VO BOSS

Do not apologize for little mistakes during a session. You are human! This week, Anne & Erikka teach you how to overcome performance anxiety. Certain elements of voice acting get easier after years in the booth, but sometimes the nerves never go away. Taking steps before a big gig like walking outside, spending time with a furry friend, or breathing can calm you down, but what happens when you feel anxious in the moment? Stay calm in the booth and know that it is a safe space for you to perform and be your best. BOSSES, if you're unsure of how to take control of the situation & your anxiety, listen up! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am excited to bring back to the show the lovely and talented Miss Erikka J. Woohoo! Erikka: Hey, Anne! Anne: Hi, Erikka. Erikka: How are you, darling? Anne: I'm wonderful. How are you? Erikka: Pretty good. Pretty good. Just the trucking along. I was thinking back this week actually about a workshop that I was in, and I really had like some anxiety. It was like crazy when I was on the mic. So I was in a class with the Andrea Toyias of Blizzard. Anne: Oh, love her. Erikka: I mean, I was waiting a year and a half to take this class with her, right? And I had actually just found out I was pregnant the night before, and I was just like freaking out because it was super unexpected. Great surprise. But I was just like, what am I gonna do? And all of a sudden, I start getting symptoms like I'm nauseous, right? Like super like, ugh. So I am now this class I've been waiting for for a year and a half, video game, you know, you have to use your whole body. I had like this beastly character, and I'm a ball of nerves and nauseous on top of that, whether it's from the anxiety or just the baby. But I'm like, how am I gonna get through this? And, you know, I realized that this was an opportunity for me to channel that anxiety into the energy of my character. And it really turned out great. Like she gave me good reviews, and I was just like, oh my God, thank God. Like I cried after, it was like all the emotions came out, but it was a great opportunity to sort of, rather than letting the emotions take over me and impact the authenticity of my performance, to actually channel that energy and be able to use it in an effective way that worked. So I was thinking maybe we could talk about how to overcome performance anxiety. Anne: Absolutely. Well, number one, I love that topic. Number two, I love that you are so open and upfront about it. Because a successful voiceover talent, you know, people seem to think, well, we, we have it all together. We don't ever get nervous when we come in the booth or perform, or we're live directed, but in effect we actually do probably more than people even realize. And I think it's just that maybe we've had a little more experience in dealing with it and trying to maybe turn that into something positive. I do have a lot of newer students that I've seen come into my workouts, my VO Peeps workouts, and get nervous performing in front of other people, let alone the director, but just performing in front of other people. And I know myself when I first started in the voiceover industry, believe it or not, I was almost like afraid myself to let go and explore my voice, because I didn't wanna hear it in my ears, because I thought, oh God, that sounds stupid. And so I think that's a really great mental emotion to talk about and how we can get over our performance anxiety so that we can make it work for us and not against us. So what are your tricks when you start to get nervous? And first of all, when we get nervous, there's so many things that can happen, even if it's a good nervous, right? Erikka: Yeah. Anne: If you're an excited, happy nervous, it's still, it gets you all your adrenaline hyped and your shoulders up, and it just makes your voice also with that same anxiety. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are a few things. So like for one, coming from performing on stage as well, like that was sort of where I learned how to channel anxiety, because at the end of the day, it's just energy, right? But it's just like a really strong, sort of urgent energy, and what that can do when it works against you, if you don't have it in balance is like, sometimes I catch myself, it'll make me make my voice more higher pitch. And then they're like, well, can you we want you to speak more like kind of how you just were when we were talking. And it's like, oh yeah, Erikka, you're anxious, calm down. So that is kind of a way it can work against you. I tend to talk really fast too, when I get anxious. And I just have anxiety in general, sort of as the disorder. So I have to kind of manage that. Things that I do to get rid of it, if I feel like before a session I'm already kind of high strung about it, maybe it's a job I'm really excited about or, or nervous about, getting outside and really getting some fresh air breathing, the deep breathing thing -- I know it's like cliche. Everybody talks about breathing, but it really literally tells your brain everything is okay. There's plenty of oxygen available. I'm not gonna die, because that's what anxiety feels like. You're dying. It's just like, everything's wrong. And if you get that oxygen flowing into your body, real, really plentiful oxygen, that can help calm you down. Sometimes I'll go sing something really loud or scream. Like obviously safely, getting that scream energy out. 'Cause anxiety is just energy. Again, if you can kinda get that out of you to help you calm down and do that. Things like warm tea, just things that help you feel mentally safe are nice. Hug or going to your pet, you know, and playing with them and touching them and letting love on you a little before a session, all those things help me. Anne: I think that's wonderful. And I really am a big believer in the breathing, you know, and the taking a breath. And so if you're in the moment, right, okay, so this is maybe before the performance, right? These are things you can do. So when you're in the moment, right, and let's say you're being directed or you're in a workshop, a session, first of all, in any workshop or session, I just wanna kind of throw this out there that they are called workshops and classes for a reason. They're meant to be safe spaces for you to get that anxiety out, to experience that, and then experience recovering through that or whatever it is, working out your performance issues in a class. And so I hope that we can all feel safe or whoever's directing that workshop can help you all to feel safe. A lot of times the directors that I work with, they make a point of saying, look, get it out now. Do it now in this workshop, 'cause that's what we're here for. And that's the safe space. Where you probably don't want it to happen so much is when you're in a live directed session. So when you're actually in a session, I'm a big believer in the breathing. Now there's a couple of different things. Are you on Zoom, right? Are they watching you, number one, or are they not? And I am a big fan of you don't need to see me necessarily perform. And if I can actually get that to happen, I feel much more comfortable. It really helps me mentally relax. And it also allows me to do things in the booth, like maybe step away from the mic and, and breathe and instead of right in the booth or so that they can see me doing whatever it is I need to do to relax. And so I would say the breathing is a big thing, and also in the middle of a performance, if you happen to freak out, just know that you're a human being, and the people that are directing you are human beings. And so there's a lot to be said for that. I say that sometimes you don't really wanna admit that you're nervous necessarily in front of the director or whoever might be on the call, but you just do what you need to do. There's no rush, right? There's no like, oh my gosh, I have to get this done in the next five minutes. If there's any session where you feel like you're being pressured to get that read out in a short amount of time, I would second guess that client. That's for sure. If you can be with that client and you are not on camera, do whatever you need to do, you know, shake it out, breathe, mute your mic for a minute and do whatever you scream, sing, whatever you gotta do, breathe because they're never gonna really know . So that's kind of something you can do kind of behind the scenes. But if you are on camera, number one, I would try not to be on camera if you can help it, but you can always turn your camera off for a moment and/or mute whatever you need to do to kind of get there. I mean, unless you're in the middle of a sentence, right? There's no need to necessarily explain. You can just say, I need a moment, and do what you need to do. What about you, Erikka? When you're in the moment, what are some key things that you do? Erikka: Yeah, those are all great points, fully agree and sort of to elaborate on some of them, in the middle of a session -- well, for one, I usually start the session by taking control of the whole visual aspect. I'm like you, Anne, I'm a fan of camera off. So what I'll do is, in the very beginning of the session, I'll flip my camera on, say, hey, you know, I just wanted to introduce myself and kind of have that initial conversation to have the human connection. And then as we're getting ready to record, I'll say, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and flip video off so I can make sure that the audio quality is as high as possible. Anne: Oh, Erikka, golden nugget! Oh my gosh! Erikka: And they love that. Anne: Say that again. Say that again, because we can go home now. That was the best like piece of information, I swear. That, that's a great idea. Erikka: The pandemic educated everybody video takes up more bandwidth. And if you have video off, the audio is less likely to drop out. Nobody wants the audio to drop out because they wanna be able to critique the quality of the voiceover that you're giving and give you feedback so that they get what they want. So that way they're like, oh yeah, sure. Turn video off. I'm gonna turn video off. And then if they don't want video, it makes them feel comfortable. Like, oh thank God. I don't have to have video on Anne: I think a lot of people believe, it or not, are more relieved than not just because, you know, I don't know if we're having a little bit of anxiety from the whole, like during the pandemic, all we did was Zoom. Although I'm a big fan of the video connection that we did have. We just did it a lot. And so, you know, I did it to keep connected with my family and my clients, and I think, yeah, everybody could use a little vacation from the video being on all the time. It really has put on another added layer of potential anxiety for us as voice talent. Because most of us got into the business because we didn't wanna be on camera. We wanted to be behind the mic. And so I love how you said that you turn it on to say hello and make the human connection. And then just say, look, I wanna be able to flip this now so that we make sure we get the best audio. What a fantastic idea. I love that. Erikka: Sometimes I even make a joke just to keep it lighthearted, feeling the client out, if that works. And I'll just say, so you don't see my weird actor faces and they'll laugh, you know? And like that works because that's the truth. I'll flip it on at the end, you know, to kind of close it off and say, bye. I do make sure that particularly on Zoom or whatever platform I can, that I'll have my headshot so that they can see me. Even though they're not seeing me. So that kind of keeps the human connection as well. Anne: That's excellent. Now, Erikka, you know, that's funny because mine always just appears, but I don't ever remember putting it there. Where does that come from? That Zoom headshot, is that in the settings of Zoom when you set it? Erikka: It is, but you have to be logged in. So you have to actually be logged into your Zoom account and then you can set your picture and it'll come up. But if you just like click on their link, and you're not logged in, it'll just show your name that you typed in. Yeah. Anne: Ah-ha. Oh, that's an excellent point. I never realized that 'cause I'm always the one hosting the Zoom sessions for the most part. And interestingly enough, when I say to patch into my studio, if they don't wanna use the ipDTL link, or usually I use ipDTL, or usually I'm not the one providing SourceConnect, they would be the one providing SourceConnect link. But if I'm providing the link, then I'll usually give them an ipDTL link, and there's no video involved in that. And most people are relieved. And the reason why I tell them I do that, I'll give them an ipDTL link as a phone patch rather than Zoom is because it's better quality. And so it delivers better quality audio. They can hear me better, and it's always better to be able to hear better so they can direct me better so that I can do my job better. Erikka: That's what they want. Anne: So there's all sorts of kind of cool ways around being off camera if you so desire. Erikka: And you know, there really have been studies that have said that in the whole pandemic period that there was increased anxiety because if -- Anne: Being on camera? Erikka: Yeah. Because if I'm face to face with you, there's a safe distance, but there's a perceived closeness if like my face -- Anne: Oh, interesting. Erikka: -- here. And it's like, you're in my personal space, and it's more threatening. So it literally can makes you more anxious being on video on a digital platform as opposed to being in person, and you don't get to feel out and kind of mix the other person's energy. It's just this digital face. So it's natural that it makes you more anxious. Just take control of it. And I've never had anybody say, well, no, we want you to keep camera on. the only place I can see that ever happening is maybe video games. But even then, they're more concerned about audio. Anne: Yeah. And I think that, yeah, definitely. Let's just make the point though, that this is for a live directed session where it may not be necessary for you to have video on, even though your clients may like it. The other thing is that it might be the only form of communication that they have, right? Zoom, video, or Skype or whatever that is, or Google Hangouts. A lot of times, that's how they get a community of people together to listen and direct. And even in that case, you can absolutely take control of muting your camera or turning your camera off while you're performing. And so now what if you're in the middle of a sentence and you flub it up, Erikka? Erikka: Oh man. Anne: What is your course of action? Erikka: Yeah. So I talk about this with a few people. So for one, remember that you are human, and we make mistakes. We all stutter, even in regular conversation. Sometimes I'm able to catch it fast enough where it sounds natural. Because you know, one of the things of acting is that as just now, when I was thinking about what to say next, I hesitated. We don't have a script in real life. So we don't know what we're gonna say next. So some of that hesitation actually makes a more authentic performance. So if you can catch yourself and not get to the point of, oh my God, I just screwed up and just kind of get to the next word and it still sounds natural, sometimes it works and it actually makes the performance sound more natural. So I try to really just get back in it. If it's obviously like, you know, oh, I just screwed that up. I just pause and pick up. And there's a couple reasons for that. For one, if you kind of say, oh, I'm sorry, you know, you've already kind of, you've taken some power away from yourself with your client. Kind of told them, hey, I messed up and you've told your brain, you messed up, which is going to increase your anxiety and increase the risk that you're going to mess up again probably on the exact same word. Anne: Yeah, yeah. Erikka: And your brain is learning. It's like, okay, we may, we mess up there. We mess up on that word. We mess up on that word. Whereas if you just stop and then just pick up, it's a professional thing to do. It also makes it easier for editing so that they can just cut, if they like the first half of that sentence, and it was great, they can just Franken-take it, you know, and put it together and make it work. Anne: Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that advice to stop. So I always say to my students don't ever apologize. Yeah. You're human. It happens. You simply stop and pick up. Now you don't necessarily pick up from the very beginning of the entire piece of copy. You wanna probably stop and take just as you would be editing right in your own home studio, pick up where you would naturally pick up. And for me, that's at the beginning of the sentence, for the most part or at the comma, if it's that much, if I've still got the melody in my head and knowing where I'm gonna be. But for the most part, just simply stop. Never apologize. If you apologize, like you said, it definitely takes the power away. And a lot of times people may not even notice that you've flubbed up. And so you simply start it at the top of the sentence again, and that is an entirely acceptable thing to do. I mean, I've done that for years thankfully once I learned myself never to apologize, because again, we are human and just pick it up from the beginning. It does make it, number one, makes you look a lot more professional and number two, it makes it easy to edit. And the simple fact that you know this, right, you know, enough not to go into a bumbling "I'm sorry" apology or whatever it is, even if you have to cough or sneeze or what, whatnot, knowing that if you are silent and then pick up as if nothing happened makes it a really nice block of white space for that engineer to make it easy for them to fix. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: For sure. For sure. Erikka: And maybe that can also help you get outta the habit of saying, I'm sorry. It's just stop talking. Just, just get your brain to just stop. I make a mistake. I just stop. Anne: Just stop, breathe, know that it's normal and we all do it. We do. Erikka: Yeah, we do. Anne: We all do it. You know? And I always say to people, I wish I could do a read perfectly the first time. Right? It doesn't always happen. But I like how you also used it to talk about how to make that pause almost a natural part of things. Now I know that when I'm anxious, and I'm in the booth, the whole natural in the scene acting sometimes goes bye-bye. And so there's one thing that breathing can help you to come back to the scene. And always remember, even though you've got people watching you, I mean, imagine like you're performing like in the scene just as you would if you were on stage, or if you're not a stage actor or an on-camera actor, if you've got that video off, you are in your booth. That is your magic place. That is where you set your scene. You are in the scene, you're immersed in the scene. So just try, if you can, to block out the other external factors that are making you nervous and continue to be in that scene, because that's gonna make your performance more natural. And that's what they hired you to do for the most part. I mean, unless they told you to be crazy in character and you know your character, even then, right, you have to be in your character. So I would say, no matter what you're doing, you kinda have to be in character, even if you're doing an e-learning module, you're a teacher, right? Erikka: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Anne: If you're doing a corporate narration, you work for that company. So you're a character. So you need to remain in that character, and the booth where you are, is kind of your theater so to speak. As in a studio that you might be in when you're being directed live to. Now what about going to a studio and being directed live? What are your thoughts about that, Erikka? Erikka: Oh boy. I'll say maybe one, maybe two more things that I do use in my booth, but one of them might translate to in the studio too. In my booth. I think I mentioned before that for, just for performances and sort of a, who am I talking to, I do keep pictures of my family in the booth. And I found that sometimes that helps with anxiety too. So it's just like, you know, if you would look at the people that you love and that love you, sometimes it can just kind of help to bring you back. Anne: I'm opening, I'm opening my door, but you can't really see it. See if I can. Let's see. Erikka: Is, is that a kitty cat? Anne: Yeah. It's my studio cat. And on the other side of the door, which I can't, there we go. There's Anne and Jerry. Erikka: Yes. Anne: I have my family in the booth with me, the people that I love. Erikka: Yes. Anne: And I also have a booth buddy. Erikka: Yes! Anne: So this is my little booth buddy. Erikka: I got a booth buddy, but it's a (?). Anne: Oh. So you talk -- Erikka: My warm and fuzzy reads. Anne: There you go. So you talk to your booth buddy to help you in the scene. There's your audience right there. Erikka: Yep. Yep. Yep. Anne: So. Erikka: You can't see my family 'cause they're behind where the mic is, but yeah. I've got my kids, me and my boyfriend, and then ultrasound picture, my little boo-boo that's coming. Anne: Aww. Erikka: Another thing that I'll use too is I've got one of these stress balls. Anne: Oh. Erikka: And when you mentioned going to the studio, this is something that's more portable and not very -- it's discreet. So I could just have this in my pocket. So again, anxiety is just an abundance of energy. So one of the grounding tools that I know is used by some people that, you know, teach anxiety management is like literally like holding the tension in your hand for like five seconds and releasing, and you can do that with a stress ball. So it's just like, you're using all this strength and it's like, mm, get this anxiety out. And then you [breathes out], and you should feel some sort of relief. Anne: Yeah. And you know, what's good about that is like literally you don't want the anxiety to be in your mouth or in your brain. So having in your hand, having it transfer, and that's one of the good things too. I talk about with physicality behind the mic, right? When people don't wanna look at our silly actor faces behind that mic, when you are in that scene, you need to be in that scene, like physicating with your, with your hands, drawing things, jumping up and down, whatever you're doing, and that will help to divert the energy that might be all up in your shoulders and all up in your mouth and in your speech. Right? And kind of dissipate it so that it will be a little bit less. And so that's great. Erikka: And these are quiet. They don't make noise so much, so. Anne: Well, if you go to studio and you're flailing about, and you're doing like -- well, alright, I'm gonna say, how many of you have ever watched right behind the scenes, right, when people are at studios? I mean, there's all sorts of physication going on. As a matter of fact, that's the, the sign of a classic actor, right, behind the mic, who's physically making those silly faces. And I always talk about when you look at musicians on stage too, they always make funny faces. Right? Always. Erikka: Singing faces are way worse than actor faces. I know. Anne: I'm gonna tell you, singing faces are way worse. Erikka: I've been caught before. Like, Ooh, that's not going on social media. Anne: Yeah. But, but you know what? It creates the performance. And I always talk about Mariah Carey. She does a lot with her hands when she sings. Erikka: She does. Anne: How she like trills with her hands, and I'd be like, yeah, what is she doing there? And then I decided to do voiceover and I get what she's doing. It's all about the dissipation of energy and helping her create more energy and also dissipate energy. Which is really a great way to also relieve performance anxiety. Erikka: Yeah, absolutely. I used to grab my stomach a lot was my thing. And I don't know if that was from like the breathing exercises I learned, and they'd be like, why you grab your stomach? I'm like, I don't know. It's my thing. But it's just like, I don't know. It felt like everything that I was trying to get out was from my core. So I just kind of would hold my stomach and it would help me, ugh. I don't know, so. Anne: Yes. Consider whatever those silly faces are or what you think are silly moments of brilliance. Really. Turn it into a moment of brilliance and just who cares. Because if it gets the performance out of you, that the client is looking for, you're a genius. Like I dare anybody who gets an amazing performance out of you to laugh at what you do behind the mic. I mean, maybe they'll chuckle, but hey, they're gonna chuckle all the way to the bank. Erikka: That's right. Took the words outta my mouth. . Anne: Because you're the one that is absolutely giving them the performance that they're looking for and whatever it takes to get there. I would say for the majority of the time, if you're in your home studio, right, and you're being directed and they can't see you, what a blessing that is to be honest. What a luxury to be directed these days. Rather than us trying to like, oh my God, what are they looking for? How should I self direct? It becomes something that maybe you can start to look forward to. And you're not nervous about because for me being directed is a luxury because finally, somebody, just tell me what you're looking for. I can do it. I'll deliver it, whatever you want. 'Cause that's better that you tell me, rather than me trying to think of 100 different ways that you might like it. So if you can directly tell me -- let's say it's someone who's not familiar with directing, even if they might, like, I know a lot of people are like really, what if they line read for you? Now saying that the people behind the booth may or may not be able to line read for you, but if it helps them express what they're looking for, I'm not offended by that. And I don't think that if you have a client trying to express what they're looking for, and maybe they're not as successful, you know -- just me being a director for so many years, like I know what it's like when you're trying to express what it is that you're looking for. It's not always the easiest thing in the world. And for people who aren't used to doing it, give them some grace and just try to listen and give them what they want. Even if they say something completely weird and you're like, oh, so you want a little more smile or you give them more smile. And you're like, that was totally not what they said, just go with it because it's not easy for people who are not familiar or people who don't direct all the time to actually direct you. And don't let that increase your anxiety. Unless of course it becomes like two hours and you've given them the exact same take. You've come around circle and now you're giving them the take that you first gave them. And they're like, that's it so. "I gave them 100 takes. And the one that they took was the one that I just did like my first take." Erikka: I know, I know. Yeah, one thing that I'll do too, to sort of lower my anxiety and maybe even theirs, especially if they are relatively new or don't hire voice talent often and kind of are feeling their way through directing, you have to kind of feel the energy out, obviously in the client to make sure that this is okay. But for one, I'll kind of paraphrase back, especially if I get the line read, I'll also kind of explain. So you mean like you're looking for a little bit more upbeat, but still grounded? You know, like trying to do that because that way we're both clarifying what we mean and that can lower the anxiety on both sides. And/or I'll offer, would you mind if I did some triplets on this to play around with it and try different ways? They'll usually be like, yeah, sure, absolutely. So you do their line read and then kind of your interpretation of it, and they have options. They love having options. Anne: Exactly. So I think that's a great piece of advice. Give them options. I'm always, when I'm being live director-ed, I'm always giving them multiple reads just in case, you know, maybe there was a click or something that's hard for them to get out in one of the words, they can grab it out of the second take. And that way -- I do that a lot with self-directed sessions, I'll give them multiple takes for them to choose from, but also in live, I give them the full session and I'll give them multiple takes. I'm like, I'm happy to read this again. A lot of times when they're happy and they'll say, oh, that sounds perfect, I get a little nervous. Because I'm like, what if there was a little -- like I've edited myself enough to know that maybe there was a little click or mouth noise or I don't know, something could happen where they could use an extra word that might be clean. So I think giving them options and I think you taking the initiative and telling them, how about if I give you a set of three, so you can just pick and choose what you want later makes everybody happy and reduces the tension for sure. So I think in regards to being balanced, right, balanced in the booth and not overly anxious, these are some really excellent tips that we can take, whether we're self-directing or being directed by others on camera or off. Erikka: Yeah. Preferably off. Anne: Preferably off. Well, great episode, Erikka. I loved it. Erikka: Yeah. This is fun, me too. Anne: I love that we got to show our booth buddies and our pictures and our booth too. So I'd like to give a shout-out to my sponsor, 100voiceswhocare.org. You guys, if you ever wanted to do more to help your local community and give back with your voice, you can find out more at 100voiceswhocare.org to learn more about that. Also great big shout-out to our sponsor, ipDTL. We love ipDTL because it allows us to connect with our other BOSSes and also with our clients. So you can find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing week. Ah, get rid of that performance anxiety, that booth anxiety. Erikka: Breathe. Anne: Breathe, and we'll see you next week. All right, guys, take care. Erikka: Bye. Anne: 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 voBOSS.com 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.

Do you have a vision board in your office? Because it may just help you achieve your goals. Anne and special guests Leah Marks & Nic Redman dive into what it takes to make your dreams a reality. The small steps, to-do lists, and simply articulating what your goals are can help you reverse-engineer your way to success. If that sounds overwhelming, do not fear Bosses! Leah & Nic co-authored The Voiceover Career Planner to help. It is part daily planner, part personal VO coach, featuring 52 experts offering weekly encouragement. Want to learn more? Keep on listening. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguza, and I am here with a special episode with the lovely and talented ladies from the UK's most popular podcast for voiceovers, the VO Social. Welcome to the show Leah Marks and Nic Redman. Leah: Hi! Nic: Hello. I love how you say the title of our podcast. . VO Social! Anne: VO Social! Nic: That's amazing. Anne: Yes, it is good to have you back here on the podcast. Leah: Oh, we missed you so much. Oh, it's been awful, Anne, terrible. Anne: Well, I think we should catch up a little bit then since we last spoke. So tell me a little bit about what's new in the world of voiceover for you guys over there in the UK. Leah: Well, Nic, you go first. You go first. Nic: I have nothing hugely exciting to say about voiceover. Leah: Okay. I'll go first. . Nic: Okay, great. Thanks. I mean, I've been doing all the amazing, exciting jobs. They're all under NDA. I can't tell you about anything. Anne: There you go. Leah: Of course. Yeah. You're basically the queen of voiceover right now, but no one can ever know. Nic: Yeah, yeah. Anne: No one can know. No one can know. Yeah. I can't tell you about it or we'd have -- Nic: I'm coaching (?) so busy say, so I've just sort of been focusing on that. Anne: Fantastic. Leah: Yes, yes. I've been throwing myself headlong into acting, and I've been writing a play, which I'm now halfway through one draft of, which is not enough the way through any of the drafts so far, but I'm getting there. I'm getting my way through it. I am. So that's what that's, what's new for me. Definitely. Anne: Things are changing all the time. Right? I remember the last time that we spoke, I had to look this up, 'cause I felt like it was forever ago. It was July of 2021, right? Smack dab in the middle of that pandemic. Well, we were thinking it was the end, right? or the end of the pandemic. We were hoping. Remember when it was supposed to be like a month or two and we'd be okay? Leah: Remember when there wasn't one? Do remember when there was absolutely nothing to worry about? I liked that time. Anne: Exactly. Gosh. Well, you know, we had a big conversation in that episode about having a plan B, because things change and evolve. And I think, gosh, we had a discussion about AI and synthetic voices and how do we evolve and keep afloat during tough times or even just evolving times with the voiceover industry, 'cause it changes so rapidly. So I, I thought we should have a talk about that. Leah: Yeah. About the future and how to cope with it. Nic: Well, actually I'm speaking to you with my AI. This isn't real Nic, this is AI Nic . So that's how my life has evolved. Leah: Oh Nic, do your AI voice. Do it, do it, do it. It's amazing. And get ready. Anne: I'm ready. I'm ready. Nic: I don't know why, but I'm very good at doing an AI voice. Leah: Yay! Oh it's so -- Anne: That's fantastic. Nic: Really bad AI voice, a really bad one. Yeah. I'm working loads in that one; that one's really busy. Leah: Anne: Well, I remember we had talked about one of the things that we were doing having maybe not necessarily plan B, but just yeah. Plan B for when you evolved to expand your genres or expand your acting. Right? Expand your performance, which I think is always important. And I think acting is a great part of that, in terms of always evolving and creating new voices that are something that people want to hire. Leah: Yes, exactly, exactly. And I think you're right about planning and trying to be prepared for whatever may come. We've got a lot of things to say about planning at the moment. We've got like both of our heads absolutely stuffed with planning and goal setting and how to achieve your goals and all steps. Oh God. The lot of it. Yes. Anne: I'll tell you what. I have my personal experience, and I've actually spoken about this as well. First of all, I have to write things down. I have a notepad, old school or not -- actually I love my notepad because I can actually write things down, and when I finish them, I can cross them out. And that is so satisfying. Leah: That is nice. Nic: Satisfying. Anne: So satisfying. So I have that on a daily to do, but I also have spoken about the importance of goal setting. And I will tell you in my experience, when you set goals and you write them down, it really helps to make them happen. What are your experiences? Leah: So my experiences of making things happen, I'm a list person. I work out what I want, and then I work out to all the things I need to do in order to make it happen. And then I work out when I'm going to do those things. And then I break it down into whether I'm going to do them that month or that week or that day or in the morning of that day or the evening. And I break it all down so that I can't fail or does I feel like I can't fail. 'Cause I'm on a path then. I'm never in a situation where I have nothing to do to achieve my goal. So for example, with the acting and the playwriting, I want to be working in more audio drama. So in order for that to happen, I need to get audio drama produces to see that I'm a great actor. In order for that to happen, I need to be in more theater. In order for that to happen, I need an acting agent. In order for that to happen, I need to be on stage in the first place. In order for that to happen I need to write my own show. And so -- Anne: Well, and you also need acting, right? Maybe you want acting classes too, right? So you're working on all aspects of it. Leah: Exactly, exactly. Anne: That's like you just took what you wanted and worked backwards. Leah: That's exactly, exactly it. That's exactly it. Well, what we've done is we've reversed engineered. Anne: Oh that's it, that's it, reverse engineered, that's it. Leah: Yes. Yeah. So we've created this book, a tangible, hold it in your hand, change your life with one item book that allows people to do this exact thing, to work out what they want, work out how to get there, and then actually make it happen. So it's called the Voiceover Career Planner. We actually launched it last year. Anne: Awesome. Leah: We printed 100 copies, and we sold that right away; within less than a month, they were gone. And then what we did was we got all of those people who bought the planner to send us feedback. We squeezed as much information out of them as we possibly, possibly could. And then we poured all of that information into the second generation planner that is out September 2022, which I believe is when this episode is coming out. So we've got a lot of real life user experience. Nic: Yeah. Social proof, I think they call it -- Leah: Social proof. Nic: -- in the business. Leah: Social proof. Exactly. Anne: So let me ask you what makes it different than my list, my to-do list? Nic: What makes it different to a list? I don't wanna comment on the aesthetic of your list, Anne, to start with, but it's incredibly fit. It's dead fit and attractive as a planner, it's really glam. It's got gold on it and stuff, but joking aside. Anne: Well, there's something to be said for that. I mean, aesthetics. Nic: This is it. Hopefully enough. One of the things that came up, I was doing a session in my vocal empowerment program, which is an online voice technique training course that I run. And I bring in this guest expert to talk about habit creation, because the whole point of the program is to give people the vocal skills to want to do their warmup every day and feel like they can do and fit it in their routine. And she talks a lot about like one of the things that you need in order to build a habit, IE, make sure you do things to get towards your goals, is to make it attractive. Like make it seem like a nice thing. Anne: Yes, I agree. Nic: So this is why people love vision boards and they love, you know, putting things on like nice post-its that are pretty and stuff. 'Cause if you -- it's, like you say, the version of attractive for you with your list is, it's attractive for you 'cause you write it down, you get to put a gorging line through it, which is really, really sort of satisfying. And I think with the planner, what's nice about it is a you think, A, look at me, I've bought this. Aren't I dead good? I've got this and I'm committed. I'm gonna use it every day. Look at me with my planner. I'm so professional. Anne: Look at me with my planner. Nic: And it's so pretty. Yeah. And then you open it up, and it's got all this amazing information at the start, which has loads of different insights into even stuff like studio troubleshooting, website and SEO, vocal warmups, habit creation. Anne: So it's a daily planner? Nic: Yeah. And then it's got like a page a day. Anne: Okay. Nic: Oh no, the new one's -- Leah: So we've changed it slightly from the feedback from users. We realized that we could improve the usability even further and create a bit more room to write essentially by making the planner itself a little bit bigger. And so it's now somewhere between A5 and A4 size, if that means anything to you. Anne: Yes, it does, actually. Nic: Planner size. I dunno if you're into planners. I've gone about 49. Anne: Well, I used to scrapbook, so I understand page sizes, and I did a lot of printing. So I understand page sizes for sure. Nic: This is what mine sounds like. I've got it. Here, look. Leah: Oh nice. Anne: Oh! Leah: But this is -- so the way it's structured -- Anne: ASMR. Wait. Planner, ASMR. Leah: Oh yeah. Anne: Go ahead. Do that again. Ready? Leah: Oh. Anne: Oh. Leah: Lovely. Anne: That is satisfying. Well, let me ask you a question though, because first of all, I like places to write, that's for sure. And the cool thing is, is that I think if I'm trying to write down, it's not just a list of to-dos. There's other things. Leah: No, no, no. Anne: We talked about goals. Leah: Let me take you through it. Anne: Yes. Take me through it. Leah: So the first thing that happens is it guides you through setting goals, helping you work out what your goals are, whether they are achievable, and how they can be achievable, and then the different actions that you're going need in order to be able to get you there. So there's loads of like supports and structure in terms of that, several pages of that. Then once you've worked out what your goals are going to be, the majority of the planner is taken up with 52 weeks. So it's not dated. So you can start it at any point in the year. It's a 52 week planner. So at the beginning of every week, there's a plan out your week page with a special section for planning your social media content for the week as well. And then after that you have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday has half a space each because we're trying to encourage people to also take some time off. And then you set at the top of the page, what you want to achieve during the day. And then you can work out if you want to, what time during the day you want to achieve those things. And once you've got it all written down, then that is such an encouragement to actually go through it like you say, and draw a line through it. But it's not just the sort of overwhelming blank space that you would get if you just had a notebook. It's structured for you. It feels, I think, more comfortable to walk into it, to use a book like that, to use a page like that because it feels supportive. It's saying, okay, here are the things. Here is a space in which you can achieve something. And here is a way that you can do it. Why don't you just pop the details in here? And then it makes it happen. The other thing that we've got then is we've got reviews throughout the year. So like you say, the world changes, things change, you change, your circumstances change. And so every quarter, there's then an opportunity to review how your goals are going so far and whether you want to add in some more, whether you want to adjust the ones that you've got, whether you wanna change deadlines, what you might need to do in order to achieve those things. Again, you can assess that again. So it keeps you going all the way through the year, checking in with you. The other nice thing that happens is at the beginning of every week, we've got 52, and you know about this already, Anne, but 52 experts to give us their top tip. We've asked 52 people at the top of their game, across the audio industry, what is the one thing that you need voiceovers to know that will really benefit them, that you are the perfect person to advise on? And uh, so Anne, as you know, you are one of my 52 experts. Anne: Wow! Leah: Because we've put you -- Anne: So honored. Leah: Do you want to know where we've put you? Anne: So honored. Where? Leah: We've put you on the final week. So we are building up all year. Nic: You're the headliner, Anne. You're the headliner. Anne: Save the best -- no, I can't say that. No. Thank you. I'm so honored actually. Leah: You very, very welcome. Anne: Thank you very much. Wow. Yeah. So it sounds like what you're describing to me -- because I have done research on planners. I'm always looking for the perfect planner. Like there are different planners and they have different things. And I think first of all, one customized for voiceover, our industry, number one, is brilliant because I want quotes that relate, that relate to me. And I think that if there's information and quotes and goal setting that can particularly relate to our industry, first of all, that's super helpful. And I had decided back in the day, and there's people that go back and forth about which planner's best -- well, I settled on a Panda planner. But it sounds to me like you've got all the functionality of all these really great planners that are best sellers in this VO planner. Leah: Well, what we've done is Nic's been using them for years and having the same experience as you. Nic: Let me tell you, I love a plan. I love a list. I love writing stuff in a place, and I have been searching for the right planner. I've tried lots of planners.- Anne: Right. For years, right? Nic: For ages. Yeah. So I've got like, well, I won't name all of, but I've got loads of different ones, loads of different sizes and different vibes. And most of them are quote, unquote business planners, which is fine, but there's something really special about having something that you open that you can completely relate to. And instead of seeing some, to be honest, like generic NAF quote about like agree, living the dream or the sun rising over the money pot, whatever the hell it is, in manifesting this nonsense into your life, opening it and seeing a really useful quote about a voice type thing or a studio thing or an agent thing is so much more comforting, I think, and inspiring. Anne: Right. And it gives you ideas for your goals, I think. Nic: Yeah. Leah: Exactly. Yeah. Anne: Because I think that there's a lot of people, they may or may not think so deeply into their goals, but I think one thing that helps me when I'm goal setting is to break them down into realistic goals. And I think most people, when they say, okay, I'm gonna plan or they try to do something in the new year, they'll be like, okay, I wanna make six figures in voiceover, and I wanna get an animation job with Disney or something like that. So they're picking these lofty goals, and I don't think a lot of people really take the time to kind of break that down and reverse engineer it like we were talking about earlier to find out, okay, what is it actually going to take to get to that step? And I think something that can help you or encourage you or give you this space to break that down will make it easier. Because I'd love to have like a great coach every day saying, okay, what is your business plan for today? How are you gonna grow your business? And it's one of these things that we all have to do kind of on our own. We can get business advice. We can have maybe a coach that does that, but a planner that can help you on a day-to-day basis to do that, I think is really fantastic. And I'm not trying to take away from business coaching at all, but I think it can be a really great supplement, so that whatever you are thinking in terms of goal setting, this can help you break it down into easier, more manageable steps and give you inspiration along the way. Leah: It's like you've read our website. That was brilliant. . Nic: That's exactly it. Anne: Wow! Nic: Okay. Bye. Leah: Thank you! See you later! Anne: It's so funny because it's exactly my experience. I mean, I've been in the business for a long time. I know you ladies have also been in the business a long time. And I think it's something that we ultimately arrive at. This is what we need to do in order to really grow our businesses. I mean, I know for myself, I'm still going through evolution of growing my business. I don't wanna stay stagnant. First of all, we're creatives. Right? That becomes boring to me. And so I'm always trying to look for new things, new ways to grow my business and especially adapt to the way that the industry is evolving today. I mean, we've got more competition than ever -- Leah: Yeah, of course. Anne: -- in this industry. And I think the people who are smart and can plan ahead, and women of a certain age myself, I'm talking, I'm looking towards retirement. I wanna be able to -- Leah: Oh, stop it. Or unless you're, you're saying that you want to retire extremely early. 'Cause you're doing so well. Anne: That would be nice. Leah: Fine. Okay, good. Anne: But no, I'm at that point where now that this is a full time gig for me, right? I mean I used to work back in the corporate world day to day, and people took care of my health insurance and my, I got paid no matter what, you know, every so often. Now having my own business for this amount of time, I'm still looking to the future, and I don't wanna have to worry when I retire. So I'm constantly planning my business, how I can maintain and/or improve and grow it so that I can put enough money aside for that day when I retire and I just have a ton of fun traveling the world. That's what I want to do. Leah: That is a great goal. Where are you gonna go first when you've got all the time? Anne: Probably Italy first, but I do love the UK. I have to say, I have said this since I visited the last couple of times, I have said over and over again. I really, really love, I really love it there. Leah: Oh great! Anne: Yeah. I would love to spend some time and maybe spend part of the year in Europe, Italy, the UK, and then maybe come back to California. That's my goals. Leah: What a lovely dream, I love it. Anne: My financial goals -- right? And I need to be able to set those plans in place and I love to write things down. That's the other good thing. Leah: That's it? Anne: I really believe -- and I'm telling you, it's funny because I never really believed. I'm like, oh, that's kind of like that fluffy stuff, set your goals, write it down. And honestly you just have to do it once. And then you realize that, wow, you kind of manifest it when you write that down and you break it down. Right? Leah: It's so funny you should talk about that because one of the things that we did over the last six months or so is choose a voiceover who in no way used a planner to follow while he used a planner to see how it adjusted his outlook or changed any of his outcomes. Nic: Our planner; he used our planner. Leah: Yes, yes. Specifically our first generation planner. Yes. Um, so we got a guy called Joe Troy, who is a UK voiceover. And the only way that he planned at all before he met us and our planner was by writing down what he wanted on a piece of paper, and then like, squirreling it away somewhere. And then looking at it again at the end of the year, see how -- Anne: Right, right. Leah: That was it. And that is one way of doing things, sort of magical thinking kind of thing. And uh, and he was doing all right, like he was winning awards already. So he was doing pretty well for himself, but then he started using the voiceover career planner. And every month when we put out a new episode, we'd check in with Joe, we had a little jingle. Could you sing the jingle? Anne: Oh my God, that's -- Nic: Joe Joe, Joe, Joe Joe Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe the VO. Anne: . Leah: Yay! That was great. I, I was gonna try and sing it with you, but then I realized the delay would make it awful for everyone. But yeah. So that was the jingle. . And so we'd catch up with him, and he would talk about a different element of the planet that he was using and how that was affecting things. Ad it was brilliant because it was making such a difference to how like aware he was sure of what he was doing in order to make himself get to where he wanted to be. Nic: And that was accountability as well, wasn't it? Leah: He was already doing well, but yeah. Yes, that's exactly it. Yeah. Anne: I think the part of it is not just writing it down, but then also looking at it, and it serves, I think, as a reminder, on a day to day basis. Or, you know, you've gotta look at your goals, I think, more than once a year, because it helps you to cement that goal in your head, in your brain, in your mentality, in your flow to really, I think, move forward. So I wanna know, if there is space for me to write down my accomplishments or things I'm proud of. Leah: Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes. So we have a wonderful feature, which was actually, um, thought up by somebody in our focus group originally called Brendan -- shout out to Brendan, 'cause this is my favorite element of the planner. At the end of every week, there is a prompt to tell you to go to the back of the book and write down the one big thing that you achieved that week that you're most proud of on one page. And at the end of the year, you then have 52 things that you've achieved that year that you can be proud of staring at you in the face, congratulating you in one big, massive page of text. And I think that is such a wonderful thing. Anne: Oh, so important. Yes. Leah: 'Cause otherwise you can so easily forget. Nic: There's also a job tally chart, which I quite like. So every time you do a job, it's on a monthly basis. So you can like put a little tally in when you've done a job and then you can write down how much you've earned that monthly bottom corner. So there's light financials, nothing too intense for the financials. Leah: But it's good for an overview, isn't it? Nic: Just encouraging you to go, but how much have I earned, yeah, to keep a track on things 'cause that helps you forecast for the next year. Leah: Exactly. Anne: Well, in addition to that, I'm -- the financial yes, absolutely. But the accomplishments I think are so overlooked. When you look at what you've accomplished, it really -- first of all, not only does it make you feel amazing, right? Because you see everything you accomplished that you might have forgotten about, and you, and you might be down on yourself and saying, well, I don't feel like I've progressed at all or have I done any better this year than last year or even this month versus last month? But when you can look and see all that you've accomplished, it also sets the foundation for moving forward and progressing and growing. So I absolutely think that's one of the most important things you can do is not only to write down what your goals are, but write those accomplishments and celebrate them. No matter how big or small they are, they don't have to be huge accomplishments. Leah: You've really gotta feel like it's worthwhile, haven't you? So there's a couple of things. One of them is yes, you can see what you've done, but also like you were saying earlier about being able to see your goals, not just pinning it somewhere and forgetting about it. But also being able to look at your goal and remember that that's what you're doing it for because I think that as creatives, we can sometimes feel a bit like -- and what I'm about to say is not true for everyone, but it can sometimes be true for me, is that I want to be in the studio recording. Right? And I think that's what the goal for most of us is wanna be in the studio recording, but a lot of the work that we have to do in order to be able to get there -- so all the entrepreneurial stuff, all the SEO and the marketing and the business management, all of that is essential in order to get us there. But it can feel like such a drag for me sometimes. But then when you've got your goal right there in front of you, and you know that every single thing that you do is working you towards that end game, that thing that you want more than anything, that creativity, that purpose, then it makes it feel much more worthwhile, and it can make you feel less alone and less bored. Also. I think Anne: Of course that whole less alone too, because again, we are entrepreneurs; we're kind of our own businesses. Right? And I think there's a lot of, we seek support in others, in groups. But I think also to not feel so alone in terms of how your business is growing and being able to share that with others, let's say if you have a mastermind group or something like that. I think that's also really important to be able to have that in order to grow that business. And I know there's so many, so many of my students have been really frustrated lately in terms of like, but how do I get the work? I feel like I'm going nowhere. What can I do? And I'm always trying to think like most of the times my answer is, it's a marathon, not a sprint. And I think if you have something that you can just record and document your achievements, you know, your goals, what's happening on a day to day basis, and just go back and review it, that's an important thing too, is really helpful in helping you feel like, okay, I've got something solid here that is growing, is advancing even though I don't think it is. And I think your mental state about your business really has an effect on your performance as well. Nic: And I think it's about like keeping yourself accountable as well. It's very easy to sort of like you say, things change a lot and you know, you might think in your head, oh yeah. I'd quite like to do something in animation this year. But you know, two, three months in or first quarter in, you suddenly realize you've forgotten about that because you've been so busy with the usual corporate stuff you do, and you've not made any steps towards that, but if you've written it down, and you keep going back to it and going, oh yeah, I did say I was gonna do that. What steps do I need to get there? What could I feasibly do today to help me get a wee bit further? So for me, like accountability is one of the most powerful things in business. It's having someone or something to remind you of what you should be doing or checking in on you a little bit, you know, and that's almost like what the planner does 'cause you open it and you see you see your goals and it's like, have you done this though? So I think that's really useful. I mean, it doesn't talk to you. It's just a book. So don't don't think it's -- Leah: Oh, there is a little bit of that. Nic: -- cards that you open with my AI voice. Anne: Well, wouldn't that be cool? Leah: Well, we've extended beyond just paper though. 'Cause obviously we're not at app stage yet if we ever will be, but we have got a lovely little QR code at the back of the book, which is sort of an exclusive thing for planner users. So if you scan that QR code, it then takes you to a secret page on the website, which is absolutely full of additional use for content links, to some of the things I mentioned in the planner. There's going to be one of the new things with the second generation planner is. And actually I think you're the first person we're telling about this at this moment. Anne: That's fantastic. I love it. Nic: It's exclusive. Anne: It's not just the planner, but it's a website full of resources. Wow. Leah: Well, the QR code and the website full of resources was there since the first generation. But the new thing that no one else has heard about is the new way of presenting warmups that we put in this second generation. So what we wanted to do was create a resource for people so they would, they would know what warmup routine to use depending on what job or what type of job they were about to go into or what sort of session they were about to go into. And so Nic has worked very, very hard and developed these extraordinary four different routines that kind of -- between all four of them they cover almost every eventuality you can imagine. So it was not just about if it is a corporate job, if it is a five minute job, like it's everything that you can possibly think of. Anne: Wow. Leah: So when you scan the QR code at the back of the planner, so not only do you have the list of the different warmup exercises, but you also, when you scan the QR code at the back of the planner, it takes you to Nic guiding those warmups. Nic: Hiya. Anne: I want it. I'm sold. Leah: Yep. Anne: All right. So tell us then, because I'm so excited; I hope you're making more than 100 'cause I have a feeling. Leah: We are this time. Yes. Anne: It sounds amazing, number one. I want one of course. But how can BOSSes out there get ahold of this? Because it sounds amazing. Leah: Right. So we are doing a very different and special thing for our international customers this year. Because last time round, it was very tricky to get planners out to people outside of the UK. It was a palaver, the delivery cost, the distance, that, oh my God. This time we're doing it completely differently. We're using global distributors and people can find out how to get their planner simply by going to thevosocial.com/shop. And they'll be directed then to where to go, if you're an international, IE, outside of the UK customer straightforward. Anne: And when will this be available again? Leah: 1st Of September. Anne: 1st Of September. And I think we were talking about a special thing for the BOSSes. Leah: Yes. Especially for VO BOSS listeners. All you have to do when you get to the point where you are buying your planner is type in the discount code section, BOSS10. And you will get your very own 10% off the planner. What a deal. What a lovely time. Anne: Thank you. I love it. Leah: You're really welcome. Anne: BOSSes, you are getting in on this deal as early as we possibly can or we know about it. So I think we're gonna probably sell out. Better get there quick. So we don't sell out in 24 hours. Leah: Yeah. Anne: Okay, fantastic. So I am so excited about this planner, and I wish I had it now Now if BOSSes want to connect with you guys, how can they do that? Leah: Well, first of all, we're going to be in New York next week. So if you are in New York, then immediately come and find us. We're gonna be speaking at VOcation, which is very, very exciting. Nic: Yeah. But we'll also be eating all of the food in New York. so you could probably find us in any of the places that sell foods. Leah: I'm going to make a duvet out of pizza slices. Anne: Yes. Yes. Leah: That'd be great. Anne: I'm so glad that you can appreciate the pizza from New York. That is for sure. Leah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nic: I don't get a giant pizza like in Friends, I'm, I'm not coming back ever again. I want a pizza with a diameter bigger than my entire arm span. Anne: That's awesome. Leah: But then if you are not in New York, if you are just outside of New York, you don't intend to come to New York, that's fine. It's okay. Each to their own. We're also available online for your every whim. Nic: Where can people find you, Leah? Leah: Yes. Okay. So @Leah_ETC. That's me. Yep. Nic: For all your Leahs, etc. Leah: Wherever you might go for that sort of thing. Anne: For your every whim. And Nic. Nic: I'm also in the internet when I'm not in New York eating a giant pizza. And you can find me at @NicRedVoice on the ol' Instagram, or you can just find everything about me in my other podcast, The Voice Coach podcast , at my website, which is www. -- that's three W's dot NicRedmanvoice.com. Anne: Love it. Love it. Well, ladies, it was such a pleasure having you today. And I cannot wait for this planner. And BOSSes, go out, get yourself a planner today, as soon as you possibly can. Don't forget about our special deal. BOSSes, here is a chance for you to use your voice to make an immediate difference in the world and give back to the communities that give to you. Find out more at 100voiceswhocare.org to commit to this. Also a big shout-out to our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can connect like BOSSes like we have done today and find out more at ipdtl.com. Thanks so much, ladies. It's been a pleasure. BOSSes, have a great week. We'll see you next week. Bye! Leah: 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 voBOSS.com 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.

Prioritization is the most important skill for entrepreneurs. In this episode, Anne & Erikka go through the essential skills you need to balance multiple careers. Whether you are working from home or juggling a corporate and creative career, you can't forget to take time for yourself. Breathe, and know that once you step in the booth, the time you spent recharging on a small break between meetings will pay off. Career balance includes finances, family, personal needs, passion and most importantly a long term vision of your career… Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and the balance series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am excited to bring back to the show as always the lovely and talented Erikka J. Hey Erikka. Erikka: Hey Anne, how are you? Anne: I'm doing good. It's been a busy week. How about yourself? Erikka: Oh yeah, definitely been busy and prepping for another busy one. So, you know, as you know, I've got my corporate job, I've got my kids, my family, I'm pregnant and you know, I've got voiceover, which is like, you know -- Anne: Voiceover. Erikka: -- all in its own, a big old thing. And we've got a holiday coming up soon here. So holidays, everybody likes to get their work in before everybody goes out. So, I got tons of meetings and stuff and projects at the job. I've got tons of sessions next week for voiceover, and I am just really finding ways to balance it all, 'cause it's a lot. Anne: Look, I know that when I had a corporate job and I was doing voiceover part-time it was the hardest thing. As a matter of fact, whenever I talk to a student that comes to me, I'll just say it is very, very difficult to dedicate time to voiceover when you've got a full-time job and your career that you're already engaged in. And I look at you, and I'm like, my gosh, because you've got the family on top of that, and you're in It just the way I was. So I know how crazy it was for me. I'd love to talk about how you balance your careers and be so successful at all of them and your family. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. I actually just a couple weeks ago or so talked to eVOcation about this, different strategies and things. One of the biggest ones, and something is kind of like a lesson for my corporate career, is prioritization because sort of accepting and knowing that you can't do it all -- and that's whether you have a job or not even just being in VO, probably not gonna be able to get to every single audition, especially if you wanna make sure you get the jobs done and all of your marketing work and all of that. So being able to prioritize appropriately and know like what's first to do. Anne: All right. So when I know that and I know you've got a number of agents, and they're all vying for you, right? Especially when you're doing well. And I know you're on a really great success track, and I'm so happy. I know what it's like when I can't do an audition for my agent. Like, it's almost like, oh my God. Yeah. Oh no. You know, and I feel bad, I feel guilty. And sometimes they'll write me and say, where is it? Erikka: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Anne: And so how do you deal with that? That's gotta be something. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: Like how do you prioritize? Erikka: That's a great point for me. Definitely the ones for my agent are number one. I very rarely, these days audition on Voice 123, where I am present. But I rarely am going on there to find jobs to audition for. It's more like if somebody DM's me either for a job or for an audition, or I get like one of those client invitations where they've specifically said, Erikka, we'd like for you to audition for this. And even those, they're last on my list. Agents, managers, theirs get number one. When I do have to kind of look at those and say, okay, I might need to prioritize, I got a ton of them today, I do wanna make sure that it's the right audition for me. And I'm trusting 9 times outta 10, the ones are sending me are great. But you know, if I'm really not sure, or if I'm not really filling the script, or they kind of like want it read three times and it's rather long, I might email and say, hey, I'm gonna pass on this one. And they usually understand because I don't do it often. So yeah. That's how I prioritize that. Anne: Right. Well, I think you probably prioritize agents too. I mean, in my certain cases, I have agents that are more local to me in LA, and I have to prioritize those agents that are local and the ones that I'm booking with. There are some other agents that, how do I say it? They're not not important. It's just that I have agents that I kind of, I have to prioritize them, if they're more local to me and they expect that as well. Erikka: Yeah. Absolutely. Your mother agency, they call it, you know, like that's -- Anne: Yeah, yes, exactly. Your mother agency. Yep. They do. They get dibs and they get priority. And so if there are five auditions that come out, and one of them is from the mothership, if I can only do one, that's the one that gets it. Erikka: That's the one. Yep. And you can look at things like the job you want too like for the rate or like, you know, if it's like a category or a brand you've really been wanting to work for, like that can help you with those prioritizations decisions as well. But yeah, definitely take care of your mother agency. Anne: Now you also go into work, right? You have to go into work or are you working from home? Erikka: No. The only way I'm able to do this is because I'm full remote right now. And I have been for three years. Yeah. Anne: Okay. That's great. That's great, 'cause I know some IT, you have to be there because you physically have to be present to take care of equipment or something like that, but you can do everything from home. That I think is one advantage of the pandemic for people that have been working full time, if you have been kind of re-homed to a home office, I think that that actually is a benefit for people who are looking to get into voiceover because you can sneak away to your studio to do a 5 or 10-minute audition. That was something I did not have the luxury of doing when I worked in IT, because I had to be on site on premise, even though a lot of my time I was doing remote work, but I also had to be there to physically turn machines on and off or, you know, install machines and that sort of thing. So I do think that that is one of the biggest advantages from the pandemic, if you are now able to work from home, having a voiceover career as well is a lot more accessible. Erikka: Absolutely. And that was something that I brought up in my talk is that yes, I fully recognize that not everybody has my position, and I feel very blessed that I'm able to work 100% from home. And even now like my position, it's more like product management. So I'm in software. So thank goodness I don't have any hardware that I have to be physically present to manage. But now after the pandemic, there are an increasing amount of remote jobs. So it's not just necessarily me. It's like jobs that were not remote before, these companies are recognizing that they're able to retain their talent better if they're able to offer that sort of perk. And actually a lot of people are more productive when they do their corporate jobs from home in the corporate work. So yeah, it definitely allows me the flexibility to come in and outta the booth. Like my desk is over there, my booth is here, and I just back and forth between meetings and sessions and auditions. And it's crazy, but yeah. Anne: But here's an important session though. How do you turn it off? Right? You're at your home. So where's the family part of that and that family balance come in? How do you work with that? Because that's gotta be tough. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a couple things. For one, in the beginning, I was very, very -- I'm already a workaholic, so... Anne: Hah. My name is Anne Ganguzza, and I am a workaholic. Erikka: Hi Anne. Welcome. Anne: Yes. I'm right there with you. Erikka: So I mean, they already knew that I was like that, but I was kind of in overdrive and my family was like, hey, you need to chill, Erikka. You know? So like I did have to find the places to set boundaries. Like I mentioned that I had a recurring great client that had booked me for a Sunday once, and I did it that one time, but I said for the future, I really don't do sessions on Sundays. And they were like, oh, okay. And it was great. So now I know that that day is like set aside for myself -- Anne: That's my day too. Erikka: -- my family. Sundays, I generally don't do anything unless it's like huge. And I tell them, and I'm like, this is huge. And they're like, okay. They have to be on board too I think is the big thing. Like they understand this industry. They've seen how hard I work. They know it gives me flexibility with other things. I was able to pay off my debt because of voiceover, so that helps us all. So having them on board and setting boundaries so that you do have some special time with them is really important. Anne: I agree. You know, the Sunday is my boundary. The workaholic in me is like six days a week. But, and you're right. Sometimes I work on Sunday, but only if I have to. And what's interesting is sometimes when my husband, if he has to travel for business, and he is gone over the weekend, on Sundays, I may work and not feel guilty. 'Cause if I end up having to work on a Sunday, I feel really bad, 'cause I'm like, I need to spend time with Jerry and the family and whatever else we're planning on doing, 'cause we need to make plans as well. And I'm one of those people that I'm so planned ahead in my planner or in my calendar, if I don't block off on my calendar up to a year ahead, I will be scheduled with something. So again, busy is good, but sometimes busy isn't good. And so was there a time that you realized "I don't have the proper balance right now" and you need to reevaluate, and what was it that happened and how did you readjust? Erikka: Oh yeah, this was probably about maybe -- even though we're still technically in the pandemic, but like midway, you know, when it was like, all right, we know that this is the way of life for now -- I had been just like throwing myself into so many workshops and a lot of 'em were LA based. So, you know, I'd be working all day, doing auditions, maybe cook dinner, and then, you know, in a workshop 'til one in the morning I was exhausted. I was drained. I was burnt out. I could tell, like I was less motivated to do auditions. You know, like I said, my boyfriend, my partner, he's just kind of like, you are doing too much you know? So other people kind of calling me out, and that's when I was just like, all right, you know, these workshops are great, I'm enjoying learning, but you know, maybe I don't have to take every single one I see. Maybe I can just do a couple a month, you know? And so that was kind of the turning point for me. And also I had developed to a point that I didn't need to keep doing them as much. I almost got like addicted to workshops at one point, 'cause I just loved learning and, and developing, but I'm like also from an ROI perspective, am I spending too much money now on workshops and training where I'm already at this point? So that was another turning point to be able to say, all right, I need to spend more time on working and making the money and maybe -- Anne: To reinvest. Erikka: -- go back some on the training. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Anne: I think that's a good point to talk about that point where you are evaluating the numbers. And I think it's important that when we get to the point in our career, you need to evaluate your numbers. I know a lot of people don't look at the numbers sometimes, and they're just like doing jobs, spending money, buying microphones, upping their home studio, but yet they haven't really looked at their numbers. And I think it's important that you look at your numbers. Where is your outgoing expenses and what's incoming and where do you need to make adjustments? But I think having money to reinvest, I think you're probably at the point where you're being successful enough that you've forgotten to kind of figure out, oh, I need to pay the bills, or you've got that cushion, but you've also forgotten to look at your numbers to find out really what are you spending? And I think that's an important stop point in any career. You need to regularly evaluate the numbers, incoming and outgoing, so that you know when you can reinvest and when not to be. And in terms of like myself, I know myself, when I don't have the right balance -- and this is not balancing corporate career, but balancing my own career -- when I'm too busy, working too many hours, and I start to get like panicky, where I'm like, oh my God, I just don't have enough time to finish this and I've gotta finish this and I can't stop. And I will start to have like panic attacks. And that's when I know that the balance has got to come back because it's not healthy for me to be in that high. My blood pressure probably spikes. Erikka: Yeah. Your body will tell you, for sure. Anne: Yeah. And so do you have certain days that you set -- do you have time limits? Do you say I'm on the job from nine to five or I have an hour for lunch? I've got an hour to do auditions. How do you split your time? Erikka: Yeah, so I think it does vary for me from day to day because sometimes it might make sense for me to do a session at 12, when I know that I'm not gonna have any meetings. There might be days where I have no meetings. So it's kind of more like, you know, I have a project to work on on my own time, and it's not necessarily that I have to be right sitting in front of my computer for eight hours. And I might be able to have some sessions during that day, that do build in some breaks. Like I make sure that like, if I have, you know, meetings from one to four, and you know, sessions at some point, like I will set a boundary and be like, I'm not available at this time because I know I just need to breathe. I need to get outside, get some air, eat, you know. Anne: Yeah. I think mentally for me the performance, right? There's the business aspect, right, where I'm doing accounting, I'm sending emails, I'm responding to clients, and then there's in the booth. And I think so much of what's in the booth is mental. And that takes time. Like you forget to give yourself grace and time to prepare for that or build that into your calendar. That's where I find that I am lax sometimes, because I'll be so exhausted after I'm doing all the other stuff that I get in the booth here, and I'm like, oh God. Erikka: Now I have to act. Anne: And then what happens is I wanna get through the audition quick and I have to stop myself 'cause that does me no favors in my performance. How do you deal with that in the booth? How do you get back that peace? That, you know, restoration. Erikka: Yeah. Just kind of reset, yeah. Anne: How do you reset to have that balance? Erikka: For me, getting fresh air is a huge one. Like I've been either sitting in meetings, or I've been in the booth, or I've been sitting at my desk doing invoicing and all the admin stuff that comes along with our business as well, right? And like, I'll be like, all right, I need to get up. My butt hurts. I need to stand up. That tells me I've been in the chair too long. Anne: Yep. Erikka: And you know, these days I, I have to get up pretty frequently to go pee. So that helps, but I really do like try to get fresh air and that's a good reset because it literally getting the oxygen to my brain is like telling my brain, you're okay. And there's an abundance of air to breathe. And like that is something that I have learned. It tells your whole body, relaxes. One thing I did mention to one person at eVOcation is that I learned in therapy, particularly for people with anxiety or they get really high stress or high strung, if you kind of take a second to pause and do like a body scan and check, 9 times outta 10, if your stressed, your tongue is like resting or pushed up against the roof of your mouth. Anne: Oh really? Erikka: Yes. Anne: Ooh. I find it in my shoulders. Erikka: Absolutely. Your shoulders get tensed up, but it's like, if you check and it's like, your tongue is like just resting up there, and it's like, if you just relax it and like drop it down to the -- Anne: Oh my goodness. Erikka: -- bottom. Yeah. And -- Anne: To the bottom. Erikka: -- drop it to the bottom and just kind of scan -- Anne: My tongue is at the bottom. Erikka: -- your whole body, you can just feel everything just drop. And you're just like -- Anne: Oh, you're right. Erikka: -- huh. I was stressed out. Anne: Including my, including my posture though. But that's, that's good in way. Erikka: Yes. Anne: You know? Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. So that's a great one to reset too. Anne: Wow. Erikka: Definitely the air does it for me. I wanna go back to real quick to something that you said about the money too and the reinvesting. I think that as someone who has both incomes where I have the corporate and the voiceover, so I'm not necessarily paying bills out of my voiceover income right now. That's what the corporate job is doing. So it's really easy to overspend in reinvesting Anne: Yes. Yes. Erikka: You know, because everything is, is somewhat extra, right? Like it could be paying off debt or whatever, but you still wanna watch and make sure that you're getting an ROI from where you're spending your money in your business. And you're not just spending because you have it. Anne: Right. Erikka: I got into that, and that's how I have like a million microphones and headphones and I started looking at my numbers, and I was just like, all right. If I wanna build this to a point where it is gonna be my source of income, I've got to start making strategic decisions about where I'm making expenditures, just like businesses do, setting budgets for different categories so I can watch my spending, just make sure that's aligning with what I'm bringing in. So I wanna bring that up. Anne: Mm. Yeah. It's easy for us to forget, to check those numbers. Even myself. This is what I do full time. I'm not even talking about balancing one career against another. I find myself that I'm not looking at the numbers enough, but what's really cool -- again, I say over and over and over again, the best investment I've ever made was my accountant. I have her on retainer. So she'll be doing monthly. She's the one that will alert me. "By the way you realize that you're spending so much per month on this subscription or your income that came in last month was little less than it was this time last year. So let's make some adjustments or whatnot," because she's also keeping track of my quarterly taxes that I have to pay. So that keeps me in check. So if you do not have somebody watching over you, looking at your numbers and you're doing it yourself, remind yourself at least once a month, if not more than that, in reality, if you're active doing this full-time, you should really be looking at your numbers once a week, if not every day, seeing what's going on, what's in and what's out, and just taking a brief look so that you're aware. Erikka: Yep. Yeah. Anne: I think that's important. Erikka: Yeah. I have a Google sheet, and I should be outsourcing to an accountant. I have somebody for taxes, but I'm just, I'll get there. It's taken me some time, but I'd have this Google sheet where I'm looking at my average income per job, also the median. So that way, if I get like a whopper, you know, when it's a five figure job, it's not throwing off my average. I can also see where I hit the median, 'cause that tells me when it's time to raise my session minimum. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: I'm looking at, like you said, year over year metrics. I'm looking at monthly, how much I brought in so that I can compare. I'm looking at quarterly averages of what I've brought in, and I have all that automated, the calculations are in the Google sheet. So I'm not having to calculate this every time. Every time I put in a booking, it's calculating that based on what's in the other sheet and, and showing me that number and I just look at 'em from time to time. Super helpful. Anne: So let's talk about mental balance and joy, right? So a lot of people that are in their corporate jobs want to escape. Is that how it is with you? Are you at that point in your job where you're like, I gotta get out? 'Cause I was at that point where like, I am so stressed out, I need a change. I was becoming stagnant myself in my corporate job. And that is the worst thing for me, just knowing my personality. It is the worst thing for me to remain stagnant and not grow. So I was like, I need a way out. I need to get out. And that escape was moving to California and then going into voiceover full-time. What about you? Where's your mental state there? Erikka: I think I'm okay right now, but I do think that, especially since I've got a whole new obligation coming along here, it's definitely on the long range plan to move out of corporate and to focus on -- I don't think I'll ever just do one thing, but kind of having voiceover and maybe something else that is my own personal endeavor. And I do think that you have to know what your plan is, like is this for short term or you're just trying to use this to build up some capital? Is it like a mid-range thing where you're building a career, and maybe you're gonna do voiceover after retirement or something like that? Or if you have a long range plan where you're like, I'm gonna have an exit strategy, I'm gonna build voiceover to a point where it can sustain my lifestyle and I'm comfortable, and then I can leave my job and that's more me. So I know like on the long range sort of roadmap, I will eventually probably leave corporate and just do voiceover because it's growing to the point where I'm gonna have to at some point. Anne: Right, right. Erikka: And knowing things like that, you have to prepare, right? You have to have balance in your approach. You have to start looking at -- Anne: You have to plan. Erikka: You have to plan. You reverse engineer how you're gonna get out. Don't just be like, I'm tired of my job. Bye, I'm gonna do voiceover, and wing it. You're gonna be miserable. And I don't wanna be a starving artist. Anne: Honestly I'm so glad that you said that because I have so many people that are like, yeah, I'm not happy at my job. I'm gonna get outta my job and just quit and do voiceover full time. And I'm always like, okay, whoa. First of all, you wanna make sure you've got a plan because it takes a while to get established in voiceover, unless you're a prodigy, and there's very few of those out there and it's with any good business that you are growing as an entrepreneur -- they used to say five years. I'm like, make it closer to 10 years, you know what I mean, that it's gonna take for you to really see a good ROI. And maybe like, this will be your way of life. You can support yourself. I'm not gonna say it takes 10 years for everybody. But I had a certain standard way of life that I like to live. You need to make a certain amount of money to do that. And so for me, that did not happen right away. It took me many years of growth. And thankfully I had a financial cushion, which was what I had put in place. And my husband also, who was working at a job. I was able to get healthcare benefits; so important healthcare, to have those benefits. And as a matter of fact, even now I'm always telling my husband, I don't care what you do. Just get me my health benefits. So I'll make money if you want, just get me health benefits, because that's a huge, huge part. Erikka: Yeah. I'm glad you said that, 'cause it's not just about the dollars that you're bringing in. Yes, absolutely. The benefits that you lose after you leave corporate, whether that's health, dental, maybe vision insurance. You know, right now I'm carrying debt for our family 'cause my partner's also freelance. Anne: Yep. Erikka: So if you know that that's not gonna be an option for you, either planning for that expense, or getting enough union work where you can qualify for the union health insurance. And that's kind of where I'm at. Looking at now that you're not gonna have a 401k, what are you gonna do for retirement? Anne: Right. Erikka: Are you gonna open, you know, SEPs? Are you gonna look at, you know, individual IRAs? So kind of having that for yourself, just looking at all of what you're gonna lose and coming up with a contingency plan for that, for when you're on your own or just being willing to do without it. You have to consider more than just the dollars, the taxes -- the fact that now the income that you're gonna have from voiceover is not only gonna support your business and you're paying your own taxes, but you're gonna have to reinvest in your business as well. So you have to make enough to cover all of that. Anne: And support the family. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: Right? So whatever you have to do. And I remember those first years when I made that decision. Before I quit, and I say this all the time, I said to my husband, you're going to have to make one and a half times what you make now. See if you can get a transfer to California, but we're gonna have to make one and a half times, because I'm gonna quit my job, and I'm gonna go full time into voiceover. And you can't just can't depend on my salary after that happens. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: I had money put away in savings, but again, we're talking about a move across the country, that was expensive. Buying a new home, that was expensive. Even though we sold our home, we were buying a home that was brand new. So we did have to invest a little bit as well. And it just was something that we had to plan out. I said, make sure that you can guarantee this salary. And then, you know, it worked out and we moved. And then unfortunately my husband was laid off nine months after we got here. And then people said, when are you moving back? And I said, no, we're not moving back. So we made it work, but you still have to prepare for those unexpected things that happen. And so an exit strategy is important. Make sure that you have some money put aside that can support you in the event that you need to live off it for a year, I would say. That is so important and know that it's going to take time to build up your career in voiceover. I mean, at least give it five years. If you're at the point where you're working full time, and you're doing part-time voiceover, and you're making a considerable amount in voiceover doing that, first of all, congratulations because I know how difficult it was for me when I was working full-time, but I had to be on site, right, at my job, it was very difficult for me to make any money at voiceover 'cause I couldn't audition easily 'cause I was away from my studio. Now I think if you have the luxury of working from home, that's a whole lot easier. But still even if you can work from home, build in an evolution of here's transitioning from full-time to maybe consider your skillset and you can then be a part-time consultant in it while you're doing voiceover as well. And so therefore you are kind of compensating for the time it takes for you to build up the voiceover business while still utilizing your current skills in a consultant fashion, in a part-time fashion, that can supplement your living expenses and/or whatnot, your investment in your voiceover for the time being. I think that is something very important to put in place. And do not obviously, anybody listening to this podcast, do not think that voiceover is the easy job that you can just do from home. That just scares me when I do consults, and I hear people, they're like, well, I got laid off for my job and I wanna do voiceover. And that just scares me because that it's not that simple obviously. That transition takes time. There has to be an investment, and it amazes me again how many people don't have money to invest in voiceover to make it a sustainable career. Erikka: That's one thing too that I always kind of bring up, and it might be a little bit of an unpopular opinion, but I think that you should have a balanced approach when you're looking at exiting to not just have savings, but to also go ahead and build up a portfolio of credit that's available to you. Because this is a high investment industry, right? To be able to be in voiceover, you're constantly having to either spend money on equipment or you know, have subscriptions for connections or get training, you know, conferences, all these things, they do help you grow. So it's not like a one-time outlet. You do need to have some money for when technology fails and you have to replace it. It's easier for you to get approved for credit while you have that W2 income. So you don't have to use it. But kinda have the lines of credit available so that if the sky falls down, and you don't have enough savings to take you through that whole period, you have another fallback plan. It's like, you know, have your plan ABCD . Anne: That's a great idea. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: That's a great idea. And also I'd wanna mention on that line, consider if you're going to move low key into a new home. By the way, they don't look upon freelancers or people who are self employed very highly when you want to buy a new home for a mortgage loan. And I found that out very like firsthand when I moved here like two and a half years ago, and I've been established in the business. But I had to prove over and over and over again, here, I made this much this year, here are my bank records. Here, have it all. We can afford this. And it just was painful. It was painful. So if you need to make a move, make a move while you work at a job Erikka: The banks highly favor W2 work. Anne: They do, they do. Erikka: Yeah. So take advantage of that and then make your exit. Anne: Yeah. And then make your exit. That's actually a really good strategy plan. It's not that it can't be done because I did it. But you've got to basically hand over every piece of documentation that looks at your business and shows your income. And then you have to make sure that you can define where that income came from. You cannot just transfer $10,000 from PayPal into your bank account and say that it was for voiceover work. They're gonna wanna know really, where did that come from? And it's that type of a thing. Any large deposits into your bank account, you need to account for those. And if you say they're from your business, you gotta be ready to show the paperwork. That is just part of the reality. And especially now it's crazy out there in the housing market. It's expensive. So it's gonna make it that much harder even. Erikka: Cars too, like the other major purchase, you know, buying a car. And that's why, even if you do have W2 income now go ahead and get in the habit of keeping meticulous records, not just for taxes, but so that when you're in this situation, and maybe you're a year into your only freelance career, you've left your job and they want two years of history, you're gonna have to be able to show everything that happened over the past year and voice over plus that W2, which is gonna be easy. But get in the habit now, so that when those come up, you're able to really just show it and yeah, you want this fine? Yep. I can show you, no problem. 'Cause they wanna make sure it's not coming from illicit sources, right? Anne: Exactly. Exactly. Money laundering. That's it. I'm like, what look, what, where do they think it's coming from? Well, you could be laundering money. I'm like, oh, like that didn't even occur to me. Like, so I don't have a criminal mind there, but anyways, your last piece of advice for balancing everything so successfully the way that you do to the BOSSes out there; what would it be? Erikka: Oh man. I would just have to say, it's probably multi-pronged, but know your plan. Know what it is that you're trying to do with voiceover. If it's just something that you wanna do on the side, that is okay. But you need to know that and not kind of purport like you're trying to build something long term. Or if you are trying to build long term, start making long term plans. Start making steps to get your financial house in order, to prepare your family for this change. Don't want an emotional whim because you're tired of it. Grin and bear it, you know, just mm-hmm and know what you're doing and why you're doing it and who you're doing it for. And in the meantime, just set boundaries for yourself. Take care of yourself, know that you're not gonna be able to get into everything, but just know that you having both is also an asset. You're able to double dip for retirement, do a SEP and get your 401k. You're able to have another capital source to invest in your business. So just be patient with yourself. That was a lot of advice in one point. Anne: That was great though. It was sage, sage advice. Thank you so much, Erikka. You are an inspiration, for sure. Erikka: Thank you, Anne. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. All right. BOSSes. So as individuals, it can seem hard to make a big impact, but as a group, we can contribute to the growth of our communities in ways that we never thought possible. And you can find out more at 100voiceswhocare.org to learn how you can make a difference. Also big shout-out to our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can connect like BOSSes, like Erikka and I, and find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing week, and we'll see you next week. Bye! Erikka: 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 voBOSS.com 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.

You deserve to take up space & feel valued for the work you are doing. In this episode, Anne & Erikka discuss how saying no to jobs builds your career as much as saying yes! There is morality involved with lending your voice to a person or company. In making these difficult choices, it is essential to keep your brand & personal integrity aligned with the jobs you take. Bosses, have the confidence to say no, and if you need a little boost, your favorite hosts are here to help. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and our balance series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm excited to start my day again with the lovely Erikka J. Hey Erikka. Erikka: Hey, Anne. Anne: How are you? Erikka: How are you? I'm pretty good. Anne: I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Erikka: Hangin' in there. Anne: It's been a crazy year or a couple of years. Hasn't it? Erikka: It has. Yeah, for sure. Anne: And I have to say that I got a job offer the other day to do something for a political candidate. And it made me think, because my thoughts about voicing things for, let's say, political and/or let's say anything else that maybe I may, may not believe in have changed and have evolved over my career here. And I thought it might be an interesting conversation to have with you. Maybe our moral compass, so to speak. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Balancing that and balancing your yeses maybe, you know what I mean? Like what you say yes to and your no, 'cause your nos can shape your career just as much as what you do decide to voice. Anne: Oh, right there. That's a golden nugget. We can go home now because that says it all. Honestly, I think sometimes no is even more powerful than a yes and can really help define in so many ways. Well, just a little more on that job that I was talking about, you know, it was for a political spot, and I literally went so far as to look up the candidate because it wasn't evident by the content right away what was happening there. I ultimately, I ultimately said no to it because it did not align with my beliefs and not just the copy, but because I said it was hard to tell with the copy because it was a candidate that wasn't as well known. And so I just said no, and I'm thinking about myself, maybe, I don't know, five years ago, or even later than that. I might have said, you know what? It's, it's a gig. It's a political gig. Let's do it. Let's get on board. What about you? I know you do a lot of political work, and it may not just be political work, but -- Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. I do a lot of political, and in the very beginning of my career, like literally, like I had been probably doing voiceover for like a month, and I did have a quasi-political sort of thing come to me. But now kind of looking back on it and it was weird because when I did it, I was like, well, you know, I'm just starting and oh my gosh, they booked me and they want me and I can do it, you know? And it's like, yeah, it's kind of borderline, but I'll just do it. And I've regretted it ever since. And it probably lived for like two weeks. It was something that was very short term, but it was supporting a candidate that I was not in support of somewhat. Like I said, a roundabout, like, I didn't say their, their name. But it was just that I learned that not all work is good work if it's going to misalign with your gut and how you feel and your own beliefs. And if from a more business standpoint, misalign with your brand. You don't want to jeopardize the trust that you've built with your clients that do align with your values and your brand. And then they're like, well, why is she voicing this? So I stopped doing that. Anne: Yeah. And I find that now, especially now, 'cause it's such a divisive climate these days politically that I think it's just shaping my business in a way that I didn't anticipate, number one. Not that I do a ton of political. I mean I do enough political to know now I'm absolutely like checking on the candidates, finding, going to their webpage and finding out if their beliefs align with mine, because I'm just not willing to have my voice recognized, and then another client, like you were mentioning, a longstanding client, maybe, I don't know, not align with that and then maybe have issues with me voicing for them in the future. But it's not even so much about that. It's become now about my performance too. I wanna make sure -- it's hard to create a believable performance when you don't align with the client that you are voicing for. And it doesn't have to be political. I think it could be anything. You know, now we've got, one of our next episodes probably gonna be all about AI, but with AI jobs, right? Are they gonna recognize my voice and then will there be, I don't know, judgment in one way or another, because that's also something that people have very strong feelings about. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, definitely not just political. Yeah. Just kind of, it definitely comes out in your performance. Like, yes, we can take on feelings and emotions and words that are not our own. I truly believe that when you're not enjoying the performance, when you really are not totally invested in it, it's gonna come through somehow, some way. And you know, the client may say there's something about it or it might just be a difficult session when they're really trying to pry it out of you. It's gonna come out in the wash and when it's not real. So yeah. I just prefer to say no. And I find that when I say no, the right things come along to replace it. So it's kind of having that, that kind of mindset, not having the scarcity mindset of, oh, I have to take the job 'cause it came. You know, having a more abundant mindset of I'll release this thing that isn't for me. So I can go to the right person and the right thing will come to me. So. Anne: Exactly. And you know, that applies in so many things if I can, the power of no. And especially when you're negotiating also, I think that, that makes a huge difference in terms of, I don't have to take this. If you have that thought process of, you know what, I don't have to take this job. And I have the confidence that if I say no to this job, that it will give me room for the next job to come along and fulfill my need for, I don't know, money to support my, whatever to support me in this career. So the power to say no is huge. And when you are negotiating that confidence that you have the power to say no, and that you are okay knowing that if you say no, everything's gonna be okay, and that something else will come along and fill its place. That is huge. And I think that a lot of people, when they first start out in the industry, it's a scary thing to negotiate a job. Because they're afraid that they're gonna lose the job if they quote too high. And so therefore they settle. I think you only have to have a few negative experiences when you settle, and then you get that client that doesn't align with what you want your business to be. And then they kind of nickel and dime you on every little thing that they want from you. And those are clients that when I get really, I only had a couple that really came back and nickel and dime me. And I was like, you know what? I did not quit my full-time cushy job to come to a job where I could be beat up by my client. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: This is why I got out of it. And so I wanna just tell any voice actor out there that is beginning, you do not need to suffer through a client that is abusing you, so to speak. Erikka: Oh my goodness. Anne: Right? Erikka: Yeah. Definitely talking about balancing yes and nos, that is such a great point on rates, because like you said, the ones that don't necessarily want to pay your price are the ones that are gonna have the most demands, want the most pickups or little changes or, well, could you, you know, say this one with a, like going up like they really like line reads you type things. And you know, things like that, but yeah. Not being afraid to fire clients. I think that that's so important. Anne: When they don't value you. Erikka: Exactly. Anne: It's all about the value. Right? You've gotta understand that what you do is of value. And we say this over and over and over again, but it's so interesting how it always comes back into play in these, the power of no, the moral, ethical compass that you have in working. It's not just, oh, do you take a political side? It's a moral compass when working with a client who may not treat you as if your services are valued. And that I think is huge. And like I said, I did not give up my cushy job you know, and thankfully I had a cushy job. I say thankfully and gratefully, but I did not give it up to go into business for myself to be handled by my clients in a way that is not aligning with what I want my business to be and someone that doesn't value me. And that is a huge, huge thing. And it's a huge thing when you talk about AI, right? And we think that the AI industry is out to get the voice talent and to take away their jobs and to devalue them. I personally, just through the VO BOSS podcast and all of my interviews, have been fighting to have AI companies value the artist and value the voice and value the asset of voice because they value other assets. Right? If you think about some of these big advertising companies, they value the product. Well, if the voice is representing the product, how can you not value that voice? How can you not treat that voice with the respect that you treat the product? Because it's a part of it. Erikka: Yeah. You're bringing a branding element that nobody else can bring. You have something, this voice, this tone, this way of delivery that they have chosen to represent their brand. That's the value and, and should be given the proper respect for that. And even to your prior point, I do still have my nice job But I think the thing is like, even at work, not to take it too far off topic, but just valuing yourself and whatever value you are bringing to the table in any business transaction, really in any transaction at all, any relationship. And if you command that respect for yourself and knowing that when you set those boundaries and say, you know, Nope, that's not for me or I'm not gonna allow you to treat me that way, you make space for the right things to come. So that comes with rates. That comes with the way clients treat you, that comes with the way your boss treat you. If you have a job and they're not treating you right, find something else. Anne: Absolutely. I love that you brought that up, especially in the corporate environment, because I know a lot of reason why people may be getting into the voiceover industry, right, is to escape the job where they don't feel valued. You know, I worked in the corporate world. Corporate is one of my specialty genres in coaching and in what I do in voiceover. And I always felt that corporate became the way that I was winning 'cause I would do corporate voiceover. And I thought, here's the way that I don't have to go in and be mistreated in a board meeting, right, by members of the company or, you know, not valued. Here, I can do the job, don't have to go to any meetings -- well, maybe a meeting with a person that's paying me, but basically I'm in, I'm out, and I got paid. Erikka: Exactly. Anne: And so therefore I win. I win at corporate. But I do happen to love corporate and I understand the corporate way. And in reality, as voice artists, we are hired pretty much by companies, whether they are companies that have a product or broadcasting companies, they're still companies. And again, you want to be valued by that company that you work for. And it's just something that resonates, whether you are in a company wanting to get out to form your own company, right, that you need to be valued. You need to be valued and you have the space to morally and ethically say no to create a good balance in your life for not just getting paid, what you're worth, but just having joy in what you're doing. Erikka: And you have to remember that like these businesses, they're not saying yes to every single partnership or every contract, and you as a voice talent -- I know that it's easy for creators and artists to kind of see us, ourselves as beneath or as you know, well, we're so grateful to get a job, but we are B to B businesses. So when we are working or deciding to choose to work with another company, that is a partnership. And you have to decide if that partnership is right for you, just like the big corporations do. You're no different. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's such a great point. Wow. So do you have any examples of jobs that you've said no to yourself? Erikka: Oh boy. I know. I do. Let's see. I've definitely said no for rates. And the couple times where I might have bent, I regretted it. Anne: Because then they would come back and want every little pickup. Erikka: Either they wanted more or it was just like, when I did it, it wasn't as fulfilling. And I was just kind of like dreading it. And then I send the invoice and I'm like, I can't believe I put myself through that for this. You know what I mean? So I kinda stopped bending. The times that I do kind of bend more on rates are like, if it's something I really wanna do. And I really believe in like PSAs or for non-profits and stuff like that. But yeah, I have, more times than I can count, you know, just said, hey, this is my rate. This is what it is. And if they say, you know, it's not gonna work for us. Great. Definitely say no a lot for usage, and that's something, you know, I'm open about the fact that I do participate on P2Ps. Just really Voice123 right now. But I'm very careful to make sure that anything that says in perpetuity, these contracts or these blatant boiler plate, things that they send out, I gotta make sure that I'm protected, that they're not gonna use it for broadcast use or try to use it in perpetuity without it being totally kind of safe from creating conflicts in the future. And I'll say no very quickly for those. Anne: Yeah. Yeah. I wanna point out that a lot of times there's a panic, right, if I say, no, I won't get hired again. And I just wanna say like in life right, think about the products that you buy. You can choose to buy a product that's maybe cheaply made and that doesn't last as long, or it's not as good value, or you can buy the stuff that has served you well in the past, right? A trusted brand that lasts a long time or you can depend on it over and over again. And when it comes to that, you don't care what you pay for it for the most part. Right? And I think that even though we think voiceover might be going down the tubes because online casting came and, and now AI is coming and, and people think, well, it's just be devalued, and so what's gonna happen? Well, I think it it's human nature that there's always gonna be the division of, okay, so there's good value. Or maybe there's not so good value. And I don't think that's going to change whether pay to plays are in the picture or AI is in the picture, because people are always gonna want to buy the thing that gives them the best value. And that does not always equate to money. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: Right? Erikka: You'll always have buyers for the Dollar Store sort of, you know, genre. You'll always have buyers that are more in like the Target sort of realm and then you'll have your Neiman Marcus folks. Like it's always -- Anne: Right. Erikka: There are people that are, that are price driven and those that are quality driven, and there's just different types of buyers. And it's just which one do you align with. Anne: Right. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: And those buyers can change at any given moment. There may be times when I feel like I don't need top of the line, I don't know -- I always go to the girl thing -- I don't need top of the line lipstick now, but but I always need a good hairdresser. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: Do you know what I mean? Like, I feel like I wanna be that voice of our artist where people say, well, all right, I can forego maybe this part of the project, but I cannot live without Anne Ganguzza for my voice. Erikka: There you go. Anne: But that's what you wanna try to manifest for your business. Right? They say, Erikka J, man, she is like no other. She delivers. I love her voice. I can't live without her. And that's the type of client that you want. And there's a lot of clients out there, guys. I don't think we need to be worried that you're not gonna be able to get a client that will support that value and support your business. And I think you just have to believe, and I know a lot of times it takes -- it took me years to kind of get that belief and that confidence. And it's funny because it's still evolving, and I've been in this for over 15 years now. Erikka: Yeah. It's like a muscle. You have to keep stretching it. Yeah. Anne: It is like a muscle. It keeps growing, and you just like every day you realize, wow, you know what? I'm gonna be okay. People are going to want to hire me, right, because I deliver value. And then even if there are other things like pay-to-plays have become, it's tough. It's a lot of competition. Well, maybe that's something that you evolve out of and you do something different. And again, you always have to have that balance of this is aligning with my business, morally, ethically. And what's my other word? Does it bring me joy? Erikka: Yeah. Anne: Right? Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: There is that balance that makes my business go around kind of thing. And makes me happy that I do what I do. And when it no longer makes me happy or no longer fulfills my quota of, I need to support myself, right? Well then maybe I evolve into something else and what's given me the strength to be okay with that is the fact that I have built my business up. And that I have succeeded. I always say this. If the voiceover industry were to fall out, I'd be okay. Because I have learned how to operate a business myself, and I know that I can evolve, and I will evolve because I've proven it to myself before. And I know that you BOSSes out there can do the same. Erikka: Absolutely. Anne: I'm not anybody special. I think there's something to be said for longevity and in following your moral compass. Erikka: Yeah, yeah. Anne: Right? And having that balance. Erikka: Yeah. And I think part of balancing those yeses and nos, we talked about the moral compass. We talked about financially making sure the rates are right, the usage, making sure it brings you joy. I think another part of that is do you have the time? Because you don't wanna jeopardize your relationship with a client by you keep saying yes, yes, yes, yes. And you start falling behind on deadlines or you're not delivering the quality that sets up to par because the hours in the day are finite. Right? Your energy is, is finite per day. So sometimes you might have to say no, simply because you don't have the bandwidth, and you have to be okay with that because it'll be worse for you to deliver a subpar product. Anne: Right. Right. Erikka: Because you didn't have the bandwidth to really do it. Yeah. Anne: And I think it works. I mean, if you want it to, I think it can work in your favor and especially, Erikka, for you, I think because you are juggling a full-time job, a voiceover career, I mean family, everything. And so the fact that you don't have the time makes it like a little easier to say no. And a lot of times when you say no, that makes people want you more. Erikka: Yes, I totally agree. Anne: Just sayin'. And that makes people value you more. And that actually can turn out to be a wonderful thing for your business. Erikka: Yeah, yeah. Anne: Right? Erikka: Yeah. Or like, for me, like I say no to longer form projects, because I know it's gonna be harder for me to fit that in. So it makes room for me to get more of the short term stuff. And like you said, it does kind of be like, oh, well you didn't have time for this, but I'd love you to do this. You know, like, could you do this one? Anne: Or even, I dunno, has it ever turned around, whether you've said, no, I, I don't have time for it. And they offer you more money? Erikka: They offer me more money or they offer me more time. They're like, well, if we wait until next week, could you do it? And I'd be like, well, yeah, actually I could Anne: Yeah, so in a sense, absolutely. I mean, it just works out, and I'm always saying being busy is a good thing as long as you're balanced and you're not going crazy. And like your health is at stake or something like that. But the being busy is good because then it's a great time, I always say, when you're that busy to raise your rates and see what happens and it's scary as hell, but when you raise your rates, and then you say, let me just see what happens, and people just, they take it. And you're like, damn. And it's so funny because to us, it's like this big, like, oh my God, I'm gonna raise my rates. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: And then the next thing you know, somebody's buying it and you're like, oh, well that was simple. Why didn't I do that before? Erikka: I am so glad you said that, Anne, because again, the laws of business, which we have to remember as BOSSes, that we are not just talking into a microphone, we're not just artists. We are entrepreneurs. We are businesses. What businesses do, the law of supply and demand. If the demand goes up, guess what, the price has to go up, because there's not as much supply to fulfill that. So yeah. Anne: That's right. It's a really wonderful thing. And I think there's too many people that let it get to them before they realize that, wow, this is how I can raise my -- this is how I can actually survive because there's not too many people that are just doing this as a hobby. I mean a lot of people, oh yeah. It's kind of fun. I'm dabbling in it. But in reality, the ones of us who are concerned about how do I market, how do I get the jobs? We want this to be a living. We wanna be able to do this and be successful at it so that we can support our families or whatever it is that we wanna do with that. And I think when it gets to that point, you've gotta figure out how you're gonna make that business work for you. And there are some scary, scary challenges. I'm -- like I say this all the time, you have to be scared of something every day, honestly. And I think that really is good for you to be a little bit scared. And I'm still scared when I raise my rates, and then I'm still like, oh, damn, that was easy. Somebody picked up on that. Erikka: Right. Right. Anne: It's like -- now I think you just have to be careful that you're within a market. Erikka: For sure. Anne: You don't wanna price yourself out of the market. And that is something that you have to, you know, understand. And I think that's something that, again, there's a balance of worth plus the market, because you can be a little more expensive than what typically is on the market. And that's where I kind of like to -- I don't wanna say I'm expensive, but I like to say they are my values. This is my price because I honestly, I don't have time to not have it be my price. Erikka: Amen. Yes, yes. And deliver the goods to match that price. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: You know, so that they are happy to pay that. Anne: Well, exactly. Happy and glad to pay it over and over and over again. And I don't feel guilty. Erikka: Yep. Anne: Right? I don't ever feel guilty. Erikka: Yep. Anne: Right? I don't know. Have you ever felt guilty when charging a client? Erikka: I, I might feel guilty when I first say it, but then like at the end of the job, I'm like, yeah, well that was worth that , you know, and they're happy. Anne: Yeah, if you work hard. Erikka: They didn't have to come back, you know, like they got what they needed quickly and yeah. Anne: Well, you know, that's so interesting that you say that too. I was on a live directed session the other day, and it boggles my mind, right, because I said, oh, do you wanna, you know, gimme some direction or you want me to just read it? And then you can gimme some comments later. They're like, yeah, let's do that. I delivered the read, and they're like, wow. That was perfect. And it's funny because that was quick. They're like, okay, no, that was perfect. We don't need anything else. Bam. I did it. They were like, wow, that's perfect. That was perfect. And they were so shocked and surprised and happy. And I was like, gosh, I wonder who they've been working with? Erikka: Really. Anne: Because for me it was just like, okay, let me just do this. And I was confident. I think confidence has -- we should have an entire episode on confidence. Erikka: Oh gosh, we should. Anne: You know, just because I was confident, there was no reason for me to be not confident. I do get nervous before a live session, but I'm confident in my abilities and to be able to deliver that, but they were so surprised and I was like, well, I'm so happy that I could deliver. And guess what? They hired me again. And so it just became like, it was quick, but it was worth it for them because it was quick. And I delivered what they needed quickly. Erikka: They're trading their money for you to make them spend less time. So the better that you can efficiently deliver with the read and what they're looking for, so that they're not spending hours directing you on a session, they're gonna appreciate that. And they're gonna happily pay you 'cause they can get more money. They, they don't have a lot of time. And yeah, I love what you said about, you know, it kind of just being ready, because if you get into that session and you're nervous -- I get nervous before live sessions still too. Anne: Yeah. I do. Erikka: One thing to kind help with that is I'm not afraid to like ask questions, especially if I have a client that maybe hasn't hired a lot of voice talent, so that I get clarity on the direction that they wanna go. You know, I'll do that at the top of the session. So then I'm more secure and more confident in what I'm delivering because it's not the guessing game and feeling it out in those first 15, 20 minutes. Right? And now I've just saved them 20 minutes because I took five minutes to ask questions, delivered the read in two, three takes -- Anne: Exactly. Erikka: -- we're done. Anne: Yeah. That's it, that's it, it's really delivering what they want. And that's the thing. 'Cause maybe, you know, you're confident in your performance, but you're not necessarily confident that you're gonna deliver what they want in their ears. So asking questions I think is, is super important. So guys, balance, I think balance in moral ethics, your value. I think that it is so important for a happy, successful career in voiceover. And I think that compromising -- look, I think anybody that gets into this industry, I think if they're coming out of the corporate world, which I have a lot of people, you know, trying to come out of the corporate world to do it full time, and I'm always like, well wait, just a moment before you do that. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: Right? And I think that, that is also another worthy topic for the podcast is, you know, your full-time job plus voiceover, how do you make it work? Which -- Erikka: And balance, and a balanced approach to the exit strategy. Anne: Yep, exactly. Yeah, exactly. But I think morally, ethically and worth-wise, you have to have a great balance and a great sense of who you are and your worth and to make things successful. And I believe in all of you, BOSSes out there, that it can be done. I mean, if I could do it, like like I've learned a lot over my 15 years, and, and that is a big part of what I've learned and a big part of what helped me become successful. And Erikka, I'm sure you see that every day. Erikka: Every day, balancing the yeses and the nos, balancing what I'm gonna do and not do. And yeah, for sure, eevery day. Anne: All right. Well, BOSSes, I'd like to give a big thank you to our sponsor 100voiceswhocare.org. This is your chance to make a difference using your voice and give back to the communities that give to you. Find out more at 100voiceswhocare.org. And also our sponsor ipDTL. We love ipDTL. It helps me to connect with BOSSes like Erikka here and all of you out there. Find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing wake and we will see you next week. Erikka: Bye! Anne: 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 voBOSS.com 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.

In this Bonus Episode, Anne is joined by The National Association of Voice Actors co-founders, Tim Friedlander & Carin Gilfry. NAVA is a new association that aims to advocate and promote the advancement of the voice acting industry through action, education, inclusion, and benefits. The three discuss why & how NAVA came to be, what their specific goals are, and how voice actors can join. If all goes to plan, NAVA will be the first organization to offer health benefits to voice actors. Bosses, you definitely don't want to miss this! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza. And today I am very excited to bring the founders of the National Association of Voice Actors or NAVA to the show, Mr. Tim Friedlander and Carin Gilfry. Welcome, guys, to the show. Thanks so much for joining me. Tim: Hello. Hello. Thanks for having us. Carin: Thanks for having us. We're excited. Anne: Well, I'm very excited to talk to you about this brand new initiative, which I think is only, what, a month or two old? Carin: Couple months. Yeah, a few months. Anne: So tell me, what is the National Association of Voice Actors? Tim: National Association of Voice Actors is a national association of voice actors. We made the title nice and simple to keep . It grew out of some groups that car and I have put together over the last, I started mine in 2014. I believe Carin, you were around the same time, 2016 or so? Carin: I think 2015. Yeah, something like that. Tim: Yeah. And these groups we have, uh, you have the voice actors of NYC. I have Gardner Street Voiceover Collective, various other groups I'm involved in. And over the years, we talk about business. We talk about how to get into the, into SAG AFTRA. We talk about what it means to go Fi-Core. We talk about various other different parts of the voiceover industry. Currently that conversation is around synthetic voices. So we're having that conversation in our groups as well. And we decided we wanna take that to a broader audience. And so we kind of took this off of Facebook and put this into a national group that we could offer education and support and financial support to on a much larger, much larger scale. Anne: I love that. Carin: In addition to that too, over the past few years, Tim and I have also, through our groups, been kind of creating emergency funds and donation funds for people in the voiceover industry, particularly during the pandemic. My group and Tim's various groups, we had emergency funds set up for people who lost their jobs during the pandemic, or who just needed extra money to pay bills or get a new microphone, 'cause theirs broke and they didn't have any money to do it. And so we were giving out payments to people, no questions asked without having a nonprofit. And so we thought that by forming a 501(c)(3), we would be able to do that in a much better way than just having a PayPal account and paying it out to people when they asked. Anne: Absolutely. Now it's membership driven. Is there a fee to join or can we join free? How is that working right now? Tim: Currently it's brand new and we have a membership committee that is going to be setting those standards for us on what that will be. Currently it's free to anybody who wants to join. And so there will always be a free membership tier that people can access the information. Definitely we wanna be a resource for people who are getting into the industry to find a trusted area for information. So we'll have a free tier that our membership committee will set for us. And then beyond that, there will be dues at some point, but we don't have that currently in place. Anne: Talk to me a little bit more about the resource-driven initiatives that you have. You mentioned before resources for the union or for Fi-Core for non-union people. What's that look like? Tim: Sure. We're currently calling it Pathways, different VO pathways that you have. And a lot of people think it's very black and white. It's either union or non-union. And in voiceover, for many of us who work in this industry know that it's very gray. There are non-jurisdictional jobs, which means it's not covered by a union contract. So what does non-jurisdictional even mean? What jobs are non-jurisdictional ,what can we work on? How do we join the union? If a voice actor wants to be in the union, what they need to do to get in that union? I was eligible for two years before I even know I could join the union. 'Cause I didn't know I worked under a contract that was a union contract. I didn't even know I worked under a contract. So that's just -- you know, I worked under an AFTRA contract for an audiobook that made me eligible. And two years later I was trying to get my eligibility and I was already set. I didn't know these things. And then also this concept that you can convert jobs. You can take a job that is currently non-union and convert that into a union job. So a lot of voice actors look at this concept of joining the union as having to give up all this work that I do in the non-union realm. And for a lot of people, that's not a tenable situation to be in, where you're gonna be giving up a massive amount of money, your entire living that you support your family with, to move into someplace where you may not even have access to auditions and jobs. So we are gonna show, we wanna provide that information on how can you navigate this industry. If I wanna go union, this is what I do. If I wanna go Fi-Core, this is what that means. If I wanna stay non-union, this is what it means. And the union is great when you can reach them. And their information is very solid when you can reach somebody over there, but they don't deal with voiceover specifically, and voiceover for everybody who knows is such a very unique niche aspect of what SAG AFTRA and the arts industry and community in general is, that we want something that's very specific to just voice actors. Anne: Very important. Carin: We also, we have an incredible advisory board of just people from literally every genre of work that there is in voiceover. We made a point of asking people from audiobooks and video games and commercials and TV narration, and all just across the spectrum of voiceover so that we have people advising NAVA on all of those different aspects. And we have people as part of our advisory board who are very important people in SAG AFTRA who are very pro-union and want everyone to join the union if possible. We also have people on our board who are Fi-Core and we have people on our board who are non-union. Our goal is to be voice actor first and to be as unbiased as we can be as a group and just provide accurate information out there for people to have, because I think SAG AFTRA is absolutely wonderful. But when I called and was trying to figure out whether I should join or go Fi-Core, I called them and I didn't feel like the information that I got about joining the union and converting work specifically -- they basically didn't tell me that I could convert work. And so I really thought that I was gonna have to give up every non-union job that I would book in the future. And it's mostly just because I think people are unaware that it's possible to do that. This group we hope is a resource for people with unbiased, accurate information. That's very voice actor forward. Anne: I think that's so important because I know there are so many questions when people get into the industry, like, what is the union and how do I become eligible for the union? Should I join the union? And it's always those questions that, you're right, the information has not been really readily available anywhere to find out that information, and it's complex. And so the different avenues are, I think each one of them has a special set of circumstances, and there are advantages and disadvantages to whichever way you decide. And I think having a resource to provide that information to voice talent is so very important for that. So that's a wonderful initiative, and especially things like -- I know that you've started something for healthcare or you're attempting to try to lobby for voice talent that, if they don't have healthcare, they can get it. Talk a little bit about that. Carin: Yes. Tim: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's something, you know, for anybody who is, those who are SAG AFTRA and have health insurance in SAG AFTRA, they know the benefits of having that access to phenomenal healthcare. And one of the things that we learned after forming this group that we did was that there is a possibility of providing healthcare for members of our association. And that is about the extent of the information though. It's about as far as we are in this, in this process. I started working on it before we actually had a group in this capacity. And I started in November of last year. I had been in discussions about possibly offering this for a year before that. And it was actually kind of put into motion of November of last year and is just for anybody who's dealt in healthcare, i's just a convoluted process of misinformation and different information and, and what information is accurate and what information is inaccurate and -- Carin: And changing what changing laws. Tim: Changing laws, yeah, exactly. Anne :Yeah. And it's such an important component for us as entrepreneurs, right, to have health insurance. I know we don't like to think about it, like we could ever need it, but I'll tell you, when you least expect it, you could really use that healthcare. And I know that first hand. And I was thankful that I was able to have healthcare, but it was through my spouse. So, and for those people that, that may not be an option, this is a wonderful initiative, and the best of luck with that. I think that's phenomenal. That's something that's very important. Tim: We look at it as, you know, I've, I've always thought of it as one of the things that can help advance people in their career. and it can help get you into that level where you are able to get union healthcare. It can get to that point. You know, the more work people can focus on -- I've always been somebody who in all my spare time, I personally don't wanna wait tables to support my career of being an artist. I wanna be an artist. Anne: Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. Tim: And I'm a musician all the time, and I want more people to have access to doing the art that they want to do, and love to do and make a living at it, and not have to stay in a job they don't wanna -- this is one of Carin's talking points that she brings up quite frequently is, you know, this, this concept of staying in a job you don't want to be in be just purely because you need the healthcare. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. And being able to have the income, right, coming in so that you can be confident in pursuing more work. And so I've always been, you know, a big proponent of have that little bundle of cash. And if you're spending that cash on something, when it goes wrong on healthcare, the whole thing kind of crumbles. And so I think it's important to have something like that put in place so that you can pursue your creative career and grow in it. Tim: We're just in the process of building that. So we just don't have, we don't have answers yet that are fully formed for us to give rates and to give who's gonna be covered and how it's gonna be covered, which is why we're here today talking about this. You need help from people to, you know, because -- Carin: We do have a plan of action. Anne: Yes. Let's hear the plan of action. I love it. Carin: Great. You can see, we have an infographic up on our website, which is navavoices.org. And you can see it's called, I think, the road to health insurance you'll see a little map on there. But basically the idea is we, as an association, have to come up with a pool of applicants who would apply for this health insurance. The health insurance companies wanna see who are these people, you know, what is their average age, where do they live, those kinds of questions. So we have a health insurance census, and we are hoping to get 800 to 1000 people to add their information to the census. Once we have that pool of applicants, that's when we can go to all the different health insurance companies and say, here we are, this is what we are. This is what we do. Our job is very low risk. We're not like construction workers, or even on camera actors have a more dangerous job than we do. We're literally sitting in a booth talking into a microphone. It's not very dangerous work. So this is who we are. They look at the full group and they say, okay, these are the rates. These are the plans that we can offer you. Then we choose which plans we think would best suit the needs of our members. And then during the open enrollment period this year, November and December, hopefully fingers crossed, if all goes, according to plan, we will have options for people to be able to purchase that health insurance, which will then start January of 2023. So the main thing right now is that we need as many voice actors who are interested in having this health insurance option to fill out the census. And also I should add that if you are on the census, you have the ability to purchase health insurance in November and December. If you're not on the census, you will not be able to purchase health insurance until the following year. Anne: So the next enrollment. Carin: Yeah, until the next enrollment. So, so if you have even like a little bit of interest in, maybe this is something that I might wanna consider, depending on what the rates are, fill out the census so that when we do get those plans and those rates, you will have the option to buy it if you want. Tim: Yep. And you can look at the compare rates when offers come around, and if it's not right for you, then there's no obligation to sign up on our plan. Carin: No obligation. Tim: But again to reiterate, if you aren't on the original census, and the rates come out and it looks like something viable you would want to get into, you wouldn't be able to join until the next open enrollment. So we definitely encourage everybody who is even just slightly and should want to compare rates. We have a question on there about "how interested are you, I'm just comparing rates," you can just check that section so we know that you're somebody who is just kicking the tires and just trying to compare rates. Anne: Fantastic. Carin: Just to clarify, you must be a voice actor in some capacity in order to be a member of NAVA and or qualify for this health insurance. So. Anne: Fulltime or part-time or in some capacity, paid jobs? Carin: Full-time, part-time doesn't matter, just in some capacity. Yeah. Paid jobs. We're working on what the vetting process is gonna be because we don't want it to be like an earning threshold. It's not gonna be like SAG AFTRA where you have to make 25,600 or whatever it is, almost $26,000 in union earnings to qualify for health insurance. It won't be like that. It will be like a vetting process where we'll see, oh, this person has a website. Oh, this person has a demo. Oh, this person has done a little bit of VO work. They qualify. Or, oh, this person has a profile on Voice123, they're probably doing some work as a voice actor. They qualify. And again, we don't know what that is yet, but it will be something like that, not an earning threshold. Tim: Yeah. And that kind goes in parallel with what the requirements are gonna be for the health plan. Like what level of connection does this group have to have between its members in order to show that they're part of a single group of association. So it all fluctuates, but we do, we have a membership committee who is handling that for us, and that we'll have something in the next, hopefully the next month or so that will, um, have some information on what different membership tiers will look like and what those dues will be and, and what the, what will be offered for those people who have different tiers. Anne: Fantastic. Now, as I look at the front page of your website, you have some lofty goals, which I really love, not only the health insurance that you just spoke about, but also you mentioned earlier financial assistance through scholarships and emergency funds. And I think that that's a really wonderful thing because prior to having this group put together, they were kind of all over the place. And I know at one point long ago, I offered scholarships through VO Peeps. And so since then there have been other groups that have offered scholarships. And of course there's the Brad Venable fund, which is amazing. Talk to us a little bit about what your plans are for that. I love having it in the central place. Tim: Yeah. You know, as I said, kind of some part of this started with us based on this financial aid that we were offering to some of our members in there and the kind of the foundation, what got the NAVA started in the early part of the year was we received a donation from Bev Standing and Rob Siglimpaglia after Bev's TikTok lawsuit was settled last year. They donated their GoFundMe money they had raised to the Brad Venable scholarship into that fund. And that became the foundation of what started NAVA. That allowed us to pay for the lawyers, pay for all of the incorporation, pay for the things that we needed. And also allowed us to put a decent amount of money aside into a basis for a fund which provided three full scholarships to VO Atlanta for three voice actors, which covered tickets, covered airfare, covered lodging, covered food for the entire duration of the time they were there. So we were able to cover all the expenses out of that fund. We also have been able to use that fund going forward to help some people, a little bit of money here and there. It's currently not public because we are still setting it up, and we have to wait until all of our final paperwork gets through for us to officially be fully sanctioned to do the things we wanna do. So currently it's on hold, but we will be able to take donations which will be tax deductible donations. So voice actors can donate to the group. We have a lot of people who over the years have just donated here and there. Somebody books a good job, and they turn around and donate a little bit of money to the fund just to help have our group. I think we've probably done $40 or $50,000 in the last 18 months to two years out of our group. Carin has done, you know, something similar along those lines. Carin: Yeah. Same, same number from my groups. Tim: Yeah. And a lot of voice actors, we all know, you know, $200 here and there sometimes is the difference between us getting through the weekend and not getting through the weekend or a client is late on paying or something doesn't come through. Or we do a lot of ACH. You know, we do direct bank transfer and your deposit gets made, but it's not gonna hit until Friday because it's a holiday. So sometimes just that $200 gets somebody through the weekend, gets somebody through the next 24 hours or the 48 hours until something come through, which we all know is small business owners. And as cash flow is tough sometimes, it's, those are the little things that help. And we help a lot of people in that little way that we wanna continue doing. Anne: Fantastic. Now you also have education and inclusion. So speak about education, resources. That's gonna be on your website? You're gonna also thinking of hosting classes maybe, or workshops or NAVA meetings that, uh, you would provide that? Carin: Yeah, I think we'll probably do a Zoom every month or so for our members about various topics, but also we are kind of partnering with different resources around the voiceover community that provide educational materials. So like GVAA for example, um, is -- Tim: VO peeps Carin: And VO peeps. Yes. Anne: VO Peeps, VO BOSS. Yeah. Okay. Carin: Yes, yes. And VO BOSS. Great. Anne: Thank you. Carin: No, but the GVAA rate guide is definitely something that we are fans of. And so that is part of our website, and SAG AFTRA has a lot of educational resources that I think people don't -- when they go to the website, it's not like totally 100% clear exactly where it is. So we can have links to those on our website. So people can just find a central place where you can go, where if you have a question, you can look up that information on our site, information on converting work, other things like that. Tim: Yeah. And there are lots, there's so many great coaches out there that we can, we want to help support and advocate for those who we know are trustworthy, who we know are great to work with, different people. And also I think Carin I've worked with most everybody in, in the Los Angeles area. I know who are some great people to work with, who personalities -- one of the great things, you know, a great coach, a great coach. If they're the great coach for you, some people work better with other people. And we know these things would help, help guide somebody into a great mentorship with a great coach or a great group of people who are offering classes and things along those lines. So that's kind of where we're looking at and promote. Anne: And the VORG is coming back. Tim: The VORG, the voiceover resource guide. Anne: The VORG. Carin: It's the VORG. Anne: I'm on the VO. Yeah. Tim: Voiceover resource guide goes to print. It's 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, hopefully tomorrow. And we go to print tomorrow. We have to. Anne: Wow. Tim: We're going out. Anne: That's incredible. The VORG was all there was back and see, now I'm gonna date myself. But the VORG was all, there was back, I wanna say in the eight, was it the 80s? It's the -- Tim: Voiceover industry's oldest publication since 1988. And actually up until about four years ago was the only printed publication in the industry. Anne: Yeah. Absolutely. And when I saw that was coming back, I was so excited to see that. Also now an online version as well, so absolutely. Recommending the best of the best in LA and New York and fantastic stuff. So, get your copy of the VORG. You can pre-order, right? Pre-order the printed copy, which, hey, who doesn't love, who doesn't love a good book? Tim: My stack of voiceover resource guides right here. So. Anne: Yeah, I was gonna say, do you have, I don't have one. I don't have one with me, but I do have one. So fantastic. Awesome. Talk a little bit about -- I know you mentioned this in your, in your meeting the other day, inclusion and diversity and how you support that. Carin: Yeah. So we are also partnering with kind of the people in the industry who have formed groups that are really interested in, in representative casting and authentic casting. And so Queer Vox and the PGM list are two groups that we are partnered with. Maria Pendolino is also starting a new group for disabled voice actors, which we will hopefully be able to be a part of. It's just about supporting all of our colleagues and supporting the voiceover industry and moving toward this authenticity and representation that I think we all are -- it's about time and Anne: Absolutely, absolutely. Carin: -- excited about. Yeah. So that's something that NAVA is supportive of. Anne: Oh, fantastic. Tim: And hopefully to be able to take that next step and be able to then educate and work with casting directors and productions on what this means to cast authentically earlier in the process, so it's not a, not an afterthought or something that's happening. Either when it's too late or when it becomes too difficult to find what's needed authentically. Anne: Well, congratulations guys. I mean, what a beautiful, wonderful initiative and resource for the community. Thank you so much on behalf of the BOSSes out there and everybody in the community for putting in the work. I know, again, I date myself, and I know how much work you're putting in, especially I had my own 501(c)(3) back in the day. So yeah. Good luck with that. And really thank you so much for everything that you're doing for the community. Tim: Oh, well, thank you. Carin: Thank you. Thank you so much for having us today. It's great to get the word out. And the VO BOSS is fantastic, and thank you for all the work you're doing -- Anne: Well, thank you. Carin: -- with all of your podcasts and information and all of that. It's just fantastic. So thanks for having us. Anne: Well, thank you. So that website, BOSSes, is navavoices.org. Any other links I need to be shooting out to people? Tim: That's our main link. Yep. Carin: The census is on the front page of the website. So if you wanna take the census, go there, click, and you're in. Tim: That's it. Carin: To the census. Anne: Awesome. Yes. All right. BOSSes. Sign the healthcare census and become a member now. All right, well, thanks again, guys. I'd like to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, 100 Voices Who Care. You guys can have an opportunity to have your voice make a difference. You can find out more at 100voiceswhocare.org. And of course, to our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can connect like a BOSS and find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing week. Thanks so much for joining us this week, and we'll see you next week. Bye. Tim: Bye-bye. Carin: 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 voBOSS.com 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.

We all get a lot of spam messages, but how many of us are sending cold emails that could be perceived as spam? This week, Anne & Erikka are here to help you clean the spam from your inbox. Using discernment is key, but checking for legitimate business websites, email domains, and avoiding sketchy links is a great start. As for sending spam, any #VOBOSS knows that their website, email signature, and patiently awaiting a response will help, but keep listening for the whole conversation! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and today I am excited to bring back my very special favorite co-host Erikka J. Woohoo! Erikka: I'm sure you say that to all the co-hosts, Anne. Anne: Hey. Hey. Erikka: Well, we are matching today with our headphones though. Anne: So, oh my gosh. That's pretty awesome. Erikka: Yes. Yeah. Anne: Wow. Wow. We're doing a little experiment, BOSSes, that not only are we recording audio, but we are recording video this week, and that was quite an event because I had to put some lipstick on. Erikka: Just gloss for me was the best I could do. Anne: And try to look good for the camera, but you know, we'll give it a shot. So Erikka, it's been a crazy week. It's been, goodness, what's been going on with you? Erikka: Man. Yesterday. Actually I posted that I got this really crazy spam email and um... Anne: Uh-\oh. Erikka: Well, well, okay. I'll take it back even further. It went -- on a good note -- Anne: Crazy spam. Erikka: Oh goodness. All spam is crazy, right? But this one was, was probably the worst I've gotten. I had just gotten featured in this magazine called Voyage ATL and posted the article. Anne: Oh yes. Erikka: It's like really cool. And with that comes SEO juice, and there's good juice and bad juice. And it looks like this juice kind of fed some bad. I got a form submission actually from my, my site, which is based on Squarespace. And so I'm saying, okay, when, if somebody's wanna hire me, I click it. And it says it's from the Spit in Her Butt Show. Anne: oh my gosh. The Spit in Your Butt. All right. Erikka: Her. So particularly women. Anne: Oh, Spit in Her Butt. Oh! Erikka: The Spit in Her Butt Show. And they said that they found me on Voyage. Like they actually told me that that was how they found me. Anne: Wow. Erikka: And I was like, oh, ok. Anne: So that was not a job proposal. Erikka: I don't know, but I, I would decline whatever it is. Anne: Yeah, I think I'd decline. Erikka: And then they left a link, and it was like -- Anne: Oh my. Erikka: -- it's a valid show though. That's what's nuts. I didn't click the link because you know. Anne: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That looks suspicious. Erikka: But Googled a little and apparently this guy does and I was like, ew, you know, but spam. Yeah. Anne: Spam is, spam is ugh. Spam is annoying. That is for sure. And I think, you know what? That kind of is a great segue into what I think would be a great topic to talk about. 'Cause I get questions all the time about emails and email marketing. So we should talk about email marketing today. And spam is a concern. I think, let me just open up by saying there's a lot of people which will go and kind of mine the internet for production companies and email addresses to where maybe they should send their demos to and try to get on their rosters. And while that's absolutely a method to do that, the risk that you take with that is that you are probably going to be cold emailing someone. And I think that there's some considerations that you need to think about before you do that. Spam is most certainly one of them, and spam is in the broadest sense is receiving an email that you did not give permission or request. And so as business owners and trying to sell a service, we have to be very careful when we email people that we have their permission. I mean, that is the ultimate way that you need to be doing your marketing is to having permission to send to these people. But what do you do when you don't know these people? Right? Erikka: Yeah, yeah. Anne: How do you make an introduction? How do you do it without being considered spam? Because I know when I get spam, as you just mentioned, like the last thing I wanna do is contact these people ever again. 'Cause I'm annoyed, number one, how did you get my email address? How did you find me? At least the person told you how found you. Erikka: True. True. Anne: But a lot of times, yeah, a lot of times I'll just get an email in my inbox and it'll be like, hey, I can help your SEO or I can do your website or whatever that might be. And the interesting thing is that they never seem to be from a valid company. It's just like kind of an indescript email address and no signature file. And I don't know, what are some things that you look out for when you're getting emails to see if they're spam or not? Erikka: Oh man. It's the common stuff. Anne: Warning signs. Erikka: Yeah. The misspellings. Honestly, sometimes the all caps. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: Because humans just don't really write that way. Particularly like if it's coming to me in another language that I only speak English, I only have English everywhere on any presence on the web, maybe a little Spanish every once in a while, but yeah, nothing -- Anne: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Erikka: Yeah, definitely stuff like that. I don't know. Just the context. I'll I'll look at it. I definitely don't click any links, but I'll read it. But yeah, the misspellings and all that kind of stuff, usually it's in the text, you can tell. Anne: I think for me, the first thing I see is, is there a signature file, and is it coming from a proper domain? Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: Right? Erikka: There you go. Anne: If it comes from like a Yahoo address or a, even a Gmail address these days, and I know there have been talks with people about, well, it's okay to just have a Gmail address for your business. And I'm like, I, I kind of have a disagreement with that because I feel like if you want to exude professionalism that at least have a domain name that is your business. And that domain name can be your name. But I feel like if it comes from Gmail, you didn't take the time to like really set up your business in a professional way. That's me. But I've had so many people say otherwise that, oh no, it's perfectly fine now to get an email address from Gmail or Yahoo. But if you're gonna do that, and then have a signature file that links back to a webpage maybe of yours, of your own domain. Right? I still feel like, again, if you wanna be, show professionalism, you should have a domain name. AnneGanguzza.com. That's me. Erikka J, right? Or even Anne Ganguzza Voice or whatever that is, it goes back to a domain that hosts a website that tells people about you. Erikka: Yeah. You've gotta establish that trust. Right? And I mean, it's so inexpensive. Like I said, I personally use Google domains. It's $12 a year, a dollar a month. I mean, why wouldn't you, you know, just to have that domain? And then setting up an email, I think it's like an additional six or something. Yeah. The Gmail or the Yahoo is definitely one. Another one to look for, particularly with spam is that they'll try to use like a known brand name, but it'll have like an extra dot or something in there. And you have to watch that 'cause you might see like Bank of America, but it's got like Bank of - America. And like that's not Bank of America, like watch that type of spam too. Anne: Right? Erikka: Yeah. Get your own domain name. It's, it's so easy. Anne: Yeah. And I think that will really do a lot. It'll do wonders for having people respond to that email, which is what we want. We don't want people to take a look at our email and get angry at us and then say, oh my gosh, I'm so annoyed that they just emailed me that and trying to sell me something that I don't ever wanna contact them again. Because that's what I do silently. I'll be like, oh I'm so. And if, especially if they send it more than once, right? If it comes like a day or two or again and again, and I can tell in Gmail 'cause it threads. Erikka: Yep. Anne: And I'll be like, all right, that's it. That's like the fifth time you sent me email and I, then I might write back. But as a business, if we're sending out emails to people who have not given us permission and guys, I say it over and over again, when you are mining the internet or you are finding production houses, and you are sending emails to the contact there, they have not typically said it's okay to send them emails. So you have to be very, very careful about what you say in that email that you're not gonna get them upset or annoyed that you are just reaching out to contact them because 200 other voice talent have found their name as well. And all they do is field off these, "hey, I'm a voice talent. Here's my demo." So I think it's important. Erikka: Yeah. The trick that I hate that people will do, and I see this probably more with like spam, legit, spam and bots. But like they try the re and the subject line to make it look like they were replying when you know, you never sent anything to them. It's like, stop trying to trick me. I know I didn't email you . Anne: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting. What made me think you were talking about using a known brand or trying to kind of spin off of a brand -- I actually got like an invoice in PayPal, which was an invoice that I certainly did not -- I didn't buy anything from this person, but it came so legit with the PayPal logo 'cause it came through PayPal, but it was spam coming through PayPal in the form of an invoice where once they had the invoice, if you open the invoice, right, then they had links to probably, I don't even know 'cause I didn't click them. So people try anything to to, to contact or maybe it was phishing. Whatever it is, I think that again, as voice talent, we have to be very, very careful. There are laws. There's the Spam Can Act of 2013. There is the GDPR. There is the California Privacy Act. There are so many laws and, and regulations set in place that theoretically, if you do not put your address on the bottom of your email, and you do not offer an unsubscribe, that is considered spam. So even if you're sending an individual email out through Gmail, if it's unsolicited, if you don't have your address or a way to unsubscribe, that is considered spam and somebody could potentially legally take that up with you. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Things to watch out for. Anne: So, then what do we do? Right? What do we do? How do we market with email? That's the question of the day. VO BOSS has a direct marketing program. And the one thing that makes it different is that we have a list, but it was not a list that was something that we mined off of the internet. This is a list that was purchased. And with lists that you purchase, of course you have to be careful with that too, because you don't know how many times that list has been sold. Let's say, oh, it's a list of e-learning companies. And we sold it to 2000 voice talent already. And so you don't wanna have a list that you don't know how many times it's been used. You don't know how old it is. We don't know if there's current addresses on it. The list that I have purchased is a large list that has been in business for many, many years. They continually update addresses, and it's 90,000 plus creatives and companies that have in-house media production divisions, copywriters, creative directors, owners of companies. So this list that we have purchased, they have agreed to allow VO BOSS to market to them. And that is, I think, the number one advantage, if you want to do a direct marketing this way. You can also buy a list that has permissions built into it. This list costs a few thousand dollars, but it's one of the reasons why I started the VO BOSS blast because I was like, wow, I'm gonna buy this list. It's pretty expensive. So I can offer, uh, this 90,000 people, I can offer marketing to this list, and it's already what I call vetted. It's a vetted list. And so these people are okay with anybody from VO BOSS, sending them a marketing email. So essentially the product basically gives you a VO BOSS address. So Erikka, you would be like ErikkaJ@VOBOSS.com. So therefore it gets sent out to these companies who have already given permission. They're already expecting to hear from us, but the reply to is set to your individual email business address. So therefore when somebody wants to hire you or ask you for an audition, they basically will just reply or send an email to you. And it also has links in the email that go to your website, that go to your demos. We usually feature a project or something new that you've done. And that's essentially the concept around a direct marketing method that uses a list where people have already given permission. And that's like half the battle. Really. Erikka: Yeah. For sure. And I mean, if you're not gonna spend, you know, the thousands of dollars, obviously there's the grassroots, the organic route, right, is where you are talking to people or you have it on your website where they can actually subscribe. So they're making the choice to subscribe to your list and giving permission that way. And if you have those sort of tools built in, they obviously would have an unsubscribe option. So yeah, permission is, is the key for sure. Anne: I'm so glad that you brought that up 'cause people will say, how do I get permission? And that is, I think one of the leading ways to get permission is to have one of those pop-up windows. I have 'em on every one of my websites. And any platform has a way to do that. If you have a WordPress website, there are plugins. I used to use the plugin called Bloom. And that was the one that allowed a popup to appear once somebody was on your website and says, "hey, subscribe to my email list to get special offers or whatnot. If you wanna keep up with what's going on, sign up here." And I wanna say that that is a very valid way to get a permission based list of people that you can market to. And it's very valid. I mean, I've been doing it for years on all of my domains, on Anne Ganguzza, on VO Peeps, on VO BOSS. So anytime you see that pop-up and you say, yeah, let me sign up and keep up with what's happening with your business, that person has given you permission to email them. Erikka: Yeah, absolutely. Anne: And so there are ways to create your list. It takes a long time, I'm gonna say because not everybody that comes to your website's gonna really wanna keep up with you. I mean, a lot of us have email. I have, we've discussed my email before. Erikka: Yeah. You beat me, but mine's pretty bad too. Anne: Uh, yeah. I got a lot of unread messages and a lot of, yeah, I get a lot of email, so. But it's one of the ways, interestingly enough, Erikka people may laugh at how much email I get. But a lot of the ways that I learned how to market through email was by signing up for companies' lists. Erikka: Yes. Copy. Steal like an artist. Anne: Exactly. It's like my secret weapon. People are like, well, how'd you get so good at marketing? Oh my gosh, I sign up for company email lists. And then I, I observe and I say, okay, what kind of information are they sending out? Not only do I observe how to market myself, but I observe how I might be able to help that company 'cause I can see how they're marketing to their clients. And therefore it's like a double cool thing because, number one, I'm learning how to market, number two, I'm learning about this company and what their needs are. So then how can I serve those needs? So I can just bring it back to them and just say, hey, I really love what you're doing with this product, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it might be. Just wanted to reach out and say, hey. And even if you don't even say like I do voiceovers, it could just be like, hey, I signed up your mailing list. I love your product. I think it's super interesting. Just wanted to say thanks for the inspiration. And boom, you're done. Don't even mention that you're a voice artist, but in your signature file, guess what? Erikka: There you go, there you go. Anne: You're a voice artist. So you start to develop that relationship first. Erikka, like how do you find new leads and contacts? Erikka: You know, I am not one to do much of the email or direct marketing. It's just, this is not my jam at least not at the moment. It's sort of on my long range roadmap to probably outsource that moreso, the lead generation part. But I will say that when I was moreso doing music and I'm probably gonna date myself here, but I was using MailChimp So they still run, but I did it the grassroots way. So it was like people that I knew were already engaged with my brand, people that I knew were already buying from me, I started with that. And then I would just say, "hey, you know, I've got this thing, I have this newsletter that I'm starting. Do you wanna stay up to date?" And most of them said, yeah, sure. And then I just had them click, and it automated, and I built this database of about 500 people. So when I had a new release or I had a new piece of merch coming out, you know, I sent the one, and it went out to everybody, so I kind of did that. But yeah, as far as lead generation, now I'm more so -- I like the passive stuff. So I love the SEO. I use P-to-P's. I have my agents and my managers, but I really, really kind of leverage the SEO so that I have more walking into my website passively because I don't really love to email market. I do have a couple where it's like brands that I'm super engaged with. Just like you said, I'm like, I love this product. I love what you guys are doing. If I can ever help in any way, please let me know, and I just send it, and I have all my information in my signature. So I'm not really selling. It's just there for them. If they wanna see it. Anne: Well, exactly. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: Exactly. You're expressing an interest in them, and you're not trying to take anything back. Erikka: Yep. Yep. Anne: You're not trying to push yourself on them. And I think that that's really wonderful, and I do believe that email marketing, it is just one way. Obviously we always wanna know how to get work. And we have a whole episode that we did on SEO, which I love because that is also one of my favorite methods of getting work is just having people find me and then listening to the demos. And if they're strategic, target marketed demos, which is what I'm all about, they listen to it, they love what they hear. They then contact you and say, "hey, how much would it cost to do this?" So I love that. But I also think a combination of that along with your talent agents, along with maybe pay to plays, along with direct marketing through a list, can really provide you with the opportunities to really get out there and get work so that you can make it a successful endeavor, this career, as voiceover, because that's gotta be the number one question, right? How do I get work? How do I get work? And how do I email mark? it's something that people are, they're kind of terrified if they've never done it before. And the first thing you have to be aware of is when you go and mine the internet for those addresses is that you've gotta be careful of talking to people when they haven't given you permission. It's also like when somebody calls you up, how many -- like I actually have a phone at my home that is not my cell phone. And we get spam calls every single day. And so you don't wanna be like that. when you're sending out email, but if you can send out email marketing, the cool thing is, is to send it out to people who've already given you their permission to do that. And the other cool thing is if you do hire or outsource, let's say, do a BOSS Blast, what happens is we kind of represent you without being an agent. So we're like on behalf of VO BOSS, check out millennial voiceover talent, or check out Erikka J. She's got the smooth promo sounds of whatever it is that you, whatever genre that you want to talk about in your promo or in your email marketing, we can focus on that. And it's on behalf of another brand that is trusted, that has already been given permission. And so that's even cooler because it's not like I, I, I, I, I, here's what I've done. It's about VO BOSS presenting you as the talent that is established, that is credible. And that's the other thing too, is that VO BOSS doesn't do this marketing for everybody. I mean, we vet the people that we market for. And we have to make sure that you have a well-established brand, that you've got good demos that we can market and things that we can do. Because if I get labeled as a spammer, VO BOSS gets labeled as a spammer, guess what? My entire BOSS Blast business is out of business. So I have to be hyper aware of what's being sent out and coming back and make sure that it's not going to be considered spam. So you better believe that we've got many eyes looking at that email going out, making sure that it's good and that it's not spam. I'm gonna say, think about your own email and the emails that you get on a day to day basis. What do you consider spam? And then think about how you are marketing email wise to people. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's what it's all about, talking about our balance theme is having a balanced approach to lead generation, whether that's P2Ps, agents, managers, email marketing, social media marketing, because that works too, using hashtags, or like you said, not, I, I, I; you know, talking about a recent job that you did, how you were happy to help this brand or this company, or promote this new product. All those sorts of things help you with lead generations. So having a balanced approach to that is super important. Anne: Yeah. Wow. Erikka: Wow. Yeah. Anne: Good discussion. Erikka: One more thing about email marketing I kind of wanted to touch on real quick. We, we kind of started to was the signature. I think it's important that you make sure that you have a good signature. You know, there are tons of tools out there for you to go build it. It doesn't necessarily have to be super fancy, but if you can get it branded, that's great. And there are tools that can help you do that, but you know, make it easy for them to find you and to find your work, to know what you do. If you choose to put a picture, but at minimum, at least like your website and some way to contact you maybe outside of that email. But yeah, I think that's important because if you are sending an email to market, that might be your only shot to make an impression. Anne: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And actually I think that, remember, it was the first thing that I look at when somebody sends me an email, do they have a signature file? Is it coming from a valid domain, a valid company? Does it look legit? And so I think your signature is super important. And by the way, I use Wise Signature. I think I spend $39 a year. And it allows you to put all sorts of really cool, like your social media icons, you can put links to your demos, and it makes it look really nice too. I love a nice, a nice signature. Erikka: Yeah. I've used them. I use Signature IO, same type deal where I can put graphics and colors and all that stuff so that it's branded. So yeah, like you said, it does establish trust, but I kind of wanted to touch on like the aesthetics of it alone, just being eye-catching and being like, oh, makes me wanna go click and look at it. Anne: Absolutely, absolutely, great suggestion. All right. Well, hey, I know we can talk about email all day long but I think this was a great start. I'd like to give a great big shout-out to our sponsor, 100 Voices Who Care. You guys can have an opportunity to have your voice make a difference. You can find out more at 100voiceswhocare.org. And of course, to our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can connect and network like a BOSS and find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing week. Thanks so much for joining us this week, and we'll see you next week. Erikka: Bye! Anne: 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 voBOSS.com 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.

Websites are your digital storefront. That's why Anne & Erikka are here to make yours shine. It all starts with the basics: a great domain name + hosting platform. Then, you fill it up with demos, a killer bio, and design that resonates with your brand. An amazing website can connect you with clients & book you jobs, so tune in to upgrade your site like a BOSS! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and our balance series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza. And today I am excited to bring back special guest co-host Erikka J. Hey Erikka. Erikka: Hey! Hey Anne, how are you? Anne: I'm doing good. Erikka: Ooh you seem happy. Anne: You know why? Erikka: Why are you so happy? Anne: I am happy because I got an email today. Someone who had found me on my website and said -- Erikka: Those are the best. Anne: -- I have a job, how much? And I said, awesome. How much is your budget? And they said a big number, Erikka. And I got that job. Woo-hoo. Erikka: So for you, good for you. Anne: I'm excited. I'm grateful. Okay. I don't wanna appear like I'm bragging too much, but I am gonna say that my website played a huge part in getting me that job. And I think it's an excellent topic to talk about today. Erikka: Websites. So essential. Anne: Websites, so important, right? Erikka: Yeah, yeah. In the digital landscape, it's your digital storefront as they call it. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I think if you are a business today and you do not have a website -- Erikka: You're not a business Anne: You need to -- you need to rethink that. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. I'll take that back. It's not that you're not a business, but it's really hard to be successful without that digital presence today. Anne: And it's gotten to the point where even myself, like whenever I go to look up information about something or what brand should I buy or what's the price? I mean, the first thing I do is I go to Google or I go to the website. And we make these decisions based upon, I do anyways, the overall feel and look of the website. If that website doesn't look trustworthy, I am not gonna give them my credit card number, that's for sure. Erikka: Yeah. Or even I've had somewhere, I did a search and they didn't have a website. And for me it kind of takes away some credibility automatically. I don't even think about it. I'm just like, Ooh, you don't have a website. Anne: How could you not have a website? Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: I want to pay. That's sometimes when I'm like maybe a restaurant even I'll be like, I want to see if I can order and pick up or go see them, visit them for a meal. Erikka: I wanna know what the menu is so I can think ahead of what I might want or even if I wanna go there. Anne: Take my money, take my money. But yet, if there is no website, then I'm just like you, I get very discouraged. And I'm like, what kind of business is this that doesn't have a website? Erikka: I agree. Anne: So I think it's important to kind of -- maybe we'll do like a website 101. Let's start with all the things that are important for our website. And I think the first thing, and one of the questions I ask quite frequently is, what should my domain name be? I'm a big fan of yourname.com. Erikka: Agreed. Anne: AnneGanguzza.com. 'Cause I feel like we are our brand, right? What we do is so connected to who we are. We are our own personal brand. So I feel like AnneGanguzza.com. I don't care how hard that name is to spell. Erikka: Yep, figure it out, teach them. Anne: Exactly. I'm always telling people, I wanna be the Kleenex of voiceover there. I need Anne Ganguzza kind of thing. Just like when people say they need a Kleenex, I need an Anne Ganguzza for that. Erikka: That's right. That's right. Anne: I need an Erikka J. Erikka: That's right. Yeah. 'Cause you know, I got two K's in my name, so it's like really easy. I'd get the CK or the two RS or is it regular C but yeah, I had to do ErikkaJ.com, 'cause I just, I wanted to brand myself. I wanted them to know who I was and I got my SEO up so that when you search it should bring up my site. Even maybe if you do the double R's, but. Anne: Do you have multiple domain names? That's the question. Erikka: You just took the words outta my mouth. That's what I did. That was my trick. My hack is that I did redirects. I did multiple domains. So I grabbed the one. The most common misspelling I see in emails is the two R's. So I grabbed the domain E-R-R-I-K-A-J.com, and I redirect it to ErikkaJ.com. So that literally teaches them how to spell my name correctly, 'cause it tells you you're being redirected, but yeah. So that way they'll still get to me, even if they misspell it. Anne: Do you have your full name as well or no? Erika: I don't because I really don't use the Veeny, my last name, professionally, other than on LinkedIn And Facebook, but yeah, I'll leave it off, but yeah. So I just do the Erikka J, but I have a ton of other ones with like little weird things like VO that I might use for branding later. I got my kids, their names as their domain, 'cause they might wanna use it one day. Anne: Right? I think that's so important. Like secure that name. I mean Anne Ganguzza, isn't a very common name. And I would say for those BOSSes out there that have common names, do the search to see if your first name, last name.com comes up with someone or if the domain is available, I say snap it up. But if maybe somebody else has the same name, then I always say, well, then we start adding things. So it would be AnneGanguzzavoice.com or Anne Ganguzza voice talent or Anne Ganguzza -- VO is like, I think less desirable for me. I think not as many people know VO, but if people are searching for voiceover or voices, I feel like that might be it. I always tell the story of when I first started off in this industry, I created a name that was AnneSpeaks.com. And I thought I was so clever . And as clever and as cute as that name was, the fact is I am an Anne with an E, number one. And speaks, Anne speaks, it's not something that people necessarily search for. And I realized that after I had the domain name for quite some time, I even registered a business under Anne Speaks and it didn't buy me any good SEO. Let's put it that way. And then I definitely turned to AnneGanguzza.com and then Anne Ganguzza Voice Productions is my registered company name, Anne Ganguzza Voice. So it's got my name in it, and I have multiple domain names too that get redirected to AnneGanguzza.com. And I have multiple domain names for the different brands that I represent as well. Erikka: Right. Right. Well, now there's also a ton of extensions. So obviously.com is the one that's the most common. So that's the one that you wanna try to get. But if you're gonna do multiples, you know, they have like .studio, obviously there's like the dot nets and stuff like that. So you can be a little more creative too, if you have like a specific kind of subbrand that you wanna market, and if it kind of goes into it, I think they might even have like .media or something like that. But yeah, they're more expensive, but yeah. Anne: I almost don't wanna say this, but the AI companies now, they are almost exclusively with a.ai name or IO is another popular one, the digital -- Erikka: Mm-hmm, yep. Yep. Anne: So they're becoming more accepted. It used to be, if you couldn't get the .com, the other ones were cheap. You could buy them cheaply, but almost nobody did. It's taken them a long time to kind of come around I think and be accepted. Erikka: Agreed. Yeah. Anne: But now there's just so much internet out there. it's just so much internet. Erikka: Yeah. And like I said, if you're using it as a redirect anyway, then kind of what's the harm, you know? So. Anne: So I would say pick your name first, if you can, and then go for all the versions of voiceover, voice talent, VO, whatever that works for the end of your name. And then you can go for the other ones. Like I have the e-learningvoice.com medical-narration.com, phone-voice.com. I've got a bunch of other ones. Think about Automotive Annie, there's the cute one, AutomotiveAnnie.com. YourPoliticalVoice.com. So I've got a bunch. They're so reasonably priced these days. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: Where do you get your domain names from? That would be a question that people would ask me. Where do you buy your domain name? Erikka: Right now, my website is still with Squarespace. So I did originally use theirs 'cause they offered it to me, but I ended up going to, um, Google Domains. It just, I just find it really easy to manage and it's a little bit cheaper. It's like the generic ones that are pretty easy are not high demand, usually like $12 a year or something like that. Anne: Right, right, right. Erikka: So yeah. That's where I usually do mine are Google Domains. Anne: I used GoDaddy because I started with GoDaddy long ago, and as a matter of fact, when I worked in education, everything was registered through the Nick. Do you remember the Nick? Erikka: I don't. Anne: Oh my God. Erikka: I'm sorry. Anne: You registered everything under one authority. It turned into GoDaddy. Let's put it that way. So I've been doing this for so long that because the company evolved into a branch called GoDaddy, that's where I ended up purchasing all of my domain names a long time ago. And I still keep the purchases of them to GoDaddy, 'cause it's one central place I can go. And I can manage all of my domain names and that's important, to be able to manage them. 'Cause you do have to pay for them yearly or sometimes they have a five-year agreement or -- Erikka: Yep, yep. Anne: -- multiple years. Erikka: And making sure that they're on autorenew. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: Most of them, I think, automatically put that on there for you, but just make sure because if it lapses, and somebody else grabs it... Anne: Yeah. Absolutely. No, you don't want your domain name to lapse, and you don't want somebody to buy your domain name. Erikka: Oh goodness. Anne: During that time. Erikka: No, 'cause they will try to sell it to you for an exorbitant price. Anne: That's right. Yeah. They'll sell it back to you at an exorbitant price. And I think it's still kind of a side hustle for some people where they -- Erikka: It is. Anne: -- pretty much grab the good domain names. And then they try to sell it back to you. I can't tell you how many versions of BOSS that I went through when I was doing this podcast and domain names that I tried to get. Erikka: Yeah. There were a few I tried to get to and it was like $5,000, and I was like, no way, like get out. Anne: It's another good reason by the way to trademark your name if you need to as well. So I had VO BOSS trademarked. I also had VO Peeps trademarked. 'Cause I've had other people try to advertise with that name. Erikka: Yeah. So I actually trademarked my performance name from before when I was in music. So Erikka, Erikka J is trademarked. So even though I do have a separate company name, just so that like in contracts, like it's not directly me, I'm doing business as Erikka J, and I can use that and it's actually trademarked. So nobody else for performances or for apparel can use Erikka J. Anne: Well, there you go. There you go. And I've actually had to use the cease and desist on a couple of people trying to use VO BOSS and VO Peeps as well. Erikka: I had a close one too. Anne: But I think it's a great way to protect your name. So. Erikka: Yes. Anne: Picking a good domain name and pick multiple. I think it's absolutely a thing these days where yeah, if people misspell your name or domain name, you can also buy the other domain names and redirect to one specific. That's pretty simple to do. It's a smart thing to do. So once you've picked your domain name, and I mentioned that I did all of my hosting at GoDaddy in the beginning, so I kind of just stayed with GoDaddy from my domain names, but for hosting there's, God, there's a lot of options out there. So when I was on GoDaddy, I was able to install WordPress on GoDaddy to be able to create my own sites. And so that's who I started off in the beginning. I've also had experience with hosting at Blue Host, which I really liked. Blue Host was a really relatively cheap hosting provider that I could put my WordPress website on. And it basically ran itself. I didn't find that many issues with let's say my website going down or having issues managing it. I also worked with Cloud Nine. Not sure I would recommend that one. I had a lot of issues with that. Cloud Nine was the previous owner of the -- Voiceovers.com actually was not happy with their tech support there at Cloud Nine, especially really myself having worked in technology for 20 years and doing tech support. I have a lot of expectations for tech support. At least GoDaddy answered the phone. I will say that. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. I know that. And as somebody else who uses GoDaddy, and they were very supportive, they, they talk to you on the phone. Anne: They do. And that's a big thing. Believe it or not. They may not be able to solve your problem right away. But the fact that they talk to you and will pick up the phone, that is super important for hosting. Erikka: Yes. Agreed. Anne: I also did a managed WordPress website, which I was so happy with until they kind of disassembled and became a different company. And then right now all of my websites have been finally transported over to Wix, which I am super happy with. Wix takes care of a lot of things for me. What about you Erikka? Erikka: Yeah. So for me, honestly, like I said, right now, my website is still the one that I built that's on Squarespace. So what I loved about it is that it was an all in one solution, and I didn't really have to worry about all of that. So if you're on the opposite side of that, talking about balance and you really just like, hey, I just need a one and done, you know, something quick so that I have a website and kind of just throw my demos and a few pictures and go, and build as you go, Squarespace is a great solution for that, 'cause they have all of that embedded for you. Anne: That's your current one, right? Erikka: It is. Yeah. Yeah. Anne: Your website's beautiful. Remember I'm all about your website. Erikka: It's crazy. 'cause I'm like, you know, I need to update my website. It's been there so long, and I'm like having somebody work on a WordPress-based site for me, but I'm like, I still get so many compliments on the SquareSpace one. I'm like, did I -- should I even change it? Anne: It's beautiful! It's beautiful, really. Erikka: Thank you. Thank you. Anne: And you know, WordPress is really wonderful. I like WordPress 'cause it gives you a lot of options. It's not that difficult to learn once you understand your own plugins and things that are working and WordPress. It gives you back a lot of control. For me, my managed WordPress was wonderful, but what happened is my websites are kind of, let's say my VO Peeps, my VO BOSS, I do a lot of things. I do memberships. I do videos. I do eCommerce. I do membership. And so it became something that had to be super functional on the back end and, and I ended up adding more and more plugins. The problem with doing that is that sometimes those plugins don't get along with one another. And if you update one of them, it kind of breaks the others. And so that used to give me regular heart attacks. Erikka: Yeah. And not worth. Anne: It was not worth it to me and going to Wix, which basically everything managed just like Squarespace, everything is managed by Wix, and their functionality has grown to be able to support things like mail management, eCommerce on the backend, inventory, invoices, membership, all sorts of really cool things. Not as cheap, I will say as the others, but I will say I've never had my website go down. Erikka: That's awesome. Anne: Never had a website go down. And that is huge. Erikka: I don't think I've had an outage with Squarespace either, really great. And I do have, I have e-commerce but it's very light. Like just, you know, add to your cart. Like I have a few apparel items from that I had from way back, I might add some more, but yeah, I think that's been pretty good and like they give you templates and you can customize, and if you know some HTML, you can do even more. So. Yeah. The all in one solutions are not a bad deal. Anne: Yeah. And being up 100% of the time, especially when you're selling -- the last thing you want as a voice talent, as a business is to have somebody click on your website and go to pay you and then have it not work or have the website down so they can't pay you. Erikka: Yes. Especially when you're in a global business, because it's just about what time zone you're in. That last week I had a client from Australia. I think it's like a 14-hour time difference. So if your site goes down at 3:00 AM, not a problem for you here, but might be for one of your clients. You might miss out on something. So yeah. That's important. Anne: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So lots of different options for hosting. So make sure that you research. There's a lot of chatter about it on the Facebook groups. I know that there's been a ton of people who recommend Upper Level Hosting with Brad Newman. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: And I know Brad, he's just an upstanding wonderful, wonderful human being. And I know he works very hard to make his hosting service a wonderful experience for anybody that works with him. So I'm gonna give a shout-out to Brad, and Upper Level Hosting. Erikka: Part of the VO community. Yeah. Anne: So another thing I wanna bring up, which, oh gosh. Back in the day it used to make me crazy because I did my own website; thought I was cute. I did AnneSpeaks.com and I did my own website on WordPress. And then I realized that I know what I want my website to do on the back end, but to design it, you know, it was not my training is to actually be a graphic designer and make beautiful websites. So I'm happy to outsource that. However, it is always important that whether you outsource your website to someone else or you do it yourself, that you understand, like what are the main criteria for being able to manage that website? Like you must have a username and a password to some place where you go and manage that website. Cannot tell how many students in a frantic panic would come to me going, well, I don't know how to change this on my website. I don't know how to upload my demo. I don't know how to put my bio on there. I don't know how to update my pictures. And most of the time it was kind of like their websites were held hostage by the website company that did that. Or maybe not, maybe they were given the login and the password, but they put it away somewhere, and they haven't ever logged into it. Erikka: Yep. Anne: That becomes a problem. Erikka: I've heard of people having their websites held hostage, and it is not a fun situation to be in. Thank goodness I've never been there, but that's why I built my own. And I was just like, I'm a control freak. I have to. So now I'm starting to absolutely starting to release the reigns, but that is so important to first of all, have a very secure username and password. You don't want someone to hack your website. Jesus, it's like somebody breaking into your store, if you had a brick and mortar. Anne: Yeah. I think it's important to make an Excel spreadsheet or something. Some form of notes or database that has the URL and has your login and your password. And by the way, just with passwords, right, you really should have a password program on your computer. Erikka: Password Keeper or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Anne: That helps. It is one of the most common issues that I run into that people just, they get frantic, and they know nothing about how to manage their website. So at least know your login and your password and the URL. And if someone says to you, who manages your domain name, or where did you buy your domain name, have an answer for that. And who is managing your website or what web hosting company do you use, have an answer for that. Understand what that means. Erikka: Yeah. To that end visit your website every once in a while, for both perspectives, both logging in and just, you know, take a look, see if there's something I might wanna tweak this, and just as like a consumer, like just go to your website from desktop and from mobile. You've got to remember, most people are now accessing things from their mobile devices. So a lot of times the mobile presentation of the site, which does tend to be different, and placement of things, like you've gotta make sure that that is up to snuff. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: So yeah. Take a look at your site. Anne: Yeah. Again, I can't recommend that the record keeping on this enough. Erikka: Yeah, yeah. Anne: To understand. First of all, remember we talked about a couple of different things here, and for people who are not technical or, and you don't, we're not saying you have to know everything, but you do have to understand, first of all, understand that your domain name is something separate from your hosting, right? Your domain name does not have to be embedded into your hosting. It can be like, for example, I buy my domain names through GoDaddy and I maintain them. I pay for them every year or every five years, whatever my policy is for my domain names. I host with Wix. That's the actual place where the information is for my website. I used to use GoDaddy. I used to use Blue Host. I used to use a managed WordPress site. Erikka, you had Squarespace. Erikka: Yep. Anne: So that's hosting your website. That's where your data resides on that server. And then there is what platform are you using? Wix is a platform, meaning that all of the design gets done through Wix. I log in through Wix with a username and a password. WordPress, kind of the same thing, but WordPress can exist on multiple hosting sites. Erikka: Right. Anne: Kind of understanding. Erikka: SquareSpace is a platform. Anne: Yeah. And so I would just say, what is your payment schedule? Is it a yearly schedule? Is it every three years? A lot of times you'll get good deals if you buy more years at one time. Erikka: Yeah. For me, well again, 'cause mine is kind of the, all in one thing with Squarespace. I did have it on the annual just 'cause you save a little bit of money by doing that. And I'm all about -- I'm gonna give you all my money over the 12 months anyway. So why not get a little discount? I did recently just switch mine over to monthly because I'm waiting for when I'm gonna do my WordPress changeover. Yeah. To switch over to the new site. Anne: Who are you hosting with, if you don't mind? Erikka: Yeah. I think it's all looped in with Squarespace. So I actually don't have to have anything separated. Yeah. Anne: Oh, okay, so Squarespace allows for WordPress as well. Erikka: Oh, okay. Yeah. Good to know. Anne: Right? Erikka: Good to know. Yeah. Anne: Well, that's what I'm just saying. Like if you're hosting with them, then they're gonna allow WordPress websites built on them. Erikka: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Anne: That would be the question. Yeah. So payment schedule, I think is important so that you understand if you're paying yearly or if you're paying, I don't know, every three years. I think I'm on a three or a five year plan with Wix, which includes most all of my hosting and then everything else that goes with it because it doesn't just host my website. It also manages my email lists as well for each domain that I'm working with. And that is all run through Wix, which is pretty cool. All right. So we've got our domain name, we've got a web host, we've got a platform. We've talked about the importance of knowing your username and password so that you can get into your website and do management or hire somebody or outsource it to be done. Keeping good records as to what's your payment schedule, 'cause that again is just good accounting for what it's costing you for your business. Now let's talk about the website. So what do you think is important for a website for your business, Erikka? Erikka: So many things. Anne: All the things. Erikka: Obviously -- all the things, right? Everything. Obviously with us being what we do, demos, they have to be able to hear the goods, right? Like they're coming to your site. You have to be able to give them a reason to hire you. Right? But I do think, I know that back in the day, there was the, you know, not so much putting your image on your site. I think that's changed. Anne: Oh yeah. Erikka: You know, these days that having actually a picture of yourself gives you more credibility so that they know who they're hiring. You know, friendly and you can show yourself in different ways. You can show yourself working. You can just have kind of, you know, the headshots where you can do fun things. But I do think that images are important. You can even do some things like RSS feeds for your social sites. And that helps to keep fresh content all the time without you having to go in and log in and do something. Bio, you gotta be able to tell people with some texts so that you rank well in Google who you are. Some people actually do read those things, not too long, but . Anne: Well now I have a whole spiel on your bio and why I think it's important. I mean, if you go to Anang Ganguzza I have a ton of bio on there, like there's pages of bio and words everywhere. And while it may not look like a clean site, that's neat without a lot of clutter, all those words really help with my SEO. Erikka: Absolutely. Anne: Which why I think a bio is super important, but it's important when people come to your page that they understand that you are a voiceover talent or a voiceover actor, that is your business. Erikka: Yep. As soon as they get there. Anne: If you don't have those words anywhere on your site, then how is Google gonna index you as such? Right? You do have to have a couple of those words of voiceover. So sometimes I'll look at a site and I'll see, here are my demos, but there's no word on the page that actually says voiceover or voice talent or anything related to the voice. They'll have a bio that talks about how they like their dogs and cats. And you know, they grew up here, but there won't be anything that says that they do voiceover. So I think that it's important that you have something on that front page that tells people what your business offers, what your business does. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: And I think, as you mentioned before, above the fold, the demos, people want to get quick access to your demos to hear. That's your product, right, to hear what you sound like. And I think contact information is super important. That should be above the fold, meaning above the fold, meaning they don't have to scroll down to see it. Erikka: Yep. Yep. Anne: So how can they get in touch with you if they wanna purchase your services, if they wanna purchase your voice? Email, I like to put it all there, email, phone number, whatever that is. And by the way, a lot of people will ask about, do I have a business phone? There's lots of ways you can have a business phone without giving away your phone number. What do you do, Erikka? Erikka: Yeah. Like there's the Google voice stuff. I believe ipDTL offers numbers as well that you can use. There's so many options to have a phone number. So yeah. That's easy. Another thing with the contact info though, is that a lot of the, especially like the SquareSpaces or any of those, like in a box sites, they have the contact form. And I remember hearing from somebody, a buyer that they wanted your contact information in the text, and that was like eye opening for me. I'm like, you can contact me through my form, but also put your email and your phone number and your name actually text right there. Yeah. Anne: Yeah. 'Cause that's a step. Right? And I get it. People are like, I don't wanna get spam, but honestly, every mail hosting company, I know deals with spam in a way. And I mean, spam is just a part of life, to be honest. Erikka: It's gonna happen. Yeah. Anne: It's gonna happen. And I, I think unless you're getting harassed, I put in text, I put my email address, I put my phone number, and by the way, I'm gonna tell you something. I will admit to you. I have a Magic Jack phone number. Remember Magic Jack from like years ago? Erikka: Yes! I have one of those and I haven't hooked it up, but I have it, but I have it. Anne: But I don't hook mine up. All I do is you can record your message. So people can call me, it goes immediately to voicemail. It attaches that voicemail to an email and boom, I've got it. So how cool is that? Like -- Erikka: That is cool. Anne: So I don't even attach it because I don't want people to actually ring it. I just want it to go right to voicemail. So that, I've been using that for 10 years. That's my secret. Erikka: That is such a good secret. Anne: Literally, they're so cheap. I think it costs $19.99 for like three years or something. Erikka: Yep, yep. Anne: I don't even hook it up. I basically just pick the number and then I forward -- you can configure it so that you get the email of an attached wav file. So when somebody calls you, boom comes right in, and it's super convenient for me because for me, I can't pick up my phone. I'm busy. I, I don't pick up my phone, and I don't always go to my phone and look at the voicemail either, but I'm constantly got my email up. And so when something comes in, it's great. It's got the recorded number that it came from. And if it's spam, who cares Do you know what I mean? I just throw it away. Erikka: And at first I didn't wanna put a phone number cause I was like, I really want them to come into my email, but you know, at the same time, it's that credibility thing. Like just like when I go Google and see a website, I'm like, how much of a business are you? And it's the same thing with a phone number, honestly. It's just a mental thing. Anne: Oh my God, you are so right on that. Like I can't tell you how many times, if somebody sent me an email and I wanna verify that they are a valid business, if they don't have a phone number, I get really wary. I get really suspicious. Erikka: Yep. Yep. And some buyers just do wanna pick up the phone. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. So. Anne: Yeah, I think it's so underrated, but I think you have to have a phone number. Erikka: I agree. Anne: To be honest. I mean maybe today's youth want to text you, and that's fine. By the way, you can't text a Magic Jack number, but that's okay. Actually, maybe you can now, I have no idea. I haven't checked. I have to check, but that would be the other thing that would be cool. If you could just have a number that could get text. Because that's a yes, it's another way to communicate with you. And I don't mind once I connect with a client giving them my mobile phone number, but this Magic Jack number is like the best kept secret And you can get it in the exchange that you want. So if I want it in LA exchange, it's fantastic. Erikka: And you know, another thing that's underrated for contact, and I don't have it on my current site, but I plan to have it on my next one is the live chat. 'Cause I haven't actually used it. So I'm kind of guessing, but I'm sure you can set hours when those are available. I'm sure there are ways to send it to you or you know, they get a message, you know, we'll be back or something like that. But that's sort of another contact method that a lot of people use now, especially if they're right on your site. They don't have to go pick up their phone. They don't have to open an email, they just click and you got 'em. So. Anne: Now I will say, I'm gonna make one like kind of note about that. I like that. I'm not able to be chatting with people a lot of the day, so I wouldn't have enough hours open to actually utilize that. But if you use that, and then don't put a phone number, I would say that also makes me wary. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: So I think that phone number is important for the elder people that like to pick up the phone and talk. Erikka: I think the younger people, like my boyfriend's five years younger than me, but he likes to get on the phone and we joke about it. Like Anne: Good. Good. I like that. Erikka: I'm like no, text me. Anne: I like it when people want -- sometimes it's just easier, you know, especially when you've got a potential client and they've got questions. Erikka: Oh yeah. Agree. Anne: Sometimes that's just hard to go back and forth with, with email and or even text. It just becomes easier to pick up the phone and call, which I think is, you know, by the way you are a, a voice actor. So allowing your voice to be heard over the phone. Erikka: That is an excellent point because I have had people say, gosh, I love your voice, just when we're having conversation. You know? And it just kind of sells it a little more. Like I'm glad I hired you. Take that opportunity. Absolutely. Anne: Wow. So definitely get your websites up, make sure you've got the important information above the fold. Write a great bio. And if you aren't a great writer, hire somebody. There are people that write bios. Erikka: They do. Yeah. Anne: And I would say the last thing we wanna say, I think that's super important is make sure your website is backed up, because you are entrusting and paying a hosting website to make sure that your website is available. However that data exists over there on the website. So God forbid, something happens to that hosting service or you lose their data, you'll have a local backup of it, and you need to back up your database and your assets. A lot of them will offer, I think, backing up. You can do that through their web interface. And then download those backups to your computer. I highly, highly recommend that. And especially if you decide you wanna move hosting providers. You wanna make sure you can get the most recent data from your website off of that website and transfer it onto the new one. Erikka: Back up, back up, back up, redundancy. Anne: Ah yes. Good conversation, Erikka. Erikka: Yeah, that was great. I love it. Anne: Good stuff. I could probably talk all day on websites. Erikka: I know. I know. Oh and yeah. One more thing about bios. I wanna throw out there. Sorry to backtrack. One thing that can be helpful too, especially if you're trying to keep things short is you can have more than one version of your bio. Like I have like a short one, and it's like read more. So it'll like lead them deeper into the website. Anne: Absolutely, great idea. Erikka: So that way you can have sort of the teaser, but if you do wanna write a book, you can 'cause it'll help you with Google, but you can keep it short. Anne: That's exactly what I do actually. That's a great, great idea. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: So fantastic. Erikka: Wooho. Yeah, BOSSes. Anne: All right, guys. So I want you to take a moment, BOSSes, after you take in all of the website information, but I also want you to imagine a world full of passionate, empowered, diverse individuals that give collectively and intentionally to create the world that they want to see. This can be you and you can help make a difference. Visit 100voiceswhocare.org to learn more. Also big shout-out to my sponsor, ipDTL. You too can network and connect like BOSSes like Erikka and I, and find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing week, and we'll see you next week. Bye! Erikka: See ya! >> 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 voboss.com 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.

How many places are your files backed up to? This week, Anne & Erikka meticulously discuss their redundancy rituals in the booth. Everything must be backed up. Files, microphones, power, internet connectivity, cables, interfaces, XLR cables, and more. In a perfect world, every BOSS has a plan for when tech inevitably fails, and if you don't, we've got you covered! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and our balance series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm excited to start my day with my extra special guest co-host Erikka J. Erikka! Hey. Erikka: Hey Anne, how are you? Anne: Erikka, I had a bad dream last night. Erikka: Uh-oh. What was it? Anne: My bad dream was I was in the middle of a client session, and my computer just went, blah. It just died. And I was freaking out because I couldn't figure out what to do. I couldn't get it back up. And my client was just waiting, and there was like crickets. And I kept thinking to myself, man, if I don't do something to get this up and running quickly, I am not gonna have this client anymore. So. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: I think we should talk about being prepared in the event of this sort of a thing happening and talk about equipment. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: And what's important for us as business owners to protect ourselves and our businesses by maybe talking about equipment, having backup equipment, what's involved, what should we be thinking about, all of those good stuff. Erikka: Certainly a balanced approach to have is to understand that hardware, it's not about if it will fail, it's when. Anne: They're built to fail, actually. Erikka: Right? Anne: My prime example is the Toyota Corolla because I had a friend who literally drove a Toyota Corolla back in the day. I think it was a 1970 some odd year of Toyota Corolla. And it went for, I'm gonna say 500,000 miles or something crazy like that. They took really good care of it, obviously, but I'm like, they don't build cars like that today. They build them to break at a certain point. And yeah, our equipment is no different really. I mean at some point it will fail. Erikka: Yeah. And it's everything it's like, you know, thinking about the entire chain, like mics, usually they take quite a while, but your interfaces, your cables, your computer screens, your keyboards, your mouse, like all of it. Anne: And I think the most scary of them all is your computer. Erikka: Oh God. Anne: Outside of your internet not working, right? Erikka: Yes. Anne: I have things that my heart rate goes up, and the first is that if I lose my internet connection. The second is if my computer dies, and I cannot get it back up and running. And then I think to myself, when was the last time I did a backup? Erikka: Yeah. Anne: Oh my goodness. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: All of that just gives me like heart palpitations. Erikka: Yeah, buddy. It's a scary thing. Anxiety inducing experience. . Anne: So this is what we can say probably together in chorus, redundancy -- Both: Redundancy, redundancy, redundancy, redundancy. . Erikka: Let's make a song. Anne: Yes. We have to have the redundancy song and it'll just have the word redundancy. Erikka: That's it. Anne: That'll be it. And it'll just sing it over and over and over again because yeah. Erikka: And see how that goes together, the redundancy of the song? Anne: Exactly. Erikka: Haha! Anne: Exactly. So redundancy in, in pretty much everything. This is something you should build into your business. And I think it's important to talk about. Yeah, you're right. Mics last a long time. I've actually yet to have a mic fail on me. Erikka: Same. Anne: And I've been in this for quite a few years now. So over 15 years, of course, what happens is I buy new mics just because I want a new mic. . I want the new technology, but I have had the unfortunate incident of my interface just dying in the middle of a recording. And I did not have a backup interface. Now -- Erikka: Same. Anne: -- thankfully I was not on the line with a client at the time, but I got so scared because I thought, oh my God, what if I was on a live directed session and something just happened? Erikka: Yeah. Anne: So I would say a redundant interface, and they're not that expensive these days. You can get a really decent one as a backup for -- I love my Steinberg interface. I'm a big fan of the Steinberg interfaces. They're relatively inexpensive, $175 maybe. And I have the, UR22 or is it the 2i2, I believe, I can't remember, but it has two interfaces, support for two interfaces. And I just love that. It was a workhorse for me for good six years and literally it didn't die. I just decided I wanted to have a different interface. So that became a backup interface for myself. Erikka: Well, that's another thing you bring up, Anne, yeah. So I'll address that first is that not just redundancy of different interfaces, but having the dual inputs because you can have just one input die. Anne: That's true. Erikka: So having a dual input's a great idea. So that even the built in redundancy in the interface is great. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: But yeah, when I started, I had the Scarlet 2i2; it served me well for years before I was really kind of doing more broadcast quality stuff. It's a great starter interface for sure. But I had to just start to make these weird spikes in the audio and clicks and I was like, what's going on? And I'm like seeing if it's the cable and it was the day gone interface and I didn't have a backup. Thank God did not have a live session, quickly ordered an Audient ID 22 . Anne: Yep. Erikka: And it got here in time, but that was scary. Anne: Well, I am gonna tell you that I also had that problem with weird noises happening. And that happened to two of my Scarlet interfaces. So I no longer recommend those interfaces. And I know there's a lot of people that do. But I think you have to be very, very careful. I have not had good luck. I've had a lot of students who've not had good luck with them. And I just think if you have one, buy something for redundancy, but buy a different brand. Erikka: For sure. Yeah, For sure. Always get something different because mine was the first gen, which it lasted for a fair amount of years, but I heard the second gens were pretty bad. Anne: Yes. Erikka: And I've heard people have had great experiences with the third. Anne: With the third, me too. Erikka: I did not go back to it. But like you said, there are tons of options. Like I have the Audient Evo, which is like super tiny, like for travel. I've got the Motu. Those are both under $200. Like you said, the Steinberg is under $300. Audient has a number of them that are great. And even if you do get a big boy, like I got the Apollo because I just wanted to -- Anne: Me too. Erikka: -- see it, and I like the colors and I just love it. But I do have Audients as backup. Yes. Anne: I like when you bring up all the colors and the little dials. Yeah. It's very pretty. Erikka: It's like you're booting up a spaceship. Like -- Anne: It's very sparkly yes. I bought the Apollo because it's so sparkly. It's wonderful. Erikka: I know. Anne: Right? But yeah, I also have an Apollo interface, and by the way, just FYI, the Steinberg is actually under $200, so -- Erikka: Is it? Okay, perfect. Anne: -- it's a really reasonable price for the Steinberg. Erikka: Thought it was like $229, but yeah. Perfect. Anne: Yeah. For $179, I've seen it, but yeah. So I absolutely love the Steinberg. I have it as a backup, and actually I have another backup just because I was all buying interfaces to try them out. So I have another interface. I have a Mackey interface that is another backup as well. So I'm set for that. And because I'm gonna tell you guys, it took me 10 years to buy a 416. So I had a TLM 103, I still have it. And I said, I'm gonna try a 416. And so now I have, you know, a couple of choices when I come into the studio here, but one is redundant, right? If I, this one doesn't work, the other one will. Also for traveling. So my justification was, let me get a 416 for my travel microphone. And then I said, well, well, I'm not traveling during the pandemic, right, it went right into my studio. Now it's just becoming something I use every single day, which I absolutely love. And -- Erikka: I love my 416, but I do love my 103. 'Cause when I do things where bigger noises, it's not as forgiving. I know there are people that do animation on the 416, but I just like being able to have the space to kind of yell a little more freely and for singing, like I wouldn't really use the 416. So I love my 103 for that. Anne: Agreed. Agreed. Yeah. I love them both. I have the option. So I'm really excited about that. Now computer computers. Erikka: Goodness gracious. Anne: I have, myself, I have an iMac, a 27-inch iMac, which is my main computer and also my audio computer. But I also have a MacBook pro, which is what I got for travel. But that serves as my redundant computer in case something were to happen to my main Mac. Erikka: Yeah. I'm a Windows girl. So offering the balance here. Anne: That's it. That's right. Erikka: I did a custom build. So like went out and like my brother helped me pick all my different parts and all my RAM and everything's custom to make sure it fits. And I actually have a case that is isolating. So it's super quiet. Anne: Nice. Erikka: So that's my main computer and yes, I primarily use it for recording, but I do other things like everybody else, but not a lot of other software on that one. And I have a HP something or other, I forget what the model number is, but that's my travel. But then I also have a backup to that. I've got like a Surface Go or something like that. Anne: Mm-hmm, yep, yep. Erikka: So obviously if the, if the main one went down, which it better not, 'cause I only built it like a year and a half ago, but I could use the laptop and record from that. Anne: Yeah. So having those around in the event of something happening when you are online with a client or a studio, recording with a studio, it's always wonderful to have those. And I think I mentioned this once before in one of our episodes, it's important that you kind of understand like how they go together. And so if you don't necessarily, labels are really helpful for cables, what goes where, taking pictures of your setup. I used to take pictures of my, my mix, mix minus setup, like take all the dials before I really figured out how my equipment worked and, and I would have an engineer help me set it up and then I would take pictures. Erikka: Yep. Yeah. I write on mine with the little marker, like, so I know the marker where's my optimal gain setting is. Anne: Yep. Absolutely. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: Very important. So yeah, I think that labels, photos, making sure you know, how things go together, and also redundancy in, let's say, your internet connection as well, 'cause yeah. Erikka: Oh buddy, yeah. Anne: Don't wanna forget if you lose your internet connection. Do you have another way to connect to the internet? And I know that I have a hotspot on my phone -- Erikka: Same. Anne: -- as another way to connect. And I've actually used that while I was online with people in a session. So make sure that, you know, that that hotspot works, and I was using ipDTL at the time. And you wanna make sure that that hotspot is powerful enough so that it can support you in a SourceConnect or ipDTL session. Erikka: Yeah, thank goodness I haven't had that scenario where I lost internet and couldn't, you know, was able, had to use the hotspot, but I was close. I do have the one on my phone as well. And it's just great to have an option because yes, hardwired should be your primary by all means. But even having a wifi card, you know, in your main computer or, you know, like you said, your laptop or something else. Anne: Good point. Not just hardwired ethernet, but also wifi capacity as well. Even though I think hardwired is always best. We had our new house built and moved in right before the pandemic. I had this office outfitted with three ethernet jacks. So I had redundant I had redundancy in my hard wire in addition to our wifi and getting different satellite options to make sure the wifi worked in every room. Erikka: Yep. Anne: So that if we could have that redundancy. You just can't afford, if you are a business owner and you work from home, you can't afford to not have I think a decent internet connection. And with that being said, I mean a decent internet connection. I'm not talking about like a couple hundred megabits per second upload. I'm talking gig. If you can get fiber or gigabit internet, it's absolutely worth the money. Like what do you think, Erikka? Erikka: It's so necessary. Yeah, absolutely. I've been like emailing my HOA, like when are we getting fiber? Because this is an older established neighborhood. So I'm like waiting for, please dig up and give us fiber because it's worth it. But until then I do have gig internet. It's just so necessary. And I go test my speed every once in a while on like speedtest.net or whatever website is just to make sure I'm getting what I'm paying for. Anne: Yes, speedtest.net is a great resource. I wanna just back that up. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: And saying that's how you can find out if you're getting what you're paying for. I've had to do that test multiple times with students who are like, oh no, I just upgraded my internet. And I'll be like, okay, go to speedtest.net. Let's see what your download and your upload is. And your upload is actually pretty important when you're doing a SourceConnect or an ipDTL. So upload speed is important. And Erikka, you mentioned something about, you know, you're waiting for gig, and a lot of times gig is underground when they do the fiber, they put the fiber underground. Erikka: For the fiber, yeah. Anne: So one thing that you also mentioned to me prior to this was depending on where you live, right, what type of internet connection, but also the power, right? Erikka: Yes. Yeah. Anne: Like I think that you wanna make sure that everything you have, if your power goes out, do you have redundant power somehow? Or do you have protection on your equipment? Like you mentioned a UPS. Erikka: I did. And that was one thing where -- thank goodness I don't get a ton of power outages. I've had a couple like brownouts, but an uninterruptable power supply, UPS or Ups. What that does is for when it is a surge protector, well, if you get the one that they usually have a surge protector built in, so it gives you back. But what it also does is it will save your computer from, it'll give it some power. It's like a battery that will temporarily it's big enough. It's pretty heavy to be able to keep running your equipment that's plugged into it. And the idea is to be able to have it still have power so that you can safely shut down -- Anne: Yeah. Erikka: -- and save whatever you're doing. So say you're in the middle of a session. If you lose power, obviously your Internet's probably gone. So maybe your clients were on the phone and they're gone now, but you can save that session or finish recording a take and save it and then shut down safely without it being just cut off from the power outage or even brownout. So I have all of my devices plugged into the Ups. I actually use a power strip where I plug everything in so that I could have more outlets. And then I plug the power strip into the Ups. Anne: Yeah. So important. And when your computer crashes from a power outage, sometimes it doesn't come back up. And that's where, you know, my heart rate, as I was mentioning, my internet goes down or my computer doesn't boot back up properly., that just gets me really nervous. So. Erikka: Safe mode, blue screens, or -- Anne: Exactly. Erikka: Oh, it's so scary. Anne: Yeah. So in addition to all the redundant hardware, also making sure -- we had also talked about redundant hardware where I back up my files to an identical external drive. Erikka: Yes. Anne: So I have two of the, I think they're like four terabyte drives that I love, oh my gosh. Now I'm gonna have to go look up what kind of drives they are. But the ones that I have are external drives for my Mac. And I basically put all of my audio files on an external drive. I've never put my files on an internal drive to my computer in case it doesn't boot back up. Erikka: Yeah, yeah. Anne: I wanna always have access to my files on an external drive and God forbid, my external drive goes, I've got the mirrored copy on the second external drive to get that information off of. And I also have a backup on the cloud. So I have three spots where I can get access to that. And so hopefully you have software that will retain information if you happen to crash. I know that Twisted Wave does if I crash out of my computer, and I boot back up, Twisted Wave will say, do you want to recover from a crash? Erikka: Yeah. Audition too. Anne: Audition too. Thankfully. Erikka: Yeah. Thank goodness. What I'll do is I have, because I had mine custom built, I do have like an extra drive that was built in there. So I do save my, my recordings there, but I do have a auto running backup that goes to my external drive. And it's four gigs too. And I can't remember the brand name now 'cause I never look at it 'cause it's for backup. Anne: 'Cause it's so darn good. Erikka: And thank goodness. Hopefully I'll never need it. But then also when I send my files out to my clients, I put everything on Google Drive and I paid for the extra space. So that way, not only will they have access to it, but I know that at least my recordings are out there on the cloud, and if I lose everything, I've got those files. Anne: Thank goodness. Right? Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: And there's lots of backup, backup, backup, guys. I would say redundancy in your drives if you can do it. And I think that's just from 20 years in working in technology. We always had to make sure that we had backups of things because the last thing you wanna do is lose your data. And then it was easier to restore from a backup than it would be to reload the operating system and then go back and reinstall all the programs that you use. And so there's lots of software programs out there that'll do backup for you to do that. If not, definitely, I would say contact someone to get help and back up those computers, back up your phone, that kind of thing. All your pictures now. This is the other thing too, is my pictures that I have, what, over 10,000 pictures now on my phone. Oh good God. . Erikka: So many pictures of random things. Anne: Yeah. What happens when you lose your phone? So. Erikka: Oh gosh. Anne: Yeah, yeah. Lots of redundancy there. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. And you know another thing, even though this isn't necessarily hardware, you know, often if you're in a live session, you'll hear somebody say, you know, can you run a back up? Like that's why, having redundancy in the recording, right? Whether you're in -- Anne: You're running a backup -- Erikka: -- SourceConnect -- Anne: -- for me now. Erikka: I'm running a backup right now because when we are recording, ipDTL is obviously very, very, you know, reliable, but things happen. So, you know, any little glitch that happens because it's the internet and technology's not perfect. You have that source file that's coming directly from my studio. So always run a backup. And I remember before I built this computer, I could never run a backup and be in SourceConnect, then I realized I didn't have enough power. I needed a more powerful computer. So if you're not able to do that, it's a sign that it might be time to upgrade. Anne: Ah, yes. When do we upgrade? . Erikka: Ooh, I know, I know it's more money. Anne: It's interesting because we can run our businesses. We can do our recording. And I don't think that today we don't have to have an extremely powerful computer to record our audio. Erikka: No, that's super -- mm-mm. Anne: However, it really depends on what you're doing. I mean, I always say have a dedicated recording computer just for your recording if you can, and then for all other work you will do on a different computer. And I think that that is, I think it's a good idea because then you're not overtaxing the computer that you use for recording. However, I think there's times when, I mean, I think you can get like for me, 'cause I'm I use Mac these days, you can get like a Mac Mini for like $400 to $500. Gosh, I recorded on a Mac Mini for a long time, and it was an older one that I had and that's all it served, that purpose, was to record my audio. And of course I still had my external drives where I saved all of the audio files onto and then back them up. So yeah. It's something to really consider to have a specific computer that is dedicated just to your recording. Erikka: Yeah. I mean, that's how it is in the big studios. They're not doing all kinds of other things on those machines. It's all about recording. Like I said, I just sit at this computer all day, so I just do more on it. But its primary purpose is recording. Other than that, it's really just internet surfing probably that I do otherwise. Anne: Yes. That's a lot of it. I think that if you have a dedicated computer just for recording, now you have to start thinking about though, when it gets to be too old, then it may not support your audio hardware. Erikka: There you go. Anne: And that is the thing. So remember, guys, this is a business, there are some investments that you have to make. And most people think when they're investing in their equipment, they're just thinking microphones and audio interfaces. But in reality, there's so much more besides that. I mean your base computer that you're doing the recording on, the software that you purchase to edit the audio, all of that stuff is still part of that investment, and redundancy should be built into your budget for that. Erikka: Yes, absolutely. And it's like, yes. You know, obviously we're, we're growing as we go. So there may be that you start with one, and then put it in your plan, in your budget for next quarter to buy your backup. Or you can break this up and iterate. But I mean, even like a webcam because -- Anne: Well, I was just thinking that, oh my God, are you reading my mind? I was just thinking that, what other hardware is there, right? And you're like, yes, the webcam. I mean, gosh, this is how we're communicating these days a lot. Erikka: It's nice to be able -- I flip on video for the first five minutes, you know, just to have that human interaction. And I think it makes a difference in relationship building. And I turn it off when, when I record. I make a joke. Like, you know, you don't have to see my weird actor faces, but you know, it also, it eats up some bandwidth, you know? So I wanna make sure that the audio is as clean as possible. So they're hearing all the nuances so they can direct me. But yeah, like webcams -- Anne: Lighting. Erikka: Lighting. Oh my goodness. Yes. Anne: Yes. Something you have to consider is lighting. I -- there's so many people that when you get on a Zoom call with them, and they're in their studio, but yet it's dark in their studio. So the lighting is not optimal. I think that it's worth a look at investing at some light. I own a little light that sticks on the back of my monitor. It's called the Loom Cube. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: And it's not that expensive. I wanna say it was under $100. It literally has one of those suction cups that you put on the back, and you can establish like two lights. If you can do two lights to the left and the right, you kind of avoid that reflection in your eyes, if you can go left and right with it. And there's just many inexpensive ways to get good lighting in your studio. And I think it's worth a look at, and that's also hardware that is something I think you can consider. Erikka: Yep. And I would say honestly, I mean, this leans a little bit to performance too, but for me, like I have the bright light that's in my studio, but sometimes I turn it off because it gives me a different mood and puts me into a different read. So I have like, I don't wanna call them mood lights, but I have like this little tiny, like salt rock lamp that gives me some ambience. Anne: Lava lamp. Erikka: Yeah. Well, kind of the lava lamp is another option, but it's like those Himalayan salt rocks. Anne: Oh yeah. Erikka: With the little like amber light. So like -- Anne: Absolutely. Erikka: So it can change your performance, the type of lighting that you have in your studio. So for me, they, that was $20, but it is hardware in my studio. So I mean. Anne: And, and not just those, but also I have the LED lights that are actually installed on my ceiling. Erikka: Yep, with the colors, there you go. Anne: Yeah. You have a remote, you can do any color you want. And so that also is hardware installed. And, and if there's any type of, let's say ventilation system in your booth, you don't have a ventilation system and hey, I didn't have a ventilation system for a long time in my booth. So I had a fan, you know, I mean, literally it's open the door, put the fan on when you're not in there recording and it's as simple as that. Or it could be as complicated as we had Tim Tippetts who we had plenums. We basically had space between the wall where the air that would come from air conditioning and then it would be directed out through this tiny hole that would make it very quiet. So it was a well designed system. But I'll tell you before I had that, I functioned okay. Thankfully I wasn't doing jumping up and down and doing video games because then I would've had to look into it much sooner, but I had a fan and I had just opened the door, turned the fan on. So that's also hardware. Erikka: Well, yeah. And you bring that up because I love my house, but like they did the HVAC kind of weird. So it's like one side of the house gets much warmer than the other and gets much cooler in the other, depending on the season. So it was like, what of course, the side where my office is, my studio is where it's weird. So it was like, even though I did things with my vents, it, it still kind of got warm in here in the summer and you know, cool in the winter. So I did have a mini split system installed because they're super quiet. I know those are expensive, but again, I built up to that, but that way I could keep my room cool. Because you have to make sure your equipment doesn't get too hot, not just you. Anne: Oh, absolutely. Erikka: Equipment has to be kept at a good temperature. So that was hardware for my studio as well. That helps kind of temperature control my area. But yeah. Fans work, even things like changing the vents that your air comes out of to straight ones. My HVAC guy told me that. Anne: The filters. Erikka: Yeah. Well not even the filters, like the, the actual grates. Anne: Oh yeah. Erikka: A lot of houses come with the three way ones. And he actually told me the straight one ones are way more efficient and they're like $18 or something for the really good ones and $5 or $10 for the cheap ones. Anne: Oh, well, that's a great tip. I love that. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: Yeah. So that helps the airflow be a little, like more efficient. Anne: That makes a whole lot of sense actually. And it doesn't surprise me because when people are installing that type of stuff, and I just know, because I had a house built, if they opt for the cheaper version of the vent, it's something that they're gonna do that probably to save money on the, the cost of building the house. But it's not something that's tremendously difficult for you to upgrade. And I remember you mentioned before, and I was just thinking about this with my mouse issue, keyboards and mice, especially if you have Bluetooth devices, if one -- Erikka: My keyboard died on me. Yeah. Anne: And you're in the middle of -- Erikka: My Bluetooth keyboard died. Anne: And when God, what do you do when the keyboard dies? You need another one. Erikka: I freaked out and thank God I had a wired one, and I've been so freaked out ever since that, I only use a wired one now, unless it's in my booth. Anne: Yeah. I'll tell you, God knows that I love my Apple Magic Mouse, which I really do, which is Bluetooth. But I'm in my studio beside my computer, which is outside of the studio. Every once in a while, either Chrome is taking up too many resources on my computer. And it starts screwing around with the capabilities of Bluetooth and USBs. And so things don't work. They don't operate. And gosh, if you're trying to like navigate your system to hit file-save while you're in the middle of a client session and your mouse doesn't work. Erikka: Oh my gosh. Anne: Or your keyboard doesn't work to type in that file name. And you're trying to like maintain cool while you're freaking out inside. And you're like -- Erikka: The most embarrassing thing. Anne: -- oh my gosh, how do I even type a file name so that it can save? Erikka: Yeah, yeah. I think I was like trying to join a session, and I'm trying to click the mouse, and I'm like, ah, you know? Anne: Yeah, yeah. I can't tell you when I've hit file-save. And then it, it sits there waiting for me to type and I've lost my keyboard. Erikka: Oh my goodness. Anne: And again, it's like one of those things where it could be the keyboard just needs to be charged. Erikka: Batteries, yeah, yep, recharged. Anne: Right? Or you need to run out of your studio and then make sure your other keyboard works. But yet your other keyboard also might be Bluetooth. And so therefore you're at that point where it's like, oh my gosh, do I need to reboot? Or how am I gonna type a name in to save this file? Then it turns into your software being, hey, can I recover this file for you? . Erikka: Yeah. Yep, yep. Yep. Anne: So I've run into a lot of close calls, too many close calls. And especially in my 20 years in technology, I've run into many close calls knowing that redundancy -- Erikka: Saves the day. Anne: -- if you got anything else out of this episode, right? Redundancy would be it. Erikka: Redundancy. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: And the one thing I think would be touched on for a second, I did wanna make sure is cables, those XLR cables. Anne: Yes! Oh gosh, yes. Erikka: Because it is so easy to like, oh my God, it's my mic. It's my interface. It's this. And sometimes it is as simple as the cable. And you know, when I first was starting, you know, I just got, oh, you know, cheap Amazon cable. Yay. That'll work. And they make a difference. I'm now a Mogami girl, but get good XLR cables and have a backup. Anne: I know, so some people are like, why do you pay all that money for that cable? You could have a lot of cheap cables as a backup. You could. Erikka: You could. Anne: But I also agree with you. I have the good cables that are connecting my mic to my audio interface. And I mean, you're talking like, what, three cables, maybe, making the investment? Erikka: I mean, the thing is it's transmitting a signal. Right? Anne: Exactly. Erikka: Remember that an, an interface is an analog to digital converter. When you're talking into a mic, that is analog information and it's translating it to be digital to come into a wave form in your computer. So you kind of want the thing that's transmitting that information to be of good quality. Anne: To be of good quality. Yes. Erikka: And if you can't afford the Mogamis, I know Jordan has recommended before the Sweetwater Quad 4. They have the stuff in them that's nearly as good as the Mogamis and they're much, much more affordable, so. Anne: Oh, good advice. Well guys, BOSSes out there, build redundancy into your business. Erikka: Sing to yourself, redundancy. Anne: And budget for it. What a good conversation. Erikka: I Love it. I love it. Anne: I'm glad we could share all of our failures, our hardware failures, and make it into an educational podcast for the BOSSes. Erikka: That's right. Yeah BOSSes, get the redundancy in. Anne: That's right. All right. I'd like to give a big shout-out to 100voiceswhocare.org. Here's a chance for you to use your voice, to make an immediate difference in our world and give back to those communities that give to you. Go to 100voiceswhocare.org to commit. Also huge shout out to my favorite, ipDTL, ipDTL.com, my favorite way to network with BOSSes like Erikka, and you guys can network with ipDTL as well. ipDTL.com for more information. All right, guys, have an amazing week, and we'll see you next week. Erikka: Bye! Anne: 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 voboss.com 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.

What do Google, P2Ps, and Instagram all have in common? They are search engines! This week, Anne & Erikka talk tech. More specifically, SEO and how you can use keywords to improve your searchability & business. Our websites and online profiles are our digital storefronts. The words we put on them are the secret to getting found by clients, so specificity and consistency are essential. Listen up Bosses, we've got tips & tricks just for you! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am here back with special guest co-host Erikka J. Hey Erikka. Erikka: Hey Anne, how are you today? Anne: I'm doing good. What's going on with you? Erikka: Oh, nothing, man. Just happy to be back and happy to have -- actually, I just had a job that walked in on my website, and I was so excited because I love getting those. Anne: Ah, oh my God. I love that. You said that because walking in on your website, that's the best kind of job to get because you don't have to do all the work of auditioning. They've already come to your website. They've heard your demos. And they've liked what they've heard, and then they contact you and say how much? Erikka: Yeah. They just walk in and wanna hand you money for you doing the talking. So I love that. Anne: I love that. That is such an efficient way to work. Not that -- look, I'm not gonna blast anybody who auditions. I mean, I audition. I audition for my agents every day and thankfully I'm busy because I do a lot of things in my business that I don't really have a ton of time to audition outside of, for my agents. And so when it comes in on my website or however they find me online, I absolutely love the inquiry because they don't necessarily need an audition. They're just saying here's my job. How much will it cost? Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, talking about balance, yeah sure, we do auditions every day. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: And that's a great way to land work. And a lot of the work that we get from our agents where we have to audition are those big, you know, really great jobs, but having a balanced approach to your business and having a diverse set of leads that come in, having that walk-in money where you don't really have to do that audition work. And it's just like, hey, we want you to do this job. We saw your website and love your work. And when can we schedule a session and how much? Like, that's great. It's a good balance. Anne: Love it, love it. And so I think so important to talk about is SEO, because that plays a large part in how people find you online, a large part in how people find me and my website, and then pretty much say, hey, I like your voice. How much will it cost? So let's talk a little bit about SEO, search engine optimization. I know a lot of people like get discombobulated when we start talking about technological things like that and SEO. And disclaimer here, I am not an SEO expert, but I have definitely employed certain things on my website that have allowed me to be found easier. And it has really contributed greatly to those people that walk in and ask for work from me, which I think is amazing. Erikka, what about your experiences? Erikka: Absolutely. I mean, if you think about it, when it gets a little intimidating, you just think about SEO, as Anne said, stands for search engine optimization. What is Google? A search engine. What are all these social media sites essentially? A search engine. Even the P2Ps, a search engine, they're looking for things. So all you're doing is optimizing your website so that you are found more easily on that search engine when they're searching for things that are relevant to your website. Anne: Yes, absolutely. Or your online presence. I know. I -- Erikka: Yeah, absolutely. Anne: -- I bring it back to the website because I think the website is the core of who our businesses are. And the core website will allow anyone to come find me, listen to my demos and then pay me money. So it's like a full cycle. That's my online storefront. And so let's talk about how we can optimize our online presence for good SEO, Erikka. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: What's the first thing? Erikka: I think for me, I saw the jump when I went into -- 'cause currently my site is based on SquareSpace. I'm in the process of moving over to WordPress. But there is, if you dig into those sites, there are sections that are specifically for SEO. And if you go in there and you start putting in, I use keywords that I know when someone who is looking for me or my type of sound or what I bring to the table as a voice talent, I'm putting those keywords in my SEO box so that when they're searching for Black female voice talent, or authoritative, or sounds like Viola Davis or whatever, I'm coming up in those options. So I think that's number one is making sure that you have the right copy on your website and the right terms that are specifically driving SEO on your website listed there. Anne: Let's talk a little bit more about keywords because I think keywords are what, you know, people are like, well, what keywords should I use? And I think keywords are very specific to everybody, every person. And I think everybody wants to be found for the keyword voiceover. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: You know? Erikka: Everybody, Anne: Everybody. And here's the deal. The sites that have a lot of people that have voiceover in their profile, that word, are going to be the ones that get found first because there's many occurrences. So keywords are, basically in Google, if you rank highly for a particular keyword, you will show up on the first page, which is desirable to show up on the first page. 'Cause many people, when they search myself included, I don't always go to the second or third pages. However, I will say, Erikka, I don't know if you've noticed recently, there's been an awful lot of ads on the first page of Google lately. Erikka: There have. Anne: A lot. Erikka: Definitely. And not just Google, but like, you know, I went to like search for a restaurant on like Yelp or something, and it was like, it wasn't necessarily the best, but it was ranked first because it was sponsored, and you have to look for that word, and it's like, oh wait. . So yeah, lots of ads. Anne: And so I think that by the way, Erikka, this is probably another podcast episode, but thinking about marketing and ads, adding ads into your daily practice could be something that would be worthwhile. And again, that's another investment, but I say that just because I'm noticing the increase on the first page of Google of ads showing up. And so you wanna make sure that the keyword that people search for will show up your entry on the first page, if possible, because not many people click to the second or third pages. However, I will say because of the amount of ads I have been going to the second page more often now. Erikka: Yeah. I've seen that. Anne: But what makes a good keyword? So of course you can put voiceover in your body of text that you put on your website or on your profile. But I also think you definitely need to target it more specifically to what you want to be found for. So for example, if somebody typed in voiceover coach or commercial voiceover coach, and I'd have to keep checking right now, but I have certain words that I wanna be found for. But if somebody types in commercial VO coach, that's a different set of words than commercial voiceover coach. So keep that in mind because people say, well, I didn't find you when I searched for you under commercial VO coach. And I'm like, well, that doesn't necessarily mean that you won't find me under commercial voiceover coach. So I think a lot of times in order to get yourself found on that first page, try to think specifically and narrow down that focus on your target. So for example, if I say "commercial voiceover Orange County," I will show up on the first page exactly. Or "narration voiceover coach Orange County," that kind of thing. And if I don't, by the time this airs , I will, I will be working to make sure that that happens because I have a certain set of words that I wanna be found for. Now, it would be great if I could be found for voiceover coach, that in general, but there's a lot of voiceover coaches out there that use that as well as their a search term. So it really behooves you to think about what it is that you wanna be found for. Erikka: Absolutely being specific is so key 'cause like you said, everyone is gonna have voiceover and not just that, but the first page, if you just have voiceover or even VO or just those sort of generic terms, you're gonna get eaten up by the sites that are corporations that have thousands of dollars into voiceover, some of the P2Ps. Anne: Exactly. Erikka: You know what I mean? So you're gonna get pushed down and, and maybe not even be in the first three pages. You'll get found for what you wanna get found for, for what really your niche is because we all have different areas of expertise. Anne: Exactly. Erikka: Not just in genre, but in like how our voice sounds like, how do you describe your voice?What adjectives do you use? What celebrity references would you compare your voice to? Anne: I think celebrity references are great too. Erikka: Oh yeah. Yeah. Anne: So many people forget about that, their soundalike, and that really helps. And I think you should absolutely put that on your website. Because that will help target the search even more. Yeah. Erikka: Alt text in photos is another good thing to have just to get your site higher ranked in general. The better that Google likes your website, doing things like to make it clean and having the hierarchy right so you get site mapped, and that's where like if you search for a website and you'll see where it says, like if you search for Erikka J, you'll see like about and voiceover and music, like you'll see the different subpages on the Google initial search, that means you've been site mapped. So Google kind of ranks you higher just for that reason alone. So a lot of different things to consider. Anne: Well, I think that that's wonderful. I think, so number one is knowing that. The way search engine optimization works is, or the way search engines work is they pretty much keyword or they index your website with all the words on it. And so when somebody says to you, oh, I think that your website is too busy or it's too wordy. I always say, mm, think again. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. Anne: I mean, if you ever look at my website, I've got words everywhere. And so the reason for that is for SEO purposes. I want to be able to be found. And so these people they're like, I really want clean voiceover webpages that, you know, you can get to the demos right away, which I agree with, but I'll tell you what. Clean doesn't necessarily mean that you're not being verbose about who you are and what kind of a business you are. Because when I search for, let's say, I wanna find a particular product, like I'm trying to find green chickpeas. I just say that -- Erikka: That's pretty particular. Anne: It's particular, and it's very difficult to find green chickpeas, but when I type that in the websites that come back, I wanna be able to click on them and immediately purchase. And so when somebody types in those keywords for you, commercial voiceover or explainer narrator, whatever that is, you wanna show up on that first page. And then when they click on you, you want that page to be accessible and easy to buy. Erikka: Yes. Yes. Anne: Easy to buy and look professional. So I think in terms of the SEO, the search engine optimization being optimized for your site, I think it helps to have more words that accurately describe who your business is and what words you wanna be found as. So you must include those. And you mentioned the alt text, which is great. And somebody who doesn't necessarily design websites may not know what that is. But that is text that you put around an image in the code of the HTML of the website, which you can do if you understand a little bit about WordPress or whatever your website has been developed in. My websites are all in Wix now. I was using WordPress and then my websites became very complex in terms of eCommerce happening. I have a CRM embedded. I have email that I'm sending from these websites. So Wix kind of worked out for me for that because it had all of those embedded into the website, those capabilities. And with that, any web provider, if it's Wix, if it's WordPress, you know, hosted on a GoDaddy website, whatever it is, they're going to have some sort of provision for SEO where you can insert keywords. That is very, very helpful, not only having the words on your website, and I think also dividing your website into different sections. So like I have a commercial voiceover landing page. I have a corporate narration landing page. I have an explainer landing page, a telephony landing page. And so that just makes it even easier to find, because again, I can put more of those words on my website by having specific landing pages Erikka: And it's more targeted. So I mean, you know, obviously we're talking about having the right copy and having, you know, these SEO terms. You don't wanna word vomit, right, and just have like all the words that you think are gonna get you found. It still has to be cohesive and make sense. And it has to be true. Nothing's worse -- I don't know about you guys, but if I'm searching for like great Mexican food near me and I get something that's totally unrelated, that's annoying, and it pisses your buyer off. So make sure it's still relevant. So definitely getting those pages that are relevant to the topic can target who you're trying to talk to with that demographic. And I believe it may have changed 'cause I know Google was more so understood words and they're starting to have more like a computer vision where they can understand images more. But I think having at least 500 words was the cutoff last I heard from someone that worked at Google per page to get it kind of recognized and rank. Anne: Yeah. I think they're starting to recognize words within photos as well. Erikka: They are. Yep. Yep. Anne: I absolutely think that having, first of all, more words and targeted words that make sense -- by the way, you'll get penalized, if you just do what they call keyword stuffing. So you can't just throw in the words. And as a matter of fact, if you throw in more words like voiceover talent or voiceover or VO and you put too many of them in your pages and they don't make sense, you'll get penalized and you certainly don't want that to happen. And by the way, I always tell people that SEO is one of those things. Now we talk about Google, right, because that's my search engine. I don't really go to any other search engine. Do you, Erikka? Erikka: I don't. Anne: Yeah. So in reality there are other search engines, but I really don't use any. It's always Google, and nobody knows really Google's algorithm unless you work for Google. And that is a proprietary thing. And I remember SEO people would study that and there are different versions of the Google algorithm that come out and they name them. And so every time Google would come out with a new algorithm, they'd say, well -- and I think one of 'em was called like the penguin. I can't remember, but everybody would come out and say, okay, since Google's new algorithm, here's what you need to do to get good SEO. And so I'm just gonna say, if you don't work for Google, you don't know you don't. You just don't. So if you have somebody that comes to you and says, I can make you show up on the front page, I want you to probably just run far away. Because I just have never really believed people 'cause that used to be a real business. People would just be, they were SEO people and we can get you on the front page and you pay us all this money. And in reality they would keyword stuff. And that was back in the day. And I still have people who email me and spam me about SEO and getting myself on the front page. So beware -- Erikka: Me too. Anne: -- that, unless they work for Google, they don't really know. And I'm all about, and I think Erikka, you too, I'm all about organic SEO, and organic is absolutely let's write the verbiage. Let's use the words on our website and in our profiles that accurately describes who we are, what we do and what we would like to be found for and not keyword stuff. And that's worked wonders for me in the past years because as I mentioned before, I have a lot of different divisions of my business that I work at. And I don't have time to audition all the time. So for me getting work that finds me or getting clients that find me first, then they have the opportunity to listen to the demos on my site. And if my demos are targeted to the specific genre, and they nail the sound that the client is looking for, boom, I've just taken care of half of the work in terms of getting that lead and then solidifying it so that I can get paid. Erikka: Yeah, absolutely. You don't want someone to find you and then they find that you weren't the right match. You don't want to attract the wrong client and ends up wasting your time. So the more targeted and sort of more strategic that you are with those keywords to make the right match happen automated, take that manual workout for yourself, it's a win for both sides. So absolutely. Anne: I like how you said you don't wanna attract the wrong client. Erikka: Yeah. Anne: And interestingly enough, I always hear about people talking about being low balled in a lot of the Facebook groups and they'll be like, oh, you know, they only offered me this or this is what they're offering. And I'm like, interestingly enough, I never quite meet clients like that. And I'm going to very humbly attribute it to a great web designer, my great web designer who shall remain nameless because they can't take on anymore clients and a great writer for the verbiage of which I worked many, many years myself on on trying to hone that and really working with someone to figure out who am I? Who do I want to be? How do I wanna be found online? And really working, not just a day on that. It has evolved over years of writing, rewriting and a lot of work. And it has been, I think one of the most successful things that I've ever done for my business that has garnered me, I'm gonna say, three quarters of my income was a great website with great verbiage that says exactly who I am, targets who I want to find me, and just gets me work without me having to go and cold call people or email people or whatever it is, just being found. And it's not just the website, but it's a website in combination with social media profiles. And also not just the words on the website, but I know we're specifically talking SEO, but the words in combination with the actual website that looks professional enough so that people, when they see it, they trust it, and they're willing to click and buy so to speak. Erikka: Yeah. One of the best compliments I got was somebody told me, oh, your website looks expensive. And I was like -- Anne: Yeah, right? Erikka: -- perfect! because I want clients that, that know they're not going to get a $50 voiceover from me. Anne: And that's it. And then I guess that was the long story of me getting back to your point about you don't wanna attract the wrong client. If somebody comes to me, they're not gonna offer me $.08 a word. You know what I mean? For e-learning. I'm not even attracting that type of client. I'm attracting the type of client that is going to be willing to pay. And funny enough, I was like, and now of course I'm gonna have another one of those moments, but I said something to my husband, I said yesterday, I don't even care what it costs, but I am hunting for this product because I want it to be the right product. And I want it to be quality product, and I'm willing to pay for it. And that I think is something so important for us as business owners and entrepreneurs that we understand that. I shop online all the time. I love online shopping. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread personally. Erikka: Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, think about how it is when, when you guys are shopping, when -- there are times when you're more budget driven, when you're like, all right, what can I get what I need for the lowest price? And there are times like you just said, Anne, you know, when you're like, look, I don't care what it costs, but I need a certain level of quality. Anne: Yeah. I need this. I'm just gonna particular brand or yep. Erikka: Yep. And that's what you want your brand, your website, your digital storefront to say about you. Anne: Yep. You wanna be the Kleenex. Erikka: Yes. There you go. The Puffs Plus with lotion Anne: I need the Anne Ganguzza of voiceover. And also I wanna just mention that everybody should always have their name associated with their business, AnneGanguzza.com. And I tell people, I want you to be the Kleenex of voiceover. I need that Anne Ganguzza. Oh, I'm sorry. I need an Anne Ganguzza, you know, that kind of thing. I need an Erikka J . Really, that is important. And there's so many people that come up with these clever little names for their URLs and I'm like, well, that's great, but also have your name. Right? Erikka: Well, use them and, and I guess this is sort of a little, it's still kind of related to SEO in a way, but you can do that and use redirects. That's one thing I do a lot because people frequently forget that I have two K's in my name or where they wanna put two RS or whatever. So I have had other things like EJ Voiceover that are easier to find, but it still redirects you to ErikkaJ.com. Anne: Absolutely. Erikka: So you can still do those little clever names that get people's attention and have it tell them what your name is when they get there. Anne: Unless you have somebody else out there with another name that might be, I don't know, somebody undesirable that you may not wanna be found for. Then I say, add the word, voice or voiceover afterwards, you know, Anne Ganguzza Voiceover. Everybody's like, well, Anne Ganguzza, isn't that difficult to spell? I'm like, well, I'm a Kleenex. So -- Erikka: Teach them. Anne: And like, Erikka J, I will tell you, Erikka, I learned right away because you're somebody I wanted to know. I knew I wanted to be in contact. I immediately remembered the two Ks and not two RS. Erikka: Aww. Thank you. Anne: But it's true. Right? So I just now know -- Erikka: It's true. Anne: And I think that any client, right, that wants you, they learn it and that's it. And you stay in their brains and that is what makes you unique. And I love your last name. It's so like Ganguzza... Anne: Thank you. It is a cool name. Isn't it? It's one of the reasons why I took it Erikka: Right, right, right, right, right. You're like, honey, this is a business decision. Anne: Well, it kind of was. My name before was Lucy, and that was also a cool name. So I just thought Anne Ganguzza was a cool sounding name, but Anne Lucy was always also really a cool name 'cause people sometimes would call me Lucy instead of Anne. But when I first started, I picked a URL and I said, Annespeaks.com. And I thought it was so clever. And the funny thing is, is that nobody searched for Anne -- like, what is an Anne speaks? Is that like a noun? What is that? I mean, you would like it to be, but in the beginning it did not serve me well, even though I thought I was so clever. Erikka: That's memorable, you know? Yeah. But like Anne Ganguzza, how can you forget that? Anne: That's right. And if you want Anne Ganguzza, you'll know how to spell that name. Erikka: That's right. That's right. Anne: That's the point. You'll find it. That's the point. So don't worry BOSSes out there. If you have a name that's difficult to spell, I always say, get that name and then get redirects. Like things that are easier, like your first name voiceover.com or whatever. But that again is part of the SEO as well. Not just the words that you have on your website, but also in your URL. Erikka: Yes. Anne: So if they are words that people typically search for that you wanna be found, you can also include those in your URL. And it's not expensive these days -- Erikka: Not at all, not at all. Anne: -- to get additional URLs, to buy additional domain names. And then let's see, I have about 11 websites, Erikka. How many do you have? Erikka: Oh man. Err... More than 10. Anne: There you go. There you go. So the thing is, is I think for people who have been in the business and have a little bit of at least knowledge about SEO and understand the, the advantages and the benefits, you can create what you mentioned before, those redirects, that go to your website. So I also happen to have the eLearningvoice.com, medical-narration.com, phone-voice.com and all of these other genre based website domains. And they have, again, more words on the page that discuss who I am. Right? What my business does, my voiceover for explainers or voiceovers for telephony, voiceovers for -- and that also contributes to my overall SEO in the world of online searching. And so I pay for those websites. I pay for the maintenance of those websites. And so it is an investment, guys. But I, I think if anybody has a problem finding me online, they maybe don't know how to type it properly because -- Erikka: Well, I mean, that's what it's all about is being easy to be found. So what can you do to make it easy for people to find you? Because the internet is vast . I mean, it is so big So what are you gonna do to help people filter through the noise to find you? Anne: Google yourself. Erikka: Oh my goodness, yes. In an incognito window, which means that it's not looking at your cookies or anything like that or any, it's not seeing it through the lens of anything else you've searched. If you use Chrome or whatever browser, but you should see like in, I know in Chrome, in the upper right corner, there's like three dots. And if you click that, it'll say new incognito window and it'll be like dark. That means that you're in like, almost like a brand new browser and -- Anne: it's a dark window. Erikka: -- if you Google -- it's the dark web. Anne: You Google yourself in the dark window, on the dark web. Erikka: Google yourself. And then you will see how you are coming up from the dark web. No. Anne: But that's so important. Erikka: Seriously. Yeah. It's is. It is. Anne: That is so important. Erikka: You'll be shocked. Anne: And I say, Google yourself regularly, because you don't wanna be found for things that maybe you don't wanna be found for. Erikka: Right. Or old things, you know, like -- Anne: Exactly. I love that. You said old things because that's so important that we make sure that you clean up, make sure you clean up online. If you can. It's really difficult sometimes to completely clean up things that have been said. And that again, could be another podcast episode. If you've said things online, your social posts show up online as well. Erikka: Yes, they do. Anne: They do. Erikka: I've definitely seen Twitter posts come up in a Google search for me. And I was like, oh, okay. Anne: So if you searched your name, right, Anne Ganguzza, I think the first thing, if it's properly done, that should come up is your website. Erikka: Should be, yes. Anne: Right? Erikka: Absolutely. Anne: And if you have multiple pages on your website, which I think is a good thing, and Erikka, I believe that you agreed with me, you'll see like you're about section, you'll see whatever that might be about, demos, those types of things, whatever sections, they should also show up. And then I think the next thing might be either YouTube or LinkedIn or whatever your social media social profiles are. I think YouTube possibly is the next one that come up. Erikka: It depends on the one you're most active in, honestly. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: If you're not super active on YouTube, like me, like I haven't posted anything with there in a while, bad Erikka but yeah. Anne: Yeah. So the next thing for me is YouTube. 'Cause I've been doing a little blurb on YouTube trying to yeah -- and again, that's another thing that I've been doing to try to increase my SEO is I've been putting out weekly videos. And so not only for VO BOSS, do I put out weekly videos, but for Anne Ganguzza I do. So for each brand I'm putting out well VO Peeps, I mean I'm only one person, but as most people know, I have a team of people that help me. I have been putting my own videos out on Anne Ganguzza to try to increase the Anne Ganguzza brand and VO BOSS, we do all of our episodes weekly. We put that on YouTube as well, just to contribute to the SEO. And as a matter of fact, we also transcribe our episodes as well to help any possible type of SEO. So if you were to search or if you listen to any of the episodes on, let's say Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you'll see that the transcripts are there as well. Erikka: Yeah. And I think, I think LinkedIn is another one that comes up heavy for me because it is one of the largest -- Anne: Yes, me too. Erikka: -- social media platforms in the world. And a lot of people sleep on LinkedIn. I know in our community we talk about it more, but seriously it's like, 'cause you know, it's like it's Facebook in a suit. You know, people say that, but -- Anne: It is Facebook in a suit. Erikka: But just about everybody's there. So -- Anne: Everybody's on it. Yes, absolutely. And you're right. And now there's the feed. And so I'm posting daily to that, and I'm trying to post content that matters. So another thing that can help you with SEO is to publish content and update it regularly or new content. And so I also blog on a weekly basis, and one of my blogs every week is my video that I've put on YouTube, which I've then transcribed, which then becomes a blog of mine. And then I also write a blog every other week. So that again are words that come back to my website so that again, people can find me easily. Erikka: Yeah. Another thing I did fairly recently, which I probably need to do some maintenance work on, but I'd created a business on Google business. Anne: Oh yes. Good idea. Erikka: Which is easy to do. And then that way you could actually get people to write reviews for you too. So yeah. You can come up there and show up as a business. So. Anne: That's the other thing, when you do a Google search on yourself, that should show up. That and Yelp always showed up pretty high up. But I think lately they've not been coming up as high up in the search. Erikka: I haven't seen Yelp as high lately, but -- Anne: Yeah. You know, well, there's so many issues with Yelp, I think with people sabotaging other businesses by writing bad reviews and that sort of thing, which was a real thing. Erikka: Yeah. I mean, SEO's kind of like credit scores, right? Like you said, the algorithm changes all the time. You get the most information that you can to try to optimize, but you're not gonna master it because it's proprietary to those companies, and they put a lot of money into keeping them very secret and specialized. Just do the best you can. Anne: So consider, you know, I'm thinking for the future, it's gonna be something I've been looking at too. I mean, if you're not advertising already, think about that. Because it's becoming more and more prevalent out there, but for sure, understand who you are, define who you are as a business, figure out what keywords you want to be found for, make sure that they appear in your websites, make sure they appear in your social media profiles and try to just Google yourself every week or so. And longevity by the way, has something to do with it. So make sure that you are Googling yourself every week, every other week, and you too can win at the SEO game, and it's not that complicated. Erikka: It's not. And bringing it back to our balance theme, you know, it's like we do things actively to get these leads and to get these jobs every day, like auditions or you know, some people on P2Ps or doing your direct marketing. SEO is something that you can do passively so that work just walks in the door. Anne: There you go. I love it. Wow. I could talk another half an hour on this at least. Erikka: I could. I think we both talk a lot, Anne because we get paid for it. Anne: Ah, there we go. Yeah. Well BOSSes, you can use your voice to make an immediate difference and give back to the communities that give to you. Visit 100voiceswhocare.org to find out more. You can absolutely make a difference for a small, quarterly contribution. And a great big shout-out to our sponsor. ipDTL. You too can network and communicate like BOSSes like Erikka J and I, and find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, have an amazing, and we'll see you next week. Bye! Erikka: 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 voboss.com 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.

BOSSES, it's time for you to use online casting sites + P2Ps to your advantage. Anne chats with Natasha Marchewka and Katherine Tole, co-founders of V123 Pros, a learning resource that elevates talents' branding and V123 game. They discuss the importance of online casting sites, how you can brand yourself to be searchable & professional + tips on how to get & keep client connections through these websites. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere 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, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza. And today I am excited to welcome two very special guests to the show, super VO talents and business entrepreneurs Natasha Marchewka and Katherine Tole. They have paired up to build learning resources that will elevate your brand and your online casting game together. They are self-proclaimed and verified, I would say, V123 super nerds and the creators of the very successful V123 Pros. Ladies, thank you so, so much for joining me today. Katherine: Thanks for having us, Anne. Natasha: Thanks so, so much for the invite. Anne: I love it. I love it, love it, love it. So I have lots of questions to ask you. But before we get to the online casting pros and cons, which are gonna be amazing, let's start off by telling the BOSSes a little bit about yourselves and your VO journey. So whoever wants to start, Katherine. Katherine: Yeah, sure. So I worked in tech for a number of years. I got a chemical engineering degree, decided I didn't wanna do engineering and have always been very, very left and right brain, like started doing musical theater a lot when I was younger and being in choir. And I really missed that side of myself. And so I started taking classes nights and weekends at VoiceTrax when I was working in tech, just as a hobby, just for something fun to kind of get out my creative side. And then after a few years I realized I'm getting really great feedback, and I'm doing well. And what if I tried to make this a career question mark? Like, how would that be to be a full-time creative? And so I took my little like nest egg that I had gotten from an acquisition from a tech company. And I left, or at least took a break from the tech world and started doing this full time. And about a year after I did that, I met Natasha, and I wasn't doing particularly well on Voice123. I was on it. It was the first place that I ever went to. I took a class at VoiceTrax all about Voice123, and then three months later they changed everything. And so I was just very disgruntled about it. And so Natasha offered to teach this webinar to the workout group, the Larry Hudson workout group that I was a part of with her. And I learned so much. I was mind blown. And I realized there were so many things that I was doing wrong that they just don't teach you. There's just some little thing, you know, it's game, you gotta play it. There's some little tricks. And I said, hey, Natasha, I wanna help you help other people with all this knowledge that you have. And what if I take my tech background and help you do all these wonderful things? So. Anne: I love it. The entrepreneurial spirit. Natasha: Well, I'm so glad she did that because I really just wanted to help people with the positive side of online casting. It's such a huge opportunity. There's so many jobs available, and I was just kind of tired of hearing my peers say they weren't doing well, because I was. So I wanted to help give them a leg up. And when I did the webinar, free webinar for my workout group, it was just about sharing information. And, um, I'm so thrilled to hear again, Katherine, that you see so much from that. And Katherine is -- we are such a great marriage of different skill sets. So we came together, we were helping people one hour at a time, and then realized we can't do this anymore. Let's do something a little more scalable. So we created a course, but I had been on Voice123 for almost my whole career. So I started in voiceover in 2006 at home, pretty much full-time. I mean, I just, I have, I'm a performer. I have degree in broadcasting. And so I had all those special skills that voice actors need or voiceover talent need to build a successful business, which is business acumen and some performance talent, and some experience in all the things business and tech and craft-wise. So Voice123 was something I started in 2007 and on and off and on and off, because depending on what I was doing or what kind of auditions were coming in, I, I didn't pay too much attention, but I knew I needed to be online. I didn't live in LA. I didn't live in New York. I needed to be online if I was gonna have a viable business. And so 16 years later or so, Voice123 really works as a piece of my marketing puzzle. And I feel really strongly about how beneficial it is for talent to use that as part of their growth and income to make it work for them, because we have to do everything we can to have income flowing from different places. You can't rely on just one source of income as a talent or a freelancer. So, yeah, that's kind of my story. Anne: Yeah. Well, first of all, I'd like to make a comment because you started on Voice123 just about the same time I did. And it certainly has evolved along the way. And my next question was talking about, okay, online casting sites, there's so much discussion online and on podcasts, and are they evil? Are they you know, the necessary evil, are they not? Do you need to belong to one in order to get work? And I think it would be a good time to maybe discuss this, your pros and cons for online casting sites. And I know you guys specialize in V123, but I think both of your experiences, right, have led to finessing what it takes to be successful on that platform. But I think that you need to have the information and knowledge of other casting sites as well. So I think an overall -- let's talk about casting sites. Do we need them? Do we not need them? Are they necessary evil? What are your thoughts on that? Katherine: I think they're fantastic because they're doing a lot of legwork that as a talent, you couldn't possibly keep up with. You know, their SEO hopefully is really strong. Their business is to collect more hirers for us. So I don't subscribe to the negative camp that they just wanna take money from talent. Well, they're a business. So they wanna figure out how they can make money. And if they're figuring out with integrity how to best make money, it's likely that I will benefit. So I have worked on several platforms to some success and not. One of my favorite things about Voice123 is that you are encouraged to have a relationship with a client. How else would you grow your business if you couldn't have a continuing relationship with the clients? Some of them now I'm noticing are staying on the platform. They love the options that they can have by putting out auditions. But I have so many ongoing clients that I found on online casting that I wouldn't have otherwise. So I think it's necessary. And I say, poo poo to everyone who says, it's no good, because I'm a business woman, I'm a freelancer. And I wanna make money, and I'm gonna do it with the people with the most integrity possible. And they are available. Anne: Well, I'll tell you, you mentioned SEO, and who has better SEO probably than online casting sites? Because everybody's profile has those words that are searchable, and I'm sure, Katherine, you can speak to the power of SEO and how it can help you to be found as a talent, and absolutely how once you're found on that platform, the cool thing is, is that yeah, if the client likes you, they just come back to you, whether they come back to you on the platform or not. I had a lot of clients that came to me after they found me on that platform. And that was one way I got a whole slew of clients that returned to me, which was amazing. Katherine, talk about your thoughts on that. . Katherine: So to your first point, there's a lot of voice actors. You can search their name and their Voices.com or their Voice123 profile is gonna come up first for their website in some cases. So if you join one of these sites, you do need to make sure that your profile is fully filled out and looks professional. 'Cause what if that's the first thing that someone finds of you? And it was just a thing you kind of casually threw up with a couple sentences and you don't look bookable? So I would say no matter what sites you're on, go through and make sure you keep those updated and refresh demos, things like that because they might have better SEO than your website in some cases. That's the same for LinkedIn. It's a lot of times easier to find people's LinkedIn's profiles than their own websites because of that SEO. One of my favorite things about Voice123 and a lot of other casting sites is that people can come find you just because you're there and you have demos. And a lot of folks that work at random XYZ tech company, they don't know that agents exist. They're just gonna type in like voiceover online. They're gonna search through the listings. They might not even have any idea that an audition is a thing. 'Cause if you think about hiring a copywriter, an artist, auditioning is not really a thing. You go and you listen to their body of work that they've already done, and you hire them based on that and what you see and what you hear. So for a lot of people, they might come across Voice123, just immediately start searching, listening to people's stuff, and then just message them; off and away. Anne: Yeah. That's a really good point. I'll tell you, and it's something that I'm always talking to my students about when we're talking about corporate and e-learning and especially if it's for corporate training, I'm like the course of someone's day job, if they work in corporate, which I think we all understand, is they don't know about auditioning or talent agents or who they can contact. They know Google and they know searchability. And if they find someone, and that's about it, what they know about casting for voiceovers. So it helps to have that good SEO. And I think also to present as many opportunities for work for a voice talent as you can, and online casting sites are one part of that puzzle, in addition to talent agents and online searches and just having a great website, so. Katherine: Another really great thing about online casting sites is that the barrier to entry is so much lower than getting your very first agent. You can sign on, you know, with enough coaching and make sure that you really, really are ready. It's not a place to just like play around and try things out. But it's the first place you can really book meaningful clients and start that body of work. So then you can go to an agent and say, hey, these are the clients I already have that I can bring to you. Natasha: I also like to share that I think there's less competition on online casting, depending on the, on the site, but yes, it's full of competition, and they're very good, but the auditions can be anywhere from we're looking 5, 10, 50 auditions. Agent auditions, they're taking hundreds of auditions in maybe from different agencies, and they're all allegedly like really, really good talent. You don't have a lot of amateur talent in the mix, which you do in online casting. So your odds of booking are better than they are with an agent, just saying. But I mean, not that it's not challenging, but your odds are pretty good on online casting to build up some income. Anne: Good point. Let's talk a little bit about, and I don't know if you wanna go specifically into Voice123, but let's talk about branding on an online casting platform and how important is that? Because once you are on the platform, you want people to be able to find you and be able to maybe hire you based upon, you know, what separates you from the rest of the talent. Natasha: You really need to use the most specific words about you, whether it's for SEO or for branding, because on online casting, you're competing against other voice actors. So to say professional voice talent on your profile on Voice123 is telling them nothing, and people do it. Don't do it, people. Find words to describe you that can paint a picture for people in their heads. You know, you have your opportunity to have a photo, which agents and casting directors don't necessarily like, but we're not focusing We're not targeting those hirers. We're targeting business people generally who will benefit from seeing your photo for some sort of like context and some words that will help with some voice age qualities. Katherine and I do a whole session -- we call them keying labs, but they're essentially branding as well in that we put our heads together with six other talent and listen to talent samples. So we can help provide you words to go to the table, whether it's for your website or for Voice123 to brand yourself so that you aren't just putting down professional voice talent on your profiles. It's super important to stand out and look different than everyone else. Anne: Now that is a really wonderful service because it's very, very difficult, I mean, to brand yourself by yourself. And so having the additional ears to be able to hear someone's voice and help them to categorize that for them, I think is super important. Now is that part of -- I know you said you do a, a workshop. Is that part of the package that you offer on V123 Pros? Or is it a separate? Natasha: So keying labs are a separate thing that they're kind of rare. We have a waiting list on our website and when we have a group of people that we feel, uh, will jive together, meaning not just beginners or not, you know, there's a nice group of people, we put out a couple of keywording labs, a good mix of people, and we'll put them out. So they're happening, I'd say every four months or so. When you do them, you realize, oh, this is really helpful. But trying to sell it to people is -- we are not the most salesy people. So we're not out there shouting from the rooftops, but when they understand it, they realize, oh, this was really important that I do this. It was so helpful. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. Katherine: We gave like a teeny tiny like teaser of it at eVOcation, and then everybody was like, oh my God, this was incredible. This is so helpful. And we're like, yes, it is. It's so helpful to hear objective opinions about what you sound like from your peers. Anne: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so in terms of then your branding or the profile, which I would assume is one of the key areas that you need to have, you know, up to snuff in order to be visible on the platform, tell us a little bit about the profile, some tips for having a great profile. I assume you'd have to have good demos too. Katherine: Especially for Voice123, you need to look bookable right away. So that could be just keep a tab of your profile open and hit refresh every day. 'Cause your stats of the last time you were on the site are there and also the stat of how quickly you respond to messages. So as soon as you get a message on that platform, you gotta say, hello, hey, what's up? Don't say that. And then you also need to make sure you have really great demos that stand out, and they don't need to all be professionally produced. They can be dry samples, 'cause again, a lot of people are expecting to hear what they are going to hear when you send 'em the finished product. And then on your actual profile, be brief, be to the point. Natasha, you like saying these things. Natasha: I do. The really great news is that it's a level playing field. So even if you're a new talent or you're experienced talent, nobody can tell. This is the magic of the internet and branding. And as long as you're looking bookable, as Katherine says, you don't have to have been doing it for very long to play along with the other people who've been doing in a long time. The bad news is sometimes people choose photos or don't choose a photo at all. Choose photos that look, well, crazy or because the pictures are so small, they look like crazy people. You have to be discerning about what you put on there because you wanna differentiate yourself from an amateur. And so that has to do with the descriptive words you use, the professionalism you use. So just because you did business in other industries doesn't mean you shouldn't put it on your profile. Hirers wanna know that you are a business person. They wanna know that you're not gonna drop the ball. So if you add what you did in your past lives, that's beneficial to them to know that they can trust you to not drop the ball with their very important job. So remembering, much like LinkedIn, as Katherine said, you wanna appear as professional as you can. Don't stress, be creative, and make it super pro, and lead with that foot of I've done this and this, and that benefits me in this area of corporate narration. And you talk so much about corporate narration. And so as you know, it's a benefit if you've been in the medical field to do medical narration, or if you've been in the tech or FinTech field to talk about using that terminology. So go ahead and use all your background. But when you get down to the skills and services area of whatever profile it is, don't tell them like every community theater play you are in. Like, keep it brief, keep it pro you can put your coaches. They might not know your coaches, but just fill it out enough that makes it look like, you know what you're talking about. That's my 50 cents. . Anne: I need to know what denotes a crazy, a crazy profile picture. What, what just out of curiosity. Katherine: Sometimes black and white doesn't carry over well when it's a really small photo, unless you really wanna be like the old school announcer style person, or if it's like a super artsy photo, you know that sometimes can't translate very well. Natasha: It does sometimes look amazing and sometimes -- sorry, but mustache and glasses can sometimes look crazy. And then if that's your persona, make sure you get a super pro photo. Like it's okay to get snapshots if it translates well. But sometimes if you got a hat and glasses and a mustache, you just look like you're wearing a disguise or something. You know it -- Anne: Yeah. Natasha: So be sure -- lighting is so important, you know? So you can pull it off with a snapshot, but I would err on the side of professional photo. Anne: Yeah, yeah. Especially 'cause they're small. Natasha: Yeah. They're teeny tiny and then they don't translate well. Katherine: We did an entire work about profile photos and like what constitutes crazy. So if you wanna know more and get some actual visual examples. Anne: Okay. I'm very interested in that. . Natasha: Some people use illustrations though. And those work great, avatars or whatever. Yeah. And, and if you're in animation, that works really, really well. Anne: Now is it better to have more samples slash demos of your work or less or more targeted? I've heard that's an advantage if they're more targeted for genres. Natasha: Quality over quantity. Anne: Yep. Okay. Natasha: As long as they're not repetitive. If they sound the same, there's no sense in having 99 samples. Yes. You can have a lot and then you have lots more opportunity to put keywords in there. But if they're all similar, then you're not doing yourself any favors. It's all very strategic. Anne: So now let's talk about everybody's, I think, Achilles heel is the auditioning, right, and the feedback. So what specific things audition-wise can help make you stand out and maybe feedback is our topic after this? Because I think people get really crazy about the feedback or the lack thereof. Natasha: Ah, do they? Okay. I love giving feedback about auditions. So one of the services that we provide on our website is audition audits. I've taken a break for the rest of 2022 because it became too much. But I love receiving say six auditions from people and telling them why it's bookable or not bookable. 'Cause you can hear pretty quickly, I'm sure, Anne, as a coach, you can hear very quickly, and it's really no different than what you'd submit to an agent. Technically, is it perfect? Is it how you would submit the job? Because if it's technically, if there's noise or if there's more than a half or a second on the front, you're off the list, and these aren't even -- we're not talking casting directors or top casting people. We're talking about everyday people, maybe they've never cast before, but they can tell when they hear studio noise or room noise or there's too much space that you probably don't know what you're doing. So you wanna make sure technically you're completely proficient. And then the craft, as it is in agent auditions, those first three seconds are vital because you're competing against so many people, and they're click, click, click clicking. You need to sound first of all great, but then different you can sound great and 100 people can sound great, but then how are you gonna stand out? And that's to put a little bit of different phrasing, melody, emphasis-is-is on the words in a way that someone else didn't. Anne: What about improv? Thoughts on that? Improvving, slating? Natasha: I think slating is safe. Like people don't ask for it, but I think depending on the listener, it can sound like, oh they're pro; they have a slate. So it's creative choice. I just cut to the chase. I just give it to them. But improvving again, know your audience. So we're not talking about casting directors. These are regular generally marketing or business people. If it lends to a great performance, by all means, why not? And you have the opportunity to give as many takes as you want. I wouldn't give more than two, maybe three if it's super short, but you have the opportunity to give two different takes. You can do whatever you want. And so I think it's super beneficial in this case to improv if it's really lending to the performance. Katherine: Yeah. And having two different takes that are dramatically different can be really helpful on online casting. 'Cause if you have something that's very bright at the foreground and then in the second take, you have something that's very calm, it's often common that I'll say, you know, the first take that I'm giving you is much brighter. The second is much calmer, happy to split between the two or give you something different if needed. And then they can kind of trust that you can go somewhere different than maybe what you gave them out of the gate. And I think that an average, on online casting people maybe are a little less savvy and won't assume that you can do that until you actually give them that range. Natasha: And I wanna underline that Katherine would say that in text, in the submission, in her letter. She wouldn't say that by slate or anything. It would just be clean takes. And she would clearly say it in the text below in the attachment. Anne: Right. You don't need to go on and on and on in your slate about, "hi, I'm Anne. And I'm from -- Natasha: Don't go on and on. Anne: -- "Southern California." Natasha: Yeah, at most. Anne: Yes. Vital seconds. Yeah. I tend to agree with that. Katherine: At most I'll ever say, "Katherine Tole, two takes," and then you say like a little bit more about those takes in the description. Anne: So, alright, feedback. In terms of feedback on the site, I don't know if you have any specifics, because I believe for Voice123, this is part of how you possibly get ranked in terms of search, right, is the feedback that you've been given? Is it stars? How does that work? Katherine: Yeah. So there used to be a rating system that you would get, and it was, I think one to five stars. I don't remember if it was actually stars, and unfortunately clients didn't know was one star good, was five stars good? And so there wasn't a lot of education behind that rating system. And so people kind of just got like garbage in, garbage out for those rating systems. And so in 2018 they revitalized that whole system. And now it's just, did you give it a thumbs up 'cause you liked it or did you not? And those thumbs up on an average over the course of the last 12 months of what you've auditioned for give you a percentile ranking on the site. Now as of maybe a month ago, they're also adding in what you've booked on the site to be the same quantity as one thumbs up. 'Cause obviously if you booked it, you probably were liked. So there's a little tweak to that algorithm now. Anne: Ah got it. So you don't ever have to book necessarily to be ranked higher. You just have to have the likes. So that's really good to not discourage, let's say, people who are new to the voiceover industry and feel like, oh I'm already penalized because I -- Katherine: Yeah, it's all the same. Anne: -- haven't booked a job yet. Natasha: They start you at the top 50 percentile. As long as you're getting one thumb up for say every five audition, you'll move up to the top 10th percentile. There's no thumbs down. But if you don't get a thumbs up, that works into your percentile. It's a tricky situation, although we have a free download on our website. So our website is V123pros.com, and we have free resources. And one of them explains this whole percentile thing because it's so important and everyone asks. Anne: Yeah, that seems to be the key. And so talk a little bit about the side hustle, the side gig of V123pros.com and what it is that you offer. 'Cause I'm sure that this kind of little teaser is starting to get people like, whoa, how can I find out more? Because I really wanna beef up my profile or find out how I can be more successful on this platform. I know that's like the number one thing when people are on online casting platforms, they're like, I'm not booking, I'm not getting work. So tell us about what your program offers. Katherine: Yeah. So a lot of answers, a lot of help. That's really what we're trying to do is we're trying to help and share the wealth of knowledge that we've gained from using the site so successfully. And so we really recommend that everybody start -- you know, you can start with the free resources if you'd like to see kind of what we offer initially. And then we really recommend that people start with our online course. There's about 15 modules. So we break things down into really bite-sized chunks. You can play pause, rewind, rewatch as much as you want, which was a huge benefit versus doing it live all the time. And so the online course lets you take in all of the information, we keep it updated. And then we have once a month, we have these workinars that we do the fourth Friday of every month. And that's a little live piece where you can come and ask your questions. We have like a subject of the month that we talk about, and that way we can do one on one help. And those are only $25 a month because we really want them to be a thing that you can come to easily. And then we also have the keywording labs. You'll see that on the website. And there's a wait list that you can sign up for for when we schedule those, because we wanna make sure that the times we schedule work for the people that are interested in them. Anne: I was gonna say, if you buy the course, you mentioned that the updates are free for the lifetime of the course. Katherine: I mentioned earlier from my personal experience that I took a course that then three months later, these, all these things changed, and then I wasn't able to get that new info. So. Yeah. Natasha: Katherine and I have really priced it not to sell it, but the truth is we've priced it at a really reasonable price where we know talent aren't lighting their money on fire. It's huge value, but then also to give updates. So we've already recorded updates to all the videos since we first recorded. So I guess a year after or something, and we're going to do another update soon because Voice123 does make a lot of tweaks through the year. Another thing we do, 'cause people will come to us with like "help me," and they , they just, just want, just -- Katherine: "I don't know what I'm doing! Ahh!" Natasha: So again, we really recommend starting with the course because without that knowledge of how to participate on the site. We can make it all shiny and nice for you, but you still need to know how to roll on the site. But we do what we call PPPs, Profile and playlist packages where people just hand it all over to us, and we optimize their profile, and we help them keyword the heck out of their, out of their playlists, out of their sample. Anne: I would do that. Natasha: Yes. Anne: I'm just saying, I'm just gonna say my issue is that I don't have enough time to audition specifically these days, but yeah, that is an amazing service, and I would be so willing. Just please do it. and I would buy the course for the lifetime updates. Yeah. Natasha: Yeah, right. Anne: The keywords are, the keywords are essential too because? Katherine: They help other people find you. So, Anne, you don't have to be on the platform auditioning actively. I mean you do need to do it every once in a while to keep your percentile up. But, but that's so many people can use search with those keywords on your samples and just message you and be like, hey, we found your sample and we wanna book you for this thing. Who doesn't wanna say yes to that? Anne: Well, that's true now. See, you're getting me thinking. That's usually when I, I had tried different levels as well. That's usually how I got booked was the direct just because I didn't have a ton of time to audition, which is great for someone like me. But I think for any of you BOSSes out there, having a profile on an online casting site -- my vote is for Voice123. It's one of my favorite platforms because you've always been able to work with the client directly, and there has never been interference in the many years that it's been going, even though it changes. And one thing that's really cool about VO BOSS is we have an affiliate program with Voice123. So for the BOSSes out there that are interested and don't have a membership, we have 15% off. I'm gonna put a link in the show notes section on the website for you guys to follow. So you can get 15% off select memberships. And so that will be great. And of course we'll put a link to your course, the V123 Pros, and I'm recommending everything that they offer. because I've worked with these ladies a couple of times already, and they're amazing, BOSSes, if you're looking for help. And I think especially those starting out, it's absolutely one of the places you have to be. I mean, you need to present yourself with multiple opportunities for work, and online casting sites is for sure a part of that. So, fantastic. So tell us once again where they can find you and each of you as well, so that they can get the help they need. Natasha: All our info is on V123pros.com. And in our about section, you can connect with each of us. It has all our info. It just makes it easier for you to go to V123pros.com and leaf through it like you would in the old days . Go through all the tabs because we try not to bombard people with stuff. We try to make it clean and clear. And this is what you need. Try this out. If you can't go through the website because you are rushed, then Voice123 might not be for you because you have to take some time to comb through things sometimes. And if you don't play the game on Voice123 properly, you could end up tanking. We say it's one thing to pay for and use Voice123 and it's another thing to use it optimally. And it's a world of difference. So check out the website and has all our contact information and our websites on there and email and all the things. So thank you, Anne. Anne: Yes, absolutely. And you guys also, you have a video podcast, is that correct? Natasha: So I have a separate collaboration for a webcast called Speechless VO on YouTube. So I learned really thanks to Katherine the power of collaboration. So Katherine came into my life and I was like, this is amazing because you have your what you can give, and then someone else comes and you just power through. So another best friend of mine and I are doing Speechless VO, real life in VO and have that webcast going. Kim Wilson. Yeah. Anne: Fantastic. Fantastic. And I can attest to that because you know, this is one of the reasons why for VO BOSS, I come up with newly themed series so that I can work with a co-host. I mean, it's just putting the two together to really work with each other, to provide an educational resource. And that is what you two ladies do so well, and really, thank you so much for your contributions and everything that you do for the community. BOSSes out there, really check these ladies out. I'm gonna put their links on the show notes. I want to talk to you guys a little bit about if you want to have a chance to use your voice to make an immediate difference in the world and give back to the communities that give to you, you can visit 100voiceswhocare.org to find out more information and to commit to that. And of course, a big shout-out to our sponsor, ipDTL. We love to network like BOSSes. You can find out more at ipdtl.com. BOSSes, have an amazing week. Ladies, it's been amazing and we'll see you next week. Natasha: Thank you so much. Katherine: Thank you, Anne. Anne: Thank you. All right, bye, guys. >> 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 voBOSS.com 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.