Jan 24, 2023
Transcript
>> It’s time to take your business to the next level, the
BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and
Successes being utilized by the industry’s top talent today. Rock
your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let’s welcome your host,
Anne Ganguzza.
Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS Podcast and the Business
Superpower series. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I have with me
Lau Lapides. Woo!
Lau: Hey everyone. Good to see you, Anne.
Anne: Special guest, co-host. Oh my gosh, Lau, I have had the best
time having you as co-host.
Lau: I love it. I think you and I are like sisters from another
mother. I love it. I think we got so much to talk about. So much to
say. We have a great rapport.
Anne: We do. We do. And you know what? I really have a lot of trust
in you, and that is something that I feel, when people are starting
off in the industry, they need to find someone to trust, a tribe, a
coach, a mentor, in order to help them get through the process. And
I think trust is a huge ask for the talent, but I think it's
absolutely necessary for success.
Lau: It is. I mean, you have to trust someone at some point in
order to further your education and further your career. And really
be able to also kind of ignite personalized relationships where
you're forecasting to people, the right people, well-selected
people, that you're gonna share thoughts that are authentic. You're
gonna be helpful in their journey. You're gonna share things that
are uncomfortable. I mean, that's really how we gain trust. And it
doesn't happen overnight. It really is time. It takes time to
gather trust.
Anne: Yeah. And I think a big factor in trust is obviously the fear
that seems to be very prevalent when people start off in this
industry. The fear that they're not good enough, they're not gonna
be successful. And I think it leads them to just not trust in
themselves, not trust in other people they might have worked with
or people on the internet. And I understand that in a lot of ways
where you've gotta be careful, but I feel as though if you have a
member of the tribe, you've got to just invest in that trust, to
hope that they're guiding you in the right direction.
Now, that is not to say that you should not educate yourself,
right, so that you know who you can trust. Right? And kind of feel
your way around that. And if you do not trust, I feel that it's
going to inhibit you from being successful in the industry, because
otherwise you're not gonna have someone that's gonna help build you
back up or build your confidence up when you're feeling low, when
maybe you're not getting the jobs that you're expecting. And I
think a lot of times people make a big investment, let's say, in
coaching or in a demo, or workshops, whatever they do. And
immediately if they don't get a job, because they're not familiar
enough with the industry, they immediately question themselves.
They question the capabilities for anything and immediately feel
like they need to get a return on their investment in the next
week. Which I wish I had gotten a return on my investment in the
following week after I did my training. But this is a process. And
not only do you have to trust in yourself, you've gotta trust in
the process. And that means researching coaches, researching
talent out there in the industry that seem to have had some level
of success. Reading -- I'm all about reading, reading, reading --
reading books, joining web forums, and finding out who are the
respected people in the industry. And doing that education first. I
mean, I know in the beginning when you first start coaching and
creating a demo, and there's lots of people that talk about, oh,
there's scammers out there that are gonna take all your money and
create a demo, and then it's not gonna be a good demo, or it's not
gonna be a professional demo. And I think that a lot of people are
scared about that. But I also think that you can take the matters
into your own hands. And again, research, research, research,
research, join groups, read books, find the people that are well
respected in the industry.
Lau: Absolutely. I do think there's a level of trust that you have
to have in yourself that is a leap of faith.
Anne: Yeah. Yeah.
Lau: Okay. So let's say you're starting out, Let's say you're doing
your research, you're reading, you're in the industry mags, and you
know what's going on with conferences and you know what the best
practices are, so to speak. But you need time to have that reveal
itself, right? What we see and what we read and what we know and
what we hear isn't always our truth through our own experiences. So
you have to trust that you are smart enough, you're motivated and
thoughtful enough. You're focused enough that you're gonna start to
put your trust, engage who that tribe is as you put it together,
and not get upset when you put your trust into something or someone
and it doesn't work out, because that is called experience.
And experience is not always happy and fun and positive. Sometimes
it's making a mistake. And we have to learn from those mistakes. We
have to work through those and not make those again and say, wow,
I'm glad I made that mistake, because now I know it doesn't work
and what I shouldn't be trusting in the industry, and really move
through it. But if we never give our trust anything, if we're never
100% all in and know that we've got skin in the game, then we never
really tested our theories, our methodologies, and our teachings.
We never really tested it because we weren't willing to give it
over 100% to see what great things can come of it. Now, I don't
know about you, but like you're super successful. I'm successful. A
big part of that success is testing, hit or miss experimentation.
And what happened to the joy of trying things, of
experimenting?
Anne: Absolutely.
Lau: It's like so many people need to have this guarantee from the
start. What I'll save.
Anne: The safety net. It's like the trophy. They need the trophy.
Right? They need the trophy right away. And the thing of it is, is,
and Lau, you and I have spoken about this, my overnight success
took me <laugh> many, many, many years. Right? And if you're
just getting into the industry and you're upset because you're not
booking a week after you submitted your demo or started
auditioning, trust in the process, give it time. When I talk with
my students, I try to tell them that it is not an overnight
process, that it does take time. But I still feel as though some
people just have to live that or experience that. There's a lot of
people who never get past the making a demo stage, because I
believe they do not trust in the process. They don't give
themselves enough of a chance to grow and to grow into the industry
and start to see that success, which is not gonna happen tomorrow.
I'm sorry, you're not gonna get that prize gig tomorrow.
And it's okay. It is okay. You just need to again, have trust, have
faith in yourself. I'll tell you what, Lau, I am a big believer,
and anybody's listening to this podcast knows that I trust my gut.
I live my life by my gut. And I run my business by my gut too,
believe it or not. If it doesn't feel right, then I'm taking more
steps to educating myself on to maybe why it doesn't feel right or
what I might do to change it. As you mentioned before, just kind of
take those little steps and change direction if you need to.
Lau: That's right. That's exactly right. And just be okay with
that. Be okay with not knowing. Be okay with sometimes trusting the
wrong person or the wrong process or whatever, because that's how
we grow, that's how we learn, that's how we shape it up. The
problem comes in where you trust something, it doesn't work your
way, and then you keep trusting it, and you keep trusting it. And
you never learn from that pro -- You don't redirect and
pivot.
Anne: Or -- yeah, exactly. You don't redirect or pivot or you
simply let it scare you away. Right? Because you've been burned
once.
Lau: Yeah, or shut you down.
Anne: I will have students that have come to me that have not had
positive experiences with coaches or their demo production or
whatever it might be, and it will make them very shy and very wary
to continue moving on. And I always say, use those experiences,
like it's okay, like you said, it's okay to maybe the person that
you thought you trusted didn't turn out to be what you thought.
Right? It's okay, learn from it. Turn that into a positive
experience and learn from that and grow from that. And so I'm
always trying to tell people don't beat yourself up over it. I
mean, honestly now you know. And so boom, that was a wonderful
lesson.
I'm always trying to learn lessons from things that didn't go quite
right or what people might perceive to be failures. And I don't
even like to think of the word failure. I just say, oh, okay, well
that didn't work out. So what can I learn from that's, and how can
I grow from that? And that will turn most of those experiences into
a positive one for me so that I can continue to grow and progress
forward.
Lau: That's right. And be smart about how you trust. It's not about
just, I trust this. I'm putting my trust in this. It's like, how do
I trust? That famous presidential, you know, trust, but verify.
Verify. Meaning do the due diligence, do the homework, make sure as
best as you can, is this person who they say they really are? Is
this process what it really represents? Is there testimonial? Are
there accolades? Are there honors that I should be aware of that
build the ethos, build the credibility so I can trust even more? I
wanna do some verification. It doesn't mean that I'm putting them
in the hot seat under a light bulb, duct taping them to a chair and
grilling them. It just -- right? You and I've both been through
that a lot. Right?
Anne: Exactly. <laugh>
Lau: You know, like a whole FBI scene. It's not that, but there is
an intelligence in saying, let me do some background check. Let me
just Google, like everyone has Google. Why can't you just go on
Google and see, is this person have bad reviews or seem dangerous
or I don't know. But the point is, do that little bit of homework
to verify, to make you feel that much more comfortable in who
you're starting to put your trust into.
Anne: Yeah, absolutely. And if you cannot take that little tiny
leap of faith and then see where that goes, right, and grow from
it, you're gonna be stagnant and you're gonna sit there with demo
in hand and never really progress any further.
Lau: That's right.
Anne: But I will say over and over again, and you as -- Lau, with
an agency in, in casting for so long, you must know how long it can
take when somebody's first getting out into the industry to
actually start being consistent in booking jobs. And even when you
are consistent in booking jobs, every one of us has a time where
there might be a lull in our business and really that is the place
when you feel, oh my gosh, why am I not getting any work? I must
suck. You know what I mean? Or that's it. I've gotta get out of the
industry and they panic. Right? So many people panic and just trust
the process. Again, find those people that you do trust that can
help you through those times where you are starting to mentally --
I think the mental panic here can really be something that inhibits
successful voiceover actors. And sometimes they'll say, well,
alright, that's cool because more work for me.
Lau: Yeah. <laugh>. Absolutely. There's an ebb and flow to
everything. You know? There's ebbs and flows, highs and lows to
every single business out there. It's not possible to be super
successful in making tons of money every single day or getting jobs
every single day. That would be an unrealistic expectation.
Anne: Lau, let me stop you right there. I love that you brought
that up lot. Do you think that the majority of talent book
something every single day?
Lau: <Laugh>, I don't know anyone that books something every
single day.
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: I just don't know anyone. And I know a lot of really busy VO
talent that are recording all the time, but are they booking every
single day? No, they're not.
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: They're editing, they're catching up, they're marketing,
they're doing retakes, they're visiting their mom and dad, you
know, but they're not booking every single day. That would be
--
Anne: Right?
Lau: I won't say impossible, but I'll say it's highly
improbable.
Anne: Even people that are working every day, let's say you're, you
know, in the promo genre or that kind of thing, where they say
there's the golden handcuffs. Right? You are probably working,
right, that same network job that just comes in every single day.
I'm on a lot of telephone rosters, so I work every single day doing
telephony, but it's because I'm on a roster that I expect that
work, and I know that work's coming.
Lau: That's right.
Anne: But acquiring new work and getting new clients every single
day, I agree with you. I don't know many people -- I think it's
highly unlikely. And so that's one, I think misconception that
people new to this industry might have. Like, oh, well, okay, I
need to make so much. I remember constructing it like this, I would
like to make so much money per month. Right? $10,000 a month. So
what would it take to make $10,000 a month? Right? For 12 months,
that's your six figures salary. So what will it take to book
$10,000 a month? Well, if I could book 10 corporate jobs in the
month, right, and do that consistently, then yeah, I'll have no
problem.
Now that may or may not happen for a while. Right? That could
happen very sporadically. You could get a few corporate jobs. You
could get 10 jobs, 20 jobs in one month, but maybe the following
month you may get one. And so because of that difference, right, in
terms of consistency, that is where I think most people start to
panic and lose their trust in the process of what this industry is
all about. And again, it's kind of life as a freelancer, I like to
say entrepreneur, right? But freelancer is the same thing. Right?
So we don't know where our next job is coming from. And that really
has to be where your trust in the process lies, or trust in a
mentor, trust in your people that you talk to in your
accountability group. Trust that the process will work out and that
it will be okay.
Lau: And the truth is, we don't see what's happening in the
background of anyone's world. So those folks that you're perceiving
are booking every day have tons of work in the pipeline. So they're
lining up the pipeline of work like last year, like five years ago.
Like it's not the booking of today that they're reaching out today;
it's the reach out oftentimes from months, if not years ago, that
are just landing through and coming through on their pipeline. So
in essence, they've done the footwork --
Anne: They've planted the seeds.
Lau: -- done the preliminary work, they planted those seeds to keep
that pipeline full so that it looks to the outside world like
they're booking every day. And you know, the other thing I want to
say too, Anne, was that the trust of everything -- when I think
about how many of our systems in our world are on trust systems,
like even just going into a restaurant, you're ordering food and
drink and all this stuff, and they are trusting you that you have
money to pay for that. They're giving you the product first and
saying, devour this, you're never gonna give this back to us. We
know it and we're gonna trust that you're gonna pay for that.
Right?
So we live in this trust system where we're providing a product,
we're providing a service and we haven't been paid for anything.
We're just trusting that if I have an agent, they're gonna work for
me to get that money. If I don't, I'm gonna work with that client,
and I'm gonna have that professional faith that they're gonna send
me a check.
Anne: And you have to have faith, yes, that your agent's gonna be
doing that work for you. And let's say if you did not book through
an agent, right -- I negotiate a lot of work myself -- I actually
will have stated in my quote, prepayment is preferred, especially
if they're a new client, an electronic payment, by the way. But if
I am working with a big client and I issue an invoice, I am
trusting that they're going to pay me within the the 30, 60,
sometimes 90 days.
Lau: That's right.
Anne: And that is a trust in the process.
Lau: That's right. And it's scary.
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: It's really scary because once in a while it doesn't
happen.
Anne: Yep.
Lau: Once in a while we get burned. And I'm just here to tell you
guys, if you get nothing out of this podcast, just know that in
your lifetime there will be times that you will get burned, and not
to let that jade or make it simple (?) or scare you. You just know
that sometimes you run into a bad situation. And what do you learn
from that? What did you take away from that?
Anne: Exactly.
Lau: What do you know now? Rather than getting angry and bitter,
I'm gonna get better from that situation.
Anne: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Lau: But most situations are just not gonna be that. They're just
not. They're gonna be trustworthy.
Anne: And I think there's just the trust in so many things that you
don't even think about. Right? I had trust in the technology, Lau,
on that last podcast that it was gonna record us and it didn't.
<laugh> But that's okay. I'm not bitter. I am not bitter. We
learned from that, didn't we? Right? So now we know what to do.
Yeah. Now we know what to do. You know, it happens all the time. So
I know that just seemed like a silly little example, but it was a
true example of us turning that into a learning lesson. And I'm
actually grateful that it happened because now I know what to do to
alleviate it from happening again. And I'm grateful for that.
Lau: And watch this, Anne. I'm actually gonna demo what the
listener can do when they're in a situation where they're ethos --
I love using the word ethos. It's like a character building trust
that we build as people and as professionals. When they feel it
lowering, it's going down just a little bit. Because something
wrong happens, something bad happened. So in the moment you could
make a decision by saying something, and I'm really gonna say this
to Anne, but demo it in front of the listening audience.
I'm gonna say, Anne, that happened because that was my fault on our
side. We didn't realize we weren't going through Chrome as we
typically do. We somehow lost our Chrome app, and we just logged
right into the link without remembering that we have to go through
Chrome to record on Riverside. So what does that cause? There's a
cause and effect to that whole trust system. Anne now has to go to
her engineer and pay them a little extra to fix that and save that
problem. So how do we restore trust?
Anne: There you go.
Lau: Because the morality, the morality is I am going to offer to
pay that engineer to do that because that shouldn't be on you.
Because that was on our end. That was our fault. It wasn't
intentional; it was just a mistake. But see, this is how you wanna
treat your peeps, your friends, your colleagues, your fellows.
Whether they accept it, that's up to them. But to have the due
diligence that saying, oh, too bad, I made a mistake. Go figure it
out. It's like, well no, let me sort of rectify that. Let me see if
I can offer something to make that better, to repair that. Is it
life or death? Not life or death, but in the course of your
relationships, attention to detail is really, really important. And
when things go wrong and you make a mistake, 'cause we're just
human beings, try to rectify it. Try to fix it, try to offer.
Anne: Well, that's a wonderful example. And I like that. And I'll
see you <laugh> that offer because I appreciate the offer.
Right? Our relationship, I value our relationship and I appreciate
that offer. But I have already put that into my learning bin,
right, where I've learned where I need to make sure that my guests
on the podcast need to make sure they're going through Chrome in
order to record the video and the audio. So that's great. So I
politely decline and say thank you for the offer. But yeah, it's,
it's a thing. And so I feel good about it.
And so I want BOSSes who are just getting out into the industry and
feeling scared or having expectations that may or may not
correspond with what's actually happening to understand that,
number one, just put that trust in it. If it doesn't turn out the
way you expect, make sure that you think about what it is that you
can do to learn from that.
Lau: Absolutely. There's a learning curve in everything. Even if
it's highly uncomfortable, something really bad occurs, whatever,
just take the learning lesson and walk away and say, good. Now I'm
gonna take this into my future relationships. I'm gonna know who I
can work with and who's not appropriate to work with. And just move
on from it. And that will ensure your level of trust in the next
person. In other words, you won't be carrying your garbage, you
won't be carry your trash from what went wrong here into the
future. Anne, I think we're doing therapy. I think this is gonna
save a lot of marriages to be honest with you. Right? 'Cause you
wanna carry your last boyfriend's garbage into the new boyfriend's
garbage.
Anne: That's right. That's right.
Lau: Yeah? You wanna --
Anne: That's right.
Lau: -- have a clear slate. That person, that client if you will,
or that colleague, they have a right to earn your trust fully. It's
not fair to them to place all the stuff -- because you were telling
me earlier that you had a client that was having some trust issues
about your services and this and that. And I'm thinking, oh, this
reminds me so much of people who come in, you don't know where
they're coming in from, and they just came in from all these bad
relationships and experiences and they're putting it right onto
you.
Anne: Yep. Yep. Exactly.
Lau: How do you handle that, Anne, when that happens?
Anne: That's a great question. There's only so much -- I like to
say, well, you know what, it's their movie, right? And so I can't
let that affect me in any kind of a way or inhibit my growth. And
so I will just say, well, it's their movie. They're directing it
and I can help as much as I can. Just reinforce that things do not
necessarily happen a day after you start in this industry and that
you need to trust in the process. And other than that, other than
giving that advice, I don't know of much else that I can do except
to say, you know what? I'm here if you need me in the future,
that's absolutely fine. I'm happy to help you through that. But I
feel like if you want help and then you step back 'cause you got
scared, right, then there's no other way I can really help you
anymore at that point. It's gotta be your decision.
Lau: That's right. And maybe that's the time, Anne, when you, and I
would say to that client, you know, it's okay if this is not a good
fit for you, if you need to go somewhere else.
Anne: Yep. Absolutely.
Lau: Right? IE you should go somewhere else.
Anne: Right.
Lau: To work with someone that perhaps you have more trust in or
whatever --
Anne: Or not.
Lau: It's okay to give them permission to go.
Anne: Yeah, absolutely.
Lau: Like not every client's a good client. Not every contract's a
good contract. Not every job should be kept.
Anne: Absolutely. And I think understanding and trusting in that
gut feeling or that process again can help you to clear your mind.
I like to have all positivity in my business and in my transactions
and negotiations and so that will help me to clear that.
Lau: Absolutely. I got one more from the road.
Anne: Okay.
Lau: And the one I just thought of in terms of like fear and trust,
'cause they're entwined, they're they're entangled together is like
the fear of not being able to trust because it's going to go bad.
So in other words, it's like the Murphy's Law thing. Like I'm
projecting it's not gonna go well, I'm projecting problems will
happen. Manifesting. Projecting. And then it does. And then it
inevitably does because you're sabotaging it.
Anne: And that's the energy that you are focusing on.
Absolutely.
Lau: Yeah. 'Cause you're not wanting to trust or not capable of it
yet or whatever. So you're gonna give it a purpose and a
justification for why you can't trust it. Be careful of that.
Self-sabotage kills a lot of relationships.
Anne: Absolutely. Wow. Well guys, BOSSes out there, learn to trust.
Take those bitty, bitty steps. Trust and learn. That's the moral I
have of the story today. <laugh>.
Lau: Learning is good.
Anne: All right. All right. So BOSSes, I'm gonna give a great big
shout-out to our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can connect and network
like BOSSes. Find out more at ipdtl.com. Also, if you want to make
a big impact and have a very simple mission, you can find out more
at 100voiceswhocare.org. All right, guys. BOSSes, have an amazing
week and we'll see you next week. Bye.
Lau: Bye.
>> Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your
host Anne Ganguzza. And take your business to the next level. Sign
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