BOSSes, Anne Ganguzza and Tom Dheere dive into a lively and often debated topic for voiceover professionals: industry awards. Prompted by Anne's multiple Award nominations, they explore whether these accolades are simply vanity projects or powerful marketing tools. This episode delves into evolving perspectives on awards, the true meaning of a nomination, and practical strategies for leveraging any recognition to propel your voiceover business forward. They emphasize understanding the subjective nature of awards and how to use them for credibility, even beyond winning.
00:40 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with real boss, Tom Dheere. Woo-hoo, hi, Tom Dheere. I feel like there's pomp and circumstance for you, Tom Dheere, because it's that season again. Do you know what season it is? Deer season.
01:00 - Tom (Guest) Get it Tom Dheere, Deer season oh my God, that is really funny actually. That was terrible. It was not funny.
01:04 - Anne (Host) Well, okay, in addition to being deer season, right, it's award season. Woo-hoo, that's right it is award season. And I know there's always there's always always discussions about awards, and I've had discussions about awards before. I think we've probably talked about them before, but let's talk about them again, shall we? Because I think it's an ever-evolving thing and there are some people who are really for awards and some people who really detest awards.
01:32 - Tom (Guest) Yes, the reason why we're having this conversation, Anne, is because you got nominated for how many One Voice Awards.
01:41 - Anne (Host) Five why,thank you.
01:43 - Tom (Guest) Yes.
01:43 - Anne (Host) Why, thank you.
01:46 - Tom (Guest) I'm very excited about that. Wow, this is exciting and it's for all of the amazing work that you have gotten out of your students.
01:54 - Anne (Host) Yeah, for demos.
01:55 - Tom (Guest) That's amazing. Congratulations to you and all of your students. I'm very excited.
01:59 - Anne (Host) Yes, thank you, thank you. I like awards. I am one of those people that I actually endorse awards and I know some people think they're a vanity thing and in reality, for me it's always been about the marketing aspect. Tom, what are your thoughts?
02:15 - Tom (Guest) I used to be part of the anti-awards crew. I thought it was an exercise in vanity. I thought it was a money grab by the voiceover organizations that were hosting the awards, and my thoughts have evolved on the subject. Okay, I'd love to hear that. Well, I really do see now that it is truly a marketing tool and that is okay. All awards in all industries, from the Oscars all the way down to, you know, dog Catcher of the Year, these are all marketing. It's all about marketing. Is it about recognition? Yes. Is it a celebration of the industry in question? Yes. Is it to shine a spotlight on excellence, either from an individual or a group of individuals or a company, or whatever? Yes, is it to shine a spotlight on excellence either from an individual or a group of individuals or a company, or whatever? Yes, all of that is good and it should be supported. Is it an exercise of vanity? Yeah, sure, it's okay. There's nothing wrong with wanting to get dressed up and have people applaud you. There's nothing wrong with that, it's totally cool, it's totally cool.
03:22 - Anne (Host) Any excuse to get dressed up.
03:24 - Tom (Guest) Well, especially as voice actors who are stuck in closets in our pajamas all day,
03:27 - Anne (Host) Exactly exactly.
03:28 For me, it's always been marketing. First, because we have this whole conversation that awards are subjective. Right, I watch the awards, I watch the music awards, I watch the Emmys, the Oscars, I watch them all. Some people just they have so much to say about the awards, but honestly, I enjoy them if there's entertainment involved and I actually feel like it's wonderful when people get recognition that I feel deserve recognition. But of course, there's always the times where you're like I don't know how that person won or I don't know how that person didn't win, and so it is so very subjective and I think, first and foremost, we all need to remember that that is a fact. Right, it is very subjective and if you do not win an award, it has no bearing whatsoever on your worth or your quality at all, absolutely.
04:17 - Tom (Guest) It's interesting because the prism that most people look through all awards through is the Oscars. Right, and it's like Billy Crystal said it's an evening for three hours where millionaires are handing each other gold statues, which is pretty funny and accurate. But here's the thing I just realized about all this is that if you are a member of the Academy the Film Academy and you get your screeners, you know that Daniel Day-Lewis is up for best actor and you're watching the movie, or whatever excerpts of the movie that they sent you for you to cast your vote for him or somebody else.
04:50 - Anne (Host) Right or anybody else in any other category, or if you're not a voter right, you're a person going. Oh, hmm, somebody thinks that movie's credible, maybe I'll go see it. Guess what that resulted in Purchasing right, purchasing right, purchasing a ticket to go see that movie. So marketing, it worked, so marketing.
05:05 - Tom (Guest) But here's the interesting Anne that I just realized when it comes to the One Voice Awards which we both got, I got nominated for a little one, just one, yay, congratulations.
05:13 - Anne (Host) Tom Dheere.
05:13 - Tom (Guest) The commercial category.
05:14 - Anne (Host) Oh, that's right. That's right, Tom, that's awesome.
05:25 - Tom (Guest) So for your performance, but it's really nice. It's just being like, hey. But here's the thing about it is that when you submit, it's my understanding that when they listen to these demos that you help produce or these voiceovers that I did, they don't know who they're listening to.
05:41 - Anne (Host) Yeah, theoretically.
05:43 - Tom (Guest) So it's theoretically, I mean.
05:44 - Anne (Host) In a closed industry. Sometimes, like I know Tom De're listening to yeah, theoretically, so it's theoretically, I mean In a closed industry. Sometimes, like I know Tom Dheere voice.
05:48 - Tom (Guest) Well, that's exactly what I was about to say. I would like if there were three or four or five, if there were five people who were listening to these, I think that maybe two or three of them would probably be like that's Tom.
05:58 - Anne (Host) Yeah, yeah, yeah, but they don't talk to one another.
06:01 - Tom (Guest) But they don't talk to one other so it's generally anonymous and it's generally done in isolation.
06:06 - Anne (Host) I can say that for certain because I've been a judge prior.
06:09 - Tom (Guest) Right, oh, okay, so.
06:10 - Anne (Host) I can say for certain that it is closed and that you do not know who the entry is. You don't know who submitted it, right, and it's isolated.
06:18 - Tom (Guest) So for the five lovely voice actors whose demos were nominated that you produced. They didn't know who they were and they didn't know that necessarily that it was you that produced it. I mean, after a while, if you listen to enough demos, you can be like that's a Chuck Duran demo, that's a Nancy Wolfson demo because there's just like styles, there's styles you know what I mean, but for the most part they're not going to know who these voice actors are, who are nominated for any of these or for the demo.
06:43 So I think it's more of a pure. There's a level of purity in it that there isn't in the Oscars, for example.
06:48 - Anne (Host) Yeah, there's a combination for that particular category of not just the demo but the performance in the demo and hopefully, if you have created that demo and produced that demo, that has lent itself to a wonderful performance. And just being nominated, I want to say to anybody out there, just being nominated is a win. It doesn't matter, honestly, if I win, and I've been entering awards for years now. There's been many, many years where I didn't win and so I have to like always talk to myself and talk to my students to make sure that if I don't win it doesn't mean that I'm not worthy, it doesn't mean that that nomination wasn't really a win, because you can still believe it or not, you can market a nomination just like a win.
07:28 - Tom (Guest) Absolutely, and the Oscars— it sounds pretty darn similar. The Oscars do it all the time.
07:32 - Anne (Host) Mm-hmm. Award-nominated versus award-winning.
07:35 - Tom (Guest) Right. Did you ever watch the Secret Life of Walter Mitty?
07:38 - Anne (Host) That's the one that Ben Affleck wrote, and directed and starred in.
07:42 - Tom (Guest) I thought that movie was exceptional and I swore I was going to get all these nominations. It didn't get a one.
07:48 - Anne (Host) And.
07:49 - Tom (Guest) I don't know if it's because they didn't think it was off to snuff, if it was too past the deadline, or if they just chose not to submit it, because that's the other thing. We choose to submit ourselves for these awards. Now for actors in Broadway and television and film. They have their production companies or networks or whatever deciding to do these. Oh, we think these people have the best chance and they still have to pay submission fees as well, application fees for the nominations, just like any other nomination, which I think is-.
08:16 - Anne (Host) Well, there's a cost to running an award show. There's a cost to having people judge the awards. There's a cost for people's time, absolutely. So paying to enter yourself into an awards is. I don't find anything necessarily wrong about that.
08:33 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) No.
08:33 - Tom (Guest) Maybe how much you pay, I don't know I mean if it's a for-profit scheme, then you know, okay, I mean people who organize awards. Should they or do they deserve to make a profit, Like I don't know if, like the Oscars, if that's a nonprofit situation where they don't make any money off of it, they just want to celebrate the industry and recognize people for it, and they don't make a dime. And they make the fees just enough to cover the cost to produce the show and print and, you know, make the gold statues.
08:59 - Anne (Host) Well, it becomes a marketing effort for the venue. It becomes a marketing effort for the people who put stuff in the swag bags. It becomes a marketing effort for so many things really. And it's like it's not always obvious, but in reality it really does lend itself to marketing quite a bit.
09:17 - Tom (Guest) One of the other questions. One of the anti-award swath of the voiceover industry says winning award isn't going to book you more work. And for the Oscars? We know that's not true, because when actors or actresses win an Oscar, they get a lot more scripts on their desk. They've all said that they just get more acting opportunities. So in that context it's 100% true. Is it true for voice actors? I'd say it probably isn't, because your typical explainer video production company has never heard of the One Voice Awards. But that's not the reason that you do it. But yeah.
09:52 - Anne (Host) However, let's just go beyond it, because if you market yourself as an award-nominated voice actor or an award-winning voice actor, right, if somebody happens to find you or find your website, right, it lends some credibility. I believe it lends some credibility to who you are. So if I'm a person and I don't know the voices and I have two equal voices that I like if I see that one has won an award or has a history of winning awards or being nominated for awards, I'm going to feel like, oh, maybe they've been in business a little bit longer, maybe they're considered by others to be top of their field, and so I would maybe sway toward an award nominated or award winning. And again, it really depends on how people, given equal circumstances, award winning, award nominated versus maybe not.
10:42 - Tom (Guest) I think that's a very fair point. Now, where my mind was going where Tom Dheere, the VO strategist, business and marketing guy, was going is what's the SEO value of?
10:53 - Anne (Host) the terms award-winning.
10:55 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) Like how is that what's the?
10:56 - Tom (Guest) score. Yeah, what's the keyword score? You know what I mean. So actually, I want to make a note of that. I want to look that up when we get off of this.
11:03 - Anne (Host) I'll tell you, when I look for a company to purchase from right, what's the criteria? I want to make sure that that company's been in business for a while. I want to make sure that they put out a quality product and I want to know that there's testimonials of other people who have used that product that are actually saying yes, it helped me, it was wonderful, it was quick and painless. And think about that. This could be right. Anybody who might have won an award and has testimonials on their website. Right, If you've award winning, then that gives it a little bit of credibility that maybe other people have listened to this person. They're definitely a professional in the industry, right? You don't submit for an award unless you're a professional, so sometimes you just don't know who you're working with. It can help people, I think, to get to know you a little bit better, or really, I think, put that credibility forward first when people are making a buying decision.
11:58 - Tom (Guest) Yeah, I mean, and now that I'm thinking about it as we're talking about it, what's a better testimonial than an award nomination? Right, yeah, I mean, and now that I'm thinking about it as we're talking about it, what's a better testimonial than an award nomination?
12:04 - Anne (Host) Right, yeah, I mean really.
12:06 - Tom (Guest) Right, what's a better endorsement?
12:07 - Anne (Host) That was kind of my point right, it's a wonderful way. So if I buy because of they've been in business, they're not going to just go out of business and take my money and steal it. They're credible, right? They have a good product, right? Well, if they're award nominated, award-winning, that lends me to think that when I look for a beauty product, hello, I'm going to go back to you know award-winning award-winning formulas.
12:28 If I have no knowledge whatsoever of the product, right, I'm going to tend to look there first and after I look there, right, I'm going to look for it. Actually, if I do my shopping on Amazon or I do shopping on anything, right, I'm looking for the number of stars, the ratings, right, A lot of times they go hand in hand. Right Ratings and reviews.
12:46 Ratings and reviews and so award nominated best beauty product of 2024 by Elle magazine, that kind of thing. That kind of means something to me. I'm like, well, somebody did their research right and so therefore, if it's talking about a voice talent that's award-nominated and award-winning, I would feel like, oh okay, maybe there's some credibility there. Now I can go ahead and listen. Let me listen to the voice and see if it's something that I want.
13:10 - Tom (Guest) Yeah, yeah. And of course the capitalist in me thinks oh and if you're an award-winning voice actor, maybe you can charge more.
13:18 - Anne (Host) Well, I right, that's very true, but I also know like if people come to me for a demo, right, they're like I want to win an award. I always try to say to them well, that shouldn't be like I really have people say that to me.
13:28 That shouldn't be the goal. However, they're like I want an award-winning demo. What are they saying to me? They're saying to me that they want the absolute best demo that is valued by the community or valued by others in the community. So they want a valuable product. That's what they're saying to me and I'll kind of say, well, okay, I don't design demos to win an award. However, I want to design a demo to get you work right and if it wins an award, that's a great bonus. And they're like yeah, I know, but I still want an award winning right? People will say that to me, so it's kind of human nature, I think, to want to lean toward a product that is award-winning.
14:05 - Tom (Guest) Right, Because nobody says I want to eat something that's been not approved by the FDA. Yeah right, Exactly, I will never. I will eat at no restaurant that's ever won a Michelin star. I refuse, it's like no, that's ridiculous.
14:17 - Anne (Host) Because it's not just the recognition, it's what the recognition represents. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely so. For me that's where the awards have always sat and I did have issues for years until I explained to my students who I said I think you should enter this into the awards. I will always say, hey look, I think it's an award worthy product, right. And so they're like oh really, and that gives them like a sense of worth or a sense of like pride. Hopefully I wouldn't say it if I didn't think it had a chance of getting some recognition.
14:52 So if I say that to someone, then I've given them a sense of accomplishment, I'm giving them confidence in their product so that they can then represent themselves and sell it better, and that's basically how that'll work. But I will always explain to them look, if you do not win, remember awards are very, very subjective. There have been some amazing, just like there have been some amazing movies that didn't win the best picture of the year. There have been some amazing actors that have not won best actor or best actress, and so you know, you have to really make yourself aware, even though in your heart you might be disappointed if you don't win right or don't get nominated. But you do have to realize that it is very, very subjective especially if you've got an award show that it doesn't cost anything to enter. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. You're not losing out on anything really by submitting.
15:46 - Tom (Guest) I mean, take a chance. It's like playing the lottery, right. Take a chance, Absolutely. So, with all that in mind, what do you do from a marketing stance? And I've got my own ideas too, about how we could tell VO bosses. You've got a thing, whether it's a spot that I did for a college or if there's a demo that you produce with a student.
15:59 - Anne (Host) What are the?
16:00 - Tom (Guest) steps to use it, to use the award, nomination and hopefully the win, as a marketing tool.
16:05 - Anne (Host) Well, absolutely put it on your website right.
16:08 Absolutely throw it on YouTube, put it on your website. Label it as being award nominated, award winning, like. Make sure the text is in there, because that's SEO value. Make sure that it's on your website, make sure that it's on every single profile, make sure that it's in every single description, make sure that it's literally like SEO optimized. And then make sure that wherever you're describing it as an award nominated, right, award winning entry or whatever that might be, make sure that you're also giving information about the industry that you're in best performance voice actor, corporate narration, right or whatever, or best performance demo, reel, animation so it then allocates the other words that are important. So when people are searching for animation, voice, right and then all of a sudden, this will come up, as I'm so excited that my award-winning entry or award-nominated entry or whatever if something comes up or shows up in their search, that's going to lend its credibility and also hopefully lead to your website so that they can then inquire further or get an audition from you or find out more and contact you.
17:14 - Tom (Guest) Yes, I'll layer on top of that, like, for example, when I found out I got my One Voice nomination, I wrote a blog about it.
17:22 - Anne (Host) Yep, that's wonderful.
17:24 - Tom (Guest) So what that does is a number of things. Every time that you write a blog, you publish a blog, it adds another page to your website and All of the content on that particular website is saying voice over, this voice acting, that voice talent, this voice artist, that. So it's got all of the keywords that would further enrich the search engine optimization of your website, to make it more searchable and for it to rank higher. So just writing about it is extremely important on a technical SEO level. However, you don't want to turn it into a self-aggrandizing. Oh, look at me. It could be about a number of things.
18:05 - Anne (Host) It could be about the company that created the one voice in this situation, or about the company that you voiced for.
18:11 - Tom (Guest) Or about the company that you voiced for exactly. So a couple years ago I got a one voice nomination for a public service announcement I did for the Humane Society. Remember those 4,000 beagles were rescued from a lab in Virginia. A few years ago.
18:25 And then the American Humane Society got all 4,000 beagles adopted. So I auditioned and booked the voiceover for the public service announcement announcing that all 4,000 beagles were adopted. So when I blogged a few years ago back then about hey, I got this award nomination, it wasn't about the award, it wasn't about the nomination, it wasn't about me, it was about bringing awareness, it was about the beagle puppies. That's what it was about. I made it about the puppies.
18:53 - Anne (Host) And that's wonderful, because what's a better draw than animals, your fur babies, right?
18:59 - Tom (Guest) Yes.
19:02 - Anne (Host) Which is I lead all my award nominations with my cats there you go.
19:04 But that's an actual great idea, like somehow, let's just say, my Bengal Manx mix Sebastian, who everybody's gotten to know because they have their own Facebook and Instagram and TikTok right. So we could just say, oh, they're in my studio listening and then all of a sudden you can silently incorporate or just in the back end, incorporate that performance or that particular working on a demo for blah blah, blah blah blah For me on my website, because I advertise that I do demo production. Under the demo page, the landing page, I have all the awards and nominations that I've ever done and received, and for the VO Boss, because we've won awards for the VO Boss podcast and nominations. I also have it on my VO Boss website as well, as well as writing a blog on VO Boss about it. So absolutely trying to garner an award-winning podcast.
19:49 - Tom (Guest) Yeah, the other thing that I do is I make sure that I reached out to the production company that cast me for it, so my nomination this time was for North Idaho. College just a real tiny, tiny little postage stamp-sized college in the Northwest of our country and that one got nominated and it's a great. It's a great ad. It's beautifully shot, the editing is just superb. The music is perfect. You know, I'm probably the worst thing about the whole thing.
20:16 - Anne (Host) I love how generous you are. I think that's the way you need to approach it. They could just break apart and say it's your voice, but in reality, when you're presenting a product or a piece for an award, it's the whole darn shebang. If you think about it, that helps with that presentation. It's the media, the music behind it, the voice. It's all like a beautiful symphony in reality.
20:36 And so paying it forward and having gratitude for the other parts of it that helped you to win that award or that nomination, I think is a wonderful way to not appear to make it like a vanity thing, because you're showing appreciation for all of the components that help make it happen. I mean, whenever I make an announcement by the way, the other thing that I do to market is on social media, right so I'm highlighting the demo clients of mine that their voice has been nominated, and I'm also giving thanks to my audio engineer and in reality, it's like I could not have done it without you, to be quite honest, and so that then lends it to be a little less vanity ridden or sounding, I should say.
21:16 - Tom (Guest) Right, I mean in the Oscar Awards, do they go up there, accept the award, thank themselves and then get off the stage?
21:21 - Anne (Host) No, they're always thanking the people that helped them make it possible, really Exactly Also just from a technical and SEO perspective.
21:28 - Tom (Guest) Another reason why I like to let the production company know is because now they have the opportunity to use this nomination as marketing fodder for their own campaigns on their website and social media and newsletters and things like that.
21:43 So it's just paying it forward also on a marketing level. So the production company just has because all the voice seekers are as desperate to come up with quality content to put on their website and social media and their communications as us voice actors are. So to give them saying, hey, here's a free nugget of marketing gold that you can go do something with it helps everybody.
22:05 - Anne (Host) Absolutely. I actually got a statue. I got one of the awards for one of my partners on the podcast and shipped it. When I won this podcast I'm trying to think a couple years ago I also ordered an award for the person that I interviewed on that show and I shipped it, and that was actually for Alex Srdjak from Respeecher, so I shipped it to. Ukraine.
22:27 So I literally and that's how grateful I was. And it was really cool because when he received it, of course, what did he do? He took a picture of it with him, right, and then he used it for his own marketing, which I thought was really wonderful. So it kind of was like it all works for everybody involved.
22:42 - Tom (Guest) See, haters. There are so many great things about a voiceover award nomination and a win. There's so many great things that you can do, not just for yourself, but for the people that made the nomination possible.
22:53 - Anne (Host) Absolutely. You know what do you say to the haters? I mean you don't have to enter and you don't have to watch. I mean you don't have to enter and you don't have to watch awards and you don't have to participate. If you don't agree with it, that's completely fine. It's completely fine in reality, but for those that do, there's value to it beyond the award. Really, it's beyond the award and, like I said, even if you don't get nominated, if your coach or somebody says you should submit that for an award, consider that a win. Really. If you have a colleague that listens to this and say, oh my God, that was amazing, you should submit that. Right, there is an award for confidence, for somebody believing in you and believing in your work and thinking that it is worthy of an award, and that, to me, is a win right there.
23:36 - Tom (Guest) Absolutely.
23:37 - Anne (Host) So good stuff. Tom Dheere, Congrats on your noms.
23:42 - Tom (Guest) Congrats on your noms.
23:43 - Anne (Host) Yeah, thank you. And bosses out there, utilize this for good, for marketing efforts. And even if you just want to submit your work to your colleague and say, what do you think right, consider that your award submission for a job well done. And if you don't win, don't let it affect you. It has nothing to do with your worthiness, with your performance. It basically is something that you know. What if you don't win, try, try again. What is it If you don't?
24:09 - Tom (Guest) If at first you don't succeed try, try again.
24:12 - Anne (Host) Well, yeah, well, if you don't win, try, try again. That's what I say. I always think there's something good in a little bit of competition, right? That keeps us motivated and keeps us inspired to want to be better and do better. So allow that to help you further your career. So, whether or not you win an award, allow it to inspire and motivate you. So good stuff. All right, Tom, thank you so much. I'm gonna give a great big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can connect and be award-winning bosses. Find out more at IPDTLcom. Tom, thank you so much, and bosses have an amazing week.
24:54 - Speaker 2 (Announcement) We'll see you next time. Bye, 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.