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When I was single, I always heard the joke about the lame pick-up line: “what’s your sign?” The bright female response to this male inquiry was “exit”.

That came to mind when I wrote the blog post title “what’s your title?”

The idea is how silly we in the voice over community get with our titles. This is always evident when I plow through my LinkedIn email contacts, separating the voice-over world from the rest of my contacts.

Do you know how many VO’s list their title on LinkedIn as “President” or “Owner”?

It’s not always easy when I go through that LinkedIn list to figure out who is a Voice Over Talent, at least not via their job title listed on their profile. We make it more complicated than its needs to be, I think. It’s our own fault, myself included.

For a while I listed my title as President on LinkedIn and on my business cards. A one man company can have a president, right? Would owner have been better? Um, well, no.

Titles are all pretty EGO based (at least as I see them) and therefore not necessarily helpful for the prospect to understand what I do – what can a single owner in a voice-over company ‘preside’ over exactly? A bad choice on my part – I didn’t think it through. Shame, shame.

Something more descriptive seemed in order. Isn’t that what a job title should do, be descriptive, clarify?

Then I thought OK: Voice Over Talent/Producer. More information, more words, more important. I used that for a while. Something seemed to be missing there too but I lived with it for a while.

Then, when I was futzing with my branding (or my slogan or maybe tag line or however you want to encapsulate this overly analyzed and utterly useless “what is branding” topic – and yes I am also a marketing professional shooting myself in the foot) I decided to go with simplicity in my positioning (and position): Your Friendly, Neighborhood Voice-Over Talent.

A little branding, a little job description, a little positioning and a bit fun. If someone finds it too cutesy, screw ’em. 🙂

Don’t worry, I’ll probably hate this title in another 6-12 months anyway.

Ah simplicity!

Is Voice-Over a bad job title choice? Voice Actor? Voice Talent? No, none of them are bad because they are simple. They are also descriptive and make clear for the prospect what you do and the service you provide. And isn’t that the key to a good job title? Tweaking it just a little, though, for a more identifiable branding I don’t think hurts.

Think: “Professional Story Teller” or “Unnouncer” or the Hip Chick Voice.

What do you list as your job title or description on your business card? Do you get any client feedback specifically on it?

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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So this winter, I’m having lunch in Miami with Doug Turkel and we’re talking about voice over and also about the half dozen or so supermodels who are walking behind me and our sidewalk lunch table. I first realize there is this parade of supermodels because Doug was looking right past me as we spoke and his head was repeatedly turning slowly from left to right with his eyes bugging WAY out and some spit drooling off the side of his mouth.

I thought it might be a small stroke of some kind. Or maybe he’d seen Santa Claus, the reindeer AND the sleigh.

But no, it was just Miami supermodels.

So our conversation continued.

We talked about the blog posts I’d just started, 5 Questions for a Professional Voice Talent, which people in the voiceover world seemed to be enjoying. I asked him where HIS submission was and he said, “Funny you should ask…” wherein he went on to tell me about a free e-book he was writing which was similar and yet not so much to 5Q:VO.

That book, released today, is titled: Voices of Experience – Pro Voiceover Talent Share the Wisdom of Their Success.

There are two amazing things about the book (which really isn’t similar to 5Q:VO because both are as unique as their shared voices)

1. Doug took the time to connect with the all these amazing voice talents and garner really great stories and insights unlike anything I’ve ever read before. The e-book weaves this wonderful voice over painting that will easily impact readers new to VO as well as those of us who are a little longer in the voice-over tooth (as it were). The content is amazing, the format is lovely and the affect on readers active in our industry will be long lasting.

2. There is no truly good business reason for Doug to do this book and certainly no logical reason to make it free. But he did it anyway. The talents featured were handled professionally so they knew their stories would be in good hands and because of that, readers are taken on a magic ride through the professional experiences of the voices most voice-over talents strive to be but cannot. We can learn from them, though.

Wednesday night, I grabbed the mane of the social media merry-go-round and opined: “Something very big is about to be unleashed on the VO world (and not by me). #voiceover talents will LOVE it. Stay tuned.”

Voice of Experience IS that big thing. No get rich quick schemes, no train to be a voice over in a weekend, just insights to allow the reader to interpret the stories however they like.

And I think they will like it quite a lot.

I’ve added it to my free e-book section on this blog and I will direct anyone who asks about getting started to read it as well.

Thank you, my friend (“the author”), for lunch and the supermodels but mostly for the book.

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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