THUS, WHEREIN, THEREFORE AND SO ON AND SO ON I, Peter K. O’Connell, issue the following voiceover podcast decree…and you all shall abide by it, tho I’ve no way to prove your abidance (got all that?)
WHEREAS I have been a guest on many a voiceover podcasts over the decades…
WHEREAS I used to have a podcast with the voxmarketising brand but found it much too much a pain in the ass to record, edit, produce and publish because I art lazieth…
WHEREAS the organization within my blog of my past podcast appearances have been anything BUT organized because (see:lazieth)
THEREFORE, I being far from sound (and more likely questionable) mind but of fun and amiable spirit, as America’s Friendly, Neighborhood Voiceover Talent I Peter K. O’Connell do decree and therefore press into law – as not really commanded by God and/or by Country – the establishment of the VOICEOVER PODCAST HALL OF FAME, as of right now, whenever you happen to be reading this. Forever and ever, amen.
The very strict criteria for entrance into this VOICEOVER PODCAST HALL OF FAME (if you type the name in all caps it’s more official-like)…anyway the way you get in is having had me on the podcast.
In essence, these are all the podcasts that I have guested on (that I can recall).
Here are the VOICEOVER PODCAST HALL OF FAME presented by Peter K. O’Connell inductees thus far….
Podcast Title: ASK ME ANYTHING PODCAST– Guest:
Voiceover Workshop’s Peter K. O’Connell Host:
Tom Dheere Original Air Date:
September 2023
Podcast Title: GUYS WHO DO STUFF PODCAST– Guest:
National Voiceover Talent Peter K. O’Connell Host(s):
Joe Woolworth & Josh Manning Original Air Date:
July 2019
Podcast Title: VOICE OVER BODY SHOP– Guest:
National Voiceover Talent Peter K. O’Connell Host(s):
Dan Lenard & George Whittam Original Air Date:
March 2016
Podcast Title: VOICE OVER CAFE – From FaffCon 6 in San Antonio Guest Host:
Voice Talent Peter K. O’Connell Host(s):
Peter Bishop, Trish Basanyi, Terry Daniel, Sean Caldwell & Jordan Reynolds Original Air Date:
October 2013
Podcast Title: THE 3 AMIVOS PODCAST – Guest:
Voiceover Talent Peter K. O’Connell Host(s):
Garnet Williams, Dave McRae, Mike Pongracz Original Air Date:
June 2013
Podcast Title: EAST WEST AUDIO BODY SHOP – Guest:
Voiceover Talent Peter K. O’Connell Host(s):
Dan Lenard & George Whittam Original Air Date:
October 2011
The multi-state devastation left over from Hurricane Helene (which hit my state on September 27th) shattered countless lives.
Swannanoa residents walk through devastating flood damage from the Swannanoa River in western North Carolina on Sunday. PHOTO CREDIT: Travis Long / The News & Observer / TNS via Getty Images
Some of the hardest hit communities include those on the western side of North Carolina, in and around Asheville, where rains and the resulting massive floods left many neighborhoods (and lives) in complete ruin.
While national, state and local agencies and volunteers are working to bring aid to those in need, this recovery will require a lot of time and even more money.
There will be no quick fixes or magic wands to solve the devastation.
To help make people aware of the problem and encourage donations for the recovery effort from Hurricane Helene, I’ve produced an audio public service announcement that is available for broadcast use, web use and podcast use to spread the word of where donations are accepted.
FREE PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA FOLLOWING HURRICANE HELENE
(Please note, in this time audio pirating, no portion of the audio from this PSA may not be use for any other purpose than the purpose stated above). LINK HERE.
There are many worthwhile organizations that are accepting donations to aid the Hurricane recovery efforts. For the purposes of this free recording, I chose the following:
• The North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund – helping Hurricane ravaged communities recover from catastrophic damage – donate at nc.gov/donate
• Catholic Charities USA, where 100% of Hurricane gifts collected will go to support recovery efforts. Visit CatholicCharitiesUSA.org
• The American Red Cross, which is accepting Hurricane Helene donations at redcross.org/donate
If you are don’t work in broadcast or don’t produce a podcast, but know people who do, please feel free to share this post and this PSA with them.
Thanks.
This audio public service announcement (PSA) to support regional and national fundraising efforts for Western North Carolina – as a result of Hurricane Helene – is available for FREE all broadcast (Radio/TV/Cable), Podcasters and Webcasters who support this effort. No other use of this audio is permitted.
In almost all of broadcasting, be it radio, TV or cable, making it to the 100th show is a milestone.
The same is true for podcasting and it’s especially true for voiceover podcasting (says the blogger/podcaster who couldn’t get past 3-4 episodes back in the waaaay early days of the medium).
Seriously, I’ve heard and long forgotten a large number of VO podcasts from producers who seemingly lost interest in the medium.
So when I saw a post from my voiceover pal (and fellow Faffer) Natasha Marchewka about the upcoming 100th episode of her SPEECHLESS voiceover podcast with Kim Wilson (on April 18th), I know it promises to be a big deal.
Over 2 (maybe now 3) seasons/years, Kim and Natasha’s SPEECHLESS podcast has been a behind-the-scenes take on real life in the voice over biz! The good, the bad and the ugly.
It takes true production commitment and focus to keep a podcast (or any media program) on-air for ANY length of time. Guest aren’t always great, ideas aren’t always flowing….but if you have the determination, producers like Kim and Natasha fly over the problems and focus on the good stuff.
If you get to 100 episodes, that means the audience likes all the good stuff and wants you to keep going.
And that there (as we say in the south) is the greatest cause for celebration there is!
I’ve been fortunate to be invited on a number of voiceover related podcasts and webcasts (because the ‘cooking show’ podcasts know I don’t really have that much to offer – as I am a Platinum Member of the Arby’s Best Customer Club).
So it was nice to have the VO Workshop invited on Tom Dheere’s “Ask Me Anything” webcast (part of his VO Strategist business) to discuss voice-over marketing.
Full disclosure, I was not his first choice for the show but his original guest had to cancel last minute. Glad to help out my friend of at least 10+ years just before airtime.
The show must go on! Indeed it did!
We spoke about marketing priorities for voice talents including databases, demos, websites and more. We also took questions from viewers of the live broadcast.
According to Tom, the show went very well. As the guest, I know hosts always say that but the response thus far has been very positive. I know I enjoyed myself.
Hope you enjoy it.
TRANSCRIPT IS AUTO GENERATED
0:00
so where you from and how’d you get started hey thanks for calling uh the uh I I started um back in 1982 officially I
0:08
mean I really always wanted to be in radio um I tell the story on on my
0:14
website when they put my bio up there um that I was in kindergarten in 1969 at at
0:20
madii school and our and our teacher sister Donna Marie was kind enough uh to
0:26
take a class of four and five year olds to a radio station so and it was webr which is a station
0:33
that kind of exists now but not certainly the way it did um and I remember walking into that studio not
0:39
really understanding radio here’s my concept of radio back when I was in kindergarten that there was a band uh
0:45
that played a song and then that band left and the next Band came on and played their song that was that was that
0:53
was my logic of in kindergarten of how how radio worked okay so when I saw how
0:58
radio worked I was just like ooh I don’t we all have that sort of moment where we go wow what was that
1:05
could be a car it could be you know a location a trip we took but that was me
1:10
that was me and I knew somehow from that point forward I was going to definitely
1:15
uh be involved in in radio and so you’re saying so you’re saying you wanted to you discovered you wanted to be a DJ when you were five years old I didn’t
1:22
know what a DJ was but I wanted to work in that place I want to work in the place with the tubes and the levers and
1:27
the microphones and people talking and was really cool cool um so I I really
1:32
like I really like that so fast forward to uh you know finishing up high school and got to make some decisions here and
1:39
I wanted to you know it it it’s tough to uh put together a radio career and a
1:47
college career together because that’s a lot of money to invest in it but the idea was uh that I get a good college
1:54
education so if the radio thing didn’t work out you know you you had a backup so um fast forward to there’s a couple
2:01
schools um three or four schools that I was looking at um and a couple of them
2:06
said no and then uh a few others of them said oh sure and one of them was the
2:12
University of Dayton which is where I ended up going so I’m I’m a Dayton flyer and the the reason um I went there uh
2:20
was was very simple uh the University of Dayton owned a 50,000 watt FM radio
2:26
station which was not a normal College radi station you’re saying a some kids come in there and they put on a t-shirt
2:33
talk to their buddies in the dorm no this had a professional paid general manager not a student professional paid
2:40
program director not a student professional paid sales team that made their living on sales traffic department
2:48
but the students were on air save um were all all the people on air were all students save for the morning man who
2:55
was the paid program director and the music director who had the afternoon shift so I I got myself on there in the
3:01
first year um and I was doing news in the afternoon uh I think I started maybe
3:08
December January around that time of my freshman year and I worked all the way through uh and and and by my beginning
3:15
my sophomore year I had a regular shift um Monday through Friday 6:00 to 900m so
3:20
I was I was the evening dish jockey and got to do all sorts of stuff but while I was doing all that
3:26
um I the the the radio station would have their announcers as most radio
3:31
stations do um read commercial copy uh sometimes it’s uh you know starting at
3:38
the theater near you this Friday back when people only could go to theaters um you know and um and then you know I got
3:46
to do some other spots and sometimes the clients were kind of fun they let me you know they let us be creative well i’ I
3:52
have a I had a shift uh in production so I work two or three hours a day so I would do you know I dub over commercials
3:58
from real toore and put them on carts but then you’d get commercial copy and they let you be creative with it that’s
4:05
where the lightning bolt hit for voice over I’m like oh I can write I can do
4:11
voices I I love making sound effects and music and all this other stuff and I became quite known for it at the station
4:17
to the point where clients would hire me uh to do their spots pay me additionally
4:23
versus the fee that I was normally getting and then take my spots and put them on other stations for which I got
4:29
remunerated again so um that was that was kind of when I went oh that’s cool um and I you
4:36
know I’d really like really like that but um you know it was it was fun but I
4:42
also realized at some point I needed to get a real job because I got some radio jobs after graduating and you know the
4:49
pay was was was pretty bad um and to think now it’s even worse uh but but it
4:55
was it was bad in 1986 so um so I you know I I got another jobs but I always
5:01
did voice over along the way one of the first things I did was start a video production company with my high school
5:06
video teacher and we did that for six or seven years um and we produce videos and so I’d narrate some of that stuff or
5:12
hire I would hire The Voice Talent um you know and some of the some of the dish jockeys that I would hire in the
5:18
Buffalo Market to do the stuff they’re you know i’ give them some direction they’d be like what I said yeah I don’t want your radio voice I need this kind
5:25
of voice and they like they thought that was kind of cool they were like wow okay thank you I can can do that so they so
5:32
anyway voiceover was always a part of that um you know going back through through all the different jobs and tasks
5:38
because you’re not going to make a king’s Ransom and voice over in Buffalo New York um to this day uh or Raleigh
5:45
North Carolina you’re going to have to be in in New York or La people some people say Chicago and I have lovely
5:50
agents in Chicago High big mouth uh but um no I uh you know I’m not in those
5:56
cities and and and didn’t didn’t want to be so um you know know so voiceover was
6:01
about um creating awareness you know around that time thank goodness the um
6:07
the internet popped up and suddenly we you know we we got the AOL dial up some people won’t know what that is but uh
6:14
but those of us of a certain age will remember you know we first we first signed into uh our first AOL account and
6:21
heard a noise we’d never heard of before and thought we broke our computer I think we all remember
6:27
that oh God what did I do wrong uninstall uninstall um and it was you
6:33
know and and then we went on from there and so with the internet came on business changed how you marketed
6:38
yourself changed we may talk about marketing here today I don’t know what the show is about um maybe a stitch but
6:44
um but then everything sort of opened up for us and around the world um and and
6:50
it became it became really really fun um and then I I’ll stop there and I can
6:55
tell you how you know voiceover for me changed a little bit and became even even broader uh scoped but I I don’t
7:02
want to take 10 minutes answering a question no you’re no it no it’s good it’s good for everybody to hear because
7:07
everybody’s voiceover journey is different and now that it’s 2023 and now that I’ve been you know
7:14
doing the V strategist coaching thing for over 10 years now and I did my first
7:19
voiceover in 1996 the landscape has changed dramatically and the changes
7:24
keep coming faster and faster and we as voice actors need to adapt more and more I think an interesting uh something
7:32
interesting I got out of it is that you had the infrastructure of radio as your entry into the voiceover industry yeah
7:39
um other people have have other other ways of doing it for what’s happening in
7:45
2023 you know that infrastructure that is Radio it still exists but not even as
7:52
remotely as uh spread out or prolific as it is because now you know that I think
7:58
it was at the tele Communications act in 1996 that really uh that really changed
8:04
radio forever and not in a good way well I think it was I think it back even farther and I and I’m not going to
8:10
remember I’m sure that that didn’t help but um the the point where I kind of
8:16
went even as a young person I went oh this is going to change things was I
8:21
believe it was in the Reagan Administration uh there used to be a limit that a company could own I and
8:30
historians please forgive me seven radio s 7 AM 7 FM and 7 TV right and then
8:36
Reagan no you don’t need those limits thanks boom right and then everything changed
8:42
soid because yeah oh yeah because then what that meant for for those the the younger viewers out there is that means
8:49
that um that Mom and Pops who are maybe not doing so well who want want to get out of the market want to be bought out
8:55
and major corporations who wanted to you know buy into a market could more easily do so they weren’t ham hamstrung anymore
9:02
for television or am or FM um you know that was that was great and then uh as
9:09
as we delved into the 90s when internet came in that was another kind of seismic
9:15
shift um and and what could that mean well for for audio production for radio
9:20
production um it allowed things to be even more automated than they already were uh it it it brought along the
9:27
opportunity for electronic um electronic audio editing instead of
9:32
realtoreal machines uh suddenly everything was digital and there was there was software out there that’ll
9:38
that allow you to do that um and and everything kind of just became seismic from there so from a from a radio
9:46
perspective the jobs became um smaller and because they radio stations would
9:53
not bother with you know bother with people because they’re expensive and they you know they’ have somebody do one
9:59
show out of atuma Iowa and somebody would insert a radio call letter jingle
10:04
and it would just be all very generic and and and pre-recorded that’s a really really uh brief and poorly surmised
10:13
explanation of how that all happened so Tellis now you are a you consider yourself a full-time voice actor but you
10:19
also I got this I got to be full-time I gotta pay for this that’s already paid for but also I know I’ve known you for a
10:25
very long time you also travel the country as a is it safe to say marketing consultant would that be the no I I have
10:32
a marketing business uh and I’ve been working with uh clients for a long time one client in particular so that’s you
10:38
know it’s pretty terrific but um it’s uh yeah I’ve been doing marketing I’ve had
10:44
uh my business uh for a long time um and you know the the industry has changed
10:51
and of course because of my marketing background and sales and marketing background um and I’ll always do that
10:56
that’s just that’s just who I am and what I am um as part of what I do uh
11:02
it’s it really it really has evolved and and it’s really evolved In from from a
11:07
voiceover standpoint as well um I know that a lot of people obviously here are very focused on their voiceover business
11:13
but what you can learn from other other marketing channels from other Industries you there are often
11:19
times applications to voice over um so just watching some of that change um has
11:24
been has been really something of of interest to me because I think um I mean it’s it’s ever evolving we’re all having
11:31
to deal with it um and there’s a little bit of everybody making it up as they go along um there is no very similar to um
11:41
I think very similar to the voiceover Journeys you referen that everyone takes one marketing uh size does not fit all
11:50
um and because so many people in voiceover
11:56
are are voiceover actors they are not marketers they don’t understand business
12:02
and some of them I think are certainly a lot of the new folks that I’ve talked to over the years and again doing this 40
12:09
years you talk to a lot of people they don’t understand that they’re starting a
12:14
business when they get into voiceover right it’s not just you sit around you sit on your you know your couch and wait
12:20
for the phone to ring and I I’ve said this for years others have said this for years and yet there are people still on
12:26
the couch waiting for the phone to ring well here’s what I’ve learned in my you know 10 plus years of of coaching the
12:32
business and Mar and marketing side is that you know voice actors have who are early in their Journey have certain
12:39
expectations they expect that they based on their talent and then the fact that
12:44
they produced a demo yeah that um they will get discovered get their lucky
12:49
break or something or something like that and what I’ve learned is that the the four words that will ruin your
12:55
voiceover marketing are breaks competition connections and luck yeah and the thing that those four things in
13:02
have in common and all of those are outside external forces that you’re
13:07
waiting upon to relieve you the responsibility of taking true true control of your voiceover career in
13:14
general and your Marketing in particular when all the things that you really need to do to move your voiceover business
13:20
forward in general and your marketing efforts in particular is all internal
13:25
developing your understanding of marketing your understanding of the voiceover industry your understanding of
13:31
self on a talent level on a skill level level a skill level level uh that’s
13:36
right we’ll edit that out in post no one will ever see it right understanding what your limitations are as a voice
13:42
actor both when it when it comes to genre and like you know you know your comfort level with technology your
13:47
comfort level with social media your comfort level with writing you know all of those things and then trying to
13:53
figure out based on what your strengths and limitations are and your understanding of the industry how you can move forward so um throwing cold
14:01
water on the heads of most people who are very early in their Journey about when it comes to marketing no one’s
14:08
going to do it for you you do have to figure it out for yourself but there are a lot of resour there are a lot of
14:14
resources um out there um well I think the other thing that’s important there
14:19
and you were you were touching on it is sort of researching and finding out who you are as a voiceover talent and who
14:25
you are as a performer um I I will show you share one of my flaws as a performer
14:31
I am not an audiobook narrator I have tried it and I did not like it uh so I I
14:37
don’t have the tolerance the patience or maybe even the talent to be an audiobook narrator nothing wrong with audiobook
14:44
narrators some of them are friends some of them maybe even in this in this camera uh you know that I’m looking at
14:50
here um so that’s all fine but you have to kind of I think as you’re identifying
14:57
yourself what as a voiceover Talent find out what that Niche feels like sometimes
15:03
when you’re early on you’re not going to know that’s okay you got to develop that takes time but say you’re two or three
15:08
years in or even a year in you have a better sense that boy I really have a knack for character or I really have a
15:14
knack for video game or I really have a knack for promo what any one of the genres and then really understanding
15:21
from there who your audience is and what do I mean by that okay so let’s say for for
15:29
example uh you are you are going to be you really feel strongly about broadcast
15:34
promo okay you feel that you really have the pipes uh and and you you offer something different something that
15:41
stands out uh from a performance standpoint that will really get a viewers attention uh from either a um
15:47
from either a a local affiliate or go for it national um opportunity that you
15:53
really think is going to work out so who is your audience stop think stop drop and roll
16:00
stop and think this is where the business part of marketing kind of
16:05
starts once you know who you are uh as a performer doesn’t mean you can’t be
16:12
other things it just means you’re you’re kind of focusing you’re trying to you got to start somewhere right you go
16:17
Gotta you got to pick somewhere right so if I would to if if I were to ask Tom you know what’s the best way to uh begin
16:25
you know figuring your your marketing out from a from a uh from a uh audiobook perspective his answers are going to be
16:32
significantly different than if I say what are going what are the ANS is going to be for trying to figure yourself out
16:39
as a broadcasting promo uh specialist big time Big Time so in in in this
16:45
example and this is just an example and and it’ll could be again be a short one because everything we’re going to talk
16:50
about has a lot more to go into than we’re going to cover here today but for the purposes of this if you were going
16:56
to be in broadcast promo you’d probably want to stop and think about who your audience is more than likely your
17:04
audience your your your most opportunistic audience is going to
17:10
be at a local affiliate level you’re going to start at the local affiliate
17:15
level versus the networks doesn’t mean you can’t start at the networks but this is assuming that you are a an individual
17:23
without necessarily representation you have to Market yourself out to these folks and you have to get your first
17:29
couple of gigs it could be radio it could be television so if it’s going to be uh radio uh you’re probably going to
17:37
want to focus on those people that hire you uh for for these jobs um and in
17:42
radio that’s going to be either the program director or the creative Services director depending on the size
17:48
of the radio station same sort of thing in television uh you’re going to you’re going to talk to the program director or
17:54
the promo more often not the promo or creative Services director at a television station station again local
18:00
affiliate why is that valuable for you it’s valuable for you because there
18:05
are oodles of local radio and television stations versus a much smaller pie for
18:13
National even cable networks now granted when I was a boy there were no cable
18:19
networks and there were four channels ABC NBC CBS and PBS and maybe fifth one
18:24
maybe you had an independent there was no Fox network at the time that was 80s five or 86 yeah so I mean we’re talking
18:31
it wasn’t that long ago uh that you know and and cable came up and everything HBO
18:37
wow uh you know it was it was a whole big thing um now HBO’s like uh they throw that in they just throw we will
18:42
get to your questions in just a moment and then I’ve got a story after Peter I’m sorry um but uh but so when you’re
18:48
going after these guys you’ve given yourself a bigger Pond to fish in so
18:54
that’s why I use this example right um and so you’re going to try and find these folks how are you going to try and
18:59
find them um there’s a variety of ways to do that I will stop here and say do you want me to talk a little bit about
19:05
that or do you want to go into another area yes but not yet so I’m gonna give you a little sto so I’m gonna give you a
19:11
little story about you know what I think oh to rephrase to to cons condense what
19:16
you were saying let the industry listen to the industry because the industry will often tell you where where you
19:24
should Place yourself and how you should Market yourself just in the past couple of months I booked three gigs very very
19:31
close to each other within a couple of weeks of each other and all of them were recruitment
19:38
ads commercials radio commercials like the Maryland Department of Transportation is looking for great
19:43
people like you come on down to the Civic Center on at on the 14th at four o’clock and bring your resume we’d love
19:49
to find out what you can do da I got like three of those for three different clients yeah and I’d never booked
19:55
anything like that spots like that before I was like oh that was interesting and then also around the same time I
20:01
also booked three spots back to back to back with three different clients all of them were well I guess we they’re not
20:08
exactly tags maybe n cards like there was one for Cousins Subs I don’t know if you know the that sub it’s a in Wiscon
20:15
it’s a Wisconsin subchain sure and the guy goes to the counter and he’s not sure what to get and one customer say get this and other saying get that and
20:22
the lady behind the counter said get both you know and at at the very last end I’m like you know sometimes it is hard to decide what to get a cousin subs
20:28
come on down and figure it out so I just did like it was a 30second television commercial but I only came in at the
20:34
last 5 seconds with the voiceover right and I got like three of those Royal Bank of Canada was another one back to back
20:40
to back also I had never gotten anything like that before either and these are all coming to you individually or
20:45
through representation they were they all came through uh voice one 123 okay all of them did and I was like oh that’s
20:52
very that’s all very interesting so I so what I did as a result of that is I got the finished spots I you know chunk them
21:00
down into the MP3 I create I created demos short demos for both of those and
21:05
I uploaded those samples to my website and to my other casting sites yeah so now I have found the industry told me
21:12
that there’s a new way to Market myself so have you ever so you have you ever had an experience like that yeah I I yes
21:19
in many ways and the other thing I’m thinking is as you’re talking about what you’re doing there is the other thing I want to tell you to do is is share that
21:26
demo with maybe some some producers that you know just to let them know that this may be a genre coming up right it’s a
21:32
great opport great opportunity it’s a great opportunity to reach out to uh to folks to have
21:38
something new to share with them right um because you have something to talk about something of value and it and it
21:44
directly relates to their business so you’re not just hitting with the the old email hi I’m great and I did this that
21:50
and the other thing it’s like no listen to this this is the thing that’s happening now so I tell my students that
21:55
that’s what’s called demonstrating value in progress if you’re going to Market if you’re going to send out something make sure it’s either demonstrating your
22:01
value your progress or both I’m going to charge you for that piece of advice I just gave you by the way just just be
22:07
very clear you get check in the mail uh let’s go to our first question Pat hello Pat Pat says okay so Peter well most of
22:14
these questions are for you unless they say it specifically for me what is your best piece of marketing advice my best
22:19
piece of marketing advice um I don’t have a best piece um I I don’t because
22:26
and and I don’t mean it in a in a joking way either I mean it there’s there’s a lot of different things I would say
22:31
Obviously um as a voice I assume this is as a voiceover Talent this I’m gonna assume that’s the question so obviously
22:38
it all starts with a really good demo because that’s the calling card of every uh voice over talent so again knowing
22:45
your business uh knowing your niche as we talked about just a few minutes ago whatever that is whether it’s commercial
22:51
narration explainer videos promo whatever so that’s that starts there um
22:56
having a uh a really good website uh that is uh search engine optimized I
23:02
would highly highly recommend that um and I would I would think that would be extremely extremely valuable for you um
23:12
and from going on from uh the website you know social media and all the rest
23:17
of it so all that said the where where
23:22
marketing the the real core of marketing begins and ends for me is in your
23:30
database I have screamed from the the rooftops for 150 years that’s how old I
23:36
am uh that you have to um that you have to have a good database um it is it
23:44
really is the core of your business more than your demos and your websites and your social media and your blogs and
23:50
your YouTube videos and all the rest why how can I dare say that uh because
23:56
ultimately if you’re you know if you’re putting out a video here or there that’s great some people may see it it may go
24:03
viral it wow great that happens not very often though if we’re being honest it
24:08
does not does not happen very often but if you have a database of qualified
24:14
people um that’s a place where you can build a business that goes back to when
24:21
I spoke about just a few minutes ago about saying you know know who your audience is we talked about the
24:27
television and radio program directors and creative Services directors you have to go out and find those people LinkedIn
24:34
is your friend um you know you can you can there are some directories you can buy all well and good but I’m going to
24:41
assume many of the people looking for marketing advice U might not necessarily have a huge marketing budget um so so
24:48
I’ll start there if you have a huge marketing budget please call me um but but if you um you know if you’re just
24:55
starting out going through Linkedin is a great way to develop that database now I’m not saying to spam people let’s back
25:02
up here um what you want to do and this is what I’ve told people for a long time
25:07
um if you’re a voice over talent if you do nothing else for your day if you get up in the morning at 700 am. go to bed
25:14
at 10 o’clock uh you get a good night’s rest and start the day again the one thing you need to do every single day is
25:22
try and find yourself a qualified lead one a day you do that once a day say say
25:28
you’re just starting out you got a regular job oh I got a lot of things to do I’m going to do I don’t have time and you can probably spend 10 to 15 minutes
25:35
on your business just finding that one qualified lead something as simple as going on LinkedIn um and finding out
25:42
information on the person not just the name and the title and you get the address and the phone number all that
25:47
goes into your database by the way whether it’s on a an 8 and a half by 11 sheet of paper a a index card or it goes
25:53
into something smarter like an Excel spreadsheet that has first name last name business address all the rest of it
26:00
I’m sure that’s been covered on this or a CRM like clothes or Nimble or something yeah I again I’m not trying to spend people’s money so I’m you know
26:06
most everybody’s got some sort of Google database something like that that’s cool um uh but however they want to however
26:12
they want to do it start start there and then we can talk about talk a little bit
26:17
later about you know how you how you reach out to them and and the proper way to uh to insert yourself into their
26:24
lives without being a real pest but all of those things the database is the is
26:30
probably more important than anything else but you got to do those other things too the the demos and the website
26:36
and and and those things because because your competition is already there right
26:42
and if you’re going to be taken seriously you have to at least look like you belong at the dance right so I think
26:48
you said strong demo strong website strong social media presence strong database yeah database first probably I
26:56
mean demo demo dat database because if you if you don’t have a demo you have nothing to send to the database but if
27:03
you don’t have a database who are you going to send the demo to okay so demo and so demo and database are have a D
27:09
and D oh wait a minute that’s that’s that’s um our dear friend roxan
27:14
Hernandez coin I haven’t seen her in so long but now I see she’s marketing herself on video and I’m seeing all
27:21
these videos popping up and I’m so glad she’s out there yeah so see it’s always
27:26
lovely to see our buddy roxan she has lots of great questions so the first one is any tips for getting clients to write testimonials or give you reviews on
27:34
Google I’m not big on Google reviews I I haven’t done that because I and that’s a
27:39
personal problem with me it has nothing to do with anything else except I’m like
27:44
my cousin could have wrote that you know I just I kind of look at that kind of funny um but I I will I I have great
27:51
advice on how to uh how to reach out uh to get uh references and testimonials
27:56
from clients are you ready I’m ready call and ask
28:02
him I know I know that’s so old school but think about the value of it
28:09
though think about think about what you’re doing um now certainly if you’ve had a problem with a client if I have to
28:15
tell you this don’t call them for the the reference but if you’ve had a good client and most of your clients are
28:21
great I know no one’s no one’s ever really mad at us um but you can reach out to them and it’s it’s a great
28:27
opportunity to touch base about a hey how are you you know I want to tell you some of the things I’m doing um any new
28:34
business coming up that’s oh no okay that’s fine hey I was wondering I’m doing something if if you’re comfortable
28:40
with it I’d really like if you could um you seem to really like the work we did in the past could you write me a
28:46
recommendation I’m talking a couple lines that I can post on my website or you know have people know about it with
28:52
that be okay MH nine out of ten times they will do it I had one guy say he would do it and he kept saying he would
28:57
do it take him two or three months he was just that busy he ended up writing me a you know I had to chase him down
29:03
just very gently you know every three weeks and say how we doing on that reference the reference if you can’t do it it’s okay to tell me um but I got the
29:10
I got a great reference and so you know that’s to me the best way uh to get to
29:15
get those folks because you’re doing a couple things you can never I was about to say you can never reach out to your
29:20
clients too much but I know that’s a dangerous thing to say um uh you you
29:26
should try and reach out to past clients one or two times a year by phone if
29:32
possible you really should just to touch base and if they say nothing’s going on you’re not going to piss them off that
29:38
much and if they don’t want to take the call they don’t have to take the call right um but but you’re reaching out to them and this way you’re reaching out to
29:45
them and just saying you know having having a nice conversation um so that’s where I think that um that has some
29:52
value for you to to do that her next question is how about SEO wait a minute how many questions does she get she gets
29:58
she until someone else types in she gets uh she says how about SEO what’s a
30:03
good place to start getting a website up to speed without spending an absolute Fortune what might be the best things to
30:09
Outsource for SEO optimization and I’ve got something that can help with that too but and and then I’ll I’ll look to
30:14
your answer on that because I the way I’ve always done SEO optimization um is
30:20
I’ve I’ve read online and I’ve talked to experts that I know and trust okay um so I the I’ve always found with SEO
30:28
um I feel like SEO can can be a little bit of snake oil uh as sold by some
30:35
people yes so uh my personal way uh has always been to try and work with people
30:41
I know vendors I trust and if you don’t have any vendors that’s a little bit more difficult but your friend Tom has
30:48
has a has a resource for you he’s going to share with you now that he’s used to help people get their SEO uh up and
30:55
running okay blogging now think about this you have a
31:01
you have your website Tom deer.com Peter oon oon roxan hernandes coin.com and
31:07
usually it’s it’s one page like especially the trend with scrolling websites for a mobile experience so it’s
31:13
more so the trend is you know have a one-page website which has your demos a little bit about yourself ways to
31:19
contact you maybe some featured YouTube videos social media links contact right
31:24
every time that you write a blog when you post that blog it P when you publish
31:30
that blog rather it creates an additional page on your website that
31:36
page if you’re writing about voiceover will say voiceover voice acting and all the genres and all that stuff so it’ll
31:42
hand off a lot of keywords related to the voiceover industry organically and
31:47
if you’re talking about this or you’re talking about that another company a website a product or a service you’re posting a link in that website that link
31:56
goes to their website once you’re creating links from from your website to
32:01
other websites it creates a little synergistic relationship so I started blogging in
32:07
2008 yeah i’ had been blogging once a week anywhere from once a week to once a
32:12
month um sometimes more sometimes less but I have well over six
32:20
700 blog entries which means Tom dear.com and then after that Vost
32:25
strategies.com which each has their own blog each of those websites are six or 700
32:32
Pages massive and all of them are dripping with voiceover related content
32:38
dripping dripping my friend like a melting ice cream sunday um I just went and checked my
32:45
website um and I have the peterk connell.com which is also tied into to audio oconnell dcom uh just Google Peter
32:53
oconnell you’ll find me on there but I also have a Blog called Vox marketizing where I talk about voiceover marketing
32:59
and advertising and it looks like my first post was in May of 2005 okay so
33:05
how often have you been blogging uh I’ve been I I blog pretty often there’s actually some time I took off because it
33:11
felt like um the blog wasn’t getting as much interaction or people weren’t paying attention to it I think I think I
33:17
think it goes in lulls quite honestly but um there’s new stuff up there has been up there for some some months uh i’
33:24
I’ve been a little bit more active about it um I I also this is the self-doubt comes in many
33:30
forms in all of us but you know I feel like I’ve said this before like I’m repeating myself on certain things with
33:36
blog that happens especially if you have been at it for a while oh my gosh and I’m like I’m going to come away like you
33:41
know a goofy old guy okay two bits I’ve got two bits of advice for you on that Peter all right I’m not gonna pay for
33:47
him I’m telling you right now I’m just let you know that’s fair um number one if you want to talk about a subject
33:55
again you post that blog but you say a few years ago in this blog entry I
34:01
talked about this in the four five 10 years since my thoughts have evolved here’s been in my experiences since then
34:07
and this is what I’ve learned since then which either supports what I used to think or it contradicts because of I
34:14
either I was wrong or the industry has changed or whatever so you can talk about same subjects again as long as
34:22
long as you’re do backlinking because if you’re backlinking to yourself that helps your SEO I I think I think that’s
34:27
a sin I don’t think you’re allowed to back backlink yourself but that’s okay well you can do it
34:33
you so what what about if the people that you wrote about four years ago are still making the same stupid mistake how
34:38
do you how do you write that because that’s some of the things I’ve had to do you people were not listening when I
34:43
wrote this four years ago so I’m GNA post it again okay well that here’s here’s the other thing is that I’m kidding I know you’re kidding one thing
34:50
that I’ve also learned especially now is that search engine search engine optimization used to be just about the
34:57
strength of your website right and then Google B Yahoo would rank it accordingly
35:02
in relation to other websites but now all of the search engines are taking your social media presence into account
35:09
it’s part of the calculation in determining the strength of your overall online presence both website and social
35:15
media so one way to increase the page ranking of your website is to increase
35:21
the quality and quantity of your social media content they are they have a synergistic relationship and your
35:28
website should have your social media buttons on them which link to your social media and your social media
35:33
profiles should have a link to your website so you are you are crosslinking to to both of them so that can help out
35:40
a lot and we won’t even get into the the the explosion of video which is our friend roxan is is dealing with that
35:47
right now she’s making all these new videos which are wonderful video is Kingo rewards a video over everything
35:53
else right now which is upsetting to people who have a face for radio w so wear a mask uh as she also asked does
36:01
anyone still use business cards what would be a good marketing item to carry on yourself at conferences and other events I have an answer for that and
36:07
then I and then I’d love to hear yours is if anyone’s ever read my blog they know how I feel about business cards
36:13
right I’m very Pro business card okay so one thing that I have done is someone I
36:20
don’t remember who recommended it to me and I’m trying to remember the name of it it’s either H ha. or something like
36:26
that and um well even that aside QR
36:32
codes were in for a while and then they were out for a while and now they are in
36:37
again yeah so one thing that I do so like literally a couple weeks ago at the Jacob Javit Center which is just a few
36:43
blocks for me here in New York City there was the build Expo B Expo oh with the so he’s got the business card with
36:49
the QR code on it so and then the and then the and it’s dinged up because it’s
36:55
been in my wallet so I’m sorry okay um so when I went so I knew that I was going to be interacting with a lot of
37:01
people and Reps and stuff at this build Expo which was sponsored by B&H uh audio and video so it was this wonderful thing
37:08
so I generated a QR code and that QR code I just took a I kept it on my phone
37:14
so I keep it in Google Drive so I can call it up anytime I want so if anybody wants to connect with me I just hold up
37:21
my phone everybody’s got their phone in hand they just scan my QR code and depending on who I’m with or what the
37:27
event is whether I’m going as a voice actor or the vo strategist or both I’ve got this I think it’s called ha. I got
37:34
to find it I’ll I’ll post it in the you when the when this when this video is over this streaming is over it turns
37:39
into YouTube and gets a permanent YouTube video I will upload I will post the link but it gives you like it’s like
37:46
about. me where you can have a whole bunch of links or link tree it’s like that but it’s but you can format it you
37:52
can use a brand kit and customize the fonts and the colors and the format and stuff so do still have b Paper business
37:59
cards which I bring but those are mostly to stick in the fishbowls for the um you
38:04
know the Expos you think you’re so cool you kids nowadays yeah but I still I use
38:09
both I use that for that and some people still want to have the physical card but I also have the QR code available so
38:15
people can quickly scan it and then they have that on their phone so what and I agree I I understand that and I don’t
38:22
disagree with it I teased Tom because we’ve known each other for decades he teases because he loves yes exactly but
38:27
but um I I’ve always been a big stickler for business cards because I believe they do work and I believe and and I and
38:34
I want to point out something that I think is kind of a unique difference for Tom is that he’s talking about Marketing
38:40
in specifically in this instance in New York City where technology is it’s it’s
38:46
not that in Kansas City they don’t have this technology as well everybody has the technology but I think in certain
38:53
circumstances for many businesses that you’re going to run you’re going to want to have the electronic opportunity and
38:58
you’re going to want to have the paper opportunity based on the culture of the event yes exactly right and so that’s
39:03
why I created uh business cards with with a QR code on them to make it as easy as you want don’t want the card
39:09
just scan this boom done thank you very much let’s go have a drink right um you know and but it’s it’s being ready uh to
39:17
to have either one of those um AA available as a marketing tool because
39:23
it’s more than you know with business cards and and that kind of interacting you’re likely going to do a lot more
39:29
networking as a voiceover talent in an American Marketing Association group in
39:35
an ad Club um it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to go to the uh the
39:40
technology Awards and meet new people who who need audio for various things and and voices all I’m saying is um if
39:48
one of the great things that a voice Talent has that most businesses don’t have is the talent him him or herself
39:55
and their voice and being able to Market that and the interaction and and the response we all get uh when we tell
40:02
somebody we’re a voiceover and they you know oh I can hear that I can just you said oh did I sound too announcing no
40:08
you sound great you know they they just and so that actually with with humility
40:14
for all of us is a great opportunity to say well here you know how can I help you whether it’s you know of course what
40:21
we want is a national ad campaign what we might get is a message on hold job I don’t care you know I done them all I
40:28
you know I’ve worked for like I said Fortune 500 companies and companies that think $500 is a fortune I I don’t I
40:36
don’t mind working with any of them um because the check clears and the mortgage gets paid yes um but it’s but
40:42
it’s incum it upon us uh to be able to share our stories whether it’s through a
40:48
card or being able to explain to people what we do in an interesting way um you
40:56
know you know I say I’m the the your friendly neighborhood voiceover Talent uh which
41:02
is kind of a tie in to the old Spider-Man theme which when I came up with it the Marvel Comics really hadn’t
41:08
blown up yet uh as far as the movies um Spider-Man had but uh but not the movies
41:13
but you know however you position yourself make yourself memorable um and
41:18
it’s more than a tagline okay it it is about you I don’t know too many voice
41:23
over talents again we talked about the voice being important but the other part of VoiceOver talents is usually by and
41:30
large they do tend to and most actors are this way they do have tend to have a bit of a
41:36
personality you know and and it’s usually a positive thing some some are divas and some are you know in in real
41:43
introverts and it’s really difficult for them but most of them like to talk to to other people and if you’re talking to an
41:48
actor oftentimes they like to talk about themselves so my advice there is remember it’s a two-way conversation uh
41:55
some actors don’t get that but enough about me what do you think about me no that’s not the right way to go with that
42:00
uh Paul pton said always be interested in what they’re interested in yes and God gave you two ears and one mouth use
42:07
accordingly listen uh it is the greatest tool of a voice actor as a performer to
42:13
to be to be a great listener it is uh it is a great uh is a great tool as a
42:19
business owner and as a um an owner of any any business to to listen and
42:24
certainly as a marketer to listen very CL L as well because they will a client will give you most of the answers uh
42:32
that you’re going to look for in life uh in your in what in what you need for their business you just have to listen
42:37
for it so talk less ask good questions and then listen right uh Rex roxan asked
42:44
specifically you how much would it cost to work with a marketing company and what type of services could you expect
42:50
from working with a marketing company well generally I mean obviously for me call me we’ll talk and and it depends
42:57
what what every voice over company whatever marketing whichever every marketing company should tell you is it
43:04
depends uh on on exactly on exactly what you want to work for um basically it works in two ways it works either on an
43:12
hourly basis or a package basis um every Everybody every marketing company that I
43:18
know of whether they call themselves a marketing company an advertising agency and advertising and marketing company
43:23
and advertising marketing and dry cleaner um you know whatever they are um you know cuz I know a couple voiceovers
43:28
that are dry cleaners too so it’s you know it’s everybody’s in in the boat but the the opportunity there is to figure
43:35
out what it is you want to achieve and and I tell this to people whether it’s
43:40
marketing companies or agents you know what is it you want to what is it you
43:45
want to achieve and the answer cannot be I want more business no it can’t be that
43:52
because they marketing and advertising can’t NE necessarily get you more
43:58
business depending on your industry okay they can create awareness and they can
44:04
try and develop a need or a um a perceived need but in our in our area we
44:10
need to make sure people know that we’re out there and we need to make sure more
44:15
importantly that the right people know that we’re out there going back to what
44:21
I said earlier about knowing your audience and knowing your Niche so taking the example that I used earlier
44:27
if I was in broadcast promo and I was going to hire a marketing company I would say to them my targeted audience
44:34
um is a is a creative service director or a promotions manager in markets uh in
44:41
broadcast markets 50 through 100 or 100 through 175 if you want to start smaller
44:47
I wantan to I want to find a way to reach them how can you reach them and marketing company tell me what you think
44:54
the best way to do that is um if you were a commercial voiceover Talent we’re
45:00
all commercial voiceover talents if you’re if you’re Focus for this purposes of this example were really about
45:07
commercial uh production commercial voiceover Talent you really wanted to be in spots there’s a couple audiences you
45:13
want to go after you want to talk to U production houses and then you want to
45:18
talk to the commercial production division of a television station as well
45:23
so there’s and and and some advertising agencies have media production departments not as many as there used to
45:30
be but there are some that still do and so you’re my my point in showing you the two difference between broadcast promo
45:36
and and and Commercial uh voiceover is that the audience changes and so you
45:42
need to have a focus on what you want to want to focus on my advice further is to
45:49
be as as niche as you can be uh and go down drill down that funnel Beyond you
45:57
know we were we’re out here and now we’re here and I’d like to try and get you into here because then you can
46:03
really gauge results now if you’re out here you have a lot more fish but they might not be the right fish here you’re
46:10
probably going to get the right fish in the right area and have a have a better idea of what that value is um and I
46:17
think you should go into I’m still trying to answer Rex an’s question because it’s multiart um is is that you
46:23
need to really have a a sort of budget in mind you should you know what am I
46:29
will what am I willing to invest in my marketing from from two two uh aspects for for the
46:38
purposes of hiring a company um how much I’m willing to pay for a fee and how much I’m willing to pay an agency fee
46:45
and how much am I willing to pay for for the advertising or fees to actually get that into the market um and that and
46:52
that could include production it could it include fees to advertise on certain you know in certain things whether what
46:58
you trade show say they say you’re going to be in a trade show and you got to have a booth and you got to have displays you there’s expenses with all
47:05
that all that’s going to come out of your marketing budget um whatever that is and I’m not saying you’re GNA be in a
47:11
trade show I’m just using that as an example but whatever it is there’s going to be a line items of fees that you’re
47:17
going to do and that you’re going to break that down uh and and there’s going to be a fee from that do you do you
47:23
spend do you do um Google ad do you pay for Google ads or Facebook ads or no no because the um the payto plays have made
47:30
that ridiculously expensive uh as as nich down as you want to get uh I think
47:36
I don’t and I don’t think the value is is there because I think ultimately and again I have no research on this this is
47:42
just my gut so I could be way wrong but specifically for voiceover and I also think there’s better ways to spend your
47:48
money than that um so maybe that’s part of part of my bias and we all have bias
47:54
you can only go by your experiences too yeah and and the way I look at it is um
48:00
I think when it comes to Google ads and all the rest of that stuff you you you’re not you’re you’re
48:05
going too wide you can go narrow but it can get very very narrow but it gets to be too expensive for what you’re for
48:11
what you’re getting I think um especially if you’re just starting out and you have a smaller budget I think um
48:19
I think smaller is better anytime you can as much as you can interact with the with your audience the better and by
48:26
interact I mean personally interact uh versus just being out there and and having the name squared away the other
48:32
thing that I will say um that’s on my it’s on my website uh regarding um the
48:39
voiceover Workshop vo workshop.com uh which I’ve had for a hundred years
48:45
and I don’t Market it that strongly because there’s so many coaches out there I’m like oh people find me and
48:50
it’s and I like that better that way but with with VW workshop.com I have on that page um the bottom of it there is a
48:58
marketing planning template so you can write your own marketing plan for the year it’s very simple uh you can you can
49:05
break it down and if you have questions I’d be glad to talk to you about it just give me a call but you can start your
49:10
own marketing planning where you don’t necessarily have to get with an agency or you can put together a plan and share
49:18
that with a perspective agency saying these are the some of the things that I’d like to achieve because this will
49:23
allow you to really focus your time and effort on on on where you think the the
49:29
best audiences the best audience for you is now an agency if they’re a good agency may be able to give you some
49:35
insight saying you know you might want to think about this from a little broader perspective um and granted there
49:41
are not too many agencies that I know of that are um that are voice over specific
49:47
marketing um even even I don’t necessarily do voiceover specific marketing for folks I I really I really
49:53
don’t because it’s you know there’s not that many people have that much money to spend I got bills to pay um but you know
50:01
there have been a few and i’ I’ve helped them out and at the very least I get them on their way to help um to help
50:08
write a plan for themselves how to execute the plan for themselves so they have a comfort level about what they’re
50:14
doing and so that they can go off for a year and know that every month uh they have to they have this goal to achieve
50:20
and they have these things to do to get to that goal whether it’s production or action steps they have to do and they
50:26
can do it every month so they’re at least moving everything forward but if you take nothing else away from this um
50:32
the the one tip that I that I gave out earlier on and I would highly recommend everybody do it especially if you’re
50:39
just starting out is figure out what your Niche is what you’re really what your what your hot spot is what you’re
50:44
really passionate about and voice over understand what that audience is and then spend some time on linked in
50:50
one lead a day by the end of the year and I mean work weekends too because
50:56
it’s 10 minutes you’ll have 365 leads if you’ve done it well that database I will guarantee you
51:03
is better than some voiceover talents who have been this in this five and seven years I guarantee you because they
51:09
don’t bother to do that right okay we’ve got time for one more question uh man
51:15
these hours always go quick don’t they um I’ve never been here before so I don’t know that was a royal that was a
51:20
was a maybe it was a rhetorical question I’m I’m glad to be here though Pat has another question opinion of using AI for
51:27
marketing wow um all right well my
51:32
opinion on AI right now is is fairly negative I um I don’t trust the
51:40
technology for marketing yet I feel like that and this may be an old man talking
51:48
you know and I’m not that old but I you know sometimes I feel like there’s no whippers Snappers in your AI get off my lawn get off my lawn and take your AI
51:55
with you um but you know I I see how I see how it makes
52:00
things simpler um I’m a guy who likes to control the marketing and control the
52:07
message and control how it’s sent out I have automation you know I email blasts and all the rest we didn’t even talk
52:13
about that yeah um you know but um I understand the value of it I’m not
52:19
sold yet that it that it necessarily works and I think for voice actors specifically I think you miss an
52:27
opportunity to um to interact to possibly interact better and follow up
52:33
faster um with with a person that where you’re more Hands-On in the marketing
52:39
now I’ve said something very very generic there about a very specific industry we don’t have time to go into
52:45
the the the who’s what’s and where’s of that we we’d be here another two hours right but generally speaking that’s my
52:51
feeling on AI and you’re a small business owner don’t you know yeah you
52:56
want to work smarter not harder but also remember that you’re you’re also in the
53:02
business more than many businesses you’re in the business is a voiceover Talent of building relationships with
53:07
your clients that’s really important and AI is a difficult way to do that not impossible right just difficult there
53:15
are there are ways there are ways and then there are there are ways um some are more reliable than others I think
53:21
Buddha said that I think yeah for example I some I don’t remember where I saw this
53:27
um oh I think Tom ago who is a a direct who is a full-time voice actor but he
53:32
also uh helps teach people about direct marketing he posted a video about a girl who discovered that you could use chat
53:39
GPT to run searches um and build and populate spreadsheets with companies and
53:47
their contact information and the person you know and the email and all that stuff and what the job description is
53:52
and maybe a recent award or a project that’s related to that company so when you do a you know human email you can
54:02
say hey and I really like the idea of that the only problem with that is that
54:07
right as it is right now currently constituted Chad GPT and a lot of the other AI stuff is notoriously unreliable
54:14
when it comes to data it has been known to create to give you incorrect information on a variety of topics so if
54:22
you are going to do that you got to vet it and if you’re GNA vet it I mean if you want to do it to try to come up with
54:28
a list of ad agencies in the Raleigh Durham area it could it could do that
54:34
easily check the information double check it check the to make sure that they did win this award or they did
54:39
produce that Nike SPoT and then you do so if you many better there there are better ways to do it but that is a way
54:45
to do it here’s another thing that you could do is I use AI to help my blogging
54:52
workflow so for example as the vo strategist I shoot a video every month talking about a different subject my
54:58
October uh blog topic is by the way AI I already shot that video and um I don’t
55:06
script I don’t script the vo strategist blog anymore I come up with a theme for every month I come up with a subject
55:12
October is AI the reason why it’s AI is because I’m speaking at La lapides New England voiceover Summit and showcase
55:19
and then I’m going to go to speak at Johnny hel’s audiobook narration Retreat and that is one subject that I’m going to uh cover yeah so what I do is um I
55:28
record the video and then I um use Google’s speech to text yeah software
55:35
and it listens to the uh audio and it spits out the text so I don’t have to transcribe it and it’s pretty good for
55:42
you uh it yeah it’s pretty it works pretty good then what I do is then I’ll go over to a hyper write which is which
55:48
is an AI and I’ll basically ask it ask it to clean up and consolidate the verbiage which then turns into the text
55:55
of the blog which is essentially everything that I said in the video but just cleaned up and Consolidated of
56:01
course you have to check it to make sure that it did everything that you ased to do but this is taking a lot this is
56:07
saving me a lot of time and it’s not forcing me to require on qu data that’s
56:14
questionable uh as a result of it being generated so I’m not using it to generate content I’m using it to you
56:20
know as an editing tool as an editing tool for my content so that is one that’s one of a number of positive use
56:27
cases but when it comes to AI for marketing you got to be at this point you got to be really careful because the
56:32
data is unreliable hopefully there will be some form of reg state or federal or local legislation or oversight so that
56:41
always works so well in every other category I say I said hopefully that so
56:46
you know because also another problem with with AI which we don’t have time to get into is that it is harvesting data
56:51
without the consent of the creators of the content artists writers and all of
56:56
that stuff and that’s a big that’s a big should should strike about that they should should have people should write
57:03
letters so that that’s a serious problem Oh terribly serious yeah it’s a big big
57:08
big problem So eventually hopefully someday chat GPT open Ai and whatever
57:14
else the data that you’re creating content from will be from content that is a verifiably correct and B has the
57:20
permission of the people who generated the original AI or book or song or whatever
57:26
and then and make sure that those people at at the very least get some form of acknowledgement if not compensation for
57:32
their contribution to that AI database so Pat um it can have some use cases I’m
57:38
sure there’s other positive safe use cases other than one I just did to use it as a Blog editing uh and you know
57:44
workflow tool but you know there there probably are some other ways okay oh look at that it is 3 o’clock wow that
57:51
time went fast um Peter yes how can people find you if they do want to work with you as a CO and or marketing
57:57
consultant well I I feel like we should be mentioning Mark Scott’s uh information here as I’m substituting for
58:03
him and he was he had a bit of an issue today so I I would feel we will do that we’re going to reschedule I’m gonna have
58:08
one with him so don’t worry about that I’ll put his information in the in the YouTube comments but how can people get in touch with you uh they can uh reach
58:15
me at uh Peter konell domcom uh they can reach me via the voiceover Workshop
58:21
where I do uh training for folks on voiceover marketing and technology uh
58:27
and you can reach me at vo workshop.com that’s how long I’ve been doing it that
58:33
domain was still available all those years ago that’s pretty impressive yes all right Peter thank you so much um you
58:40
were you did this on very very short notice you were a fantastic guest everybody asked fabulous questions and
58:45
you gave very thoughtful informed detailed answers which is exactly what everybody was looking for so thank you so much for that thank you everybody for
58:52
your wonderful questions and thank you very much for watching this ask me anything strategist YouTube video please
58:58
like this video And subscribe to my channel connect with me on Instagram and Linkedin if you’d like some help
59:04
navigating the voiceover journey in the industry go to Vost strategist dcom book a free 15minute consult and hopefully I
59:10
can help you navigate this Wild and Woolly thing that is the voiceover industry all right thank you very very
59:16
much for coming thanks again Peter everybody stay cool stay safe and happy voicing
59:27
Al righty
All right. We are very excited to be in our new space, which you guys can’t see, but we’ll describe it to you a little bit. It’s in the mall. Yes, it is. Which is the great way to start describing it. Which mall? The mall that has no stores. That’s right. So if you’re familiar with the mall that was supposed to be Ikea and is not yet and has gone through a lot of changes, that’s where we’re at. We’re in this great coworking space called Vibe Coworking. So we have a studio set up in here and we’re just very excited to be in this space. I’m a little bit sad that the dog won’t bark in this episode. I can bark for you. You can do that. Do I need to leave? You guys have a thing going. This is going a weird way real fast. But thanks for listening. I’m Joe. This is my co-host. Josh. And this is Guys Who Do Stuff. We’re very excited today to have with us American male voiceover talent Peter K. O’Connell. Hi there. Hi there. How you doing? My life is perfect. That’s great. It is. So, Peter, you are a voiceover talent. I am. I talk for a living, which is kind of a nice thing to do for an Irishman. So you get paid for that. You might as well do that. I’ve been doing it since about 1982. Wow. Ooh. Yeah, you can’t see my cane or anything. I don’t look that old. No, you don’t at all. You rolled right in here. That’s right. I feel like I need to apologize to the audience for the quality and timbre of my voice as we move through the rest of this episode. We’re very understanding. It’s perfectly fine. There’s nothing wrong with my microphone. It’s just I don’t have a cool voice. You’re fine. It’s all good. We all have good voices. And producers like to hire different types of voices. So sometimes they want mine. Sometimes they want a voice like yours. It’s rare. Like a high-pitchy, hard-to-listen-to. It’s like a really bad children’s cartoon thing. No, the thing is people can’t stand how they sound. I think that’s true. And so we all of a certain age remember something called a tape recorder. And it was long before I, you know, pods and all the rest of it. But, you know, if you listen back to yourself, everyone would say, that’s not how I sound. And everyone would go, what? Yes, that is how you sound. But we all sound different to each other. So for me, it doesn’t make any difference because I hear myself all the time. So I’m numb to it. Yeah. And then I create different voices for characters sometimes. And so that just sounds wacky. So listening to myself is not abnormal. For you guys, you do it maybe once a week or a couple of times a week. It’s like nails on a chalkboard. But you sound perfectly fine. I’m kind of just narcissistic enough to kind of like it anyways, I feel. That’s right. Yeah. Good way to go. You’re going to make a fine podcast host with that attitude. I love to ask this question when we have guests on the show. How did you get into voiceover talent? Like what was the catalyst in your life? I did not get into voiceover talent. I got into radio. Okay. Yeah. So I started in 1982. I went to the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. I’m a Dayton Flyer. And so the reason I went to that school, I chose that school, is because at the time, they’ve since sold it, they had a 50,000-watt FM commercial radio station. And you say, oh, that’s cute. They had a little college radio station. No, no, no, no, no. This station came up in the 70s and became – one of the premier album-oriented rock stations in the nation. It was college-based, certainly, but it became a real factor and got national attention for its format. And it was not run by college students. There were college students on the air. Here’s how it worked. You had a professional general manager, like you would at any other radio station, professional program director, professional sales staff, So everything about the radio station was the same as any other radio station in the market, except on air, they put students on air. So what does that mean? Does that mean you go on once a week and play whatever you want? No, we were a tightly formatted CHR, contemporary hit radio station, And we would play, we’d play a set music and do the ins and outs, the bumpers and all the rest of it, read live commercials, just like every radio station. But you had to audition and be brought on the station. And it was 95% students on that air. So I, I had a shift Monday through Friday, 6 to 9 PM. And I was on the air rated in the marketplace. We had, I played commercials. I did commercials. It was. And when I saw that, when I was a, when I was a senior in high school and saw that my geeky radio eyes bugged out of my head and I’m like, That’s the place I want to go to school. And I knew I was going to get on the air and I got on the air in my freshman year. So it was it worked out very well. So that’s that’s how I segued into into voiceover, because from there was. While I was on the air, I found this thing called a production studio. Right. And the production studio is where all the commercials get recorded. It’s where you go in and the client comes in. They may record their own commercials. You record it for them. Or you go in and you record from a script that they give you. And I had just boatloads of fun in there. And I found that I had a real… uh aptitude for it and i don’t mean that in a egotistical way i just mean i you know and i found i had an aptitude for it i like doing it the clients liked what i was doing they would come back and it was good when the clients came back because they’d give you some money to voice their spots and that would play on other radio stations so you go oh okay so maybe does that mean residuals that would it’s not quite residuals it sounds like residuals but it’s more like a in 1982 dollars for a college student here’s 50 or 100 dollars and you go wow wow Oh, you’re pretty excited about all that. And, you know, because that’s going out money. But it led me to understand that there’s a bit of a, you know, an opportunity as a as an announcer. Not understanding in its entirety, in my young ignorance, that there was a kind of industry, but it was not as prevalent as it is today. Because to be in the industry, you had to be in New York, Chicago or L.A. Right. Dayton, Ohio or Buffalo, New York, where I’m originally from. You’re not going to you’re not going to do that. So that’s how I we we need my way into voiceover. Yeah. So at that time, the only way to really get voiceover work was to audition in New York or L.A. is what you’re saying. Well, there’s a couple of ways to do it at that time. And actually, you know, everything old is new again. It’s the same way you do it now is you you get agents that represent you in different marketplaces, whether it be New York, L.A., Chicago, Cincinnati, you know, somewhere in the Midwest. I have folks on the West Coast all across. So you have to get an agent per person. Demographic area or geographic area? Geographic area, not necessarily, but it helps in certain cities, yes. For the local stuff, like local TV stations, spots, and stuff like that. And then also, you just get on the horn, you call the studios. you know, the recording studios and the advertising agencies, and you do sales and marketing with them. You say, hey, I’m a voiceover talent. Let me send you my demo and see what they think and see if there’s opportunities. And then sometimes they say, yeah, you can go on a roster and you don’t hear from them for a couple of years. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, I got one this week, a car commercial. And I’m like, oh, okay, fine. Thanks. I thought you forgot about me. But they didn’t. They just, when the time was right. They’re very specific. They just knew there was a spot for you. Yeah, there’s a spot. Yes, exactly. It took two years to find it. What’s the perfect product for a short Irish voiceover guy? So I was telling Josh, I think you’ve got a really enviable setup because I went to your homepage and you got a studio you got to build out in your basement. It sounds like you’re a gearhead. No, it’s on the first floor. I don’t have a basement. Oh, nice. I just assume everybody’s in a basement because that’s where my last studio was. That’s right. That’s where you put the outcast like dungeon. You’re special. Yeah. Special basement. Uh, but, and you get to record your, you get to do the majority of your work from there. Yup. And you essentially have kind of crafted this niche for yourself or, or, uh, I think just represents a lot of what I think is freedom. Like it has to seem to me like, and that’s pretty cool. You get to be a voiceover talent and you get to record for nationally known brands, but you don’t often have to, I don’t know if you have to, I just imagine in my mind, you don’t often have to fly to New York or LA, but you can just go. No, I’d be glad to, by the way. It would be no problem as long as it’s on their nickel. I’ll be there. Here’s my rider. Here’s what you have to have and no brown M&Ms. But, you know, it sounds great and it is great. There is a great amount of freedom having your own business and doing this by yourself. But it’s still a lot of the work and it’s a lot of self-discipline. um it is and when you work out of your home especially this time of year um it’s you know it’s a little more challenging than others because there’s these little people running around yeah let’s talk about that for a second because i was telling my wife about this and i got no sympathy but i am a pretty disciplined person i’m one of the people that can make it and work from home because i don’t have a problem. I’m not going to take a nap and watch six hours of Netflix. I’m going to work. Um, but it takes discipline and it takes, uh, you got to put processes in place for yourself, et cetera. But then when my kids get off for the summer and I don’t know how many other people are listening and their kids get off for the summer, like my desire to be disciplined and get work done is overrode by my desire to hang out with my kids. And it’s like, well, today we’re going to make a little bit of an exception and we’re going to go to the pool. And suddenly the exception becomes the rule. And that’s a problem. So I do find that I’m, I would say probably 30 to 40% less productive when my kids are off of school. Um, I understand that. And it’s, it’s a challenge because, uh, even for the spouse in any relationship like that, because they see you physically in the home and you can close the door, but they know you’re there. So they feel like they have this bit of a parachute in, well, Daz over there, he can, you know, he can watch you guys. And then she comes back, where are the kids? And I’m like, I don’t know. I’ve been there. I’ve been in my office for like three hours. I’ve been doing that thing that pays the mortgage. So, you know, there’s, there’s that going back and forth, but it’s, you know, but there’s a benefit of, of the freedom, but with the freedoms comes more responsibility when you, when you, when you’re your own business owner. That’s what we learned from Spider-Man. Oh yeah. Great. Yeah. That’s great. What’s it? No, it’s great power comes great responsibility. Yeah. I just, yeah. I just miss Tony Stark. I just miss Tony Stark. spoilers yes exactly oh sorry i think he’s coming back all right let’s talk marvel theories for a second because this show has no theme apparently i believe that or what i would like to see the most do you remember iron lad growing up so there was a comic book thread that came out after tony stark had died in the comic books whatever universe that was where a young man became the new tony stark and tony stark had downloaded his brain into the suit. So instead of Jarvis, it’s Tony Stark. So I would really like to see Marvel do that. Find some cool young actor so that way Robert Downey Jr. can keep making money with him. And he’s just voiceover. You’re so kind to look out for poor Robert Downey Jr. I’m concerned about him right now. RDJ, I happened to notice on the Forbes list today of the top entertainment celebrity, you know, Taylor Swift was at the top with like 181 million or something. That’s awful. What a terrible year for her. Yes. I felt so bad. um let’s not you know let’s not make her feel bad but then you know down at like 50 was was rdj and i think it was only in the 70 or 80 millions that he made this year just this year that’s rough stuff you know it’s gonna break it doesn’t tear to the eye just a small trickle of a tear comes down the face let’s all worry about rdj yeah man so uh we were talking about having a little bit of a freedom that it that it creates do you also offer coaching services right Oh, I have in the past. Yeah, I don’t. I don’t. A lot of folks are out there doing voiceover coaching and that’s kind of their thing if they’re not getting gigs or and there are some people who are just excellent at it. I’m somewhere in the middle. Yeah, I refer to myself more as a voiceover consigliere. And I don’t want to pretend that I am as talented as some of the real coaches out there that really focus on it. When I talk to people, I sit with them and I give them two hours of my time about anything with voiceover having to do with performance. Yeah. having to do with marketing which is a very it’s very tough for most small businesses and it seems to be uh the kryptonite for to keep the sort of superhero theme going the kryptonite uh for voiceover people they just like many people just like oh wow i don’t want to do any marketing people aren’t going to just call you yeah exactly I’m sitting here waiting for the truck money, sacks of money to roll up and drop them on my front porch. It hasn’t happened yet. So I go over that with them and just basically giving them my 30 plus 35, I don’t know how many years, I can’t do the math. There’s no math in voiceover, but I can’t, you know, whatever I’ve learned, I will share with them. And they get very excited about that and it always goes very well, but I don’t market it terribly aggressively and I don’t work with people who are not serious. Like if people are thinking about getting in the business, though I’m not that person for them. It’s like, you’re going to make this commitment because I’m going to charge you a fee and you’re going to go, oh, that’s not chump change. I’m like, yeah, you’re right. It’s not chump change because if you’re serious about it, you’re going to invest. It’s like what you invested in this podcast, what you invested in your business, what you invest in your film business. All those people who are serious put the time, their talent, and their treasure into what they’re going to do because in for a penny, in for a pound, you got to go and you got to get it. And you need certain things to do that. You don’t need to have a lamborghini you know but you do have to have a nice computer because your computer is going to be your business right usually it’s going to be your you know it’s going to be your uh your website and you’re going to manage most of it you’re going to manage content you’re going to do all that stuff for it um and and then you’re going to have to get a good mic stand there you go joe we almost had a live a live breakdown so you shouldn’t touch the equipment let the engineers do that oh you are the engineer That’s all right. There we go. Welcome back, Joe. All right. So you and I will just talk for a while. What color is your Lamborghini? Too much weight. So we’re very excited to get in the studio. We didn’t quite finish it up yet, and we just had a little flubs. That’s all right. But it looks terrific. You really did a nice job with it. Well, thank you. Yeah, Vibe is a great place, and we’re so stoked to be partnering with them here in the Carytown Mall. Is that what it’s called? Carytown Center? Carytown Center Mall. Carytown Center Mall. Actually, they’re taking bids for naming rights. So if you have $150, $200, your name can be put on this mall at this very moment. They really… Just any money they can get in here. But it’s, but this spot is absolutely lovely. It’s just, it’s like, it’s like you’re walking through sort of a spa. And the people are lovely and the workspaces are very nice and it’s very comfortable and they’re very accommodating. Yeah, it used to be a spa. In fact, that’s kind of why it has the look and feel that it does. They updated it a lot, but yeah. Yeah, it’s a pretty cool location. I was talking to Josh before, like there’s going to be a lot of malls in the United States that are really struggling with Amazon and trying to compete. And the idea of co-working spaces or like putting like your gyms in a co-working space next to your Walgreens and have that be like the flow of a mall could kind of create this really unique experience. Well, I think it’s I think it’s an interesting idea for a number of reasons. I worked at a co-working space downtown two summers ago. Was it WeWork? Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. It was downtown Raleigh. Yeah. Downtown Raleigh. Oh, it’s escaping me right now. And they’re going to be mad at me. It’s kind of well known. Yeah. all right give me give me we’ll come back and we’ll edit in my answer and make me not sound like i’m blah blah blah but it was a it was a lovely spot um uh in in downtown raleigh and it was raleigh now or work now or something i don’t know what it was but it wasn’t it was it was a very nice spot but i did it specifically because in june and july kids are out of school right and at that time before we found a home i was living in an apartment oh i can’t tell you what kind of special hell that is To be in an apartment with three kids, and they’re lovely kids, but they’re kids, and it’s an apartment. They don’t care that you have to work. They don’t understand work. Oh, my gosh. listen, no, I got to work. No, it just doesn’t work. They get upset about that. So, you know, what I, what I did was I went to that coworking space and worked out terrifically. And I think because so many people are, are getting away from working corporately and more working individually, whether they’re, whether it’s their side gig that they, you know, or they have the opportunity not to have to go into a, you know, a tall, a tall building and That’s one of the things that I also want to talk to you about, because you’ve been doing this for a long time, but now it’s like this cool trendy thing is this gig economy, like working for yourself. Yeah. And it takes a lot. Like, it’s not easier, but I was just recently. Sometimes I had a job and have had jobs. On top of, yeah. You have to, because guess what? In Buffalo, New York, it’s not a thriving voiceover Metroplex. No. You know, and as much work as you do, it’s like there’s only so many grocery store commercials you can do before they go. We’ve heard your voice before. Yeah, three grocery stores in your town. You’ve done them all. One of them is a Wegmans, and you guys are going to find out all about Wegmans when they come in. Yeah, it’s supposedly coming right across the street. You’re going to go gaga when Wegmans comes to town. Yeah, northern people are swearing up and down about how great. When I mean northern, I mean like New York friends that I have. Like Wegmans is the stuff. Oh, yeah, and Mid-Atlantic. Wait, if, yes, I’m just telling you. And Shake Shack’s coming to Waverly Place. That’s true. I had not heard that. Oh, there’s signs. The signs are on the doors. The big glass place in the middle is going to be a Shake Shack. Well, I think maybe the thing to do is to do a remote for the next podcast from the Shake Shack. Just pack it up. Just plump some microphones right on a table and watch their eyes pop out and say, what are you doing in my restaurant? We’re going to do an ASMR of eating the food. Yes, exactly. This shake is so good. Boy, that makes an exciting podcast. What’s that? It’s a lot of sucking sounds. It’s a sucking podcast. No, it isn’t. It’s a good podcast. So when I was recently, my wife and I just celebrated our 20th anniversary. We went on a big trip. We were in a different country. Golf clap. It was fun. It’s really for my wife. Thanks for putting up with me for 20 years. 21 in September. Yeah. That’s awesome. The, um, we heard on, uh, on a double-decker bus tour, they were just talking about, cause I saw WeWork in London. Right. And I thought, Oh, that’s cool. I wonder, cause I remember telling Lori before we got there, I wonder how many coworking places are around. Cause it’s on my mind. Cause I’m partnering up with vibe and everything. Um, And he was saying that they have a lot of them in, in London. They just learned that 10% of the workforce has become part of the gig economy. Yeah. So like Uber and different jobs that you can use. And I think people think of, they maybe have a limited view of coworking places and that it’s like great if you need an office, but I met a guy here the other day who’s trying to get his doctorate and he’s got kids and he just does the day pass when he needs eight hours to study. And he needs a quiet place. You need a quiet place. And this, and, and, So it works out so very nicely with that because, you know, they have quiet spaces. They have spaces where you can use a phone and have a conversation because it’s a business. You know, let’s let’s be honest. And everybody needs different things. But everybody’s also understanding of where you are and what’s going on. And they have meeting spaces so you can bring people in. Yeah. So when, you know, you and I have had, had meetings at our friends over at Starbucks and that’s very nice and well and good. But if we ever wanted to, you know, have a, have a meeting, you know, with other people and have a, have a discussion about it in a quiet place, Starbucks maybe isn’t the best place to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. And I think people’s main problem would be like, I don’t want to pay money for that. But if you go to Starbucks, you’re paying a subscription fee. And every time you go. And I think there’s also what I’ve noticed in this gig economy is, especially in the creative arts, and I work with a lot of creative people, obviously. I work with people in advertising. I work with people in recording and all the rest of that stuff. But especially in the advertising world, a lot of the stuff, especially the graphic stuff, et cetera, is being farmed out because advertising agencies are getting beat up on their fees a little bit, fairly or unfairly, they are. and so they have some of them have fewer staff so they outsource more graphic design and some and some of those services um and so they those are people who who either have their own home studio or would want a small workspace if if their workload would you know would allow it so these people don’t have to make uh their home which in some cases may be too small to accommodate an actual studio whether it’s a graphic studio and some sort of design studio painting studio yeah whatever that There’s a painter with a studio in the back end of Vibe here. Boom. See, I didn’t even know that. That’s pretty cool. And I think people don’t really understand. I think it’s not, it’s not as much money as you think. Like it’s like a, it’s like an expensive gym membership essentially to join a good co-working place. A lot more practical though. And you’ll probably use it more. You’ll probably use it more. You won’t get skinnier though. Well, maybe you will. I don’t know. The food looks good here. I don’t know. They have water and coffee, both food groups. Yeah. So Josh was in acting for a while. Yeah, I was. And how did that go? I liked it. I think I get a lot of mileage out of my one-liner in Talladega Nights with Will Ferrell. Okay, what was your line? Monsignor Gerard, Ricky Bubba is here to see you. Wow, that was good. Thank you, bucko. I strut away in my butler outfit. I’ll tell you what, that’s pretty good. So he sounds like it was a past tense, the way he said it, like you don’t do it anymore. Or don’t go after it? I use the GIFs in other ways. They’ve kind of morphed into it. I do a little bit of voiceover work when it’s necessary, and I do it for motors. When it’s necessary. When it’s necessary. It’s like going to the dentist. I really like the voiceover stuff for some reason. I feel more creative and free. I think my, like my, I had, I started modeling when I was a teenager and I got into acting that way, but I did go to a classical, classical trained, uh, training program, the North Carolina school of the arts. I studied classic theater and then I ended up in New York and graduated from another program, the William Esper studio. Okay. So I studied a bit of it and, uh, just fascinated. just i’ve learned a lot about myself but it was just not the track for me i’m married with a kid now we moved back to north carolina so but uh i’ve done it in a few like a film at church and different things but um yeah sort of morphed into more the business side i like the relationships i like connecting folks yep so in this process with joe where we do the podcast um but but straight up pursuing acting is a main thing it’s just not my not my desire i Well, and I think that’s smart on your part because I get a lot of people from the voiceover side of things. So you have a gene, a strength, a muscle that I don’t have. I don’t want to go on stage. For me, I like it right where I am, right here, right now, behind this microphone, happy as can be. But if I had to memorize something, man, that smells like work to me. I don’t like that. Yeah, I think, I mean, it is a work and I admire, I mean, the people who can record or memorize Shakespeare and go out and do classics on stage. And then make it believable. And make it believable. That is just amazing. That’s great art amazing yeah yeah i think for me it was a lack of discipline when i met how much discipline it takes to be successful in that career yeah uh you’ve gotta go at it but so i’m thankful to have a piece of that in my life now just uh doing what i do but uh yeah Because a lot of people come to me and say, a voiceover looks like fun. Or, gee, my mom says I have a great voice. Good Lord. Okay. You can’t make a career off of that. And I spend my life and many people, my fellow professionals in the world, they say the exact same thing to people, you know, six times a day. It’s like, no, it’s not just about your voice. You’re going to own a small business. Are you ready to do that? Yeah. No, I don’t want to own a small business. That sounds like work. Okay. That’s what voiceover is because I spend 90% of my day chasing the work. Right. 10% of my day doing the work. It’s not the other way around. And the agent business is different, you know, in the rest of the world than New York, Chicago, and LA. And even… you know, even more so in New York and L.A., less in Chicago. I mean, Chicago’s world has changed, too. It’s not the media mecca that it once was. Great city, great agencies, great, you know, creatives there, but it just doesn’t have the power that New York and L.A. have kind of absorbed within themselves. And to, I guess, even to a lesser extent, Vancouver and Toronto, up in Canada, where there’s a lot of productions going on up there, a lot of TV shows being filmed up there, etc., But, you know, it’s really a business voiceover. And that’s what people consistently forget or turn a blind eye to. It’s like if you were a graphic designer, people think that you spend all your day just drawing and making pretty pictures and amazing images, you know, and going to your computer. And no, you’ve got to go get that business. And I don’t, you know, if you’re a marketing consultant or if you’re an actor, you know, or if you’re a filmmaker, You’ve got to go out and get that. You’ve got to go out and get that business. But people just go into their happy place and don’t realize that voiceover is a business. They don’t respect that, you know, small business people working on your home. Oh, you have such freedom. Isn’t that great? Yeah. You know what? Sweat the mortgage sometime and see if you’re going. No, you’re not. You’re going. You know, you want to make sure you make that mortgage payment and you’ve got to make sure that work comes in and you’ve got to keep the flow in there and you’ve got to balance all these plates at once. What’s so fascinating to me about voiceover work is that you get to do it with a certain amount of anonymity. Is that the correct word? Yes. Yeah. So you’re not, you know, recognizable, but you are when you speak, right? And you do it at home. You work in your underwear, right? I mean, you just don’t have to impress. I didn’t understand I had to wear my underwear. You do. You should have an underwear sponsor. Which, by the way, upsets the FedEx and UPS guys immensely. They just get so offended. Like, oh, I can’t use those eyes again. No. And people say, you know, you can work in your underwear. You work in your pajamas with voiceover and the anonymity. And it’s like, well, I suppose you could. I mostly work in T-shirt and shorts and a baseball cap. Okay. I’ll be honest about that. But, you know, there is… When I first started my small business in years ago, when I came out of college, it didn’t just go right into voiceover. I actually got involved in a video production company and I would make myself get dressed for the day. Yeah. I still do that. It’s an attitude and people go, that’s kind of goofy. I’m like, I don’t care if you think I’m goofy. I’m telling you, there is something to be said for the fact that you are looking like this, looking at it as a job. So you will dress as a job because that’s physically making you understand the mental process that you’re going through. And I think that’s perfectly normal. And I tried it. I tried it wearing kind of like junky clothes for a while. And then early on, like a couple, like maybe less than a month of doing it. And I was like, no, I got to get dressed like I’m going to work. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like shaving. I do the whole thing and I get ready and then I go downstairs and I find that it just starts the day off in a whole different Avenue. Like I am a lot more productive that way than if I’m like in my house going, Well, and what I try and do is I go for an early morning walk when I drop the kids off at school. There’s a, there’s a park near the school and I go for a mile or two mile walk, you know, because I’m going to be inside all day and I’m going to be, you know, you know, sort of like an Oompa Loompa just not, you know, on the phone, but it’s not, there’s not much heavy breathing and picking up a phone and dialing. Well, it’s not supposed to be, that’s not, it’s not a proper thing to do. You can get arrested for that, but it’s not a lot of hard work. And so, you know, you get your physical activity in and that’s, it works out for me because when the kids come home and everything else, all heck breaks loose when they come home and then you got evening, got homework and you got events, you got to drive around, blah, dah, dah, dah, dah. So, you know, find your time and give yourself that space to, you know, to, to get some exercise or do whatever you need to do to clear your head and then go home, grab your quick shower, grab your quick shave, put some clothes on and hit, you know, hit the books. Yeah. That’s great. You found your rhythm. Some days, some days I don’t go to the park. Like this morning I didn’t go because it was, I don’t know when I woke up was 90 degrees or something and 150% humidity. I’m like, not no, but hell no. What park is it? I go to Bond Park. Oh yeah. I also go over to Apex. Those two parks. Yeah. I like, I like those two parks right now. And I, I feel bad because I kind of get into, you know, rut with just these, and I should expand my, you know, I’m only here three years. I know there’s more, because there’s nothing but greenways here. And I see people on these paths. I’m like, where the heck do these things lead? It’s like, is there a product? They’re slowly connecting them to like everything. Yes, exactly. It’s awesome. But, you know, so I’ve got the ones that I like, but I should, you know, I try and, I should try and, you know, widen my circle and meet new people. Because you do meet people in the park and they’re very nice and I wonder when they connect all the greenways, if like in our lifetime, we’ll see like cool stuff, like a Starbucks on the greenway, you know, like little buildings you can just stop and grab a snack. Like I’ll meet you a mile two in the greenway for a meeting. Which is, which is kind of the antithesis of the purpose of the greenway. Right. Can I go have a black and white cookie? Oh, you mean the 500 calorie black and white cookie? Yeah. No, I don’t think you should. And also demolish all the beautiful greenways so you can build Starbucks. Exactly. Oh, it’s okay. They’ll intersperse a Panera in there to just balance it. Yeah, a Shake Shack. Because that makes it look at all. That sounds appropriate, a Shake Shack. I’ve never had a Shake Shack, but my understanding is that it’s like the In-N-Out version of the East Coast. Is that like a good way to say it? It’s better. It’s an amazing, sloppy, greasy experience of a burger that’s fantastic. Yeah, I got to say, I went to In-N-Out in California a couple of years ago. And the good news was I got an agent out of it because I took her to lunch. But the bad news was I didn’t think everyone was like, In-N-Out burger, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, I’m not getting it. I didn’t think it was that great. If you’re saying this new one is better than, because I really thought In-N-Out was great. Oh, Shake Shack. Let me be the one to take you there. As a matter of fact, let’s have a date, the three of us. Road trip. Glass, Shake Shack. We’ll bring the microphones. Grand opening. Oh yeah, let’s set up there. Let’s set up there. How was it? I mean, Waverly Place. We’ll just record 20 minutes of us eating. I got to talk to Mary, the marketing director at Waverly Place. I’m sure we, oh, here we go, Joe. We can talk about this later. Yes, exactly. we’re on it now guys bring mary on it it’s like we’re doing a road trip to mary mary you’re gonna hear this brought to you by our new episodes episode a weekly show called guys who eat stuff yes exactly followed by the third episode of guys who have heart conditions oh gosh We’ll get there. We’ll be like in our 60s. We’ll just be talking about our various health conditions. So do you still have an agent? I have many. You have many. I have many. And I’m fortunate to have them. They’re great. Many of them are great friends of mine. Some of them I don’t know as well as others, but they took me on because they… They like my demo. And in my business, the business card is the voiceover demo, you know, which has… And much like filmmakers or people that have creative portfolios. So you have many because they’re in different markets? They’re in different markets. They can help me in different ways in those markets. They have local connections and they heard something on my demo that they liked and they know I’m marketable. And so they send me auditions on a regular basis. And then you send those in and hopefully, you know, some, hopefully something comes of it. A lot of times, And they are national auditions, which means that every single agent in every single corner of the universe is coming in. So you’re one of 2,500 voices. Good luck on that. You know that you’re not going to be really heard on a cattle call like that. But oftentimes they will, you know, they’ll get on the phone and they’ll say, you know, somebody says, I need, I need this type of voice and they whittle it down to 10 or 15 of those voices. Now, if I get in, if I get in one of those passels, I have a lot, a lot better chance of getting some sort of business out of it because then I can compete versus 1500. you know my you know it auditioning is is difficult for voice talents to get the right voice but whoever the poor sucker is that they make at this at the agency listen to those 1500 voices yeah like well it’s like you know you just i bet it’s like uh the first 15 are pretty good yes that’s exactly yeah So it gets down, it gets down to the person listens to the first 30 seconds. Okay. That was fine. And then half an hour later, the first 15 seconds, then 10 seconds, and then a syllable of the next one. It’s like, the first word is I would like to, I don’t know. Good. That wasn’t, but I know that’s no good either. You know, it’s like useless. So do you find that, would like you to walk me through because I’m just I’m a curious person what does as I’ve heard people who are actors or mention the idea of like getting a nationally syndicated thing and getting residuals like what is a residual and why is it so awesome to get one? Well, mostly residuals come through folks who are working with the union, but it does happen in non-union work. I have gotten checks and how residuals work in that case. And then I’ll start with a shorter version. The non-union is basically they re-up you for another year. So they basically, if they’re being honest and that you haven’t given them a full buyout in your job for in perpetuity, which is basically throwing your money away. That’s why you want somebody to negotiate for you. Somebody says, I’ll give you $800 for that, for that 30 second commercial. Okay, fine. That’s a one-time payment and they will give that, you think $800, that’s a lot of money. It’s pretty nice. I like that very much, except they use it for the next 10 years. Yeah. Okay. They’re using it for 10 years, and they’re using it all the time across the nation. Right. That would be like Empire Carpet, right? They’ve sang that same jingle at the end of their commercials. Empire Carpet? Yeah, that 8, 7, 9, 8, 2, 300, Empire. Like that one? Yeah. I’ve heard that all over. I’ve lived all over the country. Well, I hope you get a home soon. I hope you’re able to find someplace to live. Or are you just running from the law? Yes. Is there something we should know? Whee! Police. But the challenge with that is you’re not getting the fee that you should be getting. And so with the unions, when you get back to your original question about residuals, what they should do is they – they work with you for a 13 week span or a certain amount of time. Again, this can work with union or non-union, depending on the deal that you make with each and each client is different. But you, the idea between residuals about residuals is that you would get a certain amount of money, uh, After 13 weeks or a year from then or two years from then, you just keep getting checks based on whatever usage they want based on the terms of the agreement. But it has to be in the terms of the agreement because a lot of people just buy out outright because it’s impractical for them to actually use it more in a year or two. So they just buy out and be simple. But you have to be careful about that because a lot of people can be taken advantage of. Right. And I don’t want to get into too much detail because you’re not asking about that. But residuals are a nice opportunity for you to continue to get paid for the same work you did as long as that is negotiated into the deal. And so ideally, you get a big residual check if they had a big media buy. And so they choose to broaden out the… Yes, you would get a big residual check if, say, for example, the deal that’s made is for 13 weeks, but the spot took off so much. Say you were flow, and you were just doing the radio spots. Let’s go with that for progressive insurance. And she was just doing the radio spots, and she thought it was a one 13-week gig. Oh, that’s an, I get a nice check for that. Thank you very much. But the flow thing blows up and everybody loves flow and suddenly flow becomes a character on the radio. And so then they want to do another 13 weeks, either with those spots or new spots. And so, you know, and some of those spots are going to be more specific to a time, like a Christmas spot. So you can’t play that in July. Um, or some of them are going to be more evergreen that can live forever. Um, that’s where, you know, that’s where the residuals come in because they pay you every 13 weeks on top of what you want on top of what you got the first 13 weeks, you know, and so you can still get a lot of checks off of one commercial. And that’s what happens with a lot of TV performers when they’re, when their stuff goes into syndication or, you know, the reruns that’s reruns are great for, you know, but that’s where I’ve really heard of it. Like Seinfeld is probably still really cleaning up. Thanks TBS. Cause they just play them on steady repeat. Well, it’s, it’s, there’s, there’s that. And, but it’s also, it’s also dependent on his agreement. Like he might’ve gotten bought out at one point, but he might’ve gotten bought out for like $500 million, you know? And so he’ll be okay. Yeah. So nobody’s worried about Seinfeld too. Him and Robert Downey Jr. Yeah. Call me Jerry. Yeah, exactly. It’s just pick me up in your car. Let’s go for coffee. That’s kind of what I thought it would be. And it’s very similar to like I used to work in making films. And so if you wanted to license like a song that people would recognize, you’d license it. But that license you’d be paying for an amount of time. And that would determine how much you pay for the license. And depending on what. And how big it is. Where the audience size was. Is it on a small film? Is it on television? Is it on television and web? Right. I mean, I didn’t want to get into too much detail, but there’s a lot of things that go into figuring out what your fee is. So like what, from my perspective, what I knew of it was like, we could license a song by One Republic to show to 10,000 people in a room one time for like $250. But if we wanted to put that song in a commercial… now you’re talking 10x 100x etc based on the size of the the range of the amount of people that are going to be seeing it and there’s a we were going through a company that would do all that and we would just give them the money so there was like yeah they license it for everybody. They took 33% of that money. The rest of it went to the band and agents and managers and ASCAP and BMI. And yeah, they took care of all that too, which is great. If that’s you and you’re a filmmaker, you should stop stealing people’s music. Music bed is a really great place to license your music from. And they’re getting more and more recognizable artists on there every time. Do you have to do that with photography? Do you have to make sure like when, when a photographer sells a commercial image to a company for a magazine, do you have to have them come back and pay you more royalties if they choose to use that image again? Yes. Yeah. That’s kind of what Dave Shea was talking about. You want to make sure you do that part right, right? It’s important. I mean, a lot of people get taken advantage of and some companies take advantage of people knowingly and some of them are just ignorant. Yeah. You know, but if I find some of my work being paid that was supposed to be of a certain timeframe. And I hear it elsewhere or somebody else hears. And that’s the great thing about the, of the, the brotherhood and sisterhood of voiceover. You know, those of us who know each other go, Hey, I heard you in the market. And they go, you heard me where? And I was like, that’s not the deal. It’s gotta be continually getting more and more complicated with things like ad buys on Spotify and different streaming services that have different ways that they monetize their subscription, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, that’s gotta be. You got to work with an agent or somebody. Well, yeah. And, and, and this, you know, there’s clearing houses that can help you with that. And agencies work with those clearing houses too. Agents work with those clearing houses and it, you know, it, it, it just, it, it depends. But I mean, there’s, there’s laws protecting you, even if you’re not in the union. The union helps a lot with that. You know, the union has good parts and bad parts. But it’s, you know, it’s, it’s all about you as the business owner negotiating your deal, whether you’re a photographer or a filmmaker or a voiceover talent, whatever you’re going to do, you have to, that’s the education part of your business. And you have to be aware of it because your, your art, your film, your voice is all is what you’re selling. That’s your product. That’s your, you know, that’s your Coke. That’s your Pepsi. You know, that’s, that’s what you’re selling. And, and people take that for granted. Oh, it’s just talking. Oh, you just clicked a button. Oh, it’s just film. You just pointed the camera and beg your pardon. There’s, there’s value to that. I totally agree. And also as a separate caveat for those people that are in that profession, please don’t right click and steal their stuff. Like that’s why they’re doing it. It’s basically stealing from people. I was totally stuck. And like you said, I think a lot of people do it out of ignorance, but like, even for example, like that song heard at the top of the show, like licensing that you shouldn’t just take people’s stuff. No, no. If an artist worked hard, they should receive the payment for it. Why do you choose to live in North Carolina? Um, because I got tired of paying New York state taxes. Uh, I got tired of New York state. Uh, Buffalo is a great city. I love, I love Buffalo, New York. I love the people there. That’s the greatest thing. And it’s on, I live there for 50 plus years and it’s just as I’m about to leave. It’s going on the uptick. I mean, really it’s being successful and people are coming to the city again. Yes. it’s growing and and it’s developing and there’s a great arts culture there and people are shooting movies there and wow you know you know we got the goo goo dolls and all you know everything’s happening and i decide to leave that’s when i go that’s when i get the hell out of dodge um but yeah So North Carolina was chosen. We moved for family reasons because we had in-laws who needed some help and we came down and helped them out and glad to do it. But and that’s, you know, family first. But we had to pick a spot where we’re all going to go. And I know it’s going to be Florida. Because, you know, Ohio, Texas and Florida, we always hear strange stories. Is Buffalo like Michigan? I grew up in Michigan. Do you have snowbirds, people that go and spend the winter in Florida and come back? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, and, you know, and the Canadian snowbirds because Buffalo is right across from Canada. And it’s, you know, I grew up summers in Canada. It’s a lovely, another beautiful spot. And by Niagara Falls. Oh, yes. Well, living by Niagara Falls is like if you’re a New York City person, you live by the Statue of Liberty. Have you ever been there? Have you ever been over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel? Not intentionally. Oh, not intentionally. No, it was just, I don’t know. We were kids. I didn’t know what was happening. It seemed wet. And then, but the fall, it was like, oh, this is exciting. And then, ow. Yeah, that reminds me of a t-shirt I saw yesterday. I said, that’s a horrible idea. What time? Exactly. That’s a horrible idea. Hold my beer. As we say here, hey, y’all, hold my beer. Hey, y’all, watch this. Exactly. But, you know, coming down, I do a bit of traveling in my life. And so I like a good airport. And actually, one of the reasons that we moved to this area was RDU. And you’re saying, well, airports are airports. Well, first of all, no, airports aren’t airports. And all things being equal the thing that i remembered the stuck in my head that made me start thinking about raleigh was you know this is what people laugh at me all the time but i i didn’t i don’t see this in a lot of airports you know at the raleigh airport they have those beautiful wooden beams that go across all the way from the front well when they first built that airport i was coming in into town here uh before before we moved in here uh years before we moved here and even thought about moving here And I remember going, wow, airports don’t spend that kind of architectural money and design to make that really. They just do glass and steel. I mean, they’re pleasant enough, but they’re, you know, some of them are some of them. Some of them are pits. But Buffalo has a lovely airport and it’s relatively new. But this was like. Wow. This is. And I just remembered that. And I’m like, you know, if a city is going to spend that much time and focus on that kind of detail, I’d like to see what else it has to offer. And that is the dumbest thing in the world. But it really, you know, the fact that it had a good airport, you get to a lot of places that helped me. Then we found some good schools, the quality of life that we that we found here. We love the idea of you can you you can’t see a lot of the retailers, right? Yeah, that’s pretty neat. Unless you – and we’re living in Cary specifically. But unless you know where you’re going in many circumstances, you’re covered by trees. You don’t know they’re there. There’s a little sign that says whatever. And then you go – I love that because I come from – northeast where it’s like how big can you make the sun yeah you gotta have a ginormous american flag that could basically you know cover heat six houses um if it caught on fire and then you and then you and we don’t want to burn flags i’m not saying that um but But all these signs for all these stupid retailers and God bless retailers, but some of them are ugly signs. They’re tearing. How many Dunkin’ Donuts do we need for the love of God? And they’re all over the place. And it’s just kind of, you know, you get used to it. But then you come down here. And it’s not here. Very similar to me. Like I grew up in Michigan, tons of billboards. And when we were considering moving here, I actually took a trip out here to just explore. And I spent the first half a day being like, there’s nothing here. But do you find there’s a lack of restaurants here compared to Buffalo? No, I think Buffalo is so wonderful for its cuisine and its variety of restaurants. It’s not just all Buffalo wings. No, no, it’s not because it’s, it’s, you know. I love buffalo wings. Or as we say, I have a t-shirt I should have worn for you guys that we just call them wings. Yeah. We don’t have to call them buffalo wings. You know, it’s like, oh, no, we have buffalo wings. I’m like, I’ll decide if you have buffalo wings or not. But, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s terrific. I’ve kind of lost my train of thought with the wings. You got me hungry thinking about that. All right. It’s lunchtime. Yes. I thought this show was catered. But summarize it to say that the restaurants that we’ve seen here and we’ve done here are terrific. The difference in Buffalo restaurants are that, you know, you have there was more of an immigrant culture in Buffalo in the early 60s. 20s, 30s, and 40s. And those families developed in Western New York. And so when you had those people coming in, for example, my father was first generation. His father came over from Ireland. So my grandfather came over from Ireland and made his life in Buffalo and started a business and did very well for himself. There’s a lot of that, whether it be Polish or German or Irish or Italian. in Western New York. And it’s wonderful because, talking specifically about restaurants, you get a whole melting pot of different types of restaurants, but it’s authentic. It’s good stuff. And so when you have folks starting here, they’re very talented, many, many talented restaurants here. Mandolin and Lucky 32 are two of the ones that I’m thinking of right now that are specifically here in the Raleigh area that aren’t just chains. And But those restaurants in Western New York really have a tremendous sort of family feel about them. And I’m sure there are more here. I haven’t certainly I haven’t tried them all because, you know, I haven’t. But if you have a list, I’ll be glad to go through it. So it’s been said that like I heard somebody say that when I die, I want Clint Eastwood to shoot me in slow motion and Morgan Freeman to narrate it. OK. Right. Have you heard that before? You hang out with weird people. I did. I did. I did. But that does sound like a good way to go. I know. Right. So let me ask you. Clint Eastwood’s now like 92, though. I don’t know if it’d be the same. Well, you have a better shot. You have a better shot. You might miss. Yeah, that’s exactly right. are there any voiceover actors out there any any voice person people that make you just sort of cry and oh sort of have a voiceover crush yeah yeah i have i have voiceover crushes on a variety of people my growing up my uh my big voiceover crush and the voice i always wanted to be and i’ll never sound like him, was a fellow by the name of Ernie Anderson. Now, to you guys, you’re going, I’m getting, for those folks listening, I’m getting completely blank stares from my hosts here today. And I’ll tell you who Ernie Anderson is. And I think you guys are of an age that you’ll know this because he was the guy who used to say on ABC every night, I’m the love boat. Oh, yeah. That’s Ernie Anderson, okay? Tonight on Heart to Heart. You know, he was that guy. If you lived in New York or Miami, you know, Z100. You know, he was that voice. Or Y100, WHYI, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and the Palm Beaches. You know, he was that voice. It sounded much better than that, I promise you, folks. But that’s, again, my poor impression. But he… was it was it was just cool and he uh he started out in cleveland television and radio he worked with tim conway his great pals with tim conway and he just he he was the voice of the carol burnett show you guys may be too young for that but carol burnett had a variety show back in the 70s uh saturday nights on cbs in the 70s and uh cbs owned that with the mary tyler moore show bob newhart mash uh and the carol burnett show uh there’s some other shows i’m sure i’m missing sort of like um On Friday nights, ABC owned it during the 70s with the Partridge family and Brady Bunch and Nanny and the Professor. And I’m showing what a total media geek I am right now. And again, getting that sort of strange media stares from people. What are you doing? You spent a lot of time in your parents’ basement, didn’t you? um but but you know all these all these voices are the things that my geeky ears grew up with and i would listen to that so ernie was my first crush uh voiceover crush that way um i have a variety of folks who i um who i think uh there’s one guy you guys might not know by his name but if you heard his voice you’d go oh i want him to is a fellow by the name of Bruce Miles. He’s just got the greatest voice in the world. His friend of mine lives out in Oregon and he’s just got one of the most underrated voice actors ever. There’s a female voice talent. And of course, anyone from voiceover is listening. Say my name, Simon. There’s many of them and I’m not going to name them all. But D.B. Cooper, she’s a great voice talent and again, very underrated. Is that the same name as like Like the famous guy that jumped out of the airplane? Yes, it is. But she sounds much better and she’s never, ever committed a crime that she’s ever been convicted of. So, no, she’s not. She’s absolutely not. But I mean, those are just some of the people that I know whose voice I’m just, I wish I could somehow sound like that. There’s just, there’s dozens of them. Have you ever had a- Mel Blanc for characters, by the way. Who? Mel Blanc. Okay. He was Bugs Bunny. He was Daffy Duck. He was Yosemite Sam. Oh, yeah. He did all those? Oh, my gosh. Same guy? Same guy. It was always the first name after the Looney Tunes credits, right? Here’s your homework. Tonight, YouTube, Mel Blanc, Looney Tunes, and just you’re going to enjoy yourself. Okay. I mean- So he was kind of like Hank Azaria voices like half the Simpsons. He was kind of like that for Looney Tunes. Well, yeah, yeah. Well, actually, Hank doesn’t do half of it, but he does many great voices. But, I mean, Yardley Smith and Nancy Cartwright and all those guys are just amazing for the Simpsons. And, you know, you get Seth, not Rogan, McFarlane, isn’t it, who does Family Guy? And he’s made himself quite a bit of an actor now and doing really well. But, I mean, a great actor. you know, great at impersonations and character voices doing, you know, a variety of things. And he’s a singer. Yeah. He has a perfectly lovely singing voice. I didn’t know that. So he does acting. Oh, but you know, I do remember now seeing like some vinyl, like at Barnes and Noble that had him covering like classic songs. Yeah. In the discount bin. Yes, exactly. That’s right. I’m not saying he was successful at it. I’m just. He’s saying very well. Um, so, but I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of those folks. And, um, if you go, if you come to the galaxy con that’s coming at, I think the end of this month, there’ll be a ton of, I think we talked briefly earlier, uh, about the, uh, animation voices that have come through. I, um, there’s, and there’s always somebody that I’ve, I’ve met or know or want to meet, you know, I will actually be the geek that pays the $25 and, you know, it gets a picture taken with them because these are people who’s, who I respect. And I won’t, you know, I respect them enough to stand in a small line. I won’t stand in a long line because I’m just impatient that way. I’m like, come on, we got to go here. But these people are like, you know, this, this is their life. Like I said, they’re just getting, some of them are, just getting out of their parents basement so much of it though has to be acting that’s why i brought it up originally it’s not like you were mentioning it’s not just you got a great voice congratulations you’re in and i think you shared a very wise uh perspective which is you’re owning a small business so it’s not just like you get to do what you don’t just get to like i think that’s the thing that my kids get into like they want to be on youtube or like the kids that watch people play twitch like you think that’s all it is well the successful ones are working yeah there’s not accidental like no they’re working hard there to create the kind of content that they’re creating they’re putting in the time and the effort and the effort and the work. And I think that’s a very fair thing. But I also think it has to be some acting, right? Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it’s all acting. It’s voice acting. That’s what voiceover is. My job is to make sure that I become… the version of me that most closely aligns with the voice, the subjective opinion of the producer. Like they’re, they’re hiring me, but they’re hiring my, my larynx. What are some of your favorite warmups like red leather, yellow leather, skedaddley de skedaddley do? I like water and breathing. Those are my big, uh, I drink water and I like to breathe. Um, but you know, you know, Peter Piper picked a pack of pickled peppers. I never really, uh, this probably makes me a bad actor or at least a least less affected actor, but I don’t do as much of that stuff. When I go to classes, and I’ve gone to many classes, I’ve gone to too many classes, but they do those warmup exercises and that’s good for you. And it does get you, there’s some vocal warmup, but I gotta say, honestly, I don’t do a ton of it. I just try and take good care of my voice. And during football and hockey season, that’s tougher than normal. Have you ever been tempted to smoke cigarettes to make your voice sexier? No, no, I just take the hormones. Oh, did I say that out loud? Is that why you have hair on your forehead? That’s exactly right. That’s not my forehead. But no, I never drank, never smoked, never did drugs. No Guinness. No, never in my life. I’m an Irishman that admits to never drinking, but I never did. And I, I just, you know, it started with the taste. It wasn’t even the fact of, you know, people act like goofballs when they, you know, they get drunk or get high. It was the taste. There’s certain vegetables I won’t eat. You know why? I don’t like how it tastes. And do you ever taste it? Remember your first taste of beer? Was it a happy experience? No. Okay. I stopped there. I’m like, nope, I’m done. I actually like my first beer. I’m the weird guy because I didn’t drink beer until I was 33. And so by then, I think it was like I enjoyed the first beer that I had. But I know like a lot of people are usually stole a beer that was warm, that it skunked that when they were 13 and like downed it in a tent somewhere or anything and threw up and barfed it up. No, it’s just the smell of it. And it’s just like, oh, God. And then if you ever had the misadventure of being in a bar the day after, like the morning after. Oh, good God. It’s like, what are these people doing to themselves? And it’s just awful. I like that there are some things that you have to, like the argument is literally, like coffee’s this way too. Like you give it to a kid and they’re like, that’s disgusting. You’ll get used to it. Just keep slamming that stuff. And eventually you’ll become addicted. Yeah. Like this is, this is hot chocolate. This is, this is my, you know, it’s like, it’s like a sweet thing. So I have a little bit of that. And of course, being on our podcast, I shouldn’t drink anything with milk in it because it gets you all phlegmy, but I’m old and nobody cares. But, you know, the coffee thing, the booze thing, the smoking thing, I’m like, no. It’s hard. No, but I have the ability, you know, the one thing I’m fortunate about is I have a range. You know, I can go really high. You want me to go over? I can go over for you. It’s fine. You’re very, you’re very nice. Mary like go over, go over like Mary. Somebody just scrubbed forward to fast forward. And they’re like, what happened on this podcast? No beer, no beer was involved. Exactly. Well, the helium, man, it’s fun. I used to suck that helium. Did you suck the helium? I sucked the helium all the time. I like this now. We’re in a real fun place. So let’s have a voice off. Yes, exactly. It’s a voice off. What are these guys doing? They’re trying to improve themselves. But, you know, then I can go really low. You know, I can go down here. Take me there, John. Exactly. Well, well, that’s a different story. I think he’s having a hard time. We were listening to some of your stuff in your demo and watching some of the commercials that you were on. And I really liked the voice that you did with the horse for the craft commercial. It’s exactly what a quirky horse would sound like to me. I don’t know why. What does that interview look like? We’re looking for a quirky horse voice. Quite honestly, I’m not the horse voice. You’re not the horse voice? I am the jockey. I’m the jockey that goes, Kevin, what did you do? And I was up in Toronto for that because it was for, and this is the greatest thing. I have a lovely agent up in Toronto, Tanya Buchanan, who runs Tadah Voiceworks up there. And she called me one day, and I’m in Buffalo at the time, so it’s only a two-hour drive. Three hours if you count traffic. Oh, the metro traffic is awful. But I went up there, and they need you. And they asked me for a specific audition. Can you sound like this picture? Because it was a French commercial, evidently. So it was done in Montreal and they needed an English voice and they needed somebody to sound like that little jockey. Okay. It comes up to him at the end of the day. So they showed you a picture and can you sound like this picture? And so I gave, I gave him the voice. They gave, I don’t think they even gave me the picture. I think they just gave me a description. And then when I was up there, um, there’s a part of the commercial where they have the little horses, the mini horses with the craft cheese and macaroni carts. And then you hear this. Get your Kraft cheese and macaroni. That’s me too. So they got me for two spots there. So, and, and I sat there for a half an hour going, Kevin, what did you do? Kevin, what did you do? Kevin, what did you, you know, I just, they just, but I had to try and match the, you know, sort of match it ADR automatic dialogue replacement a little bit that, and then, you know, just create the voice and it worked out for them. And it was, but what I didn’t realize even as much time as I spent in Canada is what Kraft cheese and macaroni means to Canada, it’s like the number one food product in Canada.
It was quite an honor to be the first guest in the new studio of the “Guys Who Do Stuff” Podcast, which we recorded a few weeks ago. Yes…I got to go to a REAL podcast studio, none of this phone stuff (which, of course is fine).
The podcast is produced by co-hosted and produced by Joe Woolworth and Josh Manning, both who live in the Cary, Raleigh, Durham North Carolina area where I am. Joe owns a web, media and business strategy company called Relevant Media Solutions. Josh is a media producer (web, photography and film) at his company called Jerico 7.
Joe Woolworth, Co-host of Guys Who Do Stuff Podcast
So as media producers, Joe and Josh are story tellers and through their podcast, they tell stories of unique small businesses and the people that run them. I believe the idea is that no matter how unique the business featured in the podcast, there are universal threads that run through each story and those threads are applicable to any business. By guests talking about the successes and challenges of their businesses, listeners can apply the business and life lessons shared to their own lives.
How I got involved was just me networking, completely unaware of this podcast.
Josh Manning, Co-host of Guys Who Do Stuff Podcast
Because I’m still meeting new people (having only been in Raleigh Durham for coming up on 3 years) I was reaching out to local marketing and media people on Alignable, a locally focused business networking site. Through that site, I’ve been setting up some Starbucks marketing meetings with folks (similar to my Bagel Marketing back in Buffalo, NY but Starbucks is closer to my house, hence the name I just coined sitting here writing this blog post). I’m focused on folks in my Town of Cary, North Carolina (CARY = Containment Area for Relocated Yankees or Can’t Afford Raleigh Yet).
So I see Joe’s business on Alignable and I either emailed or called him and invited him to Starbuckies for a coffee and a chat (well, I do hot chocolate, not coffee, but it’s in the same cup as the coffee so people think I cool…fooled ’em again!) As we talked, Joe decided I would be a good guest for the podcast…or the guest he had scheduled had died…one of those two things. Anyway we talked.
What did we talk about? Easier probably to identify what we didn’t talk about but to try and summarize it we spoke about my start in voiceover, the University of Dayton, working with kids at home, Tony Stark, Spiderman, the Marvel Universe, co-working spaces (BTW in that part of the podcast, the co-working place I used was called HQ Raleigh…so embarrassed I blank on that name, sorry HQ Raleigh), then Wegman’s, the Gig Economy, Canada, getting the business, working in your underwear, greenways and parks, In-And-Out Burgers, Shake Shack, residuals, picking RDU, restaurants, Ernie Anderson, Mary Tyler Moore, The Partridge Family, Bruce Miles, D.B. Cooper, Mel Blanc, Looney Tunes, acting, Grover, Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and after that, I forget.
The podcast has a fun, informative, light-hearted feel to it that makes the listen seem shorter than it is.
Now this co-working space where Joe and Josh have built their podcast studio is pretty awesome. It’s called Vibe and it’s a co-working community inside the Cary Towne Center Mall in Cary, NC. I’m not sure how many co-working spaces you’ve been in…I’ve been in more than a few.Many co-working spaces are very corporate…kinda steel and cold in tall office buildings…or they try and be too UNcorporate…and it’s too country, college-dormy. Vibe Cary is right in between for small business people, micropenuers who want professional and comfortable where you don’t feel like you should wear a tie but you probably don’t want to wear your ripped t-shirt and look like a slob either. Professionally casual. That’s my take anyway. You can get a membership or use it by the hour; you can get a private office or use a meeting space or, yes, record a podcast!
A great experience at a great place with great hosts. Thanks for including me.
In almost all of broadcasting, be it radio, TV or cable, making it to the 100th show is a milestone.
It takes true production commitment and focus to keep a podcast (or any media program) on-air for ANY length of time. Guest aren’t always great, ideas aren’t always flowing….but if you have the determination, producers like Kim and Natasha fly over the problems and focus on the good stuff. 
