In our next episode. of the BOSS Money Talks series, the BOSSES talk about how to set and achieve financial goals like a pro by transforming daunting yearly objectives into achievable, bite-sized milestones. Anne and Danielle guide you through the process of reverse engineering your target income, allowing you to create efficient tracking systems for auditions, marketing, and follow-ups. This ultimately can help you to manage the unpredictable nature of freelance work with confidence. The BOSSES share personal stories and insights on analyzing past successes, pinpointing what truly works, and making informed adjustments to your approach, fostering a mindset of steady, systematic growth. 00:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hello amazing bosses and voiceover talents out there. Hey, amazing voiceover talents. Do you ever wish boss marketing was as fun as it was being behind the mic? Well, check out my Vio Boss Blast. It's designed to automate and make your marketing simpler. You'll benefit from your very own target marketed list, tailored to meet your goals and your brand the VO Boss Blast. Find out more at voboss com.
00:32 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, nne Ganguza.
00:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey hey everyone, Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Boss Money Talk Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am so excited to bring back to the show Danielle Famble. Danielle, yay, hey, thanks for having me back. How are you? I'm so excited to talk money with you this morning.
01:09 - Danielle Famble (Host) I'm good. I'm always up for a money conversation, so very happy to be here Cool.
01:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And you know why? Because I actually just started taking and you know I've taken these courses before. But you know I always love to take goal setting classes because even though you kind of know, like I've set goals before, I do it every year, I do it periodically. I think that it's important to just kind of get your motivation and inspiration going and I thought it would be a great time to talk about setting financial goals and how we can successfully reach them as entrepreneurs.
01:41 - Danielle Famble (Host) Yeah, I think that's really important because in business you always talk about goals like business goals, or the point of a business is to make a profit, and so financial goals are kind of tied into that. So it is good to be intentional about your goals, even if you don't hit that goal. Absolutely being able to track where your progress is is really important, so I love that you're doing that. It's something I try to do every year. I think it usually happens for most people around like the end of the year sort of a New Year's resolution, but doing it in the middle of the year is really pretty great. I love that.
02:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, I think one thing that I'm learning that is important is to set realistic goals. I mean, it's all well and good to want a million dollars, but I want to be able to set a realistic financial goal for myself and I think how important is that actual number, like I know you just said, if you don't make it? But what if we create a more realistic goal? And then, I don't know, maybe reverse engineer, is that a thing?
02:39 - Danielle Famble (Host) Is that something that you do? Yeah, totally. I read this book, the 12 Week Year, a couple of months ago. It's a really good book and it really is about like breaking your year down into almost like quarters, really breaking them down into 12-week years themselves so that the goal doesn't take the length of time like a full year for example.
02:58 And then you're able to break it down further from those 12 weeks to individual weeks. So that is sort of reverse engineering your goals. So, for example, if your goal was to make, let's say, $10,000 in the 12 week time, then you can go and say, okay, well, what do I need to do incrementally to get myself there? Is it going to be marketing more? Is it going to be increasing the number of auditions that you do? Is it going to be figuring out which genre that you want to go into, because maybe a certain genre may get you to that 10,000 quicker? I think actually, reverse engineering your goal makes it so that the goal itself is not so big and all you're working toward they're little sprints. So you're working toward the next milestone in that bigger goal sphere.
03:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, I think there's something to be said for breaking it down into smaller parts, because I think number one of the fact that our business is so volatile, right, we don't know where our next job is coming from. And that is a completely different mindset and pathway to making money than maybe some people are used to if they come out of the corporate world. Right, because there's a set amount of money we're getting paid every so often. Now, all of a sudden, we've got to be everybody and everything and we have to go out, generate the leads, follow up on those leads, get the job, do the job and then charge the money and then collect the money. So there's all these steps and we don't necessarily know where the second job is coming or the next job is coming.
04:26 - Danielle Famble (Host) Yeah.
04:27 And I think also, you can think about creating systems, right. So a lot of the things that you just said are repeatable processes. So if you can create a system where it's I'm going to audition for X number of jobs, that's not guaranteeing that you will book all of those jobs, but it's sort of a numbers game, right? Sometimes, especially with commercials, for example, it's sort of a numbers game. So if you can increase the inputs, then the output may be more bookings. Perhaps. Same thing with like leads If you are sending out maybe a few more emails or phone calls, then that potentially could mean that you're going to possibly book more jobs.
05:07 So how can you create systems or templates for each individual section of that process that you're reverse engineering for your goal? So then you don't have to get stuck in the weeds when it's time to go to the next step. And the next step Did I follow up this person? Did I do this? Did I send out this contract? Did I sign this thing? Making sure that you have a template or a system for it really can help.
05:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that and I think that it's important to make sure that you're dedicating the time for those steps to happen, because it's all well and good when you're like I've got the job right and the money's coming in and that's something I can account for. But yet now there's all these unknowns in the equation, and especially when we're talking numbers like I like numbers to be concrete right, I like to say I've got this coming in, you know, I've got this going out. But then there's that uncertainty of like okay, I don't have that job yet, so I need to put that system in place in order to try to make the goal that I want to achieve. And again, I think it's important for bosses out there to again set realistic goals. But again, there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, I'm currently making X amount of dollars per month, or I like to look at it on a monthly basis as opposed to, I mean, yearly too.
06:19 I'm like, yes, it's great to have a six-figure, seven-figure, whatever income you're looking for, but then break that down into months and then those months back into weeks, because one week maybe I won't make any money, right? And I have to make sure that that doesn't necessarily stop me from trying to reach my goal or create a mental point where I'm just like, oh well, I can't do this right. I think goal setting a lot of what I'm learning, as well well as writing it down, putting it concrete on the paper here's what I want. And then you're talking about setting up the template and the steps to get there, going back and reviewing those steps and making sure that if you didn't achieve a step, that's okay, because maybe next week you can achieve that step even more so, so that you're not getting upset or depressed and then just giving up on that goal.
07:04 - Danielle Famble (Host) Yeah, I also really love what you said about like dedicating the time to it. One of the things that I implemented in my own life, in my own business, about a year or two ago and, admittedly, I've sort of slipped in it it's something this conversation is reminding me to go back and do is implementing office hours or implementing the time dedicated to make the system run.
07:25 So if it's implementing an hour every single day, or Monday, wednesday, friday, for example, to make sure that you've got your auditions, or to follow up with clients that have not paid, or to do whatever it is in your system that needs to be done. Really setting the time aside to actually do it will ensure that your system does actually work, because it If you kind of sometimes arbitrarily go through the process of trying to hit your financial goals then you may not actually be consistent in hitting those goals.
07:55 Another thing that, when you were talking about it, I was thinking about is, yes, thinking about things in a monthly 30-day window. I think that's great because it's that short sprint like we were talking about earlier.
08:06 One thing is, maybe consider a percentage Like maybe I want to increase my revenue by 1% or 2%, so you can actually check and see did I do that? Is there a way to say I did hit this goal or I didn't hit this goal? Because a lot of times with goals they can be vague, it feels good but you can't really check and see did I actually hit it or not?
08:27 That's the thing about numbers. Is it this number or no? You know if you hit it or not. That's the thing about numbers, is it this number or no.
08:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You know if you hit it or you didn't. Right, right, it's very black and white. You're right, I love that checking and being accountable and that also has an effect again, and it's so funny because there's hardcore numbers, right, there's here's what I made last month, here's what I made the month before, and what did it take to get to those numbers? Going back and being accountable and seeing, was there a system that worked? And again, if something's not working or you're having a slow month, again I want to reiterate that manifestation of abundance and faith, right, faith that you can achieve the goal right. And so if you can kind of manifest and see that, have that vision, see it's written down and then see the systems that were put in place that help to make that work, when you maybe have a week where nothing happened or a couple of weeks and you start to doubt yourself, go back and take a look at those accomplishments.
09:21 Go look at what you've achieved and the systems you use to achieve them and see if maybe you didn't implement that in quite the same way or maybe there's a way to take what you did that was successful and increase it. Maybe I would say, reach out to that repeat client, right? Or go ahead and maybe increase if you did a hundred auditions and you're not really seeing anything, well, maybe. What type of auditions did you do? Were they all commercial auditions, were they corporate auditions, were they e-learning auditions and find out which one's booked. And then maybe, if you're like I seem to be booking a lot of e-learning lately, then maybe increase your percentage of e-learning auditions.
10:01 - Danielle Famble (Host) Yeah, and the only way to know everything, what you just said is to make sure that you're tracking.
10:06 If you're not tracking that information, the dollars are in the data and if you are not tracking your data, you may not be able to track your dollars as specifically, to be able to get to the next step, that next 1%, because if you increase your revenue by 1% every month over the course of the year, it's exponential growth of your business. And then you can go back and look and say, okay, look at what I did, how can I repeat those steps to get even greater returns the next year? Or to do that in a different genre that maybe you don't work in, because you know that what you did works. How can you take what you know and move it to a different genre?
10:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that. You said if you increase your revenue 1%, right every month, which gives you 12% over a course of a year. And I just want to bring that back to bosses by saying most jobs don't give a 12% increase like at all anymore. As a matter of my husband just got like an 8%, which was incredible. I mean that took years and I remember back in the day when I was working in education I got a 3% every year and that was great. So, 1%, bosses don't think, oh, that's nothing. And I can tell Danielle that you are a money girl because you know, oh, just 1% and that's realistic, right. And so that's something like oh, I want to increase my revenue 100% or 50% or even 20% is I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm just saying that you want to take a look at how can I like literally systematically increase that income by 1%, 2%, and that's incredible.
11:36 - Danielle Famble (Host) And then, year after year after year, the compounding of that incremental increase is really where, like, it'll make your eyes pop because it is amazing and it can be life changing.
11:47 - Intro (Announcement) Oh yeah. And so when you say like reverse engineering your goal.
11:51 - Danielle Famble (Host) That's really where it is. It's not in these big leaps and bounds. It's how can you grow? Just a little bit more, and a little bit more, and a little bit more. And then when you look back over time because this takes time when you look back over time you can say, oh, wow, like look what this did, look what I grew, look what we've made. It's really amazing. It's like any financial investment. It's really amazing.
12:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's like any financial investment. It's funny because you know, back in the day when I did work for a company, I remember I invested some spare change that I had like $500 in a stock in the company that I worked for, and then I just didn't look at it.
12:24 I just let it sit there for about 20 years. And I'll tell you what over time, when you look at a stock, if it's a decent stock and it's not like a company that's in and out and out of business, a company that's been around for a long time, I mean that grew over time even though, like, one month it went way down, another month it went way up, and then it was like, and if you looked at those numbers and you got crazy about it, it would make you insane, and so I just left it alone. I said you know what that was? Money, that it's kind of like.
12:47 I feel like if I go to Vegas and I'm going to spend money on gambling which I'm not a big gambler, but I always say, well, that's my spare change, right, and then I just don't worry about it. When it's done, it's done. So I invested that money and then I didn't look at it until 20 years later, when I went to buy a house, and then all of a sudden I cashed in on it and well, over the years and of course I didn't like completely ignored it I did look at it like on a yearly basis, but it wasn't like every day. I was not looking at it and freaking out if I wasn't getting a return on my investment. And so I think maybe if you kind of look at your business like that right, step back from it and look a little more long term and you can't do that unless you've been tracking it right and see how you grow, like that tiny little growth spurt over time makes a humongous difference.
13:38 - Danielle Famble (Host) Absolutely.
13:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So then let me ask you how, like in terms of I know we talked about this a little bit in other podcast episodes so in terms of tracking this right, what's the best resource for tracking this? I mean, I know we talked about, like I use QuickBooks so I can do a profit and loss statement. I can generate any length of time. I could say give me a monthly profit and loss statement. What other things would you suggest to track? Because that's just the financial part of it. How are we tracking like marketing, how are we tracking those types of things?
14:09 - Danielle Famble (Host) I think that can be done in several different ways. When I first started my business, I was tracking everything in an Excel spreadsheet down to every job that I booked, the details about that job, how much I was paid, how much do I need to set aside for taxes, and keeping that set aside separated by month. That's one way to do it Currently. Now I have a Notion database where I actually will put in every single audition that I did and it turns into a pipeline. So it's. Did the audition turn into a booking? Did I get an avail check for that even though I didn't book it? I want to know the details about that. What were the specs in that audition? So it's like a whole sales funnel.
14:46 - Intro (Announcement) It's an entire sales funnel, I love that An entire sales funnel.
14:49 - Danielle Famble (Host) That's what I'm doing, that's amazing.
14:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm again sort of a nerd. Yeah, no, no, no, I'm right there with you.
14:54 - Danielle Famble (Host) That's wonderful, but I want to know everything about the jobs that are coming my way and then the jobs that turn into actual bookings, because there's information in that data for me and it's important for me to take a look and see. I even want to see maybe I auditioned for something a year ago and the rate was X.
15:13 - Intro (Announcement) What is it today?
15:14 - Danielle Famble (Host) I want to know what is the market overall doing? So there are ways to look at it, like that, crms that you can take a look at and put your data in.
15:23 However you do it, do it and that's where your data is and then have a way to go back and take a look at and put your data in. However you do, it, do it and that's where your data is and then have a way to go back and take a look and take the time to go back and look at the data and see comprehensively, maybe by quarter how did I do? At the end of the year how was this year and what did we learn and what can we do a little differently? I love that.
15:45 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, I think tracking your goals not just here's what I want to make right but tracking your business and tracking the progress of your business will really help you to get a great view of your business over time, and so it will help you to make more educated decisions as well. Right? So not only are we setting financial goals and we're manifesting right, and we're having faith in the fact that we can achieve these goals right, and we're creating small little pieces, small little segments of those goals that are achievable right, and then we can look back on our success and be encouraged and gain confidence from that success. And again, when you do that, that can just exponentially grow your business and grow your success. And to me, you've got to take the time to track that. So how much time. For me sometimes it's like, oh God, I've been auditioning all day, I've been coaching all day, I've been doing this. I don't have time to track this. What is your method of tracking? Do you track on a day-to-day basis or weekly? Or what do you do?
16:40 - Danielle Famble (Host) I track, like I said, with the inputs in my sales funnel or my system. I do that every single day, really like inputting it as it's happening and how much time does that take?
16:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Do you know what I mean? Are you spending like 10 minutes, half an hour, an hour?
16:54 - Danielle Famble (Host) Every input is maybe a minute or two, so it adds up to a few minutes a day, maybe an hour a day.
17:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Wow, think of that boss. It's just not even an hour a day right, yeah, not even I day.
17:05 Wow, think of that boss. It's just not even an hour a day, right? Yeah, not even. I say that for my students too, who want to pursue this as a career is that you need to spend, you need to dedicate a certain amount of time per day on your business, and that tells your brain, it tells your body, it tells your being that you are serious about this business and you are manifesting along the way as you do that. And plus, I think it's a critical part of again that tracking system that helps us to understand where are we, where do we want to go and how are we going to achieve that? Absolutely, yeah, fantastic, wow, I love that.
17:33 So what sort of goals would you say for, let's say, a beginning talent? What sort of financial goals should they have? Because I know there's a lot of people that are like quick, they're like I want to make the money now, right, and I know, as a coach, sometimes that is something that just doesn't happen right away. I mean, they're not making thousands upon thousands of dollars right away, and I think that's where most people get the most discouraged right in the beginning of their career. So, in terms of financial goals, what would you say are realistic financial goals for new talent that are starting out.
18:06 - Danielle Famble (Host) I think the first thing that a new talent should take a look at is where are they currently at, to look realistically and then I think really like the percentage that maybe 1% or 2% maybe not per month but per quarter might be a really great target to hit. So where are you at currently and how can you do just a little bit better per quarter to get you to that 4% per year? And I would also take a look and see things outside of the returns. But what are you doing today? Is it that you need to coach with someone else? Do you need to invest in yourself and your business? Do you need to learn how to use your DAW a little bit better for editing your auditions? Those kinds of things can really help with your bottom line because once you have a little bit more skills in your business, then you're able to use those skills to generate income. But I think, looking at it from where you're currently at, then looking at maybe a one or 2% increase from where you currently are, is incredibly realistic. Yeah.
19:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, and I think also, when you're starting out, you have to be realistic in terms of, like, financial success, what you consider to be financial success and what you're considering to be investment in growing the business, because there are lots of businesses that need to take that time to grow. They need to invest in their product, they need to invest in their marketing, they need to invest in their storefront, right, which? These are all things like what is your product? It's your voice, right? Well, that's your coaching. It's your demos. What is your storefront? That is your website, what is your marketing? All of these things. Have you taken a marketing course? Do you have a mail service? That kind of a thing.
19:49 So, what are you investing? And a lot of it might take more investing than you're getting back in the beginning, and longer time it takes, longer it does, it does. And so I feel as though your financial goals at this point need to be realistic thinking. I have some people saying, well, I want to make $5,000 a month and they're just getting out in voiceover, and I'm not saying that you can't do that, but I'm just saying that until you really start to grow and make those investments.
20:08 I think marketing is a big, big part of that, because you can be a new talent and you can be amazing, but if nobody knows that you exist, right, they can't pay you and so you can't meet those financial goals. And so you've got to really get out there in front of people, and that requires your marketing efforts either direct mails, creating content out there. The quality of your auditions is marketing Exactly, exactly the quality of your studio out there. So there's a lot of things that will go into this in order to help meet your financial goals. And the better you are, the more skilled you are right, the better your product is right, the better you're able to market that product. Then I think the more skilled you are right. The better your product is right, the better you're able to market that product, then I think, the more able you're going to be to meet those financial goals in the end.
20:51 Yeah, absolutely so, for, let's say, talent that have been out there for a while. Is it realistic, do you think, for them to think, oh okay, well, I made six figures last year, I'm going to make six figures this year, year, I'm going to make six figures this year, or I want to increase that by 12% this year. How realistic do you feel that is?
21:08 - Danielle Famble (Host) Oh yeah, I think that's incredibly realistic. I think that really taking a look at where you currently are, or what happened last year versus what you're attempting to do this year, I think that's incredibly realistic and you can go back and you can look at your systems and say, all right, this is what I did. What of it worked? You can look at your systems and say, all right, this is what I did. What have it worked? What things do I need to improve? What maybe should I invest in my business to help get me to that 12% or more return? I think that's incredibly realistic. Also, it does mean that you need to look at the genres that you're working in, yeah, and the market the market that you're working in as well.
21:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, so important. Yeah, don't leave out the fact that you could be. You know, I want to do animation or I want to do character work, whatever that is Right, and you can be an amazing character animation, you know, have a great demo, have a great product out there. However, you've got to figure out where's the market, right? Where's the market at this time? Are there trends in that market? Am I able to reach that market and how am I able to get in front of the eyeballs that can hire for that market and what are they willing to pay Like? That's the part where I think most people they forget. Oh, so now there's a money, right, there's a value put on that on the market. Not that you're not worth a million dollars.
22:23 However, there's a term for it, danielle, and I don't know if I know what it is, but there is a rate out there that is the going rate, right, it's a competitive rate for people that want voices for animation or people that need a commercial voice. There are rates all over the place. Of course, we always say go to the GVAA rate guide, right. But I mean, sometimes the market can't pay that rate, right. That particular client just can't pay it. They don't have the budget for it, and sometimes that's the truth, right? A lot of times we want to say, oh no, I can't do that job. I know what I'm worth and I can't do it for that rate and that's OK, that's your business decision.
22:58 But don't dismiss that sometimes clients literally don't have it in their budget to pay that value, and then that's a decision that you make, right? Whether you want to accept that, to do that maybe below your rate or not. And I'm not saying you should do that for everything. But there is a value. There is a value that the companies put on it and they will have budgets. I mean, people have budgets for a reason. So you have to be considerate of the company and not just be angry at the company if they can't meet your budget.
23:28 You know, I think a lot of times we tend to so quickly dismiss and say, well, they're not paying me what I'm worth, and so therefore and yeah, I say, if that's your decision, that gives you time to go find somebody who will pay you what you're worth. But sometimes understand that it is possible that the company doesn't have the budget at this moment Doesn't mean that they won't have the budget in the future, or that you can't work on that in the future. So yeah, just a thought Wow, good stuff, danielle, wow.
23:54 - Danielle Famble (Host) Yeah, that's a really good discussion. I think that talking about goals is incredibly important, not just about the financial goals, but the inputs to your goals as well, because that can just be general business goals, life goals. Once you learn how to do this in one aspect of your life, you can really move it to other aspects of your life. Oh yeah absolutely, absolutely.
24:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) All right. Bosses Love this conversation. Danielle Can't wait for our next one. I'm going to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You, too, can connect and network and make money like bosses like Danielle and myself. Find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week and go out there and let's set some financial goals and meet them. We will see you guys next week. Bye, bye.
24:38 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast-to-coast connectivity via IPDTL.