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Boundaries when Reaching out to Coaches

February 18, 2024 by Laura Schreiber

Reaching Out to A Coach

You have a burning question, that’s great! And the good news, actually the really good news, is that there are A LOT of really wonderful coaches in voice over depending on both what genre you are looking to study and what your specific learning style is. Even better, many coaches have lots of free resources to offer! Between blogs, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and linkedIn, you can learn so much before you even have to open your wallet. So when it is time to actually invest in yourself and your voice over career, whether it is signing up for a class or a private lesson, there are som best practices to build a good relationship with your coaches.

Free Consultations

Most coaches offer a 15 to 20 minute free consultation. This is meant for BOTH of you to see if you are a good fit for each other. This is the time to ask your coach how they are different from other coaches and to see what their policies are. This is NOT the time to expect free training. This is not where you pick their brain for free. This is also not the time to expect an hour from their twenty minutes. They are offering you a glimpse. Be professional and assess. Take the glimpse for exactly what it is.

Blogs

Use and enjoy blogs to enhance your knowledge base. Is it okay to reach out and introduce yourself? Of course, connect with your industry peers. Is it ok to ask a question or two to extrapolate more in-depth understanding? Sure thing. Is it okay to try to get a free session out of the coach? No. There is a line. Begging for free advice because you like their blog is both distasteful and unprofessional. It also shows a genuine lack of understanding for what we do. Each of us are on such a unique and personal journey in voice over. So, writing to a coach who you have no relationship with and asking them to venture a guess is more than useless. Just don’t. Instead, save up for a session. Invest in coaching. Dive deeper! More training is never, ever waisted! We all have to keep working on our craft!

Social Media

Connecting with coaches on Social Media is great. It is a great way to learn about them as a person, a talent, and as a coach. You get to understand who they are within the parameters they have established. Some are very responsive to DMs and to comments, others are less so. Some may be responding directly while others may have a team who does this for them. Either way, be mindful of professional boundaries. This is meant to be a professional, working relationship. Would you message your doctor or accountant at 2 Am with questions repeatedly? If the answer is no, then perhaps also do not reach out to your voice coach at that time expecting a reply. They too maintain regular business hours.

Texting

In general, coaches do not have text relationships with students. Unless a coach says the words “Please text me about….” I would assume NOT to text a voice over coach. It is appropriate in this professional relationship to email them and let them respond in a timely manner.

Business Hours

Coaches are working professionals. They typically maintain normal weekday studio hours. Some may also offer coaching on the weekend, I do not. When you are looking for the coach who is the right fit for you, respect their business hours. It is common practice that they are available when you have them booked. Some coaches have time to answer questions between sessions, others do not, but each coach is different in this regard. Regardless of their practice, no coach wants to be stalked. They are instead looking for a meaningful working relationship where they can watch their students thrive.

Takeaways

I remember well what it was like to pay for one lesson at a time. Voice over coaching is expensive, it’s an investment. You want to feel like you are getting a lot of value for your money. I am also someone who likes to feel like I am building meaningful connections with the people I work with, so when I was the talent as opposed to the coach, feeling like the coach “got me” mattered a lot. I think if you really want to connect with your coach take the time to read their coaching profile, have that consultation, and check their references. At the end of the day, you are going to have to trust your gut a bit too. Sometimes we just click with someone and sometimes we don’t. I can tell you the one way to push a coach aside and ruin things from the start is to start asking for free coaching and advice before you know each other at all. Whatever you decide to do, please do not do that!

Having VO Industry Friends Matters

November 16, 2022 by Laura Schreiber

Sometimes things Go Sideways

As a well-established professional voice actor I wish I could say that when I recorded my first audiobook everything went well, but that is not the case. I learned quickly that narrating audiobooks is vastly different than recording a 30 second spot. Actually, the recording was fine. I marked the manuscript on my iPad just like Sean Pratt taught me. I used iAnnotate and I was proud of how the audio and the editing when. The snag happened quite unexpectedly when I uploaded my audio to ACX.

Learning the Ins and Outs of ACX

If you have never used ACX, when you upload your audio it has a tool that immediately measures the quality of your audio. So my audio was immediately flagged as being insufficient for their needs. You get a little orange or red, depending on the screen settings of your monitor, triangle with an exclamation point in it. ACX is kind enough to tell you precisely what is wrong with your audio. In my case, my RMS, or Round Mean Sound, levels were not within the precise range of -18 to -23. Mine were between -25 and -27.

First I called an engineer I work with regularly and he had gone to both college and graduate school for audio production and he had no idea what an RMS was. I sent him a photo of my audio because I could see there was a meter for it in my DAW, which is Twisted Wave. His best guess was to play with how I normalized it. No dice, nothing made this better. And I had already applied my commercial effects stack to the ENTIRE recorded book. At this point the only thing I had going for me was that I had saved the RAW audio. Note, ALWAYS save your raw audio!!

The Meltdown

So at this point, dinner was not being cooked. The audio couldn’t be uploaded. I was in my booth in tears. For someone who has been in VO for years, I was loosing it completely. Just then, I happened to have been, over several days emailing back and forth with Jack de Golia. I had questions for him about some programs I could use for audiobooks, and I had the luck of getting an email from a friend at that moment.

I told Jack I was having a meltdown. Jack phoned. He asked what was going on. He talked me off a cliff. He also showed me how to use the analyze function on Twisted Wave which I never knew was there. Jack actually showed me quite a few thinks that night.

He told me I needed to call George Whittam and that I needed a stack specifically for audiobooks. The only way to meet the A CX specs is with such a stack. I had no idea. The thing is, you don’t know what you don’t know until you’re in the trenches. I did in fact reach out to George. I paid extra for the stack, and I was very quickly back in business.

When I had my Meltdown, I had people to call

I was lucky, the right guy happened to reach out precisely at the moment I needed him. If you don’t know Jack de Golia, his is a brilliant voice talent best known for his work in eLearning and Audiobooks although he excels in other genres too. He is a coach as well and is based in Las Vegas Nevada.

So let’s dissect why I had a friend like Jack in the first place? Jack happens to be a really nice guy, and exceptionally good at what he does, so he’s easy to be friends with in the first place. But how did I maintain the friendship on my end? Well, I have made the effort to go to voice over conferences for years. I had attended Jack’s sessions at past conferences like WoVoCon. When I would go to other conferences like DevLearn in Las Vegas, I kept in touch with Jack and we had lunch. Over the years I also sent correspondence emails because his friendship and the friendship of my industry friends is extremely important to me. I did not have a crystal ball and I had no idea that Jack would one day come to my rescue, but I did know he was a good guy and I valued having him, like so many others I have been blessed to meed in my life.

The Take-Aways

I can tell you that while we all work alone in padded foam booths, we are stronger together than we are apart. Whether we are two months in are ten years in we always need good, smart folks who have our backs. It is worth making the effort to spend time with people on your visit. It is work keeping in touch with people beyond the reach of social media. Make actual friends. It is so important and it is what will make all the difference.

Sales Funnels For Voice Over

March 17, 2022 by Laura Schreiber

Marketing to Voice Over Clients

Note: this is not a story with a happy ending. If you want to skip to the follow up blog, click here.

In voice over, we talk about marketing endlessly. How do we get clients? Voice actors love to talk about marketing. We love to talk about our CRMs. Building client relationships is another hot topic. A few weeks ago Robert Sciglimpaglia started talking about sales funnels for voice over. Diana Birdsall, fellow VO Coach and I got super excited. Why? After years of emails and LinkedIn outreach, sales funnels are different. And why work with Rob and his daughter Mary Brainard? Put simply: they are fantastic.

You might be wondering how a voice actor/attorney and his daughter teamed up to do this? Well, Rob explained that it was always his dream to work with his daughters but none are lawyers. Mary actually studied English and Psychology in college. At present, Mary does copy writing and marketing for companies with six and seven figure budgets. Mary and Rob decided to team up and bring Belair Creative to the voice over community so that we can benefit from their marketing expertise. In just their first month on the scene, business exploded for the father-daughter duo.

Explaining a Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is a fancy word for a sales process. If you picture a tube or a pipe that is wider at the top and narrow at the bottom, that is what a funnel looks like. In a sales funnel, as people move through the funnel, there are more people at the top and fewer at the end. This is because not everyone wants or needs you services at the moment they are pulled into the funnel. You can work to maintain contact with all who have come into the funnel through follow up emails, calls, and social media. Also, it came up in our clubhouse chat that funnels should really be used for experienced voice actors who have their business up and running. If you are new to VO and just starting out, this is not the system for you. You can try this once your booth is set up, your website is up, and you are ready to seriously invest in your business.

Knowing Who to Target

Just like when you mark your script and you have to understand who you are talking to, in marketing you have to understand who your ideal or dream client is. Some other people might call this a buyer persona, although Rob and Mary did not use that terminology. Anyway, instead of sending out endless emails in hope of a reply, Mary uses targeted videos well-placed in social media groups so that they land where you want them. Often, clients need talent but don’t know where to find them so they end up on casting sites. By going directly to them, and finding the clients where they are, we are making ourselves easy to find.

Some Sales Funnels Have More Steps Than Others

Every clients is on a different path in their journey. Some might be ready to buy your services today. Others might be ready to purchase next month. Maybe some might never be ready to take action. It’s possible funnels have more steps because they want to qualify the potential clients. Other funnels have more steps because there are different types of funnels. Some have a survey, a questionnaire, or a form. The main goal could be information for a mailing list. Another main goal could also be the sale of services. The funnel is based on what you want to accomplish. Belair creative does a three level funnel that includes video, a survey, and scheduling an appointment.

When Mary and Rob work with voice actors, they are aware that different talents need varying degrees of handholding when setting up their sales funnels. They basically set up a system so that someday we can maintain it ourselves. Through the funnel, we can learn where our clients come from. We will get data both from the CRM and from social media. In order to run a solid funnel, you need to know who you are talking you and what you want to specialize in.

The Downside to Sales Funnels

We asked if there is a downside to sales funnels. Mary said she thought a lot about this. She said if you set it up and did not use it that would be a downside. Or, if you got too many new clients and you could not manage them all, that would also be a downside.

Why Sales Funnels are Unique and Some Final Thoughts

As Diana astutely pointed out, so many voice actors are on pay to plays and do direct marketing. What we all want is jobs in our in box every morning, right? We asked Rob why this is the next great thing. He said that in addition to finding clients where they are, so much of the funnel process is automated. From follow-up emails to scheduling appointments, automation helps drive the campaign. Mary also offered that doing a funnel allows you to be more in control of your business. You get unique, specific data about who is purchasing your services. By reaching out you are building relationships and staying top of mind. Getting clients is really important, and that is what funnels do.

In business it is really important to be careful who you take advice from. There have been many conversations about being cautious of “the next big thing.” We have all scene recent promises that sounded wonderful and did not pan out. You probably know already that I do not have a crystal ball. I can’t guarantee that every funnel will get who we need to get. What I do know is that you can waste a lot of time marketing to the wrong people on your own. Rob has been loved my many in the VO community for years, and once you meet this father daughter team, you will see why Diana and I were so delighted to share them with the community.

Why I Never had Imposter Syndrome as a Voice Actor

December 9, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

In the Past Year I Learned a New Phrase

I’ve been a full time, professional voice over actor for quite a while now, but in the past year I started hearing for the first time a new term: imposter syndrome. I started hearing it on social media, on Clubhouse, and at conferences too. I found it surprising because in all my years in VO, I had never heard any other talents speak to this before. What I have learned is that this term refers to the feeling that one does not actually belong, or is not what they claim to be and is, instead, an imposter. Suddenly, in the past year, I am hearing about others feeling this way frequently. It is coming up often in conversation. Perhaps it is because many turned to voice over during covid. Perhaps it is because some start working or trying to work before they are actually prepared. For a multitude of reasons, suddenly I am hearing this all over the place. If you are interested in being a voice over actor, and you really want to succeed and do NOT want to feel like an imposter, perhaps consider my experience, as this has never been an issue for me.

Lots of Training

When I started working in voice over, really working, it was after no less than a year of working at getting into voiceover. In that year, I worked with 4 coaches and took advanced acting and improv at a local theater. I spent sic to eight hours A DAY studying and working on my craft. I worked on scripts. I practiced characters. I recorded. I edited. I submitted to my coaches. I listened back to my assignments. I did research and followed prominent voice actors to see what they were booking. I took multiple private lessons each week. I was in group classes with GVAA. I had practice partners. I met with those partners. I did homework for those partners too and I took each and every assignment so seriously, as if my life depended on it. So when I say I had lots of training, that is just when I started out. Since then I have continued to have lots of coaching. Have coaching is the foundation of all we do. I think by the time my website launched, I was so ready to work that it never occurred to me that I was not prepared to serve my clients.

Long Days

Both as a student of voice over and now as a professional, I have always put in extremely long days. From morning to night, often going back into my booth after dinner, my days are long and rigorous. Sometimes new talents ask me when they will start booking. They tell me they have submitted 50 auditions. I try to keep a straight face. I typically submit more than 30 auditions in a day, even now, so 50 auditions is in no way impressive to me. I have often heard of the rule of 10. I believe that Gaby Nistico has even made a video about it. If you work 10 hours a day more than 10 months a year for 10 years that is when you start making six figures… Well, I believe there is something to this. I have always had the luxury of being in voice over “full-time.” Well, let’s flesh this out. What exactly does “full-time mean? To me, it means I maintain standard business hours and I am in my booth al day every day to serve my clients. The more you are available and the more you record and submit, the more legitimate your business is.

Sure of My Identity

When my business launched, in audition to lots of coaching and sweat equity under my belt, my first website helped establish my identity. I never had doubts about my identity as a professional. I had been told by every coach I ever worked with that even at the start of my career, I should introduce myself as a professional. I did so with confidence. As I get clients under my belt and had testimonials, I felt more proud of what I was building, but it never came from a place of doubt. I was certain that I was building a great service business that would help my clients get what they need.

Wholly Committed

Another reason I think I never suffered from this imposter syndrome is that I was entirely committed from day 1. Basically, I bet the house on it. I built a high-end studio. I had an expensive microphone. I was working full time. It was never an option for it to not work. Success was my only possible outcome. It never occurred to me that I was not a voice actor. I set out to live this life and I did. Period. Sometimes we have choices in this world, but as a working mom, failure was not an outcome I was willing to explore. I only had one potential outcome for myself and my children, and that was for the business to take off.

Voice Over Must Haves To Launch

September 19, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

But do I really Need it…

As a voice over coach, I get a lot of questions like “Do I really need…” Or, “Oh, you think I should get…” and I am surprised by how surprised my voice over actor students are when I give them the simple answers. Yes, you do in fact need all of these things to successfully launch your voice over business. So, here is a quick check list of sorts to make it easy to know what is essential for you as a voice over actor and small business owner. Without all of these things, your business simple will not go:

Website

Your voiceover website is your virtual storefront. You need to be found. Last week we had Karin Barth from Voice Actor Websites on talking about all that is essential, but you want to bring potential clients and repeat clients to a place where they can hear you and only you. You want them to hear your demos, your booked work if you have it, and be able to contact you easily. Everything else on your website is gravy. If your website does not exist you as a voice actor do not exist. It’s that simple.

Source Connect

If you are a professional voice over actor in 2021, you need to have Source Connect for your home studio. Many agents send auditions that stipulate that the talents must have Source Connect. Moreover, those same agents will not even sign you without the paid version of Source Connect. Telling them you will get it when work comes in is not sufficient because the folks from Source Connect need to map your ports and you cannot do this yourself. Before you pitch yourself to agents, order Source Connect and get your ports mapped!

Pay to Play Memberships

You need a source of auditions. When you are starting out and have no clients, Pay to Play sites like Voice123, Bodalgo, and Cast Voices are a great way to find and book work. These sites are wonderful because they allow you to turn bookings into clients. There are other platforms that prevent interaction between the end user and the voice actor but still charge a premium for voice over actors to use. I prefer these sites as they allow you to build a rapport with the clients and do not interfere with direct interaction between you and the client. While some in the industry may scoff at paying money to build your business, the truth of the matter is that many in casting still want to present their clients with options, so they still prefer to use these platforms. These platforms have been around for a while and you can find some great clients on them. While I advise being selective with which platforms you go on, I also advise using Pay to Plays to get your business going.

Social Media Presence

At this moment in time, if something happened to you in your voice over career, and you didn’t post about it on social media, then basically it never happened. As professional voice over actors, we are only as strong as our last booking. If people don’t know what is going on and that we are working, then we have no “street credit.” There is no one other than you who can create a buzz around you. It’s your business, and you can either shine amongst the stars when you have something to celebrate or keep it quiet and wilt in the dark of your studio. Between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can find the platform where you feel most comfortable and most relevant, but you need to put yourself out there. Much like your website, if no one knows you exist, you don’t.

Business Cards

Voice over is an unusual business. Anyone we meet could be a potential client. We are not just cast be casting directors and video producers. Often and accountant or a lawyer that we meet at a dinner party is just as likely to need us for their phone system as a talent agent it. Essentially anyone we meet who has a business can become a client. Believe it or not, other voice actors should be treated as potential clients as the more entrenched you are in the industry, the more we all refer other work to each other. So, make things simple. Have a business card on hand at all times. You never know when someone will be thrilled to meet you and will want to get in touch later. Your business card should include: your name, your best phone number, your email, your website, perhaps your Source Connect info, and perhaps the genres of voice over that you work in.

Why do Headshots Matter in VO

September 14, 2021 by Laura Schreiber

Recent Epic Mistake

When I started my voice over business years ago I had headshots done for my website. While a long time ago people used to say that voice actors did not need to show their face, as the VO industry has continued to evolve and we, as talents, now have to bring in the bulk of our own work, it is on us to run our business like a business. If we want our clients to connect with us, having current pictures is a must. So, about a year back, I was presenting at an online eLearning conference and I was super excited. When they asked for my head shot, I became for cognizant of the fact that the photo no longer resembled me. I was thinner, my hair was shorter, I always wear glasses… the list went on. I decided to take new photos and update them. While my old headshots had been done by a professional, I took the new ones in my booth with an iphone. I loved them and was thrilled.

I loved the photos so much that when I did my website refresh and rebrand this January they were featured in the banner. Do you sense the train wreck coming. Well, middle-aged me does not have perfect vision. I failed to notice that in my main photo I am sticking my tongue out. I tend to be both silly and flirty, and apparently I stick my tongue out. Often. Worse, I could not see that my tongue is sticking out and this photo is everywhere.

Fast forward to this summer. I was accepted as a presenter for the OneVoice conference in Dallas. They asked for a headshot. I send them this photo. I was so elated when I was listed on the page of speakers. I clicked on my photo to make it bigger, and for the first time realized in horror that my tongue was out. Clearly the photo had to be replaced.

Brand Awareness

It’s amazing that even in the NY metropolitan area it is really hard to find a photographer to do corporate branding work. Further, it is amazing how much range there is in their rates. Beyond that, it amazes me how few were even willing to respond. There are so many things that i think about when interacting with clients: rates, making it about them, speed of response, and yet finding someone who got what I needed AND responded AND charged a sane rate seemed like the Red Sea parting. I was delighted when I actually got in touch with a photographer who had an entire corporate branding page and took the time to look at my website. She was kind and flexible and her work is beautiful. She was not easy to find and I’m so thankful that I did!

For me, I wanted these pictures to help instill brand awareness, so clients really know what it’s like to work with me. This meant:

letting my personality come through
choosing colors like pink and avoiding other colors
including my kids and my dogs
showing details of my home and office life

This is all a part of what I have built my brand on…

Chance for Clients to Get to Know You

For these headshots, I put together three looks: formal, fun, and business casual. As I work in different genres of voice over, and deal with people with differing job titles, different looks work for different people. A head shot that is ideal for radio imaging is very different than one that is ideal for corporate narration. But, I wanted my happy, upbeat, fun vibe to come through in all of these looks. I wanted my youthful, millennial personality to shine.

Face of Small Business

While I am a solopreneur, I do run my VO business like a business, and I had very specific thoughts about these photos and their usage. Having been in the voiceover industry for so many years, I knew just how I’d use these pictures and could already envision their placement as soon as I got the proofs.

Opportunity for Social media

I also wanted to have much better images for instagram posts. This was really important to me. I was really excited to see what Erica came back with, because I immediately felt inspired and had tons of ideas. From posts about social media, to life as a working mom, to booth life, these headshots will be in the mix!

How often should you update them?

Basically, you should look like your pictures. Your hair should be relatively similar and no one should have to guess who it is. Likely every 5-7 years will make sense. It it’s more than that you have to question if you are doing yourself a dis-service. In this world where we zoom so often, people expect you to look like your photo. Using an old, out of date, or air brushed photo is almost worse than not having a picture because it undermines the foundation of your brand: you. So keep your headshots up-to-date, and have fun with them!

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