Debbie Grattan

This post is the third installment in this series written for people and businesses who have the need to hire female VO talent. This series discusses the contrast between what services and qualities a full-time female VO talent can offer versus a part-time voice talent. You can read Part 1 of this series, “Benefits of Hiring a Full-Time Voiceover Talent“ and part 2, “Why Hire a Full-Time Voiceover Talent For Your Next Project?“

A Member of Many Teams

In addition to my personal support and marketing team (see previous installment), there is a second team that I’d like to address. As a full-time female VO talent, I think of myself as being a valued member of all of my client’s teams. In production, a team can consist of the account executive, the video editor, the copywriter, the concept creatives, the project director, the producer, and of course, the end client.

The daily repetition and continual flow of voiceover projects through my studio (including everything from female commercial voiceovers, narration voiceovers, direct response, IVR, etc.) result in a very high level of expertise in the voiceover department for me personally. I can step in and take on my role, leaving the producer/director to focus on the big picture and other team members to focus on their individual roles and responsibilities.

My years of experience and daily practice as a full-time female VO talent have made it second nature for me to automatically produce the most effective timing, pacing, and delivery. “We need to shave off 2 seconds”… No problem! “We need to re-write the copy…” Gotcha covered!

I enjoy helping with the script if needed, suggesting copy edits or verbiage that may sound more fluid in the vocal delivery. Solid experience in various VO niches has taught me what works best in specific genres, and I can tailor my voiceover delivery accordingly.

This level of experience can be extremely valuable during a real-time session, when there may be the client listening in, along with the producer/director/editor, and time is of the essence.

My client is often an agency or production company who wants to complete the project while also looking good in front of his/her end client. The choice to work with a VO professional who produces fast, accurate results, can take direction well, knows where the edit points are within the copy for quick pick-ups, and makes it all look and sound easy, is a real advantage for my client and ultimately for the outcome of their project.

Part-time talent who lacks on-the-job experience may make more mistakes and take a lot longer to deliver quality results. This can actually make the producer/director look bad in front of their end clients.

Inexperienced VO talent can quickly feel “in over their head” in the middle of a session. And unfortunately, most producers/directors don’t give second chances, especially if the talent’s performance reflects negatively on them in front of their end clients.

Hiring An Expert Female VO Talent Saves You Time and Money

In addition to the quality product, voice over studio equipment and set up, and professional attitude, an extra bonus with full-time female VO talent is having speedy communication and a quick turnaround if needed. Personally, I love those last-minute requests, and my clients have come to depend on me to be available in a pinch.

Hiring an experienced full-time female VO talent makes sense for any business with voiceover talent needs. When your car needs expert service, don’t you prefer to go to an experienced full-time auto mechanic who spends all day under the hood, has dealt with a wide range of issues and problems, AND knows exactly how to fix them?

Likewise, it makes sense to hire an experienced female VO talent who spends all day in the studio, honing and improving her skills and abilities. Many a client realizes after the first or second try at hiring less experienced talent that they may end up spending MORE money in the long run. When the final project isn’t of the caliber needed, and they’re forced to go find another voice talent to redo the audio tracks, they learn to make a better casting choice in the first place.

Having a full-time focus on anything will improve the end product.  When you’re dealing with something as nuanced as voiceover, especially for marketing and branding situations, it is imperative as a producer, to work with a high-quality VO pro who is versatile, quick on their feet, and has plenty of depth in talent, and ability to tap into during live sessions.

The VO talent you choose to hire should deliver not only a top-notch audio product but also be a valuable member of the team you employ to consistently provide quality work to your end clients and, ultimately, make your job and life much easier!

This post is the second installment in this series written for people and businesses who have the need to hire professional voiceover talent. This series discusses the contrast between what services and qualities a full-time voiceover talent can offer versus a part-time voice talent. You can read Part 1 of this series, “Benefits of Hiring a Full-Time Voiceover Talent“

Being a Full-Time Voiceover Talent Can Lead to Sweet Success

After over 25 years as a professional actress and two decades as a full-time voiceover talent, I’m fortunate enough to have reached a pretty sweet spot of success. The “sweet spot” to which I’m referring is not defined by fancy cars and frequent trips to the Bahamas (although I certainly wouldn’t mind that), but rather by personal freedom, quality service to my clients and the peace and satisfaction I feel in doing what I love to do as my career.

It’s the level where I can work with a support team of key people, rather than wearing all the necessary hats myself, as a solo-preneur. Having a great team makes it possible for me to keep my total focus on doing what I do best: Using my voice to record a variety of voice-over projects for my clients.

Because I have the ability to focus primarily on my strengths, it’s a big WIN for my clients.

The budget necessary to fully delegate the many tasks involved in running a VO business is usually only available to someone who is able to devote their full-time attention to their career. This generally excludes those just starting out, and part-timers. It takes years to build a business to the point of it being able to sustain a full-time workflow, week after week.

My Secret Ingredient = An Effective Team

Anyone new to the voiceover business soon discovers it takes a lot more than a microphone and a memorable voice to reach the rank of full-time voiceover talent and maintain a successful business. There’s the project management, bookkeeping, invoicing, marketing, branding, technology upgrading, editing and a slew of other day-to-day tasks besides just recording your voice that need to get done. My secret weapon, to combat the overwhelm and fatigue that can set in trying to do it all, is my fabulous TEAM!

My husband acts as my business manager, (how lucky am I to keep it in the family)! He markets my business from behind the scenes, completing or delegating tasks as needed, handling invoicing and account receivables, troubleshooting all computer tech issues that come up… If it’s something that I’m NOT good at dealing with or that I just DON’T WANNA deal with, it’s on his plate!  On occasion, he’s even been spotted in the voice booth when a male voice was needed in a pinch. This is really an ideal situation and is probably fairly unique in the VO talent community.

I also have a part-time administrative assistant who helps out on a weekly basis with computer tasks, database updating, social media connections and various repetitive administrative chores.

For items that need some extra special expertise or management, we’re able to outsource to a few trusted companies that we work with for website design and any tricky web maintenance issues, special project marketing work (like email newsletters and postal mailers), SEO assistance, content creation and other miscellaneous tasks.

While I have delegated many of the marketing tasks to my team, I still monitor everything that happens in the marketing of my business, and make sure that I put my personal stamp on whatever is going out. I review the changes to the website, social media posts, email blasts, edit and revise blog posts and make sure my true voice is heard loud and clear in all of my branding.

And as “grown-ups” we all have personal, parental, and household tasks that add that extra helping to our daily To Do lists. I try to delegate as many of those chores as I can. I make my income standing behind a microphone, being a busy full-time voiceover talent. It’s really not a good use of my time to clean my house, run errands or mow the lawn (unless I really enjoy doing those things).

Just listing all of those tasks makes my head spin a little. The idea of having to do all of THAT would leave me breathless before I even got started and make it difficult to serve my clients effectively.

When There’s Too Much to Do, You Do What Matters Most

Part-time voiceover professionals, who can’t yet afford to hire employees (or aren’t comfortable delegating tasks) are stuck doing all the necessary busywork themselves, and it can truly be exhausting.

Especially in the past ten years, as internet marketing and technology have exploded, I’ve noticed the need to delegate more tasks than I used to,  and be more specialized and disciplined in how I spend my time each day.

All of this technology driven “busy-ness” has forced me to simplify. These days, I focus on doing primarily three things in my business:

1.  Record – As a voiceover artist, recording is and must be my number one priority. And while auditions do take up a small portion of this recording time, most of the scripts I record are for paid jobs. Because I have the solid momentum of repeat and referral business, auditions are a smaller part of the equation than for part-timers or those just getting started in the VO business.

2. Edit Audio Files –  I still edit most of my audio files, however, I’m outsourcing more of my editing lately. This helps to free up additional recording time. I’m also trying to book more live ISDN sessions and I even have a couple of situations where my clients are able to edit audio files themselves, and I just provide raw unedited audio at a reduced fee from what I normally charge.

3. Communicate with Clients and Prospects to line up projects, schedule sessions and deliver finished audio – This is necessary for ME to do and not something that I would ever delegate. Clients need to be able to interact with me directly throughout all phases of a project. So, I make sure I’m easily available and accessible. I like being the one over-seeing the quality of everything that goes out, to make sure my standards are always met and my client’s expectations are hopefully exceeded.

Clients benefit from having my sole focus and attention on them and their projects. Instead of being scattered in a dozen directions related to running my business, my time is spent recording, editing and communicating with clients. Not only does this ensure I’m constantly energized and eager to hit the recording studio every day, but it also means that I’m working and polishing my voiceover acting skills constantly. This makes me better at what I do and allows me to keep upgrading my level of service to my clients.

In Part 3 of this series, I’ll talk about how I position myself as a valuable member of every one of my clients’ teams, and how that mindset contributes to my success as a full-time voiceover talent. Please subscribe to my blog or stay tuned in social media for Part 3 coming in a week or so.

Debbie Grattan has been working as a full-time voiceover talent since the late 90′s. She has collaborated on thousands of projects and teamed up with hundreds of production companies, marketing and advertising firms, commercial voice-over recording studios and corporate/business clients around the United States and throughout the world. Listen to Voiceover Talent Demos and request a Custom Voiceover Audition for your upcoming project on her website.

This post is the first installment in this series written for people and companies who have the need to hire professional voiceover talent. This series discusses the contrast between what services and qualities a full-time voiceover talent can offer versus a part-time voice talent.

Even though just dealing with life’s daily demands can sometimes feel like a full-time job, most of us have to take on a real career to pay the bills, feed the kids and keep our Netflix subscription in check. I’m lucky to have discovered voice-over acting as my calling and career. It’s a vocation that I have been building up and honing for close to 25 years now.

When it comes to hiring voice talent, that FULL-TIME status can be a big perk for clients. Hiring full-time female voice over talent comes with several benefits that you may not find with part-time voice-over actors.

Excellent Availability, Accessibility and Full Focus

Let’s say you need a recording pronto or a rapid answer to a quick question. Either request may be super-short and super-easy, but it’s still under a super-strict deadline. Many full-timers could fit in your last-minute project, or answer your question, within minutes.

Part-time talent is typically working a day job for their primary income source and may only provide voice-over services on nights, weekends and/or whenever they can fit it into their day. That means you may not have that quick answer until later that evening or tomorrow, or that recording delivered until sometime on Sunday, or maybe next week.

In today’s world, business moves too fast to have to wait hours for answers or results. When you work with a full-time female voice over talent, you know you can get a quick response; whether it’s a simple question, an audition or recording a job.

Not only is a PT voice talent’s time split between their regular career and part-time acting, but their mental and energetic focus is also split. Full-timers can keep their head in the voice over acting game 24/7, leading to enhanced concentration and more precise results.

Longevity and the Magic Tool Box

Okay, now let’s say you need an audio project revised months or even a year later. Contact your reliable full-time female voice over talent six months down the line and she’ll be there to accommodate your request.

Successful, full-time voice actors are typically highly committed and serious professionals who intend to stick around for the long haul. There’s no reason to leave a career we’ve paid our dues to establish and truly enjoy. Your full-time, on-the-spot talent will also be able to match the same vocal quality from six months ago. Their experience and tools allow them jump in and complete the project in a jiffy, with the consistency needed to make your revised project sound seamless and professional.

Contact your part-time voice actor six months later and you run the risk of several possible scenarios:

– They may not be doing voice over work at all anymore, or it may be difficult to track them down and get a response from them in a timely manner because their availability to do voice over work is limited.

– Something may have changed about their recording setup (maybe they upgraded some equipment since the last time you worked with them) and there are issues getting the new audio revisions to fit with the original recording.

– They possibly don’t have the professional tools and equipment readily available, to make the changes and revise the audio effortlessly and easily.

Instead of getting a few simple revisions for your existing recording from the same actor, you’re stuck having to re-audition, re-cast, and re-do the entire project, costing you extra time and money.

I had this exact situation occur just last week. A client whom I hadn’t heard from in awhile emailed me asking for some pickups to a video VO that I had done for him over two years ago.

Here is a quote from his email:  

“One other note, we need to ensure that the new VO pick up lines will perfectly match the rest of the old read, so can you confirm that you’ll be using the same recording equipment/mic so there is no difference in tone or pitch and so these pick up lines can seamlessly be plugged in.”

It is great to know in a situation like this that I can easily confirm nothing has changed about my sound, and what I record today will fit seamlessly into what I recorded a few years ago.

I even still had the original audio file from the session I did over two years ago, which made it even easier for me to quickly match exactly the sound, style, pacing and tone that he needed for the pickup.

Being a Full-Time Voice Over Talent Requires Ongoing Financial Investment

Full-timers are generally more willing and able to invest in the high-end equipment necessary to record and deliver the end product in a variety of ways to best suit client needs. A high-end microphone is a must for all working pros, as are ISDN capabilities (or other methods of “hooking up digitally”) that allow real-time recording and phone patch capabilities.

A part-timer may have some high-tech equipment, but chances are, they could be lacking in some of the bigger ticket items. The ISDN equipment investment alone can run anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000 (plus the monthly phone charges which range into the hundreds of dollars in some places), and high quality microphones can run up to several thousand dollars as well.

It’s not an easy business. Part-timers can give up after a year or two when they realize the enormous amount of work, and the length of time it can take to establish a steady stream of clients. Some people may take the voice-over workshops, make a demo, set up an in-home studio, and then spend the next six to eight months NOT getting much work. It’s pretty common to become discouraged with the whole business, and just decide to throw in the towel.

All the benefits (and fringe benefits) that come with hiring full-time female voice over talent can definitely add up. With the full-timer you should always get:

* High quality audio in whatever format is needed
* Well honed acting and narration abilities with copy: commercial, long and short-form
* Easy and immediate availability
* Speedy Turnaround on the work
* Access to monitored session work
* Skill at making post-production edits to an existing audio/video project
* Outstanding Customer Service

Not only is full-time talent more apt to deliver the quality work you need when you need it, but you’ll also be able to relax, knowing that you’ve hired and are working with a true professional, who will be there for you and deliver the goods when you need it most.

But wait…there’s more! Please read Part 2 of this series discussing more of the benefits of hiring full-time female voice over talent versus part-time voice talent.

Please share your thoughts, comments and feedback below.

Creating a new Narration Voice Over Demo is something that every voice over talent has to do from time to time. These days, because I have so much content on Youtube in the form of video samples of my work, I have been moving more and more toward creating video versions of my voice over demos, or in the case of my latest Narration Voice Over Demo, a completely unique video demo compiled from samples of my Narration video portfolio.

This latest narration voice over demo covers several categories of narration that I record on a regular basis including: Corporate / Business Narration, Web Video Narration, Health and Medical Narration, Tutorials, eLearning and Instructional Narration, Travel and Leisure Narration and Technical Narration. You’ll see samples of all of these categories in this video!

I engaged the services of Ari Ross for help with the creation of this narration voice over demo video. He was great to work with and very fast in selecting the best videos from my shortlist and then splicing the best segments altogether and keep the length well under three minutes. I highly recommend him to other voice over talent who want to create a similar type of video voice over demo.

I do a LOT of Narration Voice Over projects. While recording corporate narration or complex medical narration scripts isn’t very glamorous (it’s certainly not going to make me a household name anytime soon), narration voice over does provide me with an abundance of opportunities to serve my clients and make my living as a professional voice over actress. I guess you could say that Narration Voice Overs are my bread and butter.

The plan is to make several more of these Voice Over Demo Videos, for other categories of voice over work that I do on a regular basis. Look for those in the coming months!

Debbie Grattan has been recording Narration Voice Overs for more than 20 years, having collaborated on thousands of projects and partnered with hundreds of production companies, marketing and advertising firms, commercial voice-over recording studios and corporate/business clients around the United States and abroad. Hear and see all of her voice over demo samples and request a Voice-Over Services Quote for an upcoming project.