Kim Handysides-Award Winning Female Voice Over Artist-Logo

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Top 10 Voiceover Blogs to Follow – Marc Scott

blogs

Voiceover is an incredibly fun, but labor intensive profession. People who think it’s easy to “get in” and easy to build a business as a voice over artist are misinformed. But, learning from others who are doing well in the the voice arts is a great way to learn more and stay abreast of what works and what doesn’t. I regularly check out blogs of some of the cream of the crop in our industry. Now anyone can talk can blog, but not everyone creates insightful content worthy of my (or your) time. Earlier this year,  I began my Top Ten Voiceover Blogs to Follow list and released interviews with people on the list.

Released in alphabetical order, we’ve so far heard from J Michael Collins, Dave Courvoisier, Bill DeWees, Anne Ganguzza, Debbie Grattan, Paul Strikwerda and Laura Schreiber. Next on my list is Marc Scott. A terrific guy (he’s a volunteer firefighter, people – truly Marc is salt of the earth), an inveterate marketing man and a solid voiceover talent, Marc is a busy guy who blogs, vlogs and podcasts now too. Chock full of tips on how to handle the business end of your solopreneurship, Marc is also a coach and a source of inspiration for a good work-life balance.

 

Voice Over Artist Marc Scott

 

Voiceover Artist Marc Scott

Marc, why do you blog about voice over?

 

I started blogging simply to share the lessons I was learning as I was trying to figure out how to grow a sustainable, full-time business. I figured if I was already making all the mistakes and learning all the solutions, maybe the blog would help someone else do the same.

 

Do you have a theme to your blogs or do you wait for inspiration to strike?

In the beginning, it was all about lessons learned. Eventually the theme became business and marketing, and that’s where I’ve continued to focus my coaching.

 

What are your favorite kinds of blogs to write about?

It’s got to offer something practical. I want people to walkaway with someone tangible. An action they can take. Something that will produce results.

 

What kinds of blogs have you noticed get the most attention or feedback?

When I was giving advice that made a difference in a business practice, people always responded to those. People want information that they can use.

 

(Do you have anything (else) you’d like us to know about your blog in particular or your (philosophy and) approach to the industry?

As I’ve evolved and the world has evolved, I’ve actually moved away from traditional blogging and more into the podcast realm. I noticed a shift in my blog about a year ago. People were spending a lot less time reading my blogs and a lot more time watching the video content I shared. It was easier. That turned into a decision to focus efforts towards a podcast which is content that can be consumed nearly anywhere… from the office to the gym to the commute home from work. The numbers on my podcast far outweigh the numbers I was seeing on my blog last year.

 

Spotlight on the Surge of Podcasting and Voiceover Opportunities

My Voiceovers, Voiceover Business

Spotlight on the Surge of Podcasting and Voiceover OpportunitiesPodcasts are gaining in popularity, big time. The soniverse (yes, I just made this word up) is exploding with podcasts in multi forms. So, let’s focus the spotlight on their burgeoning heyday and sort out how podcasting hasn’t killed the radio star, but reconstituted him/her onto another platform.

As a voiceover talent, podcasts bring many opportunities for my work. I have been hired to provide intros and outros for financial podcasts, special guest intros for news and entertainment podcasts, story lead-ins for relationship podcasts and narrating whole podcasts for the pharmaceutical and health industry.

 

Stats and Dat(e)s

 

Spotlight on the Surge of Podcasting and Voiceover Opportunities-A young medium, the first podcast, “Radio Open Source,” then called an “audioblog” by its initiator journalist, Christopher Lydon happened only 15 years ago in 2003. The name came from iPods.

-In 2015 Apple’s IOS 9 made streaming ubiquitous. That plus smart phones being the mobile device of choice, helped burst the podcasting scene wide open.

-Edison Research published a listener growth from 39 million Americans in 2015 to 54 million podcasts listeners in 2016.

-Advertisers have noticed. In 2016, they spent around $35 million sponsoring and advertising on the medium.

-In fact, podcasting’s distinction is that it is a mobile first platform. 71% of users listen to podcasts on their mobile devices, as opposed to 29% who listen on computers.

 

An Aural Fixation

 

Spotlight on the Surge of Podcasting and Voiceover OpportunitiesPodcasts are curated content you can plug in while still being active. Instead of guilty sifting & surfing & straining your eyes, the podcaster has done that for you. You can simply be enlightened in an entertaining way.

They’re bingable – With the emergence of streaming and Netflix and other content providers releasing whole seasons of shows at a time, we’ve discovered we like our media in large quantities. In fact, according to a 2014 Netflix survey, 73% of us define binge-watching as viewing 4 or more episodes at a time and 61% of us do that. But binge-watching comes with guilt. (Inner monologue be like: “I should have cut the grass, I need groceries, how many calories would I have burned if I’d walked the last 2 hours instead of caught up on Kimmy Schmidt?”) With podcast binging you can still be active. You travel, walk, exercise, feed the dog, etc. while learning being entertained, feeling productive, not wasting time.

Of podcast consumers, 69% listen to 5 shows a week. Think of it as 5 weekly commutes or 5 times a week in the gym.

 

Why do we love them so much?

 

Spotlight on the Surge of Podcasting and Voiceover OpportunitiesImproved technology and bigger budgets has led to better quality and content. Originally the domain of independent journalists and radio announcers, they’ve splintered into manifold topics, each accruing a more refined audience at every level. They’re trendy. They’re smart candy. Instead of some of the low-level content that populates the higher rankings of the most popular YouTube channels. They’re made for mobile consumption, and support multi-tasking, reaching audiences when/where others can’t. They encourage and cultivate relationships between journalists/podcasters with listeners because they use my favorite instrument of creativity, the human voice. Steeped in personality and brimming with engaging content, podcasts are next-level tools of intrigue.

 

I’m a voiceover artist, often called upon to intro/extro, or read narration for podcasts and have an affordable team in place for editing them as well. These mobile shows are audio jewels. Please contact me if you need voice or podcasting editing services.

 

 

10 Easy Hacks to Make the Most of Your Professional Community

Voiceover Business

Your peeps. Your gang.  The guys and gals in your field who support you, maybe sometimes compete with you, but also cheer you on when you succeed. Listen to you, or take you out for drinks when you need to complain. This is your professional community. One of your greatest business resources.

Make the Most of Your Professional Community
Make the Most of Your Professional Community

But are you using this resource to the fullest? Your relationships with the people in your industry can help you in more ways than just being sympathetic to your problems or sorting out a project together. Here are ten easy hacks to form stronger alliances, become more efficient, help each other stay on track and even help each other get more business.

1. Mentoring Group

Create a group of people who you can learn from and can learn from you. Maybe of you is more skilled at marketing, another at IT, another at whatever service you’re selling. Help each other, formalize it. do

2. Accountability Group

Again, a small group (more than 3 and less than 8) that meets once a week, reveal goals and hold each other accountable for meeting them. The practice of having to report in, helps push each other, gives each other a lift and helps you become aware of what areas you may need to put more energy into.

Make the Most of Podcasts for your Business
Make the Most of Podcasts for your Business

3. Podcasts

These little audio gems are popping up like Orville’s in the microwave. There’s most likely at least one in your industry and lots on all the various aspects of business. (i.e. CRM, marketing, cold calling, supply chain, etc.) Download and check one out while you’re driving or exercising.

4. Chats Skype/Zoom

If you are a one man or one woman band (aka business) meeting other people in your industry to hang out or inspire each other, resolve issues. A couple of my colleagues lead biweekly chats and I pretty much always learn something from one person and share something with another.

5. Staying on Track  (Sprinting Groups)

If you need to produce something like a number of words if you’re a writer or auditions if you’re a voice over actor, like me, or perhaps layout pins if you’re a graphic or web designer, try a sprinting group. You meet in a chat room, set a timer and go. Then check back in after the set amount of time and report what you got done. Knowing someone else is working along at the same time I am, helps keep me on track.

Make the most of your Street Team
Make the Most of your Street Team

6. Street Team

These are people who spread around how cool you or your product is by word of mouth. i.e. on the street. This works really well for artists, writers, musicians, and P2P business owners. Your street team gets excited about what you’re doing because they think It’s All That. They usually get something (small, but exclusive) for helping you out with an event or spreading the word about your cool news. (i.e. back stage passes, entertaining backstory from books, etc.)

7. Social Media

You have to pretty much be living under a boulder if you’re not using some form of social media nowadays. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, they’re all great ways to engage and stay in touch with contacts, colleagues, help and be helped. Make sure you engage in Groups and Events, too.

8. Marketing Groups

Look over your friendly competitors. Could you package your services with a colleague or two? Pool your marketing budget to get a bigger bang for your buck and appeal to a greater proportion of your market together. Major corporations do it. Why not individuals providing a service?

People who make the most of your conference
Make the Most of your Conference

9. Workshops, Conferences

Workshops and conferences are also great places to make connections among your industry, learn what’s trending and what’s disappearing, what people are talking about and what is missing. Perhaps even identify a need – something you can create a workshop about and present to your peeps yourself.

10. Hiring Within

Create your support list. Always have a ready capable solution for a client who asks, “Do you know someone who…” Have a ready two or three contacts who provide related services you can recommend or work with together on projects. Invite them to be reciprocal. Ask the people you recommend, to recommend you back.

I’m a female voiceover actor marketing my talents to producers of commercials, narrations, eLearning and pretty much anything else that requires a creative, confident, conversational voice. I coach, direct, produce and perform. I’d love to connect with you if I can help your business in any way.

Narrating for the Options Industry Council

My Voiceovers

Narrating for the Options Industry Council

eLearning Narration Options
Solve the eLearning Puzzle

A great question came up while I was coaching an eLearning voiceover workshop yesterday: Should your narrator read the script before recording?

My answer? It depends.

This fall, I recorded the narration for the “Quick Guide” of fourteen videos for the Options Industry Council. Despite having recorded almost 4,000 eLearning modules over the past dozen and a half years, stock options was material outside my scope of reference. Give me a medical, law or compliance script and I can read it cold flawlessly. Stocks? Hmmm.

Wading into the world of the Protective Put, the Short Strangle and the Long Straddle was fascinating, but to narrate it well, I needed to not only read the material beforehand, but had to read each script multiple times before feeling comfortable enough to read through it confidently, let alone “teach” or “talk” it like I was passing on the info to someone else.

 

What I learned opened a new world.

The options market to the unsavvy seems almost unreachable. But the OIC Quick Guides along with other videos on the OIC website present tactics for investing in options. They are comprehensible and simple and help open it up to anyone. The videos are clear; options involve higher risk than a mutual fund or individual stock, but the options market offers opportunities for people to make significant sums of money with the right strategies.

After a short explanation, each video invites the viewer to learn more on the OIC website. It is a veritable encyclopedia of market and investing information. Along with lessons, articles and videos the OIC has live webinars, listings for seminars and events, and podcasts. It’s an everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about kind of experience.

Narrator Expertise

Narrating Expert - Kim HandysidesCircling back to the original question: Does your eLearning voice over talent narrator need to be an expert in the domain you’re teaching? Did I need to be experienced with “covered calls” before I narrated a script about them? Certainly, familiarity with the vocabulary and flow of the information helps. But beyond that, it is a function of the talent and experience of your narrator. A not-so-good narrator can lull the listener into a painfully catatonic state where little learning and little retention exists. A good, professional narrator can make it sound engaging, interesting and present.

Bottom line? We are used to fast-paced media and have limited attention spans. A worthy narrator can help make your message stick. What has your experience been?