by Kate McClanaghan, voiceoverinfo.com

Here's a rather novel idea for this or any business: at SOUND ADVICE we never advise you to ask for feedback on your demo tracks, whether we produced them or not.

Think about it. If you're pro, why would you ever ask, "What do you think of my demos? Can you give me feedback?" to people you're intending to solicit work from? It only serves to undermine your professional authority. If you're a pro, and you are if you're presenting yourself as such with your demos to talent agents and producers, then you're expected to stand behind your promotional materials. This is true regardless of your experience or skill level, because only in the talent business is it possible for you to secure the principal role with little or no experience, while those with the most experience might play the smallest role. If you're right for the role, you're right for the role. The longest resume is not what scores the job—YOU do. Therefore asking for feedback unintentionally reads as if you are unsure of yourself, obviously a novice and suggests you may not have much confidence.

Besides, if you are given feedback—what are you prepared to do with it? Start over?

You may have asked for feedback simply for a lack of anything else to say, or maybe you wanted praise for your remarkable vocal prowess.

Most agents or producers will offer feedback if they honestly feel the situation warrants it, but for the most part they'll listen and discern whether they can use you or not. In many instances, they'll only offer feedback simply because you asked and they are trying to be accommodating. Yet, they are likely to forget what input they gave you or change their minds after hearing your tracks again at a later date. This happens more often than you might expect, and it honestly doesn't help you much.

To add to this, what if an agent comes back with, "Put the middle spot second and the second from last spot first," (which is at least specific input)? Even if you're willing to pay the studio/producer to accommodate these changes, you may not end up with a demo that's an improvement over what you've already presented. Additionally, another authority may offer you conflicting feedback that dramatically contradicts with what another professional source may have recommended. Keep in mind, the individuals who are offering you the feedback aren't in the studio while these changes can being made. Even very seasoned ears typically must hear the edit in the studio to discern whether the change is effective or not.

Of course, if you ask a competing demo producer for feedback, they're likely to criticize your tracks and tell you what they would do with your demos. The fact is, in lieu of you having any tangible experience or objectivity, asking for feedback will often only serve to confuse you, whether the advice is astute or not.

What matters above all else is what YOU think! Commerce is confidence, and your job is to instill confidence in those you hope will either rep or hire you. When you walk into an audition, and read as if you're unsure of yourself, then you will not land the job. Since your demos are auditioning for you, the same theory applies.

Granted you may want an objective assessment of whether your demos are effective or not. For this we recommend you head to Voicebank.net. Find talent agencies that have a lot of talent pursuing the same style of work you're attempting to land. Some won't be all that great, while others—will sound remarkable. Listen to demos of talent of your gender, your relative age, your vocal range and vocal quality if possible. How do your demos stand up?

Keep in mind your demos are held to the very same criteria Advertising Creatives require of their own demo reels. These are the very individuals your demos were created to draw work from as a voice-over, and they understand you may be creating spots for your demos in order to define who you are and what you bring to the industry as a talent. Each spot must seamlessly sound like broadcast quality.

Other than that, if a talent agent or any other industry professional has a recommendation for you they'll offer it without being asked. Certainly everyone has an opinion, however few are objective enough to offer you the insight you might be hoping for should you solicit feedback, so it should be avoided.

Simply present your tracks with confidence and without excuses. Stand behind your promo. It's the professional thing to do at all times. You really want to determine whether they can use you. That's the goal in sending anyone your demos.

Certainly you may doubt yourself when you're just starting out. That's natural. You have to take a great leap of faith to present yourself with confidence. Every opportunity will build from there.

All rights reserved. © 2012 Kate McClanaghan, Inc.

“There will come a time when passion will leave you. Curiosity will sustain you!”

- Heywood Hale-Broun 

The single most valuable and unexpected attribute you can develop from doing commercial work, aside from gaining the knowledge that you can feasibly earn a healthy living in this field, is the fact that you can hone your aesthetic skills as a professional actor by transferring your performance skills from one medium (such as stage) to another (television). 

From landing commercial work, not only can you earn union status (SAG and/or AFTRA) but also you learn you must be ready for anything and on very short notice as a talent.  With some tenacity you’re bound to discover you can subsidize your entire career very nicely with commercial work rather than relying on the food-service industry to pay your bills. 

Commercial work can raise your game as a talent in a variety of ways. This means you need to study the commercial styles from the ground up. If commercial work is relatively foreign to you, then employing the following process will help make studying the medium as a whole easier and more affordable.

To begin, you need to concentrate on your own demographic. 

A demographic is a term used by marketing guys to establish who buys what, who does what, who likes what and when. Are you a 30-year-old white guy who is single and plays poker every Saturday night with other guys just like yourself? Fine. You’re honing in on your demographic. Do you eat fast food five times a week and work out once a month? You’re getting warmer. That’s also part of your demographic. 

Too often, we’re taught we’re supposed to be someone else. We’re asking you to abandon that concept for a while.  We’re not saying stop trying new things, but perhaps this entire notion we’re suggesting might contradict the approach you’ve been taking. 

Why is it that every ingénue wants to be a character actor, every character actor wants to be the lead and every lead wants to be seen as a comic when he’s, in fact, a natural straight man? (Do you have any idea how tough it is to cast a really good straight man?)

Yet just as there are stage and film styles, there are commercial styles you need to become familiar with. Studying the medium will define what sort of work you’re best suited to book, whether that be commercial voice-over work, commercial on-camera, or television.

You may have heard the familiar business adage: “Do what you know.” 

This applies to performance to a great extent as well.  

As your auditions increase you’ll discover the people auditioning you will consistently refer to specific commercials and TV shows as a point of reference. If you’re the right type but have no idea what they are referring to, you will be at a considerable disadvantage.  But if you employ this form of study on a weekly basis for a minimum of 2 to 4 hours a week you will greatly increase your knowledge of popular culture and offer you a greater fighting chance to deliver what’s needed and wanted at the audition and on the job. 

Pop culture is the common language of producers, copywriters, and directors. They are most likely to describe what they’re looking for by using the most current references they can think of that are closest to the collective artistic vision of the project. This is a grand opportunity for you as a talent—IF you’ve done your homework.  You’ll be thrown these pop-culture bones and you’re expected to catch them, rather than let them sail right over your head. If you apply yourself to the following form of study you will have a greater chance to pick them up and run with them.

If you expect to be “directed” at the audition or even on the job, you’re likely to be very disappointed.  The truth is you’re not likely to get much direction at all.  In fact, the bigger the production, the bigger the director, the less direction you’re likely to get.

This would explain why you’ll most likely hear actors complain, “They didn’t give me any direction beyond, ‘It’s warm and friendly—go.’”

The truth is it’s OUR responsibility as talent to offer insight and options. We must self-direct to a great extent. We’re expected to offer performance options within the parameters of what’s being asked of us. They expect you to be decisive in your delivery as you are expected to be a vital part of the creative process. 

By the same token, if we are given direction we’re always expected to apply that direction in the very next take.  This requires agility, which is what you glean from training and why as a working talent you never cease sharpening your skills.  The knife cuts both ways.

Nevertheless, in any performance, they’re looking for you to bring a pulse to the text, which may seem flat and ordinary upon your first few read-throughs.  It’s your job as a talent to bring life to the words.  Casting sources typically assume you have something to bring to the table without their input and will often leave you to your own devices. 

You’re paid to have a pulse, so start pumping some life into that dead fish. A script can look pretty flat on the page until you start fleshing it out with some real spirit of play! So, play!

Commit yourself to studying popular television and commercial styles by asking the following questions for no less than 2 to 4 hours a week.  The more you do it, the easier this work will become because you realize a great deal about mass media you probably never considered before and you’ll understand it on an entirely different level.

A word of caution: Don’t fool yourself into thinking you can simply watch a whole lot of television without recording it and get the same results. 

The more you study, the greater the realizations about the medium you are preparing to service as a talent. You’ll discover observing the film and television that appeals to you most you will very quickly and positively impact your performance and imagination at auditions and on the job alike.  Your performance will become more grounded, more genuine, and offer greater depth.  Without it you’ll be fishing around in the dark for the most part.  The idea here is to give you a more purposeful performance backed by a greater, more specific imagination.  

Besides, it’s FUN!

For even more detail and a specific list of what to observe and study in film, television and commercial, pick up our recently updated edition of “The SOUND ADVICE Encyclopedia of Voice-over & The Business of Being a Working Talent” on .  

If It's Meant To Be

by Kate McClanaghan, www.voiceoverinfo.com

I happen to think there's a common misconception in our culture that states if a road proves too difficult then maybe “it wasn't meant to be”.  Instead, I happen to think the opposite might actually true.  If you are on the right path, then you're likely to face far more opposition than you ever may have imagined.  I don't wish this for you, it's simply an observation.

Think about it. Every great accomplishment has come about only after overcoming terrific opposition. It's historic.

So it only stands to reason you're far more likely to be met with rather sizable obstacles on the road to accomplishing your heartfelt goals.   You'll hear friends and loved ones pipe in, after you've gone through a set back, “Well, maybe it wasn't meant to be”.  And with that you'll doubt your ability to press on.  You'll think, “Maybe they're right.”  Happens to the best of us.  Perfectly supportive people saying this often gives one pause.

Of course, after the fact, after you've accomplished your goals, such as producing your demos or securing a really exceptional agent or landing an on-going commercial campaign, for example, no one will have seen all the hard work that went into rising above great odds and the many difficulties it took to get there.  All the perseverance, promotion and patience required of you beyond what anyone might have initially considered acceptable would certainly surprise the average man on the street. But then maybe that's the whole point.  To stand out, you have to stand up.

You'll never know what you could have accomplished without tenacity.

If anything is ever to come to be, such as your career, you must first take a leap of faith—you must risk.  This is certainly true in performance.  If you consider every major, game-changing role you ever landed only came about when you ventured beyond your comfort zone and took a real chance, not because you played it safe or performed exactly within the perimeters of “what was asked of you”.

Besides if playing it safe is the best bet to accomplishing what we're passionate and destined to do, then it stands to reason every door would swing open wide as we approached it, every opportunity would embrace us and the Gods would happily smile on us, nodding their approval and there would be one simple, exact path to follow when you setting out to establish yourself in this business.  Unfortunately history proves otherwise.  Even those who dutifully conform to what they think or are told is required of them as talent are met with adversity.

In fact, every major accomplishment from the creation of the light bulb to the iPod has come about only after meeting and overcoming terrific obstacles.  But it's how we weather those obstacles ultimately that determines whether or not our goals will ever come to fruition.

Thomas Edison devoted more than 10,000 attempts to creating the light bulb… and not a very good light bulb at that.  But it did work.  And when he was asked, given all those tries, if he felt like a failure and why didn't he give up, he replied, “Why would I feel like a failure? And why would I ever give up? I now know definitively over 9,000 ways that an electric light bulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp."  Luck for us, a shortly time later and with over 10,000 attempts under his belt, Edison invented the light bulb.  He was intent on creating the thing!

Can you imagine if he complacently succumbed to the notion, “Well, guess it just wasn't meant to be,” because he wasn't quite sure what to do next?  The world is far brighter by the simple fact he was intent on the task.  Literally.

So, its safe to assume success requires dedication far beyond what anyone might first imagine.  It takes a whole lot of tenacity to make anything come about let alone your career as a working talent. But rest assured your career won't exist without you continually creating it and, yes, often against rather sizable odds. 

We're here simply to help you navigate better and help you get from point A to point B faster, easier, quicker, and smarter.  That's what we do as Sound Advice.  Thus the name. But it falls to you to apply it.  It's important to keep this in mind as you set out to train, produce your demos, promote yourself like never before, and generally take your career to the next level. 

As talent we often harbor the hidden hope that our lives will magically hold still while we set out to implement any major advancement or change.  And like clockwork, our mettle will be tested.  How we weather the changes and obstacles will determine whether we succeed or remain successful. 

It all comes down to your intention, your determination to succeed—not just to continue.  Best advice: focus on what it is you are trying to accomplish immediately and stay with the program. And while it's always been your responsibility to keep your dream alive, surrounding yourself with those who want to see you succeed is key to accomplishing just that. Again, this is in part why we're here as Sound Advice.

So, the next time you hear someone say, "Maybe it just wasn't meant to be," consider this: maybe it was, it's just that the Universe demanded that much more of you to make it happen because you're made of greater stuff.  The current challenge you're facing could very well be your cue to rise to the occasion beyond what you might have ever expected. 

After all, no one ever received an Academy Award, claiming, “This was so easy!  Wonder why every one doesn't have one!” 

Decide your career is meant to be and remember, they don't call it work for nothin'. Your career is meant to be only if YOU say it is.  So be it!  Then get busy. There's always work to be done!  Enjoy it! 

We wish you a smart, healthy, happy, prosperous New Year in 2012… and wish you great advances and remarkable successes to follow in all the years to come! 

The objective of your demo is to define who you are commercially and how you are perceived in a major market.

If you truly have something original you can do repeatedly (without hurting yourself vocally) then an animation demo is in order, especially if you live in the Los Angeles area where a bulk of animation is produced.

However, a commercial demo is what’s required of every voice talent first and foremost and that means more affects than accents.  The goal is to offer subtle emotional changes from one spot to the next.  Variety on well-produced commercial tracks means displaying specific point-of-views (i.e. wry wit or boredom), status (i.e. sophistication or down on your luck) and allowing each read to come across as a fresh, new thought in a fresh, new context through commercial style that defines and suits you best. 

Simple affectations on your natural voice is perfectly appropriate, but it may surprise you to learn, dialects and kooky voices shoehorned amid spots that read as real commercials only serves to distract and confuse your commercial target audience: advertising agency Creatives (a.k.a. producers, copywriters and their associates and assistants).

Your commercial track, which is only about a minute long, needs to define you naturally rather than trying too hard to offer “variety,” which tends to be the outcome of including accents and unusual characters. Besides, commercially you're far more likely to be hired for more mainstream work due to the fact that it is a bulk of the work available.

That doesn't mean the straighter stuff lacks wit or is without imagination in any way.  As always, you’re paid to have a pulse!  It's just that most commercial work doesn't require a call for out-and-out "cartoon-y" characters, which is precisely why you shouldn't feature these characters on your commercial track unless the demo track is geared specifically to illicit animation work.

None of this means you should squelch all those wonderful vocal qualities and characters you’ve developed and entertained your friends and family with over the years – these are great skills and are not without merit.  It’s simply that most often you will be required to “just be you” more than anything else, which are skills in and of themselves that are incredibly underrated as a working voice-over.  So, as much as we long to “become someone else” through a character, establishing who we are, naturally is ultimately far more valuable when it comes to commercial voice-over.

If those auditioning you are looking for a character for their commercial, they will most likely have audition you for it.  As long as your agent knows you are capable of offering playful, interesting, original characters, you will be considered for these jobs when they arise.

As for an animation demo, this is a specialized thing and location specific.  It's honestly not for everybody and reliant on where you live (geographically) to effectively glean a return on your demo investment.

As far as impersonations go, as remarkable as they can be, they too are not the first thing you want to open with either, I'm afraid, and generally used less often than even characters.

If you’re predominantly a character actor it’s perfectly appropriate to blend humor and personality-driven material with the straighter, more mainstream commercial deliveries that dominate the work you do best.

Just a word of caution when it comes to character voices though: Pepper gingerly with your character affects.  Easy does it.  A little goes a long way.

And if you happen to be blessed with a remarkably unique voice that rivals Piglet from Winnie the Pooh, or something… WONDERFUL!  You need to capitalize on it by demonstrating the various commercial spots you’re best suited to book. 

What a novel idea — a demo that actually demonstrates!  We may be on to something.

You've had a web page promoting yourself as an actor, or voice over for a while now. You’ve been actively driving traffic to your web site with consistent and repeated postcard promotions.  Wonderful! 

Then one day you go to pull up your site and low and behold—it's gone. YIKES!  What happened?

Well, this is sadly a rather common scenario, especially with those who aren’t all that web-savvy.   The fact is you may have inadvertently let your domain name (your web address) expire.  Your web hosting and your web address are two separate things, believe it or not, and while your hosting may still be up to date, your domain name may have expired if it wasn’t set up at the same time.  In other words, your web site still exists, however no one will be able to access it (including YOU) as the ‘road’ to it—your domain name—has vanished with the one-year expiration you purchased a year ago.

Here's the rub: there is a brief grace period of a minimum of 15 days and, in some instances, what can be as long as one full year before an expired domain name will be openly available for registration again. (Ouch. That would render all your promo inaccurate, as you're promoting your WEB ADDRESS that leads to your demo tracks, right?)

What occurs is the Central Registry mandates a fee of approximately $100 in order to renew any expired domain names (even if they had once belonged to you—it doesn’t matter). And all this provided you contact them BEFORE the web address becomes openly available (again, it’s elusive as when that could actually happen, but it’s often during a two – three month grace period) and provided a “cyber-squatter” doesn’t get it first. 

According to redalkemi.com, "Cybersquatting is a malpractice done by (CYBER CROOKS) who use (your) domain name with a bad intent to capitalize on the name and market value." The cybersquatter then offers the website for sale back to you, the original website owner, at an excessively inflated price, counting on the fact you've established this domain name in the market place and placed it on all your promotional materials.

The problem is: if the original owner (namely you) of the domain name doesn't re-register the name with an internet registrar prior to the domain's expiration date, then the domain name can be purchased by anybody after it expires. At this point, the registration is considered lapsed. These cybersquatters typically use automated software tools (called 'bots') to register the lapsed name the instant they lapse, making it impossible for you to renew your domain without first paying these crooks up to $500 or more to get it back.

There's only one reason these Cyber Crooks want your domain name: MONEY! You see, like you, they only paid $6 – $10 (or less) for the domain name from a site like GoDaddy.com, for instance. But they are counting on the fact that your business depends on this web address and that your clients know you by this route, and you'll be desperate to get it back.

In the meantime, all of your promotional momentum will have been brought to a screeching halt until you sort this all out. It can hold you up for months at a time, and all while you're trying to develop momentum—that's a real issue. Just ask your agent! Your voice over web site has all but replaced demo CDs. As far as any and all potential clients are concerned, if you're not online, you don't exist.

Should you neglect your expired web address for, say, six months or more, there is a good chance that you’ll need to register an entirely new domain name, as by that time it may well be registered to another party that's, frankly, holding it hostage. At that point, all you can do is check and hope for the best if you're intent on getting your original domain name back.

At SOUND ADVICE, we recommend at this point, you move on and move forward with a new  web address. However, that would mean you'd need to re-do your graphics and promotional materials with this entirely new domain name. For instance, if your web address had been joetalent.com up till now, we suggest you register joetalentvo.com or joetalentvox.com, for example. 

Going forward, we can't impress upon you enough how important it is to pay attention to web and domain renewal emails and RENEW your web address well before they expire to allow you the greatest opportunity to avoid this drama entirely. It's a disaster that can and should easily be avoided.

Beyond that, our best parting advice: when and wherever possible, first have your web site designed, then secure your web address and hosting AT THE SAME TIME, rather than months apart. And whenever possible, do so for a good ten years at a time to avoid any interruption of service or promotion.  If that’s not possible, be sure to maintain your site(s) with consistency. It'll save you a great deal of money, time and effort if you follow this advice.

Besides, it's likely you are only just getting established in this field during the first two – three years of your career, and frankly, you want to avoid interruption of promotion, especially of your greatest professional tools: your voice over demos and/or headshots and on-camera reels on your web site(s).

There's a one-word response to the question posed: "How do you get a response from your (promo) mailings?" And that's simply, "Frequency." (In fact, that's the ONLY answer.)

The reason being what you're trying to accomplish from repeated postcard mailings that promote your voice-over demo/web page is to:

     a) Make your name known (forward your brand through your graphic logo)
     b) Allow those you're promoting to access to your demos through your web site
     c) Associate you with professional voice-over.

You may have heard the phrase, "Out of sight, out of mind". That phrase applies to any small business, but especially voice-over. And if no one knows you from your lack of promotion, no one has access to your tracks because you let your web site expire, if they can't reach you, find you, hear you, or you simply haven't effective create a presence through continued promotion… then the people most-likely to hire you simply can't and won't use you.

The fact remains, if you aren't continually promoting you will simply have a remarkable promotional vehicle that remains parked in the garage where no one can utilize it, and that leaves a great potential for your best efforts to die on the vine. And we can't have that!

So, unless you have a publicist, it's your responsibility to make your demo accessible to those most likely to hire you and to make yourself known. 

When it comes to promo familiarity breeds OPPORTUNITY. There are numerous Creatives across the nation either in pre-production, production or post at any given time. It's important to understand your first 3 to 4 full (5 to 8 week rounds of) mailings may not so much as render a listen to your demos. That's nothing to get discouraged about—you're only just establishing your name and brand identity in field. However, with repeated postcard mailings driving your name, your logo, and therefore your demo from your web page continuously to these same individuals where your demos can be accessed is the true mission here. 

Repeated mailings are essential to securing a return on your initial investment. The more mailings you do, the more your brand will make you synonymous with professional voice-over. PERIOD.

The objective is to drive traffic to your web site where your demos can be found. As the saying goes, "Outflow equals inflow". And that's precisely what promotion is… "outflow". So get your promo out there!

If you've only done a single mailing or two, and thought the goal of your mailings were to secure immediately employment—think again. 

If you wish for only a single audition—you will only land ONE audition. If you aim for a single job—you will secure only ONE job. Instead aim for an on on-going, established career, with repeated business. That will yield the greatest results, but it will also require your on-going commitment to allowing those most likely to hire you continued access to your demo tracks. And that means repeated mailings.

Otherwise you will remain in oblivion. And we've come to far to have that happen. But it's up to you to keep your skills sharp and continually promote yourself. Having an agent that gets the work you're best suited to land is only part (not half—but PART) of the answer. This is your career. You're in charge. And that means it's up to you to continually make yourself known to the forever changing promotional pool or producers nationwide that, at any given time, may be looking for exactly what you have to offer as a talent.

It takes dedication and persistence beyond what you might consider a reasonable comfort zone. But that's small business. You first must make yourself known. From there you create a presence. Beyond that you must persist, so that those relying on you (talent agents, casting directors, producers, etc) will know they can confidently and continually count on you. 

Pursue, persist, prepare, promote. These are staples that never go away if you expect to establish yourself in this business and remain in business.

We're often asked at SOUND ADVICE, "What's it take to succeed as a voiceover talent?"

There's no one answer. There are four: Pursue, Persist, Prepare, and Promote.

These four elements are absolutely vital to succeed at ANYTHING, let alone acting and voice-over, because they simply never go away. It's your responsibility to insure these balls are continually in play, because they are required of you as a talent no matter how far along you may be, whether you are just beginning, or if you have been established in the business for years and need to raise your game to the next level. They are constant.

Whatever it is you may end up accomplishing in this business, success will occur only if you pursue it. It won't come to you, no matter how much talent you have and regardless the amount of nepotism you may have access to. Ultimately, it's up to you to run your career.

You have to set your sights on your immediate goal and then persist at it. Developing and then maintaining your skills requires this persistent dedication. This element only increases with success, not the other way around—contrary to what many novices may think.

So, if you're easily frustrated or simply give up after a few months of training or even after a year of promotion, then you'll never honestly know for yourself what you could have created without real persistence. Developing your abilities and on-going promotion also requires patience; allow yourself to developing your skills so that agility becomes intuitive. Talent is not solely what you were born with. It takes attention. Left alone it will atrophy and fail you.

Preparation is continually required of you as a talent on a variety of levels. Your skills will develop as you continue to work them, so keep at it. This means coaching. The moment your skills lay dormant, your professionalism will be shaken, and with that, your confidence. Your confidence is directly related to your integrity. And regardless of your position, no matter how affluent you may be, no one can afford to lose his or her integrity. So you must continue to prepare.

As a rule: never set your sites on securing 'just one audition', or 'one big break', or 'wait until the time is just right'. As you will only secure ONE audition, ONE break, and the time will never arrive because you never took the time put the opportunity in your schedule. The time is right when you decide it is, so make that NOW. Make a decision as to what you want in your life and work toward that goal. By doing so you'll accomplish everything you ever imaged possible.

Every audition is a form of promotion, yet so many artists repel even the notion of promotion that this could easily account for the scores of talented souls who have fallen into oblivion before ever allowing self-promotion to bridge the gap from unknown to genuine opportunity. If you leave your career alone, I promise you, nothing will happen. It will slip through your fingers.

No one who ever scored an Oscar accepted it, saying, "This was so easy! I don't know why you guys don't all have one. It was a piece of cake!"

Nope. Anything worthwhile is accomplished from hard work and lots of it. And a good deal of that work came from consistent promotion. It's how we make ourselves known and familiar. Promotion comes with the territory and can't be ignored if you intend to succeed as a working talent.

The people who persist at promotion while honing their performance skills will work and make themselves valuable. What they may lack at the onset of their careers performance-wise will strengthen and develop from experience, but not from a single coaching once every eight to ten months, or a half-hearted promotional blitz once or twice a year.

Those who become consummate professionals make it their business to run their own careers rather than leave it to chance.

However keep in mind from the moment you decide to commit completely to establish (or further) your career it will seem as if all of the forces of the universe will set out to thwart you as you set upon this path. Not because you shouldn't be pursuing this field, but the complete and utter opposite. It's an occupational hazard that will test your mettle at every turn. And while you may be a strong 'sprint runner' at the onset of your career, aim to go the distance. It's far more rewarding if you do.

And even with a thorough roadmap to follow, as we've laid out for you here at SOUND ADVICE, you're the one who has to dedicate yourself to the task of getting it done. Certainly your odds are far greater with us than without us, but its still work and you're the one who has to do it. No one will give it to you, or create it for you. You can't purchase it, but you can invest in yourself effectively to prepare yourself to deliver what's needed and wanted of you so you're ready at a moment's notice. And that is extremely rewarding on many, many levels.

So, when you find yourself losing patience, and no doubt everyone does in every small business from time to time (and this one is yours), don't dwell on being frustrated, but rather put your energy into your pursuits, in your preparation, and in your promotion. There's always something you could be doing RIGHT NOW to forward your goals.

In other words, just do it! And procrastinate tomorrow.

"Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance."
—Samuel Johnson

We receive lots and lots of emails from our trusty SOUND ADVICERs, and are thrilled to hear how well you guys are doing.

Here's a prime example from Joel Konya in NYC.  Still questions do arise… and we're here to help!

"WHAT'S A HOLDING FEE?"

Here's a recent email from recent Sound Advice (SA) client, Joel Konya, with a very good question that you may learn from:

Hi, Kate!

I just wanted to give you a quick update.  I am now a member of SAG and getting the health insurance…great stuff! After I booked the (major tech company) spot back in October they came back to me for other spots… mainly Internet!  My question to you is I am now being held for a 3rd consecutive quarter (for the TV spot) yet I do not think the TV commercial has run for months (so as a result, I haven't seen any residuals).  Is there a chance they would still run the spot or are they holding me just so I do not voice let's say a Dell spot?  BTW I have made a healthy 5 figures on this gig!

Since that booking I have also booked Yellow Tail and Luxaire Air Conditioning spots.  

Hope all is well and good luck in your new Chicago digs!

Thanks,  Joel 

Kate's response:

Hey, Joel…

This is a WONDERFUL update…  thank you for keeping us posted!

To answer your question–I've seen jobs remain 'on-hold' (please reference our SA Encyclopedia!) for up to a year or more.  In other words, (yeppers) you will have a conflict with any other TECH company, such as Dell or what have you, until it either a) airs or, b) you're released.  (Check the release date on your pay stub.)  In the meantime, you'll continue to received 'holding fees' every 13 weeks until one of those two options come about.  (A 'holding fee' is essentially equivalent to another session fee. For TV, that generally means about $450.)

Now, the fact that this is the beginning of the 3rd quarter you've received a holding fee–that's typically a very good sign it will eventually air.  They are probably 'testing' it.  You may  be called to come in to modify the spot with an alternative line or two, or even add more spots to this campaign.  So, enjoy it!  No promises, of course, until the spot actually airs but, frankly–it looks good!

Thanks on our new CHI digs!  Look for a cool video tour we're currently editing!  (If you can fall in love with a location–call me smitten!  In fact, call me head-over-heels.  It's wonderful!  Hope you can see it some time soon.  ; )

And congratulations on your continued success, Joel!  We're very pleased and proud of you!  We look forward to hearing more!

Warmest wishes,

Kate & crew

Sound Advicer, Joel Konya has consistently promoted himself both to the talent agents (and has seen a good deal of success from that), as well as consistently sent out postcard promotions directly to the Ad Agencies with our mailing lists to a variety of regions.  Joel's demos can be found on his site at: www.joelkonyavo.com

CLICK the following links to order an updated mailing list, or our 6th Edition of  "The SOUND ADVICE Encyclopedia of Voice-over & The Business of Being a Working Talent" by Kate McClanaghan to stay on top of terms such as 'holding fee', and a whole lot more.

Seems simple enough, right? You've had a web page promoting yourself as an actor, or voice-over for a while now. This shouldn't be a problem—should it?

Then one day you go to pull up your site and low and behold—it's gone. YIKES!

Well, to be honest, there is a brief grace period of a minimum of 15 days and, in some instances (depending on where your site is registered), what can be as long as one full year before an expired domain name will be openly available for registration again.

Sound a bit extreme? You're right, it is. It's the Internet! And if 'techie' is NOT your middle name, well, you could be in for a bumpy ride.

What occurs is the Central Registry mandates a fee of approximately $100 -$150 from you to renew any expired domain names, even if they had once belonged to you. It honestly doesn't matter. You let it expire. And all this is provided you contact them BEFORE the web address becomes openly available (again, it's elusive as to when that could actually happen, but it's often during a two – three month grace period) and provided a "cyber-squatter" doesn't get to it first.

In the meantime, your promotional momentum will have been brought to a screeching halt.

Should you neglect your expired web address for, say, six months or more, there is a good chance that you'll need to register an entirely new domain name, as by that time it may well be registered to another party. All you can do is check and hope for the best. Additionally, you will need to re-do your graphics and promotional materials at the same time should the worst case scenario play out—which is most likely at this stage.

So, as a word of caution, don't jump the gun and register your domain name in advance of your web hosting. Get your web site designed FIRST and avoid this drama entirely. Simple.

That's how important we feel at SOUND ADVICE it is for you to have a web presence—potentially it's the greatest promotional tool you have available to you since your voice-over demos and professional contact info reside there!

Beyond that, our best parting advice (and to quote Futurama), "Don't date robots!" 