VO BOSS

Today's voiceover landscape is brimming with untapped potential, and we're here to map it out for you. From acing live Zoom auditions to nailing in-person meetings, we've got you covered with all the preparation and adaptability tips you'll need. Join us as we delve into diversifying your voiceover skillset and why leaning into a variety of genres, like e-learning and corporate narration, could be your ticket to consistent work. Plus, don't miss our candid discussion on the art of evolution in the voice acting world, emphasizing the importance of ongoing training and a measured approach to carving out your niche. Whether you're a newbie to the mic or a vocal veteran, this dialogue is tuned to resonate with your voiceover aspirations. 00:01 - 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.  00:20 - Anne (Host) Hello everyone, welcome to the VO Boss podcast and the Boss Superpower series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with my super special boss guest co-host Lau Lapitas.  00:33 - Lau (Guest) And it's great to be back, as always, yay awesome, all right Lau.  00:39 - Anne (Host) We've got a topic that I know is probably pretty common that you hear. I've been hearing it quite a bit lately and it's all about and I have been at this for a year now and I just am not booking. What can I do? I don't know what to do at this point. I don't know if I should just give up voiceover, or how do I get more bookings? So there's a good question, Lau.  01:09 - Lau (Guest) It's a great question and it's a common question. I know you and I have fielded that one for years and continue to do so, and I just had a client in a coaching session who the entire session was about that. Right, she was angry, frustrated, she was frustrated, she was hitting a wall, depressed, yeah, but just kind of like at a loss. Really like what am I doing wrong? Or at a loss. And I'll say one of the first things on our hit list that I'd like to talk about is redirecting the energy. So the first thing I did was and I know her very well for many years I wanted to redirect the energy towards her, not in the sense that she's doing anything wrong.  01:48 It's not about right or wrong here. It's about how am I moving forward in my marketing plan? Do I have a marketing plan? Is this something that is a real part of my day? And going into a time management, looking at a time management organizational tool of some kind and really, really making it real. Because she kept saying to me Lau, you know me, I'm a realist, I'm a realist. I said I'm a realist and I'll tell you for real you got to have a calendar in front of you For real.  02:16 Every day, every day. What am I doing in this day to put myself into the universe? That's really on me, that's on you, that's on me.  02:26 - Anne (Host) Right? Well, first of all, amen, applause, applause, applause. And so I want to just say the word that I think is so important, that so many people miss, and that is marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing. When you are not getting work right, you can have the best voice in the world. How many times do I say this Lau?  02:44 And it doesn't go good if nobody knows about it, okay, and so nobody can hire you. Like, nobody can hire you if they don't know you exist. And so if you're not booking, the first thing I say to look at is marketing. And I again will say to you companies hire departments full of people who are marketers, and those marketers, their only job is to go out and get leads, send emails, create marketing campaigns, do social media, do all of that stuff just to get a lead. And I can just tell you, like my husband who works in event management, right, they go to conferences, they sponsor booths, they talk, they present and they spend thousands upon thousands of dollars in their marketing efforts just to get business right and to stay afloat and to keep that business thriving or build the business, no matter what they're doing.  03:35 So I think that voice actors tend to really miss the mark when it comes to thinking about how important their marketing is, or their marketing because they're not familiar with it. They're not marketers, they didn't go to school for marketing. They kind of just go oh yeah, I got a market. And so then they think maybe a post on social media is marketing. Or they think I sent an email, nobody responded and you have not tried hard enough. I'm just saying Lau. What are your thoughts on that? Because I think most people have to put like a thousand percent more effort into their marketing than they do.  04:07 - Lau (Guest) I really think that when people come into this profession and I'll call them actors because it could be any kind of performer yeah, I don't think it's specific to voiceover the marketing element is something that we're just oftentimes not trained in, we're not aware of. It isn't like business 101. I didn't get an MBA, so what am I doing? Kind of thing. Well, it's just kind of the coach throws it at you and you go what? Wait a second, I thought I was becoming a voiceover talent. Now you're telling me I have to be my own production team, I have to be my own talent, I have to be a producer, I have to be a marketer, I have to brand myself. Yeah, you really do. So. I see it step by step.  04:45 I think it's important to understand your schedule first. A lot of folks that I work with come in and they literally don't know what they're doing. They don't know their schedule. I say how many hours in a week are you dedicated to putting your business out in the world? They say I don't know. Maybe a couple hours in a week or maybe six hours. I said not enough, not even close to marketing departments.  05:05 - Anne (Host) eight hours a day and more Eight hours a day.  05:07 - Lau (Guest) You got to go into it every single day and have a. It doesn't need to be constant, it needs to be consistent. So the consistency is really what you're looking for. You don't have to be marketing all day long, because you may be auditioning all day long, but you have to be able to multitask as you're editing, as you're delivering, as you're talking with a client, as you're auditioning. You have to be able to multitask. And here is the homework assignment I gave to her. I said I want you, once you understand your calendar and you have your schedule in front of you. Thank you too. Pull three leads for me every single day. Three, right. So if you do it five days a week, that's 15 leads in a week. That's pretty sturdy. If they're leads, they could be cold, they could be warm, you could be connected to them, they could be out there in the universe. But I want you to do that because every potential lead you have, every suspect that turns into a prospect, opens up potentially a door to a whole world that you don't have right now.  06:10 - Anne (Host) And I want to now kind of tack on to that and say that now that you've got leads you did three leads a day, you've done five days and 15 leads. Now understand that those leads are just that. They are leads. Right, those are people that you want to be able to market to. However, you also have to assess are they at a point, right at this time in space, to hire? Right? Do they have a need for you? Do they have a need for your particular animated character voice that is female and is high-pitched and young sounding? Do they have a need for it at this precise moment? Probably not.  06:45 I'm just going to say right, More than likely, the lead that you have chosen, if you're really choosing lead after lead after lead, right. They more than likely do not need it at this moment. However, they may need it down the road, and so that's where the consistency has to come in consistent, consistent, consistent. You have to revisit that lead, right, and you have to revisit that lead because they may not need you today, but they might need you tomorrow, they might need you six months from now, and you have to really be consistent with that and then keep good track of those leads so that you know when you last contacted them. So you're not contacting them every day and you're not Anneoying them, because, God only knows, I have had Anneoying people contact me over and over and over again.  07:26 - Lau (Guest) You have the stalkers.  07:28 - Anne (Host) Literally trying to sell me SEO services or web services or whatever it is that they're trying to sell to me. And I can tell because I see the thread in my email right. There's like oh, there's the sixth time they've tried.  07:40 Sorry to bother you, but not really so you do need to understand that those leads that you get more than likely aren't ready at this precise moment to purchase your voice, unless, of course, your leads are hot leads right. Then we talk about cold leads, warm leads and hot leads right. Hot leads you already have knowledge that they need a voice that fits your particular description. Right, and that would be something that is timely. You want to make sure you're timely and that you address that at the time. Otherwise, you've got cold leads, which is what most of us right, because we don't wear.  08:14 We just want anything. Right? We want any kind of job, right? I need a commercial, or I need a corporate narration, or I need an e-learning from this company, right? Well, there could be a multitude of things that the company needs, but maybe they don't need a commercial voice right away, maybe they are not doing any training because there's no new products. So just understand everything involved with that, with the marketing, which is again why companies hire entire departments with lots of people to do this, because the more leads they secure, the more chances, right of making a sale.  08:46 - Lau (Guest) I love that. I think it's terrific and I think too here's the second thing, technical tip I want to put out there as well that I said to this particular client I would suggest that you go out into the world. It's up to you how often you can do that, depending on your life and your transportation, but you should be going out into the world to a live event Now. We should be able to find them around, okay, whether it's a Chamber of Commerce, a BNI, a Toastmasters or whatever a women in business, there's a billion groups out there. All you have to do is make Google or DuckDuckGo your best friends and then you can find your lists of live groups that most of the time they're gonna be hybrid on Zoom and live if they're doing live.  09:30 I love the energy and the feel of meeting people in person and oftentimes you'll find that when you do meet people in person, there's no one in that room that does what you do, because what we do is very unique and a lot of times we have to educate the people on what a voiceover talent actually is. They don't even know what a VO really does. So it gives you an opportunity to practice a pitch, to practice a handshake, to practice a live networking in a room, to practice putting on your face, your clothing, your whatever right.  10:03 - Anne (Host) It's different than being in a booth Very very different and it's also different from sending an email, because you get that physical presence, that energy, there's a synergy to it and you're gonna be a lot more memorable.  10:15 And again, I think it's a combination of all of these things that we're talking about that can be effective marketing.  10:19 But absolutely I don't think there's any dispute over the fact that face-to-face networking can really generate relationships that can get you hired. I was thinking about relationships the other day because I just had headshots taken by my photographer, who I've worked with for 10 years, and I realized that we have such a great relationship. Like she knows me so well, she's able to capture my very best so that I can actually promote my business and I can promote myself in the very best light. And I feel as though your relationship building in those face-to-face networking can really help you to become memorable to someone and while they may not need your services, they might know somebody that will, and then you can come highly recommended. And word of mouth I think there's no better marketing than word of mouth. Oh, I have this wonderful talent here that I think will be perfect for your next campaign. You should hire them and a lot of times those are the best types of referrals to get, because then you don't have to audition your butt off for them.  11:18 And essentially, that's just a wonderful way to acquire work.  11:22 - Lau (Guest) I think that's terrific and listen, call it old school, but I'm a big fan of live. I think when you live whether you're on Zoom in real time or whether you're in a room with someone it has a whole different stress level and pressure that we need to perform. That you're just not gonna get in crafting an email, you're not gonna get in submitting your website, you're just not gonna get it. That's much more at your leisure, right. But when you're in person with someone, you have to think about what. If I only have five minutes with that person, what do I want to do for them? What is it about their business? How can I help them?  11:58 Okay, so, I have to educate them on what I do oftentimes, but how does it benefit them? Because that's why they're standing there. They're standing there to meet you, not because you're so fabulous, but because what you do is potentially what they need. So it's up to us to figure out well, how do I apply what I do to your particular industry? Therefore, you have to do your research, right? You gotta go on your websites. You gotta go on the YouTube chAnnel, look at the advertising campaigns. You gotta go in their literature and take a look at what they're doing. I also wAnnea suggest that you open up you were saying this earlier and I loved it open up your possibilities of the kinds of work that you can do, the genres of work you can do?  12:41 - Anne (Host) Oh, absolutely. You just segued so nicely into that, Because the other thing was that I just had a student who said you know, I've been doing this for a year and I can't seem to get anything booked. I can't get any work. And I said what have you been auditioning for? And they said commercials. And I went well, tell me, do you have other demos? Do you have other places, other things you're auditioning for? No, just commercials. And I said well, that's part of it.  13:05 You have to understand that the market for commercials well, it's probably one of the most popular market for new people to get into or want to get into. What you don't understand is that the commercial markets maybe only 5 to 10% of what's out there. Right, there's a big part of that which is narration, it's corporate narration, it's e-learning, it's medical narration. It's like 80% of the market, is that? And so if you're only restricting yourself to one specialty, to one genre, then yeah, Also, we just did an episode on transformation, right? This is where you might want to now expand your offerings, right, Get yourself coaching in a genre in a market space that is plentiful, such as corporate or corporate training, and that can really open up your possibilities.  13:51 - Lau (Guest) It's also one of the most highly sought after and competitive varies of the industry, the commercial industry, you know like 100% of the people that are swimming with you are out for commercial and want to do commercial work. So you just have to be realistic about that.  14:08 - Anne (Host) I'm going to just say, bosses, get over the fact that corporate narration or e-learning isn't glamorous. Just get over that, because, honestly, you've got a business to run. And I'm just going to say that most people are like, well, I want the national spot, or I want to do the next animated series, or I want to do that video game. But here's the deal. Probably everybody I know, whether they're an animation specialist or do promos they also do corporate narration, they also do e-learning. They just don't talk about it. It's not as glamorous, but I'll tell you what it's the bread and butter for a lot of people out there in the industry.  14:42 - Lau (Guest) Absolutely it is. And remember, I mean I can speak as an agent having a base and I'll tell you that I don't know anyone in that roster that only does commercial work. I mean, I think it's a little delicious part of the toast on the bread, but they have a lot of other spreads they're putting on that bread and not just for the money's sake, but also they're multi-talented. They have a lot to offer. They have a lot of different. They might be producing an animation pilot and doing audio book.  15:11 - Anne (Host) Right, exactly, e-learning thing, exactly. And how many people Lau? May I ask as a talent agent and I know as a casting director, how many people do you know book a national spot every day or book a commercial, even a commercial every day?  15:24 - Lau (Guest) No, not at all. Some won't book for six months to a year Exactly, and those could be super talented people too that get national spots.  15:32 - Anne (Host) They're not going to book a national spot every day. They might book one a month, one every two months, once every six months, and the rest of what they do is a smattering of other genres and a smattering of other projects. So really try to expand. And again, this is not where, oh, I want to do everything. I am the voice talent that is doing everything. However, the other options that you offer for clients should be well thought out. You should be trained in the genres so that you can really understand the most effective way, the most effective read, the most effective techniques, and that includes not just performance but also marketing for the market it does.  16:09 - Lau (Guest) It does, and diversifying what you're doing is a really, really smart thing. I hear a lot of newer talent what I call newer talent in the first three years of their business, talking about niching in and niching down and choosing something specific, and I said you don't even know what your business is, yet you don't even know what you like. You don't even know how people hear you, yet They've not even explored the other genres.  16:32 - Anne (Host) And that's another thing. When you talk about brand evolution and how you evolve, or how do you find out, like, what you're good at right? Unless you try it, unless you audition for it, unless you train a little bit in it, and you can. I mean, I found a passion in medical. Now, of course, I worked in the medical industry, but did I think about going into medical narration right away? No, I didn't.  16:52 I was all enamored with commercial and I thought, oh, I'm just going to do a bunch of commercial work. And that was just me being new way back when, not understanding right, not understanding the business and all the different genres. But ultimately I started saying, well, I can't, I'm not getting any work commercially right away, or I only get very few jobs. So I need to do something else, otherwise I'm going to have to go back to work, I'm going to have to go back to corporate and I did not want to do that. So really thinking about how you can expand your offering, so marketing number one, and then expand your offering.  17:27 And then I'm going to talk about, I think, the third thing, and that would be performance skills, right, and we even had a whole episode dedicated to this bosses about how sometimes talent think they're actually better than they are and they really could use some performance coaching to make their reads more competitive. No doubt about it. You know this is an agent Lau, probably every single day, right, and I do it when I cast and when we do our audition demolitions. We hear a lot of people auditioning and I think to myself there's a lot of people who could really utilize some specific one-on-one coaching or more workshops.  18:07 - Lau (Guest) No doubt, Anneie, no doubt, and I'll tell you what I'm hearing over and over again with submissions that are coming in that are looking for representation in the roster, is the fact that they sound like the tool of their voice is strong and it's beautiful and they seem like very nice people, at least on paper, but they either do not have the skill set just yet to where they would need to be competitive in a commercial market.  18:31 Yes, absolutely, and I'm really speaking about a real read, understanding what a real read is, how that happens the mechanics of how that happened.  18:40 I've even been sending out notices to people. Instead of saying, ok, you're not a good fit right now and they're sending me demos, I said, can you just send me a couple, just a couple dry reads of you doing your most natural read and they'll send it to me and it's authentically a Anneouncer, authentically, absolutely and authentically all of that stuff. So already I know they don't really know what it is, they're not sure what it is.  19:05 - Anne (Host) And you know right away as a casting director, as a talent agent and so yeah, also, guys, we don't need to hear that over and over again If we listen to it and we say, oh, you don't have it yet we know you don't have it and we're probably not going to ask you, we're not going to refer you, you're probably not going to get it until you do have those skills. And it's so interesting to me the students that come to me that just, they want to hurry up and get their demo done and they don't want to do the work they don't want to do a rush.  19:31 They're in a big rush. They don't want to do the work to figure out. What does it take to be an actor? And especially, I see it all the time with corporate e-learning and what people typically assume to be like I just want to teach e-learning or I just want to speak corporate. I hear the corporate this way all the time and again, you need to be the actor, and even more so with longer format stuff. You just do.  19:54 - Lau (Guest) Yeah, and inevitably yeah when you hear someone say how much money will I make? Or I'm quitting my job and I'm coming into this so that I can make money and do what I love, and yet, and yet.  20:07 - Anne (Host) The first question is you don't want to put the work in.  20:09 - Lau (Guest) Yeah, and ironically, the first question is will I make money and when will that happen? Yeah, well, if it's something you really love, the first question will be I'm excited about what you're providing here. Can you talk to me more about what the process is like or what the clients are like or no? If it's money first, I say you know you're asking the wrong question. I have to tell you you're not in a position yet to ask that question.  20:31 - Anne (Host) I'm not in a position to answer that question and I'll tell you that I offer consults to people and I will have so many people and I know that there are many people, many coaches, that offer consults, that offer the free consults and people will just say, yeah, well, I'm a singer and I'm a theater actor and I already have a studio at home and I can make my own demo. So you'll get those people that are not aware and you know, it's just one of those things I will always say look, I'm not going to put on any rose colored glasses here and I'm going to tell you exactly. Here's the story. It's difficult.  21:01 Even though you already do theater acting, even though you're a singer, even though you've got the equipment already, you've got the studio competitively, it takes some time because there is a difference. Obviously there's a big difference between theater acting, on-camera acting and voice acting, and most the time it's assumed that voice acting oh, it's just simple, I can read pretty, I've got a great voice, and again, it's just the same old story. But yep, literally it's. You don't know what, you don't know, you don't know. It's okay, I mean, I think this is a journey of education, but if you are really frustrated, if you have not been booking for a year or however long, if you're frustrated.  21:42 I want you to look at these three things, right marketing, look at your marketing. Look at your offerings. What you're offering, make sure that it's something that people want out there. Right, you can be a great character actor, but your market is smaller than, let's say, a corporate narration specialist right, and it's a whole lot more competitive. Your national market commercial is a whole lot more competitive than an e-learning module. So, understand your markets, understand who you're selling to and then, of course, take a hard look.  22:14 - Lau (Guest) Take an honest, honest look at your performance and how can you improve that yes, yes, be honest with yourself and develop what we call the hustle muscle. You need a hustle muscle so that you understand I'm not waiting for work. The newer ideology is don't work harder, work smarter. And I say, okay, work smarter, but work harder, yeah. Yeah. Smarter doesn't take the place of harder.  22:38 - Anne (Host) You have to grind and working smarter means you realize that you probably need more skills right. And working smarter means, oh, you probably need to expand your offerings. Working smarter means yes you understand marketing better right and you understand what people are looking for, and why didn't you get picked? Or why didn't that person respond? Well, that's just. They don't have a need for you, right?  23:01 - Lau (Guest) now, right right and look at, look at some of your idols. If you have an idol the gurus that are out there in the world pick someone that you really respect, that you follow. Maybe you read their books, maybe you go to their webinars, maybe you follow them. You know, just popped into my head I saw him on a network tv last night was tony robin. Some people adore him and some people don't follow him, but the one thing about him and his brand that's last at a hundred thousand years.  23:27 - Anne (Host) Right, he's been around forever is.  23:29 - Lau (Guest) He's a grinder, he is a hard-working person and he's had his tentacles in everything. He was in Hollywood, he had little bit parts in movies, he was on the conference circuit, he did a. What didn't he do? And now I don't know how old he is. He's got to be 60. At least he looks fantastic, by the way, he looks amazing and he's out there. He's got a new summit and he's got a new book and he's got it and he's very wealthy. Let's be honest, he's a multi-millionaire. But it's really the joy, the excitement, the challenge and the energy of moving forward.  24:05 - Anne (Host) That's what he sells his motivation right, he sells, he's motivating, he's motivating, he's inspiring and so, yeah, you better believe he's got that muscle developed. So absolutely, and people want that, right, but it's what you were saying.  24:17 - Lau (Guest) Anneie, it's exactly what you were saying. If I'm not moving, if I'm not doing, then I'm static, I'm stagnating. And I always have to bring it back to myself and saying well, if I'm not getting enough work or if I'm not booking, what can I do? Don't ask the question what am I doing wrong? That's not the right question to ask. Ask the question what can I be doing to strategize, work harder and smarter and make better use of my work days so that I can be putting myself into new leads, into new situations? And also here's another one for you. I got a bonus one for you you should be producing, you should be self-producing projects at all times, whether it's a little whatever, a little web series or a little YouTube commercial.  25:01 For your business or an adult Sure that'll help you to market, right, I mean, and it's exciting because you can get your friends and colleagues involved you can maybe pay someone a couple bucks to help you edit it or whatever. Incorporate work, work breeds work, at all times so that you feel like, wow, I'm creating, I'm creating to be creative and also to breed work.  25:21 - Anne (Host) Absolutely good advice. Wow, all right, yet another, I think, very empowering episode for the bosses out there and bosses so just really sit down, take a hard look at what you're doing now and, if the bosses can be of any assistance, we are here to help you guys. Also, take a moment to imagine a world full of passionate, empowered, diverse individuals such as yourself giving collectively and intentionally to create the world that they want to see. Find out more at visiting 100voiceswhocareorg. And our shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl you too can connect and network like a boss. Find out more at IPDTLcom. Thanks so much, guys. Have a wonderful week and we'll see you next week. See you next week.  26:10 - Intro (Anneouncement) Bye. Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host and 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.  26:38 - Anne (Host) Hey La, do you know what time of year it is? It is time for the audition demolition holiday Bosses. We are so excited for this episode. Why can't I just do this? Sorry, let's try that one, okay, movers.   

In this episode Anne Ganguzza and Lau Lapides discuss health and business transformations, sharing personal journeys and business changes. Together, The BOSSES dissect the essence of finding a compelling 'why' to fuel profound changes and prevent old habits from creeping back. They navigate the intricate process of embracing a new identity after such shifts. The conversation takes you through the peaks and valleys of goal setting and the importance of evolving these goals to sidestep complacency and promote growth. Whether you're toasting to recent victories or charting the course for your next big achievement in voiceover or other business ventures, this talk is peppered with inspiration. Tune in and let the shared experiences and guiding wisdom propel you toward seizing new opportunities and savoring the ascent to success and fulfillment. 00:01 - 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 V-O boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:19 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the V-O Boss podcast and the Boss Superpower series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza. I'm here with the lovely Lau Lapides, my very special boss co-host. How are you, annie? I'm doing amazing, Lau, I'm doing amazing. How about yourself?  00:39 Wonderful, amazing as well Good, you know Lau. I've been thinking about this a lot. I mean, for me, I have gone through a little bit of a transformation over the past few months Actually, I would say year and a half. Physical transformation, because I've been trying to get healthy. I lost a little bit of weight and I was thinking about in terms of wanting to transform my habits or what I do on a day-to-day basis and transform and evolve into something that can really move me forward and progress.  01:12 I thought that we can also apply the same kind of transformation thoughts, mentality, rules maybe not rules, but strategies for our own businesses. I thought it would be a good time to talk about transformation and transforming our VO businesses, because I think it's something that it's the beginning of the year. I think it's always a good time to think about. Everybody talks about New Year's resolutions, but I don't want to talk about resolutions. I want to talk about transformation and how you can assess if your business needs to transform, if you need to evolve, and what it would look like for you to set a course or a strategy on how to transform your business, because I think our markets have shifted Lau and we need to really evaluate that and transform our businesses to evolve along with them.  02:02 - Lau (Guest) Well, that's amazing stuff. I love talking about transformation and I can't help but bringing up the fabulous frog, because the frog in Eastern culture is a representative as symbolic of transformation when you think about leaping forward. And, by the way fun fact, I'm sure everyone kind of knows this, but this is leap year, which means in the leap year calendar, you have an extra day in this year for your leaping, for your transformation, for the new calendar and thinking about wow, what am I going to do in that extra 24 hours? Right, but I mean what you have done in terms of your physical, your mental, your spiritual transformation is nothing short of like miraculous, amazing.  02:50 - Anne (Host) Now here's the question.  02:52 - Lau (Guest) Here's the question what do we do once we are transformed into something else? There's a great question. Right and how do we acclimate to that? How do we that's a wonderful question Assimilate with that, how do we, in essence, blend into the form that we want to be and, all of a sudden, are becoming Sure Now we're a new entity, right?  03:15 - Anne (Host) Yeah Well, first of all, I want to say thank you for that. I really appreciate that. One thing I will say, and I want to stress this to you bosses out there, that transformation doesn't happen overnight. Very rarely does it happen overnight.  03:28 And I will say that my transformation, my physical transformation to better health, literally was a journey, and I really had to make sure that I gave myself grace and patience with myself in order to be able to transform. And I know that, gosh, we've been in business for so long and we've been transforming our businesses for years now, and I do know that it's not a simple nor a quick process. And so I want you bosses out there to give yourself some grace and to kind of be prepared and enjoy the journey as you evolve and transform and go through it. And, yes, law, one of the biggest questions is once you have transformed, how is it that you will maintain consistency or continue to progress or continue to keep moving forward, if you want to, with that transformation? And I will tell you that for me physically because this is multiple times I've kind of been there and gotten healthy and lost weight, and so I think this time it means a little bit more to me, I think there's always that what is your why, right, what is your why? Why do you want to transform? Well, I want to be a successful voiceover artist. Well, I want to be healthy. Well, I want whatever it is that you are looking to transform.  04:44 Your why is so very important and that why can evolve over time as you are transforming, right, that why can change and I think, depending on the importance of that why to you, right, that really becomes a catalyst for being able to sustain that transformation and to make sure that it's something that is moving forward. You're not going to let necessarily, let's say, slip back into bad habits or slip back into the things that will not move yourself forward. And I am the first to tell you that I am terrified, terrified of slipping back into old habits, right, I do not want. Health wise, I do not want to slip back. Business wise, I do not want my business to go backwards, and so that, right, there is a great motivator for me to figure out ways and strategies to actually maintain and or move forward from that. So I think really understanding your purpose and your why for the transformation is key.  05:45 - Lau (Guest) So here's the question, the million dollar question what is or what was your why?  05:53 - Anne (Host) Oh.  05:53 - Lau (Guest) Annie, for doing what you did in this major transformation, powerful stage that you've been in and still are in in your process and your progress. What was this last? Why?  06:08 - Anne (Host) for you. Well, that's really a good question. So if we're talking about my health transformation, I will say that it was an eye-opener from my doctor who said Anne, you are at stroke level high blood pressure and I want you to get some blood work done. And that's just the simple facts of it which just literally scared me straight into getting blood work done. And that blood work was not good.  06:33 And as a result of that blood work, I was then diagnosed with some other health issues which then I was prescribed lots and lots of medication for. It scared me and I thought, after having been through and people know my cancer journey, I thought I'm invincible, right? Well, no, no, I had kind of slipped into some habits. There was lots of reasons. I don't want to say that all of them were excuses for poor habits. I mean, some of them were just consequences of medication, but ultimately that was a priority that my why all of a sudden became like, well, goodness, like I beat cancer. I certainly don't want this new revelation of these new health issues to take anything away from me that.  07:13 I worked so hard to build in the first place, and so that kind of just woke me up right, and I think we all kind of tend to get into those things. I know there's many, many people that are either trying to get healthy on a weight loss journey that will slip back. They lost weight, they slip back, and then they're like oh, and they beat themselves up. But I think that things evolve, as we were talking about right, your why evolves, your reasons evolve, and I think you always need to keep an eye on that and you need to really, if you want to make that change and that transformation, you have to really keep your eye on that. Why write it down and really understand what now is the strategy, what are the consequences if you're not going to be making those changes?  07:57 - Lau (Guest) And really understand that if you are serious about transformation in your business, in your life, in your inner world, your inner being one has to have discipline. You talk about habits and rituals and routines and patterns, and so do I and the importance of that, the success of people that can stay with a successful discipline, a habit, and even if you fall off sometimes the frog does fall off the lily pad and gets wet and then has to come back- on.  08:27 That's okay, but are you moving forward? Are you moving backwards and really keeping track of that, whether it's goal setting, whether it's just about your inspirations for the year, or whether it is something as grave as oh, this is very serious for my health. I almost have no choice. I have to move in that direction or I'm compelled to move in that direction.  08:47 - Anne (Host) Absolutely.  08:48 - Lau (Guest) Understanding like prioritizing. What transformations do I want to have? Will I prioritize those? Because you and I meet so many talent that they want to do 12,000 things.  09:01 - Anne (Host) Oh, yeah, absolutely.  09:03 - Lau (Guest) They want to transform everything in one day, all at once, and you and I know it's just not possible to do all at once. It really isn't. The day isn't long enough and our life isn't long enough. So, really understanding, like what is most important, where is that going to get me? What is my end game in that? Sure See, it's really. I think and I speak personally as well, because I'm a creative too, I'm an artist too. It's easy to fantasize, it's exciting to dream and get inspired, but then sometimes we fall off the cliff on the other end, because there is no real end game to some of those dreams. They just feel really good in the making.  09:42 - Anne (Host) Or it feels good in the dreaming law, right.  09:44 - Intro (Announcement) Yes, you know what I mean, and so, but when it?  09:46 - Anne (Host) comes time to putting it into action. I think that's where most people they're really looking for. How do I get motivated? How?  09:54 - Lau (Guest) do I Right and that really becomes that.  09:56 - Anne (Host) Why that priority? It's almost like you're clawing your way sometimes to get that motivation, because you don't think that for 2 and 1 half years or three years, during that pandemic, I wasn't commiserating, saying oh my gosh, I'm not feeling good, or you know what I mean. I feel like I'm so busy but I don't have time to take care of myself or my health. And really you have to be able to somehow find that motivation to start the climb. And it is a climb and it's not more than likely. It's not an easy climb. The dreaming is the easy part.  10:29 And I like how you said inspirations instead of resolutions, right, because resolutions, a lot of times people get dejected from the beginning because they make a resolution and after the first week of the new year they're like yes, I'm going to go to the gym and I'm going to work out and literally that's just been something. And it's interesting because now that I've gotten healthier, now I'm on that mad terrified like, oh my gosh, I've got to maintain it. So now I'm physically working out every day, right, and the only time I have to do it is early in the morning. So literally I am like at 7 AM, sometimes 6, 30 AM and I don't, I'm tired and I literally I get on that machine or I go to Pilates and I'm like I am so tired, I almost feel sick. You know what I mean? That's how tired I am, I can't. But I push myself through it and usually you get through that lactose, burning through that lactose, and then you'll start to feel better.  11:18 But before you start getting better, boy, there's a lot of pain and it's hard. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it.  11:25 - Lau (Guest) But isn't that a great metaphor for exactly what we do in our industry is that we want to reach that zenith. We all want to reach the apex of whatever we're doing.  11:34 - Anne (Host) The first thing I thought of we want that. Yes, we want every day. We want to get work for commercial work.  11:39 - Lau (Guest) Yeah, exactly the first thing I thought of was a film I just saw about the Andes Mountains and I thought of a huge mountain like the Andes and how impossible it is to climb it. And we want to be right up on that little sliver, right up on that vista, that we can walk on the absolute top, and we say, I want to get there, that's my dream. But rather, what are the plateaus, what are the places that we have to get to in order to make it up there? And there are many stopping points, there are many resting points, there are many points where you're going to slide down, you're going to fall, you're going to roll over, you're going to stumble. And, really understanding, in order for me to get to that zenith, I have to think through and have almost a mapology of all the sticking points that could happen and how I'm going to deal with them when they happen, not if they happen, but when they happen because they will happen.  12:32 - Anne (Host) What's also I was thinking about in terms of inspiration? Right, because I thought, oh, have I reached my goal? Have I reached the place where I want to be? Have I reached the apex? No, I have to keep moving that apex Now. Does it have to be upward? I like to think it's moving upward, but I'm going to say it's moving in a positive direction, so I'm not going to lose 100 more pounds.  12:50 - Lau (Guest) Do you know what I mean?  12:51 - Anne (Host) But no, what am I going to do? Well then, maybe I okay. So now my goal has shifted right. My transformation goal has shifted, especially, let's say, in our voice ever business right? Oh, I want to do national spots, or I want to be in animation and I want to be on Cartoon Network or whatever. Your goal is right so you can have that apex. But again, where are those places that are going to get you there? And then, let's say, you ultimately get to the apex and you get that national. You get that. What are you going to do? Are you going to sit there? I'm going to say complacent in that, of course, I'm not saying you shouldn't celebrate that but I also feel as though you need to be continually evolving and moving that goal to continue transformation or continue growth.  13:35 I've always said this multiple times in the podcast, that the death of me is when I feel stagnant, when I am not changing anything, when I'm not doing anything. So in voiceover, maybe you can explore a new genre. You can work with a different coach. There are so many different things you can do. Take an improv class, right. Work up the relationship with your agent, right, like there's so many things that you can do. Yes, and what do?  13:59 - Lau (Guest) you do with the prize, with the celebration once you have it, once you get it. I once had an acting professor in grad school who talked about that. He said you know, once I reached where I wanted to reach, I got incredibly depressed. I got severely, clinically depressed. Yeah, because I reached it. I said that what else is there? Right, right? And I said there's no place but down from here. Well, we had smart colleagues that said you're wrong, your perspective is wrong. Now you need to reach the next level of where you're headed next. And remember you're not just headed north, you can go east you can go, west you can go diagonal right you can pivot in different directions.  14:38 The meter diver is going to go down south, so it's really about how you open up that framework for yourself.  14:44 I like that I like that Of success, and when you do reach a success, take the time, celebrate it. Yes, do something with it to make it real for yourself, make it count, make it something that you can apply to life, because you're going to want to move on to something else and you don't want to forget about that. You don't want to imagine that that never happened. Have you ever felt that way? I've had that many times where I've achieved exactly what I wanted to, oh yeah, and then by next week I forgot.  15:08 - Anne (Host) I did it. I forgot Exactly. You need to always celebrate that, and you're so right because I'm literally, I'm not quite at my goal right, but I'm pretty much at my goal right, and I'm like, oh gosh, now what, right, now what. And so, in reality, I needed to make a new goal. And so now I have a new goal. And now my new goal is well, okay, maybe health wise, I'm good.  15:28 I got most of my medications are. Now, you know, I don't need to take them anymore. Now I just I need to build up some muscle. This is just physically right. I need to build up muscle. So I don't have any muscle.  15:38 I got a lot of that weight had to go somewhere in my skin, said what, what, where did my skin go? It didn't disappear. So so I need to bulk up a little bit, and I love that, because I didn't feel depressed. I thought, oh God, I've done everything. And everybody says be proud and I am proud.  15:54 But I also was like, oh God, well, what do I do now? And so therefore, I will say to you law, I'm so glad you said that, because everybody that knows me knows I have all the different divisions of my business right and I always say well, it's because I can't be stagnant and I don't want to be bored. And so I decided, well, let's open up another brand, right? So I've got another brand, and people are like I don't understand how you do it. And I'm like, well, literally, I am one person, I have so many hours in the day, right, and so, yeah, am I doing a lot? Sure, but I also hire a lot of people too that can help me, right, and they're helping me to get to my transformation and my goals, and that is the way that I can do that.  16:32 - Lau (Guest) And so again keep setting goals, keep setting.  16:35 - Anne (Host) And you're right, you can go east, you can go west, you can even go south, but I think you always need to continually grow.  16:42 - Lau (Guest) That's right. And just remember with transformation comes change, and it sounds like well, obviously, but change is something that frightens us oftentimes because we like control and we like to know exactly who we are and what's coming next. So when you welcome transformation, you welcome change, and when you welcome change, you welcome the unknowing at times. So just keep that in your mindset.  17:06 - Anne (Host) And I think also there's something to ask yourself too is to really be truthful with yourself. Are you fearful of not just failure, but are you fearful of success? What will happen when you get to that successful level and that, of course, you know part of the fear of the unknown right? What will happen now that you're successful with that? Success may come like a whole new series of maybe problems or issues or things that you'll need to think about or deal with that you have not ever experienced before, and that is scary, yeah very scary.  17:39 - Lau (Guest) So as wonderful as it is and as much as we're going after it and chasing after it, we have to know that there's also a fear factor involved with transformation. And I say recognize the fear and do it anyway.  17:51 - Anne (Host) Yeah, just lean into it. I think really don't run away from it. Lean into it and just know that it's scary, no matter what.  17:59 - Lau (Guest) It's scary.  18:00 - Anne (Host) It's scary for all of us, really, and you're not alone. You are not alone, and I think that one of the reasons why I love this podcast is that we can talk about topics like this, so that people don't feel alone, because, again, we are in such an isolated business and you're an entrepreneur, and so, therefore, there are many things that are scary being an entrepreneur because it's so funny because, having come from corporate right where I was told what to do here, here's your job, this is what you do, and if you want to advance, this is what you do. And that was it. It was easy. I could take instruction. It's kind of like taking direction right.  18:35 But, as entrepreneurs, when we're trying to move forward and transform and evolve, where are we evolving to? What are we transforming to? Well, I know that. Let's just say I've had a lot of frustrated students who will say to me I've not been able to book work right, and so I've been here for a year and I've not been successful, and my loved ones are asking me what's going on and I feel like a failure, I feel like I'm not successful, I need to do something, and so I think that really, it could be a why right All of a sudden, if something's not working for you, right, that could be a good why to propel yourself to make a transformation.  19:14 Now, again, as I would always say, as being the teacher, right, educate, educate yourself. If you don't know where to go, you can ask a trusted colleague, ask a trusted coach. What do you think I should do? Where should I go? What do you think is next? Read up on the industry. I think that's another really helpful tip is read up on the industry and understand what the trends are, understand what's happening culturally in the world and in the market. Right, in the global market, because and I think we talked about this in one of our previous episodes right, that will dictate what are your buyers looking for? Right, how are you going to transform your business so that it can be something that will serve, right, the market and serve the buyers?  19:56 - Lau (Guest) Absolutely, absolutely. Do your homework, because it's not easy to transform. It takes a lot of work, a lot of research, a lot of homework, a lot of practice and then, all of a sudden, before you know it, you've turned into something else and hopefully it's in the direction of where you want to be. On behalf of your whole audience, you know, I thank you for being an amazing, transformational, super beautiful frog. Thank you, I appreciate that, and you as well we are all frogs.  20:25 - Anne (Host) Right, we are all frogs, we are, we are all frogs, and so I think that it's inspiring and it's motivational and it's exciting. I like to always embrace challenges and I try to embrace fear. It doesn't make me feel any more confident I have. So many people are like you're so confident. I'm like, well, okay, I put it on a good show, don't I? But I always like to look at things with positivity and I realize that if it doesn't work out the way that I think right and maybe it didn't work out I always say, well, look look at what I learned. Like, how cool is that? Absolutely Turn that into something good. You have to love the leap, yeah yeah, love the leap, love the leap.  21:04 And it's funny because when you first started talking about the frog, I was thinking, oh yeah, because frogs. Well, tadpoles, right, I mean gosh. When I was young I used to like I love little polywogs, polywogs that turned into tadpoles, that turned into frogs, and literally I mean look at them, look at how they grew. Look at how they grew. Yeah, they're incredible Caterpillars that blossom into butterflies. That transformation. So, bosses, we have complete faith, complete faith in your ability to transform yourselves, transform your business. And transformation doesn't just have to be business For my health, that's affected. My business, right, everything personally. We talk about how personal this business is. Everything that affects me personally affects my business too, Absolutely.  21:47 - Lau (Guest) You can't separate the two, because you need your energy, your focus, your mindset, your health. You need everything working in tandem to make that transformation happen. So take care of your inners before you take care of your outers. There you go.  22:00 - Anne (Host) I love it, guys, and we have all the faith in the world that you can transform Great conversation, laugh. Thank you so much, my pleasure.  22:08 Bosses, here's your chance to use your voice to not only transform, but to make an immediate difference in our world and give back to the communities that give to you. Visit 100voiceswhocareorg to commit and big shout out to IPDTL, our sponsor. We love IPDTL. It allows me to connect with law and my clients every single day and I love that relationship. I love the building of the relationships with my clients and with law. So you guys, visit IPDTLcom to find out more. Have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Bye.  22:46 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host and Gangusa, 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.   

The BOSSES discuss how to embrace the intricacies of your finances as owners of your voiceover business. As tax season approaches, they delve into self-employment, discussing how different business structures, such as S-Corps and DBAs, can significantly impact your taxation and payment schedule. They also examine the emotional factors that can influence your approach to money management, taking into account personal backgrounds and societal pressures.  Health insurance options are also discussed, from leveraging a spouse's plan to state programs. The BOSSES also explore the merits of keeping distinct business bank accounts and utilizing tools such as Health Savings Accounts and business credit cards. Whether you're a spreadsheet enthusiast or a QuickBooks aficionado, they provide insights on tracking transactions, automating invoicing, and the smart utilization of business credit cards for cashback rewards. 00:01 - 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 V-O boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:19 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the V-O Boss podcast and the Real Bosses series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, Again back with the amazing Tom Dheere. Tom, I'm so excited to talk to you today.  00:33 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yay, always glad to hang out with you.  00:36 - Anne (Host) Except I don't have such a fun topic to talk to you about today, tom, oh no. Well, my accountant. The other day she sent me an email saying well, anne, I'm going to be taking out thousands of dollars for your free payment, for your taxes, for your S-Corp. As April is coming along here, I thought we should probably talk about finances, and I know it's not everybody's favorite topic and I've talked about this before, but I think, getting closer to tax time, it's important for us to have an intelligent discussion right and talk about why it's so important, bosses, for you to have some financial intelligence surrounding your business, and I think, tom, you're going to be the best source of information for this. So let's talk about financial intelligence. What does that mean?  01:25 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Okay, I derive my understanding of financial intelligence versus emotional intelligence from Robert Kiyosaki rich dad poor dad books. If you've never read rich dad poor dad, it is a must read for people who are self-employed in general, and it's really great for voice actors in particular, because it talks about making decisions based on feelings versus making decisions based on facts, and part of my philosophy is that everybody has their own weird relationship with money.  01:55 - Anne (Host) A lot of people are afraid of it. That's a polite way of saying it. It's a weird relationship with money.  02:01 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yeah, Well, yeah, because some people are terrified of it. Yeah, some people covet it, some people hate it, and a lot of that is influenced by you, but it's also influenced by what your parents taught you or didn't teach you about money, or your culture, or your home or your school or your friends kind of taught you what your relationship with money is, not necessarily what it should be. So, as the VO strategist, there's a lot of grown-up poopy stuff that I talk about.  02:28 - Anne (Host) You made me snort, sorry Sorry.  02:30 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Or maybe I should do them more over there. That was pretty funny. What I mean by that is that a lot of people try to get into the voiceover industry to get away from the grown-up poopy stuff, and what they find is that they have to do all that stuff too, yeah, but they don't know how to do it. No one has told them how to do it, or when to do it, or where to do it, or why to do it, nor being held accountable for it. And the financial literacy is a huge component of that. Yeah, understand the difference between how employees get paid versus how managers get paid, versus how self-employed people get paid, and how they get taxed is very, very different. Yes, and can I just interject really quickly?  03:12 - Anne (Host) I said my accountant right, and of course, I always talk about my accountant and how wonderful it was one of the best decisions I ever made for my business. However, even though I have an accountant, I need to be able to direct my accountant and understand what my accountant is saying. So, yes, I need to be financially literate, I need to understand what's important, I need to understand how things operate, and she can be part of my education. She can talk to me about that. But also it's definitely upon myself to be educated and smart, because if you're going to have someone helping you with your financials, then you want to make sure that you've got the right person.  03:48 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yes, and there's a lot of ways to do that. There's a website. I'll have to find it. I'll give you the link. I think it's the AEA or AEE or it's like the American Association of Accountants or something like that, and you can do a search based on where you live and what kind of financial advisor you need help with. So there are CPAs certified public accounts who specialize in working with people who are self-employed. So because the way that someone who's self-employed files their taxes, because the way they get paid what tax, if tax is withheld, what tax is withheld, how it is withheld and all of the expenses that you can write off in deductions that you can make is completely different from a person who has one nine to five job, who gets a paycheck every 14 days and gets one W-2 in the mail every year and you take the standard deduction and you're done.  04:33 - Anne (Host) Now I have a bunch of different information right At the end of the year that if I'm paying people I need to provide or I get a bunch of information depending on how much money I've made from different clients I will get a bunch of different pieces of information that are important for my taxes, and I will also mention that, having been a DBA prior to an S-Corp, right, things are different now that I'm an S-Corp.  04:54 I mean, I used to, as a DBA, I would quarterly make an estimate on my taxes and pay it, but now I have to pay myself a salary, and so that is also different and I have different paperwork to file. I'm gonna say the S-Corp saved me a whole lot of my taxes. And again, what's the difference, right, between the different types of businesses and how can they help me when tax season comes about and how can they help save me money? And so, while I am saving money with an S-Corp versus my DBA, because of the amount of money that I'm making, it also becomes more time consuming on my part because I've got more paperwork to fill out, more things to mail in, and I've constantly, for whatever reason, the government is always coming back to me saying, hey, you owe us $13. No, I don't, because there was a number that was reported incorrectly.  05:40 And I'm not always getting it, but it certainly happens a little bit more than when I was working for a company and just had one piece of paperwork to file at the end of the year.  05:48 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Your VO bosses may be freaking out a little bit right now, but I wanna put them at ease. The question is should you incorporate or should you form an LLC, or should you stay self-employed? The answer is different, for everybody. Just because Anne is an S-Corp doesn't mean she advocates that everybody should be an S-Corp.  06:06 - Anne (Host) Yeah, absolutely, Because you all live in different right, Right exactly.  06:12 - Tom Dheere (Guest) And that has a huge effect because different states have different incorporation laws. So what benefits her living in California and forming an S-Corp? May not be good for me in New York forming an S-Corp. So that's why you need to have a living breathing CPA, not filing it via QuickBooks or stuff. You need to have a human.  06:33 - Anne (Host) And I'm gonna say yeah, and not just once a year for taxes. I really highly recommend some sort of an advisor. Now your accountant doesn't have to tell you what kind of business, but mine did because she was very familiar with working with people who are self-employed. So that helped a lot, tom. What do you recommend for people who don't have a clue, like what sort of company should they form?  06:55 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Right, okay, talk to. Well, not all. And to your point, not all CPAs are financial advisors and not all financial advisors are CPAs, right? So if you are gonna have a conversation with someone about it, I would strongly recommend you find in your state a certified fiduciary, that's a person who has literally taken an oath and certified that they will give you financial advice that is in your best interest. This is why you should not walk into some national franchise bank looking for financial advice, because there's always some guy or girl sitting in the corner at a desk who don't care if you are penniless when you retire, they're gonna try to sell you the retirement packages that will give them the best commissions. So I say, stay as far away from them as you can. Go to your credit union also. They may be able to help you. Your credit union is more of a vested interest in your financial wellbeing too.  07:49 - Anne (Host) I just caught you saying I'm gonna sell you a retirement package. Now, that's something that most voice artists, right? If you're working for yourself and self-employed, you're not even really thinking about, right? That's in addition to registering your business, paying yourself a salary or whatever it is that you're going to do. Are you going to incorporate? Are you going to be a DBA? There's also other things like retirement funds and healthcare, right and so?  08:13 - Tom Dheere (Guest) That's a whole other thing too.  08:14 - Anne (Host) Let's talk about that for a moment, Tom Sure.  08:17 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Okay. So if you have a spouse who has an insurance plan, get on it. Yeah, that's probably your best way to go. Also, sag-aftra has a fantastic health insurance program. If you are SAG-AFTRA, you need to earn a certain amount of money every year to qualify for that. So if you can get it through a partner, great. If you can get it through SAG-AFTRA, great.  08:40 - Anne (Host) If you cannot, If you work for the government too, county or state before this this county-state government employees also have fantastic plans.  08:46 - Tom Dheere (Guest) When I was a teacher yes, I had a great plan because I work for an educational institution and I have a nice pension Right.  08:51 Also, the Freelancers Union has healthcare. Nava has health insurance packages that you can look at. I, who live in New York, go through this state New York healthcare program. So my wife and I built an account. We entered all of our information, all of our assets, all of our expenses, and then it says okay, based on your adjusted income, you qualify for these health insurance programs through these companies and it will cost this amount. So that's been fantastic for us. The big thing is that if you are self-employed, you can write off legitimately, legally, ethically, a lot of stuff. Yes, yes. So when it comes to applying for a mortgage, it doesn't look good because your income looks a lot lower.  09:30 - Anne (Host) Absolutely.  09:31 - Tom Dheere (Guest) But if you are applying for health insurance, first-hand experience.  09:33 - Anne (Host) It's great for you yes, first-hand experience. If you're self-employed and then asking for a mortgage, it is something. You will have to provide a trillion pieces of evidence of the money that you make. It is very difficult, because that was my experience when we applied for a mortgage a couple of years ago, before we bought this home, and so, being self-employed, you have to be more financially intelligent than you ever thought, because you're going to have to have lots of different proof of income when do you get your income and how much income, and what are you writing off? And the cool thing is is that, yes, you can write off a whole bunch when you're self-employed. However, sometimes it makes the government look at you a little closer too.  10:13 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yes, you gotta be careful about that Because if you take a loss too many times, they're gonna designate your voiceover career as a hobby and then financially, you're kind of boned when it comes to that. I will also give another piece of advice regarding health insurance. Is that the best advice that I can give that I give my VO strategist students is to try to get a health savings account, or HSA. This is separate from a health insurance policy. Hsa is basically an IRA or a retirement account, but the purpose of it is to put money into it and take money out of it only for medical expenses. And what's great about it is for those of us who get paid voiceover gigs where there is no withholding. They don't take taxes out. You can deposit that money in that HSA and it will not get taxed when you take that money out for a legitimate medical expense.  11:08 That money does not get taxed, it is protected and a lot of them function like actual funds, like retirement funds where you can choose. It's like an index fund or a retirement fund where you can choose Apple or Microsoft or whatever, and it will be influenced by the market and some of them are purely interest rate based, like a straight up IRA so you can have multiple HSAs. I have multiple HSAs. Some are performance based, some are interest based, and what I do is I don't take anything out of them ever, even if I have medical expenses, because what I'm going to do is that down the road you can reimburse yourself for medical expenses as long as you provide the receipts, anytime you want. So if you've got $1,000 in your HSA and you take out $500 to repay yourself back for a medical expense, you've only got $500 in there. That's growing or performing. If you do it 10 years from now, that $500, and you have $10,000 as a result of market growth and additional putting more money in. Now, when you're taking $500 out, it's a drop in the bucket.  12:10 Yeah yeah, absolutely, and when you hit 65, you can just withdraw from it like a retirement fund. So I strongly recommend a health savings account. It's very, very powerful. A lot of your credit unions may already have one, or you can go to hsabankcom and check it out.  12:25 - Anne (Host) Well, I'm also going to say now what's so important right that establishes you as a business is a business bank account, which is something I think is imperative, and also a business savings account, and I have a high yield business savings account, which is really. I don't take money out of that If I don't have to. That is really, and I don't know if it's just in the last couple of years, but I've seen more and more offerings of this with different banks and with I actually happen to have one with American Express which is doing really well, and so I have that.  12:55 I just put the money in it and I don't touch it and it just sits there and it really is doing well, interest wise, and so if I ever do need it, that's going to be kind of like my little nest egg. But talk about the importance of separating your accounts out from personal into business.  13:11 - Tom Dheere (Guest) This is so important. The biggest reason why you need to do this is so you have a clean audit trail, because if the IRS does ever come and knock in, they can look at your accounts and you can say this one, all of my business expenses went in and out of this account. All of my personal stuff went in and out of this account. They are separate because if you are mixing it all up, it's a big mess and you could get in a lot of trouble.  13:34 - Anne (Host) Yeah, and it's horrible at tax time Horrible, horrible at tax time, horrible, especially if you're not keeping track.  13:40 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yep. These accounts are super easy to open as well. Most of us can just go online, log on to your bank online and just open the account. You don't even need to talk to a human, you just go, click, click, click.  13:49 - Anne (Host) You just transfer money and they want your money, they want your money and, as a matter of fact, they will reward you if you have a certain amount of money in that account. Free checks, higher interest, that sort of thing, lots of different. So I think you can shop around for a bank, because banks want your money right now.  14:04 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yeah, because, like, my business checking account is with one major bank chain and then my personal checking account is with another one because the interest rate is so much higher in the other one. But I like all the benefits. Sure, the business one. That's also the same one that I got my PPP loan when the pandemic happened. So when I applied and lined everything up, I got approved in 15 minutes and the money hit my account within 24 hours.  14:25 - Anne (Host) Yeah, yeah, same. For me, it really makes such a big difference when you have those accounts separate, and I cannot tell you how easy it is to have those separate accounts when you're working, let's say even with an accountant, right, because I actually happen to have the same bank for both my personal and my business. However, they're entirely separate when it comes to my software. So how important is it, tom, to have a software that helps us to financially understand what's happening in our business? You know inflows, outflows, profit and loss.  14:57 - Tom Dheere (Guest) I'm going to give you an answer that you may not expect, but I hate those. I hate them.  15:02 - Anne (Host) Okay.  15:03 - Tom Dheere (Guest) What I do is I have I know this sounds terrible, but I have a spreadsheet. Well, of course you do what the spreadsheet does is I know because Tom dear loves a spreadsheet.  15:14 - Anne (Host) Yes.  15:14 - Tom Dheere (Guest) My spreadsheets, which you can download for free at vostratigistcom. You sign up for it, you will get the spreadsheet that I'm talking about. I log every penny that goes into my business and every penny that goes out of my business.  15:25 - Anne (Host) Okay.  15:26 - Tom Dheere (Guest) So what's also nice is I've been messing around with some formulas lately, so the 2024 version, which I have yet to upload, but if you email me at tomatomgcom I can send it to you directly is that I log the amount, whether it's me as a voice actor or as the VO strategist. I have separate columns for those revenue streams and then I have the genre of voiceover in another column and then that populates a report, a running, living report.  15:51 So I can see exactly how many e-learning things I've done this year and how much money I've made and what percentage of my overall revenue that is.  15:58 - Anne (Host) So now does that also incorporate? Now the only reason I'm gonna say to you that, yes, I realize that you hate them. The reason, one of the reasons why I like them it use QuickBooks online is that I can integrate my bank account and so if somebody's paying me through an invoice and it goes into my bank account, it automatically gets recorded and because I am working with an accountant, she can remotely log in. She's not in California. She can remotely log in and manage my finances and the two of us. I can see what she's doing and that basically works really well for me.  16:30 - Intro (Announcement) And I have.  16:31 - Anne (Host) PayPal coming cause clients can pay me via PayPal, Venmo, my QuickBooks invoicing, which is three different streams incoming, and so those three act as banks and get automatically entered into QuickBooks and it can also take the fees, cause you know PayPal and they all charge fees.  16:49 That's the one thing, and so that can be yes, that can be separated automatically, so it's not something that I have to go and say, oh, all right, so $20 was paid to me. However, I only netted $18.57 because of the PayPal fee. So all of that can be automated and that just makes it easier for me and my accountant.  17:08 - Tom Dheere (Guest) I will say that I do use Wave for my voice actor invoicing, which I have my credit card set up on that, I have PayPal set up on that and I have direct deposit set up on that.  17:19 - Anne (Host) My VO strategist revenue goes through Wix, so I don't really generate invoices manually as the VO strategist Wix does, wix does it for me, and then it collects all the payments.  17:30 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yeah, wix is great for that, and then I have it set up where once a week it'll take all the money I earned from Wix and just put it in my business checking account. So I get an email saying here tomorrow you're gonna get a direct deposit for this amount.  17:42 - Anne (Host) And then I just I write it in my checkbook and then you know, this is all income. Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense.  17:46 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Right and I just write Wix in the right part of the side, or PP or DD or whatever. So also I'm so anal and I am so diligent with my spreadsheets and my CPA loves it because everything is auto-summed. So at the end of the year, when I don't bring my receipts to my CPA ever, I just send in one print out that has all of the expenses added up Automatically. I do very little math.  18:11 And then another spreadsheet that has all the 10.99s that I collected and all of the W-2s that I collected and then like the interest on my savings accounts or capital gains, the insurance interest and all that stuff and I just give that all to her. So I like my system. It works for me.  18:27 - Anne (Host) Yeah, no, absolutely.  18:29 - Tom Dheere (Guest) And working with the QuickBooks works for her, so it's good.  18:32 - Anne (Host) Well, yeah, I will tell you in terms of expenses, like so, my expenses. I have one business credit card and everything it's put on that business credit card, and so the statements from that credit card become my expenses.  18:45 And the nice thing is I just get a credit card that gives me all kinds of benefits. It actually gives me cash back, so again, that also is a bank that can be input into my QuickBooks and so all of my business expenses are also there, and so again, that works for me. So, and also my business checking account, obviously in savings account, are also in the QuickBooks. So yeah, I mean, I think, whether you do it via spreadsheet. Now, in terms of the amount of time, tom, that you spend doing financial things every day, once a week, once a month, how does that work for you? What's your time?  19:18 - Tom Dheere (Guest) I mean, the spreadsheet is open every day, so if an expense comes in or a gig comes in or I work with a student, I just log it as I go. It's just part of my workflow. It takes a minimum amount of time. I pay my credit card bills like twice a week. And that's the same time I'm updating my checkbooks. I send out invoices. Well, I mean, it depends. There's some clients where the second I send the audio files, I send the invoice. For some clients I wait a week for retakes.  19:43 Then I send the invoice and then I have some clients who all the work that I did in one month I'll send them one invoice for, so I don't have a set time of day or a week where I'm invoicing. It's usually that. But again, I've been doing this for so long and it's just such a part of my workflow and I'm one of the weirdos that likes doing the invoicing and paying the credit card bills and balancing the checkbook and logging the spreadsheet.  20:04 - Anne (Host) And I'm one of the people that doesn't I actually enjoy?  20:06 - Tom Dheere (Guest) it and that's fine. You're the minimum majority.  20:08 - Anne (Host) I'm the weirdo on this one, but that's okay. I mean, I think, your method with the spreadsheet. I mean the spreadsheets are so, so valuable.  20:16 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Number one yes, especially if you can find the right formulas, because, like, I like to know what percentage of my voiceover work is coming from my agent, so I know at the top of my head in 2023, 12% of my voiceover revenue came from representation Wow, and that's important, because I need to know how my business is functioning and why my business is functioning and I also learned things on a marketing level.  20:39 - Anne (Host) Yes, yes, absolutely About how my voiceover.  20:41 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Business is doing so. If I do a marketing campaign to put myself out there as an explainer video narrator and then I notice in third quarter 2023, my explainer video bookings went up by 20%, that means that marketing campaign worked. So these things all have a relationship with each other how your money comes in and out, your marketing methods, the tools that you're investing in, the training that you're investing in on a genre level All of them are interrelated. Everybody thinks they're these separate silos, and I love this one and I eat this one. I love them all because they're all related to each other. They should have a synergistic relationship. Most people coming into the industry, as you know, dump all their money into performance training, which they pretty much should at the beginning because they need to know if they can do this and how to do it. And then they invest in the demo and while they're doing that, they're investing in the home recording setup and all that stuff.  21:31 But what they're not a lot of them are doing is investing in their financial literacy. While they're doing this, they kind of wait till later or they don't know they have to work on this, because if you can start to develop your financial literacy as you are developing your performance skills and working with great coaches like Ann, when it comes time, when you've got that shiny demo in your hand and your website is up and your home recording studio is ready, you can hit the ground running, not just on audition and pray mode, but also on what do I do when I get my first gig. Oh, my God, I did the gig.  22:01 - Anne (Host) What do I? I got to do. What do I do now? Oh my God, what do I do? I got a gig. What do I do now?  22:06 - Tom Dheere (Guest) And what do I do with the check? How do I invoice them and what do I do with the check?  22:09 - Anne (Host) Well, first of all, if you go, oh my God, what do I charge? And then it's like, oh my God, how do I invoice? And then it becomes like, okay, now I've got the money and think about it. You don't want to just throw that in your personal checking.  22:18 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Right, and that's why Ann can help you with that. I can help you with that Kind of developing your financial literacy muscles and your marketing muscles, your business muscles, along with your performance muscles. So you are well rounded and when you're ready to hit the ground and really start your voice over career, you'll be firing on all cylinders.  22:36 - Anne (Host) Well, absolutely. And Tom. I just want to promote you, tom, because for all of those bosses out there that are just starting out like a lot of people out there going, oh my God, I don't even know where to start. Do I incorporate, do I create a business? What should I do? How do I even go about getting a separate account for my business? All of these questions you've got the VO strategist right here at your fingertips. And Tom is just amazing. He's been in the industry for gosh a billion years already and he didn't even pay me to say this. But I am highly, highly recommending for you to get with Tom. Get yourself a plan right, get yourself a strategy so that you can go into this as a business and not be panicked and be prepared for success. I love it. There's probably a whole lot more that we can talk about financial literacy.  23:20 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Tom.  23:21 - Anne (Host) However, I think we've really covered a lot of ground here. That I think is important for all bosses out there to understand and know that again, we're not just in the booth performing. That's not who our business is. There is that other component which I think is super, super important for us to understand so that we can go and make a profit, because that's what the whole purpose is. That's why we've become unless you're a hobbyist and I don't think VL Boss is I don't think we're talking to hobbyists here. I think we're talking about bosses. We are entrepreneurs, we are business owners, and let's get yourself prepared financially so that you can be on the road to success. Tom Dheere, is your pathway to get you started. I'm telling you, tom, thanks so much for talking with me today about this lovely topic which I know most people. I'm going to have to title this episode something completely different. Maybe I don't know, because I think sometimes, when people even see the word finance, they're like, oh God, my head hurts.  24:20 - Tom Dheere (Guest) But it doesn't have to be. Learn to love it. Yeah, love your finances. Yeah, that's what it's going to be called Love your finances Right, love your finances and have business success.  24:31 - Anne (Host) All right, tom. Well, thank you so much again for your wisdom. Bosses, big impact, simple mission, 100 voices, one hour, $10,000. If you want to know more, that's four times a year. By the way, bosses, visit 100voiceswhocareorg to find out more. And big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can network and connect like VL Bosses, the VL Bosses that you are. Find out more at IPDTLcom. Have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Bye.  25:01 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, ann 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. Free distribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPDTL.   

Voice actor and entrepreneurial spirit Cristina Milizia joins THE VO BOSS podcast to share her VO and GVAA journey. From her iconic performances in "League of Legends" to her shows on Nickelodeon, Cristina's career has spanned, toys, games, animation, and more! Cristina talks about her artistic influences and passion for performance, how being bilingual influences her career, and unexpected stardom in the face of adversity. Beyond the microphone, Cristina's legacy is amplified by her profound impact on the voice acting community through the Global Voice Acting Academy (GVAA) and its pivotal rate guide. We discuss the ethos of leadership, the cultivation of a nurturing community, and the unyielding push for fair compensation in the industry.  00:01 - 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 V-O boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:20 - Anne  (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the V-O Boss podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzzaa, and I am so excited to be here with a very special guest who is not only super Uber talented but one of my closest friends. Cristina Milizia is an award-winning bilingual voice actor and coach specializing in animation. She is a 2022 Voice Arts Award winner for outstanding animation character, film or TV best voiceover and is best known for voicing Annie and a Moo Moo on League of Legends, poison Ivy on Cartoon Network's DC superhero girls, Jessica Cruz for Lego DC Carlitos on the Casa Grande's, teresa for Barbie, mattel and Baby Bottle on the Cuphead Show. And while most of you know her for her acting roles, guess what? She is also a badass entrepreneur and a boss like no other, and she's the founder of the GVAA and the creator of the GVAA Rate Guide. Ah, Cristina, I am so excited to finally have you on the show.  01:19 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Thank you so much for having me. Also, any excuse to get to be with Ann is, like you know, awesome. I feel so fancy with your introduction, so thank you.  01:30 - Anne  (Host) That long list of credits is amazing and I just want to reiterate, bosses out there, while most of you probably know her for her amazing acting abilities and her characters, I wanted to bring Cristina on because she's a pioneer woman. She is an entrepreneur from gosh knows. We've known each other for how long, Cristina now 10 years, 10 years about yeah, I think, at least 10 years.  01:52 Cristina was like a baby when she started the GVAA, and there's nothing more entrepreneurial than just starting an online school and then having the idea for the GVAA Rate Guide. So let's talk a little bit. Maybe brush people up on your career, because you've been acting for also, you're like 12 and you've been acting for 31 years.  02:12 - Cristina Milizia (Host) At least right. I have been acting for 31 years, so I am about to be 40 on February 1st, so very shortly, Happy birthday.  02:19 - Anne  (Host) Thank you.  02:20 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Happy early birthday. Yeah, I know, that's a big 140.  02:23 - Anne  (Host) Right.  02:24 - Cristina Milizia (Host) I'm feeling that when I'm like, wow, that's impressive, but no, I started acting when I was about eight years old. Again, my parents are musicians, so I was used to being on stage with them because they couldn't afford babysitters, so they were just like hey, kid, shake this maraca on stage, and that's what we did. So I learned to play all kinds of random instruments and sing three-part harmony and I got used to from a very early age just being like and I say this to my students you need to get used to being a dancing monkey to a certain degree which is like hey time to dance.  02:54 Okay, yes, I can do that. Ta-da Be ready to just go. And I had training really early on for just taking direction, performing on call, being on stage, which was an incredibly valuable skill set to have at an early age before you get to that point where you're more self-conscious.  03:11 - Anne  (Host) Yeah, I was going to ask you were you ever scared to be on stage or scared to perform, or was it just because it was so ingrained at a young age? Did it just happen?  03:20 - Cristina Milizia (Host) No, I was never scared again because it just happened. Since I was so small it just seemed like part of my family life, along with sound checks and winding cable and everything else we did. It actually just got embarrassing when I got to like nine or 10 and my parents are performing at the school and I'm up there and I'm like, oh my God, please, all my friends are here. This is so embarrassing. I don't want to be like you are, family is playing and I'm just like, oh my God.  03:46 So, yeah, around between eight and 12, I got embarrassed about it and then I wouldn't play with them anymore and then I wanted to do my own thing and I danced as well and I ended up dancing professionally for quite some time, before I had an accident when I was 25 that made that no longer possible. So, yeah, it was a very artistic upbringing, so that definitely prepped me for just being in the booth. And so when I started doing some voiceover, the very first audition I did I booked and it was with casting director Ned Lott, who went on to cast for Miyasaki and Disney character voices. And, yeah, he cast me my very first job ever and I still work with him, which is really cool.  04:22 - Anne  (Host) That's awesome. That's really awesome. And so your transition. I guess, when did you transition full time into voiceover?  04:29 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Well, I was determined not to be an artist because my parents, you know, were very much like kind of starving musicians growing up and it's a very difficult lifestyle, it's a very difficult profession to really make a full time living in, and so I was determined not to do that. So I studied like statistics, I went to like the school of management and I was like, oh my God, no, I can't.  04:47 - Anne  (Host) Not unlike being an entrepreneur right and having your own business. I mean, we're all kind of starving artists, aren't we In our own right? Yeah, so you studied statistics and said uh-uh.  04:56 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Yep, and then I went to the School of Management and actually that was very helpful because, even though I didn't stay there, I actually learned a lot about management and communication with teams and how to deliver messaging and communication and people management, and so that actually was very useful. Even though I didn't complete my education there, I ended up going back to transfer to UC Berkeley and then studied theater, but dipping my toe in the business world and management was actually something that was very useful later on when starting GVAA.  05:25 - Anne  (Host) Absolutely, and so let's talk about your career then, kind of full-time and voiceover before the GVAA that would be GVAA. How long were you working and doing voiceover before you decided to start a business and what was it that led you to Actually want to start a business or an online school?  05:45 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Well, so I did voiceover from eight years old all the way through lower school, middle school, high school again. I just did it just here and there. It was never like a big deal, it was just something fun and a cool way to make some money, and we saved it, or my parents would use it for things that I needed. What type of jobs did you do at that age? Oh, that's a really great question.  06:02 The Bay Area they have a wonderful, a very robust toy and game industry up there and so all of my early work was toy work, toys and games. So leapfrog is up there in Oakland, so I did a lot of work for leapfrog. And then I worked for a company quite often called creativity and the music annex and they did a lot of work for just toy companies across the US. And I worked for another company called shoot the moon and they did like invention work where they would Create concepts and then present them to the big toy companies to purchase them. So I did a lot of invention work.  06:34 I did a lot of demo vocals as well, so like they'd want to have a product or a toy where they'd have like a celebrity doing, you know, the official voice of Barbie or whatever singing it. But I was like the guide vocal got, so I would do all the guide vocals and I would go through all the revisions of the song to get it to the final form and then they would give it to the celebrity and they would listen to my voice as their guide vocal before they did the final Things did they ever just pick you instead of the celebrity, or was it always the celebrity was because they wanted the marketing efforts, I guess, of the celebrity voice no, there were a few.  07:06 I actually did get cast and I got to do that, but it was actually fantastic training for animation, because a lot of these toy products are from animation Animation losses, you know, like Elmo and Barbie and Dora, and so I had to do a lot of voice matching, so it was actually great training because I had to mimic these characters and get as close as I could to have the client feel what the product was gonna be like.  07:28 So you got then into character then as well as yeah, I tell people all the time, toy work is fantastic training for animation in terms of just the level of skill required, in terms of what I kind of call vocal gymnastics, mimicry, really wide-ranging characters, really big characters that are very silly. I've been asked to do very, very silly things and again, just very like you know, singing a song in pig or in chicken. I did do a whole song, like it was a whole, like it was great, like we did all the notes were second and then they'd make music out of it and like it was wild, like it was just crazy stuff sometimes, and so there was just already a level of silliness that translated so well into animation later, because I was just not shy about You're gonna ask me to do some crazy thing.  08:17 I'm like yeah, sure.  08:17 - Anne  (Host) All right, let's go. How do you embody the pig singing oh God, is that work? How do you get yourself into that character? Absolutely, I can totally see that as Helping you and also why you're so successful as a character actress today.  08:31 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Thank you. Actually, one of the areas of animation I've really started transferring in more lately in past year or two, has been creature work and it's been like gibberish, kind of sure, or emotive, like animals or like mystical pets or things that are just like you know just where it's just there's no words, but it's just an emotional performance where you can hear a message but there's no words to it. Sure, very freeing art form. That again, you have to be willing to just let whatever come out of your mouth, right.  09:04 - Anne  (Host) Absolutely Come out of your mouth and that's been really cool, so I love that and I would imagine that that also allowed you to really delve into a lot of different ranges for your vocal Performances as well, because I know for a fact that you did a lot of little girl baby voices for the toys and so now, I guess, evolving into creature work, you get to do all sorts of ranges and I always think that vocal placement and understanding where sounds are coming from and where your Voice is coming from is so important in delivering different performances.  09:33 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Well, I originally started as little girl stuff that was on all this really cute. You know I gotta get my game down if I'm gonna do that. I started with just little girl stuff all the time, and then I just got younger and younger and younger. I Went into the baby stuff and that turned into you know, you know whatever, just really crazy. So yeah, I don't know, it just kind of evolved. People just kept asking me to go higher and higher and I was like, okay, now what about lower and lower?  10:10 Yeah, you know, we've done that too as my voice is matured, did get lower, yeah, like, so now I'll do stuff more, like down here yeah, you know, it's like my more big girl voice and then when to get really crazy, like we'll do weird stuff like that, that's awesome.  10:28 - Anne  (Host) I know that I fully have to take advantage of my morning voice if somebody wants me at a lower register Right, and then also being able to get yourself down to that place if you can after you've been voicing for hours, that's another skill. That's another skill set. So tell us all about your claim to fame. League of Legends. Was that your first big gig as a character, as a major character?  10:49 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Yeah, I would absolutely say so. I think that was in 2009. There were two characters that were introduced in the very beginning, and one, I believe, was rise, and the other one was Annie, and that was me. So a lot of people have a lot of nostalgia for Annie.  11:01 Sure she's also one of the very first characters that you get when you play, and so she's again nostalgia. She's one of the first characters that you get to play with, so a lot of people have a very attachment to her, and there's also an enormous statue of Annie and a moomoo at Riot Games, which is amazing. That blew my mind the first time I saw, but, yes, that was definitely the first big thing, but when it was done, it was nothing, it was not a known game.  11:24 It was an unknown game. I was one of the first two people to do it and so, wow, I did it and promptly forgot about it, never heard anything about it again. Yeah, because I didn't know that it had become anything. And they give us code names. I didn't even know the name of the game.  11:37 - Anne  (Host) Oh, okay, yes, so you didn't even know what game, and so when it came out, did you know that had to come out?  11:42 - Cristina Milizia (Host) No idea, no idea. I didn't know until I met my husband and that was in 2012, so it was like three years later, and he actually worked at Riot Games at the time, working on League of Legends, and we were on our first date. And I laughed and he said your voice sounds really familiar. Oh my gosh, how do I?  12:00 - Anne  (Host) not know this story, Cristina, I should know this story.  12:04 - Cristina Milizia (Host) It was part of the magic of our first date. And he was like your voice sounds really familiar If you've heard anything for Riot Games. And I was like I don't know, let me check my resume. And I'm like looked and I was like yeah, I'm some character named Annie and a moomoo, and I pronounced it and he was like your Annie and I was like yeah, and then he told me he's like your voice is famous all over the world and I was like that character really didn't.  12:27 - Intro (Announcement) Wow, you really didn't know.  12:29 - Cristina Milizia (Host) No, and I thought he was just like blowing smoke.  12:31 - Anne  (Host) Yeah, I thought he was just trying to like Cause first date.  12:32 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Yeah, yeah, I thought he was like trying to butter me up.  12:35 - Anne  (Host) Or like.  12:36 - Cristina Milizia (Host) I thought maybe he had a small cult following somewhere like you know something? And he was like no, go, look it up.  12:42 - Anne  (Host) And I was like and so it never occurred to you to look it up, because you weren't necessarily, let's say, a gamer at the time or you were on to other roles or what happened, just probably forgot about it.  12:53 - Cristina Milizia (Host) I didn't even know the name of the game, right.  12:55 - Intro (Announcement) So I didn't even know what to look for.  12:57 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Yeah, like they didn't tell you later. So I knew I was someone called Annie, and a Moomoo is more specific. But again, there are so many games that you do and then they just either don't become anything or they're small. And you know I wasn't doing big big games at that time. You know I would get and I was doing smaller more mobile games, toys. I wasn't used to anything going on a very large scale. So that was, yes, definitely my very first big thing that I didn't even know had become a big thing until I met my husband. And that's been. The funniest part is that my laugh is Annie's laugh, just higher pitched.  13:27 And one of my favorite moments ever is that I was at the airport getting off a flight. I was just in the airport and I laughed about something and then all of a sudden I hear this person and they're all Annie, annie. I love it, annie. And they just are running around the airport Like we see this person running trying to find her. Like Annie.  13:48 - Anne  (Host) Like I was like. Did you answer yes?  13:51 - Cristina Milizia (Host) I said legal legends, annie. They were like yes, and they were like you're Annie. And then we had to like sit down and have a conversation and I had never been recognized by my laugh at an airport. It just blew my mind and so that was like how you knew you were kind of famous, but it's fun because it's just the voice, like if I hadn't laughed no one would know, and that was like my big, like celebrity moment, right, it felt like I felt important.  14:14 - Anne  (Host) Well, that was the beginning of them, right, and I know how hard you've worked. I mean, having known you like literally I met you, I think, right after you got married, like maybe a year after you got married, and so we have known each other for 10 years and I know how hard you have worked to just make a space and to really claim your talents, which I always knew were amazing in the animation space, and you've gone on to these amazing roles. What was your evolution for that? Like, talk about your ethic, because one thing before I talk about your entrepreneurial ethic and getting into GVAA was you were focused. I remember you saying you were just focused on wanting to really do well in animation, so talk to us a little bit about that.  14:58 - Cristina Milizia (Host) I think I had been doing toys for so many years. At that point I had literally done toy work for every company in the US and the skill set was so close to animation. But the truth of the matter is that toy work doesn't pay very well and it's completely non-union. I believe and it was then as well A lot of it was non-union and it's not a robust industry. They don't make a lot of money and that's why you see a lot of toy companies branching into animation in order to survive. You know, like Mattel, having to go into animation now even live action films that was a big change in the industry is because kids didn't want toys anymore.  15:35 - Anne  (Host) They wanted iPhones they wanted all of them and technology Right exactly To survive they had to evolve with technology. That makes a lot of sense actually.  15:42 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Yeah. So toy work really just it was not high paying work, even though it was fun. Also, toy work is not, in terms of acting, nearly as demanding or deep. It's fun, it's great, it's educational, it's cute, but you really have most like can you find the red ball? Great job, you know, it's not like meteor rolls with deep acting, in-depth acting, yeah, yeah. And so I knew that vocally I could do it, and so I just made this resolution that I was going to work for Disney, cartoon Network and Nickelodeon and I was like and your overnight success took how long?  16:16 - Anne  (Host) Because I'm always about the, my overnight success took at least 10 years.  16:19 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Right, well, I arrived in LA in 2012. And I don't think I booked my first animation job until probably 2016, 2015, 2016. And that was the beginning.  16:31 - Anne  (Host) So it took a good three years three or four years before I really actually started working in and you had a great agent at the time which I think had a lot of faith and belief in you and I think I would say fairly significant in terms of your growth in that area. Would you say that?  16:47 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Yeah, no, I had a wonderful agent who believed in me and actually went with him from one agency to another agency that had more animation connections and we had an honest conversation and he told me. He said you know, honestly, at the other agency you weren't making me any money, he said. But he said I feel like it's because you weren't getting the animation shots that you should be getting.  17:05 - Intro (Announcement) You got it the opportunities.  17:06 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Yeah, and that has to do with the relationship that the agents have with the animation studios, and so when he took me to AVO with him, he said I think you and Sandy are going to do really well and Sandy is one of the best animation agents in the country, and that's when things just exploded for me.  17:23 - Anne  (Host) But what a credit to what we're always telling voice actors and voice talent is to really develop those relationships with your agents and how they can really help you to blossom, and that two of you working together can really help to move careers forward. And it's so important because maybe had you not had that good of a relationship, you wouldn't have sat down and had that talk and you wouldn't have moved over to a different agency. That gave you different opportunities. So I love that you said that, so let's continue to talk around. That time you probably also had the idea for the GVAA. So your little entrepreneurial mind was like, okay, I don't have enough on my plate, but let's do something else, right?  18:03 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Well, I think I actually started GVAA sooner than that.  18:05 - Anne  (Host) I started GVAA.  18:07 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Was it 2010? No, it was like 2013, I think. Okay, okay, 2013, 2014,. It was before I started booking a lot in animation. I was coaching because I had coached for many years at Voice One in San Francisco Toys and Games and that's because I had also worked as a casting director for a production company for Toys and Games, and so I was not only an actor for it, I did casting. So I taught classes for Elaine Clark at Voice One, and so I was taking some private students and I was getting these students who had just been put through well, I don't know how to call it, but a demo mill or these weekends where they're like become a voice actor in a weekend and make your demo and people who had invested large amounts of money and were completely unprepared and they didn't understand why they weren't booking.  18:51 And I was seeing it more and more and it was so devastating to me. And I remember one man in particular. He had come to me, had spent like $5,000 or something on all his demos in a new website and he was like I don't know why I'm not booking. And I listened to his stuff and he had a list. He had a speech impediment nothing that's gonna ruin everything that can be corrected and things can be worked on. But nobody said anything to him, you know, and I had a list growing up and it's something I had to work on. It's not like the end of your life if that happens, but it does need to be addressed because you will book more if you don't have one in certain areas you know, for your own narration and that's just what it is.  19:28 And he was so devastated he had no idea that he had a lisp and he was so sad at the end of that call and then I was so angry that somebody had done this. And that's when I was like I'm going to start. You know, I knew all these wonderful coaches from Voice One. I knew Elaine Clark and David Rosenthal and Doug Honoroff again, fantastic coaches and I said there are great coaches out there. There needs to be a resource, there needs to be a place where people can access quality coaches that are not going to lie to them, that are going to give them, you know, the real information they need to succeed. And that's when I started that and David Rosenthal reached out to me and said you wanted to be a part of it and we shared the same dream and then we just took off together and he was wonderful because, again, I was only like 28 at the time You're like 12?.  20:18 I'm sorry she was so young, I was little. I mean, you know, it's not that little, I was 28, maybe 29.  20:26 - Anne  (Host) I just jest, but you were very young and very ambitious and I remember when I met you. Do you remember how we met, how we got connected? Oh my gosh, I don't. Somehow the name Dave Kovosie, right? Oh yeah, doesn't that just like, comes to mind. I believe that he introduced us via email and we met probably 2013 somewhere along, when you first began GVAA and bosses out there, if you did not know, I was a coach for GVAA in the very beginning and loved, loved, loved my experience, worked with amazing people Cristina, of course, and David and really I saw the whole online school blossom, and so I love Cristina.  21:05 When we would work together I mean you in the true spirit of entrepreneurship, right, you were willing to learn as you went, you were willing to try things, you were willing to listen to the people that you believed in that worked for you and would ask advice and literally built that from the ground up yourself. I'm going to say you know, along with, probably, david, but I think in the very beginning, it was all you really trying to create something for the good of the community, which is something that I love, and I was very proud to work for GVAA and it was my honor to. Whenever you would ask me a question, you know like, hey, what do you think about this? Or what do you think about this? And I also remember the rate guide, which is so instrumental. I mean, we're talking, you're a pioneer woman. I was considered, elaine Clark, a pioneer woman as well.  21:54 - Cristina Milizia (Host) She was really one of my biggest inspirations for doing it.  21:57 - Anne  (Host) She's wonderful. She's absolutely wonderful, and I like to consider myself a bit of a pioneer myself.  22:01 but also just for you to be able to say, look, this is what's needed in the community, this is a resource that's needed, and then to evolve that into a school where you hired. I mean, literally, you were still a voice actor and you literally were running a business. You were hiring people, you were paying people, you established an online school, which, at the time, was not something that existed, and there was coaches that were out there, but there was no real website out there. I remember where you could actually go and say, oh, I want this coach or I want to learn this and let me pay for it here, or let me do this here. And so everything was advanced for its age in 2013, just because it didn't exist before. And so you I consider to be one of the pioneers of those technologies, of having online schools and having them be successful, something that people can trust, and then I mean, let alone, the rate guide. Let's talk about, first of all, what were your challenges in building GVAA, and then what was it that led to the evolution?  23:05 - Cristina Milizia (Host) of the rate guide. I think in the very beginning it was actually Jonah Rosenthal. David Rosenthal's son was one of the very first people who helped me put together, and a wonderful woman as well who was an assistant to me, just putting in just all the content, building the website, building, you know, all of that stuff, and then David Rosenthal, of course, as well, through every aspect of it, and that was just getting again all the content in there, organizing everything. How were we going to do all of it? And again, the biggest motivation was just I felt like there was just this tremendous social injustice, you know, and I wanted to protect people Because, again, I'd also grown up very poor and it really bothers me when people are being taken advantage of. It's so wrong. So, yes, and we definitely were one of the very first, and David actually had something called online voiceover coach.  23:49 He had also started going in that direction, which was one of the reasons why, when we kind of merged our ideas, he already was right there with the mentality of how we're going to do this and having you and bringing on all these people that had so much more experience, because I had the original vision but there were so many people that were aligned with that vision and had more life experience, more experience, coaching.  24:10 - Anne  (Host) And I had run VOPEAPs as well. So I had run some online things educationally based, and I had also worked for some other institutions, some other coaching institutions, but nothing as large as the GBA, really trying to bring together all different genres and all different coaches.  24:25 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Right. So I got a lot of advice from you, from David, and I think one of the biggest lessons I learned. I think people have this idea of what leadership is you have power and whatever else, and the truth is that leaders eat last. Your job is to serve. Your job is to serve everyone else. You come last, putting their ideas first, listening, staying calm, being humble, trying to keep a cool head and having a larger vision of things. It is not easy to be a leader.  24:53 - Anne  (Host) And I think at that point it's very hard and you really have  24:56 to have self-control in terms of emotionally and sorting through everything and you have to have courage, and I love that. You said that it's not about the leader, it's about who they're serving, and you read any good book on leadership and that's like, first and foremost really is the best things you can do as a leader is to put together a team that supports you and that is amazing at what they do and can even be better than you in all those areas, and working together that's what creates a successful business and a successful team together.  25:27 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Yep and I asked questions of Elaine. She was very, very helpful. In the beginning I looked up to her very much you, david, a number of our other coaches and because I knew that I had a lot to learn. And again, I had the passion, I had the drive, I had the vision, I had the desire to create this. But you have to reach out to the people to fill in those holes and you can't just try to assume you know how to do it all yourself, because you have to take advantage of the resources around you. So it was a very humbling experience and in the process, you know, it started to do really well.  25:57 We started going to conferences and presenting, which was wonderful, and then at one of the conferences or I remember if it was at the conference or perhaps before, but I had connected with David Tobak and I was mentoring him. He had come to me for some advice. I was either coaching him or mentoring him and he had decided that he wanted to make a little rate card for himself for his website, to kind of just establish his rates, which I thought was very smart. And he showed it to me. And Tobak is excellent with organization, he's very detail-oriented and it was just beautiful, like it was just beautifully laid out and I was like this is fantastic.  26:30 I was like this is great and I was just like I suddenly had this vision of doing this on a much larger scale. And there was a reason for this too. And I had actually just had an experience, not long before this happened, where I had been hired for an animation show, where I found out later that they had let go of their cast, that they were paying, I think. It was like I can't remember the exact number but normal animation rate, but non-union and then they had decided to hire all new actors at half the rate and I was one of those actors and this was through an agency.  27:03 - Anne  (Host) Wow.  27:04 - Cristina Milizia (Host) And I was just. You know, I was like, oh, that's one of my first animation jobs. I'm so excited, you know, I've been doing this for so long.  27:08 I'm just excited. And then I found out later what had happened, and I didn't even understand really the dynamics of any of this, and that even though I had been hired to be a different character, it was still the fact that they were trying to hold the line of no, this is the rate that we're going to ask for, we're going to walk, and the company was just like well, bye, I'm going to recast.  27:29 And then me being, I had a lot of experience as a voice actor, but I was hired and again I'm just all starry-eyed because it's my first animation job, which just happens to every voice actor. Everybody, you're starry-eyed. Oh my God, it's my first job. That's absolutely what happens.  27:43 - Anne  (Host) Yep, and I remember that at the time happening a lot and there being at least the starting of some discussions, because even Facebook groups at that time hadn't really materialized. I know I had one for VOPs, but there weren't like there are today. There weren't groups that could discuss those things, but it was one of the things that people were starting to discuss, including rates. It's one of the reasons why people would say do we publish our rate guides online on our website? That was a big question of the day and I remember there was a discussion about that. But I also then remember, just at the touch, in the beginning of it, when people would talk about oh my gosh, like here are actors trying to stand their ground and get paid a fair rate, and the company just saying, well, that's okay, see ya, and then hiring starry-eyed voice actors half the rate, and I remember that being an issue. And here you go wanting to take a stand about that, and I think that's wonderful.  28:36 - Cristina Milizia (Host) And this was also the time my husband reminded me we were discussing this before I came on today that this was also the time that this was really the rise of the pay to plays. Yes, this was the time when Voicescom and Voice 123, they were just taking over.  28:51 The rates were just plummeting, plummeting, plummeting.  28:56 And so in the midst of all this and I was just watching more and more work go non-union because I'm FICOR, so I see union and non-union work.  29:05 Toy work is exclusively non-union, so I wasn't going to go full union, I was going to be FICOR, so I didn't lose my toy work that I needed at the time, which was my only income aside from my one or two animation jobs which I was starting to get, and I just felt like I was watching my industry fall apart and everything that I had worked hard to try to get out of which was just these little tiny non-union job rates and being taken advantage of many times in my career up until this point.  29:31 And I was like, no, I don't want this to happen to any other talented people that are coming in this, where maybe they have a strong performance background, strong acting background, they're trained opera singer, whatever, and so they do a great job, but they have no idea what they should be paid for that skill set and they're just excited to be on a show, and it happens every day. And so when he showed me this little guide, I was like you know what? This is what we need. We need this for the non-union world. Yeah, absolutely.  30:01 - Anne  (Host) And you know, what's funny is that when there was all the discussion about the rate cards like, do we publish our rate cards Everybody at the time was saying, well, okay, what's the benchmark? Is there a benchmark? What should I charge? And especially for all of the non-union stuff that I was doing corporate work, explainer work, e-learning work everybody would say, well, what do you charge? What do you charge? And they'd say, how do we even know what's the benchmark?  30:22 And when we were all back in the day before there was a big band and there was the GVAA rate guide, there was a bunch of us that used to talk to one another and say, well, here is what I charge, but I'm not going to publish it on my website because every job is different. However, it's always good, especially for anybody new, and they still find this to be the case whenever I have a new student and they're like, oh my God, somebody just asked me what I would charge for this e-learning job or for this corporate job and what do I do? And you get into that panic and you have no reference, you have nothing to look at, to even benchmark your pricing on. And I'm so glad that the GVAA rate guard was started because it gave us something other than SAG-AFTRA okay, because SAG-AFTRA is what we were looking at, but SAG-AFTRA didn't have rates for e-learning. Really, it was one of those things where it was just a bunch of us who did a bunch of it and we would talk amongst each other and you were actually asking all those people, including myself, like what do you charge?  31:16 And so it was great. You were able to bring together everybody at the time to really get a good set of data for this rate guide and it literally is iconic now in the industry. I mean, I say this over and over again how many times do people reference the GVAA rate guide? And I am so proud to know you, christine, I'm so proud that you did this back then, knowing it would be a good resource for the community, and it's really just become legendary today. It's epic, it's the GVAA rate guide. I mean, it's literally it's its own entity. Now you know it should have its own website just for the usefulness and functionality.  31:55 - Cristina Milizia (Host) And we have more plans for it.  31:56 And first of all, I just want to say like, too, that a lot of people don't know the original story of the rape guide, and so I was really excited to talk about it with you today, because what happened after Toback showed me that little card, as I said hey, toback, will you please come work with me, work for GVAA. I want to build this for every area of voiceover, because exactly what you said that the union didn't talk about no, I don't think they talk about telephony. They don't know about all of these other areas. And I knew a lot of people. I knew a lot of coaches and I just started making phone calls and I spent a lot of time with you. I spent a lot of time with Josh at GoVoices, eric Shepard at Shepard Agency, wonderful agents and I did actually spend some time with union workers as well who explained their rape structures and I tried to translate it kind of in a non-union format for different areas, and all those people generously gave their time to build this, because we all believed in it.  32:51 - Anne  (Host) I remember at the time, we all believed in it and we all said, yes, this is exactly what's needed. This is what's needed in the industry.  32:58 - Cristina Milizia (Host) And there were so many areas, we were like what do we do? If I'm doing an airport announcement, I'm like I have no idea Let me go look.  33:05 I'm being played in a lobby of a dentist's office. I'm like, let me go research that. What if I'm a voice in a card that opens up and sings something? A hallmark card? Right, that's okay. And so we got this barrage of people just asking, and so it was built, and it was so much, so quickly that, unfortunately, I burned out a little bit. Well, I burned out because I was getting emails and messages and messenger notices at all times of day.  33:32 - Anne  (Host) Well, at this point, I know as a coach before the GBA rape guide, I know as a coach oh my goodness, when you set your students out into the world of working in voiceover and they've got their coaching, they've got a demo, and then all of a sudden that first job request comes in or how much would it cost they flock to the people like insane and just panic, panic, panic. Oh my God, what do I charge? Oh my God, what do I charge? Oh my God, what do I charge? What do I charge for this? So I know you, on a grand scale, were being barraged, because I was being barraged before the GBA rape guide existed and it became like one of those things where it's like I'd love to help you but I cannot answer you in this next second, right At two in the morning.  34:14 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Yeah, exactly.  34:16 - Anne  (Host) And so that's what is so wonderful about having that as a resource and congratulations on that. I mean, really, it's a wonderful, wonderful resource for the community and I'm just so proud to have been a small part of it back in the day and so proud of you and so proud of GVAA and just guys, bosses, this is a bad ass entrepreneur right here. She's a VO boss and you may not even have known that, but I am bringing that to light now and shouting it from the rooftop. So, Cristina, it's been amazing. How can people, if people need to get in touch with you because I know you're coaching a lot now and you're high in demand but how can people get in touch with you if they need to?  34:53 - Cristina Milizia (Host) So I am very excited to be coaching again. I took a long break to focus on animation, but now I am back and I feel like I have so much more information to share, which is really exciting. You can find me at globalvoiceacademycom. That's the website. If you look up GVAA rape guide, it's all connected on there too. If that's already in your normal search engine, it's all connected. You'll see under one-on-one coaching that I'm there.  35:16 I focus on animation, character work in general, toys, video games and career strategy things of that nature, and now that I'm back from my break also, you can expect some really cool stuff that we're going to be doing the rape guide.  35:29 We have plans for adding a whole, much larger non-union animation section very soon, doing research right now on audio description as well, which is a new area that's really exploding as well, and if people do have other areas that they would like to see on the rape guide, you can also reach out to us at globalvoiceacademycom. Let us know if there's stuff missing on there that you'd like to see, because we definitely have big plans to continue growing it. And, as I think it was Tim Friedland who told me or maybe it was at the Navigala that 80% of voiceover work is now non-union. I believe that is yeah, absolutely so. I am as dedicated to this project as ever. I took my little break and now I'm back and I'm here for the community and I want us all to rise and support each other and be able to fight for what we're worth.  36:15 - Anne  (Host) So thank you, Cristina, so much for that. It's been an absolute pleasure. I can only hope to have many more conversations with you in the future Me too, for the podcast. And so, bosses, here's your chance to use your voice to make an immediate difference in our world and give back to the communities, just like GVAA and Cristina Malizia have done. Give back to the communities that give to you. Visit 100voiceswhocareorg to commit. And also a big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You, too, can connect a network like bosses, like Cristina and myself. Find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week. I love you, Cristina, and we will see you next week. I love you.  36:53 - Cristina Milizia (Host) Bye.  36:56 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host and 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.   

The BOSSES discuss why adapting to an ever-evolving industry is crucial for standing out in a sea of talent. Anne discusses her own expansion into ventures like VO Boss, VO Peeps, and podcasting, illustrating how you can diversify your skillset and find fresh opportunities without losing your creative spark. Plus, the BOSSES spotlight the immense value of networking through conferences and workshops to elevate your voice-acting business to boss-level status. Join us, for an empowering session that promises to reignite your passion and strategic approach to your voice-acting venture. 00:01 - 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 VEO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Gangusa.  00:19 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VEO Boss podcast and the Boss Superpower series. I'm your host, Anne Gangusa, and I'm here with the lovely, lovely Lau Lapides.  00:31 - Lau (Guest) Hey Lau. Oh, amazing to see you, as always Amazing. Oh, thank you, Lau.  00:36 - Anne (Host) Wonderful to see you as well.  00:40 - Lau (Guest) What are we talking about today? I can't wait.  00:42 - Anne (Host) Okay, so I always have to open it up with a story. So lately I have heard a lot this year because it's been an interesting year. I've heard a lot from my students that they're frustrated. They have been making investments and they've been doing auditions and they're just not getting any work and they're just like frustrated to the point where they just want to give up. And I'll tell you what. I remember that feeling very well. I want to talk about voice actors who give up too soon, because I really feel like there's something to be said for sticking it out. I mean, building a business is not something that happens overnight. I know we say this all the time but, like my, overnight success took 10 years. I mean truly Lau thoughts on that.  01:32 - Lau (Guest) I'm right there with you and I think that that's a Listen, let's be honest, shall we? It's a very Western philosophy to think I'm opening a business, therefore I'm going to work and be successful right away. I mean, eastern philosophy is like no, at 10 years you're starting your business, right, yeah? So the idea of investment of time and resources and capital and sacrifice has got to be in our vocabulary and that's why we say in the first, three to five years is a typical timeframe, that we're looking at the metrics for what businesses are surviving and what businesses have gone under. We'll give it the three to five years, because you can't do it in a month. No, three to five years is the baseline. Can't do it in a year, can't do it in two years.  02:15 - Anne (Host) I'm constantly saying, oh, but I've spent so much money and I'm like have you? Have you really Like, have you? And again, I think we've spoken about this in many a podcast about the investment aspect of this career I'm like, well, thank goodness you didn't have to open a storefront or buy inventory. I mean honestly, your investment is investing in yourself. Because I constantly, as a coach and a demo producer, I hear this all the time because people are like I just don't have the money. Or I've taken so many lessons and I'm like have you? And I don't mean to be obnoxious here about it, but really, if you think about it and again, I've said this multiple times I always tell people look, we go to school for years. How many years do you go to medical school? How many years, if you want to become a vet, do you go to school? How many hours in a day do you spend at your job? Eight hours a day, maybe.  03:05 And so all of a sudden I'll get people who are like, yeah, but I've taken so many coaching sessions and I just I'm not getting the work and I'm like how many coaching sessions have you taken? And this is how many hours of your life have you actually spent studying the craft of voice acting, and not just for coaching. But let's just say, how many hours have you spent marketing? Like companies have entire marketing departments. They hire multiple people like you know, 20, 50, hundreds of people to generate leads. You are one person, and so you want to know why you haven't gotten work yet. You know what I mean. You're spending your time auditioning, you're spending your time doing a bunch of stuff, but also you've got to spend that time marketing, and so people, I think, are just giving up too soon. Lau.  03:50 - Lau (Guest) Yeah, they're also not paying attention to their environment. They're thinking that I'm in my own private Idaho. I'm going to be successful. This is what I want, and here it comes. You got to look at the world, you got to look at global economics.  04:03 You got to look at the US we're now in a high inflation state right now and how that affects other industries. That's going to make you feel I mean, we don't want injury and suffering of all industry, but you want to pay attention that if all industries are suffering, then it stands to reason that yours will be suffering as well too. And so there's misery. Does like a little bit of company, and so do the work, do the homework. Look around, however, you do that just so you can keep it in perspective, because otherwise we get so isolated and we get out of the bubble times.  04:37 How many times have you heard Anneie, oh, great, I got my demo, I'm ready to work. Okay, how do I work? And you're thinking, no, no, no, this is only the very beginning, the very, very beginning. Right, you're not in the middle, ready to work. No, this is the beginning of like, how do I put a little bit of a footprint out there? How do I get people to know I'm in the world? How do I do that? That's on me, that's all on me to do that.  05:02 - Anne (Host) And people will be very quick to blame people selling the dream, okay. So yes, there are people that sell the dream, but there's people that sell the dream for many an industry, right, and that's part of how they have their business flourish. However, there's a lot to be said for what you just said, and that is pay attention to the world, pay attention to the global market, pay attention to what is it that people are looking for? How is our voice profession being viewed in the marketplace right now? What's in demand, right? What is the going rate? What are people getting paid?  05:38 You cAnneot just say I've practiced, I've got a demo and now I'm ready to work, because there's so many other factors at play. One of the things is that you've got to evolve with the market and you've got to give yourself enough time in the market so that you can get hired. A lot of times, it's people who are established in the market and can show that they're established in the market for a very long time. Clients will tend to gravitate to them. I mean, I know for myself, right? If I'm looking to work with a particular we always use the dentist. It seems like I want a dentist who's got experience?  06:14 I want a doctor who has experience. I needed a breast surgeon right, obviously, for my breast cancer. I shopped for a breast surgeon. Of course, how long they were in business and how many surgeries did they perform it was a factor in who I hired to do such a thing. I think most of the voice actors that get super frustrated and say it's just not working. I put in all this money. I ask you to step back and think about what you just said. Did you really invest a lot of money? Maybe, yes, you thought that you could maybe create a business out of a whole lot less. Maybe it's because somebody sold you the dream. But also do not discount the fact that maybe you didn't look or educate yourself on what this industry is all about. And what investment do you need to make? That's not just monetary investment, it's also-.  07:06 - Lau (Guest) That's exactly right.  07:08 - Anne (Host) What sort of time is invested? What sort of education is invested for you?  07:13 - Lau (Guest) I always think to myself, Anneie, when, even though you may be in inflation, even though it may be hard to get clients at a particular time, I always think, when I'm very low, meaning I'm not getting enough action, I'm not getting enough energy, I always think and again, this is the work ethic of our generation I always think what am I doing wrong?  07:31 - Anne (Host) Did I lay back.  07:32 - Lau (Guest) Am I not working hard enough? Am I not working smart enough? Am I not strategizing enough? I may not be doing anything wrong, but the point is I always put it on myself. I don't look at the universe and say why isn't it coming to me, why isn't it just there for me? Why am I not busy and getting hired? I always think, well, am I putting myself in front of enough people? Do I have the right materials that are suiting the kind of job that they're looking for? Am I missing something? And typically I find it's on me.  08:03 - Anne (Host) Typically, I do find that, yeah, I agree, it is something that you really need to step back and take a look at. If you're not booking number one and I have so many people are like people that are newer to the industry that think, well, I've got a great commercial demo and I think to myself, well, commercial is only a certain percentage of the market. What about the other part of the market? Right, and so maybe you're auditioning, but you're only auditioning for your agents, who are typically commercial. Or maybe you're doing a ton of auditioning on the pay to plays.  08:35 Well, what is the majority of the genre that you are auditioning for? Is it commercial? Because, I guarantee you, there's a ton of competition for the commercials, because that's what all the voice actors tend to gravitate toward, that's what everybody thinks they need to audition for. Well, you can audition for e-learning, you can audition for corporate, you can audition for all different types of jobs. And, ultimately, I think that you need to really again step back and look at and maybe assess right down. Okay, here's what I'm doing on a day to day basis. Right, I'm auditioning for this type of job, I am auditioning for the majority of commercials or e-learning, the majority of whatever corporate, and so now really try to assess what's the demand out there globally right for that product. And are you marketing yourselves, are you writing that?  09:24 - Lau (Guest) letter, especially if it's on a pay to play.  09:27 - Anne (Host) Usually, you can respond with some sort of a hey, would love to be your voice, and make sure to take a look at my additional demos here on my website. Blah, blah, blah, whatever that is. Is that note up to par? Are you writing a novel? Are you quick into the point? Is your auditioning up to snuff? Is your acting skills? What about your audio? Gosh, we've done enough audition demolitions and, by the way, we've got to have another one coming up here soon. Yes, a lot of times audio has something to do with it too. What's your audio like? So there's lots of things that you can take a look at to see where you might evolve, where you might improve.  10:03 And also again, those things don't happen overnight. Great sound, although I will say great sound once you've got it kind of figured out, you shouldn't have to revisit it too much after that, Unless maybe you get new microphones or you move or there's more landscaping going on. I'm not sure.  10:18 - Lau (Guest) Yeah Well, it's inevitable to you and I on the coaching side of things that we'll get so many emails of people that say I don't understand how come I'm not booking what's happening. Could you please do a session with me and give me some feedback? And you and I will do the same thing. We'll give a session and just spend a whole hour with feedback and it looks like a ball, hit them between the eyes like, oh my goodness, I didn't even realize any of that. I didn't think of half of that.  10:45 Thank you for that value, because that value didn't save me and getting a job. That value helped me produce a career potential. Sure, and that's what smart people would say. They wouldn't take offense to it. They'd say, oh wow, this could help me build my career, just knowing one of those things that I would not have thought of. But I somehow feel like and I don't know what it is, I don't know if it's a generational thing, I'm just not sure this idea that, oh, I just know it. I got it all, I learned it all, I trained, I coached with five coaches, I know it all. And I'm thinking I don't think any of the great thinkers, philosophers or religious leaders think they even closely know it all, so chances are you don't know it.  11:26 - Anne (Host) All Right. Isn't that the truth? How about that? Isn't that the truth? I?  11:28 - Lau (Guest) can't imagine someone like Gandhi saying I know it all. It's kind of like the more you don't know.  11:33 - Anne (Host) The more you don't know, right, the more you don't know. Yeah, what was the saying? The more you know, the more you don't know.  11:40 - Lau (Guest) The more you realize you don't know right.  11:41 - Anne (Host) Yeah exactly.  11:42 - Lau (Guest) I think that that's true wisdom.  11:43 - Anne (Host) Can we just stop and say that again? The more you know, the more you realize that you don't know, right? Yes, that, I think, is key to understanding and not giving up Because you can again. We had another episode that we talked about. Well, people just they thought they had it all and they're like well, yeah, no, I sound great and in reality sometimes that is ignorance, is bliss right, or I sound great but in reality do you Like I've invested a lot.  12:11 Well, in reality, have you I market in reality. Do you Like you think about what companies do they spend thousands of? And also, do I spend money? They don't have money to spend on marketing. They don't have money to spend on coaching? Think about the amount of money that companies invest in their marketing departments. First of all, they hire more than one person, most of them, right. They hire a team of people and then that team of people work eight hours a day, maybe more than that, right Trying to generate leads and trying to close sales. And so are you doing that, really so?  12:45 - Lau (Guest) right and it's almost harder when that talent would come to me and they're fabulous and their demo is spick and span and they've got some great credits and they're just not booking the work and I don't have the heart to tell them that I've got 50 people just like that and it's kind of like not insulting. It's so sad for them, it's so doleful for them to have the realization and recognition that it is saturated and there are a lot of talented people and prepared people and people who have spent the investment.  13:20 They're not the only ones, and I think that they might intellectually know that, but put it in the back of their brain. But it's important to know that you have a lot of competitors. You're not so unique. You've got a lot of people.  13:33 - Anne (Host) that are unique too. You bring up a really good point. I'm glad that you said that because, yes, that's the other aspect of this. Do I give up, right? Or should I just give up because now there's just so much competition? Right, and yes, you nailed your demo, you have the acting skills and now, all of a sudden, have you really marketed? I always think, if you really are coming to that point where you've got the demo, you've got the skills, have you truly marketed it as much as you think you have? Or is it possible for you to up that even more again? But you're right, it's a saturated market. There's a lot of competition.  14:10 Now, if that's the case, have you thought about how you might evolve into maybe a different genre, or evolve your business to have another parallel set of skills that you're going to develop or evolve? Now that, I think, Lau is something to keep your business afloat. And I always talk about IBM. Ok, ibm has been around forever, right, and IBM is considered a technology company, but look at how they still are here. They're still relevant. They may not be considered a cool company, but guess what? They're still in business, right, and they've had to evolve their products, they've had to evolve their thinking. They've had to evolve over time, and take a look at any great company that has been around for a long time. They have evolved their brand, they've evolved their products, and so if the market is indeed saturated for, let's say, the genre that you love so dearly, well then maybe you think about how you can evolve into another genre or another aspect of the business that will bring you some income.  15:15 And sometimes only doing voiceover, it's wonderful, yes, but sometimes maybe you do something that's parallel to voiceover. Maybe you do audio editing, maybe you do copywriting, maybe you do virtual assisting right within the industry, maybe you do a podcast. Again, there are so many divisions and, again, I have always said to people that I have multiple divisions of my company, mostly because I love to challenge myself, right. So I've got the VO Boss. I've got this podcast, which I just wanted to learn how to podcast. I've got the VO Peeps. I've always wanted to network. I missed my teaching and then I'm demo producing, and so there's so many different evolutions of my business. I even coach outside of voiceover now, for wellness and healthcare. Why? Because I love it and I'm developing, evolving different aspects of my business that are going to serve me and bring me joy.  16:09 - Lau (Guest) Yes, and, let's be honest, Anneie, those of us that consider ourselves creatives, which most of us are, love doing different things. Yes, absolutely why aren't we sitting at a desk doing the same thing all day long, my God? Yes, exactly Because we're creative minded people. So that idea of multitasking and bringing out different qualities, and skill sets and loves and da-da, and maybe this year I want to try this. Yes, I want to move into that. It's not a cop out, it's not the side hustle that you shouldn't be doing.  16:40 It's an added layer of frosting to the cake, so to speak, that you really want to keep building over your lifetime, because not only can it be a service that you could really offer and make some extra cash, but also it could be really delightfully fun and inspiring and give you new ideas and be very satisfying to you in a way that the current daily situation is not or maybe it is, but it's not in that particular way and also branching out what I always called the divisions or the tendrils of my business.  17:12 - Anne (Host) Branching out allows you to expand your potential client base for voiceover here's an example, I'm going to be presenting at PodFest at a podcasting conference.  17:23 Now, podcasting is not what I do full-time. I am a full-time voice actor, coach, producer, that sort of thing but I certainly have been doing the VioBoss podcast for seven years and it's definitely a division of my business. Now I'm going to go and present and so ultimately that's outside of the voiceover industry, but yet I'm going to present to podcasters to talk to them about how they can utilize their skills in voiceover and also how they can improve their voice on their podcast, and so that is outside of right, and I'm not ashamed to say that it doesn't mean that I'm not doing voiceover anymore. No, it's another avenue that I find challenging and I find intriguing, and I want to pursue that as an additional piece of my business. There's nothing wrong with that.  18:12 - Lau (Guest) There's nothing wrong with that?  18:13 - Anne (Host) You don't have to be eight hours in your studio doing voiceover if that's not where your entrepreneurial brain wants to be, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, and sometimes it's more healthy for you to branch out into other arenas to function way and refresh your brain and bring in new people, new ideas, new ideas, understand the perspective from a multitude of different perspectives. Right, yes, Really.  18:43 And that I think, is very healthy in terms of developing and growing your business. So if you don't get that national campaign this year, it's okay. I say a good entrepreneur will always evolve and develop their skills in a multitude of places so that they can have a successful business. And does it matter if you're not booking a national commercial every day, because I don't know anybody who is, to be quite honest. And so it really comes down to what is it that brings you joy, that can pay the bills and that you can do day in and day out?  19:18 Because most of the time, people get into this industry because they're super unhappy with what they're doing in their lives. So I always try to remember your why. Why did you get into the industry or want to get into the industry in the first place and then keep that why, especially when you're feeling like giving up, and especially we started this whole conversation about why people give up too soon. Well, I think you absolutely have to define your why and revisit that why over and over again and evolve your why as you grow.  19:48 - Lau (Guest) Yes, I mean you're the princess of pivoting and that pivot that change, that updating and upgrading we have to do it on our computer systems, we have to do it on our bodies. Yeah, you have to do it in our homes. Why wouldn't we have to do that in our businesses? And so that sense of like I have to clean up shop and I have to add something to this element that I don't have, because why? It's going to change the whole space, it's going to change the whole environment. That it's never just one thing, one effect. It really is. It has a whole rolling effect on everything. So if you learn to podcast or you become a producer or you learn how to write copy, that could have a whole riveting effect on your business. Absolutely, absolutely.  20:36 - Anne (Host) I love that, oh man. So let's talk about voice actors right now who are frustrated and want to give up. What is your best advice Lau? What can they do right now?  20:45 - Lau (Guest) I hear it every day. I'm going to throw out a quote. I love a good quote. Eleanor Roosevelt, the great Eleanor Roosevelt.  20:50 Okay, never, never, never give up. Don't mistake that. That does not mean don't give up on voiceover. It means don't give up on yourself and your potential within the business. That may morph into something else, absolutely. It may become something else, but don't throw that baby out with the bathwater and just give up on everything, because then what you're really saying is I'm not worth my time, my patience, my effort, my investment in really investigating my true potential, yeah, yeah.  21:24 - Anne (Host) And giving up is that, oh gosh, you don't feel worthy. And how many episodes have we already dedicated to? You must understand you're worth, you're worth it, you're worth it, you are worth it. And again, there's a reason why you got involved in this industry in the first place, and I think that maybe you're thinking the dream, or somebody sold you the dream, but I think, ultimately, you are responsible for educating yourself about this dream and educating yourself about how to navigate this dream, to turn it into a reality, to turn it into a success, understanding that this does not happen overnight.  22:00 There are constantly changes in the industry and there's a lot of changes. I mean, gosh, ai has thrown a wrench into a lot of this. Then there was a strike and then, every time I turn around, there are things that are throwing wrenches into the industry that you need to know about and you need to then say, all right, how can I evolve, how can I grow with this, if I'm not getting work right now? What can I do to maybe get work? Or can I create a new path for myself?  22:30 or create an alternate an additional path. Not just another, but an additional path.  22:35 It can be done, I mean gosh knows that I have created multiple, multiple divisions of my business just because it's a cool challenge, right, and it always forces me to grow. And I will tell every single boss out there right now that you don't think that I am scared every single day when I decide I'm going to do this and you don't think that scares the bejesus out of me. It still does. It still does, but I try to work through that. I've just been challenging myself constantly and I'm constantly afraid and I just try to work through it. Maybe it gets a little bit easier. I kind of doubt it. I still get just as scared sometimes when I say oh gosh now.  23:13 What do I do, Right?  23:14 - Lau (Guest) What am I going to do now?  23:16 - Anne (Host) Or I know what I want to do. How do I get there? How do I make that happen? Because now it's been what? 16, 17 years I didn't come this far to go work for somebody again. Right, this is my business or I am in charge of my own business. I will not go back. I cAnneot go back.  23:33 - Lau (Guest) Yes, absolutely, and I didn't even know when my dad always taught me you know, if you want to go in business for yourself, just know you're never going to sleep well again. Just know that that's so true, Like in as long as you understand that, you'll understand that you know you're going to set a very high bar. A lot of us that are perfectionists make the mistake of making the bar so high. It's unattainable, and then you're always disappointed. You're always letting yourself down. Really, no one's keeping score.  23:58 It's really about setting the bar at a place that is sensible, you can reach it. You can have small increments of success. Yes, right, yeah, I'll leave you on this quote. One of my favorite quotes is failure is the opportunity to start again more intelligently.  24:16 - Anne (Host) Yeah, love that, love that Love, that Is that good.  24:19 - Lau (Guest) Yeah, I don't believe in failure, really, but I don't either Use whatever word you want to use that I'm not achieving, I'm not attaining, I'm not getting. Allow you to grow. Allow you to grow. Take a step back and learn from it, you know start again Good stuff and don't give up, bosses.  24:34 - Anne (Host) Never, ever, ever give up, don't give up. All right, no Bosses, take a moment. Imagine a world full of passionate, empowered people who are giving back to their communities intentionally to create a world that they want to see. You can find out more at 100voiceswhocareorg. Also, big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You, too, can network like bosses with awesome technology. Go to IPDTLcom to find out more. Guys, have an amazing week. Don't give up. We're here for you. All right, we'll see you next week. Bye. See you then. Bye.  25:10 - Intro (Anneouncement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host and Gangusa, 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 BOSS Anne Ganguzza, alongside guest co-host, Lau Lapides, as they explore the landscape of female entrepreneurship, including in the voiceover industry. Listen in as they discuss the historical and contemporary hurdles women have faced, from the 1950s through modern times. Lau shares her experiences in juggling motherhood and a professional career, providing a real-life perspective on the intricate dance of working from home with children. Anne discusses her non-traditional path to business success in the tech and VO industries. This conversation celebrates the resilience and creativity of women who are redefining success in their entrepreneurial journeys. 00:01 - 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 V-O boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:20 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the V-O Boss podcast and the Boss Superpower series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with my special, awfully lovely boss guest, co-host Law Lapides.  00:32 - Lau (Co-host) Oh, thank you, Annie, hey Lau. Thank you, hey. I'm excited about our topic today.  00:38 - Anne (Host) Well, yeah, so Law, I've been watching Lessons in Chemistry and that is on Apple Plus for those of you who have not seen it. But basically it takes place in the 1950s and the main character who is Elizabeth Zott? She has a dream of being a scientist and works in a lab, but she is constantly challenged by a society that says women belong in the domestic sphere. And I just watched the episode and I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but I'm going to give away one spoiler here. So, guys, if you want to watch it and you don't want to have a spoiler, just turn this down right now for sure.  01:14 So basically, she gets fired because she's pregnant. So now that I'm going to date myself. But I said to my husband, jerry, that doesn't make sense, they can't fire her for being pregnant. And he goes oh my gosh, back in that day they absolutely could. And I was like whoa, that just blew my mind and I thought, gosh, I think women have it hard now these days. And that's what I want to talk to you about Law, because I just want to talk about what it's like to be a female entrepreneur. And I want to talk to you because you're one of the best entrepreneurs I know. I mean, you run a studio, you're a talent agent, I'm a demo producer things that aren't typically prevalent, I guess, even now in today's day, for women to do so I thought we should talk about that today.  01:58 - Lau (Co-host) I love the leading lady subject. I just think it's one of my favorites Absolutely. And you're right about that Jerry's right about that Because I remember my mom talking a lot about that that even into the 80s, 90s and 2000s in corporate America there was something called the mommy track. So anyone who was training for financial advisor, accountant and such was very careful about what they said about getting married or having children, because they didn't want to be rerouted into the mommy track, meaning they're capped in every way.  02:33 - Anne (Host) They're capped on promotion, they're capped on salary, they're capped on all of this, they won't get their job when they come back. And it's funny because, now that you mentioned that, I do remember that in the 2000s and it's incredible to me. So here we are entrepreneurs, bosses, out there, you're entrepreneurs as well, and I don't think that this needs to be. This is certainly not a discussion where we're just going to be bitter and complaining.  02:55 However, I think we need to talk about some of the hardships of being an entrepreneur. First of all, being an entrepreneur is a hard thing. What sort of hardships have you encountered yourself, Law, and how have you overcome them? Because I think that we can learn a lot from that, from your story.  03:12 - Lau (Co-host) Such a great question, that's such a huge, open-ended question and the first vision Annie that came to my mind was a client that I work with, a coach on Zoom, and she's a mom and she has a couple younger ones, meaning under the age of like 12, a couple young kids, and when I'm coaching her as a voice over talent, the kids are running in and out of her studio, in and out of her booth, in and out of her curtain and one side of it she's a great mom, like she's really patient, she never yells, she's just great. But one side of me I have to be honest with you. I'm going to be honest with your people because they deserve it. One side of me thinks it's awesome because she can work from home, she can multitask, she can save money, she can still be a mom and be a good role model to them so they can see her working and being impassioned. The other side of me is irked, irked to death, because I'm thinking to myself you're not going to do that with a client, right? You're not going to do that if I represent you and send you out, and then your little kid is pulling down the curtain in the booth right, and I lose trust in that situation. I'm going to be honest. Maybe it's a non-PC thing to say, but that's how people think when it comes to running something. So is a fine line, I think, and I was one of those.  04:35 I raised two children. I was one of those moms where I raised them out of my studio. I actually homeschooled them as crazy as that sound. We had a whole village of people working with them and it was out of my studio and I was constantly multitasking the noise level. I'm killing each other, legos everywhere, them under the desk, and there was a beauty to the whole thing that there was this bonding that you could go through with them. And then there was a horror show as well, because it was embarrassing and there were clients there and some clients love the kids and others hate kids.  05:10 So it's like there are all these levels and layers to that kind of parental mindset, at least from my perspective, that you have to go through step by step, year by year, age by age, and it changes, and it changes often dramatically. It never stays the same Absolutely. And women, no matter how progressive the male is, whether they're a husband, a partner, a friend, whoever maybe they're working from home, maybe they're whatever I find more often than not with all my friends, all my female colleagues, it falls on them, the heavy falls on them. There is still this mindset in 2024, that I got to go to work, I got things to do, I got priority tasks, but because you're a female, you're so good, you can handle it all, you can do it. You take the reins while you're trying to run your business.  06:05 - Anne (Host) Sure, that's the thing, and I think that also there are many, I would say, women pioneers of many different things, and I am of the belief that, yes, women sometimes have to work three or four times harder in order to get any type of credit, and a lot of times there are women who pioneer things who never get credit and ultimately that is very frustrating and I find it even today, as progressive as we've become, I mean, there's still a long way to go, I think.  06:34 For number one, just to be an entrepreneur, I think it's looked upon in terms of, like gosh, when I was trying to get a loan when I worked for myself full time, I felt like I suffered a little bit of, I don't know, discrimination. It was very difficult to assure things like loans, where I feel as though a male counterpart would be able to get a loan a heck of a lot easier if they were an entrepreneur. Also, just getting ahead, I'm going to say that right now there's not a ton of demo producers that are females out there in the industry and I feel like it's tough trying to get noticed out there because there's not many of us out there, and then ultimately, it would be nice if there was recognition, maybe more recognition for the female demo producers out there and I'm just talking about demo producers, but just female, any entrepreneur out there and it wasn't that long ago, really, that women couldn't even get loans.  07:30 - Lau (Co-host) They couldn't even open a bank account without permission from their husband. It wasn't that long ago. So, when you think about just the freedom of being able to have credit go into debt, who would call that a freedom? But I mean the point is, it's like it's an independence as a business owner to be able to say, okay, here's what I'm investing in, here's what I'm incurring for debt, here are the accounts I'm going to do, here's my investments for retirement. And, as a woman, there's a tremendous freedom in independence, in being able to do that. It's not to say that you shouldn't have a team or a partner people helping you and working with you. It is to say, though, that you should take that right, and you should run with that ball and enjoy the right of being able to do these things that we could not do even 30 years ago some of those.  08:24 - Anne (Host) Well, I've spoken to people about this. We even had a podcast episode where we talked about what we did prior to our businesses today, and I was a female engineer in the late 1980s. That was kind of a tough road. And then I went into technology as a female and that was also a tough road, and so being a female entrepreneur is even tougher. Sometimes I'm finding certain things are difficult difficult for us to achieve, difficult for us to get recognition, difficult and, like you said, with the loans and all of that, it's just so interesting. So, la, what do you do to progress and move your business forward as a female?  09:04 - Lau (Co-host) entrepreneur. Yeah, it's a hard thing to answer. I mean, there's one technique that I found myself doing just kind of like, in an autonomic kind of way. It wasn't a planned thing, but I noticed there have been situations where I've been with many men or all male like. Let's say, I'm in a conference room or I'm online and I'm in a meeting and there happens to be very male heavy, which I adore, and I have, like you do, many, many male colleagues which I absolutely love working with.  09:30 But I find there's a different dynamic that happens in the way I communicate versus the way this kind of energy communicates, and oftentimes I find that I start to role play, or I'm either seen in a certain light or I start to role play, and usually it's like the role play of the mother, the wife, the sister, the whatever that I know. To some degree they're seeing me in just because of the qualities that I exude, sure, and I kind of role play with that meaning. You know, I don't play a character, but I role play in the sense that I know that they're looking at these qualities and I also know that there are times where they just bulldoze right over me like they literally won't hear what I'm saying because they're in the middle of their communication and I let that happen. I let that ride. I feel actually empowered by that because I know I have no problem.  10:24 This is a technique we always taught live presenters. I've no problem interrupting them culturally, doesn't matter to me whether it's appropriate or not. I have no problem talking right over them. And I found that in order to redirect energy, sometimes you have to be culturally rude as a woman, because you have to have your voice heard Absolutely. And you have to have that without and here's the thing we were talking about in the last podcast without ruining or stomping on their spirit, without making them feel like I'm at them or I'm hurting them or a threat. I think that there's a fine line, there's a strategy in that, like how you strategize, like being heard, inserting what you need to insert into listening attentively, but making sure you're not the daisy on the wall. You're not forgotten Absolutely.  11:15 And that's on us. I mean, it really is, that's on us. I could easily sit back and get really angry at that and say I can't even get a word in edgewise. Are they not listening to what I just said? Or whatever. Instead, I go in and I correct it. I go in and I redirect it. I go in and I do whatever action verb I can come up with, because I always view it as a teaching moment. Sure, it's a teaching moment where I can teach my audience how to communicate with me.  11:40 - Anne (Host) I love the redirection of it. Yeah, like you said, rather than getting angry or stomping on someone's ego, which it really is a lot of ego anyways, I know in the corporate world that's really what it played out to be. It was a lot of ego and a lot of times, if I was in the boardroom and I was the only female, or maybe one of two females first of all, they always wanted me to take notes or be the secretary. People would always say, well, yeah, you can be the secretary.  12:06 You can be the secretary of the board and I'm like actually I'll be the president.  12:10 - Lau (Co-host) I like that.  12:11 - Anne (Host) Right, and that's really how it worked. I was the president of a board and ultimately, they wanted me initially to be the secretary, and I said, well, yeah, no, no, I'm actually not a really good note taker, so I redirected the energy to say, you know, I'm just no.  12:26 I'm not fast. I'd love to be fast, but I'm not. I'm not fast at all. I type with four fingers. That's great, I love that and that's basically what happened. And so I love how you say to redirect it, because, yeah, I mean I don't necessarily want to stomp on anybody because, again, you take that risk of being looked upon as being the difficult one, the difficult one, the angry one, the witchy one, and honestly, you're darned if you do and you're darned if you don't.  12:50 Sometimes with that, that's right. But I like how you say you don't have any problems interrupting and redirecting. I think that's a great tactic. It's a good thing.  12:57 - Lau (Co-host) It's a good thing to learn how to do that. I also think another option for you and again I try to look at it take a step back and look at a strategy, a choice redefine the role. If someone says I want you to play this role in this moment and I'm like I don't want to play that role, or that's a typical role that they'd ask their mother to play, right, I might say yes to that, and the reason I'd say that yes to that is because I can do it. It's not a difficult thing for me to do. I want to be helpful. But then I'm going to redefine what the role is so the role does not become a passive role of like, in your case, a no-take or a stereotypical role, or get me a coffee, or I don't know whatever  13:34 that stereotypical thing is. I would want to play it as many of the female leaders political female leaders in the world, where they don't mind cooking for their colleagues, or maybe they'd get them a coffee, but then they're going to tell them exactly what the strategy is for the company or for the war or for the whatever. So if you do become that omnidynamic kind of person I don't know if you saw a Barbie you know the billion-dollar Barbie movie, right? But Barbie was always known as, at least in our time, was like. Barbie kept re-envisioning and redefining what a woman could be and evolving.  14:12 And evolving, and that's why we really liked Barbie or loved Barbie, because it wasn't just this one thing that you were in.  14:18 - Intro (Announcement) Absolutely.  14:19 - Lau (Co-host) It was really kept going and still today even keeps going, and I see it as that. I see it as I can make the choice to keep redefining the role that others see me in.  14:30 - Anne (Host) Yeah, and I love that. I love that so much, actually, and I think that, as entrepreneurs, right, take on the role and then create your own definition, or redefine the stereotypical definition Now, in terms of being seen right, being seen as a leader, right, being seen as an entrepreneurial leader. What sort of tips do you have for that? Because I like to say, when you redefine the role, you don't necessarily have to lead everyone, but you have to be seen as competent, as being as competent as everyone else within your role, right? Yes, so I am just as competent, if not more competent, as the role of a demo producer or the role of my Angangusa voice production company, as any other person, yes, I mean play to an audience at all times, even if it's an imaginary audience yes, the imaginary jury, so to speak, that I'm always a leader, whether someone is there or not, and I'm alone.  15:29 - Lau (Co-host) Love that I'm still a leader, or at least I perceive myself to be a leader. Sure, I don't want to lose the qualities of the leadership and the leader. I want to continue that role. I want to play it every day, I want to manifest that role. So, in essence, it feels at home to me, but it also keeps me practicing the role. It practices how I would react, how I would behave, how I would make problem-solving choices, how I would do all of these things. Because I know and this is what keeps us up at night, right as entrepreneurs is I know there's going to be difficulties and they're never going to end, and so I have to be able to face with courage and just say listen, I just am not always going to want that or like it or feel comfortable with it, and sometimes I'm going to be scared to death. Oh, yes, I have to feel the fear and do it anyway. I have to practice it.  16:20 - Anne (Host) Well, yeah, that's so wonderful, I mean, and that's just great advice for entrepreneurship in general is face the fear. And I think that, no matter what you're doing and just saying this, and having been in the industry a long time and mostly being in roles that were traditionally not female oriented, I had to, I think, work extra hard to educate myself so that I could prove to myself, first of all, that I could do it. And when I was able to do that, I gained the confidence in order to be able to manifest further progression and advancement. And again, like you said, you're the leader, whether people are looking or not. And so and it is scary my gosh I face fears every day, just as an entrepreneur, and sometimes even more as a female, because I don't know necessarily what I'm doing, when I'm defining a new role.  17:12 And so, therefore, I'm defining a new role. I'm going to educate myself as much as I possibly can about everything that surrounds that role. And if it's a role that hasn't been defined, then I need to educate myself on everything that is around that role that can help me to define it. And, of course, sometimes you just have to manifest it and you just have to take a leap of faith and say here it is, here is how I define it. And there you go and be confident in that, and that's scary as sh**t.  17:44 - Lau (Co-host) Law, and not only that, and as women, at least women from our you're like the fifth friend of mine, colleague of mine that we literally said the same exact thing over and over again the last week. That is, we are from a generation of really hard work ethic. We get up, we work, we do it, keep doing it. Forget about yourself, just do it do it.  18:05 Please, please others, be likable, be amenable. You know all these things which in essence is good. From a spiritual perspective it is good, but from a business perspective it can be very harmful, because when you do that, I want everybody to like me, law, I need your thing. It then becomes about you rather than about them, about the client. So I have to keep check of that all the time.  18:30 That's a fight I have too Pleaser, a very much a host type, and I don't want to lose that quality, but I don't want it to take the place of true grit and leadership and leadership of making sure that what I'm saying and what I'm doing is not being done for the wrong reason.  18:47 - Anne (Host) Yeah, I totally agree with you. There's a lot to be said about leadership and leadership qualities, and what does it take to be a good leader? Yes, to define roles that haven't previously existed. I think it takes definitely a lot of courage, and I think having people on your team, no matter who they are, can be super helpful in this, because it's a scary road, especially when you're doing things for the first time and they've not been done. And so having somebody to bounce off an idea to say, well, what do you think about this, do you think?  19:17 And not worrying, that's tough. Not necessarily worrying so much about what people will think will people like me? Especially because, yeah, I think you and I I'm people pleasers and, of course, I want people to like me and it really upsets me when people don't, and that's just an ingrained part of my personality. But I realized that if I want to be a leader and I want to break new ground and sometimes I will do that and not get any credit for it, and you know what that's okay, I have to figure out. Do I try to spend all my energy trying to get credit for it? Not necessarily, because for me, it's more about the education and the challenge to myself and then, ultimately, I believe, or I want to believe, that at some point people will recognize it, just because I've proven things over and, over and over again. Absolutely.  20:08 - Lau (Co-host) And I think many of us, in many fields, can concur with that, that feeling of like. I just said that, wait, I did that years ago. I actually did that. And this person is, you know, they're acting as if it's a first yes, and so I think that that is a generational thing as well, because it's like it reminds me of the joke of like when a younger generation gets married or they have children, they oftentimes feel like they're the first generation raising children, they're the first ones who understand how to be a good parent, they're the first ones that. And then the joke is always like, you know, by the third child, you can watch them. Yeah, it's fine, I don't even know what I'm doing, it's just so the idea of like, okay, I'll humor you, I'll allow you to think that you're the first one because maybe that's the phase you're in, but the reality is is we know it's never the first.  21:03 There's always so many people going through it in so many different ways. It's just who's discovering it, who's observing it and who's reporting on it.  21:12 - Anne (Host) Oh, that's so true, isn't it Like right? It's so funny because you're absolutely right, like we're all just trying to, we all just want to be loved, don't I always say?  21:21 - Intro (Announcement) that, like we all just want to be loved All of us.  21:23 - Anne (Host) As people, we all want to be given the credit that we feel is due to us, and sometimes it's not worth the effort If you've already been there, done that kind of thing. It's not necessarily the effort to bring it up, because sometimes that will look different to different people. Right, it could look catty, and so for me I try to just again. That's one of those it's mental games where you try just to like okay, you know what. I've done, that educated myself on this, and being angry or being bitter certainly doesn't allow me the energy to progress forward from this point on, and so it doesn't make sense to spend the energy on being bitter or being angry but, simply just using that energy to educate myself and move forward Yet again, to make myself the very best version of myself and my business that I can be.  22:17 Yeah time.  22:18 - Lau (Co-host) I really trust time. Time will teach all, time will definitely teach all. And I think that it's hard to generalize because we're also different in different cultures, different generations. But there is one thing I do believe many females have in common, and that's powerful, powerful instinct. And how we treat instinct. Is it real for us? Do we pay attention to it? Do we listen to it? Whether you think of it as a survival mechanism or you think of it as a spiritual guide, I really do feel strongly. It's a compass for us. Oh, gut instinct.  22:51 - Anne (Host) Absolutely. I love my life. I've got instinct, I know.  22:54 - Lau (Co-host) Yes, to know that something is right, something's wrong, something doesn't feel good, something is unsafe. I do believe a lot of female colleagues I have go very wrong when they don't listen to their instinct or they no longer hear the voice.  23:08 - Anne (Host) I think anybody. If they don't listen to their instinct, they don't trust it. Yeah, I mean anybody, certainly Anybody certainly you know what I mean.  23:15 - Lau (Co-host) But there is that built in thing with women. I totally agree. They're always looking out for the cubs. Even if they don't have cubs, you know, your cub may be your client, yeah.  23:25 - Anne (Host) Yeah, absolutely, Absolutely. That's so interesting that you say that because I think I've always in my lifetime I've always run my business and run my personal life by my instincts. I've always trusted it and it's never failed me so over and over again. And I think if you just trust it, just try it. If you're not used to that, try it and see what happens. And ultimately it's kind of like the first time you say no to a client who wants to not pay you what you're worth, right, and you just learn that negotiation tactic where you're like, yeah, that's great, I'm going to pass on this, and you find that you'll have the time to get a client that will pay you what you're worth and so that first no can be so powerful. Very similar to just having that power as an entrepreneur.  24:07 - Lau (Co-host) And isn't it ironic too that we want people to hire us for our voice, for our vocal delivery, but oftentimes we're not willing to listen to our own voice.  24:19 - Anne (Host) Yeah, so true.  24:20 - Lau (Co-host) Isn't that ironic when you think about that. So true.  24:23 - Anne (Host) So wise, very sage law, ooh, we like it Absolutely.  24:29 Good stuff, wow. So yeah, entrepreneurs, bosses, you've got this and we've got you. So, guys, really reach out to us, let us know what your struggles have been and how you've overcome them. We'd really love to hear that Also. Simple mission, big impact 100 voices one hour, $10,000. Guess what? Four times a year, visit 100voiceswhocareorg to learn more and to join us. Big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can connect and network, like bosses and strong, powerful female entrepreneurs such as Law and myself. You guys have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. See you next week.  25:12 Awesome Bye.  25:15 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, ann Gangusa, 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 hey Law.  25:43 - Anne (Host) Guess what time of year it is.  25:46 - Lau (Co-host) What time of year is it Ann?  25:48 - Anne (Host) Time for the audition demolition holiday Holiday. We're very jolly, so I can't wait for this edition of the holiday edition of the audition demolition Guys get your auditions in Live shows on December 14th and we've got some great scripts. Of course, they are holiday themes, so you guys are going to have a ton of fun. There is cash, there is swag, there are prizes. You guys get in on the fun, get in on the learning. It's only seven. How much is it? Law Shit? It's only oh. You don't need to say the price, do you? Well, I want to say that it's like. It's like it's the best gift. All right, let's try that again.   

This week Anne and Tom Dheere discussed the landmark agreement between SAG-AFTRA and Replica Studios. They discuss how this deal will shape the compensation, usage rights, and ethical considerations of voice performances in the age of AI. They look at the details of this complex partnership, examining the potential ripple effects for both union and non-union talents. They emphasize hinges on the necessity for voice actors to stay informed and proactive in the face of advancing technology that could redefine our industry. They confront the pressing issues that voice actors encounter, such as leasing AI technology and the critical need to secure royalties and licensing fees. The BOSSES cover the intricacies of fair AI voiceover rate structures and underscores the urgency for collective bargaining and new legal frameworks. 00:01 - 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 VEO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.  00:20 - Anne (Host) Hey everyone, welcome to the VEO Boss Podcast and the Real Bosses series. I'm your host, Ann Ganguzza, and I'm here with my special guest, co-host Tom Dheere. Tom, I'm so excited to have you back, yes thank you so much for having me again this has been so much fun.  00:35 So, tom, there's been some news in the industry and I think all bosses should always be following up and be current on news that's happening in the industry, because it directly affects our businesses and so there has been a groundbreaking agreement between SAG-AFTRA and Replica Studios, which is an AI company, and I think we should talk about this and how it affects us and how it affects our businesses.  01:01 - Tom Dheere (Guest) I agree. Now just to get disclaimers. One I am a SAG-eligible member. I am non-union, so I am not a member of SAG-AFTRA. So I was going to say I don't have a horse in the race. But all voice actors, regardless of union status, has a horse in the race of what's going on in both the union ecosystem and the non-union ecosystem, because they all have a major effect and influence on each other. So I am a member of NAVA, the National Association of Voice Actors.  01:29 - Anne (Host) Myself included Yay.  01:31 - Tom Dheere (Guest) And we know that NAVA, including providing health insurance and education of the industry, is also a major advocate of making sure that voice actors are both safe from predatory AI practices but also are empowered to embrace AI to move our voiceover business forward if we feel that it aligns with our value system and our business model.  01:52 - Anne (Host) And Tom, I know you and I both we have taken time to educate ourselves within the AI industry and about synthetic voices, and I think we are hoping to encourage others to do the same so that they can make smart, educated decisions, and this is going to be part of that very important discussion. So, absolutely, myself, I am non-union. However, things that happen in our industry this can be setting a precedent for how I'm going to say how AI companies work with voice actors, as well as how consumers view AI and synthetic voices, and I think one thing I remember Tim Friedlander mentioning in one of his discussions was that, if nothing else, it's really started to bring awareness to not just our community but everyone out there of what sort of impact synthetic voices and AI can have on our industry, on our voices and our rights, our intellectual rights, our intellectual property. So talk about what you know of the agreement.  02:54 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Okay, so the first thing I'll say in regards to that is about late 2021, I took a meeting with replica studios to talk about their voice cloning process, and I'm pretty sure you've talked to them too.  03:06 - Anne (Host) Yes, I actually interviewed them on the VioBoss podcast. So, bosses, make sure you listen to that one.  03:10 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Exactly, and different AI production companies have different business models. They have different reasons for entering the industry and how they go about their business. What replica studios does is they work, at least right now, in the video game bubble, which is they work with voice actors to create very specific performances. So, like I think I auditioned for the part of, like the crazy old West speculators there's gold in them, not huge Like. I'd submit it to be considered for one of those. So, and if you do get that, you get paid, and that performance can only be used for that performance, both on a technological level, because they can't turn your crazy mining prospector into an astronaut voice or another voice Now.  03:54 - Anne (Host) is that because that's established with the company? Are you talking about all companies?  04:00 - Tom Dheere (Guest) or I'm talking about Replica.  04:01 - Anne (Host) Okay, replica, okay. So Replica has an agreement in place where, if you create a voice with them and it is used for a video game, it can only be used for that particular video game in that particular instance and they cannot make additional dialogue or additional games from that voice or.  04:19 - Tom Dheere (Guest) It is my understanding. Also, I watched the Navas wonderful but two hour long question and answer thing. So forgive me if I misquote.  04:28 - Anne (Host) No, everyone should be watching that as well, oh absolutely.  04:31 - Tom Dheere (Guest) It's on YouTube. Go to the Navas website and there's a link and you should definitely watch it. It was fascinating, Cause you learn not only about AI, you learn a lot about how Sagrafftro works. Cause Zeke talked in severe detail wonderful severe detail about how bargaining works and contracts work and agreement works, and all of that. But historically, replica would use your voice as a placeholder during production of the video game, as opposed to using your voice to be cast in the video game. Smaller roles.  04:57 - Anne (Host) Yes, yes, when I interviewed them, that was their process and you were paid. You were compensated on it. Not a character, a video game character, but a character. How many characters were used? You get paid on a character basis in a monthly contract.  05:11 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Right, and that one character could be used as a placeholder in production in multiple video game production companies making multiple video games and smaller roles could also be used by that and you would get compensated for that. So this agreement Sagrafftro agreement with Replica basically just sets up the relationship how Sagrafftro members can work for Replica studios and they have set up a studio per hour rate you know of the actual performance and then they have set up the usage or licensing of what happens when your voice is used and how long it's used for and what the compensation is. I think it was per 300 lines or something like that and then there's incremental payment. Zeke made some very, very interesting points, because one thing that a lot of people have been saying is like why isn't Sagrafftro fighting AI? Why aren't they trying to ban AI? And he said that. To paraphrase, he said they had a choice they could either try to prohibit AI or they could try to regulate AI.  06:10 - Anne (Host) Absolutely.  06:11 - Tom Dheere (Guest) And he and Tim agreed that they are five to 10 years too late for prohibition of AI, even if they wanted to prohibit it. So, as a result, their only recourse is to get involved with regulation of AI.  06:23 - Anne (Host) I think we should reiterate that, Tom, yes, rather than prohibition of AI, which, look, technology happens with or without us, right? And so prohibition of AI could have been really difficult, really really difficult to enforce and probably would have, I think, destroyed the industry, to be honest with you.  06:38 - Tom Dheere (Guest) That's what he said. That's exactly what he said.  06:40 - Anne (Host) Therefore, again, we don't have a choice as members of the industry, we don't really have a choice. I mean, we either fight back and quit or we evolve and we work with it. And I think that it's admirable of a company because right now I wanna talk to you about there's no regulation for companies right now, and it's interesting because I just interviewed Auskirkowski from DeepDubb AI, another AI company that does dubbing and localization of voices, who are also very much in the fair transparency, compensation to the voice actor, and there's something to be said for companies that say right, that they are fair and transparent and compensatory. Is that a word?  07:21 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Compensatory.  07:22 - Anne (Host) Compensatory. Thank you For voice actors in the industry, but it's also another thing because there's no other regulation. They say it on their website, they say it in their policies, but there's nobody enforcing it. So I think for Replicca to come forward to SEG-AFTRA and make themselves accountable, at least to an organization that directly deals with our industry in such an impactful way, I think that that was great. Now the nitty-gritty of the contract. I've not been privy to see that. However, what makes me a little bit nervous is that, first of all, we're voice actors. We know voice acting.  07:59 Replicca is an AI company. They know AI, and so I know from working in technology for 20 billion years that there's a lot of misunderstanding. People that don't understand the technology can be talked into things. Possibly they can be coerced into agreeing to things that may or may not serve them in a positive light. However, at some point you've just got to put faith in a company that they're going to be ethical and transparent, and I think this was a good move, and I guess possibly there's loopholes in the contract, but I do believe we're working towards something that's positive in the industry.  08:33 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Here's one thing I've been talking to a lot of people about. Is that? Well, for one thing to your point is that there is no federal legislation to hold AI companies accountable for artists IP right now, and Nava has been working with Capitol Hill and there are multiple bills in the works If you go to the Nava website it has links to show you the legislation that they are working on which is great.  08:59 There are a lot of people I've been hearing in the voiceover industry saying all AI companies are, by definition, unethical. These, I think, are also a lot of the same people that have been saying for 20 years that all pay-to-play sites by definition are unethical. Neither of those are true. They're patently false. No matter where you go in any industry, in any sector of any business all over the world, a certain percentage of the people involved are going to be unethical.  09:26 - Anne (Host) Bad actors, bad actors, bad actors.  09:29 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Every industry. The voiceover industry is no different. So that means a certain percentage of people who are voice seekers on pay-to-play sites are going to be predatory and will try to rip you off, and a certain percentage of voice actors on pay-to-play sites will underbid, underbid, undercut, which damages the industry. Same thing with AI. There's no difference. It's just that people are going to be how they're going to be, so all you can do is bring your value system with you. It's like a bad client, yeah, and we all have bad clients.  09:56 - Anne (Host) And it's something that I'm always talking about. Right, it's one of the reasons why I have my voice in AI series, with over like 35 interviews with AI companies is to educate yourself, and that was really the basis for myself. Educating myself about the industry is just talking, and one thing I think that is so important is that we have a dialogue with these AI companies, we make it known and I think Nava is just doing wonderful work in helping that to happen and for really fighting for voice actors on behalf of the organization and I think that all of us just need to educate ourselves on what is happening and, just like a bad client like I educate myself on a client. There are telltale signs when I can get a feeling about a client, if they're going to be a bad client or going to be difficult to work with. And I think AI companies are no different, and I think, first and foremost, companies that are out in the forefront of the industry today and there's a lot of AI companies or a lot of little tiny ones that have popped up and not survived, but the ones that are there in the forefront, the larger companies I think that they are responsible for providing an ethical ground, Because I don't think that consumers first of all will stand for companies that are not ethical in their treatment of humans, because it becomes like this whole thing.  11:16 I mean again, we're also a product of or a slave to the industry in which we work, right? So if consumers are wanting synthetic voices, or if synthetic voices will provide a space in the market, will provide something of value to a market, and Oz said to me the other day he said well, normally there would be all of this content that wouldn't be dubbed, that wouldn't be created, because it's simply the process of doing so takes such a long time and it's kind of like the audiobook genre and the audiobook AI companies that we're trying to make audiobooks with synthetic voices, and so there is a lot of content out there that won't get produced simply because it is a process to do with a voice actor, now that a voice actor isn't desired or better. However, there's some content that it may not be as necessary to have a human voice.  12:08 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Yes, and I'm pretty sure we've had these conversations before in various circles that there is some content, like a product manual, that would never get narrated by a human because of you know, there's just so many of them and it's not cost effective. But an AI can do that. Our good friend, karen, vice president of NAVA, uses the example of no human can narrate the New York Times overnight, and those who are visually impaired have just as much of a right to enjoy the New York Times with their morning cup of coffee than any other sighted person Absolutely.  12:43 - Anne (Host) An.  12:43 - Tom Dheere (Guest) AI can help provide that service. It's where you get into other areas. And actually there are people who because I've had conversations with people who say, nope, that's still not art, that's still taking jobs from people. That is still unethical. There is a certain percentage of the population that there's just going to be no talking to.  13:02 So it's like okay there's going to be no convincing. And if that's their value system and they think AI is an affront to art and an attack on art, and with some of the bad actors and predatory companies, yes, it absolutely is. But this conversation and it's not really about art, it's about technology Technology always wins. It always wins. Now, when I say that that doesn't mean well, we should all surrender and sell out and clone our voices and get paid a nickel, you know five cents on the dollar and just eat dog food and live in a hovel because we can't thrive as artists in the voiceover industry and get paid rates that are commensurate with the industry standard.  13:45 But there are ways to navigate the industry, whether you are pro AI, anti AI or can't be bothered with AI and have the potential to still be able to thrive as a voice actor. And this agreement with SAG-AFTRA and Replica is a major step, major, major step in that direction. Because, as you also know, the rate structure for compensation for AI whether it's to have your voice cloned or some other service where they're gonna synthesize your voice just for their website or just for this bit of software, much less getting it put on a website where anybody can subscribe and use it. It's still the Wild West. Now, with SAG-AFTRA, they are providing, thank goodness, the beginning of some sort of rate structure that we can all start to work with and find out if it's a viable one.  14:31 - Anne (Host) I'm so glad that you brought that up, because that is still we talk about. The Wild West rates have always been a Wild West right, especially for non-union. So what's really wonderful is that, yes, if SAG-AFTRA is getting involved. And of course, I've been telling the GVAA to get on with AI rate structures because, again, how much do you charge or how much should you get paid? And of course, now you're actually doing like a royalty share really with a company that produces that voice, because you cannot produce your own AI voice, I mean literally you have to lease an engine to do that or work with a company for them to produce it, and then ultimately, they're the ones.  15:07 Let's see if they have an interface that allows you to go in there and do a text to speech or a speech to speech generation of those files. You're still leasing that engine that does that, and that is something that you do not have control over. I mean, that is not your studio, and so, in reality, you have to pay for the rights for that studio to produce that audio. That's what I think about it, and I think about it as being it's more than just a studio to produce that synthetic voice or those audio files. It is the studio and it is also pretty much kind of the voice actor in a way.  15:44 It's like a percentage of you that is being used and so we can't possibly get paid what we're probably used to because we were used to controlling that ourselves. And it can only help the more people that get involved in this discussion, because I will tell you that a couple of years ago, when I started interviewing companies and we started talking about rates, there were no rates set and in fact nobody really wanted to like even comment on a rate. There were some people that flung out oh 10%, Voice actors would get 10%. And voice actors heard that and got completely insulted, not understanding the technology.  16:21 Now I say well, who says 10%, why not ask for 50%? Right, it's my voice and their engine, so why not start at 50%? It seems reasonable to me, Any good negotiator, right, If you're going to work with a company and you're going to have an agreement on a rate structure or a fee schedule, you can always negotiate. And so if SAG-AFTRA is working with rates and we've got other companies that are setting the rates, this is the thing when the company set the rates. It's kind of like who says the number first, right, they win right.  16:54 Or you know what I mean. If I ask what's your budget? Right? That's the proper way to negotiate, right? You don't say the number first, but if you set it, I feel like we have some footage. We have some ground to discuss and talk about what would be a fair compensation. Because, again, we want our voices to be valued. And again, this whole agreement with at least replica saying we're willing to step up to the plate and we're willing to be held accountable by an organization right For fairness, transparency and compensation for actors to get paid for their value. But what is that value? That's the question in terms of a synthetic voice.  17:34 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Right, right, voice actors are in the business of licensing our art. That is what we've always done. That's always what we've done. We're the artist in the booth, yeah, which is our session fee, and then, if it's a broadcast commercial, union or non-union, then we license that performance, which is the usage fee. There is zero difference between that and what the SAG-AFTRA replica agreement is. They will get paid a certain amount for being in the booth and then they will get paid for the use of that. So, union or non-union, you're in the business of licensing your art. This is just more of a codification of it in relation to the. I don't know if you'd call AI a genre, or I don't know what you well pay to places in a genre either. It's a portal, I guess, because I've always said there are three portals in the voiceover industry for casting opportunities representation, online casting and self-marketing. Maybe this is the fourth one? Yeah, maybe.  18:30 - Anne (Host) AI.  18:31 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Maybe it's like a three and a half one, but we want to license our art. Look, unless you don't and if you don't, then you work for the seeing eye here in not here in New Jersey, but across the water or you do stuff for learning online. Yeah, and you narrate stuff pro bono, which there is a place for. That that's art too. It's just you're not licensing your art, you're donating your artistic ability to do that.  18:53 - Anne (Host) And when you do that, by the way, it's kind of scary because anytime, like our podcast, like this podcast here, or anytime I put my voice out there, out on the internet, right now there's no regulation of it and so, theoretically, bad actors, companies that are not ethical, could be taking that and making voices, which they probably have, I would assume that.  19:13 I guarantee it I guarantee that, if you're known in the industry at all, you've got your voice out there, that your voice.  19:18 And we've seen that also where there have been some companies, unethical companies that have been producing voices or taking, you know, scrubbing the internet for voices, and that is something that is unfortunate. However, it's something until there are regulations, laws in place, that I mean. Gosh, how many times we talk about it, like with our phone, have they been listening? Have they been recording? Absolutely, and so that data is theirs. They can use that to develop anything. But at least now I think that, yeah, we're kind of backpedaling, but we now need to at least make our voices heard and the more organizations that can help us to do that right SAG-AFTRA, with this agreement with Repuka Nava helping us talking on the podcasts about it, and you and I being open and transparent saying, hey, I have a synthetic voice. I have a synthetic voice partially because I was educating myself on how voices got created, what companies I would want to be working with and really, until I take those risks, I don't know and I'm not educated.  20:21 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Right, and being a voice actor is a risk in itself.  20:23 - Anne (Host) Sure is.  20:23 - Tom Dheere (Guest) Because it's such an unpredictable, chaotic, no guarantee of any income ever kind of industry. And also I've been doing online auditioning since 2006. Right, so I guarantee I've had multiple auditions stolen and I'm sure my voice has been cloned in some capacity many, many times, just like every website you've ever been to or ever will go to has been or will be hacked, and our social security numbers are all over the place, and it's terrible and there's really not much we can do about that. Retroactively moving forward, we do everything we can to protect our intellectual property and engage in safe practices. So auditioning for some text to speech thing on a pay to play site, I think is a terrible idea.  21:05 Scheduling a meeting with a AI production company and asking questions about how do you operate? Sure, what is your compensation structure? Sure, what's your licensing structure? Can I see an example of your agreement so I can take a look at it or send it to an attorney to review it? Even if you don't want to clone your voice, I strongly recommend doing that so you can just have an understanding of what the industry is, because this is going to be more and more a part of the industry and there will eventually come a point where there will be legitimate ethical casting notices on pay to play sites. In regards to AI, which Nava has done a great job with Voice123, for example, to help curb that tidal wave of felonious casting notices that was proliferating the Voice123 site until they had a conversation and said, if okay, so if clients want to post a text-to-speech casting notice, they have to answer these questions and really answer them. And then all those casting notices vanished literally overnight. So that tells you something.  22:01 - Anne (Host) It does.  22:02 - Tom Dheere (Guest) So the VO bosses, the bosses out there, need to know how to protect themselves, while at the same time understanding that this isn't going anywhere. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Ai is a disruptive force, just like the light bulb disrupted the candle maker industry. And who gave a darn about the candle making industry, except for the candle makers? Yeah, very true, so you know what I mean. This is a part of the industry. You got to learn to embrace, adapt evolve and grow or you're going to get left behind.  22:29 - Anne (Host) Absolutely, and you need to educate yourself about how the industry is evolving and again, you will be left behind if you are not educating yourself. So, bosses, go out there and sign up for Nava. I cannot recommend that anymore. Nava is doing wonderful things. Listen to the VO Boss Voice and AI series. Listen to Tom and I talk about it. We have a couple of episodes We've already talked about it on the VO Boss episode and really just read everything that you can familiarize yourself with, everything that you can, so that we can move forward and have successful businesses along with this disruptive technology.  23:03 Because if it's not AI, it's going to be another disruptive technology, and I'd like to challenge any boss out there and ask them if they are not using some form of AI to help their business right now and being hypocritical and saying, well, you can't use my voice, but yet they might be using I don't know chat, gbt to do something to make their business run more efficiently. So there are multiple AI opportunities out there that you can utilize that I think are wonderful to help your business run more effectively, and Tom and I just made do an episode on those. That's not a bad idea. So, all right, guys. Well, tom, this has been an amazing discussion. I'm sure we could talk about this forever, but thank you so much for joining me again.  23:48 And, bosses, I implore you, if you want to take a moment and imagine a world full of passionate, empowered, diverse individuals giving collectively and intentionally, you too can help to create a world that you would like to see and make a difference. Visit 100voiceshoekerorg to learn more. Big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You, too, can network and connect like a boss. Find out more at IPDTLcom. Have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Thanks, guys, bye.  24:21 - Intro (Announcement) Bye yeah.   

Special guest Oz Krakowski from DeepDub discusses the evolving technology in voiceover work, addressing the importance of artist compensation and protecting voice artists' identities in the face of deepfakes and synthetic voice replication. The podcast navigates the ethics of AI, consent, and fair compensation for voice actors, emphasizing the need for trust and clarity in the dynamic between technology and voice talents.

Voice acting is more than just a dulcet tone; it's about connecting, taking direction, and sometimes swallowing your pride. In this episode, we explore how frustrations in the booth can mirror challenges in personal and business relationships—choosing success over being right is an art in itself. We underscore the importance of humility and remaining teachable in an industry that demands constant evolution. Whether you're a newcomer to the mic or a veteran seeking to refresh your skills, this episode promises to arm you with insights and strategies to elevate your voiceover career. 00:01 - Intro (Host) 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.  00:20 - Anne (Host) Hey, hey everyone. Welcome to the VO Boss podcast and the Boss Superpower series. I'm your host, Ann Gangusa, and I'm here with my very special guest boss co-host Lau Lapides. Hey Lau, hey, Annie, how are you I? Am doing amazing. How about yourself? Wonderful? Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you too.  00:40 - Lau (Host) This is our first podcast since New Year's.  00:42 - Anne (Host) That's right. Right, you know I'm starting off the New Year with some new students and I have come across this before and I want to ask you if this has happened to you.  00:53 There are some students if they're just starting out and I know we've spoken about this before Sometimes you don't know what you don't know, and sometimes it's hard for you to hear what you sound like. And there are many students who come to me thinking that they don't need coaching and that they're fine. They just need to be able to create a demo and they sound fine. And people tell them that they have the best voice, and so I like to call them voiceover virtuosos, and I was just wondering if you've come across that as well, where you've had maybe talent that seemed to think that they don't need coaching, or that they're better than maybe they are, and I don't mean to be so bold to say that, but I'm not quite sure how else to explain it.  01:37 - Lau (Host) And this is a really tough kind of non-PC conversation because we want to be kind and have some etiquette, Absolutely, and be courteous. We're not here to rip people apart and make them feel bad about themselves. That's counterproductive to who we are and what we're here for right.  01:52 - Anne (Host) Right and actually Law. I remember when I first started I did not have an ear and I would think to myself I think I'm delivering what I'm supposed to be delivering. It sounds like what I hear out there in the other commercials, and so I don't hear where my coach is coming from. I don't understand their direction, I don't see what I'm doing wrong.  02:11 - Lau (Host) So I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, and so I understand it from that perspective, because, as a talent, I felt that way a little bit myself, and I think it could be a combination of all sorts of things, whether it's lack of resources, whether it's pure laziness, whether it's not having the ear, or it could even be that I don't know what I don't know.  02:33 - Intro (Host) I don't know what I don't know, like I don't know what I'm missing because I haven't done it yet.  02:37 - Lau (Host) I haven't done the training right.  02:39 - Anne (Host) Yeah, and I don't know what it's supposed to sound like.  02:42 - Lau (Host) And so how do I know if?  02:43 - Anne (Host) it's incorrect. And sometimes it ends up being where you're like I don't understand what my coach is saying, and then sometimes you'll question the coach. Even I've actually had some people question the coach. It's so interesting. It's such an interesting phenomenon.  02:58 - Lau (Host) It is an interesting phenomenon and it happens at all levels too that I observe. I had a coaching session for a client, a brand new client, on Saturday and a working actor a working voice actor clearly booking and booking a good ratio overall was frustrated. She wasn't getting the natural read and getting commercial bookings. Long story short, she's a pro, she's working no-transcript. After we did that hour she confessed. She said I have to be honest, law, my mind is a little blown because I didn't even think of any of this stuff. I didn't work on it. I said well, that's our reality. That's why we're always in professional development. Yeah, yeah, there's new ideas, new techniques, new ways of thinking about things that bring out Something in you that you simply can't do on your own. You're not able to do it on your own right.  03:46 - Anne (Host) Well, I think, when it comes down to it, you are providing a service to someone and you need to be able to be directed To the sound that they would like to have, right? There are lots of performances out there that are simply directed to how the person that's directing here's it in their head. Now, does that mean that it is, I don't know, that natural Conversational read that everybody asked for in the specs, because that just seems what everybody asked for a lot of times. No, I mean what comes out in production. It may not be that.  04:19 However, over and over again, casting directors and agents are looking for that read. And I think when you get to the level where you have an agent and you have casting directors that are asking for that, you need to bump up your acting to that level. And just because you're booking Over and over and over again, first of all, consider the source of where you're booking, consider the source of who you're booking with. It might be an e-learning gig, it might be a corporate gig, and they may not be as how shall I put it as Selective, yeah, of a director that's looking for that natural read. Now, myself as a coach law and you as a talent agent, I am always asking my students to give the most natural engaging acting performance, because that is the only way I know to teach my students to be able to have the Versatility to give a director what they want. No matter what they want, whether they want a commercially sounding read, an Announcement sounding read or a natural read and there's.  05:18 - Lau (Host) You know, you can't skip over the fact that there's a fun factor.  05:21 There's a performative fun factor that when you're working with a director or a coach or an outside party who's giving you suggestion, giving you food for thought, pulling things out of you, there should be a right keyword, should there should be this Excitement, this energy, this yeah, herb about doing that and making discoveries and having that audience with you.  05:42 And I think if you miss out on that, you say I don't need any, that I'm gonna skip over as much training as I can, I'm gonna save money. I think you're really skipping over a pivotal part of what makes us us that when we're in the booth alone and when we're doing our own self-tape or whatever we're doing, we can call upon those experiences. It's like a sense memory thing. I can remember what my coach said to me, I can remember how I was directed and then I hear their voice, like as an actor, I literally hear their voice and I can go with that. If I miss all of that, then I almost have to put a lot of stress on myself to create that, to inspire the creation. Yeah, you know what I mean.  06:25 - Anne (Host) I think there's a lot to be said for really knowing the director, or understanding the director that you're working with too, in terms of there's a lot of things that come into play here. Where is this going to air? Is it local versus regional, versus national? Is it going to be an internal website? And so understanding and being able to supply the read that the director is looking for is so very important, and I think that the more you develop your acting skills, the better you can understand that and be able to give that director what they're looking for and also understand, like, for example, I was just discussing with you earlier that I had a local political spot right, and, of course, they ended up putting a ton of verbiage into a 30 second spot, which is almost impossible at the speed.  07:17 I was going to sound natural and engaging and conversational, because I needed to step up the pace. I kind of knew that. I knew, okay, here's a local spot, I'm going to have to step up the pace a little bit. I'm not going to be able to give this person a natural read. They weren't asking for it either, though, and so they really just wanted certain words that were inflected properly, and just having the experience and understanding what they were looking for, I was able to provide it almost I'm going to say not immediately, because there really were too many words for the scripts that we did have to cut out a couple of words.  07:48 But once that happened I mean I had a good idea in the beginning of what they were looking for. And I think as you get more experienced in this field and you start working with different directors, you'll understand. You'll be able to kind of read a director and figure out what it is that they're looking for and then be able to adjust your performance appropriately. But you need to have those acting skills in order to be able to adjust your performance.  08:12 - Lau (Host) That really is what makes you the pro that you are, because it's not only about the talent and the delivery, it's also about the timing, how quickly you work.  08:21 Are you focused, like all the bad habits that we have as people in the world we have to train ourselves out of, and we need help doing that, because sometimes we're just not aware of them that I'm constantly looking at my cell phone to check messages, or I'm fixing my whatever, or I'm not listening, or I'm not acutely taking notes on what I'm hearing, and so that's really important too, to practice that, that taking direction.  08:48 Really, that could be the kiss of death for you. If you're not good at listening, if you're not accurate about interpretation, asking just the right question and giving them what they need, then you look like a time waster, then you look like someone who's just kind of like flailing around and costing a lot of money on the other end, versus someone who can get right to. You know, one of the bad habits that I have a number of actors that do this and voice over, that do this is they explain, they start to get into explanation mode, they start giving the narrative oh, I'm so sorry, and the apologies unnecessarily. I'm so sorry. I was only doing that because you know I was thinking about my mother and not understanding the difference between what is a coaching session and what is a casting session and what is a booking session and what are really the differences, you know, and not expecting something from the wrong person, like I can't expect feedback from casting, necessarily, or from a client necessarily.  09:44 Sure sure, you're either going to book me or they're not going to book me, right? So clients are busy, right? The coaches should be giving me the feedback that I'm looking for. So if you don't do the process, then you don't get the feedback, then you literally are in the dark. Yeah, what you're giving, right? What you're giving out.  10:00 - Anne (Host) It's also hard to and again, we're not trying to shame anybody or make people feel bad.  10:04 It's just simply when you are first starting out and you're questioning. But here I feel like I sound. I sound better than that commercial, I sound better than that person. Again, developing an ear and I think there's a whole scientific process to it as well is what you hear in your head and what you hear in your headphones. If you have your headphones on and you're delivering something or you're recording something is very different than what somebody else is hearing on the other side of the glass.  10:30 I should say across the pond, across the pond on the other side of the glass, because on the other side of the glass they have their own ideas as to what they are looking for. That sound to be like Right and you always want to assume that if they've given you casting specs where they want it to sound natural, like you're talking to your friend Right? There's so many things to take into consideration. Yes.  10:53 And first of all, I'm going to say there are some clues. If it's probably someone who's been in the business for a long time, I think you can bet on the fact that they're going to be able to tell you if you're sounding natural and authentic. And also sometimes, if all they do is automotive commercials, what is it? Tier 3? Cliff Zellman would know this. Tier 3, tier 1. Tier 3 automotive commercials. That's typically a high powered cell. You'll also be able to tell a little bit by how it's written. So I think there are clues that you can research before you're in the middle of that session and also understand that when you're in a live directed session, just like you said, that can be entirely different than when you're in a coaching session. And so when you're in a coaching session with a trusted coach okay, it has to be a trusted coach, and again, that's hard for people that are just coming into the industry who's a trusted coach? Well, there's lots of ways to find that out and I think we probably have a couple of episodes on that.  11:46 How do you know, like, who to coach with? And a lot of times, word of mouth will be one of your best bets on that, and also testimonials and ask around and talk to potential coaches to see what's their experience level. Do they work in the industry? I'm not saying all coaches need to work in the industry in terms of do they need to do voiceover. There's very few out there that are good that they're not actually voice artists, but they're actors, they're teachers who teach acting as well. But also, if you've got a coach that works in the industry, that's going to be helpful too. And if you're new, just because you're frustrated and that's a big thing law that I see is that people get so frustrated and when they don't understand well, I don't understand what you're asking for, or I don't understand what I'm doing wrong, or you're not.  12:34 - Intro (Host) And they start to argue and they say you are not.  12:36 - Anne (Host) I don't understand your direction, and so they'll start to put the blame on the fact that there's not good direction. Now, sometimes there isn't good direction, right, sometimes there just isn't if you're not with somebody who may have been in the industry for a while and is good, which is why I don't love pure lead workout groups law only because I don't either. When you're listening to direction from another peer, who may not have enough experience.  13:00 - Lau (Host) that may set you on the wrong path, in a way though, annie, isn't it good in the sense that you're going to get bad direction at times? Yes, you really are Like we can't assume that. Oh, they're professional, they're a company, they're going to give us great direction. Sometimes you're being directed by Jim in Cubicle C who knows nothing Absolutely. It's kind of an interesting improv exercise to learn how to say yes and learn how to say oh. That's interesting, okay, let me try that. Oh, how, wow, okay, and you're thinking what? That's ridiculous. I don't even know how he came up with that.  13:32 - Anne (Host) That's half my directed session. That's your whole world.  13:35 - Lau (Host) But the point is that's the reality, right. We have to deal with that Absolutely. We have to be able to tolerate that and you have to be able to deliver and not argue.  13:41 - Anne (Host) Not argue it Not question that you have to be able to deliver what they're asking for and, by the way, anybody that coaches with me, of course you can give me the read that you hear in your head, but that's not the read I'm looking for and even if the script doesn't seem like that's what it's written for. That's the biggest argument I get is people are like but the script isn't written that way and I'm like I don't care.  14:00 The worst thing is that you'll get a script that's written very advertising, very selly, and then you'll get the specs that say give me something like you're talking to your best friend, and then, ultimately, my student will deliver it the way it's written and very advertising and very annoncery and other things. But that's not what I asked you for, but that's not how it's written. I'm like that doesn't matter. I'm asking you to give me a very engaged read and that is a very tough read and one of the reasons why I insist on that is because if you can get yourself to that level, to a very engaged, authentic read, when it's written very advertising, very selly, that's going to get your acting skills Up to the level that I think you need to be able to give versatility.  14:43 - Lau (Host) Yeah. And ask yourself this question, which really we could ask ourselves in a lot of situations like being married. I've been married 23 years. Sometimes I literally have to self direct and say, all right, do you really want to argue that? Do you really? Is it that important to argue that? Do you want to be right, yeah, or do you want to have a happy marriage? So, in terms of your business relationships, do I always want or need to be right, yeah, yeah, absolutely or do I really want to have success in this connection? And I choose the latter. I try very hard to choose the latter. By the way, did you see that catch of the light falling over? That's my theater experience.  15:21 - Anne (Host) I don't know if you caught that. No, I didn't, it was falling right on me.  15:24 - Lau (Host) I was making a point, I put it right there. That's kind of like the metaphor of life. You always have things falling on you, right, but it's just kind of like is it more important to have it perfect or is it more important to have it done? Just get it done, please, the client, have that callback for the next job. It's not that important that I make the point that the script is wrong.  15:46 - Anne (Host) Oh God, absolutely. That's the last thing you want to do.  15:47 - Lau (Host) That's what I'm trying to say we never answered that funny question at the top about how do we deal with all the talent that come in and they really kind of think they're ready for certain things they're not ready for.  16:01 - Anne (Host) Well, and then there's always the difficult position. If they think that they don't need additional coaching or additional sessions, then they think that you're trying to take advantage of them.  16:11 - Lau (Host) Oh, of course, and make money, yeah, to make money, that's right.  16:15 - Anne (Host) I mean, look, I guess you just have to know who you're working with and there is a level of trust you have to have. And again, it's so hard for people that are just starting out in the industry and we always emphasize to see if you click with your coach, Trust your gut instincts as well about your coach. I'm going to say and I'm going to say that, like if you don't know the industry and if you start questioning your coach, then it becomes like is that a relationship that you want to continue? If you're?  16:44 at that level where you're questioning if what they're saying to you is correct, exactly.  16:49 - Lau (Host) And if all else fails, you have to do what we used to do in the theater when we'd go to see our friends in a really bad show and a really bad performance, and they'd always come out backstage and go what did you think of it? Did you like it? I was like great, I worked hard. You have to think diplomatically. What would you really say to them? And we would have a ball coming up with things like. That was interesting. You really challenged yourself. I was moved. I mean, you really surprised me there, right?  17:19 So you have to think about how do you respond to people that really need a lot more. They need more training, they need more time, they need a better demo. And they're like oh, I just spent 3,000 on this demo. You telling me I suck. I'm like no, I'm saying this is your starter demo. This is your first demo. It's a process demo. It's good for what it is. Now you want to get to the next level of things. It's not about yes, no, right, wrong. It's not structurally black and white in that way. It's much shades of gray shades of gray nuance, nuance, nuance. You know what I mean? Absolutely. And the talent has to realize that it's not. You're good and it's done, or you're not good and it's not done.  18:00 - Anne (Host) Gosh, that's so true. It's not like, okay, I'm good, I have my demo, I'm good, I'm ready, I'm ready, I don't need any additional training. I'm constantly telling my students actors spend their lives honing their craft. Yes, I feel as though, like if you're thinking about like Meryl Streep, do you think Meryl Streep achieved her acting from the get-go, from the very beginning? Has she not, over the years, improved, taken on more challenging roles and just really challenged herself?  18:28 And I think that, as voice actors, we all need to do that, whether you're just starting out even if you get booking after booking, after booking after booking and again understand who your client is. If you're doing a lot of e-learning, you may not have a very demanding client. They may just want you to read it nicely and articulately. But when your coach says to you, please do not just read it to me, I want to feel as though you're my teacher, I want to be able to listen to you for the next two hours and be engaged, then understand there's a reason why they're saying that and maybe not question that and say, well, it's good enough, because I think to really get to the upper echelon right, to make it and to be successful, it takes time.  19:12 It does, and I think there should be a whole episode of like how long does it take? I know I've done it before, but I feel like it bears with eating. Yeah, and there has to be. It can take more than a year and honestly, it should take more than five or six sessions with a coach to be a good actor. Goodness gracious. No, it takes much longer than that.  19:31 - Lau (Host) Absolutely, absolutely. And just know that there has to be an element, or there should be an element, of humility and being humble and having some modesty about your work. I always have a red flag If I work with people that they're very egocentric and they're all that. They're great. You should recognize that I feel like the best actors talent colleagues I know are people that have value. They recognize their confidence level, their self-esteem. But there's a lot more to learn.  20:01 There's always there always so humble I think there isn't that sense of like. You're talking to me. You know who you're talking to. I'm a pro. I always have a red flag about that, because I feel like they've stopped their process.  20:13 - Anne (Host) They stopped their learning, they stopped their growth, they stopped their learning.  20:16 - Lau (Host) Yeah, they stopped their growth and they're going to challenge you. They're going to question you, they're going to argue with you, they're going to take it up with you if you don't agree with their mindset, and so I think they're going to be harder to direct harder to work with. Yes, yes, yes. So I think it all goes hand in hand. It's like be kinder, be more open and modest, be a little bit. I'm not saying be insecure about who you are.  20:37 I'm saying have security, have confidence, have joy about who you are and what you're doing, but also leave a lot of space for growth and development and discovery. You have to have humility in order to do that. You can't think you've done it all and know it all and are ready for everything. None of us are ready for everything, yeah.  20:55 - Anne (Host) Yeah, agreed, agreed. And also, when you are challenged from your coach right, and there's something that you're not agreeing with, try to keep an open mind. I think that's the one thing that we can ask of you as an actor try to keep an open mind about what they're saying. So try not to take it so personally, number one, like when somebody is telling you that this is not. I don't think a coach will say, oh, that was horrible. But there are some that might say, oh God, no, no, no, no, no. Let's try that again, and it might be, really fighting with your confidence level.  21:30 So really just try to. When you're being challenged by your coach, try to keep an open mind, try to not take it personally, and I know it's so difficult to do that because to me it's like, oh my God, like you're telling me, I'm not good, and that's the first thing that comes into my head. I'm like, oh my God, I'm not good, I'm not good.  21:47 - Intro (Host) And so then that just ruins the next read.  21:50 - Lau (Host) It's a catapult and don't explain. Yeah, don't narrate, don't explain, don't justify, don't do any of those things, because it's not a blame game. It's a time to give more information and more detail. And then on our side, we promise, annie, and I promise not to say things like don't quit your day job.  22:09 - Anne (Host) Exactly, exactly, unless it's a joke unless it's a complete joke and that you're aware of it, of course.  22:14 - Intro (Host) But yeah, I basically don't say that.  22:16 - Anne (Host) But I am tough, I don't want to waste my student's time and I don't want to waste my time, and so if a read is not going the way that I like it, I will say nope, nope, I'm going to stop you right there and let's pick it up again. I'm not going to have you go through an entire read and then I'll say no, because, first of all, I think that for a lot of the work I do, it's long reads anyways, it's long format, and so it's better if I stop at the point where I can make a teaching moment and the student can learn from it at that particular time. But sometimes people will get discouraged by that and it's such a tough thing it really is Because, again, what we do is so personal.  22:54 And if a coach is continually stopping. Nope, nope, that's not it. Nope, that's not it. Okay, I don't believe you, I don't feel that You're not connected, and that's what you can look for with your coach.  23:04 - Lau (Host) Right, how does your coach respond to you, give you feedback, give you critique? Do they lose their temper? Are they getting angry? Are they getting irritated? Is it taken personally? I mean, just start looking for that.  23:14 - Intro (Host) Right.  23:14 - Lau (Host) Some people love that. I've had people come to me and say look, be tough on me, S&M style, rip me apart. I'm tough and you know, the funny thing is the first thing I say they fall to pieces because I can be really tough and they're like Really, Are you really think that I'm like? I thought I could be tough, so? But I mean, I think that there's a professional barrier there. Yeah, absolutely, that you have to pay attention to just as a best practices protocol. Yeah, you don't want people tearing you down. You don't want people making you feel bad about being a person and what you're doing and the choice that you're making in your career. You want someone to say I'm going to make the leap of faith and assume you want to be doing this, You're going to get good at this and you care about it. Now let me take you to the next level of where you're at.  23:58 - Anne (Host) I work with people all the time because long format narration right, and it's tough. Yeah, I work with people at a very intense level and so it's frustrating. People think they're going to get it by tomorrow and it's one of those things. It's no, it's just really difficult. I really ask a lot of my students and so there are a lot of times my students will get very frustrated and they will start to take things very personally. But it is not that at all for me.  24:22 I mean, I'm an educator and anybody that's worked with me knows my heart of hearts is to educate and that is what I try to do. And even though it is very tough sometimes then it becomes like not only am I educating on the acting part of it, but then there's the whole mentality part of it where you've got the added oh gosh, now I'm hurt, right. Or I've instructed somebody, I've given them direction and they have now taken it personally, and so that then is also affecting their retake or their read again, and so there's a lot of things that can build up. So just know that if you've got a good coach that's working with you, their intent is to really make you a better actor. I think that's something that your gut intuition can really tell you a lot about that.  25:05 - Lau (Host) Yeah, and be honest with yourself.  25:07 Like, take a checkpoint and say how much honesty am I willing to take? Can I put on a little bit of armor and be able to take the truth? I've had a lot of people say law, just be truthful with me. I'd appreciate it, because they're spending money and they're spending time, and so truth does not mean like kick my butt. It does not mean like rip me to shreds. It means be truthful about what your perception is, so that I can get better. That's all it is. You know what I mean. Absolutely. I love this Great conversation.  25:37 - Anne (Host) Yes, law. Oh, my goodness, wonderful conversation. So, bosses out there, we know, we know you can do it, but I want you to just give yourself some grace, listen to your gut and really find a trusted coach that you can work with and work through all of this, because it's not something that's simple and, more than likely, if you haven't been doing this for a few years now, you may not be as good as you think you are, and I mean that in the nicest way possible, I mean that in the most teacher-centric way possible. So give it a shot, guys. All right, yeah. So take a moment and imagine a world full of passionate, empowered, diverse individuals giving collectively and intentionally to create the world that they want to see. You can make a difference and you can find out how at 100voiceswhocareorg. Also, big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too, can connect to network like bosses. You guys have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. See you next week, bye, bye.  26:42 - Intro (Host) See you next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, ann Gangusa, 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.  27:09 - Anne (Host) Hey bosses, woohoo, I'm so excited to announce our third audition demolition coming up live September 27th and our uh, it died. Ugh. Oh, all right, damn it. Good morning, kiss me off. Kiss me off. That was good. I didn't know. F***ing sh**. Audition deadline the 20th. Okay, september 27th, all right, that's my problem. I just don't have it in front of my face, so that'll end up with bloopers.   

In this episode, we talk all about relationships with your agents! We provide insightful advice on timing your communications effectively, being respectful of the recipient's time, and staying top of mind by sending short, meaningful messages. Also, we stress the importance of following up and consistently being professional. In the latter part of the episode, we highlight the essence of open communication and mutual trust between voice actors and agents. So, whether you're a voice actor looking to break into the industry or an established talent seeking ways to enhance your networking game, this podcast episode has you covered. Join us as we bring you the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today! 00:01 - 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.  00:20 - Anne (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 my lovely, amazing boss, co-host Lau Lapides. Thank you, ann, awesome to see you today. Hey Law, yes, so awesome to see you too.  00:38 So the other day I was prepping for a new year of my VO Peeps group, where I have guest directors come in once a month to do online workshops, and the very popular ones are typically ones that have agents such as yourself and casting directors. And I was going through the list okay, what casting directors, what agents do I know? And there are some agents that I don't know but I would like to know, and agents that I do know that I've dealt with before, and I thought there has to be a protocol because I need to introduce myself to them. Right, and I know a lot of people when they want to get an agent, they have to introduce themselves to an agent, and so I thought it would be a good time to talk about protocol when working with an agent or reaching out to an agent or casting director and then maintaining a relationship.  01:29 - Lau (Host) That's a great topic. Let's talk about that. Yeah, absolutely.  01:33 - Anne (Host) So I'm going to ask you, because you are an agent, so tell me, what is your preferred method of? Let's say, a new talent wants to be represented by you. What do you recommend, or how do you prefer that someone reaches out to?  01:48 - Lau (Host) you Right, that's a great question.  01:50 I'm one of those people that is out in the world, so I'm not just at the office, I'm also out in the world.  01:55 So I'm speaking at conferences, I'm invited to events, I'm doing online training. I'm like all over the map and partly it's to educate and partly it's to meet new talent, and I make that very clear. I'm very transparent about that and that's a very New York LA sentiment for actors that if they want to meet casting and agents, they oftentimes will take classes, they'll work with those people in the training, in the conference, in the group, so that they can see a little bit of their work or at least get to talk to them, because I feel like a human interface is so much better for me than just getting an email if possible. So I love it when people are in a class, in a group, in a session, and they point themselves out, and that could be as simple as maybe they ask a really smart question or maybe they volunteer to do a read, if they're allowed to do a read, or maybe they put their contact information in the chat if it's online.  02:51 My point is I love proactive people because I know proactive talent are going to be much easier to work with than talent who's passive or shy or just unknowing or newbie and they're waiting for magic to happen. I love people who are partnering with me and creating magic on their own too, so I love when they reach out in person at an event, at a class, at a happening. Number one that's my favorite. If it doesn't happen that way, it's okay to email and submit. I welcome that and I need that because we're still growing our roster. However, I will say one thing Kiss it, keep it short and sweet. I get too many emails and I know you do as well that are three, four, five, six paragraphs long, telling me everything that's going on. Do it Even with someone. I know I can't get through it. I just don't have the time to read through that whole thing. Just one paragraph right and just throw in your links.  03:51 - Anne (Host) I think anytime you send an email these days, the shorter and the sweeter you can make it the better, the better. Every person has time to read a full page of email.  04:03 - Lau (Host) No, and I need to see it right up front, like we call it, above the fold. So if I get to the website for instance, if you have a website that's terrific. Anything you have online I just need to see it quickly. If I have to scroll all the way down or go to another page, it's hard because I don't know what I'm looking for and I don't always want to hear all of the animation, demos or all of the other kinds of work that you do. It's a great reference point to have, but I don't always need that. So targeting the person you are courting is really important. If I'm courting a commercial agent, the commercial agent just isn't going to be as interested oftentimes in your animation work.  04:40 They'll like to know you have it, because they'll consider you're working pro, but they may not represent that kind of work versus an animation production house. You have to have your animation demos with an S, not just one, but more than one, and that's got to be front and center. So I say target your market, know exactly who you're reaching out. To. Keep it short and sweet, kiss it. Keep it short and sweet and give them exactly what they're looking for upfront. If they want more info, they'll ask you.  05:08 - Anne (Host) Oh, I like that. So how do we know what information to send?  05:12 Because here's the thing, right, let's say, if there is an opportunity to meet them in an online workout or at a conference, that's a great way to get in front of an agent and I think that that has worked really well for a multitude of students I know that have gotten taken on a roster after they've appeared in a workout at VOPEAPS and also at conferences. I've seen that work out really well for people. But what if there are some agencies that maybe are not looking to fill their roster just yet, or maybe their roster is full but yet people want to introduce themselves and maybe make an impression? Is that a favorable thing to do and how should they do that?  05:48 - Lau (Host) Absolutely. And you have to remember just because you're in front of someone does not mean they're interested in working with you. It doesn't mean they're even interested in receiving a submission from you. So I do find the more I meet fellow agents and casting and producers, the more articulate they are. If they're on a panel or if they're doing a workshop, they'll tell you oftentimes the very straightforward people and they'll say hey, yeah, I'd like to see your submission, I'd like to see your work, or no, I don't give out my contact information. I'll check in with you in a couple of months if I need anything. So typically they're pretty articulate to say if they're comfortable you contacting them or not.  06:27 And if you do contact them, what exactly are you contacting them for? They don't fool around across the board. They wanna know exactly who you are and what you want. What are you contacting them for? Otherwise you're bothering them. You know what I mean. Like it's a typical letter that you would send out to any prospect in business. Like say don't give me your life story, no one cares. What they care about is why are you coming to me? Sure, what are you looking for?  06:53 - Anne (Host) And I think that it's very important to understand. Just as in direct marketing, I deal with this with the VO, boss Blast, right. I have a lot of clients that are like look, I sent out my marketing materials to all these people on the list but nobody's contacted me. It's very much a timing issue, meaning there has to be a need. It's not like you've submitted auditions right. When somebody's come to you with auditions, right here I've got an audition for the spot. There is a need, right. It's a demonstrated need that I've got a commercial I'm producing or I've got some sort of promotion that I'm going to produce and I need a voice artist or I need a voice actor for that. When you're direct marketing and kind of saying hi, I'm here, can I get on your roster you don't know at what time you're reaching right. Is there a need for you on that roster? And if not, it's gotta be one of those things where it's a gentle sort of inquiry into and, as you said, keep it short and sweet, because otherwise you are bothering them because maybe there is no need.  07:54 And I always go back to my old how do we buy? How do we purchase, how do we acquire things, or how do we get things that we need Right now? It's been a crazy holiday season, right? So I am signed up for all these mailing lists, right? And I get three or four emails a week from the same companies, but yet I don't have a need for anything that they have. But when I do have a need, I'm then looking at that subject line, I'm looking into the email, and that's a very important part of determining whether I'm going to read that email and then purchase or, let's say, entertain the option of having somebody on my roster.  08:34 So the timing has to be right, and so sometimes you could send emails and nothing happens, and that's very true, I think, with reaching out to Asians or casting directors, right. I mean, you may not get any response, and then you might be like, oh gosh, have I done the right thing? And I'll tell you that, the one thing that you want to do, just as in yourself, right? You don't want people to be annoying. You don't want to read a book because I don't have time to get through that book. It needs to be short and to the point and respectful of their time.  09:04 - Lau (Host) I would agree, oh my gosh, totally agree. And I would say, you know, it's the old FOMO thing. It's like keep top of mind. If they see you, enough, you're branding yourself, so you're seeing you they get to psychologically feel that you've been in business forever. Even though you've been in business for two years, they start to say, oh, they've been around, I don't want to miss out on just seeing quickly what John Smith is doing like and then they trash it. Great, that's what you want. So that then when they have the need, they think John Smith, I always get his stuff right. So it's that sort of keeping your finger on the pulse of what is happening in all of their worlds and not falling into that mindset that you and I speak about all the time, the narcissism of, like I'm ready to work, I'm here, why aren't they hiring me? Well, they don't need you.  09:51 - Anne (Host) Right, top of mind is so interesting for an agent, right, like I love that. We said you do need to be top of mind. So that means you reach back out, right. If you don't hear anything, you reach back out. But how often, law? This is the question. How often do we reach out Now for marketing and soliciting voice acting services?  10:09 I think you can reach out to somebody once, twice a month, three times a month, and if you give them the option to unsubscribe right For direct marketing, that's awesome. I personally think we should add that option to unsubscribe if you're reaching out too many times to an agent or a casting director, because that will tell you right away if they have a need or not, or it shows that you're considerate of their time. And I actually just kind of came up with this right now. I'm like gosh, that would be nice, a nice option, if you just threw at the end of your email just say hey, I would love to connect with you. Please let me know I'd like to follow up with you. Maybe not next week, but I'd like to follow up with you in a few months. If you would prefer that I don't, please let me know by hitting reply and that kind of thing.  10:52 - Intro (Announcement) I love it.  10:52 - Anne (Host) I think that would show number one, that you're considerate of their time. Number two, that you know how to conduct yourself professionally and not be a pain in the butt, because I know that when people send me unsolicited emails, I get annoyed. If there's more of them that come in the next day, or what happens in I have Gmail, it shows in a thread. So I see like, oh, you've sent me five emails already pretty much following up and I have not responded to you, so you would think take me off your list, right?  11:19 - Lau (Host) Right and I think that that's honestly. I think it's inferred nowadays that if I don't want to get your stuff, I go to the bottom of your email. I find my preferences, I find my M subscribe me or my assistant can do it in like 15 seconds. It's okay, I'm used to doing that. It's like that's part of our thing that we do these days. But most of the time I actually don't do it, unless it's a big box store or a huge corporation that I have no interest in at all.  11:42 I want to know what my talent's doing. I want to know what prospects are doing, and what we will say is we try to be really kind, both as the studio and an agency. So if someone comes in and they're sending me their stuff and they're not a good fit, we'll write to them, we'll let them know. We won't just let them hang in the balance. We'll say, hey, you're not a good fit for our roster right now. Could you please come back and check in in the next three to six months? Perhaps you'll have updated materials, perhaps you'll have a couple of cool jobs to share with us and we'd like to relook at that later which we would we would, and that's really nice of you, but not all agents will do that.  12:16 No no, they won't, and so if they don't.  12:18 - Anne (Host) I think that it's absolutely a professional thing to actually, in the email at the very end, just say I would like to contact you in three to six months Again, if that would be okay with you. If not, please let me know that kind of thing and that just shows that you are respectful of them and their time. And also don't forget, bosses, to really research the person that you're sending out to, like you should know like what is this agency specialized in? What does their roster look like already? Are you filling a hole in that roster? Because, again, there has to be a need. I have to have a need to buy from Old Navy that pair of shorts or that T-shirt.  12:55 - Lau (Host) I'm glad you said that Because so few people are Googling or going to websites Like you should be. Before you blast anyone, go to the website. Make sure they're legit, see where they're located, see if that's the market you want to cover. See the kinds of voices that they're working with. Now when do you fit in that whole realm? It only takes you five minutes or less to do that. And let's say you're going to paste. What I call pasting is doing a blast of like 50 or 100.  13:20 - Intro (Announcement) So spend a Saturday doing a little bit of research.  13:23 - Lau (Host) It's worth it, because what if they're interested in working with you, then you know nothing about them, right? You want to have some working knowledge if you meet with them or if you go back and forth with them. I also want to say any, too, because so many talent have a lot of reps, which is great if they're freelancing, if they're not signed exclusively, they should. Our agency is freelance, not exclusive, so we know they're going to work with six or eight or 10 different people. Sure, keep them straight, keep them straight. Here's what we found. We found a number of auditions that come in every couple of auditions have the wrong slate on them, with the wrong agency, because agencies, as we all know, on the national front, will get some of the same science and some of the same scripts and be very careful that you don't do.  14:11 We were really offended by that oh gosh, yes, I would be offended because number one, that told us they weren't playing it back and listening to it, but number two, that they would send that in. And number three is, like, have an awareness of like who's sending you what and who's doing what I'm just going to say.  14:27 - Anne (Host) Way to get yourself kind of blacklisted.  14:29 - Intro (Announcement) You know what I mean. We didn't do that, but we were making an impression when you do that.  14:35 - Anne (Host) And that impression sometimes lasts for a long time.  14:38 - Lau (Host) We won't forget that. We know exactly the people that did that and they didn't do it on purpose and we're not going to have any malice towards them, but we're watching them. If they do it again, they could be dropped, because we don't want to not hear that, because we're too busy. Send it out to a client and then it goes to another agency. Okay, so that's one thing. The other thing too is like when you sign a contract and I'm sure most of these places you're going to have you sign a freelance agreement of some kind. Read it. Some of the folks are not reading it.  15:07 And we've had a few people that don't have source connect and they're up for bookings and we're like wait a second, you signed her agreement. It said right, we've dropped a couple people over that, because we're like, we're not going to be at your home doing this for you.  15:21 You got to do it for yourself and that's sad, but it's like that's the nature of the protocol and etiquette scene. Oh, another question. We get to law. I don't want to offend anyone, so if I'm getting the same script from a couple different offices, how should I treat that? For us, it's very simple. For me, it's simple. You do my script. Well, some offices do say that they actually threaten the talent. I've heard that behind the scenes they will threaten the talent to drop them if they don't do theirs, which I don't like that. I don't like scare tactics. I would say it's up to you. You can either go with the first one that sent it to you for time sensitivity, just go with the first. Or, if they're coming in the same time, two or three offices, just choose the one you have the best for them.  16:01 - Anne (Host) I agree, I agree.  16:02 - Lau (Host) It's up to you. We're not going to be offended in any way. Oh, and the other thing I want to say too is please and I'm only talking for us, I'm not talking about every other agency, I'm only talking about MCVL Don't tell us you're passing on a job, just pass, because we could get 20, 30, 40, 60 emails saying sorry on vacation, sorry, I'm passing, sorry I'd be like it's okay, we got plenty of talent. We're going to be submitting for this, it's okay. I think sometimes talent feel like I'm being selected personally for this audition.  16:37 - Anne (Host) I feel like I have an agent who does select personally, and so if I can audition, they will get upset if I don't. But you would know that. See, that's the thing. You should know your agent enough. Exactly, you should know your agent enough.  16:48 - Lau (Host) Yes, we do that too. So if we have a hand selection, we'll say, hey, we chose you for this Exactly, or our producer asked for you and we did it. You would know that. Otherwise, just assume it's coming to a number of people, not just you, right? Unless you hear from them.  17:03 - Anne (Host) Well, I remember when I initially signed with you, I was like, look, if I cannot respond to an audition, you won't be offended, right, because I do have an agent. That will be like, no, why did you not respond? And you were like, no, that's entirely fine, that is up to you, and so it behooves you to understand or have a relationship enough with your agent so that you know about these things.  17:23 - Intro (Announcement) You know if it's appropriate to respond, Just ask Now look.  17:26 - Anne (Host) How do you feel about people keeping up with you on their latest accomplishments? I think new demos are always good. Hey, you know, I just produced a new commercial demo. I wanted to send it to you so you can have an update.  17:39 - Lau (Host) Yeah, they do it, annie, they do it, it's fine, our pros do it. Pros in the roster will do it. That they'll say, hey, we got a new demo or we just did a job for this, or whatever. Tim and I always give really positive feedback and it's really great Just to kind of know what's happening. I don't need that. If you're not represented by us, I really don't need that. What I would need is, clearly you're submitting to the agency. So every couple months, just send a nice little letter and have your website updated and that's enough. We don't need to hear every single thing that you're booking or everything that you're doing, unless it's so huge. Now we kind of have to know about it.  18:13 You know what I mean Just be careful how much time and brain space you try to take up of people that you're working with. Less is always going to be more. I also wanted to talk to you about something that recently happened with one of our roster talent quite by accident, I think, not intentionally and that was this person auditioned for a gig in September and the clients didn't make their decisions. They're now whittling it down and checking availability. So we put it out to the couple talent we're checking.  18:42 - Anne (Host) That's three months bosses. By the way, that can happen, just FYI, over three months. Yes, over three months.  18:47 - Lau (Host) Yes. And this person came back and said, yeah, I'm going to pass on this because it's not up to speed with the rate guidelines that I'm looking at and I'd feel more comfortable and I know this talent and their phenomenal right. And we came back and we said, listen, we have to tell you you already auditioned for it. You forgot about it. Here's the MP3 right here and you have, in essence, agreed to the terms that you auditioned for. That's not to say we're not ready and able and willing to go fight for some more money, which we do, fight for more usage, which we do. That's like innate with us to do that. And that talent came back because they're a fabulous person, and said, oh, I'm so sorry, I literally forgot. It's okay, I'll follow through, I'll execute, I'm available, I got my source connect. That's what we call a mensch in the industry. That's a good person. That's a person that says, okay, I may not move forward on those kinds of jobs in the future, but I already accepted those terms when I auditioned.  19:43 - Anne (Host) That we make really clear, like because we may not be able to get more money on that or more stuff on that, sure and it shows that you're working together in partnership, and I think that that is something that is so important for voice actors to understand that it's not a one way relationship. It really is a give and a take and you are working together in partnership to get this job. I mean, you're both there to satisfy the client and make some money, and I feel that if a voice actor is not gonna follow through or they're gonna all of a sudden become difficult and then start demanding I mean, look, I am all about getting a fair wage and getting fair compensation for our voices, and I think we've been fighting for that all along, and if you don't have belief in your agent that they are also fighting that battle for you right then maybe you shouldn't be together anymore.  20:33 I mean really.  20:34 - Lau (Host) I mean that's the job of the agent. I mean the job is not just to accept the terms and say, oh this is great whatever, but to say, okay, that's what we call leveraging.  20:43 So if we have a great talent that comes on because, remember, the talent is not seeing the relationship in the background that you have to assume there's this whole like a horse with blinders on, there's this whole thing going on that you're not privy to. That is, how well do we know the client? Can we go back and forth with them? Can we shimmy, which we always try to do? Tim is great at it and I try, on my end as well, to say, hey, we got you another 500 bucks and another 1,000 bucks on that one because they saw the logic behind it or they saw it was difficult to get the talent for it. But the truth is I know the truth is non-PC, but the truth is, if this talent decided not to do it, I would still love this talent because they're awesome person and fabulous, but we can replace them in a second. That's just the truth of it.  21:31 I have a hundred people in that category right now, ready to sort of kill nuns to get that job. So it's not something that our agency would be willing to give up. So it's a balance, is what I'm saying? Like, we wanna be fair to the talent, we wanna be fair to the client, we wanna have good working practices, we wanna come back and do more work. So we're pushing. We're always like pushing, pushing, pushing. But sometimes you have to stay and you have to make the decision if you're gonna move forward or not. And it's okay. If you don't, there's other talent who will.  22:02 - Anne (Host) Absolutely Another great discussion. So I think always important to really just get to know your agent, get to know your manager and really educate on the agency. Educate and really be a human being. I think Just be a good human being because that's really when it comes down to it. We are interacting with human beings and we both want a positive experience as a voice actor and as an agent.  22:27 - Lau (Host) And if you do get a manager, I would say make sure the manager knows your agencies and works well with them. You don't wanna hide people under the rug, you wanna have a team, have a team approach. A lot of people feel like if they tell me about their other agencies they're cheating on me in the marriage and I don't treat it that way. I feel like you're making a viable career that makes me happy. That you book something somewhere, it's great. So have that team approach Makes you more marketable for you actually.  22:53 - Anne (Host) So yeah, for sure. All right, bosses, simple mission, big impact, 100 voices, one hour, $10,000 four times a year. Bosses, visit 100voiceshoocareorg to join us and big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can connect and network like bosses, like Law and myself. Find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week and we'll see you next week. Bye.  23:21 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, Ann Gangusa, 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.  23:51 - Lau (Host) And it's 4th of July. I noticed that I have no idea why.  23:54 - Anne (Host) Move your mouse. Maybe that's so funny. I don't have a mouse.  23:58 - Lau (Host) Oh, my God, that's so funny. I'm back. I don't have any mouse. This is amazing. It's almost like your screen.  24:03 - Anne (Host) It's almost like your screen is going to sleep or you're making it Going to sleep.  24:08 - Lau (Host) Yeah, or you're making it explosive, I'm making it explosive, I love that.