Jan 11, 2022
Think you need an agent to master the casting game? Think again. Anne and Laya teach you how to make the most of your VO business by building relationships that will land bookings and get you paid. They discuss pay-2-play strategies, symbiotic agent-talent relationships, reaching out to production houses, and how cultivating your SEO can get you jobs without auditioning... 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, along with my special, special guest cohost Laya Hoffman. Laya --
Laya: Hey.
Anne: -- how are you?
Laya: Anne, I'm doing awesome. How are you?
Anne: You know, Laya, I'm awesome. And I just love, love, love doing these podcast episodes with you.
Laya: Yes, same here. I've learned so much. I feel like --
Anne: Me too.
Laya: -- we've shared so much, and the feedback we've been getting from your BOSSes has been incredible.
Anne: Yeah, yeah.
Laya: So thank you, BOSSes, for leaning in and coming back to us with your takeaways and your modern mindsets.
Anne: Absolutely.
Laya: Because the whole thing has come full circle. I feel so rewarded and so grateful for this.
Anne: That's right. Well, Laya and I have really been enjoying our topics of late. And I think they're very relevant. They're very relevant in terms of BOSSes wanting growth mindset for growing their businesses, growing themselves personally, growing their performances. So now let's talk about once we've been growing our skills and our assets, how are we going to get work?
Laya: Yes.
Anne: Let's talk about how do we get cast in these roles? How do we win these gigs? There's all sorts of wonderful things to talk about with that agents, production, houses, managers pay-to-plays, all of these things. Maybe we should just, let's have a discussion on how are we going to be getting work.
Laya: Yes, it's such a good one to have, because I think if you're just now coming up in the industry, you feel like, oh, I, the first thing I got to do is I got to get an agent. That was my misconception in the very beginning, to be honest. And you know, once you've been around a little while, you realize that's nowhere near your first step. In fact, doing the work and training and getting yourself conditioned is by far the first step. And then you slowly build on that as we have talked about, and you know very well with your asset library, your image, your brand, so that when you are fully ready, and I mean fully ready, meaning you're booking and you're making money and you can present yourself as a resource, then you're going to maybe approach agents or managers. But until then, there's a lot of work to do. And there's definitely outlets to go get that work.
Anne: Oh yeah.
Laya: So let's talk about it. Lead us in.
Anne: Well, yeah. I am going to agree with you that yes, I, in the beginning I thought, oh, I need an agent right away. And that is absolutely not necessarily true at all. As a matter of fact, you have to usually prove that you've gotten some work under your belt before an agent will consider you.
Laya: Absolutely.
Anne: But I remember thinking, okay, so I got my demo. Now I need an agent.
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: So a lot of times that is something that can be put on the back burner until you, you know, assert yourself, go out there and get some work. But until you do that, you got to get that work. So how are you going to do that?
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: And by the way, I'll tell you that I was working full-time for years before I got my first agent. So.
Laya: Yes. And I was working in the same space. You know, I was definitely making money in voice work. And I thought the agent thing was going to tip me over the balance. And that's when I knew I was going to be successful. When the reality is I book very little work through my main agents, or at least I did in the very beginning. And so you lose sight of that when you're not quite there, you feel like maybe that's going to be the cash out or the pinnacle, or that's where you want to achieve. But there's a lot of work to glean without an agent too.
Anne: Absolutely.
Laya: And I think that's kind of where the paradigm or the shift is in the industry right now. And while a lot of the cream, you know, at the top goes to the agents or the managers, there's lots of great work out there that you can get by cultivating relationships with clients, putting yourselves out there, marketing, you know, dipping into pay-to-plays, if that's your thing. So let's dig in.
Anne: So, I will say that when I started, and this is back in the day, pay-to-plays were not the same 'cause I've been in the industry for a few years now. So back when pay-to-plays first started, and I believe it was Voice123 that was the very first one, if I can remember correctly. Before that, there was kind of like freelancer.com where people would post jobs. But I think the very first pay-to-play was Voice123, which I hopped on. I was on board when they came on board, and it was actually something that was successful for me. And -- but the landscape of the pay-to-plays has changed quite a bit over the years, but that was my main source, that and other like freelance websites to get my first jobs. And as I kind of struggled and, you know, found my way through the industry, the pay-to-plays started to become a place where I could actually get clients that would become return clients. And that was super helpful to me.
So I think these days, it's probably important that maybe you can dabble in the pay-to-plays, see if they work for you. Sometimes, you know, they're so congested right now that I feel that it's really that much more difficult to get work from them. However, some people are very successful at it, depending I think on the level that you're paying for. I don't think it's always necessary to get work just through the pay-to-plays, but I feel like it might be very frustrating for people just starting in the industry.
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: What about you? What do you think?
Laya: Well, I've got a lot of information to glean on this because as we've talked about before, you know, I was, I've been doing voice work for over 20 years, but never full-time and never really taking it "seriously" until I went full-time about three years ago and ripped the band-aid off. And so my start was non-traditional in the sense that, you know, I didn't spend this long amount of time cultivating anything with training and whatnot. And so I have been a Voice123 member since 2009, I think, but I didn't optimize a profile or anything like that. I did however, dive right in and get a membership when I first went official full-time a couple of years ago, and I used it as an -- I hate to say it like this now, but it's true -- I kind of used it as a practice tool. I would never recommend that.
So I can't believe I'm admitting it, but in all, you know, full disclosure, like, I didn't know what different scripts were out there. I didn't know how to play in different genres or where my voice sat best. I didn't really have an understanding. So to me, a lot of people say, don't do that because you're putting your name out there. You never know who you're going to come across, and they're going to be like, oh gosh, no, the audio is terrible, whatever. I did it because I needed to know for myself what felt right. And in doing that, it kind of opened up a lot of opportunities, a lot of ideas and a lot of awareness about myself. So for me, I probably didn't take the traditional route. And I know we could, we're going to dive into a full, deep scope of pay-to-plays at one point.
Anne: We will.
Laya: Today might not be the day, but just to touch on that, it is an okay place to start if you just want to see what's out there and what kind of jobs are being offered --
Anne: Right, right, agreed.
Laya: -- and what kind of scripts and maybe what kind of budgets are out there. So.
Anne: Well, let me admit something --
Laya: Please.
Anne: -- Laya.
Laya: I'm leaning in.
Anne: I used it as a practice ground too.
Laya: See, I'm not alone.
Anne: Back in the -- see. So back in the day, like it's very true what you just said. So if you've not been in the voiceover industry, it's really hard to know like what kind of jobs are out there? What does a typical script look like? If there is such a thing.
Laya: What does usage look like? Like what are they saying about it?
Anne: Exactly.
Laya: What's the language?
Anne: What do I even, where do I even begin?
Laya: Right.
Anne: And so in reality it was, for me, it was a good education. Now I was also fortunate enough to book back in the day, because again, it wasn't as congested. And I also used it to kind of, oh, and I will admit this to kind of, 'cause there was no middleman back in the day --
Laya: Yeah, right.
Anne: -- I was able to kind of scope it for companies that were hiring. And so I knew if there was a company that put out an audition for a corporate job or a telephony job, I would write that company name down and be on my list of things to kind of investigate. And a few months later I'd kind of put that company on my list of maybe people to contact later on.
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: But it really was a -- and there was no, there was nothing bad about doing that by the way. But I believe that's why there are some restrictions now on certain pay-to-plays where you can't communicate with your potential client, which, I don't think is right, to be honest with you.
Laya: No.
Anne: I think that they shouldn't be able to communicate so that you can get the job done. And the quality of the job is what's important.
Laya: And there are some work arounds, but we'll dive into that.
Anne: But that's what I'll say right now about pay-to-plays.
Laya: Yeah, yeah.
Anne: So I don't think it's the horrible taboo. I think that it's a very valid reason so that you kind of understand, like what does the work look like out here in the voiceover industry? So let's talk about, we kind of dabbled just a little bit with agents. And like I said, it took me four years to get an agent. So I had gotten some work under my belt. At that time I felt comfortable submitting for agents. Remember this is, you know, 10, 10 or so years ago, and now --
Laya: It's very much, it did change.
Anne: It has changed now.
Laya: Like super aggressive. Right?
Anne: Now you really kind of need to have a referral --
Laya: Definitely.
Anne: -- to get yourself your agent and to get yourself into there. So at the time I was able to submit, but then I grew into having other people that also had that agent. I would talk to them about it. And I would, then I would just basically ask if I could refer their name and say that so-and-so told me about your agency. And I'm really excited. I really think your agency is amazing, and I'm hoping that I might be a fit for you.
Laya: Right.
Anne: And so that was just one way to kind of use that, that networking relationship to my advantage.
Laya: I did something similar as well. Um, I was working with engineers that I admired and had a great symbiotic relationship with, and they made recommendations to agents that they traditionally cast with. So I was lucky in that sense. And then I did do some cold kind of call reach outs, email contact to some other agents that I knew that were very reputable, that were in regional markets that may have something interesting to offer, and that I could be a resource to them, of course, doing my research first, making sure there was a fit on their roster that I could fill with a unique approach or sound or skill set. And that's kind of hard to do, but also in a way it's kind of transparent. A lot of agents, uh, have their entire rosters up. And so not only do you want to make sure that you're a good fit and you're going to be a great resource for them, but that they're a great fit for you.
Anne: Absolutely.
Laya: You want that agent to be excited about you because unfortunately there is such a saturation right now. Maybe it's been like this a while, but with talent and with agents, and because of pay-to-plays, the opportunities have gotten spread thin.
Anne: Very, very.
Laya: So you, you know, where I cast this huge net at first and had lots of regional agents and was looking to have my hand in a little bit of everything, I found very quickly that that spread me thin as well. And as the auditions were overlapping, I would start to panic. Who do I give this to? You know? And then that created lack of trust and didn't create a solid foundation or relationship with those agents, because I was just sporadically submitting. And so that's a whole other thing to consider too.
Anne: That's a, that's an excellent point. I will say that in the height of my getting agents, I landed myself 11 of them. And over the years, right, those agents, like you said, sometimes, I mean the workplace and the environment, has really just changed so much, even in just the last couple of years, that the work is even getting spread thin. So sometimes you will see some of the same auditions. And I realized just as you mentioned, I realized from my own self, I didn't have the time to respond to all of the agent auditions. And so I found myself kind of gravitating towards just a couple of them that I consider to be my home base and agents that, you know, we worked well together. So there's something to be said that it's not just a one-way relationship.
Laya: Oh, no.
Anne: It really is a two-way relationship with you and your agents, so fine tuning that and honing in on those agents, that works well for both of you, I think that's very, very important in order to really maximize your casting opportunities.
Laya: For, sure. I mean, if you're a talent on a roster with 3, 4, 600 other talents, and I feel like some times there're, you know, talents getting gobbled up and it's, it's more of a numbers game for the agent and verse -- and vice versa for the talent. Um, and when the reality is just like our friendships and our personal relationships, if you can nurture them and stay true and be loyal and be consistent, they're going to know that, see that, respect that in return. And you're going to be more top of mind to that agent. Whereas if you're just sporadically hitting --
Anne: Absolutely.
Laya: -- you know, alternating between them, because you're trying to really widen your net, it's actually going to water you down, and that's going to water your name, your brand, and your voice down and the opportunities. So I also streamlined this past year in order to be fair to them in my partnership and my word and myself.
Anne: Yeah, yeah.
Laya: So that's very important and something to consider.
Anne: And so agents, I think, for a lot of people, you have to really step back and understand your agent and their specialty. Every agent has a specialty. A lot of agents will work in the commercial broadcast around, but then there are other agents who do radio imaging. There's other agents that do animation and then other agents that specialize in promo. So knowing your agent and their specialties and what type of work you are going for or looking for, trying to get, that's important, because almost as important for me, for my genres that I book work in is not just the agents, but also casting, right?
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: Casting agencies, production houses, being on the roster on production houses and maintaining a great relationship with those people has gotten me repeat work over and over and over again.
Laya: Absolutely.
Anne: And I cannot stress the importance of the connection that you have with production houses and the relationship because they're submitting for you. It's almost like having an agent, right, that doesn't necessarily send out an audition, but they have clients who come to them and say, hey, I've got a medical narration or an automotive narration or any kind of corporate thing, and this is what I'm looking for. And they're the ones that will be sending out your demos or whatever it is, your past work to kind of promote you to their clients. And then basically I would just get a call that says, hey, are you available next week for this job?
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: Oh my gosh. That's like the best way to get a job. Hey, are you available?
Laya: The best way.
Anne: You've been hired already.
Laya: No audition needed. Exactly. And I got to say, I'm so glad you spoke about this because production houses are so fundamental. They are --
Anne: Yeah, they are.
Laya: You know, sometimes they're using agents. Sometimes they're using managers, but sometimes they've got their own in-house team.
Anne: Yup, exactly.
Laya: And it's just like everybody's got to make money in this together, yes, they may be selling your voice or the voiceover element of the product at a higher fee, but maybe there's a consistent, flat rate. They tend to make your job much easier because you may not have to audition, or they've already got the engineer built in, or they already know your studio specs, your voice, your sound, et cetera. For instance, I'm an in-house talent on Pandora's and Sirius XM's roster. Shout-out to that whole incredible team --
Anne: Yup.
Laya: -- of audio slayers over there. Because as I've gotten to know them over the last few years, they know my voice, they just cast you --
Anne: Yup.
Laya: -- where they know that your voice is going to sit right so they've got the best output and you're going to give them the best output. It's a trust relationship.
Anne: Absolutely.
Laya: It is so valuable. And while sometimes the rate can be a little bit lower than your standard GVAA, you know, industry rate that you might just be putting out there for usage, the repetition and the ease of work --
Anne: And volume.
Laya: -- and the volume is huge. And that should not be overlooked or turned your nose up at. It's again, very, very beneficial for all parties.
Anne: I have been on a couple of rosters for over 10 years already. And it's just, there's so much to be said for just, oh, by the way, are you available for this job?
Laya: Yes.
Anne: And it's the same kind of thing with repeat clients who just come back to you over and over again, where you don't have to audition. I just had, again, I've got work this weekend. I had somebody email me say, and I haven't heard from them in years, but they're like, hey, are you available to do this job? And I'm like, well, hey, yeah, it's great to hear from you again. I love it. And one thing I'll also say outside of the production houses and casting houses is to also, and this is not necessarily a mass casting, but your website and your SEO of your business can also help to cast yourself without an audition.
Laya: Sure can.
Anne: So I'll get a lot of people who will just send me an email inquiry and say, here's my script. How much will that cost?
Laya: Yup.
Anne: And the cool thing again is that I don't have to audition for that. So what I love is that type of casting. So.
Laya: Yeah, and that happens for me as well, not as often as I would like. I'm sure your SEO is very robust, Anne.
Anne: I've been at it for a while.
Laya: I have a feeling. Exactly. But that does happen. And I think that, you know, what's really a blessing is that that shows that your work or that your body of work or that your presence is definitely garnering some attention. Now we can dive much deeper in how to make that even more attractive or build the SEO. And that's for another episode --
Anne: Yup, absolutely.
Laya: But what's so great is that there are so many different buckets.
Anne: Yup.
Laya: In addition to those production houses, your own website, pay-to-plays, agents, we can also talk about, a little bit about the manager model, which is not new, certainly not in VO or in acting. It's evolved to kind of fit the new VO landscape and how work is coming in. I have enjoyed a recent success, a series of successes with ACM, the team over there, Mark Guss and the whole crew has been incredibly beneficial for me. But that manager model is very different as well.
Anne: Yup.
Laya: Now, for those that aren't aware where the agent is, usually if you're cast for something union or non-union has usually a different percentage that the agent gets paid. And that varies depending on whether you're union status or not --
Anne: Correct.
Laya: -- or whether the casting house, the production company is paying over base, which again, another conversation. Now managers model is where they do acquire 10% or there's a percentage of your entire work picture, whether you book or not. And so that's definitely something to consider for those that are maybe way, you know, into their career or advancing or looking to level up from an agency model or add to their agency model. It's definitely not for everybody. I have had some great success with it, but it's again about nurturing those relationships and making sure you're giving as much as they're receiving and vice versa.
Anne: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: And in order for the whole relationship to work, it has to be, I want to say, almost 50, 50, right? You have to work with them --
Laya: Absolutely.
Anne: -- as much as they have to work with you because you're giving 10% of the entire income that's coming in. I think that they work harder for you in terms of getting you work from various agents that they're working with. Or if they're, I would say clients that they're working with.
Laya: Yeah. I will say this. And I, people ask me all the time, how has it been, you know, you shifted and you know, what are you getting out of it? I don't know, it's just a lot, you know, it seems like a big investment, and it is. But I will say this, like in the first month of being with ACM and this may not be the case for everyone, but I had more communication and opportunities and direct one-on-one communication. There's eight managers on my team over there. I had more communication in that one month than I did in three years with nine agents combined. So to me, the value was there, but it was also in part by me putting the effort in and making it a point to connect with everyone and to set meetings and to have that influence in my business because I'm paying for it.
Anne: Well --
Laya: It's a mutual investment.
Anne: And that's the thing, if you're -- okay. So here, if you look at it from a business standpoint, right? Why the manager model should work, right? If it didn't work, if you were not getting a lot out of your relationship, right, if you weren't getting a lot of opportunities, if you weren't booking, you wouldn't be happy with the management, right? Because you'd be paying, right, for all the work that you did.
Laya: You'd demand more. Sure.
Anne: That doesn't necessarily look good or sound good for the manager, and the manager, for them to keep their brand, right, and that they're a successful manager, right, they don't want to have an unhappy person. So the relationship, I think, has to be working both ways, and --
Laya: And I think that can happen there.
Anne: -- you have to make money for them, they make money for you.
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: So.
Laya: And same goes for the agents. And same goes -- a lot of people say, well, you would pay that. Or would you pay a membership fee on pay-to-plays -- like, everybody's got to make money --
Anne: Right.
Laya: -- and can make money in this business.
Anne: Exactly.
Laya: It just has to become down to what investment is worth your while.
Anne: Right.
Laya: Is it working with a production house where your overall total fee is lower --
Anne: Yup.
Laya: -- but you have the volume and the repetition and the ease of work? Or is it investing in a management company where you have opportunities like you've never seen before?
Anne: Right.
Laya: Or is it an agency model?
Anne: Yeah.
Laya: I mean, all of those things I think can work for you, as long as you do the work, and you present yourself fully to that partnership and being very aware of everybody's role, and set your expectation too --
Anne: Right, right.
Laya: -- as to what they can or cannot do for you.
Anne: And just like in any relationship, if it doesn't work for you -- this is including managers, agents, pay-to-plays, even a client --
Laya: Production houses, clients, exactly.
Anne: If that relationship does not work for you, then you have the opportunity -- which is what I love. We're entrepreneurs. We are our own business. We can absolutely step away from that, which is --
Laya: Yes.
Anne: -- what is it, is that, that's the whole beauty of being an entrepreneur, right? We don't have to work --
Laya: Yeah, you're in control. Exactly.
Anne: We are in control. We don't have to work with a client that is not necessarily giving us a positive investment, right?
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: Or is working for us. So that's what the really wonderful thing is. And no matter how you go out there to get your opportunities -- and I think it's always, for me, it's, it can't just be one.
Laya: No.
Anne: Can't put all your eggs in one basket, right? It's a combination. I have agents, I have production houses. I have relationships with my clients. I have a good SEO on my website. And I have, I'm literally trying to provide myself with the best opportunities in order to be cast so that I can be a successful voiceover business.
Laya: Yeah, that's right, Anne. And even if you're -- I would just say this too. I know there's a lot of scrutiny about every one of these avenues, right? And it's really all in how you use it to your advantage, and what your mindset is, and whether or not you're good with where your role is. I would say with pay-to-plays a lot of times, just having a presence on those pay-to-play sites, whether you're active or not, their SEO is going to be far greater than most of our --
Anne: Oh yeah.
Laya: -- far greater than any of us can most --
Anne: Absolutely.
Laya: -- likely invest in our own SEO resources.
Anne: Yeah.
Laya: So even just to have your name and your demos up --
Anne: A profile.
Laya: -- a profile, that in itself, I can't tell you how many opportunities I've gotten by just being on Voices or Voice123, by someone that found --
Anne: Having the profile.
Laya: Exactly.
Anne: Exactly.
Laya: Because that drove me as a talent with a profile on a huge databank where people that are casting are looking for the quick solution. They find somebody they like, then they Google your name. Then they go to your website and they reach out to you. And I have gotten more jobs like that than probably any other avenue combined, to be honest with you.
Anne: Yeah, yeah.
Laya: And it hasn't even needed to be an audition or fight about usage, et cetera, and these low rates of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, just let it work for you and be the driver that you need to get your name and your voice out there.
Anne: Right. And however it works for you -- and to be honest with you, I actually -- not even do I have a profile on some of these pay-to-plays that I'm not necessarily active on, but I've also shared blog posts, meaning I have invited them to be a guest blogger on my blog.
Laya: Great idea.
Anne: So we have backlinks to one another. So it's kind of a really interesting way, but it kind of is like you're talking with a pay-to-plays. They do kind of have the SEO game going on with those terms that people might be searching for. And so that might make you think, whether you agree or not, to maybe just put a profile up there. Doesn't mean, you know, right now I'm personally just don't have -- I think I belong to two of them officially, but I don't have any time to necessarily audition. I don't remember the last time I've auditioned for a pay-to-play.
Laya: Sure.
Anne: But I also have pay-to-plays that I'm not a member of, but I do have a profile on.
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: So it all works towards people knowing who I am, what kind of business -- you know, it's all about who are you and what do you do for a living? Oh, she's a voiceover artist. I'm looking for one of those.
Laya: Yes.
Anne: So that all kind of plays into the game of getting that work, which is what we're supposed to do. That's our business.
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: Right? Getting that work.
Laya: And I would say one more thing about just where to get work and how do you start, especially if you're in the startup or the bootstrapping stage of your BOSS business. You know, just letting everyone you know, know that you're down, down to talk down to, you know, do their work, do their IVR, do their phone system, voice their scratch track. Sometimes getting in with production houses is just as easy as saying, hey, no charge. I'm here to do your scratch tracks for you. You know, just so we can start building relationship. You can get to know my style and then potentially cast me in the future for something, but sometimes just letting people know what you do and what you're about. We often talk about how to use social, and Facebook for me, isn't necessarily a business driver.
Anne: Right.
Laya: But you bet that everybody I in my network knows that I talk for a living.
Anne: Sure, absolutely.
Laya: Because you never know when the opportunity is going to come up --
Anne: Even in your personal network.
Laya: -- for something that they need absolutely. So don't overlook that.
Anne: Yeah. And even if you say, well, I don't really advertise on my personal, right, or my Facebook or my social media, in reality, just you being you is -- because remember our brands are so personal --
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: --- that you are an aspect of your business. I just wrote a blog on that. You know, it's something to always consider when you say put pen to paper or type to the post, always consider that, you know, there are eyeballs looking at that, and knowing that you are a voiceover artist, and this is what you do for a living.
Laya: Yeah.
Anne: So the more people that know, right, this is what you do, the more opportunities you will have. And so great, great discussion on how to get work and how to be known to agents, pay-to-plays, managers, production houses. Good stuff.
Laya: Yeah. Thank you, Anne. This was super informative. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with me as well.
Anne: Great, big shout out to our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can network like a BOSS and find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys, be productive. Go get cast and have an amazing week. We'll talk to you next week.
Laya: Take care. Bye-bye.
Anne: 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 up for our mailing list at voboss.com and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a BOSS. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via ipDTL.