I find myself fascinating. Not in an egotistical “but enough about me what do YOU think of me?” way but rather in the way my mind works, has work and what I have remembered from childhood. Those weird pockets of memories that come to the fore every now and again are both powerful and sometimes confusing to me.

The purpose of that preamble is to advise you that today, April 21, 2008 is the 130th Anniversary of the fire pole. The whole history is nicely summarized here.

How this all ties together is that I always wanted a fire pole in my house to be able to get from one floor to another. As a child I thought that was cool and my opinion hasn’t changed. My father would ask me how I would build it and where with great interest but he never got the thing installed.

It was further heightened by the Batman TV show and the Batman movie. To me nothing could be more fun than flipping a secret switch, have a fake wall slide away to reveal a pole. It could lead to the bat cave or the kitchen I really didn’t care but how fun would that be?!

And in the Batman movie, you got to see a lot more of the bat poles in stately Wayne Manor including the switches Batman and Robin switched to change outfits. I still haven’t figured out how they flipped a switch while on the poles AND changed outfits.

But I have owned two homes and I still haven’t installed a pole. And I think I probably won’t. Yet on this anniversary day, it was fun to have that thought slide its way right up to the front of the line in my brain.

Do you come across this odd childhood memories too?

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Tags: commentary, peter o'connell, silliness // 2 Comments »

What a week it has been. Busy recording and doing a ton of refreshing to the web site (more on that in a later post).

Plus the weather is getting better so all the humans in the northeast are coming out of hibernation. Evening walks are often pleasantly interrupted by neighbors outside chatting, that’s a good thing.

Taxes were due this week and I need to confirm something that has been widely speculated – New York State does indeed suck.

Daughter got a cold from one of the kids at the christening awhile back so wife catches the cold too….while nursing and caring for our birthday boy (who is two months old today, hurray!) This all means moods are justifiably all over the place by the time I get back from work (did I mention the kitchen re-do that’s going on in the midst of all this).

Wheeeee!

From the blogosphere two immense surprises directly related to yours truly. One was via Kara Edwards responding to a blog tag from Stu Gray….I was also tagged and didn’t realize it (and I’m a subscriber to his blog…but a bleary eye subscriber for the past two months – see above). So I jotted down some thoughts- about- his- query.

Then the ultimate compliment and a first, I think….I was not only in the title of a blog post but most of it was written about me. Amazing. And it was complimentary. Doubly amazing.

My pal and fellow VO Mary McKitrick (who was one of the first voices added to the International Voice Talents web site…Muss sie Deutsch sprechen? Ja, das ist richtig.) was harkening back to a post I made on the VO-BB I think in the early 1930’s regarding marketing tricks, tools and habits.

One of my marketing habits for years has been to have breakfast at a local bagel shop. Now it didn’t start as a marketing habit so much as a “I like to eat and see people and when you’re working at home you don’t always get to see people so a bagel shop every morning is a good option” habit. But it evolved in to a marketing habit as I began to see business peers there and we would chat up business. Leads began to appear and I began to close some business.

Turns out my marketing habit (aka the bagel marketing theory , I call copyright!) has stuck in Mary’s impressive cranium for sometime.

Now part of the success of the BMT/sales lead strategy is that I knew some of the people I saw at the bagel shop from other networking events I attended…and I am very aggressive in my networking…I go to as many events as time allows.

Sidebar: I went to a new trade show yesterday, so active are my marketing hormones, and got one good lead. For the people at the booths who had been there since mid-morning, it looked like they were attending a wake. They were sooo glad to see me; “steady but slow” was how they described the traffic at the show. I don’t think we’ll see this trade show again next year.

So the BMT was what Mary was commenting on in her blog, to the extent that practically and as a habit she can’t bring herself to do bagel marketing.

It is because she’s anti-bagel? Well it might be as she referenced in her blog a very healthy breakfast option that sounded disgustingly natural and good for you. For those of us with the gigantisch networking gene, we attend events with fat filled muffins and sugary sweet danish and Swedish meatballs and often a fully stocked bar. Don’t let the occasional fruit or vegetable tray fool you. Professional networkers eat like crap because we have more important things to do, like pass business cards and laugh heartily at unfunny stories. But I digress.

Understand that until the kidney stones reared their pesky selves last year, I’ve had a large Pepsi and Cinnamon Raisin bagel with butter not toasted waiting for me every morning for years, 6-7 days a week. You do the calorie count on that feast and I’ll get you a donut while we’re waiting. Now I ease up on the Pepsi, how sad. And I seem to still be digressing, back now to my bagel marketing theory.

So Mary’s possible bagel prejudice aside (and we all have prejudices, mine revolve around vegetables) she has a real and practical challenge in the morning of getting her family started on their day.

This is also a challenge I now face. Yes, the bagel marketing routine at audio’connell Voice Over Talent has been interrupted by children.

Children, it turns out, are akin to marketing kryptonite. Time once set aside for networking (bagel or otherwise) is now taken up by family activities and responsibilities. Now, we all have children to serve a very real need in our hearts and lives…which is to have them grow up healthy and strong enough to do the our chores for us (house cleaning, lawn care etc) and so that we parents may be an enormous burden to them in our later years. It’s the circle of life.

Mary and I both share this marketing kryptonite challenge now though she is closer to her breakfast finish line than I am. Nor does she share my opinion of children’s true purpose in their parent’s lives…well actually neither do I but it sure does read funny.

In her post, Mary touched on what I think is the crux of the matter (she’s too smart not to have figured it out). It doesn’t have to be a breakfast place or even breakfast time when you network everyday or at least a few days a week. Doesn’t even have to be a meal.

Business owners need to figure out where the potential leads are, see how that location or activity fits into your daily schedule and if you can swing it, do it. Regularly. Hence the habit. And obviously for it to work, it has to be something you enjoy.

And if you can’t swing a bagel marketing habit, that’s OK too. Remember, a marketing plan can have 10, 20, 30+ channels through which you can get your marketing message out. Networking events, print ads, web sites, radio spots, church bulletins etc. You’ll have lots of opportunities to get your message out there.

The benefit of the bagel marketing theory is that it is low cost/no cost

Mary mentions a karate class she attends (yikes!) which I am sure has either fellow students or maybe parents of fellow students there which could be leads.

It’s a soft sell, these options, but that’s value of bagel marketing – networking in a non-sales environment. People don’t have their guard up (well, you may if you’re on the mat at a karate class but that’s also not the time to ask “so what do you do for a living?” — thump!). With bagel marketing people are usually open to conversation.

Ah, there’s the rub, conversation. In a bagel shop or in a karate class or in a book club, people converse and they ask about you. And you answer their question when they ask “what do you do?” and it’s not a sales pitch. If what you answer to a “job inquiry” question is applicable to something or someone in their life, they ask you more (a sure sign of sales interest) which means they are selling themselves on you…how wonderful!

At networking events, it’s not the same thing. Friendly and unassuming as we all are, it’s a slightly stilted environment…our Star Trek shields are at half power, Mr. Sulu, but certainly not “shields down”.

So pick whatever habit you like that will also put you in front of people who may be good prospects. And don’t sell. Don’t ever sell. Converse. If you start saying anything that sounds like a features and benefits presentation, step back, walk over to the nearest wall and bang your head against it one time. Then go back and resume the conversation. Don’t worry, you won’t remember your faux pas and all the other person you were speaking with will now only want to talk about why you just slammed your head into the wall.

Or they may just walk away from you quickly; I’ve found it’s a 50/50 proposition.

But always, always have your business cards with you. At karate class, on the beach, in church (“bless me Father for I have marketed”), everywhere you can “converse”.

Otherwise you will be caught with your professional pants down and that’s just as awful a feeling when it happens to you in front of a great business prospect as it is a mental image for the rest of us.

What fun it has been to be a blog subject. Thanks for the ping, Mary.

P.S. Read Mary’s wonderful response here!

Thanks for reading.

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Tags: commentary, marketing, peter o'connell, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice // 6 Comments »

Last year, as I made mention in this space, I attended Podcamp Boston 2. There was an expected attendance of 1,000 at the home of the original Podcamp (which really interested me) but many fewer than that showed up (including some no-show presenters). I spent both time and money to attend the event and came away generally disappointed from the educational and interpersonal experiences I had. Looking back now, I wish I had spent that money elsewhere on my business. Ouch.

Compare that to my experience at the first Podcamp Toronto, which was a tremendous event for me professionally and personally and another impetus for me making the Boston trip. With the birth of my son coinciding with Podcamp Toronto 2 this year, I wasn’t able to attend but was still a sponsor, so committed was I to that event.

Now, Brogan and Penn, two of the founders of the original Podcamp event have announced that Podcamp Boston 3 will charge $50 a head. While this changes part of Podcamp’s original manifesto and will likely upset somebody (big deal, even the United States Constitution has been amended) I think it’s the right call. Podcamp is growing up and I think it needs to.

A free event asks no commitment from prospective participants, so who cares if on Saturday morning, an attendee decides to sleep in and not go to Podcamp. But multiple that a few hundred times and you’ve got fewer fannies in the seats than you had promised your paid sponsors. That’s a serious business problem.

For Podcamps to truly succeed they have to attract businesses as part of their audience, it’s a financial imperative. Businesses who attend will pay to do so and businesses who go further in their commitment to Podcamps by sponsoring them want a fairly concrete audience commitment. The free model, as it ages, offers more quicksand than concrete.

A fee more strongly encourages commitment without sacrificing quality or content. Producers of Podcamp Boston 3 aren’t making any money off the fee as its plowed right back into the event. It’s a good business decision that will truly test if Podcamps have staying power and real impact on both social media and business.

I want both the idea and actual Podcamps everywhere to succeed. Having real investors in each Podcamp bodes a lot better for its future than relying on pie-in the sky hopes and walk up traffic. Charging a small fee for Podcamps is a smart move.

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Tags: commentary, podcampboston, podcasting, social media, social networking // 2 Comments »

I promise you by this point, Stu is so sorry he tagged me on this he may never blog again. But he should anyway 😉

4. What’s the best book(s) you have read to help you become successful at what you do?

Someday I may write a book about the voice over business and on that day I am going to be really pissed at myself for writing this but it’s what’s in my heart and my heart’s edit button seems to be on the fritz so here ’tis: voice over books are not very helpful for being a voice over talent.

Thud!

If you are at a point in your career where you have no idea about the technical and/or business side of the voice over business, well then you’re really behind the 8 ball and some of those book will be helpful.

Make no mistake here, the authors aren’t bad people nor are they full of beans. They have tips, they have tricks and some shortcuts.

But to be successful in voiceover, you have to be able to perform and performance comes from doing not reading a book (unless it is out loud). Focus on your talent before you touch a voice over book.

You need to get to a group class, especially if you’re new to the business. I do not recommend you go to an individual class. Do that later. First, get with a group. Audit the class, listen to the performers, and talk with them. Assess your own performance either internally or externally based on what you’ve seen. Do you have the voice for the business? No? Stop. Yes? Then go to about 4-6 classes.

Do you feel the passion going to class or does going to class get in the way of other stuff you want or need to do? If it’s because of the teacher or the group, find another one. Chemistry is important, to be sure. Is it not about the chemistry?

If going to VO class feels like a chore, stop! Get off the voice over horse. You’re done.

Go be a lector at church or call a bingo game for charity or offer to help with a local blind reading service. All sincerely noble and charitable tasks for which you will be greatly rewarded.

But you will not make it in the business of voice over so don’t even try.

Ouch? Oh please, not even close. When the door of voice over rejection smashes the cartilage in your nose to beyond repair then OK, maybe a little owie. But what I am doing here is saving you the pain.

You have to want it, this voice over dream. Thousands share that great passion every day. The art of performance has to be so deep within you that you dream about doing the work, not making piles of money or dating Scarlett Johansson (see, you thought we didn’t know).

If you don’t want to perform voice over so badly that a chance to get on mic makes you delightfully happy, if the thought of being picked for a voice acting role doesn’t really thrill you for more than just a paycheck, no voiceover book in the world will help you succeed in this business. Period.

You know, except maybe mine.

So endth the lesson. Blame Stu.

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Tags: blogs, commentary, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog // 2 Comments »

In this episode of “Desperate Bloviating”, Stu asks a very introspective question that takes us Back to The Future.

3. What advice would you give a young VO professional?

If I were me talking to me 25 years ago and I wasn’t allowed to tell myself which stocks to buy, which teams to bet on and which hot girl actually thought I was cute but young me didn’t know it and I blew my shot with her but I’m over it and its not an issue, then I guess the only thing left to offer myself would be voice over advice.

But boy there sure would be a lot more stuff I would like to tell me. Anyway, here goes:

Peter, your professional reputation in voice over is everything.

In business, try and treat people the same way you want to be treated. Talk to people, not at them and for God sake LISTEN. You have two ears and one mouth and your opinion sounds brilliant to you but others sometimes think you are a babbling idiot so stop proving them right and be quiet more! When blogging is invented, then you can babble to your hearts content and people will just delete you and I’ll explain what delete is and what computers are later.

Humor is good, obnoxious is bad. Learn the difference quickly.

You are going to make mistakes, you are going to offend. Make sure it’s not intentional and that it is infrequent. Sometimes these situations will be obvious and sometimes you won’t know who you’ve alienated. When you screw up, own up to it and apologize. It may not fix it, but it’s the right thing (and sometimes the only thing) to do. Then move on.

While you need to be careful not to be arrogant it is OK to be confident. If that line gets blurred, refer to the paragraph above. You are talented but you can build on that talent by learning from everyone in your industry, even the idiots (if they go left, you go right…don’t do what they do)

Finally, appreciate that there is much in your career you can control but much more that you cannot control. Flexibility and patience will be in great demand throughout your life and it will test you mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally. Sometimes you will encounter the odd client who is in a bad mood on recording day and your shirt is his least favorite color and how were you supposed know. Remember what your Dad told you “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

Oh, you’re going to have at least two children and wife all of whom are too good for you and none of whom you deserve. Take great care of that fortune and try not to be a burden to them.

Our story concludes tomorrow.

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Tags: blogs, commentary, peter o'connell, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog // 3 Comments »

Our story continues now with the “Perils of Bloviating” in which a kindly blogger asked a few simple questions in search of a few simple answers only to find out that voice talkers never use two words when two thousand words are available.

2. What habits have blocked you from success?

In the voice over business, like in almost any business, we voice talents can’t get out of our own way regarding our success sometimes and that’s been true for me too. We are called voice artists and that term artist brings with it a lot of baggage including ego, opinion, self deprecation, fear, loathing, lack of focus, self-worth, selfishness and about a thesaurus’ worth of even more descriptions all of which can be the first (but not that last) things that can get in my/your/our way on the path to success.

Learning from history but not dwelling on it was one of the first thoughts that came to mind with this question. The wouldas, shouldas and couldas of this business can haunt you and occasionally that gets in my head too. Sometimes the voice “artist” in us sporadically wants to make us suffer…we need to turn the slider on the microphone of that “artist” voice down to 0.

Lost opportunities, poor choices, slow responses in a myriad of business situations over a career dot everyone’s professional landscape, mine too. The key take away, though is to learn from the mistakes but also learn to let go of the mistake. If your business is in a lull, don’t think about the wouldas, shouldas and couldas but rather the “ares” and “ams”. “We are going to make some calls to prospects today” or “I am going to attend a local networking event.” Positive wins and action achieves.

Another challenge is not focusing enough time to manage the business. Sometimes it’s the work load and sometimes organizing your profit and loss statement just isn’t very interesting. But at the end of the year or at tax time when you’ve found that over the past year you were spending like a drunken sailor and your net profit isn’t as large as you’d hoped or needed, you’ll be sorry you didn’t focus a bit more on the debits, credits and other core elements of the business.

More tomorrow.

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Tags: blogs, commentary, peter o'connell, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog // 1 Comment »