Apr 25, 2023
If you're new to the voice over industry, there's a lot to
learn. Luckily there are plenty of resources out there that can
help you get your bearings and start building your career. Anne is
joined by special guest Tracy Lindley, a voice actor & expert on
utilizing LinkedIn as a marketing tool for voice actors. On
LinkedIn, it's all about relationships—and not just with other
actors. Remember to focus on fostering genuine connections and
optimizing your online presence to attract potential clients. With
persistence and the right strategies, you'll be well on your way to
establishing a thriving career in voice acting. Stay engaged, keep
learning, and watch your network—and
opportunities—grow.
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. I'm your host
Anne Ganguzza, and today I'm excited to bring very special guest,
Tracy Lindley to the podcast. Hey Tracy.
Tracy: Hey Ann. How's it going?
Anne: It's going great. So a little bit about Tracy. Tracy's been a
full-time voice actor since 2014
--
we are kind of twinsies on that one
--
and regularly voices projects for clients like Hewitt Packard,
Realtor.com, iHeartRadio, Health.com, and many others. She is a
well known expert in the field of LinkedIn and finding clients and
is also a mom to four kids, ages 7 to 13, who also do voiceover.
And she lives in the Midwest area where it's very cold right
now.
Tracy: Yes, I'm bundled up in a sweater.
Anne: Well, Tracy, I am so excited to finally have you here on the
show. I feel like we're like ships that pass in the night because
I've been following you for such a long time, and I've seen you at
conferences, but we've just kind of like passed each other
by.
Tracy: I bet I've been following you for longer because I remember
when I was first starting out, you had a great interview on VO Buzz
Weekly that I watched.
Anne: Oh, I remember that. Yeah.
Tracy: Yes. It was a wonderful two-part interview and I learned so
much, and I was like, man, she is just dropping truth bombs on
here.
Anne: Well, thank you that I'm very honored about that. My
goodness. But you, I mean, my gosh, you are just blazing this path
to the stars with your career, and really in the last couple of
years, you are absolutely the known person outside of being great
in voiceover and talented, but also all about marketing and
LinkedIn. And so I'm excited to talk to you about that today,
because I was much more involved in LinkedIn a few years back. And
then my business kind of, I have separate paths. Now, I'm not as
able to keep up as much as I'd like on LinkedIn, so I'm getting
ready to learn a whole lot, and BOSSes, I think you're gonna learn
a whole lot from this wonderful, wonderful talent here. So let's
get going. Before we talk about LinkedIn, tell us a little bit
about your journey into voiceover.
Tracy: Well, it started out with me just hanging out, washing
dishes in my kitchen, listening to VO Buzz Weekly and other great
podcasts like VO BOSS, which is on the resource page that I have on
my website to recommend to other talent that are
learning.
Anne: Thank you.
Tracy: Because you are always giving us value and you have since
the very beginning, and I've learned so much from you. You are a
wiz at marketing yourself and a great person just relationally. You
know how to connect the dots and how to communicate very
well.
Anne: Well, thank you for that.
Tracy: Oh, well you're welcome. I mean, part of the fun of being on
podcasts is getting to tell people how much I enjoy them personally
because I'm very relational myself, and I think think that if
someone was just starting out in the industry, I feel like the best
way to get started is to research. And that's what I tell
everybody. Research, research, research. Read the articles, listen
to the podcasts, watch the vlogs. Do all of those things. And there
are some great paid courses too. I recommend all of that stuff
because you can't just learn in bits and pieces so much. Sometimes
you need to kind of put it all together, and we all connect those
dots as we're going along in our journey. But I can't remember now
what your original question is. Oh my. My journey.
Anne: Your journey. Yes. Your journey. Because you've been doing
this a long time. I think we started around the same time actually,
and I was working part-time for a little bit before I went into it
full-time. Were you always in it full-time or did you?
Tracy: No.
Anne: Okay. So you started part-time.
Tracy: I was a claims adjuster for an auto insurance company. And I
know you were, from your story, you were working on installing
telephone systems, right?
Anne: Yep, absolutely.
Tracy: And that's how you got your start was hey, they needed a
voice to be on the systems. And for me, I have a communication
degree, and when I was in college, I had an internship at a cable
company and one day the producer just handed me a piece of paper
and was like, hey, you have a nice voice. Will you read this? I'm
like, okay, sure. . So I read it, I get in there, it's no more than
a small closet with foam in it in a microphone, right? So it's
nothing fancy. So I go in there and I read it, and I just found
that I have this natural sense of timing. I knew what 30 seconds
should be. And that goes back even further to me just reading out
loud to kids at the library when I was like 12, 13,
14.
I just volunteered my time, and I was always like the babysitter
that everybody wanted to come and hang out with their kids. So I
have read to kids out loud several years of my life and still love
reading out loud to my own kids. Reading out loud is such a skill
that we don't realize we need to develop. Because when we're
reading a book, you know, we're not gonna typically read out loud
to ourselves. So sometimes it feels weird and it feels strange, but
that's one of the best skills that we can learn when we're getting
into into the industry.
Anne: Oh yeah. That's like cold reading skills right there. And I
remember myself as a youngster, I would always be that person that
would raise the hand
--
who wants to read out loud for the class?
Tracy: Yes.
Anne: Me. And I wrote books too when I was really young. When I was
in kindergarten, I learned to write, and I started to write books
and I read them to the first graders, and it was all about Nibbles
the Bunny. But I think that maybe that was so long ago
though.
Tracy: Okay. I feel like
--
Anne: That was like my start .
Tracy:
--
we have got to publish these books. The world needs to see Nibbles
the Bunny.
Anne: I'm telling you
--
Tracy: Have you considered that?
Anne: ? I wish. I wish that I had a picture of it or a record of
what it was that I wrote, but I vividly remember drawing the bunny.
I illustrated too. And then I wrote the books, and I was so proud
to read them, and all of my career, and I know yours too, I think a
lot of voice actors when they get into it, they're good cold
readers, or they've always been like excited to read or perform in
front of an audience. And it's wonderful for your cold reading
skills. And then I think what happens is, as we really get into the
acting of voiceover, then it becomes something where you don't
wanna use that as a crutch. You wanna use it to get yourself to
quickly get into the story, but then you need to act. And then if
you're reading too much and then it's gonna sound like you're
reading too much, but I digress. But I think it's a wonderful skill
that everybody needs in order to just, you know, be quick on their
feet. Once you get those script changes that come in like at the
last minute, you've gotta be able to do a quick cold read and
understand and comprehend that story so that you can then tell it
back while you're voicing it.
Tracy: Yeah. Yeah. And it's really important to have that
--
that child doesn't have those inhibitions that we do as adults. So
I feel like if we could just tap into our inner child, we wouldn't
be scared of it, you know, because we can all get performance
anxiety, especially the more and more and more people come into the
room to listen to us perform, it just becomes so scary. So it
really all comes down to just reading out loud, having fun with it,
telling a story. That's what we're here for.
Anne: Absolutely. Now this is a little earlier than I was gonna get
into it, but you're a mom of four kids, so big family. I'm also one
of four in the family. Actually through the pandemic I became one
of six and that's just a whole
'notherpodcast
where I found out I had a brother and a sister, which is a
wonderful thing. But I loved being a family where we're close in
age. Tell me about your family,
'cause
they're also doing voiceover, and I love how you just talked about
how we need to be kids, we need to feel uninhibited. And so do you
work with your kids and then also learn from them as well or be
reminded of that as well?
Tracy: Oh gosh, I'm always learning lessons from them. And a lot of
those lessons involve being patient and being a good communicator,
breaking down what I need from you and saying it nicely.
.
Anne: Oh yeah. And hey, that works in marketing too, right?
.
Tracy: Yeah, that's true. I mean direct communication, but doing it
kindly is I think a big key to marketing effectively.
Anne: Yeah.
Tracy: But my kids are always teaching me stuff. Like last night,
my daughter, she's nine, she's the middle
daughter'cause
I have a son and then three girls.
Anne: Okay.
Tracy: So the middle daughter is right in that sweet spot. You see
a lot of auditions that come through 8 to 10, 8 to 10. So she's
right there. She's also recently started taking vocal lessons. They
do coach as well. Martha Khan is an excellent teacher for kids.
Love her, my kids love her. But my daughters, all four of the kids
actually take piano lessons, so
--
Anne: I did too.
Tracy: Oh yes. It's great. We need that musicality.
Anne: It's so wonderful. Yes, absolutely. And I use that musicality
when I coach as well because there's a melody to conversation.
There's a melody in which most people are trying to achieve that
natural, conversational, authentic, and there's a melody to it,
believe it or not, if you break it down, so.
Tracy: Were you a vocalist as well? Or are you still?
Anne: Yeah, I mean I don't sing professionally, but you know, I
sing in the shower, but for the longest time I was in choir for all
four years of high school and went to the all-states and the
all-counties and absolutely. I still love, love to sing. And it is
something that, and playing piano, understanding where your notes
are and being able to read music, it greatly helped breaking down
the performance of a conversation. And so yeah. It's the basis of
how I teach a lot actually.
'cause
there's a lot of people who are musical that come into this
industry. So piano's wonderful.
Tracy: Yeah, they really have an advantage. I took lessons, uh,
piano lessons for seven years as well. And I definitely see a lot
of legato, staccato.
Anne: Yes.
Tracy: Those are pretty big themes in what we do.
Anne: Yeah.
Tracy: And also understanding how to translate what the client is
saying. I actually see sort of musically in my head.
Anne: Oh yeah, there's a rhythm. There's definitely a rhythm to it
and a beat. And also the emotional part of it too, right, the
emotion that gets put into it and the passion that gets put into
it. Words are notes and really it's phrasing is very similar,
right? We don't breathe in the middle of our phrases when we talk.
It's not like I'm going to talk to you like this. You know, , it's,
yeah. There's just a whole composition to it and, and I believe in
my demo production too, it's a storyline from beginning to end. So
it's amazing how much music plays into, at least how I identify and
can work within voiceover and also coach it.
Tracy: Yes. Imagination too. We've got to again tap into that inner
child where we're able to let ourselves go into the story and
become the character.
Anne: Oh yes.
Tracy: My daughter and I both have
--
my older daughter, my 11-year-old, she loves like fairy tales,
princess stories, anything that involves, you know, that kind of
fantasy world. And right now I cannot get her nose out of this book
that she's reading. It's the Ella Enchanted author. I can't
remember
--
her last name is Levine. Anyway, caught her reading by the light of
the nightlight last night when she's supposed to be sleeping. But
that kind of joy for the story Yeah. Is what we need as adults. And
that's another thing that I was talking to my daughter last night
with the auditions is that
--'cause
they needed her to do some giggles. And sometimes it's hard to get
kids to laugh on command, and I'll tickle
'emand
I'll do whatever I need to, but I'm just like, pretend you're
having fun with your friends. I want you to think about the best
day. I want you to think about when you do your gymnastics and you
just, you love life and let it bubble up and come out of you. So
she's still working on that. She's a little nervous in front of the
mic still. But it's all part of the journey. So I do learn a ton
from my kids. That's a great question that I don't think everyone's
ever really asked me before.
Anne: Oh, and you know what's so funny is that when I was teaching,
of course I worked in high school, I learned so much, probably more
from the kids than they might've learned from me. I mean, my hope
was to inspire and motivate them, but boy did I learn a whole lot
from them. It's why I coach today because I really feel that give
and take, and I can completely understand when you're working with
your children. Like it's such a wonderful give and take when you're
experiencing that together, and you're learning together and you're
guiding her and hopefully getting her super excited to just excel
at voiceover, and so great for you. Now how do you find the time?
There's the, the question probably everybody asks you, because I
was part of a four child family and I know how busy my mom was. She
was constantly carting me everywhere to my piano lessons or
whatever that was. I also rode horses, but it was a crazy busy time
for my mom. So how do you do it all?
Tracy: I just really think time management's important, but also
just understanding boundaries. I have worked for many years without
my kids being away and with having really limited childcare hours.
Because I love my kids and I want to spend time with them. So
everything I teach, I say do it in the cracks of life. There's
always little windows and bits, and if you can take that, you can
actually concentrate it and do more in that time. I've found that
since my kids, all four of them, are in school full-time, I have to
really reign myself in and plan my day more consecutively to where
I'm using it more effectively. Because when I just had two hours
and a day to work during nap time, boy, I really hustled. And I
really focused on marketing on LinkedIn. That was the thing that I
needed to do. I have not enjoyed endless auditioning. That's not
something that really floats my boat. I don't love it.
Anne: I don't either.
Tracy: I do auditions. Yeah. And actually, actually I joined
Bodalgo.
Anne: Did I say that? Yeah. Don't either.
Tracy: We have to do what we have to do.
Anne: I know.
Tracy: But I don't hardly audition on Voice123 because there's just
so many and there's so many people. But I do love of course agents,
I will audition everything that I feel is appropriate
--
Anne: Yes. Absolutely.
Tracy:
--
for my
--
absolutely. So agents, current clients that maybe they need three
choices to send to their end person. Yeah. Or some of the different
production houses that I'm part of, they'll need auditions and
Bodalgo. But really that's it. Most of the time it's directly
communicating with the client
'cause
that is where I really enjoy.
Anne: Yeah, I love that. And you know, that's so interesting
'cause
I feel that we're kind of like soul sisters in that area because
right now, the way that I have
--
I'm doing a lot of things. I mean, I'm doing this podcast, I'm
doing a VO Peeps group and I also coach and I do voiceover, so I
don't have a ton of time to devote to auditioning. And so for me it
was more about the direct marketing. One of the things that I
developed because I didn't have a ton of time, was the BOSS Blast,
which was a direct marketing to a list. And that makes total sense
that for you, you would go and use LinkedIn or use whatever social
platform that worked for you to get those jobs directly because
that kind of bypasses a lot of times the need for an
audition.
And also I, I would imagine, I'm gonna talk to you about that, like
what search engine optimization has to do in LinkedIn that helps
you get found, and people maybe reach out to you, and then if they
hear your demo or you've got samples up there, I would imagine that
then they just say, have an inquiry and say how much would it cost
to do this? And for me that's the time saver where I don't have to
audition. And it's not that I won't audition, but it's just that I
don't have a ton of time. So I had to get more efficient at my
marketing. So then let's talk about LinkedIn. Now, why LinkedIn,
first of all for you and not some other social
platform?
Tracy: Well, I mean the other ones are fun, but when people think
about business, they think about LinkedIn. It is the number one
most widely used business social media platform. So naturally
that's where I was gonna go because I'm not interested in getting
followers and being popular online. I'm just here to build those
business relationships and grow my business. And I did it. I mean,
I would market to as many people as I could. My goal was 20 people
per day, new people that I would reach out to. As a young person in
my career as a young mom of little kids, I knew my time was
limited, so that's where I focused. I said I'm gonna market to 20
people per day. And I kept like a little, just a paper, like a
written, handwritten notebook where I would write down names and
dates, and then I would, you know, make a note back if someone
contacted me back.
But it was just a visual tool to show me that I had actually
accomplished something that day. And now I have a resource in my
LinkedIn marketing course, the VO Edge, that's called Five Daily
Reach Outs. Because 20 is a lot, and I realize that's a lot. So,
but five, anybody can do five. And that's why over the years I've
learned from people like you, people like Natasha Marcheska, people
that know how to break a big task into little tasks. If you do
that, you can accomplish so much more because you're not gonna get
discouraged. And to have a plan. I guarantee that you don't wake up
wondering, I wonder what I'm gonna do today. You know what you're
doing because you are super organized.
Anne: Well, I think you have to be, right? And especially for us to
be successful and to continue to grow in our businesses. I mean we
have to be, because we've got a lot of things that we're doing. I
mean, you're a mom of four, you're a voice talent, you're running a
online
--
is it an online course and is it live as well?
Tracy: No, it's just online.
Anne: That's a lot
--
okay.
Tracy: It's online only. And I did that to save myself time. I
really put a lot of thought into planning out the different modules
and lessons and I tightly edited them so there's no wasted time
because I don't like my time to be wasted. And I didn't wanna do
that to anybody else. So it's about two hours of content overall.
And I also do like a little introductory pump up video to kind of
get people excited and motivated to do that module and that lesson.
But yeah, it's totally, anybody can do it in their own time. It's
on demand, and you can go revisit it anytime. It's all videos and
there's some downloads too.
Anne: And I imagine
'cause
creating curriculum, of course being an educator, right, for the
longest time, I mean, it takes time to create good content. So for
you to keep that up to date and keep that as a successful online
course, congratulations. First of all, I know how much time that
takes and how much effort it takes to get really good content and a
really good course online that people can really get value out of.
Now do you do any special coaching? I'm sure people are coming up
to you and go, please, can you just help me with my profile, or do
you do any type of individual coaching as well?
Tracy: Yeah. I'll do one-on-one and so I'll do like a private
consulting session for an hour, and we'll go over, typically we'll
start with the profile. And I always ask, Hey, please send me any
questions in advance, the things you really wanna know because I'm
not gonna waste your time and we're gonna go quickly during this
hour.
Anne: Good.
Tracy: But I don't do a ton of that because the course is so
comprehensive that most people get their questions answered through
that.
Anne: Awesome.
Tracy: And I really do direct them towards the course because then
it doesn't take up my time.
Anne: Right.
Tracy: But I love working with people as you know, it's so much
more fun to get to know people individually during that hour. So I
mean, I made a friend by the end of the hour and I love
that.
Anne: Yeah. It is. The only thing is, is that as you keep trying
to
--
and for me, I'm, I'm very business minded, right? And for me, if
I'm not growing then I'm stagnating and that's not necessarily
where I wanna be. And so personally in my business, I'm always
looking to grow in one way or another. And so every week, every
month, every year, I'm looking at how can I grow my business? And
so your personal time is probably the most precious time that you
have. And so for example, I can't coach any more people. I cannot
do any more one-on-ones because I'm one person, and I simply don't
have the hours in the day to do everything that I wanna do. So it
is important to be efficient. So let's talk a little bit more about
the LinkedIn. You're using the free version of LinkedIn,
right?
Tracy: Right. I've never done the premium.
Anne: Okay. You've never even tried it?
Tracy: No.
Anne: Okay.
Tracy: It's just so robust, I don't need it.
Anne: Okay.
Tracy: You do get limited on the number of connections, but what
I've taught people is that you can put your searches in and then
bookmark it. And that way you can just keep going back to that
page, and it doesn't keep ding you for additional
searches.
Anne: Oh, got it.
Tracy: So that's a big secret that a lot of people.
Anne: We can go home now. That's it. That's a . That's it. That's
the nugget.
Tracy: But I mean, what you mentioned earlier about optimizing the
SEO, so let's talk about that.
Anne: Yes.
Tracy: That is one of the key things. And you're great at that on
your website. I know that.
Anne: Oh, thank you.
Tracy: Well, you come from a tech
--
Anne: It's lot of work. Yeah.
Tracy:
--
background. Yes. Yes. And it's additional content.
Anne: But it's worthy.
Tracy: Yes.
Anne: It's definitely worth it to spend the time on the content
because it brings people to your site. And I imagine people on
LinkedIn searching for voiceover talent, like you want them to
reach your profile.
Tracy: Right.
Anne: So yeah, let's talk about what do you do to enhance your SEO
for that?
Tracy: Well, so there are three steps in what I teach with
LinkedIn. And the first step is optimizing your profile. So that's
where you must start. Do not start reaching out to people if you
haven't completely shined up your profile and made it the best it
can be. So obviously that would be the base step in step one. So
step one involves just putting yourself forward authentically. One
of the things that I really harp on is how there's so much
inauthentic, spammy marketing, and you can stand out by being
authentic.
I consider my life messy. People know that I have four kids and I
don't hide it. I put all over my Instagram, I just posted one
recently about going Christmas shopping with the kids, and it was
just, I did not wanna go. It starts off with me making a face, you
know, like I don't wanna do this. And I used like the circus theme
because sometimes that's how I feel like I live in a circus. So I
allow people to get a glimpse into my messiness. And I feel like
that's actually been a boost to my brand, because I'm relatable and
we all have messes. So why pretend to be perfect? So when you
create your profile, though, you are your most businessy self on
LinkedIn. So I'm not nearly as messy there. I will be all kinds of
messy on Instagram and Facebook. But here on LinkedIn we're a
little bit more put together. We wanna make sure that people know
we can handle the work. We're not gonna flake, we're dependable. So
key words that emphasize those kinds of business ethics are
key.
And also speaking from a one-on-one perspective, don't make it
sound like, Tracy Lindley is a full-time voice actor, that kind of
thing. You wanna say I am. So you're speaking to the first person.
I tell people to look at it as if you were at a networking event
and you're meeting someone for the first time and they say, what do
you do? So you've got a big picture back here where you're giving
an overall view of who you are,
'cause
they asked, and if they're visiting your profile, that's kind of
like asking what do you do? Let me get to know you a bit. And then
when you get down to the experience section about being a voice
talent, then that's when you get into more of the nitty gritty like
clients, agents, those kinds of things.
Anne: Do you put examples and demos on there as well in your
profile?
Tracy: Oh yeah. That's key.
Anne: Media?
Tracy: I mean, why would you wanna hire somebody that doesn't have
any examples at all of their work?
Anne: Right.
Tracy: And don't make
'em
go looking on your website. That wastes their time. Everything that
we do needs to be client-centered, and it wastes the client's time
to take them to your website or some other source. You should put
it right there on LinkedIn. Put all your best examples. And a lot
of times people are starting out brand new. Like if you've coached
someone and they've just created a demo, and they have no body of
work, they can take that demo that you've created with them and
turn it into a video and display that on LinkedIn.
Anne: Videos are effective.
Tracy: Yes. And you can't really do an MP3 on LinkedIn. You have to
do some sort of video. So sometimes people do SoundCloud, but I
don't find that very effective
'cause
it's just a static picture. And I think even a very simple video is
fine. Some people do make it look like all these clips of
commercials, which is really cool, but it's also costly. And if
people are bootstrapping their business at the beginning, it's
really easy to create a very simple video with your picture and
just a few things, contact information on the back. Contact
information is huge because that's our call to action is contact
me.
Anne: What about your feed on LinkedIn? Are you posting to the feed
on LinkedIn? Are you creating content? Because I know a big thing,
gosh, a couple years ago when I was looking back into it was
creating content and posts like short blog posts in LinkedIn. Is
that still, is that effective? Is that, what are your thoughts on
that?
Tracy: You know, video's really taken over. Blogs are still
fantastic and also they can link back to your website, which boosts
your SEO, but really video is king right now, and those are the
things that are gonna get the most engagement. But you can't just
get on camera and talk about nothing. You have to give people
something of value. And you have to to keep it short. So when I
post videos, I try to keep
'em
less than two minutes, 90 seconds if I can. You know, it just
depends. I'll do it in one, two, no more than three takes. And if I
can't get it in three takes, just forget it. I'll come back later.
Because mm-hmm. I want it fresh, I want it off the
cuff.
Anne: Yeah. I agree.
Tracy: I want it to be as authentic as possible.
Anne: Yeah, I agree. And so the big question is, and I know most
of, a lot of students will, well what do I post? Or what do I talk
about? Like what do you talk about? Do you talk about voiceover? I
don't think the intent is to do a hard sell on hire me, I do
voiceover. What are your thoughts on creative videos that would
bring value?
Tracy: Well, I'd say touch on things that make us human, touch on
things that make us a business person. So one of the best videos I
ever did was talking about how I am extra, and at my kids's school
I was doing the announcing for the volleyball game, and I was told
after that, hey, you know, you don't need to commentate so much
about the volleyball game, you know, just do the sponsors and say
something at the end of the match. Okay. But I didn't, I just would
say something after like every point. I think it did get a little
annoying. I did learn from that, but my point was I just couldn't
sit there with this microphone and not say things. So I just
realized I am extra and I made a little video out of that and about
rejoicing in being extra. And so
--
Anne: I love that.
Tracy: Yes. So many people relate to that. And that kind of thing
that brings us together as humans. it makes us who we are. And I
was the kind of girl that went door to door selling cookies in the
neighborhood and asking if I could rake your leaves and things.
I've always been a go-getter and I know you are too, Anne. And when
you're a go-getter in this industry, you can't just sit back and do
the minimum.
Anne: Yeah. Agreed.
Tracy: That was my video.
Anne: Agreed. Well, I love that. So now outside of LinkedIn, right,
and of course BOSSes out there, I totally encourage all of you just
go take the course, just do it. LinkedIn is just one of the best
resources for getting work that I can think of. I guess my last
question before I ask you, the big question, which is I will get to
that, is let's talk about templates or how do you reach out to
somebody in a cold contact? I feel like cold contacting people is
difficult. That I know. And so how do you wrangle that in reaching
out and not being considered spammy? Is there a tip or two or three
that you have in reaching out to people?
Tracy: Sure. My biggest tip is to look for anything that you can
use to find common ground. So when people are just starting out
using LinkedIn, one of the best ways to reach out is by geographic
area. So you could reach out to folks in LA, I can reach out to
folks in Kansas City, and that way we have that in common already
and we know that. And that's an easy thing to put into the search
terms when we're using the search features of LinkedIn is
geographical area. So that's one thing. But another thing, I
encourage people to look through their profile and find something
that they can relate to. Maybe they mention a cat or a dog or kids,
or I like to watch the Chiefs, whatever. Find something. If they've
written any kind of personal about section, usually you can find
something interesting there to comment about. But as far as
templates, I am pro templates within reason, I do think that it's
good
--
if you're gonna kind of write similar things each time, I don't
think we need to reinvent the wheel. So I do encourage people to
write templates, but personalize like the first sentence and always
say that person's correctly spelled name.
Anne: Oh yeah. . Absolutely.
Tracy: Like I bet people spell your name A-N-N. And you're like,
uh...
Anne: Yes. All the time. All the time. They do.
Tracy: And I always get, yes, T-R-A-C-E-Y is how people end up
spelling my name. I'm like, there's no E. . We don't like
that.
Anne: There's no E. Absolutely. Well, what wonderful advice. Now in
addition to LinkedIn, what would be your best business tip for
people just getting into the industry on how to establish their
business or get work and be successful?
Tracy: I would say the best thing is to start local. Start with who
you know. I think I'm hearing from your story that people who were
your first clients were people you actually knew in your life, and
they were in mind too. So when you are truly ready to hang out your
open for business sign, which means you've got a great website,
you've got a great professionally produced demo, you have enough
training to where if someone says, I need this, you can give it to
them--
your sound quality has to be top notch, you have to have a low
sound floor, no buzzing, no echo, all that stuff, and you know how
to use your equipment, including source connect. If you say that
you have source connect
--
okay. If you have all that stuff, then you are ready to start
hanging out your sign and telling people on Facebook and Instagram
and whatever that you're doing voiceover. And chances are there's
someone in your life who needs voiceover, especially if you have a
decent personal social network. And that's kind of how it happened
for me was I was personally connected to someone that owned a
marketing firm, and he was one of my first clients. My alma mater
hired me to do a short documentary. There were some little IVR
things that I did, and it just kind of snowballs.
Anne: Absolutely.
Tracy: Yeah. And then I felt confident. I'm like, okay, I have a
little bit of work here that I can showcase. It may not be any
brand names that are super sexy, but it's work, and it sounds good
and it looks good, so let's put it out there. So that's what I
started doing. It builds on each other.
Anne: It's amazing how important local can be in establishing
relationships. Also, relationships that keep coming back as you
nurture it. I have so many repeat clients that I've had for years
because like you say, communication is key, and nurturing those
relationships are key. And a lot of them started off locally. And I
think that that is something people don't think of. And that also
locally helps when you're advertising like where you are voicing
from, like voicing from Southern California or Orange County,
California or Los Angeles area. Even just putting those words on
your website help for people to find you because most of the times
when people are searching using Google, it's automatically got
localization turned on. And so if they're searching for voice
talent, it's gonna search locally first. And so you wanna be up at
the top of that search. So, great advice, Tracy. I wanna thank you
so very much for joining me today. Yay. My bucket list checked
off.
Tracy: Oh, me too. This is so fun. And I'll see you at VO Atlanta
in March.
Anne: I know, I'm very excited. How can people get in touch with
you and where can they go to get that course again?
Tracy: Okay, so my website, if people wanna check out me or my work
or whatever, that's tracylindley.com. And the course is
@thelinkedinedge.com. Or if you wanna just look at the one for
voice actors, it's thevoedge.com and it'll take you right
there.
Anne: Perfect.
Tracy: And I'm happy to answer questions. Contact me on Instagram.
My handle is @TracyLindleyVO, pretty much everywhere.
Anne: Awesome. Tracy, thank you so much again for joining me. I'm
gonna give a great big shout-out to our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can
network and connect like a BOSS. Find out more at ipdtl.com. And
also, I want you to understand about your chance to use your voice
to make an immediate difference in our world and give back to the
communities that give to you. Visit 100voiceswhocare.org to commit
and find out more. You guys, have an amazing week. Tracy, thank you
again, and we'll see you next week. Bye.
Tracy: Bye.
Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host
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