Jun 25, 2024
In this episode, Anne Ganguzza and Tom Dheere dissect the key components of building a robust online presence. From identifying customer pain points to harnessing the power of color psychology in your website design, The BOSSES explore what it takes to convey competence and reliability. We also delve into the subtle yet vital aspects of maintaining an easy-to-navigate, professional website that establishes credibility and trust. Learn how consistent visual cues and coherent storytelling can make or break your brand's effectiveness in today's competitive market. Finally, The BOSSES tackle the nuances of maintaining a consistent brand across social media platforms. We underscore the importance of professionalism and how off-brand or controversial content can jeopardize client relationships.
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.
00:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Hey, hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Real Boss
Series. I'm here with my special guest co-host Tom Dheere. Hey, Tom
Dheere, how are you?
00:30 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Hey Anne, I'm good. How are you? I'm awesome.
00:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Thank you very much.
00:34 - Tom Dheere (Host)
You look fabulous today.
00:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Why thank you? So do you. I love your coloring.
00:39 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Thank you, it's one of my Hawaii shirts because my wife's from
Hawaii, so we go to Hawaii all the time.
00:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
There you go. It's very boss.
00:45 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Thank you. I love your blue because it kind of matches the coloring
in the background. You look very branded today.
00:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Why, thank you. You know I have multiple brands and multiple colors
for my brands, and so it's interesting because red is typically my
boss brand. But I thought, you know, let's work a little A&G
and Guza brand in here as well, which is my blue, my signature
blue. So I'm kind of combining them right now. And, yeah, I've been
branded for a while yet, but I don't know, tom, what are your
thoughts? I think we should talk about branding, because it is a
big discussion among voice actors and it's like everybody makes a
big deal like oh my God, I have to like figure out my brand, and
they and it's like everybody makes a big deal Like, oh my God, I
have to like figure out my brand and they stress out over it. And
so let's talk about brands. I mean, how important is it for voice
actors to brand these days?
01:33 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Well, my thoughts have evolved on this quite a bit over the past
15, 20 years or so. I used to be of the mind that every voice actor
absolutely must brand themselves. They should design a logo, they
should pick a font, they should pick a color scheme and then their
demos, their business cards, their website, their social media
content, all of their outbound marketing content newsletters and
things like that should be 100% branded. It should be 100%
aligned.
02:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Well then, I fit the bill there for you. You're perfect. Okay,
you're perfect.
02:08 - Tom Dheere (Host)
But over the years when I had that perspective, I was focusing
primarily on direct and indirect marketing strategies to get the
bulk of my voiceover revenue.
02:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I agree, myself included.
02:21 - Tom Dheere (Host)
I have representation. I'm on casting sites, but for me, direct and
indirect marketing was the place and it's like the old mentality.
It's like Anne, why aren't you wearing my glasses? Because they
help me see better. So obviously they should help you see better.
But gotten a little older, hopefully gotten a little wiser, and
just looking at myself and looking at all the students I've had
over the years and watching what other successful voice actors do,
I don't know if everybody needs to brand themselves.
02:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Well, gosh Tom, for many years there was no branding, right, there
was no internet. Well, I shouldn't say there was no branding, but
it wasn't as visible. And so how did voice actors in the 80s stand
out?
03:02 - Tom Dheere (Host)
They didn't, they just auditioned and booked.
03:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
They were managed by their agents, right or managers. And so they
didn't have to necessarily brand their businesses. They became
known for their voice and their agents were out there kind of
branding for them, right.
03:20 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Yeah, their reputation was built solely on the quality of their
auditions and the quality of the experience when they were in the
recording studio working with the clients. And that was it. The
value promise was the audition Sure, the value delivery was the
recording session. Yeah, platforms on top of that. Most voice
actors feel obligated in a way that they have to brand themselves
because they have to be on all of these social media platforms and
they have to be spewing out content all the time in the hopes that
they will catch somebody's attention to stay top of mind to get
them into and through the sales funnel and all of that
stuff.
04:01
But to your point, if representation was the only casting portal in
the industry, no, we wouldn't need to brand. There are online
casting sites too pay-to-play sites, voice123, voicescom, vidalgo,
what have you? You don't need to brand yourself on there either,
because all it's about is the value promise of the audition and the
value delivery of the recording session or delivering the files
properly formatted, with the proper amount of takes, and you took
the direction on the casting notice or whatever. You know what I
mean.
04:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
What about Fiverr? Just out of curiosity. I know we've had this, I
know that's a bad F word but I think it depends on how the platform
is marketing you right, or how are people finding out about you
right On the platform?
04:38 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Yeah, and it's interesting because Fiverr and Upwork, which are
technically online casting sites, they weren't designed as
voiceover casting sites like Voice123 and Voicescom, but they seem
to be conducive for voiceover casting. There's very little
auditioning happening on Fiverr and Upwork.
04:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
People come and look and listen.
04:55 - Tom Dheere (Host)
It's direct bookings. So, with that in mind, yeah, your branding
actually is very important.
05:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Your headshot's very important, I agree.
05:05 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Your tagline, the verbiage, how you package and present yourself.
Yeah, branding is important.
05:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
So then, if you're direct marketing, right, I feel that a brand is
very, very important. If you're direct marketing and if people are
finding you online, let's say at your website, like for me, tom,
and we have different businesses, right, you and I I have multiple
brands. I don't have a ton of time to audition, except for my
agents, right, which that's a whole different way that I obtain my
job, and I don't have any time literally these days to audition on
pay-to-plays. However, I do exist on pay-to-plays because I want to
make sure that I know the platform so that I can recommend to my
students. So for me, my branding is still relevant, I would say,
because that's how I get a lot of people that say, oh, the Ann
Ganguza brand or Ann, I see you everywhere, and that's good,
because that's kind of my purpose.
05:53 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Yeah, I have two brands. I have the Tom Dheere the H is silent, but
I'm not voice actor brand and then I have the VO strategist brand,
and both of them serve different needs. Well, obviously, one for me
as a voice actor and then one for me as a voiceover business and
marketing consultant and coach and mentor. What's interesting, and
tell me, if you have this experience, is that your branding as Ann
Gangu's a voice actor greatly informs your reputation and branding
as Ann Gangu's a voiceover coach. Because, with a very precious few
exceptions, like a Maurice Tobias or a Mary Lynn Wisner, you need
to be a boots on the ground, successful, consistently working actor
to be taken seriously as a voiceover coach. Absolutely,
absolutely.
06:39
So a part of my branding as a VO strategist is go check me out at
tomdeercom, listen to my demos, look at my YouTube channel, see all
the work that I've done, because the fact that I've done a bunch of
e-learning modules is one thing, but the fact that I was the voice
of Inspector Gadget in the Inspector Gadget video game last year
gives you a lot of street cred. So that attracts certain types of
voice actors who want to do that sort of business. And even if they
don't. They grew up on Inspector Gadget, so I'm writing the
coattails of the brand of Inspector Gadget when I brand myself as
Tom Dheere voice actor, because I was Inspector Gadget, which also
then feeds into well, if he's able to book work like that, he's
competent as a voiceover business and marketing coach. So they all
feed into each other.
07:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I love that. You said that you branded on the coattails of another
brand and I think that's definitely a strategy. I mean he used to
talk about that all the time is that to get credibility? If you are
the voice of a brand that is out there and that is heard and seen,
then that is your brand right, gaining credibility from another
brand, and so it's kind of a strategic partnership. However, I
think you can get that strategic partnership. It doesn't
necessarily mean like oh, I'm Ann Ganguzza, I have to have blue.
That's only a visual part of my brand, that is one part of the
encompassing brand when people come to my website. But people if
they don't see anything right. So there's a visual part of your
brand, there's an audio part of your brand and then there is, I
would say, an in-person, physical part of your brand as well that
all contributes to who you are and if people decide if they want to
work with you or not.
08:20
Right, there's that personality, part of your brand that says I'm
reliable, I'm fast, I am accurate. I have the voice that can work
with your brand and make it come alive. So there's so many aspects
to branding besides, let's say, a website, which is what I think
most people think. When they talk about branding, they think, oh,
I've got to have that tagline Gosh. I gave up my tagline years ago
because it just wasn't pertinent for my particular brand. It just
wasn't, and I was out there showing my photograph a long time ago
because for me it worked. I felt like people wanted to connect with
a person and not necessarily an image of a microphone.
08:59 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Sure, it's funny that you say that, because I've been teaching
branding for well over 10 years and I've always told my students
that branding is telling a story what is the story of you? But also
there's usually two ways that you can tell your story as a voice
actor from a branding perspective. You can brand your sound or you
can brand your personality. So the more distinctive your sound is
or the genres that you can do, the easier it is to brand in that
direction. If you've got a particularly young voice or particularly
deep voice, or if you do movie trailers primarily, or if you do
military fiction, audio books exclusively or almost exclusively,
it's a lot easier to brand. But the branding of your personality is
what is the experience of working with you? So for years I used you
as one of my examples of, yes, branding your personality using your
tagline are you ready for awesome?
09:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
That's true. Are you ready for awesome? I like that. I did use that
and I haven't used that in a while, so let's talk about that. Tom,
tell me, what was it that attracted you to that particular aspect
of my brand?
10:06 - Tom Dheere (Host)
What attracted me to that is that you were setting expectations of
what the experience of working with you was is like. So there's the
value promise. Like I said, value promise and value delivery. This
is about the value delivery. If you work with me, you're going to
have a great experience. You're going to be working with a
professional, intelligent, excited, ethical, prepared voice actor.
That's what are you ready for. Awesome means to me.
10:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Geez, maybe I'll bring that back, Tom.
10:36 - Tom Dheere (Host)
I mean, why not?
10:36 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I love that, I like that it meant something to you and yeah,
absolutely, and it's not that I actually got rid of it, tom. Before
that one, I had Dream Out Loud. That was my tagline, and I thought
Dream Out Loud didn't do anything for me, necessarily because Dream
Out Loud was kind of more focused on me rather than my client.
Right, in terms of like, are they dreaming out loud? No, they need
somebody that's not dreaming, they need somebody that can speak.
Their brand, right, and so therefore, are you Ready for Awesome,
kind of helps out their predicament in a much better way. So, yeah,
actually I think that that's a great brand. I'll have to talk to my
web person.
11:15
Your webmaster, business coach my webmaster to maybe bring that
back. And it doesn't have to be all over my page, right it can be
in certain parts of my page or in, let's say, in my signature file.
It could be in a lot of different places, but I like that. You're
right. It basically tells people this is what you're going to be
working with.
11:32 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right, and one of the key aspects of any successful brand,
regardless of whatever sector that you're in healthcare,
automotive, beverages or whatever is that an effective company is
able to identify the pain points of the customer. What do you need,
what are you struggling with? And then your branding helps you tell
the story of how you can solve their problems, how you can address
those pain points, how you can cure what ails them, so to speak.
Are you ready for awesome is a great way of letting them know that
if you work with me, everything's going to be okay, Everything's
going to be taken care of, you're going to have an awesome
experience and you're going to get what you need, which are quality
audio files delivered on time, properly formatted and that help you
tell the story of your company's brand most of the time
right.
12:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Now I do believe that people visually see that text, they read it,
they comprehend it. There's also something to be said for your
website in general, and we can have a whole other podcast on
websites. But I do believe that, like when I go to purchase
something from a website, I have to see that website and feel that
I trust it and that the people behind that website have a valuable
product and I can purchase that without fear that I'm not going to
get that product delivered in a timely and quality manner. And so I
assess a lot visually the product by looking at a website. If the
website is not constructed in a professional manner, of what
standards are today, I hesitate to click and buy. And so I do feel
that if you are a voice actor that has a website out there and
people happen upon your website, at least have it functionally and
visually professional enough so that it instills trust in your
potential client, so that they can say oh, okay, this looks safe,
right For me.
13:31
I mean, gosh, it's like oh, I buy online all the time. I mean this
is like the 21st century, right? We buy online all the time. So
again, that place where I buy needs to instill trust in me. And now
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14:12 - Speaker 4 (Host)
Hi, this is Debra Elaine Fowler sending a huge shout out to Anne
for her VO Boss podcast. I've been listening now since the very
first episode six years ago, and I always learn something new. The
guests are interesting and Anne brings up topics that maybe I
haven't thought about. I find myself researching new topics almost
every week. Anne, keep it up, I love what you're doing. And now
back to the show.
14:38 - Tom Dheere (Host)
The website tells the story of you and of the experience they're
going to have as a result of working with you, Because they're
immediately. Obviously the first thing that happens as they go to
the website is they see the website. Yeah, you know what are the
colors that?
14:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
come out?
14:51 - Tom Dheere (Host)
What are the fonts Right? How is it organized or laid out? What are
the colors? What are the fonts? Is it easy to find your
demos?
14:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Can I contact this person that's like so important to me?
15:01 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Can I contact this person in the way that I want to contact them?
Do I want to pick up the phone? Do I want to email them? Do I want
to message them on Instagram, or do I want to use their contact
form or any of a number of ways? So this tells the story of your
competency as a voice actor, and it needs to be consistent. That's
why you should be looking up the psychology of color when it comes
to establishing a brand. It's like what is the type of voiceover
work that you do? How does that reconcile with your personality?
How does that reconcile with the needs of the customers that you
want to attract? A lot of this stuff is very subconscious or
unconscious on the part of voice seekers when they go to your
website, but what's there and what isn't there speaks to your
brand.
15:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Absolutely. And there's something to be said, like there's
something almost intangible. When I go to a website and I say oh,
oh, I like that, Like it's like pretty packaging, right, I
mean.
15:52
I like that package, and so that makes me interested to want to
find out more, and if the verbiage on the website helps me to find
out more and gets me to where I need to be quickly. Because, again,
I don't know. I mean, how many people go around just looking at
websites to say, oh, that's a pretty website or, oh, I don't like
that website. I mean, really there's a purpose, right, people are
shopping around going to a website either finding
information.
16:18
Maybe you somehow attracted them to get to your website to find out
more about you and your brand and your voice. And if they can get
that information easily and it seems to speak to you as being a
credible, professional, trustworthy business, product right that
they can purchase, then I think that really all has a handle on.
It's like a part of the sales funnel, right? I feel like your brand
is part of the sales funnel.
16:41 - Tom Dheere (Host)
It absolutely is, and that also extends onto your social media
platforms and the content that you're creating on the social media
platform. If you're trying to brand yourself effectively and
consistently, the branding on your social media platforms should
line up perfectly with what's going on on your website the font,
the logo, the color schemes, the banners, the verbiage and the
content that comes out. All of this needs to be consistent
Verbiage.
17:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Tom verbiage, and that means if you're on a social media platform
and verbiage is coming out of your mouth that isn't necessarily
conducive to promoting your brand in a positive way. You might want
to think about that. That means if you're going to be controversial
or you're going to be spewing verbiage in your social platforms
that may be off brand. You might want to consider maybe not doing
that or having a completely different brand. I feel like personal
brands and voice actor brands are very close.
17:40
It used to be, where, okay, I have a business brand and I'm going
to only talk about business on that and I have a personal brand,
but I feel like those two brands have really melded together over
the years, tom.
17:51 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Oh, yes, no, they've completely blurred for a number of reasons. I
mean, one reason right now is that if, through your marketing
strategies, you've been able to get a voice seeker to go to your
social media platforms or to your website, one thing they're trying
to determine is are you human?
18:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah or are you an AI? That is slowly becoming
more of a consideration for voice seekers, and if you're human, are
you a good human.
18:12 - Tom Dheere (Host)
And are you a good human there?
18:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
can be human actions that are controversial that would potentially
harm their brand if they were to align right Strategically. We
talked about strategic alignment with brands If they were to align
with your brand right, it could hurt their brand.
18:27 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right. That leads me to a great point, Anne, is when it comes to
your branding. To be perfectly honest, the vast majority of voice
seekers aren't paying any attention to anything we're doing on
social media, and they're not paying attention to much that's going
on on our website. However, they will vet you. They will check out
your brand for the aforementioned AI reason and for exactly what
you said because nobody wants to work with a voice actor who is an
NDA violator.
18:52
Sure sure, absolutely. And starts talking about auditions that they
did for projects that haven't been cast yet.
18:57 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Or negatively about companies that they've worked with.
19:00 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Or client questions, whether it's warranted or not.
19:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Oh my gosh, whether it's warranted or not, guys, just don't do
that.
19:05 - Tom Dheere (Host)
I see, specifically audiobook narrators regularly complaining about
the publishers because, oh, I didn't get enough of a pronunciation
guide or there were too many spelling errors on this manuscript,
and I'm just as they're doing it. I'm like, what are you?
19:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
doing yeah yeah, why Because?
19:18 - Tom Dheere (Host)
audiobook publishers are the ones that are the most likely to pay
attention to your branding and pay attention to your website and
pay attention to your social media platform and if you're kvetching
about your client like that's a great way to lose a
client.
19:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
That's like anybody complaining about their employer. Right, hr is
continually going out online to see if you're making complaints and
then that's the first line of fire to get fired if you're speaking
negatively. And so even if you think it's private, like in a
Facebook group, and it's marked a private group, it's not.
Screenshot is like literally a couple of keystrokes away, and even
if it says it's private, it's not. We all know things are not
private.
20:00
I mean yesterday I happened to be on a family outing at Disney and
everything I talked about came up on my Facebook feed just saying
so nothing is private. And so really just for your brand's sake,
and so I do want to. I know now we've got into the whole what's
good for your brand, but let's go back to Tom. If someone is just
doing jobs through their agent, is it required that they have a
website now and a brand specifically, or maybe not?
20:28 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Website yes, brand maybe.
20:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Okay. Maybe, what's on the website then?
20:33 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Okay, well, from a branding perspective logo consistency of font on
the logo itself and the tagline and with the verbiage on the
website the color scheme that you have established on this logo
needs to align with the color scheme that is on the homepage and
all the other pages, unless there's a possibility you've branded
yourself based on genre or subgenre.
20:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Is this for voice actors who are managed or who have talent, agents
only, or is this?
21:00 - Tom Dheere (Host)
It's a great question. I can't speak to what voice seekers that
work through managers and agents are doing. How much are they
vetting the voice actors that are represented by the agents and
managers that they're working with? Most of the time they're
probably not. It's usually just send me these auditions. We'll pick
the person that we think is the best who vocally represents this
company brand message.
21:19 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Unless you're well-known, I would say right as a video game,
character or an animation, character and then I think, your brand
is important online. Right your actions in your social media. I'm
thinking Daniel Ross, who recently, you know, is now the voice of
Donald Duck. Bob Bergen has the voice of Porky. Pig, I mean and
Christina Milizia, who I just interviewed as well on this podcast,
and Christina Milizia who?
21:41
I just interviewed as well on this podcast the characters that they
represent. She has to be careful. They have to be careful what they
do online and also their actions, because a lot of them might go to
cons and do autograph signing, and so that's an in-person branding
as well, so they have to be very careful about their
brand.
21:58 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Okay, there are two groups of voice actors. There's public figures
and private figures. Public figures in voiceover are those who do
cartoons, video games and audiobooks. Okay, because if you're an
audiobook narrator, you're being followed by authors, rights
holders and listeners of the audiobooks. Okay, and it's a very
public thing because these are very front-facing products
audiobooks, cartoon and video game voice actors are also public
figures, also just because of the fan base. The fan base really
wants to know and loves to adore and follow the voice actors who
are the voices of their favorite cartoon and video game characters.
Everybody else is kind of clumped into the private voice actors.
With the exception of, for me, inspector Gadget, red Dead
Redemption and a handful of other things. I'm primarily a private
voice actor. So me talking about my e-learning and her explainer
experience online, nobody cares, nobody cares that?
22:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Tom Dheere. I'll tell you what his e-learning module.
23:03 - Tom Dheere (Host)
That HR video he narrated oh for God's sakes. Like nobody does
that. Nobody does that, nobody cares, nobody cares about that. And
yes, that, nobody does that, nobody cares, nobody cares about that.
And yes, your branding should be influenced by that Absolutely. So
you want to be careful. So if you're a private voice actor, yeah,
don't be an NDA violator. Don't be a client basher. Don't be some
religious political whack job.
23:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
That's all you have to worry about. And even if you're a public
figure in a way that you don't think like because I know there are
people who are out there that troll. I've been trolled. If you're
out there as a coach, as a demo producer, I guess you can say if
you've been trolled, you've made it.
23:39 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Right, because then, so you actually matter. I matter in a way, but
yes, I've been trolled and that's very upsetting, but Tom, I'm sure
you've been trolled too, Maybe.
23:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
I don't know if Inspector Gadget has, but I mean Inspector
Gadget.
23:51 - Tom Dheere (Host)
I only got trolled in that. I'll just put it to you this way. There
was one person who hated my performance so much that they took the
trailer for the Inspector Gadget video game and replaced my voice
with Don Adams, who was the original Inspector Gadget. So You've
made it Tom, congratulations actually I'll take that as a proper
trolling. There you go.
24:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
So I guess then, in essence, tom, I know you've evolved over the
years with your views on branding. You don't know if it's as
necessary, or maybe just branding in general has evolved. I still
feel like, in this sea of voice actors, if somebody is going to see
you online, then brand is important.
24:29
If you're not necessarily online, if maybe you're part-time and
hey, there's a lot of amazing talent that we hear every single day
on national spots that don't have websites that I don't even know.
We don't even know who they are, right, Because they don't need to
have that brand. So I tend to agree with you and I think that we
have to continually be educated about what's important for your
business when it comes to being recognized. Now, what about voice
actors that are new to the industry? Is it important that they have
a branded website, that they have a tagline? Is it important that
they have a headshot?
25:07 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Okay, I think at first it's a terrible idea. I think it's a
terrible, terrible idea because what drew them to the voiceover
industry may not necessarily be what keeps them in the voiceover
industry. In other words, they may not be any good at what they
want to do and they may turn out to be really good at something
that they don't want to do. So from a branding
perspective-.
25:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
They don't know their brand yet.
25:28 - Tom Dheere (Host)
They don't know their branding because they don't know what they
can book. So if you're early in your voiceover journey, us bosses
are taking a little pressure off. You Don't worry about branding
yet Book gigs.
25:38
See what the voiceover industry tells you are the types of genres
and subgenres in the markets that you can book Then you can build a
brand around that because if that's something that's bankable, if
people are willing to give you money to say this kind of voiceover
work, then you can build a reputation on that because, like we
said, branding, storytelling, reputation all of these things are
intertwined. So just to have a basic, nondescript website with your
contact information, basic information about you and downloadable
demos which is the most important thing to have on a website- yes,
absolutely.
26:12
Then let the branding come about you and downloadable demos, which
is the most important thing to have on a website. Yes, absolutely.
Then let the branding come to you and then you can and you're
talking visual branding. Visual branding.
26:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yes, I'm going to say vocal branding. I'm very much into vocal
branding, depending on what genre you study with me, right. So
vocally branding, that's something that you can have a good coach
help you with, because they're going to help and you will discover
that vocal branding in the beginning.
26:34
For whatever genre you're studying Now, that doesn't mean that you
won't evolve over time right To have more vocal brands. I think you
can have multiple brands that are related, but you cannot, like, if
you're a young person and you sound young right, for the entirety
of the time that you are younger, for a few years at least, you're
going to be more of that youthful sound, probably if that's how
you've been vocally branded. So I think if you're new it helps to
have a good coach to help vocally brand you. But visual branding
and you're right, tom, as you go you'll find out. What do you get
hired for? Right, I never thought about medical and all of a sudden
I started getting hired for medical and now, oh well, that makes
sense now because I used to work in the medical field. So you know
something I didn't know before.
27:21 - Tom Dheere (Host)
Yeah, what a great coach like you can help people with is what
celebrities do you sound like? What sectors of the voiceover
industry can you get work in? You know there's commercials in
general, but then there's automotive in particular, or home and
family products, or alcohol, or boots you know what I mean or
cowboy boots or whatever that sort of thing. Anne can definitely
help you with that. And then when you are positioning yourself, and
then when Anne helps you make your demo, it can help with that
vocal positional branding. So the spots that you would do on a demo
with Anne would align with the celebrities that you can sound like.
Not imitations, but just like reminiscent of.
27:58
You know what I mean. I'll give you an example For me right now.
For the past year or so it's been Ryan Reynolds. I've been booking
spots because I have a Ryan Reynolds sound.
28:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Yeah, you do.
28:08 - Tom Dheere (Host)
A voice actor just connected with me on LinkedIn and said do you
know that you sound like Ryan Reynolds and I don't have that
branding anywhere on my website. I'm seriously considering doing it
because these casting notices that tend to have the Ryan Reynolds
celebrity reference I'm booking. So that may be something I would
need to consider. But again, that's the industry. At this point in
my journey, that's the industry telling me, because Ryan Reynolds
wasn't a factor when I started in the 90s. But if I was starting
now and working with Anne, she's got a good enough ear to know that
like, yeah, you got kind of a Ryan Reynolds sound. Maybe we should
get kind of these kind of quirky, fun, cute little spots on your
demo to showcase that particular sound.
28:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host)
Absolutely Well. That was a very involved branding conversation but
I love it, I love it. I feel like we still could go on, and, on,
and on. But, thank you, tom. So much for that. Guys, I'm going to
give a big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too, can network
and connect like bosses like Tom and myself. Find out more at
IPdtlcom. Have an amazing week, guys, and we will see you next
week. Thanks so much.
29:20 - Intro (Announcement)
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