Oh for the love of VOICE! We thought we’d let YOU tell us what you love about VO! This very special episode features a bunch of guest Bosses from around the globe! A big thanks to Stephanie Matard, Linda Poff, Brian Craddock, Morgan Walton and Adam Dergiman. When entrepreneurs share their love, there’s nothing they can’t accomplish.
Takeaways
Quick Concepts from Today’s Episode:
We’re all here because of love.
We all have unique challenges but its love that keeps us going.
As an industry – we are full of love.
The voiceover community – more so than other areas of acting – lifts one another up.
We work to meet our personal best and challenge ourselves.
We can love this career and make money – it’s a great bonus.
At most trade shows people shake hands – voice actors are huggers!
We get to work and train with our idols – we’re an attainable community.
Many people in corporate jobs crave a playfulness and the fun we get to experience for a living. We can be ourselves and simultaneously be a character.
Our industry does not restrict our individuality or personal sense of style. It’s encouraged.
Bring yourself to everything you do in voiceover. If you are brave and bring yourself to the party – voiceover will work for you.
Be in touch with yourself – accept and love yourself.
Most voiceover actors both love and hate their voice in cycles.
Referenced in this Episode
Direct links to things we brought up ++
Stephanie Matard’s Website
Linda Poff’s Website
Brian Craddock’s Business Page
Morgan Walton’s Website
Adam Dergiman’s Website
Recorded on ipDTL
Full Episode Transcript
>> Today’s voiceover talent is more than just a pretty voice.
>> Pretty voice.
>> Pretty voice.
>> Pretty voice.
>> Today’s voiceover talent has to be a BOSS.
>> BOSS.
>> A BOSS.
>> A BOSS.
>> Join us each week for business owner strategies and success with your hosts Anne Ganguzza and Gabrielle Nistico, along with some of the strongest voices in our industry.
>> Rock your business.
>> Rock your business.
>> Rock your business.
>> Like a BOSS.
>> Like a BOSS.
>> Rock your business like a BOSS.
>> Rock your business like a BOSS.
>> A VO BOSS.
>> A VO BOSS.
>> A VO BOSS.
Stephanie: Hi everybody, hello BOSSes. My name is Stephanie Matard, and I am an entrepreneur. I am a VO BOSS, and I am BOSSalicious. I love it. Before I say anything about myself, because let’s be honest, we don’t really, we don’t really care. We just, we just want Anne and Gabby. That’s the main, the main event, OK? So I just want to say, thank you so very, very much for everything that you are doing, and it is sometimes creepy when there are situations that are going on in my business, and you guys then have a podcast about that same subject. And I sometimes feel like you’re tapping into my phone wires or like spying on my VO BOSS life because you know all the subjects. It’s quite impressive. So [laughs] anyways, thank you so much for all that you’re doing. So the question is, what do you love about voiceover? And for me it starts with being an entrepreneur. I was 16 years old, working at the Pretzel Stop in Toledo, Ohio. At that time I was 16, and I was already saying this business stuff is cool. I’m into it. I want to do this. This is, I want to be my own boss one day. So with this entrepreneurial ideal in the back of my mind, I said, “why don’t I go for the easiest entrepreneurial thing that we can ever do, and that everybody is a success at it? I’m going to become an actress.” So I ended up studying theater and drama in San Diego, and then I got a job in Italy. And after Italy I met my husband, and the rest is history. And I ended up in France. So I’m a French-American now and I live in France, and the situation is that when you are an actor, normally you have to speak the language. And when I first got here, I did not speak one word of French. It was horrible. So I kind of put all those dreams aside, and I got a regular 9-to-5 job, and I wanted to put bicycle spokes into my eyeballs every single day. Fast forwarding again to recent years and my husband basically saying, “hey, Steph, I’m looking at these ads, and they’re looking for English-speaking voiceovers.” I’m like, “what, what is that,” in like my dumbness, and I realize that, “hey, this voiceover thing, there’s something to it. I can live and work in France and speak English and bring a value to my clients and serve them because I am now in a niche market here, and I can also work globally from any client all over the world. And I can now follow my dreams, and I can become an entrepreneur, and this is so exciting!” So I studied, and I studied, and I did some internships, and I did some training, and I learned about equipment, and I did so many things. I did all the things. And every single step of the way, it felt right. There was that knowing, sort of like when you meet the right guy, and you’re like, “yeah, I’m going to marry this Frenchie, and I’m going to leave my whole country, and friends, and everybody.” And everybody’s like, are you sure? And I’m like, “this is totally right. I get it.” Now we have been married for nine years. So, but I knew it in the depths of my soul that this was the right thing, and that’s kind of how I felt about voiceover. I’m following my gut here on this one. It’s like that gut feeling that’s saying, “this is why, this is what you should be doing,” that sensation that you know that you’re in the right place. So I hope that you guys are all in the right place, and I hope you guys are rocking your business like a BOSS, and thank you, Anne and Gabby, for this opportunity to be on the VO BOSS podcast! Woop-woop!
Anne: Welcome, everybody, to the VO BOSS podcast. I’m your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with my VO Valentine bestie, Gabby Nistico. Hey, Gabby.
Gabby: Awww! VO Valentine!
Anne: Yay!!
Gabby: Oh, I love you.
Anne: ‘Cause I love my VO Valentine BOSStie-bestie Gabby.
Gabby: Yeahhh! It is, it’s the Valentine’s day addition of VO BOSS. Instead of us telling you all the reasons that we love voiceover, um that we ask you all the reasons that you love voiceover. And so we have some very special guest BOSSes for today’s episode.
Anne: We do. And we are so full of… love.
Gabby: Oh, I thought you were going to say something else, but yeah.
Anne: Wait, that just sounded bad, didn’t it?
Gabby: [laughs]
Anne: We are so full of love.
Gabby: Full of –
Anne: Gabby and I.
Gabby: – something.
[both laugh]
Anne: We’re full of something. You know, I love this podcast. I say this all the time, I love working with you. I love the fact that we’re doing something cool for the community and that hopefully they’re benefiting and getting some really good stuff out of it. I don’t know, Gab, I mean, it just makes me feel good.
Gabby: I’m swaying and blushing. You just can’t see it yet.
Anne: Aww! [laughs]
Gabby: [laughs] I totally – I know what you mean. I do, and I love the love, period, that, the outpouring of support that we’ve received. I love when we have random people come up to us and tell us that something that we did or said in the podcast has helped them or impacted their career, or you know, I – you know what? Actually the thing that I love the most is the “I needed to hear that today” comments, or when somebody goes, you know, “I thought it was just me.”
Anne: Yeah.
Gabby: I’m like, “no, it’s never just you. It’s not. It’s never just me either.” We’re all in this.
Anne: Yeah. Sending us an email, thanking us –
Gabby: Yeah.
Anne: – or giving us a text message saying “thanks so much for talking about that, that was really helpful, and I really needed to hear that,” I love that too. That’s probably one of my favorite things –
Gabby: Yeah.
Anne: – that I love about this podcast. [laughs]
Gabby: You know what? There’s two guest BOSSes today that are right there with you. So Linda Poff and also Morgan Walton were cool enough to send us their audio as to why they love voiceover and what they love about our business. And the resounding answer was this industry, the people. So let’s hear what they have to say.
Morgan: Hey, BOSSes, this is Morgan Walton, originally from Salt Lake City, Utah, now #CalifoniaDreamin in SoCal. I want to thank you ladies for everything you do for this community. I really enjoy all the information and advice you guys give us on a weekly basis, and that really kind of goes hand-in-hand with what I love about VO. Now I mean, I love creating characters. I love doing the character work and bringing the words from the scripts to life, but the overall support that we have for each other is absolutely stunning. I have been in the theater community and the live-action community for over 25 years, which parts of that can get downright nasty. So it’s refreshing to see how welcoming and supportive this community really is. I mean, and how much we stand up for each other, which you don’t see very often in the acting world. Honestly the camaraderie and support for each other in every step of the process is really just heartwarming and makes the entire process that much more magical. So my part that I love about VO is just this amazing, supportive group which, thank you for everything you guys do that helps lead that frame of mind. Thank you for giving the opportunity to share our voices with everyone. So sweet VO dreams to everybody out there, and appreciate and keep working and doing the things that we’re doing here.
Linda: Hi, this is your SoCal VO gal Linda Poff, talking to you live here from beautiful southern California on a Sunday afternoon. While there’s a lot of reasons to love VO, to be honest, and it was really hard for me – I thought about this all day – the different things I love about VO and to pick just one, ehh, how do you pick? You guys, we have the most spectacular community. It is so supportive. We fill each other in on opportunities. We give each other heads up on scams. We give each other direction towards great coaches, great groups to join up with, wonderful seminars to attend. I mean, I can’t say that I’ve ever experienced that with any other group or society that I’ve belonged to. In a nutshell, why do I love VO so much? I guess because it’s a moving target, and I’m always trying to beat my best and hit that target every single time. So I love the challenge. I don’t get frustrated. Sometimes I do, a little bit. But I love the challenge. It’s always pushing me to be my best. That’s what I love about VO. It’s a personal best. I have to do the best I can to achieve the goal I want. There you go. Sunday, fun day, woo-hoo! and yes, I did just record in addition. Ha ha ha.
Anne: You know, I love, love, love – because this is all about love – I love that she said that it’s a personal challenge, in addition to, you know, the fact that we have a great community, but the personal challenge I can totally identify with that because every day I have a challenge. And I love that. I love to rise up to the challenge and just see where it gets me and how it helps me to grow.
Gabby: You know, I was in a car – it was a couple of weeks ago, with a couple of friends, and my husband, and my best friend, and somebody made a passing comment while we were driving and said, “you know, well, I mean, come on. How many people here can say they love their jobs?” And I –
Anne: [laughs]
Gabby: – was like [small voice] …mmmmeeee? I can. And I’m like very slowly raising my hand, and I swear, they all looked at me in unison, and they just went, “shut up, Gabby. We know.”
[both laugh]
Gabby: And I’m like, “I’m sorry. I really, like I genuinely love my job.” I love the people. I love what we get to do every day. I love that this is how I make money.
Anne: Yeah, I mean, that’s the bonus of it.
Gabby: Right?
Anne: That we can love it and then make money too. Freaking awesome.
Gabby: Freaking crazy.
Anne: I think anybody that’s listened to our podcast knows that we also love money a little bit.
Gabby: Yeah. Yeah. A lot a bit, a lot a bit.
Anne: You know, it helps us to love our jobs even more, right because it, we’re able to, we’re able to make a living.
Gabby: Mm-hmm. Morgan and Linda, I think they touched on something really great there, which is of course that this community, more so than I’ve ever seen in anywhere else that I’ve worked, we really do have each other’s backs, and there is a love and a camaraderie here that you just don’t find in too many other industries. I think we can all be thankful and appreciative of that, and you know, gosh, VO Atlanta is coming up. And so we’re all going to be all huggy and stupid.
Anne: Oh yeah.
Gabby: Lovey and oh God. It’s coming, it’s coming, and then inevitably the con crud comes with it, because we get sick, because we can’t stop hugging and like rubbing ourselves against people and smooching. It’s really ridiculous. I mean, come on.
Anne: It happens. It happens, and you know, it happens at every major convention, by the way. Just so you know.
Gabby: It does.
Anne: It’s not just the voiceover conventions.
Gabby: No.
Anne: It happens at any major trade show, and I know that, why? Because my husband.
Gabby: Oh!
Anne: My husband does trade shows. He will usually bring it back.
Gabby: It’s true, but you know, most other trade shows, people shake hands. We’re like all up in each other like –
Anne: That’s true, that’s true.
[both laugh]
Gabby: It’s a little ridiculous. We get seriously close and personal with, with our voiceover friends. It’s, you know, yeah.
Anne: Well, and I think the fact that, you know, also, we lift each other up, which I think is really important, we help each other out. We give referrals, and I think what the main – I think the main reason, not only because we have a great group of people, but the fact that, if you can look at your job and not necessarily say you are in competition with your colleague, I think that really helps to be generous and kind and supportive and loving towards one another. And I think if that, that’s – I think always, we have been told, I think when we get into this industry, we’re not really in competition with one another. No, we are but not really.
Gabby: No, not really. So our next guest VO BOSS, this is, this is pretty great. Adam Dergiman, who is a British voice actor, he was kind enough to send us a piece of audio and, oh my gosh, I just, I was so enamored with everything he said. So to hear – I’ll let you guys listen.
Adam: Hi Anne, hi Gabby, my name’s Adam. And I come from England. Originally I was born in Zimbabwe, Africa. I love the VO industry because it has literally meant that I can be a giant nerd when I need to be, and I still love looking at every single piece of copy that comes across my desk and/or my email inbox. I have gotten to train with some voice acting coaches who have literally been the voices of my idols of games and characters, along with people who have been powerhouses of like promo and industry and acting. And just being able to play, it’s just so much fun. I know that there’s this massive business voiceover side to it as well, which I’m not going to lie, my inner adult kind of groans at me because I look at it and go, “but I wanna play!” So I just thought I’d give you guys a little bit of a history into myself, into the reasons why I just love VO. And I certainly hope that I will see you in front of a microphone in the same booth as me someday soon. Thanks a lot, take care.
Gabby: How freaking cute is he?
Anne: Oh my gosh, that was, that was amazing.
Gabby: Oh my God.
Anne: “I want to [laughs]
Gabby: Right?
Anne: Yes. “I want to play, I want to play.” I do love the fact that I – “I want to play!” And I think that’s what drove me, Gabby, out of my corporate job long ago, because I literally was not having that creative, playful side of me. It just wasn’t happening, and I craved it. I craved it.
Gabby: Everything that he said just brought me right back to when I was a kid, and yeah. I mean, I had these dreams in my head of what I didn’t even know was voiceover back then. You know, like I was obsessed with the Muppets, and you know different cartoons, and you know, like God, I remember the day I met Rob Paulsen for the first time. And there’s a picture on my website of me and him. And I mean I’m smiling like a goober –
Anne: Mm-hmm.
Gabby: – because I’m so just enthralled with it. “It’s Rob Paulsen! He’s right there! He’s next to me!”
Anne: Our idols are here.
Gabby: Yes! And there is like, my gosh, we’ve, we do, we get to play, and imagine, and explore, and create, and ugh it’s just the best feeling in the world to do that every day and again get paid for it.
Anne: [laughs] Exactly. Exactly.
Gabby: So we have one more guest BOSS for our Valentine’s Day edition. We’re gonna close things off, and we’re gonna hear from Brian Craddock.
Brian: Hey guys. Hey Gabby. My name’s Brian Craddock. I presently live in Tampa, Florida. I am originally from Levittown, New York. What I love about the voiceover industry is that it will allow me to be whatever I want, or whoever I want. I don’t need to pretend to be something I’m not, unless I want to do that. I can be me. I can be that guy that you meet on the street. I can be the guy that I am outside of work unless that’s the job. I can be the evil Emperor. I can be that 2:00 a.m. friend who needs that shoulder to cry on. I can be whatever I want, but that’s what I love. I don’t have to be something I’m not, unless I want.
Anne: “I can be the evil Emperor.”
Gabby: Right? How great is that?
Anne: I love that.
Gabby: Big, big shoutout and a what-what to a fellow Long Islander right there.
Anne: [laughs] He makes a great point. And I love the fact that I can be myself and get paid for that. [laughs] I love that. And I, and he’s got such a great point saying that, yeah, if only if he chooses to be someone else, he gets to do whatever he wants to do. That’s awesome.
Gabby: For most of my adult life, I have had multiple conversations with friends that obviously in other professions who will say to me, you know, “I wish I could wear that to work. Or I wish I could – oh I really want to dye my hair that color because you know, I can’t because my boss won’t let me.” Or you know, “I would totally get a tattoo but mmm I got to be careful because I really, they don’t, they don’t like that where I work.” And I’m like, “God, I’ve never had that problem, ever. I can be me.”
Anne: So true. And it’s encouraged, Gabby, that’s the cool thing, right? People want to connect with not the pretty voice, right?
Gabby: Right?
Anne: We’re always talking about connecting with, with you, bring yourself to the party, because that’s who people want to connect with. And what is so cool about that is that while striving to do that, right, while striving to bring myself forward and being able to connect with my intended audience, that allows me to discover more about myself, to be braver about, you know, bringing myself to the party. And with that comes all sorts of life lesson. So yeah, I love that being able to be yourself also kind of pushes you towards a journey to discovering yourself and discovering more and more about yourself and pushing yourself, and then it’s celebrated when you are yourself. And that really allows you to connect with other people. And even though you may think you’re in a booth by yourself, and I think that’s just a really cool challenge, I think, that is not just, you know, boring work related, but it is. It is work for us.
Gabby: Yeah, no, it totally is. There’s this weird Catch-22, right, where we have clients who are like, “oh, be yourself and you know, just be you on mic and just be really casual and natural,” and you go, “yeah, OK.” Kinda. You know, no, no actor is ever truly really playing themselves, but at the same time, if we’re not in touch with us, and we don’t, you know, love ourselves, know ourselves, –
Anne: Right. That’s it.
Gabby: – respect ourselves, accept ourselves – yeah.
Anne: You’re not going to be able to be vulnerable like that.
Gabby: Bam.
Anne: Yeah, exactly. When we were talking, Gabby, before about a Valentine’s Day episode and love, and I said, we were talking about what should we talk about, I said, you know, there’s so many people I know that just don’t love their voice.
Gabby: Yeah.
Anne: And you know, it’s about being able to love yourself because you’re really bringing yourself to the party, to love your voice, to be able to offer that to people.
Gabby: Yeah, yeah, it’s true, and I think all voice actors go through this weird cycle. I’ve written about this in my book where I think it’s this really funny thing that goes, “I love my voice. Oh God, I hate my voice.”
Anne: I hate my voice.
Gabby: I love my voice!
Anne: So true, right.
Gabby: It’s this weird, yeah, there’s this weird roller coaster for our first couple of years where we go through that, and then it kind of levels off.
Anne: Yeah.
Gabby: You go, you know what, “it’s not my voice. I love me.”
Anne: And that becomes – yeah, and that becomes I think self acceptance, self-love, and really that allows you to love others. And see, it’s all about love, Gabby.
Gabby: It is. I know it is.
Anne: All about love.
Gabby: I love you, Ms. Ganguzza.
Anne: Awww! You know I love you, Gabby.
Gabby: Mmmmwuah.
Anne: What a great episode.
Gabby Yeah.
Anne: What a great episode.
Gabby: And we love you guys.
Anne: [laughs] We love you guys too for sure. Thank you so much for being supportive of us, listening to this show, and sending all of these wonderful submissions to us, and guys, keep it up. We love it.
Gabby: Yeah, we want to hear from you.
Anne: A lot of love. A lot of love going out to our sponsor ipDTL.
Gabby: Yay!
Anne: If you would like to connect and sound like a BOSS, find out more at ipdtl.com.
Gabby: And for more love from me and Anne, you can go to voboss.com, check out our previous episodes, get information about the different things that we’re offering to the voiceover community that we love so much, and of course there’s all the socials and every place that you can find podcasts, we are there.
Anne: Thanks, guys. Have an amazing rest of the week, and we’ll catch you next week.
Gabby: Bye!
Anne: Bye!
Announcer: Join us next week for another edition of VO BOSS with your hosts Anne Ganguzza and Gabby Nistico. All rights reserved, Anne Ganguzza Voice Talent in association with Three Moon Media. Redistribution with permission. Coast-to-coast connectivity via ipDTL.