VO BOSS

Anne Ganguzza and Tom Dheere reflect on their time at the Mid-Atlantic Voice Over Conference (MAVO) and show listeners how to align your conference choices with professional objectives and comfort zones. The BOSSES talk about embracing the vibrant energy of smaller conferences, where meaningful connections and enriching learning experiences await. Anne and Tom share personal stories that capture the joy of stepping out of the studio and into creative spaces filled with camaraderie and collaboration. Whether you're new to the scene or a seasoned pro, this episode is filled with invaluable strategies to enhance your career and make every conference moment count. 00:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses, real Boss, Tom Dheere and myself have a very special deal for you guys. Tom, tell them what it is.  00:08 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) All right, anne. If you use the promo code BOSSVOSS that's B-O-S-S as in V-O-BOSS and V-O-S as in V-O-STRATEGIST, and the number 24, so that's BOSSVOS24, you get 10% off my 30-minute check-in, my one-hour strategy session and my one-hour diagnostic.  00:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And you'll get 10% off all coaching packages and demos on the Anne Ganguzza website. So, guys, black Friday starts now and runs till the end of the year. So everybody, get yourselves on that site and get yourself a discount. BOSS, VOS, BOSS, VOS 24.  00:43 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) BOSS, VOS 24. BOSS. VOS, BOSS, VOS, 24. BOSS, VOS, 24. 00:47 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  01:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Real Boss Series with the one and only Tom Dheere. Tom Dheere, yay, hi, anne, tom, I get to see you like. I just saw you at MAVO, which was so wonderful. We have to just meet each other at conferences, I feel like there needs to be a change to that.  01:27 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) You live in LA, I live in New York City, so you know we have some logistical challenges.  01:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I know, but I feel like we should be seeing each other more, because what a great time.  01:36 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Well then, they need to produce more conferences so we can hang out more, right.  01:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, I don't know. Well, I don't know. There might be some people that disagree with that, I'm not sure. Some people are saying that there's more conferences than are needed in this industry. But you know, I like people to have a choice.  01:51 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yes, and different conferences meet different needs. Some of them are different sizes, like Mavo is very boutique, like under 100 people, as opposed to VO Atlanta, which is wonderful in its own way, but that has 1,000 people and that can freak out a lot of people. And then one voice is like somewhere in the middle with attendance and there's different focuses. Some have a bilingual track or a Spanish track, some have an audio book track and some have a children's track, like Mavo did. So you just got to find one that's right for you, based on your budget, your professional needs and just your social comfort level.  02:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Sure, let's do a recap about Mavo, then, because it was my first year at Mavo, oh, and I truly, truly enjoyed it. It was, it was my first year speaking at Mavo and I loved it. It was small, it was intimate, and she had a boatload of great speakers there, and I really felt as though she worked her tail off to make it a nice experience for everyone.  02:50 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I agree, this was my fourth 2018, 2020, 22, which was virtual, and then 2024 now. So, like most conference presenters, they like to have people come every other year so they can mix up the speakers and the content, and I always have a lovely time there. Val Kelly, who's the producer of the Mid-Atlantic Voice Over Conference MAVO for short always does a lovely job and, like you said, she puts together a fantastic group of speakers. Like, considering the size of the conference, it's like, quality-wise, a disproportionate quality. Like the quality of speakers, considering the size of the conference, it's just such really high-end.  03:31 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh my gosh, Really high-end people. It was incredible high-end speakers, especially because you and I were there. Well, no, I'm sorry, I love it. I think her theme in the beginning was more character-based animation, because that's what she did, and she mentioned to me this is the first time she was going to have somebody coming in that was really talking about things other than character animation, and, of course, I did a general session on corporate, and then I did two mastery sessions which actually were oversold, which I loved on e-learning, and the other one was on acting for narration oversold, which I loved on e-learning, and the other one was on acting for narration, and I just loved the response of the attendees that were there to my classes, and so I had a great time while I was there, but I worked hard, and I will say, though, that the speakers that she had were amazing.  04:18 You were there, I mean, jessica Blue was there, everett Oliver was there I mean I'm just going on and I met some people that I had never met before in person, which was there. Everett Oliver was there. I mean I'm just going on, and I met some people that I had never met before in person, which was great Casting directors, andy Ross. I mean, I just had such a good time meeting new people and now I've got new resources.  04:35 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yeah, I had a fantastic time too. What did I teach? I did a breakout session or I don't remember what the name of it was. The term, but it was make taxes less. Taxing had a great turnout, with people trying to figure out how to file their taxes. As a voice actor, that was fun.  04:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, that's important.  04:49 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) It is important. I'm noticing a slight uptick in people going to conferences and wanting to get a little bit more understanding of the business side of voiceover, which and considering that's what I do as the VO strategist obviously I'm thrilled that people are expressing more of an interest to complement all the great performance training that they want to get and that they know that they need. But I also did one on smaller voiceover market mastery how to, if you live in a suburban or rural area, how you can thrive both online and in person.  05:15 But the one that was extra interesting is and we talked about this before we started recording is that I was the moderator for the AI panel.  05:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah.  05:24 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) And you were in the audience and you participated I was. It was very, very interesting and we had the board of the National Association of Voice Actors, or NAVA, as the panelists president, vice president, director of operations and a member at large and the conversation was very interesting. What I thought was interesting is that I read the room at the beginning, if you remember, and I said who here doesn't know the first thing about AI as it pertains to voiceover? And not a single person raised their hand. Now, maybe they were shy and didn't want to admit they didn't know anything, but I think a lot of them are now that it's been a few years that the voiceover industry has just become aware at all that AI has been permeating the industry long before we understood what was going on. People are making a point to educate themselves, and you have been a huge contributor to that with your VO Boss series. When you interviewed, was it 30 or 35 companies At?  06:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) least At least 35 CEOs of companies, of AI companies Some are of companies that don't exist anymore and some that do. So, yeah, and that was back. I think I started two and a half years, maybe three years ago, doing that and talking about how do you create a voice, are you ethical, are you, you know, how are you utilizing the voices and how do you feel about voice actors and treating them fairly and giving them compensation for that voice? And so it was something that I really have been on a journey to do, to research and educate myself, because I think, I mean, we're both educators, tom, and it's so important for voice actors to educate themselves about the industry, about the business and how they can run their business to coexist with disruptive technologies like AI.  07:04 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Right, right Were you in the room when J Michael Collins did his presentation.  07:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I actually was finishing up a mastery session and he was talking about trends in commercial, I believe, or trends in performance, since the new administration or the upcoming administration change.  07:22 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yes, that's why I brought it up, because I sat in on that and took a page of notes. He did a fascinating history of how you can line up who's president of the United States with trends in commercials and tone and what affects us as casting specifications.  07:39 So he made a lot of interesting points about those who voted for the winner and what kind of reads are maybe called for, and those who did not vote for the winner of the election and the type of reads that are going to resonate with them for the next few years. So I bring this up, bosses, because this is part of the value that you get out of attending any voiceover conference, much less going to MAVO. It's education, it's networking, it's the opportunity to meet great coaches like Anne, or get to know a casting director or someone like that. But also industry trends what's going on in the industry right now and how you need to adjust or adapt your understanding of the voiceover industry and how you can adjust your business model to adapt to what may change in the coming years.  08:29 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) One thing that I like to think about in regards to trends is trends. You have to keep your eyes and ears open and assess what you feel is happening in the industry, as well as what your clients are saying. And so, while I would never say this is the trend in black and white, this is what it's going to be or this is what's calling for, and then say that's it, I'm only going to practice that trend. I say be the actor, because when you're the actor, you can be versatile and you can cover any trend and so just know which ones seem to be resonating along with culture and the current status and the current flow of advertising. But also be that actor. Take that coaching, training that allows you to be the actor that can be versatile, that can follow direction, no matter what they want, because there can be trends all over the place.  09:19 So, for example, after the Super Bowl last year, there was the Poppy read. Right, there was that read. I was not asked for that poppy read very often, even though that was spouted as the latest and greatest big trend. So, again, my customers had their own specific direction for what I do. Also, it depends on genre right, genres that you're working on, and I feel that if you are a well-versed actor, you're gonna be able to adjust yourself to any trend. However, it is important that we all educate ourselves on what's current and relevant out there, because you probably don't want to be out there doing that old announcer read, although that's one of the reads that could potentially come back, or it can be a read that one of your clients wants, and a lot of times we get the gig with one read and then they direct us to something completely different, and so keeping your ears out and eyes out for trends is great, but also that age old advice that sage, wise advice to just get your acting skills in order, I think is absolutely still relevant.  10:20 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Oh, 100, 100%. And this is why you want to have good coaches that can help guide you through the voiceover industry, teach you the basics of voiceover, that are the evergreen content, like breath control or microphone techniques, script interpretation, and then obviously layering that with the genre training, like what you do with your e-learning and your narration training. And this is where the advantage of going to a voiceover conference is, for both attendees and for speakers and presenters like you and me, is that we can have conversations with speakers, other coaches, other casting directors. What's going on, what trends are you noticing, how have you had to adjust your teaching or coaching style to adapt with what's going on in the industry and how we can prepare for what's going on next.  11:06 And if there's one thing I noticed is that, yes, you are technically J Michael Collins' competitor and he is technically Everett Oliver's competitor and he is technically Nancy Wolfson's competitor. But like the level of camaraderie and the very from what I've noticed over many years free-flowing exchange of information. Well, you know the old thing the rising tide lifts all boats. So we're all happy to exchange information, Like if I go to the same conference that a Mark Scott does or a Paul Schmidt does, and Paul Schmidt. He was hanging out at the bar for this conference. He wasn't an actual attendee.  11:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) He was there he was living in the.  11:41 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) he lives in the area, so he's like yeah, let me go hang out with my friends, and it was. It was awesome to see him.  11:45 There was a couple of people that just showed up and just like, hey, what's going on? A couple of people that just came to hang out. We all are in these little booths talking to ourselves all the time in a vacuum and we have to build characters and connect and engage, but just to be able to stop wearing sweatpants all day, get out of the booth and just go, just hang out and get dressed up.  12:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love getting dressed up.  12:18 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yes, and look fabulous, fabulous every day, and I actually got the chance to wear a suit which I haven't done in so long.  12:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I had costume changes, Tom. I had costume changes you know, I call them costume changes, but I love it.  12:31 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Like you're hosting an Oscar.  12:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I had a few of them, which is pretty cool.  12:35 Yeah, Right, Okay, and now it's hand-wearing and a lot of it is just the energy, right, the energy at a conference and the energy especially at a smaller-sized conference too. The energy at, let's say, a larger conference can be overwhelming, right, it's great and it's exhilarating, but it can also be overwhelming and stressful For something for a much smaller venue. I really enjoyed the energy because it wasn't like we couldn't hear each other over the loud din of thousands of people. We were all a close group that kind of gathered in the restaurant slash bar area every night and ultimately had a great time talking to one another, and I absolutely love it. And we did fun, crazy things, Like I actually have a little video that will be coming out. We all had everybody say the same line and be the actors that they are, and so I literally recorded multiple people saying the same line with their drinks in hand and that should be a cute little video coming out in a few days. Everybody just had a blast. Whether you normally do that type of a thing, it was just nice to see the improv and the acting and the laughter and just so much fun hanging out after hours or after the classes are done, and typically when I'm at a conference.  13:51 I know that for myself I don't know, Tom, if this happens to you too the more conferences I'm presenting, I'm very, very hyper-focused on my presentations because I want to make sure I'm ready and I've got the energy to teach a three or four-hour class, which some of these ended up being, and so I'm not always socializing late in the late hours because I'm like well, I got to get up early, but I noticed that none of it was overwhelming for me, so I was able to hang out and really visit with people later on in the evenings. That I typically do at larger conferences. Just because I find that there's so much noise at the bigger conferences, I get a little more stressed out quicker and I'm like well, I got to go to bed now because I got to make sure I'm up and I can do my class in the morning. I don't know what did you feel about that, Tom?  14:35 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Yeah, I noticed the same thing because we were both at VO Atlanta this spring and, like I said, there's 1,000 attendees and probably what 50 or 60 speakers plus a couple of dozen staff. So it's an amazing, wonderful experience, but it can be a little overwhelming Canva presentations and making sure my outlines are just so and timing it a little bit to make sure I have time for Q&A and sidebars and stories and stuff like that.  15:05 So, I found myself staying. I was at the bar for a little while. I think I turned into a pumpkin around sometime between 10.30 and 11 o'clock at night, which I think is a yeah that was me.  15:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's a long time for me. Oh, really At home I'm usually in bed by nine, so I mean oh yeah, I'm like I'm a wimp.  15:22 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Back in the day. I'd be at the bar until two, three, four in the morning, but I just don't have the battery power for that anymore. Also, I'm hitting the gym in the morning, so like I was in the gym, Me too. Friday, saturday morning and Sunday morning I was in the gym at 7.30. Oh.  15:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I missed you those. I missed you those times because I was prepping for a nine o'clock class.  15:43 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Well, yeah, I didn't have any nine o'clock classes this time, so I had a little time to be able to go down. I just did like a half hour on the treadmill just to kind of get my steps in and get my circulation going, have a nice breakfast and then get some tea and make my way down. But I was wondering, Anne I'm sure there's a lot of bosses here who have never been to a conference before what would you suggest as some like voiceover conference strategies for someone that's never been to one?  16:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Ah, yes, for me I really like to get the most out of, and I'm like, probably sometimes the worst, I'm the worst offender because I'm so busy and I'm not looking at the schedule. But I would say look at the schedule, decide ahead of time, right, what classes look good for you, and and really kind of create your schedule before you get there. It's nice you can make last minute changes, you know, once you get there, depending on, like maybe somebody says, oh no, no, no, you really have to go see this talk or this presentation or I've seen this person before and they're really great and you might make changes then. But I think, really having a plan and of course, old school, I'm either a notepad to jot things down or I like to do notes on my phone a lot in order to get things from the presentation. I know that for me, because I've lost my talent to write, tom, I mean, I don't know like, do people like I can barely sign my name these days because I'm typing so much. So a lot of times what I'll do is I'll take a picture, like a screenshot, of the presenters or the screen, if they've got a display, and then I'll just jot down notes while I'm talking in my notes on my phone, or I'll just create right a note on my phone and I'll take pictures while I'm doing it as well. So now I've got the notes and I can take pictures and then I have that across all my platforms, and so that's kind of the way that I take notes for that and I also make sure nowadays to get people's contacts.  17:28 And, tom, I'm the old school. You probably saw my cards on the table because I purchased them for one other conference and I'm like you know what? I'm just going to leave them on the table. On the back of it I made sure that I had a QR code that basically, when you scan it, I'm right in your contacts in your phone. So it's got my name, yeah, it's got my name, my address. So it's no longer just like oh, it's a card that just has your email, your phone. It has a QR code that you can scan so that it automatically goes into contacts, and I find that that is super beneficial. Like all the contacts that I made, we basically just touched each other's phones or we called each other and then filled out information so that it went right into our contacts. Not so much exchanging cards these days, but I say always have some for backup. What about you?  18:11 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Well, for those of you who are listening to this, I just flashed my VO Strategist business card, which also has a QR code on the back. I also have I think it's hopbio, h-o-p-pbio, where you can kind of make a little mini type of website, and I have one for Tom Deere, voice actor, and I have one for VO Strategist. It's a QR code also, so people scan it and then they can see it's also linked, so it has all your contact information on there. You can even hyperlink your blog to it. So it's just kind of like everything that you are in like one little place. It's like one-stop shopping for marketing. As to note-taking, I have to let everybody know that Anne took a picture of some of my notes at a class at a workshop that she wanted to go to but she couldn't make it to, which is perfect.  18:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yep, I absolutely did, and I love it. I mean, it's now it's in my phone so I can refer to it at any time, which is great.  19:01 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I'll deal with your one of two things. I'll use Google Keep, which is a Google note-taking app. But what I've been doing more and more lately is that before I go to a conference and I pretty much know I mean I've got all my presentations, but then I look and see when I'm not presenting and what workshops I have time to attend and be a student of is that I'll set up in Google Drive. I'll set up a Google Doc and it'll just say, like 2014, mavo. So if you go into my Google Doc for those of you who have broken in you see I've got the year that I attend the conference and the name of the conference, so I can just see, in chronological order, every set of notes I've taken for every conference that I presented at or attended. So I'll often bring my tablet and I'll just be typing directly into the Google Drive doc that I had already set up. So when I get home it's already there. I don't have to do anything.  19:48 But I do take pictures of screenshots, like you do pictures of slides and what I'll often do is, I'll take a picture of the slide and then I will just copy and paste that picture into that Google Drive doc. So I don't have to transpose it either.  20:03 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Exactly that way, you've got your notes and your photos. Yeah, it's all together, so it's all together.  20:07 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) One bit of advice I will give our bosses who do attend a voiceover conference is find a note-taking buddy that looks like they're going to be presentations that you want to go to as like the primary ones you know, like if you want to go to all the ones about cartoons and video games.  20:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Like you were my note-taking buddy, yeah. Yeah, be a note-taking buddy, you were my note-taking buddy for Jay Michael's presentation Right.  20:33 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Because you're just like click there, you go, so like, but based on what you want to do. If you have a friend who wants to focus on business and marketing and tech and you want to focus the performance ones, they go to all the other ones and you just take notes and you just swap, yeah.  20:45 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, I'd like to really like give props to the business classes in the conferences, and I know because I used to teach business classes Sometimes I mean it used to be that they were the hard sell right.  20:56 And the funny thing is is I think what people need the most is business sometimes, because it's so easy to take performance after performance after performance classes. But your performance is wonderful in your studio by yourself. If you're not selling, if you don't have the business savvy, you don't have the marketing savvy and you're not selling yourself, well then nobody's going to see your beautiful performance. So I do want to give a big push for those of you that go to conferences, give yourself I mean I know you might hate business or you might hate marketing but do yourself a favor and sign up for a marketing session so that you can understand, like, how marketing has trends have changed or new ideas. I mean you could come out with one, just one new golden nugget for how to market yourself and that can make all the difference to get you seen or in front of a casting director, or in front of a talent agent, or in front of a new client and then, boom, it's been able to grow your business.  21:51 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) Well as the person who teaches all the business and marketing breakouts and workshops and mastery sessions at all of these voiceover conferences. Obviously, I have a vested interest and I want all of you to attend my classes and take my content. But Anne is 100% right attend my classes and take my content. But Anne is 100% right. There is and I've noticed it over the oh geez, 13 years or so that I've been attending and speaking at voiceover conferences is that they tend to be populated by a lot of professional students. They just keep taking performance class after performance class. They don't take any business and marketing class and they never pull the trigger. They never go for it.  22:26 Now I can't speak to why any one of them can't or won't pull the trigger. It may be financial they can't leave their day job. It may be psychological they just have certain emotional mental blocks that are preventing them from pulling the trigger. But I say this in almost everything that I speak at is that your talent will get you your first gig with a client. Your project management skills will get you the next gig with the same client. Project management is all the stuff you have to do between the moment that the email hits your inbox and the moment that the check clears. So if you're able to use your talent to get an audition and book it, if you don't know what to do when it's time to press the red button and I'm not talking on a performance level, I'm talking on a technical and a business level you're useless as a voice actor and they're not going to come back.  23:11 So I speak at a lot of these and there's a lot of other great business and marketing coaches that presented a lot of these. I think it's really important for you to take the time yes, if there's a certain casting director that you want to meet, if there's a certain coach you'd like to connect with to see if you'd be a good fit for getting coached for them and booking a demo, which I know Anne experiences that all the time make it a point to go to one or two business or marketing related things, because it's not even just being about a well-rounded voice actor, it's about being effective at all, because if you don't know that stuff, you're not going to get anywhere. All the best video game and cartoon coaching in the world isn't going to get you anywhere if you don't know how to demonstrate your value, to get you those casting opportunities and if you don't have the business savvy to capitalize on those opportunities, yeah, I mean, I agree, a thousand percent, a thousand percent really.  23:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I mean, and I've seen it conference after conference and I used to teach the business classes early, early on, before I knew Tom, I used to do like social media classes, business classes, and it was interesting because people were just so drawn to like the character and the animation classes and those performance classes and I think you really just need to have I mean, this is one of the reasons why I started the VO Boss. It was really about the business strategies for voiceover artists and really that's what this podcast was all about to hopefully help educate in the business sense of it, business and marketing sense of things, because you can have the best voice in the world but if nobody knows about it, there you sit, there you sit, wow. So some good tips and tricks, guys. I highly recommend the Mabel conference. I know Val, she just works so hard at it and it really was a lovely conference and I hope I get asked to go back next year.  24:53 - Tom Dheere (Co-host) I hope you do too, and I had a wonderful time and I always look forward to it, and hopefully I will get asked again as well. Hint, hint, val, if you're watching this.  25:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, Val, we love you Val. So yeah, I'm going to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, IPDTL. You too can connect and network like bosses. Find out more at IPDTLcom. Bosses, have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Bye.  25:17 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via ipdtl.   

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

Audio tech expert George Whittam, the genius behind George the Tech, joins Anne Ganguzza, on the VO Boss Podcast. The BOSSes tackle the technical hurdles of the industry - from unreliable internet to optimizing studio setups. George's solutions help empower voice talents to keep their focus where it belongs—on their craft. The BOSSes delve into strategies for leveraging technology and outsourcing to scale operations effectively. Adapting to change is non-negotiable in this rapidly shifting market, and finding a mentor can be crucial for navigating its complexities. The BOSSes highlight the importance of forming meaningful industry relationships and the camaraderie that can fuel professional success. 00:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey guys, it's that season again. Are you feeling that tickle in your throat? Don't let a cold or flu slow you down. Combat your symptoms early with Vocal Immunity Blast, a simple and natural remedy designed to get you back to 100% fast. With certified therapeutic-grade oils like lemon to support respiratory function, oregano for immune power, and a protective blend that shields against environmental threats, your vocal health is in good hands. Take charge of your health with Vocal Immunity Blast. Visit anneganguzza dot com to shop.  00:41 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  01:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am so happy and elated to be here with my special guest, audio tech guru and owner of George the Tech the one and only George Whittam, Woo-hoo.  01:16 - George Whittam (Guest) Hey, can you hear me okay from the Chili's in Palos Verdes, california.  01:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I can I, can I love it. You know George is. He is technology on the go, guys, and for those of you I don't know anyone that doesn't know you, but for those of you bosses out there that don't know George, you need to know George. He has been doing this since 2005, dedicating his life and I know this because he's helped me to serving the technical needs of bosses out there voice actors, podcasters, recording studio owners and in 2017, he launched georgethetechcom to assist anybody that needs support with just about anything. And he has an amazing team. I know firsthand. I have used that team. I've used George for many, many years and among his many successful clients I'm gonna say, in addition to me, are Don LaFontaine, bill Ratner, mr Beast, david Prog, melissa Disney, randy Thomas, joe Cipriano and Scott Rummel. Well, welcome, welcome, welcome and thank you for checking in with me, george, from your very busy schedule. George actually just popped off the road and said I will join this interview from the Chili's after my customer that you just went to go fix a studio.  02:32 - George Whittam (Guest) I did, I did. I do most of my work from home, of course, remotely, but I have a few clients who do have me on a membership program that I've been doing for many years and I make regular visits. So today was one of those days and technology, once in a while, it just flails miserably at letting you know that there's something you're supposed to be doing, and this was one of those moments. You texted me from the car. You're just, and you're like out of the blue tech, just checking in, and I'm like, oh, that's so nice, and it's just checking in, see you're not checking in.  03:03 You're like where the F are you right now?  03:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) George, george, where are you?  03:07 - George Whittam (Guest) In our Riverside room right now. So anyway, thank you. I hope this isn't too distracting. They find me a quiet corner of the restaurant, so we'll see how it goes.  03:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love it. I will say, though, here's the deal, my video now Riverside. Anybody that's been on Riverside knows that it's uploading video and audio separately, and right now my upload is at 94%, Yours is only at 55%, so that 5G connection keep your fingers crossed that that internet is going to upload that video successfully and the audio Don't worry. Well, guess what I get to do this again.  03:42 - George Whittam (Guest) I got your back because I'm recording it. I was about to say, I was recording in QuickTime and it said that you've stopped recording, so I'm going to start recording it again, just so I have another layer of redundancy to this whole thing. But that is the really cool thing about Riverside is that, yeah, it doesn't want QuickTime, won't let me. Okay, fine, fine, we're going to rely on new technology today. But, yeah, riverside is really cool the way it keeps a local record and even if my internet isn't, great.  04:09 I'll eventually get it uploaded to you, so don't worry about that. Yes, Awesome.  04:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, it's always a good excuse to chat with you again, because it's so rare these days, I mean except when I'm desperate in need of technical support.  04:22 - Intro (Announcement) And.  04:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'll have the bosses know that George helped me with my past or my latest studio upgrade. And I remember, george, that we were talking about me moving my Apollo solo into my studio which, by the way, it is moved in here and we were testing out this very long cable that went from my Mac studio out there into my studio and guess what it's working, and yay, technology. And so, george, you're instrumental in all of my studio upgrades and actually my original studio building when I moved to California back in oh my goodness, 2008. And so you've been through a lot of my studio builds. And let's talk a little bit about, oh gosh, what bosses need audio-wise right for being successful voice actors. They have so many technological needs.  05:14 - George Whittam (Guest) It is so many. You know. The thing is not everybody is like you, anne.  05:19 You love and embrace technology in a way that a lot of actors do not right and so on the cover of the laptop that you can't see because it's on the other side of the camera. I have a cover on my laptop and it's a picture of the left brain, right brain thing, right Like you know, the left being very technical, the right being creative, and I'm such a big proponent of finding the perfect middle balance. Maybe that's because I'm also a Libra, I don't know, but you know it's like I'm such a big proponent of finding the perfect middle balance. Maybe that's because I'm also a Libra, I don't know, but you know it's like I'm always trying to find that balance and I'm also trying to figure out who you are as my client. Are you more Ann Ganguza, or are you more Lori Allen, who's my quintessential super right brain, crazy actor talent, you know, and she knows that I'll say that and she'll laugh that doesn't love technology or doesn't care, right, I mean I get it.  06:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I mean we go into this industry. I mean some of us are just super, super creative and brilliant.  06:18 - George Whittam (Guest) If we had our choice, we would let someone else run all the technology and take care of it for us, which is what you do Absolutely. In a perfect world, we would all have our own little virtual assistant engineer people who just log into your machine and run everything for you. I do know a precious few actors who have actually availed themselves of such a thing, which is a pretty nice position to be in, right, and that would be a really cool scenario where you really don't need to think about it. But the fact of the matter is, the vast majority of the time, we have to think about and know what's going on with the technology and ensure that we're giving the client super clean, great quality audio quickly and on time, reliably, etc. Etc. And that's the goal.  07:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It is about good audio, but it's about a lot of other things beyond just good audio, you know, willing to really experiment and figure out solutions for your clients that are not like status quo. So if they have a budget, you can fit yourself within that budget and you make things work and you say, all right, so if you need this, we can maybe substitute this or we can work with this. And I'm talking bosses, my firsthand experience, not just on what microphone or give me a stack to put on my audio, but like home studio builds from the ground up, like what can I do to save money here? Or what can I do? I have this in my budget and you literally have created things from like the ground up, depending on your client's budget.  08:01 And I think that that's really awesome and it really goes to show like the versatility and the amount of skills that you have in, not just like one thing. I mean you have to be great at everything, because everybody has different technology, everybody has a different microphone, everyone has a different DAW, everyone has a different environment in their house that you have to kind of assess and then say, well, okay, here's a solution. And then I'm quite sure, myself being one of them going, no, I can't do that, so you'll come up with multiple solutions. Or if something doesn't work, you'll actually get it to work. You'll figure out what it is that's not working and then make it work.  08:38 - George Whittam (Guest) Yeah, it's so many different things because there's a lot of things that you can get away with or there's certain things that you can make work or get it to work. Here's my black bean burger and fries.  08:49 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) All right.  08:50 - George Whittam (Guest) There's a lot of things you can get away with, so I'll try to talk while you take a bite. I will eat when you're talking, okay, so there's a lot of things that you can make work. There's a lot of things that you can get away with, and that's where people start out right. That's where you begin, that's where you learn on your own.  09:06 That's where you get used equipment. You get hand-me-downs, you buy what you can find on Amazon, right, you get away with it. You make it work. But at a certain point your clientele requires this consistency, quality and this quick turnaround, and that stuff starts to be cumbersome, it becomes a bother because it's getting in your way, right. So that's a big part of it. And then I'm glad you said earlier budget.  09:33 You really need to know where you're at. I mean, this is why voice acting, especially now as an entrepreneurial pursuit, you really need to have a pretty good idea where you're at with your budget. When you come to me, be honest with yourself, be honest with me. I'm not here to spend unnecessary money. I'm not here to push you or upsell you. I'm going to tell you exactly where you're at, based on where you are with your budget, and make sure it fits, because that's my goal is to help you out and get you where you need to go at the budget you've had to spend.  10:07 And then if it's either really too low, I'll let you know if I think it's not going to work, or I will speak up if I think you're overspending, if I think you've got this budget and it's unnecessarily. You know it's like, oh well, you've got that much to spend, all right. Well, let's think about that. Should we really spend all of that? Or should we really be spending 20% of that on the mic and maybe 50% of that on building your website, getting your demo, that kind of stuff right? So I'll make sure your money is spent the right way, but be really honest with yourself about what your budget is. Know where you're ready to spend so we can get off on the right foot.  10:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So let's talk about the types of services that you do offer, because I'm happy to recommend you and your team to my students, and I think they might have preconceived notions as to oh well, george can just create a stack for me, or George can just tell me what microphone to buy, with lots of experience in multiple operating systems. So it's not just the mic or not just the studio, it can be your computer, it can be your software, it can be how to use Twisted Wave or how to use I just had a student the other day Studio One. I'm sure you have somebody on your team that can help with somebody with Studio One, and so can you create a filter for that? And so I'm constantly saying to myself I know lots of different audio engineers that specialize right, and I think that's great, but they're all independent, right? And so I can't be like, oh gosh, well, who knows Twisted Wave or who knows Studio One, or who knows?  11:48 And I'll think about it. What's great is you're like a one-stop shop, because now you've built yourself up a team. What's great is you're like a one-stop shop because now you've built yourself up a team, and I love this, because when I hired you in the beginning it was just you and you're I mean, you're busy back then and I love how you've like I mean, talk about being a boss, right. You've actually grown your little empire there and created a team of really amazing people that work for you, that have great skills and very specific skills. Speak to that a little bit.  12:14 - George Whittam (Guest) It's been a dream for a really long time to expand beyond myself. It started probably 12, 13 years ago in New York City. I knew I couldn't be in New York City that often and I had a few clients in New York and I thought, god, it'd be a no-brainer to have somebody else backing me up here in Manhattan. I actually had interviews in Borders bookstores with people that responded to ads, sat down, interviewed people and onboarded some folks and it just turned out that, one, maybe it was too soon to do it and two, it wasn't enough demand, because at that time it was a different time. But New York it was almost 100% studio town. Right, all the gigs were in studios because they're all over the place, they're all like walking or a subway ride away. So New York was a different environment.  13:05 So flash forward now quite a few years and I decided, with the new website that I had built by Skills Hub a couple of years ago, that it was finally time to properly expand the team. And now that I have a system built, an infrastructure, a booking system, the whole thing that allows me to essentially infinitely expand, I can build it as big as I want. I finally had the tools and everything in place to do that, and so we have that. Now you can go onto the website. Let's say you need help with Adobe Audition. You can see who is available that is actually an Adobe Audition expert and then you'll see their availability and you can book into the system right then and there and get help with someone that actually knows what they're doing. I realized after a while there's a certain point where I don't necessarily learn and retain new information the way I used to. I think that's just life, that's just age, right?  14:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, there's so much now.  14:04 - George Whittam (Guest) And there's so much more.  14:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, I know you're like right Anne.  14:07 - George Whittam (Guest) Right, but I get that I totally get that.  14:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But think about this what I really love. What I really love is, again and again, this is the VO Boss podcast. So I really like to always relate things to how you can really be a boss, and I think all of us voice actors are bosses, obviously in our own right, and I think we really need to look for ways that we can grow and expand. Right and it's not an easy thing, right, it's a scary thing how can you scale? How can you provide more services for your clients so that your business can move forward successfully? And you are such a great example of I mean, not everybody that's a voice actor, is an audio engineer and they're going to scale their businesses in the way that you did, but it's all relative right, as voice actors, how can you scale your business? And so if you think outside of the box and you think about what can you do that's efficient as a voice actor, right, maybe you don't like technology, maybe you don't understand your computer, and I'm saying there's a certain element that we have to be technologically adept, but you can consider outsourcing these things as a voice actor so that you yourself can scale your business, and you've offered this great place for people to have all kinds of options, and so it's not just like a one-shot deal.  15:25 George, I need help. You have like 24-7 support, and I know for a fact that you've got emergency tech support, which I know, having worked in technology for how many years prior to voiceover. Technology is awesome until it doesn't work and then people panic, right, and that's when it's almost the most important to have that type of support. And so I'm sure lots of you voice actors have had something happen with your computer, like, and all of a sudden you're at a loss, or something happened in your studio, you're at a loss, and now all of a sudden, do you have a backup? Do you have a way that you can deliver your goods, deliver your product to your client?  16:01 And I think we all need to really start thinking about how can we outsource, how can we scale, and you've got a great place where, if voice actors don't necessarily love working with technology or learning technology, nor do they have the time right For me. I have no desire to be an audio engineer, I know what I know right, and if I have problems, let's say I'm setting up my new Mac studio. Well, I don't want to spend my entire weekend trying to learn anymore. I mean, I love learning, don't get me wrong but I don't want to right now. That's not an efficient use of my time.  16:33 So I'd much rather call you and say hey, george, I know you've set up Macs, I know you've done the Apollo on this iOS and I'm running into these problems. Or I know I'm having a problem like with Zoom and then sending my audio through Zoom. How can you help me? So it just makes sense for me, as a boss, right to outsource that. And so make sure, out there, guys, that you have a source, and I highly recommend George a hundred times If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm recommending him a hundred times over. Have a source, have a place that you can go when you run into trouble technology-wise or with your computer, or you want to just learn. You also have educational resources. You have tutorials. Yes, you have one-on-one help. You've just got all those options and I think it just really lends itself. Not only are you showing people how you're a boss and you're scaling your business right. They can scale their business with you.  17:26 - George Whittam (Guest) Yeah, being a boss is what I've really become now. I was always solopreneuring. In a way I still am, but now I do actually have people that look to me for getting paid, look for me for getting jobs, look for me for communication and support and actually training. The content we create for you guys we use internally to train our own team. I want more of our team to be comfortable with the Universal Audio Apollo. I've been encouraging them to watch the content we already have. Everybody who does work for me gets complete carte blanche access to my entire library of content right, so they all can learn.  18:03 I want to work with you, then I would love to have you. I mean, honestly, the point is that we've built the network, we've built the system, we have the infrastructure. Now it's just a matter of what's the next thing a voice actor needs, or what's the next thing podcasters need, what's the next thing people that do media appearances need, studios, people that need to do executives, c-suite folks what do they all need? And we're trying to eventually fill these different gaps right, and so my role now is more of a boss, more of a CEO, more of a director, even beyond. I spend way more hours of my day doing director, boss, ceo work than I do actual build time nowadays, and that's just how things have morphed. But it's great.  18:52 I love finding out that somebody got a service from one of our team and I didn't even know about it. That's the coolest thing ever. Oh, you helped that guy. Awesome, I had no idea. That's great. That means things are working. I don't have to micromanage everything, and so that's been a huge thrill for me, and it's just allowed us to be so much more helpful to more people.  19:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's such a relief. I know my own business. When you said about micromanaging, and in reality, you know, we talk all the time about voice actors, we're solopreneurs, we wear all the hats, but now's the time to really start thinking about, okay, what is the most efficient use of my time? Right, and I want you bosses to really open your minds out to thinking that a lot of people they get stuck in this whole thought process that, oh, I can't afford to hire somebody. But in reality, if you sat down and you marked what is your price per hour? Right, how much money do you make when you're doing voiceover, versus how much money are you making when you're trying to, like, do the billing yourself? Right?  19:50 - George Whittam (Guest) I'm so glad you mentioned the hourly thing because a while ago somebody made that clear to me.  19:55 There's the hourly rate that you charge retail, right? I know what my hourly rate is per hour. If you want to consult with me directly, it's $360 an hour. Whoa huge number. Wow, that sounds really crazy. That's not what I make per hour. What I make per hour is actually what I made last year. Subtract my expenses, take my net revenue right and divide that by I don't remember the magic number is whatever. It is 52 weeks a year, you know. And then you basically whittle it down to what your actual hourly wage actually is and you start to realize like, oh my gosh, that's what my actual time is worth. And so you're going oh, now it is worth spending $25 an hour for a virtual assistant or somebody because I'm actually worth $50 an hour.  20:45 You know what I mean. So that's. It's really good to know that.  20:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Exactly, exactly.  20:50 And I think that we need to look outside of, like, the numbers that are just spent, because somebody might say, oh, I spent a thousand dollars on this microphone.  21:00 If you figure out what your value is per hour, right, and you're doing tasks that I always say, don't bring you joy a certain standard where, if I want to be able to direct somebody right that I'm going to outsource stuff to, I need to learn enough about it so that I can direct intelligently, right.  21:20 I know, you know, if somebody's saying to me well, it's taking me five hours to do this, when I know, in fact, maybe it shouldn't be taking five hours, because when you become a boss and you start employing people, you have to be concerned about, okay, what's the value of your employees and what are they bringing you, what are you paying them right and how efficient can they be? And I think also, george, it becomes where you now have to inspire the people that work for you to want to do their best for you, that they want to help move your company forward, and to do that, you've got to pay them a fair rate you definitely do and you've got to inspire them with things that they like to do right so that they join the team right.  22:01 And that's a whole other set of boss skills that's a whole other set of boss skills which I love.  22:06 - George Whittam (Guest) The amazing person I brought in to do our customer service and actually kind of act as a bit of an assistant to me as well. She also is a graphic designer. So when I realized that she was getting these skills, she was literally studying and I said you know what? Let's try some things, let's get you doing some more creative endeavors, and I'm paying her more for that. I said you know, track your time when you're doing graphic design, when you're creating our thumbnails and our promotional content for the socials and our webinars, and that's a different rate. You tell me what you think is a fair rate for your graphic design and then you have a rate for all the other general work and she breaks up her billing that way and so she's getting paid better for that work and that's going to be much more fulfilling for her because it's creative stuff and I think it's been working out really well. You know, my biggest fear is her going away. If she goes, away.  23:02 That's going to be a giant pain in my neck to find another person like her Finding good.  23:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's going to be very difficult, so I want to keep her around.  23:12 - George Whittam (Guest) It's a delicate balance and I trust her. It sure is, you know, but it's a tricky one. The more you rely on outside help, the more you start realizing you need to make sure what will you do if that person needs to be replaced? It's another skill.  23:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And the people that work for you. They need to be better than you, and I think that's an ego thing for a lot of people. Do you know what I mean it's like? Oh no, I want to do it because I want to have control over it. I mean, I'm a control freak. I know this. I mean it took me a while, but once I started realizing that when you hire people who are better than you at the tasks like I'm not a graphic artist, so I want to hire somebody who's amazing at that and then pay them what they're worth, they aren't bitter, they don't feel like, oh, they're just working for pennies, and so they get excited because you want to work with them and collaborate. They get excited about helping you grow your business and you get excited about helping them grow their skills or grow their career as well under you. So I think it's something that bosses out there can really start to think about.  24:10 How would you expand right? And I think now too, with the technology and with AI and all this talk about the industry and how it's changing, I think technology it's always good to educate yourself on the technology evolve with the technology, those other things that we're talking about in addition to voiceover, like on-camera work, right? Voice actors maybe this is something that you know. You want to present yourself more professionally to your clients. What's involved in a good I don't know webcam or good lighting for your studio and that sort of thing. So that's the sort of thing that you can help them with as well in terms of expanding and broadening their horizons, even outside of voice acting.  24:51 So I love that you said that you were also delving into on-camera and technology for expanding businesses, because I think voice actors should also consider things like that. I mean, it's something we've talked about on the podcast as well, as we're moving forward along with this technology. What other services can you offer your clients? What other things can you do? Are you going to be making TikTok videos, right? How can you get your message out there? How can you market yourself right so that people know you exist, so they can hire you? And a part of that is getting out there, getting heard, getting seen, and you can help with that.  25:26 - George Whittam (Guest) And you might also be able to parlay that thing, because now you've become the spokesperson for that channel or that brand or that explainer and if you can now take that ability to create content into a visual medium and you might move beyond just doing voice, if you end up being comfortable on camera. You may not know if you're comfortable on camera until you do it. When I started my first podcast or really web channel, YouTube channel East West On your Body Shop, you can go back and watch episode one.  25:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh yeah, and I was like a deer in headlights Myself too.  26:01 - George Whittam (Guest) I got a lot more comfortable on camera. So you know, as I evolve and I start doing more and more interviews and interviewing others and I'm going wow, I'm really comfortable doing this. I've actually really enjoying this. How can I parlay this into a different? So now I'm thinking about speaking engagements and doing speaking roles.  26:21 I've gotten to teach in a couple of universities now. Wow, I love doing that, so maybe I need to parlay that into another thing. So I'm looking into speaking now. So it's just ever-evolving. If you get stuck in one lane, you can quickly start feeling discouraged. When that one lane that you chose starts grinding to a halt, you really need to be ready to try new stuff Starts getting traffic right and saturated.  26:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I mean now I'm just thinking of that, you know, because after the pandemic I mean I had so many people that I think got into voiceover because of the pandemic and now I thought we were saturated before. But there's a lot of people in there. I'm not saying there isn't enough work, voiceover work. However, there's an awful lot of people doing voiceover. So I think it's always healthy for us to consider how we can always grow and always evolve. So I'm going to ask you one last thing, george, before I have to run for the day what would be your best advice that you would give someone out there just getting into the industry?  27:21 - George Whittam (Guest) Definitely work with a coach that understands the spectrum of what you need to learn in a holistic way. That coach doesn't have to be an expert in every aspect, but the coach should be very aware of that. You need to learn these separate skills right. So someone like Anne, for example. She knows a lot about a lot of things, but she also knows when it's time to get another person involved a demo producer, an expert engineer.  27:47 Yeah, that's so, so helpful, right, and it's so easy. These days it's almost like getting support is just like dating. It's so easy to just keep swiping right or swiping left. Which one is it? Because you're like well, that was nice, let me try that guy, and I hear that guy's good. Let's try that guy.  28:03 Hook your wagon to somebody for a while and focus in on what they have to say and learn before you start constantly seeking fresh perspectives. It doesn't mean fresh perspectives are bad, but you really need to focus on one person's methodologies and get behind them and then, after you've done it for a while, consider well, is it the best way? Well, maybe I could learn a new skill, or maybe I have another way to learn this that could save time. I never am offended when a client says I worked with somebody else along the way, but I do get concerned when somebody's pretty new and they've already taken, let's say, consulting from three or four different techs and four or five different coaches, because they're going to have a lot of conflicting or somewhat differing opinions and you're going to get so off base.  28:51 So find somebody that is well vetted, somebody that has like we have our trusted partners page on our website. Everybody on there is somebody we have worked with and trust. And hook your wagon to somebody like Ann, so you have that one point of focus to help you navigate all of this, and then they can help shut you off into different directions for those specialty things. Otherwise it can feel hopelessly confusing and there's just too much conflicting information out there. So that's the best thing I can say Just find one single point of trust, follow that person, get the advice they can give you and find the expertise in different areas when you need it, and go to georgethetech early and often. Yes.  29:41 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, yes, I was just going to say how can people get in touch with you, george the tech?  29:44 - George Whittam (Guest) You have your landing page right, Absolutely Slash.  29:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yep, is it slash? Be a boss, my gosh.  29:50 - George Whittam (Guest) I don't have it memorized.  29:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I have it like in a link, I think so I'll check it, I'll look it up.  29:56 I'll put that in the show notes. Yeah, I'll put it in the show notes for services. I do have a nice little link that I can send to you. That will save you some money on your first services with George. So highly recommend. George. It's been so nice to have you and I appreciate you pulling off to the side of the road and being safe and talking with us today, and I'm going to give a great big shout out to IPDTL you too can connect and network like bosses. Find out more at IPDTLcom and George, it's been so wonderful talking with you. I feel like we should do a series. We should do a whole series with George the Tech.  30:31 - George Whittam (Guest) We'll do another one in a proper environment when I'm in my home studio, I promise. And, by the way, it's slash AG, so georgethetech slash AG for Ann Ganguza. That'll take you to all the information we have and our discount codes and come and visit us and learn from us. We have so much useful content that's affordable and accessible. So happy to be of service and thank you, ann. Thanks for being so cool, a friend and being always a pleasure to talk to yes. You're a blast to be around.  31:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I feel the exact same way about you. So thanks so much. All right, bosses, you have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Take care, bye, bye.  31:13 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL.   

In this episode of BOSS money talks, we guide you through the essential financial and managerial responsibilities of running a voiceover business. Discover how to budget for employees or contractors effectively, distinguish between different types of workers, and ensure fair compensation. Learn about the mental preparation required to step into an employer's shoes, the importance of training and feedback, and how to create a nurturing work environment that drives growth and success. Whether you're outsourcing tasks or managing an in-house team, this episode is packed with insights to help you effectively grow your business. We also highlight the critical role of trust and communication in any business operation. 00:03 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses, ever feel overwhelmed by marketing? I get it. Let's tackle it together with a VO Boss Blast. We're all about making marketing as enjoyable as voice acting itself. Dive in with me and let's blast off together and let's turn those marketing challenges into victories. Sign up today at voboss com.  00:27 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Boss Money Talk Series. I'm your host, nne Ganguza, and I am so excited to bring back to the show money girl Danielle Famble to the show, hey.  00:58 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Danielle, hey, glad to be back.  01:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) How are you?  01:01 - Danielle Famble (Guest) I'm great. How are?  01:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) you. I'm good, you know, it is that time of the month, yeah. I'm talking about that financial time of the month.  01:09 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Oh yeah.  01:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I know what that sounded like, but anyways, it's that financial time of the month where I have to pay the people that work for me, and so I have to pay my employees. Do I call them employees, my contractors, my virtual assistants, whatever that I have, or whatever you may have bosses out there that help you to run your business, and I highly highly recommend them because they can really help you to grow, but it is something that, financially, I need to make sure that I account for it, and so I thought it'd be a great topic to talk about in our episode, because I know a lot of voice talents that are either they don't want to do marketing or they don't want to do social media, and so they're hiring assistants and they really need to know how to account for this financially in their businesses.  01:56 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Yeah, no, this is a really important topic because what you're talking about is being an employer, being responsible for the people who are helping you grow the business that you have created, and that's a really big responsibility. So not only is it about, like, accounting for it, but it's also making sure that you mentally are prepared for all the things that comes with being an employer. So, yes, being ready for the financial implications every single month is really important. But also, what are you wanting your employees to help you do? Contractors, whomever and there's a designation there. It depends on if they are specifically working for you and you've onboarded them from a tax perspective.  02:40 But if they are a freelancer, then a contractor, and there are different ways that you have to kind of deal with that.  02:45 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You know what? I love that you brought up the fact that not only like financially right, we have to figure out, okay, first of all, we're going to be outsourcing things in our businesses and we will be paying as an employer or as a contract, whatever, we'll be paying somebody, and so, financially, we need to be responsible, but also as a boss right, as a VO boss, you need to be a boss, and so there's also not just financial implications, but also are you ready to be a boss? And really, what are the criteria, what are the qualifications for people that you bring on board that can help you to grow your business, to be successful financially and growth wise?  03:24 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Yeah, I think you also need to take a look inward.  03:26 Before you become a boss of someone else is really to figure out is there something for them to do consistently, what do you want this person to help you with, what are the tasks? And being able to train them on those tasks so that whenever they are doing whatever it is you have them doing in your business, they know how to do it. You know how to do it and you know if it's being done correctly or incorrectly and there's some feedback that needs to be given. So really knowing that, but also understanding that when you bring someone into your business, when you become a boss, you're responsible for, in a way, their livelihood. Personally, I take that responsibility seriously because I know before I became a boss, before I was running this business, I know what it feels like to be sort of at the whim of your employer and it can kind of be a bit of a vulnerable position. So you get to decide what kind of boss you want to be when you are the VO boss of your own business.  04:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely. I love that you brought that up. It is something that you're right. You need to look inward. You need to really take consideration.  04:30 If you've never been a boss of someone else, there are lots of different aspects to it and how to be a good boss, right, and so, financially, I'm going to say that number one, if you've worked in the corporate world at all and I say this so many times, like we just we want to be appreciated for what we do, right, we want to feel that maybe we can make contributions to the companies in which we work. And if we are not getting that happiness or that joy or that satisfaction, then typically we look elsewhere or we're like I got to get out of the corporate world, I just want to do voiceover. So the same thing when you're an employer, you're a VO boss and you have somebody that's working for you, you want to make sure that number one, you're paying them a fee. That is, I think, something that motivates them, inspires them, is fair, right Compensation, and you're not just trying to like get somebody because you don't have a ton of money and so I can't afford to pay you a whole lot. I really look at it differently. I'm like right, this is someone's livelihood. They're depending on the salary or whatever it is. You're paying them this little stipend for their livelihood and a lot of times they're freelancers themselves. If you happen to hire within the voiceover community, or if not, it is a portion of their income.  05:37 So you want to be a good boss number one, financially. You want to make sure that they're getting paid fairly, that they're getting paid, I would say, competitively for what they do, like if they're social media, if they're doing accounting, if they're doing whatever they're doing. You want to make sure that they're getting paid a fair fee, because you want to make sure they want to work for you and they want to be part of the team. That is the whole mental thing, right? You want them to work their best for you so that you can grow together, and so I think that's one thing to take into consideration. You're paying them fairly and then also, you're willing to manage them, because these are living human beings and there are emotions at play, right?  06:27 - Danielle Famble (Guest) There's all kinds of things that come into being a good boss, and I love that you talked about managing them, because really a huge step really comes from you being the person who is working in your business working your business to managing and overseeing other people who are taking on those tasks.  06:37 Again, this whole thing really is like a huge mental shift, because you need to now be able to articulate what it is that you are looking for, how to give feedback to that person and receive feedback, because once the person that you've hired becomes the one who's responsible for this task, they will likely become better at it than you were, because they're spending more time doing it than you did, and so maybe hearing and receiving feedback on a different way to go about this task, for example, might actually be better. But do you want to just stick with what you said and how you went about growing the business to bring them on in the first place, or do you want to take that feedback from them? It really is about like how much do you want to micromanage or not micromanage at all, and a huge part of it is also creating and crafting the vision for your business. Where are you going? Because you now the boss, you're the leader and you're sharing this vision and the people are helping. You know you're growing together, as you said. I love that.  07:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Exactly, and you want them to be motivated and inspired to help you achieve that vision, especially for those of you that work in the corporate world. Right, how much? If you sit back and think about it, how much did you really care if you were helping the company to grow right? Was it just a salary for you or were you invested in it? And I think that, for me personally, the happier I was at my job, the more involved I was in being proud of what I had to contribute and being proud in seeing the company do well, and to me, that was when I was happiest, and that's how I want my employees to be. I want them to be happy to watch us grow together and to be proud to be part of that vision, and a lot of that absolutely requires, number one, that I pay them fairly and give them bonuses for jobs well done, which I actually do to keep them motivated. And also very much what you said listen and be open for feedback, not just giving orders or saying here, do this, but listening to them if they're inspired and motivated to want to help grow the business.  08:41 And I'm so fortunate to have a wonderful team that works with me that I think I can proudly say that I have had two people that have worked for me for over five years, if not coming up on eight to 10 years of working with me. So I needed to every year make sure that I was keeping them inspired and motivated and happy and giving them compensation when they're due, Like I'll give them. Oh, you know what I really appreciate that job that you did. Here's a $100 Amazon gift certificate, and that also requires, when you're an employer, you have to be comfortable with paying people. I mean, I think there's a whole mental thing about that, right. It's like, oh my God, you have to be confident enough in your business so that you're not worried about money all the time. Have that confidence, right, I will have the money to pay. And you have to secure those systems in place, right, so that you can pay.  09:37 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Yeah, I mean it can be for some VO bosses out there like a one-time thing. I have this one task and that make it a contract thing and once it's done, it's done. But when we're talking about having assistance or help, that is helping on an ongoing basis. That means ongoing pay. And, to your point, when I was working in the corporate world, to be honest with you, I was happiest when I was making the type of money that would allow me to live the life that I wanted to live.  10:02 And I wasn't really thrilled about anything else other than how it affected my life. And money affects my life in so many different ways.  10:11 So it's really just making sure that you can keep people fair in their compensation, but also make sure that you're paying on time oh yeah, I like to get paid on time for the work that I've done. And making sure that you can pay on time and to your point, it's making sure that you have the resources and the money and the revenue coming into your business, that paying your assistance is not a monthly freak out moment.  10:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Exactly that's so, so important. Yeah, I like how you said that, yes, it was all about like money was something that made you comfortable, right, that you were being paid and being compensated on time, to the point where that's what made you want to work for that company, being paid well. And also, I will say back in my younger days, I was being paid well and I had the bonus that I was really proud of how I was contributing to the company and I really believed in the company. So that was like such an added bonus and actually I think that it really set a lot for like why I was in the career I was in for that length of time because I was happy, both compensation-wise and also like motivation-wise and purpose-wise. So I do feel that when you have assistants, if you want to, let's say, have them for any period of time, maybe you're just hiring them for one job and it's one and done. But if you do want to have them on an ongoing basis, there's also a whole relationship that becomes important for you to develop with them so that they look forward to doing whatever they're doing for you and it's not just a boring job that doesn't give them any joy. So whatever you can do to make that joyful for them and make them want to continue to work for you and want to continue to grow the business Financially wise.  11:55 It is a thing that I do every month. I have them send me invoices and I have different people that I pay at different times of the month, and so I want to make sure that I'm paying them in a way that I'm not like PayPal, where fees get taken out, so it's pretty much bank to bank sort of transaction wise. And when I do that, also it's important to have my accountant who knows what I'm paying, because technically speaking, right and we were just talking about this earlier If I pay over a certain amount to someone, I do need to declare that on my taxes. So having a good bookkeeper slash accountant that can understand, okay, this money is being used to pay my employees.  12:37 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Yeah, and we talked about this earlier how does your bookkeeper or accountant account for the services that's happening? So these are business expenses, these are business services that they are providing, and you are paying for the service of having someone you know run your business.  12:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) They're like a vendor. Can you really say they're an employee if they're an independent contractor? Not really right, because independent contractor is more like a vendor. For you, sure, and for, I think, most of us. For me, that's what it is. I don't actually employ someone where I'm paying health benefits or anything like that. So, I want to make that distinction where I'm not that type of corporation where I'm paying somebody full time and they're getting health benefits, I'm paying an independent contractor, but I still also have to account for that to the IRS.  13:23 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Yeah, and most VO bosses will probably find themselves in a similar position. I also have essentially a vendor, a contractor, who I'm not paying their health insurance and pension and things like that, as we did when we were working in the corporate world. So it's a different distinction. But it also requires the level of bookkeeping and making sure that you know how much you've paid them throughout the course of the year so that you can get them the correct tax form at the end of the year. And that means working with an accountant or working with a financial professional who can help you do that, unless you feel super confident in doing it yourself. But if you're running a business, in my opinion, and you are paying someone to help you run your business, another part of that is paying someone to help you keep track of the finances of your business.  14:10 It all works together.  14:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, absolutely. I do think that ongoing education for your contractors or employers is important. Oh yeah, in terms of, first of all, I make sure that I meet with my people, at least my assistants that do the majority of, let's say, my social media work or marketing work, that sort of thing. I make sure that we meet once a week actually, and that works for us in our business. But I don't necessarily meet with my audio editor at all. That's usually done through email and then after a month's worth of podcast audio editing he'll send me an invoice.  14:42 But anybody that's doing work for me that requires a little bit more than just audio editing. That might require helping me grow my business out there on social media, which I think is important that they know me and they know what I'm looking for and that I can specify that. And I don't like to micromanage at all because, frankly, I'm busy and so it takes some time to get the right employee right that you trust to handle things A control freak like me. In case anybody didn't realize that you know, A-type personality.  15:17 For me to give up power and just say go ahead, please do this for me and be okay with that was a big step for me as an employer, because I'm very much a control freak. I very much said, well, I can't hire somebody to do it because they're not going to do it as well as I do. Yeah, exactly, and you have to give up. That's a big mental aspect. You have to give that up because there are people who are better than you at certain things. And why not, right, hire someone like we talked about with a financial accountant or bookkeeper? Right, why not hire somebody that that's what they love to do and that's all they do? I want people that are better than me doing things for my business to grow my business. So you've got to give up that ego, the fact that nobody but you can do it. Right, you have to really place trust in your employees, because when you do that and you hire people that are better than you, that's what's going to grow your business.  16:09 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Oh, absolutely, and a huge part of that is communication. As you said, you meet with your team once a week. I also have a weekly In person.  16:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, not in person, I shouldn't say on Zoom.  16:19 - Danielle Famble (Guest) On Zoom.  16:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Like a Zoom. I don't just text back and forth. Although I do text a lot of times, but-.  16:24 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Right.  16:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) We meet on a Zoom meeting. On a Zoom meeting.  16:26 - Danielle Famble (Guest) I also with my assistant. We meet once a week on a Zoom call and then we use Slack to communicate. We communicate via Slack every single day and at the end of our meetings I always say, if you need anything, I'll be in Slack. I mean, it's the way to get to me as quickly as possible. I love Slack.  16:42 Yeah we talk every single day and the more communication actually the better, because then that person gets to know you and they can kind of hear your voice and your tone of voice and how you're wanting things done. They get to know your style, how you give feedback. That open communication actually really just helps person to person. You're dealing with, in some ways, hopefully a human being who can really start to craft what they do to who you are, because this is a brand about your personality, about your voice, about your style so it's huge.  17:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, I really do feel that I make it a point to express my appreciation frequently to my assistants, because they're like my right-hand people in reality and I'm always like, oh God, I appreciate you guys, thank you so much. I'm always making sure to do that because, again, I want them to feel appreciated. A thank you goes a long way to really having employees work their best for you, which is what you want. I mean, you're investing money in your employees as well as your business, right? So you want to make sure that your investment is going to pay off for you. And now here's the question what if you hire someone that is not necessarily working out well for you? What are your best tips for that? Because that's happened to me too, and that's not always easy as a boss to fire someone.  17:56 - Danielle Famble (Guest) It is not always easy. It is a very real possibility. Whenever you bring anyone into your business as a contractor, as a one-time gig work, whatever, whenever you bring someone in, it's very real possibility that it doesn't work. So I think, before you bring that person in, have a very clear understanding, write it down. I would even say with what it is that you are looking for, what are the checks and how do you know if this person is working or not working.  18:22 Have the metrics so that you can say hey, this is what I'm hoping to accomplish, this is what I need, and you know if that person has it or not.  18:31 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, and you bring up a really good point, because when you say, write it down, so everybody that works for me has to sign an.  18:40 NDA right Number one and they have a contract Like I have a statement of work, here's what I expect, here's what you'll be paid, here are like the terms, and you can actually create that NDA or that contract fairly simply.  18:54 I have a lawyer that I hire all the time, but there are templates out all over the place, but that kind of keeps me I feel legally secure, so that, let's say, I'm discussing something about growing my business, that I don't want them to go out and then implement, which is always like an issue when you hire people within the same industry, because if they work for you and then you discuss ideas like here's how I want to grow my business, what's to stop them from necessarily taking those ideas and implementing for their own business? And sometimes I'm not saying that I'm completely possessive, but there were cases. A long time ago, I hired somebody to work on development of this podcast and there were a lot of ideas that were flying around about how to grow which then, after the person did not work out for me, ended up somehow being implemented by them. And so that's just one of those things. I think. To safeguard your own business and your personal brand, you need to have a contract in place.  19:50 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Absolutely. I think having a contract in place again, this is, you're running a business and so doing the things that businesses do to keep themselves safe. Contracts are a huge part of it. Ndas are a huge part of it. Sometimes I have to sign an NDA in order to audition.  20:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, yeah exactly.  20:06 - Danielle Famble (Guest) There needs to be that sort of level of secrecy and security. So that's incredibly important and making sure that the person understands why and understands what they're assigning is incredibly important as well. So there are so many layers to it, not just oh, I need help with my marketing, let me just bring somebody in. It goes deeper than that and to your point of if it doesn't work out, have the off-ramp. How do you offload this person from your business? How do you off-board them? And understanding, like, what does that look like? And it needs to take time.  20:39 But before you get to that point, I would ask the VO boss themselves if it didn't work out, why? If it's a personality thing, completely understand that happens too, because personality traits if you're working with someone, you need to be able to work with that person. But if it didn't work out because they weren't doing things correctly, did you train them correctly? Really understanding, like your role in it? Because, as the boss, it is your responsibility to make sure that you are running the business, your business the way that you want it to be run, and it needs to be run If the people that you've brought into your business are not living up to your expectations. Did you set the right expectations, did you communicate those expectations to them, did you provide feedback on those expectations and then did you give consequences for what is going to happen if those expectations are not met?  21:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, absolutely. I mean that is employer 101 right there. Absolutely, and that's covering yourself, and you want to make sure that you've covered yourself because your assistants have potential access to your life. I mean a lot of times like they'll have passwords to social media accounts. My accountant has the password to my QuickBooks. I mean my gosh.  21:48 Essentially, that could be very damaging if that person was not ethical right, and so there's a lot at stake for you. Passwords, personal accounts, branding, I mean just so many things that you're going to entrust them with. And I realize that, as an employer, again, as I said, if you're that type of person that says I'm the only one that can do it correctly or I'm worried about that, that is a mental thing that you will have to step back and take a look at. If you want to hire somebody and make sure that, if that is the case now, you want to make sure that you're protected, and so that requires NDAs, that requires contracts, and again, mine were not difficult. A consult with a lawyer that had me fine tune. A template for a contract for working for me worked, and all I have to do when I hire somebody else is just change the amount they're getting paid and change the name and change the address and then have them sign it before you start giving them access to your life and your business, because that is sacred to you.  22:44 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Yeah, and it's a vulnerable thing, like you are putting yourself knowingly in a vulnerable position where other people know intimate details about your life and your business.  22:56 - Intro (Announcement) However, large or small you?  22:58 - Danielle Famble (Guest) want to give out that information and if you are not prepared for that mentally going into it, it's a really hard transition to make when that person is actually there. I would say really ask yourself are you mentally prepared to be a boss of other people? Are you financially prepared to pay them and the finances not be a thing that other people? Are you financially prepared to pay them and the finances not be a thing that stresses you out, Because this entire process is quite a lot and are you ready to manage? Are you ready to share your vision and make sure that your vision is being executed by other people, that's not just you. All good stuff.  23:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And in the end, guys, I promise you, it may be scary, it's worth it but.  23:38 I'll tell you what it's worth it, and it's the only way, I believe, that I could have grown my business to the point that it has grown and to allow me the freedom. I'm a little bit of a serial entrepreneur and I think, danielle, you probably are too, and so it's been the only way that I've been able to really do the things that I want to do in my businesses, to progress and move forward, and it's taught me a lot. Being a VO boss number one just in my voiceover career, but also being an actual boss, has taught me so much about myself and helped me to grow personally as well as professionally. So I think it's a win-win. It's a challenge and it's scary, but it's so worth it, oh man.  24:19 - Danielle Famble (Guest) I couldn't agree more. You learn so much about yourself when you are now responsible for other people. I'm not a parent, but I can imagine there's a very humbling sense when you become a parent, that you are now responsible for this other person and you have to think about yourself and them in a different way. Similarly with business, you learn so much about yourself, your capacity to lead, your desire to lead, your generosity, all of those things when you have someone else that you are bringing into this thing that you created your business. It is a journey. You'll run into adversity, you will have to figure it out, and then you learn about yourself how you're able to do that. And once you learn those things about yourself, the next hurdle may be just around the corner, but you know that you've been able to do it in the past. So that resilience, really that muscle builds up. It's totally worth it. I would not be able to have the business that I have if I was responsible for doing everything. You can only do so much with the amount of time.  25:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You're only one person. You have only so many hours exactly in the day. So, oh, I love this conversation. Thank you so much, Danielle.  25:28 - Danielle Famble (Guest) Yeah, this is great, I love it.  25:29 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) For having this conversation with me. Bosses, I'm going to give a big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You, too can be a boss. Find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Bye.  25:44 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL.   

Join us as we dive into Anne's enlightening experience at the Podcast Movement conference in Washington, DC. Discover the critical lessons Anne learned by stepping out of the voiceover industry bubble and mingling with top podcasters and corporate reps. The BOSSES tackle the complexities of measuring podcast success, the evolving role of advertisements, and the innovative strategies that can set your podcast apart. Passion and authenticity are at the heart of this episode as we explore how genuine storytelling can elevate both podcasting and voice acting careers. Learn why being relatable and embracing video content is more important than ever for voice actors. Consistency and authenticity are key, and we provide practical tips for maintaining a successful show. Finally, we wrap up with advice on continuous personal and professional development, reminding you to stay proactive and always seek growth opportunities. 00:02 - Bonnie Marie Williams (Ad) Hi, this is Bonnie Marie Williams, and I was listening to VOBoss for years before I began working on the show. It was actually the first voiceover podcast I ever heard and I absolutely fell in love with it the energy, the humor and how much information it provides to the voiceover community. But what I love most about VOBoss is how it takes on the current topics in the industry, how it discusses things we really should be talking about, all of the positivity and how much time and energy Ann devotes to the show to make it so valuable for all of us. I mean, we just want to rock our businesses like a boss, right? So, ann, thank you for bringing me into the boss family and for all you do for bosses everywhere.  00:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey guys, Anne Ganguzza here. Imagine a voiceover journey where every step is filled with discovery and growth. That's the path I want to work on with you, Through nurturing coaching and creative demo production. Let's unveil the true potential of your voice together. It's not just about the destination, it's about the gorgeous journey getting there. Are you ready to take the first step? Connect with me at anneganguzza.com.  01:17 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  01:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Boss Superpower Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am delighted to be here and it seems like it's been forever with my bestie, Lau Lapides. Hey Lau, how are you?  01:52 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Hey, annie, it has been forever. It's been, I don't know, two months or whatever. It's been, but two months for us is like two years.  02:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So much happens. It's been too long. I mean, a lot of things have been happening. I just got back from podcast movement in DC and I had a really good experience there that I wanted to share some takeaways if you didn't mind.  02:15 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Actually, that's cool. I was going to ask you about that because so many of us and certainly us as talent as well are doing podcasts or want to do podcasts, and that kind of a movement is something we want to know about. So, please, sharing is caring.  02:31 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I had a lot of takeaways. Number one was, first and foremost, it was so nice for me to get outside of my bubble, outside of my studio bubble, my dealing with voice talent, voice actors and people in the industry. Not that I don't love dealing with people in the industry, but actually going to a conference and immersing myself into a marketplace where I want to sell to right, because there are podcasters here, which, yeah, of course, I have some podcast consulting services, of course, but I mean that wasn't my primary purpose. My primary purpose was to mingle with the corporates, because, guess what, everything I do voiceover right, corporate narration, commercial all of this really directs itself to that market. And it's so nice to be able to immerse yourself in that market and just, hey guys, this might be a novel idea, but just listen, right, listen to what your potential clients need, what are their problems, what sort of frustrations are they experiencing and how can you, with your voice or your voiceover product, help them?  03:45 - Lau Lapides (Guest) them. Annie, can you give us the infrastructure of it, because I don't know about that particular world in terms of what a trade show or a convention would look like for podcasters. What did it look like? How many folks were there? How long was it? Did you meet any like top level podcasters who we need to know about? Oh, yeah, I did.  04:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I met celebrities. There's like celebrity podcasters the Diary of a CEO those of you that listen to podcasts. I met the scrappy podcaster. I met the guy who actually, you know, is in all the videos for Riverside too. So the conference was four days long and it was in DC, and this one in particular, it was a little bit more corporate centric. I go to two of them every year.  04:23 The other one is PodFest, which is very much creatives like ourselves, independent creatives, a lot of hey, I've got this show and how can I make money with this show? That's really like the question on everybody's mind and I know that anybody who's ever asked me about podcasting is like, well, how can I make money? And I'm always like, well, don't bank on that right away or don't depend on that, because it is a passion project for the most part. But this show had a little more of a corporate audience, a lot of those people that are really looking to try to get an ROI, not just from the podcast but about advertising, advertisements on podcasts and those of you that listen to the VO Boss podcast know that very recently I've been actually adding some advertisements on for my own business. Now we've been doing the VO Boss podcast for about eight years and I thought well gosh, maybe it's time that I do one or two. One or two, I mean you know you guys listen to my podcast.  05:17 I can tell you, hey, look, I also offer these things, but it's all about how do you measure success of a podcast. How do you measure if you have ads running in your podcast? Are they effective? Are people listening to the ads or are they fast forwarding through the ads? And so the overall feel that I got from the conference is that there's so many different platforms right now there's. You know how do you listen to your podcast? Is it on Apple podcast, is it on Spotify, is it on YouTube?  05:43 And they all have their own measurements, their own stats, and so what advertisers want to know is how many people are listening to your podcast, and sometimes that's really difficult to tell unless you have the statistics. And then these statistics don't all come together so that you can say, overall I have 1 million downloads, or I know from my service provider, my RSS feed provider, how many downloads I have, and that can give you a fairly decent number. But again, they've changed the way that they've measured those stats as well. So a lot of times the corporations or the people that are advertising want to know how can I get ROI on this investment if I'm going to spend money for ads and the other thing which is really important is that there's a lot of people that do ads on podcasts and they sound very different from the podcast, right, because we've got you and me just bantering back and forth and then all of a sudden they've got hey, it's allergy season.  06:38 - Bonnie Marie Williams (Ad) What happens?  06:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) is, the podcast host doesn't necessarily do voiceover for a living, so what they might read might sound a little stilted, so that was really interesting to understand that. Okay, I understand how I might be able to serve them by doing ads or by helping them do their ads better, that kind of a thing, but it was really wonderful to just sit and listen and learn oh my gosh for four days all about the things that I've been doing for eight years on this podcast, and a lot of it was very validating.  07:08 - Lau Lapides (Guest) And now the one you went to was in DC. Right, that sounds like a really large a really big one. Did you find that there were people that you could meet? That really helped you understand the road to sponsorship? And the understanding of, like, how you sell ads and how you get into that place because I think that's where a lot of early entry podcasters fall down is like they can create a great program and they can get it launched and it sounds terrific, but what happens next?  07:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, the thing is is that you really need listenership, you really need people who follow. I mean, everybody refers to Joe Rogan, right? Of course, if you're an advertiser, you want to advertise on Joe Rogan's, but when you're first starting out, you need to first of all make sure that your content if you have a podcast and I think every voice talent should have a podcast, because, gosh, we're equipped for it, we have like really great sound already, and so it just makes sense that if you are a voice actor, it doesn't cost you anything necessarily except for your time right now. If you have a passion, talk about that. I mean, over and over and over again, what I heard as the theme is that podcasters are storytellers and guess what, so are voice actors. Yes, so if you have a topic that you're passionate about, I think you can start a podcast on.  08:22 - Lau Lapides (Guest) I mean it doesn't have to be about voiceover. Now, when you go into podcasting because I've been doing podcasting for a number of years as well the question is you go into it because you love it, you have a passion for it, you want to educate, you want to tell a story, mm-hmm. But how do people know when and if they're ready to monetize? That's a big question. I think in the podcast world, absolutely, you've been doing it for eight years.  08:46 That's a long time to do a podcast while you're running a business and while you're doing everything in your life yeah. So when and if you should monetize how that happens.  08:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, you know, that's a really great question and that is, like I swear it's the question on everybody's mind, even at this conference, like how do you monetize? I mean, what are the questions that get answered right in podcast? What are the big questions of the day? The big question is how do I know who's listening? Right? How do I track my downloads? How do I grow my podcast? That's the other question, asking the same questions, right, because it is such a popular medium.  09:23 When you get somebody like I'm going to say, joe Rogan or any of the more celebrity podcasts where you get a lot of people's ears right, listening, that is an opportunity to sell and so, while the logistics aren't necessarily quite there yet, you have to showcase that number one. You've got listenership. You've got listenership, you've got a following. Now VO Boss has a following, and it's a very faithful following, because, for me, when I was telling people about my podcast, I would say, okay, I have been a podcast for eight years and while my numbers may not be, I do have close to a million downloads. I mean very close to it.  09:57 Actually, I haven't looked in the last few months, so I probably have a million downloads, but it's over a course of time, right, and so what advertisers want to know is how many downloads per episode are you getting, and that kind of gives them an idea of how many ears they have listening to their potential ads. And then, of course, it has to be on the effectiveness of the ad, and I had an interview with Steve Pogac, who is with SiriusXM and Pandora, talking about podcast ads. It's kind of the new area where advertisers are really interested because they've got potential ears to do the selling. Again, it's just you've got to be able to prove to those advertisers that you have downloads, and so right now you have to use the methods that are with you. I mean, there are separate methods. Apple has their own stats, spotify has their own stats, youtube- has their own stats.  10:46 And what's interesting is that while we're doing this now on video right, whereas before we were strictly audio we're now also on video. So it's kind of like, well, let's use YouTube and put shorts out there, which is it was good, that was validation for me I heard that again and again was to use YouTube for shorts to kind of draw your audience into the audio podcast.  11:08 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Love that when you think about like discussion about synthetic voices.  11:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right, we're in the wild wild west. Well, guess what? We're in the wild wild west of advertising and podcasting. Right, and seeing if podcasting is a popular medium, we know about that. We know that as voice actors we are primed to be great podcasters, because we've got the technical worked out already for the most part. Right, we've got the technical. And if you've studied enough, you know how to storytell. You know how to storytell, you can certainly transition to any kind of ads really well. And of course, there's the other thing. Law and I know you'll like this is that there's a lot of ads that are done with improv. Celebrity endorsements do a ton of improv while they're doing the advertisements.  11:46 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Isn't that cool.  11:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) There's another skill that voice actors have, so it really translates well and, if nothing else, right. It costs you your time and, as you and I have discovered, right and I've discovered, after eight years of having this podcast and you since you've come on with me, people now say oh my gosh, I love listening to you guys.  12:06 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Right.  12:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Like they met you by listening to you on the podcast. That's absolutely a way to reach out to potential clients or potential people, no question.  12:14 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Fantastic and I can say personally that you know, in the last two years, or however long we've been working together on the podcast, god, how long has it been? Almost two years, I think.  12:23 It might be longer when I'm flying around and people come up to me and say I love your podcast. For a second I'm like, oh, the VO boss. They're like, yeah, you girls are great. It's a weird thing if you're not used to it, because there's that disconnect, there's that sense of disconnect from your audience that you know the audience is there, you see them, they're there, but if you're not meeting them, yeah and you don't know them, you may not hear back from them, the feedback you may not hear back from them.  12:53 It's really incredible.  12:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's the engagement. A lot of it was talking about engagement and again, so many parallels to voice so many parallels so many parallels. You have to engage your audience and I'm going to tell you. One of the things about podcasting is that we engage people through audio right and or video, if people are watching us, if they like to see the two of us talk to each other. It's all about engaging and being interesting, and it's either educational or it's entertaining, right? No?  13:20 - Intro (Announcement) question Whenever.  13:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I was watching a presentation on the stage with any well-known podcaster when they were speaking about that podcast, it was all about their storytelling and it was all about how it was their passion to talk about a particular subject, something that they loved, they were passionate about, and that's what caused and everybody's like.  13:40 Well, how do you go viral? Right, I mean, there is no magic solution to going viral. I think a lot of it is being engaging right with your audience, and then you got to get it in front of your audience's eyes, very similar to our own businesses, right? So how do you grow your podcast audience the same way you grow your business and voice acting? Right, you've got to get yourself in front of the eyes of your potential clients or your potential listeners. So it was really so wonderful to be validated in so many different areas, because a lot of times, like you said, we're podcasting out into the air and I don't always hear anything about it unless I speak to someone and they say, oh my God, I love your podcast or I love what you said about this.  14:19 And what's really cool is then you get the benefit, you reap the rewards of being an instrument and being able to hopefully motivate and inspire somebody.  14:28 - Lau Lapides (Guest) It's incredible and you and I we get letters like all the time, literally every single month, that says I just want to let you know that I can't get in my booth on a Saturday morning without listening to the podcast and hearing your motivation and hearing what you have to say and on the most literal basis, you don't realize what kind of impact you can make on someone's life by just speaking and speaking a truth and speaking an experience that is maybe common to their experience, or maybe the next level to their experience, when they're stuck and they don't know where to go.  15:04 It's incredibly powerful and I'm just honored to be a part of that. But I think you scared a lot of people when you said, or reminded us because this is not a new thing that we're also on video too. We're also on camera as well, because a lot of voiceover talent traditionally went into voiceover so that they wouldn't be on camera. They say, with all due respect, I don't want to put makeup on, I don't want to look good, I've got the face for radio.  15:28 - Bonnie Marie Williams (Ad) I don't want to look good, right.  15:29 - Lau Lapides (Guest) And I said no, no, you can't look at it that way any longer, because you've got to market your business, your podcast, your voice, and you have to do that on video now.  15:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) If you think about it and this is the trend, right, also, like on camera work, right, it's not about you don't have to be beautiful and young and pretty and handsome anymore.  15:47 It's all about authenticity, it's all about being able to engage with your audience, and so we invite right the perfectly imperfect, perfectly imperfect I want to hear and see like imperfections, because I know that I'm not alone, right, when that happens, and that's for on camera, that's for audio, that's all of that Just being able to be authentic and really communicate and reach out to your audience, just like we have to do being voice actors. It's becoming more and more and more prevalent every day. That that's really what we have to do, I mean, and that's what we like, I mean as humans, like, why do you think reality shows became so popular? I mean, it wasn't about the perfection of people on a sitcom or a drama or you know, it was real people and we're real people and we can talk about real things, and so if you guys are thinking about a podcast, please gosh don't.  16:41 We don't need another voiceover podcast, I don't know Exactly.  16:45 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Talk about something that you're passionate about, that you can engage with other people, and it shouldn't be any surprise that, you know, when we're auditioning as voiceover talent and we see that breakdown of relatable and real and conversational. Well, that's what we want to see as well.  17:02 If we're seeing the visual of you. We don't want to see you on as the 70s announcer, nor do we want to see you on as the supermodel of the 80s or 90s. Really, the real person works more often as an actor and talent than the aesthetically beautiful person according to the industry, and gets cast more often because it really represents the demographic of the people.  17:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Sure Right. It cuts through the chaos of something being like anticipated or expected or stereotypical right.  17:36 - Lau Lapides (Guest) There's an empathy factor too. I mean, I want to see someone who kind of is me. There's a deeply psychological aspect to everything we see and hear in entertainment. I would gather that a lot of folks and I ask them. When they talk to me about your podcast, I say why do you like it? Why do you follow it? What is it doing for you? They say I feel like you are me, I feel like you understand me, I feel like you're almost in my head, Right Like the voice in my head, and I think, oh, that's a lot of responsibility. I better be careful what I say. Isn't that true? It is true when you talk about influencers.  18:13 I always think of the influencer as like the young Gen Z or the young, young millennial who's on social media, but that's really not true. The influencer is anyone right who is out there in the public square and really is connecting to their audience. They can have very powerful influence, positive and negative. So be careful what you say, be careful how you present yourself, be careful and just be thoughtful about it, because you can impact a lot of people. Now, from a marketing perspective, that's great, because for the people that don't know anything about marketing or are a little scared of it, you know you can have a huge influence on people just by being visible.  18:57 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and it just amazed me the amount of parallels. You think I would have figured this out by now, but it was good reinforcement as I went to this conference. So I highly highly encourage you, if you can get out there, listen, find the people that you're trying to sell to, if you can get to a conference. Conferences are great because I had presentations to go to and I also had vendor booths that I could visit, right, and so the interaction. I really listened to the interactions in both instances and I noticed that when people were on stage talking about something they were passionate about, you know, I have this little pet peeve about millennials have a potential to upspeak and I'm always telling people when we're doing corporate please don't upspeak, because it makes you sound a little less confident, and I want you to be confident about your product. So, when there was the occasion for me to go to a booth and speak to someone about their product, right, and I encountered a millennial, yes, upspeak is alive and well. However, when that same millennial was up on stage and this happened on more than one occasion, right, no matter who was up on stage talking, discussing, interviewing, interacting and speaking about their passion there was absolutely no up speak. Maybe once in a while there was one word or two, but nothing that was consistent, Because I think it presented a different kind of situation and I think that as actors we need to always read those situations, like, perhaps for a commercial, you're going to have that kind of casual engagement where upspeak is absolutely desired, but maybe in another instance you need to sound more authoritative about that product or confident that you're sure that it's going to help someone and therefore maybe upspeak isn't as appropriate.  20:35 So that was just an interesting little tidbit and, trust me, I listen really hard because, you know, I'm a coach, I want to be a better coach and so I want to be able to communicate with my potential client better. So first and foremost is listen. And you guys, even if you can't get to a conference, you can do this online, right, you can join groups that are not necessarily just voiceover groups. You can join e-learning groups, you can join a company newsletter, look at how the company talks to their potential clients, and then you can just really learn about in what situation and how you might talk, the tone of voice that you might use, the emotion that goes along with it. It could be for a quirky brand that has a little bit of humor in it. It could be for a quirky brand that has a little bit of humor in it. It could be for a brand that's a little more serious and a little more formal, a little more suit and tie kind of thing, and you adjust your performance accordingly.  21:23 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Now, you were talking earlier to me, before we started recording about at the podcast forum. They were talking about memberships and I thought that was very fascinating, thinking about creating content and how you can get your subscription base or membership base going with supplying that content. What did you learn from that one? What did you take away on that?  21:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) one. So that was advertisers, who again were looking to monetize, right, and so until they felt that people have the capability of fast-forwarding through an ad that might be on the podcast, However, if they need to subscribe or have a membership in order to get to that content, if let's say the content is valuable and it's something I've thought about doing for VIA Boss having a certain amount of episodes that are bonus content, which then help fund the cost, because, as we know, and as I've spoken about multiple times, this does not run itself. I mean you and I, you know it takes our and, as I've spoken about multiple times, this does not run itself. I mean you and I, you know it takes our time. And then I literally have a team of people that help me to distribute this podcast and put show notes up there, to advertise it on social media. There's just lots and lots of components to the spokes in the wheel, whatever you might call it, but there's a lot of things at play here and it's not free.  22:34 So it's helpful to be able to recoup some of those costs and even monetize the living, make a little bit of money, because I mean, this is our time and we do talk about all the time. Law right, we need to charge what we're worth. If somebody said to me well, do you feel bad charging for a podcast when most people can listen for free? Well, you know, honestly, I've been doing it for eight years. I've given over 400 episodes for free. To be quite honest, if somebody wanted to donate three to five dollars, maybe a month.  23:04 - Lau Lapides (Guest) I don't think that's unreasonable, I think it's fantastic. I think it's a great idea and makes total, total sense. I have a feeling that's something that a lot of podcasters are going to be doing. They're going to be interested in doing that, mm hmm, because no one really realizes except for you, annie, how much goes into it until they start doing it.  23:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Until they do it.  23:20 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Oh, I'll just talk. You know it's the old voiceover, read a paper and talk, but they don't really realize to produce something, yeah, something of value, something specific, something that has guests, something that has planning. Producing engineering it costs, it's an investment. Yeah, engineering it costs, it's an investment?  23:38 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, absolutely. And getting yourself out of your bubble and going out and really researching the market in which you want to sell, I think is so, so, very helpful for our businesses so that we can grow and serve those businesses and voice acting. This whole industry is evolving, like as we speak, minute by minute. Things are happening on the AI and synthetic end of things in the market. The economy has a lot to do with it and we really need to understand what's happening out there and evolve along with what our clients are asking for so that we can serve them better, because we can have a great voice. But if we don't know how to serve somebody with that voice or how to help them solve their problems, then we kind of sit here just having a great voice, exactly.  24:23 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Which is great.  24:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But you know, then you and I can just talk with our great voices, but it may not get us anywhere. It may not pay the bills Very true, In which case? By the way, even if you don't get advertisers right away in your podcast, the fact remains that you are putting yourself out there, you're putting your brand out there, and that is a form of marketing all in of itself.  24:42 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Do you have tips, annie, for people who want to either start a podcast or who are early like within the first year of doing their podcast of what they should be thinking about or be planning for, so that they don't fall into any holes along the way?  24:57 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's a great question. The one thing that you absolutely have to be concrete on right now is kind of like your why, like why do you want a podcast and what is your topic and is it something that you can sustain? Because consistency once you get people who start listening, they expect consistency. It's like look on my run every morning I want to be able to turn on the latest podcast of right, or I want to be able to. It becomes a thing. So content creators, like everywhere, know how it's difficult to create content. It takes a lot of time.  25:29 So figure out what it is that you want to talk about, what it is that you can consistently deliver on a regular basis to an audience. And one thing I definitely found out is that these kind of serial podcasts that only have like six to eight episodes they don't do well. They don't do well with advertisers. Advertisers don't want to invest in that because they can't expect a great return on investment. It's got to be something where your audience can grow, where you can continue to get the ear of the listener, and so really try to find your why. Try to find whatever it is that you want to talk about and then be consistent about it Now. You don't have to hire out like I do right now for my podcast. I mean, I did everything on my own to begin with, and so you can start simple and commit to what you can do and make it a priority that you deliver consistently, consistently, consistently.  26:22 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Love that. So it doesn't have to be constant, it's just consistent, yeah, absolutely, which makes a lot of sense. And being authentic, yeah, and really caring about what your audience cares, about the pain points they have, what problems they have to solve and connect to Right. And also I would add into that that like what style you want that podcast to be in Do you?  26:43 want to have a lot of humor. Is it very serious? Is it meditative, is it calming, like, think about the kind of style that you want to have, and are you having guests on, or is it really you speaking from your point of view? I mean, these are just kind of basic things that we have to be thinking about it from the beginning. Also, how long Like you and I are really consistent about our time, we typically go about 25 minutes per episode.  27:08 Like how long can you talk? How long do you want to speak about your?  27:12 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) topic. I mean, gosh, some are hours long. You know what I mean. Some of the best video ones are hours long where there's something visual to look at, and I think Joe Rogan's is, I don't know, an hour or two hours. I have not listened recently, but really I mean we try to keep ours. I think the stats say anywhere from about this time 30 minutes, but honestly, I think it depends on the content and what you're talking about and just really feel that out and try to make that consistent as well.  27:36 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Well, you know, thanks for bringing this to our attention, because this is a world. It's not a new world, but it's an ever-growing world. Yes, absolutely, and it's becoming complex and very nuanced. And it's something that a lot of talent of all different backgrounds really want to know about and want to be doing and be plugged into it.  27:53 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So this is kind of exciting news and I'm excited because I got another podcast that's formulating on the back end. So stay tuned, guys. Something new is coming along for me and I'm very excited. Probably be launching that sometime I don't know later this year, so look for that and I'm very excited.  28:10 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Keep growing, keep expanding, keep creating and keep developing that's really the name of the game, isn't it? Absolutely? Throughout your lifetime, Fabulous.  28:19 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Thanks, law, good conversation. Thanks for asking me about it. I had a great experience and I'm going to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can connect and network like bosses and find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Bye.  28:39 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast-to Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL.   

This episode is all about maximizing your business potential, whether you're just starting out or already established in the market.  Learn how to leverage casting platforms for direct bookings and master direct marketing strategies. This episode is packed with actionable insights to increase your return on investment. Implementing mid-year performance reviews can be a game-changer for your business, using powerful tools like cash flow spreadsheets and client churn reports to meticulously track your financials and client engagement. Discover the added value of integrating financial data to set and achieve your financial goals, ensuring sustained success. Explore how to turn one-off projects into recurring gigs and the crucial role of tracking booking sources. Learn how to use social media, direct emails, and client referrals to build a solid client base. 00:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses, who says marketing can't be as creative as voice acting? With a VO Boss Blast, we're proving it can be. Let us create a marketing campaign that helps get you hired. Our master list of over 90,000 creative contacts can get your message in front of your potential buyers. Find out more at vobosscom. That's the VO Boss Blast at voboss.com. That's the Voboss Blast at Voboss.com.  00:29 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a Voboss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Real Boss Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with the illustrious Mr Tom Dheere.  00:58 - Tom Dheere (Host) Hello, hello, oh, I'm illustrious now this is very exciting.  01:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You are illustrious, you are illustrious. Oh my gosh Tom, how's your week been?  01:06 - Tom Dheere (Host) My week's been. It's been pretty good. It's been pretty busy. It's one of those weird times of year this is early summer when we're recording this and people are at schools getting out and people are starting to figure out. You know they get their lighting up their vacations and all that stuff.  01:25 So you know, I'm using this time to capitalize on how I'm going to figure out what I'm going to be doing with the second half of my year, because I always, at the end of the halfway point of the year, I take a look at my voiceover business, see how it's doing, what's working and what isn't, and if I need to make any adjustments for the second half of the year.  01:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I think that's an excellent idea because, as a matter of fact, I was just this week. I got an email from my email service provider who notified me that they were going to increase the cost of my yearly fee almost like one and a half times as much, and so I was like, oh, I've got to really sit back and take a look at my return on investment, and so I think that is something that bosses need to do absolutely to make sure that their businesses are on track and make sure that their growth is happening. And if it doesn't appear that it is happening, maybe how do you evaluate growth that can happen in the future?  02:17 - Tom Dheere (Host) So, yeah, Okay, so, oh, there's so much to talk about with this one. But, bosses, if there's one thing I want you to walk away with, is that the industry changes constantly. What used to work may not work as well as it used to, or it may not work at all anymore. In my 25 years of being in the voiceover industry, effectiveness is really the key to be a voice actor, and learning what it takes to become effective early in your journey as opposed to what's effective later on in your voiceover journey.  02:53 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Like mailing CDs to potential clients. I just had to say that which I did, which I did.  02:58 - Tom Dheere (Host) So did I. Let me tell you, my post office hated me so much because I'd come in with a lawn bag of padded mailers and they'd be like oh.  03:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And I used to have to walk to my voiceover studio for 10 miles in the snow.  03:11 - Tom Dheere (Host) Sorry, Uphill both ways.  03:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Uphill Anyways. So yeah, how do we determine how effective our businesses are and how do we strategize moving forward?  03:21 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right. The ultimate determiner is like how much money am I making? And it's like, okay, did I make more money than I did last year or week or quarter? So that's obviously an indicator. But that's a very broad brushstroke because, like I've noticed over the years, because I track my voiceover revenue meticulously, gig to gig, Doesn't surprise me, Tom. I know right. Not surprising that the VO strategist meticulously tracks his voiceover revenue.  03:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) There you go. Well, me too, but I have my accountant that has probably more of a hand in it than me, and then she'll report to me if I need to know things.  03:49 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right. So one thing I do like to do what's called a client churn report. So basically I look at the end of every quarter, I look at how many gigs did I have, how much money did I make, how many of them were from new clients, how many of them were from return clients, and then I look at the same quarter from the previous year to see if the amount of money new clients and old clients went up, went down or stayed the same.  04:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now let me ask you what are you recording that data into? Do you have?  04:23 - Tom Dheere (Host) a CRM Okay, okay, I was going to say do you have a?  04:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) CRM. Do you have a CRM? Okay, okay, I was going to say do you have a CRM or do you have a spreadsheet?  04:27 - Tom Dheere (Host) That I do in a spreadsheet because I have a cash flow spreadsheet which tracks every penny that goes into my voiceover business and every penny, that goes out of my voiceover business. It's a free download at voestrategistcom. You can just type in free in the search bar and you can find it and download it. It and you can find it and download it. It also helps you run reports. It's got little auto sums and I've got little formulas in there so it can help track your stuff.  04:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's awesome, tom, and can that be integrated? Like would I be able to export reports from my QuickBooks and be able to import, do you think into that's a?  04:55 - Tom Dheere (Host) great question. It may require some reformatting.  04:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Finagling.  05:00 - Tom Dheere (Host) And a little finagling, but actually I'm so glad this came up. When it comes to analyzing your voiceover business, that cash flow spreadsheet does so many things. It tracks all the money that I make. I also list all of my revenue and expense goals for the month, the quarter and the year. But here's the other fun thing that it does I have little columns where I have little codes. So, for example, there are three what I call portals in the voiceover industry. I'm sure I've talked about this before Representation, online casting sites and self-marketing which includes inbound and outbound marketing.  05:34 So every time I book a voiceover gig, in that column I write down whether it was RE, which it was a gig I booked through my representation, if it's OC, through an online casting site, either free or pay-to-play, like Voice123. And then the last one is S-M, or self-marketing, which means did it happen as a result of a cold call or a cold email, or indirect? Is it a result of someone finding me on Google?  05:59 Or was I referred to that client by a fellow voice actor or a fellow client, because I have clients who refer me to clients all the time and so whenever I type that in, there's a little section to the side of the spreadsheet that has, by revenue and by percentage, how much money I'm making based on the portal that I'm doing. It also does it for genre. I have a column for genres e-learning, commercial, industrial.  06:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, that's awesome. I love this. And you say that this is a free download.  06:25 - Tom Dheere (Host) It's a free download, that's awesome, that's a great tracker. Yeah, because it lets me know just how I'm doing with the genre of voiceover, because you can break it down by genre and you can also break it down by portal. But I'm not getting all my e-learning through one portal and I'm not getting all my explainers through one portal.  06:44 Because sometimes I'll get an explainer through one of my reps. It's rare but it happens. But I'll get a lot of e-learning through online casting sites and self-marketing, so to be able to really look and see how my voiceover business is doing and be able to go to last year's spreadsheet and see how it's doing I love that, tom.  07:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that you have a free resource. I have to. I'm sorry I didn't have to exclaim that and interrupt you and say that, because I will tell you that I created a spreadsheet myself when I started to track auditions, to track jobs that I booked. It is a thing you do have to remember to put the information in, but it was very, very valuable to find out and I'll tell you, I love a person who can really work a spreadsheet, because you've got it all figured out already, yeah, and you've got the columns there. I mean, bosses, take advantage of this. We're going to put a link in the show notes. Okay, continue, tom. I'm sorry.  07:32 - Tom Dheere (Host) I got so excited.  07:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I had to interrupt you.  07:34 - Tom Dheere (Host) Well, yeah, I've been building this spreadsheet for 20 years.  07:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, I think 2004,.  07:38 - Tom Dheere (Host) 2005 is when I first built this spreadsheet first built this spreadsheet, so I'm looking at it right now.  07:43 So yeah, genre so like. For example, so far this year, 23.8% of my voiceover revenue has come from e-learning. But also I do it as the VO strategist. So it also tells me how many 15 minute consults I've booked, how many one-on-one coaching sessions I've done, how many conference appearances, how many mentorship sessions, how many people bought my videos at the VO strategist. So I use it for both as a voice actor and both as the VO Strategist, because this is tracking all the money.  08:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, good, I'm going to download it to track and ganguza business. However, I will say that there's reports that are generated off of QuickBooks or whatever your accounting software is, but I like that you have the added columns. Like I can't add a column in QuickBooks that says where did you book the job?  08:25 - Tom Dheere (Host) Well, I probably could, but I haven't done that that's why I stopped using all the accounting software in most of the CRMs, because it wasn't giving me the data that I need. Also this is a running total that I can see on my screen all at the same time. Here's another one no-transcript.  08:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Everybody talks about that.  08:56 - Tom Dheere (Host) I believe it's one of the most useless data points there is, and here's the reason, and you know this.  09:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm going to agree with you, but I want to hear your reason.  09:05 - Tom Dheere (Host) The reason why is because the casting process is so random and arbitrary.  09:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes.  09:11 - Tom Dheere (Host) Because the best voice actor does not always get the gig, get the gig.  09:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes.  09:15 - Tom Dheere (Host) And the best audition doesn't always get the gig. Like there's a great documentary called that Guy who was in that thing? And it's about 12 character actors in Hollywood and you know all their faces but you don't know any of their names and they talk about what it's like being a character actor on TV and film in Hollywood and one of them talks about the absurdity of the casting process and he says something like one week I'll get a gig because I remind the casting director of her brother-in-law.  09:41 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah.  09:42 - Tom Dheere (Host) And then two weeks later, I won't get the gig because I remind the casting director of her brother-in-law.  09:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, absolutely so.  09:48 - Tom Dheere (Host) we have no earthly idea what the thought process is behind a voice seeker. There's another story of how a woman cast a male voice actor and she was asked why did you cast that person? And she said he sounds like my father.  10:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Mm-hmm.  10:06 - Tom Dheere (Host) And then, upon further conversation, she said I trust my father.  10:10 So, that means A I trust my father. B I want a trusting sound, for this voiceover equals C. I want someone to do this voiceover who sounds like my father Absolutely. But what if her father sounds like Gilbert Gottfried or Bobcat Goldthwait and they probably have kids? I know Gilbert Gottfried had kids, I don't know about Bobcat but and I'm sure if their children hear their voice it's a trusting I'm going to be okay, I'm safe. But that doesn't work for the rest of the universe.  10:40 Absolutely so, that's why that's kind of an absurd thing to analyze.  10:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And I just want to tailgate off of that really quickly. I don't want to get off the track of what's my ROI. However, that's why you don't self-sabotage yourself if you thought, well, I did a great audition and I didn't book the gig, or I'm not good enough, don't let that feed into. I mean, of course, you want to be a great performer and a great actor. That always gives you, I think, the most competitive advantage. However, the casting process is wild and crazy, and anybody that's taken an audition demolition class with Law and myself we've done, I believe, six of them so far. By the way, you can check them out on the VO Boss YouTube channel if you want to watch one.  11:20 Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason as to why you receive a job, and so I agree with you there that tracking that is not always going to give you the most useful information. However, I know people will be like, well, my booking ratio on Voice123 or my booking ratio on Voicescom. Again, in reality, all you can do, I think, is validate that you have ample opportunities, right, right, right. And within those opportunities, it would be nice if you, on average, booked a certain percentage, but again, I wouldn't let that dictate whether that is a good return on investment, would you agree?  11:53 - Tom Dheere (Host) It doesn't necessarily dictate your worth as a voice actor.  11:57 What it can dictate for the pay-to-play sites in particular, anne, is how effectively are you feeding the algorithms to give you the casting opportunities that you want, that you're right for, and are you effectively auditioning for the casting notices that those algorithms served up? So, with that in mind, I do track my booking ratio on Voice123. I have the $2,200 tier, so I have the second highest tier. So obviously I want to make sure there's a return on my investment. However, the number is skewed because I I'll give you a perfect example Two years ago on Voice123, I booked a gig.  12:34 I did an audition. It was for a grocery store chain doing an internal video about produce. I think it was about bananas. You know, like, if you work in their produce department, here's how to make sure the bananas, how not to bruise them, how to check them for quality, how to display them properly, how to rotate out bananas that are going to expire or whatever. And it was one gig $550 for like a three-minute in-house thing, directed session took all of 15 minutes. It's like okay, perfect. A month later they needed one on shrimp. A month later they needed one on avocados.  13:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I did not audition for those. You didn't have to audition, but you got the job. Yes, right, the recurring client.  13:11 - Tom Dheere (Host) But if I wasn't on Voice123, I would not have gotten that casting opportunity.  13:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) The majority of my work, too, is a lot of referral clients. Referrals and or clients that I got because I'm on pay-to-plays but not on a certain subscription level just because of my schedule, and so therefore I can't really count that. But I still get, believe it or not, if my profile is up there, every once in a while I will get a direct job, and then that client will come back.  13:35 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right, right. So, with that in mind, on the spreadsheet, the cash flow spreadsheet, I do have a new column where I track audition bookings versus direct bookings.  13:45 Oh, okay, so audition bookings versus direct bookings. Oh okay. So how much did I get? Was this an audition and pray gig or was this a legacy client gig? So, just as an example as of this conversation, my direct booking percentage is 79% and my audition booking is 21%, which means roughly 80-20. Four out of every five bookings that I get, I didn't have to audition for them. Now, that is something that a lot of voice actors.  14:10 Yeah, that tells me something about my business model and it tells me about my effectiveness in marketing, about my effectiveness in auditioning and my effectiveness in client retention, because it's one thing to book a client once, it's another thing to book a client twice, and it's another thing to book a client a few times a year for years and I have a couple clients.  14:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right, I have some clients I've worked with for decades, myself too, and I don't audition for them.  14:33 - Tom Dheere (Host) Some of them I never auditioned for in the first place, I just sent them the demo and then they're like, okay, great, and they here's your first gig work, which is right, that's the best kind of client, isn't it? That's a regular client, the one that you don't have to market to or audition for. However, audition and pray, I think, should be part of a balanced breakfast of all voice actors, whether it's through their agents, or through a casting site, or whether it's through their marketing strategy.  14:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Agreed Because auditioning and pray I mean. First of all, it gets you exposed to potential new clients in a multitude of ways. Because, first of all, if the agent hears you continually submitting good auditions, they might refer you to someone or they might shortlist you. Even if the client doesn't pick you, or if the client hears the audition and they may not cast you this time, they may save you for a future casting or come back to you for a different casting.  15:26 - Tom Dheere (Host) Here's another example. So for you VO bosses who have or are considering working with Anne, you decide you want to work with Anne. You want to get e-learning coaching. You may have been in the business for a little while. You may have gotten a smattering of e-learning gigs here and there, but now you want to really hunker down, get some quality training, get a quality demo, come up with a quality marketing strategy. So you work with Ann, you get your e-learning coaching, you produce a spectacular e-learning demo and then, of course, then we say Ann, what do I do now? And then she talks to you about marketing strategies. So you start to market that demo. The other thing you do is you put that demo on your website. So you come up with a marketing campaign. I'm going to put this demo on my website. I'm going to build a list of potential e-learning clients and if you have already done some e-learning work, it's supplemented by the work you've already gotten from existing e-learning clients and then you put it out there. Direct email.  16:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Direct email through a boss blast. Put it out there.  16:27 - Tom Dheere (Host) Direct email, direct email through a boss blast or direct email for cold calling, exactly, posting it on social media, talking to people on LinkedIn, so on and so forth. That's where this spreadsheet and your analytics can be an extremely powerful tool, because you can decide all right, this e-learning marketing campaign is going to take one month, so the first of the month the page the e-learning landing page goes live, and then you start through the VO Boss Blast. You start scheduling and sending emails to potential current and past e-learning clients. You post content on social media, you do things on LinkedIn. Maybe you record a video on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube talking about the demo or your experience with Ann or any part of your journey which is a part of helping people see your humanity.  17:12 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And, by the way, with any good coach right, I will if you provide a testimonial page. I also put demos on my YouTube channel, so there's the marketing that happens through that as well. So you're getting potential opportunities as well as my own referrals to you.  17:27 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right, so you do all of that stuff and then at the end of the month, now you can figure out.  17:32 These are the analytics, so you can obviously go to your website, regardless of where the website was built. You should have some form of dashboard where you can look at how many times did people visit your e-learning landing page, how many times did they listen to your e-learning demo, how many times did they download? Because remember, that's the most important part of a campaign like this is to get downloads. You want people to download your e-learning demo and have it on file for when a project comes up that you would be right for. They have that demo on hand because they're not going to remember you and they're not going to remember your website. It may not be bookmarked. That's why most voice seekers and Anne may agree that most of them have a folder, a file of digital shoebox of some sort that has a pile of demos. Absolutely, and when a project comes along, because the odds of you emailing somebody your demo and the odds that they have a project that you're perfect for.  18:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) At that time Extremely slim. It's all about timing.  18:26 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right, it's all about timing.  18:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, I just did a teachable moment all about timing. Like you just don't know when people are going to need or require your service and you can't expect that just because you got the demo yesterday that there are all these people that need something today.  18:40 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right. So you have to manage your expectations by the analytics. So should it be e-learning bookings in that one month? I don't think that would be fair to you because it's extremely unlikely. What you can look at is how many times did they go to your website, how many times did they listen to that demo? How many times did they download that demo? How many emails were opened and clicked on?  18:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You brought up a really good point. Is that? Okay? So a boss blast. You can go to the VO boss page to find out more about the Boss Blast. But the Boss Blast is simply allowing to cast the net out into a potential audience that could have a need, and you don't know exactly at what time that need is. So there's that direct marketing from the Boss Blast. But also I love the point that you brought up about the website.  19:23 Bosses, you have a website, it is a tool, it is your storefront. It is your responsibility to have enough knowledge about that tool so that you can go find out, like did somebody download my demo? How many times has the page been visited? Right? Because, just as there is with the Boss Blast, we have statistics. I can work with you, like when we send out a campaign, we have all the stats, we know who it was sent to, we know who opened it and we know who clicked. Now, once they get to your website right, they can click either the demo that's there or they can click on your website, and so once they do that, that's it. I just know that they've gone to your website.  20:00 Now, on your website, you need to be responsible for how many times has that been downloaded, how many times has that page been visited? And that can really help to see who's listening to your demo and what your booking ratio could be after that. And so those stats are important to know. So if you do not know how to access the back end of your website and we will have a podcast probably very shortly on just websites you must make it a point to educate yourself, and if you've had a website designer that did that for you, then you must either ask them how do you find out these stats right? Can they set up Google to actually allow you to see those stats, so when people visit your website, that you can find those stats and just know that, even if you may not be technically minded, you should really educate yourself on how to find that information out. That's important stuff to know. Sorry, I'm on my soapbox there, but gosh, it's so important.  20:52 - Tom Dheere (Host) No, that's amazing advice, Anne. Now here's the next part about this is here's some real life, practical real life experience that I have had this year is that one of the genres that I've been focusing on in 2024 is political. Over $10 billion is being spent on political marketing and advertising this year, so I updated my political demo. I've already had a list of political contacts because I've been marketing myself as a political voice actor since 2022.  21:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Are you direct marketing yourself, or are you on a roster as well?  21:24 - Tom Dheere (Host) Both, I'm on rosters, but I'm also direct marketing. I did a direct marketing, I did a direct marketing email blast, updated my political landing page and I sent out, I'd say over the past month and a half, roughly 150 emails to production companies that are dedicated to and specialize in creating political content radio, tv, digital streaming that require a voice actor. And do you want to guess how many replies I got to this?  21:52 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) email of 150?. Oh, I can imagine.  21:54 - Tom Dheere (Host) I can imagine the answer is zero, zero Now. At first I freaked out.  22:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But did you get hired?  22:01 - Tom Dheere (Host) No.  22:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Ah, okay, not yet.  22:03 - Tom Dheere (Host) Okay. So the question is what's going on? So, after some reflection and talking to other political voice actor friends, is they are so busy. These political production companies are so busy they do not have the time to open, much less read, any of my emails, much less click on the link download the demo or reply.  22:26 They don't have the time because everything has gone bananas this year, so because the debates have started the conventions are starting soon and then everybody's going to go crazy, from the presidential election all the way down to dog catcher and everything in between. However, I do have some existing clients who just send me work. They're like hey, here's another one, Can you do it today? Hey, I've got these five spots. I need them by first thing in the morning.  22:52 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Is that going to stop you from sending a direct email in the?  22:55 - Tom Dheere (Host) future? No, not at all.  22:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I wanted you to make that point.  22:57 - Tom Dheere (Host) Because this particular genre at this particular time of year. I have now, through experience, learned to manage my expectations about what's going to happen Because, like nowadays, if you're doing a direct marketing email, if you're getting one, to 2% of people replying to you, you're doing good, that's awesome.  23:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, that's what I tell my boss blast people yes, if you're getting one to 2% click or open you used to look for. If you get a 10% open rate and then 1% click rate.  23:26 - Tom Dheere (Host) Those days are over.  23:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah Well, 1% is good. So, yeah, it's absolutely good. But there's still again if you know your audience and you know what to write to them, it's still effective. I would still say there are still people that open their emails and there's always that chance.  23:39 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right, so the point is just because they didn't reply to your email. I guarantee there's a folder in their Gmail or their inbox where they just took that email and just dragged it into that folder.  23:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Exactly, which is why when I go through stats with people because we will go through who opened it and who clicked on it but then after that you don't know what they're going to do with it and, honestly, unless you're hacking into their systems, you really don't know if they've put it into a folder or not. I love the fact that you also are mentioning that you have to manage your expectations. Again, it's about timing and managing expectations as well, but that initial data can really help you to find out is it worth your investment?  24:18 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right. So the aforementioned e-learning direct marketing campaign that you do from the Boss Blast yeah, looking at how many people opened it, how many people clicked on the demo, how many people downloaded the demo, which, if you're using a good CRM like there's a bunch of great CRMs out there which we could talk about in another conversation it can give you a good idea of what's going on.  24:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) They don't have to download the demo either. They could just play it. Do you know what I mean? That's the other thing too. And they keep the email without downloading the demo.  24:44 - Tom Dheere (Host) So again, it's like everybody has different habits. Some people will save the email, not open it. Some people will save the email, open it. Some people save the email, open it. Click on the demo, listen to it, but not download it.  24:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Some people save the email and then forget about it right so that you need to consistently right every once in a while.  25:00 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right, do a follow-up every few months. Do a follow-up in that top-of-mind email, right, Right. So the lesson here, bosses, is that analytics don't always tell the story. You can't live or die by your analytics, but at the end of a year I can look and go, okay. Here's a trend Right. Here's an example 2023, looking at the three portals. So last year, 12% of my voiceover revenue came from my representation, 49% came from online casting sites, 23% came through direct marketing strategies, 16% came through indirect marketing strategies.  25:38 Now, if you look at five years ago 2019, I had my representation percentage was one or 2%.  25:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right, and I would say your pay to play your roster was high pay-to-play was non-existent because I wasn't a paid member of oh, that's right. At that time I took a long break because in the beginning I had a high percentage rate right, but my direct and indirect marketing strategy was like 81, but I also made 20% less in 2019 than I do in 2024.  26:10 - Tom Dheere (Host) So how did me going from focusing on direct and direct marketing to focusing on online casting sites, increase my representative percentage? What happened? What are the analytics? This is my theory. In 2019, I auditioned 450 times. The whole year 2023, I auditioned 1,854 times. I got better at auditioning. Voice123 made me a better auditioner because I got reps in. Also, it helped me keep a better idea on casting trends. What are people?  26:40 - Intro (Announcement) looking for.  26:41 - Tom Dheere (Host) How can I read a casting notice and match it up with who I am and what I can provide as a problem solver, as a voice actor? That fed into increasing the quality of my representation auditions. I got better auditioning on online casting sites and, by extension, I got better at auditioning for my reps. So that's why I went from like 1% or 2% in 2019 to, five years later, booking 12% of my revenue.  27:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that. I think it's kind of like goal setting right If you don't write it down. It's kind of like in your head you're like but I've auditioned, but I've sent my direct marketing email, or I've sent my emails and I've done my marketing, but in reality if you're not writing it down or recording it, it's really hard to track what you've done. I mean, it wasn't until I started tracking my auditions and where I was booking and it helped me to determine a genre. Oh, I should pursue more work in this area. There's so many things you can learn from it, from just recording it. So consider it like a goal right. Consider that document recording and gosh, it doesn't get any easier than downloading a free template from Tom.  27:42 - Intro (Announcement) Dheere's website.  27:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's for darn sure. I mean really. This has been such an enlightening conversation, tom. I mean the amount of information you can find out just by tracking your return on investment where are you auditioning, where are you spending your money, where are things happening can really inform you to make great decisions about how to evolve and how to move your business forward. So do it, guys. Download that document and understand that, yes, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We'll probably say that for every podcast that I work with with you, tom. I mean, I say that all the time, but you guys it is. Tom, thanks so much for your invaluable wisdom on this. I love that you're such a geek about all of this, and if anybody can produce a really cool spreadsheet, I'm sure it's Tom Dheere.  28:22 - Tom Dheere (Host) I am a happy mutant, so yeah.  28:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) All right. Big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can network, connect and download documents like a boss. Find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Thanks, tom Bye.  28:40 - Intro (Announcement) Bye. Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL.   

00:01 - Tolu Kolade (Ad) Hi Anne, my name is Tolu Kolade. I am a Nigerian and I love your podcast. I listen every week and I discovered it last year and I must say it has been an incredible eye-opener for me, helping guess what. You inspired me to also create my own podcast, which is also based on voiceovers. So I love what you do and keep doing what you do, thank you.  00:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses, are you struggling with that ever elusive, real, conversational, authentic, like you're talking to your best friend, Reed Book? Coaching with me and I'll help you take your voice over to a real and believable place. Find out more at anneganguzacom.  00:54 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  01:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Boss Superpower Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am here with the lovely Lau Lapids. Hey, Annie. Always happy to be back in the sack Lau. You are so lovely. You know what this week I've been thinking there are so many of my students and I'm quite sure that this happens to you frequently, being an agent and being a coach is that people are always trying to put on these particular voices right, that they feel like should be the voiceover voice right, and I know we've done episodes on this and we sound like maybe a broken record or maybe bosses out there.  01:54 You've heard this before. We really love your original voices. I think there's so many people that get into voiceover because they feel like they've got these great voices in their head, they can do great imitations and then when they get behind a mic, they perform and in reality, what most people want, I think, and what I demand from my students is give me your voice, because that pretty voice just is super boring. What are your?  02:21 - Lau Lapides (Guest) thoughts on that Lau. Yeah, we were just talking about this just a moment ago that casting directors and agents are really, really now looking for the real voice, the real sound, and we've been doing some animation in-house workshops and talking to animation casting directors who are saying 80% of the talent that they are hiring now for big feature film and TV series are their voices. It's their voices, real voices, their real voices. It reminds me of when we saw the earlier animations of like the 90s and the 2000s, when we saw the Ice Age and all of that. We'd see the A-list actor personalities Queen Latifah and Ray Romano and all of that, and they were them and they of that and they were them and they were recognizable and they were them and you thought, wow, why aren't they putting on a character? They're actors, they can put on a character. Well, why would they? They have a huge following. We want to hear their voice.  03:17 We want to know who they are. So I think some of those trends started with some of the A-listers, the Tom Hanks that came in and really provided their everyday sound for these heightened, larger-than-life characters in commercial as well.  03:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You know, I always wonder, like, what is it about voiceover, when I get my students in?  03:39 - Intro (Announcement) What is it?  03:40 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) about when people first start, when they think that we don't want to hear their voice. They're always like and now I'm going to read a medical narration and I'm like no, like, no, I don't want to hear it like that. I want to hear your voice telling me or educating me about it in a confident way, but I don't want to hear this hi, this kind of air that they have and that they put on their voice. And I think a lot of times people like listen to what they hear out there. There's a lot of that out there and that's kind of unfortunate because that gives people preconceived notions of what is the right way to sound. There is no right way to sound. I think there's really just your way and your genuine way to sound, and that's what we find so intriguing, it's true.  04:25 - Lau Lapides (Guest) And many of us too, at least in our generation. We grew up on Disney and we grew up on programming where we did hear those sounds. That was in our heads. As little kids. We were imprinted with those sounds and we had the bedtime story when we heard Snow White and Cinderella. And when we grew up with the fairy tales, the folklore, we heard those exaggerated character and sometimes even caricature sounds in our cartoons as well. Many of our cartoons as well were over the top, larger than life, over the top unrecognizable to who that person was. So there was a style of those times that doesn't translate quite as well to these times. These times are much more real, authentic, down to earth, relatable. All the things that you see in the specs of your breakdown, of your auditions for like a commercial, you're also going to see the heightened characters as well. So be prepared for that Like. Start to be at home with what your authentic sound is.  05:29 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And then I'm going to add on top of that right, be comfortable with your voice, embrace your voice, and embrace your voice in all levels of emotion and point of view, because that's where I think a lot of times people will think but I sound so flat and I sound so boring and I'm like but you're not when you talk to me right in this session that we're having right here. When you talk to me, you're not boring, you're not flat at all. There's a dynamic to your voice, there's emotion, there's point of view, and I think that's the real key right there is bring you with that point of view and that emotion that really brings the story to life.  06:04 I talk to my students all the time and I say we all, we tell stories all the time and when we do that, we have evolving points of view that happen throughout the story, right From maybe the beginning of your sentence starts in one point of view and then it ends up in another because, oh my God, you're not going to believe what I did last night and let me tell you.  06:25 And so, in reality, like you can be excited, you're not going to believe what I did last night and let me tell you. And so, in reality, like you can be excited, you can be exaggerated and then mysterious, and then like, well, first of all, this unfortunate thing happened, but then, oh my gosh, right. And so your emotion is evolving as you tell the story and I feel like that can be in your voice, and it allows your voice to have many different textures and many different sounds that are very much authentic and not character-y, that's right and the truth is is like when we're in a conversation, whatever that conversation is, it would be the last thing that comes to our mind Oftentimes what we sound like or what we look like Because we're thinking of other things.  07:02 - Lau Lapides (Guest) We're connecting to the person. We're thinking of where we're going. Next we're talking of other things. We're connecting to the person. We're thinking of where we're going. Next, we're talking about our cat. We're doing whatever we're doing, but we stop the action, we stop the authentic doing. When we go into process and start looking at critiquing, criticizing, ripping apart whatever action verbs you want to use, when we look at ourselves and listen to ourselves, that's when we break the chain of the actual connection. So if a casting director says to you after an audition disconnected, you aren't connected that means you were in your head, you were thinking about lines, copy, or what you sound like or the mechanics right, like you're not at that last final destination yet You're not with me, yet You're not in the room with me, you're inside of yourself, and so that, to me, is a quick indication.  07:51 If you're saying what did that sound like? Did I sound real? I already know you didn't sound real. You didn't sound real because we wouldn't be thinking about sounding real. We would be thinking about persuading that person to get the prescription medication that they really need so that they don't die. Right, we're not thinking about did I sound authentic?  08:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) talking to them about the medication.  08:13 And I think a lot of it is. When we get those words in front of us. That's what throws everybody off right, because all our lives we've been trained to read out loud, right, to read out loud. I say that three times again read out loud, which is nothing like acting, right, reading out loud is nothing like acting. And so I have so many people are like but I don't understand, like, how do I connect to it? I would never say that.  08:35 And again, that is our job is to make those words sound believable and create the scenes in which those words would come out of our mouths in a believable and authentic way. And so you have to stop looking at the words as if they are words. There has to be so much more beyond those words on the page Right, and I think a lot of times I emphasize what's almost more important is it's easy to figure out who you are if you're just you, right, you're you. You're representing a company, you're trying to convince somebody that this is a great product or whatever it is you're trying to do, but really thinking about the person you're talking to. Like, have empathy. I say this so many times is that empathy is like number one rule, I think, for being really engaging and understanding who it is that you're talking and being able to connect with them, because having empathy and understanding what are their pain points, how is it that your product is going to help them? Is going to really, I think, help you to tell that story or be more authentic sounding.  09:32 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Yes, no question about it, and you and I have that sensitivity about the word read. Read is kind of like it's not in our realm to read. We don't read for a living. We read scripts. We have to read scripts. Not in our realm to read, we don't read for a living. We read scripts. We have to read scripts.  09:46 Yes, the brain process is the reading of it, first for comprehension's sake, yes, and then, once you're comprehending what is being done, you're processing it. You don't want to go into auditions and you don't want to go into recording sessions. Processing it, that's before. And then, as you process it, you get to your interpretation. Then now we're talking, now we're talking, then you want your interpretation to start, come out into your delivery. So, allowing that time, allowing the brainpower to happen, allowing that, to say my reading is at the beginning of the process. It is not when I'm auditioning or when I'm working on a gig. I'm not reading. In fact, I should even know the copy is the truth. Really, great actors who are doing voiceover copy half of them are not even reading it. They're just already interpreting it and memorizing it because they're actors for on camera, so they're taught to memorize.  10:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, and memorization is helpful if you've got a short script. However, a lot of the genres that I deal with it's not a short script and it's not practical necessarily to memorize. However, I will say that you're doing something similar. Not necessarily you're not memorizing, but you're reading far enough ahead, right, so that you understand where did the story go. Right, Because you got to know where the story ends up, so that you can like formulate how it begins. It's like you can't tell a good story unless you know that story, and so you can't evolve a point of view unless you know, like, where you're going with it. Really, you can discover it along the way if you have really well-written script. Really you can discover it along the way if you have really well-written script, right, or if you have easy-to-understand script.  11:20 And I'll tell you a lot of times, in commercial copy or corporate narration copy or e-learning copy, it's not the easiest script. A lot of times it's not a dialogue between two people, which I think is the easiest to understand. Right, and to be the most comfortable with sounding like you're talking to someone is if you're actually reading copy that's written that people are talking to someone. When you have copy that's written in any other kind of format like second or third person, then it becomes a whole different story. How are you making that sound like you're actually talking to someone? Because it's not written in a dialogue format. And so that's where I think the disconnect comes for a lot of people, when they don't know where they are in the scene and they don't know who they're really talking to. They haven't thought about it or researched it or analyzed it. They then just read the words and then it becomes very neutral.  12:08 - Lau Lapides (Guest) It becomes neutralized, and that's fascinating. In your daily conversations too, I think you'll notice that people stop speaking when they're processing information, and a lot of times I'll have people. My husband says this to me all the time. He said stop bulleting thoughts at me, I'm still processing what you said earlier. I can't. I can't interpret what you're doing right now. It's too fast for me, so would you say stop bullying.  12:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Did he say stop bullying?  12:31 - Lau Lapides (Guest) your points at me no bulleting, bulleting, Like shooting it at me, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, that kind of thing. But in the daily conversation of many people you're actually not processing quite as fast, especially new information or technical information.  12:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And so it would be unfair.  12:49 - Lau Lapides (Guest) It would be unfair to say, well, give me emotion about it, give me a feeling about it, which I do to him all the time. Tell me how you feel. He said I don't know how I feel, I'm still processing it. So that's the lesson of the day. Is like. That makes sense. If you're not emoting authentic feeling, it's because you're still processing it and you've got to do that first. You've got to get through that first. That is not the end, though.  13:12 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's not the outcome. The top layer is your emotion, is your point of view. That is what brings your unique perspective and your unique read and what casting directors are looking for, usually all of the time right, they're looking for that All of the time.  13:25 Bring you to the copy. What does that really mean? Well, that means bring a point of view to that copy, and bring a point of view that makes sense. I mean, obviously, if you're championing a product, you want to make sure you're championing a product and you're not like angry or miserable about it unless the dialogue calls for it. So you need to get to that last layer, which is that evolving point of view, which makes the connection and really allows people to also comprehend what you're saying easier.  13:53 Because if you're neutral, if your point of view is just like hi, I'm going to read the words really nicely and very consistently and I'm not really going to put any sort of emotion on it, and I'm going to do this for the next two minutes, right, and I sound like a voiceover artist, right, but in reality you haven't told the story, you haven't allowed anyone to hear that and then process it. You haven't helped them in their comprehension, typically like as you and I are talking today. Right, I'm like well, I don't go. Well, we've got this right, I don't go well, we've got this Annie that sounds excellent to me.  14:31 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Yes, yes, it does.  14:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And it helps really people to hear and comprehend and understand what you're saying so much better than a simple like run-of-the-mill, medium, neutral kind of a read which most people seem to do on long-format narration copy. They tend to think it's like a documentary, but in reality, the focus of you, if you're actually doing a documentary and I always tell people like what's the difference, it's written like a documentary. Why should I not sound like a documentary? Well, typically with a documentary and those of you that love documentaries, such as myself, you're watching a video which completes a story. For you, there's a visual right and there's also music maybe, which also helps in the story right.  15:10 Your voice is simply supporting the documentary. So you need to just be able to tell the story, no matter what the media is underneath you, and the best kind of story to tell is one that's real and authentic. And that's why I think so many casting directors and correct me if you think I'm wrong, but I think so many people ask for that real read, because you can put any kind of music under a real read. You can put any kind of video under a real read and it will work. You can put any kind of video under a real read and it will work. You put something really dramatic and if somebody's like hey, this is the story and I'm going to tell it to you, like it really is Right, you can put dramatic music behind that, you could put dramatic visuals and it works. And you can also put something that's very soft and not dramatic and that storyline still works.  15:50 But if you're dramatic and you're fighting with other dramatic elements of a production that doesn't always work.  15:56 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Nope, doesn't always work. Doesn't always work. That's a good little formula to think about. And then I want to take a couple steps back and say, okay, here we go to the tough stuff. And that is before you even do anything meaning reading, prospect, audition or copy how do you feel about yourself? How do you feel? Ooh, we're getting deep. How?  16:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) do you feel about yourself?  16:16 - Lau Lapides (Guest) How do you feel we're getting deep? How do you feel about what you have to say, how you say it, how you feel about it, how you feel in your life, because that is also going to be transmitted as well through all of this. You lack confidence, you lack self-esteem, you lack your know-how about who you are as a person. The more you're going to be freaking out about the work that you're doing, you're just always going to feel like you're never bringing it. You're never bringing it to the table and you're going to start to become super biased and super, super, highly critical about yourself, where you can no longer trust your self-direction.  16:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, yeah, I hear that a lot from some students that come into the industry and they try to sound a particular way, right, and they think do I have what it takes? I get that question probably on a daily basis, right, do I have what it takes? Well, do you have what it takes to be brave enough to bring you yourself to the party?  17:11 - Intro (Announcement) right.  17:12 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And if you do, if you have the courage to do that right. There's a lot of people that don't have the courage and they hide behind that voice, they hide behind that persona. That is hi, I'm the voiceover voice and that is almost like a. It's almost like a false confidence, right?  17:26 lau or it's like oh, it's a mask I'm sounding it's a mask, it's a mask which is how interesting I always say a lot of character actors are very confident, right, and it's always really like when we listen to character acting, it's easy to become more emotional, right, because we are a character, it's a dialogue and we can formulate those emotions. They're kind of written into the copy for us. But when we're talking about some other type of copy, which may not be obvious, right, may not be, you know, a commercial, oh, I don't want to sound too selly, right, that's what I know about being selly, right, be a real person, don't sound announcer-y. Well then, that's my emotional like. I guess starting point, right, but in reality you've got to do more work to figure out that story, to figure out where your emotion lies. If all you know is that you can't be announcer-y and you can't sell and you need to sound, you're talking to your best friend. You need more work than that. You need to do more work than that to tell the story, right, lau.  18:23 - Lau Lapides (Guest) No doubt about it. Okay, so that's the honesty that you need, and sometimes you don't possess it. So that's where we always say circle yourself with great people to help you figure out what your most authentic you. And delivery is and connection is, because sometimes we don't see it, we don't know what it is, we don't know how to reach it We've never heard it and it takes years sometimes to get to, and that's OK.  18:48 Have patience, but you really do, as you said, have to have the courage, the bravery, to say I need to feel something about this, I need to care about something, I need to connect with who I'm talking to, because I was just working with a client yesterday, coaching, and they were literally what was it about? Oh, it was an adult acne product. It was like an infomercial type thing and this talent is so talented, it's like so gifted, so wonderful, was not connecting in any way. And I turned that into her sister having adult acne and, surely enough, the onion peeled. And then all of a sudden it came to her after almost an hour. She said I think I'm just going to talk to her because she really does have this problem actually and it really does bother her.  19:32 And I'm like you have to think about what's at stake for the people or person that you're talking or discussing with. Anytime you're going to sit down and have coffee or go to your diner and have breakfast. You're going to talk about a lot of stuff with your people and there's always something at stake. What's at stake? Are you talking?  19:50 - Intro (Announcement) about politics?  19:51 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Are you talking about religion? Are you talking about sexuality? Are you talking about finances? High stakes on all of those. High stakes on all of those. Your kids going to school high stakes on all of those. So why would we not think about that and connect with all the scripts that become in front of us Because there's stakes to those scripts, right, Absolutely.  20:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love the way that you phrase that that there's stakes to that. There is. There's a reason why the words are there in front of you and you have to discover there is. There's a reason why the words are there in front of you and you have to discover really what those stakes are Like. Why, why are you talking? Purpose is so important, really. I mean, purpose is so important. If you don't understand the purpose of why you're saying something, it's kind of like, well, let me just gloss over the words, then it drives us, it's our lives.  20:35 - Lau Lapides (Guest) It's like that's why so many actors will say who are career actors? They'll say what else would you have liked to do? They say I don't know. I do what I have to do, I do what I love to do and I do what I need to do. So there is the authenticity. It's not I'm doing this because I want to sound a certain way.  20:53 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm doing this because I want to look a certain way Right.  20:58 - Lau Lapides (Guest) We don't want a doctor that looks good and sounds good, we want a doctor that can help us with our health.  21:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, you know, I like that analogy because we don't want a doctor to look or sound good Like. When I go to a doctor and I connect with a doctor, I want him to help me, I need him to cure me, right, and that is the underlying reason as to why I'm listening to him in the first place, right, and if he's not addressing my needs, if he is all concerned about how he looks and or how he sounds when he's telling me about it, I'm not going back to that doctor. And so guess what? That's why we need that in advertising. We need you to be able to connect with that potential client when you're talking about that product, because there is, there are high stakes I love how you put that. There are stakes and what are they and understand your purpose for telling somebody about this product or talking about this product, or communicating with someone and empathizing, right, empathizing yes, I know that you're upset that you have. You know what I mean. Adulterated acne is not fun. I had it.  21:54 It was just like shouldn't I have been over this by now? You know, I mean it is just a thing.  21:59 - Lau Lapides (Guest) It's devastating actually, and acne of all ages is devastating to the people who are experiencing it. It's stigmatizing, it's all of those things. So it's like when you think for a moment of what that's like to go through, that will help you connect in a really personalized way. I think personalization is a part of it too. Personalization is a part of it too. So even if it's a business read of some kind or maybe it's a how-to, like how do I organize my closet, there's a personalization about that, like how do I go through the process, how do I feel about it, what does it do for me? And it's a truly deeply psychological process. We see that in all the shows, from hoarders to organizing to everything.  22:38 We have a lot of emotion, a lot of memories, a lot of psychology in our closet as an example, right. So there is almost nothing that I can think of that doesn't have high stakes to it for someone who is involved with it. It may not for me, but it will for someone else.  22:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And I want to reiterate that that applies across the board, really for any script. It applies for medical narration, it applies for corporate narration. Again, people have such misguided thoughts about what is corporate narration or what is medical narration. Well, I'm just going to deliver the information articulately and clearly and teach somebody. In reality. No, there are stakes. Companies have products to help people to solve a problem and you've got to understand what that is.  23:23 Medical narration is all about either education or you're selling to solve a problem, that somebody needs to come to the hospital because you have the latest technology to help with their recent cancer diagnosis. You know that's high stakes. You're educating young doctors about the process of electrocardiograms because you may save a life right. There's high stakes to all of that and in getting to understand the purpose and what those stakes are is going to be what helps you connect and what helps you be the better reader, even if you've never heard it that way before. You're not coming to myself or Lau to be coached to give a pretty read. You can do that all on your own and, as a matter of fact, I don't want you if that's. All you want to do is a pretty read.  24:07 - Lau Lapides (Guest) No, I don't want it either. It's not authentic?  24:09 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) No, it's not authentic and that's not what I can help you with the most, because you don't need me. I'm not going to have you give. Give me your money for that. Give me your money if you want to really sound connected and really understand how to evaluate your scripts and analyze your scripts and understand those stakes and then bring that script meaningfully to your audience Right and, if a talent says well, I don't know much about this industry or I don't know if I feel anything about it.  24:35 - Lau Lapides (Guest) I'd say two things to that. I'd say three things to that. Number one you can train with us and become an actor, and an actor should be able to connect to every world in the world. And number two if you don't think you can connect, go to a big building downtown in the area you live in and just walk in the lobby. Don't look scary or creepy, just walk in the lobby and just like, have a cup of coffee in your hand and sit in the lobby and watch the people, listen to them. How do they feel?  25:13 How do they dress? Are they moving fast? Are they on their cell phones? Are things busy for them? Are they moving and shaking? Try to capture that as you're looking at your script, because that's the organization, that's the industry, that's the thing you're talking about and the people you're connecting either to or you are posing as right. Do that little bit of work. I know Johnny Depp did that for years and years as an actor.  25:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) He would physically like go live in the culture and you couldn't talk to him for like a month until he figured it out right and, in addition to that, go ahead and research the product, Research the company, Sign up for their mailing list. You're going to find out a lot. Go to their YouTube channel or just talk to someone.  25:56 - Lau Lapides (Guest) How about talk to someone. Annie, just talk to someone and say hey, I'm not a solicitor and I don't want to freak you out. Can I talk to you for five minutes? Because I'm an actor actually and I might be hired by this organization and I kind of just want to hear what your life is like when you work in the office in the day.  26:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) How do you feel about this company? How do you feel about?  26:12 - Lau Lapides (Guest) the product that you offer. That's going the extra mile. Why not?  26:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I guarantee you you might have somebody who would actually enjoy talking about it.  26:20 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Oh my God, They'd be excited. They'd say how do I know you?  26:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But yeah, especially if you say look, I'm not here to freak you out, I just I'm an actor and I might be hired. So I just I'm curious to get your opinion. What is life like at this company? Are you stressed? I mean, do you love the product?  26:43 - Lau Lapides (Guest) Do product. What can you share with me? That's a good idea. I like that. Isn't that a great idea? By the way, annie, we just did one on podcasts, and when you're talking about self-promotion, you're talking about self-producing, you're talking about becoming a business Like why not be the guy or gal on the street that does a one-minute interview with someone who's on the street coming out from the building, right? Some of our biggest podcasts and some of our biggest programs were built out of kids that said hey, I want to talk to entrepreneurs, let's go around and let's just drive around, let's just talk to them and put the best ones on.  27:09 Oh, we love that stuff, we love that stuff, right?  27:12 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yep, in business, people love to talk about them. They do, they do. For the most part, they love to talk about themselves, right, especially if you make them feel important and guess what? Guess what our entire job is as voice actors, right.  27:23 - Lau Lapides (Guest) They love it.  27:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) To make our potential clients or whoever it is we're talking to right about that product, to make them feel important. It's all about them. It's not about us or how pretty we sound when we talk about it. It's about them and how we're going to help them be better, look better, make more money, do all the things and make them the richest, most popular adults. I mean honestly, if you think about it, it's all about them. That's why we listen.  27:44 When we put our attention towards anything, it's kind of egocentrical. It's like what do I need? What am I going to get out of this? Am I going to learn something? Is this going to give me a sale on a product that I've been looking to buy, or is it going to give me information about the product that I've been meaning to find out what's in it for me? Yeah Right, what's in it for me? And so you need to, as the voice actor representing you need to tell them, like, here's what's in it for you. I'm here to help. I'm here to deliver this information to help you. I'm not here to sound good, necessarily Well, maybe I will sound great while I do it, but I'm more sincere about wanting to help you.  28:16 - Lau Lapides (Guest) So we just gave like a ton of tips about how you can actually sound authentic, and that is to live the authentic. And I like to say too go to lunch, go to dinner, go to coffee, go to tea. It's not about spending money, it's about going to places where you can sit with people and really talk to them. Talk with them and to them and about them, with them and to them and about them. And that's how you learn. How to talk authentically is to really be in conversation with people that you're fascinated by, you're interested in, or you want to help, or you want them to help you right.  28:50 We're not just the end-all, be-all helpers. We get a lot of help from them as well, so we get a lot of information from them that is very usable for us.  28:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love how this conversation went. I mean, it's just really brought up some really great new ideas for you know, you guys, and how you can really continue to develop as an actor and continue developing your authenticity and making those words really come alive.  29:14 - Lau Lapides (Guest) It's a conversation about conversation.  29:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) There you go, all right. Well, I'm going to have a conversation about my sponsor, ipdtl. You, too, can connect and communicate like bosses. Find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week, lau. Thank you so much, and we'll see you guys next week. Bye, see you next week.  29:36 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL.   

Val Kelly, the brains behind the Mid-Atlantic VoiceOver Conference, joins Anne Ganguzza in a special BOSS preview of MAVO. The BOSSES discuss Val's journey into voiceover, the challenges and lessons learned from organizing the conference, and the evolution of MAVO over the years. Her passion for the craft is evident as she discusses creating her own company to champion voice actors, offering a fascinating glimpse into the challenges and rewards of hosting a successful conference. The BOSSES shares insights on adapting to online events, the importance of providing educational resources for voice actors, and the exciting lineup of speakers and sessions planned for the upcoming conference. With a diverse lineup of guests, this year’s conference is a great event for anyone looking to elevate their skills and overcome the industry's evolving challenges. VO BOSSES can save $75 by using the code VOBOSS at checkout when purchasing your MAVO tickets 00:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses, Anne Ganguzza here. Are you ready to take the next step in your voiceover career? At Anne Ganguzza Productions, I specialize in target marketing, coaching and demo production. That gets you booked. If you're thinking about elevating your performance or creating an awesome demo, check me out at anneganguzza.com.  00:24 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I am so excited and happy to be here with a very special guest voice actor and owner, president and very boss CEO of the Mid-Atlantic VoiceOver Conference, Val Kelly. Yay, hey, hi, val, it's so wonderful to have you here today.  01:08 - Val Kelly (Guest) Oh, thanks so much for having me on your show. I really appreciate it.  01:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely, and I'll tell you what I am so excited to talk to you today. Number one, first of all. So what does it take to be boss and CEO, not only just being a voice actor I know a lot of people that listen to the Boss podcast for us to be successful voice actors, but you're also an educator, which I love, and also to run a conference. Now my husband I'll just say my husband works, he's an event manager for multiple companies for many years and I know what it takes to run an event and it's no small task. So I'm excited to talk to you about yourself and what it took for you to become such a CEO of such a great event, and I'm excited. I'm going to let you talk, I swear I'm excited because it's my first year presenting with Amevo. So I'm very excited to do that this year and I'm already planning my wardrobe.  02:03 - Val Kelly (Guest) Oh my gosh, same same.  02:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) All right, what am I going to wear? So I'm very excited how many outfit switches.  02:09 - Val Kelly (Guest) Am I going to have Right?  02:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) exactly what are my costume changes. So let's first talk about you and how you got started in voiceover, because I know that you still are teaching, correct, yeah?  02:23 - Val Kelly (Guest) So I'm doing a little bit of everything. Yeah, nothing wrong with that, I'll tell you are teaching, correct?  02:26 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, so I'm doing a little bit of everything. Yeah, Nothing wrong with that. I'll tell you Nothing wrong with that, and especially if you're teaching, because that's just near and dear to my heart.  02:33 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, absolutely. So I got started in voiceover in. About 1999 was when I first kind of stuck my foot in it a little bit and I didn't really know what I was doing of course, because back then there were only a handful of people that were really booking work. So basically, I just took a class and you know they were like oh, you have a lot of talent. Of course, like that's. You know, the typical thing when you take a class. They're like, oh, you should definitely do this with your life, you know.  03:06 And you're like, oh great, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Thanks for telling me what I wanted to hear. And then I took a class with these people for six weeks and then I recorded my first demo after six weeks, which was totally crazy. I had no idea what I was doing and it was a commercial demo, so I also really just had no concept of the technique or anything about what I was supposed to be doing.  03:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And probably even the industry, right? I mean being educators. Right, we know Like six weeks is really nothing. It may not have been every day for six weeks. Right that you were training. You were probably training once a week yeah.  03:40 - Val Kelly (Guest) No, it was like once a week yeah exactly Exactly.  03:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So yeah, being educators, we know it takes a while to acquire skills.  03:57 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah for sure. But I mean fast forward to basically 2011, when I just had my second daughter and I never stopped thinking about voiceover and I just said to my husband you know, I really want to get back into this, like I feel like I have a lot of talent to offer to this industry and I just really want to try and make something of it. You know, not give up teaching because I had been teaching French for such a long time and that's a big part of who I am as a person.  04:19 But I wanted to add this creative side that I have. I wanted to offer that as well. So I started training with a studio in New York and then just kept training with them for a couple of years with multiple coaches and things like that, and then it was probably 2010. 12 or 13 that I went to Voice Over Atlanta for the first time and I met so many people I think that's actually the first time that I met you and I was just so impressed by that whole event and everything like that, and so that really opened a lot of doors for me in the Voice Over world. I started booking more stuff after I went to that event and then a few more years passed and I just thought there's something here, like in this mid-Atlantic region, that's missing, you know, and I want to give back to the community in a way that's going to be helpful for other voice actors.  05:16 So I was flying to France actually on a trip, and I said to my best friend on the flight I was like what if I started my own company? And he's like, okay, he's like maybe you should get some best friend on the flight. I was like what if I started my own company? And he's like okay, he's like maybe you should get some more sleep on this flight. And I was like, no, but seriously. And he's like, oh, can we talk about this when we get to France? So the whole trip I was, you know, working and everything like that. It was for work, but I was also thinking, like, you know, I have a lot of ideas, like maybe I could really pull this together. So in 2014, I started Minute Landing VoiceOver and it was a real eye-opener, that first event with 28 people showed up for it.  05:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) you know Was your initial idea with your company? Was it to do specifically just the event, or was it just to start a company of your own to do voiceover? And it evolved.  06:06 - Val Kelly (Guest) I think my idea was to do this event but also to see where else I could take it you know what else could be offered through this company and then also to like expand it and kind of umbrella my own voiceover work underneath it, which ultimately it's separate from who I am as a voice actor. But that was something I kind of had to figure out a little bit later. But the first event was really great, even though it was tiny. It was absolutely tiny and I just I remember like calling you up and being like and what am I going to do? Like there's only 20 people signed up for my event, and you're like okay, val, okay, okay, let's send some email blasts.  06:45 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, I mean honestly, I think sometimes smaller is better. I have been at VO Atlanta since pretty much gosh every year, except for the first year, and there's something to be said. That's a big event and it got even bigger. But there's really something to be said for a small, intimate event and people can be overwhelmed by going to an event that is so large, especially those people starting out in the industry. So I think that your conference really serves a niche where it can make people feel more comfortable. It can be a first conference or it could be a 10th conference for them. There are just lots of people who feel comfortable in a smaller conference, a smaller environment. They feel that they get much more out of it. And so, yeah, with that first year being smaller, what did you learn?  07:28 I guess my question would be is and having organized my own smaller events not huge events, but, and also having a husband who works in the event industry, I know how much work it takes, especially when you want it to be a great conference and you want people to get something out of it. It's a lot of work behind the scenes that a lot of people don't see. What they see is a ticket price. And they say, oh, all they do is multiply that ticket price by the amount of attendees. And they say, well, you're making a ton of money. I mean, I don't understand, why is it so expensive? And I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh, there are so many, so many things.  08:00 So let's talk about the evolution of this conference and things that you learned along the way. And had you planned an event before? I mean, did you love planning an event? Was it your first time? I mean, I liked planning my wedding and I thought, oh, I could do event planning. And then I'm like, well, you know what, it does take an awful lot of time. So what was going through your head when you're like, oh, it was fun to manage event, this is my first event. Was it your fifth event?  08:26 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, that was my first, I mean, as you said, planning a wedding, which I did plan, my own wedding and that was a big. I loved it, it was great and I was very, very good at planning my wedding which I felt like was a good preparation for the first event, you know, I said to my husband I was like it's like planning a wedding every single year, except no one ever gets married. You know. And he was like yeah, okay.  08:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Except you to the event. You get married to your event. Yeah, yeah.  08:56 - Val Kelly (Guest) So yeah, I mean, I learned so much after that first year. I just learned so much about the business side of everything that I didn't know. You know, that was one thing. I wish that I had had more business training before I decided to start, because I had to learn everything. I mean, I had my friend help me figure out how to build a website. And that took. I mean just the countless hours of work that go into just trying to do everything yourself because you're starting out and you can't afford to hire anyone.  09:29 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right, right.  09:30 - Val Kelly (Guest) And so those are the biggest lessons I've learned, I would say from the beginning until now is just every year I learn something new about the business and how to manage the money side of things. And you know, like you said, people look at the price and they go oh, she's making a billion dollars.  09:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And it's like actually actually no.  09:51 - Val Kelly (Guest) Actually no because I have to pay for the venue, I have to pay for all the guest speakers, I have to pay for the marketing and all the stuff that goes into it.  09:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And.  09:59 - Val Kelly (Guest) I do a lot of it myself, just simply for the fact that I am a small company. It's a boutique you know sized company and we kind of evolved into that whole boutique world where I had this idea Maybe this happened about five years ago where I said someone said to me, why don't you call it a boutique event?  10:19 And I was like, oh, that's cute you know, and that's how the whole thing kind of started and I was like, oh, that's cute, you know, and that's how the whole thing kind of started. And then I took it and really had to explain to people what does that even mean, you know? And just being a French teacher, it's like, well, when you think of a boutique, what do you think of? You think of like a high-end, smaller place where you're going shopping and you're buying super high-quality items and everything is planned down to to like every tiny detail you know, and that's kind of what I wanted to transfer to my event without being snobby about it, obviously, like you know.  10:54 So that's kind of how I delivered that message to people is just like think of it as a high-end boutique. You know you're coming in.  11:01 I'm hiring only the top tier talents that are in the industry, people that are not appearing at every single event every year because I want to offer something different, and once we had that, we kind of ran with in the conference as far as the number of people and just the organizational part of it and just understanding how things work. And then after that, 2018 was really great too. We skipped to 2017. And then in 2020, covid hit. So then we had to go from being what was supposed to be in-person event, switching it to an online event at the last minute, and that was totally crazy.  11:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It was so nuts, I'm sure that was a whole new learning curve for you, because online events are so much different than in-person events and, plus, I don't know if you had already like secured a venue. At that point I mean because typically the planning for events like this it runs all year. That point I mean because typically the planning for events like this, it runs all year. Right, I mean, you're planning for this event, you're planning the next year before the one is even done, basically.  12:12 - Val Kelly (Guest) So when we had to take it online, luckily because it was COVID and out of your control type of scenario I was able to figure it out in enough time to say to the venue we're canceling. And then I took it to a virtual studio in Baltimore and I had someone do like the live streaming for me because. I had no idea what I was doing.  12:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And I can vouch for that because myself doing mostly I mean after 2015, I stopped doing in-person events at my home and I started doing everything online and that live streaming. Back in the day, it hadn't really evolved or developed, and so there were lots of live streaming technologies that were just coming out, and so I literally yeah, I had to learn it myself, and then I also hired somebody to help me live stream it, and then I also wanted to do a hybrid event. So it was crazy having people at my house plus live streaming it online, and so that alone and especially if you want it to be a quality event right, that live stream you have to have good cameras, you have to have the ability for people to be able to switch between people that are presenting to the audience and just to make it engaging. Otherwise, one of the biggest complaints about COVID right and online teaching I'm sure you taught online as well was the fact that it was hard to engage, and I know that even today, people like they're fatigued by Zoom.  13:37 I still love it because I feel like Zoom filled a void for, let's say, just people that couldn't physically be together. I mean it was the next best thing. However, when you're trying to educate over an online platform, it really does become difficult or harder to engage people, and so running an online event you've got to be that much more paying attention to detail so that you can put on a great online event, and that is not a cheap thing to do either. To hire somebody for the cameras and that knows the technical backend to do the live streaming, to make the recordings right, you probably offer the recordings to be available for people who couldn't attend every session, and all that backend work on the website is crazy. It's crazy.  14:22 So I have a lot of respect for the fact that you were able to turn that around. And so, what year is it this year for Mavo? How many years has it been that you've been running?  14:31 - Val Kelly (Guest) So we've been in business since 2014. So, this is 10 years in business and it's actually our ninth conference this year, wow.  14:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So there's a lot to be said for that as well, for the longevity of it. I mean the fact that you know you didn't give up after the first year and you weren't frustrated, right, because it's tough, I mean, and you learn as you go. So you must have a passion for this conference and a passion for putting together something great, educationally resourceful for the community, which I, as a teacher with a teacher heart, I can totally appreciate and respect. That because it's one of the reasons why I started the VO Boss podcast. It's one of the reasons why I did the VO Peeps networking groups, because I wanted to be able to provide a resource. And I believe that that's where your heart is in terms of wanting to provide a resource for the community.  15:18 Because I know it's not about the money and I always try to strive to remind people that venue costs are not cheap. I mean my gosh especially when you're talking about wanting to host someplace. Decent rentals of ballrooms and just sites are so expensive it's along the lines of like tens of thousands of dollars, I would imagine to do that and especially when you're doing it over multiple days and then you're trying to provide reasonably priced rooms for people, and especially when you're keeping it on a smaller scale. It must be harder to find a venue that wants to work on a smaller scale with you. Is that correct? Or they get more expensive.  16:00 - Val Kelly (Guest) I think it's not so much the venue that is not willing to work with you on a smaller scale, it's just the difficult balance, I think is, if you're saying, okay, we're only going to have 120 to 150 people, well, the venue isn't going to lower its price because of how many people you have, because they its price because of how many people you have, because they don't actually care how many people you have.  16:24 What you end up paying for is the meals that you provide. So that's where the big, big expense comes in with any type of food that you offer, because it's based on how many people, and so it's really a difficult challenge of saying like, okay, if we're going to keep it this small, then we actually have to raise the price, so that I can cover all of my costs and at first people were like whoa, what the heck.  16:50 And I was like guys, like you have to understand, like if you want me to hire good people to come in, like great people to come in and speak at this event, they won't do it for free and nor would I want them to, you know. So it's like that's the biggest. Biggest expense beyond the venue is the guest speakers.  17:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You know Sure sure, I know how hard it is to sell to this industry because I mean, I sell events myself, I sell coaching services and demos, and so you're selling to an industry where I think we all wish we had more money to spend.  17:23 I mean, I think that's just human nature, I wish we had more money to spend. But especially when you're talking about a creative industry where it is their own business, they're all their own CEOs, they're all entrepreneurs and everybody's kind of just as they go learning the ropes of the business, of it all, it astounds me how much people are willing to spend for, let's say, performance classes, but yet business classes, which I think is imperative for us as voice actors and businesses to be able to make a profit right in order to support, support your habit, support your business, to pay the mortgage, to feed the family, that kind of thing. And so business skills are essential. And I know that your conference in the beginning it was very much geared towards, I would say, more animation and character, but you've evolved it now, especially because I'm involved, you've evolved it to really include many more genres. So let's talk a little bit about what you're offering this year and maybe last year, what you've done to kind of broaden the offerings of the conference.  18:31 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, I mean, I think what we had to do was really gauge over the years what the level of interest was with. You know, everybody loves a good animation guest speaker because they're so interesting and everybody wants to work for well, maybe not everybody wants to work for Disney Channel but you know you know, and so that's kind of always where my creative mind went and like where do my interests lie?  18:58 a little bit selfishly, but not really, because it's like I know a lot of people are also interested in that. So I would always try to go with a keynote that was somehow involved with animation, just so.  19:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's a big seller. I know that, even A big seller. Yeah, it's a big seller.  19:15 - Val Kelly (Guest) So then last year we had Serena Irwin who is a casting director and she casts freelance for a lot of different studios and has been on Spongebob and she's amazing like, and I really tried to find somebody that was kind of off the grid a little bit for last year because I wanted to find a less mainstream type of person kind of, I guess I would say. And so it was really successful to have somebody who is a casting director, because getting that viewpoint for people like in the animation world, what are you actually looking for? You?  19:52 know, so for me that was very interesting, for a lot of people was very interesting. And then there have been certain years when we've offered a lot of you know know audio book stuff and it's not to say that we're not ever going to offer audio book guest speakers again. But I felt like for this year I wanted to kind of go in a different direction completely and I feel like having Tim Friedlander as the keynote is such an important thing because Tim is doing such amazing work for NAVA and the National.  20:23 Association of Voice Actors and I just have so much respect for him as a person and as an actor that I just felt like it was like the natural. That's what my creative mind was telling me to go in that direction for this year.  20:36 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's very relevant to the times in our industry. He's done a lot of work with NAava, along with Karin and the board, and they've done a lot of really wonderful work and so they're going to bring a lot of value, I believe, to your conference, absolutely. So let's talk about who else you have this year that might be different besides me, I mean, but we'll talk about me in a minute. I mean, we can talk about you.  20:58 Well, I'm just super excited to kind of bring what I consider my specialties all of the genres, the long format narration, all the stuff that I think right now is really it's important to be an actor, no matter what genre we're talking, whether it's animation, whether it's promo. I mean it's important to be an actor, and even more so now, with all of the synthetic voice, the AI stuff that's out there. It's more important than ever that we hone our skills as actors, and so I want to bring that aspect to the conference to help attendees that are looking to really up their game in the narration, which is a large part of the non-broadcast market out there, and so I'm happy to be there doing. Do you call it a breakout session or a session?  21:45 - Val Kelly (Guest) A mastery session.  21:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) A mastery session.  21:47 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, the three-hour sessions are mastery ones and I'm so excited about especially about your e-learning one, because that's a genre for me that I've always wanted to explore and I haven't enough, and you should.  22:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And you should because you're a teacher.  22:03 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, it seems like a natural thing to kind of dive into that world a little bit. So I'm very excited, I'm very honored to have you this year and I think it's going to be really great. It's been a long time coming to actually be able to invite you and everything like that, and so I'm very very excited.  22:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, so I'm going to be doing two mastery sessions one on acting for narration, and that's all types of narration corporate, medical, all of the geeky narrations explainer and then also the other aspect of the narration genres, which would be e-learning or training. So I'm very excited to have one of each of those to address all those topics. And so, guys, in order to do this, you need to sign up for MAVO, and so hopefully you'll sign up and then you'll look for my mastery classes, but you've got a lot of amazing offerings this year for MAVO, so you want to talk about who else you have for mastery sessions.  23:02 - Val Kelly (Guest) I mean, we have so many great people on board. I'll just highlight a few of them because there's just so many. But Jessica Blue is coming and she's doing some sessions on dubbing live action dubbing and I'm so excited about that because I've never had the chance to meet her in person and we've never offered sessions on dubbing before at Mavo.  23:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's great.  23:22 - Val Kelly (Guest) So it's something brand new and very exciting for people. So she's amazing, so that will be really great. Ever Oliver is coming and offering a special teen program on Saturday only of the event, so that's for teens from ages 13 to 17.  23:37 Great and he's doing like animation, video game and commercial voice acting with them, so it'll be a great opportunity for kids to experience working with Everett, which is amazing and so much fun. Also, luanne Regis is coming and she's a casting director and she used to be a talent agent, and so she's going to be offering some great sessions at the conference as well. Just giving her from a casting director's perspective of what are we really looking for and I think that's what everybody really wants to know- is like what do I?  24:12 need to do to actually book this. And then, also really exciting, we have Daniel Ross, who is Donald Duck. He's an Emmy Award winning actor and it's so exciting to have him offering a mastery session on animation and making bold choices, which is so, so important in the character world of trying to book those roles when you have so much competition with everybody trying to also audition for them.  24:40 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So, yeah, I mean, there's so many people.  24:43 - Val Kelly (Guest) It's a long list.  24:45 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So how can bosses sign up for MAVO this year? Where do they go? What's the website? All that stuff.  24:52 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, so wwwmidatlanticvocom, and they're going to click on MAVO events at the top tab and it will bring up all the events that we have going on. We have some like happy hours that go on virtually beforehand, so it 'll mostly be like every other week from now until the actual conference takes place and people can come to those happy hours online for free or they can like make a donation to Mabo if they want to. That's always an option like just to help support the company, but they can also certainly come for free and we're happy to have everybody there to just like network and chat. But yeah, everything is on the website the schedule and all about all the guest speakers and yeah, Fantastic, and you're going to be offering a special discount just for bosses.  25:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) For boss listeners out there, talk a little bit about that and how they can achieve that discount.  25:49 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah. So for the VO boss listeners, we're going to offer a $75 discount and you can just go to the website and click on Get Tickets and when you go to checkout you're going to just enter the code VOBOSS and it will take that $75 off for you on full weekend tickets.  26:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Awesome, that is so helpful, and guys don't forget to sign up for my mastery sessions and I'm also doing is it an hour long session too, which is for everybody at the conference. Oh yeah, there's a general session too, so that would be really great as well. Great Well, val, it has been such a pleasure chatting with you about Mayvo. I'm so excited and of course I'll just continue to plan my wardrobe.  26:33 - Val Kelly (Guest) Same same but.  26:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm so excited because you do have a wonderful lineup and I'm excited, of course, to see all of my friends and colleagues again. Wonderful lineup, and I'm excited, of course, to see all of my friends and colleagues again and I'm excited to work with the amazing talent that I know is going to be there in this boutique, wonderful, intimate setting for Mavo. So thanks again for joining me and I'm going to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can connect and network like bosses. Find out more at IPDTLcom Val. Thanks again, bosses. You guys have an amazing week and I'll see you next week. All right, take care, bye-bye.  27:12 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vo boss comm 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 IPD TL.   

As voiceover entrepreneurs, we face unique challenges, especially when it comes to retirement savings. Join Anne Ganguzza and Danielle Famble, as they share invaluable insights into the power of high-yield business savings accounts. You'll learn how these accounts can act as a safety net during lean months, accrue interest, and instill the discipline required to save consistently. The BOSSES recount their personal experiences to illustrate how a robust savings account can bolster confidence and enable you to take calculated risks in your business ventures. Plus, discover how the evolution of online banks has transformed the ability to manage finances and receive money easily to benefit our businesses. 00:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey Boss, listeners Anne Ganguza here. Think about the legacy you want to leave with your voice. It's more than just getting gigs. It's about creating moments that resonate, that shine, that linger in memory. Let's craft those moments together with coaching that's as dedicated to your artistry as you are. Your voice, your legacy, our journey together. Visit anganguz for more information.  00:31 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO Boss. Now let's welcome your host, nne Ganguzaa.  00:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey everyone, Welcome to the VO Boss podcast and the Boss Money Talk series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am tickled to bring back Danielle Famble to the show.  01:03 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Hey Anne, thanks for having me back. I've been really inspired by your red lipstick, so I'm wearing my own today. It's called Boss Lady.  01:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love it and you are definitely a boss lady. Speaking of being a boss and finances, I of course, check my bank statements all the time.  01:21 And can I just say that I first of all, love my business savings account to the point where I think it's like a must have for anybody in the business to just have a savings account, Because when times are lean and we know that this is a volatile industry sometimes we have good months, sometimes, you know, maybe not so good it's important to talk about having a business savings account. And, by the way, I have a high yield business savings account.  01:48 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Oh, my goodness. Oh, I love high yield savings accounts.  01:52 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That is a thing, and one thing I do want you bosses to know I am not a financial advisor nor is. Danielle, even though we love to talk about money, we are not financial advisors, so that is our disclaimer. We're just giving you our experiences with finances and growing our company, so let that be our disclaimer.  02:11 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yes, this is not financial advice. We're just talking about what we know and what we love and how it's helped us.  02:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) There you go, so business savings account.  02:19 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) What are?  02:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) your thoughts on business savings accounts.  02:22 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Like you, I love my high-yield savings account. I absolutely love seeing how much interest that it brings into the account every single month. It is amazing when you think about it. But you also need to make sure that you are putting money into your savings account.  02:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) In order to gain that interest, in order to gain that interest.  02:42 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) So really it's not spending or utilizing every dollar that comes into your business, similar to personal finance making sure that you have enough money for the volatility of this industry so that you can pay yourself and pay your assistants or whomever that your business needs to pay in the lean times. It's really important.  03:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now let me ask you high-yield savings account Now. It used to be back in the day when you had a checking account, banks were offering all these incentives and you would get interest, you know, if you kept in a certain amount of money. Same thing with savings account. But it seems like all of a sudden there's high-yield savings account. Or is it just that I didn't pay attention before? Because all of a sudden I know that my money sat in the bank because I have my Bank of America for like ages, because that just was my bank, but yet it wasn't earning a lot of money, it wasn't earning a lot of interest. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh, look at this from American Express, there's a high yield savings account here and wow, look at that interest rate. I should be maybe throwing my money over there because it wasn't making a whole lot of money. Sitting there Is high-yield savings account, just a thing nowadays. Did it just happen where it just became a thing, or was I missing out all those years?  03:51 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I have to be honest with you. I'm not exactly sure how old or new high-yield savings accounts are. I can tell you that for me, when it came to personal finance, I got clued in into the power of high yield savings accounts and being able to make more money on my money in terms of interest, really, when I started to get serious, which was about six or seven years ago, so it could be relatively new. Typically, these banks are online banks and because they don't have the overhead that brick and mortar banks do, they're able to offer these incentives and offer higher interest. A way to look up a high yield account is really just to go online and Google and try to find one that has a business account, if you can. That's what I have been able to do, me too. Again, I don't know how old or new it is, but I do know that being able to have access to these products it's really important, and being able to have the discipline really to save is actually what fuels the ability to get the money and the interest.  04:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And I will say that I was not confident in growing my business or taking risks in growing my business until I had a substantial amount of money in my savings account.  04:57 - Intro (Announcement) And what?  04:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) is substantial. I mean for me to feel comfortable that maybe I could pay my rent or pay my mortgage right if I didn't do any business. You know, like they always say, like you want to have as much money in your savings account like accrue three months worth of what it costs you to live in your savings account, and I would say that still holds true. I think that that made me feel comfortable.  05:17 Once I was in voiceover, knowing that if I had a lean month I was okay because I had that money in savings and so it is something that once I was able to accrue that and whatever it took right, I was putting $100 a month away or $50, whatever I could afford at the time.  05:33 And then, as I made more money, I just made sure that I always put into my savings account until I got to that point where I had a good three months. And then I was like it was so freeing and it was so confidence building that I had that good three months. And then I was like it was so freeing and it was so confidence building that I had that money that I could say, hmm, maybe I'll try a new genre, maybe I'll get a new demo or maybe I'll invest in this type of marketing or whatever it is. It allowed me that comfort to invest money to grow my business, and that, I think, is what was so instrumental in having a business savings account. Whether it's high yield or not, right, just having that amount of money aside was what gave me the confidence to grow my business. Other than that, I was living paycheck to paycheck. Who wants to live paycheck to paycheck?  06:19 I mean, that's just not the way to grow your business in voiceover and it's tough and I know a lot of people that might be where they're at and I encourage you to find a way to put a little bit away each month or each week or whatever you can do to grow that savings account.  06:37 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yeah, that's huge. It's a psychological boost too, because you know that if there are lean months which as we know there are there are lean times that you can take care of yourself and the ability to sort of dip your toe into maybe a different genre or do something that makes you feel a little bit more uncomfortable, that your security blanket is this account that can buoy you If it doesn't work out or if it takes a little bit longer. It makes you feel much more confident and secure because you are, because you are the one who is securing yourself. It's a really big deal. It's a big deal to be able to have that and the confidence that it gives you. It was a game changer. Yeah, it's a game changer. A game changer for me.  07:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It really really was, and it catapulted my business into different areas. I mean, everybody knows I've got multiple brands, and so I would not have been able to grow those brands had I not had that comfort or confidence level of having a little bit of cash so that, okay, I could spend more time building up this brand instead of auditioning, or I could invest in a demo, or I could invest in a virtual assistant, right. Again, we just had an episode talking about hiring assistants, right. And so that savings account gave me such a big boost in order to grow, and I continue to make sure that I have money in that. And what's nice is that, even though, let's say, some months I may not be able to put as much into it, right, the one that is a highield savings account is such a bonus, right now because it's accruing a higher interest rate than any of my other accounts, and so I am continuing to get more confidence in putting money in there.  08:16 So the more you make an interest, the more you want to put in it.  08:18 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yeah, the account is helping you out.  08:20 - Intro (Announcement) Exactly.  08:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So the high-yield savings account is a boon and again, we're not financial advisors, but look into it. I mean Google. I know that for me. It's really given me even more confidence than I had before. So always, always, really make it a point to have a business savings account and business savings account. I mean it's great to have a savings account your personal but, as we discussed before, right when you're running your business, you really want to separate your accounts, exactly.  08:46 Into business checking and business savings and most banks right. If you're going to open up a business account with them, they're going to have options for you to open a business savings account.  09:01 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yeah, and you really just kind of have between the personal savings and the business savings Because, as Danielle, I have my own personal savings for me and then the business that I'm running has its own savings account that I'm going to be able to utilize that money if I need it for any sort of business expenses, and keeping that separate. Going back to the basics of finance, keeping those two things separate really helps me out when it comes to tax time. It helps me out in the day-to-day running of my personal life and my business. So, yes, keeping them separate, and the same way that you keep your money separate from your business and your personal, keeping your savings account separate as well. And knowing what are you utilizing that savings for? Obviously, it's not meant to be used for everyday purposes, but what are the criteria for when you would need to dip into that savings account? Really just kind of having a plan for your money.  09:53 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, yeah, and it also helps in your financial well-being in terms of how banks perceive you. Your FICO score. All of that contributes. Right, these are your assets, right, this is money that you have. And it's one of those things when I spoke to you about making that $500 stock investment in the company that I worked for, right, and I just forgot about it because it was, I considered it my spare change and I'm just going to put it in and, well, I'm going to look at it, but I'm not going to obsess over it and just kind of forget about it. And the nice thing is, when you have it in a bank, that when they want your business, they're going to offer you perks of that, and so high yield savings is one of them, and so that money just grows, right, I can just put it in there and it just grows. And when I look at the monthly statement and I say, whoa, look at how much interest I got this month.  10:39 It makes me want to put more into it. It makes me want to find ways to put more into it. And when you're talking about manifesting abundance and you're talking about positive things that spur you on and having faith and thinking in terms of having abundance, that is really helps. I'll tell you, when you're looking at that account and it keeps growing, that can really be a big mental help to you feeling successful in terms of your business.  11:06 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yeah, it's the evidence right. It's the evidence that what you are doing and what you've been doing is working and that it's growing. So, having that sort of tangible you know the statement to see I put this much money in and this is how much my money made, without really me doing anything other than putting that money into this account, it's evidence that what you're doing is working and to keep going.  11:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And it's not like you're taking a risk like the stock market. You're investing yourself in your business, exactly, so it's a fairly stable. Unless the bank goes under right, it's a fairly stable yeah well, that's a whole nother podcast but it's a fairly stable way to grow your money.  11:41 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Right and also to grow your confidence. I really love that and I think it's really important the distinction of, yes, you're growing your business, but also you're growing your confidence and you're growing your ability in your business to grow and invest and take risks, which helps you potentially grow your business. You're investing in your confidence, not just monetarily, but in that emotional feeling of security that only you can give yourself. It's a big deal.  12:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and it doesn't take much.  12:10 I mean, bosses, you're already risk takers, right, because you've decided to get into voiceover, you've decided to become an entrepreneur, you've decided to start a business.  12:18 This is just another aspect of it, and it's an aspect of it that can give you that cushion to weather all types of storms that can happen within your business. There's just so many people I know that are like they gave it all up to invest in voiceover but yet they don't necessarily have savings. And I know as a coach, when I'm talking to students that want to get into this industry, and there's a lot of people during the pandemic right that lost their jobs, that wanted quick money, and I was careful to say that voiceover does require an investment. It's not that you're going to be able to make quick money right away, and we all know that those of us that have been in the industry, this is the same kind of thing, really that you want to make sure that you've taken the risks and now you've got another savings account that can help you survive and weather those storms as you move forward in your business.  13:06 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) It's infrastructure. It's setting up the infrastructure for the what-ifs or what could happen in your business and it's creating sort of more cushion for yourself, just in case things happen. Also, saving maybe totally different, but saving for things that you need to do in your business. Maybe it's setting aside a certain amount of money for taxes, maybe it's setting aside a certain amount of money because you want to attend conferences and you need to travel and take the time away. That can be part of the business savings. But I think making sure that you have the mindset that the money that is coming into your business, not all of it, needs to be spent or used now you do need to put a certain amount of money aside for certain things taxes, education, investing in your business, investing in yourself in the lean times and in the slower times. It's really looking at what is happening in your business and creating the infrastructure for what could happen.  14:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And you know, what else is interesting too is that with some banks, they'll give you more benefits, right, the more you have. So if you open up this type of business savings account, you need to maintain a certain amount of money in there, and when you do that, you'll get free checking, you'll get a lower interest, credit card from them, all types of things, different perks, you'll get 3% back or you'll get money back, and so it behooves you to do that, because they're also offering you incentives to kind of keep money in that savings account, right, and you're not going to just have it to like blow in the first month on a new microphone or a new demo, but to maintain funds in there, right, so that you can keep up the benefits.  14:40 - Intro (Announcement) And so.  14:40 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I like that. There's like a double incentive. Really it's nice to have that cushion and then you'd want to keep it in there, and it's not like we haven't really discussed retirement funds or mutual funds or anything like that, and again, we're not financial advisors. However, they work differently, where, if you keep the money in there for a certain amount of time, or you're required to keep money in there for a certain amount of time or until you reach a certain age as retirement.  15:04 A business savings account is simply just a business savings account where you're not penalized if you have to take money out. So I think it's got like everything in it. You know what I mean? It's got that added cushion security. You get benefits if you keep more in it, but yet you're not penalized if you have to take out of it. Necessarily.  15:21 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yeah, it's access, potentially very quick access to the money that you have that you've put aside for whatever it is that you are saving for. I think it's important to have access to the sort of quick access to the account, so like a business savings account and then other more long-term, like you were discussing you know we're not financial advisors but having access to your money for retirement or things like that. It's really important to have the infrastructure for short-term, medium-term and long-term savings.  15:52 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, especially because, as entrepreneurs, you're not necessarily contributing to a pension fund from your own business, right? There's a lot of people that we haven't even really talked. We'll probably have an entire podcast dedicated to retirement, but you probably are not thinking about contributing to a retirement fund, so this can be one step towards money that can go into that Although I do think that's another separate podcast episode that we need to talk about because I'm very lucky because I have a pension coming from my experience in education and my husband has a pension fund coming from a job that he worked for previously. So when we retire, we're going to have that money, and so I'm not necessarily contributing to a quote unquote retirement fund.  16:38 But I do have mutual funds through my financial advisor that I'm investing money in, and I have an independent retirement fund that I basically take $100 a month for that particular account, and I would recommend that as well for anybody that is not necessarily have a retirement fund, because all of a sudden, you're going to be at retirement age and you're going to be like oh, wait, a minute, I don't have. Where's that money? Do I have money in savings? Do I have that money in a fund that can help support me when I'm no longer working and most people say, well, I could work in voiceover forever. But I mean, look, I love voiceover but I'm not going to work in it forever. I mean, at some point my voice will crack and sound old and I'm going to be tired. I'll be happily traveling the world living off my savings slash retirement because I invested.  17:27 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Now so it's something bossy. You're painting a wonderful picture of your life, and I'm just like me too. That's it. That's what I want to do.  17:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm going to be traveling the world and it's because I'm thinking now about those things, right, and of course, in reality we should have been thinking about it and people tell you all the time, right, Thinking about retirement when you're like 18.  17:47 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) But think about savings.  17:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Best time to save and invest is yesterday and next best time is now and so, in terms of some people were like, well, I just don't have it right To invest in savings. And again, if you are in voiceover and you're living paycheck to paycheck, really consider thinking about that. You know, I mean, and I did it when I first started full-time in voiceover, I had a part-time job.  18:09 I worked my butt off contributing and saving and having a fund so that I could ultimately, when it got to the point where I was making more money doing voiceover, I could ultimately stop that part-time job, but I do encourage all of you if you are living paycheck to paycheck on voiceover, maybe it's time to consider a job that will bring in some steady income that you can put into a savings account.  18:31 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Exactly have something that will help invest, input capital into your life and to your business. This is a long process. Entrepreneurship is a marathon and you have to learn how to pivot as time goes on, and maybe that means that you need to bring in something that will help bring in capital to your life and your business. Maybe that's a part-time job, maybe it's freelancing, maybe it's figuring out how you can pivot to make money elsewhere. Whatever it is being able to have again, the infrastructure of savings around you is incredibly important because it's a long game and there's nothing wrong nothing at all wrong with having outside resources. That's bringing you in money outside of voiceover.  19:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Gosh, no, I mean I was just talking to somebody the other day. I always talk about my Chanel lipstick or whatever it is, but I love fashion, right, and so if I love something like that and I'm spending a lot of money on clothes because I recently did lose a little bit of weight, so congratulations.  19:32 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Oh, thank you.  19:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) But I mean, what's wrong with finding something that brings me joy? So maybe I'll be an affiliate or I will do some form of my business that will allow companies to maybe send me free clothes or make some money off of the clothes that I buy so I can buy more clothes. So it's that kind of a mentality. And I'm still doing voiceover. I'm still a coach, I'm still, but I happen to love fashion. So I just added that kind of to my alternate. This is what Anne's going to do on her free time. Maybe I can make a couple extra dollars that I can put into that high yield savings account and have fun along the way, right? Yeah, so it really is. I think, up to us as entrepreneurs, right? There's nothing saying you have to do 24-7 of voiceover in order to have a successful business.  20:20 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Absolutely. What can you do and how can you do it that will bring money into your ecosystem, your business, your life, so that you can use that money to fund really everything else about your life. And that means also saving, because saving is really just putting money aside for future you so that future you can benefit. That's right. It's also a discipline too. For me it's been a discipline of looking at the amount of money that I have access to and dedicating some of those funds to my longer term savings maybe retirement or maybe, as you were talking about, mutual funds and investments but also to my business high yield savings account, to my business account, because I know that one day I will need access to that money.  21:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely, and a lot of times the banks will make it very easy. You can have it $100 or $50 or $25 or $500, whatever it is on a monthly basis, literally just streamed into those accounts, into your savings account, into your retirement fund, whatever it is, it can be done automatically, so you don't even see it. It's like when you worked for my company and they would ultimately take out so much money for retirement or whatever it is, automatically and then match that back in the day when companies did that. Very few companies do that anymore, but it's similar to that. So when it's taken out automatically, you don't necessarily notice it. So try to implement those things right so that you can contribute regularly and consistently to a savings account, so that you can have that money for when you want to go travel or retire from whatever it is you're doing.  21:51 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I will tell you that automation is the way that I was able to consistently put the money in savings in the first place.  21:57 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's hard when you manually have to do it, you know.  21:59 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Because it takes away the human element. The human has emotions about money and may not want to put that money in these accounts. Oh, so true. The automation doesn't have that, so it's going to continue to do what you've set it up to do, and actually that's how you get the result that you're wanting when you take away the human element.  22:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love how you said that there's the emotional element to money, and again, we could write a book on that right there's an emotional element to money.  22:24 In so many ways. We have such a connection to it, whether we want to or not, right? I mean, it's how there's a roof over my head, it's how I afford this microphone, it's how I can afford to put clothes on my body and food in my body, and so there is a lot of emotion tied around money. So if you can make that emotion as painless and as easy, and even as possible.  22:48 Yeah, make it invisible, I mean. And they also say that one of the most frequent causes for divorce is financial right Issues and troubles. So if you can make it easy and seamless, why not? And a business savings account for me, having it taken out automatically, having my money grow on a monthly basis and being encouraged and inspired to contribute on a regular basis to it, it's a no brainer. It should be a no brainer, I think, for everybody that wants to run a successful business.  23:16 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yeah, and it's a tool to be able to utilize and run your business successfully. It's just another thing, it's another tool in the tool belt. It's a way to help you feel more confident when times are a little bit tougher, and it's a way to know that you can fund the business that you are running. It's invaluable. I love it.  23:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely. And again, we both decided early on bosses that we could just spend 27 minutes saying I love my high yield savings account.  23:43 - Intro (Announcement) I love my high yield savings account.  23:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love my high yield savings account Again, not that we're trying to push anything on you, but we are not financial advisors. How many times do I have to say that to this time? But no, really, I mean it's the most amazing thing, because I'd been sitting there for years, like literally for years, watching getting pennies, like every month, in my bank account. I'm like what happened? It used to be the banks were like here, we're going to give you so much percent each month for keeping this money in our bank, and it just became a little bit different until, like you said, the online banks who don't have the overhead costs of brick and mortar, can offer those things right and again.  24:16 And my bank has really upped its game too, by the way, because when I told them about my high yield savings account, I said, well, why are you not matching that? And so they actually came up with because I wanted to have a business savings account as well as a high yield business savings account. Right, with them, they upped their game. So it's something you can actually talk to your bank about and say look, why can't you offer me this amount of interest? A lot of times? Banks, if they want your business, they're going to work with you.  24:48 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) So yeah, and also just educating yourself of what is out there. To be completely honest with you, for the longest time and for me, coming from a musical theater background I never, ever, ever considered what I would need to do to have savings for my business. The education for me happened from my personal life, for personal finance and then bringing that into how I'm running my business. But, to be honest with you, for me I wasn't even really thinking about savings because I was just looking at what was coming in. I need this money now, okay.  25:16 It kind of just kept cycling through the moment, but really stopping and taking a look and saying, okay, I can be the person to fund my level of confidence and security when I'm in an industry that is volatile sometimes. That is a complete game changer and it requires thinking about things differently, but it also requires educating yourself of what options are out there for you to be able to do that.  25:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And bosses repeat after us like I love money, right, danielle? I think the two of us could just say I love money, I love money.  25:48 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) I love money.  25:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That is our emotional attachment, right? We just said that there's a lot of emotion attached to it. I love money, and so if I didn't love money, if I hated money, it would not want to come into my life, right? I mean, I can't be hating things that I want to manifest, hating things that I want to manifest, and so I love my relationship with money. And at times, yes, it's tough that it runs the world, it's tough that I have to spend so much on a monthly basis to put the roof over my head or that oh my gosh, you know how much is food these days. It can be frustrating at times, but in reality, my relationship with money is to have a love affair with it so that I can manifest it in abundance.  26:23 - Danielle Famble (Co-host) Yes, and a love affair that is not fear. Yeah, because when you're running away from something, even if it's trying to catch you, then it really seems like it's just chasing after you. So a love affair and being open to it and wanting it, and wanting to learn about it, and wanting to invest the time into it. I love money too, anne. I think we I love money too.  26:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's it. That's it. We can go home High-yield savings account and we love money. There you go, bosses. What a great conversation. Again, we could say this 500 more times, but I think you guys get the point. I'm going to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can connect, network, make money like bosses and find out more at IPDTLcom. There you go, you guys have an amazing week and we will see you next week. Bye.  27:10 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at VOBosscom and receive exclusive content industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a bosscom 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 IPD TL.   

00:03 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses, ever feel overwhelmed by marketing? I get it. Let's tackle it together with a VO Boss Blast. We're all about making marketing as enjoyable as voice acting itself. Dive in with me and let's blast off together and let's turn those marketing challenges into victories. Sign up today at VOBoss.com.  00:27 - Tolu Kolade (Ad) Hi Anne. My name is Tolu Kolade. I am a Nigerian and I love your podcast. I listen every week. I discovered it last year and I must say it has been an incredible eye-opener for me, helping me to get better in my craft, even as an Nigerian and an African. There are many tips that are so useful for me and, guess what? You inspired me to also create my own podcast, which is also based on voiceovers. So I love what you do and keep doing what you do, thank you.  01:02 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a vo boss.  01:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) ! hey everyone, welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and the boss superpower series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza and I'm here with the very lovely Lau Lapides today. Hey, annie, so happy to be here. As always, law, you look lovely.  01:37 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Thank you gorgeous today. You do too. We're getting ready for summer that's right.  01:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's right. You know it's funny because I just celebrated my eighth year for VO Boss. Woohoo, woohoo, yeah, eighth year and things have changed. I'll tell you what in podcasting and, of course, in our own industry, but I used to only do this audio. But the way technology has evolved I mean, everything is video content and on camera and it just has changed. So we have to be prepared not just for doing the voice, but I had to do my hair this morning and do the color coordination and the outfit, so wait are you trying to tell me that you may have to be on camera?  02:16 yes, we may have to be on camera as voice actors, and that's like remember everybody in the beginning I got into voiceover so that I didn't have to show my face. But guess what, guys? There's an entire world of opportunities that law firsthand can talk about in terms of casting right and on-camera work.  02:36 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Yes, and you can talk about it too, because you're always webcasting. This is true Podcasting and on-camera social media.  02:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Content Casting with.  02:44 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Zoom, I mean it's endless. On-camera social media on-casting with Zoom, I mean it's endless. We are on, on, on camera and we were just talking about this before and I think it's really important for voiceover talent at all levels to be thinking about potentially nabbing some on-camera work. Yeah, Really, the opportunities are there, they're vast. Yes, it gets slow and there's ebbs and flows, just like there are in voiceover.  03:04 But if you are going to reach out, say, for instance, to an agency, and you say, well, I want to get some more reps or I need a rep.  03:10 I don't even have a rep, how do I do it? One of your checkboxes, if you can, is the fact that you are able, capable and willing and wanting to do on-camera work, because a lot of the agencies, especially the boutique agencies, will sign you what they call across the board, meaning they're interested in you as a voiceover talent, but they also want to know you can do on-camera commercial work or print work or anything that has to do with, maybe, a non-broadcast industrial. So I would say I mean one of the things I always say to our coaching clients is think about it. If you absolutely do not want to be doing it, be honest and don't do it, because there's a huge line behind you of actors that want to do it. Yeah, absolutely. And we convert many voiceover talent to also do on camera and have that combo on their resume and they love it. And oftentimes they say, oh, I had no idea how fun this was, I thought I had a face for radio. And I say you have to retire that old, stupid phrase.  04:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, it is old and stupid.  04:15 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) You're absolutely right, and let me tell you the stranger, you look the odder, you look the more real, you look the more work you get. You're going to get more work than a supermodel.  04:26 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, the more desirable you are. Absolutely Flaws and everything, guys. I mean I actually love that the camera is embracing these things now, because real people, right, real people.  04:38 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Real people. There's an agency in New York, Annie, that's pretty hip. It's called Funny Faces and they represent only real people. Now, those are actors still. They're trained actors. But they're actors that specifically do not look like model types, which is most actors and they're getting most of the work because they want just like in voiceover today they want real people. They want real people who look like real people and who sound like real people.  05:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, absolutely, absolutely. I love that. So I would have my students say to me oh gosh, I thought I was just training for voiceover. I just spent all this money training for voiceover. What do I have to do for on-camera?  05:21 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) law. One thing I would say is and I hear this a lot, I've heard this for years and years is oh, that's an interesting idea, I wouldn't mind doing that. I mean, if they asked me, I'd say I wouldn't mind it. I'd say listen, don't ever come into it that way, Because I wouldn't mind. It is like saying yeah is like saying you know, yeah, would you clean up the table? I don't mind cleaning up the table. No, you have to have some passion for it. You have to have some real wanting to do it Because, just like in voiceover, you're up against trained actors. You're up against people who really are dying for jobs and want the job.  05:55 So you really want to have. Find that in you. Test it, train Coach number one, just like in everything we say. Coach for acting for on camera. Take some improv classes. Make sure you're in a few acting classes, that you're having fun. You must have fun. If it's against your grain, if it's like taking medicine when you're sick, don't do it. You really have to do it. If you're saying, oh, this is kind of enjoyable, it's kind of sassy, I'm having a good time with that, or all right, you have to come into it with the right spirit and the right positive mindset, otherwise it's like don't do us any favors because you're not doing us any favors. We can find and work with trained actors very, very easily. So come in with a good attitude, coach, and take your classes. Start thinking right away about getting involved with films, student films, independent films. It's not about money at that point.  06:50 It's about building an actor real and building your resume and getting some experience in front of the camera.  06:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Certainly, theater if you're interested in theater, great, but that's a different path and how simple is it now, with social media and our iPhones, that we can get comfortable in front of the camera. And it is a thing, guys, because I know when I first started getting out there, okay, you've got to look at the camera, like right now I'm looking at the camera and I want to look at law on the screen in front of me, but no, I have to look at my camera because that's where my eyes go and so, like little things like that, and then just being able to be yourself, being able to go off script, being able to be on script and sound natural, and to just have that again, that authentic, you come out, gosh. We have all the time in the world and all the resources at our fingertips to start to see if maybe that's something we're comfortable with.  07:41 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) So true and one of the things that people don't realize is 90% of your casting for on camera is the way you look. Maybe 95% is the way you look. It doesn't mean you don't have to have talent you do. It just means they're going to cast you first on your physical type and then they're going to see what you're bringing to the table. So working on memorization is a big deal. That's really part of your job. To memorize scripts, learning how to use a teleprompter on their laptop, which is a wonderful skill to learn. If anything, it focuses your brain and keeps you very calm. There's just some interesting skills that are going to help you in your voiceover, your character building, your analysis of a script of a character.  08:26 You're thinking fast on your feet in improv. How do I create off other people and really acutely listen to what they're saying to me and really be able to create? I'll tell you, I know firsthand that when you're in a film, set or TV— Listen without interrupting.  08:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Written on my shirt Listen, Listen to my breast without interrupting. I know, and I just interrupted you while I said that. So See how I took my own advice yeah, there we go, that's great, that's great.  08:57 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) But I mean, I'll tell you, especially with the younger generation coming up, annie, the directors are different nowadays, like they are really wanting actors to come in and be prepared and give them ideas, give them characters, give them stuff that they can have fun with, steal and run away with and enjoy with you. Hasn't that always been?  09:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) the way I feel like that's always been.  09:19 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) I feel like in voiceover.  09:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) People are always like well, why do they write the script like that when they want us to be real? Well, because I think they want to hear your interpretation of it, and so I think half the time those scripts are written with an intensive purpose yes, to make you get creative and really figure out how you're going to tell that story, even though you have no idea what those words mean. That's really what it is, and a lot of those directors.  09:42 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) No commentary on them, in particular, on that generation in particular. They're not trained to train you. They're trained to cast you and to have you get as close to the role as possible. Where they're tweaking you. They're trained to cast you and to have you get as close to the role as possible. Where they're tweaking you, they're doing adjustments with you. They don't want to give you the character, they don't want to build you from the ground up. They don't want to give you an acting class. They want you to make yeah, it is like voiceover. They want you to make life easy for them, fast. For them, time is money. They're renting equipment from houses. They don't want to have that extra day of shooting and oftentimes you won't even meet the actors until the day of the shoot.  10:19 That's your husband, that's your child, that's your—so you have to learn. That's why we always say take improv, take improv. Because you have to learn to say oh, annie is now your therapist. Oh, anne's now your sister. Oh, anne's now your lover, now your therapist. Oh, anne's now your sister. Oh, anne's now your lover. Whatever, you have to learn to buy into it very quick and say yes and yes and yes and and for the voiceover on a script. I think it's invaluable because it really allows you to walk into the world of the copy very fast.  10:47 Oh, absolutely, and not second guess it quite as much as we would, as us but to say, okay, well, you know, mcdonald's could be in a fairy tale land. Sure, why not, you know?  10:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I talk to people all the time and my voiceover students all the time about the script and I'm like how many times do you run into your studio and you simply recite the words in a melody that you hear in your head without understanding the story behind it? And when there are words that come up and you're like I have no idea what that means, you just say them, and when you say them with no point of view, you haven't been able to tell a story, you haven't shown that you've done the work. And that's why, when you audition and you can come in with that story and that point of view and you've got that improv, that subtextual understanding, that character backstory, you've got that all figured out, even for an e-learning module I'm just saying Even for corporate then they know that you're an actor and they know that they can cast you and direct you to just about anything and that is the work that we actors must do and if we do that work in voiceover, it's absolutely plausible and possible for you to do it on camera, no question.  11:55 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) And there is that spirit that actors talk about, that takes them over, where it goes from words on a page I'm comprehending it, I'm analyzing it, I'm trying to understand it and profile it to oh, this interpretation that comes over you, that starts to personalize from your reservoir, your emotional reservoir. Well, we're always asking for that in voiceover too. Like, how do I personalize the script, how do I get to my reservoir of tone and emotion so that I don't get sing-songy and I don't fall into cadence and rhythm? It's what a lot of our agents in casting say after they audition talent. That person is not connected.  12:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh, absolutely, you need to be connected. You need to be connected. I kind of keep bringing this back to voiceover, sorry, because there's so many parallels where so many people will complain the way the script is written. I'm like that's not your job to complain about how the script is written. I mean, it's your job as an actor to interpret that script and to interpret that script in a way that makes it authentic and believable.  12:57 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Yeah, and the reality is, if you really don't like it and you have a right to disagree with it, not like it or just not want to do it then don't do it, rather than coming into the job and saying, well, why is it written this way and why?  13:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) is it?  13:10 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) this way. Well then, already I'm not open to the job, I'm really not open to the job. So we always say when you're coming into a role, don't judge it, don't adjudicate it, don't make commentary on it, as you, as the actor, just try to engage, try to communicate with it, try to personalize it in every way you can, as quickly as possible.  13:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, yes, yes, and that takes practice and we had another podcast that we talked about the amount of work that it takes. Right, that takes practice to do that, to understand that, to do the analysis, to get the acting to understand the subtext and to really do the preparation needed to execute voiceover or on camera, that acting, so that it is something successful for you.  13:56 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Yeah, I hear voiceover talent all the time say things like well, this is hard. I would never, say this.  14:02 I would never say this. I said because this isn't you saying this, this is someone else saying this. You're embodying the spirit of someone else. You really are. I mean, we're not asking you to say this or feel this in your kitchen. We're asking you to do this as part of your job. So if you say, well, as part of my job, I'm capable of doing this and this could possibly happen, Well then you open the door Psychologically. You open the door to really authentically, authentically playing it. You open the door to really authentically, authentically playing it. Yeah, absolutely, Because you've already bought into the idea that this could happen. This way.  14:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, yes, you have to buy into the idea. I love that.  14:41 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) You have to buy into it.  14:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You have to buy into the idea.  14:44 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) That's why acting is so fun. Even if you never do anything on camera related or theater related, still do acting class, do improv, do everything you can because it shifts your mindset into a more playful fun place.  15:03 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, I love that. And so what advice would you give people that are in voiceover that want to expand into on-camera? First and foremost, what do they need to do? Who do they need to contact? What classes would they take right? Do they need a reel? What are the essentials?  15:17 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) Right, well, our studio does these. I mean, many studios do classes. Now we do our online, of course. I would say one thing, though if you can take an in-studio class in your city, in your town, in your state, definitely do it, because it's a different experience when you're physically in a room with people as an actor versus online. And I would say, do both, because being online is great too. We get to see you on camera, you get to see what it's like just dealing with all the technical elements on camera, but I would also say, be in a room with people as well, see how you like it.  15:50 You have to feel it out, and I would also coach in it as well, so that you can understand audition material. You can see what your type is Similar to voiceover, right, like what is a realistic type for me to go after? What are the different genres I might be interested in? And then, what is an actor reel? How do I build an actor reel? That's all video-based. How do I put that together? What does actors access and casting networks have to do with it? This is before you seek representation. Do not seek representation until you get your trade down, like voiceover. You really have to have the background of understanding an actor's vocabulary. Once you get that actor's vocabulary and you know that, oh, if I go after a commercial, they're going to expect me to memorize the script, I know that. So this is the vocabulary that we speak of. And then you've got to have practice time, practice rehearsal, coaching, classwork. Now.  16:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) La, let's distinguish. I want to hear from you. I know how to distinguish. In my words, how do you distinguish on camera from, let's say, on stage, oh, it's a totally different world in the sense that they're both highly technical worlds.  17:14 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) But it's a different kind of commitment when you do theater, because theater oftentimes is longer, it takes a longer time to rehearse, oftentimes, the performance runs are longer and you have to physically be somewhere in person for a length of time. That can be difficult for theater. That's what they do. They're artists oftentimes, so you should experience that too. Like again go take a stand-up class, go take an improv class, go take something that's short-term, where you're live and you get to be on a stage or you get to be in a studio.  17:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So if you are a theater actor, is it easy to transition to on camera? That's a question I would get from my students, because I have a lot of theater students that come into voiceover.  17:41 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) I would get from my students, because I have a lot of theater students that come into voiceover. You know what? I don't know. I don't overthink that. I think that there's too much chat about that when really excellent actors, like all the Hollywood actors we know and love, all started out in theater. Almost all of them started out in theater and they found ways, as they worked, as they auditioned, to transition, to internalize emotion, to not allow as many physical gyration and physical largeness to happen, but I wouldn't overanalyze it because I think it's a very interesting craft.  18:11 It's a craft and it's one that you learn as you do it. You have to do it to really learn how to do it. You have to work with different directors, different crews, different folks to see how do they see you Similar to voiceover how do they hear you, how do they see you and really start buying into the archetypes that they're seeing you as Like. If I get called out for a role, I'm almost always being called out for some sort of mother role yeah, almost always. So I'm seen as that archetype of that, whatever that is, and then there's all sorts of variations on that theme.  18:49 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So really have fun with that you know, it's so interesting because a lot of my theater actor students will come to me and then they'll find it somewhat difficult to transition because now that they're behind a microphone they don't have another physical presence to play off of, but they have to bring that imaginary physical presence into the booth with them.  19:06 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) That's exactly right. That's exactly right and that's the thing. I think that's hard for theater actors Some transition well and some do not transition well because they're used to ensemble style rehearsal, so they're used to showing up. There are other people there. You've got a director and they've got energy back and forth.  19:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, absolutely, that's something you've got to create in the booth, and same thing with on camera. Even on camera, I mean, there's energy of people maybe behind the camera or maybe energy of people within the scene that you're working with, but a lot of times if you're just being a a one person on camera talent, you've got to play to that camera. So you do and you have to show up prepared.  19:46 - Lau Lapides (Co-host) So when you go in, you have to assume OK, they have X amount of time, they're renting equipment, they're renting location, they're doing all these things so that they can help me shine. I have to know my lines, I have to know what playing a mother is, and then I meet the other actors. So I have to do all that work before I even get on the set, and that's very different than theater, whereas theater is much more organic. You come in and you do your table, read, you discuss it, you grow the characters together. It's a very different kind of process and that's why people love theater and they get addicted to theater.  20:20 Sure, absolutely, because they want that energy back and forth, that energy give and take.  20:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's so interesting because in all of the voiceover theater on camera there are all the similarities in the acting. It's just physically and mentally what you need to do slightly different to get to a place in either one. It's all incredible. All being said, you got to be an actor. So what a great, interesting conversation today, law. Thank you so much for your input and your wisdom on that.  20:47 I love it. Bosses, think about this as a way to maybe expand in your business, and, of course, it's always great to expand your actor skills. It will all help you in the booth in the end. So, absolutely so. Big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can network and communicate like pros like Law and myself. Find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Bye, see you next week. Love you guys.  21:16 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Ann Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL coast connectivity via ipdtl.  21:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses, I'm so excited to announce our third audition demolition coming up live september 27th, and our uh diet. Ugh, oh shit, all right, damn it. Good morning, kiss me off. That was good too, I know, fucking shit. Audition deadline the 20th Okay, september 27th. All right, that's my problem. I have it written here, but I just don't have it in front of my face, so That'll end up in bloopers next time, ugh.