Join Voice Over Expert David Bourgeois in his lecture "We Predict Election Winner!". Through David's podcast, you'll discover that no matter who is in power at the government level, as a freelance voice over professional, you will always be the master and commander of your own voice over career.

Download Podcast Episode 67 »

Tags:

David Bourgeois, Voice Coaches, Election, Winner, Freelance, US, Canada, Voice, Voice Overs, Schenectady, NY

Transcript of Election Winner

[Opening Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voiceover marketplace. Voiceover Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voiceover. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voiceover talent. It's never been easier to learn, perform, and succeed from the privacy of your own home and your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present David Bourgeois.

David Bourgeois: Greetings everyone. My name is David Bourgeois and I'm the President and Creative Director with Voice Coaches. I'm excited that Stephanie and the folks of Voices.com have invited me back to do another Voiceover Experts podcast.

This time around, Stephanie had actually e-mailed me about a recent blog I posted on our website, Voicecoaches.com. If you didn't have the chance to look at it, I'll make sure I keep it up as the top story in our blog for the next week or so. But to save you a little bit of time, I'll actually read it. The blog title was an attention grabber. The title was, "We Predict Election Winner". And keep in mind, I posted this originally on October 8th. Not just prior to the elections in the United States but also prior to the recent elections in Canada. Here's how it read.

"I am an American and a small business owner. I don't know about any of you but I am always impressed with the men and women who are willing to run for President regardless of how either candidate does. if you are pursuing voiceover work professionally, you are the winner. Why? Because instead of sitting back and complaining or worrying about the economy, you're taking an active role in your financial future. Instead of relying solely on your current employer or former employer's pension to afford you a comfortable lifestyle, you are working to control that on your terms. You know far too many people are content to sit on the sidelines when it comes on the things that they really want to do in life. From the time you make a decision to achieve something, you are putting yourself in a winning position. Remember, regardless of whether you think you can do something or think you can't do something, you will probably be right."

So anyway, that ended up being a pretty popular blog and I wanted to take just a couple of minutes to explain the point I was trying to make. I think as we all have become aware of fluctuation in the economy recently, those of us out there who are inclined to reach out just a little bit beyond the norm and pursue something like voice acting really begin to stand out. That's because those people who pursue the things that they want to do are playing an active role in determining their success.

As a matter of fact, as soon as you begin to control your own financial destiny, I think you'll find that you're a lot less concerned about the "doom and gloom" financial information that's all over the news. And for those of you with the right voice and a mindset to be successful, there has never been a better time to pursue professional voice acting. Our field continues to grow particularly in audiobooks, gaming, audio web content, and cable television. And with everyday that goes by, it seems that clients are embracing a broader and broader range of professional voices.

As a professional voice actor or aspiring voice actors, use every resource you have at your disposal. Voices.com is obviously a tremendous place to begin. In fact, I feel so strongly about their services that every single voice coaches client becomes a client of Voices.com but at the same, don't ignore opportunities in and around your own community. Keep a pulse of what's going on, changes in business leadership and within public service organizations. Reach out to these people and get them your demo.

And one other thing and this is very important in an era of web-based voice actor marketing. Always keep in mind that long-term continued success does not just come down to your demo. Always keep in mind that voice acting is a profession and those who hire you will do so with the expectation that you can deliver material in the same quality and delivery range represented on your demo. Job knowledge and skill development are important components in building long-term continued success.

In my opinion, desire first, education second, demo third then enjoy what you do, stick with it and go out there and control your own destiny. I want to thank everyone at Voices.com for letting me speak with you today. I absolutely invite you to check out the blog that I mentioned today at Voicecoaches.com.

Once again, I'm David Bourgeois with Voice Coaches providing evaluation, one-on-one training and demo development to voice actors across the United States and Canada. I hope everyone has a safe and profitable fall.

Julie-Ann Dean: Thank you for joining us. To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast, visit the Voiceover Experts show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExperts. Remember to stay subscribed.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Links from today's show:

VoiceCoaches.com

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert David Bourgeois
President and Creative Director

David Bourgeois has worked in professional music and audio production for more than 25 years. Compositions and audio post-production for film, television, advertising and multi-media are all part of David's resume. As the CEO of White Lake Music & Post, David produces music, audio and voice over content for clients including Discovery Networks, TLC, HGTV and the WE Network as well as numerous other regional and local clients. David recently completed the original music score for The Last Round, an independent feature starring former X Files Smoking Man William B. Davis.

Since 1990, David has been active in developing training methods in effective communication through conversational reading. His effort was initially aimed at helping clients get better performances from their Voice Actors in the studio. David's methods soon became the model for Voice Coaches' individualized training process.

Today, David and his team provide training to aspiring Voice Actors and communication professionals across the country.

Did you enjoy David's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert David Bourgeois as he presents you with some guidance and marketing ideas in his lecture "Take Control : Marketing Your Voice". The president of Voice Coaches discusses the importance of marketing your voice over business and references leading industry professionals who can help you take the next steps in promoting your voice.

Download Podcast Episode 43 »

Tags:

David Bourgeois, Voice Coaches, Marketing, Voice Conference, Expo, Voice, Voice Overs, Schenectady, NY

Transcript of Take Control and Start Marketing Your Voice

[Opening Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voiceover marketplace. Voiceover Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voiceover. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voiceover talent. It's never been easier to learn, perform, and succeed from the privacy of your own home and your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

This week Voices.com is pleased to present David Bourgeois.

David Bourgeois: Well, hello everyone. This is David Bourgeois from Voice Coaches and I am delighted to have an opportunity to be back on voiceover experts. If you've listen to in the past, you've probably notice that I tendency to talk about affective self-marketing and others subjects related to putting yourself in the best position to win the job.

Well, here we go again. Now, the motivation for this particular conversation I want to have, initial come about when I invited David and Stephanie from right here at Voices.com to join our team at Voice Coaches and some very specially guests at our advance marketing expo coming up on May 3rd. David and Stephanie are absolute experts in the field of effective self-marketing via the internet for voices. Well, about a week ago Stephanie contacted me and strongly suggested that we try to open our event up to the general public.

Now, this was not something I had ever considered but I have a great deal of respect for the network of professionals and friends that Voices.com has built. So, this week we decided for the first time ever to make our event generally intended specifically for clients of Voice Coaches open to the general public. Now, don't get me wrong. I am not going to use my time here today to directly promote the event that we're doing. If our event interests you, you can learn more on Stephanie's blog Vox Daily or www.voicecoaches.com/marketing.

What I do want to talk about however is the individuals that I've chosen to speak at this event and benefits that each individual specific experts might have an voice actor like you. That why even if you can't be there in person, I hope you'll gain a basic understanding of the types of individuals I've chosen to speak and I why I feel that learning from individuals like this throughout your career can benefit you.

First of, never hesitate to surround yourself with people who have build great success doing that thing that you want to do. Well, that's what prompted me to pick the phone and call fellow Voices.com voiceover expert Rodney Saulsberry.

This guy is a legend. Rodney had built a long history of success as a top voice actor, performing countless commercials, narrations, major television promos and movie trailers.

Rodney is also the author of two of my favorite books related to the voice industry. "You Can Bank on Your Voice" and "Step Up to the Mic". I am delighted to have Rodney join us from California for this event and what is my motivation of having him to speak to our clients? Is the motivation that he'll provide our clients and I strongly recommend you pick up his books. This is the guy who loves what he does and as a result he does as well as anyone.

Next, if your goals as a voice actor include moving on to regularly performing top commercial work. It will benefit you to understand how work is cast at the top level in our industry. That prompted my call to Billy Serow. Billy is the head of the commercial voiceover department for Abrams Artists Agency in New York, one of the most prestigious talent agencies in the world. Billy routinely plays voice actors and some top commercial jobs today and in additional he lecture on voice acting at Yield University. Throughout your career sees any opportunity. To understand the methods and perspective use by individuals who can put you in tremendous work situations.

Now, whether you're just beginning as voice actor or this is something you've done most of your life. It's always great to learn from someone who has built great success doing the thing that they wanted to do and even if you build success to yourself, you can always gain perspective from others. So, I call them a favor and call then Evan Farmer. Now, you may recognize Evan as the host of TLC's hit home improvement show while you are out but in addition to his on camera and voiceover duties with that television show, Evan is kept busy as the voice for one of the characters on MTV, Daria and the comedy Celebrity Deathmatch. Evan is a great example of someone who's willing to talk frankly about building success as a professional actor and voice actor.

Next, many individuals and organizations who hire voice actor still do so through conventional methods. In other words, they respond to demo that were specifically send to them, usually on audio CD. But today an increasing range of opportunity in our field can be gain through effective self-marketing via the internet and I am fortunate to have develop a friendship and professional work relationship with David and Stephanie at Voices.com and I am further delighted to have them.

Once again, make the trip or our event to speak with our clients about getting the most our of web base marketing. All of you listening to this are fortunate, you have access to David and Stephanie experts on a daily basis and I feel strongly that Voices.com is the best combined of market of place and community resource for professional voice actor today. But effectively using a website like Voices.com, in most cases is going to require you to do something that some people find it a little frightening, home recording.

Now, as a producer and a studio owner, I've done a lot of business when it come purchasing, recording equipment. My retailer of choice is Sweetwater in Fort Wayne Indiana, why? I'll tell you their prices are always competitive but their technical support and customer is absolutely second to none. Assuming that most of you aren't full time audio engineers, it is a wonderfully reassuring feeling to have someone on the end of that phone who can help you make your equipment work when you're auditioning for that big job. That's why I'm flying in Mark Magdich from Sweetwater in Fort Wayne. Mark is a recoding studio and home recording equipment expert and I strongly suggest, regardless of your ability to attend our even, try to learn from individuals who can make today's technology work for in away that's understandable to you. Remember your first goal is to be a voice actor not an audio genius.

Now, to finish things up because I see computer gaming as a tremendous growth area in our field, I'm welcoming Evan Skolnick to our event, who is a producer for games including Spider Man 3 and Guitar Hero. Also the nuts and volts of basic marketing concepts remind important throughout your career, studio I've asked marketing and entrepreneurial experts Jay Silverman to talk about foundation in marketing concepts.

In addition, I'll have experts in graphic design, home recording equipment, developing and maintaining vocal health and effective self-marketing on hand throughout the event to answer questions though I hope to meet many of you on May 3rd. You can also seek our individuals like those I've chosen to appear at this event and learn from them on our own. I look forward to sharing any information I can about the event on our blog at Voicecoaches.com and I am sure Stephanie's at Voices.com will beat me to it on box daily. I secretly suspect she's a much faster typer than I am.

Again, for information about our event visit www.voicecoaches.com/marketing or give our offices a call, toll free 866-887-2834. Again, 866-887-2834 extension 100. Thank you so much for listening and I will leave you with comments from some of folks who attended and spoke at last year's event. I wish you the best.

Male: Very helpful, It will you a lot of insight into the industry and the way approach people in ways that I really never thought about before.

Male: It's just so cool that you actually are being paid for doing this.

Male: I was pointed in the right direction. I was told the resources that were out there, the things that I could do.

Male: I don't think without the formal marketing training, I would be able to nowhere to go or what to do.

Male: I've been to Broadcasting School, I've been to other companies and this company by far the Voice Coaches is the number one best.

Female: Very helpful. The guidance and the knowledge that they contain and the experience that they had, this was fantastic. This is my first experience and I just loved it.

Female: First of it was fun. I really love this program because it was an opportunity to really explore something that I wanted to do for a long. It was fun, I mean the best word to describe is, fun.

Male: Could I say one more thing? One more thing, I'm sorry. The reason why I'm here is because of this organization being one of the few organizations that I've come across that understands and there are so many repose out there, I've been actually appeared on television and been interviewed several times about this and it's really to the organization credit, David. Thank you so much for inviting me and you can all feel really secure that you're not wasting your time and your money.

Female: I mean this isn't recording, right?

Julie-Ann Dean: Thank you for joining us. To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast visit the voiceover expects show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExpects. Remember to stay subscribed.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Links from today's show:

VoiceCoaches.com
Information about the Advanced Marketing Expo and Conference, May 3rd, 2008

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert David Bourgeois
President and Creative Director

David Bourgeois has worked in professional music and audio production for more than 25 years. Compositions and audio post-production for film, television, advertising and multi-media are all part of David's resume. As the CEO of White Lake Music & Post, David produces music, audio and voice over content for clients including Discovery Networks, TLC, HGTV and the WE Network as well as numerous other regional and local clients. David recently completed the original music score for The Last Round, an independent feature starring former X Files Smoking Man William B. Davis.

Since 1990, David has been active in developing training methods in effective communication through conversational reading. His effort was initially aimed at helping clients get better performances from their Voice Actors in the studio. David's methods soon became the model for Voice Coaches' individualized training process.

Today, David and his team provide training to aspiring Voice Actors and communication professionals across the country.

Did you enjoy David's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert David Bourgeois as he shares information about "A Gift YOU Can Give". David suggests that the best gift you can give to a client is the ability to deliver the same skill level, professionalism and sound quality that is presented on your voice over demo. This episode will help you to see things from the point of view of a client or producer, and along the way, you'll realize that the gift you will be giving to your clients is really the best gift you can give to yourself.

Download Podcast Episode 26 »

Tags:

David Bourgeois, Voice Coaches, Business, Audio Quality, Small Business, Voice, Voice Over Demo, Voice Overs

Transcript of A Gift You Can Give

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voiceover marketplace. Voiceover Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voiceover. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voiceover talent. It's never been easier to learn, perform, and succeed from the privacy of your own home and your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present David Bourgeois .

David Bourgeois: Greetings everyone. This is David Bourgeois from Voice Coaches. It's great to be back on Voiceover Experts on Voices.com. This time around, I want to talk about something that I think is appropriate this time of the year.

I want to talk about a gift you can give. Now ordinarily, when I do a podcast or an interview, I'm speaking as the president of Voice Coaches. Today however, I'll speak from my experience in my other professional role. Recording and production studio owner and professional producer. I'll even speak a little bit for some of the clients out there who I sometimes have the opportunity to represent.

Oh, and this gift that you can give, it's intended for people just like me, people who are involved in hiring voice actors. Now, what exactly is the gift I'm talking about? Well, from my perspective, it's something that should absolutely be a no-brainer, but unfortunately, for a lot of "professional voice actors", the concept in gift idea I'm going to present, may have up until now fall in on rather deaf ears. But regardless of that, I can't keep you waiting forever, so here goes.

When I audition and hire a voice actor, particularly a voice actor who I've never met or worked with before, the greatest gift that individual can give me is the ability to deliver the skill level, professionalism, and sound quality that they presented to me with their demo or their audition.

Fortunately for a lot of voice actors, this is a gift that they give with every job that they do. But in the world of web-based voice acting marketing, along with many true professionals, there seem to be a number of individuals who imagine that long-term success in voice acting is all about having a good voice and a demo.

It turns out that might not be the best way to approach a profession. Yes, a profession. Voice acting is a profession. I mean, let's say you were going into a field like professional nursing. You don't get the nursing degree and then learn about nursing. I think you'll find doing things the other way around would lead to a more successful nursing career.

The same holds true in voice acting. Now, without getting into any particular lean on who or how you become educated, I'm going to make a blanket suggestion. Become educated. Become a professional. Learn the skills that other successful working professional voice actors utilize to make themselves working successful professional voice actors in the first place. It's not about luck or breaking in.

When someone is successful, there's generally a reason. And in the case of our field, in addition to perseverance, continued success often comes down to the difference between a professional voice actor and an individual who is perpetually positioning themselves, not as a professional voice actor but as an aspiring professional voice actor.

I'm not so sure I want to work with an aspiring professional voice actor. Would you want an aspiring mechanic to fix your car? So, even if you haven't done your first voice acting job yet, I want you to represent yourself as a professional. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't want you to make up stories about things you haven't done, but I do want you to understand what's expected of a professional voice actor. And I want you to be able to deliver that. And again, you'll begin to represent that level of professionalism by giving me finished material that reflects the quality of what you presented with your demo or your audition material.

With today's software, virtually anyone can make a great demo. Just make sure the material on your demo is an accurate representation of what you can actually do on the job. As far as education, there's a lot of great stuff out there you can pay for. But there's an awful lot of great stuff that you don't have to pay for.

Start by going to the internet and research vocal hygiene, vocal health. Learn what to eat and drink and what not to eat and drink prior to and during the job to make your voice work most effectively. Seek expert advice and keep in mind that an expert can be anyone who knows more than you do about something. Also, unless you're a trained professional audio engineer, you are going to have to take some careful steps to ensure that the quality of your audio is consistent. And well, it's not rocket science, it is science. And for your own benefit, learn a little bit about business professionalism and marketing.

One of the things I consistently see with voice actors who rely on web-based marketing like Voices.com is a one job mentality. In other words, they're trying to get one job from a client. I recommend a whole different strategy. You don't want one job from somebody. You want to be their go-to person whenever they need a voice in your category.

Becoming that go-to person begins with delivering exceptional professionalism on the first job and continued follow-up and communication with that client. You want to stay on these people's radar. You don't want to be in a position where you're always looking for the first job from a new client. Successful voice actors aren't just looking for the first job from a new client, they're also counting on the next job from an existing client.

This is a key difference between successful professionals and people who end up becoming occasional job dabblers. The process begins with the gift that only you can give. You need to give your clients the gift of you being a real professional voice actor that they can count on. Oh, and I'll tell you this, this gift will be worth a lot more to you than it ever is to anyone you give it to.

Listen, I hope this gave you some perspective from the eyes of the people who do the hiring. On behalf of everyone of voice coaches, I want to wish you and your families and friends a wonderful holiday and New Year. I also want to thank the entire gang at Voices.com for giving me the opportunity to talk to you. Please feel free to stop by at VoiceCoaches.com anytime to learn more about us or fire me an e-mail at info@voicecoaches.com.

Once again, I'm David Bordeaux from Voice Coaches. Thanks so much for listening.

Julie-Ann Dean: Thank you for joining us. To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast, visit the voiceover experts show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExperts. Remember to stay subscribed.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com.

To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

Links from today's show:

VoiceCoaches.com

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert David Bourgeois
President and Creative Director

David Bourgeois has worked in professional music and audio production for more than 25 years. Compositions and audio post-production for film, television, advertising and multi-media are all part of David's resume. As the CEO of White Lake Music & Post, David produces music, audio and voice over content for clients including Discovery Networks, TLC, HGTV and the WE Network as well as numerous other regional and local clients. David recently completed the original music score for The Last Round, an independent feature starring former X Files Smoking Man William B. Davis.

Since 1990, David has been active in developing training methods in effective communication through conversational reading. His effort was initially aimed at helping clients get better performances from their Voice Actors in the studio. David's methods soon became the model for Voice Coaches' individualized training process.

Today, David and his team provide training to aspiring Voice Actors and communication professionals across the country.

Enjoyed David's episode? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

---

Join Voice Over Expert David Bourgeois of Voice Coaches as he talks about "Making Your Art Your Business". As a voice actor, you are a small business owner, a realization that is critical to your success; it's not just about your voice.

Download Podcast Episode 11 »

Tags:

David Bourgeois, Voice Coaches, Business, Business Plan, Small Business, Voice, Voice Overs

Links from today's show:

VoiceCoaches.com

Transcript of Making Your Art Your Business

[Opening Music]

Julie-Ann Dean: Welcome to Voiceover Experts brought to you by Voices.com, the number one voiceover marketplace. Voiceover Experts brings you tips, pearls of wisdom and techniques from top instructors, authors and performers in the field of voiceover. Join us each week to discover tricks of the trade that will help you to develop your craft and prosper as a career voiceover talent. It's never been easier to learn, perform, and succeed from the privacy of your own home and your own pace. This is truly an education you won't find anywhere else.

This week, Voices.com is pleased to present David Bourgeois.

David Bourgeois: Welcome. I'm David Bourgeois and I'm the President and Creative Director of Voice Coaches. The wonderful folks at Voices.com have asked me to speak with you about making your art your business.

Now, the first thing I want you to consider is that individuals that work in creative fields like voice acting are almost always aware that they need to continue to develop their creative skill but where a lot of folks run into trouble is imagining that skill and voice ability is the only component to building success. Now in case you haven't noticed, it's not always the person with the best voice who gets the job.

So, in addition to recognizing that skill development is important throughout your career, there's an additional critical component to success that often gets overlooked. Voice acting is a business. Voice acting is a business where money changes hands. Therefore, voice acting is a business where there's an expectation on the part of those who hire you that you'll be able to deliver professionalism in what you do and frankly, voice acting is a business that other voice actors are involved in and if you don't recognize the importance of effective self-marketing, you may find yourself with a lot of free time on your hands wondering why everyone else is doing all the work.

So for starters, if you're a voice actor, you're a small business owner and although voice acting is a unique field, the majority of factors that can affect any small business can also dramatically affect you both negatively and positively. Now one of the first things you recognize when you start to look at voice acting as a business is that you've invested money in this. You don't spend money on training or demo development. If voice acting is your business and there's an expectation of a return, you're investing money in things like that.

You're also investing time and that's another thing many people lose sight of because you're investing money and time in your business, I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect a positive result and one of the best ways for a small business to achieve a result is to develop a business plan. Although you may have never though of developing a business plan to be successful as a voice actor, trust me. Developing a business plan can help you clearly define your goals and help you work towards success.

In this case, there's no need to go to the bookstore and get a book on writing business plans. I want to keep this very straightforward. Here's what I suggest. Go get yourself a brand new notebook then go into that notebook maybe 15, 20, 25 pages and write down a goal that you want to achieve, maybe a goal that you want to achieve in voice acting in the next 12 months. When you've done that, put the notebook away and whenever you have a creative moment and an idea pops into your head, grab that notebook, start at the first page and begin to write down the steps that you're going to take to arrive at your goal. That's a business plan, a goal and a set of steps that you're going to take to arrive at that goal.

Oh and added piece of information, the steps won't do you a lot of good just on paper. You actually have to do the things that you write down. So let's say you now recognize that you're in business for yourself and you've developed a business plan. Though I can't get into too much detail, I do want to take another minute or two and go over some of the basic components of self-marketing that we cover with our clients at Voice Coaches.

One of the things we talk about are the five requirements of success, commitment, perseverance, persistence, professionalism and awareness of opportunity. Basically speaking, when it comes to commitment, we found that though there are a lot of people out there wondering if they'll be successful. Individuals tend to do better in our field if they make a decision to be successful. This goes right back to creating a business plan.

To build success in voice acting, you first need to see yourself as a voice actor and commit yourself to this at some level. It doesn't have to be full-time. Most people endeavoring into voice acting don't do it full time but recognize you'll do better if you're committed to success. When we speak about perseverance, in essence we're really talking about sticking with it. One of my greatest fears for a voice acting student that we work with is that they'll stop trying the day before they were going to get the big job and in reality, your competitors are counting on you to not persevere.

Success for any small business including voice acting does not usually come overnight. When we talk about persistence, we're really suggesting that we want you to be thorough in your marketing effort. In the real voiceover world of sending physical demos out to clients, it's not enough to just send the demo. You should follow up with a thank you card. You should follow up with an updated demo when you've done more work and your demo changes.

You need to recognize something. People who hire voice actors, we tend to be creatures of habit. We tend to go back to the same people. We go to the people who we know and to the people who are easy to hire. You want to make yourself one of these people. In fact I saw a study recently that demonstrated that it cost five times more in money and effort to develop a new client relationship compared to getting continued work from a client who you already have a relationship with. In other words, a client who you've already worked with is five times more likely to hire you to voice something when compared to a new client.

By being persistent in your follow-up in your communication, individuals who hire voice actors are more likely to be aware of you and to consider you for an opportunity. Now, professionalism is also important. Again, voice acting is a profession and I can tell you personally when I hire a voice actor, I have an expectation that they know how to do their job. They know what their job is. They know how to prepare their voice for the job. They know how to behave professionally and interact in a studio environment appropriately. It's not just about the voice. Professionalism will determine whether or not that person becomes somebody that I continually work with.

Finally, when we speak with our students about requirements of success, we talk to them about awareness of opportunity. I would hope it would make some sense to you that if you want to work in this field, you need to know where to look for work. Now, Voices.com is a great place to start but assuming you're out there locally and regionally as a voice actor, it's important to know who does the hiring. Today in addition to recording studios, audio-visual production facilities, advertising agencies, public relation firms, audio book publishing companies and entities like cable television stations. There are an incredible number of emerging opportunities. Two of the greatest emerging opportunities are related to companies that develop internet content and companies that develop electronic gaming.

Also, I strongly suggest you get your hands on your local business newspaper. Pay attention to what's going on in your community. Get involved with your Chamber of Commerce. There are tremendous ways for you to have detailed information about what's going on in and around your community.

I'd like to thank everybody at Voices.com for the opportunity to speak with you. I invite you to visit our website, www.VoiceCoaches.com. Again, my name is David Bourgeois with Voice Coaches. Thank you so much for listening.

Julie-Ann Dean: Thank you for joining us. To learn more about the special guest featured in this Voices.com podcast, visit the Voiceover Experts show notes at Podcasts.Voices.com/VoiceoverExperts. Remember to stay subscribed.

If you're a first time listener, you can subscribe for free to this podcast in the Apple iTunes Podcast Directory or by visiting Podcasts.Voices.com. To start your voiceover career online, go to Voices.com and register for a voice talent membership today.

[Closing Music]

Your Instructor this week:

Voice Over Expert David Bourgeois
President and Creative Director

David Bourgeois has worked in professional music and audio production for more than 25 years. Compositions and audio post-production for film, television, advertising and multi-media are all part of David's resume. As the CEO of White Lake Music & Post, David produces music, audio and voice over content for clients including Discovery Networks, TLC, HGTV and the WE Network as well as numerous other regional and local clients. David recently completed the original music score for The Last Round, an independent feature starring former X Files Smoking Man William B. Davis.

Since 1990, David has been active in developing training methods in effective communication through conversational reading. His effort was initially aimed at helping clients get better performances from their Voice Actors in the studio. David's methods soon became the model for Voice Coaches' individualized training process.

Today, David and his team provide training to aspiring Voice Actors and communication professionals across the country.

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