Aug 1, 2023
Join Anne & Lau as they embark on a fascinating exploration of
the online casting world and analyze the controversial role of
Fiverr in the voiceover industry. They shed light on the complex
ethical issues prevalent in the freelance industry, emphasizing the
significance of transparency, fair compensation, and adherence to
industry standards. Listen in as The Bosses discuss online
casting’s ability to provide global exposure, momentum, and
representation for emerging voice talents. Learn valuable
insights into navigating the evolving world of online casting while
maintaining ethical practices and fostering a thriving voiceover
community.
Transcript
Anne: Hey, hey, everyone. Welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the
Boss Superpower Series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I have my
amazing, lovely, lovely boss co-host Lau Lapides with me.
Yay!
Lau: Hey everyone! Hi Anne! Back, back, back. We're
back.
Anne: Lau, I've got a dirty word that I heard.
Lau: And I've got a jar that you're going to put a quarter
into.
Anne: Every time you say that word, that F-word, I mean, and I'm
not
--
Lau: No…
Anne: — talking the F-word that most people think. Or maybe if
you're in the voiceover industry, you know what that F-word
is?
Lau: What?
Anne: It's not failure either, because that's also another F-word.
But the word Fiverr.
Lau: Oh! Quarter in the jar.
Anne: Quarter in the jar every time you say the word Fiverr. So I
think we're going to be rich, maybe, Lau
Lau: Quarter in the jar.
Anne: After this podcast. So yeah, it's a hot topic. It's always
been a hot topic. And I think that it's a considerably bigger topic
because I've been in the industry forever. So before there was
Fiverr, there was other places that
--
Lau: Always.
Anne: — always places that like Fiverr. And I think now we
just really hear so much more about it because we're all online and
everybody can talk about it in groups easily. And so we should
talk. Lau, what are your thoughts about
--
and before you just come right out and say what your thoughts are
about Fiverr, I mean let's talk about business. I think that when
you talk about businesses, you're always going to have businesses
that are luxury brands, right?
Lau: Hmm, yes.
Anne: You know, that sell luxury brands or luxury, you know, the
idea of luxury. And then you have the other that are
economical.
Lau: Yes.
Anne: And yeah, cost savings and efficient. And so I'm going to
start by saying I think that that Fiverr fits in that model that
probably isn't elegant brands, but it is the more cost efficient.
And here's where you can get something quick, easy, cheap, and
fast.
Lau: Yes. Yeah, I'm going to second that and agree with that. But
it's interesting because the way I frame Fiverr and sites that are
similar to that, the way I frame that in my business brain is under
the umbrella or framing in a context of how do I start my business
or how do I gain more momentum in my business and how do I get
known in my business? This is one way that is a way that you
can build your client list. And the interesting part about a Fiverr
is if you choose to go that direction, you have to know that people
are going offline and it’s wild west.
So they're building their client list, they’re charging all their
rates that they’re deciding on, they’re communicating directly with
their clients after awhile. So they’re utilizing it as sort of a
jumping platform to get out there, get known, and have Fiverr do a
lot of the marketing for them so they can get found, and once
they’re found, then they start to make the rules themselves. They
start to build their own clients themselves. So there's something
to be said for having a platform. And now this is very common.
Marketplaces all over the place are housing voice-over talent and
voice-over services so that they are in essence marketing you.
You're not doing the marketing, so that potential clients and
prospects can find you.
Anne: So, we should clarify. I mean, there are some
platforms
--
I'm not going to talk too much about the other ones, but there are
some online casting platforms that you cannot take the client off
of. I love what you said about how it's a jumping point. I mean,
look, online casting sites, you know, SEO works on frequency of
words, right? And so search engines are built to be good search
engines. And so if you're looking for a voice talent or a voice
actor, and you do a search at the Google prompt, then essentially
they want to be a good search engine and serve back the right
material.
So when you've got online casting sites and you've got people that
have thousands on thousands of profiles that say, I'm a voice actor
— guess who has the best SEO, right? Those online casting sites.
And honestly, it's almost impossible for you as a single individual
business to go up against that SEO because you've got so many
matches, right? And so the search engine says, well, the first, if
you're searching for voice artists, well, the first place that
comes up that term or that word, that search term, would be a
casting site that has thousands upon thousands of profiles that
say, I'm a voice artist.
Lau: Yeah.
Anne: And so I love the fact that you use it to get your jumping
off point, your marketing, use it for its SEO. And it's well known
that Fiverr has great SEO, and as well as the other online casting
sites, Voice123, Voices.com, they all have great SEO. And so to get
yourself found of hundreds of thousands of people, that is
absolutely an approach to doing that. And I'll tell you what,
starting off understanding the type of business that Fiverr is, or
some of these online casting sites, they're in business to make
money. And also the people that are on these platforms are making
money. Now, are they making great money? Are they making, you know,
is it, You know what I mean?
Like, if you're on Fiverr and you're making money for your family,
I'm not even talking voiceover, but you're doing something — and
again, this is a global site where there's lots of representation.
And we live in the United States, which is very privileged, I'm
just going to say, right? There might be people on there that are
from other countries where $5 to them is a lot of money, right? And
it’s a way that they can feed their families. And so I can't, I
can't, I can never shun the business. I mean, I can, I can say to
them, well, I don't like their advertising. I don't like their
ethics. I don't like their lack of transparency for any business,
right? And I can choose whether or not I want to associate myself
with that business. And I do that every single day.
Right?
Lau: Right.
Anne: We do that every single day. So as a voice talent, is it
horrible for you to be on Fiverr? And again, there's such. back and
forth. And for me, Lau, I've always maintained that, mind your own
business. Everybody starts in a different place. Gosh, when I
started before there was Fiverr, there was Freelancer. And I'm
going to say that
--
Lau: I remember that.
Anne: And on Freelancer, it was honestly everybody was
underbidding. Everybody was underbidding each other to get the job.
What's the difference? Whether they call it Fiverr or Freelancer,
start with an F. F word. That's what happened but yet when I was
beginning, there wasn't a lot of places there wasn't a lot of
opportunities. Look if we're gonna be viable businesses we need to
have opportunities right for work and we need to know where those
opportunities are and so if they show up in a place like Fiverr,
that's an opportunity. Now you make the choice whether or not you
go and and and act upon that opportunity.
Lau: And the coach in me says, listen, you know, as a business
person, we're in business. We always talk about this like, mind
your own business is right.
Anne: Yes, mind your own business.
Lau: Like, you want to set industry standards. Yes, you want to
have fair working conditions and and good scale pay. That being
said, we're still entrepreneurs slash solopreneurs. And we do have
to make decisions, sometimes tough decisions, sometimes
controversial decisions about how we put plates on the table, how
we take care of our families or our rent, how we deal with everyday
waking up and going after our business practices. Like we have to
make individual decisions, so as you listen to the cacophony of
voices that are out there that are making strong suggestions or
they’re giving their subjective advice, we have to do that. But we
also have to come home and say, let me sift through all of that and
let me make my own decisions about what works for my own career. I
think that’s important.
And I do want to say, one of the perceived negative sides of a
Fiverr is the fact that you’re not leading people in. They’re
coming in through their marketing and they’re finding you. But
they’re also finding a lot of competitors to you on the same
site.
Anne: Sure.
Lau: So you’re in a pool on the same site with direct competitors.
So you just have to know, what’s my A-game? What makes me unique
and artful? What separates my branding from their branding? What
makes me get found? Because they’re not coming in just finding you.
They’re finding potentially hundreds of others that are in your
category or in your compartment. And you have to work a little
harder to separate yourself from the in-house competition that
they’re finding.
Anne: And you know what's so interesting, too, is, I'm not the
person to judge if you're on Fiverr or not. I always say, I'm not
here to judge you if you're on Fiverr or you're not on Fiverr. What
I am concerned about is that you price yourself what you know your
worth and that you price yourself knowing your worth. And
understanding that just because you're new or you're less
experienced does not mean that you have to price yourself
less.
Lau: Mm.
Anne: And so I always try to instill that you need to price
yourself what you're worth.
Lau: Well, It's an interesting topic
--
Anne: It is, it is.
Lau: — because it's like any other, I call it a marketplace
because
--
Anne: Yeah, it is.
Lau: — you may not find other competing businesses to Fiverr
itself, but the businesses under the umbrella of Fiverr, many of
them are competitive. So it's like you're on a marketplace, you're
in a marketplace. It's like you're in a supermarket, right? Who
else is on the shelf right next to you?
Anne: And you can price yourself low, whether you're on Fiverr or
not. That's the thing. And I think that if you do that, then you
are undervaluing yourself. And it can be, if you become good at it
and you do a ton of volume work at a low price, then it will start
to probably impact the industry. If you become known enough, where
you do enough jobs, then it can start to impact the industry. If
you are not doing it, somebody will. It always happens. And again,
it's not under our control necessarily. I think there will always
be bottom feeders, and always in any, any
industry.
And so I think for you, you have to worry again, mind your own
business, and worry about what you're charging and making sure that
you're charging enough so that you are getting paid fairly. And
it's not like, this is an online business, right, like it's a brick
and mortar where we're doing unethical things, hiring labor that's
not minimum. Now there is the argument that people get paid less
than minimum wage. But minimum wage where?
Lau: Yeah.
Anne: Minimum wage in what country? Minimum wage. And I get that. I
mean if you want to make a blanket statement in saying people get
paid less than minimum wage. Well, first of all I've been offered
less than minimum wage to do voiceover and I always choose to say
no to that. Because for all the times that I’ve, and back in the
day when I might have said, oh, I'll think about it. I mean, it's
always better for me, and I think for most people, to just say no
for less than minimum wage, because look, I didn't give up my job,
you know, and to go into business for myself to get less than
minimum wage.
Lau: Right.
Anne: And that time is better spent finding somebody who
understands my value and values me at my fair
rate.
Lau: You brought up a really, really important point, though. It's
like we're always thinking of Fiverr from our point of view,
which
--
Anne: Mm-hmm.
Lau: — many of us are in the US or in North
--
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: — America or UK, but people are on there from all over the
world. And I know when I've hired a service off of Fiverr, you
know, I've met amazing people from Sri Lanka and Philippines and on
and on it goes, from Russia, I mean, there are artists from
everywhere, creators from everywhere. So in one sense, if you come
out of your perspective into a more global perspective, you're
giving a lot of artists potential work, where they live and what
their experiences are, they would never be able to get on their
own. They would never have the money to market their business. They
would never physically be able to go to a brick and mortar where
they live. So it’s a marketplace that is very important to a lot of
people globally speaking that just would not have the placement
opportunities that we have here in the states. It’s an interesting
way of looking at it.
And then of course, when I’ve hired someone, we may go offline, and
then their rates completely change. Then we're in a total other
stratosphere. We're no longer in the Fiverr territory. We're in
this person's business territory. And then I will pay them what
they think they’re worth, and that changes, completely changes, and
sometimes it actually gets very pricey. It gets very expensive and
rightly so, because their services are worth a lot,
oftentimes.
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: So thinking of it as, I don’t know how you would say it, but
sort of a layered approach. It’s not just, oh, they don't charge a
lot of money, you're not paying people what they're worth. That's
the meeting time, that's the launching place. And then where it
goes from there is into a very different kind of bargaining and
negotiation. You have to expect that too. No one I have met and
worked with on Fiverr stays at that beginning rate. No
one.
Anne: And again, I think that I think that you can off the bat —
and I don't know I am not I'm not on Fiverr, and I have I've spent
very little time on Fiverr. So it's interesting that we've chosen
this. This is our topic today because
--
Lau: Yeah.
Anne: — I don't have a lot of experience in fiber and I try not to
to make statements, you know what I mean, about Fiverr not
understanding the impact or having direct experience. I signed up
so that I could look for, you know, different types of employees.
I've never hired anybody off of Fiverr. However, I've had enough
experiences. I understand the concept of Fiverr. I understand, you
know, I talked to enough people that are on it, getting their
experiences on it. And again I feel it really is one of those
things where it is up to to the individual, whether they choose to
be on Fiverr, to associate with that. For me, it was just one of
those things where I didn't yet need another platform. I just
didn't have time to really take part in it or
--
Lau: Yeah.
Anne: — do what I needed to do. I don't know, honestly, Lau, if I
have to start with a certain amount of money or if I have to work
up to it and I didn't have time for that because thankfully my
business is doing well. And so I don’t have to rely on a platform
like Fiverr, but boy, in the beginning, I did. I relied on those
platforms, online casting platforms, not Fiverr, but to pick up
clients and to get my name out there and to get experience so that
I could ultimately be in a successful business where ultimately I
didn't need it.
Lau: Right. And you're also having, well, you're having tremendous
diversity on a platform like that, which I love because I have a
vested interest in working with as much diversity as
possible
--
Anne: Mmm.
Lau: — giving people opportunities that they may not
have.
Anne: Sure.
Lau: And also young people, like anyone under the age of 30, I
consider young. Anyone under the age of 30, they don’t oftentimes
know where to go. They don’t have the business practices. They
don’t have advisors, even if they are lucky enough to go to college
and get an education. Even in university environments oftentimes,
you’re not getting business practices or where to go or any real
placement. So you have to think back, for those of you listening
in, that if you are 40 and up, where were you at 18? Where were you
at 22? What were you thinking at 28? And I know a lot of us were
thinking, help, I don't know even what questions to ask. Like, I do
a graphic design business, I do a PR business, I create, you know,
music for people. I don't know how to get clients. I’m a creative.
I don’t have that brain.
Anne: Sure.
Lau: So a marketplace like Fiverr was also filling a need of so
many people that literally had no idea how to build a business. No
idea at all in saying, hey, come in, we’ll give you your start.
Hopefully you’ll stay with us, but if you don’t, we’ll give you
your start, and you’ll be able to make those connections all over
the world that you want to make. And now that we’re all online, you
don’t even need a brick and mortar in a lot of these professions.
So you're all online. So you need the marketplace in order to do
that.
Anne: Well, and of course, there was a hole in the marketplace. And
honestly, it kind of makes me think about, well, what's going on
with AI in the creative world? Not just synthetic voices, but we're
talking art and writing and copywriting and the creative where AI
tools have come out that can write things for you, that can
generate art for you. I do believe that ultimately if you can use
these as tools, and that includes online platforms, use them as
tools to help grow your business, to grow
--
Lau: That's right.
Anne: — what it is. And of course, now I'm not saying that people
that steal art or AI that is stealing art is right. I believe this
is evolving to a point where we will ultimately come up with
standards, guidelines, and laws that will protect our rights
--
Lau: Yes.
Anne: — protect our art, protect our writing. And it needs to
happen. There needs to be this sense of injustice about it all, or
this anger, or this stand up and kind of fight for what you believe
in. And I believe in the end it will work out. I'm not going to
stand here and stomp my feet if you're on Fiverr and say, you're
ruining the industry for me. Because, honestly, I found my own
industry. I’ve found my own clients and that's okay, that it works
for my business. And again I like to always look at the positive
thing ,the positive spin of everything. I think that Fiverr filled
the need. If Fiverr didn't do it, it would be some other company
that would have filled the need
--
Lau: No question.
Anne: — for that.
Lau: Yeah, no question.
Anne: It's just the way business works here. And there needed to be
an option for people that were looking for an effective voice. And
I'm just going to say, those people, if they didn't go to Fiverr,
they were probably going to one of the other platforms, like Upwork
or whatever the other ones would be, so that they could get
reasonably priced voiceover. Now, a lot of times, yes, do they
value voiceover? It's a perception, right?
People value things in different ways. I think it's just a fact of
life, right? They think, yes, this voice contributes to our brand.
And as artists, we want to say, yes, our voice has an impact on
your brand, and it can help sell for your brand, and it can help
elevate your brand. But there are some people who don't see that
value, right? And I'm not going to bother fighting those people,
nor am I going to bother trying to get work from those people.
Because they'll be the first ones to turn around and complain that
they paid too much, and then give me tons of revision. And I've
done that enough times in my business to know, right? I've accepted
a low-ball offer, not too many times, but enough to know that
they're usually the most trouble.
So the people that are coming to Fiverr, right? Their expectations,
right? And their appreciation of the value may not be where we want
it to be. And that’s just something to understand, right? I mean,
if we are businesses and we can educate our clients, our potential
clients on our value and what we can do for them, then I don’t
think we have problems.
Lau: I agree, Anne, totally wholeheartedly. And I think that we as
individuals and as business owners and as citizens of the world
create our own morality. We really do. Like we create our own
sphere of morality.
Anne: Oh, I like that.
Lau: And you really have to go with what your heart and soul is
telling you. And you really have to do it with with an honest heart
and a full heart. You're not going with mal-intention. You're not
going to hurt someone. You're not going to slight anyone. Like you
have to believe that in our industry the space is big enough that
you're gaining clients. A lot of them have no level of knowledge of
what a rate sheet is or what should be charged or what could be
charged. So you're in essence, every time you meet a potential
client, you're schooling them, you're teaching them, you're
building your own morality base to say, okay, we're meeting at this
level.
Listen, what's the difference between that and giving away a free
hour of coaching? Or giving away, I'm gonna do like 50% off of
class. I want to introduce my value to you. I want to build trust
with you. I want you to have a little taste test of what we do. And
if you love it and if you want to buy into that and invest into
that, then the investment is going to change. We all know
that.
It's the same with Fiverr. I want to give you a little taste test.
Let me just give it to you for a very low rate. But if you really
want to invest in this, then we're going to go to the rates that
are established by my business, by me. Because you're already
buying into the trust factor of working with me and what I'm
offering you is filling the need. So it’s very similar to that if
you look at it in that way. There's tons and tons of free offers
out there, tons and tons of discounts out there. It's ultimately to
get buy-in to invest in what the full rate would be for that
product or service.
Anne: That's an interesting way of looking at it. Yeah, you're
going to buy in or you're going to get a sample. And you know, it's
interesting because for me, I want to project my business as not
being cheap, because there's a lot to be said, when we've talked
about this before, with branding. I mean, there are certain things
when I pay a low amount of money, I think, oh, I wonder what's
wrong with that? Or I don’t now, is that — and so for me, I've
always elevated my business and my voice to be, you know, here's my
rate and it's okay if you can't meet that. Thank you. That's okay.
You know, I hope to work with you in the future, but that's okay. I
will spend time with people who will value my rate. I have no
bitterness. I have no, there's no malice. There's, you know,
nothing like that. I don't know exactly the rules of Fiverr right
now, forgive me for that. But I don’t know if you have to start at
a very low rate or if you have to like work your way up to a
certain rate. I'm not sure what it is.
Lau: I don’t think so, Anne.
Anne: Yeah, I think you can start at a reasonable
rate.
Lau: When you go on the platform, you're going to see, like, let's
say you're looking up a service of an attorney, or let's say you're
looking up someone, a musician, you want them to create music for
you. You may see a layered approach of, I provide this for this
amount. But then if you want this, we're going to layer that on at
this amount.
Anne: Yeah. Yeah.
Lau: Then we're going to provide it at this amount. So it isn't
this flat, like, $5 or $10 thing.
Anne: Yeah, it's not $5.
Lau: It's very much a layered approach to what they do, and some of
them start very high. They'll say this is what I'm worth, this is
what it is. I'm on the platform that's known as a discount
platform, but I'm not offering your discount. And that's what it
is. So it's all over the place, it's all over the
place.
Anne: And again, it's all about your business. And it's all about
how you run your business.
Lau: It is.
Anne: And I truly believe, and I want this for every BOSS out
there. I really, really do. I mean, gosh, guys, I've learned so
much in my many years. And Lau, you too, I'm quite positive. I've
learned so much about valuing my worth and understanding good
clients to work with and knowing where to place myself. And if I
need to negotiate a specific rate or a custom rate, which is what
we do all the time, pretty much, for every single client, and it
needs to be a little bit lower to fit a budget, and it's okay with
me, and I know I'm going to get more work, or it'll be worth it in
some other way outside of monetary value, that is up to me. That is
my judgment. That is my business decision, and it is how I run my
business. And I will tell you that being able to walk away and
saying no, and I've said this multiple times, has given me the
confidence to be able to understand my worth and be able to be
successful in my business. And I think however you do that, whether
you're on Fiverr, whether you're on another casting website,
whether it gives you the confidence at some point that you're like,
I don't need this anymore, or I can get my own clients
--
I think it's all a stepping stone.
And I think it truly is what I want for all the BOSSes is that
confidence. You're worthy of a fair price, whether, no matter what
platform you're on. You're worthy of a fair price. And once you
have that confidence and the confidence to walk away from a low
ball price, right, or something that deems you as cheap, right,
then your business will grow. And once your business grows, it's
kind of like, it's just like a wonderful little snowball that just
gathers the confidence and it gathers, you know, oh, this is great.
Now I know what I'm worth, and my business can grow and I can be
successful and I can put some money in the bank, right? And then if
that if that next client says no or offers me something too low
it's okay I can walk away. I've got the money in the bank. I'm able
to pay the bills and boom.
Lau: That's right.
Anne: And that's what I want for all of you BOSSes out there,
however you get there. Know, know, know your worth.
Lau: Mm-hmm, and it goes right into your submissions if you were
with an agency. I'm an agent, and I can tell you, there are times
we're working with a budget that is minuscule. It's like, oh my
gosh, who could even work for this? And yet we have a lot of folks
that want to book that job for many, many reasons. And then the
next one that comes in is overpriced. They're giving us too much
budget for it, and they don’t realize it.
Anne: But Lau, is there ever really too much?
Lau: No, no, but like, if you see it in the same category, right
next to each other, and you're like, Oh, my goodness, this one's
offering $400 with no usage. And then this one's offering, you
know, $2000 with three years’ usage. You're like, oh my goodness,
there isn't much difference between these two. And I know for a
fact, I can tell everyone hands down, that I have many people who
want to audition and want to submit for both. And I respect
that.
Anne: Now as an agent, will you fight for higher
rates?
Lau: Oh, always. I mean, that to us is a truism. We're always going
to go back and forth on every single thing that comes in and goes,
come on, we need another thousand on this. You can do, right? So
we're always quoting high.
Anne: You're always fighting for the talent, yes.
Lau: That's not even to be discussed because that's our job. That's
what we do.
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: And that's what we want to do. But we know, like as
negotiators and anyone who's on that business, and we know where it
stops. Like if you push just hard enough, you’re going to lose that
client. It’s okay, sometimes we’ll lose the battle, but we always
want to win the war, so to speak.
Anne: Yeah. Yeah.
Lau: Is that we don't want to lose the client unless it's like
completely insane.
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: We want to keep the clients because we know we have a whole
lot of people who still want to submit and work.
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: They just want to work.
Anne: And I love that. I love that you said that, your experience
as an agent, because, guys, agents go through it as well. I mean,
you're fighting for fair compensation, for good rates. God, it
always used to make me wonder, because people would be like, well,
my agent shouldn't accept that rate. And I'm like, sometimes the
agent has nothing to do with that rate, right? And like you just
mentioned, there's a fine line between losing the client forever,
right, because you can't push.
Lau: Yeah.
Anne: And understanding that. I mean, voice talent, sometimes I
wonder where they get their assumptions from, right? You know what,
you've got to understand this is a business, it's negotiation, and
that, it happens. It does. Sometimes there is no
budget.
Lau: I also don't want to play the omnipotent authority of what
everyone could or should be doing. I want to be a conduit to
getting people work, and that means at all different rates, at all
different levels, at all different
--
and those people need to take agency and to self-screen and say, I
don't want to do that.
Anne: Exactly.
Lau: I say, great, you don't even have to let me know, just pass on
it. That's okay. I don't make any judgment as to why you're doing
it or why you're not doing it. I'm just running on an assumption,
you're a professional talent, you want to be in the roster, and you
want to be privy to what is coming through.
Anne: Yeah.
Lau: And that's all I feel. And to me, Fiverr is the same thing. If
you want to be on the platform, you want to be privy to what's
coming through, and then you make your own decisions and
self-screen. To me, it's very, very much the same.
Anne: Excellent topic. The F word, guys. Remember, mind your own
business and know your worth. And thank you, Lau, for an amazing
discussion yet once again.
Lau: Awesome.
Anne: Ah, good stuff.
Lau: I loved it.
Anne: BOSSes, I want to take a moment and have you imagine a world
full of passionate, empowered, diverse individuals, giving
collectively and intentionally to create a world that they want to
see. You can make a difference. 100VoicesWhoCare.org to learn more.
Also, big shout-out to our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can connect and
network like a BOSS. Find out more at IPDTL.com. Thank you so much,
everyone. We love you. We'll see you next week.
Lau: See you next week!
Anne: Bye.
Lau: Bye!