May 21, 2024
When Danielle Famble traded the bright lights of musical theater for the voiceover booth, she didn't just change careers—she embodied the essence of a true entrepreneur. Grab your headphones and join the BOSS, Anne Ganguzza, as we navigate through Danielle's remarkable journey, discussing how her roots in musical theater have equipped her with a unique resilience and CEO mindset for her flourishing voiceover career. From emotional trials to asserting her worth in the industry, her story is a masterclass in transforming her performing arts discipline into a voiceover triumph. We discuss the intricacies of a successful business mindset, emphasizing the need for mentorship, community, and the wisdom of collective experience. We uncover the secrets behind tracking progress, efficiency, and how a transparent approach to finances can empower artists, especially women and women of color, helping them to assert their worth and command the rates they deserve.
00:01 - 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 VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne
Ganguzza.
00:19 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Hey, hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host,
Anne Ganguzza, and today I am really excited to bring on a very
special guest and Boss Danielle Famble. Danielle is a full-time
voice actor with a performing background in musical theater and on
TV, and transitioned from the stage to the booth in 2019. And since
that time, she has voiced for amazing brands like Google, pepsi,
etsy, prudential Hertz, the US Army and more, and she recently
presented this almost viral breakout presentation at VO Atlanta,
which I heard nothing but amazing things about, about how to build
your business like a CEO With a CEO mindset. It was very, very well
received and I am so excited to talk to her today about that CEO
mindset. Danielle, thanks so much for joining us.
01:12 - Danielle Famble (Host)
Hey, thanks for having me, anne, this is fun.
01:14 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah. So let's talk a little bit first about your career, because I
feel like anybody that transitions into the career voiceover has to
have an entrepreneurial mindset to begin with. Transitions into the
career of voiceover has to have an entrepreneurial mindset to begin
with, and so that really works well with being a boss. So tell us a
little bit about your career and how you went from musical theater
and are you still singing, I hope into voiceover.
01:37 - Danielle Famble (Host)
Well, I grew up actually, I'm from Texas originally and my family,
my parents, my grandparents they were entrepreneurial. My mom and
dad had a water store. They sold water in the 90s Crazy.
01:50
Everybody needs it, right, everybody needs it. So they were good
and my grandparents had like an afterschool snack truck. So I grew
up around businesses and seeing my family, my parents, running
businesses, and I'm also a middle child, so I love attention, I
guess is the polite way to say it. So I always grew up, you know,
singing in church or performing in school. So it was sort of a
natural progression for me to go to school for musical theater,
majoring in classical music and minoring in theater, and I knew,
based on a trip coming to New York City in high school, that I
wanted to do musical theater and move here.
02:31
So for me, I just I don't know I had this entrepreneurial
background with my parents and my family and loving to perform, and
realizing it took a while, but realizing, especially moving to New
York, that this is a business and you have to market yourself and
learn and do all the things that you need to do to run a
business.
02:51
So my transition really was from doing musical theater, I performed
on cruise ships and performed, you know, all over the country at
theme parks and regional theaters, and then in 2020, the pandemic
happened and I had this background of acting and performing, but I
really wanted to figure out how I could make that background work
with voiceover. So that's when I transitioned from like 2019 up to
2020, made that transition to voiceover and realized that my
entrepreneurial background really helped because, unlike being on
the stage for me anyway, I was able to look at what I could do with
and without the help of agents and managers and realize that I
could carve my own way myself with the help of reps, agents,
managers, things like that. So it kind of just all dawned on me
that my past and my upbringing really was helpful in creating this
CEO mindset.
03:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Now, do you do anything outside of voiceover? Are you still in
music or in theater as well? Or is it just something that you just
fell in love with? Voiceover and that's it? You're just full
force.
04:06 - Danielle Famble (Host)
I kind of fell in love with voiceover and I'm full force. I will
say I miss singing, I miss being on stage, I miss people. And so to
fill my soul, I think what I'm now doing is I live in the New York
City area, so going to the symphony or going to a Broadway show,
I'm going to go tomorrow night to see my friend who's made his
Broadway debut. So filling my soul in that way and maybe even
getting back into singing lessons.
04:33
This is a new development. Yeah, that's, I think, what I'm going to
be doing. But there was a lot of, I guess, trauma from growing up
and it can be a hard business on your emotional state, and that
part of it I don't really miss, and so I think it was a good
voiceover Well, yes, that's true, that's true. I think I've learned
how to navigate it better.
04:52 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Well, I think maybe that prepared you Probably Right, because I
think that well, maybe people who are not familiar with stage and
music and that is hardcore, facing like rejection or that type of
thing, and so you have to really develop a thick skin and I think
by the time you get to voiceover, maybe that helped prepare you in
some way for that. But also, I think your experience from growing
up with your parents and your grandparents who are entrepreneurs I
mean I love that that was a great showcase. It was a great example
for you as a young child to see that you could do anything. My
parents were kind of the same way and I really attribute it to my
entrepreneurial mindset, where there was a belief that if I wanted
to pursue that and it was something that brought me great joy I
could do that for a living and I could pursue that and be able to
pay the bills by doing that.
05:45
So let me ask you, what would you say would be the biggest
challenge that you faced in that transition, in creating a business
for voiceover, because it sounds to me like you had a good idea of
okay, I know that it's more than just performing right, I think a
lot of people want to just go into their studios and do voiceover
all day, but I think there's so much more to it, because you could
be the best voice artist, the best singer, the best actor in the
world, but if nobody knows about it, you can't get hired Right, and
that's where I think your entrepreneurial business mindset has to
come into play. So what was your biggest challenge when you
transitioned from one career into the next?
06:24 - Danielle Famble (Host)
I would say my biggest challenge was honestly recognizing that it
was a business, because I wanted to jump in. The actor and the
performer in me just wanted to get really good at how to perform in
front of the mic and do the perfect read and the perfect
conversational read, or at that time it was the we're all in this
together read right.
06:44
So that was a hard transition for me to realize that there was more
to this job than just talking into a microphone. Once I realized
that I think it was mostly just needing to send out invoices and
collecting the payment on time and answering questions that I just
didn't know the answer to, and there were a lot of I don't knows
and then learning as I went. That I think, was the hardest part,
because at that time you don't know what you don't know, and part
of running a business is realizing all the things that you don't
know and having to figure out the answer to it or at least come up
with this next answer, and then iterate as you get
better?
07:22 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Sure, yeah, absolutely. So then what would you say was your most
successful path into really making this more of a business mindset?
Did you read a great book? Did you do a lot of research? Did you
talk to your parents? What was it that helped you to really create
that CEO mindset?
07:40 - Danielle Famble (Host)
I would say getting help and finding a mentor. I coached with a lot
of different people. I coached Facebook group Voice Actors of NYC
to be invaluable because there are so many people who will offer
help or resources or ideas. But not going it alone, I think, would
be the best resources. Find your tribe, find a mentor, find someone
who can help you, because it's so much faster for you to progress
when you have other people to bounce those ideas off of.
08:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah, absolutely. Now you talked a little bit about the importance
of being able to scale your business and to be able to track your
progress in terms of how to mark your success and how to move
forward in your business. Can you talk a little bit about
that?
08:44 - Danielle Famble (Host)
Yeah, I noticed and I learned and I knew this from even my parents
and grandparents the data is the most important thing that you can
have to know where you are and where you want to go. So tracking my
numbers was incredibly important to me, and I don't just mean
income. I wanted to get better at how quickly I could do auditions,
and so I was tracking how many auditions I was doing a day and I
could tell by looking at the numbers if I was getting faster or
more efficient. I care a lot about money and numbers and love to
talk about money actually.
09:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Wait, can you repeat that? Because I love a woman who can— oh, I
care a lot about numbers and money.
09:23 - Danielle Famble (Host)
It is not a bad word.
09:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
It is not a bad word. Thank you, Danielle.
09:26
I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I was so excited that you could
say that I was maybe I was the only other person that said look, I
love to make money and I love the challenge in how can I make more
money? And so I think having a healthy mindset with money is very
important. Let's talk a little bit more about that, danielle. I
think a lot of it stems too from different mindset or different
ideals that you have as you grow up Like. Is money a bad word or is
money a good thing? And especially being female, can a female make
a lot of money and is that a good thing? Let's talk about
that.
09:58 - Danielle Famble (Host)
Yeah, absolutely. I think there needs to be a healthy conversation
about money with women, specifically For me I preach it women of
color because sometimes, as women, we feel uncomfortable asking for
what it is that we want, yeah, and what you're worth and what
you're worth, and being able to say it with confidence and say this
is my rate or can we negotiate on a rate? Can you do better with
the rate that you've proposed? Having these conversations is
important because me, as a business, I'm running a business and
having business conversations with other businesses when they're
asking me to license the use of my voice for their project. So I
don't feel weird talking about business with a business.
10:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Sure, because that's what I'm doing, and money is the language of
business.
10:48 - Danielle Famble (Host)
So finding that level of comfort and being able to feel comfortable
in talking about money, sure, and knowing that you are worth the
amount that you've stated, or more, it's baseline, I
think.
11:03
From there, that's when you can grow and feel more
comfortable.
11:07
Another thing for me was getting over that starving artist
mentality.
11:12
I feel like it's kind of glorified, especially when I was coming
from a musical theater background.
11:17
I mean, I remember standing in line for hours on end waiting to
sing my 16 bar cut so that I could maybe book a job that was going
to pay me $300 a week at some regional theater and I was grateful
and while that is fine and it happened and I needed it at the time,
it's not where I'm at anymore. I couldn't do that anymore and
that's one of the reasons why it was important to me to sort of
figure out what else I could do outside of theater, because it was
no longer aligning with how I wanted to live my life, because my
life cost a certain amount of money and I needed to find other ways
to live the life that I wanted and be able to pay for it. And
that's not a bad thing knowing that it's going to cost you money,
and I'm okay with asking for what I want and also saying no if it
doesn't work out. No is a full sentence and if a number doesn't
work for you.
12:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
That's great. No is a full sentence. I love that. It's a full
sentence.
12:15 - Danielle Famble (Host)
And if it doesn't work for you, be okay with saying no and holding
by your no.
12:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Well, let's talk a little bit more about that, because I and
holding by your no. Well, let's talk a little bit more about that,
because I think that for a lot of people starting out in the
industry, they're just afraid to ask for what they're worth, or
they're afraid to negotiate. And so if a potential client comes to
you and they don't have a budget to pay you what you feel you're
worth, like what does it take? Like in terms of how do you get up
the confidence to say no? And for me it's always been well, you
only have to do it once, because once it works out in your favor,
then it gives you all the confidence in the world. But tell me
about your experience. Did you have an experience where you were
scared to say no? Or you thought, oh my gosh, maybe I should do
this job for this low pay?
12:57 - Danielle Famble (Host)
Let's talk about that no-transcript, still want to do it, even at a
lower rate? And if the answer is no, can I tell them no and have
that uncomfortable conversation like you're saying just once,
saying something like unfortunately, this number does not work for
me or align with what I would normally quote. I wish you all the
best, finding the right voice talent for this project. And then
that's it. And I've noticed that when I do that, I've left my day
open, my time open. Another job could come my way that pays me the
rate that I'm looking for and that I need, or I can do something
else, and maybe that something else is getting out of the booth,
getting out of the house, going and seeing some friends or doing
something that enriches my life, and there's no monetary value that
I can put on that.
14:19 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Well, I think when you can enrich your life, it enriches your
product, it enriches your business, because I think it all
feeds.
14:28
It's just a wonderful, wonderful cycle and I love that you
mentioned that you're going to go see your friend on Broadway and I
feel like for me it's like I need to watch a great movie, because
it really stirs up the creative juices and it really helps me to be
even better at my job, at my business, and to be more creative,
because that's what really we do for a living is we need to have
that creativity, we need to bring that to life, and I feel like
anything that you can do externally, even outside of voiceover, to
enhance that is absolutely a good thing for your business. So,
yeah, go out and enjoy life, because that's going to help your
business. I like to think of that. Let's talk about your business
and growing your business, because I think there's a lot of people
that they get to a certain level where they're happy and then
sometimes they don't advance or progress or they stagnate and then
they're like but I don't know how to get more work. Or talk to me
about growing your business.
15:26 - Danielle Famble (Host)
Often looked at growing my business from a financial perspective.
Again, I have no problem talking about money, and so for me growth
looks like a monetary jump or incremental growth even. So I'm
tracking how many jobs I've done in a month or per year. I'm
tracking how much revenue I brought in. I need to know how much I
need to pay in taxes, so I'm staying on top of that.
15:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Speaking of which, it's like almost April.
15:56 - Danielle Famble (Host)
Can we talk about it?
15:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
This happened quickly, my goodness, yeah, yeah, now are you
working? Just thinking of numbers, because you don't have a problem
talking numbers. Are you doing your own accounting? Oh no I am
not.
16:07 - Danielle Famble (Host)
Oh, that's another thing, I think, outsourcing, outsource what you
are either not good at or not passionate about. I agree, those are
the things that I have outsourced, and one of the things I talked
in my talk about was finding your different departments in your
team. So I have a financial team and I have a bookkeeper. I have a
CPA.
16:25
I have a financial advisor. It's an S-corp, my company and so there
are so many different moving parts that I don't know and I need
help with people who know better so that they can help educate me
and I can make the right decisions, because we are working together
and they are working with me so that we can move my agenda forward
for where I want to be with my business and my life. So I'm not
just doing as they're telling me to do. I want to know and I want
to learn and I want to be with my business and my life. So I'm not
just doing as they're telling me to do. I want to know and I want
to learn and I want to understand. So finding people who have the
heart of a teacher to be able to help me understand why I need to
pay this much money in taxes or whatever has been really very
helpful.
17:06
But in terms of growing my business, I look at it from a place of
numbers and the finances, but I also have certain goals when it
comes to I want to maybe have the non-broadcast side of my business
be a certain amount of money, so that can be a specific goal, but
typically I just look at the end of the year, going to the next
year and see where I was and create goals typically financial goals
in my business, and that's how I mark growth. Lately, though, it's
been for me wanting to be a better business owner and entrepreneur
and pushing myself personally. You talked about me speaking at VO
Atlanta. That was my very first time speaking at a conference at
all, and while I absolutely love talking about business and
everything with my friends, I've never really said it in a room
full of people, so I think that is a way that I'm hoping to grow as
a person and as a business owner to feel more confident, sharing
what I know and what I'm passionate about, and letting people know
that that can be part of the growth as well.
18:08
It may not be something monetary, but it's something that I can
mark as my own personal growth and that will help me be a better
voice actor.
18:15 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Well, you know, what's so interesting is that because you have no
problem talking about money, I think inadvertently, without you
maybe even realizing it. What I love is that because you kept
really accurate, probably track right of finances in and out and
you goals and you actually wrote them down with numbers. I'm a big
believer in writing things down and writing goals down and that
helps you to manifest. I mean, yes, of course there's hard cold
numbers, right, but also, I think, writing down goals and writing
down an actual number, because so many people are afraid of the
numbers I mean I'll talk about before I owned my own business. It
would be maybe my spending right, you've got that credit card
right, and I might be like here, have my credit card, and I
wouldn't really look at the money that was going out. And the more
you kind of are in denial of it right, the more right you're
unaware, and I think that you need to be aware of the numbers,
probably more so than most people. You seem to be really
comfortable with numbers and I think that's something to aspire to
for a lot of voice actors, because a lot of voice actors are not
necessarily an accountant or like numbers or like doing the
finances.
19:21
I don't like doing the finances either, but I also outsource. I
have an accountant that I have on retainer and I am forced to look
at those numbers consistently, in and out, and it helps me to set
goals and it helps me to make those goals too. I think that's so
important and I love that. That just seemed to be second nature for
you, and now I think what you're doing is you're pushing yourself
to let's do more, maybe more ethereal goals, personal goals, growth
goals, like I want to speak at a conference, and that's a really
lovely way for all of us to like, push ourselves to think outside
the box in something that maybe doesn't come comfortably to us. And
now, what else can we do? Because if we grow personally, we're also
going to grow in our business.
20:03 - Danielle Famble (Host)
Absolutely, and I really like your point about how your personal
finances correlate to how your finances are going in your business,
because that was, for me, as well, the same thing. I had to get
good with my personal finances and once I was able to look at the
numbers, look at my bank account every day.
20:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Look at the hard cold facts.
20:25 - Danielle Famble (Host)
The hard cold facts of it and deal with that. Then that practice
went into how I run the numbers for my business, because if I was a
hot mess with my personal finances, how could I expect to be
running a business that pays their taxes on time and doesn't have
debt, and all that?
20:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
stuff, and just because you hire right or you outsource for your
finances doesn't mean that you are not educated about it. Right,
you have to be educated in order to manage anybody that you're
outsourcing right, you need to be able to manage people, and you
need to be educated so that you can manage it properly and make
educated decisions, and so I love that. While I don't love to do
financial I don't like to balance the checkbook on a day-to-day
basis I certainly don't have a problem outsourcing to my
accountant, and then we meet once a week, once a month, and we talk
about, okay, inflows and outflows, and where did I spend my money?
Where can I save my money? Where should I invest my money next? And
I think that that is really.
21:23
I think taking the cold hard look at numbers financially is what is
missing, with a lot of voice actors that just start out that
especially think that, well, it's just talking behind the mic and
so therefore, I don't need to invest. Let's talk for a moment about
investment in your business, right, and outsourcing is one part of
it. How important do you think investing is in order to have,
maintain a successful business and grow your business?
21:48 - Danielle Famble (Host)
It is vital to invest in your business and ways that you can invest
in your business, be it the equipment, so your booth, or your
microphone or anything like that the hard products and it doesn't
need to be that you are investing a ton of money. I really, truly
believe in grow as you go. So if you can afford a certain amount of
money for a microphone or an interface or what have, you get that
because you can always upgrade as time goes on. For me, it's very
important to not have a lot of debt with my business, so I will buy
what I can afford at the time and then I will upgrade. So that's
very important.
22:26
And then also investing in yourself, because you are the product,
so investing in classes or going to conferences or coaching or
reading business books, taking business classes, getting outside of
the world of voiceover for your education Not saying that there's
anything wrong with the education in the voiceover community but we
are also running businesses. So what kind of business education are
you getting? Do you need to take a course on how to use QuickBooks
or something like that? There are so many different ways to invest
in the hard product and the soft skills that you need to run a
business. Also, we said it already, but investing in help, because
the help can be the education. So my CPA is helping inform me about
certain things. I have a virtual assistant who I'm outsourcing some
of the day-to-day work in my business and she's helping me and
we're coming up with systems and processes to be a little bit more
efficient every single day. So those kind of investments, when
you're pouring into yourself and you're pouring into your business,
that's how you can start to see your business grow
quickly.
23:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Absolutely. I think investment is also something that scares a lot
of people when they first get into this industry, and it is
something that I think is absolutely essential. It's essential to
be prepared to invest in your business and in yourself, and so that
means, because I'm a coach and I work with students, and I have
been doing it for quite some time I will encounter new students
that will be like yeah, but can I just get my demo because I need
to start making money in the industry, but yet they haven't really
fully prepared themselves for investments that they might make, and
that includes investing in themselves, investing in the possibility
of outsourcing. I've had so many people say but I can't afford that
right now. First of all, I always say don't quit your day job
before you get into voiceover full time. Now let me ask you a
question. I know that you are in musical theater, but do you also
have an additional job at some point to help support your business
or to be able to have money to invest in your business?
24:27 - Danielle Famble (Host)
I was working at. So picture this I was working at, so picture this
2020. Yes, right, I was working a day job at the Apple Store, okay,
and I was waiting tables at night at a comedy club, wow. So I was
working two jobs and then auditioning and wanting to sort of move
into voiceover around my two jobs. And the good thing was working
at the Apple store. I had access to Logic Pro and I had access to
buying certain equipment with a discount, so that job was very,
very helpful for me to start acquiring what I needed the computers
that I'm using, like all of those things. It was really helpful and
I did not want to quit my job until I knew for a fact that I could
be self-sustaining.
25:18
And even then I was 16 years old, with two jobs in high school.
Like I have always worked a lot, so I do think that making sure
that your job is not a hindrance your job can be one of the best
assets that you have while you're growing your business, and even
while you're in your business. Your job is an asset, so make sure
that you treat it as such and you think about it as such Changing
that mindset will be so helpful really.
25:45 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Absolutely. I think there's a lot of people who they're either they
feel like they're stuck in a corporate job or they feel like that
they can't do a job in another sector if they want to call
themselves a voice actor. I'm always like, look, side hustles are
what helped me to be able to invest and to grow my business, and it
was a wonderful way to be able to have the money to invest in,
let's say, outsourcing or invest in coaching or invest in a new
demo, so that I could grow my business. And I did multiple jobs and
I still like to think of my business like I'm not just full time
voice actor. Anybody that knows me knows I have this podcast, I
have the VO Peeps group, I love coaching and so I'm a voice actor.
So I have multiple divisions of my business, just like anybody else
would have in their business. So I feel like that there's no shame
in having multiple passions and multiple divisions of your business
if it can help you to grow.
26:43 - Danielle Famble (Host)
Yeah, and it helps you stay well-rounded as well, like that job can
be the thing that keeps you afloat so that you can say no, and
that's bolstering you to maintain your standards and your rates
that you need I love that it's an asset that can help you say no
I'm just going to reiterate that to the bosses.
27:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
That was so important, right, because when you're out there,
desperate because maybe you just gave up everything so that you
could do voiceover full timetime and then you're possibly like
desperate for a job and you'll accept low pay I love what you just
said that your job is an asset and it can help you to say no when
it's necessary. Right, so that you can have that money and you're
not dependent on it to pay the bills or anything, so yeah,
Fantastic.
27:26
What would be your top tip or the best advice you could give
somebody just starting out in the industry to be the best CEO, the
best boss that they can be?
27:37 - Danielle Famble (Host)
I would tell people to make sure that you are educating yourself
Education, I think, would be the biggest tip yourself by finding a
mentor or a coach or someone who you can work with. That will help
you where you feel that you need help or support Educating yourself
on how to be a voice actor and do the type of genres that you're
wanting to do. Educating you on how to run your business, if that's
what you need help with. But I would say the first thing I always
will tell people if they ask me like, hey, I want to be a voice
actor, get in a class, take a class. Maybe it's a performance
class, maybe it is a business coaching something, but take a class,
because being an entrepreneur is just learning every day as you
know, You've got to learn something new every day and be open to
the fact that maybe you don't know and you need to learn.
28:30
So keeping your brain moldable and learning. Being in a class is
the best way and it's low-hanging fruit because you're learning.
You're not quite doing it every day all the time, quite yet. It is
vital to find out what you don't know and then write that down,
write down your process and then iterate on that process. Love
it.
28:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Oh my gosh, Danielle, I could talk to you all day and I really,
really appreciate you sharing these little nuggets of wisdom, and I
feel like we could maybe do five podcasts at least. So thank you
so, so much for joining us. How can bosses get in touch with you,
danielle, if they want to follow you or be the boss like?
29:10 - Danielle Famble (Host)
you, danielle, if they want to follow you or be the boss like you.
Yeah, you can follow me. I'm on at DanielleFambul on all socials,
and then you can go to my website, daniellefambulcom.
29:18 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Awesome. Well, it was definitely a pleasure. Bosses out there, I'm
going to give a big shout out to my sponsor, ipdtl. You too can
network and connect like bosses like Danielle and myself. Find out
more at IPDTLcom. Bosses have an amazing week. We'll see you next
week and thanks so much, danielle. Bye, thanks, anne,
bye.
29:38 - Intro (Announcement)
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 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
coast connectivity via IPDTL.