The VO Meter, Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode nine of the VO Meter podcast.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress. We have a great episode coming back. We’re really excited to be back after a bit of a hiatus there.
And we are here with voice actor and coach, Julie Williams. So I’ve been following Julie online for several years now, and she has graciously agreed to be on the podcast and share her wisdom. And I’m really looking forward to it.
So moving on to current events. What have you been up to, Paul? It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve been able to do this.
Yeah, a couple of things. I finished up my longest audiobook to date. I was pretty proud of that.
It’s a 9.2-hour book, and that was pretty exciting. And let’s see, I just recently, in fact, yesterday, was found for the first time via Google search, at least to the best of my knowledge. I had gotten into some Google AdWords, if anyone has ever looked into that, and put some advertising money behind my website.
And it looks like there were some immediate results. Within a couple of days, I had an email to info at paulstofano.com, which kind of shocked me, and I thought it was a phishing scam at first.
Oh, no.
But it was a legitimate job. The client needed a video resume done. I did a form, and as I was responding and talking about a quote, I said, out of curiosity, how did you find me?
He said, I did a Google search on voice actors. I think he said agency-free. I’m not sure why he was searching for that and why that popped my name up, but regardless, he found me via Google search, and that was pretty exciting.
Like I said, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time anyone has found me just by searching for voice acting or voice over keywords.
Oh, I remember when I got one of my first voice over clients. We had sent a few emails back and forth, and I was like, oh, wait, now that I think of it, how did you guys find me? Because it was still so new to me at the time.
And they had actually found me from my Bedalgo online casting site profile. And so the first of many. So I mean, I love Bedalgo.
Armin, if you’re listening, thank you very much. Because the Germans love my voice for some reason. It’s like David Hasselhoff.
Yeah, love me some Armin Hirschtetter. He’s a great dude.
Yes, way to say the name right. But anything else that you’re happy about?
Nothing else going on right now. I’m in a bit of a lull. That job yesterday was the first one, first quote unquote real job I’ve done in a couple of weeks.
I’m kind of in between audiobooks because I finished this long one and frankly I just needed a break emotionally. And I’m really busy personally doing a lot of youth sports coaching and some traveling. So I’m in a bit of a lull between books and I hope to pick up another one pretty soon.
How long does it take to make a nine hour book?
Well, the deal was signed in January, if that gives you any indication, and I just finished.
Wow.
That includes about a three week hiatus where I was really sick. I think we talked about that on the one episode we did, episode seven with the agency round table. I was really sick during that and then for like basically the next whole month.
So I couldn’t record anything long form.
Oh man.
So I guess it’s about a three month process.
Well, good to know, especially for anyone thinking that audio books is a good way to make a quick buck.
Yeah, cause you were saying you were just starting to delve into that for reels as the kids say, right?
Yeah, it’s hard. I mean, I’m used to doing long form. Like I’m used to regularly recording hour to three hour long narration projects.
But the amount of effort that goes into an audio book between the prep and the research and the communication with the author, it’s a lot of work.
Yeah, it is. So one other thing I wanted to mention is I picked back up coaching with Sean Pratt. That might have been news to the listening crowd since the last episode.
And I’d taken a brief hiatus just because of personal stuff and we’re back on the train moving forward. And one of the things that he has you do is try to work on branding. And I was hoping to solicit some help from the audience about how they might help me with that.
So the exercise without giving away too many trade secrets is to find a couple of descriptive words that describe your voice or your character. And you ask your friends and your family and people you know, workmates. So I thought maybe I’ll ask the audience.
If you have a comment, something you could use to describe my voice or personality, whether you’ve seen me on video or just on the podcast, I’d love to hear it. Give me a shout out in the comments either on the Facebook page or on the VO Meter page itself. And I would really appreciate the help.
Very cool. What a great idea. And not to thread, Jack, but if you wouldn’t mind saying a word or two about me, that’d be great too.
Right, because you’ll be doing the same exercise soon.
Yeah, probably. And I’ve heard it used by a couple of different coaches. I think it’s a great exercise because you want to know how…
I mean, we’re so subjective on our own voices. You want to know how you’re perceived by the outside world and what in different social circles, whether you’re friends or close friends or what have you. So I think it’s a great exercise and way to drop it on our audience, Paul.
There we go. Hopefully, hopefully we’ll get some feedback. So what’s going on in your world?
Well, I’m a little sad because I just got back from Hawaii a week or two ago and just kind of getting over the hump of like going, returning back to normalcy, you know. I was actually visiting my girlfriend in Oahu. She’s a theater teacher over there for the Honolulu Theater for Youth.
And so she was working a lot, but we still managed to go to the beach and go hiking and had some wonderful adventures together. And then, so after all that was said and done, it’s back to the grindstone and I don’t know, just makes me more determined to work hard until I can see her again, you know.
Yeah, I know how you feel. I’ve been to Hawaii once. It was my honeymoon, which was coming up on 13 years ago.
And I still wish I could go back every single day. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.
It is gorgeous. And you wonder how people get used to it over there, you know? This is just the place that they live.
I’m sure it happens. I’m sure it happens like everywhere else.
Oh yeah, you’d be amazed. Same thing with Nagasaki. It’s absolutely beautiful place.
And then, but you get used to it. So it’s nice having a visiting boyfriend come over and be like, hey, you live in an amazing island paradise. Let’s go hang out.
Yeah, we often get the same comments here in Baltimore. People consider, people call it a paradise.
Oh really?
Ba-dum-bum, psh, no, of course. No, it’s a joke.
Well, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, man.
Waiting for the punchline. Their slogan for the state, actually, is the land of pleasant living. I don’t know if that’s a joke or not.
That’s what they call it, the old national beer company. That was their slogan for the national Bohemian beer. From the land of pleasant living, Baltimore, Maryland.
Maybe they’re just being polite. They’re like, um, it’s pleasant.
Right. Is there anything else going on in your world?
Well, yeah, I actually got offered representation by a local agent. They’re Colleen Bell Agency over in Bellevue, Washington. They represent voice actors, as well as on camera and modeling talent.
It’s funny, even though I’m interested in doing voice work for them, they insist that I get headshots made. And I had some headshots made a while ago, but I wouldn’t call them competitive. It was more just to have a professional picture.
Right.
But yeah, and it’s crazy, because they want me to have all these different outfits, be like, all right, we want you to go for sort of a skater hoodie vibe, and then maybe a rock star leather jacket vibe. And then of course, the well-dressed corporate vibe, and then out on the town vibe. But it’s all, I don’t know, it’s just making me think more from a different industry’s point of view.
So it’s really interesting as well.
Well, that’s awesome. Congratulations.
Yeah, thank you very much.
Hope that works out for you.
I hope so too.
So we will be back in just a moment with our featured guest, Juilie Williams. But first, we have a VO Meter schtick from someone in your neck of the woods, Sean, Jeff Bugonian. Take it away, Jeff.
Hey, everybody, it’s time for the VO Meter shtick.
What did he say?
It’s time for the VO… Oh, never mind.
The VO Meter shtick?
Oh, got it.
Hi, Sean and Paul. Thanks a lot for letting me give my little VO shtick. And what I wanted to talk about is something that maybe a lot of us have to deal with, and that’s family.
And not in a way where they’re interrupting our recording, but in a way that we can involve them in what we do, especially our kids. Now, I have two kids that are eight and almost 10, and they just seem to be so intrigued with my booth, with my microphone, with my whole technical setup that I have. But of course, we know we can’t let our kids just go there and play with our knobs and jump up there and scream into our microphone.
But there are times when we can get them a little bit involved, get them in the booth, have a little bit of fun. And I do that with my kids sometimes, and it creates a lot of funny moments. Like this one.
Did you just fart in my booth? Oh man.
Oh, pew. Excuse me just a second. And in case you can’t tell, my son ripped one right in the booth.
Or, another thing I’ll do is sometimes let my kids get in the booth and just we’ll create a story. And sometimes I’ll go in there and pretend that they’re in a cave. And they’ll start telling a story.
And I’ll go in later and add some reverb, maybe some echo. And come up with something fun and enjoyable. Kind of like this.
I hope there were no monsters in here.
Or there are other times when they just get interested in what we’re doing. For example, I’ve got about 20 plus years of experience in the healthcare field, as a pharmacy technician and as an EMT. And so right now I’m kind of testing the waters into the world of medical narration, and I’ll be cutting a demo with that soon.
But as I practice for that and rehearse for that, they’ll pull out my EMT textbook or other medical textbooks, or we’ll talk about words, like transesophageal echocardiogram or coletocholithiasis, or medication terms like esomeprazole or phenopropanolamine. And that kind of gets the kids intrigued. They have fun with that.
And they surprised me one time. Last week I got this audio message from them on my phone.
Pneumo-ultra-microscopic-silovolcanoconiosis. Pneumo-ultra-microscopic-silocon-volcanoconiosis.
Hi, Dad, we love you. Hi, Dad, we love you.
The word they were saying was Pneumo-ultra-microscopic-silocon-volcanoconiosis, an inflammation of the lungs from breathing in volcanic silicate. Now, I have to tell you, that made my day, because what it showed is that they’re interested in what I’m doing. Perhaps even one day, they’ll be interested in trying their own hand at VO, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
So what is the end of my VO shtick? Get your kids involved. They will love what they’re doing.
They love to get in the booth. They love to record here on our microphone, because whereas you might spend a lot of time here, isolated in your booth, surrounded by padding, by all this foam on the wall, getting them in here with the booth with you or next to you will really draw you closer together. And that is one of the beautiful things about VoiceOver.
So thanks again. This is Jeff from Pacific VoiceOver, and I hope you all enjoyed my VO shtick.
Once again, that was Jeff Bugonian with our VO Meter shtick. Thank you very much for that story, Jeff. That was pretty hilarious.
Yeah, I can relate to that completely, having three kids myself, and they’re always knocking on the door. In fact, just now, I turned around and thought I saw my daughter in the corner of the booth, but it was actually my own reflection. It freaked me out.
That’s some creepy Blair Witch stuff right there.
Exactly.
But it actually reminded me, having your family support is absolutely crucial for work like this. And something that was kind of cool that I’ve got to do recently is, I actually did a medical narration class with my dad. Oh, awesome.
Yeah, he’s actually a retired pediatrician, and he’s got public speaking experience as well. So I mean, he’s very articulate, and he actually doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. He’s a good cold reader as well.
And he’s got all this great knowledge of medical jargon that just rolls off his tongue. So I thought it’d be great if we could do something like that together. And he was totally interested in it.
I thought he did a great job.
So is he going to do more voice overs?
I hope so. I might have to keep encouraging him, but we’ll see. I think he’s fine for it.
I think he’s great for it.
If nothing else, you have a built-in partner for dual point of view narration.
Oh, yeah. I didn’t even think about that. That’s great.
It’s part of my secret hope to get all of my family involved with it, so I can kind of hire out a stable of family narrators.
Or not hire and just pay them in roast beef.
I always thought it was a source of cheap labor, like a family. All right. So, Julie will be coming on in a couple of minutes, but since we are on the topic of coaching, Paul and I just wanted to kind of lead you through our own coaching journeys and sort of help kind of narrow down your search for possible reputable coaches that you can work with.
So I’ll go ahead and start. And when I started my VO journey about four years ago, I researched everything I could voiceover related for about a year. And then one of the coaches that impressed me was a man named Terry Daniel.
He’s a coach out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. And he’s actually got a Facebook group called The VoiceOver Camp for beginning journeyman VO talent, much like our audience. And so I found him online.
I found his articles on VoiceOver Extra. He’s also got a great podcast called… He’s actually got two.
He’s got The VoiceOver Cafe, which he does with a number of other great voice actors. And then he’s also got his short VO sermons or VoiceOver sermons, where he talks about the importance of coaching and having a quality demo and not getting started before you’re ready. And so I found out about him.
I reached out to him. And then we agreed to work together. And he’s got an incredible…
He’s definitely one of the most affordable coaches that I’ve researched and worked with. He’s got a wonderful package. He includes demo production for a commercial and narration demo.
And once you’ve coached with him, he actually gives you access to all of these recorded webinars that he’s created on different aspects of VoiceOver. And you’re welcome to attend any of his weekend script reading classes. So he’ll switch back and forth between having a script reading class and some kind of educational webinar, whether it’s like how to make a fully produced spot in Adobe Audition, or he might have an agency guest and do a Q&A.
So if you’re listening, Terry, thanks a lot.
Terry’s great, and I’m sure he’ll really appreciate you saying he has a wonderful package.
You want to redo that one? All right, are you sure? You sure you want to leave that in?
If you know Terry at all, you know his sense of humor, so that’s why I went there. But in all seriousness, he’s a great guy and a great coach. I actually did some work with him as well.
Yeah, aside from a crass sense of humor, he’s very professional.
Yeah. So I did work with Terry for my second demo, going a little out of order. But Terry, in the production of the demo, also did some coaching, obviously.
It doesn’t just leave you out to dry and set you to record. So he coached me through the demo production, and that came out great as well. I’ve had great results from that.
But my very first coaching experience was a little different. I was looking for… Well, I was looking for any opinions out there on where would be the best place to start as a complete, quote, unquote, newbie.
And I had some training going back decades, but when I was actually venturing into VoiceOver to actually look for business, I wanted to get some VoiceOver-specific coaching. And I solicited some opinions from other voice talent, put out some feelers on the VO BB, and got a recommendation for Edge Studio. And the way they approach things is sort of like a classroom approach.
It can be in person in their studios in New York or Los Angeles. They have one here in the Baltimore, DC region. Or they have Skype sessions as well.
And they have a pre-set program where it’s set up sort of like a university where you have a curriculum of classes that you need to go through, or you can sign up for and be part of a package, or you can choose things a la carte. If you do that package, there’s a price break, and then it helps you to sort of figure out where you need to go with your training. And that was really beneficial for me.
That’s exactly what I wanted. I know there’s other companies out there that have a similar approach like the GVAA, which you can talk about in a second. But for me, that was a good approach because I really didn’t know what I needed.
And I was able to get that preset curriculum and included a demo production at the end of the program. So they will not let you do a demo unless they think you’re ready, which I think is great. It was another thing I was looking for.
I didn’t want someone who was going to push me out the door without the right experience. So I even was like champing at the bit with the coaches and saying, am I ready yet? Am I ready yet?
And they said, hold on, pump your brakes. We have a few more classes and then you can do the demo. So I really appreciated that.
And when it was all said and done, I had the demo, I was an edge approved talent, which is a little logo you can put on your website. Had my demo done and within weeks was signed with three agencies. So I really was happy with those results.
Excellent, well done. And that is a smart way to format it, is sort of like a curriculum because any good coach will give you a sense, like a sort of timeline, or I mean, nobody can guarantee your success, but they’ll give you an idea of what your progress is and goals to reach and give you a level of preparation for the various stages of your VO career.
Yeah, I really like that concept, like I said. I reached out to some individual coaches and it was sort of really nebulous as to when or where I’d be able to move on or get a demo produced and that structure, like I said, really helped me. So who was your second experience or what other experiences have you had other than with Terry?
Let’s see, the second coach that I worked with was a Canadian voice talent named Deb Monroe. And she actually came on the recommendation of another talent who I had worked, or who a friend of mine in Japan. And so I did a couple of sessions from her and got, it was really interesting, like it was mainly to get a different perspective and just to continue my training in some way.
And kudos to Deb, she has actually reached out, she has sent auditions my way. She has, she let me know about an international agency that was accepting submissions. And so got me my first Irish and international agent, so that was cool.
And so this is something that people, like another sort of unthought of benefit of working with a coach, is if they believe in your ability, they might recommend you for work. And so, and they can grant you access to some of your first clients. So just another benefit of working with a reputable coach who works in the areas that you wanna work in.
Yeah, that’s great. So as far as other coaches that I’ve worked with, I’ve done a bunch of free or one-time sessions because I’m still kind of looking for that next direction I wanna go. So I did a course with, or a session with Jason Linear-White, and that was a free session that I won at Mid-Atlantic VoiceOver, but nevertheless, it was a coaching session on character work, and that was fun.
And I’ve done one session so far with Val Kelly, who’s a voice actress near me in the DC area, and also is the organizer and founder of the Mid-Atlantic VoiceOver Conference. So I did her Character Development 1 class, which was a group class with some other talent. And then tonight actually is the next one, Advanced Character Development, where we’re going to work on some other ways to develop a character, and I’m really looking forward to that as well.
Yeah, that has to be a lot of fun, because I love Val, and character work is her element, so I’m sure she’s got a lot of great advice for it.
Yeah, and then I’ve also done a session with Everett Oliver, who has a business called myboothdirector.com, and what he does is allow you to work with him remotely, or I guess in person, if you’re in LA, and he will direct you through auditions that you have, either from your agent or pay-to-plays or anywhere you have an audition, he will direct you for a fee and help you work through the copy, and it’s fantastic. He obviously knows what he’s doing. He’s a veteran of the business and several big agencies, and he’s fantastic to work with.
Yeah, and I’ve worked with him. I love Everett. He’s seriously, he’s given me so much more confidence in my auditions, because I mean, until recently, a lot of the work that I do is corporate narration, internal stuff, which is a very different mindset.
And so I just didn’t, I felt like I was lacking the energy or like the connection, the same connection for the commercial stuff. And Everett really helped boost my confidence in that area. So now I’m just like, make all this work on something two or three times and then it’s gone.
Like I don’t doubt myself as much. So thank you very much, Everett.
Yeah, he’s amazing. I’ve heard him referred to as the VO Whisperer or the Voice Actor Whisperer. And it’s so dead on.
Within one session, he nailed me to the point where I told my mom about the session and what Everett had said and she said, oh yeah, he nailed you. That’s exactly you. So it was amazing.
It’s like the cheapest psych therapy you’ll ever get.
Yeah.
Just make sure that, cause he charges $20 per script, not per project. So keep that in mind. I once sent him, we worked together for about an hour on three scripts for one project.
And I misguidingly thought that it was going to be $20.
I think it’s actually 25, but yeah, I know what you mean.
Or 25, yeah, maybe he upped his rates. But that’s still, I mean, that’s nothing. Most coaches will charge about 150 an hour, which is a reasonable rate.
But I mean, if you just need some help with an audition or to impress a client, then definitely look up myboothdirector.com and check out Everett Services.
Cool. So the last coach and current coach I work with, and I think I mentioned it earlier in the episode, is Sean Allen Pratt or just Sean Pratt. He is a audiobook specialist or narration specialist with over 800 books to his name now as a narrator and a fantastic audiobook or narration coach.
He will take you from the very beginning, if that’s where you are, or he works with veterans as well. And he also has an established curriculum, like we talked about, where there’s point A, here’s the steps you’re going to take. He actually has a textbook that he sends you, and by the end, you should be much improved, and that’s what I’m hoping.
I’m about a quarter of the way through the program now, and I can already see results. He’s really helped me tremendously, so thank you, Sean.
And he really helped me find my narrator’s voice as well. Thank you very much, Sean. I think he’s great, and he’s very flexible to work with.
He’s got reasonable rates, and he’s just a great coach, and he’s a good cheerleader for your business.
And I would say, when you meet Sean in person, don’t be intimidated, because he is a large man. Just tall. He’s from Oklahoma, and he looks every bit like the red-blooded American country boy.
And I did not realize that when I was talking to him on Skype. He was sitting down, and I saw him at Mavo, and I was looking up, saying, wow, nice to see you all the way up there. And I’m not a small guy.
I’m six feet tall. He’s going now by the phrase or the moniker, Ginger Yoda, and it’s totally true.
Ginger Yoda? Oh, that’s… Coach you, I will.
Coach you, I must. But… But yeah, he’s great, and I enjoy working with him a lot.
These next two coaches that I’m about to talk to you about, I’m pretty excited, because these are some of my voice acting idols who actually got into coaching just because they… it’s something that they enjoy, and education is meaningful to them, and they’re excellent teachers. And the first one is actually Pat or Patrick Fraley.
And if you watch cartoons in the 80s, you would recognize Pat. He was the voice of Crang and Baxter Stockman in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Let’s see, he has been in numerous…
like, he’s been in dozens and dozens of shows, aside from that. Those are just two of his more famous roles. And he’s got all of these wonderful…
he’s got this really unique coaching package where you buy a course from him, and it could be, say, creating characters or audiobook basics, advanced audiobook narration, documentary style narration, things like that. And then you’ll get a pre-recorded lesson, and then there’ll be an assignment. You record the assignment, and then you send it to him, and then he’ll give you an email feedback, and then you can progress to the next assignment for however long the course is.
And some people might be turned off by the fact that it’s a little less individualized attention, but he’s a very busy man, both as a voice actor and a coach, so I really appreciate him trying to make time for more students with a package like that. And it certainly helped me with my audio book and my narration reads, namely to slow down. But he’s great, and he’s always quick to respond to his emails, and he’s a lot of fun to work with as a coach.
And then there was also anime voice actor Crispin Freeman. So here’s someone who got into voice acting through a much more traditional onstage theater mindset, and so he’s very well trained himself, and he takes the craft very seriously. He’s very professional, and he’s very…
Like, even with all that, he can be a little intimidating presence-wise. He’s still a very accessible coach, and he gives you very usable techniques to have much more powerful character performances for animation and video game stuff. So I loved working with both of them, and I’m sure I’m gonna get more work with them soon.
So thank you very much, Patrick and Crispin.
Awesome. So that wraps up the brief history of coaching for Sean and I. And now we’re gonna talk to our featured guest, the coach and voice actor, Juilie Williams.
Okay. So we have now transferred to our Zoom room for our very first celebrity interview. We’re really growing.
But I’m very excited about our first guest. This woman has over 40 years of experience in doing voiceover in numerous genres and many decades of coaching under her belt. So we have an award-winning audiobook narrator, the publisher of the free VoiceOver Insider online voiceover magazine, and host of the free VoiceOver Insider podcast, Juilie Williams.
Welcome, Juilie.
Thank you. I’m still trying to get over the fact that you called me a celebrity.
Well, like we’re all unsung celebrities in voiceover, and you’ve certainly been in the industry for a very long time. So I’m very excited to hear your insight today.
Yeah, 40 years is a very long time, but don’t tell my clients. We can tell, you know, voiceover talents, but don’t tell my clients, because as far as they’re concerned, I’m 25 to 50. You know what I mean?
Yeah, you sound like it. I can see.
Your secret is safe with us.
Well, that’s good. I really appreciate you guys having me on today.
Yeah, I’m very excited. I mean, I’ve benefited from your magazine and from your podcast, so I’m happy to return the favor and have you on.
Awesome.
So with that, I’d really like to know, how did you get started in voiceover?
Oh, you know, I started like a lot of people did in radio. But that said, most radio people will not succeed in voiceover because there’s something that we have to have in radio, which is called the radio ego. And that’s actually not necessarily a bad thing.
I mean, you get treated like crap so much in radio that you have to have the ego in order to survive. I’ve had people call me up and say, how did you get your job on your back? You know what I mean?
Oh, no.
And then there’s the person that didn’t get the job when you did, and they’re calling you up or saying things about you. So you have to, when you’re in the limelight like in radio, you have to have enough of an ego, which took me time to build because I was not confident at all. But you’ve got to have enough of an ego.
And then what happens with that radio ego is because you do free commercials at a radio station and maybe a $50 spot for an advertising agency because it’s going to go on another station, you think, well, I know all about VoiceOver. And people coming from radio don’t realize that VoiceOver is a different industry. It’s not that they’re bad.
It’s not that they can’t do it. It’s just that it is a different industry, and it has different skills, and a lot of the radio skills will help. But, you know, there’s a lot of other skills that they need to get, and they think they don’t need training.
And a lot of them, unfortunately, become coaches because, you know, the radio ego thing.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
So what made you switch to VO?
Oh, well, I actually didn’t leave radio until 2000, I don’t know, 12. And I started VoiceOver in, well, you guys probably weren’t born back then, but 1977.
Hey, I was three years old.
So, I mean, that was… I started when I was in high school, so… But over time, see, back then, when I started, the VoiceOver and the radio industries were much more in sync.
They were looking for the announcer types, the good voices and all that. But over time, that changed. And I think that’s sort of the generational thing.
I think that, you know, GenX came along, okay? Which is now the old people, but it used to be the younger hip people. Thank you very much.
Hey, I’m older than you. I mean, I barely do, but I fall into, what do they call the older ones, the baby boomers?
Right, I still think I’m cool. It’s just my kids that tell me I’m not.
What happened at one point, and probably like starting in the 80s, but really in the 90s, where it really came to be, was that the GenXers were the ones who were doing the casting, and they didn’t want someone to say buy now. They wanted somebody to give them the information and let them decide if they want to buy now, because they didn’t want to be told what to do. So the whole industry kind of changed and became a more conversational and more telling, less selling type of industry.
But what happened in the radio industry is that didn’t change. And so that’s why I don’t even remember how we got on the subject of radio, but that’s how I started. But I had to adapt with the industry.
I mean, I was behind at one point in the 90s, and I don’t know if you guys know Dick Orkin, the most amazing man in the world from the Dick Orkin Radio Ranch. It was under his tutelage that I really became… He’s a good friend of mine, and I became a communicator in the 90s as opposed to an announcer, thankfully in time, you know, for the…
You know, a little bit behind, like maybe a year or so behind the times, but people were still hiring that announcer sound back then, so I was still continually working, but, you know, became that communicator. So, you know, that’s… We were going to talk about coaches today, and one of the things I would say watch out for is the coaches who have really had more radio experience than VoiceOver.
But at the same time, I don’t know, do you guys know who Bo Weaver is?
Oh, yeah, definitely big promo talent.
Yeah, he came from radio as well. I mean, he and I worked together in 1982 or something like that, and he helped me to put together my first actual VoiceOver demo. I was working already, but I didn’t have a demo back then and helped me to get in with my very first agent in Houston, Texas, way back in the early 80s.
And he is one who has succeeded, as have I, in transitioning from radio to VoiceOver. But that comes from understanding that it is a different industry and you have to adapt to it. And a lot of coaches that we’re going to be talking about…
I’m not naming specific names, but a lot of coaches come from radio and think that they’re great VoiceOver people because they’ve done radio commercials. And that’s just something you have to watch out for because they’re really not going to teach you well.
Well, it’s like you’re saying, it’s a different skill set. And I’m actually going to change the order of my questions a little bit because you proved to be quite the excellent student. You’ve got a lot of mentors who are very integral to your success.
So with that in mind, what do you think makes a good student a VoiceOver? Someone who comes in with an open mind and really is just open to any feedback and just wants to improve and become competitive.
Well, you know, it is the open mindedness. And the other thing is that I worked in radio with Bo Weaver and he was incredible back then too. So I was in awe of him.
So that’s part of it. And I was in awe of Dick Orkin. So I took them seriously.
And the other thing that really helps, and now this helped back with Bo Weaver and when I was first getting started, is that I wasn’t overly confident. I was in radio, but I wasn’t overly confident in my VoiceOver skills. And so I was totally willing and open to listening to what this, you know, god of radio, what was it that he used to say on the radio?
Like Tide was America’s favorite laundry detergent, he used to say, America’s favorite DJ. You know, I mean, I was basically in awe of him. And so when they taught me what they taught me, I had an openness to it because I knew that they were successful, and I didn’t feel like I know it all.
And unfortunately, that radio ego that is absolutely necessary to survive can make some people think, well, I know it all already. In fact, somebody… This is so funny.
Somebody mentioned a narration class, and they’d been screwed over or something like that, and I went on and I said, I’m sorry you hear that or whatever. And this other guy comes in and says, a narration class? What does anyone need about a narration class?
You just open the mic and talk. Yeah. I know.
I’m thinking, okay, so you get a job once a year? Okay, that’s good. You’re not going to make a living at this.
You’ve got to have the skills in narration and other things. You don’t just… Your mother’s brother might hire you, but for the most part, you don’t just open the mic and talk.
It’s like we were talking about before. There’s this misconception. We have all of these…
We understand that certain people at the top of their game, whether they be actors or models or athletes, they all have coaches. They all practice and train, and nobody bats an eye at that. But for some reason, we think this is completely accessible.
Anyone can do it.
Right. Chris Carmichael coached Lance Armstrong. Do you think Chris could have beat him on a bike?
Not by the time he was coaching him, but he was an incredible coach for him. And Lance became an incredible cyclist under Chris Carmichael’s tutelage. You know, I mean, I still do coaching with people for two reasons.
Number one, how sad would it be if my entire knowledge base and all of my skills were based exclusively on my experience, even though it’s been 40 years? You know, if I couldn’t go to Pat Fraley, who also has 40 years experience, and learn something from his experience, or go to Lisa Biggs, who has… I don’t know, 10 or 20 years experience, and learn what she’s learned, because we’ve all had different experiences.
And how sad is it if I had to spend my entire life with only the benefit of my experience in this industry? That’s pretty sad. So that’s one reason I coach.
And the other reason is because when I find someone who I’m coaching, that they’re just not getting it. You know, we’re all different. I have…
Fortunately, I’m a gifted teacher, and I credit God for that, not me. But there are occasional students that just don’t… I just can’t get there.
And I don’t know if they can’t get there or if it’s me. So I want to know what the other coaches are doing, so I can… You know, I have in my contract, I don’t give refunds, but when I can’t help somebody, I typically offer them a refund and refer them to another coach.
Someone who I know isn’t going to take advantage of them as like a predator, but somebody who’s going to try to coach them, and if they can’t, they’ll refer them elsewhere, you know?
Wow, that is really… That’s a great policy to have.
That’s wonderful. Well, I was going to say, it’s like people might think that you’re competing because you’re technically in the same industry of coaching, but it’s such a relative… It’s such a subjective thing, and you can’t expect every student to jail with every coach.
So we highly encourage people, if you can, to try a variety of coaches, like maybe just one or two sessions, and figure out if that’s a good fit for you first.
And there’s… You’ve also got to consider motivations. I mean, we’re all voice over talent or voice over coaches, but we also have life motivations, and I’m a very religious person.
And so my mission statement, which I’ve only seen one other voice over talent with a mission statement… They should read Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Anyway, my mission statement is to honor God by ensuring that all of my clients and students get more out of our relationship than I do.
And that’s not about business. That’s about my religious values, right? And so if that’s undergirding, if that would be the right word, my coaching, I have more than just my business to think about if I say, wait, this person isn’t getting better.
I’m not helping this person. I need to find somebody who can, and then I need to just walk away from it. I mean, then it’s out of my hands, but I need to try to find the best coach I can for them so that they can thrive.
And I’ve found that using that mission statement, it’s been about two people in ten years that I’ve had to do that to. Most of the others, you know, they’re working. And they are thriving because something happens, and I’ll…
well, I shouldn’t probably say this out loud because everyone might want one, but I’ll throw in an extra session, or for a certain person, I’ll help them get in with an agent, or for a certain person, I send them to a client. You know, it just depends on whatever their particular strengths and needs are, you know. But a lot of coaches aren’t willing to do stuff like that.
Well, you talk about what sets you apart as a coach. What do you think in general makes a good coach, or what should people look for when they’re seeking out coaching for the first time, or maybe even an advanced coaching session? What should people look for in a good coach?
Okay, in a good coach, what you want to find is a couple things. First of all, get lots of reference. Ask them for like 10 different references.
And check them out and go to those references, like their web pages. So you know it’s not somebody’s brother-in-law who’s going to be hired to say that. You know what I mean?
Go to the talent’s website. Listen to their demos. Because most coaches, like I, produce demos.
And listen to the demo and hear if it’s any good. You know, is the talent any good? Because you know what?
If the talent’s not any good and they’ve got a demo, that tells you something about the coach. Because if they’re willing to produce, for the money, a demo for a talent who is not ready to be competitive within the industry, I’m sorry, that’s not a good thing. And that’s one of the issues I have with certain people who are not coaches but just demo producers, is, you know, they’ll, a lot of times they don’t, they don’t coach the talent through the demo session and that’s actually very important as well.
So you go there and then you contact that talent and you ask them and get, again, at least 10 references. Or more. If someone’s a good coach, they’ve, I mean, I can’t even tell you how many people I’ve coached.
Off the top of my head, I probably send somebody if they’re asking six or seven or eight references, but I could go into my files and find another 20 references. And then they can make that decision. You know, another thing about a good coach is that they don’t just coach newbies, but they coach people who have been in the industry for a while.
And they coach them great. I mean, there’s a lady that I coach who did some national stuff, like a national, what was it, Sunsweet Prune Juice spot. And I know that because I did her demo and I put that spot on the demo.
Normally a demo is what you can do, not what you have done, but it was incredible, so I put it on there. And she is someone who is a direct competitor to me as far as, as much as anybody can be, as far as, you know, our sound, our age range and all that. When it comes down to it, there’s no one who’s a direct competitor, you, because there’s only one Paul and there’s only one Sean.
If they want a great guy, okay, fine. You guys could compete against each other, right? But if they want a specific sound, if they want Paul, Sean doesn’t qualify.
If they want Sean, Paul, you’re not going to measure up. You know what I mean?
We were just talking about that, actually, offline. We share an agent, we share an agent, and we both have the same audition sitting in our inbox. And I was trying to dissuade Sean from doing it.
They’ll know if they want my sound versus yours. They’re quite distinct.
Yeah, and see, that’s just it. Distinct, that’s what’s important. And a good coach will also find what distinguishes you.
So here’s what I do. First of all, I start with one curriculum in that for the first session or two, everybody is reading the same, what I call assessment scripts. Okay, and I am assessing them.
It’s not a test, everybody has strengths, everybody has weaknesses, I will find both. There is nobody that’s gonna come to me that doesn’t have any weaknesses. And there’s nobody that doesn’t have any strengths.
So I will find both. And then within a couple of weeks, then I start sending them individualized scripts based on what are their goals, and what are the strengths and weaknesses that I’ve seen so far, so we can work on that. And then after a while, I get into what I call golden tools.
And those are several, I start introducing several unique techniques to see how they do at those, to separate them from everybody else. And also what ends up happening, which is wonderful, I love being a part of this, is different techniques that I don’t even think about emerge from them. And those become the golden tools of that talent.
And that’s when it’s time to do a demo, when they’re doing great, because you need to, okay, Liberace was such a talent, but he had to have lessons too. And so you gotta think about stuff like that. He had to have some coaching, but then he became incredible.
But it isn’t just talent, it’s also skill that he developed with hard work and training, right? And so that’s incredibly important. But once somebody differentiates themself, and they’re not just any old voice, then they’re ready for a demo.
And you’ve got to, the coach has to know them well enough to keep in mind this person has this strength and they speak a little bit of Hindu or whatever. Is that the language or is it Hindi? I don’t know.
Hindi, okay, so they speak Hindi. No, they speak a little Hindi or whatever it is that you wouldn’t have even known, but you get to know the person. And you know what I’ll do with something like speak a little Hindi is I’ll throw one line in there for something and then if they need to do something in Hindi, obviously I’m not gonna be able to help them much in that arena, but at least that says one little line is in there or if they do a great imitation of somebody.
Okay, so I don’t do impersonation demos or animation or anything like that. I refer people out for that. But I might put just a little line in there to be as a bridge between their signature sound and their uniqueness, their golden tools, just as sort of a bridge so things don’t ever start to sound too much alike, too similar.
Wonderful, so that ties in with our next question. Because I mean, your first goal is to really get them to that competitive level and then kind of find that unique selling point that really distinguishes them from the crowd. What I’m curious about is you have so many different students coming to you with so many different goals and interests.
How do you help them sort of figure out what their niche is in the voiceover industry or their niches are? And do you ever find that a student might have a goal that you’re like, no, no, no, no, you’re not good for audio books. Now automotive demos or automotive spots, that’s your wheelhouse.
Well, you know, I usually don’t have trouble helping them with their desires. But a lot of times they’re like, well, I want to do this and I want to do animation, but I also want to learn e-learning. And I said, I can help you with the e-learning and then I will refer you to somebody else for this other thing.
And so that’s, I’m not going to tell somebody they can’t do it. I know the guy who told George Strait that he was going to never amount to anything. I know him personally and I’m never going to be that person.
Plus I’m never going to be a dream smasher. Just because they’re not doing well now, there was one guy that I told, I said, look, I know this is your dream, but I just want to tell you based on our sessions that it will take you a lot longer than most people and it is going to cost you a lot more than most people to become competitive within this industry. But I’m not going to say you can’t do it.
How do I know they can’t do it? And it’s not my place to say, give up on your dream, like a lot of people do. There are coaches out there who I’ve heard, and I’m not going to name them, but I’ve heard they basically, recently, I found out that one of my students had been told by a San Francisco coach, you just don’t have what it takes.
And then there are other coaches who treat the students like, how dare you come to me when you’re not good enough? And I’m thinking, yeah, duh, why do you think they came to you? You know, you had a reputation and they wanted to grow.
And if you can’t coach somebody who’s, quote, not good enough, what good are you as a coach? Because that’s what you’re there for.
That’s a great approach.
And I get everybody from busy working New York talent to the person who was told they had a good voice and thought it might be nice to do voiceover, or the person who is about to retire as a doctor and is looking for something to bring in money in retirement. You know what I mean? All sorts of people come.
But you’ve got to treat them with respect. You’ve got to look for their strengths and their weaknesses because once you get there, their weaknesses are not going to make them sore. Their strengths are where they can soar.
So you get their weaknesses and you bring them up to great. And then you take their strengths and you bring them up to, oh my God. And that’s when you’ve got a good talent.
Awesome. A lot of our talent…
One of my techniques is to… I do like an immersion technique, like I’m going to throw you into Mexico to learn Spanish. You know what I mean?
I’m going to throw you in the deep end, but I’m going to be there for you the whole time. And so I will throw eight or nine… I have about 40 techniques I teach.
And I will throw eight or nine techniques at a student in that very first session and the second and the third. But I’m going to be there with a lifeline the entire time and I make them record the sessions because you can’t get it all in one session. You have to…
Their homework every week is to listen back at least once, plus whatever else I individualize for them. And so I work with them with all of these things and eventually they become instinctive and then I build a little bit more as I go. You know, they learn these couple of techniques, but they’re still working on these other, but I’ll throw in another couple more.
And so they grow. One person said he learned more with me in one session than his other coach in 10. And I found that…
I was honored to find that out, but it’s the full immersion technique. It’s throwing them into the deep end. But of course, when you do that, you have to be there with a lifeline for them.
That’s great.
Yeah, that’s wonderful. And obviously, Juilie, you’re a coach who holds themself to a very high standard of integrity. I’m curious, and you’ve hinted at this before, what are some things that students should look to avoid or some red flags when they’re researching coaches?
We hear this term tossed around a bit. We call them predatory coaches, ones who actually prey on unsuspecting talent in their wallets. So can you…
I know this is a topic that you’re very passionate about. So can you talk a little bit about that?
Yeah, first of all, with coaches, I find four categories. There are predatory coaches, there are good coaches, there are incompetent coaches, and there are… What was the other one?
I can’t remember. But okay, it’ll come to me. So the incompetent coaches are people who mean well.
They just really aren’t qualified to be coaching, okay? And a lot of those are the ones I talked about earlier that came from, say, a radio background, which there’s nothing wrong with, but it’s a different industry, okay? So they shouldn’t be coaching in this industry till they’re working in this industry, right?
And then you’ve got the good coaches who are very reputable. And then you’ve got the predatory coaches who I can’t name or I’ll be in trouble, but it is such a shame that people like that are out there. And there’s one, for example, in San Marcos, California, there is a studio that I can’t name, but the man and woman who run it apparently did some voice overs in the 80s.
And they have an agent friend that comes in and fawns over everybody. And they have classes there. And when they do, here’s a couple of things.
They tell the people not to become friends with each other because your student is your competitor. That’s not our industry, I’m sorry. And my competitor friends, I have an infomercial client who said, you know, Juilie, I love you and I’ll always come to you first, but I’ve got this other infomercial that is a competing product from such and such.
And so I recommended another lady, VoiceOver Talent, who was a direct competitor to me, because that’s what they needed. You can be recommended for stuff. Plus, hey, man, this industry is way too hard not to support each other.
Absolutely. And as we’ve mentioned, I mean, the whole reason we started the podcast was to really pay forward that spirit of generosity that we see every day.
Exactly, exactly. And we get that online and we get that, you know, we don’t learn a whole lot when we go to places like VO Atlanta. And we don’t meet clients there, but we get the camaraderie, we learn some things and we get the camaraderie of other talents and we become known to other talents who could possibly hire us and have nothing else, you know, be a support system, answer the question, you know, do I use Source Connect or whatever?
You know what I mean?
I find that’s one of the hardest parts to get across to new talent is that the industry really is giving like that, especially if they’re in another entertainment industry like on-screen acting or radio. Because like you said, that competitive spirit has to be there in order to make it in those fields. When I tell people that VoiceOver is not like that, they sort of look at me with a stink eye and say, yeah, whatever, until they actually experience it.
And then it’s like a breath of fresh air.
Yeah, I’ve seen people… The first time I taught it at the Voice Conference in Los Angeles, I saw a lady who talked to me and said, she came alone and she was so afraid to come because she thought that everybody sitting around her was going to hate her because they were all competitors. And then she found out that she was received with love by everybody.
And everybody was willing to help each other. And that’s awesome within this industry. But when you’re looking at predatory coaches, here’s one of the things to look for.
Ask about their curriculum. If they have the same curriculum for everybody, for example, one company that I cannot name has such a bad model, if you would ask me. They have the same curriculum for everybody.
You pay $4,500, okay? You’ll get 10 lessons. Then you’ll get, I don’t know, one or two demos, okay?
And of course you pay in advance for them all. Well, I have had students that were even newbies that were ready for demos after four sessions. It’s not common, but it has happened.
And I’ve had other students that have been successful, but it took 15 sessions to get them there. And everybody is different, even when they’re new or whether they’ve been around a while, everybody’s different. So for 10 sessions and two demos, I would be like under $3,000, you know?
And so they’re charging a whole lot. Why I keep my demo prices low anyway, because people who need demos, they don’t have $4,500 to pay per demo, so $1,800 for one demo, as opposed to I do $1,700 for two. They just don’t have the money.
And they’re like mortgaging the house to get this.
Yeah, that’s a huge overinflation for that price. Like $1,700 is pretty standard, but $45,000, that is ridiculous.
Exactly, and that includes 10 sessions, but what if they only need three? What if they only need five? Okay, the other thing is they pay coaches a very low rate.
Like one that is such a scam pays coaches about $25 an hour. And I found through students that have come to me that are literally in tears, and I’m talking a whole lot more than one, because they went with this company. And I found with one that his coach was a woman who had been in voice overs for about two years.
I have no idea if she was working. And she made $25 an hour and coached 30 hours a week. So with her-
Where’s the bulk of her income coming from?
And yeah, and with this massive two years of experience, what does she have to offer? Well, I can tell you, not a whole lot. And then with this company, they send their students in for the demo, and the coach does not coach them, the engineer does.
Okay, well, an engineer, I’m sorry, very few engineers are qualified to coach. I’m not gonna say none are, but engineers can give you a beautiful, wonderful, high quality recording of crap that the only one who’s gonna love is your mother. And so if the engineer is coaching you, yeah, I would run away from that for sure.
And then coaches that have very little experience, again, like this one lady, you know? And I’m gonna tell you, if a coach is working for 25 bucks an hour, they’re not a good coach. Gotta tell you that because they can’t afford to.
You know, I could never afford to work for that. Coaching itself, I charge between 100 and 150 an hour, depending on what packages they buy, like five sessions, one session, five sessions or 10 sessions. And if they buy 10 and they’re ready after five, then we go and we do the demo.
And after the fact, we start working on what do I do now? And how do I get that agent and all that other stuff? There’s a lot more.
I consider myself a voiceover life coach because I’m not just there when they’re in a session with me. I’m there to help them with whatever they need, whether it be… I’m not on somebody’s payroll to recommend for branding or to recommend for websites or whatever, but you’ve got to guide people along because if they start stepping out on their own, they make a lot of mistakes that they didn’t need to make.
So, coaches with little experience don’t have that. But I got to say, even at $100 to $150 an hour, I mean, seriously, if that were a voice over that took you 15 minutes, that $150 is a bottom feeder job, and I leave it for my students. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
So, VoiceOver pays, by the hour, a whole lot more than coaching does. And so, when you’ve got somebody who’s $25 an hour, coaching, how in the world are they making a living? Well, it’s really easy.
They’re only making a living coaching as opposed to VoiceOver because, you know, that’s good money to them because it’s much more than flipping burgers.
That’s a great frame of reference.
Yeah. But if they were actually able to get money in VoiceOver, they wouldn’t be doing it for that price.
So, Juilie, going back to the types of coaching you do, one thing we want to ask, because a lot of our audience is newcomers, how does… When someone’s looking for a coach, what’s the first genre, if there is one, that they should approach? Or do you think that there should be more of a holistic approach?
Well, no, not a holistic approach. Not anymore. It used to be a holistic approach, but really not anymore.
But you know, that really depends on them. I mean, if somebody… Okay, take Bob Bergen.
He always wanted to be Porky Pig. So if he were to… And he is.
But if he were to go into LA and say, well, they said I should start with audiobooks, you know? That wouldn’t help them towards becoming Porky Pig. So you know, it’s basically…
And one of the things I do in my very first session, is I spend about 20 to 30 minutes, almost half the session, getting to know them and what are their desires. And then how can I help them with that? I usually do encourage a commercial and narration slash e-learning demo.
And here’s why. For some reason, even if you don’t want to do commercials, it’s still pretty standard that if you want to get an agent, you have to have a commercial demo. That’s what they ask for.
And so that’s kind of like, you need it. And then e-learning is so… It’s growing so fast.
I just posted an article on the e-learning narrator’s Facebook page that Jack DeGoglia put together. I think it’s going to be like… What did it say?
A $25 billion industry by 2025? It is growing so much. And so for people who are interested, it’ll take them a lot less time to be able to get money in narration and e-learning than it will take them to become Mickey Mouse.
Because you’re right. A lot of people aspire to be in animation. Some don’t, but some want to be the voice of this product or that product.
And I got this advice too when I started about four or five years ago. Commercial and narration is where a lot of the work is. Right.
I agree completely. That is where you start. And I was going to say, especially from a non-union standpoint, e-learning and corporate narration is a global industry.
So you don’t need to be a union affiliated to pursue it.
Oh, absolutely. In fact, I make more… It’s so funny.
I make more in e-learning than a lot of union people. I had a friend of a friend in the union that I was talking to, and we talked for a while, and he was saying… And this is a guy who had done a lot of very respectable work.
You know, things go up and down. This is a great guy. And he is like, I can’t get arrested in this town.
And then 15 minutes later, he’s saying, Juilie, you need to join the union. And I am not against the union at all. Don’t get me wrong.
But I’m like, okay, but my union friends aren’t working, and I am. So why would I pay, what, $3,000 or whatever when I’m getting work and I’m working for union type wages? I’m not doing the $150 bottom feeder jobs.
The only thing I’ll do for $150 is coach because I want to help people and because I really enjoy teaching and enjoy the, oh my gosh, the gratification you get when all of a sudden somebody gets it. I get so proud. I know that sounds stupid.
That actually comes into really well with our last question. And I just want you to kind of talk about some of the, like you’ve had a very rich and varied career in VoiceOver. What were some of the highlights for you?
Because I mean, I know in your coaching materials and on the VoiceOver Insider podcast, you’ve had some amazing celebrity guests and coaches that you’ve worked with to provide materials to your audience. So you’re welcome to just talk about some happy memories with a student or working with one of your mentors. Just some highlights for you.
Well, you know what? It is great meeting all these people and teaching at the conferences and stuff like that. But probably, I would say definitely hands down, the biggest experience for me in VoiceOver that is the most treasured moment came in 1996.
And that was when I was cast in a Pampers commercial with my son, who was six at the time.
Wow.
And we sat in, and it’s so funny, because that’s the first spot on my demo. And it’s a great spot, and also I love it.
And he’s got a brilliant mind, so he just memorized everything so quickly. But he was sitting on my lap, and we were sitting in the agent’s office. That was back when you went in for auditions.
And we were talking to the microphone, and we went through the whole thing, and there was such a connection, a mother-son connection there, because we were mother and son. And we both got cast in it. It was like magic.
And for me, he does not sound like that. He doesn’t sound like that anymore, since he’s 27 almost. But that was the highlight of my career.
And you got a little audio time capsule right on your demo. That’s beautiful.
Yes, exactly. And some people had told me to take it off, but you know what? When I had…
You have to have other people listen to your demo too, no matter how long you’ve been doing it, because you have to separate yourself from it. And Pat Fradley listened to it, and he was like, that’s the best spot on there. And he didn’t know at the time that it was my son, and we’d been cast together.
And most of the stuff on my demo are not jobs I’ve done, or at least I re-voiced them, you know, for the actual demo. But that one spot is one that I did, and I treasure it, and no matter what anybody says, I’m never going to take it off.
Your cold dead body, right?
So that was my most wonderful experience.
Does your son still do voiceover?
No, he doesn’t. He’s an IT guy. He did some voiceover and on camera for a long time, but it just wasn’t him, you know?
And I kind of, I don’t want to say pushed him into it, but I encouraged him into it.
Yeah, I think we all do that if the opportunity is there.
But it just turned out that that might have been one of the last things he did. I really don’t remember, but it just wasn’t him. He wasn’t excited about it.
I mean, he liked it when he made, you know, 100 bucks, 200 bucks here and there. He was an extra in a Maxwell House commercial. And, you know, they paid him in cash.
And we went out and bought a little tablet thingy as far as tablets were in those days. You know, I mean, he liked things like that. You know, that the money came in and he could go buy a toy.
But, you know, as far as doing the actual work, it wasn’t… he didn’t really care one way or the other. So I wasn’t going to continue investing financially and the time it took.
Because back then, we were going from San Antonio to Dallas because he had an audition. So we’re driving up there, seven hours, drive up there, stay at a hotel, come back. So it was a certain amount of expense and a certain amount of time because he had this audition for Walker Texas Ranger, you know.
Because he did on camera, too. Yes, love him. So, you know, it just…
he just ended up not really being the right person for that.
But that’s still so cool that you have that memory for him. And I love that the sense of ownership that you have with your demo. Because, I mean, you’re confident in it, and it’s uniquely you.
And, yeah, don’t change it.
Well, and that’s what I do with my students, is I make sure that their demos are uniquely them. And I’ll tell you when… you know, some people say, like, you’re like, well, when is it time to update your demo?
Someone will say, when you get the big job, or every two years, or whatever. I say it’s time to update your demo when I want to hand it to you and say, here’s my demo, but I’m really better than that. That’s when it’s time to update your demo to where you can be confident with it.
Even if the second demo isn’t really any, quote, better than the first one, you have to have the confidence. And plus, when you feel that way, it usually means that you have improved your skills to the point where you do need a new demo. Mm-hmm.
I know I’m going to work on that this year. But frankly, I still get new clients with my current one, so it can’t be that bad.
Exactly. And that’s the way I feel with mine. I mean, I redid it a couple of years ago, and I worked with Deb Monroe on it.
We kind of traded out. She coached me through my commercial demo, and I coached her through her e-learning and narration demo, because we each had to update those specific ones. And so, you know, I know I coach people through commercial demos, but I’m not going to do my own, because I think that’s stupid.
And when people do their own, I’m sorry, but I think that’s stupid. And Deb felt the same way. And so when it came to doing her narration demo, she came to me, because I specialize in that, and we did kind of a trade, and it worked out great for both of us.
I mean, it was just the coaching thing. I took care of the post-production. She took care of her post-production.
But the coaching itself, we did a trade-out, and I think we each got the best in our particular genres, and the demos attest to that.
But that is too cool. And maybe it’s my theater background creeping in a little bit, but when you have that actor-director relationship, you really can make something so much better than either of you separately.
Exactly.
And it really speaks to your integrity. You were mentioning before you never really… Like, you don’t coach people outside of your areas of expertise, and you refer to them to others who do.
Oh, yeah, I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be right.
That’s wonderful. Well, anyways, Juilie, thank you so much. I mean, you’ve just been a font of information, and you’ve got some great stories.
How can people get a hold of you or find your VoiceOver Insider if they’re interested?
Okay, well, the VoiceOver Insider is voiceoverinsider.com. And you can sign up on the upper right-hand corner where it says, you know, sign up or subscribe or something like that. And listen to the podcasts.
Just click on podcasts, and you can see there are so many incredible podcasts on there. I learned so much from these podcasts, so I know that they’re helpful for others because I learn. I mean, the most recent one we did was on CRMs, and I’m about to do one on ISDN alternatives, as well as, like what we were talking about, programs that you can use to record both ends like we need for podcasts.
So patching in remote direction, things like that.
Right. And if you want to…
I’ve learned practically everything I know from podcasts and webcasts, including yours, Juilie.
Thank you. And then there is, if you want to know about my coaching, it’s juliewilliamscoaches.com. And if you want to email me, it’s julie at voiceovers.com.
Got in pretty early, but not early enough to get voice overs without the hyphen.
That’s not bad.
Yeah, talent Bill Murray in Atlanta area or something like that got that first.
Yeah, I think Dr. Kell owns the rest. Everything else voice over related.
Oh, and if you forget, just voiceovers.com.
Yes, Juilie at voiceovers.com.
Perfect. Thank you so much, Juilie. It’s been a real pleasure having you.
Oh, Sean and Paul, it’s an honor that I got to be on your great podcast.
Thank you so much. Well, I mean, you really set a high standard of the educational and informational content that you put out for free, and I really thank you so much for maintaining that level of integrity and quality. So thank you.
Oh, thank you. I want to add one more thing. I’ve got this entire packet.
It’s an online packet. And the VoiceOver Insider used to be like a 40-page literal magazine every month, but I couldn’t keep doing it that way, so it’s not anymore. But I’ve got a lot of archives and I’ve got a lot of articles I’ve written that are about how to differentiate yourself from other people and all that.
And I give that packet to people for free. I just, you know, you send me an email and I attach it and, you know, say, let me know if you have any questions. So if anybody, any of your listeners, if you guys would like to email me at julie at voiceover.com and ask for my resources, VoiceOver resource packet or something like that, I will attach that and you will have umpteen zillion articles from the VoiceOver Insider.
You’ll have a handful of articles I’ve written. There’s just lots of stuff in there.
That is too cool. Thank you.
We’re not united by our dozens of listeners. We will push the envelope and try and get you some…
Well, you will grow. Your dozens of listeners. My podcast now have over 40,000.
Your dozens of listeners will grow because you’re offering good content and that’s what it takes. You know, offering good content and then letting people know it’s there and then word of mouth spreads.
Awesome. Thank you very much. Like I said, rising tide raises all ships.
So once again, that was the wonderful Juilie Williams and we’re going to take it back to the podcast studio right after this.
So thank you once again to Juilie Williams. That was fantastic information and a lot of it. So I hope you guys were taking notes.
Yeah, that was it. Thank you so much, Juilie. You are a true fond of information and inspiration.
So thank you so much. And once again, you can find her at voiceovers.com or just look up Juilie Williams VoiceOver Coach or in a Google search, and then you can find her website that way. So that wraps up Episode 9 of The VO Meter.
Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
Thanks again for listening. We’ve got a lot of exciting episodes coming up. We’ve got the guys, Dan Letter and George Whitham, coming up in a future episode.
So we were featured on their show, VOBS, a few weeks ago. And now we’re returning the favor and bringing them here. We also have a VoiceOver blog writer, Paul Stracuerta, and as well as some local, or excuse me, not local, but In the Trenches voice actors, Stephen J.
Cohen and Jack DeGolia. So thank you all so much. If you’d like to contribute to the show, or if you have questions for Paul or myself, just check us out on vometer.com.
Thanks again for listening. Thanks for listening to The VO Meter. Measuring Your Voice Over Progress.
To follow along, please visit www.vometer.com.