Likely you’ve not heard of Gary Vaynerchuk or Wine TV. Go to his website if you’d like to learn more. He is a passionate and successful guy. Those who have met him in person truly enjoy his company.

The reason I am posting this video is to provide you with a pep talk. You may need one or you may not need one which I think is a pretty good time for a pep talk as you’re not combating negative feelings and can more easily build on the positive vibe you’re working off of at present.

Gary’s message is about passion and people and how we all need to do what we love. Easily said, right?

But sometimes we need a kick in the pants to remember it’s not a “slogan”, it is an action but for it to be an “action” we need to take action! This video from Web Expo 2.0 (which contain some HBO-like NSFW language) is a hyper reminder that passion, hard work and caring for people will result in success. There are no quick solutions. Social media has tools we can all use to build our brands but we have to make it work. It takes time.

However if you love what you do…time goes by pretty fast.

I hope this helps you. Go kill it!

Tags: commentary, community, social media // 4 Comments »

So this evening I attend this season’s first member meeting of the Buffalo Niagara Sales and Marketing Executives. This professional association has been around since 1942 and is chalk full of great folks. Full disclosure in that I am a proud past president of BNSME, having originally joined in 1989.

I get to the Millennium Airport Hotel for the meeting about 10 minutes after the networking begins and I check in. The Vice President for Programs this year, Todd Salansky who owns online thymes, llc, says to me out of the blue “You do the invocation.”

“Huh, what?” I so eloquently reply.

“We don’t have an invocator for tonight, can you do it?”

Well when you’re a past president, you know exactly how crazed the first meeting of the year is for new board members so you know that you gotta say yes, which I did.

For some reason, though, I just trotted my way up to the bar and started chatting with friends and guests. While talking with one of the night’s featured speakers, it dawned on me that I had just agreed to give an invocation and hadn’t written a damn word!

People seem to like my invocations because I usually spend some time on them but holy crap…I’d now given myself about 15-20 minutes to come up with something that usually takes about 30-40 to write.

Oh and about the computer that I didn’t have on me to write that invocation….

So I did what any self-respecting A-Type personality would do…I marched into the office of the Millennium Airport Hotel’s Director of Sales and Marketing and my friend Russ Papia and said “I need to use a computer…right now.”

Now if you ever looked up the term gracious in the dictionary you’d see Russ’ picture. He’s says without missing a beat “no problem” but instead of putting me at someone else’s desk, he gets up off his seat and gives me his computer.

Let’s review….this is the man responsible for all the revenue collected at his hotel, fielding much of the food and beverage issues at the Millennium ….which is neither a small nor quiet hotel. And yet he pops up like a jack rabbit for me and says “here you go.” I wrote my invocation, it was applauded (which is not normal for invocations) and it was all because Russ Papia said “here you go.” He served the customer.

There’s a reason Russ has been successful in that position for over 100 years (give or take) and it’s because he delivers not only the revenues but more importantly the kind of memorable customer service that is sadly unique in today’s world.

If you come to Buffalo, please stay at the Millennium Airport Hotel and make a special effort to say hi to my friend, Russ Papia.

Tags: commentary, customer service // 3 Comments »

There is occasionally downtime in the voice over world of audio’connell Voice Over Talent. While I should say that I am always marketing or developing new business when the mic isn’t on, well, that’s not always true.

Sometimes I surf. And not on water.

But a recent surfing expedition (which really was a key word search on Google) led me to a 1997 interview on a “Lost In Space” website with a fairly well known announcer by the name of Dick Tufeld. Dick was the voice of “The Robot” in the series “Lost In Space” and reprised his role when the movie came out. (And, if you like, there seems to be another interview with Dick here).

Dick’s career has spanned a great deal more than just “Lost In Space”. I remember him as a long time announcer of the Grammy’s among other shows (his signoff that I remember was “This is Dick Tufeld speaking”). I can’t find too much present day information on him to know if at 82 he’s still working, other than some somewhat suspect web sites that I cannot confirm as credible.

But what I loved though, from the 1997 interview, was this quote, telling a story that almost every professional voice talent can relate to and laaaughh!

Q: How did you get the voice job of the Robot?
Dick Tufeld: When I was 18 years old, I was working one summer at KLCA-LA radio, and I used to announce shows and do station breaks, etc. There was a literary agent named Irwin Allen, who must have been, I’m guessing, 35 years old at the time, who would walk in and nod to me, and I’d nod to him — I was just a kid at the time. He had a Hollywood gossip show, and I’d spin the theme music for it and announce him, for 15 minutes once a week. Then he’d leave and nod to me, and I’d nod to him. That was the extent of our conversation.

Twenty years go by, and he was walking out of the commissary at 20th Century Fox and there was a guy named Emmett Labry, Jr. who was in the business affairs department. Irwin ran into Emmett and said that he had a new series going on air in a few weeks. “We need a narrator and is there anybody you can think of?’ Emmett was a friend of mine, and said “How about Dick Tufeld?”

In one of the most astonishing statements I’ve heard repeated to me, Irwin turned to Emmett and said “Dick Tufeld, my oldest and dearest friend — great idea!” Which I think is pretty funny. Irwin contacted my agent, and they got an audio tape of my voice doing some narration. Irwin liked it and I became the narrator of the show.

About two weeks later I got a call from Irwin’s office asking me to read for a robot character. So I go in there, and think this is good. He hands me some copy, and I say “Irwin, I presume what you are looking for a mechanical, robot-ian kind of robot sound.” He looks at me and says “My dear boy, that is precisely what I do not want. This is a very highly advanced culture in the year 1997.” Of course that seemed to be very far away to everybody [chuckle]. “I want a cultured low- key voice, (I would equate this with the voice of computer Hal in “2001”), an Alexander Scourby” — the wonderful NY actor and narrator voice who has passed on – and he said “that’s what I’m looking for.”

So I started reading for Irwin with my best Scourby imitation, and I’m not coloring the words and I’m doing an unemotional read and I’m saying “Warning that does not compute.” He says no, that’s not it, and I do it again, and then he says no, that’s not it, and I try something else and that’s not it. All this time I’m trying to do my best Alexander Scourby imitation. And he finally says to me, after about 10 minutes, “Well Dick, I appreciate you coming in. To be honest with you, you’re not getting this, so I have to look further for this. But you’re still the narrator on this show.” And I say to Irwin, “Thank you very much.”

I take my reading glasses off and start packing up my attaché case. And God knows why I even did this. I say to Irwin, “Let me try one more thing for you just before I go.” And now I read the line in my best mechanical, robot-ian kind of way and I say “Warning that does not compute.”

And he says “Jesus Christ, that’s the Alexander Scourby approach I was looking for, what the hell took you so long?” Honestly, I had to literally turn away from him, so as not to laugh in his face, because I was so convulsed.

It was the classic example of what people say they want, and what they are actually looking for. They are two different things. In a sense I was *very* fortunate to become the voice of the Robot, because if I had not said “let me try one more thing” as I was walking out obviously I would never have been the voice of the Robot. It was a kind of a fluke the way it happened.

That IS a classic and oddly timeless truth that makes me smile, knowing the challenges of today in voice over aren’t actually that different from those great talents who paved the way for us.

Thanks Dick. Love your voice, love your humor!

Tags: announcers, audio'connell voice over talent, character voices, commentary, marketing, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover // 6 Comments »

I’m not talking about the Facebook, LinkedIn Groups, or Voiceover Universe memberships that are little more than a button press. This post is more about memberships in real world organizations that have events and meetings that I personally attend as part of my marketing efforts.

In this case, I needed to add some stuff and I am glad I did. Why?

People still do business with friends but to make the friends to do business with you gotta get yourself to the right events.

So where am I now a member? Well most of these are regional associations or groups but my point to you is you may want to take a look at groups in your area similar to mine and get in with them if it fits with your branding and marketing efforts.

Buffalo Niagara Sales and Marketing Executives – Well this is a constant as I have been a member since 1989, past president the whole shootin’ match. Lots of friends and new faces. High comfort level. It used to be part of an international association (which didn’t do much) but my point here is that there are some other SME groups across the country and maybe in your neck of the woods. You should investigate.

The Ad Club of Buffalo –You’re never really sure who you are going to see here. It’s not an immediately welcoming group (with some very nice and notably exceptions) if you don’t directly work for an ad agency (or maybe they just have a thing against VO’s or even just me) but if you show up enough you become not so much accepted as expected. That’s how it feels to me anyway. But there’s money in them thar hills so we trudge along.

Amherst Chamber of Commerce – Buffalo has a chamber-like organization but its really not focused on small business. The Amherst Chamber, in our area’s largest and most affluent suburb, is focused on small business. Just joined their Business Resource Committee (cause you can’t join a group if you’re not willing to contribute…and that contribution usually pays dividends) so this looks promising.

Buffalo Broadcasters Association – I doubt there is a ton of business potential here; I think I’ve been a member for 2 years. To me it’s an association that’s still trying to find it way while doing work for the broadcasting community that has real worth. I just feel like I should belong and support that; and hey, some of the mixers are great fun too.

Media Communications Association – International – Well simply put, this is Connie Terwilliger’s fault. There is no Western New York chapter but maybe just being in the directory could lead to something. No, I will NOT be overseeing the start of a new chapter here.

Communications Association of the Southern Tier – This is another kind of distant group for me, about three hours away. But its near my in-laws so its not so out of the realm that I could attend a meeting or two. Plus I’ll be in the directory. Much in the plus column is the call I got from their membership chair recently welcoming me to the club. That kind of occurrence is more rare than you think or than it should be for a membership driven group. Kudos to CAST.

Where do you have memberships? Are they helping your brand and your business?

Tags: commentary // 3 Comments »

It is not new technology per se but because it’s being executed now in beta by Google Labs, Google’s introduction of a new service that will catalog all the words uttered from a posted an audio or video clip is news. It’s a game changer.

A company with billions of dollars and oodles of clout can do that.

This new audio indexing service directly impacts the businesses of voice over, marketing and advertising (and, well, actually every business that uses the web) in a monumental way.

Of course I’ll tell you why. 😉

A company’s success or failure on the web can be attributed, in my opinion, to one primary element: words. How a company manages and places its words on the web, whether it be in text, header bars, and ad words etc. creates results and rankings in search engines like Google that can mean success or failure.

Do you think companies interested in buying your product or service are going to sift through 10 pages on Google to find your 100th ranked search results after they have find what they need in the first two or three pages on Google? The odds are very low.

Using words correctly on a web site, key words particularly, is both an art and a science. But our audio and video clips haven’t had much of an impact on SEO save for maybe a tag here or there. But Google is ratcheting up the game of tag now.

If Gaudi (a bit like audi-o’connell don’t you think?) will catalog words on audio and video clips on your site…the SEO possibilities seem quite enormous. Posted commercials maybe written entirely for the web to enhance optimization. Audio demos that have brand names featured in copy might then have that brand more closely associated with a voice talent. The web becomes a more valuable tool with the automatic transcription of sound into words.

Possibilities = endless.

Want to know what else occurred to me, just for a nano second while ruminating around all these possible changes?

Because of all the words that will eventually be added to search as a result of Gaudi, what it becomes too much for the Google algorithms used as the basis of its current search platform? Or what if they determine that words are not the best element upon which to base their optimization tools? What if they are working on that completely new search engine model right now that will force all of us to totally revise our web strategies?

Wrap your head around that for a minute, won’t you? Don’t worry, the panicky feeling goes away eventually.

Tags: advertising, commentary, google, marketing, search engine marketing, voiceover // 2 Comments »

I was recently feeling overwhelmed, being unable to get my head around my personal organization and time management. It’s ultimately a good thing because it was my internal manager telling me to stop, drop and re-tool.

The main culprit of my concern was all of my own doing. It was my RSS feeds….all the blogs and news feeds I subscribed to got to be too much. I would open the reader up and there would easily be over 500 posts. A day. Every day.

No way in h-e-double hockey sticks did I read all those posts, many on technical issues that I wanted to try and understand but more often than not came away feeling more like an English speaking student in a French high school. Nothing made sense and my shot at a prom date was nil. Even on other non tech posts there was a bunch of content too that I felt obliged to scan. Crikey!

I needed to hold an intervention with myself. Armed with a delete key and an itchy index finger, I started cutting and deleting and I felt much better. I was reading stuff from people I thought I should follow but it turns out they didn’t keep my interest (and I’m sure people could and have said the same about me…posts like this don’t help my cause.)

To now scan about 150 posts in my main areas of interest with people whose content I more closely value is a cake walk. Again…I scan all and read some. But to start with such a big number as I used to really made me feel overwhelmed. Now, not so much. It used to be hitting “Mark All As Read” was a kind of a white flag, a surrender of sorts for posts that I would never get to. Now it’s cause I scanned and am done. Much better feeling.

How are you at managing your RSS habit?

Tags: blogs, commentary, internet, social networking, technology // 2 Comments »