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Narrator with Landon Beach and Scott Brick Nov 24, 2022

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In this extended episode, Anne chats with Landon Beach, the author of Narrator, and Scott Brick, the narrator of the novel, to find out what makes a great narrator-author relationship. If you're a writer, you know your characters, you understand their motivations and their goals. Creating a standout audiobook means trusting an actor to take the story to new heights. That's why we love audiobook narrators! They bring our characters to life with their voices, and they do it so well that we feel like we're coming along for the ride. Landon spent months learning everything he could about Sean Frost, the protagonist in "Narrator" He researched Sean's hobbies, his interests, his personality—even his favorite color! Many details of Sean that didn't make it into the novel became essential for developing his character in Scott's voice. We discuss how Landon's deep research into the character of Sean Frost led him to fully embody the role, and how Scott's experience as a voice actor informed his understanding of the subtleties that make this story great. We also talk about how you might be able to use your skills, interests, and background to add new textures & experience to your work as a voice actor. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza. And today I am so excited to have two very special guests on the show. Welcome Landon Beach, author of the psychological thriller Narrator, which is available now wherever fine books are sold. Landon previously served as a naval officer and was an educator for 15 years before becoming a full-time writer with six titles, the latest being Narrator. Welcome Landon. Landon: Hey, Anne, thanks for having me on. Anne: We also have the actual narrator of the book Narrator and award-winning narrator who has more than 800 books to his name -- maybe there's more by now -- 600 Earphone Awards, a Voice Arts Legacy Award, a Grammy nomination. Welcome Scott Brick to the show. Scott: Hey, hey. It's so good to see you all. Anne: I know! You guys, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so excited to talk to you today about this book, which is amazing, BOSSes. So if you don't mind, I'd like to start with just a little bit of a preview, if you don't mind. I'm gonna play this and hopefully you guys will be able to hear it. Here we go. >> Why do authors have to kill off characters we love? I, Sean Frost, sit in my darkened recording booth and stare at the final paragraph of the novel I am narrating. Almost there. Finish it. Finish it right, finish it with a flourish. But I can't, not right now for I am crying. The main character, Nehemiah Stone, died two pages ago in a self-sacrifice that I had not seen coming. The book, The Paris Sanction, is author M. Scott Sal's fourth Nehemiah Stone thriller, which I have waited patiently for two years for the chance to narrate. Five years ago, Simon and Schuster thought I was the perfect narrator for the job when they contacted my agent, David Killian, whom I affectionately refer to as Killy. Anne: . I would love to play all of that, but I'm gonna leave the BOSSes in suspense . Wow. So you guys, for me, I mean, having read the book and listened to the audio book as well, it's amazing. And so I'd love to talk to you about the process. So let's start with you, Landon, after being an educator -- thank you very much for your service, thank you -- what was your thought process in becoming a writer? Landon: Well, I've always written ever since I was young, and I had a wonderful English teacher in high school who really encouraged me. And then it kind of went away for a while. As you said, I went off and served, but I don't think I ever lost the passion for reading or the itch. And so fast forward many years later, and Scott and I started working together and developed a friendship. And I had an idea that I had been tossing around in my mind for 20 years because I've always loved the entertainment industry. I love to watch movies and study film. And finally it came to me one day after Scott and I had finished I think three books together. I thought, I think I have a way to tell an entertainment comeback story that has never been done before with an audiobook narrator as the main character set within the framework of a psychological thriller. So that's where the idea came together. It wasn't until I started working with Scott and got to know a little bit about the audiobook world before I saw the opportunity that was in front of me. And then I shoved all other books to the side and just immersed myself in that world. And here we are today, . Anne: So I guess I should ask you then, how did you find Scott? So then Scott kind of contributed to the idea of the book for Narrator after you'd worked with him? Landon: He did not contribute to the idea at all. I shocked the heck out of him when I presented it to him. Anne: Oh, awesome! Landon: Yes. Now after that, yes, he was very helpful and had so much, you know, generous feedback. And the book, whatever success it may have, is in large part, of course, not only to his narration, but just his extreme kindness and professionalism, talking about the industry and seeing what worked and what wouldn't work in the book. And if we were gonna break some rules, to knowingly break them, so that it would be authentic and that the research would be impeccable. So that not only the common fan for 99% of them would not know where we're bending the rules or not. But it was important to us for maybe the 1%, the people that are in the industry that Scott and I both love, would appreciate the nods and winks and the Easter eggs. Anne: Oh, yeah. Landon: And just the fun of it that it hadn't been done before. So in terms of how I found Scott, I had placed in a few writing competitions for my first two novels, and I had written a third novel, and I was discussing with my wife how we might expand the business. And audiobooks were exploding back then and continue to explode now. But this is around 2019. And to make a long story short, I had been a fan of Scott's for years. Didn't know him at all. But I thought, well, if there's one person that I would love to narrate all of my books from now until eternity, it would be Scott. And I saw that he was an entrepreneur, and his ahead of the game, was already working with some indie authors at that point. And so I contacted his amazing production manager, Gina Smith, and reached out and asked if, you know, he'd be interested. And through a process that we went through, we ended up doing a three-book deal. And then it led to later books. So that's sort of how we got together on this. Anne: Well, I love the fact that you've continued to have Scott in your books. And so Scott, I imagine you had some collaboration after the surprise of finding out that he wrote a book about an audio book narrator. Talk about the process of collaboration with Landon. Scott: I will. I'll be happy to. But Landon, I just want you to know, thank you for the kind words, but you've only got 45, 50 minutes. I'll give you 50 more minutes to say good things about me. . It's very kind. Thank you. This was a marvelous surprise. Landon I got to know one another through letters, through emails, cards that we would exchange, and found out that we're both huge fans of Old Hollywood. I probably can't tell that I love old Hollywood, 'cause the books behind me. And at one point, I guess when he had this idea, he asked if he could maybe get some feedback. You know, essentially it was like an interview. He wanted to interview me about how audiobooks are made. And I remember him saying that he had this idea and very broad terms. Now, I wasn't really privy to what was going on in the story. I just told him about the process. And about six months later, he goes, oh, by the way, here you go. And I went, holy shit. Okay. Well, I guess he did. People say they're gonna do things all the time; it doesn't always happen. And then he asked me to read it ahead of time and just give him feedback. I mean, he was talking about like the rules that we break. You know, there's one thing about the audio book industry. It's very gender and ethnicity centric, right? If a black man writes a book, they're gonna hire a black man to narrate it. Same thing. People ask me why I work so much. I'm like, well, there's a lot of old white guys writing books. Right? And in the book at the very beginning is the Audie Awards. And Billy D. Williams has his memoir come out, and there's a woman who is nominated for best narrator of the year for having done that book. And I was like, hey, Landon, I'm sorry to tell you. But you know, they would hire a guy to do that. And , I just love the fact that the way that he addressed it was just talking about the elephant in the room. He said, you know, at one point Billy D. Williams says, you tell me that woman can't read my book? Are you kidding me? You know, and again, it just, address the issue and then move on. The collaboration, for lack of a better word, I was just primarily giving feedback like that as well. It's just that first interview. I remember days before the book was coming out, he emailed real quick and said, is it appropriate to say, I hit the record button? Is there an actual button that you hit in the studio? And I said, Well, no, not really. I mean, I'm not using hardware, I'm using software. So I have a shortcut. I hit the number 3 button on my keyboard. And he goes, But do you use that terminology? "I hit the record button." I said, No, I typically say I hit record. Okay, great. And that's what came about. And you know, they're small things, but Dan Musselman, who's one of my favorite people of all time, he gave me my career, basically. And he always said, you know, most books are a 100,000 words long. You could get 99,999 of them right. But if you pronounce one of them wrong, it will ruin the experience for the listener. And this is a similar thing, if you get the terminology wrong, it would take some of us right out of the experience. Anne: Absolutely. Well, absolutely. And I was just mentioning before when I was speaking in to Landon, how at home I felt with everything, everything was like, it was familiar to me. It was at home. Like, you grabbed a cup of tea for your throat, and you're at the award ceremony, and all of it just was so comfortable and just so wonderful and amazing. And I can't say enough good words about it, but I imagine that this was a little more collaborative than most audio books. Like Scott, talk a little bit about the process when you're hired to narrate an audio book, and how much interaction are you having with the author, or what does that look like? Scott: You know, it all depends on whether you're working directly with the author or through a publisher. Um, publishers really like to curate the relationship, for lack of a better word. They like to limit the amount that you really get to interact with the author. Then again, I have authors I've worked with for 20 years, and it's like, there's no way we're not gonna talk about it. You know, I'm like, okay, he's coming over to my house for a dinner. Am I not supposed to talk to him about his book? And if it's a Dune book, I've done all of those, I think 25 of them now. I call the author , and we go over all the pronunciations for the made up names, phrases, and whatnot. That's typically what will happen. I'll reach out to, you know, Nelson Demille. He puts in real people's names in the books that he writes. Because they've made charitable donations. Well, I wanna make sure that I'm, is it Carns or is it Kerns? They deserve to have their name said right. That's typically the way it works with an author. But when you work directly with an author like I've been blessed to do with Landon, he'll tell me, this thriller was inspired by this movie. He even sent me a copy of it on DVD. I'm blanking on it now. The Gene Hackman film. Why am I blanking? Landon: Night Moves. Scott: That's it. Exactly. So I watched that the night before, and it just helps get you into the mood. If anything else, the relationship that I've had, this working relationship with Landon, which is thankfully for me, become a true friendship, has informed my work on his books. It's nice to know when he sends me an email saying, you know, I got this character. I was inspired by this film, by this actress, by this actor -- it's really nice to know that kind of thing. Nobody listening will realize, oh yeah, that was Gene Hackman who inspired that character. Anne: Sure, sure. Scott: And yet, I know, and it makes it different for me and hopefully more layered and textured for the listener. Anne: So I guess my question would be is when you take on a character, right, you fully envelop that character. How do you prepare for that? And also, I'd like like to ask Landon, was it a surprise when Scott interpreted the character in the way that he did? Landon: So for this one, Anne, you read it ahead of time, Anne, which was wonderful of you to do that, because I wrote this in first person present tense. I felt that I had to know Sean Frost better than any character that I've ever written before. And I am not exaggerating here. I spent months working on Sean. I have 60 or so handwritten, two-sided loose leaf pieces of paper with notes about Sean Frost, his backstory, where he was raised, the toys that he played with when he was young. You know, millions of things that will never get into the book. And a lot of that was inspired by a book that had come out just recently, Character by Robert McKee. And it can be really intimidating to go through his books, but they're so worth it because the journey he takes you through in the -- he asks the hard questions. And so I told Scott this beforehand, I said, my biggest fear when the book was to come out was that someone would get to a place -- like you said, you know, if you get one word wrong, like he's talking about with Dan, is that someone would say, Sean Frost would never say that. Or Sean Frost would never do that. And that's scary and intimidating because you don't want something to take the reader or listener out of the experience. And so I felt comfortable after putting all that work in that I knew who he was, at least to start writing about him. And to add into the research before I say about, you know, Scott's interpretation of Sean, one thing that our relationship has developed far enough along where we're comfortable sending each other things and suggestions. And so this has a lot of pop cultural references, but it also has, I always have a soundtrack for all of my books, and it's, you know, songs that inspired me while I was writing. And if someone listened to all of those that say, how in the heck did you get Narrator out of all of those or the nonfiction books that I read? But there's something about it that I know as Scott, as a performer, as an actor, they're hungry for information. And let me see what I can do with this. And it's always on, you know, I always kinda say a volunteer basis -- he could use nothing that I give him, and we'd be completely fine. But because we…

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Gratitude for Growth Nov 22, 2022

Show notes

Gratitude is not just a feeling. It's a practice, and it can change your life. This week, Anne & Lau discuss bringing gratitude into your life and biz. They dive into what gratitude can add to your life - a sense of purpose, community, & fulfillment. Take a moment to think about how grateful you are for your life, your family, and the people around you. What if you added just one more thing to that list? What if you took stock of what you're grateful for every day? A grateful mindset makes you easier to work with. It helps people feel good around you + attracts people & opportunities your way. So if you're ready to start crafting gratitude into your life, tune in! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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. Anne: Hey everyone, Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am excited as always to have with me my special guest co-host Lau Lapides for Business superpowers. Woohoo! Lau: Hey! Anne: Hey Lau. Lau: Hey Anne. So great to be back. Anne: It is wonderful, wonderful to have you. So I was noticing, Lau, lately, it's the holiday season or the holiday season is upcoming. And I have been seeing a lot of talk about gratitude and thanks and people have 30 days of thanks. And I think it's a wonderful thing. I love being able to express gratitude. I think it's healthy for us personally, and I also think it's healthy professionally, but I also think we should be practicing gratitude year round . And I think that gratitude can be a wonderful springboard for growth for not only yourself personally, but for your business. What are your thoughts? Lau: I could not have said that any better. And actually you took the words right out of my head. Anne: I did? Lau: Yes. I was just working with -- Anne: Great minds, Lau. Lau: Yes. I was working with some clients and we were saying, you know, this particular talent, whatever, they should be thankful for having this particular opportunity because it's so interesting, it's so unique and it's so hard to get. And I thought, oh my goodness, it's so true; having gratitude, being thankful every single day, like writing it down, speaking it to someone. Not just thinking it. Right, Anne, 'cause when it's in our head, it's not always as real as when we're doing something actively. Right? Anne: Yeah, yeah. Lau: So if I'm thankful, I'm gonna show an action based on that. If I'm really grateful for something, I might tell someone that I'm grateful, and that action is so important to do every single day of the year. Anne: I consider it a springboard for so many good things that can happen from the start of just thinking of being grateful. It turns your mindset around from, let's say, complaining about something . Like for example, it's been cooler now in Southern California. I for one, love the cooler weather, but sometimes that means, well now I gotta turn the heat on. And so therefore now my heating bill is gonna go up. Whatever it is, I'm just gonna be thankful that I have a change of seasons here in California. And I don't have to turn my air conditioning on. So I think it's a mindset switch from the thinking part of it. And then I think like as you were saying, I think putting things into action, telling people about what you're grateful for or telling people, like I'm grateful, Lau, that you are here today with me doing this podcast. And I'm grateful for all of the episodes that we've done so far. And I'm grateful for all the ones that are going to be coming up because I think it's just done wonders for me personally to get to know you. And I have gratitude for you as a friend, but also as a professional partner. Really. Lau: Well, I am so grateful that you thought to even ask me to be on the program. In fact, I'm gonna go back before that. I'm grateful that we were on a panel together, right? The gods of the panel conferencing universe put us together. I'm grateful that we're assertive business women. And we're unashamed and not frightened to reach out to each other, even though we didn't know each other at all. And say, hey, let me celebrate you. Let me work with you and bada bing, bada boom, as they say, I mean, it's like, wow. All of a sudden project, you thought to invite me to your podcast, which has been an incredible experience. And it's just that journey. I'm thankful for the journey of going on the process. Anne: That is what is so cool about -- you're right. It's not just a one time thought of gratitude. It becomes this journey which can evolve into so much more. So one single thought of gratitude can evolve into much more. And that thought of, wow, we were on that panel together. Wow, this is great. This woman is amazing. Like I really like, let me reach out to her and let's see if we can form a partnership and see if we can work together in some way. We worked together. We now have this wonderful series of podcast episodes, and I have grown personally and professionally. So many opportunities have now opened up for our relationship that we've developed. Right? Opportunities to meet other casting directors, to meet other people, to meet wonderful VO family. And it makes me connect to my East Coast roots. I mean, there's just so many good things that have happened from the one thought of grateful in my brain. So I love the action where you can not only think about what you're grateful for, but put it down on paper. I love the whole people putting what they're grateful for on Facebook or on Instagram, whatever your social media platform of choice. I think if everybody could just put what they're grateful for, like every single day, wouldn't that just be a cool thing? Lau: That's a great action to do. It's what I call making sparks. If you can make sparks, then you can make fire. And making fire is really about -- they used to say in business, you know, I'm setting the world on fire. not in any negative way, but like I'm awakening territory that I want to inspire new relationships, new fertile grounds for business, for not only business, but also for friendships, also for social relationships. Like you have to have that action inside of you so that you can do the spark, so that you can catch fire a little. You can't always rely on other people to do that for you. Right? Anne: Yeah. Lau: And that one little spark, that one little thing you make could do a whole lifetime, could open up a whole lifetime of a trajectory of business and friendship and joy and health for you. And you go, oh my gosh, if I hadn't done that, all of this other stuff would not have happened. Anne: I just saw that happen with a client that I had worked with, and I had the opportunity while I was at a conference to meet in person with them. And I remember -- you wouldn't think that I'm a nervous type , but sometimes, right, especially if this client -- this client was very well known, CEO, president of the company, that kind of thing. So when it comes time for me to just meet face to face for the first time, I'm a little bit like, oh my goodness. You know, I've done some work and I've had some association, but not direct all the time. Lau: Yeah, yeah. Anne: And meeting this person and expressing my gratitude, being able to work with them and how much I enjoyed it, how much I admired and respected their work really led to this relationship where I felt great about it. But not only that, but I just got another invitation to do some more work for this client. So I believe that it truly led to other work. And it doesn't mean -- now look, I think there's so many things that go into creating a good relationship with a client. It's not always about, oh, Anne Ganguzza has the best voice. Right? It really becomes, oh, she's got an amazing voice. But also she is wonderful to work with, she's easy to work with, she's reliable. And so those things all come into play. And when you're paying gratitude or respect to your clients, I truly believe that it will come back to you like threefold. Lau: That's exactly it. And there's a, you know, doing the checkbox is like, it just makes their life so easy then you are a great package. You do know what you're doing, you're well prepped, you're professional. They don't have to worry about the trust factor. But there's so much more in all of that. There's almost like a mystique, like a mysticism of how people come together, how gigs get done, how process takes place. There's -- is something very mystical about that. You can't always explain every single step. Like how were we in particular invited to that panel? How did we notice each other and then reach out to each other? I don't know. There's kind of like an unspoken truth that we may not know what that is and it's okay to not know. But then is that makes it exciting a little bit. It's not completely predictable. All we know is we have the ability to assert ourselves and to put our best foot forward. That's like all we know. And then if it doesn't work out, we're eloquent about saying, okay, it's not gonna work out now. Hopefully in the future it'll work out. But being the fire starter, making that spark is really important and not waiting for someone else to do it. Anne: You know what else is interesting? And this is making me think now in terms of, I said, well, it's not always about your voice. Right? It could be the whole package. I truly believe, especially in these times where we want authenticity, we want believability. I truly believe that you, that you bring to the party, that unique part of you, if gratitude is a part of that, I think it's an attraction, right, for other people. And so, even though you might be reading somebody else's words from a script, that gratitude is part of your personal makeup. And that personal makeup is part of that you that you're bringing to the party. And I believe that the positivity, I think there's a lot of positivity around gratitude, that comes with just you being authentic and then bringing that authentic you to the script -- even if it's like behind, let's say, a character that's an evil villain or whatnot, there's still a part of you that you're bringing to it that cares that you're entertaining or cares that you're connecting. And I think that, like you said, that kind of part that you can't touch or feel it, that part is an important part of your voice and the package that you bring to the table. So I think that gratitude is one of those personality traits or one of those emotions that I think can really come out and affect your physical voice as well. Lau: No question. I think it affects everything, not just your mindset and your voice. It affects your body and how you move in space and how you make people feel. I always feel like, whether you're at home in your home studio, or whether you're at an office or going to someone else's rehearsal place or place of business, how do you make people feel at home? How do you host them in your space? And I, I always feel like if I come from a place of acceptance and gratitude, and thankfulness, and joy, and appreciation, they feel that. There's a pathos in that, there's an emotional pathos that they just pick up immediately that is not a self-centered, narcissistic kind of overly focused on myself kind of thing. But it's like, how are you feeling? Are you warm in this place? Are you comfortable? Do you have what you need? What have you. That I always feel comes out of knowing what to be grateful for. I don't think it's enough just to be grateful. I have to be specific. Just like my vocal delivery. I have to be specific on what am I thankful for? What am I grateful for? Let me write that down. Let me talk that to someone. Let me tell them. I mean, I don't know, it's kind of spiritual, isn't it? If I tell you, like you just told me, I'm so thankful for you, Anne, to have you as my new friend, my colleague, someone who's an inspiration in my life. Oh, I just got goosebumps. My eyes got a little watery on that because -- Anne: Me too. Lau: -- it's emotional. It kicks up those muscles in you as an actor that go right into your muscles that are holding emotion, right? You see my eyes got a little watery when I said that. I'm not upset or sad. Anne: So it can make you a better actor. Look at that. I love that. I love that. Right? Some of the good things that come from feeling that emotion, and so much more moving forward energy than, let's just say, there's a lot of complaining going on in some of these social media circles. Right? And I feel like it's one thing to, if you have something that you're unhappy about, maybe, I don't know, either getting it out, writing it down, whatever it is. But I think a constant rehashing and circling and it's like some ball of negative energy. I don't think that that's necessarily healthy. So I think that the more positive things that you can spin and then encircle yourself with and discuss and tell and talk with and -- I think the more forward we can move. I'm always about moving forward and not like staying in a pool of negativity. . Lau: I agree. I agree. Anne: Right? Lau: And you know, now that I think about it, you know, I'm in the commercial market as an agent, I'm thinking that probably 80'% to 90% of the copy that we see for talent is copy that you would describe as warm, friendly, healing, paternal or maternal, inclusive -- all these terms that you think, okay, I'm an actor. How do I get that out? How do I do it on the spot? How about this, one tactic is to do exactly what we're saying and be grateful. Write down what you're thankful for. Really pay attention to it in detail, emotionalize it and feel it. So you can call upon that when you're doing that next healthcare read. You can call upon that when you're doing that next parental read to say, wow, okay, I remember, I can recall -- actors recall. I can recall what that actually feels like as me a person. Then I can put that into my read. And now it becomes much more authentic and realistic to me as a person. 'Cause that conversational thing throws us all the time. Anne: It does. Lau: What is conversational, you know? Anne: And you know what's so interesting? So I'm gonna see that commercial and I'm gonna -- corporate copy, which honestly, if you think about it, it's the same end goal, right? Commercial, selling a product or selling a brand, same thing with corporate copy. Even though you might be delivering information like, here's our corporate governance, or this is who we are as a company, or this is a product that we're talking about as a company -- it's just a longer format, but still the same end result, right? Companies want you to be on board with their product and with their brand so that ultimately you'll buy from them. But I always like to go all the way back and say, look, when I worked in the corporate world, I remember, and I think I mentioned this to you, I was employee number 246 , um, at the company that I worked with out of school. And I loved the product, I loved the company, I loved what we did. I was passionate about it. I felt like we…

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Purposeful Business Nov 15, 2022

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What gets you through the hard days? Purpose. It's what keeps you going when things are tough and when life seems overwhelming. Purpose is your why. Your VO biz is not just a job, it's an expression of who you are and what matters most to you. This week, Anne & Lau talk about what purpose is, why it matters (and why it doesn't have to be all about profits), + how you can identify your business' purpose. They also discuss ways to make sure that your clients, agents, and peers can feel your passion in your presence + hear it in your voice. Finally, they talk about how clear communication of your purpose can help align you with other people who share similar visions and goals. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and the business superpower series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza. And today I'm excited to bring back very special guest co-host Lau Lapides. Hey Lau, how are you? Lau: Hey! I'm awesome. I'm loving being back as always. Anne: I love this series, speaking of the business superpower series. So as business owners, we are superpowers, and one of our superpowers, Lau, has to be our purpose, right? Why did we get into this whole voiceover thing in the first place? And I think it's really important for us to understand what our purpose is and bring it to our business. I've been in this business for a long time, and sometimes that gets thrown by the wayside during the busy days. And sometimes we can maybe forget what our purpose is in the business, but I think we need to realign ourselves with who we are and who we are as a business and what is our purpose. Because people and potential clients align with that. And I think it's important these days. Lau: Yes, well said, Anne. We were just saying before that we start out with purpose when we're starting a business, but the purpose may change. It doesn't always stay the same through the years. If you're have luck and fate and love and passion, and you have a lot of longevity in your business, you become more and more purposeful and more and more subdivided in the reenvisioning and repurposing your purpose. And that, you know, that's something that all of our superheroes that we know and love have in common. They all have purpose. It's like to save the world, right, from certain destruction. Anne: Right. Lau: One of my purposes is to offer the world something specific that helps solve their pain point. What's their problem? What's their need? What is it? Anne: Exactly, what's their problem. And I'm going to say that it's important these days to have purpose beyond profit, right? There should be some element of your purpose that not only are you in business to make money, but you are also wanting to bring value to society or value to a cause that you might believe in, and something that I think your potential clients can hear clearly stemming from your business and get on board with, because I think you'll really end up with a lot of customer loyalty if you get people on board with your purpose. So it's not just to, I wanna voice a national commercial. I know that when we first start in the industry, we start with something very close to us. Well, it's a passion, you know, a lot of people getting into it. I love to create character voices, or I read to my children a lot. And so -- I've been told I have a good voice. And so I wanna be able to bring something to my career with my voice. I wanna be able to use it. So I think we need to look further and deeper into ourselves beyond that sole purpose of, yes, I'm passionate about voicing, but what else is it that you wanna bring to, let's say your business, to society that can help to, I think, elevate you and motivate you forward? And especially as you said over the years, like we kind of conquer and divide or divide and conquer and, and create more aspects of our business. And yeah, sometimes we start to really lose where that purpose -- where did that go? What am I doing this for? Lau: Hmm, yes. It's like losing an inner compass for a lot of us that start out extremely strong. I think it would be fair to say as a sweeping generalization, that many entrepreneurs, many solopreneurs start out with a high level of zest, of passion, of what used to be inserts that none of us ever knew; that was the Retzin. Like what's the Retzin in our purpose? So you gotta have that because that passion, that purpose really inspires you through the difficult days, through the tough times. You're right. It can't just be profit driven because there are gonna be many days where you're simply not gonna make a profit. And it's unrealistic to think that it's my business -- yeah, my business should be making profit all the time. I actually thought that at one point. Anne: News flash! News flash. . You may not make a profit every day. Lau: It sounds ridiculous. But it's like one of my actors, literally, literally this morning, I was talking to her and she said, I'm concerned -- she had switched agencies. And she said, I'm very concerned. I said, why are you concerned? She said, I'm not getting that many auditions. I'm getting like, whatever a week. I said, well, wait a second here. First of all, you have to examine -- I use the word intention, but purpose is great, fits right in right here -- like, what do you realistically want here? And what is your purpose in doing this? Surely it can't be that you're gonna get auditions all day long and book gigs all day long. Anne: Right. Lau: And make a profit all day long. Right? A lot of people actually do think that way. They think, well, I'm here. I'm talented. I love what I do. I'm ready. so why aren't I getting the outcomes that I'm expecting? Well, life isn't like that and business isn't like that. Business is really about relational management. How are you paying attention to the details of the client and what is their purpose and identifying it, like determining do they have purpose? And is it specific enough? Anne: Yeah. And I think that purpose probably starts when people get into the voice industry. I have so many people that I do consults with and there are people like, well, you know what, it's the pandemic, I'm at home. And I wanna be able to work from home and make money. I need to make money. And I'm like, well, okay. So that purpose is not as developed as somebody that I would necessarily wanna work with. So because their whole purpose is to simply survive probably or make money. And that's not necessarily the best purpose to come into the voiceover industry just simply because it's freelancer, and, and yeah, news flash we don't make profits every single day or maybe we do. But in order to get to that point of making a profit every single day, I think there's a lot more steps that need to be taken in terms of evolving your business and growing your business. But in the beginning, it's almost like a self-centered, I have a passion for voiceover. I enjoy it. I'm passionate about it, but I think it needs to go further than that. So it's a passion for you that you love to do, but what can it bring to your business? What can it bring to your potential clients? So for me, for example, some of my background, I worked for a short bit of time in orthopedic industry and in medicine. And so my voiceover genres have evolved into medical narration. And so I really take heart in wanting to voice something that will help people. And so my purpose, when I'm reading the back of that pharmaceutical label, it's not so that I can make money. It's my gig. I'm making, you know, $1000 or whatever I'm making. I'm imagining that I am helping someone who is frantically reading that label to make sure that they're taking the right dosage and to make sure that they're not gonna have crazy side effects and what to do in case they are, and where do they contact? What number do I call? And so I'm really thinking about that purpose, going beyond just me getting paid for the job. I wanna make sure that I'm able to bring my voice and my help and my service to people, to society. And that is just one small example. It's another reason also why I do eLearning gigs, because I feel that my purpose in life is to educate and to be -- I feel like that's really where my sole purpose is, is to really educate and bring education to other people, to help them grow their businesses or grow their voice over careers. And so for me, that love of teaching extends to my business, to my client. And so I take pride in the fact that there's purpose in that. There's purpose in this podcast. You know, this podcast stemmed from my wanting to give back to the community and have an educational resource for people that wanted to find out more about the voiceover industry. Lau: Mm that's great. I love that. What a great soliloquy and you know what? I just had a visual, speaking of branding and everything we talk about with business, I had a visual of like cleaner, like Windex cleaner or one of those cleaners. Why? Because on the front label, you almost always see the word multipurpose, on the front label. Okay, so that's the claim that they're making is that I can use it on my stove and my sink and I can use it on the windows. Right? It makes me think we need to have multipurpose as well. I think its a misnomer to think well, I just have one purpose. What's my purpose? Anne: Yeah. Lau: We're multidimensional human beings. And I can have the purpose that I honestly wanna help someone. I wanna guide them. I wanna sherpa them, if you will, but I also want them to create a viable return based business. And then I also want to lift the ethos of the company or what have you. So it's a multidimensional, multi-purpose framework that I think we can create versus this idea of, oh, I just have one thing in mind. Anne: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I was thinking about this this past week and I wanted to tell you, Lau, the one thing that I love about you, I honestly feel and I get the vibe that you are more excited even than I am to get work for me as an, as an agent. I really feel that because you reach out and you're asking me questions and then I can feel and hear the excitement. You're like, oh, I've got an opportunity. And I really believe that you get so excited about bringing opportunities and bringing job fulfillment to your roster. But I think it's more than just job fulfillment. It's about helping us to grow. And I really feel that from you. And so it's like practice what we're talking about, that makes me want to align with you even more. And so it really does my heart good to feel that from someone that I'm working with, because that makes me wanna work with you more. And I really believe that if we have a purpose that is to serve our clients, right, in the very best way, that's gonna be very obvious to them that that is what we are there. We are there to help them, to help them grow, to help them sell that campaign, whatever it is. If you are admitting that through your job, through your voice, through your interactions with them, it's very much a feel and something that makes them want to work with you again. Lau: Oh, thank you for saying that. Anne: Yeah. Lau: I deeply appreciate that. And it's all true. Anne: It's true. It's very true. Lau: And I feel like you can feel that from an email, you can feel that from a text, at least I can and you can. Anne: Yeah. Lau: I can feel the level of connectivity. Anne: In three words. 'Cause you're busy, and you send me three words and I'm like, oh God, she's excited. She's gonna get me an opportunity. I can tell -- Lau: That's right, that's right. Anne: -- from that short sentence and it's so amazing that you can do that. And it's like a magnet. And I think that that is something that we all can learn for our own selves in understanding our purpose and understanding us wanting to be more than just the profit making business. that's out there doing voiceovers. Lau: I would venture to say purpose is addictive. It's addictive. It's catchy. It's something when you're around, it influences you. You know, we talked about influencers all the time, but how do we influence our peeps, your VO Peeps and our audiences to move in a purposeful, mindful, specific and honest way is how we demo what we do, how we role play, what we do. It's hard to tell, but, but you guys should do this and you should do that. And then, then they don't see it in you. They're watching, they're mirroring psychologically. They're saying, Anne, I wanna see that in you. And when I see that in you, all of a sudden, I feel like I wanna do more. I feel like I wanna commit more. In fact, I wanna try, I wanna take more risks. Anne: It's motivational. It's inspirational. And again, if I go back to this podcast, I specifically remember, gosh, the podcast is now I'm gonna say close to six years old. Lau: Woo! Anne: That's a commitment by the way. This podcast is, is a free resource for people, my heart wanting to give something back to the community. And interestingly enough, I feel like for myself, when I got to a point in my career where I was not so frantic, but about, oh my God, am I going to make it? Am I going to be okay? And I started to feel the success, I wanted to share that and give back. And that became the sole mission of the VO BOSS podcast was to give back and to provide an educational resource. And even more so like these series, the superpower series, my AI series, you know, that's something that, again, I wanted to be kind of up front and educate myself and help educate the community on what's coming up in the industry. And what do we need to be on the lookout for? And that all comes from a place of wanting to help and wanting to provide resources so that people can use those resources to intelligently make decisions about their own businesses. And hopefully people that listen to the podcast feel that. And they, they can feel that from me as I continue to bring phenomenal guests like yourself onto the show so that we can help to be a resource. Lau: No doubt. No doubt. I do agree with you. I think even if you're not thinking in a philanthropic mindset, there is this essence, this circular, however you believe, a karmic essence, a circular that what you put out into the world -- and I teach this to my children and I try very hard to live it -- is put out exactly what you would want to get back. If it were a boomerang and I said this to someone, I did this to or for someone, would I want that for myself? Anne: Yeah. Lau: That old do unto others. But it really is true because there is a circular effect in our industry of what I'm putting out. And sometimes it's not profit driven, as we know. And sometimes we don't get paid as we know. There's always this karma effect of wonderful things that come back to you, and it could be in the form of just like a quick one liner. Someone says you change the way I think. You change the trajectory of maybe my life and you think, whoa, I love paychecks, but no paycheck can make me feel that way. Anne: It reminds me exactly why I loved education. And that's why I was in the educatio…

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The Psychology of your Voice Nov 08, 2022

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Everyone's got Imposter Syndrome. But it doesn't mean you're a fraud. In this episode, Anne & Lau dive into why we are so attached to the sound of our voice and how fixating on that can be a barrier to success. Voice is an essential part of how we are perceived, which affects our personal and professional lives. When you listen to yourself critically, it's easy to get lost in technical details. Your voice is your greatest tool, so stop doubting it. It is an instrument and the vehicle for your craft. So Bosses, love your voice. Embrace it. And if you still need some extra pointers to overcome your inner critic and use your voice to the fullest, listen up… Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and our business superpower series. I'm Anne Ganguzza, your host, and I'm excited to welcome back to the show Lau Lapides. Lau, hello. Lau: Hello. Hello. Glad to be back as always. Anne: How's your week been, Lau? Lau: Amazing. Busy, amazing, wonderful. Went on vacation. We were talking about this earlier. Went on vacation up to the Berkshires 'cause I'm in New England. Anne: Of course. Lovely. Lau: It was a workcation. Anne: Ah. Lau: Right? I never leave. I never really leave work. Anne: Yes. I try to, but you're right. I don't leave either. Although I will say that I do notify my clients ahead of time that I'm going to be on vacation and may not be as responsive, so we have that. But then there are other opportunities that I make sure that I have my travel gear set and ready to go, so. Lau: Well, you're much better than I am. I don't let anyone know. I pretend as if I'm like still -- Anne: As if you're still working? Lau: -- in my studio. And then I'm in some bathroom somewhere in Lennox, Mass during intermission turning my phone on going, yeah. Okay. So you've got a call back and you've gotta get there, and like I have to turn my phone off. I don't know. I'm not getting reception. I'll talk to you in like an hour and a half. Anne: Oh my God. I love it. Lau: . Anne: So funny. Lau: But you know what? It's our lifestyle businesses, right? Anne: It is. Lau: BOSSes know that's the lifestyle that we live. It's not just a nine to five. It's really what we love, what we do, all the time. Anne: Yeah, yeah. As long as there's a balance. Now speaking of superpowers, I wanted to bring up something this week because as you know, I coach my students, and frequently, and I know that you also are dealing with multiple students as well and people on your roster -- I wanna know if you get this as much as I do. I don't like my voice. I just don't like my voice. And I thought to myself, you know, that's so common actually. I hear that a lot from my students, especially my female students actually that they don't like their voice. And I thought it would be a really interesting discussion to talk about the psychology behind that. And why do you think it is that people don't like their voice? Lau: Gosh, I don't think your podcast is even close to long enough to even answer that. I mean, it could take centuries to answer that. I don't know. I think there's a lot of reasons why. I think first that always comes to my mind is that thing of which got really hot, really, really hot, I'd say in the last couple years, the imposter syndrome became hot and known. It was this unknown thing that really women suffered from, primarily women suffered from. And it was, I think the first one that brought it, believe it or not, that brought it out was Joan Rivers, the comedian Joan Rivers put it in her routine. And then Harvard university said, wait a second. Is that a real thing? Let's do studies on it. And then they spent 10 or 15 years doing studies on people who get hit with it. Right? Anne: Well, I think it's absolutely always been a real thing. It just hasn't been talked about, right? Lau: Yes. Oh, very real. Anne: I'm the first person to admit that imposter syndrome hits me still every day. And I always try to turn it around into a good thing where if you have imposter syndrome, it's motivating you to continually grow and excel. But this thing about voices, I'm gonna say, myself, I even went through it myself so that I can identify when a student comes to me and says, ugh, I just don't like my voice. But I always say, remember in the first place, a lot of times, the reason people get into this industry is because someone has said to them that they have a nice voice and that maybe they should consider voiceover as a career. And I've had people that told me that in the beginning, but after I started studying and started really pursuing it as a career and getting work and then falling into the, oh my gosh, am I ever gonna get hired, that kind of a confidence -- oh my God, I must not be good enough, and that imposter syndrome that really kind of hit me, I started to really criticize my voice. And I used to listen to my voice and say, what doesn't sound -- I wanna sound like this person. I want that rasp. My voice does not have a rasp. It just doesn't. And no matter how hard I try to physically create a rasp, it's difficult and it could hurt my vocal cords. So I gave up doing that, but I gave up kind of coveting other people's voices and really started to understand that my voice needed to be embraced, number one, because how would I ever sell my voice if I couldn't embrace it? And the other thing is I think that maybe people spend too much time listening to the sound of their voice, and that I feel might be the biggest barrier to acceptance because, should we really be listening to our voices in terms of technically, how does it sound? I think really as voice actors, right, Lau, you know what I'm gonna say? Right? As actors, we need to be acting and the concentration should not be on how we sound. Lau: That's right. And I know when I record myself, I can't appreciate hearing myself as I'm recording. I oftentimes will not even wear the cans. I won't even wear the headphones because I want to concentrate on the true connection of what I'm doing here. And if I'm hearing myself -- and I was never an air prompter person anyway, so I, I was never in that realm of having to be proficient at hearing myself as I'm delivering language. So I always deliver with headphones off, and I, I suggest to clients, at least for the beginning phase, don't put 'em on because I want you to make an authentic connection in what you're saying and who you're saying it to, who you're speaking to. And that's, you know, acting basics, right? 101. Anne: Sure. Sure. Lau: But I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of, Anne, talking about I'm not good enough. I won't be accepted. I'm not reaching it. Anne: I don't sound good enough. There's always that. Lau: I think that that's so primal. Anne: Does my voice have what it takes to deliver? No, it's not about your voice. It's about you. Lau: It's about, you. Anne: It's about you. You know what I mean? It's about you and your personality and what it brings to that voice. And I'm, I'm just gonna say about the headphones. Now, when I first began, I was in a construction zone, and I had to wear headphones in my booth to make sure that there were no low vibratory sounds that were coming through. So I totally understand what you're saying about taking the headphones off. But I feel that in all honesty, right, if we have the headphones off, we can still sometimes listen to ourselves. You know what I mean? We're still like, these are amplifying everything that we're saying. So for headphones I'm of the nature that yes, whatever works for people to not be distracted by their own sound. I think that if you're a true actor, you can act with headphones on and with headphones off, so. Lau: Of course, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It's really how you train. Anne: It's helpful. Lau: Yeah. How you train yourself, what technique you build, that's repeatable for you that doesn't distract you away from what you're trying to do. And I always say to a client, I say it's ridiculous in the sense that if you went to Kraft macaroni, or you went to Nike shoes or you went to Toyota, would they honestly be thinking -- they meaning the advertising company, the people who are creating and producing scripts -- would they honestly be thinking right now as I deliver this to you, this sucks? Anne: Yeah, yeah. Lau: They may talk about it at their wine party, up in Aspen over the weekend that they don't like the product, but in the moment of pitching it, in the moment of selling it in the moment of connecting to the end user, it is the best thing in the world. Not only is it the best, you can't live without it. You really can't. Anne: Absolutely. Lau: And there's some sort of disconnect between the product, that physical inanimate object, that and us, our identity, our physical person, our vocal sound. There's a disconnect that we then become part of that product. We become part of that branding. And so for us to say, I don't know if I'm doing this well, I don't know if I'm good enough. I don't know if, what is in essence saying the product isn't good enough. Anne: Isn't good enough. Lau: The product is subpar, and that's a danger zone for us. We have to be very careful of that because we sell value. We don't wanna sell devalue. We don't wanna devalue our value, and whatever you do privately is something else. Anne: Sure. No, I love how you brought it to the product. Because in reality, remember we are the voice of the product. We are the voice of the company. And no matter what you're doing, even if you're doing, I'm just saying, if you're doing corporate narration, if you're doing explainers, again, you're still working with a product. And if you're not doing that, let's say if you're doing anything else, if you're teaching, right, you're teaching more than likely, right, you become a teacher. And you are teaching either about some product or maybe a concept. And so again, you don't wanna devalue the content that you are speaking of. Lau: Exactly. Anne: And that's such a wonderful example that you brought up. I'm so glad you said that. Lau: Thank you. And you it's interesting, Anne, it seems to be unique to us and our profession, us meaning talent. It seems to be unique quality that we see in many, many people that we don't see quite as much in other industries and other professions. It would be like, ask yourself this, if you do this, if you do this, ask yourself this. Would you appreciate going to a doctor's office? And the doctor comes in and says, I don't know if I know how to listen to your heart. I mean, I, I, I don't know if I'm gonna do it well enough. I mean, what do you think? And you'd be freaked out. You'd go running outta that office. You'd go, I don't want this woman or guy touching me. I -- Anne: Yeah, yeah. Lau: Right? If you went to a dentist, and you had to have your tooth drill, like, I don't know if I can, I don't know if you'll like what I do. I'm not sure. I mean, it sounds funny to us, right? Anne: I might make you hurt . Lau: Right? Anne: But you're right. It's so true. Lau: And it doesn't mean either that they're qualified, and it doesn't mean either they're the best at what they do. It just means it is innate within their training, within their experience, within their identity, that this is what they do. This is the product they offer, the value they offer. You're gonna pay for that service and it's as simple as that. Hopefully you won't complain about it. . Right? Anne: Absolutely. Lau: But it's so unique unto us is to take it so personalized and to say, but do you approve of me, but do you like me? So going back to your original question a half an hour ago, like what is the psychology of this whole thing? I think it does really start with us as a human being, as a person. Like where is our self-esteem? Where is our level of confidence? Do we feel good in our own skin? Do we feel ashamed or humiliated in honest connection? I mean, ask yourself these questions as a human being in the world and then try to work with it. If the answer is yes, I have a struggle with this, I have a problem with this, then work with it. Don't work against it. Don't shove it under the rug because it's gonna come out out in your next audition. It's gonna come out in your next reach out. Anne: And I think, honestly, it's again, I love how you just brought it down to that level, but it's also remember you're honoring the copy. The copy has been crafted by someone who has put a lot of thought into it, for the most part we think, right? And that there is a message that needs to be delivered. And you need to communicate that message effectively. Now Lau, when we talk back and forth, I'm certainly not thinking to myself, do I sound okay when I talk to Lau? Lau: It's funny to think that, isn't it? Anne: Right? Does my voice sound -- maybe I should talk to Lau like this. And no, because that just, it's not bringing ourselves. It's not bringing who we are, and you know, we say it over and over again. Bring yourself to the party. Right? Well, your voice and yourself, your voice is not mutually exclusive from yourself. The way you're treating it, if you're listening to it saying it does not sound good enough, then that's what you are essentially doing. You are splitting apart the voice from who you are. And I think ultimately, yeah, you have to be the one that can bring yourself to the party. When we connect as human beings, that's what I care about. I don't care, Lau, when you talk to me, what you sound like, I care about what you're saying to me and what it means to me. And I think by trying to just bring it back onto ourselves where most people might think it's an insecurity thing -- in reality, when you think too much about how you sound, it becomes more of a vanity thing or an egotistical thing, where you're not thinking about the client. You're not thinking about the product or the copy that you should be honoring. You are thinking more about what you sound like on top of that copy. And that's not where your voice needs to be. Your voice needs to be in the act, in the action of delivering that copy to the best of your ability and the most effectively on behalf of that client. Lau: I mean, at the end of the day, it's all about the messaging. We use the fancy schmancy term story and storytelling, but storytelling is about the messenger. What message is being delivered? And what is that stake here? What is the value to the audience of that message? Is it gonna fix their life, fix their health? You know, help them find a pet, and, and help them educate their child, or have a better quality health regimen? It's always something in there for the end user that will potentially better their life. Now I'm not saying that that is, that's not a truism. It doesn't actually do it all the time. I'm saying that that's the cla…

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Debunking The Audition Process Nov 01, 2022

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Auditions can be as nerve wracking as a performance, but the best way to come out on top is to be prepared. Anne & Lau are audition experts. When you break it down, an audition is a sample of your performance, and bosses, we know you know how to perform! The best way to start an audition is with copy you feel confident reading and that showcases your acting chops. Making genuine connections with the other actors in the space and casting directors is what keeps you on their mind long after the read ends. Confidence goes a long way in audition settings. Do not shy away from live auditions, and having your 10 favorite scripts on hand will make the impromptu auditions feel more manageable. Want to learn more? Tune in for the full scoop… Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and the business superpower series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm excited to bring back the one and only Lau Lapides to the show. Thank you, Lau, for joining me. I'm so excited to talk to you today. Lau: I'm thrilled to be here as always, thrilled to be here, Anne. Anne: Well, Lau, it's been a week. Lau: And I feel like it's been a month with how much our -- how busy our lives are, right, Anne? Anne: I know, right? Lau: I mean, it's like so much. Anne: But this week you were a part of me besides the podcast, besides the podcast. So I'm very excited to be working with you as an agent. And so you did something that I have never experienced before. You called me into a last minute audition. And I said, oh, okay. I didn't have any script. You called me into a Zoom room. And I was like, okay, is that gonna just be me and the casting director? Oh, that's so lovely for Lau to think of me like that. I'm really excited. Okay. Sure. So I joined the Zoom session and there were like, whoa, quite a few people on there. And I didn't have a script. I didn't know what was gonna go on, what was happening. Let's talk about this audition that you called me into and your process for these things. Lau: You were such a good sport. 'Cause you could have said no, I know it's not in your vocabulary to say no, but -- Anne: It's so true. Lau: -- you could have. It would've been totally fine if you said no, but I was really pleasantly surprised to see that not only you, but everyone in that room said yes to coming in the room. Now I'll set it up for you since today we're talking about auditions. This was a little bit, I would call it unorthodox. It was a little bit unorthodox the way we set this up, but that's kind of my middle name and I'm alright with that. I go with that 'cause I like to have a little fire, a little fire in life. So the premise of this audition was that our friend and producer coming in from Switzerland, Lamar Hawkings -- amazing man, amazing, who is very, very close friends with my colleague Joanne Yarrow that I work with at my studio -- invited him in to say, hey, you are doing amazing projects. I mean my friend, Joanne -- who I have to introduce you to, she's fabulous -- she's the voice now the American voice, of La Occitane campaign that he handles. And so I'll send you that. It's awesome. So I'm like, Ooh, we have a wonderful agency, MCVO. We have a wonderful membership base at the studio, talent inner circle. Why don't I invite some of our really great people with great voices to come in and do a private audition for Lamar? And he was completely up for it. He said, I would love that, Lau. I'm looking for new talent. I'm doing a new animation soon. I'm doing commercial campaigns. I'm doing this. And that. He's very, very busy. He's in Switzerland, but he's actually from the states, originally from Texas. And I said, great, let's do it. So we set it up for yesterday. Now here's the thing. A bunch of the people knew that the audition were coming because they were in the studio base, the talent inner circle studio base and had RSVPed that, yes, I want to attend this. I'm able to, I've been screened. I'm accepted in, and I'm coming in. Great. But then I had a number of open slots that I said, I've got to get more MCVO people knowing about this and coming in because this is a legit audition, and it's a live audition. It's something I really love to do and love to host. Anne: That was so different for me. I mean, I felt like I traveled into LA and went to an in-person audition again almost. Lau: Exactly. That's exactly what happened. And fun fact from the background, 'cause no one ever sees what's going on in the background, I was on vacation. I was up in the Berkshires. Like literally I'm at lunch with my husband, and I'm texting like a wild woman. He said, what are you doing? I said, you know, I'm working. It's always a work vacation for me, a workcation. I said, I'm getting more talent to come in and know about this audition, who don't know, from MCVO, and I'm texting you, and I'm texting Jay Michael Collins, and I'm texting Terrell, and I'm texting Carol, and I'm texting this one, and I'm texting Mike Pollock. And all of a sudden, all these people are saying yes and jumping in, and I didn't even have time to tell them what it was. I didn't even have time to say anything. Anne: That was absolutely the thing. And I'm like, whoa, wait a minute. And I'll admit to you, BOSSes out there, I got in the room and I didn't have copy. And I thought, am I missing something? And thank goodness that Lau, you gave me a little bit of information and said grab some commercial copy or we have some. When I got in there, I didn't see it. Maybe it was there and I just didn't know where to look. So I got off and I thought, oh, well that must look horrible. . Lau: No, not at all. Anne: I went to go grab copy. And then I came back in and then it was like, what two people left to go? So I made it just in time. Lau: And then Carol Alfred, who is facilitating, right, one of our coaches, she's texting me, ah, Anne Ganguzza is on. And then she goes, she left. What she left? Where'd she go? And I'm like, Anne, where are you? I thought maybe you were having a technical issue or you had to go and do something. Anne: I went to go find some copy because I didn't wanna be called on and then say, I don't have copy. You know what I mean? So I went to go grab some. Lau: Right. And now, you know, very rarely when we do this kind of audition, we always have copy on hand for cold reads. I know some talent don't prefer to do a cold read. So we say, we'll bring something you wanna bring that shows you off, but. Anne: I was ice cold I was ice cold, but I said to myself, okay -- and BOSSes, listen, when your agent asks you to come in and audition, it's a sign that they believe in you, number one. And that they would not have asked you to come into an audition if they did not feel that you were worthy of doing an audition. And there was no way that I was going to disappoint my agent. Lau: Oh, and I appreciated that so much. And some of the others that came in, it was hilarious. I'm gonna save some of the texts that were like, hey Lau. Uh, that was great. What was that? Where was it? Anne: Yeah, exactly. What just happened? Lau: What happened? It was, you were like, you were in some matrix. There was, there was some vortex that came through like a storm, but I gotta tell you, and this is good for your listeners to hear, every single person who came in that thought they were unprepared or didn't have copy or weren't sure what they were doing did a fantastic job. And it just reminded me what pros we all are when we get in a room. Anne: Yeah. Yeah. Lau: We have passion. We love what we're doing. There's this super connected quality of being in a room with other talent, 'cause that's unexpected as well to be in a room with other talent like that. Anne: I was gonna say absolutely. One of the other things was, oh my God. And everybody else is listening to me. It's not just the agent, the casting director. It is like 50 people in the room. I don't know how many people were in the room, but there were more than one. There was quite a few people listening. And I happened to just come in really quickly with J. Michael Collins who was reading. And then that's when I said, I don't have that copy. And so I skedaddled outta there. And fortunately you had said, just grab any copy. And I said, okay. So I went and I grabbed some copy and it was, my read was ice cold. But again, like I said, BOSSe so important to know that when your agent gives you an audition, it's because they have the faith in you that you're gonna be able to execute. And I think that that is the one thing that really saved me. And I will admit to you, BOSSes, when you're thrown into a situation like that and you're not quite sure what's happening, you're kind of running on adrenaline, and it's a little scary, I'm just gonna say, not knowing what's happening. But I think it was a wonderful lesson for me, even as long as I've been in this industry, just to trust in your agent, trust in yourself, have faith in the process and just go forth and execute. And what's the worst that can happen? I mean, well, I thought of a billion things like, I was like, when I was done, I was like, I'm not quite sure how that went, but he said, nice job. So I'm okay with that. Lau: Yeah. And I gotta tell you, Anne, that enabled me to what I debrief with him -- we're debriefing on Tuesday -- I can now go down the list and say, do you remember this person? You remember this? You had a visual, not only in sound, you had a visual. You had more than one read on a lot of people as well. you had a character read, you had a commercial read, this, that. And to be able to really discuss the performances for particular projects that he's working on -- so it's never just like this one hit wonder and go. It's always like, Ooh, I like the quality of this person, that person. Can I call them back? And I see, hear their demo? Can I, whatever; it's just like an introduction to you. Anne: And that I think is brilliant in reality, because like you have introduced your roster to a potential client and the visual, yes. Now, you know, of course I'm sure there's a bunch of people in their studios going, well, this is an audition over Zoom. And then the engineers in there will be going, I don't know if Zoom is the best quality, but honestly I think that any good casting director is gonna know from your performance, whether it's in your studio or through Zoom or whatever, they're gonna understand. And they're gonna know a good performance when they see one. Lau: Absolutely. And this particular producer, from what I know of his background, well, he has a very rich history of live performance and theater and media. Anne: And that aligns with it. Lau: He gets it. He gets that, because I had people who were in cars and bathrooms, in their workstation. They were, I mean they were coming in from everywhere. So his business brain, I'm sure was saying, oh, they're busy people. They're not just sitting in a spot waiting for me. They're working, they're running, they're traveling, they're on vacation. They're this or that. I'm thankful that they took the time to come in so I could see their work for projects. Anne: And that means a lot too, I'm quite sure. And especially again, like we're always trying to make in auditions -- and I love this episode because this is becoming so much more than just a normal audition type of episode, where we give you the tips and the tricks -- because the experience of this one was so different, and it really, I think can teach us how to make ourselves memorable in a multitude of ways, not just knowing the conditions, right, of the audition. Number one, you called us in cold or you called certain people in cold, and that can resonate well with whoever's listening for that potential client. And also again, there's that visual, and it is like the in person auditions that -- God, I used to go in and it was great. I'd see everybody in the lobby. Now the difference is that I would audition in front of just, you know, it was just me. And it wouldn't be everybody else listening to my auditions. So that added a whole other level to -- it was almost like a workshop. But in reality, if you tend to get nervous in these experiences that could even potentially make you more nervous. So again, having the ability and the privilege to be able to make that kind of impression on a potential client, I think is wonderful. And Lau, you're one of the few people I know that do this. And so I think it's a wonderful thing, even though I had no idea what it was when I was doing it, but , but now I know. Lau: Do we ever, right? Anne: But now I know. Lau: Therein lies the educational value when we talk about professional development is it really one audition or is it as you called it, Anne, an opportunity to build a relationship with a wonderful producer, who's gonna have a lifetime of stuff. That's I think it's the latter, really. It's never just one audition for one thing. It's always like, hey, you're cool. You're a cool, dude. You're a cool dudette. I like you. Right? I like your vibe. And that's where if I were to say to your listeners and also to my audience that came in, many of which were coming in from the studio membership, we're at different stages of the game. I would say one of the things I want you to really consider and remember is that when a producer meets you live, they wanna see a little bit of who you are. They wanna catch your personality and your energy and your persona a little bit. So especially him, especially Lamar. So don't be afraid -- you don't wanna take up a ton of time, but don't be afraid to just chill a little bit and have a little bit of that conversational feel to what you're doing, because you're really meeting a real person in real time. It's a great opportunity for them to know a little piece of your actual personality versus I'm just a voiceover talent and here's my read. No, I'm Anne, I'm Lau. I'm J, and this is what I'm doing and I'm, I'm traveling and I'm whatever, that's cool. People like that. It's the goal of how do I make you feel? Am I gonna make you feel comfortable or am I gonna make you feel uncomfortable? Anne: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I like the fact that you had the ability for everyone to kind of listen to everybody else's auditions. I, at the time though, because I was hunting down copy, and then I literally had another session that was coming up like after five minutes, I couldn't stay for a long time, but what I did stay for, I really enjoyed. And I heard people doing all different types of copy, and I thought, wow, this is really kind of cool. It felt to me like a combination of a showcase and an audition, an in-person audition. Lau: That's what it turned into that's and if you want to, I'm happy to send you the replay because we record those sessions and we hold those for archival purposes. If you want it -- Anne: That…

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Branding Superpowers Oct 25, 2022

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Branding is a form of self-discovery. Your brand is how the world perceives you, but more importantly, how potential voice seekers will perceive you. Anne & Lau want you to put your best foot forward, and that starts with using your name and likeness to let the world know who you really are. Type casting, client feedback, and peer advice can all be tools to build your understanding of how others perceive your brand. But it doesn't stop there! Look inside yourself to learn your core beliefs. What is it that makes you tick? Externalizing this will strengthen your brand and make it authentic, like you. Sounds challenging? Listen up Bosses, Anne & Lau are here to help… Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza. Welcome to our business superpower series with the one and only Lau Lapides. Hey Lau. Lau: Hey Anne. Anne: How's it going today? Lau: Oh, it's beyond awesome. I'm always thrilled to be on with you. I mean it's, it's -- Anne: Beyond awesome, I love it. Lau: -- can't wait to see what's gonna happen. Anne: I love it. Well, then I've got a question for you. Okay? Lau: Okay. All right. Anne: So this is a question I get asked a lot. So if you had to give three words to describe me, what would those three words be? Either my voice or something that would help to brand me. What would those three words be? Lau: Now, are you talking about let's qualify that, is that within the profession or is that just in general as a person from the short time that we've known each other? Anne: Well, you know what, since it's such a personal brand, like we are personal brands, I think it could be a mix of both if it needs to be. Because I think people wanna connect to the human side of Anne as well as the business side of Anne. Lau: Okay. And by no means is it just these three words, 'cause we could probably come up with you 50 words for you, but we, we only have so much time. So we'll say three for now. Anne: And hopefully they're good words. Lau: Oh. Of course. Okay. So the first one that comes to my mind that I can't dismiss is feisty. Anne: Oh, feisty! Lau: Feisty. Anne: I like feisty. Lau: Feisty always goes with like fun in my mind too, but feisty -- Anne: That's a good word. Thank you. Lau: The second one would be, I wanna say intelligent. I feel it's a little bit bland of a word. I was almost gonna say sophisticated. Anne: Oh, so feisty, intelligent or sophisticated. I'll take those. Lau: Seasoned. Anne: Ooh, seasoned. Lau: Seasoned. Anne: That's awesome. Wow. Lau: And those are three that come to my mind. If you gimme another five minutes, I'll come up with more. But. Anne: I love that. Wow. Lau: And to be perfectly transparent with our listeners, even though I feel like I've known you forever, we really have only been working together like a week. And we only met, when did we meet, a month or two ago? Right? But see, already I got so much perception of your vibe and the way you work and how you're thinking about things. And it's, it's a lot in a very short amount of time. Anne: I love that. So if I have three words for you, and this is funny, cause look, I have not thought about this, BOSSes. I sprung this on Lau like just as you heard it. So she was kind of not anticipating either. So I'm going to say brilliant. That's one for you. And I mean brilliant in not just a sense of like intelligence, but I mean like brilliant, like sparkly. Lau: Oh. Anne: Like in a sparkly way. Lau: Like how you would say about a diamond or something. Anne: Right? Yeah. Yeah. Like brilliant. Lau: Oh thank you. That's really sweet. Anne: And honestly this is something maybe you're not gonna put it on your, your webpage, but we could think of a different word for it. I mean, I think you could, but beautiful really is another, and I don't mean beautiful like visually I do mean visually, but I really mean beautiful spirit. Like a beautiful spirit. Lau: Thank you. Thank you. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. Lau: That means so much more to me. . Anne: So a beautiful spirit and gosh, you know, you said feisty and I love that word. That's a great word, but I -- Lau: Isn't that a great word? Anne: -- also feel like, like a version of feisty, a version of feisty because gosh, I'm thinking of the word, something that would resonate with -- like, no one's gonna pull the wool over your eyes. Lau: Ooh. Anne: Like you're not gonna stand for any kind of nonsense. You are forthright. Lau: Oh, I like that. Thank you. Anne: So those, brilliant, beautiful and forthright. So those would be my three words. And so BOSSes, we get these questions -- Lau and I get these questions all the time, right? What is my brand? How would you describe my voice? And I think it would be a great time to talk about branding, because branding is so difficult to do on your own because -- this is why I asked Lau, what do you think? So I was able to get an assessment from eyes that were not my own or ears that were not my own. And I think it really helps to have someone brand you, but also to have you be a part of that decision in terms of what type of a brand do you wanna be? How do you wanna be perceived out in the business world for your voiceover business? So I know that for my students, there are two different forms of branding. One is a visual branding, which could be your website, right, and how you wanna represent visually. But also vocally. I make it a point to tell students, as we go through our sessions together, I will be vocally branding them. And that really means to assess their tone, their style, and where I feel they fit within the industry in terms of what brands do you think you would represent well, and what styles and what industries your voice would resonate in. Lau: Hmm. I think that's brilliant. I mean, that's so important and that's the very thing that everyone needs, everyone's looking for. Everyone needs it. Sometimes I would imagine it doesn't always like match or it's not always on the level of what someone is self-perceiving, and that's why it's so imperative that you have great coach, great people surrounding you to sort of keep you in line and keep you realizing what is realistic in your perception of whatever your branding is. So I think that that's fantastic that you do that. It's so important, and to do it upfront versus a lot later on, so hearts are not broken you know what I mean? Anne: Well, I think that branding is a process and I think that you can also evolve your brand. You don't have to be one specific brand or three specific adjectives. As a matter of fact, like Lau, you said before, there could be multiple words that describe you. And it's not something that -- you know, it took me a minute to kind of formulate my three words for you, 'cause I was making a decision. There's so many words that came to mind, but as making a decision, how do I best feel that your brand is assessed? And so I think it's important for BOSSes to know out there that branding is not something you can do just over a night or maybe by asking a few questions. I think it's something that happens over time, and it's something that can actually really evolve along with you. I know that my brand, especially my business brand, when I first got out there, I was Anne Speak. And you know, that was like, Anne Speak. What, you know, what is that? What is Anne Speak? And Anne Speak was a very different logo and a very different look on my website. And I've evolved into something that I feel is more authentically me over the years in terms of who I am. And I, I love that you said intelligent because that was one thing that I really wanted for people to perceive about me. It could just be that a female that worked in engineering, that is one of those things that I always wanted people to see me as intelligent and not necessarily, oh, there's a female. I want just here's somebody who knows what they're doing. And some people think that that's why I wear glasses, but honestly I just need them to see . Um, but glasses have always been a big part of my brand. Lau: The truth comes out. Anne: Yeah. Lau: Anne: Well, what about you Lau? 'Cause you've been in the business for some time. And how has your brand evolved over the years? Lau: Well, you know, it's funny. When I started this business, Lau Lapides Company, the studio, I ended up keeping the name throughout. I've never really changed the name itself. I think when I first started though, I always had the mindset of an agent in my head, though it was funny. I wasn't really starting an agency per se. I was starting a studio. Right? So I had this idea of actors work, voice actors work. And so that was one of the running titles in my mind of naming a business, 'cause I wanted talent to work, and I wanted to help them get to work. That was one of -- so that was one of the original working title ideas I had. But then it went to Lau Lapides Company fairly fast and then I stuck with it. Here's the interesting thing I found, Anne, is that despite me or despite what I was thinking, it had a very large appeal. It had a large presence. That's what I'm looking for, a large presence to people on the outside that were saying, wow, you have a big company. And so I would start listening, I think in branding, how do I learn who I am? I have to listen to my audience. And so I spent a lot of time listening to how I was perceived by the audience. And I was astounded at how I was being perceived. And one was this big, large presence. And I think because the name was Lau Lapides Company, it sounded big. It had a largess. So people would come and say, wow, you have an enterprise. Wow you have this, Wow, you have that. And I was very small at the start, as most businesses are. Anne: Sure. Well, one person sometimes. And I love that you talked about your personal name because again, I'm always of the thought that we are our own personal brand. We're selling a product that is very personal to us. It's our voice. Right? It's our essence. And so I always think, well, what better name for your product or your company than your name? And it's funny because people might say, well, I have a long name that's difficult to spell or I have Anne with an E that people always forget. But honestly I'm always like, well look when I need a tissue, I ask for a Kleenex, right? So when I need a voiceover, I should ask for a Lau Lapides or an Anne Ganguzza. Lau: That's right. Anne: And so I've come from the place of abundance as you like to say. And I manifested, right? I am just putting it out there. I'm Anne Ganguzza and lo and behold, at some point people are gonna be asking for an Anne Ganguzza and it, and it will work. And so that was part of my branding, my personal branding for my name was my name. And so my legal company name is Anne Ganguzza Voice Productions. And so it's interesting 'cause you're Lau Lapides Company and I'm Anne Ganguzza Voice Productions. Lau: That's right, that's right. Anne: So I settled on that after many years of trying to figure out what should I name my company? What domain should I buy? Because I thought Anne Speaks was so cute, but we know that nobody really knows what an Anne Speak is. Um, it's not really searchable, but Anne Ganguzza is, right? Lau: Right. Anne: So I love that. And I think you wanted to see what people thought of you, right? Lau: I did. Anne: And that was the basis for the beginning of a brand. So I think any of you BOSSes that are out there and you're starting the branding journey, I think it first has to start with you and the basis of who you are as a person. because it is such a personal brand. Now maybe you're not gonna put those words out beautiful, but maybe beautiful voiceover, who knows. I mean -- Lau: Who knows? Anne: -- whatever comes to you that you wanna be perceived as. Lau: The funny part about it was, Anne, to me it was clunky. It wasn't a smooth transition or polished thing because my name was hard to say it's hard to pronounce. It's hard to spell. I got a lot of people who legitimately thought I was an Asian man. Like literally they had no idea I was a Caucasian white woman, and everyone mispronounced my name, everyone. Anne: Yeah. Yeah. Lau: And so a few of the folks that are close to me said, are you sure you wanna keep the name? Because no one's gonna get it right. and they're gonna mispronounce it. And I said, absolutely. Anne: Yes. Oh my God. Lau: That's what makes it memorable. Anne: I am so in agreement with you, so in agreement with you about that, and that's like, well, don't you think people are gonna spell your name wrong? Well, yeah. I mean, but no. People will learn it and Ganguzza, which to a lot of people think is really a difficult name to spell -- it's not, spelled the way it sounds -- Lau: It's different. Anne: But a lot of people were like, yeah. And so why would you do that? I'm like, hey, no, keep it. It's kind of one of the reasons why I kept my unique New Jersey phone number for my cell phone, because people would know if it was coming from that area code, it was Anne Ganguzza. Lau: So that's right. and as they stumble over the name and still stumble over the name and mispronounce it, it never bothers me. I love it because I know as they learn how to pronounce it or catch something, they're thinking about -- Anne: They're gonna remember it. Lau: Yes. Mm-hmm, they're thinking about, they're gonna remember -- Anne: They're thinking about you. Lau: Yeah. So I think that's a hook for a lot of folks to think about it. It doesn't have to be easy and it doesn't have to be common. It could be something a little bit unique that people remember that they have a tough time with too. Anne: Right. Now, and so let's talk a little bit about visual branding. So for visual branding, I'm assuming like visual branding would be your logo, your website. And so things that represent your store front, that would be the visual branding. It can also be the visual branding of your person. If you're a person that goes to conferences or you're a person that goes out and speaks, go to the chamber of commerce and you're representing your business. So visually branding, so it's a little bit different than vocally branding. So what are some steps that you take, Lau, to visually help brand yourself or others? Like what steps can the BOSSes take to start with the visual branding? Lau: Gosh, that's a great question, Anne, and it's like asking someone to think like a graphic designer. Anne: Yeah. Lau: Or a web designer, right, or do something that I personally am not. I am not a visual designer. I'm not a graphic designer. And yet when I was starting out with a website, I had to kind of become that in the sense of the designer would need to know, what was I going for? What was the visual I was seeing. So I had to -- Anne: Colors. I think starting with them -- Lau: -- work with them. Colors. Anne: Colors. Lau: Colors, colors. Anne: I think colors are a good start. Right? Lau: Huge. So what I did was, and I remember doing this years ago before I actually started the studio, I started asking some of my stud…

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Building Confidence Oct 18, 2022

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Build a circle that will support, motivate, and promote your inner joy, strength & courage. Anne & Lau are breaking down fear to build up your confidence. Your confidence level can make or break your biz, but it all starts from within. Do you really want success? Are you ready to put in the work to achieve your dreams? Instead of asking coaches, peers, and friends, you have to ask yourself and answer with honesty. Creating goals that feel insurmountable is what will end your business before you begin. But with the right tools & wisdom from your favorite business superheroes, we know you can tackle any task! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast in the business superpower series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm excited to welcome back to the show special guest co-host Lau Lapides. Lau, how are you today? Lau: Fabulous. Fabulous. Thank you, Anne. It's great to be back. Anne: Yeah, I am excited about our series, so excited. Lau: Me too. Anne: And the last couple of series we've were learning more and more about you. And I wanted to kind of bring into the mold a little bit about when I first started back in, oh God, this is so long ago, but not quite as long -- I think you've been in the business longer than me but -- Lau: I have. Anne: I remember distinctly, I remember distinctly when I started, I didn't come from a creative background. You know, I didn't have a job and a creative background. Well, everything can be a creative field I think if you make it a creative field, but it wasn't distinctly a creative field of voiceover. So I remember when I gave up my cushy job, my cushy corporate job or cushy corporate job in education, I was scared. I was really scared about starting a full time job in voiceover. And I was really a little bit timid and lacked a little bit of confidence because I had never embarked on something. I had never been an entrepreneur and started my own business. So, and I know that a lot of people, this is somewhat intimidating to them. So I thought we could talk about the topic of confidence, because I truly believe that the evolution of my confidence and how I manifested it helped me to really get through the first stumbling blocks and hard times. And not that there aren't hard times now, but I feel like confidence really plays a big part in how well we get through events that may or may not be everyday roses. Lau: Yeah, I'm right there with you. I think it's the bedrock of what we do as performers. I mean, if you put aside right now, the idea that you're an entrepreneur, you're a BOSS, you, you head up your own company, whether you're a DBA, an LLC, or whatever those letters are after your name, it's your own deal. It's your own shindig. But put that aside for a second, just as a person, as a human being -- we're performers and our job is to, to some degree become vulnerable, to open up to a world, something inside of us and reveal something. And how do we do that? Right? How do we get to that? How do we have that confidence to be able to expose ourself in that way and then be able to reel it in? So I think, think, yes, I think confidence is really, really just a foundation of where we start from and where we're working from and what helps define us as the, the superheroes that we are asked to become every day. Anne: And I was even talking just business-wise, like, how do I even do this thing? And you brought in the whole other aspect of performance that, yeah, we do have to show ourselves to be vulnerable. We have to really be able to bring ourselves to the copy. And a lot of times that means exposing ourselves and that is sometimes very uncomfortable for people, especially if they're not used to doing it. And so I just remember so many self-doubts flooding my brain. And I didn't have anybody to talk to 'cause I didn't know anybody that had really done what I was doing in my immediate circle. As a matter of fact, most people, sometimes my parents too, would be like -- well, my mother would be like, honey, when are you gonna get a real job? And bless her, I love her. But she would say, well, you know, when are you gonna get? And, and I'm like, but Mom, I. Lau: . Right. Right. Anne: I'm an entrepreneur, Mom. And it was funny because it took her a while before she finally, you know, understood what it was that I was doing. And so I think first of all, we have to assess the current situation that we're in, and we have to actually acknowledge that I think fear could be something that is contributing to our lack of confidence. I think that's step number one. What are your thoughts? Lau: I'm with you all the way. I think that fear is, is a huge factor. And I often talk to my clients about this, is that there's two really big obstacles that can get in our way. One is fear and one is focus, and the two of them together can be powerhouse if used wisely because the truth is we're never gonna not feel fear. That's like a double negative. But that's just, you know, we're human beings. We're, we're animalistic in a survivalist kind of way. We're built to have instinct about things, which is important. We have to listen to our inner voice as well as our outer voice. We have to pay attention when we feel there's danger or something that's not going to work for us. Right? So don't put that inner fear factor voice away, but it's really like feeling the fear, but then doing it anyway, if that's a calculated risk, if that's a risk worth taking for you, how do I manage that? I always feel like I can never really control anything as much as I would love to. I can't. I have to be able to manage the difficulties and the conflicts and the obstructions and all that stuff that gets thrown in our path. But if we think about it as oh, but I have to control my fear, I shouldn't be feeling fear -- that's wrong. I think then we're already off on the wrong path. We have to accept the fact that we're built to feel fear. You know, even our breathing as speakers, we understand what fight or flight breathing is. You know, if we go into our upper thoracic chest cavity, if we go into the clavicular area of our throat, we know we're in more of a stress fight or flight mode. Right? And it's not great for speaking, but it's meant for other occasions that will kind of save us and save our lives. Anne: Right. Right. Lau: So you are right, Anne. I think fear is important. It's necessary, but a lot of people have a negative connotation of fear and how to manage the fear. Anne: I think if you don't feel fear, then you are not growing. Lau: Yeah, and, and like, do we even care about it? Anne: Right. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I think if you're not feeling fear, then you're not maybe pushing yourself to where I think you could be. And I think that that is something that if you can take that fear and not fear the fear but yet figure out a way to push through the fear and roll with the fear and know that it's normal and know that it's normal even for veterans like us I think that have been in the business for a long time. I still feel fear as a matter of fact, quite a bit. And I've grown to the point where I know that if I don't feel fear, that I'm not pushing myself. And I just, for me, I think to be the best entrepreneur and the best that I can be, I need to be able to feel that and push through it. But it doesn't mean that it makes it any easier sometimes. Lau: No, it doesn't, but fear can be fun. Remember the show that used to be on, Fear Factor. Anne: Yeah. Right, right. Lau: That a huge, massive audience. Like why are we so fascinated with seeing people in fear? Why is the horror genre in film or in audiobooks so massive, a billion dollar industry? Because there's a catharsis that we need as human beings that we live through that we learn, at least have the potential to learn about morality about what to do, what not to do, about how to protect ourselves, about how to build a better situation for ourselves. It's fun. And it's exciting. And there's a little, you know, frisson that comes in the back of the neck. But at the end of the day, we wanna walk out and we wanna say, hey, I kind of discovered something here. I learned something about myself or about my surroundings. And the fear was like a little bit of a, a sign saying, pay, pay attention. You know, just, just look at the details of what's happening here. And fear in a way is care. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. That's a really good point. Lau: Like I care when I feel fear. Right? Anne: Yeah. Absolutely. Lau: So we have to be kind of fearless about fear. Anne: And so, you know, let's talk about what are the things that are, I think common fears when we become entrepreneurs. I'll, I'll start with, I fear that I'm not going to be able to make it or make any money and I will be, I will fail. So therefore it becomes that thought that I won't be good enough. I won't be able to make money and I'll have to go back to the corporate world and I'll fail. And that was my biggest fear in the beginning. And it was a very like blanket, like thought. And it was a very big thought that like, oh no, it will never work. I will fail. And then I'll have to go back. And that was looking at it at a, on a very large scale. I think one of the things that helped me to kind of get through that is to start to look at things in a smaller light and have little steps that maybe I could feel that I wouldn't fail, but that was number one, the fear that the whole thing wouldn't work, and it wasn't just, oh, I won't be good enough. It'll just be like the whole thing won't work. I don't know anything about starting a business. I haven't researched it really. I've never done it before. And I don't have anybody in my immediate circle that has started a business. So where do I go for help? So there was all these unknown questions. That was my -- what about you when you first started? Lau: That's a good one. Actually. That's a hard one to top; that fear of failure in is like big. I think your engineer needs to do a, some, some like good trivia music right now. Just like some Jeopardy music right now. Anne: Yeah. Right? Lau: See if I could top that one. Okay. Here's one. The fear of spending money, IE the fear of losing money. Anne: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Lau: Right. Without an ROI that's secure, if there is such a thing without knowing what my return really will be, without knowing if I'll ever get work, I'm scared to spend money. I'm scared to go broke. I'm scared to waste money. That's a big one, right? Anne: That's a very common fear I think for a lot of people just getting into the industry, it's their, they like, I don't have money to invest, but I need to get work. And it's that which came first. Right? Lau: Right. Anne: And so thankfully I think anybody that goes into this full or, or even part-time needs to, first of all, make sure they have a little bit of a financial cushion so that they can invest the money. Just knowing I didn't quit my corporate job completely blind. I did understand that I would need to invest money. And so I think that securing that knowledge that you have money to invest in your career is one thing. And that's a big thing. And that even now, as I have been in the industry for more than 15 years to continually invest in my company, because now that I have seven to eight people right now that work for me, that was a big thing, right? To be able to like, oh my God, I'm gonna pay someone, and do I have the extra money to pay someone? And so BOSSes, what's really cool about that comparison is that going from an independent, I work for myself, I'm going out to make money, and to grow to a point where you're now gonna hire an assistant that can help you because you're grown to the point so that you can continue to do what it is that you love and have other people that can do the things that maybe you don't love so much, or that you're not as good at. And so that whole first decision like, oh my gosh, do I have the money to hire someone and to spend and to invest? That's a big fear as well. And I think what gave me confidence was I did it small steps at a time. And I think that's one thing for you, BOSSes, is to think about it. What are the small steps they're gonna take you to get you to your goal and what are the achievable steps that will then give you confidence, right, to continue moving forward? Lau; Right. And, Anne, I wanna piggyback on that point , which is so necessary. It's like bottom line again, bedrock principle what you're talking about here is mindset, mindset, mindset over your matter. You really have to power up that mindset when it comes to investment and say, am I coming from a mindset of poverty or am I coming from a mindset of wealth? And I'm not only talking about physical money. I'm also talking about abundance, surplus, glass half full. Am I a hopeful positive, I'm gonna take that lemon and make it into lemonade? That to me is wealth, wealth of knowledge, wealth of spirit, wealth of fun and risk taking. So you have to be honest with yourself I think, Anne, and say, am I really in a position to do this? Because my mindset needs to be able to open up to the possibilities of success. Like I, I always say to my clients be careful what you wish for. You may get it. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. Lau: Right? Because success is difficult. It's hard. It holds you to a very high level of responsibility and industry standard and timeline and everything. Success isn't easy. Success is a challenge. Right? Anne: And there's a fear of success as well. That is absolutely a thing. Lau: Ooh, that's your number three, I think, right? Anne: Yeah. Fear of success. That's number -- and then wanting to continue and continue to grow. And I think it's a cycle. Every step, as you move up really becomes, I'm afraid. like acknowledging the fear, and then breaking it up maybe into smaller chunks. How can I get from this level to this level? And then breaking that up into small steps and then being able to manifest come from that place of abundance, and just push through until that small step is achieved. That will give you the conference to move up to the next step. Lau: Absolutely. Anne: And help you to manifest the next step. And I think that that might be a, a great process for people to work through the fear and build their confidence in order to grow their business. Lau: Yeah. And yeah, I do think you have to be as honest with yourself as possible and your crew around you, your coaches, your directors, whoever you're working with, even your professional accountability buddies in saying, do I really want success? Or do I like the idea of success? Because the reality is a job, it's work, it's time. It's wonderful, but it's work. So do I really want to put in what I need to put in to work or do I have self sabotaging patterns where every time I start getting close to something that's progressive and good, I put something in the way of it to wall it off? Which I see an awful lot of people doing, whether it's, I can't make t…

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Casting in 2022 Oct 11, 2022

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Casting is global, digital, and massive. This week, Anne & Lau lead Bosses through the complicated world of casting. Resiliency & timing are key for booking that dream gig. Lau teaches us that not all rejections mean no. They often mean not right now. Anne shows us that we are every aspect of our business and that marketing well enough to get in front of voice seekers is part of your job, whether you like it or not! If you're feeling overwhelmed and defeated during the casting process, tune in for some (super) powerful advice… Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm excited to bring back to the show special guest co-host Lau Lapides and Business Superpowers. Yay. Hey Lau. How's it going today? Lau: Awesome, Anne. So good to be with you. Love being with you. Anne: I'm so excited for this new series and actually, because you do a lot of casting, and I also do casting as well. I thought it would be a great episode to talk about casting because casting over the years, I'm sure, has evolved and changed. And a lot of times my students wanna know, well, what does it take to get in front of a casting director and impress them so that they get hired? Lau: Sure, it's a biggie. Anne: Who better to ask, Lau than someone that's been doing it for many, many years. Right? So let's talk about like, how has casting changed over the years? Lau: Mm that's a loaded question. I love the theme. I have to tell you, I love the superpower theme because innately, I think for actors, voice actors, there's this feeling of helplessness, of powerlessness, of waiting for a job or waiting for someone to like me. Right? You know, what did I do wrong? Why didn't they cast me? Why didn't they like me? And I love the theme of this show that you chose, because it's all about finding your inner power. Like what ignites us, what empowers us when we get to the casting, when we get to the agency, when we get to the hiring power, hiring people, how do we ignite our own power inside of us? So I love that. I love that. Okay. So it's a hard question to answer in the sense that it's so unique to each person. Every individual is a very, very unique experience throughout their performance life. But you know, I can give you a few tips along the way, in terms of, let's say you're starting out and you're early to market, and you're coming in, you're saying, huh, how do I get people knowing my name and hearing my voice? Well, for casting, I'll tell you one of the things that we're always looking for are people that are submitting a lot. They're really marketing themselves well, and they're submitting a lot, and they're unafraid to submit and resubmit because I think it's a truism in the industry that you're not gonna book the first job. You may not even book the second or third job or the 50th job. So what do we do? We have to have that tenacity, that inner power within us to say, it's okay. I can submit until the cows come home. And maybe, maybe they just don't need my value right now. So I'm not looking at this as a rejection. I'm looking at this as not a no, but a not now. Anne: Right? I love that. You know what, you're the first person that I've ever heard say that, the tenacity, submit, submit, submit, because I think for a lot of talent, they get discouraged, right? They're either like, oh my gosh, I've submitted. I haven't booked anything. And then they get down on themselves. And you're the first casting director that I've heard actually say be tenacious, submit, submit, submit. And actually, you know, I totally agree, because I feel like your name will become known as well to the casting directors. And at some point, I would imagine if you're continually submitting, either at some point, somebody's going to stop and give you feedback, if they feel it's necessary. And also it's just kind of a way to keep yourself top of mind, which is like any good marketing, is to keep yourself top of mind with a casting director. So I wanted to stop and say, thank you for saying that, because I'm sure that you just gave these BOSSes a whole lot more reason to just continue on, and be positive, and just submit, submit. So thank you for that. Love it. Yeah. Lau: Of course. That was my pleasure. And BOSSes listening in, I'm telling you, there are not enough places in the world and your lifetime isn't long enough to submit to every place you could be submitting to. So it's not about waiting for 5, 10, 15, 20 sources. It's about pasting. Like it's global, we're in a global industry now. You wanna cover the globe. So you don't wanna go from local. You don't wanna do regional. You don't even wanna keep it national. You wanna go international. So you wanna think about as you work with your coaches, as you work with your trainers, as you work with Anne, you wanna think about, boy, here's where I am in this market, but how am I viewed in that market? And then how am I viewed in this market? And it becomes an endless journey of how can I get in front of casting and representation that can represent me for that particular genre and that particular brand, which may change, which very well may change. Anne: Now, let me play devil's advocate here from the voice talent perspective and say, how do I find different casting directors that cast in different genres or different places? Is that something that's easily researched? Lau: Well, yes and no. In the sense that nothing is easy But everything's at our fingertips now. Anne: Right, right. Lau: We know this, everything is at our fingertips. So what you need, and I'm like preaching to the choir on this one, but what the BOSSes need is they need a great time management schedule. They need to be honest about what are they committing? I always say what you put in is what you're going to get out of it for your career. Am I putting in an hour, a day, am I putting in 15 hours a day? I'm most likely gonna get more out of it if I'm putting in more time. And the time needs to be very focused time, very incisive time. I need to know exactly, like how does an actor think I need to have purpose. I need to have an objective. I can't just generically go in and hope for work. I have to really, really target in. So let's say, say, I'm looking for casting directors. I know, based on my studio, I know one of the ways you can be seen live and virtually, virtually and live is to do showcases. And showcases are a fascinating event. We produce them and a lot of others produce them as well. And you get to go live in person, whether you're walking into a room or whether you're walking into a Zoom room, you get to meet people. There's nothing better than being in front of a casting director or an agent or a producer and saying, hi, I'm live. This is who I am. This is what I do. I'm gonna do it for you right now. This is a great option to get in front of as many casting people and reps, if you're looking for reps, as possible. A lot of people are afraid of it and they shouldn't be. Anne: Well, and I'm gonna just kind of plug my VO Peeps group. I mean, we do have workouts with casting directors and talent agents. And if you are afraid thinking that you're not ready to be seen or to be showcased, do the work to get yourself performance-wise where you feel confident. Because it's never a guarantee if you're performing in front of a casting director. And I always have to say that. Like, there is no guarantee you'll get work if you come to my workshop that is hosted by me and I have a talent agent or a casting director, but what a great opportunity to kind of showcase your talents. And so again, there's never any guarantee that you'll get work, but it's an opportunity for you to get in front of these people live in a Zoom room for the VO Peeps cases anyways, and then live also with -- Lau has showcases. And I know there's other casting directors as well that do those showcases, and that's a great opportunity to get seen and heard. Lau: It is. And it also will satisfy you. Like if you're doing the Peeps, you're doing the workout, it satisfies that live actor forum in you, where you wanna get some feedback. You wanna meet someone, you wanna talk about what you do. You wanna have the interaction of the room. I mean, that's something we just can't get alone in our studio or alone in our booth. We just can't capture it the way we can live. So I, I do think that's one, really important way where you're in a, either a workout or a casting workshop or a showcase, whatever that is. I would put that right into your time management. I also would work with either Anne, your coach, your trainer to really get together the marketing list you wanna get together of casting directors and of agencies that you can be target marketing. I think that's very important and a lot of talent miss that. I think gone are the days of opening up the phone book. We don't really use the phone book that often anymore. Anne: Well, wait, but wait, the Voiceover Resource Guide is coming back. I have to just do a plug for that because if you -- do you remember -- you've been casting direct for a while. You remember the Voiceover Resource Guide, the printed book? Lau: Yes. Anne: That used to be the only thing that basically gave you information for area coaches, area studios and casting directors, and that is making a comeback. And so it, it is in print and also online. So that's a great resource, and BOSSes, I'll be put in that link in our show notes and also any resources, Lau, that are online that you can share with BOSSes, I'll put that as well in the show notes. So you guys can check that out, but continue on Lau about how talent can get in front of first of all, find them, get in front of, and then how can we make a good impression? Like I think that's really what everybody wants to know. Lau: It is. It is, it is. And, and one more I wanna throw in the mix, Anne, and that is, I want you -- not you I want everyone listening in to think about every person that you meet or get in front of or have email contact with is a prospect. So they are a potential casting director. Anne: Yeah. Lau: They don't call themselves that that's not their title and they wouldn't even know what it is if you ask them, but they're the hiring person. They're the decision maker. They're the person who maybe owns their own business and needs vocal talent, doesn't know that they need them. So as you have your business, you have to think, wow, I am gonna look at my suspects and I'm gonna prospect them. And how do I prospect them? I'm gonna go after every organization, every group that I possibly can, that fits my interest of where my voice is. So for instance, I may go after the women's groups. There's a lot of professional women's groups out there that are wonderful, that would love to know, women and men, that would love to know your voices there, to promote their companies, to promote their products and services, to promote their organizations. A lot of them don't even have voiceovers to do that, right? Why not hit them up? They could be your casting director. What about your local chamber of commerce? What about your BNIs? Right? All of those, those are international professional clubs that you can go into and be in front of 10, 20, 50, 100 people at a time that are great prospects for you to then create what I call the rapport before the relationship. The two R's you have to remember when you're trying to get in front of anyone who's doing casting or hiring is, hey, I have to connect with you. I have to have some sort of authentic connection that you're interested in me and I'm interested in you. And then we have to build a relationship together over time. So it's really working in that sphere of understanding that casting is now global. It's now massive. And yes, you have casting directors proper in each city, in each state, but then you have all these businesses that may very well hire you once they know that you're there. Anne: Sure, sure, sure. And you know, I love that you've brought the term casting agent global now. It's really anybody that has a need for your services and that can hire you. And yes, there are traditional casting agents title only that belong to in studios typically. Right? And their job is to cast voice talent all day. And I like that you created a global job for anybody that hires you for your voice. And that's very true. The one thing I think that, BOSSes, you need to take into consideration is the amount of education necessary to connect and find the need for the job. Right? Because a lot of times we're auditioning, we're auditioning, we're auditioning. We're not getting any feedback. We're not getting any gigs. And we turn it all on our own performance. And I speak on this all the time, because I know that mentality. I have many students that talk about it all the time, and they're like, I don't think I belong in this industry anymore because I'm not getting any work. A lot of time, that work depends on the market. It depends on if there is a need at the time for your voice. And that is something that I think we forget as voice talent. We forget that a lot of it is timing based, right? A company may absolutely love your voice for their product, but if they don't have a campaign or they don't have something ready yet to release, they can't hire somebody. And so you just may be like, I'm submitting, submitting, submitting. And maybe just at that point, right, you might be marketing to them, they just don't need your voice yet. And that's when you're doing that kind of marketing and people are like, well, nobody's responding to me. I'm not getting any feedback to my marketing. Well, that may just be a timing issue. That's all it is. So don't always go to the place where, oh no, they didn't like my voice. Lau: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, it's a business where we have to personalize everything but we can't take anything personal. Anne: Yes, absolutely. Lau: We just have to understand the difference between personalizing your work and me, Lau, feeling like you hit me, you hit me. Well, I have to be careful of that because then I'll be hit all day long, and it won't be about my value. It'll be about me personally, as you gotta keep it to your value. And I do think, Anne, that there's two factors as I look at the years and years of working with talent and connecting them and auditioning them and all that, two very big areas that are common that are the obstacles, the walls that people have a tough time getting through; identified them as focus and fear. Those are typically the two game stoppers for you that I'm scared. I'm terrified. I don't wanna be rejected. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not good enough. That's the fear factor. And then the focus of like, okay, do I understand my schedule? Do I know what I can authentically commit? Am I really putting in the time and energy…

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Business Superpowers with Lau Lapides Oct 04, 2022

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The hardest boss you'll ever work for is yourself. In this episode, Anne & Lau jump into Business Superpowers by recounting Lau's many interesting jobs and career shifts. She has been an actor, a voice talent, a manager, a professor, but most importantly, she is fierce in the face of fear. If you feel nervous, excited, or scared about a new opportunity, run towards it. What's the worst that could happen? Failures and mistakes teach you more than success ever will, and with every overnight success comes years of unnoticed hard work. If that's not enough motivation for you, tune in for the full career deep dive with your favorite self-employed Bosses! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and today I am excited to start another brand new series, Business Superpowers with special guest Lau Lapides. Lau is founder and president of Lau Lapides Company, a boutique coaching, training, and production company for voice talent and actors headquartered in Boston with satellites in New York City, Miami, and LA. Her programs include hybrid online and in-person workshops, seminars, and one-on-one personalized coaching as well as showcases in New York City, LA, and online. Lau's media and broadcasting career coaches all currently work in television, film, radio, and theater, and their voices can be heard around the world. Lau, it is so much fun to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining me. Lau: I'm so excited to be here. Like I can't believe it. We finally met each other, got together, east meets west. Anne: Here we go. Lau: Here we go. . Anne: I'm just so excited that you agreed to do this. And I'm so excited about our series, the Business Superpowers, because we've got a lot to talk about. So let's start with you so that our BOSSes can get to know you a little bit better. Let's talk a little bit about your history, how you got started, and how you became such a BOSS in this industry. Lau: Wow. Thank you for that introduction. I appreciate it. I always feel like BOSS term in regards to me and personally has been like the overnight success. You know, when someone comes to you, Anne, and says, I wanna have it overnight, I wanna get that dream. Let's go. And I say, yeah, you can be an overnight success. Absolutely. A 40-year overnight success. Anne: Yeah, I always say my overnight success happened 12 years later. Sorry. Or at least you've gotta start with that. Lau: That's right. Anne: It's true. Lau: I always feel that way that it, it really has been such a lifelong process, such an amazing journey. The path splits off in so many directions. It's hard to even think about what the origins really were, but I'll tell you I was a dancer. Believe it or not. I was a dancer. Anne: And I was an engineer, so, wow. That's pretty cool. There you go. Lau: There you go. Same thing in a lot of ways, right? Walking, choreography. Anne: Right. But you don't always think, well, you'd end up with your own company in voice acting and, and acting, so. Lau: No, no. If someone were to tell me that I would do this 30, 40 years later, I would've laughed. I would've fell off my chair. I would not have believed it. So I started off as a dancer who really didn't speak at all. And then I went into an acting career. I had a whole acting career for a good 20 years, went through top level graduate program at UC Irvine in California. And that really changed my life, your neck of the woods. Anne: East and west. Here we go. So . Lau: East and west, east and west. And so after having this extensive theater background, I did a lot of repertory, a lot of regional, a lot of stock, became Equity, became an Equity actor, yada yada, so on and so forth. I ended up at grad school in California. That was really a turn for me. I started getting into a lot of media driven entertainment, started doing more TV/film, started my voiceover as a voiceover talent as a performer, really mid to late 20s. It was kind of later for me and then just kind of launched in that direction. And once I got my master's degree, I became a professor. I became a college and university professor and one of my specialties was to create curriculum . So I made my way back to New York. I lived in New York and I started creating curriculum all while I was acting and directing, 'cause I had also become a director and producer. Anne: I was gonna say, acting curriculum? Lau: Acting curriculum but it was interesting, Anne. The twist is, and this is where the whole BOSS in business situation starts to enter my world, is I was approached by top business colleges, and this was really out of my realm. Honestly, I'll be quite transparent with you. I knew nothing about that. I think I had business savvy, but I had the mind of a creative. Anne: Sure, absolutely. Lau: I was actor, voice talent, director. You know, I was on the other side of it, and all of a sudden I got approached by Harvard. I got approached by Babson. I got approached by Bentley. These were all the top business colleges at that time, now universities, Boston University saying all kind of like the similar theme. What is the problem and how can I fix it? So I knew right away, they all had a problem or a need. And it was, we want programming for our business students that is creative and teaches them how to speak. Anne: Mm yes. Right? Important. Lau: It's very important. Anne: To be, to speak and present. I know that for sure. We have so many parallels, you and I, because I was 20 years in education and started up as an engineer, and I was on the east coast and then started my voiceover career a little bit later. So I had what I consider the creative in the engineering aspect, in the technology aspect and then in education, because I got so geeky and excited about it, I wanted to share it. So then I taught and, and then it just, it became all these passions and loves of mine. And then ultimately I started a full time voiceover career after that and moved west. So we have so many parallels. Lau: Yeah. Anne: And you're absolutely right. The business aspect of things is so important in the creative. I think a lot of students that come to me, and I'm sure you're familiar with this, they feel stuck in their jobs. And they need the creativity, and that's exactly like, what's that problem? Like where's the creativity in your job and where is that outlet? And a lot of times people turn to the creative arts, which is fantastic that you had that left brain, right brain 50-50, which is something that I was always told I was very good at, that you could relate on both sides of the thing. And so fantastic. So now bring us up to date now. You're currently still on the east coast? Lau: Yes I am. And skip 10 years, got an offer to open a studio. It was the right time. I got a brick and mortar. I was very excited about it. Always wanted to have a studio, had been now teaching for a good decade, had been now directing. While I was still performing, I was acting and doing voiceover all the way through. There was something in me, Anne, that wanted to be a leader. And here's the interesting thing I wanted to bring out about being in business programs. I got an education by default. So I started to learn that I could be educated by the students I was teaching. Anne: Oh gosh, yes mm-hmm. Lau: Right? So these were students from all over the world. They were undergrad, graduate, MBA, fast track people, every country in the world. And I started to learn what I needed to know as a business woman to then open a studio. So when I was 40, I opened a studio and I opened first an actor division. First I opened an actor division, and then about two years later came my voiceover division. And this was in the first recession. One of the worst recessions we had in the country was the first five years of my business. And so I knew I was either gonna sink or swim this was it. And somehow we made it through. It started to explode. What I thought was a luxury based business or a dream based business really turned into a reality and something very pragmatic that people were looking for to solve that problem, to fill that need in them. You know, what do I do next in my life? Or how do I restart a career? Or how do I live my dream? And we were learning, we meaning myself and then I hired a staff of like six to eight really amazing coaches from all over the place, to help me realize this team leadership, client centered kind of philosophy that I had in my head after teaching for 10 years all these amazing up and coming entrepreneurs. And so that was an amalgamation of all those years. I had no business model. I should have. I didn't. My business model was hardcore. It was like, my dad always taught me. He was a great entrepreneur. And he said, put the key in the door, show up early and just go to work. Anne: Well, I was just gonna say to you, you talk about, well, I just opened up a studio. Like, oh, it was like literally a split second of our conversation. But in reality, like, I need to know like that is a BOSS move. Like there's a lot of things that go into saying, oh, I'm going to open up a studio. And I'm sure that you probably went through, oh my gosh, like, how am I gonna get the money and will I make money? And you didn't have a business plan, but I love how you just said put the key in the ignition and just go. I think that says a lot for just foraging ahead and manifesting success for yourself because I can only imagine how difficult that is. And BOSSes out there, I mean, as entrepreneurs, this is something that you really need to do when it comes time to taking that leap of faith and going for it and making this a business that you can support yourself with, I mean, and make money. I mean, it's the reason why we create businesses is so that we can make money. And that's just such an important factor. So this is the same studio right now that you're working out of, the one that you've opened? Lau: This is another one. We've moved since, and of course COVID had changed everything for everyone. So, you know, everyone has home studios now. Everyone has condensed down. Everyone has compressed. We are just getting back to live in studio again and traveling. We just came back from a showcase that we produce, our company produces in New York City and then a week-long competitive convention that we are a part of. So we're just literally now getting back to physically getting on a train, going to New York, going back into studios. And that's also part of our mainstay is to connect voice talent to people live if possible in an industry. Anne: So let's talk about the pandemic because as a studio, how did you survive during the pandemic? I mean, you've gotta pivot. So not only are you just opening brick and mortar studios, which have become with the progression of home studios, being something that everybody's got, that's a tough biz anyway, right? So, and then the pandemic, which pretty much just cut off all in person, in studio gigs. How did you survive and how did you pivot during that time? Lau: Yeah, I mean, so I'll take it to a moment 'cause you know how it is about life, Anne. There's so much you can talk about, but you gotta get down to the nugget of what you really wanna say. There was a moment for me in COVID, and to get back to your comments about the putting the key in the door, how does it feel, the terror that you have inside of you, the fear of failure, the how do I make the rental? This is all internal life that I had inside of me, as many BOSSes have inside of the, of saying I have to feel the fear and then I have to do it anyway. So if I feel the fear, I acknowledge it. I affirm it. It's natural. Now I'm gonna do it anyway. I'm gonna take that calculated risk. So to answer your question, there was a moment in COVID where I thought, okay, all production has gone down for actors. Voiceover is still great, viable and running. What do I film now? Like I'm a good, good problem solver. What's the need that we need right now? And at the time I was sitting in Boston thinking, what does New England need? And I came to me, we needed a voiceover division. We have no voiceover divisions that run out of agencies in New England. Like I know out of the major hubs. And I said, huh, how do I create that? So I immediately started reaching out to agency friends and colleagues, 'cause we work with everyone everywhere, and certainly in new England, we know the handful that are out there. And the bite that I got was a, a friend and colleague of mine, Tim Ayers, who's amazing and has Run Model Club Inc out of Boston for many years. He's owned it for about 10, 12 years. And it's been existence for a good 30 years. A lot of us are repped by them in the New England market. And I reached out to him, and he just had that progressive moment of saying, listening to his meshugene crazy friend Lau, just spout on, in the middle of COVID and all he said was yeah, yeah. Do it. I don't know anything about voiceover, so you're gonna have to do that. And I said, great! Not knowing anything, anything about being an agent or becoming an agent. So I had done casting. I had done producing, I was an actor, certainly a voiceover talent, but I had never been an agent. Anne: But you had all the knowledge and all of the industries surrounding it and the things that you would need to know to be a good agent actually. So I think all of you -- this had prepared you for the moment to become an agent. Lau: Right. But going back to your question earlier, which was brilliant is you are in that moment, you feel excited. And then when you realize the reality you go, ooh, that's a little scary. That's a little terrifying. Now I have to know stuff. Now I have to like now I have to lead. Anne: Not just a little terrifying. It's pretty much terrifying. Just saying. Lau: It's terrifying. And then when I felt it, I knew I was on the right track because that was the challenge that -- Anne: When you're scared. Lau: When you're scared, yeah, you need to jump out of the plane. You need to jump off the cliff. You really do. And I always think to myself, and I pass this on to clients and talent. I say, what's the worst that's gonna happen, really? I wasn't sinking a lot of capital or a lot of money into that, you know? No one really knew I was doing it. I said the worst is it doesn't work. It just doesn't work. And that's okay. I will learn a lot from the not working if it doesn't work. Anne: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It's a learning opportunity. Lau: it is. It really is. I think everything is to be honest with you. And I think once we make mistakes and once we do the wrong thing, we learn even more oftentimes than when we do the right thing. Anne: Absolutely. So then you developed your voiceover division. And that is now running strong and now you're starting to come back in studio as well? Lau: Yes. Yes. Anne: Fantastic. Lau: Yes. So, you know, the agency of course is mostly online nowadays, you know. Tim works online. I work online. Very rarely are we seeing actors or voice talent in person. It's just not necessary. It's expensive to do that. It's time consuming. And so we had to learn how to be a hybrid business model. We had to learn that. Anne:…

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What Motivates You? Sep 27, 2022

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Iterate or evaporate. In this episode, Anne & Erikka are here to get you out of a funk. Whether it's a slow season in your genre or you are feeling like work isn't coming as easily as it did a few months ago, your hosts are here to cheer you on. Connecting with a community can help motivate you, but really the only person you have to impress is yourself! This industry requires you to be consistent, tenacious, and ready to keep going even when it feels impossible. Reflecting on recent accomplishments or setting new goals can reignite that fire. Maybe you need to journal about why you got into voice over in the first place. Whatever it is, we are here for you and if you need a little boost, put this episode on repeat! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm happy to be back this morning, having a balanced breakfast with my good friend, Erikka J. Erikka! Yay! How are you? Erikka: Hey Ann. I am good. I did not have a balanced breakfast, but. Anne: Erikka: I'm coming back balanced and refreshed from vacation. Anne: Well, there you go. Erikka: That's great. Anne: And since we wanna remain with our theme of balance, I wanted to ask you, it seems like you had a wonderful, luxurious vacation. Did it restore the balance to your creative and professional life as well as your personal life? Erikka: I think so. I think so, but it was crazy because kind of looping back to what we said in earlier episode, I had like a chaotic day, right before I left. I know we've talked about like having backups and all those things, and man, did it save my behind because -- Anne: Ah, very important. Talk about it. Let's talk about it. Erikka: Oh my goodness. I had a SAG video game session that I've worked with once or twice before, but still, you know, those are like super exciting, but also wanna make sure everything's right. So had everything set up. They had me on Zoom first and they get on SourceConnect. And for whatever reason, Zoom and SourceConnect hated each other that day. And like my interface wouldn't work, and my DAW wouldn't work and it was just like, ohhhh, like. Anne: That's tense. That's a tense situation. So what happened? So what happened? Erikka: Luckily I had backups, Anne. Anne: Ooh! Erikka: So so I switched from my Apollo right over to my Audient, and I switched from Adobe audition right over to Pro Tools, which they use too, so they were super cool with. And I actually heard them comment, "isn't it great when an actor like knows what they're doing with the technical stuff?" Anne: Ooh. Score. Erikka: And I was, like -- Anne: That was awesome. Erikka: Yes! Anne: And you know what? I absolutely am quite sure that's gonna have a big bearing on them wanting to work with you again. Erikka: Well, I'll tell you what, it was also a very nice way to kick off vacation by not leaving a session, like, oh my God, I screwed up. It was like, it all worked out in the end. So then I could go on vacation happily and you know, relax. So it was great. Anne: Wow. Well, congratulations on that for sure. Erikka: Thank you. Anne: I know that for me, like when I go on vacation, I'm very much all on or I'm very much all off. And when I go on vacation, I can completely, thankfully I can completely disconnect. And then I find that when I get back, it's tough to motivate myself again. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: So I figured it would be kind of a good thing to talk about. How do you motivate yourself? And then also, how do you motivate yourself when, during the course of your voiceover career, let's say, things aren't working out the way you expect? I know a lot of people come to me, you know, I'm not booking and it's just really frustrating. And how do you self motivate when you're just coming off a vacation or when the chips are down? Erikka: Oh boy, that's something that I think is like a muscle that we have to keep toned in this business, you know? Because there's so many things that can not help to keep us motivate -- Anne: Demotivate. Yeah. Erikka: Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, you're not booking or whatever, but coming back off a vacation, it's like, yes, you've had this refresh, but it's always like hard to get back in the saddle, right? So usually what I'll do is I'll have at least one day of rest to make sure that like, I don't have -- Anne: Once you come back. Erikka: I'm typically still booked out. Anne: Yeah. I love that. Yes, I do that too. I book out one extra day when I come back for that jet leg or whatever it is. So you can just relax and kind of get yourself geared back up. Erikka: Yep. And if I see like an audition I really wanna do, I might try to do like one or two just to kind of like warm up getting back in the booth. Anne: Sure. Erikka: But you know, that way it's kind of my choice, 'cause I've already said like, hey, I'm booked out this day. Anne: Important question though. Did you completely book out during that vacation? Did you bring any equipment with you? Erikka: I did. So I have that Shure MV 88, which is plus, which is super tiny and it's so small that I don't mind carrying that. I stopped carrying around my 416 and my interface, 'cause that just felt like -- it was hard to be on vacation yeah. And I always get stopped by TSA. Like it's a microphone. Anne: Yeah. Yeah. Me too. Erikka: So I did bring it with me, but yeah, I didn't record a single thing on vacation. It was great. Anne: Good. Congratulations on that. Yeah. Erikka: Thank you. Thank you. Anne: Absolutely. Erikka: Yeah. So self-motivating, man, you gotta -- there's a lot of different things, whether that's warming up to get back in the booth and then thinking about why are you doing this? You know, what are your personal goals? What are your professional goals? What about you, Anne? Anne: Well, I think a lot of times, if you're getting frustrated, when let's say work, isn't coming your way or you didn't book that audition or you're not sure what's happening, obviously number one, it happens to all of us. So just know that. There are times when things can be slow, and things may not be happening the way that you expect them to. So number one, know that you're not alone. Number two, reach out. I think reach out to somebody that can be an accountability buddy or, or just a friend in the industry that can help you motivate, get yourself back on track. And just to kind of reinforce the fact that you're not alone, and maybe they're having some slow moments too, or maybe they're not, and then that may or may not make you feel better. But but for sure, I think know that it happens to all of us and reach out and communicate. Don't just let it sit inside you and fester. Erikka: Fester, yes. Anne: Because I think that just is like a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know what I mean? It just, it's hard to get out of until somebody can help snap you out of it. And so, Hey, just put this VO BOSS episode on repeat. So whenever you're down, and you need motivation to say it's okay and it happens, there are slow times in the industry. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: Keep plugging away at it. It is a marathon, not a sprint. What other things do we say? Interestingly enough, Erikka, I've been in this industry over 15 years, and honestly it does take tenacity, and it takes consistency and staying with it. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: Now obviously if you haven't booked in a year, that might be an indication that maybe you need some other outside help or maybe performance technique or something else. Maybe you're not marketing enough. But I think for the most part, when you go through these lulls, for sure, just understand that it does happen and reach out so that you're not in this self-sabotaging moments of saying, that's it; I can't do this or this isn't for me and quit, because it is a marathon. It is a marathon. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. And I think what you said is important about like, not just reaching out, like remembering that that also includes like coaches or, you know, finding workshops that maybe you need just need a refresh. Everybody still needs to train. I just had a class on Thursday when I got back. But you know, also sort of honing in on what exactly. like what's the problem? You can't really solve it until you know exactly what's missing. Is it that you're not reaching out enough and you're not drumming up enough leads? Or are you getting the leads and not quite landing the auditions? Maybe it's audition technique, 'cause maybe once you're in the job, it's great and they love you, but you're not getting the attention and standing out from the pack. Just sort of honing in on what is it that I need to work on to drum things up and knowing what the lulls are in the industry is key. Because it may not be you; it may just be the time of year, you know? Anne: Yeah, and also, not just the time of year, but the genre that you're working in as well. Erikka: Yes. Yeah. Anne: Like there are certain genres that probably don't let up, like if you're in promo, right? And you're the voice of a show, you will have a schedule that will be somewhat predictable when the show is running or before the show -- whatever it is, you'll be on a schedule for those particular jobs. Versus let's say commercial: if you're the voice of a particular campaign, there may be a lot of work at once and then the campaign might be over. And so then you're onto the next campaign. If it's e-learning or corporate, it could be kind of hit or miss, you know, sometimes it's feast or famine, that sort of thing. Erikka: Yeah, yeah. Anne: And just understand that when there is a famine, I think that's the time when you have to step back and increase the marketing levels, increase your, you know, reaching out to your contacts, making sure that you're continually on the lookout for that next client. I think you really should never be complacent if you're busy and when you're busy. Always be on the lookout for finding that next client, because you just never know when that job may end. And I think for me, I don't expect anything -- Erikka: Yeah. Anne: -- from my clients and the more predictable the work is, obviously the more comfortable and the more confident you're gonna be. So for me, I've got some regular clients that I know in advance like what jobs are coming up. And that gives me a source of confidence so that I can go and audition for more jobs and maybe a different genre and take some chances there. Because I always like to mix that up. Erikka: Absolutely. Yeah. You don't wanna be taking all your risk at one point and then you don't have anything going on. You wanna kind of have your foundation, you know, know your, what your business plan is, know what your strategy is to keep yourself balanced, right, and to keep your balance sheet in balance. Anne: Absolutely. Absolutely. Erikka: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So those are all, all great things. Anne: And I think we talk about like goal setting in a recent episode. You know, I think goal setting is important because we can lose sight of -- within that goal setting, we write things down. We also not just write our goals down, but our accomplishments. And if you're doing that on a timely basis, on a weekly basis, a monthly basis, whatever that is, going back and taking a look at your progress and your accomplishments is going to be something I think that you can always keep track of. And that can also help to motivate you to say -- you know, I was thinking I haven't been busy, but in reality, I got that job. Or, you know, I got that wonderful testimonial from that client. Or I made contact with a bunch of new production houses that I'm on the roster. Whatever that is, you can take a look at what has happened so far. That's why I think keeping track in goal setting and writing down your accomplishments and goals that have come to fruition, I think that's so, so important. Erikka: Absolutely. Like my metrics are super self-motivating for me. And it actually has kind of pulled me out of a, oh, I don't think I'm doing as much work. You know, I haven't been feeling well, all of this. And then I go back, and I look and I'm like, well, it's not that bad. You know, and maybe it's not as bad as I kind of -- we, we inflate these things in our head, but when you go back and look at the numbers, especially like, what I do is I'll definitely look at my year over year. So I'll see I did this last March and you know, this this March and kind of get an idea of where I'm at, looking at incomes, you know, a number of auditions that I did, bookings, and even like callbacks. Like if I got a callback in a genre that I haven't gotten a call back in before, that is progress, and that's showing that, you know, I've gotten better. So all that stuff is incredibly self-motivating. Anne: Well, you know, you mentioned income, and I'd like to touch upon that just a little bit. I will say that for me, of course it's about voiceover. But for me, it's also about being the entrepreneur, and the entrepreneur is someone who can design their business so that it can be profitable and fruitful both in self-fulfillment as well as let's say financial, and I am not ashamed to say that that is part of a game for me. I like to make money. It helps me to support the household and the family, and I'm not ashamed to say that. And I think there's a lot of us that, especially when starting out in the industry are very timid. "I'm not experienced enough. I'm not good enough yet. I need more training." And they're very timid about charging a particular amount, charging what they're worth. We've touched on charging what you're worth, you know, multiple times in this podcast. But I will say that if you charge what you're worth, and even just once in a while, throw out a number that you think is ridiculous. When you get that number, that is a motivator, like no other . Erikka: Yes, totally agree. Totally agree. And being able to kind of, tying that in with goals and the income thing, is making sure that your goals are -- and I wanna be cautious with the word realistic. And what I think I really mean is incremental and iterative. Anne: Yes. Erikka: So it is okay to set astronomical goals for yourself, but make that a long term thing. Anne: Yes. Erikka: What are the steps to get there? If you wanna make $100,000 in voiceover, what is it gonna take for you to make per month, per week, per day? How many reachouts or, you know, whatever your lead generation strategy is, what do you need to do to to generate that number? And then taking a look at where you landed and kind of setting for the next iteration, what's a more realistic goal for me if I didn't hit it or, oh, I did go over. So maybe I need to reach a little harder because you put that into the universe, I really believe that you can limit yourself by kind of having lower goals. But if you have somewhere in the sweet spot, it can help you be very motivated. Anne: Yeah. And I do wanna continue a little bit more on that financial aspect of it, but if you have a cushion, if yo…

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