with Liz Atherton
With babies, the first year is serious love combined with sleepless nights, bottles, diapers, and lots and lots of learning. It’s much the same with VO . . . serious love (passion for the work), sleepless nights (must find work), bottles and diapers (mics and drop cloths) and lots and lots of learning! Listen as VO Boss Anne Ganguzza and guest, Liz Atherton, share wizdom and stories of the first year blues with clues for success!
Takeaways
Quick Concepts from Today’s Episode:
Liz has her own booth – SQUEE!
Thank you Brad Hyland and Tim Tippets for helping!
Anne’s first year in VO – it was very stressful.
In any first year of any business, you’re going to run into a lot of “don’ts” which mean you
MUST be passionate and driven because it is scary, and risky!
I’m going to try and do this – make an agreement with yourself.
Setting up a home studio takes a lot of unexpected learning.
As a first year VO it’s more than just a studio…
What equipment do I need?
Your equipment needs to match your genre.
If you don’t know what you need, you should hire a professional and pay them to help – this will save time and money.
You need to hire people who are specialists in their field to help you get started the right way.
Cheap isn’t always the right answer.
Your FIRST investment should be coaching/training/coaching/training/demo . . .
You must be success driven – don’t rely on a fallback position.
Investments to start companies can be hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Investments to start VO can cost thousands.
Equipment – Software – Coaching ← all required to start a successful VO business.
You are your brand!
You are your product.
And then there’s time . . . sometimes it is YEARS – at least 5 years!! Know this and be ready.
Even a voiceover prodigy has to start with learning.
DON’T QUIT! It can be at least 5, if not 10 years before you get a sound return on your business.
Keep adjusting.
Create multiple voices – work on different genres – diversify.
Find that predictable income.
If you’re not working for someone else, then you should find multiple revenue streams.
It’s now what’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s wrong?
I’m not hungry, I’m dieting.
The first year is going to be tough!
A VO career is going to take time and money – and it’s worth it!
Tweet This
Share ideas with your own network ++
Referenced in this Episode
Direct links to things we brought up ++
Thanks to Tim Tippets, The VO Tech Guru for helping Liz set up her studio!
Check out Liz’s new MIcrophone, The USB Blue Yeti
Find out about Castvoices.com
Recorded on ipDTL
Awesome editing by Carl Bahner
Full Episode Transcript
>> 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 has top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS. Now let’s welcome your host Anne Ganguzza.
Anne: Hey, everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I’m your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with the Bee, Miss Liz Atherton!
Liz: Bzzz that’s me. Good afternoon!
[both laugh]
Anne: Well, Liz.
Liz: Yeah?
Anne: It’s been an amazing afternoon, and I’m so happy to now be speaking to you in your very own booth. Woohoo! Your very own studio.
Liz: It’s quite special. I had a very underground view. Only special people can come to my studio.
Anne: You have to crawl under the table to get to Liz’s studio, but I will say how proud I am of you. By the way, for those BOSSes that do not know, Liz has gone like above and beyond any other guest that I’ve ever had in terms of getting to record for the podcast. So Liz has traveled hours, like hours to studios. We’ve begged, borrowed and all sorts of things to Liz to get to, because Liz did not have a studio before now. And now Liz has a very simple home studio which she set up all by herself. We had some great help though from some amazing people. I think the biggest shout-out, number one, will go to Brad who initially helped –
Liz: Brett Highland, thank you, thank you.
Anne: Brett Highland. Thank you so much for helping my girl out.
Liz: You’re a rock star.
Anne: And also Mr. Tim Tippetts, the VO tech guru. Yes!
Liz: Oh my gosh, Tim is amazing. Thank goodness for Tim.
Anne: So big shout-out to you guys for helping Liz to set that up. This is now, we’re listening to Liz in her home studio. So I’m really excited about that.
Liz: Thank you, Anne.
Anne: So Liz, you know, that struggle that you had or that we had in the beginning to get you, to get you going and to get you productive and in business for this podcast reminds me a lot of my first year when I started in voiceover just setting up my own business and being an entrepreneur. And there were so many struggles that I had. And I wanted to talk about it today because with the BOSS listeners because I think that a lot of times, it’s a lot more complicated [laughs] then they want to think it is. I want people to understand what to expect the first year. What to expect your first year when you’re [laughs] a voice talent, not when you’re expecting, but when you’re the voice talent, what to expect your first year.
Liz: And Anne, no matter what it is, it’s got to start with you have to be dedicated to what you’re going to do because in any first year of any business, and sometimes even more than one year, you’re going to hit struggles that you don’t anticipate. You’re going to hit things that knock you down. You’re going to have naysayers. You’re going to have all of those things that say don’t, don’t, don’t, and if you don’t have a I can make this happen attitude, then you’re just in trouble. And I just think it starts first and foremost there.
Anne: So true. So true. And the studio is a very, very important component of your business, because you know, obviously it’s your livelihood. You have to record for a living, and you have to produce files that are reasonable sounding. Not even more – better than reasonable sounding, but good sounding quality audio files. And to do that, you really need to have a home studio. And I remember setting up my home studio the first time. It was such a struggle, number one, because I was still trying to figure out what it meant to actually have a home studio and where was I supposed to set one up, and how was that supposed to work? And I didn’t really understand the science of it, which is why we thank people like Tim Tippetts so profusely because –
Liz: Oh my gosh.
Anne: – they know what they’re doing. They can certainly help set up home studios in a heartbeat. I’ve worked with a lot of great people in the industry. But I remember, I was like in tears because I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I couldn’t figure out how to get it set up. And I knew that that meant, for me, it meant make or break in terms of my business. You know, I had to get something set up that could produce quality audio. I just had to.
Liz: But you’re not just doing that. That’s one piece of what you’re trying to make happen in your voiceover business. One, you’ve taken the decision, I’m going to try to do this. You’ve got all of these other parameters so that when you’re running into trouble setting up your studio, which like you said, is probably the most important component of what you’re trying to do, because you can’t, you can’t run out and rent space to go record a bunch of auditions. I mean, people used to do that. I remember we had a guy, way back when I first started doing voiceover agenting, and people didn’t have home studios. And you couldn’t go on, like I did two days ago, and purchase a Yeti – shout-out to Yeti, but purchase a Yeti microphone that came with headsets and a filter on it or a guard, and have it delivered the next day.
Anne: That’s true, right? You had to go to a store and buy it. That’s number one. [laughs]
Liz: Exactly, yeah. But you know, people used to pay to go sit in someone else’s studio and record. But anyway, beyond that, now you’ve decided you want to do it yourself, and maybe you were or were not your own sound engineer in the past. You know, so now you’ve got to figure out, how do I make this sound good? What do these levels mean? There is just so many things just technically to be a voiceover talent.
Anne: Now that doesn’t mean that all voiceover talent run out and go get a Yeti microphone because that’s another decision that needs to be made depending on what you’re going to be doing with your business. Now for example Liz got a Blue Yeti USB mic because for her, it was a quick solution to be able to communicate with her clients and/or me for this podcast in good quality audio. And the Blue Yeti USB just happened to work out and it was a pretty color too.
Liz: It is pretty.
Anne: Sometimes that may, you know, your microphone has to make you happy. I have a multitude of microphones. And for Liz’s purposes, that Blue Yeti is serving its purpose very well. For me I’ve got, gosh, I’ve got like four or five different mics. Now that doesn’t mean you need to have four or five mics. I’ve been in the business for, you know, years. They’re all great mics, so they still work.
Liz: And they serve their purpose.
Anne: They do.
Liz: I’m not auditioning. I’m not trying to be a voiceover actor. I’m just someone who chats a lot about voiceover. Whenever I’ve joined other exam sessions or things like that, I’ve done it from my laptop or whatever is built in. And you know, for an ongoing podcast, that just won’t do. Even as a guest, like you said, I’ve borrowed other people’s studios but now I kind of feel kind of special. I feel kind of grown up. [laughs] But even that was a mess. You knkow? Because it wasn’t just plug and go because I didn’t have, like you’re talking about, I didn’t have a studio, I didn’t have like a quiet room.
Anne: Yes, exactly. So there’s all of those factors that went into play for that. If you don’t know what needs to go in to your studio, it can be really frustrating at first for you to try to set it up, and you think you can get all the information online, and I’m not saying you can’t. You can get a good amount of information online. But sometimes when you’re just, you know, in the throes of the beginning of things, it can be super frustrating if you don’t have a support system, and if you can’t find a direct answer that can be online. So.
Liz: Well Anne, and I want to jump in. I’m going to take the opportunity because this is a real nice segue between voiceover entrepreneurialship and me starting a different kind of business that supports voiceover. You know, as a VO talent, you do have the opportunity to reach out, but when it comes time to really make those decisions, I would like to encourage you to hire the right person to help you. While people are like, “oh, I can do it myself, I can figure it out,” if you don’t start with the right expert, whether they’re your good friend and they’ll do it because they love you, or you’re part of a group, or you pay somebody, I highly recommend that you step into the realm with the expert to begin with. It’ll save you time in the long run.
Anne: And it’ll save you money in the long run, I think.
Liz: In the long run, exactly. And you’re going to learn so much. So right now, I mean, I’ve started two businesses. My first one was a talent agency, and I sold it in the end of 2018 to go into CastVoices full-time. So very fortunate, found some investors that are just the crème de la crème. Even with the crème de la crème investors, you still have to work through things like documentation. You have to hire attorneys. You have to do this, and you have to do that. I had been working with an attorney that I absolutely love for all my years as an agent. Not an entertainment attorney. I have those as well, but from a contractual business standpoint, I had worked with this attorney for years. My investors had their attorney. The difficulty came when we have two different attorneys who are brought – or at least in my case. I can’t speak to their attorney. They’re both great people, but more broad-based in trying to figure out things. I feel like if we together had hired an attorney, we might have been able to circumvent a lot of just the goings-on between our attorneys talking. That might not sound like a big deal, but when it was all said and done, that was a very, very large bill. We were just going with what we knew instead of maybe looking out there for the kind of business we were trying to begin together and found someone expert in our field.
Anne: Well, I think your point, I think your point is that you need to hire people that are specialists in their field to help you to propel your business forward. I think that’s a super important point that a lot of people I know, when they first get into voiceover, they try to get into it the cheapest way possible. Of course there are some great support groups. Of course there’s the Internet at your fingertips. However, you do have to really have a mindset that this is a business, and a business is going to require investment. Let’s say for voiceover, that initial investment, which I fully, fully believe and stand on my soapbox, should be coaching, training, coaching, training, coaching, training, and the demo of course, and as well as some good business sense or business training to help you navigate this industry. Liz, in your entrepreneurship, in your businesses, you required a hefty investment.
Liz: I did.
Anne: I think that it’s something to note that voiceover, you know, beginning people in this industry, thinking it’s so expensive to pay for coaching or it’s so expensive to put up a website, my goodness, Liz, can you shed some light on how much you had invested in the first year?
Liz: Oh. So I invested myself for many years trying to get it ready because it was an idea.
Anne: And yourself and your time is money. So.
Liz: Well that, and my partner was also doing it with his time and his money, and we were both doing it in addition to what we were doing to make a living. Right? And that went on for two years. And so as you can well imagine, and a lot of voiceover do this. A lot of voiceover people have a day job, and then their voiceover job, or a night job and then their voiceover job. They run parallel until you decide to do it. And when you make that decision, it’s scary, and in my case we needed to get someone to invest because we needed to be able to make some purchases if you will. We needed to bring on a team that could bring on this and do it the way it needed to be done. That was very expensive. And so we sold a piece of the company to our investors, and now we’re partners. The levels don’t matter, but we’re both, we all treat each other with a great deal of respect. But the pressure on me and my partner Nick, who sold a piece of our company now is exponential. At least it feels that way, because we’re not just successful for he and I. We’re successful for he and I and our investors.
Anne: Sure, absolutely.
Liz: Even if you take that to the voiceover level, Anne, let’s just say you and Jerry, and this is a hypothetical, right? You and Jerry are together and you’re like, Jerry, I know I’ve been teaching for a while. I’m doing this, but I really want to go into voiceover full-time, and I’m going to need you to cover me. It’s the same thing. Jerry just didn’t put an outlay of cash like my investors did, but you’re driven that way. You’re success driven. And that you couldn’t let it always be that way that you had a fallback position because that would never be your answer.
Anne: Right.
Liz: That’s just like my answer. I don’t have a fallback position right now. The only way I can just keep moving forward is I so believe in what I’m doing, it oozes from my tip of my toes to the end of my hair. I’m not trying to be funny there. Everything about me is about the success of this company. And it stems from, and this is my soapbox, but anybody that knows me knows this is true, I love my tribe. I love them. I love the VO people. They’re just the most amazing humans. And so now I feel added pressure because so many of them are my friends that I have to make this work, right?
Anne: Right.
Liz: And the same thing with you. You’re a voiceover talent. You’re trying to set up a studio, one. You’re trying to make it sound right, two. You’re worried about making your bills, three. You bought a mic and it’s not working. What are you going to do there? Four. Who do you call? And that’s day one.
Anne: Right.
Liz: That’s day one. [laughs]
Anne: Well exactly. And I want to make sure, I want to talk hard numbers, Liz. You kind of – I’m sorry but you didn’t really say anything about numbers. I want people to understand that numbers can mean thousands. Like entrepreneurs –
Liz: Hundreds of thousands.
Anne: Hundreds of thousands of dollars for people that are not necessarily voiceover talent. We’re kind of lucky in a lot of ways because we don’t, the initial investment is not a huge sum of money, which is why I think it’s a big draw for so many people, right? They say, oh, it’s cheap. I can just do it myself. I can just get a USB mic, I speak into the mic, and we deal with this all the time. However if you really want to be serious about this, and you really are an entrepreneur driven soul, and you really want to make this a part of your life and your business, you do have to seriously consider investing, you know, money. And I’m not just talking $10 or $20. I’m talking probably thousands of dollars for good coaching.
Liz: Probably $10,000 to $20,000. And listen. What I see from the voiceover as an outsider looking in, absolutely appreciating it, one, when you go in whether part-time or full-time, you have to spend money on equipment.
Anne: Yeah.
Liz: You have to spend money on quiet space. You have to spend money on a laptop. Okay. There’s your hardware, if you will. Right?
Anne: Sure.
Liz: And you got to learn how to run ProTools or Audition or ipDTL or Connection Open or SourceConnect. You’ve got to learn how to make all that stuff happen. All of that stuff is just so you can talk. Now, now you’ve got permission to talk and someone can hear you. But if you don’t deliver the lines in a way that makes sense for the listener, you’re not present when you’re doing it, you’re not learning how to do it, if I was looking to become a voiceover talent, well, let’s pretend someone like me – because I have an unfair advantage. Okay? But if I were new to the business, I would absolutely be seeking out who are the best coaches hands down. And that’s with voiceover, on camera, no matter what it is. You want to start with someone who’s going to help you sell your voice.
Anne: Yeah, absolutely.
Liz: That’s what you’re doing. You’re selling your voice.
Anne: You are your brand. I mean, you are your product and so every business has a product and obviously you need to make that investment in yourself for it to make sense, for you to have a great product and so yes, definitely coaching. One other thing I want to also bring up, Liz, is let’s talk about time. Right? The amount of time that people put into their careers, before they tend to get frustrated. I’m going to tell you that literally for me, to really start seeing any return on my investment, it was a good, you know, five years at the time. Right?
Liz: Well, I was just about to say, at least five years. Well, here’s the thing. Let me give you a correlation. You’re out of high school and you’re going to go to college because you want to be in a specialized career, right, or you’re gonna go to a trade school because you’re going to be in a specialized career. Sometimes trade schools, you can get there in two years. Maybe. I only know of a few trade schools. Because of my four children, one went to trade school. He became a Cordon Bleu chef. He’s not doing that anymore, but he was on a path to be a Cordon Bleu chef. I’ve three sons. That was my first son. My second son went all the way through and got his Masters. It took him seven, six years, seven – sorry, Drew, if you’re listening and I mess it up, to get his Masters so that he could be on a particular career path. My third son, he’s an actor but he’s also my partner in CastVoices and he went to trade school. He’s a unique bird. He went to college at 12 – I mean at 10, so he’s kind of a unique beast there. And then my daughter is going to become a doctor. And the reason I’m telling you about all of these years in school, it’s the same thing with voiceover.
Anne: Yep, training.
Liz: My kids trained and trained and trained, and the same thing in voiceover. Are there anomalies? Of course and they do exist, but even if voiceover prodigy still has to learn the equipment.
Anne: Sure. I just want to tell all of you listeners out there, don’t quit. Well, all right, maybe quit because maybe that’s less competition, right, for the rest of us. [laughs]
Liz: Yeah.
Anne: Look, there’s so many people that I see, they go the lengths, they get their demo and then ultimately they find they’ve such problems getting the gigs and getting work, and then they get frustrated and then they give up. So Liz and I are here to tell you, look, at least five years. They say with any good business, any good entrepreneurial business, it’s five years for a return on your investment. I’m going to say it’s even closer to 10. I’ve said it before. Before you really start to feel like you’ve got your business, your business is solid, it’s gaining ground, and you’ve developed strategies in order to maintain stable income throughout your career. It’s one of those things that you may have to keep adjusting, you have to keep testing the waters, keep adjusting, keep those ideas flowing. Like Liz, I know you’ve got multiple businesses happening, and things evolve and change along with the times. I think a great voiceover actor has to do the same thing. Just because after a year or two, if things are not going right, you’re not getting the gigs, think about how you can strategize and maybe change your direction so that you can test the waters there and see if you find success there.
Liz: Or Anne, you develop another voice and then you develop another voice, and you develop these voices by working with people to help you develop these voices. The reason I say that is because in effect you’re diversifying as a voice actor by doing that.
Anne: Yes, absolutely.
Liz: Let’s pretend for a minute that I’m a voiceover actor. I don’t think I can do anything but what you’re hearing right now. I can sweeten it up and I’m not trying to be funny – I guess I was trying to be funny. But I’m – so that’s not my thing. But if I were a true voiceover actor, I would try to be this voice. I would work on my character voices.
Anne: Work on different genres, absolutely.
Liz: Maybe get really good at e-learning.
Anne: Or have parallel paths. That’s what I like to say.
Liz: Yes. I think you absolutely have to have that in anything you’re doing. CastVoices for me, that’s a full-time gig right now. But until we were up and running, I was still working on CastVoices and still trying to find other avenues of revenue because I had to eat.
Anne: Absolutely. I think that happens for all of us. For, you know, even established voiceover talent that have careers, got to look for that predictable income because at this point, if you’re not working for the man, or you know, you’re not working for someone else – I shouldn’t even say the man anymore. If you’re not working for someone, you essentially need to be able to be that person yourself. You’re working for yourself. You’ve got to assure that you’ve got revenue streams that are going to support you in your business. Multiple revenue streams, we’ve talked about this in the past. There’s nothing shameful about that. My gosh, I think the best of us all have multiple revenue streams.
Liz: Well, especially as a voiceover actor, when you’re always on the hunt –
Anne: Yeah, you can’t stop.
Liz: Since you’re always, always trying to make things happen, you must save. Don’t be like me, and it’s no secret, this past year was extraordinarily difficult for me. You know, I was fully leveraged in myself. I used to be like, oh my God, what am I going to do? No, I had to turn it around. And when I did, it really made a difference. And you have to do that as an entrepreneur no matter what. You can’t be going, what’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s wrong? You’ve got to turn around and say, aha.
Anne: Let’s make it right, let’s take it right.
Liz: Yeah. Let’s make it right.
Anne: Let’s try this and make it right.
Liz: Yeah, let’s frame it differently.
Anne: Absolutely.
Liz: You know, I’m not broke. I’m fully leveraged in myself.
Anne: Yes.
Liz: I’m not hungry. I’m dieting. [laughs]
Anne: I’m dieting. There you go. What a great analogy.
Liz: You know?
Anne: So BOSSes, you have to, you have to understand your first year is going to be tough. I don’t know really of anybody unless there is that one or two prodigies that maybe, you know, were able to really be successful in their first year. Understand, guys, that it’s going to take time. It’s going to take an investment in yourself, in your time, money invested in your training, coaching, whatever it is to make you market your product and make your product better.
Liz: And Anne, just throwing this in because I know, you know, we’re winding up here, but I wanted to throw this in and even if you’ve been doing this for 15 years, because you know you see those seasons professionals out there. Even if you’ve been doing this for 15 years, you’re going to have a bad year here and there. You have to be able to –
Anne: You have to be prepared for that.
Liz: Be prepared for that and let your landscape be fluid. You have to. All right thanks, Anne.
Anne: Good stuff, good stuff, Liz.
Liz: Always.
Anne: All right, BOSSes, I’m going to give a great big shout-out to our sponsor, ipDTL. You too can connect and work like a BOSS. Find out more at ipdtl.com. You guys have a great week, and we’ll see you next week.
Liz: Take care, everyone.
Anne: Bye!
Liz: Bye-bye.
>> Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your host, Anne Ganguzza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at voboss.com and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies, and new ways to rock your business like a BOSS. Redistribution with permission. Coast-to-coast connectivity via ipDTL.
[outtakes]
1
Liz: Tim, I’m about, from the mic itself, I’m about nine inches.
Tim: Okay, can you get it closer to you?
Liz: No.
Anne: Yeah, that would make it bet – that would make a difference.
Liz: Hold on. What I can do is I can double my pillow. Stand by. It’s a different – it’s a twist.
Anne: [laughs] Double my pillow.
Liz: All right, Anne. Can you hear me now?
Anne: I can hear you.
Liz: That’s as good as it’s going to get. I put my foot down. [does so] Oof! [beep]
[Anne and Liz laugh]
Anne: Jesus.
Liz: [laughs] Jesus. I need a drink.
Tim: [laughs]
Liz: All right.
Anne: Tim.
Tim: So does that sound okay to her, Liz?
Liz: Anne, does it sound okay to you?
Anne: It sounds decent. It really does. It sounds –
Liz: Listen, she thinks it sounds the best that she’s ever heard me and she wants us to get on with it. I’m so lying to you.
Tim: Going to let you go.
Anne: Tim!
Liz: So awesome, man.
Anne: You’re the best. Oh my God.
Liz: You rock.
Tim: Good. Have a good podcast.
Liz: Thank you.
Anne: Thanks, Tim!
Liz: Bye-bye.
2
Anne: Liz, we got so many good outtakes.
[both laughs]
Liz: But Carl, I told you, did you hear me, I’m his favorite. He’s going to be nice to me.
Anne: No, Carl, I’m your favorite. Carl.
Liz: No Carl, I’m your favorite.
Anne: Who writes the check? Carl. [laughs]
Liz: Carl.
Anne: C-Carl, C-C-C-Carl.
Liz: Sexy Texan Carl.
Anne: [laughs] Oh my God. You’re just ugh. I’m going to go for the brain aspect –
Liz: Oh Carl…
Anne: [laughs] You’re like the sex aspect. I’m brain. So Carl, let’s talk –
Liz: [laughs] Carl.
Anne: – technology. Let’s talk –
Liz: Carl, Carl. Two and two are four.
Anne: – technology and audio waves. Carl –
Liz: Four and four are eight.
Anne: Let’s talk audio waves, shall we?
Liz: Eight and eight are –
Anne: Audio waves.
Liz: – sex-teen. [laughs] Got to stop.
Anne: Let’s talk about the audio interface.
Liz: [laughs]
Anne: Okay.
Liz: That’s just where you plug something in. That’s the same thing.
[both laugh]
Anne: So many parallels. Okay, here we go. Let’s start. Let’s start.
Liz: Okay. I’ve got my voiceover voice on!
Anne: What to expect, what to expect your first year. Okay, here we go, ready? Alright.