Anne Ganguzza sits down with Rolf Veldman, CEO of Voice123, for a riveting discussion on navigating pay-to-play platforms amidst the shifts brought on by disruptive technology. Anne and Rolf go in-depth on pay to plays, social media, and the opportunities and challenges that voice professionals need to navigate. They discuss the complex algorithms that dictate audition opportunities on platforms like Voice123 and the balancing act to make it fair for the different levels of subscribers. As more companies test the validity of AI and synthetic voices, Rolf discusses Voice123's strategic partnerships with specialized companies, highlighting their commitment to protecting voice actors' work through digital fingerprinting. 00:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey guys, Anne Ganguzza here. Imagine a voiceover journey where every step is filled with discovery and growth. That's the path I want to work on with you, through nurturing, coaching and creative demo production. Let's unveil the true potential of your voice together. It's not just about the destination, it's about the gorgeous journey getting there. Are you ready to take the first step? Connect with me at Anne Ganguzza dot com. Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss podcast. I'm your host, anne Ganguza, and today I am so excited to have a very special guest, Rolf Veldman, coming from the Netherlands. Rolf, it is so wonderful to have you today.
01:07 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) I'm very happy to be here, Anne.
01:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, for those of you that don't know Rolf, I mean probably everybody knows of you, but Rolf is absolutely a boss who enjoys turning great ideas into great businesses, and I, for one, have been following Rolf for gosh since he stepped into the CEO position, because I like to watch bosses when they work. So Rolf leads a diverse, globally remote team of achievers who are pushing the boundaries of the voiceover industry and maybe pushing the buttons of the voiceover industry too, as we all know and, yes, based in the Netherlands, where I just was, I absolutely love it there. You also like to garden because you live near a national park near the German border, which is awesome.
01:49 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Yeah.
01:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, it's always nice to know those other things besides being, you know, the CEO of one of the largest online pay-to-plays that you also like to garden. I love it.
01:59 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) No, I don't want to say it as my main hobby, but like I'm sitting here in my office but I tend to take my laptop downstairs and then, when it's sunny out, I sit in the garden dogs around me like couldn't make me happier with that.
02:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Love it and it's so beautiful. The country is just beautiful.
02:16 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) I don't know exactly where you are, but every part of it that I visited I just absolutely loved.
02:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I mean, it's tiny, You're through it in a heartbeat Right, but you're close to everything else.
02:21 I feel so that's what's so cool about it. Well, Rolf, I know we have a little bit of time not too much time and I know that there are, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, there are two things typically that people want to know with pay-to-plays, right, they all want to know about the algorithm and they all want to know about AI. And so start me off by telling me first how, since you've come in to be at Voice123, how the industry has evolved and how Voice123 has evolved.
02:52 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) I mean that question alone could be two hours. I guess I know right, Because a lot has changed already. I know that AI was already there from the beginning, but since we'll get to that later, I think the main difference is is in the last five to six years because I joined in 2018 the audio part of advertising has exploded. The fact that we're doing podcasts now and not radio, I mean it's open doors to kick in, but so many people are consuming content on their phone by audio more and more and more, like audiobooks have skyrocketed. So many of these industries that voice actors are part of have been growing tremendously and as part of that, also the number of people who want to be in voiceover. So it's been an explosive amount of people coming into the industry. And when new people come into the industry, that changes things all the way from how you offer your services to how relevant certain companies become.
03:44 Like I felt the last five years, and even now, Voice on 3 is constantly at risk of being replaced. We might be here for the last 20 years, but how do we stay relevant? So our goal is always to stay at the core of what we do. In the core of what we do is we want to make sure that voice actors and their clients they build great relationships don't get in the way like that's sort of our vision of what our role is in the voiceover industry. By staying close to that, I think we're still very much a relevant player and it's still a popular place for people to find each other and do VO.
04:11 But especially the amount of people that came in and the type of work that has changed the last couple of years has been wow. Like, just to build on that, like we have a search bar in Voice on 3 where you can see where clients type in keywords what they're looking for and you can see trends that used to last maybe six months or nine months in terms of style of voiceover or popular niche. They now change week over week. Really depends on what is hot on TikTok or Instagram. Advertisers jump on it straight away and you see that reflected in how people are getting booked on Voice on 3. Like the space, part of it has changed.
04:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You know, what's so interesting is that we talk in our industry. We're like, okay, what are people looking for? And we go to these workshops with casting directors and we say, okay, what are people looking for? But what's so interesting is that you have a really good idea of what people are looking for, and I think that voice actors sometimes we have a narrow view right of what do we need to do to. First of all, you mentioned the word relevant, which I think is so important, not just for your business, but so important for us to remain relevant and to be able to deliver products that our clients are looking for. And you have a great idea of what people are looking for.
05:19 So, bosses, listen up. I mean, rolf is kind of the guy that has a really good idea of what trends are happening, what people are looking for in the online space and maybe just in general, right, because there are so many people now that are seeking voice talent online as opposed to going through agents. And so the people that go through agents, right, think about, in the United States, agencies and talent agents that book commercials, promos, those types of things that are broadcast. Well, you probably get pretty much. Well, you get some of that, and I'm sure that you get quite a bit of all the other non-broadcast stuff too, and that's where we as an industry right.
05:59 We don't always know what are people looking for. People constantly ask when I'm coaching them what do people look for? What are people looking for for corporate narration? What are people looking for? People constantly ask when I'm coaching them what do people look for? What are people looking for for a corporate narration? What are people looking for for e-learning and that sort of thing? So I love that you, number one, said that you need to remain relevant, because we also, as bosses, need to do that, and also you can tell us a little bit more about trends that are happening.
06:19 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Yeah, there's so much we can zoom in, but let me start with some fundamentals.
06:22 That I think that people sometimes underestimate is that while maybe, as a voice actor, you are nervous because you have to audition and you have to start this relationship, on the other side is a person that's often in the same place. Most people don't know vo and most people are either creating a video or an ad and then voice over is just the other thing that they do. So so they come in with especially new clients. They come in with complete misunderstandings of how this industry works and what they're looking for is almost like handholding, and not from us but from you. Like we see that the people that are most successful on voice on the three actually spend a great deal in being very consistent in their communication, like being almost like your own customer support agent, and that you're very crystal clear in what your availability is, how you respond to these clients, because most clients are afraid of two things Bad studio quality, which is still number one problem for a lot of people who book voiceover. That there are still many, many people who record via the phone.
07:23 And that you can stand out by just having your environment checked and being sure that you have a fair minimum on that one and again you beat out 80% of the people on places like voice on the 3 and voices in other places just by doing that.
07:35 The other one is that first contact point, and that first contact point is all about that customer relationship and being welcoming, being helpfully trustworthy towards the other side.
07:45 A lot of voice actors not a lot, but some voice actors come at it with a lot of distrust with the first message is the list of demands, and we see that they don't succeed so well If the first interaction is a question or a welcome. We see that just those messagings are so important on a digital space, because the difference between going online and going through an agency is if you want to work with an agent, most likely what the end client wants is an experience, the experience of doing the ad and going to a studio and look at us, we're doing the real thing, like people are just people. They go to work, they want to experience their own little piece of hollywood. That's what you get by an agent. But on casting sites there's a lot of people that have a deadline, they want to meet it and I want to make it a joyful experience. So they want to collaborate. So if you start from collaboration, you have so much of an advantage.
08:30 Then there's two other things that I think are trends.
08:33 The other one is the pandemic has changed or accelerated the amount of people who want to turn their content into audio.
08:43 One of our fastest growing clients on Voice on 3 is universities and colleges, because they used to give in-class lessons, but they took what's left of the pandemic and basically turned every course into an e-learning course as well, just on the side or as a way to get back to it. So that's a fast growing segment of voiceover. And the other one is that more and more clients know that they have to stand out, but they also have to be consistent in their messaging, so they want to work exclusively with one or two voices that represents their whole brand. That used to be like Coca-Cola has a celebrity. Now, even on a midsize and lower size companies, they want to have a consistent voice and they want to work with that same person. And that means that you as a voice actor need to be more versatile. You need to not just do specializing the commercial side of it, but be available for maybe some of the in-house aspects that that company wants to do.
09:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, I like that A couple of interesting things. I like that, yeah, a lot, and one thing I've always liked about Voice123 is that you basically allow us to nurture that relationship with the client. You don't get into it, you don't do any managed sort of projects that I know of, unless that's something that you're thinking of doing or is that, yeah.
09:50 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) So the whole fundamental aspect of Voice on the 3 is we know that we succeed if the voice actors succeed. We know that the only way to succeed as a voice actor is if you can turn a client into a returning client.
10:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes.
10:01 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Right.
10:02 So, for that. We need to make it an open space Like we would love to build the perfect features for everybody to do everything on Voice on the 3, but we know that people work in their own way, so we will never make it forced to stay on Voice on the 3. People put their emails in their profile. Often the first message is this is my email, let's move over here. Or maybe you've experienced this yourself, but you can see people being contacted on LinkedIn based on an audition they did on Voice123. Oh yeah, absolutely.
10:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I still have a client that I got on Voice123 from ages ago and I wasn't even a member, I was in between memberships and I was on the free. So I still have one client that I've retained through that relationship and I love that. You brought up how important the relationship is and nurturing the relationship and how people online are, yes, absolutely looking for an experience. You're right, there's a lot of companies out there. Well, first of all, they don't know a lot about voiceover, they don't really know how it works, and so it's up to the voice actor to really kind of handhold and take them through that process successfully, and then they have a great chance of that client returning, which is one of the ways that I've been able to stay in business for so long.
11:07 I mean, honestly, I do a lot of things Everybody that knows me, I do this podcast, I do a bunch of other things and so I'm very fortunate that I have a lot of returning clients and that's how my business is maintained and that's an important thing these days, especially when economies shift and they go up and down, and so it's really important to have those clients that keep returning and know that there's a lot of successful people utilizing Voice123 that have been able to do that.
11:32 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) And there's a position of strength that you have as a voice actor is that you have the word actor or artist in your name, which immediately creates awe. Like every time I talk to you or any kind of voice actor or professionals, I always feel that I'm exposed to my own incompetencies, like I cannot do what you do. You're the one in the booth, you're the one who can act. Most companies have tried this with somebody in-house and then suddenly you record. It's such a massive difference. So you, you come in as an expert, so it's okay to then guide the client in the process to a certain of course.
12:03 Of course there's always the client, the agency, the production houses that roll out a lot of ads and a lot of videos. Those are also good relationships, but those are relationships you manage differently. That's more about being available. You let them know that, okay, I'm available. My reply time is like 10 minutes. Well, for another type of client where you can see this is the end user or the people who are actually going to make the ad themselves. That's where you are the professional. So you have to know those tiny nuances and how you portray yourself in that relationship. I think are fundamental.
12:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So I think all of this is wonderful and great, but the one thing I know that are on the boss's minds right now are so how do I book that? What would you recommend that I do? How do I get the jobs to my inbox right? And that's controlled by something called an algorithm, which is probably the one big main point of dispute on every pay-to-play, not just voice one, two, three right, like what's the algorithm? Because you're getting the jobs and then somehow there needs to be a method to distribute those jobs equally amongst your members, and then there's different membership levels. So explain a little bit about how that works.
13:08 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Yeah.
13:08 So it came from a very practical problem that we basically got too big.
13:12 So the algorithm is basically a fancy word for a decision process and it's very straightforward where a client posts a project and if it's US, english, female, like, you're still in a group, but as soon as it's male, you're no longer in the group, right.
13:25 So there's a couple of basic requirements of who you are as a person and what your services are, and then we go into the next stage where our goal is to get the client the most relevant auditions for their project right. So what we do is we invite the first group of people, and in that first group of people are a mix of people with good performance scores and with memberships. So if you pay the highest tier, you're stepping up compared to the lowest tier. We control the highest tier, otherwise it would be a monopoly but basically it's a mix of what you pay and then there is the ranking score, as we call it, and that is based on the client's feedback, whether a client books you from a job or likes you in the process of auditioning. That's what we take back and we use the last year's worth of data for that and that makes your score fluctuate.
14:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So it's a whole year's worth of data. So, how do you convince your client or your potential client to rate you? I guess that's a question, right, because some clients are just they're not going to bother with the rating, right? Yeah?
14:24 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) no, that's the flaw in the system, right? Ideally, every client that comes through we tell them let us know who you work with, but, as you know, most clients don't use us that way. Only like 40% of the work goes through the auditions. The other half is a mix of what happens on our search or on landing pages that are separately, because you can also just go through our directory.
14:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, right, right, and then they can contact separately.
14:47 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) So all we know is from the audition, and in the past we've tried to force the client to close the project. Let us know who won or force the client to close the project Let us know who won or force the client to book a project, but all it did was scare the clients away and they don't want to use us anymore. We have to keep that open because we also want to keep the platform open, because if we make booking, Difficult.
15:07 Yeah, if we make it too forceful for you, then we become a middleman. We don't want to be a middleman, so we have to balance the fact that we don't want to collect that much information. We have to have enough information to know that it's relevant. So there's a flaw in the system that not every client likes all the proposals. That's why voice actors can now tell us hey, I got booked through this job and that counts also to your algorithm. But yeah, it's a fundamental issue in the algorithm Over a year's worth of data. That works and I have to think in big numbers, right, because we have about 120,000 active voice actors on a platform. So for 100,000, that works. But every now and then people fall off the edge and then we have to make sure that they don't waste their money on a membership. So that's why we're constantly tweaking the algorithm to make it better.
15:49 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right, I was going to say. So what percentage? Or is this the percentage that changes is based on the feedback score, because I think the feedback score for most people is obviously it's the most variable, right? So when I make a decision to join Voice123, I have how many different membership tiers? I want to say eight or something, yeah, eight tiers to choose from. So do I pay you more money? And then how do I know, and you know what? I mean, how do I know which tier to pick?
16:15 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) I know, and you know what.
16:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I mean Like how do I know which tier to pick?
16:13 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Yeah, so that's why we try to show you like in which market you're competing. One of the reasons we have the extra tiers is that we operate in every country, but like North Korea and some other sanctioned countries. So in a marketplace like the Netherlands, where I'm from, vo is not that big and we don't get a lot of jobs for Dutch people on Voice on 3, but enough and we have enough voice actors, so those people pay a lower tier In the US, which is very competitive if Voice on 3 is your only casting site that you go on, I would suggest paying a higher membership.
16:45 If Voice on 3 is something that you have on the site or that you partly work on and you work on other casting sites as well and you have agents, I wouldn't necessarily recommend a higher membership tier because throughout the year you get enough auditions and you have to be very selective about them, and you get enough direct messages to pay for itself.
17:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So I think what most people don't think about and you just pointed it out to me actually is that because it's global and because of the availability of the different jobs that come in, right, I think a lot of people maybe I can speak for people in the US they're like well, if I pay more, I should get more opportunities and I should be able to book more, but that's not always the way, because we don't want people who our clients consistently tell us not good to pay their way to the top. Got it.
17:29 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) But we also know, if you pay a little bit more for a membership you get very into voice on the dream. So they become very active. That's very good for us as well, because that means clients get fast additions. There's multiple aspects to it.
17:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, and this is a part that I never thought about and I'm so glad that you're bringing it up because you know, I think that with a better understanding of how Voice123 works, we can then as members of Voice123, make an educated decision as to maybe, which membership tier would be best for us and also what sort of issues you face, because there are so many variables in casting. And one thing I'm going to bring up before I let you continue is that I've always maintained that online casting companies pay-to-plays they don't have any accountability necessarily I'm not saying that about you, but I'm saying some of them don't in the fact that where did the job come from, did it get booked and who booked it? Right, and you just brought that up. I mean, you don't always know, the client doesn't always fill it out and the client is sometimes scared Well, maybe not, it's too many steps, right? They just want to be able to get in get their talent cast it Exactly.
18:35 So you've brought up like a fundamental fact that I think a lot of people just they don't think about when they're making that quick decision and they're just saying, well, I pay all this money, I should be getting the auditions, and how am I not ranking? And it's not fair. So I love that you're bringing up all the different sides of how you cast and I think you, especially by coming on this podcast and for the amount of times that I've seen you go, I mean literally put yourself out there at the conferences so that you can explain. I have so much respect for you for that and I thank you for that, Rolf, because that helps us. Do you know what I mean? And it helps me as, look, I recommend you guys all the time to my students and so it helps me really think, yes, I like the way this company operates. I'm on board because you're transparent.
19:17 I really believe you know and I appreciate your transparency with all of these things that we don't think about necessarily as actors, because we're not running that part of your business. We don't know what it takes to put together an algorithm, or we don't always know like what your clients and that's the biggest thing, we don't always know how clients operate, and I'm always telling my students that you know. If you're reaching out to a company directly to say, hey, I'm a voice actor, do you need services? Like, at any given point they may or may not need the service. You know what I mean. And so a direct marketing method is completely different than, let's say, somebody who comes to a pay-to-play because they have a need, Right Direct marketing. You don't know when that need's going to happen. Every company every day doesn't necessarily have a voiceover need, which is crazy.
20:00 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) And I think to bring this back to like you're a boss yourself, like if you do three things half-assed, you're not going to succeed in any of those right. So I would for any starting voice actor, particularly if you're constantly forced between the decision do I go hard for an agent? Do I go hard for these online casting sites or do I go direct marketing? Especially in the beginning. I would tackle them one at a time and even within the casting sites. Being on a casting site like Voice on the 3 or Voices or Badalgo, is so different. You cannot duplicate your profile or your behavior among these companies because they're their own ecosystem. So you have to really spend time to get to know it, because you're spending your marketing budget on these sites. So I would say tackle them one at a time, otherwise you're spread too thin.
20:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I get you, I get you. But I would also say, though, that as you progress and as you advance, and then people will say to me they've been in the business for years and they're like, well, I spent all this money on coaching and demos and a pay to play, and why am I not getting any work? Then I think I'm sorry, but you got to throw the spaghetti up against the wall, right. You've got to get yourself out in front of as many people as you can, and there's multiple marketing methods, and I think that that's what people don't understand. They think it's either putting all your eggs in one basket for pay-to-plays I should be getting work, I'm not getting work. I'm going to make any money in it? I think you really have to explore all the different options of marketing that you have right Direct marketing, pay to plays and, of course, agents and understand the intricacies of each. That is, I think, just as important as keeping your skills up to date, and your performance up to date is understanding the marketing and understanding the market that's out there.
21:33 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Yeah, and understanding your own business, your business's relationship, and you know that you don't nurture a relationship in a day.
21:39 That's months If you're starting out that means that only in your second year or in your third year VO starts to pay off, because then all these people that come back start to compound. So you have to do a lot of the legwork, which is the scary part, especially on, maybe, sites like Voice123, where you feel like I'm auditioning, I'm not getting stuff back like it's working, but there's a patience to it. That's one of the reasons we have yearly memberships. We use them quarterly but we know that, okay, it takes about six to seven months for people who are starting out to get really booked for the first time properly, and actually it takes about two years for people to make about five times their money back. That's what we learned.
22:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's very interesting to know, and I like that you brought up the fact that a relationship doesn't happen overnight. It really does take time to culture that relationship, and so I think that that's important for people to know too is that sometimes they quit too soon, too quickly, before they've given it a chance. So I love all that you've brought up so far. So let's get to the chase and talk about the other area that everybody wants to know, and that is synthetic voices and everybody's feeling very threatened by them, and so talk about Voice123's stance and position on synthetic voices.
22:46 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Yeah, maybe I said this before, but when I joined the company in 2016 and in 2018 I became CEO, it was already my first mission to say okay. The board told me then AI is coming. It's either going to replace us and that's the fear back then Like it's going to replace voice actors and therefore voice one to three. What do we do? My view has shifted the last couple of years and even the last couple of months. Even though AI is everywhere, what I keep coming back to is the thing that we're talking about this entire podcast. It's relationships and the creative aspect. I think AI will do great in any industry to reduce inefficiencies, but it will never replace creative work or never replace art. That's why it's art right. So what our idea has been these last couple of years? We can go in so many directions, but we need to stay at the core and that is, we need to amplify that. You have a relationship with a client.
23:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) How does AI play that role.
23:36 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) We first thought maybe we should build our own AI model. But we realized, okay, that requires its own company and a lot of work. There's geniuses that work everywhere.
23:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I know that from interviewing so many people have realized this over the time.
23:48 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Yeah, so that's not a side thing you do.
23:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, it's not a side hustle.
23:52 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) No. So then we realized, okay, maybe we should partner or acquire a company that does this already. But then we realized, same as with VoiceOver, ai goes into specific niches. So there's a company called Replica Studio they're all into gaming, right. There's a company like Respeech here that's more into movie part of it, and they have speech. And you see all these companies specializing on VO purposes. So we realized, okay, no, we need to instead of thinking about that technology. The technology will be there In two or three years. Anybody can build voiceover technology.
24:23 So, let's wait for that to happen. Let's set up the Voice on the 3 ecosystem in such a way that it is a secure place, because even before AI, voice actors have always been worried about is my audition being used without my permission? Right, are my files being stolen? So we learned from companies like Adobe, who have created all these kind of initiatives, to start stamping and IDing and signing all these different designer files to protect these freelancers. We have decided to sign every piece of audio file that flows through Voice on 2.3. Have decided to sign every piece of audio file that flows through Voice on 2.3. So that we have, like, a history and a protection layer within the system, without it being a watermark that beeps everywhere, but just a layer of protection that you always come back to. And we take basically a three-step approach. We sign every audio, we make it searchable for you in a cloud where you can access all the files that are being signed on Voice on 2.3. And you can check. That's the last part.
25:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So it's digitally signed. Got it All the audio that gets uploaded? Yep, okay.
25:21 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) All the audio, and that includes audio that isn't like.
25:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) This is just all audio additions, yeah.
25:27 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) And samples and everything that flows through the system. We just tag it, say it is found on 1, 2, 3, and it acts like a fingerprint that's unique, which also means that we got to a place, because there's so many samples that we got to ID your voice, so on top of that, we sort of added a Shazam for your voice.
25:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So if I have uploaded stuff to your system, you know that it's mine and you also know that it's voice one, two, three, and if it gets out of your system it is still got that mark on it and it's not audible. It's a digital fingerprint.
25:56 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) That's. I mean you should have done a pitch. That's way faster, yep. The last part of this is that, even if you hear your voice somewhere else and you think this is me, somebody has used my file or I don't recognize it, but you can upload it and then we can say, hey, this is with 95% certainty.
26:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Wow, that's fantastic.
26:12 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) So we thought we need that layer of protection in the system for people to feel safe to start also working on AI, and that's then. The next part is that we have a better life where voice actors who have a relationship with an AI vendor so let's say it's Respeecher, or Replica Studios or Eleven Labs I mean there's 50,000, I shouldn't name them all but if you have a relationship with any of these vendors, then we want to make sure it's available to our clients, in the same way that we let them know that you use SourceConnect. And what we thought would happen is that, okay, we have a version of our search where you type in a script and it automatically generates the audio. If you have an agreement with one of those companies, we thought, okay, they will start buying it. Nobody buys it. Nobody buys the audio file. What is happening is all those generated audio files turn into conversations where the client says I liked your voice in my script, let's work together. So what it is doing is it's creating a new type of audition.
27:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Very interesting.
27:09 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Which I like, which is, for the clients, a fast way to get to know. Does Anne sound good in my script? Yes, okay, let's book Anne and do the real deal outside or inside. It's changing that part.
27:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So they're listening to the AI voice and then saying I want to work with Anne and get her human voice. That's very interesting.
27:31 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Now that sounds almost too good to be true, rolf. Yeah, but so far it's what we see. But so far that's what you're seeing. So I think it's the 90-10 rule I think I mentioned this before where, in the end, ai is going to be part of us in the same way that all these other tools source connect and 10 years ago you had to start having your own home studio. The people who did that first, they pioneered that part of the industry.
27:44 Within the next five years, every voice actor will have an AI model. A client will ask them hey, I've generated 90% of this commercial or this audiobook with your AI. Can you do the last, the last 10? Can you come in for this scene? Or can you come in for this piece or the other way around? Great recording. We're going to do some post-production, maybe change some words. Do you consent to this that I use your ai for this, and so it speeds up those kind of moments? But in the end, people want to work with an and part of an is an's ai voice and we think voice on three's goal. Okay, let's make it the place where that happens. We don't make money on what any of the interactions is between you and the voice actor, like we do now, but let's make sure that this is a safe place where you can give clients access to your AI model in a way that you want to.
28:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So how are you actually giving clients access to? If you have an AI voice, how are you actually giving access to it? Are they able to generate it there on your site or no, they cannot download it. Oh, they can't download it.
28:39 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) They can buy it, and then all the money goes to the voice actor.
28:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Say that again.
28:44 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) All the money goes to the voice actor, okay.
28:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So you're not taking any percentage of that.
28:48 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) No, we add a fee on top of it, but never from it. Okay.
28:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, okay, yeah, and so do we price our voice ourselves.
28:56 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Yeah, it's your rate card. Okay To be honest what I think will happen. We have this debate internally as well, so we're now in a first beta mode of this. Let's say it's six months from now or nine months from now no-transcript. You give them access to your model there and you can see what they're doing to generate it. It's like a logbook of how they generate it. That would be my ideal scenario of how it's getting used, because then you have full control.
29:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And so the talent is creating a rate card for their synthetic voice, then yeah, so let's say, when I create a profile, do I also upload a version of my synthetic voice? How do I make that available?
29:37 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Yeah, right now you can just sign on to. If you go to the Voice on 3 search, it says connect your voice and you can start the process there, got it, and then we'll ask you these questions. But later on, ideally, it becomes part of your signing up. Hey, do you have an AI voice? Yes, what's your rate card? Then go here If you don't access to the client and you can embed this on your own homepage. Right, you can use the same logic on your homepage without showcasing the logo of Voice on the 3.
30:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, wow, that's interesting. So you have an API that allows us to embed it on our own website.
30:09 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) You can already do your playlist of Voice on the 3 on your own website without showcasing Voice on the 3. So, it's the same logic. And then if you connect it with the cloud, where all your files are being stored and being signed, then it's hard to put it into order. But that was the whole six-layered strategy that we have. Okay, let's make sure there's trust. Let's make sure there's enough that we can track everything that's happening.
30:30 Let's make sure that we expose the relationship between the voice actor and the client, and that's sort of the vision that we have for AI.
30:36 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's great. You know, I'd love to meet up again with you in you know a couple of months and have maybe a visual demonstration of this. I think it would be really great. Or if you have a visual demonstration of it. I'd love to link it up in my show notes.
30:47 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) All right, yeah, we'll share something yeah absolutely.
30:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That just sounds very interesting. There's a lot of layers there and there has lot of protection in terms of they can't download the file, but can they have, like I mean there's lots of ways to steal audio.
31:02 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) You know what I mean. That's not AI related, right? It was there before AI and will there be after. That's true.
31:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's true. So there's nothing theoretically, I'm a tech girl, right? So there's nothing stopping anybody from taking our voices from this podcast right now, and making an AI voice out of them. So I just want bosses to be very careful of that. So the one thing about the signing right that you have the digital signing like this is Anne's voice. It came through Voice123. Is that open source technology?
31:26 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Yeah, we're building on existing open source technology.
31:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) OK, because a lot of us voice actors right now we're like, ok, we keep hearing about it, we keep hearing about it. It isn't available to us yet. You know, I would like to have something right now that, even if I'm not a member of Voice123, I can just filter it, put it through and then my voice has a digital signature that later on somebody can tell if that audio or if I become a voice somehow, that they will be able to tell that it was my voice.
31:52 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) I agree. That's the whole idea. Yeah, so, and one of the reasons here we're pivoting more towards this is in part because we're going back to the beginning of this podcast about trends. We see that auditioning becomes less and less popular in the industry. The old school I want 50 auditions and I want to see as many talent as possible. I can see the new generation doesn't really want to do that. The next generation of people who book voiceover. They want to do the direct contact approach. They want to listen to some of your samples and then contact you directly and move it off.
32:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's lovely. That's a really good trend. I like that, Rolf.
32:25 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) I think so too, but it also means for companies like ourselves okay, we have to reinvent ourselves a bit, yeah yeah, yeah, we have to make sure that we're relevant, and that's why we're focusing all about security and tooling, and your algorithm has to change then, too, right?
32:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Because then people searching on your site for a particular style of voice right? How do you get up at the top of that list without necessarily the feedback on any auditions, right? So you have to evolve with that as well. But that direct contact, I like that trend because I can actually see that happening myself outside of pay-to-plays, because it's becoming almost like overwhelming, right. With social media and data out there, it's becoming overwhelming, and I think people that are looking to cast for a voice they want it to be. That's why talent agents are good, because, again, they're a trusted source. They are the ones who like shortlist and say, okay, here you go, and it makes it less overwhelming for the client.
33:17 So you're experiencing that as well on pay-to-plays and I like that. I like that because I feel like it gives everybody a fairer shot of it. I mean, I get how, like auditioning, people want to hear you speaking their brand, but also I think they want to just kind of weed out all of the. You know there's a lot of people out there they want to weed out all the voices. Maybe I don't need a male voice or I want a female voice and I want somebody that has good audio, and I love that you brought that up, because good audio is still at the very core of a good product.
33:47 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) So many people in Voice on 3 put in their tagline what they do like a perfect girl-next-door kind of approach. That's the kind of voice I do. If you put in your tagline studio quality, you're beating out half the team.
34:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Ah, thanks for that tip, I like that. That's a golden nugget, rolf. So what a great conversation. I almost hate to have to cut this short, because I'd like to see a demonstration of the whole synthetic voice, ai, integration, and I might be calling you back in a couple of months.
34:15 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) I would love to yeah, yeah, thank you to you?
34:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, thank you so much. It's been an honor. I love, I love talking to you, ralph. So you are a boss. You are definitely a boss. Thank you for always being transparent.
34:32 - Rolf Veldman (Guest) Thank you for bringing us on the other side of the glass, so to speak. It's the other side of the discuss these kind of things, like we only know the voice actor experience by talking to all of you, so this is our way also to get to stay in touch.
34:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, good stuff. Rolf, thanks again. I'm going to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl Connect and network like bosses using IPDTL and, of course, voice123 and bosses out there. I have a nice little discount for you. If you are interested, I'll put that in the show notes. You can get a little discount if you are a first time sign up to Voice123. Ralph, thanks again. Bosses, have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Bye.
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