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Well Toto, here’s another state you can cross off your bucket list! Welcome to Kansas City, Kansas – home to some of the best BBQ and voice-over talents around.

Tonight I got to visit with my long time pal, fellow Faffer and Voice-Over Swami Dan Hurst and he brought along another fellow Faffer and recent full-time voice-over talent THE Andy Barnett as well as “There’s a Matt for That” and Faffer to-be (if he has his way) Matt Wiewel.

It was over three hours of stories so no, I won’t try and play that all back for you. But a massively great and well-behaved time was had by all and I am so appreciative that Dan, Andy and Matt took time out of their evening to hang out with me. Thanks guys!

Tags: commentary, faffcon, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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During one of my Voice-Over Workshops for a voice talent last week, we reviewed some of her marketing challenges and internal struggles. She is a talented voice talent and a generally gracious human being — all wonderful traits that I aspire to.

But her marketing kryptonite is tooting her own horn – marketing herself (which is her brand) out to the marketplace. She finds it awkward, braggadocios and lacking humility (my words not hers). Like I said, she’s a gracious person.

Let me repeat a secret I have shared here before…horn tooting or self-marketing IS awkward, braggadocios and lacking humility – no matter how subtle you try to be (be warned, a subtlety overdone can completely water down a marketing message).

I have grown a bit more accustomed to it now, but when I started out in my voice-over business, I felt REALLY weird about marketing my brand: me! Using “I” in sentences, talking about MY work, me writing a press release about me. Yuck.

How self-absorbed, how egotistical, how arrogant! Just who the hell do I think I am?!!!

I feel your awkward pain frightened horn tooters but now I’ll share with you the epiphany that allows me to toot my horn with less (not none) awkwardness.

Who the hell do I think I am?

I am a small business owner who has kids to feed and a mortgage to pay…and that money does NOT come in unless I am out there telling people what I do and how I do it and how what I do will help their business. And I AM the company. Whatever the tag line, no matter the iconography, at the end of the day I, as the professional voice-over talent, am the brand. I am selling myself – just not on a street corner…yet.

So I toot (and if you’re 5 years old, you are now giggling uncontrollably at my unintended fart joke—that’s cool, fart jokes ARE funny).

But since I am doing the promotional work (writing, choosing media outlets, targeting the messaging etc), I can control the message that gets put out there, I control the tools and images I use to promote myself. Some people feel more comfortable using a 3rd party to do this…hey, whatever gets the job done for you.

It is a necessary evil in a free-lancers life – this self-promotion.

So here’s is my little imaginary trick for dealing with this unsettling process of self-promotion you must do: pretend as you going through your marketing tasks that you are marketing for another company. Not another person, another company. In your head replace your name with Acme Voice-Over Company. This psychological game with yourself might give you the distance and perspective to get the horn-tooting starting and keep it going.

Listen, you are not egotistical, you are not self-absorbed.

You ARE a freelancer. You ARE small business owner or now what people are calling a Micro Business (soooo teeny tiny like me).

And you have my personal blessing to grab your horn and toot. It’s not only OK…it’s a requirement!

P.S. I did ANOTHER Voice-Over Workshop on Saturday and wouldn’t you know…another frightened horn tooter. It looks like we may have to hold a telethon! But again, now all’s well for him too. So all you frightened horn tooters…you are not alone.

Tags: advertising, marketing, voice over workshop, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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So on Facebook, where voice talent go to cajole, complain and try out new material, I saw there was yet another voice-over group. Like a lemming, I joined it – or should I say I was accepted cause the owner, my friend Terry Daniel keeps it closed (never a bad idea).

The FIRST thing I saw was something I did not know about – something called the Midwest Voice-Over Conference.

Now as anyone in voice-over knows, the world is not lacking for voice-over conferences – most all of them trying to share knowledge and sell stuff – that’s fine. You’re all pretty familiar with my partiality to FaffCon, which is a completely different animal as far as voice-over events go (which is why it’s always a sell-out). FaffCon is great too, not better than other events (that would be a subjective opinion anyway) but great. My point is there’s room for these events. Whether or not there’s an audience for all of them has yet to be determined.

What caught my attention was the concept of a meeting specifically of mid-west voice talents – wouldn’t that be fun?! Same with northeast, southwest etc. Divide it up anyway you want…make it a conference for only voice talents with connected earlobes – who cares, just have fun and learn. The connections these folks make with each conference will prove to be very valuable, even if (as with the Midwest Conference) the conference is mostly for newbies. Hey, it’s never bad to make a new friend.

The person who I know most who is presenting at the the Midwest Voice-Over Conference is Laura VonHolle, who is one of my agents at Heyman Talent. Now like all my agents, she’d have trouble picking me out of a line-up, but she and the folks at Heyman are good people and they’re going to have a heart to heart with the folks at the the Midwest Voice-Over Conference about securing representation. That’s a pretty good start as topics go.

My advice (other than for the organizers to drop that annoying audio commercial that plays as soon as you open the site) is if you have the time and you’re working (or want to work) in the VO biz, then head over to Columbus for the weekend and see what the experience has to offer. I hope everybody has a great time.

Tags: voice over workshop, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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As voice-over talents, we specialize in “theatre of the mind”. Our job is to create an image, a presence, a brand in the mind of the listener. We get paid to pretend and it’s pretty great.

Within our own work space, voice talents do some great pretending too. Some VO’s like Joe Cipriano build wonderful voice-over studios within their property that are visually and audibly amazing. Some have pre-fabricated studios like Whisper Rooms to record in. Other voice talents work in their closets, surrounded by heavy winter coats or movers blankets.

I hesitated to write this post about my new voice-over booth for fear it would come across as boastful in someway. That’s not the intent; rather I hope this gives you helpful ideas if you are thinking about changing your voice-over recording space.

There are a thousand variations of voice-over recording booths, all simply want to ensure the best possible audio fidelity even if most of our studios will never make it to the pages of Architectural Digest (well, Joe’s might). Anyway, the beauty of the studio is in the eye of the beholder as, individually, we’re usually the only ones who see it.

For years I’ve been cranking out tons of national, regional and local voice-over projects from a little sound box I made from old shutters and some foam. It has worked wonderfully and clients have been well pleased.

I wasn’t concerned that it was short on looks. But in the past few years, I have been concerned that it was not conducive to one important area of voice-over performance…I could not stand and record in my old set up. I was limited in the physicality of my performance.

With certain voice-over scripts, the physicality of the performance can really come through. I needed to change my voice acting set-up.

I’d been thinking about it, talking about it but for a myriad of reasons, I didn’t just get it done. Until now.

My goal was to create a great sounding space (quiet but not dead sounding), that gave me the physical space to perform sitting or standing, that worked within the dimensions of the room (a kind of reading room off the living room where I keep my office) that would be somewhat attractive (cause it would be in the space off the living room).

Over at hardware store, they sell White Thermally-Fused Melamine board in sheets of 4’w x 7′ h and about 3/4″ thick. They are sturdy and attractive. With those boards, I had a carpenter friend of mine build a 3 walled box with a roof (cause handy I am not…my wife is though) and put it in the corner of the office. Inside the booth, there was installed a counter. Then, based on a video recommendation from George Whittman and some insight from Dan Friedman, I ordered custom built acoustical panels for the interior and put some sound foam on the ceiling. On the fourth wall (which I didn’t want to enclose at this time) hangs a very heavy curtain (wife’s idea). Simple.

I had the sound tested by a long haired audio recording expert in North Carolina who said the recorded sound quality was excellent. I’m happy, the wife is happy and clients didn’t even notice a change.

But I do. Not just in the physical space but the ability I have now to vary my performance. I move completely differently within this space and I think you can hear it in the performance. We’ll see what happens from here.

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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This will surprise you: I was on a plane on Thursday.

And when I landed in Chicago on my way to Green Bay, WI, (with no weather related travel hassles mind you…zoinks!) I got an email from my voice-over agent Erik Shepard from Voice Talent Productions.

It seems a client I’d done work for recently changed a couple of sentences in their script and needed some pick-ups done. I’d advised Erik that I could do it once I landed in GRB. He wondered why I always traveled so much…did they not feed me at home? Was I trying to join a commune? I told him I eat too much, I’d get the lines done and that he was going to make someone a wonderful wife someday. 😉

Recording new projects on the road is not a problem with my laptop and my Sennheiser 416. But this instance was unique because I had recorded the bulk of this project in my acoustically studio with a Neumann TLM-103. Now the client would have to prospectively match that studio audio with new pick-up audio recorded in a hotel room (pillows and blankets and noise floors, oh my) on my 416. It had the potential to be an awkward audio match and an inconvenience for the client.

So I made a call.

You see, whenever I travel, I make it a point to know where any local recording studios are. I believe it’s just smart to have a back-up plan and sometimes you get to make new friends. I’ve been amazed to find some cities (towns, hovels) don’t have ANY recording facilities (- try the AM radio station…they have 60 year old egg cartons on the wall for sound absorption’) so if you want to be audio king pin in Ottumwa – email me and I’ll get you directions.

But in Green Bay some years ago, I was introduced to Carl Romey by my friend, fellow voice talent and FaffCon Stand-up group member Kelly Klemolin. Carl runs The Bridge Recording Studios in Titletown. While Kelly has her own ISDN and ipDTL equipped studio, she often records at Carl’s studio; Kelly is a very in-demand voice talent (and a whiz on QuickBooks).

Carl’s studio is terrific and he’s a prince of a guy (hence the blog post title). So I called him Thursday when I landed and told him what I was trying to accomplish. He told me to stop by early Friday morning (today) and he’d fit me in. His studio is always busy – Carl is a very popular producer.

So up to his 4th Floor studio I flew and banged out those pick-ups in nothing flat. As you might expect, he couldn’t have been more gracious or accommodating. I was happy, Erik was happy (or as happy as he gets 😉 and I believe the client was happy.

Thanks Carl. And thanks Kelly. Green Bay is full of good people. And good football.

Tags: commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Friday night the weather was not frightful but the traffic was (hey, it’s Toronto, there’s always traffic) — none the less it was a great night for my awesome Canadian voice-over agents at Ta-Da Voiceworks to host their Christmas party.

I love the idea of hosting a holiday party in January because December is so socially nuts for everyone. Further, few other months really need a party as much as January, especially in the northeast and especially THIS winter.

So in addition to seeing voice-over friends like Bill Hunt, Graeme Spicer and Debra Scott (all of whom I know through Ta-Da Voiceworks, FaffCon and the terrific VO in TO meet-up ((which is hosted by the super duo of Patrick Sweeney and Jodi Krangle – who in spite of her tasty marketing never actually has anycake with her, like ever)))- I got to see the new, bigger Ta-Da offices that opened in November.

Darryl has built a really nice voice-over booth right in the middle of the office so talent can do auditions there or clients can host auditions. He did a really nice job on it.

Folks at the party make too big a deal of me being willing to drive 2 hours from Buffalo to come to this very nice party in Toronto. I don’t see it as a long drive but rather as an opportunity to support my team.

My agents are part of my sales and marketing team and I am a part of theirs. Whenever possible, if they host events, I want to support them just like they support me out in the marketplace on a daily basis. That’s what business teams do.

So thanks to Tanya and Darryl for inviting me. I think a spring/summer open house would be great too!! 🙂

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