother. 08:17 - Anne (Host) It could be a film. 08:18 - Lau (Host) I saw that was called Hate my Mother, and I can't get it out of my head because I love how they shot something or I love the sound of the film. 08:26 - Anne (Host) See, as you go deeper into that, right, did you love about it? It sparked something creative, like you could do this. Yes, or we should do something like this, or, you know, it would be cool if this were developed. I have so many good ideas. How many times bosses out there have you had an idea and you're like, oh man, or you'll see a new thing that comes out, a new gadget, and you'd be like man, I had that idea, that was my idea, like years ago, right, and we never really kind of took action on it. And a lot of times it's because it is something new. 08:56 There's not a lot of things out there to reference it. We don't know quite how to wrap our heads around it. We don't know how to get started, we don't know how to maybe put it into action. And I'll tell you what. I think that those circled words or whatever those things that are in your brain. You can then start to say, all right, how can I make this happen? 09:15 And if this is going to be something, hopefully it's something that will move you ahead in your business. And I'm a big believer that if you're moving ahead in your personal development, you're also moving ahead in your business Because, again, our business is so much connected to who we are and ourselves and so really that can be motivational to really moving forward. So, yeah, you've got those ideas. Now what is it going to take to put those ideas in motion? What is it going to take? And a lot of times people might say, well, money, okay, all right, money might be what you consider to be your barrier, right, but we can figure out what are ways to overcome that barrier of money. How can we make more money? How can we put some money aside every month to be able to continually add to the budget to make this happen? 10:01 - Lau (Host) Mm-hmm. I also find, annie, that when you write something down, it becomes more real when you pull it out of your head. I agree it's not real in your head. I mean just because this is what neurosurgeon had famous talks. Just because you're thinking it doesn't mean it's real. It doesn't mean it's true right, like I need to hear that from a neurosurgeon. But it's true because when I think it, I think that it's actually true. 10:24 But when I put it on paper, all of a sudden I can clean that shop, I can decipher it differently, like what I want to be tackling, what I don't want to be tackling, right. So when I tackle it, when I say I'm gonna emphasize that I'm gonna tackle that I and this is just my process I like to start sharing that with confidence. I like to start coming together and colLauborating and brainstorming before I even get to money and budgets and all that stuff. I like to come with someone and say am I crazy? Am I sane? Is this worth time? What do you think? And if I hear this common response of ooh, that's interesting, yeah, that's cool. 11:00 - Anne (Host) It inspires me, or would you buy this, or would this be something that you would like, or that kind of thing? 11:06 - Lau (Host) Absolutely, absolutely cuz it's not real yet in my mind it's not even real if I believe in it yet. I want to see what our community response is. I don't share it with a million people, but I share with a few confidants to see what their gauges. I'm gonna tell you. 11:19 - Anne (Host) For years now for oh gosh, probably 15 years I have had a business mentor, somebody that I meet with, and I used to meet with her a whole lot more when I was first Initially starting in the business. But we could brainstorm together right, how can I grow my business, what do I see for myself in the future and what does it gonna take to get there? And we still do that to this day. It was, again, outside of my account and I always love my account, but one of the best investments I ever made in my business was hiring her to be that and she's not necessarily in the business, right, so somebody that can help me to figure out. Okay, what's new? Right, and we actively talk about things at the end of the year or at the beginning of the year like what's new. But I think, more importantly, it's not just end of year, beginning of year, it is every month. Right, I have a standing appointment with her every month and we talk about okay, what are we gonna do now? What are we heading towards? What are we evolving towards? And we talk about having a pLaun B for your business or a parallel paths of passive income. I love that parallel path of passive income. We've got a lot of peas in there, and good thing I'm not too close to my mic, but those things are always Evolved and developed during those monthly meetings. 12:29 Now I think it's something that you can absolutely start every month yourself or put yourself on. 12:34 I think every month is good to be able to come up with new ideas, come up with new things to try. It doesn't have to be an entirely new idea, but it can be a new offshoot Based upon, let's say, a long-term…

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Coping Strategies Dec 26, 2023

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Get ready to redefine your understanding of the voiceover industry as host Anne Ganguzza and special guest co-host Tom Deere, pull back the curtain on the reality of the business and its inherent struggles. We dive deep into the pivotal SAG-AFTRA strike and how it's much more than just a Hollywood issue. It isn't about the glitz and glamour - it's about the hard truth of what it means to be a part of this industry, as a union or non-union voice actor. We'll tackle the misconception that all actors are high earners and shine a spotlight on the majority who are fighting for fair pay and intellectual property protection, especially with the advent of AI technology. 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 (Host) Hey, hey everyone. Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Real Bosses series. I'm your host, Ann Gangusa, here with special guest co-host Mr Tom DHeere. Hello, Tom. 00:31 - Tom (Co-host) Hello Ann, so great to see you. 00:33 - Anne (Host) Yes, wonderful to be chatting with you again and you know, at the time of this recording we just had kind of a major industry event happen the SAG After Strike ended and I thought it would be a good time to talk about external factors that affect our industry and how we can prepare ourselves as bosses to really handle events that happen like that, that are sometimes not even within our control, and what do we do to sustain our businesses. 01:04 - Tom (Co-host) Yes, absolutely Off the top of my head. Keeping up with industry trends is extremely important, which is why, being subscribed to Hollywood Reporter, variety, backstage Magazine publications like that, our friend John Florian's VO Extra, which is sort of an online magazine just being aware of what's going on in the industry, because seeing the highlights on the nightly news can only get you so far, absolutely. Because just a little B-roll and a little this, that and the other thing is see Fran Drescher for five seconds blah and then like going on to the next subject. 01:36 - Anne (Host) Well, yeah, and we should know that Fran Drescher what her role. 01:39 - Tom (Co-host) Yes, as president of SAG After. 01:42 - Anne (Host) Yeah, know who the people are, know how it's impacting the industry and even if you are not a member, that was the whole thing. Even if you were not a member of SAG After and you felt that it didn't affect you, in reality it affected our entire industry as they were vying for fair pay and rights for creatives and actors and voice actors in regards to synthetic voices and AI out there Absolutely and streaming. 02:09 - Tom (Co-host) And streaming. Yeah, everything that SAG After does, all of their collectively bargained agreements and the rate structures and the minimums and all of that stuff, all of that has obviously a major impact on all the SAG After members. But it also has a huge effect on the non-union members, because non-union voice actors most tend to use SAG After CBAs collectively bargained agreements, if not a baseline, a guideline as to, in generally, how genres of voiceover charge, both in the structure of it and then the actual dollars and cents of it, and it will trickle down into the non-union world directly and indirectly. So, yeah, absolutely Everything affects everything in our industry. 02:48 - Anne (Host) And it's something to consider again I say this over and over again that it absolutely affects even though, as you mentioned, if you're not even a member, it affects the industry. It affects the perception of creatives and their value and their worth, and one of the reasons why we are in this as a business is to make money. In order to sustain our businesses and to do what we love for a living, we need to make money and we need to be able to pay the bills. We need to be able to have essential things like healthcare and, even if you're not a member of the union the perception of the market who has services or purchases our voice or hires us and pays us money. It's very important that that perception is one of value and one of worth, so that we can have this as a career, and have it as a sustainable career, so that we can survive. 03:44 - Tom (Co-host) It's interesting because most of the time when you watch the news or you're talking to people in other industries and there's a strike of some kind, it's usually we just want more money and then very things here and there. What was interesting about the SAG After Strike is that it was obviously nationally. Everybody was watching what was going on, because everybody who watches movies and television shows and streaming are impacted by this. This fall lineup and then in the spring we're really going to be feeling it because it's going to be rerun city. But what was interesting about this is that, yes, they wanted like a 7% increase and they wanted certain things, but the fact that they were talking about protection of our livelihood. 04:26 Ai has the potential to take away our intellectual property, our IP, for on camera actors for their image, voice actors for their voice and then in other industries, musicians for their music, artists for their art, writers for their writing those five image, voice, music, art and writing. Ai is causing a lot of disruption, some of it in a good way, but most of it in a not good way, because of lack of understanding of it, lack of regulation and oversight on a federal level, and which was a big part of the SAG After Strike is that AI wasn't really taken into consideration in any of the collectively bargained agreements, so all of that needs to get back in there to protect actors from their IP being stolen. I think a lot of people didn't understand that if you're an extra and you get scanned and you get paid one fee and then they use you your likeness forever in a movie you just destroyed your extra career and so on and so on and so forth. 05:26 So what was going on with AI in many ways is an existential threat to voice actors, so that's a big part of what this wasn't just about. Oh, those actors, they just want more money to be, to be movie stars. No, this was. If we don't do something about this, we won't be able to act anymore. 05:40 - Anne (Host) Well, yeah, and it brought awareness, I think, to the general public about our careers and the perception that, oh, they're just celebrities and more money and they're greedy. In reality, what was the percentage of people that make enough money, that are the high earners? There are only like 1% of actors in the union, and so the rest of them, the rest of us, the struggling actors, the starving artists, so to speak this is something that I think really was a good thing, so that we could have artists still pursuing this career feeling like, oh, I can possibly make it, I can possibly sustain this as a career, and so I think that's a good thing. Otherwise, you just end up with maybe just the high paid, high earning actors. 06:27 And what happens to the creative process? What happens to movies, what happens to voice, what happens to music, what happens to the writing, when you just don't have the wide I would say broad spectrum of people vying to do this because they're passionate and they love it and they're good at it, but yet they need to be able to make a living at it. So, I think, bringing public awareness to the craft, public awareness of just how much that creatives are dependent upon, especially I go back to the pandemic. When? What do we do during the pandemic? 07:02 We watch streaming, we watched movies, we listen to music and all of that was so important to help keep our I guess I want to say our- spirit and our sanity and our mental health that really was something that was crucial, I think, and of course, it goes back to support the arts, support the arts and our educational institutions, and really I think that this was just another wonderful example of bringing public awareness to what it is that we do and appreciation to it, yeah, I have a story with that in mind. 07:34 - Tom (Co-host) Just a week or two ago I live here in Midtown Manhattan. I went around the corner to the grocery store and I see some SAG Afterhab members striking and I noticed that the strike captain was an old friend of mine I've been friends with her for 30 years and actors hey, how are you doing? And we were talking and she explained to me that the reason why she's been able to keep her SAG After Health and pension benefits for the past few years is because of extra work. Not because starring or a supporting role or some Netflix thing, it was just being a New York working actor and just doing extra work. And she also does theater and other things. But like I don't think a lot of people realize that, just that relatively innocuous, almost unseen extra work pays her medical bills and goes towards her retirement. Because that's what the strike was about. It wasn't about the big movie stars. They're fine. 08:23 I mean protecting their intellectual property from predatory AI practices is obviously a very big deal, and we're seeing deep fakes and all that stuff all the time and video game actors getting their voices harvested. But yeah, this is a blue collar strike if that makes sense Not unlike the auto worker strike that has been recently. I think it's mostly over now, but yeah, it's not unlike that. It wasn't about the movie stars, yeah. 08:44 - Anne (Host) And during the strike, because it was a it was a fairly lengthy strike I know that there was lots of speculation. You know Hollywood is dead, that kind of stuff or is that going to happen? And in reality, I mean understanding the people that hire us and pay us for our services and understanding like what it is that we deserve as a contributing asset to their products, to large streaming companies. Of course, without movies and actors and actresses, the streaming companies won't have anything to stream. And so I think also it brought to life a little more of an understanding of corporate mentality and how it can be, and it was kind of a wake up call, I think, to a lot of voice actors understanding that there is a beast out there that ultimately, when you are contributing to a product with your voice or with your likeness or with your music or whatever that is, that there is a fair way to be compensated for that and that it should be compensated. And I think that that was a major win for the union and for us as an industry. 09:50 - Tom (Co-host) Absolutely. Sometimes it's hard to understand, to reconcile the fact that we're trying to be expressive artists but at the same time, we have volunteered to be commoditized. You know what I mean. You're commoditized for how you look, you're commoditized for how you sound, and so there's a literal contract and a social contract which is okay, based on how you sound, we will give you this money. We understand that. 10:11 Your training, your experience, your talent, all of those things the aggregate of that is you being able to do this Metro PCS commercial or be in this video game or narrate this audio book. So it's hard to sometimes separate the art from the commerce part of it. I like talking for money, but I'm an artist too and my AI voice is part of the commoditization. Commerce part over here. And then I go over here and I'm narrating this audio book or I'm being Inspector Gadget or I'm doing that sort of thing. It's complicated. It's very, very complicated. I think that the SAG After Strike brought to the surface exactly how complicated our industry is, and it's not just a matter of pretty face movie money or pretty voice radio spot money. 10:56 There's just a lot more to it, and our IP is what we are. 11:01 - Anne (Host) Exactly, that is who we are. 11:02 - Tom (Co-host) I mean, that is who we are and what we are. 11:04 - Anne (Host) Yeah, our product is our voice and who we are, and that really is different from a product. Here's my physical product and so protecting our personal product, I think, becomes paramount. In doing that Now, when the strike was happening, there was, I would say, a definite impact to the market, to the voice over market in certain genres, specifically broadcast, and I think there was a lot of people who originally purchased likeness, voice music that were really like, ooh, we're going to step back to see what happens, to see how this plays out. So, tom, what are your recommendations for, let's say, anybody in the creative industry when these things happen? Because I'm not going to say that every strike is different, but there are things that happen in industries that we really don't have a lot of control over, for example, the synthetic voice. Right, we don't have control over technology that's coming. 12:00 So, what do you suggest to voice actors and creatives when something impacts the industry, like this how to survive and how to maintain? What sort of tips or tricks do you have to encourage their business to continue growing? Or smart strategies to maybe pick alternate paths? 12:19 - Tom (Co-host) Well, in addition to my suggestion that I said earlier about reading the trades and understanding what's going on and I was witnessing this directly throughout the strike on social media there was a lot of hysteria, there was a lot of fear, there was a lot of judgment on various sizes, and you could see who didn't really understand what was going on, both union and non-union voice actors. 12:41 Why it was happening and then they were just putting everybody in a bucket and labeling that bucket, so it definitely had a cultural and psychics not the right word but a psychological impact. So one of my biggest tips is yes, the AI and other things and what the AMPTP were doing and their offers was posing, in various ways, existential threats to our industry. However, you need to keep your eyes open, you need to remain objective, you need to collect facts and you need to make thoughtful, informed decisions about what to do to move your business forward. 13:20 - Anne (Host) Yes, amen, amen. That was just wonderful advice. Yes, absolutely Education. Education is so, so important. I say it Gosh. I feel like I say it almost every podcast Like what do we do? How do we handle things? Educate yourself, educate yourself. 13:35 - Tom (Co-host) And be objective whilst educating yourself. Don't prejudge the information that you're getting. Don't bias yourself while you're doing your research by listening to the loudest jerk in the Facebook group you know, or listening to your own FOMO imposter syndrome whatever's going on in your head that could get in your way. 13:54 - Anne (Host) It's always sensible to have a plan B. We've spoken about this briefly before, but, like having multiple income paths, and passive income paths too. I think I'm a big fan of passive income. 14:06 I love having passive income and something that can help sustain you while maybe things are slow in your business and the market is reacting Again. We are slaves to the market in reality. If people don't value our product, they are not going to purchase our products. So therefore, we need to keep our eyes on the market and find out how we can provide a valuable product. 14:28 - Tom (Co-host) Yeah, developing voiceover adjacent skills, I think, is a really good way to do it. A lot of people develop their audio engineering skills because to…

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Money Dec 19, 2023

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Ready to confront the cold, hard truth about the financial investments necessary to forge a successful career in the voiceover industry? Tune into today's episode, where we pull back the curtain on the often glossed-over monetary aspects and break down the costs associated with making your voiceover dreams a reality. We tackle the burning question of how much it truly costs to get started in this competitive field, and underscore the commitment required to make it a sustainable career. Get ready for an honest exploration of the give and take required to make it in voiceover, including the virtue of frugality, the benefits of community involvement, and the necessity of budgeting for risks and technological advancements. Let's get real about the dolLaurs and sense of voiceover. 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 (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss podcast and the Boss Superpower 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 Gangusa. 00:20 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss podcast and the Boss Superpower series. I'm here with my amazing boss co-host, la La Peters. Hey La, hey Annie, welcome back, I'm excited. Yay, oh La, let's talk this week about money, money, money, money, money money. How much does voiceover cost? Oh, you mean, I get that question. How much is it going to cost me? How much do I have to invest? How much does it cost? I think we should have a discussion on the financial side of things, because that's something that most people don't want to think about it. They don't want to talk about it A lot of times. They don't want to spend it or invest it. Yes, yes, yes. 01:09 - Lau (Co-host) I like to liken it to any other profession out there, and preferably the most expensive professions to get into. For instance, if I want to be a financial advisor and I'm going to go through college and then graduate school, and then I'm going to invest my money, my tuition, in my education, and then I'm going to invest my money to purchase my tools, then I'm going to invest money to get my either brick and mortar or online presence. Guess what? I've spent a lot of money for that type of profession, and not just a few hundred bucks. 01:44 - Anne (Host) No. 01:45 - Lau (Co-host) Not just a few thousand either. 01:47 - Intro (Announcement) Exactly, exactly. 01:49 - Lau (Co-host) I always set it up that way and just to give perspective to people that this is really a profession, it's a viable career. But also the truth is and I can say this because I live this myself it's a drop in the bucket compared to becoming a doctor or becoming a banker or becoming even SCPA a drop in the bucket. 02:12 So just to kind of keep that in mind up front. It's not an overnight success career. It's not a I don't have to spend any money but I can make a ton of money out of it. It's not that kind of career at all, and it's good we kind of put it out there, annie, and be honest about it, right? 02:30 - Anne (Host) Okay, so what are the popular topics to talk about in voiceover? Well, how can I be a character actor? How can I get my demo and start making money? But, in reality, all the other aspects of being a voice actor and having a business are going to require financial investment one way or the other, and we really shouldn't expect that it's going to be cheap. I don't have a lot of money, but I want to be a voice actor, so can you help me? Well, I think that we really just need to sit back and have a dose of reality where, as you mentioned before, voice acting is a career, and for many other careers, we invest our money. We've invested our money in education, we invest our money in inventory, in storefronts, in product, whatever that is. We invest our money, and the same is true for voiceover. And so if you are coming into voiceover without any money to spend, I think you need to rethink that decision. 03:31 - Lau (Co-host) Yeah, I would say that money should go along, in your mind, with the other types of investment that you're going to be giving to this Family time. What is the time investment? What are the sacrifices that you will be making in order to launch your career and keep it viable and keep it sustainable? I mean, what are you investing into this? How about just energy? How about talking about energy investment? It all goes along with your money. So don't think, oh, if I throw 50,000 at this, I'm going to be rich and famous. No, it's not just about money. It's about my level of commitment and what commitment actually means. Money symbolizes my commitment and it also is a monetary dispensation for someone to give me a service. 04:20 - Anne (Host) I love that you said, oh, if I throw $50,000 into this, because I'll tell you what not one person that has approached me in the last year or so, ever probably that it could cost up to that. But I'll tell you what, over the years, law I mean in reality. I mean there are thousands of dollars that are invested in my career, in my equipment, in my studio, in coaching, just in running the business. I mean absolutely, and I love that you just said that off the top because I think it will hit our bosses like a little bit of reality. 04:49 I mean, if any of you bosses that are out there have been listening to the VEOBOSS podcast, we've been going for seven years and so if you think about what have you really spent in seven years and you looked at your accounting, you looked at your books, I'd like to know what that number is, because 50,000 is actually small compared to what I've invested for equipment and websites and subscriptions and coaching and demos and conferences and all of these things that I have invested my money into. 05:17 That is really nothing. And so I really want you to kind of take a hard look at your numbers and I know a lot of people don't like to do that because it's scary. It brings, I think, a reality to people's lives. That voiceover isn't just this oh, I can do it from home and it's so simple and I don't have to invest anything. And I love how you also mentioned it really is a time commitment as well. It's a commitment to really make this a serious commitment and a serious career, because if you're not serious about it, well then I don't know how much money will you be making. You know? 05:55 - Lau (Co-host) Yes, and I know for a fact you and I come from the same background, the same training methodology and work ethic and generation that you come into it. Not every happening or event is a monetary compensation, this idea that, oh, if I spend time doing this or that, I'm gonna get paid for it. It's just not always true. There is a building block time and even when you've built your studio or you've built your company over five years or seven years, you're still wanting to get to the next level. Well, how do you get to the next level? Well, you are doing sacrifice all the time. Look at you and I, like you're doing this incredible podcast for seven years. I've been in it with you for a year and a half. Right, and one could say, well, we're not sitting here having dollars flying at our head on a Saturday afternoon for taking two, three hours of our time unpaid relatively unpaid to do this. 06:52 - Anne (Host) then you have to pay an engineer and an editor, whatever, so what's? 06:57 - Lau (Co-host) the return then? Well, the return becomes the belief system that what we're offering is educational value to our people we love and adore and care about our client base, our audience, new people coming in and that of course, to some degree you're going to close a number of new clients that come in that hear your project, but guess what? You may not. 07:20 - Intro (Announcement) And if you may not, if you may not. 07:22 - Lau (Co-host) That's the risk reward that you take in saying I'm going to take every Saturday to record, I'm going to pay that editor, no matter what, I'm going to hire that engineer, no matter what. It's that sense of jumping off the cliff and saying my career is worth doing, that I may not always see a dollar per dollar of time spent and energy spent, so it's not a tit for tat that way. I think too many people are looking at it in that way, like, well, what am I going to get paid for? Every single moment I work and think about this, I said, well, nothing. You're going to get paid in education, in value, in relationship, whatever. You're not going to always get the dollar bills. Baby, right, just remember that payment is not always about Money. It's about different value of forces in your life that come together that sustain a whole career. We don't want jobs, we want a career. Yeah. 08:20 - Anne (Host) And I think a lot of assumptions come from the fact if this is the first time you are getting into voice, acting and creating a business, it is all about creating a business, which is different than working for people, where you do tasks and then you get paid for that. When you are setting up and creating a business, there are investments that you need to make, and this is a completely different mindset than oh, okay, I did work and I expect money for it. Now you're going to have to put work in. You're going to also invest money. You're going to have to invest money into it. So most people they have a job. They're not investing money in that job, they're just receiving money. But here you have to understand that this is now something that will require an investment of your money and of your time and of your commitment really to make it work, and it's not just a one-time thing. I don't want people to think that as well. 09:11 It's not like oh, I can sink in $10,000 and then I'll have my career. No, that is something that you need to maintain. You need to continually invest and reinvest in that business to have growth, to have any kind of growth, and I think if you sat there with your business and never invested another cent in it, you're probably not going to have a business for very long. Right? I like to think of it as gambling. 09:35 - Lau (Co-host) It is a gamble. It's a gamble we can do the research, we can do our homework, we can make ourselves knowledgeable and we can hone our skills and talent, but it's still a gamble because you're dealing with a lot of variables that are not in your control. So I like to say, all right, if you have a pocket and let's say you're going to stash in, you know you're going to Vegas or something you're going to stash in $1,000 in that pocket on the left-hand side, that $1,000, I'm willing to spend and lose, because I know I'm going to Vegas and I know I'm gambling it and I know that there's a good chance the house will win and I'll lose it. Then in my other pocket I've got like $5,000, I'm not spending that, I'm saving that. I have that as a safety net, I have that as my backup, okay, for my life. 10:22 Let's say that and I'm not going to spend it unless I absolutely am up against a wall and would have to. So, from a gambling perspective, your business is one big gamble. Sure is, you know, sure is, and I'm only using $1,000 as just a number. It could be $100,000, but I'm not using $1,000 as a number. I know I'm spending that, will I get it back into my right pocket? Sure, that's the question, right? That's the gamble, right. 10:49 - Anne (Host) That's the gamble. That's the gamble, that's the gamble. 10:52 And that's where I think the investment in commitment right, commitment to making that business a success right Really comes into play as well, because it's not just a one-shot deal Let me just do this because I can do this from home. No, you're going to make an investment and, of course, we hope that, as bosses, you enjoy that investment or you're enjoying that creation of a business and also enjoying the performance aspect of your voice, acting career. So it's not just performance, it is business, probably more so almost, than performance. However, performance affects your product, right. So it then becomes a business because people are buying your product. Well then, you need to invest in your product. Your product would be your voice, that would be your coaching, that'll be your demos, that'll be your marketing, that'll be your website, anything that's going to get your product out in front of prospective clients. And again, that becomes investment and money that needs to be spent by you. 11:48 I'm not quite sure where it's coming from If it doesn't come. Oh, maybe it could come from other people. If you're lucky enough to have somebody invest in your business, that is wonderful, but it's still going to take some cold, hard cash and a lot of you that are just getting into this need to take a look at your investments and need to start tracking your finances. And again, I've always said that the best thing that I've always ever done for my business was to hire an accountant to help me do that on a day to day basis. So every bit of money that goes out is accounted for and all the money that comes in is accounted for, so I can do a P&L statement and then find out how is my business doing. Do I need to cut back spending on certain things? Do I need to? Maybe I don't need that new mic, even though I might want it. 12:34 You don't need that other color pair of headphones, although that's an investment. 12:38 - Lau (Co-host) I did you one better, annie, I actually married one. 12:44 - Anne (Host) There you go, but you got to have a great accountant. 12:46 - Lau (Co-host) An in-house accountant on your side. You have to have it, it's so important to say have a great attorney, have a great doctor have a great accountant. 12:55 It's really important, I would say. Wouldn't you say it's fair to to say that every year of your business, for however long you own your business, you are going to have fixed costs always and you are going to have variable costs always. And to just kind of understand the difference between the two, so that I hear a lot of talent get very upset about the fact that their fixed costs are not doable for them. And I said, well, I can't even talk about the variable cost to you yet, because you haven't understood and been honest about your mortgage or your rent or your food or your car, whatever that fixed every month cost is for you. That's unavoidable. You must deal with that. 13:40 Then you can deal with the microphones and the demos and all of that stuff and you're going to have a very peaceful state of mind to know the most important things are taken care of. Like you and I have a team, so we hire people all the time, so we have to be able to pay those people right, absolutely. So if we can't pay those people, then we can't talk about the upgrade of the microphone or taking a trip around the world or whatever, because we've got a certain fixed cost that we are responsible for and that's r…

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Confused Dec 12, 2023

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Get set for an enlightening journey into the world of voice acting as we promise to help you crush confusion and self-doubt. Prepare to discover the significance of being in the present, letting your improvisation skills shine, and understanding how overthinking can interfere with your ability to take instructions and deliver exceptional performances for your clients. We also delve into the realm of imposter syndrome and how script comprehension can drastically boost your confidence. Listen closely as we walk you through techniques on warming up, shattering negative thought patterns, and building the courage to ask those essential questions that could transform your voice-acting career. 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 V-O boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. 00:20 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the V-O Boss Podcast and the business superpower series. I am here with my wonderful, awesome bossy co-host, law Lapidus. Hey Lau, how are you? 00:33 - Lau (Host) Hey Annie, how are you? 00:35 - Anne (Host) I'm great, it's so good to be back chatting with you. I mean, I feel like it's been forever. It's been forever. 00:41 - Lau (Host) I know, before we start, I have to give you just a quick direction. I hope you don't mind. We're on Riverside right now Okay. I just need you to hit button one so I can hear you a little clearly which button. 00:53 - Anne (Host) I'm sorry, which button? 00:54 - Lau (Host) There's a button there and it says one. Could you just hit it One? 00:58 - Anne (Host) But wait, there's multiple buttons, there's like three buttons. 01:03 - Lau (Host) Okay, your sound confused, I know, but I'm asking for one. Okay, but why not? 01:07 - Anne (Host) So if you could find the one and hit it, that would be great. Okay, but two, isn't two supposed to be the one that starts it, are you sure? 01:13 - Lau (Host) you don't want two. What If you do two? You're going to find that it's not the right button. 01:18 - Anne (Host) So if you could hit one, that would be great, okay, so should I press it now? Anne, you sound really confused, I am. 01:27 - Lau (Host) Law. I know it sounds like you need to be a member of our new Confucius Club. 01:33 - Anne (Host) The Confucius Club. I love it. Oh Law, you know, I'll tell you what we should talk about the Confucius Club. And when, let's say, your clients or students kind of challenge your direction and ask you and are very confused and are not necessarily listening, I would say to direction from. 01:56 - Lau (Host) It's frustrating. It is, I'll tell you, it's very frustrating for the onlooker, the listener, the audience, the director, whoever you're working with is very frustrating process and I want to talk to you today about maybe some of the reasons behind why that is happening and how to troubleshoot that, and why some people seem confused all the time about everything. 02:17 - Anne (Host) Yes, let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. First of all, I want to talk about the confusion, and I'll also talk. Part of the confusion is when you've got somebody that you're directing and they'll say but that's not the way I hear it in the commercials, or I don't hear it that way online, and so therefore it turns into almost like a challenge to the director. And I think number one we are artists, we are actors and we are paid to do a job that essentially is for our client right, and the client is giving us direction, so why would we not follow direction? 02:55 - Lau (Host) Well, it brings us back to the old skill that we talk about incessantly, and that is the skill of improv, which is really the skill of living life moment to moment and being able to accept suggestion of stimuli around you that we don't always understand. Like we go into the natural world, we go into the technical world, we go into the human world. Do we always know what's happening around us? 03:21 - Anne (Host) No, of course not. 03:22 - Lau (Host) Right, but there's that element of moment to moment problem solving it, figuring it out, trying things, taking risks. So I think one of these areas that we're really hitting head on is, if you find you're that person that is confused constantly and just doesn't get it, are you stuck in your head? Analysis is paralysis zone. 03:46 - Anne (Host) That's a great point. Are you stuck in your head? Are you stuck with the sound that you hear in your head that you think it should sound like really, and not able to get that out of your ears so that you can be in the story and immersed in the story? And I will say that for a director or for a coach it's almost like but why? It's like those questions, but why? But I don't hear it that way and I think there's a whole scientific reason as to why we hear things differently. 04:17 When we're voicing something, then, let's say, the person that's directing us. Right, because we have to develop an ear. And what does that mean? To develop an ear for knowing when you're sounding the same or sounding like, you know, a commercial, or sounding not when you're immersed in a story. I think if you have the time to evaluate whether you sound a particular way, then you've spent way too much time thinking about your sound and not enough time thinking about the story that you're in or the character you're playing, or how you're going to be immersed in that, to story, tell or educate the listener. 04:50 - Lau (Host) Right and just basic biz 101 that we've covered a million times is who is this all about? Anyway, it's about your client, it's about your audience, it's about your target demographic, it's about the person you're speaking to. Thank you, the scenario that you're in is really about helping solve a problem, fill a need from an actor's point of view, but also from a business owner's point of view. If I'm stuck in my head and I'm in that confusion state, I'm literally not problem-solving for that client because I'm not actively listening, I'm not picking up cues and I'm not asking really important questions that need to be asked in order to serve them. It's really about who am I serving. Am I serving me? Am I serving my intellect, my ego, so I can understand what's going on, or am I serving you by clarifying it and giving you exactly what you? 05:45 - Anne (Host) want. And I think there comes a time too, when actors are in the moment they're being directed, live directed where they become so in their head determined to give a sound right that they can't get out of their head. How is it? Because I know my students have been like well, how do you get out of your head? How do you step outside of your head and get into the story? And I'm going to say, I'm going to ask you that question, but I'm going to preempt it with saying, from my point of view, you've got to do your research before. If you can research that script, analyze that copy, figure out who you are, who you're talking to, I think that's a good start. What sort of tips do you have? Law, when you're in the middle of a live session, how do you get out of the way? How do you get out of your head? 06:28 - Lau (Host) Yeah, it's so funny. It's reminding me about actor technique and having either an inside, locked in, psychological approach to the work or having more externalized, outside, communicative and oftentimes physicalized approach to the work. I find that both can work hand in hand. I don't think one is right or wrong, but I do think American actors it is a North American thing that we have been trained in the methodology of method for generations now to lock inside from here up and so all the stress, all the tension, all the worry, all the Confucius concern is here and really just not trusting the rest of your sphere that your brain is in your whole body, your heart is in your whole body, everything is flowing and connected. So if I'm locked in here then I'm shutting you out, but I'm also shutting out the lower hemisphere of my being. 07:25 - Anne (Host) Oh, I love that Law. That's wonderful. Your being is all a part of telling that story and being the actor and immersing yourself in that character I love that. 07:35 You're right, getting locked in your head. So are there some techniques that you have to? When you're in the middle of a session and I think you're right you're locked in your head and you get frantic. You're like, okay, this is not working, I'm not able to provide what the director is asking for. And then I think what happens is it just escalates, right, and then it just becomes worse. Until you can get yourself out of that. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. Okay, that didn't work. Okay, so now what do I do? And so tips, techniques. 08:03 - Lau (Host) Law. Yes, one tip I have is a very old and dear broadcasting friend of mine, who did very well in the broadcasting field, who's a major newscaster, actually suffered from anxiety and depression for many years, especially after she retired, before she started her company. And one of the tips she talked about that seems so simple and yet to do it is magic is, she would say, when I wake up in the morning and I get out of bed and I'm a busy person, I always have things cooking and lined up I get up and I move and I physically do tasks. I don't stay in my head, I don't think about things, I don't sit in a chair, I get up and, whether it's making my bed or making my breakfast or showering, whatever, I physically move, and then somewhere in there I reach out to someone else. When I reach out to someone else, it breaks the negative energy that I have already recorded in my head, patterned after years and years and years of getting locked in my head, my brain. It breaks that energy and it forces me to think about the other person. 09:10 So one of the tips I have is get up and do tasks and then go connect to another person. It could be your mom or your best friend or your child or whoever it is, or your cat, and find out if they have. Or your cat, your dog? I was going to say that Do they have what they need? Do they have what they want? Are they happy? Did they have a walk? Did they get their bone? Has their water changed? Right, because it breaks that negative cycle of being locked in and getting confused, because then, all of a sudden, a lot of people talk about imposter syndrome and feeling like I don't know if I should be doing this. I'm all confused because you're locked in the negative recording pattern in your brain that is tricking you into thinking this is wrong, this is incorrect, You're not doing it right, you're not doing it right. 09:56 - Anne (Host) You're not good enough and all of that. Yeah, I love that. 09:59 Those are two tips I love that because that gives me a good excuse. I mean, lately I've been really working on it, but I've been working on getting up and as soon as I get up and just have oh, I have to have a couple of sips of coffee, but I try to get out and exercise for just 30 minutes to kind of just blow off the steam and to just get everything going and warmed up. And I think not only does that help me warm up my voice, because I think it's not just about your vocal cords, it's warming up your entire body, I mean every your head, your neck, your body, as you said, your whole being to allow that to flow. And I think, if you are just getting up and running into your studio and locking yourself into your head and then trying to deliver what you think the director wants and this is not easy bosses I mean we understand this that it's not easy to get out of your head sometimes it really really isn't, and it's just something that I think takes practice. 10:52 And again, it's one of those things that I think that sometimes we are just so impatient with ourselves and we think that it should just be easy, and it should, we should just be able to do it, and then, if we can't, we get frustrated and then we just keep that vicious cycle in our head, and so I think you just have to give yourself some grace as well to know that you're not going to be able to accomplish this by tomorrow. 11:14 I mean, if you're just starting out today, it is one of those things that evolves. 11:18 I mean, as humans, we are constantly growing, evolving and being, and I think that this is again one of those things where we have to allow ourselves to evolve, allow ourselves to really become the character, understand the scene and really just try to. If you're in the middle of a session, let's say, after you've gone out and I love the tips that you gave law got your body moving and then connected with somebody else and then came into the studio, and I think almost always well, I shouldn't say that, but a lot of times we do have the script a little bit in advance I think there's a lot you can do in five minutes with a script to really familiarize yourself and try to create a scene. Or even if you're not creating a scene, you're there and you're being live directed. You can certainly ask about the scene right, and that can help you to be in the scene versus to be in the sound. Like be in the scene, don't be in the sound. I love that. 12:16 - Lau (Host) I also would say too, when you're in those moments, give yourself one necessary question to ask If there's one necessary question that you cannot answer on your own. Your coach, your husband, whatever, cannot answer it for you. Give yourself the necessary question and write down the answer. When you hear what that answer is, but don't allow it to go into a slippery slope of questions. Allow it to sink in and, just like you would try any risk taking, move, like you would step off a cliff to go hair-sailing right. Well, you jump off the cliff and you float and you fly. Just understand. There is going to be that nuanced period for you of literally not understanding fully what someone is saying to you, but trying hard to problem solve it on your own. Yeah, yeah, because they're hiring you. They're hiring you to figure it out. They're not hiring you to have them figure it out for you. Yeah, absolutely, they really are, and I also think to. 13:15 - Anne (Host) I've had a few students that have said this. Where I'll be directing them. I'll say but I don't hear it that way. On TV when I watch the commercial, it doesn't sound like that. A lot of times I'll give references to, let's say, youtube videos of like real world, let's say corporate narration or real world commercials. And my student will say to me but I don't hear it that way. 13:37 And I always say to them well, that doesn't necessarily mean that I think it's well done or I think it's telling a story, or it really is how the director at the time wanted the piece to sound or to come out. And so it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to compare sounds and then say, well, because my sound doesn't equal that. Therefore, I don't understand what you're asking me to do. Why do I have to be in a scene I don't understand? Why do I have to ask questions? Why do I have to react? Well, essentially, because that's what's going to be giving your unique point of view,…

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Boss Online Dec 05, 2023

Show notes

Anne and Lau share a valuable discussion about the pivotal role websites play in any business, and how they can be a driving force behind attracting potential clients. In this episode, The Bosses discuss how a well-presented, professional, and easy-to-navigate website has a crucial role in enhancing online shopping experiences, increasing sales, and building trust with potential customers. Learn how to ensure your website is professional, easy to navigate, and trustworthy to drive potential customers to your content. Transcript: Anne Ganguzza: Hey, hey, everyone. Welcome to the V.O. Boss podcast and the V.O. Boss Superpower Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I have today with me the effervescent, lovely, amazing Lau Lapides. Lau Lapides: Keep going Annie, keep going. You don't need to stop. Anne Ganguzza: She Lau Lapides: Ha ha Anne Ganguzza: is everything. She is everything, bosses. Lau Lapides: ha. Aw, thank you. Anne Ganguzza: And we love her, and we Lau Lapides: We Anne Ganguzza: love her. Lau Lapides: love you too. So awesome to be here, always. Anne Ganguzza: Well, it's awesome to have you as usual. So Lau Lapides: Thank you. Anne Ganguzza: today, or I shouldn't say today, but this week, Law, I had a very exciting thing happen to me. I got an email from a potential client that said they had been researching quietly in the background, looking for a new voice for their brand. And they found me. And they listened to my d- demos. They found me like on a Google search and found my website and listened to my demos. And then apparently narrowed down that search to about, I don't know, a handful of people. And they said that they would like me to audition for this very cool possibility for a major brand. And I was so ecstatic because... I didn't do a thing. Like they found me. They found me on a Google search and they found my website and they were able to listen to my demos and they were able to assess, right, my voice, obviously, and decide yes, she's going on a short list. All because I had a really great website that had things laid out easily, easy to find my demos, easily played. and easy to contact me. And so I thought it was important. I thought it would be an important topic to discuss websites. And I know I talk about it incessantly, but I thought let's dedicate an entire episode to websites and how they are so important to your business bosses. Lau Lapides: Oh, that's so fabulous. I'm so happy for you. Anne Ganguzza: Thank Lau Lapides: Congratulations. Anne Ganguzza: you. Yay, thank you. Lau Lapides: Big yay. I love that you got my jazz hands. Whoo. Anne Ganguzza: Thank Lau Lapides: It's really Anne Ganguzza: you. Lau Lapides: awesome. I do have to qualify one thing you said for Anne Ganguzza: Mm-hmm. Lau Lapides: the listeners and that you said you did nothing. Anne Ganguzza: Oh, well. Lau Lapides: You actually have 25 years behind you that Anne Ganguzza: You're right. Lau Lapides: led up to that moment that made that prospect. clients life really fast and easy Anne Ganguzza: Yes. Lau Lapides: so that they didn't move on to the next person. Anne Ganguzza: Yeah. Lau Lapides: So I just wanted to catch you on Anne Ganguzza: Thank Lau Lapides: that because Anne Ganguzza: you, thank you Lau Lapides: you're Anne Ganguzza: for Lau Lapides: so Anne Ganguzza: that. Lau Lapides: used to Anne Ganguzza: Yes, Lau Lapides: being fabulous Anne Ganguzza: I know. Lau Lapides: that you think you're doing nothing when really you've done all the work leading Anne Ganguzza: Well, Lau Lapides: up to that moment. Anne Ganguzza: and I'll Lau Lapides: Right? Anne Ganguzza: tell you, and I did do the work on my website, my storefront that made that available, right? I'm always saying that you can have the best voice in the world, but it doesn't do you any good if people don't know about you. And one of the easiest Lau Lapides: That's right. Anne Ganguzza: and quickest ways that people can find out information about you and your product and contact you is that website. And so many people put that website on the back burner. Or they're like, I don't have the money to invest. Guys, I'm here to tell you, you have to do that. If you are a business in 2023 or for the past 10 years, if you've been a business, you really need to have that storefront. You need to have that website. It is critical. And I always tell people, don't skimp on it. We talk about investing in our business all the time. And it is one area I think you need to invest. And I've invested over the years, thousands of dollars. I don't want to say that it's super, super expensive. It can be. I'm a big believer in presentation. Really matters. Presentation matters. And so yes, can you do your own website? Sure. Are you a website designer by trade? Maybe not. So I tend to. try to make it as presentable and as professional as possible so that it really makes an impression. Lau Lapides: Yeah, it pops. Yours always pops and it just comes right out at you. So I'm not surprised that you have this huge brand that's looking at you now because you look like a huge brand. You have to you have to Anne Ganguzza: Mm. Lau Lapides: project exactly Anne Ganguzza: Yes. Lau Lapides: the karma and the boomerang that you want to get back. You have to really be honest about that. And when someone says what you just said, Annie, like, oh, I don't have the money for that. Well, make the money. Go Anne Ganguzza: Yeah. Lau Lapides: go Anne Ganguzza: Oh, Lau Lapides: do Anne Ganguzza: please. Lau Lapides: whatever you need. Wash cars. take care of puppies and Anne Ganguzza: Yes, Lau Lapides: flip pancakes Anne Ganguzza: yes, Lau Lapides: to make the money Anne Ganguzza: wash Lau Lapides: so that you Anne Ganguzza: cars, Lau Lapides: look Anne Ganguzza: clean Lau Lapides: like Anne Ganguzza: houses, Lau Lapides: that. Anne Ganguzza: do whatever you gotta Lau Lapides: Whatever, Anne Ganguzza: do, but get Lau Lapides: we all Anne Ganguzza: that Lau Lapides: did Anne Ganguzza: money, Lau Lapides: it. Yeah. Anne Ganguzza: right? Yes, exactly, and I love that you said that because again, we all did that, right? I mean, Lau Lapides: We all did that. Anne Ganguzza: you'd be amazed at what I do for money, but that's another topic. But, Lau Lapides: By Anne Ganguzza: but. Lau Lapides: the way, websites are cheaper and quicker and Anne Ganguzza: Hmm Lau Lapides: easier to create now than ever. Anne Ganguzza: Yeah, Lau Lapides: I remember the days Anne Ganguzza: and Lau Lapides: where it would take $10,000, Anne Ganguzza: yeah Lau Lapides: $15,000 Anne Ganguzza: Yeah, Lau Lapides: to make a website. Anne Ganguzza: and well, and I'm gonna mention this I'm gonna qualify this because I have a website that's very functional Okay, I have multiple websites number one I don't think you need to be held to just one website. Although, you know for my voiceover, right? I've got one website, but remember I've got multiple multiple divisions of my business, right? I've got the VO Boss, that's a completely different brand. I've got the VO Peeps, that's a different brand. I've got Nganguza Coaching, that's a different brand. I've got my Studio Cats, that's a different brand. So literally, for each of my brands, I have a separate website. And I, for, depending on what you wanna do with that website, especially because I sell products, I sell physical products, I sell digital products, I sell memberships. And so because of the extensive selling that I do on my website, and I think, hey, every VO needs to be able to sell on their website. You have to make it easy for people to pay you, right? Who wants to step through hoops to make a payment? I mean, Lau Lapides: No Anne Ganguzza: just Lau Lapides: friction. Anne Ganguzza: click, click and pay. Yeah, and same thing with all aspects of your website, right? People should be able to find what they need and buy as quick as possible. Right? Lau Lapides: Yes. Anne Ganguzza: So my websites, and you know you were talking about, they used to cost a whole lot more money. You're right. Any voice actor can get a one page website, and I'm gonna talk a little bit more about that Lau Lapides: Hmm. Anne Ganguzza: a little later, but for not a tremendous amount of money. And I think there are templates out there that can make it look very professional. Lots of great people out there as well. For my websites, because of the extensive functionality, I have memberships, I have multiple ways to pay me, I have calendar appointments, scheduling going on, then that's gonna cost you a little bit more on the back end, but again, it is an investment in your business. Lau Lapides: Mm hmm. Yes. And I want to caution listeners, too, that as much as you want one and need one and eventually will have one, if not more than one, be careful of doing it prematurely. Because I know, Anne Ganguzza: Mm. Lau Lapides: Annie, you go through this. I go through this as on the coaching end. that will get a lot of newbie starters, like within the first month or Anne Ganguzza: Mm-hmm. Lau Lapides: two, they're just literally investigating VO, they're just starting training, and already they're thinking about, oh, I need a website, I need Anne Ganguzza: Mm-hmm. Lau Lapides: marketing, I need this. I'm like, wait a second, you don't even know if you like it. Anne Ganguzza: Well, Lau Lapides: You Anne Ganguzza: wait, Lau Lapides: don't even know if you wanna Anne Ganguzza: yeah. Lau Lapides: do it yet. Anne Ganguzza: And wait till you get the product to market first, right? Because the whole idea of a website is that you have, well, I should say the whole idea of a voiceover website is that you have a product that you can market. Well, you want to make sure that you have the product first. That means get your coaching. Get your demo, because the demo's going to showcase that product, right? Make sure that you've got those things in place. But I would say it's never too late to start thinking about your website. Start thinking about a brand. But again, that's something that you'll discover as you go. And so I think a lot of times, if you start too early with that website, your branding is not quite finalized. And then that could be costly for you later on, because you could be thinking, oh, I really like this way to brand me. I'm going to use this tagline, or I'm going to use these colors. And then as you evolve in developing your voiceover product, you might say, oh, well, maybe that doesn't fit me as well as this one does. And then you're going to have to rebrand, and that's going to probably cost you more money. So absolutely start planning for it. But there's lots of development work you can do on the back end before it is out there and present on the web, on the interwebs, where people go to your website and they say, but I don't have, there's no demos. How do I hear you? Right? Lau Lapides: And be careful too, that once you do this, or at least the beginning stages of doing this, of saying, I see this all the time. Well, I have my website is up and out, I got my demos on there, I've got some training, I'm ready to go. I'm ready for the jobs, where's my work? Anne Ganguzza: Mm-hmm. Lau Lapides: Be careful of that way of thinking, because on average, a business that's a startup business in any industry, takes a good three to five years to get Anne Ganguzza: Oh Lau Lapides: off Anne Ganguzza: yeah. Lau Lapides: the ground, it just does. Anne Ganguzza: Oh yeah. Lau Lapides: So be careful of this, I'm ready to go. Where's my work kind Anne Ganguzza: Mm-hmm. Lau Lapides: of mentality? Like you have to work at getting work. You have to earn it. You have Anne Ganguzza: Yeah. Lau Lapides: to reach out. You have to do the hard work labor of directing traffic to the website. Anne Ganguzza: Yes, Lau Lapides: The Anne Ganguzza: yes. Lau Lapides: website doesn't necessarily do it for you. You Anne Ganguzza: Exactly, Lau Lapides: have to direct Anne Ganguzza: exactly. Lau Lapides: people to the website, right? And... Anne Ganguzza: Exactly. Your content, right, that's out there is what helps to generate the SEO where people are searching for a specific, you know, product or a specific voice that hopefully, you know, it's getting increasingly. difficult that you show up on those pages, right? So if you're not getting good SEO with people finding you through the search engines, you can absolutely put content out there that is of interest to your potential clients. And that can mean social media. You can be entertaining on social media. You can put out blog articles on social media or on your website. You can then drive people to that website so that they can then have access to your demos, to a button where they can click and contact you and say, hey, I have this script, how much would it cost? And of course, I always like to make it easy Lau Lapides: Right. Anne Ganguzza: to pay as well. So absolutely driving. Lau Lapides: I always love to, I'll tell you, speaking as an agent, one of the big things that I'm asked is, how do I deal with driving someone to see my website? I say, easy, give me one link. It should be one link Anne Ganguzza: Mm-hmm. Lau Lapides: navigation and drive me exactly, point me in exactly what you want me to see. Anne Ganguzza: Mm-hmm. Lau Lapides: right away. So Anne Ganguzza: Yeah. Lau Lapides: let's say I'm an agent. I am an agent. I don't want to go through all your pages. I don't want to scroll way down. I don't want to find the Anne Ganguzza: Mm-hmm, Lau Lapides: demos. Anne Ganguzza: mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Lau Lapides: For me, it's the commercial demo. Send me exactly to where the commercial demo Anne Ganguzza: Mm-hmm. Lau Lapides: is. And then Anne Ganguzza: Yeah. Lau Lapides: if I have time and I want to scroll down, and oftentimes I do, I'll scroll, I'll Anne Ganguzza: Right. Lau Lapides: see what it looks like. It's kind of cool. But I'm not frustrated trying to find that particular item that I'm looking for. So really point. the people that you're driving in exactly Anne Ganguzza: Mm-hmm. Lau Lapides: where they need to go so they're not kind of looking around figuring Anne Ganguzza: Yeah, Lau Lapides: it out, having trouble with navigation. Anne Ganguzza: yeah. Having trouble with navigation. Yeah, that's a big plus, is to be able to have concise information quickly available to the shopper. Now, I always make this comparison that when I shop online, and I love to shop online, I'm a shopper, okay? Lau Lapides: You're a shopaholic. Anne Ganguzza: So the free I kind of am so the first thing I do think about when you shop online, right? What is it that makes you click and buy right Lau Lapides: Mmm, Anne Ganguzza: number one? Lau Lapides: I Anne Ganguzza: It Lau Lapides: like Anne Ganguzza: has Lau Lapides: that. Anne Ganguzza: to be right for me. It has to be a professional looking website It has to really speak to me that this is what okay old Navy sells clothing and accessories And so therefore I was used old Navy, but it could be anything Nordstrom rag It could be all of my favorite places, Lau Lapides: Mm-hmm. Anne Ganguzza: right? They have to absolutely when I get to that first page have to look professional. They can't be, you know, they have to be with the Lau Lapides: Right. Anne Ganguzza: current, they kind of have to be current trends, you know. It can't be like anything screaming, you know, blinking graphics like from the 90s or, you know, when websites were first made.…

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Mythbusters Part 2 Nov 28, 2023

Show notes

In part 2 of our Mythbusters series, we delve deep into why investing in a professional demo producer and voice coach makes a significant difference in your VO success. We highlight the essence of genre proficiency, self-direction, and social media, and why it's a better choice to develop these skills with professional guidance rather than attempting to do it yourself. We also dive into the nitty-gritty of essential voiceover artist's tools, shedding light on the need for a quality home recording set-up and a good noise floor over splurging on an expensive microphone. 0:00:01 - Intro 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 VEO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza 0:00:20 - Anne Hey, hey everyone, welcome to the VEO Boss podcast and the real boss series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with my real boss co -host, Mr. Tom Dheere. Hey, tom, welcome to the show. 0:00:32 - TOm Hello Ann, Thanks for having me back. 0:00:34 - Anne Oh, Tom, we had the best episode last week on mythbusters busting the myths about voiceover and telling the real truth. So we did part one, we're back for part two, and boy do we have a lot of great stuff to talk about. Yeah, I would like to start off with oh gosh, it's just such a big topic these days Social media and voice seekers. Is it going to get us work by posting on social media, Tom? What do you think? 0:01:05 - TOm Okay, there's like 15 qualifiers I gotta have when I'm gonna say this. I hear you. So at the beginning, I'm gonna say that, for the most part, voice seekers are paying absolutely no attention to anything that any of us are doing on social media. Now, with that in mind, that's a very broad brush stroke and for the most part, they are not paying attention to your hey listen, check out this explainer video I just did. Aren't I awesome? They're not paying attention to any of that stuff. For the most part, if a voice seeker is vetting you via your social media presence, it's to either see if you're an NDA violator, to see if you're a client basher oh, can you believe this stupid sentence they made me pronounce, which I see every day on social media or if you're some form of political or religious whack job that has the potential to damage their reputation. Yes, exactly. 0:01:58 - Anne Oh, absolutely, tom. And I'm gonna say, first of all, why don't we step back and say how do you engage on social media? Like, for me, it's all about entertainment, right? Yes, at this point there's so much out there. If I'm going to social media, it's going to be looking for an influencer that might be showing me about the brand that I'm interested in. I might be looking at clothes or makeup or curling irons and I want to find out how they work and if they work great. Now, I'm not saying that a voice actor can't be on social media and demonstrate that you have a great voice. However, I think that whole direct sale method which doesn't work for voiceover, right, whenever it's supposed to be sellier or an answery also pertains to social media. So that means just provide entertainment and as a hashtag maybe, or in the notes maybe, throw in that you're a voice actor, because people buy from people they know, like and trust, and that, I think, is what you use social media for and so entertain people, give them something of value, and then they'll pay attention and then maybe they'll say, oh, you know what she's got? A great voice. I love her personality. I bet you sound great doing this campaign. 0:03:07 - TOm Yeah, so there's my social media presence as a voice actor and there's my social media presence as the video strategist. So, putting the video strategist over there, which is a different animal, as a voice actor, I feel that my job is to just to demonstrate my humanity. I like that because I always tell my students be a good human, collect good humans, demonstrate your humanity online, which has a lot of virtue on multiple fronts. Well, one right now and this is something we could talk about is that I think more and more voice aegers are going to look to see that, when someone submits an audition, that they're actually not an AI, that they're an actual human being. 0:03:39 - Anne Oh, I agree. 0:03:39 - TOm So looking around and going okay, this person is a human. Okay, cool. Yeah, that's a small percentage, but I think that percentage will grow. 0:03:45 - Anne That's how I've met my clients actually right and are they real? Now see, I've got another idea for an episode. It's like have you ever not gotten paid right? Well, I've met my clients in a lot of ways and that's one way make sure they're human. I might actually pick up a phone. Just saying I might pick up a phone to see if there's a human on the other end of it. 0:04:02 - TOm Right. So demonstrating my humanity as a voice actor is just people work with people that they like people work with people that they trust people work with people that aren't putting on airs. 0:04:14 - Anne And are authentic. 0:04:15 - TOm Yeah, so I'm a geek. I like comic books. I talk about comic books and superheroes. I like comic book movies and stuff. So a lot of my content is talking about that. I live in New York City, I walk around New York City with my wife, I take pictures of interesting things I see in New York City and, yes, I do occasionally do a social media post pertaining to some voiceover work that I've done, but it's never about me. It's always about the product or the service, the client or whatever. So, for example, I got a one voice award nomination. Didn't win, but that's okay. I was in honor to be nominated about it's a public service announcement I did for the Humane Society of America that talked about the 4000 Beagles they rescued from that lab in Virginia last year. This PSA announced that all 4000 Beagles got adopted, so I got cast to do that and what I said in social media is that I have owned two Beagles. I'm a dog lover, I've owned two Beagles, so being given the honor and privilege of narrating that spot meant a lot for me as Tom Dheere human being Not about don't I sound wonderful in this and I got engagement through that. I got positive responses through both voice seekers and fellow voice actors, and just friends and family that are also following me on social media. So that's a way to do it. 0:05:32 - Anne I think it just is not one of those things where you're going to create an ad that says, hey, I'm a voice actor, let me voice your copy and then run that out on social media. It doesn't work that way. I think there's more of the relationship. I mean. To me, social media has become all about relationship building and really just entertainment, because we are just inundated with content and chaos, online material, and so I think, for me, I go to social media to kind of just get away from it all in a way, and I seek out those things that entertain me or provide value for what I'm looking for. Again, for me, I'm a big shopper, I'm a big online shopper, so now I'm looking for influencers and I'm looking for video of influencers, and I will say that my example of somebody who's so effective at really creating business for himself is Stefan Johnson, who does a series on TikTok and Instagram where he talks about food and he does like food reviews and he's funny as hell and just the fact that he's entertaining he's funny as hell. He's got maybe that hashtag voice actor. Everybody has come to know and love him because he's sent thousands of videos and he's got like a billion followers, and so, yes, that works amazingly well. And, tom, I know that we had discussed this earlier, but let's say you are the voice in a video game or the voice of a national brand, and the other thing, you want to make sure that you are on social media, that you're being careful that you're not, like crazy, bashing other people or doing something that would risk the brand integrity of the company that you work for. I mean, one of those famous cases back in the day when I think the first thing was, oh gosh, it was the Aflac. Was that the Aflac commercial? the duck and people that just in a minute you can ruin a brand by saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing on social media. So I think you have to be very careful. 0:07:27 - TOm I'll give you a name. Dropy example, because I'm very excited about it, is that in a few weeks the Inspector Gadget video game releases and I am Inspector Gadget. 0:07:35 - Anne Yeah, you congrats which. 0:07:36 - TOm I'm very thank you. I'm very excited about that and I had been talking to my business. 0:07:40 - Anne You are such an Inspector Gadget, I can totally, totally see that Go go Gadget roller skates. Well cast, well cast. 0:07:48 - TOm Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and so, as I was trying to plot out a marketing campaign, I quickly realized it's not a good idea, because I don't want to interfere with the brand that is, inspector gadget and I don't want to interfere with the video game production company that did it and I don't want to cause any potential issues with my manager got me that audition that cast me so I will piggyback retweet. Yes, yes, absolutely, whatever they do very smart and say, and again, it won't be about me, it'll be. I watched inspector gadget when I was a kid and it was such an honor to be able to be the voice of a character that I loved listening. 0:08:29 - Anne Tom, that's so awesome. I'm so happy for you. I mean thank you. They don't call you the strategist for nothing. I'm just saying that's a really wise strategy to retreat, retreat. Well, it is a treat reacts now, I think yeah, reax what is it? 0:08:42 - TOm yeah, what is that? Or? 0:08:43 - Anne thread, re, thread it forward, that repost, all that stuff is really wonderful, okay. So now I've got another myth. Okay, that I hear all the time. Okay, coaches and demo producers, can we just make our own demos? Can we just DIY? I can do it. You don't have to spend all the money. Don't fall prey to the predators and look full disclaimer here. I am a coach and I am a demo producer, so we are talking about this. However, I do want to address that you know a lot of people Will be crucified for doing their own demo. I can certainly throw in my opinion as to why. I think maybe that's for some people, maybe that's okay, but I'm gonna say the vast majority. There's a good reason why we are out here producing demos right. 0:09:28 - TOm So most of the time when a person decides they're gonna record their own demos because they can't afford to hire somebody to do yes Percentage of those it's out of just arrogance. I can just do this myself. I'll just go in my bathroom and close the door and just do it, and I will have no training and I will be recording in a not good environment and I'm just gonna direct myself because I can do this. 0:09:49 - Anne Yeah, I have the technology. 0:09:54 - TOm This is what I tell my students and when I do speaking engagements and conferences. The virtue of a demo producer is the virtue of a demo producer like an Is not necessarily the finished product of the shiny demo in your hand. I think it's three things. Number one and or other quality demo producers is going to teach you genre proficiency, how to narrate e-learning as opposed to video games, as opposed to audio books as opposed to medical. So what muscles do you need to flex to be able to do this particular genre well? And there are always tips and tricks and nuances and subtleties for every genre, and an experience coach and demo producer like and can teach you that. The second thing and this is a big reason why you shouldn't record your own is what I call ism detection. Everybody has their own ism. Some people talk fast, some people talk slow, some people upward and flex, some downward and flex. Some have regionalism and has not your ears so she can hear your isms, identify your isms, talk to you about why do you have those isms and is it a problem that you need to eliminate? Is it something that you need to learn how to toggle on and off like a switch, or is it something that you can use to enhance your performance and possibly enhance your brand. Sure, good demo coach like and, can do that. And the third one is the art and science of self direction. Yes, oh yes, you have to learn how to self direct. It is practically impossible to teach yourself how to self direct in a vacuum. Yeah, and and other quality demo producers can teach you how to do that. So it's not the finished product, it's all the things that you learn. That gets you to that finished product or makes working with a demo producer important. save your money, be patient. That's another thing, ann, about most voice actors coming into the industry is that they are distressingly impatient and they make big mistakes by spending all this money on products and services and coaches that will not move their voiceover business for because they're so desperate to do it. 0:11:51 - Anne Or I'm going to say they come in and they don't have any money to spend and I don't look. I'm not here to shame people who are financially you know what I mean looking for a new resource or revenue stream. But like in any good business, tom and I say this over and over again you do have to invest, and one of the reasons why you would save to make an investment, tom, you said everything so eloquently and so well that really you don't have ears yet, and so while technically you may be able to go, even if you had a nice studio and you bought the best equipment and you have a good sound and you're a musician right and you have the capability to put things together, you know the software you don't necessarily have the ear and you don't necessarily have the experience or understand what content is driving this demo. How are you telling that story? How is that being put together to really showcase your acting in its very best light? Because if you're new to the industry, you don't know right, you don't know what that is yet, and it's hard for you to hear that or have an ear for that, and so that's one of the best reasons to hire a professional. It's kind of like look, I worked in technology and I worked in computers and running our computer department and I did a website for years for the school district that I worked for. But do I make pretty websites? I know functionally what I want to do, but I cannot do the graphics. It's not what I was trained to do and so, therefore, hire somebody that's trained and then that's what they do all day, every day. They work in the industry. They know what's trending, they know what's current, and that's why it really helps to have a vetted coach and demo producer, not just one that's going to take your money and give you a demo after a weekend. Again, that's the big misnomer is that I can do a couple of sessions and then get a great demo after a weekend. Well, if you've not spent any time actually studying and practicing to be a professional voiceover actor, you really don't have any business making a demo, because that demo, as Cliff Zelman always likes to say I always like to quote Cliff is a promise right that you're going…

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Custom Boss Website with Jim Fronk Nov 21, 2023

Show notes

How do you turn a lifelong passion for music, radio, and video games into a successful career in voice acting? Join me as I chat with Jim Fronk, a seasoned radio veteran who transitioned into voice acting, entertaining people with his dynamic performances and engaging characters. But that's not all, Jim's talents extend beyond the microphone. He's also a whizz in website development, skills he's utilized to build successful websites for fellow voice actors. He delves deep into the magic of website creation, including the critical elements of a voiceover website and how you can create a one-page website in record time. Get ready to be inspired, entertained, and better yet, educated by Jim's wealth of knowledge and experience in the voice acting industry. Don't miss out! About Jim Jim has always been creative and secretively a tech geek. While working at radio stations, he gravitated towards graphic arts and webmaster duties. Through the years he created websites, not only for some of his ventures but for other radio friends and their DJ/entertainment side hustles. When Jim entered the VO world, he was amazed at how much it cost to have a basic cookie-cutter website built for a voice actor. So Jim created his 3-Hour Learn-By-Doing Website Creation Class. For a fraction of the cost, he teaches you how to create, update, and expand your own VO website as your business expands. Check out www.WebsitesForVO.com for more details. 00:01 - Intro (Other) 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 V-O boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. 00:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the V-O Boss podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I am very excited to be here with a very special guest, our 20-plus year radio vet turned voice actor, Jim Fronk. Oh, thanks for having me. Oh, jim, jim, jim, let me just tell the listeners a little bit about you, oh by all means. 00:40 I'm glad that you were so excited. Thank you for being here, jim. Let me tell our listeners a little bit about you. You've been behind the microphone in your happy place since you were 10, the tender age of 10. And since then, jim has been acting and singing his way into our hearts, doing improv, stand-up comedy, live, announcing, djing on air, and now he's in his very own 5x8 padded closet capturing our hearts. So, jim, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here with us today. 01:10 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Well, thank you, I'm glad that I'm padded, because the funny thing is I got out of radio because it got so impersonal. I started voice tracking and I was on nine different stations, six different states, at the same time, and I was just in a 10x10 room recording and I'm sick of that, so I ended up in a 5x8 room. 01:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now a 5x8. Yeah, somehow that's smaller, so okay, but it's padded, so that's better. 01:33 - Jim Fronk (Guest) And this is my happy place. I love being here, I love playing behind the microphone. So I started at 10 years old singing. My dad always said that I would either be a politician or a radio disc jockey. Because of my gift of gab and the way that I like to spin the truth now and then, what would you sing? 01:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's my question. What genre would you sing? Jazz, you sing in classic rock. 01:54 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Classic rock for the most part. 01:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Classic rock yeah. 01:58 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Actually back in 2000,. I was Ed McMahon's nextbigstarcom winner of the rock category. What did you sing? I sang Better Roses by Bon Jovi. 02:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, my God. Of course, at least she sang Bon Jovi. I was just going to say I'm thinking, bob Seeger, I don't know why. I've done some Bob. Yeah, I've done some Bob Seeger, I like the doors, yeah. 02:16 - Jim Fronk (Guest) I like the doors, my go-to when the bands are playing and they're like hey, come on up and sing. My go-to is Roadhouse Blues. 02:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh God, if we are lucky bosses, we might get to hear, I don't know, a bar or two. 02:27 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Maybe if you go to Uncle Roy's this year or maybe actually if you went to Uncle. Roy's next year. I'll talk to them. 02:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Next year. Oh yeah, hey, I personally have never heard you sing and I would absolutely love to hear you sing. 02:39 - Jim Fronk (Guest) You might be able to YouTube something Just saying there might be some poison out there. 02:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Before we talk a little bit more about your journey into voiceover, because you've had such a long history behind the mic, I need to ask you about the 7.36 pounds of shelled blue peanut M&Ms that you requested from me in my little inquiry into hey, you want to be a podcast guest? What do you require? And so you asked me for shelled blue peanut M&Ms, and I could only find the brown ones. 03:08 - Jim Fronk (Guest) And yet they're still not here. 03:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Somehow, oh, but they're virtually here. 03:11 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Oh, virtually Okay, great, I don't know. I was just trying to think of something weird to put on there that I need, because I really don't need anything. 03:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm actually kind of hungry for some M&Ms. But, Jim, it's already been a wonderful five minutes chatting with you. I can't wait to dive deeper into your journey. So share with our listeners how your journey kind of got to be 20 plus years behind the mic doing radio. How did you get there? As a small child you were singing, right. Were you singing classic rock at the age of 10? 03:43 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Well, I was singing what was considered just normal pop music, I guess, yeah, and then classic rock was just music, but I did that. But when I got into school I really got into mixing things and I was making mixtapes before mixtapes were a thing. 03:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I made mixtapes. I remember them. 04:01 - Jim Fronk (Guest) I was scratching records so things would skip at a certain point and you put a quarter on top, make a knot skip. No-transcript, Mr Jaws, Dr Demento. 04:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh God, yes, I might be dating myself here, but I listen to Dr Demento every Sunday evening. Love Dr. 04:16 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Demento oh my God my favorite show. But they always had Mr Jaws. It was kind of like Mr Jaws, so why are you here? Right now, and then it'd be a song, so I used to try to do those myself. 04:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And Delilah. I listened to Delilah too. Delilah yes, yeah, delilah's on the air forever. But then I got into radio. 04:33 - Jim Fronk (Guest) When I was in high school, I was at a party. 04:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Okay. 04:36 - Jim Fronk (Guest) I was a senior, it was a junior's party. He was trying to be class president and I was just there being me. I mean, I am your extrovert, you know I talk to everybody, I say hi to everybody. It gets me in trouble sometimes, but whatever. But I was just being me and this guy walked up and said hey, listen, I'm the lawyer of this small little cable radio station downtown Woburn, which is my hometown. He goes do you want to try out? Okay, so I went home the next day. I got my Peter Brady tape recorder. We have to hold down the record and you know what I'm talking about. 05:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I know exactly. I used one of those in college when I was recording textbooks on tape. Oh, there you go. I know the realistic. Or it was a Panasonic, I can't remember. 05:13 - Jim Fronk (Guest) I think it was realistic because I did have a radio shack within walking distance and my transistor was in there. Everybody did. 05:19 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Wait, I'm sorry, but we're just going all over the place. So my brothers are very much into Heath Kits, heath Kits, heath Kits. Yeah, building electronics Like we did that from Radio Show. Oh my God, they would just build their own little like transistor radios and stuff. 05:29 - Jim Fronk (Guest) I never got into that but I mean, as I got into radio I did get my engineering junior engineering badge from the engineering people, but whatever. So I went home the next day I had my Peter Brady tape recorder and I had my Precorp eight track player, my stereo system at home, and yes, I'm name dropping here. With Precorp I put in Led Zeppelin and you know I talked out of a Led Zeppelin song and I had to wait because you couldn't rewind eight tracks so you only had one take. Well, you had to wait for the next song. It took me all afternoon to get like three intros and three outros and I ended up getting the gig, which was kind of cool. They made me change my name. They didn't want anybody to know that a high school kid was working at school, but yet they gave me like one of those shiny, flashy 80s type of radio jackets with my name on it and the call letters and I did J at all the high school functions and things. So everybody knew. 06:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Can I ask what name they gave you? I was Jumping. 06:23 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Jim Jacobs. 06:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) All right, Jumping Jim. This just came to me. Jumping Jim. 06:27 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Jacobs, 935-3378, wlhg. Wow, larry Habar Enterprises. I love it. Larry lives two towns away from me right now. We had lunch about a month ago. The owner of the station. 06:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now explain to me. So you just were fascinated. Did you listen to the radio all the time? I loved radio. And then you were just mimicking all the DJs because the DJs got all the chicks. Apparently that's what it was back in the 80s anyways. 06:51 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Yeah, have you heard of Dale Dorman? He's a Boston guy from KISS, but Dale Dorman and one other guy I forget his name, but they invented top 40 radio. They were at a bar one night and they watched people put quarters in to hear the same 15, 20 songs all night long Sure. 07:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That makes sense, so they made that format. 07:07 - Jim Fronk (Guest) And Dale Dorman was also on the local TV station as hey, kiddies, that after school type of thing, and I just loved the guy and I just wanted to be him, I wanted to do what he did and I just set focus on it and I ended up doing it. I met Dale Dorman. The program director of the small station I worked for was the assistant PD of KISS 108 Boston and that's where Dale Dorman was, and she brought us in for a program meeting and God, my mind was just blown at that point and I said this is what I need to do. Got out of high school, I went to college for it, went to school for it, interned, did many, many years, and it was like here. 07:43 I am learning from these people that I think are phenomenal but, they're teaching because they can't make ends meet. So I got out of radio for about 10 years 15 years, and I did stand up comedy and I always talked about getting on the air again, because if I'm doing morning radio, I can't hear them not laughing when. I tell jokes, I just play a soundtrack. So I turned 35 and I said, you know, what Everybody laughs then yeah, exactly. 08:08 I turned 35 and said I have to do this, so I just put everything else aside and I did it. 08:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now let me ask you, because you said most of the people couldn't afford working in radio, so they were teachers. Is that always been the case in radio? Is it always been? Maybe not the best paying gig, but the people in radio love radio. I mean, it's just. 08:27 - Jim Fronk (Guest) It's like being in an abusive relationship. It really is. 08:31 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It slaps you around and I'll tell you. It's like podcasting I'm gonna say because for me, I'm gonna tell you that podcasting is my radio show. In a way it really is. 08:41 - Jim Fronk (Guest) The only difference is I was waking up at 2.30 quarter of 3 every morning to get my butt whipped every day. 08:46 - Intro (Other) But yeah, it's definitely a passion. 08:48 - Jim Fronk (Guest) You hear that word passion with VO. It's the same thing with radio. It was just something that I needed to do. I needed to have that live interaction and as far as the money goes, it's kind of like VO. 08:58 - Intro (Other) It depends what market that you're being planned in. 09:01 - Jim Fronk (Guest) I was doing mornings in Nashua, new Hampshire, which is about 30 miles away from Boston, as the crow flies, about a 40 minute trip. My salary compared to somebody doing the exact same thing on the exact same type of station, they probably were about five or six times more than I was making Just the average guy. Now if you became a star then you're up in the quarter of a million dollars in Boston market but not in Nashua. But I loved it and you got the perks I mean I'd go to concerts, I'd be backstage, at concerts. 09:30 My favorite thing was going on stage and throwing t-shirts out at people and saying, hey, I'm frog from Frank 106 or from 104.9 the Hawk, and people scream and they know me and I just love that. I really love that. 09:43 Just being a part of the community. I was very fortunate that the morning show I did for 106, 3 Frank FM I was part of the community. I would announce football games. My daughter did cheerleading but I would announce the popcorn of football games and I would go and people would know who I was. But I was very active in the community and I'd love that. I love being known. 10:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You were like a local celebrity. 10:03 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Yeah, but I was able to take that celebrityism and put it to good work as opposed to evil Like I did back in the 90s. Oh sorry. 10:12 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And that's another podcast. 10:14 - Jim Fronk (Guest) Yeah, I don't think the ever straining owners are up yet for that one, so we really can't talk about it. 10:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, now 20 years in radio, 20 years 20 plus, yeah Now did you say you were doing synonyms, that you were doing radio, and then you went into comedy, or how did that work? 10:28 - Jim Fronk (Guest) I was doing comedy. First I was a wedding DJ, function DJ, when karaoke was all the buzz. I got my own karaoke company. I had like 35 shows. 10:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Look at you being a boss entrepreneur at a young age. I mean bosses, and why you to listen to this? All of the people that come on the show, I mean they're entrepreneurs in so many ways, and that was so creative. I mean, jim, first of all, just being in high school right, and going after your dreams and having the bravery to go try out for the radio station and get the gig right At such a young age. And then you've got to be brave. Did you stand up comedy? That's for sure. 11:03 - Jim Fronk (Guest) You know stand up comedy. Five minutes can seem like 20 minutes. Yes, 20 minutes can seem like five minutes. It all depends on the energy of the crowd. But I tell you that first time I got up on stage, the very first time I was hosting a pretty big deal. It was at Berkeley, 5,000 seats. I was hosting it Not really hosting telling jokes, just kind of introducing people. 11:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But I had a couple of jokes. I'm seeing kind of, yeah, I had a couple of jokes. 11:26 - Jim Fronk (Guest) That first joke I told, and when they laughed, that wave that hit me, that became my drug. 11:33 - Intro (Other) That became what I craved. 11:35 - Jim Fronk (Guest) That became what I had to accomplish on a Monday night up in Vermont for…

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And the Winner Is Nov 14, 2023

Show notes

Get ready to unravel the intricate world of awards in business! We promise, you'll walk away with a fresh perspective on the role and impact of awards in business - the good, the bad, and the downright stressful. We kick off our lively discussion by peeling back the glitzy curtain to expose the challenges and rewards of organizing an awards ceremony. From the high stakes of selecting winners to the joyous recognition of one's hard work, it's a rollercoaster journey. We open up about our own awards experiences and how it can often feel like a numbers game. Plus, we'll delve into the emotional side too, sharing some insights on how to handle not winning or being nominated, and why it's important to savor any recognition you do receive. 0:00:01 - Announcer 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 VEO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Ann Ganguzza. 0:00:20 - Anne Hey everyone, welcome to the VEO Boss Podcast and the Boss Superpower Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am here with the lovely Lau Lapides. Hey everyone. Hey Lau. 0:00:31 - Lau Hey, beautiful, beautiful, right back at ya. 0:00:34 - Anne How are you today? 0:00:36 - Lau Oh, I'm fabulous. I feel like this is going to be a very rewarding show, or maybe a rewarding show oh oh hey. See what I did. 0:00:45 - Anne I see what you did there. It's funny Lau. We just attended an award ceremony and there's a lot of different opinions out there on do we like awards, do we not like awards? Maybe we should have a talk about that Lau. What do you think I? 0:00:58 - Lau love it. I haven't heard anyone really talk about discussing awards like the process, not just the winning of the award, but also like what goes into the entire process. It's really a huge thing. Sometimes takes six months or a year to prep that kind of thing. Yeah. 0:01:16 - Anne Well, I will tell you that. First of all, I guess bosses out there we want to hear how you feel about awards too. I mean, there's so much discussion happening out there, oh gosh, on the Facebook groups and in social media about awards, and are they worth it? Because some awards cost money to enter, some awards don't. In our industry right now, I know of two distinct award shows that go on. However, they are not the only awards that you can certainly enter if you feel the desire to do that. Lau. I have been a supporter of award shows since the beginning. However, there are many pros and there are many cons to it. Pros is that if you win an award, it's validation. Sometimes it's so difficult to be validated while we sit here in our studios all by ourselves and we don't get a lot of feedback all the time. Gosh, I'm always telling my corporate students we just want to be loved. When you work for a company and you feel underappreciated, I mean, gosh, that's really all we long for is to be loved. I think awards can be a verification of that. But then again, sometimes they may not be, because maybe you didn't win, and then that enters in a whole new mental aspect of. Oh my gosh, I wasn't good enough to win this award. Why did I not win this award? Somebody else is better than me. What are your thoughts about that Lau? 0:02:42 - Lau I think that when you go into this kind of a process, if you're entering into it and really submitting yourself for it intentionally, you have to set your mindset and your psychology to the fact that it is competitive. It is a competition. You may or may not feel like it is, but it really is. It should be based on merit. It should be based on your progress, your process and your product. And sometimes we only have so much control over that right. We manage it. We only have so much control right, that's the big thing. 0:03:16 - Anne And I just said it should be based on merit, and, right there, we could probably spend an entire podcast talking about that. It should be based on merit. However, there is the other side of the coin where, yes, it should be based on merit, but then you have the people who judge the awards right, and we don't always know, first of all, who those people are. Sometimes we do. I'm not a big fan of knowing who judges are. I feel like maybe there's too much possibility for people to maybe try to talk to the judges and influence them, so I'd rather not have judges be known. And then you have to really think about what are the judges qualifications? Because within voice over, we have so many different categories right, and so many different categories of awards. If you're going to, I would say, present these categories of awards, I think you want to have very vetted judges right Judging the entries. And I am not sure, since we don't know who the judges are all the time, or even if we do know who the judges are, what is the criteria for me, a demo award versus a performance award, and in all different genres, I think it's super important that the people judging those are very specialized in those genres or in that category. So if you're judging animation, I would hope that judges are all experienced either working in animation or doing animation day in, day out and they really know the industry, and so I really would hope that that's the case. I don't know Lau if that's the case with all the judges, because, again, we don't always know who the judges are and we don't know what their credentials are. 0:04:50 - Lau Right, and I can say just from my personal point of view that it's not always the case. Because at times I've been asked to judge categories which I feel like I can judge them. I can judge them, but am I way off base? No, I don't think so. I think there's a general industry knowledge that you have for years in the industry, but is it my absolute forte? No, not always it's not my forte. We try to get that matching process, but sometimes it's a numbers game, just like the competitors. It's like do we have enough judges? Do we have enough judges in a particular category? Are we getting them in time? Can they get the work done? 0:05:24 - Anne That's right in time, and that's the other thing. I mean, my goodness, judging some of these awards, because I have been a judge myself. First of all, when there's a lot of categories and a lot of entries, who, it becomes like a casting process and right then, and there bosses. I want that to tell you one thing. That means that sometimes right and I'm not going to speak for myself, but sometimes if you've asked a busy person to be a judge and then they have to listen to a thousand entries, they're probably only going to get the first part of your entry listened to before they have to continue on. So that is something to consider. I mean, if there's a nuance or an acting moment that is at the end of your performance, maybe you want to try to create that clip so that all that great stuff is right at the beginning, because it is a job. It can be a lengthy and timely job, and if judges are not given an appropriate amount of time to do that, or they don't have a lot of time to do that, and they think like, yeah, I can judge that, and then all of a sudden it becomes overwhelming, well, then you get, the judging process becomes a little skewed to be quite honest because either I don't have time or I've heard too many entries. I'm now overwhelmed. But yeah, there's so many things that go into it, my goodness. And then are the entries anonymous. We hope they are right, because we don't want the judges to be influenced by names or celebrity or that type of thing. But our voice is our product, right? So sometimes I'll tell you what it's hard to hide, because I know a lot of voices out there and I can pick them out like this I would agree. 0:07:01 - Lau And you know this last time, one of the last ones, you and I judged we were under an NDA, which I actually really appreciated I did too Right. It took a lot of stress, because not that I would be necessarily blabbing about that, I wouldn't but it reminded my brain like, separate it, compartmentalize it, because you and I we were a lot of hats, you know casting an agent and coach, and this and that, and so there is sometimes that one or two talent that we know. We do know them, and then could we recuse ourselves? Sometimes we can sometimes we can't, because they can't move us into another category. So it's great to have that compartmentalization and that relaxation to know, okay, if there is someone in front of me that I know that's a client or a client of a friend of mine, that I am separating that from this hat, that I'm wearing, and then I'm not going to talk about that. I'm not going to speak about that and I have. I wonder what you think about this. And I had mixed feelings. I have mixed feelings about the awards being given and then the judge's names coming out. It sort of makes me feel like a jury that all of a sudden is being. You hear the names of the jury who's on a criminal case. It makes me feel uncomfortable. It's like why do I need to know that information? What do you think about that? 0:08:21 - Anne That's very interesting and I appreciate that you brought that up because, as I mentioned, I always have been a fan of keeping anonymous I mean for the longest time and this isn't anything that's being judged. For example, I have done the VO Peeps scholarships for gosh 12 years already and when we judge those entries I don't disclose the names of the judges and I don't even disclose the names of the judges after the fact. Because again, what if I want to use those judges, maybe again, and I don't want to have anybody influenced and I don't want the judges, I feel like I don't need credit If I'm a judge. I don't need credit in being a judge. I just want to be able to judge fairly. And I happen to agree with you. I don't think that judges' names should ever be disclosed really, and I'm not quite sure why the reason is and it might just be that they want to be thanked properly, but it's like when I give a donation, I don't always have to put my name on that. You know it can be an anonymous donation because I did it out of the goodness of my heart. If I'm judging something, I want it to just be the most fair that it can possibly be. 0:09:24 - Lau I'm glad you brought that up, Because when I see that at a ceremony someone who's kind enough to give money towards a scholarship or towards an award. I kind of feel bad for them Because I'm like as much as you are. Oh aren't they wonderful. They don't always want that recognition. They don't always feel comfortable knowing that. It's well-known knowledge that anyone who wins a lottery like they have to be very careful about releasing their name, because then they become a target and people go after them. So you have to wonder if you're in an award ceremony, could you then become some sort of target that people are either trying to embellish themselves? 0:10:01 - Anne to you or they're trying to knock you down, similar to being an agent Lau. I'm just saying I know nothing about that. 0:10:09 - Lau It's so true. 0:10:10 - Anne It's like they're prostrate themselves to you day and night right. 0:10:13 - Lau I'm not one to really appreciate that. Honestly, I'm very private in that way. Like, if I'm going to give a bunch of money, I'd rather it not have my name in there. But that's just me. Other people do want that recognition. That's fine. That's totally fine. 0:10:28 - Anne I'm going to say I'm not here to shame anybody saying if you put your name on a donation that it's shameful. I just think there are times when I don't think it's necessary and sometimes, yeah, I mean I'll put my name on a donation if I can add a note to it, to the recipient in wishing them good will, that kind of a thing, and that will be a reason for that. But I think La one thing I want to really make a point of about awards is when you enter awards. Having experienced both sides of it being a judge and then also entering into awards myself I think you just have to really be made of Teflon number one, because the process is very subjective, right, and we're starting to kind of address all the things that go into the awards submitting and then the judging process and if you know who the judges are, are they qualified and that process. But I think one thing I want to stress to the bosses out there is please do not ever belittle yourself If you do not win an award or if you don't get nominated for an award. I think that, especially in our business, because it's very much a personal part of us, it's our voice, right, it is so personal and if you ever don't feel as though we've succeeded, it can be really, really damaging to our psyche. 0:11:44 - Lau I would agree, I would agree. Do not give a ton of weight to that process. And it's very funny, it's almost like auditioning. It's like don't give a ton of weight to anyone audition brush it off and leave and go on to the next thing. But yet, when you're actually auditioning, give it the 100% it deserves, completely, commit to it completely, invest in it, completely, appreciate it. So, if you're awarded something or nominated, completely be present, be appreciative, love the moments, enjoy your community, love the attention. But then when you walk away, I really do believe you have the award. You're not going to forget about the award, you're going to utilize it as well in your marketing. 0:12:23 - Anne Oh, absolutely, but don't hang your hat on it. That's another positive. 0:12:27 - Lau Absolutely, don't hang your hat on it Like I'm the best, I'm the expert, I'm finished. No, it's a recognition that your work is at an industry standard that people want to appreciate, but there's a lot more to go. 0:12:40 - Anne Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that it's wonderful to get an award and it's wonderful to get nominated. I mean, if I want to make a distinction between being nominated and winning an award, I feel that the nomination is an award in and of itself because, listen to this award nominated, award winning, I mean honestly, they still start with award and so if you're going to use that to market, I mean gosh, just to be like sometimes narrowed down and be put on the shortlist, you can be proud of that to be nominated, and I really, really do believe that that can be celebrated as a win. And again, even if you're not nominated, understand that your work has value, you have worth, you have value and just because you didn't get the nomination or get a win doesn't mean that you are any less of a professional or accomplished and successful individual. I agree totally agree. 0:13:30 - Lau I'd love to talk, too, about the length of awards ceremonies. I think that that is either thought about or it's not thought about, maybe it's thought about, maybe it's not thought about, but they could run three, four hours in length, sometimes Absolutely, and I wonder how the audience feels about going through that kind of process and sitting through that process. We did an awards not long ago, you and I, where we literally sat in a chair for three hours. There was no break. There was no moment to take a breath, walk around, nothing, and I thought that t…

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