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Hello Everyone,

This is just a quick note to say THANKS! to all the listeners and fans of our podcast The VO Meter, www.vometer.com

When I had this thought about sharing what I have learned 2 years ago, I wasn’t sure it was something anybody wanted to hear. Heck, lots of established pros told me “Hey, nobody wants to hear that”. I was convinced, however, that there were people out there, however few, that needed to know others were struggling just like they were. When they messed up during an audition. When they sent a submission to an agent. When they made a QUESTIONABLE GEAR PURCHASE. They needed to know that they were not alone.

Well, now 7000 of you have found out, you are note alone! All of us have trials and tribulations, and it helps to share them in this great, welcoming community we call Voice Over.

So, thanks again for listening, and we will try to keep sharing our journey and Measuring our Voice Over Progress.

Having trouble using networking to grow your business? Do you find it hard to meet people at business events? Are you a “wall flower” at networking functions? It doesn’t have to be that hard. Use these 3 strategies at your next industry get together, and you’ll be growing your network in no time. The best part…You probably already learned all this in High School, or the singles scene shortly thereafter!

I should preface this by saying the great part about business to business marketing, at least until our robot overlords completely takeover is that it really is all about the people! Talking to people and having real conversations is the best way to create meaningful long lasting relationships. Then, the business will come because as the saying goes, people like doing business with people they like!

So, on to the 3 strategies I use to network, that have served me for the last twenty years.

1. The Wing-Man. Or Wing-Person, as we probably should call it now. When going to an event. Find somebody you know and team up. Heck, even bring somebody with you. You can call them a friend, an accountability buddy, or even a crutch! Just make sure there is someone else you know at the event, that is willing to meet people with you. There is safety in numbers. You already know this! It’s the same way you traveled around your high school dance with either your best buddy, or closest girlfriend. Now, as you go around the room, bring your friend with you. From here you can go one of two ways. First, you can be the initiator of the conversation. You start a conversation, then shortly into the conversation you say “Hey, do you know my friend John?” Now you both have been introduced. Or, you can use your friend as the REASON for the introduction. Approach somebody you don’t know, and say “Hi, I wanted to introduce Jane, I think you two could help each other”. The beauty of this approach is the end result is 3 people now know each other. Hey! You’ve just created a network!
2. The Drive-By. You know this one too. Remember at the football pep rally when you saw that cute guy near the hot chocolate? Same principle here. Find someone you want to talk to, near the exhibit table, or the bar. Casually walk up and say “Hi, I’m Steve, I was headed to the Vendor area, care to join me?” Sometimes the answer is “Yes! I was just about to go myself!”. Of course, sometimes the answer is “No”, but you have still planted the seed of the introduction. Which brings me to strategy number 3.
3. The Mole. This sounds sinister, I know, but really it’s not. This is the equivalent of having your girlfriend pass the “do you like Mary” note to a boy in class. I’m sure you have done this at parties already. You pick a colleague, probably somebody who you already know has connections at a certain a event, and send them on a reconnaissance mission! Again, there are a few ways to play this one. First, just have your “Mole” warm up the crowd. Tell jokes, ask about the kids, the dog etc. Then after a few minutes, you come bursting in and your friend introduces you. Another way to approach this is for your friend to actually talk you up (again high school dance!) They say “I was just talking to my friend Dave, and I think He’d be a GREAT partner for you!”. Finally, you combine strategy number 2 and use The Drive-By here.  Your friend is working the crowd, everybody is laughing. You casually breeze by and say “Hey Kristen, looks like you are having a blast, anybody need a drink?” Now, you may have just added 5 new people to your network!

All of these strategies are simple ways to help with your confidence at networking events, and can greatly increase your business contacts. I have used these for years to wonderful results. The best part? You already know them? You probably learned them in High School!

Ahh, The obligatory New Years Resolution blog post…It’s cliche, of course, but darned if it isn’t a good excuse to put something down on paper, or LCD panel, as it were.

At any rate, I hope you will indulge me in taking down some notes, more for myself, but that maybe, will help somebody else. Here goes.

I am not usually one to make bold resolutions. I am more of a think it, do it kind of guy, whatever time of year that might be. When I was a younger man and legalized gambling was isolated to pretty much Las Vegas and Atlantic City, I would routinely hatch a plan at midnight on a Saturday to play some black jack, grab some friends and just drive to New Jersey, a 3 hour one way trip! If you have listened to my podcast The VO Meter, https://www.vometer.com you may have heard the story of how I acquired my Whisper Room. I saw an ad on Craigslist in New York City. I made an inquiry and was driving up I-95 36 hours later in a rented cargo van to pick it up! I don’t need excuses to take action.

Still, mostly due to the fact that I make a lot of business investments in December to qualify for late Tax deductions (or at least I used to, thanks Congress!) I have a lot of memberships that expired recently. That brings me to my first resolution.

I am pairing down my involvement with online casting sites (p2p). My membership to Voice123 expired in December. I decided not to renew. There just wasn’t much return on investment for me. I may try again at some point, but for now, I chose not to continue with that particular company. I had at one time 4 memberships to p2p sites. The other two shall remain nameless. This means bodalgo, is my only current online casting membership. Truth be told, I haven’t had much luck there either, but I really like their process and of course their rock star founder Armin Hierstetter.

This brings up the question then how will I drum up business? Well, I’m glad you asked, because that is resolution number…2

I will market more to local businesses. I have already started looking. I’m in talks with my local chamber of commerce about a membership, and plan to seek out others like it. I will try to reach out to my other contacts locally to see how I can help their businesses. I hope to use Linked in and other networking sites to further build my network locally. After all, a client that is built out of a relationship is more likely to become a long term client.

Finally, I plan (hope) to stop obsessing about equipment and focus more on the important aspects of the business. I have worked long and hard on creating a top notch studio sound and by in large I have achieved that goal; its time to cut that line item out of my budget.

To that end, I plan to focus on coaching. I am about to “Graduate” from the narration training program with Sean Pratt, I am currently doing some coaching on imaging, and I hope to pick back up with character work (Everett, I’m going to call you I promise).

That’s it, really. Like I said, I’m not much of a resolution guy, but the perfect congruence of the budgeting that comes with the end of the year really crystalized things for me and made this list easy.

What are some of your New Years Resolutions? Drop me a comment please!

So you want to get into the Voice over “Business”? You had better understand that last part!

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to be signed to a very popular talent Agency. If you have followed my posts or possibly my Voice Over podcast The VO Meter you know I am still a relative “newcomer” to the business. I have had some success, and was even lucky enough to be signed to several agencies within my first year. This particular agency, however, has eluded me. Sure, I sent submissions, several times, but never heard so much as a peep back. Always, undeterred, until I actually hear the word “no” (and truthfully not always then) I kept looking for ways to make another impression to this highly coveted voiceover group.

As it turns, out, the “secret” as it were, was really easy, and something I’ve known from my earliest days of business marketing.

I saw the owner of this agency on a webcast, where it was mentioned that they only sign talent, when they receive a direct referral from one of the voice talent already on their roster. Huge “DO’H” moment for me. I know this method of business to business marketing, heck I LO VE this method. I’ve nearly built my whole business around referral marketing. After all, there is no better sales lead, than a direct referral!

So, I looked at the agency roster and actually found several VO friends. The trick now, was finding someone I hadn’t already bothered about a business referral! I saw my good friend Ken Foster: http://kenfostersvoice.com/ was a member of the roster. I asked him if he wouldn’t mind making an introduction. He did not, shockingly, and even sent an email to his agent the same day. I got a response not even 1 hour later! I was signed, and the rest is history…or will be shortly…I hope.

The moral of the story? Voice over, is a BUSINESS. The reason I even know Ken, was because he was one of the first people I met at the Mid Atlantic Voice Conference in 2016. Short sidebar, registration is open for MAVO 2018, and I highly recommend you go. Val Kelly and her team to a fantastic job at this “micro conference” Details here: https://www.midatlanticvo.com/

Ken and I immediately hit if off, found out he lives a few miles from my cousin, and we were friends ever since. He’s even appeared on the podcast! The point is, I made that connection because I was marketing my business! Paid to attend the conference, made the trip and was really rewarded, not only with all the great experiences at the conference, but over a year later, with Ken’s referral.

Finally, though I’ve been speaking about business, I would be remiss if I didn’t again speak about how great the VO community is. I can’t thank Ken enough for his assistance, and I hope to return the favor soon. As I was welcomed “into the family” by my new agency, I couldn’t help but smile, because that is exactly what it feels like.

Have you ever had to consider your weight when evaluating your VO career? No, I’m not talking about exercise, and fitness…though, I guess that could play a part.

Recently, I started looking at upgrading my booth. If you follow my podcast The VO Meter, https:/www.vometer.com you know this has been an ongoing issue for me. I currently work in a 4×4 Standard Whisper Room. It has served me well, nearly perfectly. The problem is, I keep it sounding great, partially with smoke and mirrors. You see I use a Universal Audio Apollo Twin interface. It has the ability to run processing live, while recording. It accomplishes this through the use of plugins that are enabled in “Unison” mode. This allows the Apollo to do some really cool and unique things. The way I use it is to run a channel strip in virtual mode. Due to the Unison mode, I can emulate what a large (and expensive) channel strip would do, all through the plugin on the interface! My primary use of the channel strip is the expander. I use it to filter out a large amount of low frequency rumble that bleeds into my house from the highway DIRECTLY IN my back yard. I know, I know, you should record Raw, you say. Producers always want Raw audio you say. That is all true, but in my case, the results would be unacceptable without the use of this expansion.
Trouble is, sometimes the expansion is a little aggressive. I had fine tuned it for my voice. Okay, that’s a lie, the incomparable George Whittam did. At any rate, almost never did I notice any ill effects on my voice from the expander.

I recently started recording another author in my space. I used the same setup at first, and noticed that for his voice, lots of the ends of phrases were being cut off, a hallmark of an expander being too aggressive. So, I dialed the expander on the channel strip back. Wouldn’t you know it, some more highway rumble started to leak in. I was at a crossroad, leave the rumble in, or throttle up the expander again and risk losing some detail in the recording. Neither was really a good option.

Ebay to the rescue (sort of). I started to look at upgrading my booth. As luck would have it, I found a listing for a 3.5 x 5 Enhanced Whisper Room (double walled) in Beaverton, Oregon. The price was insane, so I bought it. Paid for it, even. I contacted the seller and told him I’d arrange shipping soon.

That’s where the issues started to crop up. Do you know how HEAVY an enhanced Whisper Room is? I’ll tell you, 1300 lbs! That was over double what my current booth is. That makes sense when you think about it, it’s essentially double the mass of the one I have. Probably something I should have considered BEFORE paying for it? At any rate, this was an issue for me. You see my current Whisper Room sits on my 2nd floor. I do have a basement, but based on previous research, I know that the 2nd floor, (rumble and all) is a better choice for my recording environment. Between my 3 kids, the dog, my wife and any other friends/soccer teams/play dates we have going on, the impact traffic on the lower floor above the basement is much more of an problem.

Back to the issue at hand, the weight. I started to worry. Could my 2nd floor handle 1300 lbs of dead weight? I asked some contractor friends, other voiceover professionals, and even read the US building code, which is a might confusing if you are not familiar with it. You can see the full text here if you like https://www.huduser.gov/Publications/pdf/res2000_2.pdf

The short of it is, the amount to be considered safe load on a 2nd floor is either 40 pounds per square foot (psf) or 30 psf, depending on the state. Some quick math (okay not so quick maybe) helped me figure out that the max load for a booth that is 3.5 x 5 is really only 700 lbs. So, the new booth would be 600 lbs over the max limit! That’s even on the conservative side at 40 psf. My state of Maryland, last check, actually recommends the 30 psf standard. I was stuck.

So, what did I do? I contacted my good friend Sean Daeley, who in Washington, was not that far away from the eBay purchased booth. “Sean, good buddy”, I said, “want a great deal on a Whisper Room?” He considered it. Went through all the same thoughts. Even posted a question on facebook you may have seen (yes that was my fault). There were lots of opinions, that ranged from “NO WAY”, to “Mine is on the 2nd floor and I don’t have any issues” to “You’ll probably be fine, after all, if you have 10 friends over you don’t expect your kitchen to fall through”.

The thing is, we are talking about a 1300 pound behemoth, sitting in one spot on the floor, 24 hours a day 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I wasn’t willing to risk that being over the heads of my family at times. Ultimately, Sean wasn’t either. As he is fond of saying, “Remember people, you’re talking about installing a small room in your house”

So, the morale of the story is, when shopping for or deciding to build a vocal booth, keep in mind all the factors. These are materials, acoustics, space, and now you know…weight.

Yesterday, I was reminded how GREAT the VO community is. I recently released a new version of my website complete with re-branding efforts from my fabulous coach Sean Allen Pratt. While it looked great, and had received a great response from both friends and family alike, it wasn’t really doing much for me. I needed to tweak the SEO. So, I dialed up my friend Joe Davis of www.voiceactorwebsites.com and solicited his help. After an hour on the phone, I had made some significant changes, that I’m hopeful will help. Only two days later it seems it probably has already. Doing a Google search on several of my targeted industry terms, does indeed pull up my website within the first few pages. Voila!

Joe is a great guy, and knows his stuff. He’s even helped the community as a whole as a recent guest and now sponsor of Voice Over Body Shop. You can catch his most recent appearance on the show here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YKHfdgFR_Q

If you ever have the chance to meet Joe, he’ll probably offer you 10 tidbits about web design you never even thought of within five minutes.

As I thought about Joe and how giving of his time he is, I thought about all the other people and resources that are out there.

J. Michael Collins does a FREE weekly workout for anybody who follows him on Social Media or his professional pages. Jon Florian provides INVALUABLE information on Voice-Over Xtra

Most recently, in the wake of a certain online casting site changing hands, Brad Venable, Tim Friedlander and Jay Preston have founded The VO Weekly Workout to help working pros keep up their chops.

These are just a few of the great resources that are out there for folks to learn about the industry and practice.

Aside from the publicly available resources with a web presence, the community is also very cordial with person to person communications. I started a meetup group with several pros. We meet every week to talk shop and occasionally work on scripts. The members of this group, John Roorda, Heather Masters, Marisha Tapera, Mike Norgaard, Sean Daeley and Will Watt, have been so helpful to me and my career. On one occasion I traded Sean a TLM 103 microphone. No really! This was AFTER I had traded a Sennheiser MKH-415 to Bill Brooks for that 103. See what I mean? Now, Sean and I have become pretty close (see our ridiculous podcast The VO Meter for proof) but I still shipped him a $1000 microphone across the entire country. Bill and I have never even met, and he shipped me his mic in straight trade!

The point I’m trying to make, is you need to make friends. It’s not that complicated really. The same process holds true for any business or industry. The rewards, however, from the Voiceover industry, can be grand. Get out there and meet people. Join local groups, check out some of the groups on facebook. VO Pros, VO Peeps, and the WoVo group come to mind. For that matter, JOIN WoVo, the World Voices Organization. Then look for events to attend to help you meet people. VO Atlanta, Faffcon, WoVocon, APAC. All of these are great ways to expand your network.

It’s not an exaggeration to say I have launched my career, based on the kindness of VO strangers…who I now call friends.