Newsletter

October 2008 · Newsletter Archive

“I work hard because nothing worthwhile ever came easy.”
-- Paul Newman

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
--Thomas Jefferson

The Finer Points of Promotion

The purpose of repeated mailings is to develop name recognition and to generate a momentum with your career.

There are essentially two distinctly different types of mailings you need to continually send out as a professional talent:

1) To the talent agents
2) AND to the Advertising people who are most likely to hire you as a voiceover (i.e. producers & copywriters).

If you stop promoting, then you simply need to start again and make it your aim to keep the ball in play for an extended period of time. Auditions are promotion and promotion is a form of auditioning and like auditioning it requires tenacity and I know you have that. You wouldn’t be reading this right now if you didn’t. You would have given up even considering this as an option a long time ago if that were the case. So, keep at it!

At SOUND ADVICE we’ve created an effective marketing plan for you to follow to pursue and secure talent agents locally as well as from various regions nationwide in order to increase the frequency of your auditions and the likelihood of booking jobs.

Your weekly promotional mailings need to continue until:
a) you get the sort of representation that is landing you steady auditions... and then,
b) you’re landing steady work.

To achieve these two very attainable goals, requires perseverance on your part, after all this is your small business as a working talent. You’ll never know for sure whether this process works or not if you don’t apply yourself whole-heartedly.

We suggest you promote yourself steadily once a week for a good 6-8 weeks to the talent agents, both locally and the agents we have designated for you that are out-of-state. This process is laid out in detail in “The SOUND ADVICE Encyclopedia of Voice-over” in the ‘How to Get an Agent’ chapter. We’ve even dictated the brief notes to the agents for you. There are enough included to avoid sounding stale or over-used, so mix it up.

Even if you have promoted yourself to the agents in the past, you need to persist at this process IN FULL, sometimes as many as three times over. You MUST persist until you illicit a response and ultimately secure proper representation. We want to see you succeed. For this you must persist and follow our process to the letter! Just keep on course. It’s your job!

It’s important to point out you honestly don’t have to have representation from even a single talent agent prior to promoting yourself to Advertising Agency contacts (copywriters and producers).

Q: “I am getting my Ad Agency mailing together. What should I write on the postcards?”
A: Nothing. Unless you happen to know them personally. They KNOW what the promo is for.

Keep in mind the goal with these mailings to both the talent agents AND potential talent-buyers is to create name recognition and to establish you as a brand, pure and simple.

It bears repeating our promotional mailings to Ad Agencies contacts is as follows:

1st week = postcard,
skip a week,
3rd week = another postcard,
skip a week,
5th week = postcard.

It’s a constant and gradual ‘drip, drip, drip’.

Highlight your web address on the back of your postcard. Your promo should be self-explanatory: you’re promoting your voiceover and your voiceover ONLY web site. Keep it clean and simple.

It’s worth noting, as you may have noticed, we’ve modified our approach in the past year. We no longer suggest you mass produce your demo as a CD, except for the 100 or so you produce to promote yourself to the talent agents. Therefore, your voiceover web page and its promotion are more vital than ever. And if you have a hundred or more discs left over, plan on getting another mass mailing to the Ad Agencies out there as soon as possible by exchanging a CD for a postcard in the third week of this process. But get them out there and hang on to about 30 – 50 discs for random distribution, as needed.

As for securing representation from the talent agents keep in mind this is an on-going process. It needs to be done continually until you're truly happy with the agents who are repping you and you’re auditioning steadily for national caliber work.

Promoting to the talent agents for voiceover is as follows: (You can mix these up a bit.)

Week one: Your demo CD with a note, “I’m interested in representation.
Looking forward to meeting (speaking with) you at your earliest convenience.”
Week two: Your demo postcard, with your web address highlighted.
(No note necessary.)
Week three: An email sent directly to the agents with a hyperlink that leads to your site. “I’m hoping to meet with you some time soon regarding representation. In the meantime, please find my most recent demos on my site.”
Week four: Send a card that looks like an invitation to a rather high-end party. “I’m anxious to learn whether you have my type in your talent pool.”
Week five: Send another disc. (No note necessary.)
Week six: Send another postcard. Highlight the web address. “Looking forward to meeting you at your earliest convenience.”
Week seven: Another email. “I’m confident you’ll find me (and my demos) worthy of your talent roster. Looking forward to meeting you soon.” Include a hyperlink to your site.
Week eight: Another postcard. Highlight your web address. “Hope to see you soon regarding representation.”

Once have secured at least one good agent in your region, and at least two more in two other regions and you’re happy with the auditions you’re getting, then and ONLY then do you set your promotion to the talent agents aside.

If you hope to succeed at all, you MUST continue to make yourself known and available to the industry by promoting to both the talent agents AND to Ad Agency contacts in multiple regions throughout your career. It’s simply a fact this aspect of your small business NEVER goes on automatic. No matter how established you are or become.

On-going promotion is as vital as showing up on the job. Period.


“The Evolution of a Career” by Don Cheadle
1. Get me Don Cheadle!
2. Get me a ‘Don Cheadle’ type!
3. Get me a young Don Cheadle!
4. Who’s Don Cheadle?

How to Avoid VO Frustration and Get the Most Bang for your Buck!

Man, do our WORD of SOUND ADVICE emails ever get a reaction! Wow! Both positive and negative—but they definitely get a reaction. In fact, one of our ardent SOUND ADVICERS sent us this email in response to this WORD of SA…

You've got the training. You've got the graphics. Even better, you've got a truly remarkable voiceover demo. (Do you have any idea how rare that is?!)

Problem is: You’re not taking advantage of the most affordable, most effective promo you could possibly have – and that's US!

Renewing your web page listing with both SOUND ADVICE and BIG HOUSE CASTING & AUDIO offers you greater exposure to far more work than simply floating out there in cyberspace all by your lonesome.

Get connected to the greatest allies you have in this business!

Call us today to renew. And procrastinate tomorrow!

Well, Pandora’s box was opened and here’s one response:

“I haven't gotten even ONE lead for my demo from your web site. Not a single one. If it seemed any traffic was coming from your site, I might renew. Sorry to say it, but I need to get something from it in return.” –Jane Talent

Not the first time we’ve heard this. Keep in mind, we’ve been at this for quite some time now. But, methinks we must prove our worth… again. (Frankly, that comes standard with the job. Occupational hazard. So here goes…)

My reply:
I’m very sorry to hear that! Have you gotten ANY response from your site at all?
As I recall, you're pretty consistent in your promotions (to direct more traffic to your site) by continually sending out postcards, aren't you?
For what it's worth, we heartily and continuously promote the site and have an exceptional track record with most of our SA clients.
We think the world of you and really want you reaping the greatest potential benefits available to you.
And Jane Talent’s response:
“I just looked at my first response—yikes, was that harshly put. I am only frustrated, not angry! Kate, I have been really kind of bummed. I know you do a great deal of promoting. I just looked at the statistics and see I was in error--I get about 46% of my traffic from your site. So I have been getting significant views--but no interest from those views, apparently, or they are being pretty cagey about it. (The last three months) have been dead dog slow, and I just had my postcards redesigned, but not back from Modern Postcard yet. I will probably be getting a mailing list from you guys soon, but the web site--it is more expensive than my agents or Voicebank, and I just haven't seen even an audition from it yet. I still think the new demo rocks...”

Okay, so while trying to help our very frustrated talent-friend here, we have determined the following so far:

1) She actually HASN’T been sending out postcards to direct traffic to her site as she had in the past; her postcards aren’t printed yet. She had new graphics made and has yet to actually roll out her new ‘identity’ and updated demo.
2) Also, nearly HALF of the traffic to her site has been directly from OUR sites.
3) Lastly, she hasn’t followed up on what leads came from where. The fact is unless the client literally tells you how they found you—if they even know, it’s rather unlikely.
The point is you want to direct as much traffic toward your site as you possibly can by associating your single voiceover web page to as many sources that generate exposure and opportunity, then simply keep that coming.

What’s overlooked here is that with us you’re not simply listed on a single site—you’re on TWO… both SOUND ADVICE and BIG HOUSE CASTING & AUDIO. (And the going rate is usually $250 to $325 per site, such as voice123.com or voicebank.net per year.) Now, if you take into account our expansion to Los Angeles this year, our promotional efforts have more than doubled, offering you even greater exposure than EVER before. So, it stands to reason, as we continue to expand, this could only increase your opportunities greatly as well.

That said, we NEVER recommend you simply rely on us alone. You should be on your agents’ site. Although few offer the opportunity to include a hyperlink that grants direct access to your demo site. If yours does—great! However, most talent agencies will simply post your demo track on their agency site and typically charge between $100 and $200 a year to do so.

What’s far more beneficial to you than even being listed on your agent’s site (depending on who’s repping you) is having your talent agent include your track(s) on their voicebank page. Yes, most talent agents have their own site AND they are listed on voicebank. And some charge for this, some don’t. Regardless, once your tracks are posted on voicebank—it’s then up to YOU to upgrade to a PREMIUM LINK (which runs $268 per year). Agents don’t pay for this service. YOU do. A Premium Link is the little red star alongside your name everywhere your demo is listed on voicebank. With a Premium Link from voicebank, your name then acts as a hyperlink that directs users to your web page. In laymen’s terms, your web page will pop up any time someone clicks on your name on voicebank. It’s awesome! And we highly recommend this option!

So, in conclusion—best advice, have your web site look as smart and clean as you possibly can and be sure it’s linked to as many sources as possible to draw more traffic, such as: our sites, voicebank.net, voice123, for example. And your demos are available on your talent agents’ web sites, too. Otherwise it’s floating out there all by it’s lonesome, which defeats the purpose!

Hopefully one of the many things you’ve learned from us, and as we mentioned earlier in this Newsletter, is you can and should secure representation with a variety of talent agents in a variety of regions nationwide. It opens you up to far more opportunities than simply fishing in the same local pond, regardless of where you live.

TECHIE Talk

Kate: Thanks for the reminder about (the PERFORMINK’s Actor Conference in Chicago)! It was good to see Colleen and meet Jamie. BUT I GOTTA SAY that the session with Harlan Hogan on the tech of mics and preamps and such was worth the price of admission...no it wasn't because it was only $5 to get in...it was worth a HUNDRED times that.

A $60 mic that sounds like the $2,000 shotgun mic that all the movie trailers are made with? A $125 gadget that turns any pro mic into a USB mic AND give you real time headphone monitoring? A sound booth that will fit in a backpack? GREAT STUFF! Rgds, PLL

I have to say, I just LOVE it when guys talk ‘geek-talk’ to me. It sets my heart a flutter.

It’s important to note that, at SOUND ADVICE, we maintain that unless you are already a total TECHIE (like our friend above), you should concentrate on your talent skills first and foremost for the first year or so as you roll out your voiceover career. When your agent emails you auditions, simply call whichever of our studios you live closest to and schedule a time to come in and audition. This will insure your attention is on your performance and not on how they are being recorded.

We want you to gradually become comfortable recording your own auditions at home, but this is a process.

If you’re ready to graduate to recording your own auditions at home, we suggest you register for our Recording at Home Basics Tutorial on Thursday, October 23rd in Chicago, delivered by our Head of Production, producer Jeff Finney from 4:00 to 5:00pm at the studio. The cost is $55/person.

He will show you the ropes of microphone set-up, recording, and sending your mp3 auditions from home! He’ll cover recording in different programs (i.e. Audacity, Garageband, Protools), and address the process for both Macs and PCs. He'll also go over the best and most cost effective gear and where to buy it as well as our best advice when it comes to recording your own auditions at home.

Seats are limited, so give Jolene a call or email at Jolene@bighousecasting.com to reserve your spot now!

Ode to Paul Newman

With the passing of the great Paul Newman, we’re reminded of a few of his remarkable accomplishments… such as The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Hud, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, to name a small handful. Any one of these films would have certainly been the zenith of any other career, but they were only part of his story. He was an avid race care driver and known many times over, even while well into his 50s, as the Sexiest Man Alive. Yet he was married for 50 years to actress, Joanne Woodward and father to five grown daughters. Somehow, this family managed to remain private while public. He even started the Newman’s Own brand by launching his salad dressings in 1982, which allowed him to become one of the greatest charitable contributors of all-time, donating hundreds of millions to scores of charities—an astonishing accomplishment on its own, had that been all he had done in his life. He was 57 years old at the time. According to playwright turned business partner, A. E. Hotchner, “He believed that you provided your own destiny.” And after all this, Newman’s own take on his life was simply, “It’s been a privilege to be here.”
Likewise. It’s been a privilege to know him as well as we did. He was an inspiration and he will be missed. Thankfully, we have his movies!

Prepping Your October Garden

Well, Gang, every year it’s the same thing… time to prepare for the coming year with a good running start and, believe it or not, NOW’S the time to do it! Consider it prepping your garden for blooms in the spring. Only the blooms we’re referring to here are auditions, voice work and representation from talent agents well-worth knowing to further your career. But this takes forethought and do-diligence right now to bring that about.
That’s why we’re here.
You don’t have to overhaul the entire yard… just bit by bit you ready yourself. It’s often our unfortunate task, here at SOUND ADVICE, of having to show you the whole picture so that you have a better idea of where you are and where you truly need to be. That can be overwhelming at first.
But fear not, remember we’ve done this before… a few thousand times! And under far more difficult times than this, believe it or not. (The Commercial Strike of 2000, after 9/11 and again in 2002 and 2003, which turned out to be the worst, most lean years advertising has ever endured in the history of advertising! So, it’s worth noting that this too shall pass. And when it does, we’ll all be ready to deliver the goods!
Enjoy the season! Watch a good thriller like REAR WINDOW or a classic like GHOSTBUSTERS! Until next month… keep at it! –Kate & crew