Jan 30, 2024
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 VEO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne
Ganguzza.
00:20 - Anne (Host)
Hey everyone, welcome to the VEO Boss Podcast and the Real Bosses
series. I'm your host, anne Gangusa, and I'm here with my real boss
co-host, mr Tom Dheere. Hey, tom.
00:32 - Tom (Co-host)
Hello, hello, hello, hello how are you, I'm good, how are
you?
00:35 - Anne (Host)
I'm excellent. You know, Tom, I dressed up today just a little bit.
I still got a little bit of sparkle going on here and if you're
just listening to this, bosses, you'll just have to trust me on
this. But I did dress up, and you know that's very unusual, tom,
because I work from home. And I cannot tell you how many times I'm
in the booth here in my sweats and t-shirt and shorts, or whatever
it might be.
00:58
And that's one of the advantages that I really love working from
home. But I'll tell you what. I've known a lot of people that work
from home and it can be a real adjustment. I think we should
discuss that and let's talk about what it means really to work from
home, because sometimes it's really hard to be productive or
sometimes it's hard to stop working.
01:17 - Tom (Co-host)
Yeah, that's one of the biggest challenges for people who are
transitioning from being in a full-time or part-time environment,
possibly for decades, and then coming home and then working from
home. One of the biggest challenges is that if you get a job and
you someplace you go to whether it's an office or a restaurant or a
bank or wherever that you're working you have a set job description
with set hours and you're supposed to do this then and that then,
and this is when you can have a lunch break and this is when you go
home and this is how much vacation you can take.
01:48 - Anne (Host)
Yeah 95.
01:49 - Tom (Co-host)
And a lot of people are like, oh, I hate it, it's so oppressive,
da-da-da. But then they come home and then there's zero structure,
there's almost no job description.
01:58
Apart from auditions and bookings, there are no deadlines. So at
first the newfound freedom is very liberating and refreshing, but
then they're like I have no idea what to do. I have no
self-discipline, so I'm kind of all over the place. And to your
point, and since I don't have any set hours, some people are
working two hours a day, some people are working 14 hours a day,
and neither of those are particularly good. Obviously, working not
enough is not good, but working too much is not good
either.
02:25 - Anne (Host)
So, yeah, the struggle is real. I'm in that category,
yeah.
02:28 - Tom (Co-host)
Where I tend to work those 14 hours?
02:31 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, I try not to, but it's very difficult. And there are some
people who just it's not conducive to just joy, bringing joy to
them, because they find it so hard to either turn off or to focus
or to concentrate to get things done or they need that social
aspect of being out in an office. I know that my husband was
working from home for a good couple of years. He is now again
working from home and he's much more attuned to it. He's much more
adjusted to it. The first couple of years he was working full time
from home he hated it and I know that for me, working full time
from home was a big adjustment. I mean, it took me a good year or
two to get used to it. I think I was really like okay, so when
should I like market? Okay, I've got auditions to do. I know I can
do that. Now what do I do?
03:23
I was also still trying to grow my business, and so I think in the
beginning I wasn't as happy because I didn't have any direction, I
didn't have any guidance, I didn't know what I was supposed to be
doing and I thought maybe there is a formula right. Is there a
formula for success in working from home?
03:40 - Tom (Co-host)
There is. The problem with it is that everybody has to build their
own formula. Everybody has to create their own systems and their
own structures. I talked to my students about systems of thought
how to think about what you're supposed to think about and systems
of execution what's the practical application of your systems of
thought? And there's so many different parts to it. I basically
break it down into time management and workflow how to manage your
time and then how to develop systems to do all the things that you
need to do. Time management is very, very tough, especially if
you're going from a job job a nine to five job where all the time
management is taken care of for you for the most part because this
is your hours, and you have to do this within this amount of time,
and either you get it done or you don't, and if you don't
consistently enough, you will no longer have that job.
04:32
That's it.
04:33 - Anne (Host)
You know what I mean Exactly.
04:35 - Tom (Co-host)
So, understanding how to prioritize and understanding how to focus,
those are the two big things. What is more important than other
things and how much time should you spend on it? And how to be able
to maintain mental, physical, logistical focus on any given subject
marketing, billing, audition, booking, balancing your checkbooks,
invoicing you know all of that stuff.
04:58 - Anne (Host)
Well, let's break it down in terms of your business, Tom. What is
your first priority on any given day?
05:03 - Tom (Co-host)
Health.
05:04 - Anne (Host)
My health. I like that.
05:06 - Tom (Co-host)
Understanding that if I am not physically, mentally, spiritually,
psychologically, emotionally in good shape, I will not be able to
engage in effective time management, and the rest won't
matter.
05:17 - Anne (Host)
That's actually really an excellent point. Thank you.
05:21 - Tom (Co-host)
The third part of it is what are the things that I need to do 24
hours a day to maintain optimal health? Obviously, some days are
better than others, some weeks, some months, some years are better
than others.
05:31 - Anne (Host)
Sure, I got you there, yeah.
05:34 - Tom (Co-host)
It starts with and this is a big one, for a lot of people is waking
up in the morning. When do you wake up in the morning? Some people
are night owl, some people are early risers, and all of that is
fine, as long as it's like oh, I'm not an early riser, I'm an night
owl. You get out of bed and start working on stuff at like two in
the afternoon and then you're done at four.
05:58 - Anne (Host)
You know what I mean, unless you had the six hour work
week.
06:00 - Tom (Co-host)
Yeah, Getting up exercising if that's what you need to do, having a
good breakfast for a lot of people, showering, cleaning yourself up
getting dressed getting dressed on some level. Making the bed and
making the bed, making the bed's big for a lot of people. Our
friend Corey Snow, voice actor. He puts on a tie Because it
mentally prepares him for his day.
06:20 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, absolutely, well getting dressed up and putting makeup on
helps me to just, you know, okay, I'm prepared now and I'm ready to
go and exercise, of course, now, but that was not the case. As you
said, some years are different, right? I mean that was not my
priority during the pandemic, which it should have been but it
wasn't. But things evolve and change. But now I find that I need to
get up and do that Because and sometimes it's exercise after the
day is done, because that helps to really relieve stress.
06:47 - Tom (Co-host)
Helps you decompress? Yeah.
06:49 - Anne (Host)
So it really kind of fluctuates a little bit for me. But yeah, I
love that health being number one for you. And what would be your
second priority, would you say after that?
06:58 - Tom (Co-host)
The structure because, like I said, without the good health you
can't operate within a structure. Structuring your time, getting up
at roughly the same time every day is extremely important, and then
setting up a system like, for example, roughly between 7.30 and 8
am every morning for me is auditions.
07:17
I get as many auditions, as done as I can between 7.30 and 8.
That's between the pay-to-play sites, my agents and manager
auditions myself, marketing, regular clients auditions. I do as
many as I can, so sometimes I sit down, do that and then shower and
get dressed and have breakfast.
07:31 - Anne (Host)
Sometimes I do it in the inverse, depending on timing of the
auditions are all so based on timing. Now I have agents that like
to send it around 6, 5 and 6 o'clock and I try to get them done
that night if I can, if I'm not too exhausted. Just because if I
wait until the morning, I will have a morning voice, which is kind
of cool in certain instances.
07:50
But I might need to do some warm-ups to get rid of that voice. But
for me right now it's funny because years ago I would never have
said this. But right now I am preferring my morning voice. And so I
will prioritize my auditions to do the ones that I feel will call
for a lower voice first.
08:08 - Intro (Announcement)
I do that too Before.
08:08 - Anne (Host)
I go ahead and do a series of a bunch of them.
08:12
So, that's very interesting. So, yeah, auditions I think the things
that you cannot always depend on being at a consistent time,
because auditions for me come in at different times all the time.
But I like how you have a period in the morning where you can do
those auditions that are not necessarily like I feel like all of my
auditions that from my agents I feel are more timely, where I feel
like I might have to respond to them within a certain amount of
time, and maybe I can't wait an evening or a morning, but certain
other ones I can wait, and so I put it in two categories. So I have
a specific time, like I like, in the morning, to do auditions, but
I also, if anybody needs them right away, I will have to respond
right away.
08:51 - Tom (Co-host)
Oh, of course, and I tend to batch them. So when I sit down at my
desk in the morning at 7.30, I see what I've got, I prioritize and
I do the warming up the voice based on what it is.
09:01
But then I'll probably do another batch, like right after lunch,
unless there's one, and then maybe I'll do one or two at the end of
the day around four-ish but usually by then my voice is kind of
like it's not great because I auditioning all day, I've been
booking all day, I've been working with students all day, so around
four o'clock I'm kind of like on my way out vocally.
09:22 - Anne (Host)
That's typically me too, because I've been yapping all day either
coaching or doing auditions, and then, yeah, I have to be very
careful. Sometimes I choose not to respond to auditions until the
following morning when I have more energy because my performance is
going to be better.
09:36 - Tom (Co-host)
Right and my next priority to actually get around to answering your
question. I like to manage my finances.
09:42 - Anne (Host)
Next Okay.
09:43 - Tom (Co-host)
I like to balance my checkbook, pay my credit card bills, generate
any invoices that I need to, reconcile any invoices that I need to.
I like to do that first, Like I do my auditions. Then I like to do
my finances because, well one, it's the easy to check off boxes,
but also I don't want to have those tasks lingering in my head
while I'm doing my other things, like my marketing or auditioning
or booking or working with students.
10:11
I just like to be like okay, all of my financial stuff for the day
is done, it's out of the way it's over here because I know it has a
very strict beginning, middle and end balance checkbook, pay credit
cards, generate invoices, send invoices, reconcile
invoices.
10:26
Sometimes it takes five minutes, sometimes it takes a half an hour,
sometimes it takes an hour. But I like having all that done because
I want to allocate the creative energy when it's time to get
creative or work with students or do the booking. So I like to kind
of get that non-creative stuff like done out of the way. You know
what I mean.
10:45 - Anne (Host)
Now for me I hire an accountant, so my accountant takes care of
managing the balancing, which for me is just makes me very happy.
She's been working with me for about 10 years so she knows pretty
much the categories. But we do meet when we need to and we also
have a once a month kind of standing meeting where we make sure
everything is synced up and she understands, like if there's any
bills that are outstanding and I'll have to check on them and that
sort of thing. So my accounting part, for me it takes a little less
time, just because that's not one of the things that brings me joy.
It brings me joy. I know it does. I know it does I?
11:21
love to do it and I totally get that and it brings my account and
joy too, because she loves doing stuff like that. But yeah, and
this is a daily thing for you. Do you have to do it every day or
no, not every day.
11:32 - Tom (Co-host)
I'd say solidly twice a week, once earlier in the week or once
later in the week. I mean, I used to say that a project isn't done
until the invoice is sent and I used to be very disciplined about
sending the invoice as soon as I send the audio files.
11:45 - Intro (Announcement)
I don't do that as much.
11:47 - Tom (Co-host)
It depends on the gig, obviously. If it's a long form gig or a long
term gig, you know if it's an audio book or something like that.
But if it's like a quicky explainer video that may require a retake
or two that I'm not gonna charge for, I'll just whip it up and send
it off. You know what I mean. But sometimes I batch them. Sometimes
I'll wait a couple of days and do all the credit cards Because if
I'm reconciling invoices, I'm updating my checkbook. You know
they're all related to each other. You know what I mean the bills,
the checkbook and the invoices. I'd say twice a week I'm probably
doing that financial stuff.
12:18 - Anne (Host)
Sure, well, the nice thing for me is that I live by my calendar. I
live, live, live by my calendar, especially with students and
coaching. So I have days that I coach and hours that I coach, and
different coaching happens at different times, and so I know when I
can set aside time to. You know, I have to go to the doctor or I
have to do things like get my hair done or do my nails, and they
are in certain days where I'm not working with students. And
thankfully I work a lot of non-broadcast stuff so that I have some
time, so that if I am in the middle of getting my hair done I don't
have to audition or respond right away. I have a few
hours.
12:53
I'm always able to like finagle the schedule of when do they need a
job done by around my other schedule. But understanding my calendar
and having it that consistent is important for me. To have a
schedule like what I can make consistent, I think is beneficial If
you can make something consistent to make it consistent, because
then it starts to emulate, kind of like okay, I can expect to be
coaching during this time or I can expect to be doing auditions.
For the most part during this time I can expect to be marketing at
this time and that makes it easier, I think, to manage the time and
focus as well.
13:27 - Tom (Co-host)
I agree, I am a huge Google Calendar person, are you? I call her
Google.
13:30 - Anne (Host)
Calendar Google Calendar.
13:31 - Tom (Co-host)
You're a Google Calendar.
13:32 - Anne (Host)
Google.
13:33 - Tom (Co-host)
Calendar is the best. You want to talk about a great time
management skill Like. Here's just a little secret bosses, mm-hmm.
Right here. This is my monthly action plan. Everything I know that
I'm going to do in November priority tasks broken down into Catch
for Tool, technique, marketing and Health. Taught to me by Dan
Duckworth of Voiceovers Unlimited, who has since retired one of my
teachers.
13:52 - Anne (Host)
Dan Duckworth. I remember Dan Duckworth, absolutely Wonderful human
being.
13:57 - Tom (Co-host)
He taught me so much. So one thing that I do is I take all of these
checklist items, I put them on my google calendar. Now, that
doesn't mean I have to do that that minute, but the nice thing is
that I can kind of slide it around.
14:09
Oh yeah so, like this is a new thing I've been doing lately is like
I'll take all of these and I'll schedule them after like 4 pm, so
to be like Monday I'll be like, okay, I did my auditions, I did my
finances, did whatever. It's like okay, so what do I have Dan here?
Okay, I've got these things. So I'll just start oh, I'm like, oh,
I'll do this one, I'll drag it up to nine, to nine, thirty, and
I'll do it, and it's like done. And then I'll be like, oh, what
else can I do? Oh, nine thirty to ten, oh, I'll drag this one up,
I'll do it and it's done. I use that to kind of slide everything
all over the place.
14:40
Now there's certain things I know like. If my blog comes out on a
certain day, I want to promote the blog on social media that stuff
does not move.
14:47
It'll definitely get 100% done that day, but I know between nine
and noon I'll probably do it, but with the other things that are
less time sensitive, it needs to be done at some point during the
month. I'll front load my google calendar with all of this stuff
and then I'll just start sliding everything around because you
never know what your day is going to be like. You never know what
auditions are going to come in, or bookings are going to come in,
or the cat's going to explode the washing machine is going to break
down Absolutely.
15:13 - Anne (Host)
And that's what's so different about being your own business,
running your own business and being an entrepreneur is that you
don't always have like a predictable day, and a lot of times you
don't know when is that job coming in and now, how long will it
take you to do that job? And then how are you going to rearrange
that around the other stuff that you have scheduled. So there's a
lot of, I would say, time management. That is, tom, as you
mentioned, so very important to do when you are working from home
and working for yourself.
15:42 - Tom (Co-host)
Yeah, yeah, the other big one is understanding workflow. I break it
down into physical workflow, digital workflow and mental
workflow.
15:50
A lot of what we just talked about is a lot of the mental workflow.
The aforementioned Dan Duckworth taught me. The five categories of
my voiceover business are exactly what you saw in the action plan
Cash flow tools, technique marketing and health. So when it comes
to managing your workflow about all the physical things you need to
do through your day, right over here Are five binders and they're
labeled cash flow tools, technique marketing All the physical stuff
that I need for all of those invoices in cash flow, warranties and
manuals and stuff is in tools. All of my acting lessons and stuff
the vocal exercises and techniques, so on and so forth Are in those
binders. So that helps my physical workflow. Also, having
everything in the same physical place On your desk consistently
Develops your muscle memory, so my calculator is always right here.
Yes, I use a calculator. It's an old school calculator, but it's
just like the Like.
16:42
I'm really fast at it and I know my right hand. It's always like
right there when I'm bouncing the checkbook or adding stuff up,
sure, and making sure that my pen jar is over there and my audio
interface is over here. My phone always hangs out over here, my
mouse always hangs out over here. Develop muscle memory. Your body
likes to do things over and over again. It likes the repetition. So
Can you see a? Logically, I don't think that's a word, but like, a
big part of your time management and workflow is training your body
to know that the same things are in the same place. So every time
you're going to do a thing, you reach over here and it's there,
sure.
17:15 - Anne (Host)
And I'm going to kind of tack on to that, though, is understanding
how you can become more efficient in your workflow, and for me, I
just discovered dictation I knew dictation existed on the Mac, but
I'm having like with auto correct these days.
17:29
Sometimes it completely rearranges my word and it gets very
frustrating sometimes when I'm typing and so I'll just hit the
function key twice and I'll just start dictating and it's
surprisingly accurate and it really really helps me to be quite a
bit more efficient and I know we've talked about this before on a
podcast, but something simple like chat Gbt can help me to write
emails to my clients. It is one of the biggest helpers that I have.
Like, I think trying to write a professional email to a client
sometimes takes me some time to think of the right words, whereas I
can use a chat GPT to help me reframe some bullet points and frame
it a little more professionally and, using those tools as they
exist to help me become more efficient, it really really helps my
time.
18:15 - Tom (Co-host)
AI has a lot of benefits when it comes to being sort of a virtual
assistant for you. I'm a hyper right fan myself. I actually don't
use chat GPT. I discovered hyper right and it's good for all the
stuff that you just mentioned. It's also a good like blog
assistant. It helps you clean up blogs. So, like I'll record my
video strategist blog, I'll record it, videotape it and then I'll
use Google's hyper right. Hyper right, yeah, and then I'll use
Google's. See, I'm going to write that down now. Hyper right, hyper
right.
18:44 - Anne (Host)
I use copy AI. Oh, there you go, yeah.
18:46 - Tom (Co-host)
So I record my blog and then I use Google's speech to text to
transcribe everything that I said, and then I copy and paste that
into hyper right to help clean up all the verbiage. And then, once
it all gets cleaned up, then I ask it to help me come up with a
good title. That's nice, and then I can use it to come up with that
short description which we embed inside the blog itself For
searchability reasons.
19:08 - Anne (Host)
So, yeah, yeah, for SEO, and I use a program for this podcast
called Podium, that you can upload the MP3 and it will give you the
show notes, it will give you takeaways, it will give you, you can
even generate a blog on that.
19:22 - Tom (Co-host)
I'm writing that one down.
19:23 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, podium is good. It's a paid subscription, but I'll tell you
what it works really well. I'm very pleased with it. You can also
create video clips if you want, but Riverside, as most of you know
that I use to record this video and the separate audio tracks also
has a really great built in AI functionality to generate short
clips, and so that has really impacted my workflow in a positive
manner. Now there's always the and tweak, the and touch Sure, which
I find that I still have to put in on the AI generated stuff. But
as we speak, the tools are getting better and I'm not a hypocrite
thinking oh my God, ai is out to ruin us and ruin our industry. I'm
using AI to make my business more efficient and, including Tommy,
you and I have talked about this including exploring having our own
voices and being able to use those for our clients who may want to
use those and make them available so that we can have a passive
income stream.
20:19 - Tom (Co-host)
We love passive income streams.
20:21 - Anne (Host)
That, we do, that, we do, yes, we do.
20:24 - Tom (Co-host)
There's another thing I want to talk about regarding workflow,
which is digital workflow. Not just what we talked about, but I use
Dan Duckworth's five categories of your voiceover business with my
email. So I have Outlook and Gmail and they're synced, and I
organize all of my emails into cashflow tools, technique, marketing
and health.
20:41 - Intro (Announcement)
So when I'm done with an email, it goes into one of those five
folders with various subfolders.
20:46 - Tom (Co-host)
And just looking at my browser right here I'm on Google
Chrome.
20:49 - Anne (Host)
So do you delete email? That's my question. Do you delete any
email?
20:52 - Tom (Co-host)
Oh, I delete emails all the time but I also keep an eye on the ones
that when I'm like done with it, but I want to keep it, you know it
goes into the folder which those five categories Plus. I have a
category for the bio strategist, I have a category for clients and
all that stuff. Also, I've got my Chrome browser right here and
I've got on the top of the bar bookmarks, bookmarks. And guess what
they're labeled? Dan Cashflow, tools, technique, marketing,
health.
21:14 - Anne (Host)
I love it. That makes sense.
21:15 - Tom (Co-host)
So all of my social media sites are in marketing All the. Ai stuff
is under tools. All of my like pronunciation guide websites are
under technique, so on and so forth, and I've got one for my comic
book, I've got one for video strategist, I've got one for, like, my
hobbies and personal stuff. So I know that, like any time, I'm
thinking about any part of my business physical cashflow binder,
email cashflow folder browser cashflow bookmark folder, exactly
bookmark.
21:41 - Anne (Host)
Yep, talk about that muscle memory Email absolutely.
21:44 - Tom (Co-host)
It's like creating sort of a digital muscle memory for me, so I
don't have to reinvent the wheel.
21:49 - Anne (Host)
Yes, and automated for your email as well. I have lots of rules and
filters. So if it comes into a particular email address that goes
into a particular folder. So, there's lots of ways that you can
become more productive with your digital tools Absolutely. Now
let's talk about focus, because focus, I think, is a huge stopper
of productivity, especially social media.
22:13 - Tom (Co-host)
Yes, well, first, everybody just grow up. You know what I mean. Put
your big pants on your big pants, people, and you're doing grown-up
stuff. Nobody's watching you, so you know. So that's my short,
obnoxious answer.
22:25
There's obviously an element of truth in that, but a little more
realistically, I know that I have certain things that I need to do
and I have a certain amount of time to do them, and cool like the
auditions obviously are deadline-driven. You know what I mean. You
need to balance your checkbooks, you need to do your gigs and all
of that stuff and everything else is kind of like up in the air. So
I use Stephen Covey's four quadrants Quadrant one, focusing on that
which is important and urgent. Quadrant two, that which is
important but not urgent. Quadrant three, that which is urgent but
not important. And then my favorite quadrant four, doing things
that are neither urgent nor important. I don't think about it
anymore. It just kind of happens now because I've developed this
mental muscle memory.
23:09 - Anne (Host)
Did you used to have to write that? I used to. Okay, okay,
gotcha.
23:13 - Tom (Co-host)
I used to have to do that. But understanding that what's the most
important one, which is quadrant two, that which is important but
not urgent, which is all of the long-term investment stuff in
relationships in general, and part of that involves marketing.
Marketing is always a long-term, non-urgent thing that you need to
do and that's a thing that people spend way too much time on in the
wrong way wrong, whatever that means, because that's a very
individual thing. But understanding that playing around with my
accounting software or endlessly organizing my contacts on my CRM
are not urgent, they're not important, but I do them, or I used to
do them, because it would make me feel productive and feel
professional and that's just an abject waste of your
time.
24:02
So understanding what's a waste of your time and what isn't a waste
of your time, what needs to be done now, what needs to be done
later and what never needs to be done at all.
24:10 - Anne (Host)
Absolutely. I'm going to say one of the biggest time sucks is
social media.
24:15
And I literally will just not open up any Facebook window or any
Instagram. My phone is not. I'm not looking at my phone. For that
reason, I only have windows open in my browser that I need to have
open and I have a dedicated time for social media.
24:32
It don't always stick to it, but I have to be fairly rigid with my
social media because I just have too many things in the day to do
and I know that before, when it wasn't just such chaos, it used to
be a thing that I could oh, let me check my email now. Or let me
check my Facebook posts here, or let me check my Instagram here. It
used to be something that I could just free form. But I can no
longer do that with my schedule and remain effective and remain
efficient in my business. So it may seem like I'm not as
interactive as I used to be in social media, but I weigh the pros
and the cons of that right, like how much is being on social media,
engaging in social media? That is a thing that I must do. That is a
specific time. Just browsing social media that's something I do
after work, in my free time, and typically that happens now while
the television is on and I find that I'm looking at my phone more
than the television.
25:30 - Tom (Co-host)
Yeah, I find myself doing that too. Sometimes I find myself with
the television and my phones here, and then I've got my tablet over
here on a little tripod stand and. I'm playing a game. It's like,
oh geez, I've got three screens in front of me and I'm not paying
proper attention to any of them.
25:44 - Anne (Host)
To any of them. Yeah, exactly, and then I just fall asleep, because
then I'm usually just exhausted.
25:50 - Tom (Co-host)
Yeah there are apps where you can limit your social media use. So
if you are early in your voiceover journey, you're home for the
first time and you just find yourself doom scrolling on Instagram
and stuff. You can set it up. So either it'll set a time limit or
it won't let you look at it at all at certain times of day and that
may be something you need to do. It's sort of the put the padlock
on the refrigerator if you're on a diet kind of thing, Like
sometimes you need to do that sort of stuff, Set yourself up so you
can't do it.
26:21
Yeah yeah, absolutely.
26:23 - Anne (Host)
So what is the biggest complaint from your students that say
working from home sucks? I mean, has anybody actually come to you
and said working home sucks? I guess I just need, I don't know how
to manage my time. Or is that a common thing, or is it just? Oh,
it's so common, so common.
26:39 - Tom (Co-host)
I say it's funny because I have all of these videos that I sell and
I have all these speaking engagements, conferences and courses and
whatever, and anytime I say the two we're time management someone
invariably goes oh my God, I suck at that. I need so much help with
that. Please, please, please, help me with that. That is a epidemic
in the voiceover community because, most of the time, because they
came from a rigid nine to five structured environment. So, yeah,
time management is something that people are often sorely lacking.
Coming in and I think we just covered a huge amount of tips and
tricks and strategies but also understanding mentally the what and
the why about it, not just the how. I mean Google Calendar and
blocking your social media apps are one thing, but that's only
good. As the. I'll put it to you this way Ann Greg Iles, great
author. He wrote maturity equals impulse control.
27:33 - Anne (Host)
Interesting.
27:35 - Tom (Co-host)
So what it really comes down to is how much impulse control you
have, and if you lack an impulse control, that means you are, by
definition, immature. So if you want to be an effective voice
actor, you need to be a mature voice actor, and to be a mature
voice actor is to have effective time management and workflow
skills.
27:53 - Anne (Host)
Well, I have been schooled, dear, I have been schooled. I love
that. I love that. You know, tommy, you bring this kind of old
school mentality, but I think it's something that we need to really
be effective and grow our businesses. Because how many times you're
right, I have no control, I'm on social media, I'm not focused, I'm
not getting any work. Why? Why? I think really getting yourself
disciplined in some fashion, at least during your work day, as you
would if you were sitting at a company, is imperative, I think, to
really running a successful business at home and making your work
at home life suck less. Ha ha, ha ha.
28:30 - Tom (Co-host)
Way to bring it home. There you go there you go, good
job.
28:34 - Anne (Host)
Wonderful conversation. I'll tell you what bosses do you have? A
local nonprofit that is close to your heart? If you do, you can
visit 100voiceshootcareorg to learn how. And IPDTL. They are our
sponsor we love. Ipdtl helps us connect and network like bosses and
become efficient work from home, sucking less employees of our own
businesses. So find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing
week and amazing productive, efficient, wonderful work from Home
Week and we will see you next week. Bye.
29:09 - Intro (Announcement)
Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host,
ann Gangusa, 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 and Coast
to Coast connectivity via IPDTL.