What does it mean?

1. Conversational Tone - Approachable, friendly, sincere
2. Heightened Life - Conversational with all the boring parts taken out
3. Conversational voice-overs can be different

When should we practice it?

1. Should be part of your warm-ups every day - Clearly define a warm-up pattern. Spend a little bit on creating your warm-up routine for conversational reads, i.e. examples that you can use to imitate, and practice them.
2. Before you go into a recording session - Develop a sentence, brief script, or phrase and put it to memory. Before you begin recording the conversational read, repeat those words 2-4 times to drop yourself into the conversational pocket.
3. When you are driving alone - One of the best times to practice your conversational tone is when you are alone.

Where should you use it?

1. Directions by the client - Clearly when a client asks you to use it
2. Interpretation - But there is also an interpretation of the script, and the client can be saying one thing but...

So, what exactly is a voice actor rate card anyway? A VO rate card is simply a chart, document, graph, etc. that outlines monetary prices to work with you and to license your work.

Why is it important?

1. Your business is supposed to make money. Without knowing how much you are charging and what you can expect, you will not be able to grow a profitable enterprise.
2. Consistency - There needs to be a consistent customer experience so they can trust in your name

How is a rate card formatted (Simple example)

A. Rates determined by length of the script:

1. 5 words (2 seconds)
2. 50 words (20 seconds)
3. 500 words (3 minutes)
4. 5000 words (33 minutes)
5. 50,000 words (5.5 hours)

B. Broadcast Rates and Sizes Online

1. 10,000 people
2. 100,000 people
3. 1M people
4. 10M people
5. 100M people

How do you price your rate card?

3 ways to do it:

1. Industry Standards: GVAA is a great place to start your search
2. What are your operating costs
3. What are the trending rates on the platform you are on?

Do you post it?

1. Do you...

How To Tell Your Voice Acting Story

Learning how to tell your brand story can be pretty hard.

So I wanted to come up with a video today sharing with you an easy way for you to create a piece of content every single day that you can spread across all of the different platforms. All you have to do is start recording your voiceover sessions.

In the video, I talk about how you can create great content. This is an excellent way for you to start growing your social influence and building a body of voice-over work.

Then what will happen is people will find the work that you have done and want to hire you because of the fantastic work that you have completed.

P.S. There are a million and one questions you could ask about creating your content. All of these questions would be valid and could be answered. The problem with this idea of analysis before you start is that the rabbit hole goes on forever and ever. 

You have to start and let figure it out along the way! 

As you are thinking about your voice over business in 2020, I want to put something in your mind ...

I believe that planning for the future can have such a massive impact on your business that if you’re not planning for success, meaning that you’re not taking it seriously to plan out each day to get to where you want to go, you’re going to lose out in 2020.

I’ve always had issues with planning and working with to-do lists. They can be taxing, and it’s often hard to narrow down the exact things that you need to accomplish.

In voice over, we run across all sorts of challenging things like technical work, marketing, or dealing with customers or working with the website, etc.

The key to planning is taking all those things that we have to do and create systems and processes so that we can make it easier for us and increase success through efficiency.

In this video, I talk about systems, tips, and tricks on how you can plan for voiceover...

When I first started in voice-over, I had the most challenging time with my breath.

Because I didn’t know what I was doing, I tried to breathe in places that were very awkward and not normal speech. It took me so long to edit out breath’s and I got confused about where they should go and how they should sound.

So then I adopted a no breath strategy where I would remove all of the breaths.

But as I went along, I realize that that sounded very unnatural as well. So I went to a strategy of leaving all the breaths in. What happened there was that the breaths were so loud that that didn’t work either.

As I went through this whole process over a couple of years, I realized that the problem was not my editing but my actual breathing during my voiceovers.

So I created a strategy on how to breathe better during my speaking. In this video, I talk about four different steps you can use to build up your stamina and correct any breathing problems you may have.

Simple 3-step Voice-over Marketing Plan (Email, 20 online sites/1 P2P, and social engagement)

General Notes: 

1. Don’t make things over complicated with your marketing plan (Use this 3 step formula)

2. Consistency is everything.

3. The content was king, but engagement has taken over. 

3-part Plan:

*Number 1 - Get set up with 20 online casting sites; Freelance, P2P sites (Fully complete your profiles. Do not leave anything undone.)

*Number 2 - Social Engagement - Pick two social platforms, Twitter and Instagram, and engage, qualify, contact)

• Engage - Leave comments, retweet, share, participate with companies on social media.
• Qualify - Research their social and site to make sure they hire voice actors.
• Reach Out - Message and email them. Mention the content you found on social media.

*Number 3 - Cold email - Mailshake, Social Leads, Monthly Newsletter (1 tip, 1 article summary, one offer)

• Take the leads/contacts you got from your engagement process...

Hello, and welcome to a Vos journey podcast. My name is Anthony Pica, and this show is all about helping the new and upcoming voiceover artists grow their business and sidestep all of the crazy things that I seem to step on. Well, today was a great day so far, but it got batched up. I was trying out a new service called restream doing my live video, and it did semi-okay, but on the other hand, I wasn't live in certain places, and I was live on other sites, so I had to go back and do different shows. So to make a long story short, I wasn't able to get the file that I wanted for the podcast. And you know, I think Twitter is going to serve all of us incredibly, and I'm going to talk about it. All right, let's do it. 

Don't be afraid to try new things and don't be scared to fall flat on your face just like I did today because it was interesting if you decide to go live in multiple places using restream, make sure that you have all of the different things figured out. You log out...

There is no doubt that voice-over rates cause more havoc in our small VO community than anything else. When I first started in voice-over, I stepped right in the middle of it with people telling don't charge too much and others telling me to charge more. 

I certainly had no idea what to expect for pricing. I heard things like don't undervalue yourself, and make sure you are not cutting the industry. 

Whenever we try to put a price on someone, with the caveat of, "How much am I worth"? It strikes a real cord, on a personal level.

You can't value someone, that is impossible. The conversation always goes to this. 

But to me, this is the mistake that most of us are making. We keep looking at pricing as a function of what WE are worth and not a representation of what our BUSINESSES are worth.

If you haven't had a chance yet, listen to our latest episode of A VO's Journey Podcast here with an interview with Philip Chryssikos.

This needs to be talked about more, and it...

Finding good scripts is hard, especially ones that give us the “real-life” practice we need to grow as voice actors.

However, do not lose hope, I have put together three tips and tricks you can use to get good scripts to practice voice acting like a rock star (If rock stars practiced voice acting, that is).

Listen to the latest episode of A VO's Journey Podcast!

A quick note: Whenever you practice, make the most of it and spend a little extra time creating a process that you will follow from beginning to end.

Think of a golfer. Every time they step up to the ball, they have their ritual to bring them to that perfect moment of relaxation, remembrance, and creation. The same goes for us. Start to create a process where you get a script (copy), and you read, research, find your voice, deliver, analyze, modify, edit, master, format, and send off.

This is my method, but you can create your own. Practicing voice acting this way is called "targeted practice."

** Three tips and...

Setting up a phone patch for direction in your vocal booth for voice-over is easier than ever. There are five different ways I recommend setting this up without spending any money.

• What is phone-patch - A phone-patch allows two-way communication with the client.
• Paid method - An electric box that allows you to connect your mixer or digital audio interface to standard phone lines. 

** The critical thing to remember is that you do not have to pay for this. 

Free Method #1: Use your phone

• A phone is a very viable way, and if you put your phone on speaker or have Bluetooth earbuds, it works great.
• Upside: Everyone has a phone, and it is easy to call a number.
• Downside: The long-distance might cost money.

Free Method #2: Zoom

• Zoom is an online platform and app that lets you connect with anyone on the internet for free. Zoom has lots of other features that come with the paid versions, but it is open and usable for phone-patches.
• Upside - free.
• Downside - Only get 40...