We are back live on Sunday morning at MAVO 2018, and we are joined by Armin Hierstetter, first thing, and Ken is here as well. How are you, Armin?
Hi Paul, hi Ken. I’m great, thanks for having me.
So tell us why you come to a conference like MAVO.
I’m always looking forward to be interviewed by people like you, that’s why I’m here. No kidding. No, Val asked me if I would like to do a talk on MAVO, would like to get a sponsor for MAVO 2018.
And I thought, yeah, that’s a nice thing. And just to find out a week later that another conference booked exactly the same weekend, which I kind of…
Really? I hadn’t heard that.
Yeah, I haven’t heard of it either afterwards. No, what a shame, but it’s a different story. No, and of course, always connecting to the talent is very, very important.
There are many talents that are just about to start their career and to put them on the right tracks and to see what they’re up to, what their problems and issues are, how they approach online casting, and to teach them what to do, what to avoid in the online casting world. Again, inspiration from the vets. So many things why I always love to come here.
And I can get away of Europe for a few days, and then I use it as a little breakaway from the usual day-to-day business.
That’s great. So you’re here representing Vidalgo, obviously. Tell us how Vidalgo can benefit from the attendees at the conference, or how you can benefit the talent that’s here.
Well, the talents that have no clue about the online casting world whatsoever, because they’re just starting, for them it’s good to know, okay, how does online casting work, and what to do, and the tips and tricks in my talk that I gave about the online casting. So they can benefit from them. New talents, or talents, aspiring talents, can also learn how to use technology like Boudalga Call, where you can have a session over the internet in hi-fi quality, and you don’t have to pay for it, because it’s completely for free.
And still the people don’t use it, oh god, don’t.
I don’t understand that, it’s a phenomenal service, I really do not understand why people are…
I think it has to do with, because it’s also connected to Boudalga, studios might have an issue with, they don’t want to have their clients looking at a voice over casting website, because then the clients might not go to the studio anymore that is doing the session, but maybe casting the voices directly themselves on Boudalga. So it could alienate some people from using it, because it’s also an online casting service. But anyway, it works nice and…
You actually tried to help with that by offering a matchmaking service yourself, you still offer that?
I was trying to explain to Talens, if they are approached by somebody else that need a voice, and the Talens themselves cannot fulfill that role, they should tell their clients, well, use Boudalga, because it doesn’t hurt them. And if everybody does that, well, then there are much more jobs on Boudalga, which is kind of the ethical online casting website, and they’re not going to anybody like Fiverr, BDC, and so it’s good for everybody. But people did not really respond well to that, and maybe I was not selling it the right way.
Possibly not, because we couldn’t remember the name of it just now. Did it have an actual name? Was there a name for the service?
No, there was no name for the service. It was kind of like integrated in Boudalga, but I dropped it.
I see. So…
From a voice-seeker’s perspective, what is Boudalga to me? Does it cost me money if I have voice work and I want to find talent to do that? I’m just curious what the experience is from the other side.
The voice, the client doesn’t pay a dime. Of course he has to pay the winning talent, that’s for sure, but there is no commission to be paid to Boudalga. There is no premium membership fee that they would need to pay.
They just go on the website, post their job, and get the auditions in, and they select the voice, and it’s all very, very direct and transparent because the client can talk to the talent directly. Directly via email or whatever contact information the talent gave to the client. And I do that because in my opinion, the talent, the winning talent, owns this client.
And when the client, and they should build a relationship, so next time, let’s say Paul here does a job for BMW, and BMW was really, really happy. Well, next time they need the next spot or the next e-learning or whatever they need, they think, oh, Paul did a great job. Let’s not bother posting the job with Vidalgo.
Let’s contact Paul directly and say, hey Paul, are you up for the next job? And I think this is how it should work.
And it does, because I’ve had repeat…
Oh yeah, it happens all the time. And then people, of course, come to me and say, yeah, but Armin, then you have to constantly get new clients on board because the existing clients might give the jobs to the talents they already know. And that is true to some point, but they need a bigger variety of voices.
So if they then need a girl, with all due respect, Paul, you can’t do a girl’s voice. So they will post a job.
So it’s Sunday morning, we’re almost finished with the conference. Is there anything you’re still looking forward to?
I am definitely looking forward to the session of Joe Cipriano about promo. It’s a beginner’s session. I don’t want to go into promo, but I finally want to see Joe Cipriano showing how he approaches promo work.
And I’m really very much looking forward to that. Maybe giving a few of the girls running around here some hugs, and then I’m off home back to Germany.
Well, thanks for joining us this morning. Safe travels back home, and we’ll talk soon.
We’ll talk soon. Ken, Paul, thanks for having me.