Other than an actor’s voice and personality, there is probably no more important marketing tool a voice actor has than his/her voiceover demo.

It’s how all your training and talent manifests itself — shouting to the world that you are a professional voice actor. The well-produced voiceover demo is the audio personification of your performing abilities. Woot!!!

Oh, and nobody really cares about your voiceover demo.

Sure, people who hire you (producers & clients) will listen to it see if you have and can deliver the sound they want.

Of course agents will listen to see if you’re presenting what’s trending in the voiceover world so they can sell your voice with your demo.

But their interactions with your demo is likely very short….seconds rather than minutes. They listen, they make a decision, they move on.

And yet as voiceover talents, don’t we fret, stress and strain over every syllable uttered, every musical note played and every sound effect…effected. Don’t even get me started on the order of demo segments.

We have but brief seconds to make a great lasting impression.

As insurance, many folks reasonably decide that hiring an expert demo producer will make the process more professional and maybe less stressful. Sometimes that works and sometimes not.

All these thoughts came back to me as I completed production of my Commercial Voiceover Demo.

The demo production process is a little slice of purgatory really.

I fretted over voice types and scripts and intonation and pacing and music and industry trends and on and on as I self-produced my little heart out to create what I thought was a pretty great demo.

It was with that “pretty great demo” thought that I knew I must call on every performer’s greatest asset – if he or she will only ask for it and receive it – humility.

For demos, humility is about seeking and listening to honest feedback from trusted peers. This time, I got it and it saved me from myself.

By way of quick example, I had crafted a demo segment that I knew was perfect…from the voice to the inflection to the mix…this was going to be my lead piece. Heck, I’ve been doing this for 40+ years, right?

The unanimous feedback from my pro friends said that what I thought was a symphonic demo segment sounded to them more like variations of nails on a chalkboard. VERY glad I solicited opinions.

Stepping back further (with that feedback) I then asked one of my peers if he would direct me in a re-recording of the segment. Segment feedback after that said I made the right call. Grateful to all who helped me.

None of the people I solicited feedback from likely gave my demo another thought after we spoke – that’s perfectly fine. They cared but not like I cared about MY demo.

So if the professional feedback on your demo is really good but nobody seems as excited as you about your demo’s release…relax. That’s how it works in the pros. You’re good.

Tags: commentary, Demos, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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In spite of my vast voiceover knowledge, expertise in all things broadcasting, immense superiority in marketing and tremendous humility (tongue firmly implanted in cheek) there ARE other people who know some stuff about the business of voiceover besides me.

You’re shocked, I know. 😉

Truth be told, in spite of my actual experience I am always learning from other voiceover talents, most of whom are brighter than I am.

So while it was a pleasant discovery, it was not a surprise to come across some very concise yet encompassing voiceover advice and helpful links in two blog posts by Canadian voiceover artist Kim Handysides.

I agree with most all of the suggestions and references she offers* and think the read would be worth your time.

*I disagreed with the note that said short, fat, Irish voiceover talents are less useful than poutine…I happen to know we have a value EQUAL to poutine. How dare she!!! 😉

From a blogging perspective, I will also compliment her on her smart links to her own past blog posts about the topics she is advising readers about. That’s just SEO goodness right there. Well done.

Oh…you probably want the links, don’t you. Man, you are demanding!

35 Ways to Really Help You Crush It As A Voiceover Actor

37 More Ways to Really Help You Crush It As A Voiceover Actor

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Voiceover Talent Peter K. O’Connell, a 1986 graduate of the University of Dayton (OH), is featured in the University’s Class Notes article and social media post in January 2020. O’Connell is pictured in his voiceover booth at his audio’connell Voiceover Talent Studio in Raleigh, NC.

One of the more pathetic attributes of any professional voiceover talent is our strange pride in our voiceover booths.

There may or may not have been 1 or 2 pieces leftover when the Studiobricks was “allegedly” all assembled

Whether we have had one custom designed (I’m thinking of your former, magnificent Pool House VO booth, Joe Cipriano) or purchased a pre-made booth like my StudioBricks One Plus VO Edition, we voice talent boast and preen about our booths and recording studios.

Some of that boasting is probably to justify the expense…even when these booths quickly pay for themselves (thank goodness)…it’s still one of the biggest one-time business investments a voiceover talent will make. The VO business, as a rule, does not have the kind of large capital expenditures than many other types of business owners experience. That’s one reason many folks want to become VO’s…and it’s a poor reason.

Another more business-based, marketing reason is that our professional voiceover booths are a point of difference versus many voiceover talents who rent someone else’s studio to record or just record voiceover in the their closets. Our voiceover booths are more professional looking, almost always more professional sounding and present to producers the expected aural and physical representation of where a voiceover talent should be working.

If image isn’t everything, in this case, it IS something.

So we feature our professional voiceover booths in blog posts (like this), social media posts (which this blog will soon become part of) and our marketing materials for web sites, direct mail and networking. If you don’t tell advertising agencies, recording studios and video producers that you have a booth…they won’t know about your professional voiceover booth.

No this is not the REAL cover of University of Dayton Magazine. The guy in the pink shirt just pasted himself on there. What a goof!

It was last summer that I got my latest copy of University of Dayton Magazine, the alumni magazine of the 2020 Men’s Basketball Atlantic 10 Champion University of Dayton Flyers (yes, that was a blatant plug for WINNING Dayton Flyers’ basketball, so what?). Oh, you’re right, that IS the same University of Dayton Magazine that in 2017 wrote an article about one of their famous voiceover alumni.

Like I said, last summer in my office reading the new University of Dayton Magazine and I notice a section I had seen before, UD Notes. It features updates from alumni and sometimes pictures of University of Dayton alumni holding an issue of University of Dayton Magazine in a unique place…like a foreign country or inside the cockpit of a fighter jet.

For no other reason than the idea just popped into my head, I thought to myself ‘I’ve never seen anyone take a picture of a University of Dayton Magazine issue inside a voiceover booth.’

So I grabbed one of my kids and we took a picture. I filled out the University of Dayton Magazine alumni notes form with an update, attached the picture, then promptly forgot about the whole thing.

UD Notes from University of Dayton Magazine January 2020, featuring Male Voiceover Talent Peter K. O’Connell

However, there it was in the latest issue, a picture and class note. And I got some calls from it. Free publicity.

What I did NOT count on was that they also post these Class Notes on line! That was a surprise I came across this morning, more than two months after the issue came out.

I don’t know everyone who has seen it or will still see it and what kind of business opportunity this represents. From a business perspective, I know it represents very clearly that doing something is better than doing nothing.

Tags: voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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It is always nice to be invited to a party.

It means people enjoy your company, you usually have interesting or funny things to say and people generally like having you around.

So I was honored yet surprised when I got an email from my friend, fellow Faffer and female voiceover talent Natasha Marchewka a few weeks ago. She was writing an article for Backstage Magazine about the best ways for voiceover talents to secure new business and she wanted to interview me.

Naturally, I requested a private plane to NYC, a suite at a 5-star hotel in mid-town Manhattan for 7 days, 24-hour chauffeur, clothing and food allowance (no more than $5,000 per day, as I am not greedy). I also said the 10 tickets I would need for Hamilton on Broadway could be within the theatre’s  first 10 rows. Only divas demand front row. I am hardly a diva.

Plus sometimes the actor’s spit when they talk and if you’re in the front row…ewww!

So Natasha emailed me the questions and said IF (and only if) my answers were any good, she might include them in the article.

Oh well, you miss 100% of the shots you never take. 🙂

Somehow I made the cut. Natasha was very kind to include me at all and the editors of Backstage were also kind not to hit the delete key after seeing my name in the article….sometimes my life can feel like one long edit with a dull blade (old time radio people will get that reference).

Here is the link to the Backstage article HERE.

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Sometimes we as voiceover business owners are so focused on the operations of our business, the business of doing business, we neglect to paint our stores and sweep our steps.

The ‘stores and steps’ references our web sites. We often look at our sites from the back of the house instead of standing out front and looking at what the visitors see.

A while ago I wrote a blog post about checking out what your web site looks like by going to electronic retailers and calling up your web site on various computers, tablets and phones.

While that applies to web sites, that advice also applies to blogs.

I’ve had a blog since 2005 and in those 12 years, I’ve written a lot about voiceover, marketing and advertising (over 1,300 posts). That’s why I named the blog voxmarketising. In all those posts there are some real golden nuggets and some absolute crap. Trial and error, baby!

But one of the areas of blog management I had fallen way behind in was managing all the links I had listed on my blog to all my fellow voiceover bloggers. It was my way of sharing the blog love by listing their blog link, in the hopes that they would do the same. Some did, some didn’t.

But recently, I did a complete review of all the blogs I had listed on my site to see what blogs were still active and what blogs had given up the ghost.

Over 80 (EIGHTY) voiceover blogs were just cut from my web site because they hadn’t published in 3 or more years or because their bloglink just went nowhere any more.

There were probably 10 or so links that needed to be updated and they have been.

But 80 dead blogs was an amazing number.

Why so many? Based on what I saw and what I know, here are my theories

• Some folks started blogging about voiceover because they thought they were supposed to for better web traction – they had no desire to blog and no point of view in their writing so they just quit
• Some people clearly didn’t not make it in the VO business — so why blog about voiceover when one is now selling life insurance?
• Some folks just got bored with the process of blogging

Sure there may be a myriad of other reasons and all of them are legitimate. Blogging is not mandatory in the voiceover or any other business (unless you’re in the blogging business, then I suppose it’s pretty mandatory.

But does blogging help or even impact a voice talent’s business? That depends.

From a broad perspective, blogging should help a voiceover talent’s business for SEO. If one is blogging about their industry, using a widely accepted blogging platform like WordPress (either as a blog or as part of an overall web site), that alone should generate attention from search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Digging down a little further, if a blogger’s content gains enough interest from a targeted audience and the blogger builds up a dedicated readership, that subsequent attention also generates positive SEO notice and builds the credibility of their brand and reputation.

So SEO is the only reason to blog? No, but it’s a big one because depending on what you write, you may enjoy some unexpected organic word search success. Sure you can buy word search, but organic is less financially cumbersome.

I think in voiceover, there are primarily two types of bloggers – thought leaders focused on SEO (and listening to myself, ‘er, um THEMSELVES speak) and then coaches who want to sell services and also enjoy some SEO love. Neither is bad. Blogs are a marketing tool…just decide what you are marketing what your audience wants to hear.

But what if you aren’t a coach and you don’t think you have a thought that worthy enough to lead anything? Should you still blog?

That’s a personal question.

Blogging requires some sort of commitment. Obviously time but, maybe more importantly, thought.

For bloggers, I think the smart foundation for having a blog should not be ‘what CAN I write about’ but rather ‘what do I WANT to write about?’. Because if you don’t have a real desire to write about something at least about 6 times a year, then blogging is not a tool for you.

Don’t worry, there are other marketing tools, but blogging will not be one of them for you. 80 of my voiceover peers, many of them well known to voiceover community, found that out the hard way. It was not the end of their careers, it was just the end of blogging….for them.

For the rest of us…full steam ahead.

P.S. If you check my blog page and see I’ve gotten the wrong link for your site, you can contact me at peter at audioconnell dot com. Of course, you DO have a link to my page on your blog site, right?!

P.P.S. If you have a voiceover blog that I do not have listed on my blog site and you would like it listed there (and you’re going to offer me a link to my blog as well) please let me know.

Tags: blogs, branding, commentary, marketing, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Strange – how many of you were drawn to that blog headline. 😉

But it’s a fact of life – virtual conferences have been around a while now.

It was a business that a friend of mine delved into and she seemed to enjoy it. I myself have never attended or I guess a better term is participated in a virtual conference.

It’s an intriguing idea so leave it to voice-over’s own Rupert Murdoch (aka John Florian) make the idea a reality for the voice-over community.

If you’re a plan ahead kinda gal or guy, you’ve got some time. Voice Over Virtual will take place September 18-19, 2013.

For all the details, you can check out Voice-Over Xtra’s blog post here

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