Debbie Grattan

Millennial Speech Patterns Voice Over Artists Should Avoid

November 20, 2018 by Debbie Grattan

One of the keys to success for voice over artists is keeping up with the current trends, whether it’s with the latest voice over recording technology or new video styles. But just because a trend may be widespread or hugely popular, it may not be something we choose to embrace. A major case in point is a trio of millennial speech patterns VO artists would be wise to avoid.

Vocal Fry

When you hear a voice that’s creaky, choppy, breathy and delivered in its lowest register, you’re listening to vocal fry. This millennial speech pattern is often found in women, like the Kardashian clan and Katy Perry, although men can engage in it, too.

When voice is normally produced, the vocal cords naturally close to create vibrations. With vocal fry, the vocal cords remain relaxed with minimal air passing through them, resulting in a low, creaky sound. Johns Hopkins says vocal fry is not damaging to the health of your voice or vocal cords, although it can be rather painful on the ears.

Some folks find vocal fry grating, while others perceive it as a mark of being bored, lacking intelligence, or less educated, less competent and less trustworthy than those who speak without it. Unless your audience is made up entirely of a millennial audience that would eagerly relate to a voice over artist using vocal fry, you are probably better off avoiding this creaky pattern of speech.

Vocal Fry Examples:

Upspeak (Uptalk)

When you’re making a statement, traditional speech patterns automatically lower inflection at the end of a sentence. When you’re asking a question, the inflection rises at the end. That’s not the case with upspeak. Also known as uptalk, this speech pattern uses a rising inflection no matter what’s being said. While upspeak has been around for years, it has really taken off with the millennial set.

Britney Spears has been pegged as a famous uptalker, but she’s not the only one who has hopped on the bandwagon. In fact, a Forbes article notes that upspeak has become so prevalent that people under 40 may not even notice when it’s happening. Yet those over 40 most certainly will.

Those that notice the speech pattern of rising inflection often perceive it as coming from someone who is hesitant, timid or unsure of themselves. In severe cases, the speaker may be perceived as being less than serious – or even less than intelligent.

Again, if an audience is largely or exclusively millennials – or made up of people you know aren’t turned off by uptalk – you may be able to get away with it with your voice overs. Otherwise, it’s a good idea to end a declarative sentences with a period, instead of a vocal question mark, to portray confidence and smarts.

Upspeak / Uptalk Examples:

Shotgun Speech

When you fire a shotgun, the pellets come out fast, furious and in a torrid burst. You get the same thing with pattern known as shotgun speech. Shotgun speech occurs when someone speaks suddenly, quickly and in a rapid outburst of words. While this millennial speech pattern may be common on college campuses and TV shows like the “Gilmore Girls,” it’s not typically something you want from your voice over artist.

Speaking too fast makes the audience work too hard, and, as Inc. points out, audience members are intrinsically lazy. Make them work too hard to keep up and understand what you’re saying, and they’re likely to tune out altogether. Shotgun speech can likewise be perceived as signs of nervousness and lack of self-confidence. It’s also a symptom of anxiety.

Fast talking cannot only weaken your voice since you’re not taking in enough air to support it, but it can muddle your diction and a make what you’re saying nearly impossible to understand. Unless you’re recording a voice over for a cattle auction or other fast-paced event, fast talk is not the right talk to draw in a crowd.

Shotgun Speech Example:

I had a real challenge finding good examples for this last category. So, I’ll keep on the lookout for clips that would be good to use. I included that last Fed Ex video because it’s a bit of a classic, and a fun one to watch again after all these years. Not actually shotgun speech, I’d probably call his style “machine gun speech.”

Although vocal fry, upspeak and shotgun speech may be speech patterns you hear all the time, there’s no guarantee they’re something your listeners want to hear on your voice over projects. Unless those patterns align with your brand and please your audience, they may be trends you’d be much better off avoiding.

For more on a related topic, be sure to read my post, “The Most Annoying Speech Patterns You Hear All the Time Now”

A Scary Thought for Voice Over Artists and Other Solopreneurs

October 18, 2018 by Debbie Grattan

With Halloween heading our way, you may be expecting goblins, ghouls, ghosts and other scary costumes. But there’s something even more frightening that could sneak up on you at any time of the year, and you may never see it coming.

This is something we first became aware of a couple of years back, when our health insurance provider mentioned the subject in an email notice. And we decided to write a blog post about this topic now, after reading about the very scary situation that fellow voice over artist, Paul Strikwerda has been dealing with over the past six months. Be sure to read his post, “Losing My Voice” to get his full harrowing story and why it relates to this post.

Unlike the very direct threat to health and career that Paul has been dealing with for the past several months, the threat I want to talk about is a threat for which you may think you are fully covered by your health insurance – but in reality you probably have very little or no protection against it. And, because of that exposure, you are vulnerable to a potentially catastrophic financial event.

Real-Life Tragedy

Radiologist Dr. Naveed Khan found out about this high-cost exposure the hard way, as told in a story published in the October MASA newsletter. Khan was taking his first ride on an all-terrain vehicle in Texas, eventually taking the wheel from his pal. While driving in circles in the sand, the ATV tilted and then tipped over on its side, landing on Khan’s left arm.

Although lightheaded, the 35-year-old doctor was able to extricate his arm, tie a jacket around his massive arm wound, and right the ATV to drive back toward the street to call for help. His 911 call resulted in an ambulance ride to the emergency room of the nearest hospital, but his wound required immediate treatment from a more advanced trauma center if there were any hopes of saving his arm.

This resulted in a helicopter ride to the nearest trauma center, which was more than 100 miles away. After immediate emergency treatment, Khan was forced to endure weeks in the hospital and a grand total of eight surgeries to try to save his arm.

Obviously, you would expect the medical bills for an accident like this to be in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. But, that is why we buy health insurance, right? To protect us from big financial setbacks due to one bad accident. Well, in Dr. Khan’s case, his health insurance did cover most of the costs involved in his accident. However, there was one bill which was not fully covered.

The bill for the air ambulance flight alone came to $56,000, which Khan’s health insurance carrier initially refused to pay. His carrier, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, eventually covered about $12,000 of the air ambulance bill, leaving Dr. Khan responsible for the remaining $44,000.

High Cost of Emergency Transport

Khan’s story is a tragic one, but the Medical Air Services Association (MASA) says it’s not at all uncommon. Americans have a one in 12 chance of needing life-saving care within our lifetime, according to Mutual Aid Ambulance Service, and a one in four chance of needing an ambulance for non-emergency transport. Stats from the Association of Air Medical Services note that more than 550,000 people across the U.S. end up using air ambulance services each year.

The odds that you or someone in your immediate family will need emergency air transportation are much higher than you may think. Yet, up until now, health insurance providers do not include coverage for this potentially massive expense.

Air ambulances are not regulated as healthcare, but instead as part of the aviation industry. That gives them the freedom to charge what they want. Insurance companies have caps on the amount they are required to reimburse, if they reimburse you at all.

The cost of emergency transportation is not cheap, regardless of the type of vehicle, and non-emergency medical transport isn’t much cheaper. Most health insurance policies don’t cover the bill for either one and, if they do cover part of it, your deductibles or premiums may increase.

MASA notes what you can expect to pay for different emergency transport services:

$2,400: Ground ambulance
$30,000+: Helicopter transportation
$20,000+: Medically equipped non-emergency air transport (with payment required before liftoff)

Medical evacuations while on vacation are another high-cost area, with Allianz Travel Insurance outlining typical costs at some popular vacation destinations.

Typical Costs to be medically evacuated in other countries:

$15,000+: Mexico
$50,000+: France, German, other European countries
$90,000+: Russia
$100,000: South America
$220,000: Australia, Asia, Middle East

Keep in mind these are only the costs for getting you to the hospital in the country you are in at the time. They don’t include the cost of treatment or the cost of getting you back home to the U.S. If you’re traveling home on a stretcher on a commercial flight with a medical escort, you would need to purchase eight airplane seats to accommodate the stretcher, along with paying about $25,000 for the nurse traveling with you.

These costs can be particularly devastating to voice over artists and other self-employed professionals, with a high enough medical transportation bill having the ability to wipe out our savings – or even drive us into bankruptcy or financial ruin.

Peace of Mind Solution

Thankfully I can get these scary thoughts out of my own mind now and we have covered this exposure thoroughly with a supplemental coverage. As my husband became aware of this gap in coverage a couple of years ago, he investigated several different options. He ultimately came across a company that offers emergency medical transportation coverage for our entire family of four, whether we’re in the U.S. or outside the country, for only $60 per month.

The monthly premium is reasonable, particularly for the generous amount of coverage we receive. Any and all emergency transportation costs for anyone in our family is 100% covered by this insurance, with no deductibles involved. If we have the need for emergency transport, we don’t have to worry at the time of the accident about who to call or how much it’s going to cost. Whatever emergency transport bills we receive afterward will be forwarded to MASA and they pay them on our behalf. Having this type of coverage replaces the potentially frightening scenarios in the back of my head with total peace of mind.

For more information, please visit their website: https://www.medairservices.com We receive no benefit or financial reward for recommending this company.

While we like when Halloween is filled with scary goblins, ghoul and ghost costumes, we can definitely live without the real-life scary thoughts. Hope this helps bring awareness to the issue so that we can all have a very safe and happy Halloween.

SOURCES:

6 Ways Social Media Can Hurt Your Voice Over Business

September 19, 2018 by Debbie Grattan

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms can be a boon for your voice over business – or they can contribute to its ruin. To make sure your social media efforts end up benefiting instead of hurting your business, it’s crucial to steer clear of six different social media habits that can damage your voice over career.

Being Overly Pushy with Your Voice Over Services

While marketers have long discovered the benefits of using social media to promote products and services, that’s not it’s one and only function. The overall goal of social media is to engage with your audience, to interact and entertain them as a way of keeping your voice over business at the top of their minds.

Audience members are not likely to be very entertained if everything they find on an account is the message to buy now, buy now and buy now. Try to keep your promotions at a minimum, with intriguing content making up the bulk of what you post. Social media best practices say to make 20 percent of the content about your voice over business, and the other 80 percent about topics that tickle your audience.

Being Overly Pushy with Your Opinion

Social media is ideal for sharing ideas, thoughts and opinions. Yet it’s not the place to create a one-sided monologue that’s focused solely on pushing your opinions onto others. Just as your audience is not likely to enjoy a constant barrage of promotions for your business, they’re apt to get turned off with a constant reinforcement of your opinion, especially when it’s presented as the one and only way to think.

And in today’s political climate, sharing your views on all things politics is probably not a good idea at all. While you may think most people share your point of view, you will likely be very surprised by how many of your contacts, and most importantly, your clients, have differing points of view. The old adage about never talking about religion or politics at the dinner table can be easily applied to social media if you run your own business. Avoid controversial topics or you losing some of your clients.

Picking the Wrong Accounts

With so many social media platform out there, it can feel overwhelming to even known where to begin. This counts double if you think you need to post on them all. You don’t. You instead want to make thoughtful decisions on which may be best for your voice over business.

Think about the audience you’re trying to reach, and then choose platforms – and messages – that speak directly to them. Stick with items that grab their attention, prompting them to not only read your messages but to also share them with their friends and fans.

Sharing Voice Over Audition or Assignment Details

No matter how excited you may be about your latest big-name voice over audition or contract, it’s essential to keep the details to yourself. Most voice over assignments will contain a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that prohibits you from sharing such information, and doing so would violate the agreement.

Even without a non-disclosure agreement, it is common courtesy and practice to treat information you receive during a voice over audition or contract as confidential.

Sharing Too Many Other Details

Even if your family and friends on your personal social media accounts may be interested in hearing about your latest personal problems or triumphs, your voice over clients and prospects may not be. As a small business owner or entrepreneur, our personal and business lives may often blend together in many areas – but social media is one place you want to make a concerted effort to keep them separate.

That doesn’t mean your voice over fans may not want to hear about you completing a marathon or getting a new puppy – but they may not want to hear about the details on your foot blisters from running or the potty-training involved with the new puppy.

Not Thinking, at Least Twice, before Posting

So many companies have horror stories about social media mistakes, such as trying to be funny but coming off flippant, or making a joke that offends the masses. Since social media moves at the speed of light and lasts forever, it’s impossible to take back anything posted or to even stop it from instantly traveling around the world.

It can be even tougher to clean up your reputation after an avalanche of angry responses. If a witty thought or idea comes to you, type it up and let it sit for a moment. Review your audience, review the mindset of the day, review current events – and make sure what you’re posting isn’t likely to be construed as unthinking, uncaring or painfully offensive.

If you’re not sure if something may be overly offensive, you’re probably safer leaving it out of your business postings. Even though you’re aiming to engage your audience and have fun, you still want to do so with the professional undertones that prove you’re a true professional voice over actor they can hire with confidence.

Looking to hire a VO pro? Contact Debbie for a custom audition or quote today.

SOURCES:

Voice Over for Podcasts: Creating Podcast Intros and Outros

August 22, 2018 by Debbie Grattan

Podcast popularity is on the rise, which can be both good news and bad news for podcast creators. The good news first. A notable 44 percent of Americans age 12 and older have listened to a podcast, and 80 percent of podcast listeners tune in to an average of seven shows a week. As we’ll explore in this article, there is some great potential voice over for podcasts opportunities for voice talent in this rapidly expanding niche.

As more people are listening, however, more podcasts are being made. As of March 2018, the number of podcasts available on Apple Podcasts alone was more than 550,000 – with more being produced daily. Google just recently introduced a standalone podcast app for Android devices. The bad news is that competition is fierce, which means you need a way to make your podcast really shine.

More good news comes here. An easy way to make your podcast stand out right from the start (and increase monetization opportunities) is with a professionally voiced podcast and intro and outro. Read on to get the basic gist on what the intro and outro are designed to do and why having a voice over artist do it can be so beneficial.

Voice Over for Podcasts: The Intro

Your podcast intro is your show’s opening that introduces your show and you as the host. It’s designed to set the mood and tone of your entire show based on the music and words in your intro.

Here are three examples of podcast intros that I recorded in the past year or so:

Defining Success Podcast – Intro

Board Room Podcast – Intro

Enneagram Podcast – Intro

The most effective podcast intros are short and to the point. You don’t want to waste your listener’s time with a long-winded description of what’s coming up. Tease them with just the high points, enticing them to tune in to hear more.

It’s also essential to match the voice and music in your intro to the content of your podcast. For instance, if your podcast is all about serene living, you probably don’t want a gruff, deep voice and heavy metal music as part of your intro. Using royalty-free music in your intro and outro is an excellent way to upgrade quality without the cost.

Keep in mind the branding you want your information to have, and make it consistent. The audience will come to identify the voice and music of your intro with your content, and it should make them excited to hear what you have to say.

You can think of your mission statement as the reason you’re doing your podcast, and create your intro based on that. Because your intro needs to be consistent for each show, it’s better to use your mission statement as your guide, rather than the specific content of each episode.

That said, here are elements to include and not to include as part of your intro.

How to Create a Podcast Intro

Podcast Intro elements to include:

Name of podcast
Episode number and title
Music or sound effects
Name of host
Podcast tagline/quick overview of what your podcasts are all about
Summary/intro of episode

Elements NOT to include:

Entire rundown of your show
Extraneous information that has nothing to do with your show or what you’re about to discuss
Bad garage band music
Anything that detracts without adding value

Voice Over for Podcast Intro Benefits

Using a voice other than your own for your intro can set up your content as a separate and valuable entity. Think of being introduced at a conference, or in front of any group. Someone else making the introduction can toot your horn better than you can yourself.

Hiring a voice over pro to record your intro can likewise lend credibility to your show, along with a layer of professionalism and sophistication. Your audience is welcomed by a voice that aligns with your brand, with a polished, perfectly-timed reading. Voice over artists who have been in the business for some time can also help you perfect your opening script to make it as smooth and flawless as possible.

What is a Podcast Outro?

Your podcast outro is the closing that wraps up the podcast and, when done right, leaves the audience with a lingering good feeling. This is the ideal place to include a tagline that you’d like to leave listeners with; something that is a core message of your podcast in general.

Here are a couple of podcast outro examples that I recorded in the past year or so:

Defining Success Podcast – Outro

Board Room Podcast – Outro

Like your podcast intro, your outro is part of your overall branding of content that keeps your listeners loyal. A call to action can also be included at the closing, asking audience members to invite others to listen or share the content. Make sure you provide easy ways for them to do so, with a mention of your website’s name and link address.

Short and to the point is again the way to go, with a small handful of elements to include and another batch of elements to leave out.

Check out this handy dictionary of podcast terms for more useful definitions and descriptions.

Podcast Outro elements to include:

Thank you to the audience for listening
Website address for more info, host contact info, or to get the show notes
ONE call to action (CTA)

Elements NOT to include:

Entire summary of your show
Extraneous information that has nothing to do with your show or what you’ve discussed
Addresses for every single social media page you have
Multiple CTAs that confuse or overwhelm audience that usually result in no action

Voice Over for Podcast Outro Benefits

Using a professional voice over for your outro gives you the same benefits as you get with the intro. You essentially book-end your podcast with credibility, sophistication, and professionalism.

Having someone else’s voice promote your show, and branding with your closing CTA, can be significantly more effective than you doing your own closing self-promotion.

The voice over for podcast intros and outros I’ve done have been varied and enjoyable, giving me a chance to align my voice with a variety of different brands. Not only do I get to work with dedicated podcast creators who have intriguing topics to share on a regular basis, but I also get a firsthand listen at some of the more than 550,000 podcasts out there. Make your podcast stand out from the crowd with a voice over podcast intro and outro.

Contact Debbie for more info or a custom audition today.

Resources:

https://www.thepodcasthost.com/presenting-your-podcast/introducing-ending-episode-podcasting-intros-outros/

https://www.podcastinsights.com/podcast-statistics/

http://www.edisonresearch.com/infinite-dial-2018/

Your Voice Over Success Requires This Key Soft Skill

July 12, 2018 by Debbie Grattan

The journey toward your voice over success and a fulfilling voice talent career requires many skills, talents and qualities. And one of those qualities is becoming more elusive than ever in this digital age of instant everything. It’s the quality of delayed gratification and it is truly a life-changing skill if mastered and utilized in your everyday existence. So, let’s dive into this topic and if you make it all the way to the end of this post, you’ll get a special reward.

Delayed Gratification Explained

Delayed gratification is the capacity to wait for a reward that promises to be bigger and better than the instant gratification you’d get from a lesser yet immediate pleasure. The concept of delayed gratification was explored years ago in The Marshmallow Experiment, as James Clear brings up in his discussion on the topic.

The Marshmallow Experiment involved bringing a child into room where a marshmallow beckoned from the table. The researcher told the child he was going to be left alone with the marshmallow for a set period, during which time the children were given a challenge.

If the children could refrain from eating the marshmallow until the researcher returned, they would get a second marshmallow to enjoy. Kids had to pick between:

Immediate pleasure from a single marshmallow
Delayed gratification with double the rewards

Results were mixed, and the children’s lives were subsequently tracked over a 40-year period. The kids that were able to choose delayed gratification ended up more successful in many things across the board, from SAT scores to social skills and reactions to stress.

Where Delayed Gratification Fits in with Your Voice Over Success

Delayed gratification plays a huge role in your voice over success, as long-lasting positive results do not come instantly. The promise of the big reward of a full-time voice actor career is down the line, but only for those who have the capacity to wait it out while paying their dues.

Those dues can be pretty hefty. Starting any business as a solopreneur involves a lot of moving pieces that need to be put together to complete the puzzle. These include setting up a website, creating your branding and marketing plan, strengthening your talent and skills with training, putting together a voice over talent demo, finding agents to represent you, constantly seeking out audition opportunities, and otherwise doing all those things to get a new business up and running.

Sometimes it may feel like the only reward at the end of the day may be the ability to finally move away from the computer and get some sleep. But the bigger reward of living a dream job is only possible for those willing to wait for the delayed gratification.

Things Fighting You Along the Way

For the younger generations now in or near the workforce who grew up in the digital world, delayed gratification may seem like a totally foreign concept. That concept gets even harder to grasp, for people of any age, with the number of distractions in society today.

Even when you’re at work at your computer, emails urge you to check out the latest sales at your favorite shops, the instructional YouTube video you’re viewing ends with links to dozens of other intriguing videos, one article you’re reading links to a handful of others, and social media alerts exclaim that three more people commented on your latest post.

Add personal responsibilities that may include daily chores to complete, errands to run, children and pets to tend to, and that thing called eating dinner, and sticking on the patient road toward delayed gratification can feel like an impossible feat.

With so many things calling for your attention, and so many tasks that need to be tackled when you’re first launching a business, the whole process can feel overwhelming. Overwhelming can turn daunting and even frustrating when there’s not a lot of early success at the beginning of a career.

The choice between delayed gratification down the road and the instant gratification of throwing up your hands in despair as you go to watch TV can be a tough one indeed.

Why Stick it Out

Don’t give up. Even if you’re used to instant results, instant gratification, and pretty much instant everything, challenge yourself to stay the course for the delayed gratification that hard work, passion, and dedication always brings.

Even if your own delayed gratification doesn’t bring the voice over success as you envisioned, putting all that positive energy out into the universe is going to bring on rewards. Perhaps all your hard work will lead to new relationships, new ideas, or a new path that results in a career even more exciting than the one you imagined.

Whatever the case, I’ve found the success that comes from the pain of sticking with it over the ease of distraction is worth the wait. You can even train yourself into a pattern of delayed gratification by setting up smaller, daily rewards – like the delayed gratification of finishing everything on your to-do list if you stay focused on your work throughout the day.

Remind yourself that you do have the capacity to wait, and the rewards will definitely be worth it. There’s no reason to sell yourself short with one marshmallow now when you can double your rewards down the road.

Now, on a little tangent (and I’m putting this at the end so that I don’t distract you from finishing my post), last weekend I got to finally see Hamilton in Chicago. And, as I was doing my final edit on this blog, the song “Wait For It” kept going around in my head! So, for a little entertainment and reward for making it all the way to the end of my post, please check out this awesome 360-degree video of the original Broadway cast. Be sure to grab the screen and rotate to see everyone around you.

My Voice Over Experiences from the Weird to the Scary to the Sublime

May 15, 2018 by Debbie Grattan

An out-of-the-blue email really caught my attention a few months back, and it continues to puzzle me today. The email was from someone who said they worked for Cracked.com (formerly Cracked Magazine) and wanted to interview me about some of my voice over experiences in the biz. My first thought was: “Cracked Magazine? Don’t they write funny, satirical cartoons and stuff?”

But, I took a look at their site and saw a wide array of articles on many topics – topics that would generate web traffic. Since being or becoming a voice over artist is a popular topic on the internet to some degree, it made sense that they were trying to tap into an interested readership.

My website probably had come up high on a general Google search for voice over artists, and that was how they found me. Made sense.

I don’t get asked to do many interviews, so I was excited to work on this. To make things easy, the author sent me a few questions he (or maybe it was a she, hard to tell by the name) wanted me to answer in writing.

We had a little back and forth by email and I fine-tuned my answers over several revisions. After a couple of weeks, I sent off the finished interview and waited to hear details of when it would be published.

No reply. No acknowledgement of even receiving the document.

I followed up a few times by email and even tried to reach the person by phone and still nothing.

Guess I’m Not in Kansas Anymore

Was I suddenly living in a different parallel universe? Or maybe the author got hit by a bus (God forbid)! Very strange. Like having one of those “Wizard of Oz” moments where you wonder if you dreamed the whole thing.

Nope, I had the emails to prove it. Had I just been scammed in some way? No money was involved and all I had provided was a few answers to some questions. If it was a scam, it was a pretty pathetic one!

It was like this person had just dropped off the face of the planet. Maybe they suddenly left the company or got fired and the ball never got passed to someone else. That seemed like a possibility. Anyway, despite other attempts to get some contact from the company, nothing worked and I never got a reply.

So, rather than never having this interview see the light of day, I decided to post it here on my blog. Enjoy!

What would most surprise someone starting a career as a voice over artist today?

I think what would most surprise a person coming into the business today would be that the amount of time they will spend actually recording their voice for paying gigs is a relatively small percentage of their time (about 15% on average).

The modern landscape dictates a voice talent’s day is largely consumed by marketing activities, such as auditioning for agents and online casting sites, communicating with clients and prospects in social media and email, and staying in touch and top of mind any way you can.

Then there are all of the day-to-day chores you have to do when you run your own business. These include accounting, managing your technology, updating your database, and many other little things that all take significant time and attention.

I am fortunate to have my husband working full-time in my business, and he actually handles the majority of the marketing and business chores so I can stay focused on recording and the logistics of job requests and auditions. The percentage of time I spend on paid work is more like 85%, but that is only because I have a full-time employee. If you are running your business solo, which I think most voice talent are, then you’ll have to wear many hats and spend a lot of time on these other essential tasks.

How has doing voice overs changed over the years?

Many things have changed, mostly due to the presence of the internet. Home studios did not exist when I got my start as a voice actor back in the early ’90s in Southern California. The only people who could work in the profession lived around major cities that had a lot of recording studios. Los Angeles and New York were the dominant hubs in the U.S.

Now, thanks to the internet, you can have a home studio anywhere as long as you have a fast broadband connection. That development leads to what I see as the biggest change directly impacting how I run my business, and that is: The amount of competition has gone way up.

For most of my career, very few people outside of the business even knew what voice over was. Whenever someone asked me what I did for a living, I would have to explain it. Then I would still get a lot confused looks from people.

Now when I mention that I’m a voice over talent, I get, “Oh yeah, my friend/sister/neighbor is doing that, too! Can I have them call you so you can share some of your best tips?”

While there is a much larger supply of voice over opportunities in the world, there is also an exponentially larger number of voice talents all trying to win those jobs. You have to be much more strategic and thoughtful in how you get business these days.

What is the scariest thing that has happened to you in the voice over business?

There have been many scary moments along the way, which is probably true for any entrepreneur running a small business. Almost all of my most memorable scary moments involve technology failing at extremely inopportune times. It’s rare that this happens because we keep everything updated and well-maintained, but sometimes hardware or software just stops working and you have what feels like milliseconds to figure out what is going on and how to get it fixed.

Last year, my recording software abruptly stopped loading, ultimately resulting in a switch to a different software program with a significant learning curve. This happened right at the start of the year, with a full lineup of jobs waiting to be recorded. It was pretty stressful for a few days as we figured out what we needed to do to get back up and running while ensuring clients received everything they needed on time.

For a voice over talent, if you’re not recording, you’re not making money. So you have to be able to troubleshoot things quickly and come up with a solution. Beyond my husband, who has some good technical experience and know-how, I have several techs and audio experts I can call on when necessary.

Without those kinds of resources, things can get very scary very quickly. If I can’t deliver what my clients need on time, there’s always the chance they will look for someone else who can.

What is the weirdest voice over job you ever had?

My vote goes for the sexy weather forecaster gig. Several years back, I was hired on a project which involved attractive scantily clad women presenting weather forecasts for online subscribers. Subscribers would see still photos of attractive bikini models motioning to portions of the U.S. map while a voice over talent recited the day’s weather forecast.

I was hired to provide the voice for one of the models. The service was a bust (haha), but the client did pay me for several recording sessions that we completed as part of the launch.

What was the happiest voice over job you ever landed?

My happiest thing is definitely being one of the voices at the Happiest Place on Earth – Disneyland. When I was living in Southern California, I was recording some of the park announcements for Magic Music Days, holiday celebrations and special events. Then, when they opened Disney’s California Adventure (DCA), they offered me the role of being the Voice of the Park, welcoming guests with pre-recorded announcements for various activities.

I had to give up the gig when I moved away from So Cal, but for a few years it was fun being recognized by friends who heard me on their visits to DCA.

Where have I heard your voice?

That’s one of the first questions I tend to get when folks find out I do voice over for a living. While I do a good deal of TV and radio spots in local and regional markets, the most widely played spot was probably the one for the original Pillow Pets.

Many of the projects I’ve completed are for internal use by companies and not heard by the general public, although I have cultivated a niche over the years on television as the voice for many children’s infomercial products. I’ve recorded a few dozen different kids’ products and toys, as well as other direct-response advertisers, marketing everything from make-up to teeth whiteners to exercise equipment.

You might also hear me narrating a web video, directing you on voicemail options on a company’s IVR system, or teaching you something profound and useful in a continuing education course.

While I may never find out what happened to the person who sent the initial email, at least I know the interview has been put to use. In addition to providing info that could be helpful or entertaining to someone else, it also gave me a chance to think back on my happiest, scariest, and by far weirdest moment in the voice over biz.

Please feel free to share some of yours down below! What were your weirdest, wildest, scariest, and happiest experiences so far in voice over?

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