VO Pro: The Business of Voice Over and Voice Acting

The lovely and talented Dervla Trainor, a successful voice actor and creator of the VO Kickstart program, joins the podcast to discuss her journey in the voiceover industry.  Derv shares her experience transitioning from pay-to-play sites to marketing and finding direct clients, the importance of marketing and building relationships in order to have clients come to you.  She also highlights the va...

LinkedIn has a ton of big changes coming in 2024 and if you’re not up to date, you could be missing huge opportunities and getting left behind. LinkedIn is bringing a massive change to Creator Mode, a dedicated Services section, search filters, and more.  In this video, I’ll break down 5 Big LinkedIn Changes in 2024, what they mean for you, and how to update your LinkedIn profile accordingly for m...

Mandy Fisher, known as @astoriaredhead on TikTok, shares her voiceover journey and insights into the industry. She started as a child actor and transitioned into voiceover work, focusing on commercials and e-learning. We talk about importance of finding agents who nurture and support your career. She also discusses the role of social media, particularly TikTok, in combating misinformation and educ...

I got a message last week from one of our VO Pro members who says, “I have a topic that could go down a BIG rabbit hole! For all us newbies out here...When is it time to look for an agent?” What milestones should you have met or be meeting to find an agent? How do you go about finding an agent and soliciting them? I’ll answer these and other burning questions today on Paulie’s Secret Agent Plan. Y...

My guest today is not just a highly experienced voice actor of over 20 years. He is also the head of Gravy for the Brain Oceania and runs his own voice acting academy in New Zealand. Please welcome to the podcast, Toby Ricketts. Toby Ricketts is a highly experienced voice actor and head of Gravy for the Brain Oceania, discusses his journey in the voice acting industry and the importance of communi...

Auditions are the lifeblood of any voice actor. They are the main way we compete and win work in our business.  Assuming you’re properly trained and competitive, the more auditions you do, the more work you will ultimately book. That’s a great thing.  But what about bad work? Work that is exploitative, unfair, or downright dishonest? How do you avoid those jobs?  The best way to avoid bad work is...

If I asked 100 voice actors to tell me what they do for a living, how many do you think would use the word freelance? Probably zero. The truth is, if you’re a voice actor, you are a freelancer.  What does that mean? First, it means you are not an employee. It means working for different companies at different times rather than being permanently employed by one company. It means you’re self-employe...

In our chat with J. Michael Collins, he emphasizes the importance of using voiceover sites wisely and not overspending on memberships. He also highlights the significance of having a strong marketing game and reaching out to clients on a regular basis. He also talks about the benefits of search engine optimization for visibility and attracting clients. JMC emphasizes the importance of networking a...

Last year we started our Voice Over Conference Calendar here on the channel and it was a hit. I got a lot of feedback, comments on the video last year, and the video and downloadable conference calendar were both well received. So we’re back this year with my 2024 Voice Over Conference Calendar. Again, this list is not meant to be exhaustive or definitive or comprehensive. This is simply my list o...

Today, my guest is audiobook narrator, voice actor, and author, Jim Cooper.    Jim shares his experience as a caregiver for his wife Sally during her battle with cancer. He discusses how he wrote a book on cancer caregiving and the impact it had on his wife and their relationship. Jim offers advice for those facing a cancer diagnosis and emphasizes the importance of finding support and taking care...

My guest today can probably best be described as a force. When she's in the room, you know it. She is a successful voice actor. She helps people with branding and Linkedin and networking. And most impressively, she is what I call a moonshot taker. Please welcome to the podcast, my dear friend and work wife, Naked Jen Greenfield. _____________________________ SUBSCRIBE TO THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL:...

There are currently at the time we’re filming this, allegations against a specific voiceover coach and demo producer. The concerning part of these allegations is that they’re being made against someone who at one time had a sterling reputation in the voiceover business. They are a highly accomplished voice actor and were for years a trusted coach. That’s scary stuff. And it’s nightmare fuel for ne...

Linda Bruno has been doing voiceover for a hot minute. Since the '90s. She started out with big, big dreams and made it all happen. She's voiced national campaigns for AT&T, been the voice of Disney Junior for Southeast Asia, and made a "crapload of money," over the course of her more than 30 year career. I got the chance to chat with her at length about her start, and abou...

This time of year, early January, everybody’s all fired up about their New Year’s resolutions. I hate them. But, I understand them.  Typically, New Year’s resolutions involve setting goals, broken down into added behaviors. It’s the psychology of achieving more through doing more, and I myself have subscribed to it for a very long time. But what we don’t talk about is the fact that we all have onl...

Jamie Muffett is one of the smartest people in voice-over. The British expat is an audio engineer, voice actor, coach, conference organizer, and podcaster and that combination of roles gives him a unique and nuanced perspective on our business.  In this episode, we learn a little about Jamie as a person and how his voice over story could be called "Coming To America." We talk about his d...

Agent. Actor. Casting Director. Demo Producer. You name it and Tina Morasco has done it and done it all at the highest levels. We've been friends for a couple of years and even I didn't know the depth and breadth of her experience and how that makes her uniquely qualified to be both the Head of Casting at Sound and Fury and the best commercial VO coach I've ever been around. In our...

If you’re like most voice actors, you feel an immense amount of pressure to constantly post content on social media, hoping to use that as a strategy for business development and that takes a ton of time, effort, sweat, and stress. You’ve got to plan it, conceive it, design it, produce it, and schedule it. Omg, no wonder you’re stressed out about it. But here’s the thing: you’re probably going to...

Today, we talk with voice actor Craig Williams. He's a British expat living and working in Houston, TX. Craig has been in voice over for 7 years and brings a unique perspective to the industry because of his upbringing, Scottish heritage, experience as an electrical engineer and club DJ. In today's episode, we chat about all of that, why he's been in way too many helicopters, the co...

You have a choice. Keep doing what you’ve been doing and keep getting what you’ve been getting, or decide you’re done with excuses, done with kidding yourself, and done with half-assing your VO career and your life. I said it in last week’s episode there are two kinds of people: those who make excuses and those who make it happen. And the fact of the matter is, you can’t make it happen without a p...

If you’re a professional voice actor or audiobook narrator, your job is to stay in the game as long as possible. Voiceover is not a long game. It’s an infinite game. Author Simon Sinek says that in finite games, like football or chess, the players are known, the rules are fixed, and the endpoint is clear. The winners and losers are easily identified. In infinite games, like business or voiceover o...

I've been getting a little discouraged lately about the voiceover business.  We are hearing stories of lots of people potentially being allegedly hornswoggled by a particular coach. People are making up Zoom calls with celebrities that probably didn't happen. There's La Niña and war and unrest on the world stage and I'm feeling it all heavier in a way that I probably haven&apos...

It’s November and as we stare down the barrel of the Holiday Season, it's clear that 2023 has held more change and transition for the VO business than any of us knew at the start of the year.  We’ve also seen some change and transition in the PSP platforms, especially at the largest of the VO-specific platforms, Voices, as they replaced Founder David Ciccarelli as CEO with interim CEO Jay O’C...

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to remember Voices and Voice123. Both had lives with so much promise, yet cut so short. We had such hopes for you. But as The Good Book says, “Yay, though I walked through the shadow of the valley of the pay to plays, I shall fear no evil. For the GVAA Rate Guide is with me. Lord, we pray for these souls, Voices and Voice123, that though they be twisted a...

Music Radio Creative’s Izabela Russell recently said on their channel that she sees a mass exodus happening in the voice over industry.  And while Izabela’s take is stark, and blunt, it’s not new. Do I agree with her? Yes.  And no. I’ll get to that. I agree, and I’ve said this for years, that AI will obliterate the bottom end of the industry where price is and always has been the primary driver. A...

One of the biggest problems that folks new to the business coming into voiceover run into as new voice actors is how to separate, how to sort out the good information from the bad.  In fact, it's one reason I started this channel because there is a substantial amount of factually incorrect garbage going on in our business that's floating around out there and the only way to fight that is...