Reflections on 2021
It’s somewhat hard to believe it’s now December. Somehow the last few months have blown by in a busy whirl. For me, as a working mom of twins who happen to be high school seniors, this fall was extremely busy. With the New Year fast approaching, I am starting to reflect on 2021: what I’m proud of and what I might have done differently. The year is not over yet, and I plan to use the rest of the month to end strong.
Thoughts on My Business
I like to think a lot about where my business came from. The clients who came directly to me, not through a pay to play or an agent, were up 44% from last year. Repeat clients makeup 2/3 of my business. Clients from my website were up 136% compared to 2020, so I was very pleased with that number.
I also grew my coaching and demo production business substantially this year, and it made up about 3.5% of my annual income thus far. I was pleased with that.
My pay to play numbers were down. While I did have some stellar bookings on CastVoices that I am pleased with as that site is just starting, my bookings on Voice123 with new clients were down more that 30% from 2020. While I continue to submit, I find this quite frustrating. One major goal is to surpass my 2020 numbers in 2022.
Reflections on Equipment and Gear
I made some sound equipment upgrades this year that I am very pleased with. Dave and I added the Presonus to direct clients when they come in for demo sessions. I got a fantastic new desk setup for outside of my studio space. I am really happy with this. I added the EVO4 preamp to my travel rig. I also finally got to use my new rig that I invested in before my trip. That has been fantastic for me. Most recently, I upgraded my laptop that I use daily when outside the booth. My original one was from 2015, and it simply died. I am so happy to have a new, fast, working device.
Marketing Thoughts
I have a lot of thoughts about my marketing efforts. This is the one area I put so much time and on-going effort, every, single day. I updated my headshots. I kind of felt that the photos should actually look how I look, and if I looked in the mirror and looked nothing like the gal in the photo it was probably time to change! My website was then updated with the new photos. My website was not only updated superficially, but it got an update from the inside out, as it also now meets the requirements for Google Core Values. That update actually just happened, and I hope that clients now have an even easier time finding me. I continue to reach out to clients and industry friends with my monthly newsletter. After so many years, I am finally feeling more comfortable with mail chimp and have improved the format. I have also gotten a lot better with Canva this year and use their template consistently for my instagram posts. I have tried to be very much on top of my social media posts in 2021 and have grown a much larger following. I have also continued to blog at least once a week, and sometimes twice a week. I am proud that I have maintained my efforts with my blog.
I do feel that since August I have not been as on top of my direct emails. I feel that as I got busier with my twins, I became too relaxed and did not follow up as I typically do, especially in two main areas: with repeat clients and with my radio imaging outreach. When I sit and do it I regret that I dropped the ball a little.
Let’s end the year strong!
The year is not over! The next week and a half until Christmas can be a strong one! All marketing an be done with gusto. All auditions can be awesome. All booked work can be submitted with extra effort to make clients feel appreciated. Every single day matters, and each booking counts. As I reflect back on the year, I am so thankful for another year to pursue my dreams, and another year to work in the field I love. With the SOVAS this weekend, I am so excited to spend the last Sunday before the holidays surrounded by so many industry friends who are flying in from all over. Sometimes I say “there are no words” but for this weekend there are many words, and they are words of reflection and gratitude.
from the US and Canada. Our focus was on marketing, and even as a panel member, it really got my wheels turning. I could not help but think of the specificity of my recent outreach, especially in eLearning. I have worked so hard to build my business as an eLearning narrator, and I think in order to really reach prospects, you need to think about who you are working with. From the very beginning of the process through the completion of the booked work, understanding your audience is essential to success as a working female narrator in eLearning.
Social media content, across platforms, needs to have the target audience in mind as well. This can be a bit trickier, as it is harder to control who sees your posts. You can, however, try to catch the eye of a specific group of clients or prospects by being clever about your target audience. If, for example, you are posing on Instagram and you want to reach out to instructional designers, both the content you use and the tags that you include in your post matters. Another way to grab your audience is to tag influencers and professionals in that field. Quote them. Have a conversation about them. If you want to work in eLearning, you need to be part of the dialogue.
When you book an eLearning job, understanding the audience or the enduser is so important. For example, I was recently cast in a training for a local hospital: RWJ St. Barnabas, right here in NJ. It was a caller training. When I first read through the script, in my practice read, I sounded warm, gracious, and welcoming. I then re-read my roll: “Bad Caller.” I was the example of what not to do. Everything I just rehearsed had to be thrown out the window and the opposite read was needed. I was talking to the same people, but I was the example of what not to do, and I had to be the best “Bad Caller” they ever heard. Your job as an eLearning narrator is to make it obvious. They should not have had to figure out what was wrong with my phone skills, so I had to make every effort to clearly connect with the listener. Keeping the audience in mind should inform and transform every eLearning performance.
Voice over is a competitive industry, and being a professional female voice over who books mostly commercials and eLearning is something I am very proud of, but it takes daily effort- all day. Every day. I often work weekends. I often work odd hours. And every time I do, I am proud because it means that my small business is succeeding. In order to stay on top of my VO game, it seems like December is the perfect time to reflect on what is working and what could work better. After all, if I’m going to devote to much of my life to pursuing this passion, I want to do as well as I possibly can in voiceover.
Auditions
My recent commercial booking for JP Morgan makes for a great case study in voice over bookings. As a professional voice actor, every booking makes us happy, but when the producer emailed me about these radio spots, his explanation was interesting. I was cast directly without auditioning. He did not mention my voice. Nor did he mention my demos. In this instance, it was a matter of scheduling and availability. As I work full-time, they needed someone who could accommodate a live session at a specific time, which turned out to be 11 a.m. on a Friday morning, and he needed to confirm that I was available. The timing, in this scenario, was the most important question I was asked. The producer got back to me and confirmed that I had indeed booked two spots and it was a go. I was delighted.
I prepare for every single session, whether I am self-directing or in a live session. Part of my prep is administrative. I take some time to log the job in my CRM and create the invoice. I then print a large print version of the script using my preferred font. Then, prior to marking up the script, I spend a bit of time researching the brand and their other ads. Interestingly, JP Morgan and Chase are linked. As a client, when I log in for my JP morgan account I also log into my chase account. Well, at the moment, the below Chase spot is the most sought after read in a long time. Clients often request this as the benchmark for tone, style, and pacing, so I had this in mind going into my session for sure.
I think the start of a live session is really important. There happened to be a lot of people on this call. In addition to the producer, there were several people from the Spotify team and several people from the JP Morgan Team, including the scrip writer. In my mind looking back here were at least eight people on the session. It is my job to make them happy and to make them comfortable. I try to use the time at the start of the session to let them know that my feelings are not a factor, and that the only thing that would upset me would be for them to know have exactly what they need at the end of the call. I try to have friendly banter, but I want them to know and to be comfortable that I will give them whatever they need, and that it is not about me, it is about them. I think there are a few precious moments to establish this rapport and set the tone.
With so many on the call, there can be a lot of side chats during a directed session to make sure everybody has the takes that they want. This team was fantastic. They gave very clear direction and it was easy to take their feedback and run with it. They also all remembered to mute themselves while I was recording, which makes everything seamless. In this session, I read the first script all the way through three times. They gave me feedback. I again did three takes, and then we did some variations of the lines. Then, after the line reads, we did the whole script again. It really came together nicely. It was also super exciting to use Zoom’s audio share feature to play back the audio for the clients during the session so that they could mark the takes that they liked and we could also check the timing of the spots. Then we moved on to the next script, and worked through it the same way. The second one went a little faster as I understood what they were looking for from the first spot. All in all, the group was great to work with. For me, because JP Morgan is my bank and I use the app, it was easy to see the product and be enthusiastic about it because I actually enjoy the very features I was describing.
I am often asked whether I prefer live sessions or self directing. The answer is really that it depends. I love self directing because it gives me a chance to be creative and a freedom to interpret the texts in front of me. I can explore my imagination and see where it goes. The downside, of course, is that there is always a chance of missing the mark and not giving the client what they need. With live sessions, I love the creative collaboration. I love working with other people. When I have the opportunity to work with the people who created the product or the people who wrote the script, I get a higher level of understanding and can often bring more nuance to the read. So, the answer is still: I depends.
A professional talent has an abundance of testimonials. Period. They should have them proudly displayed on their website, on LinkedIn, on whatever Pay to Plays they are on, and likely they share them on social media. Testimonials are not difficult to get. Happy clients who have just received pristine audio are typically delighted to provide them. My very first voice coach, Anne Ganguzza, told me how important it was to get testimonials! She asked for one from me about our work and gave me my very fist one. A voice actor without testimonials is likely not a professional voiceover actor.
