Oct 29, 2024
This episode is all about maximizing your business potential, whether you're just starting out or already established in the market. Learn how to leverage casting platforms for direct bookings and master direct marketing strategies. This episode is packed with actionable insights to increase your return on investment. Implementing mid-year performance reviews can be a game-changer for your business, using powerful tools like cash flow spreadsheets and client churn reports to meticulously track your financials and client engagement. Discover the added value of integrating financial data to set and achieve your financial goals, ensuring sustained success. Explore how to turn one-off projects into recurring gigs and the crucial role of tracking booking sources. Learn how to use social media, direct emails, and client referrals to build a solid client base.
00:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
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acting? With a VO Boss Blast, we're proving it can be. Let us
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Boss Blast at voboss.com. That's the Voboss Blast at
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00:29 - Intro (Announcement)
It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level.
These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being
utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business
like a boss, a Voboss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne
Ganguzza.
00:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Hey everyone, Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Real Boss
Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with the
illustrious Mr Tom Dheere.
00:58 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Hello, hello, oh, I'm illustrious now this is very
exciting.
01:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
You are illustrious, you are illustrious. Oh my gosh Tom, how's
your week been?
01:06 - Tom Dheere (Host)
My week's been. It's been pretty good. It's been pretty busy. It's
one of those weird times of year this is early summer when we're
recording this and people are at schools getting out and people are
starting to figure out. You know they get their lighting up their
vacations and all that stuff.
01:25
So you know, I'm using this time to capitalize on how I'm going to
figure out what I'm going to be doing with the second half of my
year, because I always, at the end of the halfway point of the
year, I take a look at my voiceover business, see how it's doing,
what's working and what isn't, and if I need to make any
adjustments for the second half of the year.
01:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I think that's an excellent idea because, as a matter of fact, I
was just this week. I got an email from my email service provider
who notified me that they were going to increase the cost of my
yearly fee almost like one and a half times as much, and so I was
like, oh, I've got to really sit back and take a look at my return
on investment, and so I think that is something that bosses need to
do absolutely to make sure that their businesses are on track and
make sure that their growth is happening. And if it doesn't appear
that it is happening, maybe how do you evaluate growth that can
happen in the future?
02:17 - Tom Dheere (Host)
So, yeah, Okay, so, oh, there's so much to talk about with this
one. But, bosses, if there's one thing I want you to walk away
with, is that the industry changes constantly. What used to work
may not work as well as it used to, or it may not work at all
anymore. In my 25 years of being in the voiceover industry,
effectiveness is really the key to be a voice actor, and learning
what it takes to become effective early in your journey as opposed
to what's effective later on in your voiceover journey.
02:53 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Like mailing CDs to potential clients. I just had to say that which
I did, which I did.
02:58 - Tom Dheere (Host)
So did I. Let me tell you, my post office hated me so much because
I'd come in with a lawn bag of padded mailers and they'd be like
oh.
03:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
And I used to have to walk to my voiceover studio for 10 miles in
the snow.
03:11 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Sorry, Uphill both ways.
03:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Uphill Anyways. So yeah, how do we determine how effective our
businesses are and how do we strategize moving forward?
03:21 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right. The ultimate determiner is like how much money am I making?
And it's like, okay, did I make more money than I did last year or
week or quarter? So that's obviously an indicator. But that's a
very broad brushstroke because, like I've noticed over the years,
because I track my voiceover revenue meticulously, gig to gig,
Doesn't surprise me, Tom. I know right. Not surprising that the VO
strategist meticulously tracks his voiceover revenue.
03:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
There you go. Well, me too, but I have my accountant that has
probably more of a hand in it than me, and then she'll report to me
if I need to know things.
03:49 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right. So one thing I do like to do what's called a client churn
report. So basically I look at the end of every quarter, I look at
how many gigs did I have, how much money did I make, how many of
them were from new clients, how many of them were from return
clients, and then I look at the same quarter from the previous year
to see if the amount of money new clients and old clients went up,
went down or stayed the same.
04:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Now let me ask you what are you recording that data into? Do you
have?
04:23 - Tom Dheere (Host)
a CRM Okay, okay, I was going to say do you have a?
04:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
CRM. Do you have a CRM? Okay, okay, I was going to say do you have
a CRM or do you have a spreadsheet?
04:27 - Tom Dheere (Host)
That I do in a spreadsheet because I have a cash flow spreadsheet
which tracks every penny that goes into my voiceover business and
every penny, that goes out of my voiceover business. It's a free
download at voestrategistcom. You can just type in free in the
search bar and you can find it and download it. It and you can find
it and download it. It also helps you run reports. It's got little
auto sums and I've got little formulas in there so it can help
track your stuff.
04:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
That's awesome, tom, and can that be integrated? Like would I be
able to export reports from my QuickBooks and be able to import, do
you think into that's a?
04:55 - Tom Dheere (Host)
great question. It may require some reformatting.
04:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Finagling.
05:00 - Tom Dheere (Host)
And a little finagling, but actually I'm so glad this came up. When
it comes to analyzing your voiceover business, that cash flow
spreadsheet does so many things. It tracks all the money that I
make. I also list all of my revenue and expense goals for the
month, the quarter and the year. But here's the other fun thing
that it does I have little columns where I have little codes. So,
for example, there are three what I call portals in the voiceover
industry. I'm sure I've talked about this before Representation,
online casting sites and self-marketing which includes inbound and
outbound marketing.
05:34
So every time I book a voiceover gig, in that column I write down
whether it was RE, which it was a gig I booked through my
representation, if it's OC, through an online casting site, either
free or pay-to-play, like Voice123. And then the last one is S-M,
or self-marketing, which means did it happen as a result of a cold
call or a cold email, or indirect? Is it a result of someone
finding me on Google?
05:59
Or was I referred to that client by a fellow voice actor or a
fellow client, because I have clients who refer me to clients all
the time and so whenever I type that in, there's a little section
to the side of the spreadsheet that has, by revenue and by
percentage, how much money I'm making based on the portal that I'm
doing. It also does it for genre. I have a column for genres
e-learning, commercial, industrial.
06:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Oh, that's awesome. I love this. And you say that this is a free
download.
06:25 - Tom Dheere (Host)
It's a free download, that's awesome, that's a great tracker. Yeah,
because it lets me know just how I'm doing with the genre of
voiceover, because you can break it down by genre and you can also
break it down by portal. But I'm not getting all my e-learning
through one portal and I'm not getting all my explainers through
one portal.
06:44
Because sometimes I'll get an explainer through one of my reps.
It's rare but it happens. But I'll get a lot of e-learning through
online casting sites and self-marketing, so to be able to really
look and see how my voiceover business is doing and be able to go
to last year's spreadsheet and see how it's doing I love that,
tom.
07:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I love that you have a free resource. I have to. I'm sorry I didn't
have to exclaim that and interrupt you and say that, because I will
tell you that I created a spreadsheet myself when I started to
track auditions, to track jobs that I booked. It is a thing you do
have to remember to put the information in, but it was very, very
valuable to find out and I'll tell you, I love a person who can
really work a spreadsheet, because you've got it all figured out
already, yeah, and you've got the columns there. I mean, bosses,
take advantage of this. We're going to put a link in the show
notes. Okay, continue, tom. I'm sorry.
07:32 - Tom Dheere (Host)
I got so excited.
07:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I had to interrupt you.
07:34 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Well, yeah, I've been building this spreadsheet for 20
years.
07:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yes, I think 2004,.
07:38 - Tom Dheere (Host)
2005 is when I first built this spreadsheet first built this
spreadsheet, so I'm looking at it right now.
07:43
So yeah, genre so like. For example, so far this year, 23.8% of my
voiceover revenue has come from e-learning. But also I do it as the
VO strategist. So it also tells me how many 15 minute consults I've
booked, how many one-on-one coaching sessions I've done, how many
conference appearances, how many mentorship sessions, how many
people bought my videos at the VO strategist. So I use it for both
as a voice actor and both as the VO Strategist, because this is
tracking all the money.
08:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Well, good, I'm going to download it to track and ganguza business.
However, I will say that there's reports that are generated off of
QuickBooks or whatever your accounting software is, but I like that
you have the added columns. Like I can't add a column in QuickBooks
that says where did you book the job?
08:25 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Well, I probably could, but I haven't done that that's why I
stopped using all the accounting software in most of the CRMs,
because it wasn't giving me the data that I need. Also this is a
running total that I can see on my screen all at the same time.
Here's another one no-transcript.
08:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Everybody talks about that.
08:56 - Tom Dheere (Host)
I believe it's one of the most useless data points there is, and
here's the reason, and you know this.
09:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I'm going to agree with you, but I want to hear your
reason.
09:05 - Tom Dheere (Host)
The reason why is because the casting process is so random and
arbitrary.
09:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yes.
09:11 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Because the best voice actor does not always get the gig, get the
gig.
09:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yes.
09:15 - Tom Dheere (Host)
And the best audition doesn't always get the gig. Like there's a
great documentary called that Guy who was in that thing? And it's
about 12 character actors in Hollywood and you know all their faces
but you don't know any of their names and they talk about what it's
like being a character actor on TV and film in Hollywood and one of
them talks about the absurdity of the casting process and he says
something like one week I'll get a gig because I remind the casting
director of her brother-in-law.
09:41 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah.
09:42 - Tom Dheere (Host)
And then two weeks later, I won't get the gig because I remind the
casting director of her brother-in-law.
09:47 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah, absolutely so.
09:48 - Tom Dheere (Host)
we have no earthly idea what the thought process is behind a voice
seeker. There's another story of how a woman cast a male voice
actor and she was asked why did you cast that person? And she said
he sounds like my father.
10:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Mm-hmm.
10:06 - Tom Dheere (Host)
And then, upon further conversation, she said I trust my
father.
10:10
So, that means A I trust my father. B I want a trusting sound, for
this voiceover equals C. I want someone to do this voiceover who
sounds like my father Absolutely. But what if her father sounds
like Gilbert Gottfried or Bobcat Goldthwait and they probably have
kids? I know Gilbert Gottfried had kids, I don't know about Bobcat
but and I'm sure if their children hear their voice it's a trusting
I'm going to be okay, I'm safe. But that doesn't work for the rest
of the universe.
10:40
Absolutely so, that's why that's kind of an absurd thing to
analyze.
10:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
And I just want to tailgate off of that really quickly. I don't
want to get off the track of what's my ROI. However, that's why you
don't self-sabotage yourself if you thought, well, I did a great
audition and I didn't book the gig, or I'm not good enough, don't
let that feed into. I mean, of course, you want to be a great
performer and a great actor. That always gives you, I think, the
most competitive advantage. However, the casting process is wild
and crazy, and anybody that's taken an audition demolition class
with Law and myself we've done, I believe, six of them so far. By
the way, you can check them out on the VO Boss YouTube channel if
you want to watch one.
11:20
Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason as to why you receive a job,
and so I agree with you there that tracking that is not always
going to give you the most useful information. However, I know
people will be like, well, my booking ratio on Voice123 or my
booking ratio on Voicescom. Again, in reality, all you can do, I
think, is validate that you have ample opportunities, right, right,
right. And within those opportunities, it would be nice if you, on
average, booked a certain percentage, but again, I wouldn't let
that dictate whether that is a good return on investment, would you
agree?
11:53 - Tom Dheere (Host)
It doesn't necessarily dictate your worth as a voice
actor.
11:57
What it can dictate for the pay-to-play sites in particular, anne,
is how effectively are you feeding the algorithms to give you the
casting opportunities that you want, that you're right for, and are
you effectively auditioning for the casting notices that those
algorithms served up? So, with that in mind, I do track my booking
ratio on Voice123. I have the $2,200 tier, so I have the second
highest tier. So obviously I want to make sure there's a return on
my investment. However, the number is skewed because I I'll give
you a perfect example Two years ago on Voice123, I booked a
gig.
12:34
I did an audition. It was for a grocery store chain doing an
internal video about produce. I think it was about bananas. You
know, like, if you work in their produce department, here's how to
make sure the bananas, how not to bruise them, how to check them
for quality, how to display them properly, how to rotate out
bananas that are going to expire or whatever. And it was one gig
$550 for like a three-minute in-house thing, directed session took
all of 15 minutes. It's like okay, perfect. A month later they
needed one on shrimp. A month later they needed one on
avocados.
13:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I did not audition for those. You didn't have to audition, but you
got the job. Yes, right, the recurring client.
13:11 - Tom Dheere (Host)
But if I wasn't on Voice123, I would not have gotten that casting
opportunity.
13:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
The majority of my work, too, is a lot of referral clients.
Referrals and or clients that I got because I'm on pay-to-plays but
not on a certain subscription level just because of my schedule,
and so therefore I can't really count that. But I still get,
believe it or not, if my profile is up there, every once in a while
I will get a direct job, and then that client will come
back.
13:35 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right, right. So, with that in mind, on the spreadsheet, the cash
flow spreadsheet, I do have a new column where I track audition
bookings versus direct bookings.
13:45
Oh, okay, so audition bookings versus direct bookings. Oh okay. So
how much did I get? Was this an audition and pray gig or was this a
legacy client gig? So, just as an example as of this conversation,
my direct booking percentage is 79% and my audition booking is 21%,
which means roughly 80-20. Four out of every five bookings that I
get, I didn't have to audition for them. Now, that is something
that a lot of voice actors.
14:10
Yeah, that tells me something about my business model and it tells
me about my effectiveness in marketing, about my effectiveness in
auditioning and my effectiveness in client retention, because it's
one thing to book a client once, it's another thing to book a
client twice, and it's another thing to book a client a few times a
year for years and I have a couple clients.
14:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Right, I have some clients I've worked with for decades, myself
too, and I don't audition for them.
14:33 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Some of them I never auditioned for in the first place, I just sent
them the demo and then they're like, okay, great, and they here's
your first gig work, which is right, that's the best kind of
client, isn't it? That's a regular client, the one that you don't
have to market to or audition for. However, audition and pray, I
think, should be part of a balanced breakfast of all voice actors,
whether it's through their agents, or through a casting site, or
whether it's through their marketing strategy.
14:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Agreed Because auditioning and pray I mean. First of all, it gets
you exposed to potential new clients in a multitude of ways.
Because, first of all, if the agent hears you continually
submitting good auditions, they might refer you to someone or they
might shortlist you. Even if the client doesn't pick you, or if the
client hears the audition and they may not cast you this time, they
may save you for a future casting or come back to you for a
different casting.
15:26 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Here's another example. So for you VO bosses who have or are
considering working with Anne, you decide you want to work with
Anne. You want to get e-learning coaching. You may have been in the
business for a little while. You may have gotten a smattering of
e-learning gigs here and there, but now you want to really hunker
down, get some quality training, get a quality demo, come up with a
quality marketing strategy. So you work with Ann, you get your
e-learning coaching, you produce a spectacular e-learning demo and
then, of course, then we say Ann, what do I do now? And then she
talks to you about marketing strategies. So you start to market
that demo. The other thing you do is you put that demo on your
website. So you come up with a marketing campaign. I'm going to put
this demo on my website. I'm going to build a list of potential
e-learning clients and if you have already done some e-learning
work, it's supplemented by the work you've already gotten from
existing e-learning clients and then you put it out there. Direct
email.
16:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Direct email through a boss blast. Put it out there.
16:27 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Direct email, direct email through a boss blast or direct email for
cold calling, exactly, posting it on social media, talking to
people on LinkedIn, so on and so forth. That's where this
spreadsheet and your analytics can be an extremely powerful tool,
because you can decide all right, this e-learning marketing
campaign is going to take one month, so the first of the month the
page the e-learning landing page goes live, and then you start
through the VO Boss Blast. You start scheduling and sending emails
to potential current and past e-learning clients. You post content
on social media, you do things on LinkedIn. Maybe you record a
video on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube talking about the demo or
your experience with Ann or any part of your journey which is a
part of helping people see your humanity.
17:12 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
And, by the way, with any good coach right, I will if you provide a
testimonial page. I also put demos on my YouTube channel, so
there's the marketing that happens through that as well. So you're
getting potential opportunities as well as my own referrals to
you.
17:27 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right, so you do all of that stuff and then at the end of the
month, now you can figure out.
17:32
These are the analytics, so you can obviously go to your website,
regardless of where the website was built. You should have some
form of dashboard where you can look at how many times did people
visit your e-learning landing page, how many times did they listen
to your e-learning demo, how many times did they download? Because
remember, that's the most important part of a campaign like this is
to get downloads. You want people to download your e-learning demo
and have it on file for when a project comes up that you would be
right for. They have that demo on hand because they're not going to
remember you and they're not going to remember your website. It may
not be bookmarked. That's why most voice seekers and Anne may agree
that most of them have a folder, a file of digital shoebox of some
sort that has a pile of demos. Absolutely, and when a project comes
along, because the odds of you emailing somebody your demo and the
odds that they have a project that you're perfect for.
18:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
At that time Extremely slim. It's all about timing.
18:26 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right, it's all about timing.
18:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah, I just did a teachable moment all about timing. Like you just
don't know when people are going to need or require your service
and you can't expect that just because you got the demo yesterday
that there are all these people that need something
today.
18:40 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right. So you have to manage your expectations by the analytics. So
should it be e-learning bookings in that one month? I don't think
that would be fair to you because it's extremely unlikely. What you
can look at is how many times did they go to your website, how many
times did they listen to that demo? How many times did they
download that demo? How many emails were opened and clicked
on?
18:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
You brought up a really good point. Is that? Okay? So a boss blast.
You can go to the VO boss page to find out more about the Boss
Blast. But the Boss Blast is simply allowing to cast the net out
into a potential audience that could have a need, and you don't
know exactly at what time that need is. So there's that direct
marketing from the Boss Blast. But also I love the point that you
brought up about the website.
19:23
Bosses, you have a website, it is a tool, it is your storefront. It
is your responsibility to have enough knowledge about that tool so
that you can go find out, like did somebody download my demo? How
many times has the page been visited? Right? Because, just as there
is with the Boss Blast, we have statistics. I can work with you,
like when we send out a campaign, we have all the stats, we know
who it was sent to, we know who opened it and we know who clicked.
Now, once they get to your website right, they can click either the
demo that's there or they can click on your website, and so once
they do that, that's it. I just know that they've gone to your
website.
20:00
Now, on your website, you need to be responsible for how many times
has that been downloaded, how many times has that page been
visited? And that can really help to see who's listening to your
demo and what your booking ratio could be after that. And so those
stats are important to know. So if you do not know how to access
the back end of your website and we will have a podcast probably
very shortly on just websites you must make it a point to educate
yourself, and if you've had a website designer that did that for
you, then you must either ask them how do you find out these stats
right? Can they set up Google to actually allow you to see those
stats, so when people visit your website, that you can find those
stats and just know that, even if you may not be technically
minded, you should really educate yourself on how to find that
information out. That's important stuff to know. Sorry, I'm on my
soapbox there, but gosh, it's so important.
20:52 - Tom Dheere (Host)
No, that's amazing advice, Anne. Now here's the next part about
this is here's some real life, practical real life experience that
I have had this year is that one of the genres that I've been
focusing on in 2024 is political. Over $10 billion is being spent
on political marketing and advertising this year, so I updated my
political demo. I've already had a list of political contacts
because I've been marketing myself as a political voice actor since
2022.
21:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Are you direct marketing yourself, or are you on a roster as
well?
21:24 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Both, I'm on rosters, but I'm also direct marketing. I did a direct
marketing, I did a direct marketing email blast, updated my
political landing page and I sent out, I'd say over the past month
and a half, roughly 150 emails to production companies that are
dedicated to and specialize in creating political content radio,
tv, digital streaming that require a voice actor. And do you want
to guess how many replies I got to this?
21:52 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
email of 150?. Oh, I can imagine.
21:54 - Tom Dheere (Host)
I can imagine the answer is zero, zero Now. At first I freaked
out.
22:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
But did you get hired?
22:01 - Tom Dheere (Host)
No.
22:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Ah, okay, not yet.
22:03 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Okay. So the question is what's going on? So, after some reflection
and talking to other political voice actor friends, is they are so
busy. These political production companies are so busy they do not
have the time to open, much less read, any of my emails, much less
click on the link download the demo or reply.
22:26
They don't have the time because everything has gone bananas this
year, so because the debates have started the conventions are
starting soon and then everybody's going to go crazy, from the
presidential election all the way down to dog catcher and
everything in between. However, I do have some existing clients who
just send me work. They're like hey, here's another one, Can you do
it today? Hey, I've got these five spots. I need them by first
thing in the morning.
22:52 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Is that going to stop you from sending a direct email in
the?
22:55 - Tom Dheere (Host)
future? No, not at all.
22:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I wanted you to make that point.
22:57 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Because this particular genre at this particular time of year. I
have now, through experience, learned to manage my expectations
about what's going to happen Because, like nowadays, if you're
doing a direct marketing email, if you're getting one, to 2% of
people replying to you, you're doing good, that's
awesome.
23:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah, that's what I tell my boss blast people yes, if you're
getting one to 2% click or open you used to look for. If you get a
10% open rate and then 1% click rate.
23:26 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Those days are over.
23:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah Well, 1% is good. So, yeah, it's absolutely good. But there's
still again if you know your audience and you know what to write to
them, it's still effective. I would still say there are still
people that open their emails and there's always that
chance.
23:39 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right, so the point is just because they didn't reply to your
email. I guarantee there's a folder in their Gmail or their inbox
where they just took that email and just dragged it into that
folder.
23:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Exactly, which is why when I go through stats with people because
we will go through who opened it and who clicked on it but then
after that you don't know what they're going to do with it and,
honestly, unless you're hacking into their systems, you really
don't know if they've put it into a folder or not. I love the fact
that you also are mentioning that you have to manage your
expectations. Again, it's about timing and managing expectations as
well, but that initial data can really help you to find out is it
worth your investment?
24:18 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right. So the aforementioned e-learning direct marketing campaign
that you do from the Boss Blast yeah, looking at how many people
opened it, how many people clicked on the demo, how many people
downloaded the demo, which, if you're using a good CRM like there's
a bunch of great CRMs out there which we could talk about in
another conversation it can give you a good idea of what's going
on.
24:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
They don't have to download the demo either. They could just play
it. Do you know what I mean? That's the other thing too. And they
keep the email without downloading the demo.
24:44 - Tom Dheere (Host)
So again, it's like everybody has different habits. Some people
will save the email, not open it. Some people will save the email,
open it. Some people save the email, open it. Click on the demo,
listen to it, but not download it.
24:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Some people save the email and then forget about it right so that
you need to consistently right every once in a while.
25:00 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right, do a follow-up every few months. Do a follow-up in that
top-of-mind email, right, Right. So the lesson here, bosses, is
that analytics don't always tell the story. You can't live or die
by your analytics, but at the end of a year I can look and go,
okay. Here's a trend Right. Here's an example 2023, looking at the
three portals. So last year, 12% of my voiceover revenue came from
my representation, 49% came from online casting sites, 23% came
through direct marketing strategies, 16% came through indirect
marketing strategies.
25:38
Now, if you look at five years ago 2019, I had my representation
percentage was one or 2%.
25:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Right, and I would say your pay to play your roster was high
pay-to-play was non-existent because I wasn't a paid member of oh,
that's right. At that time I took a long break because in the
beginning I had a high percentage rate right, but my direct and
indirect marketing strategy was like 81, but I also made 20% less
in 2019 than I do in 2024.
26:10 - Tom Dheere (Host)
So how did me going from focusing on direct and direct marketing to
focusing on online casting sites, increase my representative
percentage? What happened? What are the analytics? This is my
theory. In 2019, I auditioned 450 times. The whole year 2023, I
auditioned 1,854 times. I got better at auditioning. Voice123 made
me a better auditioner because I got reps in. Also, it helped me
keep a better idea on casting trends. What are people?
26:40 - Intro (Announcement)
looking for.
26:41 - Tom Dheere (Host)
How can I read a casting notice and match it up with who I am and
what I can provide as a problem solver, as a voice actor? That fed
into increasing the quality of my representation auditions. I got
better auditioning on online casting sites and, by extension, I got
better at auditioning for my reps. So that's why I went from like
1% or 2% in 2019 to, five years later, booking 12% of my
revenue.
27:06 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I love that. I think it's kind of like goal setting right If you
don't write it down. It's kind of like in your head you're like but
I've auditioned, but I've sent my direct marketing email, or I've
sent my emails and I've done my marketing, but in reality if you're
not writing it down or recording it, it's really hard to track what
you've done. I mean, it wasn't until I started tracking my
auditions and where I was booking and it helped me to determine a
genre. Oh, I should pursue more work in this area. There's so many
things you can learn from it, from just recording it. So consider
it like a goal right. Consider that document recording and gosh, it
doesn't get any easier than downloading a free template from
Tom.
27:42 - Intro (Announcement)
Dheere's website.
27:42 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
That's for darn sure. I mean really. This has been such an
enlightening conversation, tom. I mean the amount of information
you can find out just by tracking your return on investment where
are you auditioning, where are you spending your money, where are
things happening can really inform you to make great decisions
about how to evolve and how to move your business forward. So do
it, guys. Download that document and understand that, yes, this is
a marathon, not a sprint. We'll probably say that for every podcast
that I work with with you, tom. I mean, I say that all the time,
but you guys it is. Tom, thanks so much for your invaluable wisdom
on this. I love that you're such a geek about all of this, and if
anybody can produce a really cool spreadsheet, I'm sure it's Tom
Dheere.
28:22 - Tom Dheere (Host)
I am a happy mutant, so yeah.
28:25 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
All right. Big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can
network, connect and download documents like a boss. Find out more
at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week and we'll see you next
week. Thanks, tom Bye.
28:40 - Intro (Announcement)
Bye. Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your
host, Anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign
up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content,
industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock
your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to
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