Newsletter

January 2008 · Newsletter Archive

"Don't be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."
-- Buckminster Fuller

"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act."
-- Anatole France

"The wisest men follow their own direction."
-- Euripedes

A Good Problem to Have

Starting out this next New Year, you may, at first blush, consider "good problems" to be something of an oxymoron. Okay, you're right! It is.

But, consider what would be a good problem to have.

How about:

Having too many auditions.
Or having so many jobs you have to quit the day job and focus on being a professional talent full-time.
You're getting so many gigs--you have to hire a whole staff of people to handle promotion, finances, scheduling--the works.
How about being so book-able, you set a trend in the industry and the client has to consider the fact whether you might be a bit over-exposed. That would be a very good problem.
Or how about having a handful of truly outstanding talent agents and managers vying to rep you.
How about delivering so many great reads at every session, the director/client can't decide which one to use as the 'keeper'. ("Man, they're ALL awesome. Tough call.")
How about having too much work you couldn't possibly take on even one more gig. (I mean there are only so many hours in the day.)
How about being too smart, too good-looking, too articulate, too sane, too happy, too pleasant, too fun, too patient, too decent, too popular, too desirable, too savvy, too cool, too talented, too insightful, too intuitive, too playful, too clever, too buoyant, too considerate, too "right", too thoughtful, too appreciative, too able, too sought-after, too healthy, too clear-headed, too rested, too young...too young. (How old would you have to be to be too young?)
And, of course, (it's almost too cliche to mention it...but) having more so much money, you couldn't possible use even...one...more...penny. (Please...get it away from me! Ugh!)
Or how about having too much time to pursue your deepest dreams and most heart-felt wishes.
Well, there you have it...all of them very good problems to have.

We wish you all of them...and all at once. We will very happily assist you the best we can when they arise.

We'll be here for the not-so-good-problems, too, of course. But never hope for 'no-problems' at all. You're not in the game if you haven't got a single problem. In fact, it would be doubtful you'd be alive at all.

Instead, check your pulse. Pinch yourself. Know you're awake and kicking. And roll the dice again when your turn comes around.

Play for keeps. Play for fun. But just...play! You're in very good company. And it is YOUR turn.

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
--Edgar Allan Poe

What 'Working Your Chops' Really Means

If you haven't already, make it your edict this year to work part-time as a professional talent. Well done!

If you consider part-time for any line of work is 18-20 hours then it stands to reason pursuing work as a talent should require you eventually commit 18-20 hours a week keeping your skills sharp and thoroughly promoting yourself if you expect to work.

This is a gradual thing but you do have to put the time in.

No one expects you to drop whatever it is you're doing and run away to join the circus. We want you to be realistic about this.

Starting any small business requires, at the very least, 20 hours a week to initially get off the ground. (In fact, any other small business demands up to 100 or more hours a week, for at least 3 years or more...so consider yourself lucky. You're actually getting off pretty easy.)

That may be a given and could be considered the absolute bare minimum of effort you need to put in at the start of any new endeavor. Additionally, it's important you set targets if you hope to accomplish anything.

To begin, make it your goal to spend at least 20 minutes to a half an hour, 4-5 times a week, doing your vocal warm-ups to keep your articulation on-point. Then spend another half hour, 4-5 times a week, working your cold-reading skills. Ideally this should be done in front of a mirror where you can focus your delivery. In other words, get the read off the page and into the mirror. (Keep going...Off the page and into the mirror.)

Okay, you're half way to fulfilling your part-time commitment--just keep going!
It only takes 2 weeks to create a habit of anything.

Now, you need to spend another 8-10 hours a week promoting yourself.
Promotion is a two-fold process: first, you have to promote yourself through repeated mailings to the talent agents until you're truly satisfied with the representation you have and, secondly, by promoting yourself with multiple mailings to producers and casting sources to make yourself known and available to those most likely to hire you.

If you don't have a competitive demo and postcards or proper headshots and a resume to promote just yet, then the time allotted to promotion can be concentrated into coaching and in-studio workshops while you're in the process of creating those all-important promotional tools. You can't work without headshots (if you intend to pursue on-camera work) or a truly competitive voiceover demo.

Make it your aim to gradually build up to 18-20 hours a week sharpening your performance skills and promoting yourself. Beyond that the goal is to maintain a constant and steady diet of it. If you do, I'm confident you will experience some real progress within six months to a year. That's a rather rapid return on any start-up business.

On the other hand, if you don't put in that kind of time, it will take you considerably longer to establish yourself.

Additionally, if the only time you work your skills is when you are here with us at Sound Advice--then your career will begin and end at our front door. That will only result in frustration on both our parts, which is counter-productive.

So, be sure to do your job. Just take a few baby steps to begin.

Do your homework. Continue to keep your skills agile. That's precisely what we mean when we say, "Work your chops!" This is why performance is considered a discipline.

This business may not appear all that random or subjective if you know what is needed and wanted of you and you're prepared and committed to doing your job to the best of your abilities. There's always something you can be doing to forward your career and sharpen your skills.

At Sound Advice, we're happy to give you the keys to the kingdom--just try not to lose them in the couch.

"Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity."
-- Unknown

Promoting Your Demo and Website

"Hey Gang... what do we think of CommercialVoices.com? Worth it? Another oar in the water... thanks." -BMW

I have to say, this site violates every Internet "DON'T" in the book. It begins with a very dated mnemonic AND has an automated narrative that blares at you (whether you like it or not) the moment you arrive to the site. Here's why it's inappropriate: most of us are listening to their iTunes when surfing the net. The POWER of CHOICE is a rule being violated here. One of the most basic, steadfast rules of Internet web design is if we want to listen to ANYTHING we will do so ONLY if we click on it first.

So, when a site such as this one has an automated greeting/ sfx/ music/ vox or (oh, horror of horrors) all of the above--it becomes immediately and completely off-putting because it creates a collision-cacophony that demands you STOP whatever it is you're doing--curse those who are even remotely connected to the site for interrupting your even flow of productivity while you search frantically for a button to turn the offensive thing OFF! Which, alas, to add to my misery--doesn't exist on this site.

Okay... all that said I'm pretty confident who actually might find a site such as this "valuable." Ironically, they are neither commercial nor promising as clients. Instead they are likely to be rather low-paying, corporate clients who have no notion of what your skills are worth or what to pay you. To add to this they generally will treat you as if you were a producer by foisting a barrage of technical questions on you such as: what's your rate, the studio rate, how long will it take, can I have it by Thursday (and it's now Tuesday night), can you burn the discs as well as post it to an ftp, how about adding music and SFX?

To add to this, we couldn't get a single demo from this site to play--not that Colleen and I persisted beyond 3 or 4 attempts. Regardless, the point is, not one worked, which is completely counterproductive to what's advertised. If you make me click 5-6 times or more just to expose the button that grants access to your "demo"--well, you've lost better than 90% of your potential audience. (Ideally, we should find and have clicked on your demo in less than 2-3 clicks of a mouse--no more! This is the standard.)

To summarize: you'd do better to concentrate your promotional efforts toward your own site with options that link others to your site! That should be your primary aim. You already know your site works and does so immediately. Your site speaks for itself and sounds awesome.

Okay, so you had to ask, right? I honestly don't mean to be such a downer, but--it is what it is. -KM

"Thanks Kate.... glad I asked... So, I'm doing about 100 cards/week to ad agencies, did about 70 emails to voicebank talent agents (nationwide) this week. Should I be sending CDs to ad agencies as well?" -BMW

Yes, you should be promoting yourself and your web site (via postcards) to the copywriters and producers at the AD AGENCIES... absolutely! This is a non-stop (continual) promotional process.

Our standard promotional program is as follows:

week one: postcard,
then skip a week,
then week 3: postcard,
then skip a week,
then another postcard on week five.

This is what we consider a proper direct mailing campaign to AD AGENCY CONTACTS and it's been our standard at Sound Advice for more than 15 years. To put it simply, doing anything less will garner little if any results. A full campaign of this five-week process should be done at least three-to-five times a year, to each individual professional contact in order to create an effective promotional impact.

How this works is the same individual becomes familiar with you, your demo, your site and your name/identity directly. Everyone wants to discover the next 'IT' voiceover. And with repetition comes familiarity, and with familiarity--a comfort zone develops, and that leads to hiring you with confidence. This is precisely how we (talent) make ourselves available to the work.

That's how you kick the door open on your career. You need to get a little relentless about it.

"I guess I've been daunted by the huge numbers of ad folks out there---there are 20-something pages of Midwest contacts. Then the NY list. Sheesh. Dat's a lotta discs." -BMW

Regarding becoming overwhelmed by the sheer number of individual AD AGENCY contacts even in the Midwest alone... all the more reason you need to implement our promotional plan at least ONCE a year...and to EACH region.

The irony of this is: most talent complain the promotional plans they invest in are too vague and contain too few, too out-of-date contacts. Additionally, these plans cost three times more than ours. (It's very difficult to delineate the true value of the service we deliver to you on every level, without compromising ourselves. But we assure you--nothing even remotely compares!)

"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up."
-- Thomas A. Edison

Something NEW!

Regarding the sheer number of contacts and your continued promotion, we have a slight change this year: instead of mass replicating your demo on CD, we now suggest you simply replace the second mailing to the AD AGENCIES (or third week in your five week promotional process) with your demo postcard.

Here's why: the postal service can't seem to make up its mind whether its rate has increased (by more than double) to mail a CD, (even in our favorite form, the C-Shell) or not. So, rather than struggling with the Post Office--simplify! We NOW suggest you send your demo postcards for each repetition and ONLY duplicate about 50 CDs to promote yourself to talent agents (both locally and nationally).

If you have a surplus of CDs--USE THEM! Plan on 2-3 major promotions of those demos this year to the AD AGENCIES nationwide and to smaller markets. This is extremely effective!!

Also, be sure to send out at least one great 'tsunami' of a mailing to our national TALENT AGENTS list. (Call Jolene in our Chicago office, she'll forward you a list that's been recently updated!) There are more than 80 talent agencies to promote to nationwide! If you consider the TALENT AGENCY promotion averages eight weeks long, and you're sending at least four demos to each agency over that eight week period (you need to do this until you secure effective, professional representation) then that could easily require as many as 300 discs or more.

If the sheer numbers of promoting yourself overwhelms you, consider this: most talent fall short of promoting themselves for that single reason: they just can't confront it. And as a result all the wheels fall off the wagon and utter oblivion sets in.

This year's slight change in plan of simply sending out postcards for all three mailings, rather than postcards and CDs to the AD AGENCIES will ultimately save you a great deal of time and money--and certainly make confronting this process a great deal easier.

But be sure to do the REPEATED mailings, week after week--that's the primary thing.

To the AD AGENCY CONTACTS the SOUND ADVICE promotional process is:

WEEK ONE, then skip a week,
WEEK THREE, then skip a week,
then WEEK FIVE--sending a postcard each time.

To the TALENT AGENTS, the SOUND ADVICE promotional process is: once a week for a good eight weeks solid or at least until you hear from there and secure representation. Follow the game plan as it is laid out in full detail in THE SOUND ADVICE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF VOICEOVER.

Just make a point of keeping your name out there and allow these professional contacts you're promoting to continual access to your demo via your VOICEOVER ONLY web page. You will most certainly garner results if you do. But you have to remain diligent and consistent.

This is how you create name recognition. Sooner or later someone will check out your site and eventually audition you, rep you, and/or book you.

It's important to mention, EVERY mailing list has a shelf life of only a few short weeks, so once you have your postcards IN HAND call us to get an updated list.

It doesn't help anyone to send out only one postcard in April, another postcard in September, and another postcard the following January--especially with the same old, musty list you picked up last February! (You'll be lucky if even half that list is still effective after three months!)

Our mailing lists are updated continually and have a less-than-5% margin of error when you get them, but that changes rapidly within a few short weeks. They are meant to be used immediately. So, don't sit on it! These contacts move around a LOT! It's an extremely kinetic industry!

If you need help sending your promo out due to personal time commitments... we have assistance. Just ask Colleen (colleen@bighousecasting.com), she'll refer you to a reliable person for hire that will be more than happy to put your mailing together for a reasonable rate and see to it that it gets out there quickly and effectively.

The objective is to create a steady momentum that will advance your game dramatically. Beyond that it's your job to maintain your vocal skills and be ready at a moments notice to deliver the best possible performance. As talent, we're expected to continually prepare to deliver. That never goes away. It's a constant.

We truly want you to succeed. Even if you've taken something of a hiatus and are unsure on how to progress from here--we're here to help. Drop us a line and we'll assist from there. We'll give you a game plan and a timeline to do it in. You can do this. I have every confidence you can. Trust me, there are far harder things in life than this.

Parting thoughts...

We look forward to seeing you succeed this year. We'll do our part. Both our LA and Chicago offices have the most remarkable, unflappable people poised and ready to see you through--but we expect you to do your part.

Step up to the plate. Dig in and nail it out of the park. It's time.

Wishing you the best of the New Year...and always! -Kate and crew

"To want to be what one can be is purpose in life."
-- Cynthia Ozick

"Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work."
-- Unknown