We all know that Anne would marry the internet if she could. But have you met her voiceover crush? Tim Paige has been leaving Anne swooning and smitten for years. Hear all about this charmer and his podcasting origin, his rise to voiceover frame, and his incredible business brain. Tim gives us the inside scoop on how to carve your own voiceover niche and revenue stream. He’s super talented and totes adorbs!
Takeaways
Quick Concepts from Today’s Episode:
Tim has a background as a webinar host.
Tim left a job he hated (that was very lucrative) in order to pursue a passion for podcasts.
He started his own podcast, making an introduction that caught the attention of other podcasters.
He started charging to create Intros, Outros and rejoins for other podcasts.
To date he’s done over 1200 podcast Intros.
Tim was basically performing voiceovers before he really knew the ins and outs of the industry.
You don’t need to bring attention to a mistake on-mic by apologizing – just ‘pick-up’ the take.
Podcast voiceovers are so new, they aren’t well understood by agents, managers and even most voice actors.
Most of the jobs are a buy-out since many podcast are small and not generating money.
Podcast intros aren’t a radio read but are also not conversation. They fall somewhere in the middle.
Voicing for a popular podcast can lead to additional work.
Tim now runs a casting company for podcast intros and creates podcast intro demos for other actors.
Referenced in this Episode
Direct links to things we brought up ++
View Tim Paige’s Website
Recorded on ipDTL
Transcript
Announcer: Today’s voice over talent is more than just a pretty voice. Today’s voiceover talent has to be a BOSS, a VO BOSS. Set yourself up with business owner strategies and success with you host Anne Ganguzza along with some of the strongest voices in our industry. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS.
Anne: So Gabby, guess what?
Gabby: Mm-mm-mm?
Anne: [laughs] Guess what I’m wearing in the booth?
Gabby: Ho boy, this got me in trouble last time, so I, I don’t know. Tell us, Anne, what are you wearing?
Anne: Can you hear this? [inaudible rustling] [laughs]
Gabby: No, I hear nothing.
Anne: You know why, Gabby? Because I have —
Gabby: Why?
Anne: — a VO BOSS bracelet on.
Gabby: Ahhh. Very nice!
Anne: And it is a piece of awesome jewelry that does not make noise! I love it.
Gabby: No noise in the booth, that’s spectacular!
Anne: I love it, and every time I look at my wrist, it says “beauty, brains, BOSS.”
Gabby: People love those bracelets. People stop me, and they like grab a hold of me. People that aren’t even in voiceover, don’t even know what voiceover is. They’re like “oh my God, that’s so amazing,” and it really, it is. It’s such a powerful message we have on these.
Anne: You know what, I like to stack them, Gabby. We have them in soo many colors. I think I lost count of the colors.
Gabby: [laughs]
Anne: We have – they’re not just solid colors either. There’s solid colors, there’s half and half, and then there’s some that are kind of tie-dyed in there. Check out our BOSS bracelets on the VO BOSS website. Just go to voboss.com and click on the shop tab.
Gabby: They are super inexpensive, they make awesome gifts for your voice actor buddies.
Anne: And the holidays are coming up, Gabby, so —
Gabby: Yeah. That’s true.
Anne: They could make great gifts. So show your BOSSness, and also help support the podcast. Welcome, everybody to the VO BOSS podcast. I’m your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with my amazing, beautiful, VO BOSS bestie, Gabby Nistico. Hey, Gabby.
Gabby: Hey, hey!
Anne: [laughs] We have a guest that I’m so excited. A good friend of mine, someone that I met interestingly enough on a webinar a couple of — a few years ago, and I’ve been kind of tracking him ever since. He is an amazing voice talent, um entrepreneur, and just amazing, amazing guy that I think is going to have so much valuable stuff to share with our listeners today. I’m super excited to welcome Tim Paige to the podcast.
Tim: Hey, hey! Yeah, I hope I have something valuable to share. I mean —
Anne: Oh my goodness.
Tim: — I could like rob an antique store and bring something valuable.
Gabby: [laughs]
Tim: I don’t know.
Anne: You know, Tim, the weird place is that I met you in a webinar. And the funny thing is, is that it was a webinar not about voiceover. It was about Facebook advertising. You were hosting this webinar with Mari Smith, and I was just smitten with you from the get-go because I had never heard a better webinar host who is, I think — you sounded amazing. You were genuine, and you had, you just at the right time brought up these amazing sell points, and I thought, “wow, this guy is good.”
Tim: Thank you.
Anne: I followed you like from webinar to webinar. [laughs]
Tim: [laughs]
Anne: And then, and then I also found out that you did voiceover, and I watched your career catapult into the stratosphere. You also have done a considerable amount of work with podcasting.
Tim: Yeah, yeah. It’s been, it’s a weird kind of juxtaposition of worlds, you know, the whole combination of like marketing and voiceover, and you know all of these things, and podcasting, have all come together to create this weird career that I have now.
Anne: [laughs] It sounds a lot like mine, I think, and Gabby’s too, right, how we arrived at voiceover. Tell us a little bit about that journey.
Tim: Sure. Well so I was a professional touring musician for about seven years. Was in a pop punk band, you know we did Warped Tour. We were on TRL on MTV when that was still a thing. And had a lot of fun doing that. It kind of came to an end. I wanted to have a family. I was getting a little older, I was getting a lot more tired. [laughs] And kind of jumped from career path to career path, always having something to do with people, always in some way entertaining, but uh I came to this, I don’t know, this point in my life where I was working a job. I was making a ton of money. I hated everything about what I was doing. And I started listening to all of these podcasts, like back then it was “Smart Passive Income” with Pat Flynn, and “Entrepreneur on Fire,” and these really great entrepreneurial podcasts, learning about online marketing. And I was like, “oh, this is really fun. Ok, I’m going to learn everything I can about this.” And I dove in and I started my own podcast, which was so terrible that I have gone to great lengths to make sure you cannot find it anywhere. And the best part is it was called “The Awesome Podcast.”
[women laugh]
Tim: And so I had done that, and I was doing the show, and you know, we had like five listeners.
[women laugh]
Tim: No, there were some people listening. But one day I was like, “all right, I have this normal podcast intro” that everybody had at the time which was like big high-energy intro. I was like, “what if I made a trailer? I’m going to make a movie trailer intro.” [gets close to mic] and I got in like this, and I tried to do a movie trailer voice, which I don’t have a voice for these deep things, and I tried to do it. [normal voice] But weirdly enough, all these other podcasters started coming to me and going, “oh, will you do that for me?” And so I started just doing it for free, like doing all these intros for people. And then after a little while I was like, “mmm, there’s money here, so all right. It’s taking time. I’m gonna start charging for it.” And I started charging a little bit and a little bit more and a little bit more, and then John from “Entrepreneur on Fire” asked me to do his intro, which was a big thing for me. I told him my price, and greatest piece of advice ever, he was like, “OK, triple it, and that’s what I’m paying.”
Anne: Nice.
Tim: And I was like — yeah. I was like, “uhh, will anybody ever pay that?” He was like, “yup, here you go, here’s the money.” Did it, business exploded. Took off. I have now at this point done well over 1200 podcast intros.
Anne: Wow.
Gabby: Oh my gosh.
Tim: Yeah. So there’s, there’s a sub story here that I have to share, because I think this is so funny. I don’t know if it’s valuable, but it’s interesting. While I was doing this [laughs] while I was doing all of these intros, I would walk around the house, and we love “The Walking Dead.” We would watch it, and everybody knows that voice, Rick Wasserman, and he, you know, [impersonates] “AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’.” [normal] And I’d walk around the house doing that, and I would be like [impersonates] “I’m gonna make some dinner, ‘The Walking Dead.'”
Gabby: [laughs]
Tim: Um, and, and I was like, “you know what, this guy, whoever does that, that’s his job.
I wonder if he works there or something,” you know, not knowing anything. So I Googled, I found his name, I found his email, and I emailed him. I was like, “hi, Rick. I want to do what you do. I would love to be the voice of AMC. Can you tell me how to do that?”
Gabby: [laughs]
Anne: Wow.
Tim: So he emails me back. He coaches me. He’s great, he’s obviously like, “look, I’m booking my work, you book your work. And I’ll help you with that.” But that’s kind of what started it all. But you know, all these years later, I still laugh about that because now we, you know, run in a lot of the same circles, we know a lot of the same people, and — “Rick, I’m doing, I’m doing my work!” You know, it was a weird path.
Gabby: And you, you have since, you’ve done quite a few promos and you are with Atlas, which is a great promo agency. You’re SAG-AFTRA now. I mean, this is impressive for a guy who I think, if I am hearing this correctly, at one point you didn’t even really know that what you were doing was a voiceover.
Tim: Yeah, I mean I had heard that term, you know. I knew of all the lowball websites and all that kind of stuff, but I didn’t know, I didn’t know there was a difference between promo, and commercial, and explainer, and… I didn’t know any of that. I just — Rick actually helped me a lot with that. And yeah, now promo is, is my biggest area. Probably followed by podcast intros because it’s still a huge part of my business, but yeah, it’s been really cool and really weird from, I don’t know, that was like six years ago, five or six years ago I didn’t know anything about voiceover. And now I’m a full-time voice actor. So pretty fun.
Gabby: Yeah. Can I ask you with the podcast intros, because it is such a unique genre, how, how do those contractually work? Are they retainer? Is it in perpetuity? What does that look like?
Tim: Yeah, it’s a weird, it’s a weird world. And I think it’s one that luckily and unluckily is not that well understood by most of the industry including agents, managers, etc. because most of the podcasts, I mean, not — I probably could say 99.9% of podcasts are tiny, little podcasts with just a few listeners, with people that are self-funding it that will probably never make any money from it. And some of them are doing it for fun. Some are trying to grow their business but won’t actually make a dime from the podcast. So with that in mind, the podcast intro world, usually you are going to record something once, and that podcast is going to use it forever. And they’re going to put it at the beginning of every episode of their show, and it’s, the way that you have to kind of look at it is sort of, sort of like an explainer video kind of, where it’s going to be on the Internet, and yes, you can give terms, but you know, it’s tougher to do. So it is sort of an in perpetuity thing. But I will say most podcasts will at some point change the intro. They’ll usually come back to you to change it because they’ve changed the topic or they’ve added a cohost or whatever, and they will come back for more. They will want you to do their outro. They will want you to do, you know, something in the middle where they’re going to do an ad, and they don’t want to be the ones to, you know, to voice it. The money is not amazing, but again, it’s, it’s kind of — you know, here I am telling everybody about it, but it’s kind of a really great secret uhh niche. I mean, it’s just the work is out there, and, and it’s also kind of weird because most podcasters don’t want you to sound like a radio person, but they also don’t want you to be conversational.
Anne: Yeah, right?
[women laugh]
Tim: It’s a weird mix between the two. It’s more of like [in big voice] if you were gonna do a big radio read, [normal] this would be more like “this is the podcast where you’re going to have a lot of fun.” It’s like up and — for a lot of them. I’m really generalizing because there’s a lot of different genres of podcast, and yeah they’ll, for the most part, use it for ehh a year if their podcast makes it that long, but the sad reality is most of the podcasts you intro won’t be around all that long.
Anne: You know, it’s interesting that you say that, the statistics about podcasting, because I think everybody that starts a podcast wants it to be a million downloads and running on forever, but it’s a lot of work, and I don’t think people really understand the scope of work when they, when they start a podcast. But I can also imagine though, Tim, that if you are the voice of a, of a podcast that is very popular, that that would also boost your voiceover business, because I can only think people would be listening to that podcast and say, “oh, I love that voice at the beginning.” You know, “who is that?” Have you found it has gotten you work in voiceover as well?
Tim: Oh yeah, yeah. And I think, and there’s room for negotiation as well. You know, if you’re going to voice a major show, you know, the host is a celebrity, or it’s going to be on NPR, something like that, there’s absolutely room for negotiation. You can set terms, you can set usage, that kind of stuff. Um but uh, but yeah, yeah, I have found, look, the “Entrepreneur on Fire” thing exploded my intro business. And I have done other shows where that has led to – I mean, it led to my first audiobook which I won’t probably never do again.
Anne: [laughs]
Tim: It’s, it’s …
Anne: Oh, I’m right there with you.
Gabby: [laughs]
Anne: I think Gabby too.
Tim: [laughs] And it’s also, I have had people hire me for their commercials from — one particular podcast has led to a bunch of, of kind of regional commercial work for me. They just liked how I had kind of a delivery that had a little bit of swagger but was also like I’m a big nerd, so there’s — it’s a weird nerdy swagger. I don’t know, they just liked it.
Anne: A nerdy swagger, I like that. One of the things that I really love about your style, and just about everything you do, is you’re so, you’re just such a nice guy that really is very authentic. I think that that probably serves you very well. I feel you are not just doing voiceover, although that’s probably your full-time, full-time gig now, but you have all these kind of side, kind of side hustles that are going on, which are helping to bring you predictable income, which I think is probably something pretty important for any of us that do full-time voiceover, to, to be able to pay the bills at the end of the month.
Tim: Yeah, we are entrepreneurs, and so I think you have to be ready to seize an opportunity as it comes, if it’s something you feel you can pour yourself into. Now there’s a point where, you know, if you’re in certain genres of VO, and you’re pretty successful, there’s probably not a lot of time for that stuff. I’m not at that point in my voiceover career. I’m doing really well, but there’s time for other stuff as it comes up. And so one of the other things that I’ve found an area of need in is in podcasting, a lot of podcasters don’t know how to get their listeners to do stuff. They don’t know how to get them to go join their email list or whatever, right, whatever the thing is they want them to do. And so I created this little like 19-page thing where I worked together with one of my favorite copywriters, and we wrote a bunch of scripts that people could use to get their listeners to do stuff, and I sell it for $100. And everybody that’s ever bought it — not everybody, but a lot of people that buy it will write me back and say, “oh my gosh, people are actually subscribing.” I found that was an area I had a skill in it, and I said, “look, this doesn’t take a lot of time for me to do. I can set it up, and I can promote it.” You know, another thing, I have, I just recently, and you know this, I started creating some podcast intro demos for people that are on my roster for my business that makes the podcast intros. And as a result, a bunch of people came to me and said, “hey, will you do that for me?” Well, they’re not on my roster, and I’m not going to do that for free. So I started offering it. And it’s kind of been a thing now. So it’s really cool. Yeah.
Anne: That’s great. So yeah, you even have a roster of people for your podcast intros, which is great. So it went from just you to a roster. I just love how you have been able to just build and grow all of these businesses. I mean talk about a boss, entrepreneur boss.
Tim: It’s just seize the opportunities, you know? It’s so important, and I think — I can only speak to my own experience, I guess. But I think there’s this like ego thing for a lot of us when we start to just fall in love with VO. This happened to me. I fell so in love with VO that I was like “I just don’t want to do anything but VO for my work.” And so it’s like, I think a lot of the times if we have another job, or we have another business, or we do other stuff, we think, “well, I’m not a, I’m not a full-time VO person.” You know? Like we beat ourselves up over this weird thing that really doesn’t matter. Who cares if we do other stuff? You know, I supported myself for a long, long time while I was doing voiceover on the side, whatever. But I think it’s important to put that aside and just say, “you know what? If I’m doing other stuff, it’s just continuing to support it.” It’s just making it so that that next coaching lesson that I do, I can pay for, and maybe I don’t have to take it out of my VO money, or maybe I can take it out of my VO money, and that other stuff pays all the other bills. There are niches like that everywhere. You just have to look in weird places.
Gabby: But that’s it. It’s why I love this industry because the technology is always creating and propelling these new opportunities, and we just have to be aware. We have to be smart and see it. And man, it’s like every day there’s these new genres, new ways to make a name for yourself. I just love it. I’m — Kudos. My God, you’re, you’re, you’re doing it, dude.
Tim: Thank you.
Anne: I told you I was smitten for a reason.
[Tim and Anne laugh]
Gabby: I see this. I think, I think I’m right there with you now. Oh my goodness.
Anne: [laughs]
Tim: And you know, I think a part of it too for me, at least is that for a while I just wanted the prestige jobs. I want to the promo gigs that I could post, and my whole family go, “oh, look at you!” You know? You know, I wanted to post when I got Jimmy Kimmel, and like that’s, that’s the kind of – that’s all I want. You get real excited about that. But this again, it’s a business. And the prestige jobs are awesome, and you can do them, and you can audition for them, and if you have got a great agent, great, keep going, and, and do that. But also the rest of the days, then go do that other stuff. And I’m not going to turn down a webinar that pays $4000 for an hour of my time when — because I am like, “well, that’s not, my family’s not going to care about that.” Come on, we, we have a business. Let’s, let’s run this business and do this stuff. And sometimes it’s boring, yeah, sure. I mean, we’ve all done those medical narrations, and yet I weirdly enjoy doing them. I’m a freak.
Anne: I love it. I love medical narrations.
Tim: Weird. We’re so weird.
Anne: I know. We are.
Tim: [laughs] But, but then, but that’s the kind of stuff that, you can grow a big money business from. Like in my case I used to be like, “oh this would change everything. This would, this is a six-figure blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.” Well instead, I can be like, “while I am making six figures outside of promo, so now the promo, or the commercial, or the trailer, or the animation, or whatever it is that you are really, really excited about, then that can be something you can do with peace. And I bet you, you’ll do better when you’re making a bunch of money on other stuff, and that’s just the stuff you do just ‘cause you love it.
Gabby: You mentioned earlier about coaching. I would like your input. I’d like to know who some of your favorite coaches are in voiceover, who you have worked with.
Tim: I haven’t done the math in about a year and a half, but a year and a half ago, I had spent about $150,000 in coaching. Um.
Gabby: Wow.
Tim: [laughs] And, and worth every penny.
Anne: But it’s OK because he was making the six figures already, right? I mean, you can reinvest it in that coaching. [laughs]
Tim: Yes, and that was over the course of, of years. People, when people hear that, they’re like, “well, I can’t do that.” And I’m like, “you don’t have to do that.” I did that because I really wanted to do one particular genre, and I would do anything to do it, and that’s what I did. I reinvested every penny I made in voiceover for the first several years. Because I really, really, really wanted to do promo. And everybody told me I couldn’t. So I was like, “all right, gonna prove you wrong.” [laughs] So some of my favorite coaches, I have so many, and if I don’t name somebody, it’s not — and you hear this. It’s not because you are one of my favorite coaches. It’s just I’ve literally coached with a lot of people. So David Lyerly, who’s not coaching anymore, was instrumental in helping my career. He now does video games for Riot. He’s a videogame voiceover director. Harry Dunn for promo. He has been my longest running coach, I think three something years, helped me land my first promo gig, helped me get signed with Atlas. Mary Lynn Wissner for commercials, very, very helpful. Dave Walsh for promo and a bunch of just stuff. I’ve started working with Marice Tobias. I’ve worked with J. Michael Collins. Anne has helped me. It’s probably 20, 30 coaches.
Anne: Well, I think there’s something to be said for getting coaching from multiple coaches, and not putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. I think that you gain valuable insight from everyone.
Tim: Yeah, there’s no doubt about it. And not in a formal setting, but my fellow voice actors, you know, spending time with them, talking to them, and discussing the stuff that we’re trying, I’ve found I get a lot out of that as well. Now again, you got to be careful, and it’s got to be people that are booking the kind of work that you want to book. But coaches I think, for the most part, if you, if you do your research, and you ask some folks that are doing the kind of work you want to do, who have they coached with, and they tell you, chances are those coaches are pretty good.
Gabby: How can folks get in touch with you?
Tim: Sure. So my website is thevoiceoftimpaige.com. And it’s P-A-I-G-E. That is being redone right now for the first time, having somebody else do it.
Anne: [laughs]
Tim: So that’s coming, and then you can reach out to me. My email is tim@thevoiceoftimpaige.com.
Anne: Tim, it has been amazing to have you on the show. Thank you so much. I just want to go back and listen to it right now because everything you’ve said was just a wonderful nugget of wisdom there. Thank you.
Gabby: Yes, thank you for your nuggets. We appreciate that.
Tim: I’m always glad to give my nuggets.
[women laugh]
Anne: OK, guys. I’d like to give a big shout out to our sponsor, who would just love, ipDTL. Check out ipdtl.com.
Gabby: And for all things BOSS, of course please check out our website voboss.com. And you’ve also got all the socials, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already. There’s so many ways to get it. iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Alexa, you name it.
Anne: Have a great week, guys. See you next week.
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.