Today’s blog is a rather seat of the pants affair. I’m just going to sit here and write!
What a paradoxical topic I’ve picked. As a firm believer in positive thinking, I think we should set no limits on what we can achieve, how high we can go in our lives and careers. There are plenty of other peeps who’ll take on that job for you. With training and ongoing self-improvement we can raise the bar for ourselves.
However, sometimes, maybe we bite off more than we can chew. I was approached to do a spot of copywriting. The pay wasn’t much, but I thought let’s give it a go…multiple streams of income and all… however as it turned out – though I got kudos for being a good writer -I didn’t quite have the technical expertise to handle that topic. Really, I shouldn’t have tried it in the first place. But, I was eager to give it a go.
So therein comes — know your limits. It’s ok to say ‘No’ that’s not for me. I’m very good at doing this with consideration to voice over gigs, now I must apply that in other areas of life. Of course I didn’t get paid. But it was still a good learning experience. Learned fast. Today, was faced with a similar scenario — No, no, no — leave it for someone else for whom it would be a valuable experience.
There are so many things we can do in life…why bother with the other…the Universe will provide if we keep our eyes and hearts open.
I found out about a very interesting group called Meet up. I’d heard about it a while back, but had forgotten all about it. I learned via Facebook, that there’s going to be a meet up in London for Voices 123 peeps. So as I’m registered on the site, I figured this would be a great time to expand my voiceover London circle. They’re meeting at a pub in Soho, on Monday, 28 June at 6:30pm, if anyone’s interested in going. This meet-up was initiated by Gary Terzza. I look forward to meeting him and the others. Here’s a link to the Meet-up page: London Voices123 Meet-Up
Voiceover artist Bobbin Beam wrote a great blog recently on movement whilst doing voiceover recording. It was a very inspirational and useful piece. I’ve found myself, that it really helps to move around. Even sometimes, I just like to hold my hands up in the air to open my chest and feel a bit freerer. If you have a little trawl through YouTube and look at the videos of Robin Williams or some other actors doing animation voiceover, you’ll see they’re all over the place. Sometimes, doing a quiet moment in a session, I’ll find myself making little, tiny movements to almost bring myself and my energy field in closer. It all helps!
My little podcast stefsvoice4u Broadcast is coming along. I’m up to number 6. You can even subscribe via iTunes now. So feel free to have a listen, and maybe even subscribe?!
Voiceover News
Voiced a couple of marketing messages recently and an environmentally-oriented piece. Then, …Auditions, auditions and more auditions!
Just did a bit of voiceover for a short animated film. Drew Radley, the guy who animated this project is so clever. I love it! I voiced the part of the old lady, Mrs. Odeski.
Autumn is here…my favourite time of year. So much to do…voiceover gigs, looking for voiceover gigs, finding gigs, and creating gigs. It’s all go!
I recently produced and recorded an animated Sing-Along kiddie’s YouTube vid for the small ones. I think it’s really important that the tiniest ones don’t get frustrated, so I put lots of space between the verses so they can keep up too! So, here it is!
Here is an interesting article published in Success Magazine that came in my email the other day. It’s practical, inspirational and adaptable to anyone’s circumstances, I believe.
Legends
Harvey Mackay knows nurturing your network is the No. 1 habit for creating and sustaining success.
Liz Davis September 30, 2009
When speaker, author and CEO Harvey Mackay walks onto a stage to deliver one of his trademark talks, people sit up and pay attention. His good-humored interest in the topics at hand—and, more important, in the audience—comes across loud and clear. Within the first five minutes, everyone in the room is buying whatever Harvey Mackay is selling because he demonstrates one of his own most fundamental sales maxims: “People buy from other people because of likeability.” It’s no wonder Toastmasters International has named him one of the top five speakers in the world.
Never mind that Mackay isn’t really selling his audience anything. Instead, he gives them a lifetime of organized, practical business wisdom, targeted to the group’s specific needs. And his wisdom has resonated with readers, too, with five best sellers and more than 10 million books sold. Two of his books, Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive and Beware the Naked Man Who Offers You His Shirt, were New York Times No. 1 Best- Sellers and listed by the Times among the top-15 inspirational business books of all time.
Preparing to Win
Harvey Mackay was born and raised in Minnesota’s Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, where he still makes his home with wife Carol Ann. His father was head of the Associated Press in the Twin Cities for 35 years and was partial to aphorisms related to happiness and success, which he posted on the refrigerator. Mackay continues that tradition in his weekly syndicated column, which runs in 52 newspapers nationwide. Each motivational article ends with Mackay’s Moral, a compact, thought-provoking statement about some aspect of success.
Mackay attended the University of Minnesota, with no inkling that he would one day head up a multimillion-dollar company or write best-selling business books. “At the time, I thought I was going to be Ben Hogan,” he tells SUCCESS. When he found himself up against the nation’s best young golfers at an NCAA golf championship his sophomore year, Mackay realized that he was in way over his head.
The competitors from warm states like Florida, for example, had been playing golf year-round for much of their lives, while Mackay could only play golf for about four months out of the year in Minnesota’s colder climate. So even though he’d been playing golf for as many years as some of the other players, they had about three-times more cumulative experience. Those players were simply better prepared. “So I gave up that dream and became an entrepreneur,” Mackay says. In his 1997 book, Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty, he wrote that preparation is “a way of life for anyone who wants to succeed in any activity.” The lesson he learned as a 19-year-old golfer about the importance of extensive preparation and practice was one he never forgot.
After graduating from the University of Minnesota, Mackay had a slow start as an envelope salesman for Quality Park. But he was still an excellent golfer—good enough to convince the Oak Ridge Country Club in Minneapolis to admit him without the steep initiation fee (after a protracted sales pitch). In return, he would help the club get out of last place in the Minneapolis City Golf League. Mackay made so many business contacts playing golf at the club that he would later write in Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty, “There’s no question that this was the one single act that most helped me launch my career.”
“People don’t care how much you know, once they know how much you care.”
Over the next few years, Mackay’s fledgling network became the lever that lifted him to the No. 1 sales position at Quality Park. In 1959, at the age of 26, he felt ready to strike out on his own, so he bought a small, floundering envelope company and went into business for himself. Today, Mackay Mitchell Envelope Company (formerly Mackay Envelope Company for 46 years) does $100 million in sales annually and has the capacity to produce 25 million envelopes a day.
Humanize Your Selling Strategy
The power of a robust network was evident to Mackay from the beginning of his career. He built his foundation as a salesman by playing golf and developing relationships with people. To implement this vital practice of networking at an organizational level, Mackay developed a 66-question customer profile, known by his employees and devoted readers as “The Mackay 66.” Salespeople at Mackay Mitchell (and plenty of professionals who have read his books) fill out this 66-question dossier on every customer, prospective customer and supplier.
The Mackay 66 starts with the basics: name, age, hometown, etc. Then the profile gets more detailed, with questions about the customer’s favorite restaurants, preferred topics of conversation, professional goals, attitudes and concerns. The 66 questions provide a highly detailed portrait of the customer as a human being, which gives anyone at MackayMitchell a serious advantage when it comes to approaching that person. As Mackay puts it in Swim with the Sharks: “The sweetest sound in the world to you, and to your customer, is the sound of your own name on someone else’s lips.” Each profile is constantly updated, with every contact recorded and the next contact scheduled. If a salesperson takes the customer to lunch for his or her birthday or sends a link to an interesting article about the customer’s university, it goes in the profile.
So why all this research? Because, quite simply, it works. “Every time I talk to someone, I’m scanning them, finding out what’s important to them. I’m demonstrating that I understand that person as a human being,” Mackay says. No one would argue that successful salespeople should know as much as possible about their company’s products and services. But Mackay would tell you it’s far more important to know about the people involved. “People don’t care how much you know once they know how much you care. So find a creative way to stay in touch.”
An easy way to begin networking is to focus on the other person. Mackay’s best advice for developing your network is simple, and it calls to mind his customer-centered 66 questions. “When you meet an interesting new person you want to stay in touch with, always ask yourself first, ‘What can I do for this person?’ And don’t expect anything in return.”
Believe in Yourself, Because Your Network Does
In 1988, Mackay completed his first book, the business classic Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. He was an unknown, first-time author. In general, new authors’ books are published in small print runs of 10,000 copies. This makes it much easier for publishers to recoup their losses if books don’t sell well. But Mackay knew these customarily small print runs are part of the reason so many new authors never get the chance to prove themselves and publish more books.
Mackay made a bold move when he met with his publisher—he requested a print run of 100,000 copies. When the executives in the room responded incredulously, he pulled out his Rolodex, which at that time had more than 6,000 contacts. Some of these contacts were from enormous corporations where, Mackay reasoned, the book would surely be recommended to his contacts’ co-workers. In an unprecedented leap of faith, the publisher agreed to 100,000 copies, and Swim with the Sharks was a New York Times No. 1 Best- Seller for 54 weeks. Mackay went on to write several more books and will release yet another book next year.
Don’t Be Boring
Mackay cites enthusiasm and creativity as major cornerstones of his success. “There is no substitute for passion. I’m looking for three qualities in a salesperson: a hungry fighter, a hungry fighter and a hungry fighter. Once I’ve established that I can trust someone, the main thing I’m looking for is a deep-down burning desire to succeed.”
Mackay tells the story of a New York City cab driver to illustrate creativity in meeting a customer’s needs. When he got into a taxi one day, the driver presented Mackay with a printed mission statement that said he intended to get his passengers to their destinations “safely, courteously and on time.” He offered Mackay an array of CDs to choose from and the use of a cell phone. When the cab came to a stop, the driver presented Mackay with a brown-bagged snack. The taxi driver’s innovative approach and pride in his business garnered him thousands of extra dollars in tips every year. That cab driver, in effect, had the same motto as Mackay Mitchell Envelope Company: “Do what you love, love what you do, and deliver more than you promise.”
The idea behind Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, and at the very heart of Mackay’s philosophy, is that in order to stay competitive and successful you don’t have to become a shark yourself.
In fact, the opposite is true: If you demonstrate that you care about others, they’ll want to do business with you. You don’t have to be cutthroat to survive in a cutthroat marketplace. Mackay’s lifetime of achievement is proof that if you combine genuine caring about your network of people with a genuine love for what you do, success is inevitable.
Mackay’s Moral: People don’t care how much you know about them, once they realize how much you care about them.
There’s a Link to Success Magazine on the right hand side of this page under the “Miscellaneous” heading.
“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Many hands make light work! Move ahead faster with helpful friends!
“The only factor separating success from failure is the determination to work hard, and the willingness to engage with prospects.” Mark Hunter-The Sales Hunter
Just learned via my email that James and Penny over at the VoiceActing Academy, are holding another FREE Tele-seminar titled “No Mater What You’ve Heard…Voiceover is a Business” — The Nuts & bolts of Voiceover with James Alburger & Penny Abshire.
It’s going to be on Monday, October 5, 2009 for about 60 to 90 minutes.
Here’s a little bit of blurb from the email:
“In these changing economic times, being an excellent person has become every bit as important as being a good performer. On this call, James and Penny will discuss the “Nuts and Bolts” of the voiceover business – the things you must know and do in addition to mastering your performing skills.
Here are just a few of the things that will be discussed on this call:
How to find clients, make them happy and get them to love you forever!
Why social networking can help you find work
How to set up a functioning office and keep efficient records
Why keeping your name “front of mind” with producers and agents is critical
How to discover the right branding for your talent
How to know when you have a good demo, or if it needs some re-working
How to target your best marketing strategies
How to discover your uniqueness and use it to your best advantage
How to prepare for your first website, or improve the one you have”
If you can’t make the phone call, registered peeps can get access to a recording of the call for one week after the date of the call. I used this method for their last tele-seminar and the info was most illuminating.
This week I got my mitts on two videos for which I did voiceovers. One is an animation, and the other is a corporate promo piece. I’ll have to post them here soon. A cut from the animated wacky Christmas one is on YouTube (YouTube channel: animedolphin).
So, what’s your favourite voiceover gadget that you find really helpful, and couldn’t imaging being without? Mine is my Olympus Digital Voice Recorder. It’s pocket-sized. I can record on it and then transfer it to my computer. The quality is quite good, and it’s handy enough to take anywhere and catch all kinds of different voices of interesting people around me; or if I get an idea for a project or a voice, I can record it before I forget. I have a couple of other gadgets on my wish list, which I hope to acquire in time as well.
Another thing that I find helpful is a site called MediaFire. You can store and transfer files there. I chose the paid option, which lets me transfer files without adverts. If I am travelling, or away from the office, and something comes up [peeps want a file, they don't want to go to the website; or for an audition demo]– I can just nip over to MediaFire and send a file from there. I also use it for sending large files to clients. I send them a link and they can download it.
It’s time for show and tell. Have you got any gadgets, tips, hot sites that you want to share? We’re all ears!
By the way, anybody got any suggestions on good recording applications for the ipodTouch?
This Alison bush was covered with these beautiful yellow and black butterflies, but they move so fast! Managed to catch one in the piccie!
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY for Voiceover and Life Success:
“All frustration is due to unfulfilled desires. If you dwell on obstacles, delays, and difficulties, your subconscious mind responds accordingly, and you are blocking your own good.”
Dr. Joseph Murphy
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
www.dr-joseph-murphy.com
I went to the Animation Convention with my friend the other week-end. It was brilliant. Hope to see myself there one year as a guest voiceover speaker. In the meantime, I enjoyed what was on tap on the day.
Technology is really surging ahead. There was a fantastic demonstration of a game that is controlled by the voice. Using the microphone, you must first gather up your breath (as we VO’s know only too well how to do) and then let out a long cry — this powers up the energy bar. Then you let out your voice in a series of short bursts which set off the weapons and send the cannon balls flying. (See the piccie below.) It was great fun. But maybe not the game to play before a heavy voiceover session!
Just compiled a list of video producers, so now it’s time to put the head down and get to work marketing. I’ve set myself some VO financial targets for the next month, so I’d best get cracking if I’m gonna make them. Sunday or not, sunny day or not…I’d best focus and get busy!
“Winners make big things happen, a little bit at a time!”
(another quote that came across my desk this week!)
I’ve invested a lot of time lately learning a bit more about voice over marketing by reading articles/blogs from admired peeps such as Philip Banks, J.S. Gilbert and Susan Berkeley.
The word for the rest of 2008 and into 2009… market more specifically; market locally; and do my homework and target my market — I’ll work smarter, not harder! To get the local marketing ball rolling, just left something at my dentist’s office the other day. Sent holiday greetings to past and current clients as well. I seem to be getting lots of encouraging emails re upcoming projects, so let’s hold the energy that they’ll come through — whilst investigating other projects. Feeling optomistic, confident and positive!
Tuesday, 16 December, 2008 was the 60th Birthday of the Scrabble game.
There’s an interesting and inspirational back story here! The creator, Alfred Mosher Butts, painstakingly worked to develop his game — Criss Crosswords –bit by bit from 1931. By 1938 he’d revised it and then offered it to each of the established games manufactuers — it was turned down by all!
Maybe that should have been the end of the story, but a colleague, James Brunot, came across one of Butts’ hand lettered home made sets; made some changes; & called it Scrabble – copyrighted in 1948. After more trials and tribulations Scrabble finally hit the big time in 1952 when the department store, Macy’s, placed an order. By 1953 Scrabble was licensed to one of the big manufacturers who had previously turned it down. It’s now the world’s biggest selling game.
It looks like sometimes we just have to perservere, strive to improve our product (our voice technique, way of marketing, etc.), learn more about our field, network like crazy, and hold down a good part-time alternate source of income till the dream becomes reality!
Attention all narration voice over artists!
According to the Independent (15-12-08) newspaper, current affairs programmes are having an unexpected renaissance.
This includes traditional current affairs programming and immersion television (encouraging the viewer to make their own conclusion about the facts presented on the programme).
Better polish up those narrative demos and get them out on the market!
The following is an article reprinted from Ayd’s newsletter– very topical for voice over peeps and Clanger fans!
The Genius of Oliver Postgate
Oliver Postage died this month. His voice, instantly recognisable to millions of British children, harks back to a fairer, more generous, more innocent time. A time of wonder, of looking up to the nights sky and wondering about life on a small blue planet in space and the strange whistling knitted creatures that live there. His animated stories of ‘The Clangers’ gave us a sense of politeness and calm. A world of soup dragons and copper trees, of magic froglets and music that grew on trees that you could use to power a flying boat (or to eat). “It’s nice to have visitors” said Oliver’s narration, “but sometimes it’s even nicer to see them go”.
‘Ivor the Engine’ told us the stories of a Welsh steam engine who sang in the choir. The stillness and warmth of the tales gave children a sense of peace and friendship not found in modern television storytelling with its crashes, bangs and rushing around. My three year old son loves Ivor. He has a tiny toy train and imagines his own adventures, making the sound, “Sher-ta-coo, sher-ta-coo” as his plays.
The same alternative energy was found in the most loved children’s programme of all time, ‘Bagpuss’. The story of the most important, the most beautiful, the most magical, saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world. He lived in the window of a junk shop who came to life with all his friends, to mend whatever item Emily brought to the shop.
As you may remember, the Clangers spoke only in whistles. This is what Oliver Postgate said about that challenge:
“They spoke a language of very articulate whistling squeak, which needed to be translated from its natural medium of nuclear magnetic resonance (there being no air to carry sound) into audible terms. The nearest I could get to that was to write out the script in full and then persuade Stephen Sylvester to help me record the dialogue…by reading it, or rather playing the inflections of it, on a selection of Swannee whistles. In this way I was hoping to make a sort of wild-life film in which, by listening carefully, the viewer would be able to understand what was being said and work out what was going on … I made a separate voice-over tape, a sort of intermittent running-commentary on what was going on. It worked quite well but I have always wondered how the films would go in their original form.
I did try it once, I took an episode of The Clangers to the 1984 E.B.U. conference in Germany and showed it to the participants without my voice-over. Afterwards I asked them whether they had been able to understand what the Clangers were saying. ‘But of course.’ they replied. “They are speaking perfect German.’ ‘But no.’ said Gerd, ‘That is not so. They spoke only Swedish.’” See the remarkable and creative story of the making of the films at this URL:
