VO BOSS

BOSSES, it's time for you to use online casting sites + P2Ps to your advantage. Anne chats with Natasha Marchewka and Katherine Tole, co-founders of V123 Pros, a learning resource that elevates talents' branding and V123 game. They discuss the importance of online casting sites, how you can brand yourself to be searchable & professional + tips on how to get & keep client connections through these websites. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza. And today I am excited to welcome two very special guests to the show, super VO talents and business entrepreneurs Natasha Marchewka and Katherine Tole. They have paired up to build learning resources that will elevate your brand and your online casting game together. They are self-proclaimed and verified, I would say, V123 super nerds and the creators of the very successful V123 Pros. Ladies, thank you so, so much for joining me today. Katherine: Thanks for having us, Anne. Natasha: Thanks so, so much for the invite. Anne: I love it. I love it, love it, love it. So I have lots of questions to ask you. But before we get to the online casting pros and cons, which are gonna be amazing, let's start off by telling the BOSSes a little bit about yourselves and your VO journey. So whoever wants to start, Katherine. Katherine: Yeah, sure. So I worked in tech for a number of years. I got a chemical engineering degree, decided I didn't wanna do engineering and have always been very, very left and right brain, like started doing musical theater a lot when I was younger and being in choir. And I really missed that side of myself. And so I started taking classes nights and weekends at VoiceTrax when I was working in tech, just as a hobby, just for something fun to kind of get out my creative side. And then after a few years I realized I'm getting really great feedback, and I'm doing well. And what if I tried to make this a career question mark? Like, how would that be to be a full-time creative? And so I took my little like nest egg that I had gotten from an acquisition from a tech company. And I left, or at least took a break from the tech world and started doing this full time. And about a year after I did that, I met Natasha, and I wasn't doing particularly well on Voice123. I was on it. It was the first place that I ever went to. I took a class at VoiceTrax all about Voice123, and then three months later they changed everything. And so I was just very disgruntled about it. And so Natasha offered to teach this webinar to the workout group, the Larry Hudson workout group that I was a part of with her. And I learned so much. I was mind blown. And I realized there were so many things that I was doing wrong that they just don't teach you. There's just some little thing, you know, it's game, you gotta play it. There's some little tricks. And I said, hey, Natasha, I wanna help you help other people with all this knowledge that you have. And what if I take my tech background and help you do all these wonderful things? So. Anne: I love it. The entrepreneurial spirit. Natasha: Well, I'm so glad she did that because I really just wanted to help people with the positive side of online casting. It's such a huge opportunity. There's so many jobs available, and I was just kind of tired of hearing my peers say they weren't doing well, because I was. So I wanted to help give them a leg up. And when I did the webinar, free webinar for my workout group, it was just about sharing information. And, um, I'm so thrilled to hear again, Katherine, that you see so much from that. And Katherine is -- we are such a great marriage of different skill sets. So we came together, we were helping people one hour at a time, and then realized we can't do this anymore. Let's do something a little more scalable. So we created a course, but I had been on Voice123 for almost my whole career. So I started in voiceover in 2006 at home, pretty much full-time. I mean, I just, I have, I'm a performer. I have degree in broadcasting. And so I had all those special skills that voice actors need or voiceover talent need to build a successful business, which is business acumen and some performance talent, and some experience in all the things business and tech and craft-wise. So Voice123 was something I started in 2007 and on and off and on and off, because depending on what I was doing or what kind of auditions were coming in, I, I didn't pay too much attention, but I knew I needed to be online. I didn't live in LA. I didn't live in New York. I needed to be online if I was gonna have a viable business. And so 16 years later or so, Voice123 really works as a piece of my marketing puzzle. And I feel really s

How do you plan to avoid risk? BOSSES, we're here to help! In this episode, Anne & Erikka dive into the essential planning every entrepreneur should be doing for balance in their business & life. From setting up your 401k to planning for retirement, they bring it all back to how balance is managing and planning for what the future holds. Set up your will, find a good life insurance plan, and know that your future self will be thanking you for all the hard work. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and today I am back with my brand new series, Balance, with our special guest. Co-host Erikka J. Hey Erikka. Erikka: Hey Anne. Hey BOSSes. Anne: How are you? Erikka: I'm pretty good. How about you? Anne: Thankfully? I am good today. Not that I was really bad any other day, but I've had a few doctor's appointments recently. It got me to thinking, because I still visit my oncologist every few months and I had had some troubling blood results, which are fine, everybody. It's fine. And I'm very thankful about that, but it made me think about what if, God forbid, something should happen to me, and I was unable to work at my full time voiceover career for a certain amount of time or what if I was out for a couple months if I had to have surgery or, or whatnot? And I thought it would be a really good discussion to have. It may not be the most happy pleasant discussion to have, but I think it's an important one to have for BOSSes that run their own business. Erikka: Absolutely. I'm a big proponent of balance in looking at it's easy to think about the present and all the things that you have to do to presently run your business. But to take a balanced approach is also to think about planning for the future. So -- Anne: Yeah, absolutely. Erikka: -- things happen that we don't like, you know, either we get sick or no one wants to say it, but one day we're gonna die, all of us. We have that in common and hopefully one thing happy to talk about is one day we'll all retire and just be able to do the things that we love, even though we love this work. But you know, maybe just being able to go to the beach and make that be your job, you know, so planning for retirement. Anne: Yeah. Such great points. And you know, I've made it fairly clear to many people that know me, that I am planning for retirement. And I don't wanna have to be burdened with, oh my gosh, where's my money coming from? I wanna be able to enjoy my retirement. So let's talk about the things that maybe when you are a creative entrepreneur, we don't necessarily invest in that help us to plan for the future. I mean, number one, health insurance, of course. And I'll tell you, my story is, well, my husband works. And so I'm taking advantage of that. And I take advantage of his healthcare plan, which thankfully has been a good one. And we make sure that we get the best that we can get just simply because I have had health challenges in the past. And it really is a lifesaver when it comes to money in terms of whatever we have to pay out when I go to see the doctor, right. It's kind of crazy. So I think health insurance is super important. And I know if you are union and you are in a certain level of earnings, you can take advantage of the healthcare that they offer. Erikka: Yeah. Actually, everybody knows that currently I'm still have a full-time job. So I'm somewhat in the same position as you, Anne, in that I still have corporate insurance, but I am about, I think like $50 away from qualifying for SAG insurance. Anne: It's there you go. Erikka: It's like $49 and change. It's pretty funny actually. but that's definitely something I'm looking at, even as if it's a possibility to have a secondary. Anne: Well, that's what I was just gonna ask you. Like that's not something that you would replace your current corporate health insurance. Erikka: No, no. No, not for now. I mean, obviously the whole corporate job, that's where I'm at today. Will I still be doing that 10 years from now, doing both? I doubt it. So kind of just having that plan for the future and making sure that me and my family have health insurance. Anne: And it's not a guarantee anymore that when you go to work for a company that you're going to get health insurance these days. There has been a pandemic. And I think that there's probably no more important time to maybe think about health insurance as when there's a pandemic happening. And you wanna make sure that you keep yourselves healthy and can pay for any care that you might need. And especially now let's say you get long-term COVID and that affects you. You were a full-time voice talent. Even if you weren't a full-time voice talent,

Are you right or left brain dominant? Anne & Erikka are here to bust the left vs. right brain myth, and discuss how both creativity and sensibility are essential in any entrepreneur. For all the creatives, they share tips to help your biz with structure. For our tech peeps, they have creative ideas for getting out of your own way. Make sure you know your studio inside and out, make a backup for the backup, and if you want more tips, you'll just have to tune in! >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza. And today I'm excited to have back to our new series on balance special guest co-host Erikka J. Erikka! Erikka: Hey BOSSes. Anne: Hey. How are you? Erikka: I'm good. How are you, Anne? Anne: Erikka , I'll tell you what, some days I have to say -- I always try to be grateful every day and find something to be grateful for. And so today I am grateful for my experience in the tech world. And I know you can identify with that because you are a tech girl as well. Erikka: Indeed. Anne: Because I had a crash of my Twisted Wave, and crazy enough, the file that I thought was the right file was not the right file, and I lost it. But I will tell you that my experience back in the day was backup, backup, backup. So thankfully I mirror everything onto another drive, and then not only do I mirror things on another drive, but I also back up to the cloud. So thankfully what had auto-saved actually was in the cloud, and I was able to restore it. Thank God, and not have to worry about redoing all of this huge eLearning module that I just did. Erikka: So I can hear the relief in your tone, Anne. Anne: I know. And so I am grateful to have this kind of a, you know -- I was always told that I had like a 50-50 kind of a brain, like the tech brain and the creative. And I enjoy the two of them. And as a matter of fact, Erikka, I love the tech aspect of the business as much as I love voiceover, the creative aspect. Erikka: Oh yeah. Yeah. Anne: I think it's important for successful VO entrepreneurs to have a little bit of a left-right brain thing. Don't you think? Erikka: Absolutely. I talked before about, you know, being an ambivert and then I came up with the term, I think I'm ambi-brained as well. No, it's not a real word. I made it up. I love the fact that we are able to be creative and true artists in this business and have that sort of artistic input, but you have got to have some type of technical and business and analytical aptitude to be successful as well. We are engineers really or the -- no, not as far as the audio engineers, the big ones at the studios. God bless y'all. Anne: Yes. Erikka: But we have to be engineers in some capacity . Anne: Oh my gosh. Yes. I'm so glad you said that. Like let's just say that one more time. So yes, in order to be successful in this business, it is so important to have both the creative and the analytical brain. Because you have to be able to execute on both levels. You have to be able to understand how to convert your audio file to MP3, or you need to understand how to attach a file to an email, or you need to be able to literally, if somebody can talk you through a session on ipDTL or SourceConnect or whatever that is, you need to have a little bit of an aptitude. Otherwise clients may not have the time to be able to walk you through those things or deal with someone who doesn't know how to send them the work that they've requested and they're paying for. Erikka: Yeah. And it's not even just -- you know, I have a stack set up by one of the greats and I'm done, right? Because you have to be able to have that sort of aptitude to know when you run into problems. As we know, as tech girls always happens, technology's gonna technology. Something's gonna happen. And you gotta kind of have that sort of way of thinking to be able to troubleshoot and you know, kind of figure out why aren't they hearing me on Zoom or why am I getting an echo or you know, that kind of thing. So that's really helpful in what we do. Anne: I'll tell you, I always get nervous when I have my students will say to me, yeah, I'm not really good at technology. Well, and I understand that, right? I mean, for people to be excited about technology, sometimes it takes a special geek like myself and I think you to appreciate it. But also it is a responsibility, right? It's a responsibility of your business to be able to function. And if you cannot function in a technical capacity or an analytical capacity that you need to, I think you need to have a full understanding of what it entails so that you can maybe hire or outsource, but also at least know what it takes to succeed and educate yourself. I think that's so important. If

Let's talk balance! What goes into creating a work-life system that honors and prioritizes all these hats we wear? Anne and special guest co-host Erikka J share their own methods for balancing the various elements of a successful voiceover business, and discuss how to maximize productivity using techniques that keep the whole self in focus. Stay tuned for great conversations about time management, rest and relaxation, technology tools, and so much more. Explore focus skills, and learn how balancing your personal life and work life can be the key to being the best #VOBOSS you can be… MORE: https://www.voboss.com/balance >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and today I am excited to start a brand new series with special guest co-host Erikka J. Woohoo! Erikka: Hey! Anne: Hey Erikka. Well, for those of you that don't know Erikka, she is a singer-songwriter and award-winning voice actor. She's voiced commercials, narrations, political campaigns, for top brands such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Discover, Black Lives Matter, and many more. She's also a product and project management professional with 15 years experience in various sectors, including state and federal government, contracting, eCommerce, software development, and automotive. Woo Erikka. That's a list. Wow. You do an awful lot. Erikka: I forgot most of that. Thanks for the reminder. Anne: And not only that you just came back from like an extensive learning experience, extraordinaire at one of the JMC Euro retreats in Barcelona. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah. That was awesome. Anne: You're doing it all. It's kind of crazy. I think, uh, how do you do it? How do you achieve a balance with all of that? Because it just seems like, you know, you and I both, I run multiple brands, and it's something that we deal with, I think, on a daily basis. I think it would be a great topic for today's episode to talk about how we can achieve balance in our VO careers. Erikka: Absolutely. Anne: Or lives, not just VO careers, right? Erikka: Right. Anne: Take that back. Erikka: Right. For sure. Like the whole life 'cause family too. Anne: That's right. Erikka: How about that? Anne: That's right. Erikka: Um, but key number one, the number one tool is coffee. Both: Anne: Oh my God. And I literally, before we came on, I filled my cup to the max. So yeah, I've got coffee, but don't forget, BOSSes, also have that big old jug of water in your studio. Erikka: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Anne: Because I use that as a chaser so my vocal cords don't dry up, but yes, coffee. Erikka: I do both for sure. Not too much coffee. Just that one cup for me to get going in the morning. And if you wanna lay off that, green tea is a good alternate. You know? Anne: Yeah, absolutely. Erikka: It has caffeine. Anne: Absolutely. Erika: But yeah. You know, prioritization is a huge piece of how I handle all that. I don't get to every audition I want to sometimes, you know? Anne: Well, yeah. I remember that being my biggest hindrance, I think in progressing in my voiceover career back when I first started, because I had a very demanding tech job, and it pretty much took like all hours of the daytime for me. It wasn't just nine to five. I mean, a lot of times I was even working overtime, and I don't know if that's true with you, but it was hard for me to get to those auditions on time. Erikka: Yeah. So thank goodness I don't really have the overtime thing. Being able to work full-time from home kind of helps with that balance. So I know a lot of different places are offering that now, or maybe even just, you know, once or twice a week. So that helps a lot. But man, it is definitely a prioritization game, and to be able to accept and give yourself grace that you just can't do everything. Anne: Yeah. Erikka: So you do what's most important. Anne: Well, I think one thing that has changed well since the pandemic, right, the fact that you can potentially work from home, if that's a possibility, unless you work for Apple, right, at this point because Erikka: Right. Anne: Yeah. That's not gonna be a possibility, I don't think, but interestingly enough, our world has changed since the pandemic with people working from home and lots of companies offering their employees the ability to at least work remotely a portion of the time, or even sometimes forever. I know my husband can now work from home forever, and I actually really love that. I love having him home. I think he loves not having to sit in the commute for how many hours, which actually depending on how you use that time, I used to always listen to podcasts when I was sitting in traffic to try to make my time valuable in traffic. But yeah, i

We all know that fur babies make our worlds & booths a better place to be. Anne & Pilar divulge their love for cats + share some pretty crazy stories about how their kitties came into their lives. >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza along with the lovely and amazingly talented, special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Hey Pilar. Pilar: Anne. Anne: Yes? Pilar: Anne. Anne: Yeah? Pilar: What happened to you last week with your cat in the booth? What was that all about? Anne: Studio cats. Don't we love them? Pilar: Studio cats. Absolutely. Anne: Thanks for asking. I honestly, I came into my studio, and normally I always have my studio doors closed for whatever reason. Just keep it cool in here and just keep the cats out. Well, I accidentally left my door open for a little bit, and my little girl snuck in and apparently scaled up the acoustic panels and got herself on top of the cloud. So between the ceiling and the cloud that's hanging, she was there, and I was sitting outside the studio. I thought I heard something, but I, you know, I was like, oh, whatever, just had my headphones on. So I wasn't sure where it came from. Sometimes, sometimes I hear things in my headphones. And I came in here to record a job. And all of a sudden I look up, and I see her. She's on the side panels, and she's like scurrying around my booth on top of the acoustic panels on the ledge. And it was hysterical. And so I had the recording going. So I had the whole transaction recorded and I'm like, wait, what are you doing up here? And she didn't know how to get down. Of course, you know how cats, they climb up trees and then they get scared to come down? Pilar: Yeah. Anne: There she was on the ledge, all scared to come down. I literally, I couldn't get her. I had to get my husband to come get her. Anyways, that was the funniest thing, poor little thing. And not only that, right? That same day, she had scaled the acoustic panel on the outside door. So when I was in here, right, so I'd close the doors, we got her down, and she was safe. Then she scaled the outside of the door, and I thought it was my husband, like, you know, knocking like scratching. You can hear me doing that. Like -- Pilar: Yeah. Anne: -- like that kind of thing. And I thought, well, Jerry, you can just knock on the door. But when I came out, I flung the door open, and she was literally on the ledge because I have an acoustic panel on the outside of my door too. And I have four inch panels, so she can fit easily on the top ledge. So I swung the door open, and she's on the top of the door that I flung up and unknowingly that she was up there. I shut the door. I looked up and there she was. Pilar: So she scales vertically. Anne: She scales vertically. Pilar: She scales up vertically. Anne: Yes, she does. Pilar: My stars. Anne: Yes, she does. Pilar: Your walls must be interesting with the claw marks. Anne: Well, no, she doesn't touch the wall. She literally jumps onto the acoustic panel. I don't have any -- Pilar: Oh my gosh, she jumps so high. Anne: Well, you know, I have acoustic panels like everywhere in my office. Pilar: So she just kind of darts. Anne: She darts. She scales up it, and the funny thing is, is that Tim Tippetts who built my booth for all the people that know, he was here right before lockdown of the pandemic and built this beautiful custom booth for me. I literally have like 23 of his famous DYI acoustic panels. They're four inches. They're lovely. And they have felt on the outside, a nice dark gray felt on the outside, and that's what she grabs onto. And she scales up it. Pilar: Wow. That is one enterprising kitty. Anne: Well, you know, multiply that by three because, well, I have three studio cats, and I know you have a studio cat too. Pilar: I do. Anne: You do. And we love our studio cats. And I think we could spend an entire podcast talking about our fur babies. You know, what's funny, Pilar? I know that there are people out there that will identify with us, and they don't have to be cat lovers. They just to have a special fur baby animal that they love and helps them get through the day with their business. Pilar: Absolutely. And since, you know, you spend so much time alone in your booth -- Anne: Isn't that the truth? Pilar: I have friends of mine who have dogs, who just sit there unless they snore. Then the dog has to go outside. And my cat actually has, sometimes I've heard his breath in the recording. Anne: Oh yeah. Pilar: So I have to kind of gently take him out. But most of the time he doesn't make too much noise. So -- Anne: Yeah. Pilar: But sometimes you can h

A busy voice actor spends a lot of time in the booth. You're sitting down to edit, sending out auditions, and reaching out to clients, but how are you prioritizing your physical & mental health throughout the work day? Anne & Pilar have the tips and tricks to keep your body strong & your mind sound. From taking breaks throughout the day to stretch, keeping up with your fur babies, and shaking off the stress (literally), you can tackle the day with ease like a #VOBOSS. >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Transcript Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am excited to bring back to the show Pilar Uribe, my very, very special guest cohost. Pilar. Woo-hoo! How are you? Pilar: I'm doing great, Anne. How are you? Anne: I'm amazing. Thank you. Pilar: Anne. Anne: What? Pilar: Anne. Guess what I'm wearing? Guess what I'm wearing today? Anne: Oh my, okay. Um, Hmm. I'm not sure. What are you wearing, Pilar? Are you in the booth right now? Pilar: I am. I am at the booth. Anne: It's something that makes you feel good. Pilar: It does. It does. Because this morning I went walking. I did my 10,000 steps like I do every morning. Anne: Awesome, awesome. Pilar: And then I came home. I showered, I changed and I put on my voz t-shirt and it's really cool. Anne: Awesome! Pilar: I just got in the mail, and it's so much fun. Anne: I am so excited. Guys, yeah. So BOSSes out there, in case you didn't know, in honor of the most amazing Pilar Uribe, we have really cool swag in our BOSS studio store. So you can go to shop BOSS brand gear, and we have a whole line of really cool swag. We got t-shirts, we got mugs, we got accessories. We've got all sorts of things, and they're really, really awesome. I mean, I love that it's combination of your logo and some just amazing pieces of swag that you guys can get. Pilar: I'm really liking that little bag where you can like put your stuff in and carry it around. Anne: The accessory pouch. Pilar: I love it, like you can put anything in there. Anne: We have two different sayings, Pilar, and I'm going to have you say them because I cannot do the justice to the sayings that we have on shirts. Pilar: What? Anne: The voz. Pilar: Okay. Okay. I hear you. It's voz, la voz. Anne: La voz. Pilar: La voz. Anne: La voz. And what else? We've got another logo on the mugs, not just La Voz. Pilar: Right. The other one, right. That is you say Di algo, di algo. Say something. Anne: Di algo. Pilar: Di algo. Di algo, say something. Anne: Did I do that justice? I don't think I did. Pilar: You sure did, yes, absolutely, you did. Anne: Okay. Awesome. Pilar: Yes, completely, yeah. Anne: I love that little mug, man. I'm getting myself a little mug. It's like black with this -- and it's hot pink. I love the hot pink. Pilar: I know. And it gets really cute. Anne: Yeah. The shirts we have in like so many colors, it's amazing. Pilar: The shirt is really, it's really soft, BOSS voces, because you know how like they're sometimes, you get t-shirts, and they're just kind of, they're like sandpaper. They're rough. I don't why like, like sometimes how conference t-shirts are just like rough and you're like, why are you giving me a rough t-shirt? This is not that. This is not that. This is a very soft. Anne: This is quality swag, quality swag. Pilar: Yes. Anne: I love quality swag. Pilar: It's so much fun. And there's like a little notebook. I'm kind of eyeing the notebook now. Anne: Yeah. Pilar: I'm kind of thinking I might have to get the notebook and the short sleeve, 'cause I got the long sleeve actually, and the long sleeve is just so cozy. Anne: I'm loving it. Pilar: It's so cold out here -- Anne: I'm loving a short sleeve, and I'm a big v-neck girl. So yeah. Pilar: I know, I saw those. Anne: You guys, make sure you check out the really cool swag. And in addition to our Pilar-themed line of swag, we've also got some really cool Working Voice. What else? 100% BOSS. We've got VO BOSSy. We got some really cool sayings, some really cool logos on some really great merchandise. So make sure you go visit the shop under voboss.com and then shop BOSS brand gear. Pilar: Oo, I just saw something really cute. You've got a little BOSS, onesy. Anne: I do, I do. Pilar: Uh-oh, I might be, I might be shopping soon. You've got some BOSSy pants! Oh, get out of town. Anne: We do have BOSSy pants. Okay. So now that concludes our paid advertisement. Pilar: I'm kind of getting into this. Anne: Actually, we're just so excited about it. So guys, sorry about that. But Pilar, you said something earlier that I want to talk to you about, you said, you know, you've got your 10,000 steps in, you're

The magic of voice is the way it transcends text to something more than just words. Anne is joined by James MacLeod of BeyondWords to discuss that process. They discuss the need for text-to-speech integration, from news sources to accessibility + how voice actors can stay involved. James explains contractual + licensing agreements that actors should understand before lending their voice so you can approach synthesizing your voice like a #VOBOSS.

To join or not to join, that is the question. Anne & Pilar delve deep into how union & non-union work has shaped their careers. They discuss the biz before SAG and AFTRA merged, jobs in a right-to-work state, and changes in work accessibility due to tech advances & the pandemic. Joining the union is a very personal choice, and depends on where you live and what genres you wish to work in. Learn from Pilar as she shares her journey to joining the union + Anne who explains her reasons for remaining non-union so you can make the best choice for you like a #VOBOSS. >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am so excited to be back again with my very special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Hey Pilar. How are you today? PIlar: I am doing great, Anne. How are you? Anne: I'm doing awesome this beautiful morning. Hey, I got a question for you. I have a lot of students that ask me about the union and should they be part of the union and when is the time for them to join the union. And I also have another student who's going to be moving to California, and they're asking these questions about the union. So I think it would be a great time to talk about it with you, because I know that you are a union member, and I like to kind of do a here's the union 101 kind of class in the podcast today. So I know there's a lot of people out there that have questions. And tell me a bit about how you joined the union. Pilar: Well, I have a long history with the union. I started out actually in New York because I got extra work on "One Life to Live" back when there were a lot of soap operas. And basically the day that I walked into the area where they -- the holding room, where you have all the extras sit, this very nice person, stuck out her hand and said, hi, I'm so-and-so, a member of AFTRA, the local representative. And I thought, oh, this is interesting. So literally I had not stepped foot on a soundstage in New York when there was somebody already basically saying to me, this is an offer you can't refuse. And so, yeah, because it's like, you don't really have a choice. You have to become a member of the union. Anne: You gotta join here. Pilar: Yeah, exactly. So I did, I joined happily, and I actually did a lot of extra work with the different soap operas in New York. And then when I went to Colombia, they don't have unions down there. They didn't. Now they are starting to, they do have something together. Anne: Let me just back up. You were in New York at what time? What year was it that you joined the union in New York? Pilar: Oh gosh, this was the 90s. Anne: Okay. Pilar: This was in the nineties. And this is when, because AFTRA is not -- everybody thinks of AFTRA as just radio, but also -- Anne: Yeah, that's what I remember. Pilar: Yeah. AFTRA's also TV. Anne: But not all TV though, right? Pilar: But not all TV. Exactly. Anne: Okay. Pilar: I want to say that AFTRA might just be daytime TV or it was daytime TV or maybe it was -- Anne: Plus radio, Pilar: -- like game shows and stuff like that. Yeah. Anne: Yeah. Because when I got into the industry, you know, it was all AFTRA. There was no SAG. There was all AFTRA for voice actors, that that's what you were supposed to join. And then they merged at some point. Pilar: Exactly. Exactly. And actually AFTRA stands for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Anne: Yes. Yes. Pilar: So that tells you right there, that it was specifically for some forms of television. I'm not really sure back then what the distinction was, but SAG and AFTRA were completely separate unions. Anne: So you were in New York and you were an AFTRA member in the 90s, and then you went to Colombia. And you were on, you were on television in Colombia, but there's. yeah, no unions. Pilar: No unions, but I kept my AFTRA card anyway, because I thought you never know. And dues were very, very low. So I just, I kept it, I kept it up and then I came back to -- Anne: Good thinking. Pilar: Yeah. Well, yeah. Thank goodness. Yes. Yes. Anne: 'Cause you were in Colombia for, what, eight years, right? Pilar: Nine years, nine years. Anne: So a while. So I like that manifestation that you never know, right, when you're going to need that card again or that status. Okay. Cool. All right. Pilar: And the dues back then were very, you know, they were very reasonable, so it wasn't, it wasn't a big deal. So I come back to Miami because I decide I want to be halfway between Bogota and New York. Anne: And that was in the 2000s, right? Pilar: That was in the 2000s, early 2000s. And then I discovered that Miami is a right to work state.

​​This week, the script is flipped! Pilar is interviewing Anne on her specialty: E-Learning, Corporate Narration, and more. Anne shares her secrets for keeping listeners' attention during long scripts + tips on how to have an exciting read for corporate copy. Although many consider these scripts dull, Anne argues that it's the opposite. Putting yourself in the shoes of your favorite teacher or favorite CEO will give you the passion you need to make these jobs soar like a #VOBOSS. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Both: Welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza (I'm Pilar Uribe --) Anne: Hey! Pilar: And today, I'm so excited to bring back your favorite host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Pilar. Pilar: Yes, Anne? Anne: Pilar, what's happening here? Pilar: Well, I'm taking over hosting duties today. Anne: You are? Pilar: I am. Anne: Um, okay. What, okay, so what are we talking about, Pilar, today? Pilar: Well, I want to know, I want to know about corporate narration. I want to know how you got into the business because that's something that I have not done very much of. My world is all about commercials and video games and auditioning, and I've done audio books, but I don't know very much about corporate narration or e-learning. And I would like to know how you got into that end of the business. Anne: First of all, thank you. I love corporate narration. I love talking about it. Any kind of narration, actually, I'm geekily excited by it. So. Pilar: Geekily excited about it. Anne: Geekily excited about it. Pilar: I will remember that. Anne: And I'm going to say I have corporate experience after I graduated -- for those that don't know, I have a degree in computer graphics engineering. And so when I graduated college, I was an engineer for a bio-mechanical firm and designed hip and knee prosthetics. And that was a really cool job. I really loved that. I did that for six years. If you know me and you know that I do medical narration, you'll know that's one of the reasons why I love doing medical narration. So I did not start off in voiceover all of my life, out of the womb. I did have some corporate experience and loved my experience in the corporate world. I also consulted after I got into education. So I do have a few years of being in the corporate world and working in that space and understanding what corporate culture is. And the cool thing is, is that now that I work for myself, I can work for a lot of different companies and not worry necessarily about being thought of as you know, somebody who just jumps from company to company, which at the time when I was doing that, it was not something that corporations looked fondly upon. It was one of those things where loyalty was everything to the company. And it was nice if you worked for a company for a good amount of time before you jumped ship. That was always kind of left for like, oh, that person's just out for money and not necessarily out for their corporate experience or education. But anyways, I digress into that. But my experience with the corporate world was it's similar in a way of our industry where we're really in competition with one another. Although we don't really say that we are, but we are. And, and in the corporate world, I think in a company, you're fighting for rank within the company. And that to me was it was, it was the way it worked, but it was tiring to me. And for me, I just loved doing the job and I loved sharing my knowledge, which is why I ultimately ended up getting up into education because I love to share. I get excited. I get geekily excited about, you know, my job and I would share things ,and that didn't always work out for me in the corporate world. So doing voiceover in corporate narration is the way that I win. If that's just a simple way to put it is a way that I can win at every single company that I work for without necessarily having to go to a meeting where I'm fighting for, I'm fighting for that. And I just, I love, I understand the culture. I understand how to speak the corporate language. And I think that's an important part of being a voice for a company to be able to elevate their brand. Pilar: Yeah. That's a really good point that you make, because as we've said before, we are not just voice actors, we are the business. And so you have to be able to navigate in the world of corporate speak -- Anne: Absolutely. Pilar: -- in order to survive and to thrive. So let me ask you this, Anne, what was that moment, that moment that triggered you to say and to think, Ooh, I could like this idea of doing voice acting? Anne: Well, I had since moved on from my corporate job into edu

After holding the first ever #VOBOSS Bilingual Audition Challenge, Anne & Pilar welcome the winners onto the show. Joe Lewis, Milena Benefiel, and Ramesh Mahtani share the process behind their winning entry, what stood out to Anne & Pilar when judging the contest as well as what it means to be a bilingual voice talent in today's industry. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey, hey. Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and today we have a very, very special episode planned for you. Not only am I here with my awesome special guest co-host Pilar Uribe -- woohoo Pilar! Pilar: Hi, Anne. Anne: Thanks for being here. We are so honored to be here with our VO BOSS bilingual audition challenge winners. So a huge welcome to our English audition winner, Joe Lewis. Yay! Joe: Hello. Ramesh: Hello, Joe. Anne: And our Spanish audition winner -- Pilar: Milena Benefiel. Anne: Yay! Hey Milena. Milena: Hi. Anne: And then our best English and Spanish audition, Ramesh Mahtani. Yay! So first of all, congratulations, everybody, on your wins. Joe: Thank you. Milena: Thank you, gracias. Ramesh: Gracias. Anne: It's very exciting. For those BOSSes that are just joining us and have not joined us before now, Pilar and I ran a bilingual audition challenge contest, which featured a Toyota commercial in both English and Spanish. And this was about, I'm gonna say, three to four weeks ago, and we had a number of submissions. I think it was over what, Pilar, like 130 or something like that? Pilar: Yeah. Anne: Or close to 130. Pilar: Yeah. Anne: And so first of all, everybody did a wonderful job, but we are so, so incredibly excited to have the winners with us today to talk about being bilingual in the industry today and what it takes. So let's start with our English winner, Mr. Joe Lewis. Yay, Joe. Joe, tell us a little bit about yourself and then I wanna play your winning audition. Joe: Okay. Well thank you for having me here. First of all, it's great to be with you all. I am a bilingual voiceover and voice actor, born in the US, Spanish father, American mother. And basically I've been back and forth in the States to Spain and from Spain to the States at different points of my life. And it's been a trip or several trips. You learn to adapt where you are and you do as the Romans do. And you learn a lot of stuff because you have to leverage two cultures, two languages. It's a thing. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, let's play your winning audition. And I wanna tell you a little bit about the specs. Our specs indicated that the voice should be confident, knowledgeable, optimistic, never take themselves too seriously, but at the same time, never come off as sarcastic either, warm human down to earth, playful spontaneous, conversational, relatable, and above all else, nothing that is typical commercial sounding, movie trailer, or announcery at all. So. Milena: All the things, all the things. Anne: All the things. Pilar: In other words, the kitchen sink. Anne: All the things. Totally. And I want to give a big shout out to the queen bee herself, Liz Atherton, and CastVoices for her sponsoring this contest and offering our winners a year pro membership to CastVoices. You guys, castvoices.com, go and get yourself an account. Liz is amazing and always has the voice talents' backs. I'll tell you what, she's amazing. So thank you Liz for that. So let's go ahead and play the warm, human, down to earth, playful, not typical commercial sounding, movie trailer or announcery English winning submission by Joe. Here we go. Joe: Beep. Beep. That is the sound of me signaling that this is a car commercial while being considerate of the fact that you may be on the road. It's exactly this kind of consideration that lets you know, you can trust Toyota and our all new 2022 Highlander SUV to get you where you need to be faster and more reliably. Beep beep beep beep beep. Oops. Sorry. I think my burrito's done. Anne: I love it. Joe: Thank you. Anne: I think that that really took every single spec into consideration. Joe, did you have any particular strategy when you were doing this audition or what is it that you do to prepare for an audition? Because we had so many submissions, but yours just kind of really stood out from the get-go. Joe: Well, thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it. As far as strategy, if it's automotive, I take it extra seriously because it's a big genre. So no matter what it is, even if it's a dealership, you know, it could turn into a long-term gig. So you take it seriously. It's always a challenge, uh, to see if it's a soft sell or if it's a harder sell, more p

Anne & Pilar are casting directors! Or at least they were for the first ever #VOBOSS Bilingual Audition challenge. They share the common mistakes, honorable mentions, and (of course) the winners! Tune in to sharpen your auditioning skills & learn what the audition selection process is really like. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am here with the one and only amazing special guest co-host Pilar Uribe. Hey Pilar. How are you? Pilar: Hola todos. ¿Cómo están hoy? Anne: Hola. So Pilar, I'm super excited today because a few weeks back we launched the VO BOSS Spanish bilingual audition challenge. Woohoo! Like it was our first bilingual audition challenge that I've ever seen actually and conducted. And I'm super excited because we sent out the casting first of all through our good friends over there at CastVoices, Liz Atherton and the team over there at CastVoices. We sent out this audition through their system, and we also sent an email to all of you BOSSes out there. And we also published far and wide on social media. So let's talk a little bit about what the specs were for this audition challenge. So the specs were, it could be male, female, non-binary, age range from 25 to 65. So the purpose of this audition challenge was primarily for educational purposes. And so we cast the net far and wide. Our specs were for male, female, and non-binary, age range from 25 to 65. So our specs also wanted to grab a diverse range of voice talent. The voice should be confident, knowledgeable, we have a lot of adjectives here, optimistic, never take themselves too seriously, but at the same time don't come off as sarcastic either, warm, human, down-to-earth, and playful. Their delivery is conversational, relatable, and above all else nothing that is typical commercial sounding ,movie trailer, or announcery at all. Sounds pretty common to me, those specs, right, Pilar? . Pilar: Yeah. And, and the thing is, is that a lot of the times you get just this three paragraphs worth of specs, 'cause they, they want to really throw the kitchen sink in. And the casting directors, they're looking for something. So they're trying to be as helpful as possible. Anne: Yes. Pilar: And sometimes as voice actors, we go, oh my gosh, they gave us so much. Anne: Sometimes it's not helpful. Pilar: Really and truly -- yeah, well right. But they're trying to give you as much information as possible -- Anne: Mm-hmm. Pilar: -- so you can make your creative choices. Anne: Absolutely. We also specified that talent should read both Spanish and English versions with or without a specific regional accent. And we were going to judge on performance. We wanted two separate MP3s delivered and labeled and named in a particular fashion. And also what else did we specify? Oh, it needed to be uploaded to a Dropbox location that we had set up for the challenge. Pilar: Well, and I think we were very conscious of what we do on a daily basis. I mean the auditions that come in from my agents are very, very similar to that. Anne: Mm-hmm. Pilar: So we wanted to make it as close to a real audition as possible. Anne: Absolutely. Pilar: And you get this list of things that you need to look at and you need to look at all the aspects of the audition. Anne: Absolutely. We also gave some references. So if people wanted to learn some more, we pointed back to a couple of episodes that you and I did about bilingual on the VO BOSS podcast. And very exciting, we have prizes. So we are going to be selecting today three winners. We are going to select the best English audition, the best Spanish audition, and the best English and Spanish combined. So the prizes are going to be an amazing choice of swag from the VO BOSS shop. And also thank you so much to, again, our friends over there at CastVoices and Liz Atherton, a one year CastVoices pro membership, courtesy of Liz and CastVoices. So very excited about that. All right. So let's talk overall what we thought about the contest and how it went. And actually we gave, I think it was almost two weeks we gave. The due date was to -- Pilar: Mm-hmm. Anne: -- have everything submitted by 6:00 PM Pacific on April 15th. And we took that very seriously because that gave you almost two weeks to submit. We did have some people that submitted a couple, and I was okay with that. Normally that's not how it works in the audition process. You wanna get your audition in probably sooner if you can, rather than later, but because this was an educational experiment, an educational process, I said it was okay to upload alternate files as long as they we

Three days with VO industry experts + networking with peers? Sign us up! Anne gets the inside scoop on what's in store for eVOcation 2022 with co-founders Jamie Muffett and Carin Gilfry. The three chat industry advice for newcomers + seasoned voice artists, what to expect at the conference, paying it forward, and how important it is to make education a lifelong journey! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and today I am so excited to be here with amazing talents and founders of the popular eVOcation Conference, which is devoted to the business of voiceover, Jamie Muffett and Carin Gilfry. Thank you guys so much for joining me today. Carin: Thanks for having us. We're so excited to be here. Jamie: Yeah. Thanks, Anne. Anne: I am so excited to talk to you guys about all things, eVOcation, business voiceover, because I think you guys are such an amazing team. Like you've been together for a number of years, I'm gonna say at least that I've known about -- Carin: Yeah. Anne: -- doing wonderful things for the voiceover community and supporting communities on Facebook with a wonderful conference that you're now having once or twice a year, I'm not sure. Um, we'll talk about that. . Carin: We're not really sure either, because I feel like as soon as we started this conference, then we had a global pandemic, and -- Anne: Yeah, right? Oh my gosh. Carin: So now we're like, so what, what are we doing? Jamie: Yeah. Anne: Well, so before we get to talking about eVOcation, I'd like my BOSS listeners to find out a little bit about you guys. So if you guys wouldn't mind introducing yourselves tell the BOSSes a little bit about how you got into voiceover and then ultimately how you two met and started creating these wonderful community resources. Jamie. Jamie: Carin, do you want to go -- oh. Jamie: Too polite. Carin: We're, we're just so polite. Anne: You guys are so polite to each other. That's why I let you do that. . Jamie: All right. Well, I'm gonna take the lead . I started voiceover in 2009 in the UK and knowing that I was gonna move to the US. So I sort of had this plan that was gonna sort of be a job that I could start in the UK and then try transition over. Um, only really had confidence in it because I had sort of recording knowledge. I was in the sort of studio world in the music industry. And so I knew how to record my voice. And I knew I was going to America where apparently they like English guy voices. So that's, that's all I had really coming in . I started in the UK and then we moved over ,and then I sort of continued on and gradually moved away from music into voiceover. That sort of happened actually fairly quickly. Yeah, I do a whole different array of genres of voiceover, anything that requires British guy really that I'll throw my hat in the ring. And yeah, we connected, when was that? Probably, I don't know, like 2018? Carin: 2017 maybe. Jamie: Oh, maybe earlier. Oh, right. Yeah. Maybe 2017. Carin: 'Cause I feel like it was around when Mahalia was born, my daughter, and she was born in 2017. Jamie: Yeah. And it was actually -- Carin: Sometime around there. Jamie: -- Tim Friedlander I think that introduced us, I think. Carin: I think so. Jamie: Because Tim shot me a message and was like, oh, you know, there's this lady in New York who's got this huge Facebook group for New York voice actors? I was like, no . And so we connected that way and yeah, we just sort of got on well. And I've obviously got my podcast VO School, and she had her community, and we were talking and we was like, there's nothing really in New York aside from Carin's regular classes and things like that. There was nothing big in New York, which seemed crazy . So that was sort of the sort of burgeoning discussion that eventually resulted in VOcation. Anne: A-ha. Carin? Carin: I was a theater kid. My dad's an opera singer. My parents are both performers, and really in my family, there are two options. You either become a teacher or a performer. And a teacher is really a kind of performer anyway . Anne: True. Carin: And so I ended up going to school for opera. And then after being in the opera industry for a while, I, it just, it was so stressful. It's like being an opera singer is like being like an Olympic gymnast or something, or like a professional ballet dancer where you just have to be on top of your game all the time. And if you are even a little bit below what is considered absolute pro, then you're just like, you don't exist. So it was so stressful. And I had a friend who was narrating audio books, I thought, oh, that would be a great thing to do. I can use my voice. I can use my acting abilities. And so I got

Auditions are a voice actor's work day in and day out. Anne & Pilar understand how important auditions are and how much time goes into crafting one that will catch the attention of casting directors. They discuss spending time with your copy, researching the product, adding smile to your slate, respecting the concept, and more…to get you auditioning like a total #VOBOSS. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am with my very special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Pilar, how are you today? Pilar: I'm exhausted. Anne: You know what, I am too. And I have a question for you in regards to that, why? Pilar: Yes? Anne: Why Pilar? Pilar: Why am I exhausted? Funny you should ask that, Anne, funny you should ask that. I was up until all hours doing my auditions. Anne: Oh man. Why is it that every agent I know sends auditions at like 5:00 or 6:00 PM, when at the end of the day I am literally, I'm done. I'm like, I'm exhausted, my performance, and that's a big thing, Pilar, for me. I've got to have energy enough for performance and thought and acting, and I'm exhausted at the end of the day. And I'm like, oh no, because there's a decision, right? Do I do it at night when I'm tired and I've got to rev myself up or do I wait in the morning where I know I'm really good, but then my voice is like this, it's very low. Perhaps I can't get back down there again. Pilar: Yes. This is really true. It's kind of six of one, half dozen of the other. I really look at auditions as it's, it's work. Anne: Yes, it is work. Pilar: You know, auditions are what we do. It is the work. A good friend of mine said audition is the work and acting is what I get to do once in a while. Anne: It's our job. Pilar: Auditions are the job. Exactly. And so I like to look at auditions as sometimes I go, oh yeah, right, time to make the donuts, time to do the auditions. But other times I really like to look at them as an adventure. Anne: Yeah, like a puzzle. That's me. It's a challenge. Pilar: What is the adventure? Where's the story that I'm going on? And this may sound odd, but I have learned so much about people and about different themes just from auditions. Because when they tell you, okay, go here on, look on YouTube. Here's this reference, look at this. And then you look at it and you go, oh, wow. I didn't know about this product. I didn't know this woman had done this. Some of the images that they send you are so heart-wrenching and, and I just go, wow. I would never have known that if I hadn't auditioned. So I always try to look at the positive. [sings] "You gotta accentuate the positive." And um, yeah. I know everything is a song for me. It's really ridiculous. It's just what it is. It's a song or it's a jingle. Anne: Right? I think of you now every time I climb in my studio and I'm singing, and I'm like, yeah, I bet Pilar's singing right now. She's singing the audition. But -- Pilar: Yeah, pretty much. Anne: -- I always like to go at auditions with a strategy, right? Pilar: Yeah. Anne: I try to do something that I think that nobody else will do because in my head immediately, right, when I read the script, I'm hearing something that maybe I've heard on television before. I've heard a melody. And again, I want to make sure that I'm selected for the job. I want to get the gig. So I want to really figure out how I can be unique in that audition. And that's what most people say, what's a good strategy for auditioning, well, bring yourself to the party, do something unique, because casting directors and by the way, for anybody who's never cast before, I strongly encourage it. If you guys have an accountability group or you work out with peers, run your own casting. Because that will help you to understand what casting directors go through. I literally -- only takes one, one example, one test where you're listening to maybe a couple, even 20. Even if you just listen to like 20 auditions in a row for the same piece of copy, you're gonna find things that stand out to you and things that don't. Pilar: It's so interesting because I had the opportunity, I had to cast, uh, something, but it wasn't for a voice at all. It was for some artwork. And I was very specific, very specific in the directions. And I had this one person who basically fought me every step of the way, because we could have that interaction, which you don't usually have when you're doing voiceover auditions. But he would ask me questions and I would answer them. And every time -- I would say, this is what I need, I need one sketch. And then he would go off on a tangent and present 10. And I

Although we wish it were true, companies don't need VO produced 365 days a year. So what do you do when things are slow? Anne & Pilar have learned that the ebb and flow is all part of the biz. The amount of auditions you receive is not indicative of your worth, but it does feel good to be busy. Filling your time with classes, coaching, and market research during down time can prepare you for when the busy season comes again, but slow days can also be times to relax + restore your hard working voice, mind, and body like a true #VOBOSS. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am super excited to be back with special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Hey Pilar. How are you today? Pilar: I am good, Anne, and it's, uh, it's a little slow today. Anne: Yeah. You know what? That happens in our industry. We have days where, gosh, every time I turn around, there's something else to do. And I love those days. They're crazy days. But then there are days when it's slow. Back in the early days, Pilar, I used to like question, oh my God is what's happening? Like, should I get out of the industry? Like I haven't heard from any of my clients. I didn't book any gigs today. So what do I even do? So that would be a good topic for discussion today. Pilar: It's funny because I think that voice actors tend to equate their worth with the amount of auditions they get, which has absolutely nothing to do with them. Anne: auditions and or jobs too. So don't forget about that. Right? 'Cause they're like, oh my God, it's been slow. I haven't, I didn't book anything. I didn't get any auditions. What am I doing wrong? Pilar: Exactly. And it generally, it has nothing to do with you. There are things that you can do of course, but just remember that it's not necessarily a reflection on your ability. It's just sometimes it's the wave of what the market is doing. Anne: Yeah. The wave of the market. Pilar: I mean, there, there have been so many waves when people didn't know what was happening. And so clients and companies are still trying to figure out where to put their advertising dollars, and then that's when you see, well, what's happening? Why isn't, why isn't this coming in? Anne: I know and then you immediately blame it on yourself. Pilar: Immediately. And that's so that's so unhealthy. Anne: Yeah. It's a good thing to remember. I tell people because we do our BOSS advertising, the BOSS Blast, and a lot of times it really comes down to like what you said about the market. It is so true. We are driven by the market, right? When the market needs voiceover, they buy, not that they're not going to completely not need voiceover any given day, but there are waves. And it's always good to remember that if you're getting auditions, or you're submitting to any particular clients, corporate clients, if you're doing your own marketing, a lot of times any one particular company doesn't need a voiceover necessarily every single day. They're advertising. I don't really know one company that's advertising every single day, like hiring a voice talent. Sure, they're advertising, but it might be print. It might be email. It might be social media. They may not always be hiring a voiceover talent every single day. So remember when you send that email or that advertisement or that email for your services, remember that not every company has a new commercial every day or has a new e-learning module to do today. And that has a lot to do with offers that may come by. It just may be a whole timing issue. Pilar: Yeah, exactly. And so when those days are slow -- Anne: What do we do? Pilar: What do we do, exactly. And so one of the things that you can do is look at the business of where you are in your voiceover career. Are you sending out emails? Are you -- Anne: What's your marketing plan? Pilar: What's your marketing plan? Are you being top of mind for certain people, without being a stalker, 'cause that's something that we have to be really aware of. If you've had a client that you worked with, let's say a year ago, and you haven't heard anything or you got a new demo and you can say, hey, I just did a spot and I have a new demo. There's certain things that you can do during the slow time, during the let's say holiday times or the winter or the summer months. I was just thinking about this one very specific, slow time of the year is let's say Christmas through New Year's -- Anne: Yup, yup. Pilar: -- because nobody's thinking about that. Everybody's dealing with their Christmas presents or their Hanukkah or whatever they're getting into. Anne: Well, the majority. Pil

As a voice actor, you are often given the power (and burden) of setting your own rates. Now, where to begin? Anne & Pilar have been through taking low paying gigs, walking away from jobs, and even getting their way in financial negotiations. It all comes down to knowing your worth. Tune in to learn how to navigate price setting, negotiating with clients, finding strength in community, and getting paid as much as you are worth like a #VOBOSS. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and with me today is very, very special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Pilar! Pilar: Aloha. Anne: Hello, how are you? Pilar: I'm doing great today. And how are you doing? Anne: I am doing good. I'm doing really good. Except, ugh, I had a client that I had to let go the other day. Pilar: Why? Anne: Well, it was a new client that we were in a negotiation phase, and they wanted to kind of lowball me on a job. And it just turned out that what they wanted to pay, what their budget was, just did not align with where I am. And I was really standing tall and standing by what I'm worth. And I think that's a very valuable lesson that we should talk about for the BOSSes today is to know your worth. It is so very important. It's so hard to say no, to walk away from a client. Like it's terrifying I think for anybody starting out in the industry, right, to give up on an opportunity, especially when you felt like, well, I'm just getting started. I need the experience. Pilar: I wish I had known you when I was getting started, because I can't tell you how many times that happened to me. And it's interesting that you bring this up, Anne, because a lot of the times when we are starting out or let's say, you know, we've worked -- I did a lot of dubbing where the rates were standardized in Miami. Anne: So you didn't negotiate it. They were just, this is what we're paying you. Pilar: Exactly. So it's like, take it or leave it. And I was like, okay. But I think that voice actors sometimes think that there's something wrong with them because they don't know how to negotiate. And I think it's so important because this is such an industry where there is no standard set of -- there is a standard set of rates, yes, for the industry, but everybody offers a different price. So it really is up to you, the voice actor to figure out what it is that you are worth and to know how to negotiate. And so it's a skill that's learned. You may go into it, not knowing how to negotiate, but that doesn't make you any less of a voice actor. It's just, it's, it's a skill that has to be learned and it takes time. It's not something that happens immediately. Anne: It does. I think it's a skill that takes a little bit of practice. And I think you just have to be courageous. You have to be brave. And first of all, I want to just separate out, if you have an agent, the agent's job is to negotiate on your behalf, which is amazing. I love my agents who negotiate on my behalf. That's what they do. They get the work and then they negotiate the best price for us. And they're looking out for our best interests, hopefully for the most part, right? They're looking out for us getting the best price for who we are so they know what we're worth. So think about it. If you're put in a position where you are negotiating, and this job may not have come through an agent and you're got somebody that's inquiring on your website, I'd like to use your voice for this particular job, how much, that's where you have to stand firm in understanding that you are worthy of a fair market price, and a great place to go find out a baseline of rates is of course the GVAA, right? Who doesn't love the GVAA rate guide. There's also Gravy for the Brain. They have some good international rates there and SAG-AFTRA too. Pilar: SAG by the Numbers is the website. And I think that going to those different places gives you a gauge. So that will give you the confidence to be able to say, okay, this is how much I can command. Instead of taking the number out of a hat or allowing somebody to steam roll you. Anne: Yeah. It gives you a baseline. And I think too, the first time you say no, and then you're terrified, right, when you say no, or you walk away, and you're like, oh my gosh, I'll never get work in this town again. Because I've either made an assumption that is too large of a number, and everybody's laughing at me now because they're like, no, I can't pay that number -- that is part of the negotiation game, really. And you have to know that even if you're a beginner, you deserve as much as I do. I think we all deserve as much

Every script is the answer to a question. It's up to the actor to discover (and sometimes create) that question. In this episode, Anne & Pilar are here to keep you on your toes with improv techniques + exercises. They will teach you how to stay fresh with your reads, and - more importantly - why it's necessary to know the script, scene, and emotions for everything you read. Whether it be E-Learning, IVR, or commercial, you'll be ready to tackle it with authentic reactions + diverse copy interpretations like a #VOBOSS. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast, con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey Pilar. I'm trying to figure out how to lead into today's episode. And I've been thinking about different scenes that maybe I could place myself in. So maybe I'll come at the introduction not like I've come at the introduction like people expect, so I want to do something different. So what are you thinking? Where can I start? Pilar: Where can you start? "Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start." What's that from? Anne: I'm on a mountainside. Pilar: No, quick, what's that from? Anne: No wait. Okay. I'm on a mountain side in the sun and I'm feeling like I'm very happy, and I want to sing because I dunno, I like to sing when I'm happy. Pilar: And you're twirling your arms. Anne: I am twirling my arms, and I'm going to not have a dress on with an apron. Okay. So, well, let's just put it this way. I'll have a dress on that really works with the twirl, but it won't have an apron on. Pilar: Nix the apron, okay. Anne: And I'm going to be young with long flowing hair. Pilar: Long blonde flowing hair. Anne: Yep. That's it. That's it. And there's going to be animals. Pilar: Okay. Anne: There's going to be, well, there'll be cats. Of course. Actually -- Pilar: How about llamas? How about llamas? Anne: Okay, cats and llamas I think go well, lots of cats. Pilar: Except that llamas spit. Anne: Yeah, but they're not going to spit on the cats. They're going to spit on me because maybe I'm not in tune. Pilar: You're going to ride off into the sunset on top of a llama. Anne: But then I'll make friends with the llama, and I will carry the cats in my arms and hop on the llama, and ride off into the sunset because I've had a wonderful morning and day of singing on the mountain side. Pilar: And you're singing "Do, a deer" at the same time. Anne: Yes, exactly. Wow. Pilar: That's improv. Anne: Hey BOSSes. That's improv with that said, hey, everyone. I completely was so in the scene that I forgot my introduction. Pilar: You forgot who you were. Anne: I forgot who I was for just a moment. So here we go. Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, up on the mountain, singing and twirling with my cats and llamas, along with my special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Pilar, come to the mountain and sing with me. Pilar: "The hills are alive with the sound of llamas." Anne: -- "VO BOSSes." Pilar: "Llamas and VO BOSSes." Anne: So Pilar, that was fun. Pilar: That was fun. Anne: I think understanding and practicing improv can really, really help us in our performance and in our business. So I think we should have today's episode featuring improv, and talking about improv, and how can we better our performances with improv? Pilar: Yes. Improv is something that I -- it's funny, 'cause I've always been scared of it, and I've never really understood it, although I've done it most of my acting career without realizing it. It's just really funny. We improv all the time in our lives when we're talking. So improv is all about taking what somebody is saying and you keep going. It's that? Yes. And moment with improv. That's that's like the biggest rule. Anne: Yes, and. Pilar: Yes, and, meaning -- Anne: Yes, and, and then what happens? Pilar: And then you add onto the story, and the intent is to be positive always. I mean, unless it's a tragedy kind of a thing which improv is, is really about it's taking whatever that person gives you and running with it, however you're going to do it, so. Anne: Well, I think it needs to fit into the context, right? So if we're going to try to improv and get ourselves into a scene for a script that already sits in front of us, so that maybe we can improve our auditions, right, there is some context to the script. Maybe we should just talk from genre specific right now, like commercial or corporate or e-learning, those types of -- versus character-driven spots like animation and video games. We can talk about that in a minute, but let's focus on the genres where people go in, and they have a commercial audition to get out the gate. Right? What is it that we're going to do once we look at the c

Do you know the difference between dubbing, ADR, walla walla, and looping? In this episode, Anne & Pilar cover it all. Since the pandemic, there has been a boom in content creation globally. Dubbing movies & TV shows into other languages, and creating audio descriptions for the visually impaired has made content much more accessible and given voice artists more work! Stay tuned for Pilar's experience with voice dubbing + Anne's tricks for lending your voice artistry to on-screen performances like a #VOBOSS. >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast, con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza along with my very special guest cohost, Pilar Uribe. Pilar. How are you today? Pilar: Hola, Anne. ¿Cómo estás? Anne: Ah, tired. I am tired. Pilar. You know, why? Pilar: Why? Anne: Because I binged watched the entire season of "Succession" last night and ah, oh my gosh. Pilar: It's so good. Anne: So good. Pilar: So many cliffhangers. Anne: I know. Oh my gosh. Pilar: Yeah. I loved it. Anne: And I'll tell you what, sometimes I stay up later than my husband, so I'm always putting on subtitles. And when I put on subtitles, it makes me think of all these shows now that are coming out in streaming media, and dubbing, and ADR and all of these techniques that are coming out and really offering a lot of jobs these days to people in the VO industry. And I thought we should talk about dubbing and ADR for a little bit. What do you think? Pilar: Yup. Dubbing is very close to my heart. Anne: Oh my goodness, and it's just since the pandemic, just an explosion of so much content and media, and you have had some experience dubbing. I personally have not had much at all. I went to a training class on dubbing, but talk to me about dubbing because that's something I think you actively do, right? Pilar: Yes. Yes. That's where I got started in voiceover. Anne: Okay. Pilar: I did like two series in Colombia. There were animated, but I actually cut my teeth on dubbing. Dubbing is a skill like any other, and it requires being a good actor. Anne: Wait, back that truck up again and say that very important, right? When you watch dubbing shows and of course, what is the latest one? When people are talking about the quality of the dubbing, there is something that was recently released, and we don't have to name it, but there was talk about how the dubbing was not great. There was not great actors. So I think acting is so, so important to be a good dubbing actor. Pilar: Well, if you want to see examples of bad dubbing, just go to the Godzilla movies. Anne: Oh yeah. Pilar: It's hysterical. Anne: You're right. Pilar: Those are so funny to watch. But since Netflix has -- and HBO as well and uh, and Amazon, since they have entered the marketplace, uh, you know, over the past couple of years, and when I started back in two thousand... I guess I started dubbing in 2010, Netflix, wasn't really doing that much. They've been doing more and more in HBO, and Netflix is just all over the place. They have so much content. So one of the things that they look for is, yes, are you a good actor? Because you have to be able to portray what is being said in whatever language it is, whether it's, you know, German or Spanish or Portuguese, you need to be able to portray those same emotions. So it's kind of like, 'cause I used to actually teach dubbing. It's kind of like, you're like a one man band stand. You remember those little, those figures of the monkey where they have -- Anne: Yes, they play the tambourine. They play the drums. Yeah, absolutely. Pilar: All at the same time. Anne: You have to do it all. Pilar: It's kind of like being a drummer because if you look at a drummer, he's got one beat going in one arm, another beat going in the other arm, and he's got two different beats going in his, with his legs. Anne: Yeah. So Pilar, just to back up just a little bit, I want to make sure that, because we are going to talk about both dubbing and ADR, what exactly is dubbing? Let's just clear up the definition. Pilar: Yes. So dubbing is when you have got a telanovela, say, or a movie in Spanish, and they are speaking in Spanish. And they want you to put your voice onto that person's body basically so it sounds -- Anne: In another language. Pilar: In another -- in English, in English. So if it's in Spanish, they want you to dub exactly what they are saying in Spanish into English. Anne: Right. Or vice versa. Pilar: Or vice versa. Anne: Or any other language. Pilar: Or any, 'cause it doesn't matter. I mean, I've dubbed in Chinese, from Chinese to English, German, Swedish. It depends on the project. Anne: Do you dub mostly in English

Acting is more than just using your voice. It requires whole body movement, agility, and engagement. In this episode, Anne & Pilar share their favorite stretches, exercises, and warmups that can be done in and out of the booth. From Pilar's jaw release warmup to Anne's neck stretch, by the end of this episode you'll be warmed up + ready to perform like a #VOBOSS. More at https://voboss.com/move-in-the-booth Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast, con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza. And I am so excited to bring back to my booth, my special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Pilar, how are you? Pilar: Hello, Anne. Anne: Look, I feel I'm very spry. I'm very spry today in the booth. And you know why? Do you know I'm spry? Pilar: Why are you spry? Why are you spry? Why are you spry, Anne? Anne: Because I did a little warmup, so I'm kind of feeling good in the booth. And I think it's important that we always do awesome warmups and move around in the booth so we can have good energy going forth into our voiceover. Pilar: I totally agree. Anne: Thoughts? Pilar: That that is something that I, something that I just did. Do as I say, not as I do. Try not to do what I just did, honestly. VO BOSSes -- Anne: Drink dairy? Pilar: Because, well, that's one thing. Yes, of course. I had dairy. I had yogurt this morning, so of course I'm all phlegmy. Anne: Me too. Pilar: That's not, that's not fun, especially when you're going to do an audition. That's not great. So drink your water. But one of the things that I was told by a professional is it's really bad to clear your throat. You know, like when people [clear throat noise], that is like the worst thing you can do. Drink water, wait till it passes, stop doing that. But that's literally like putting sandpaper on your throat. It's the worst thing you can do. Anne: Yes, I have heard the same, and it's very hard because I think it's like a habit from before voiceover. That would be BF -- BFO, before voiceover, before voiceover, when I used to scream and do all sorts of harmful things to my vocal cords, before I realized that we need to treat this like gold, because it is our livelihood. Pilar: Okay. I have one question though. Did you say BFO? Anne: Did I say BF -- Pilar: You meant BVO, BVO. Anne: BVO, okay, okay. I was thinking like best friend in VO. So I kind of combined -- Pilar: Anne, Anne -- Anne: Pilar, that's how I think of you. Pilar: Anne, will you be my BFO? Anne: My BFO. there's -- Pilar: Will you be my BFO? Anne: -- best friend, best friend in VO. So hey -- Pilar: I love it. Anne: So being best friends, I think I want all of our BOSS listenership -- they're our friends. And I think it would be a really great episode if we talked about how moving in the booth and how warming up and just physicality in the booth can really help us to perform better and just be better all around, better mental, spiritual, physical to improve our performances. Pilar: Okay. So since we are starting our day, Anne, I invite you to do something with me. Anne: Okay. All right. Pilar: We're going to do it all together. Anne: What is this, a warmup? Pilar: This is a warmup exercise. It's a jaw release. Anne: Oh yes. Pilar: Which we don't even realize half the time how much tension we're carrying in our jaw. Anne: You know what's so funny, that I actually really need this because the other day, I woke up, and my ear was hurting, but it wasn't like an earache kind of hurt. It was an ear hurting because I might've clenched my jaw at night. And I, I know so many people that clench their jaws at night, and anything to relieve this ache in my jaw will be very helpful. Yes. Pilar: Okay. Cool. Anne: I'm ready. Pilar: All right. So I want you to place your palms on the sides of your face. Okay? I'll hold it on my headphones. You can still hear me, right? Okay. So you're going to place your palms on the side of your face and slowly massage the jaw and the cheek muscles. Okay. So you're taking the palm, and you're massaging the jaw line up and down the jaw line and also your cheekbones and, and with small circular motions. Anne: Good for when you have sinus issues too. Pilar: Yes. Anne: Or you feel it. Can you hear me going, can you hear it? Like, I'm very close to the mic. I am in circular motions. Pilar: So you can, you can go all the way up to where your cheekbone is and massage there, and you can go all the way towards the ear. Anne: Okay, BOSSes, you're doing this, I hope you're doing this with us, BOSSes. Pilar: Absolutely. Just try it. And then you go all the way down to your jaw line and go way up almost to your, your ear, almost to the ear. S

A peaceful life is one where your work and personal lives are balanced yet separate…but how does that translate to finances? Anne & Pilar have done it all: from TurboTax and nerve-wrecking audits to having an accountant on retainer. There is no one-size fits all plan for business finances, but keeping things organized + separated is a good start. Be ready to evolve your strategy as your business does and tackle tax season like a #VOBOSS! More at https://voboss.com/tax-season Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm excited to welcome back to the podcast very special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Pilar: Hi, Anne. Anne: Pilar, Pilar, I, ugh, it's that time again. Pilar: It's tax time. Anne: Pilar, I think this might be the time of year where every voiceover artist entrepreneur says, oh, 'cause we got to start the process or at least forms are coming in. We're gathering receipts. We're doing all of that good stuff to prepare for the tax season. Pilar: It's a communal flip-out. Anne: Yes, it is. Pilar: It's a hootenanny of flipping out. Anne: It is. And it's always like, oh God, I don't want to, oh. Or I want to just get a nice refund. And it's been kind of crazy with the extension last year with the pandemic and things got all out of whack, but I'll tell you, I've got a few things that I've learned along the way that may help BOSSes out there. And I'm sure you do, Pilar, may help you guys when it comes time to getting ready for tax season. Pilar: You know, I think the most important thing, Anne, is to start looking at what you've spent, how you've spent it, how you've earned it. And you know, there are people who are listening to this podcast who are going to say, oh yeah, I've got it all together. And then there are people who are just beginning their career. And so for those VO BOSSes, whatever stage you're in, it's really important to, to start it. And it doesn't matter if you don't have it all together because every single person started out not knowing what they were doing. Anne: But, but I will tell you what helped me immensely right away for my business, whether I was part-time or full-time. 'Cause I started and I did a couple of years part-time before I went full time, was getting a separate bank account, a business bank account, so that I could separate the monies that I was using for my business in and out. So that was the single most important thing I think I started, I mean, outside of researching, do I create an LLC? Do I create -- I actually started as a DBA. Do I create an LLC? Do I have an S Corp? And I think for everyone that is just starting, that's something that you want to research. You may not need to start an LLC right away, whatever it takes. I guess it depends on -- it does depend on the state. I only required a DBA when I first started. So that's what I did. And I followed the rules and did what I needed to do. Got my DBA, and made sure I had a separate bank account so that I could account for all the money coming in and flowing out as well. Pilar: Yeah. I completely agree with that statement. So here's something that I did. So all you VO BOSSes listening out there can do the opposite. I did actually, because my bank gave me that option. I had my regular checking account and my business checking account. Anne: And you didn't have to have a DBA or a -- Pilar: No. Anne: -- something that proved your business? Pilar: No. This was when I first got to Miami after Colombia, and it was, um, Wachovia, which is now Wells Fargo, but they, they just offered that and I was like, sure, I'll take it. So it was two, two different savings accounts, two different checking accounts. But here's what I didn't do. So I really wanted to get my frequent flyer miles. So I thought I'm just going to use my regular credit card for everything. Big mistake, big mistake. So I, and I didn't do it until relatively recently that I got a separate credit card for my business. So nothing that I put on my business has anything to do with my private life and what I do when I'm buying groceries or whatever has nothing to do with what I put on the expense credit card. And that is so important because what ends up happening is if you say, oh yeah, I can just put everything on one credit card and then I'll divvy it up at the end of the year, like right now, then you're just basically pouring over and over through all your statements and it becomes a nightmare. Anne: Well, that's just as bad as not having a business bank account. Pilar: Yes. I agree. Anne: And it could be worse because you tend to spend more on that credit car

Have you ever wanted to be someone else (or maybe just sound like someone else?). Expand your performance reach with speech-to-speech technology and explore new options as an actor! Anne & Alex Serdiuk from Respeecher discuss how voice actors can benefit from incorporating digitized voice options into their repertoire using the Respeecher platform. They chat tech, marketplace, usage, and just a few of the possibilities available to VO talent using speech-to-speech to enhance their acting range. Winner of SOVAS Outstanding Podcast: https://www.sovas.org/2022-winners/ More at https://voboss.com/voice-and-ai-growing-respeecher

Have you ever tried singing your audition copy? Anne & Pilar do! This week, your hosts will teach you how to let go in the booth and approach scripts using a musical edge. All copy has a distinct flow and requires proper pacing, a distinct rhythm, and hints of uniqueness that keep listeners interested. Get ready to listen, sing, and most importantly, break down copy like a #VOBOSS! More at: https://voboss.com/singing-and-vo Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with a very special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Hey, Pilar. [Pilar humming] Anne: Hey, I recognize that. Hey, is that this song? [song playing] Ugh, Pilar, I love, love, love this song. And you know what? Even if I didn't know what it meant, like, I feel like the title just says it all, "Attacks of Happiness." Like honestly, like that's just a joyful, happy song. You are so multi-talented -- again, I say the triple, quadruple, multilevel threat. I think there's a lot to be said about singing and musicality in voiceover. And I'd love to chat with you about that today. Pilar: Yeah, it's funny because a lot of people think that singing and acting aren't connected or they say, oh, I can't sing. You don't have to be a singer to have a sense of musicality and incorporate that into your work. Anne: Or a musician. We'll just say musician, right? I think there's so many parallels in voiceover. Pilar: Absolutely. Because the thing is is that when you're given a script, whether it's 30 seconds, or it's, you know, an audiobook, or it's 10 pages of e-learning there's beats and there's rhythm to it. Anne: Absolutely. Pilar: You have to find that, you have to find the musicality of whatever it is that you're talking about. Anne: Absolutely. Pilar: And so it really doesn't matter what the, what the length is. You need to break it down and create beats and find the beats and find where there are the parts where you can slow down and speed up. Anne: And the rhythm. Pilar: And the tonality of it. Anne: Well, you know, what's so interesting, and I teach conversational melody to my students, and what's so interesting -- yeah, what's so interesting -- Pilar: Oh, talk about that, that's so cool. Anne: -- we don't -- thank you -- we don't ever really listen to our own conversation and break it down into melody, but all the time we're getting specs that say conversational or talk to us like it's your best friend. Right? And so, because we don't think about what we sound like melodically when we're talking conversationally, over the years, I've broken it down technically. But again, you can't spend too much time thinking about the technicality of it, but just know that we're organically thinking about what we're saying, right? So that has everything to do with the pacing and the rhythm of how we talk, because I'm thinking of things to say in my brain. And then they come out my mouth, and when that happens, I'm thinking, okay, now I know what I'm going to say. Right? So I'm thinking, here's my rhythm and my length of what I'm going to say. And then I know what I'm saying. And ultimately, when it comes to important words that I want you to hear, I'm basically making those whole notes or holding the notes longer. So I really want you to listen to this. So I've really like emphasized that. And so that becomes part of a melody. It becomes part of music. If you read music, think of it as your whole note, and all the words that lead up to the important word as your half notes, your 16th notes, your 8th notes, whatever that is. And then you also need to think about like, phrasing, right? Because I don't breathe in the middle of what I'm saying to you. I don't do this and then breathe and chop my phrases like this. I do this. I just -- all my words are kind of flowing along, and I'm creating a phrase or a thought or an idea in one breath. So it's similar to singing, right, and singing phrases because you don't stop and breathe in the middle of them all. You basically have one breath and you're like, hey, this is what I want to say to you. You're not going to go, hey, this is what I want to say to you. It's no, it's, it's really very different. And I think what people might tend to not think about is when you're being conversational and believable, it's all about the pacing, all about the rhythm and the pacing, which makes it more believable. And if you're too consistent in anything that you do, right, in your melody, in your beat, in your rhythm, it becomes like white noise. And so that's where people tune you out, right? It becomes like a metronome. Pilar: Yup. Anne: And now I've

Microphones are microscopes. They pick up everything, including thoughtful acting! In this episode, Anne & Pilar discuss why acting is essential to a successful VO career. Acting requires imagination, creativity, and using much more than just your voice. Tune in for advice on involving your body in your read, the intimacy of voice acting, and why you need to develop a character for every genre… More at https://voboss.com/the-art-of-voice-acting Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Good morning, Pilar. How are you? Pilar: I am great, Anne. I'm doing well. How are you? Anne: Oh, you know, I'm doing all right. Except I, I've already spilled half a cup of coffee. Oops. I just -- Pilar: Did it again? Anne: -- I admitted that I drink -- no, I admit that I drink coffee. I love my coffee, and people that listen to this podcast know how much I love my coffee. So I have to chase it with lots and lots of water so it doesn't dry my mouth out. And hopefully you're not hearing mouth noise at this point, but anyway. Pilar: I just heard one. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Anne: So there we go. So then, I'm going to have you talk so you can hear less of my mouth noise. Pilar: Okay. Anne: But I love our conversations that we've been having. And in our last couple of episodes, we talked about what it was like for you to be a bilingual VO in the industry and what it takes to be successful. And I want to kind of step back because you've had such an extensive career in all sorts of things. And I think something that's really important that I want to kind of reign in and talk a little bit more about is your acting experience. And I know that there's a lot of voiceover artists out there that are like, oh my gosh, I've never really acted. At least I came from the corporate side of things and didn't have an acting background, but as I went along, I learned acting. And I don't want people to be afraid that well, just because they don't have a ton of acting experience that they can't do voiceover. However, I do believe it's important for us to talk about how important acting is in our career. Pilar: It is, I would say, fundamental. Anne: Yeah. Pilar: That's why the word acting is in voice acting. Anne: Yeah, I agree. Pilar: You know, this is something that also happens. Sometimes people think that you're like a talking head when you're on television, because you only get to see, let's say shoulders or chest, shoulders, and face. But when you're acting, you're acting with your whole body, and that goes for voice as well. So when I started acting in high school, when I started getting formal training, I majored in theater and we had acting classes. And you know, you do the proverbial, you know, act like a teapot, act like a tiger, and all these sense exercises. Anne: I was a dog in my third grade play. Pilar: Exactly, exactly. You know how to go bow-wow. Anne: I'm just saying. Pilar: But those things are important. What does it feel like to be on all fours rather than to be upright? And it's something that I think that a lot of voice actors don't think that they need. And you need to have those sensory experiences, however you're going to get them. So a lot of the work that I did when I was in college and later when I went down to Colombia, for example, I kept taking acting classes even while I had a television career, because I had to keep the body trained, because the body gets rusty, and we're, we tend to be lazy. And I'm the first to admit it. Anne: I think to be said for -- you made me just think about when I was a little girl, right? Remember when we had all kinds of imagination or is it just me? It's like, I used to imagine -- Pilar: Yes. Back then. Anne: Back then I had so much imagination, and I would play with my dolls. I would teach my dolls. I had my stuffed Mickey Mouse. I dragged him everywhere. And we became like acting partners if, for nothing else. Right? Pilar: Totally. Anne: I had all sorts of adventures with him. And I think that there's a lot to be said for that. And somehow when we get older, sometimes we lose that unless we're actively going into acting like you were. And I think that we need to readdress that as we become adults and find areas or times when we can go back to that time to create scenes and use our imagination. And I think there's a lot of that in voiceover that we have to do behind the mic because we're acting in front of a non-existent audience. Pilar: Do you remember, did you ever make forts? Anne: Oh yes. All the time. Pilar: Okay. So making

There is nothing more human than storytelling. In this bonus Voice & Ai episode, Anne is joined by award-winning voice actor Emily Lawrence, Co-Founder of The Professional Audiobook Narrators' Association. They discuss the financial vs. social implications of Ai voices, creating a community for audiobook narrators, and why human-ness is an essential part of storytelling… Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast for another episode of the AI and voice series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I'm excited to bring special guest Emily Lawrence to the show. Emily is an award-winning actor and writer that's narrated more than 425 audiobooks for publishers such as McMillan, Harper Collins, Penguin, Random House, Simon and Schuster, and many more. She's incredibly proud to be the co-founder and chair of the newly formed Professional Audiobook Narrators Association, or PANA, as everybody has come to know it. Her greatest loves are storytelling and reading of course. So narrating audiobooks is a dream come true for her. And her other passions include traveling, LARPing, aerial surf, fostering kittens, and chocolate. So I have a lot to talk to you about because I love cats. We know that. I have three of them. And so I just love the fact that you foster kittens. Emily: I do. Anne: And thank you so much for joining me today. It's a pleasure to have you here. Emily: Well, thank you for having me. Anne: Yes. Emily: Happy to be here. Anne: So in addition to the kitties, um, I need to ask you for a more complete description. I have never heard of this, but that might not be a surprise. LARPing. Emily: A-ha. Anne: For those BOSSes in the audience that may not be familiar with that, what is that? Emily: Uh, so LARPing stands for live action role play, and it's the nerdiest thing you've never heard of. Anne: I kinda love that. Emily: Um, so basically it's like -- people tend to be more familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, so it's basically like that, which is a kind of like you're role-playing out a video game kind of, only in Dungeons and Dragons, you sit around a table, and you talk about everything you're doing and you like roll dice to simulate fighting and whatever. And in LARPing, you actually role-play everything. So it's like a bunch of nerds in a park with like foam weapons. Anne: I love it. Emily: Fighting each other. Anne: I love it. That's great. Well, look, hey, the nerdier, the better as far as I'm concerned. Emily: Yeah, no, I love it. Anne: That's fantastic. So again, it's great to get to know the you behind the association that has been newly formed. How old is PANA now? Emily: Uh, well we opened to members, I think it was October 21st or -- Anne: Wow. Emily: -- thereabouts. Anne: Fantastic. So tell me, you know, I'm very excited to hear about this because I think it's probably about time, right, in the audiobook world, that there is an association that is vested in the interests of the community. Talk to me about that. Emily: Yeah. Well, I mean, there have been other organizations such as the Audio Publishers Association, which really represents publishers. Anne: Right. Emily: But narrators and other people in the industry can be members. And then obviously there's SAG-AFTRA which represents narrators as a labor union, but SAG-AFTRA also represents everybody else. Anne: Sure. Emily: So there was no organization that really was dedicated to narrators specifically. And I think you're right. It was about time and long overdue. Anne: So, I know that there's a lot involved in creating an organization. Tell me a little bit about that story and how did that begin? I mean, what was -- were there issues that were coming up in the audiobook world that you were saying, you know what, we need an organization to really take care of our community? Emily: Yeah. There have been talks for many years of -- among narrators of feeling unrepresented in various places and in various ways. And then obviously with the rising danger, I guess, or whatever of AI, I certainly felt like, okay, somebody has to do something. And so earlier this year, there were a lot of conversations in Narrator, Facebook, and other groups just kind of like that made me feel like, okay, we need to organize. We need to come together. And so I did that. Anne: And have a voice. I love that. Well, hey, it's one thing to talk, right, to sit around in groups and talk. I have so much respect for the fact that you pulled something together. I mean, there's a lot of work involved in that. Emily: Yeah. It was definitely a lot of work. I am very grateful to have my co-founder Emily Ellet with me through the whole process. And so we kind of started talking like about what thi

Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe! In this episode, your hosts cover how creating a great demo can get you booked without auditioning, the versatility of having multiple demos, and how being kind to everyone you meet is really the most underrated marketing technique… Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm happy to welcome back with me as special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Pilar, how are you today? Pilar: I'm doing great, Anne. ¿Tú cómo estás? Anne: I don't know. Sí. Pilar. Just say bien, just say bien. Anne: Bien, bien. Pilar: Bien covers it all. Anne: Everybody will follow my own journey as I learn Spanish. Thank you. And I learned to be as -- the best bilingual voice artist I can be, but let me talk about another language, another language of love which it comes from my VO studio kitty Sebrina today. I noticed, Pilar, you know how animals, they have that sense. When you're a cat lover and a cat lover walks into my home, my cats know it. And I have to tell you that my little Sebrina, who is the most sociable of the three VO studio cats that I have, she's usually the first one that will come down and greet people, if she feels that they are sufficient -- Pilar: Worthy. Anne: -- cat lovers. Yes. Pilar: If they're worthy of her attention. Anne: So I have to tell you that the last two times we've been recording, she has been scratching at my studio door, and she just doesn't do that. And I know, I know that she hears you because I have inside and outside headphones. And so what I hear here in my headphones in the booth are also kind of projecting outside my booth through my headphones. So I know she hears you. There's no other reason to explain why she's scratching at the door. Pilar: Oh, I love that. Anne: Like she must hear your voice. Pilar: That's so cute. Anne: She must hear your voice. And she must know that there's yet another cat lover with me, and she's scratching to get into the studio. Pilar: And she knows there's a possible suitor right outside. Anne: That's right. Exactly. Pilar: Paco. Oh yeah. Anne: Paco. Yes, she probably feels it. I'm telling you. Pilar: They know, they know these things. They know. Anne: They do. They know everything. Wow. Pilar: We're just their, their custodians. They're the ones who rule. Anne: Exactly. So I had to tell you that story, you know, because we share, we share a love for studio cats, for sure. Pilar: So I can say, I can give a little shout out. Hola Sebrina, ¿cómo estás? Anne: Oo. She's going to hear the scratching soon. I'm telling you. So we had a great conversation on our last podcast about being a bilingual voice talent and what it takes to, I guess, be successful in the industry. And I want to continue that to go a little bit more in detail. So if there are beginners out there or people just entering into the industry that want to market themselves as a bilingual voice talent, what are the steps that it would take for them to do so successfully? First of all, I think you must have some sort of a demo, right, that showcases that you have this talent. What are your thoughts about a demo and how you can successfully market yourself as bilingual through your demo or not, or what works for you? Pilar: Okay. So since I started out in the world of voiceover without any like really any information -- I mean in the world of dubbing, that's what I meant -- they knew I spoke English, they knew I spoke Spanish, so I could do both. And I just kind of jumped in. I did not have a voiceover agent until I got to Los Angeles. So I had to get my own work. And that meant a lot of knocking on doors, talking to other actors and saying, okay, where are you, where are you working? What studios are you working in? And there aren't that many in Miami. Anne: And you're talking physical knock. I'm just going to clarify this -- Pilar: Oh yeah. Anne: -- you mean like physically networking with other people, which today really translates into online, right? Maybe -- Pilar: Yes. Anne: -- groups and online, online networking groups. But yeah, you had to physically become a good networker. Pilar: Yes. Thank you for telling me that, because, because I don't even realize. I think it's interesting because you know, you get to a place -- you know, I'm talking to you here. I earned my living doing this and it's, it's really, when you go back, and I'm looking at my, my past, everyone thinks, oh, oh, she's doing this. She has it all. Oh, it's oh, it's like really easy. Look at her. And every single step that you make is, it's like, you're climbing up the mountain, and then

Training your ear takes practice - in any language! Anne and Pilar discuss what it's like to approach bilingual voice over in today's VO industry, from understanding culture and dialects to managing translation and delivery styles. Adaptation and observation are key to success as a bilingual talent, and it's important to keep a finely-tuned ear open to understanding language rather than just speaking it. Tune in to hear tips and information from a veteran performer… More at: https://www.voboss.com/bilingual-vo-101 Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Pilar: Hola, BOSS Voces. Bienvenidos al podcast con Anne Ganguzza y Pilar Uribe. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm honored today to bring back very special guest co-host to Pilar Uribe. Pilar, how are you today? Pilar: Hola, Anne. Cómo estás? Anne: See, I need to start learning from you. Hola. Hola. So I am so excited to have you on this podcast because first of all, your journey is amazing, and our journeys are always ever evolving, right? And -- Pilar: Yes, oh yes. Oh, absolutely. Constantly. Anne: There's so much that our podcast listeners can learn from you. So I'm, I'm excited to continue that conversation. And I want to talk today about bilingual, what it means to be a bilingual voiceover actor in today's industry. And, you know, back in the day, I grew up in a very small town, and I was never really exposed to anyone that spoke a different language. And my exposure to let's say another language was my high school that said you can take French or Spanish, you know, for as many semesters as you'd like. And so I picked French, which I now think maybe I should have picked Spanish because I feel like that would be really useful to me today. But yeah, I was not exposed -- and it's one thing to be exposed to the language, but I was not really exposed to the culture. And I think it's so important for us to talk about that because as business owners, we serve many different communities. And it's so important for us to understand the community that we are serving and to be able to speak to them in the way that they're accustomed to and be able to serve their needs the best that we can. Pilar: Yes, this is very true, Anne. You know, I was born in New York, and both my parents were from Colombia. So that was all I knew because I spoke Spanish at home until I went to school in New York, and then I spoke English. And then when we, when we got home, we would speak only Spanish. And so every Sunday, my mother would make a traditional meal called ajiaco, which is this wonderful soup with chicken and corn and sour cream and chives, and it's like, it's so delicious. And we would listen to Colombian music. And so I grew up steeped in the culture. So it was like, there was stuff at home -- Anne: Right. Pilar: -- what we did at home. And then there was school. Anne: School. Pilar: And -- Anne: Where did you learn English then. Pilar: I learned English in kindergarten. Anne: Got it. Pilar: Well, I guess it started in nursery school 'cause I went to this playgroup where there were kids from all over. And then in kindergarten, I went to Convent of the Sacred Heart. And I think there was one other person who spoke Spanish. And of course, you know, when you're a kid, you catch on really quickly. So there was like maybe one or two people, one school friend, she spoke German, somebody else spoke Spanish, but that was also the custom of the day, which is that you learned that -- French was what was offered. I don't remember, at least at Sacred Heart, I don't remember Spanish being offered. When I switched schools, when I went to Spence across the street, they did have Spanish, but I mean, I already knew it. Anne: Right. Pilar: And so in New York, at least there was really no Spanish culture per se. You know, every so often of course I would hear Spanish being spoken, but it was in pockets. And so it was my home life, and then there was school life, and it was almost like never the twain shall meet. And so I, I grew up with a very Hispanic background because my parents wanted to give that to us, but I didn't see it reflected outside. That wasn't really until much later that actually it's, you know, you started seeing it, at least, you know, where I grew up. And so of course, my family, we would have -- lots of friends would come over, and they would speak Spanish. And so that was very fluid. But for example, I know friends who, whose parents were, they were not interested in teaching their, their children Spanish. So they have a very Latin sounding name and they don't understand Spanish. Thank God that my mother wouldn't let us speak English when we got home, because my career is basically

Moving from the closet booth to the…car booth? Anne and Pilar finish telling the story of Pilar's Journey in Part 3 of the Boss Voces premiere. Listen as Pilar finally packs her car (+ her cat!) and moves to LA in hopes of establishing her VO career and signing with a big agency. It's been a wild ride, but things are really coming together now on the West Coast for Pilar... More at: https://www.voboss.com/pilars-journey-part-3 Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I'm so happy to welcome back to the show special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Pilar, hey, how are you today? Pilar: I'm doing great. How are you? Anne: I'm doing great. Hey, I have been so interested in your story, and we've learned so many things that are parallels to being in the voiceover industry today from your story. So our last couple of episodes, we talked about your telenova star personalities in Colombia and your -- I think it was nine years you were there in Colombia doing all kinds of acting -- Pilar: That's right. Anne: -- and some radio as well. And then you moved on to Miami, and we're talking to us about your radio career in Miami and how you evolved into that and also in voiceover. And now we're on when your next move, which it's so interesting, you moved from Colombia to Florida, to Miami, and I, I think it was all just things seem to take you where you needed to go to evolve in your career. And I think that's such a cool parallel with my experience as well. And hopefully BOSSes that are listening out there kind of have some similarities as well. So I'd love to hear about your, I guess what made you go from Miami to LA, and let's, let's continue the journey with you. Pilar: So I'm in Miami, and my, as I said, in the last episode, my land lady, she actually wrote me an email saying, I'm so sorry, but I'm going to sell the apartment. Anne: And you were there for how long? Pilar: 16 years. Anne: Wow. Pilar: Yeah. So my first thought was total and utter panic because I was like, oh my gosh, I have to get out of this apartment that I've lived in. And I've sort of made a life for myself. And I started looking around. I had been working with somebody. We've had like a 25 now, yeah, more than 25-year conversation with his really good friend of mine in New York and something that he used to say to me. I had started getting a little bit sort of, I want to do something else, but I'm not really sure what it is. You know, I, I've got four jobs and I've got the radio host thing, and it's just, you know, it's, I'm always hustling, and it would be nice to be able to do more voiceover. But you know, Miami is not a lot, a lot of opportunity there, unless it's in my booth. And he said something to me, because I was like, you know, I think I need to. And he would say until you decide to pack your bag, you're not going to move. And he said that to me for years. And I take it now is it's not just a physical thing. It's sort of a, if I want to do something, I have to go ahead and do it. Anne: Yeah. Pilar: Because I can talk about it -- Anne: You have to pack your bag. Pilar: -- until the cows. Yeah. So like, I can talk about it until the cows come home. But if I don't actually do it and decide to make a change, I'm never going to do anything, you know? Anne: Yeah. I love that. I love that. There you go manifestation again. Pilar: Exactly. Anne: Especially for those BOSSes that are early in their careers, and they don't know, and they think about it, and they think this is what they want to do, but yeah. Actually taking the step and the, the physical part of yes, making that decision, putting the things in place, and it helps it come to fruition. Pilar: Exactly. So I didn't tell anybody, and this is something that I'm very conscious of. A lot of the times I would sit there, like I wrote like 17 or 18 songs when I lived in Colombia. And so I said, you know, I'm, I have songs and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I would tell everybody that I was gonna put out an album eventually. I never put the album out, but I told everybody I was going to do it. And a lot of the times when you say things like that, you leak your energy. So when you have an intention in your mind, it's really important to keep it within yourself, um, and share it with people that you can trust and be aware that it's not something that you need to sit there and gab and gab and gab and gab about, but that you really need to focus on what it is that you're doing. And I think that, that's what I, I mean, I did that for a while, and I would sit there and I would complain, and I'd be like, oh, you know, I want more. And I'm really kind of in love with this thing called voiceover, but

Ok, Bosses. We're picking up right where we left off…in Miami! Anne & Pilar continue discussing Pilar's Journey in Part 2 of the Boss Voces Premiere. Pilar begins in Miami with no TV gigs and begins her radio + voice dubbing career. More at https://www.voboss.com/pilars-journey-part-2 Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I'm honored to bring back special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Pilar is a bilingual voice actor, telenova star, and radio personality born and raised in New York City. She broke into show business and had roles with "Ugly Betty," "Poor Pablo," "Eternally Manuela," and "El Cartel" filmed in Colombia and Miami. And in our last episode, we talked about her story, and we ended up from Colombia, now she's arrived in Miami, so we're going to continue the story today. And before that, I want to say that she also has booth a booth kitty, and outside of my booth right now, Pilar, is my cute little Sabrina cat who is jealous because the door is closed, and I know she wants to come in, so. She's -- she wants to come in and talk to you as well. Pilar: I love it. I love it. Anne: Pilar, it's so great to have you back. Pilar: I am so glad to be here. Thank you, Anne. Anne: And what an amazing story, like I said, triple, quadruple threat, TV, radio, voiceover, singer. I mean, you have done it all. And what an interesting, wonderful story you had telling us last episode about your theater experience, your television experience, and your success story in Colombia. And you decided to come back to the States and decided to move to Miami. Pilar: Yes. Anne: So let's pick up from your arrival in Miami and your career once you got there. Pilar: So I get to Miami, and I am staying with my cousins who live in Key Biscayne. I'm thinking I'm all that, you know? I'm this telenovela star. I'm -- where do I sign? Luckily I got, I got an agent really quickly because a friend of mine introduced me to this friend who was a casting director. And the casting director met with me and said, hey, you know, there's this agent. And so I get this agent really quickly and, and she starts sending me out. Anne: So yeah, this is an agent, not a voiceover agent, but you had just started when -- Pilar: No. Anne: -- you were, at the tail end, I think when you were at Colombia, you said you started doing some voiceover for an animated series. So this agent is on camera -- Pilar: Yeah, this is, this is -- Anne: -- casting agent? Pilar: Yeah, my whole up until now, my whole concentration was acting. It wasn't -- Anne: Got it. Pilar: -- voice acting because that's how I had made my bread and butter for the previous nine years. Anne: Sure. Pilar: And so the, the voice acting that I did in Colombia and, you know, the fascination I had with radio, it was just kind of like a, a fun thing. You know? It was just kind of like a fun thing, but I didn't look at it as anything kind of anything serious. So I get this on-camera agent, and I start auditioning and she sends me out on audition and auditions and auditions and I get nothing. And I'm like, oh dear. Okay. Anne: Interesting. You talked before about how you had set visions, right? Pilar: Yep. Anne: And you meditated? Pilar: Yep. Anne: Did you go back to that once you were in Miami? Pilar: No. Anne: Interesting. Pilar: I did not. I did not. Not at the beginning. Okay? The one thing that is probably been a constant my entire life is the importance of training. So even while I was on television every night, I was taking acting classes, and I did them periodically and I worked with some great people in Colombia. And so then I realized, ooh, I'm not booking. I had better get on the horn, and I had better start going back. And so I started taking auditioning classes because I just, I had really stopped auditioning, you know. I'd, I would audition for a role and I would get it, you know? It was just kinda like -- Anne: Sure. Pilar: -- kind of thing. Anne: I was gonna ask you, if you note, what were differences, right, when you were in Colombia versus Florida, what differences in the auditioning process or differences in, I dunno, anything in terms of getting roles? What was different that you noticed? Pilar: Well, for one thing, the community is, was much larger. So there was a lot more competition. Anne: Got it. Pilar: Which means that people were way more polished in their auditions. It was very, very much more competitive. So I realized because I was out of practice. Auditioning was not something that I was doing on a, on a regular basis. When I was living in New York, the -- I did that on a regular basis. And you know, one of the things that I learned in, in Miami from a

Bosses, in 2022 we are failing fast + furiously. Who's in? In this Bonus Modern Mindset Episode, Anne is joined by special guest Erikka J. They discuss blending tech + creative passions, pursuing multiple careers simultaneously, and most importantly, why it is oh so important to fail so that you can succeed! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast and the Modern Mindset series. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I am so excited to bring you special guest Erikka J. Erikka is a multi-talented singer, songwriter, and award-winning voice actor. She's voiced for brands such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Discover and -- keep going -- Black Lives Matter and many, many more. As a natural born hustler, I love that, she is also a tech girl, just like me, a project and product management professional with 15 years' experience in multiple sectors, including government, e-commerce, software development, and automotive. Erikka J, it is a pleasure to have you, and thank you so much for joining me today. Erikka: Likewise, thank you, Anne, for having me and, uh, hey to the BOSSes out there. Anne: Yeah, I love it. So I went to your website, which by the way is beautifully branded. So guys, BOSSes out there, you want to have a look at something that's really beautifully branded, I love the website. I was drawn to the music tab there. So I want to say that I love your concept of delivering meaningful, honest, and relatable lyrics, which you call jewels, right, to your fans. Erikka: Yes. Anne: I imagine that this also applies to your philosophy in, in your VO being real and meaningful and honest, and I'm sure that that contributes in a multitude of ways to your success. But let's talk -- we'll do, we'll talk about that in a minute -- but let's talk about how did your singing career help prepare you for your careers thereafter in business as well as voiceover? Erikka: Oh man, I got, uh, I almost want to say I got lucky, but I worked for it too. Um, so I, um, you know, went to college, and even though I was singer and doing all of that, and people were, you know, telling me I should pursue that, I went the whole corporate route. But music chased me; it wouldn't let me stay away from it. So I got the business education from getting my MBA and from working in state government, federal government, and now a corporate job in automotive. But in music, I learned how to record myself out of necessity. So I mean, you know, I didn't have the big label behind me, but I had some ideas and I had to record my own songs that I've written. So started on audacity, started on a Scarlet -- Anne: Wow, all right. Erikka: Scarlet bundle, like with that mic, like that's where I started, in the closet. Yeah, recording myself in music, I learned the tech side of it and how to listen and get very detailed with my ear. And I eventually, I made my way over to voiceover and those skills came in really handy. Anne: Wow. Well, I have to say as a young artist back then, that's an ambitious goal, right, to be a singer. Talk to me a little bit about -- I know you said you didn't have a big label, but it's not like you didn't try to pursue a career path that way I would imagine. Erikka: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I did the indie route. Anne: Okay. Erikka: So I mean, at that time, you know, early 2010s around ish -- Anne: Oh okay, gotcha. Erikka: -- so Internet was around and all the distributions. I could put myself on iTunes and all the platforms. So yeah, I never really did pursue the label route. I wanted to sort of be the captain of my own destiny, you know? Anne: Gotcha. Erikka: Yeah. And I had friends that were engineers, so they kind of helped teach me stuff and get me set up with templates. So, um, I did pursue it on my own, but I didn't pursue the getting signed sort of traditional route. Anne: Um, now is that something that you're still doing, or you're still considering, or trying to pursue all different routes? Erikka: I would say I'm probably like on hiatus. Anne: Gotcha. Erikka: Music broke my heart a few times. I love it, definitely my first love. But boy, when I found voiceover and was able to pull all these different things that I love into one big bucket, like I've really just fell hard. Anne: So what was it that made you go into business? I mean, you have your MBA. So when you're the starving artist, right, everybody says go to college. And that was, that was my mother, go to college and get a real job. But interestingly enough, what made you pursue your master's in business? Erikka: Yeah, so I kind of always say I lived my life in reverse almost, like in my 20's, I was super serious and straight and you know, yeah, singing's great. But I have

Do you consult your inner child when making career decisions? Maybe you should! Anne & Pilar kick off the Boss Voces series at the beginning. They dive into Pilar's journey from young girl singing + mimicking to finance assistant to Colombian telenovela star… More at https://www.voboss.com/pilars-journey-part-1 Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza. And today I am honored to bring you special guest cohost Pilar Uribe. Pilar is a bilingual voice actor, telenova star, and radio personality. Born and raised in New York city. She broken this show business with roles from Ugly Betty, Poor Pablo, Eternally Manuela, and El Cartel, filmed in Colombia and Miami. She recorded and produced for WLRN Miami South Florida, and now lives in LA where she records voiceover for television, radio, and films, and last, but certainly not least, she has booth kitties, which are so very important. Yay! Pilar, it's a pleasure having you here today. Thank you so much for joining me. Pilar: I am so glad to be here, Anne. This is a real treat. Thank you. Anne: So, first of all, the booth kitty, I have to know, booth kitties, booth kitty? Pilar: Booth kitty. Anne: Booth kitty. Pilar: Booth kitty. Yes. His name is Paco, Anne: Paco. Pilar: Well, his full name is Paco Del Barrio. Anne: Oh. Pilar: Paco Del Barrio, yes. Anne: Oh, Paco. Now, is Paco in the studio with you right now? Pilar: No, he's not. I know he's outside, and he's sitting on top of the desk where I edit looking like, like, how dare you close that door? Anne: How dare you not pay attention to me? Pilar: Exactly. I need a window for the door. Anne: As you know, we now both have booth kitties and that is a major plus for, I think, productivity in the booth to have booth kitties. They really help you in your daily -- Pilar: Absolutely. Anne: -- your daily booth recordings. Pilar: Yeah, they're very, yes, they're very, they're very observant, and they're very, how can I say this? Anne: They direct well. Pilar: They teach you, they teach you a lot about you as a voice actor. Anne: I agree. Pilar: We'll get into that. Anne: I agree. I think that could be an episode actually, how our pets help us learn about ourselves. For sure. For sure. Pilar: Exactly. Anne: So you're not even like a triple threat. You're like a quadruple, like, you're like multiple, multiple threats, TV, radio, voiceover. Tell us about how you started in the business? Because I think you've got a wonderful story to tell, and we can all learn a lot about how you evolved into your voiceover career. Pilar: Okay. So how much time do you get? Anne: Well, this first episode is about only 25 minutes. So. Pilar: Okay, I'll be quick. Now, I was born and bred in New York. Both my parents are from Colombia, a little town called Ibagué. And, um, I spoke Spanish until I was five. When I went to grade school, high school, I was in all the plays. I played the angel. I, you know, I did all kinds of things, singing groups. I was in the choir. I was in -- Anne: Me too. Pilar: Yeah. Right. You know, you do it all. Anne: Choir thing and you know, that creative. stuff. Pilar: Exactly. Exactly. I went to a girls school, and so we were in this choir, and I was just in this thing called Triple Trio. And we would go to, we would go to boys schools. We would go to boarding schools and sing there and have crushes on all the boys. Anne: Of course. Pilar: So in college I majored in theater and kept studying voice and did musical theater and just all kinds of things. Anne: But not necessarily voiceover, right? You're thinking -- Pilar: No, no, it was all, it was all musical theater or -- Anne: Musical theater. Pilar: Yeah. Anne: Because you sing too. That was the other threat. 'Cause I actually happened upon one of your social media posts the other day. And you were singing. So. Pilar: Yes, I'm really into like the -- so that's the thing. I was kind of born and raised on singing a capella because I would sing with my sister. We had a little duet going, and she would play with the guitar. Sometimes we would play the guitar and sometimes we would just do two voices. So there's this great app called acapella. And I loved just dubbed myself over and over again into like four part harmony. It's so much fun. So in college, I kept singing. I kept with these groups, and I majored in theater, came back to New York. And of course it's a different story now, you know, once you're looking for a job, and I thought, well, okay, I'll, I'll go the corporate route. And I worked for Harper's Bazaar -- Anne: Oh wow. Pilar: for -- yeah. For two and a half years. And I, I totally lived the Devil Wears Prada life. Anne: I was gonna say! Pilar:

Picture this: a boot camp that teaches essential marketing skills + lands you a job in 6 months. Unheard of…until now. Anne is joined by special guest Mehak Vohra for a bonus Modern Mindset episode. They cover education reform, the trials and triumphs of entrepreneurship, dropping out of school, and running for mayor… Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza. And today I'm thrilled to welcome special guest Mehak Vohra, CEO and founder of SkillBank to the show. Mehak started her career as a computer science student at Purdue University and after her sophomore year dropped out at the ripe old age of 19 and moved to San Francisco. Her goal was to build the most scalable marketing agency in the world. And I think she's done an amazing job so far. She ran Jamocha Media for four years, and at her peak, she was generating one to 2 million views per month on LinkedIn. That's some goals for us BOSSes out here. For herself and her clients, she has probably more than 30,000 followers by now, because the last time I checked your bio was a few months ago, on TikTok. She's the youngest person to ever run for mayor in San Francisco's history. Mehak, thank you so much for joining me today. Mehak: Thank you so much for having me. Anne: I'm so excited because as I've been trying to get to interview you, because I'm so impressed with what you have done in such a short amount of time in your short career. And I noticed in your bio, you made a point to mention that you had dropped out of college after your sophomore year. And I can only imagine that you must've had a pretty good reason for doing that, and that you were maybe not getting what you needed at the time or realize that there were bigger and better opportunities outside of college for you. So would you mind speaking to us about that? Mehak: Yeah, for sure. So, you know, I grew up in a family where it was super important to go to college. My parents both went through multiple years of schooling. So for me to turn around and be like, hey guys, I don't think that college is the right spot for me, I had to really sit back and think about like what what's really important to me and where -- what's the direction that I want to go into. And from what I've seen, especially within the marketing world and the startup world, uh, it's not that important to have a degree anymore. People want to see that you're, you're experienced, you're putting yourself out there, you're trying new things, and that's how you're supposed to build your resume today. And I just realized that I wasn't doing that in college. So I was able to make that point to my parents and just say that, hey, I actually think I'm going to learn a lot more moving out to San Francisco, doing things on my own, putting myself out there than I am if I sat in the classroom. So it was, it was a hard thing to, to show them. But at the end of the day it was, it was the right move for me because I'm just not a person who learns well listening to someone talk at me for a few hours. Anne: Very interesting. You know, and as we have discussed before, I have a long, a long career in, and I actually worked for a magnet school, which yeah, actually did a hands-on, project-based curriculum, which worked really well for the students who were just really motivated in wanting to go do things and, and run the world, kind of, kind of thing. So it worked really well. So I understand that mentality a lot. And I do believe that there needs to be some changes in our educational system to serve the students better. And I feel like you have probably encapsulated that with SkillBank, and prior to that with your other media companies. So talk to us a little bit about your Jamocha Media company first, and then I'd love to hear about SkillBank. Mehak: Yeah. So Jamocha Media started off as a vehicle for me to learn on other people's dime. So if I wanted to build websites or if I wanted to create content, or I was trying to pick up a social media client, whatever it might be, I just put them all under Jamocha Media as a client. And over the span of four years, we slowly were able to start to scale things up, going from making websites for people to running the social media accounts, to building people a presence on LinkedIn. And after about three or four years of working on Jamocha, we had basically figured out a formula around how to get people a viewership on LinkedIn. So we were, like you said, we were pulling in about anywhere from like 2 to 3 million views a month in the platform. And it was, it was really interesting to see how things grow online and how like, once you figure out that formula and that way to get things to work, y

Have you deconstructed the pay-to-play algorithm? We haven't either, but we're close! In this episode, Anne & Laya discuss the evolution of P2P's from a talent-client connection tool to the modern algorithmic matching game. They share how to use P2P's as a learning tool, how to build them into your business model, and why they have such a polarizing reputation… Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza along with my very, very special guest cohost Laya Hoffman. Laya: Hey Anne. Anne: Good morning, Laya. How are you? Laya: Good morning. It's chilly and the a -- in the dirty south, but I'm hanging in there. Glad to be back talking with you, of course. We always have such great conversations these days. I'm loving it. Anne: Yeah. That we do. And I wanted to kind of talk a little bit. We had talked last episode about casting, and we touched upon pay-to-plays -- Laya: Yes. Anne: -- and that's always such a big topic in the voiceover land. Laya: Sure is. Anne: And I thought that it would be something that we could talk about today and just share our experiences that we've had, successes, I don't know, fails. Yeah. Let's let's chat about pay-to-play, shall we? Laya: We shall. I have quite a bit of experience. I think I have like a modern mindset perspective on pay-to-plays. So it'd be a great fit for our theme, right? Anne: Let's go from the old mindset first, because I -- Laya: Okay. Anne: -- back in the day, I swear it was like back in 2000-something when Voice123 came onto the scene. I was an early, early adopter of that. Laya: As was I. Anne: Yep, and I remember having quite a bit of success with Voice123. I actually really loved the model because it allowed me to upload all my demos and samples and basically get job opportunities from different clients. And there was basically no interference. I got to have the opportunity from the client, communicate with the client, book a job with a client. And then actually a lot of times the client would just then come to me without necessarily having to go through Voice123 for the next job. So I kind of liked that. It was a win situation I think for all of us because I paid a membership fee to Voice123, and I got my job. And then every once in a while, if I had repeat clients, they would come back to me, not necessarily having to go through Voice123, but it wouldn't have even mattered to be honest with you, because if they favorited me, they didn't have to audition again. So it just worked out really well. And it has certainly evolved over the years. It's been a good 15 or so years now of pay-to-plays being on the scene. There are so many more of them. Laya: Yeah. Anne: But I found them to be extremely lucrative in the beginning when I started. And now I've got a different opinion, but let me hear about your -- let's hear about your experience -- Laya: Sure. Anne: -- in the beginning with pay-to-plays. Laya: Yeah, I feel the same way. I mean, as we've mentioned before, you know, I really only dove in full time about three years ago, but I'd always been doing voice work. And I was an early adopter of Voice123 as well. I've been a member since 2011, so over 10 years. And that was just back when it was kind of toying with this cool, you know, I mean, everything on the web seemed to be fresh and new. Anne: Yeah. Laya: And they were among the first to kind of harness the power of connecting talent with buyers. Right? And so how great. They made it easy, they kind of one-stop shopped it, and they didn't get in your way. And the price was fair because there wasn't a whole lot of reach. Anne: Yeah. Laya: I mean, we all know how this has evolved over the last few years, especially. It's been a different experience for a lot of people, but I had the same experience you did early on. And then I kind of went dormant for several years. Didn't really put a whole lot of effort in, but on occasion I would still get hit up even with my like really crappy samples back then. I didn't know what I was doing. And so it was kind of a nice lead source, right? Lead gen for me. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. Laya: And I think it was for a lot of people. So I'm glad you share the same sentiment. Anne: Yeah. Now, I think it's fair to say that any pay-to-play, no matter what, seems to be a game of having really great demos and not just one of them uploaded on a pay-to-play. Laya: Yeah. Anne: I think all of the pay-to-plays subscribed to that. The more samples that you have -- because it's all a matching game. It's all a search algorithm and a matching game. And that's kind of like the secret of Google, but in pay-to-plays, right? Laya: Yeah, yeah. Anne: We all were trying to debug the algorit

The synthetic voice conversation is here. Do you want a seat at the table? Anne is joined by special guest Jon Stine for a bonus Voice & Ai episode. They cover what the Open Voice Network (OVN) is, how to be a part of it, and the importance of asking questions. What are the regulations for synthetic voices, how can VO industry members get involved, and are we willing to create the standards before they're made for us…

Just in case you were wondering, you definitely wear all the hats now. In today's modern at-home recording world, you're the voice, engineer, customer service department, and tech wizard of each session; and some of those hats can get pretty cumbersome. In this episode, Anne and Laya discuss what it takes to be a BOSS in the booth, and how to maximize your potential success with tools, tech, and processes that work. It's not enough to just have a great voice or be an excellent performer anymore, but being a #VOBOSS in your booth is achievable. Learn how in this episode, jam-packed with ideas from these savvy bosses… Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza along with my very special guest co-host BOSS Laya Hoffman. Hey Laya, how are you? Laya: I'm great. Anne. How are you? Anne: I'm doing good. It's been a hectic week in the booth here, which is a good thing. I'm very grateful about that, but hectic in terms of I had clients who are asking a lot of me. Laya: Oh yeah? Anne: Not just voicing. Laya: Aren't they always? Anne: Yeah. Not just voicing in the booth, but they wanted playback. They wanted to invite the client in. And so I thought it would be a good day to talk about how to be the BOSS in the booth and handle these, handle the tech, handle these situations when a lot is being requested of us these days. Laya: So much, you know. Gone are the days of just stepping into the studio and all you have to do is focus on your acting -- Anne: Remember that? Laya: -- the copy and what it feels like to deliver, you know, the message. Now you have to have all the hats on -- Anne: Yup. Laya: -- simultaneously while keeping your cool and still delivering an outstanding performance. And it is harder than we realize -- Anne: Oh my gosh -- Laya: -- especially when the going gets tough. Anne: Yeah. And shout-out, okay, before anything else, a big shout-out to all the studios out there -- Laya: Yes. Anne: -- and pre-pandemic too. Like I always appreciated studios and sometimes even more so now, you never realized what a luxury it is to walk into a studio and to be directed. Laya: Yes, I miss it. Anne: Right? It is a wonderful thing. And I think there's always a place for studios, but during the pandemic, when we had to kind of up our game and get our tech in place and be able to engineer and do all that, oh, that was tough. So thank you to all of those studios. Some of my favorite studios shut down, and it's so sad, and I hope that they, you know, we're now coming back to a different place. I'm so glad when I see people in studios, and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm so happy to be back in studio, seeing people, so. Laya: Well, and it's true because even the engineers -- Anne: Yeah. Laya: -- like I have great respect for these engineers and the sound designers that are manning the board and the client in one ear. Anne: Yup. Laya: And they've got another client patched in from somewhere else. And they have really been the lead for all these years -- Anne: Oh yeah. Laya: -- to really help craft a comfortable setting for -- Anne: Yeah. Laya: -- so many of us that are dealing with our own insecurities or -- Anne: Sure. Laya: -- our own demands or our own needs that are happening on every angle of the table or the studio. And so I have a whole new respect having really had to shift that in house, but now it's, you know, it's a new skill learned, and I really haven't seen anywhere where you can learn the art of how to be your own BOSS in the booth -- Anne: Right? Laya: -- so this should be an interesting conversation. Anne: Well, I think, first of all, you have to educate yourself on some of these technologies that are -- Laya: Yep. Anne: -- that may be required of you. So number one, first of all, you've got to connect to a studio if you're doing a live direct, right? Or you have to be able to connect a client to be able to hear you. And so -- Laya: Yeah, your studio, right? Anne: Yeah. There are a lot of ways to do that. I know that prior to the pandemic, we were doing, a lot of people were doing stuff via Skype, and then Zoom kind of became a thing. I've had people connect via Zoom. Laya: Yeah. Anne: And I'm going to give a shout-out to, you know, our sponsor ipDTL, because I've always been able to connect other people to me via ipDTL and a very easy -- Laya: Yeah, flawlessly. Anne: Flawlessly, seamlessly, in a wonderful -- and the cool thing is, is that I even have a phone number, like my ipDTL, somebody can call a phone number and connect up with me via ipDTL. So on the other end, if you've got a client who's not technical -- Laya: Yep. Anne: -- at the very least, just give them a phone number and they can co

Think you need an agent to master the casting game? Think again. Anne and Laya teach you how to make the most of your VO business by building relationships that will land bookings and get you paid. They discuss pay-2-play strategies, symbiotic agent-talent relationships, reaching out to production houses, and how cultivating your SEO can get you jobs without auditioning... Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, along with my special, special guest cohost Laya Hoffman. Laya -- Laya: Hey. Anne: -- how are you? Laya: Anne, I'm doing awesome. How are you? Anne: You know, Laya, I'm awesome. And I just love, love, love doing these podcast episodes with you. Laya: Yes, same here. I've learned so much. I feel like -- Anne: Me too. Laya: -- we've shared so much, and the feedback we've been getting from your BOSSes has been incredible. Anne: Yeah, yeah. Laya: So thank you, BOSSes, for leaning in and coming back to us with your takeaways and your modern mindsets. Anne: Absolutely. Laya: Because the whole thing has come full circle. I feel so rewarded and so grateful for this. Anne: That's right. Well, Laya and I have really been enjoying our topics of late. And I think they're very relevant. They're very relevant in terms of BOSSes wanting growth mindset for growing their businesses, growing themselves personally, growing their performances. So now let's talk about once we've been growing our skills and our assets, how are we going to get work? Laya: Yes. Anne: Let's talk about how do we get cast in these roles? How do we win these gigs? There's all sorts of wonderful things to talk about with that agents, production, houses, managers pay-to-plays, all of these things. Maybe we should just, let's have a discussion on how are we going to be getting work. Laya: Yes, it's such a good one to have, because I think if you're just now coming up in the industry, you feel like, oh, I, the first thing I got to do is I got to get an agent. That was my misconception in the very beginning, to be honest. And you know, once you've been around a little while, you realize that's nowhere near your first step. In fact, doing the work and training and getting yourself conditioned is by far the first step. And then you slowly build on that as we have talked about, and you know very well with your asset library, your image, your brand, so that when you are fully ready, and I mean fully ready, meaning you're booking and you're making money and you can present yourself as a resource, then you're going to maybe approach agents or managers. But until then, there's a lot of work to do. And there's definitely outlets to go get that work. Anne: Oh yeah. Laya: So let's talk about it. Lead us in. Anne: Well, yeah. I am going to agree with you that yes, I, in the beginning I thought, oh, I need an agent right away. And that is absolutely not necessarily true at all. As a matter of fact, you have to usually prove that you've gotten some work under your belt before an agent will consider you. Laya: Absolutely. Anne: But I remember thinking, okay, so I got my demo. Now I need an agent. Laya: Yeah. Anne: So a lot of times that is something that can be put on the back burner until you, you know, assert yourself, go out there and get some work. But until you do that, you got to get that work. So how are you going to do that? Laya: Yeah. Anne: And by the way, I'll tell you that I was working full-time for years before I got my first agent. So. Laya: Yes. And I was working in the same space. You know, I was definitely making money in voice work. And I thought the agent thing was going to tip me over the balance. And that's when I knew I was going to be successful. When the reality is I book very little work through my main agents, or at least I did in the very beginning. And so you lose sight of that when you're not quite there, you feel like maybe that's going to be the cash out or the pinnacle, or that's where you want to achieve. But there's a lot of work to glean without an agent too. Anne: Absolutely. Laya: And I think that's kind of where the paradigm or the shift is in the industry right now. And while a lot of the cream, you know, at the top goes to the agents or the managers, there's lots of great work out there that you can get by cultivating relationships with clients, putting yourselves out there, marketing, you know, dipping into pay-to-plays, if that's your thing. So let's dig in. Anne: So, I will say that when I started, and this is back in the day, pay-to-plays were not the same 'cause I've been in the industry for a few years now. So back when pay-to-plays first started, and I believe it was Voice123 that was the very firs

Bosses, your time is money. Don't waste a second of it! Anne + Laya dive deep into all the things that keep their businesses on track every day. From adding personal time to the calendar to automating follow up emails, you'll want to try it all. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, along with the amazing, happy new year, very special guest cohost Laya Hoffman. Laya, yay! Laya: Hey Anne, happy new year. Anne: Happy new year to you. How are you, Laya? Laya: Did you rock it? I'm great. I'm like ready to seize this year. Anne: Did I rock it? Like every new year's -- Laya: Did you rock it? Anne: I'm getting older now, so it's harder and harder. Laya: It's slower rocking. Anne: It's slower rocking for me, but you know what? I celebrate it just as much, however, I may not be awake exactly. Laya: Yeah. I mean, well, it's funny. I used to run nightclubs for a living, and so New Year's Eve was the biggest thing that we did all year long. And I can't even tell you the planning and the hours awake that I stayed. Anne: Oh, I can imagine. Laya: It's probably not something I would admit publicly. And here I am, but now I'm like to me, a rocking new year is in bed by 10. Anne: And you were probably the thing about that is you were probably working at the stroke of midnight. Laya: Oh working, oh, for sure. I was, I was on stage commanding the audience, doing the thing popped in the balloons. Oh yeah. The whole nine yards. Anne: The whole nine yards. Laya: These days, my rocket new year is much more low key. Yeah. Anne: And it got very confusing when my husband and I moved from the east coast to the west coast. Cause now we're like, well, okay, can we celebrate it at 9:00? Laya: Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Because the ball drops at 9:00. Absolutely. Anne: The ball drops at 9:00 out here. Laya: Yes, it does. Anne: And I still get confused. I don't know. We've been out here forever and I still get confused, but anyway. Laya: You can do it. You can do it. Anne: We go on. Laya: I say so. Anne: We go on. Laya: We go on to a better, brighter year, hopefully. Anne: That's right. Laya: Because gosh, I mean, we've had some success. We talked about this in the last episode. Anne: Yeah. Laya: There was a lot to look back on last year as being positive, and with this new growth mindset, we're walking into the new year, but we've got some good -- Anne: We've got work to do. Laya: -- ideas to share. Yes, we do. Anne: That's right. Laya: And we have to make this year the best yet. Anne: Yeah. So with all this work that we've already kind of like, here's what we want to do for our new year -- and of course, you know, over the actual time that you've had to think if you've had some time off, you might've come up with some more things that maybe you want to do for this new year, get yourself pumped up. So I think it's a great time to talk about, oh, how can I get this all organized? How can I be more productive with my time? Because I had a lot to do last year. And if I want to continue those, if I want to continue my brand and my parallel income streams, I still have a lot to do this year. So I want to know how can I do that more productively? Laya: That is a great question. I'm asking myself that all the time, but as a Virgo, A-typical personality, super organized and a little OCD, I think that for me, it starts with a bit of a daily checklist. And I mean, I don't always stick to it, but at least it's in my framework of which buckets of the business can I dip into and touch a little bit every day? So that's where my productivity window starts. How about you? Anne: Well, okay. So yeah, old school, old school, I have a to-do list. Laya: Your pen and paper. Anne: Yes, my pen and paper. And because I have to continue to make sure that I can actually write with a pen. It's interesting because when I write checks now like hand write checks, it's -- Laya: Oh yeah, your signature is all crazy. Anne: Yeah! Laya: Calligraphy is off. Anne: My calligraphy is off. Laya: Yeah. Anne: I feel like the pen doesn't fit right in my hand anymore. Laya: Yeah, isn't that crazy? Anne: And that's with my to-do list. I'm constantly scratching on my to-do list. And literally I have saved my to-do list for the past five years. And they're just these little, I have these wonderful, thin notebooks that I love to write in, lined. And I basically every single day, actually the night before, this is what helps me, I write down what I want to accomplish the next day or what I need to do for the next day. Laya: Love that. Anne: It doesn't always get crossed off because sometimes those tasks are, you know, multiple day tasks. But for me, what I love is, an

How's your vision board looking lately? Take time to lay out your ideas, hopes, and dreams for this upcoming year and establish a growth mindset that will move you forward! Anne and Laya discuss the tools and strategies they use to manifest outcomes within their own businesses, including tangible ways to create and maintain a healthier work/life balance in the midst of stressful times. Incorporate what works for you, from note-taking progress, to genre-specific training, developing tracking systems for career goals, or fostering mentorship opportunities - all while building a strong support system. Move beyond the resolutions this year, and focus on a truly life-changing new mindset of growth. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza with my amazing, very special guest cohost Laya Hoffman. Hey Laya. Laya: Hey Anne. Hey BOSSes. Nice to be back. Anne: Laya, you know, it's that time of the year -- Laya: It is. Anne: -- towards the end of the year, where we look forward to an amazing new year coming to our BOSS enterprises and our lives. And so I thought it'd be a great time to discuss a new mindset for a new year. Laya: Absolutely. It's all about setting the intention, the reflection of the year, and the things we learned about what we just went through. And man, we've learned a lot. Anne: Oh gosh. Every year I think I learn more, and I hope that for you BOSSes out there that it is the same. As you go from year to year, you're building, you're growing, you're learning. And I think I'd love to share some tips with you about maybe how I get a great start to my New Year's or I try to get a good start to my new year by setting my mind for growth. Laya: Absolutely. That growth mindset is essential. And I love all of our conversations up to this point because they've kind of stacked up into this perfect equation of some of the ideas that we can really dive deep into, but let's list them out today and go through some of the intention-setting for how to prepare yourself for the year ahead. Anne: Sure. Absolutely. Well, I think the first thing you have to do is just really sit down and take a good look at what happened to you this year. Pay attention to what you did month after month. And hopefully you have some sort of a system where -- I have my to-do lists that I jot down and I actually don't throw those to-do lists away. Laya: Really? Anne: Yeah. Laya: That's cool. Anne: It's just like a running list in a notepad right now. I mean I'm old school, right? So I have a piece of paper, and I think it's the only way that I still write to be honest with you other than typing on my computer. I actually write on my to-do list. And so I have a record of what has happened from day to day. And I think looking back on that, it really helps me to understand like where I've been, what projects I've been working on, what new clients I've gotten, what clients I'm following up with, and really gives me a nice like diary or a journal of almost like my to-do's and my accomplishments for the year. Laya: I love that. Yeah, I do something similar. My to-do lists usually gets scratched off as I feel accomplished. If like -- it's like the zero inbox thing. I'm like oh God, crumpled up and throw those out. But what I do is reflect back in kind of my journaling and a lot of what we had talked about in a previous episode about kind of, well, manifestation, right? And so at some point, sometimes twice a year, I'll do my manifestation list of the things that I want to achieve. And then sometimes it's nice to go back and revisit those lists and be like, wow! That actually happened. Or I have work to do if I really want to still get that done and stay focused. So I love taking another step from that and journaling kind of like my pows and my wows, as my daughter would say, which is like, what were the things I was most stoked about this last year that I achieved and what kind of was a low point, but what did I learn from those low points to achieve or apply and do better next year? So I do a version of what you're saying and kind of incorporate that, uh, manifestation process in that too. Anne: Yeah. So what is your next, right? What is your next, I guess, rung on the ladder? I like to think that I climb upwards and grow towards success. And there is one thing I do want to point out that growing your business year after year, it is, it's a little stressful sometimes. Laya: Yeah. Anne: It can really kind of play with your mental brain a little bit because it's scary. Laya: It is. Anne: And I am the first one to admit, it's like, where do I go from here? It's like, wow, how can I grow? And it really forces me to sit back and think ab

There's no off season in voice over - which can be a blessing and a curse! Being on the road in VO requires careful consideration of equipment, environment, your clients' needs, your business goals, and your own sanity(!). Anne and Laya chat vacations and voice over, including what it takes to maintain a complicated artist work/life balance while traveling. They'll tell you how to reduce your anxiety level while heading out on the road by putting together an organized mobile studio and communicating with your agents, managers, and clients + offer tips about how to set healthy boundaries around your business. Get ready for your next trip with #VOBOSS advice and recommendations… Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, along with my amazing, lovely, wonderful guest co-host Laya Hoffman. Hey Laya. Laya: Hey Anne. It's nice to be back, loving these convos of course. And we've already shared so much. This is getting good. Anne: I know, nice to be back. Speaking of which, Laya, I think you just came back from vacation, and if I'm not mistaken, you did mention that you might be going somewhere else soon. So let's talk about this. Laya: Crazy. Anne: You're a busy voice talent. So let's talk about VO on the road. And if, do you do VO on the road while you're on vacation? Laya: Yes. Every time, because I think it goes without fail, the second you leave is when the call comes in, right? Anne: Always. Laya: Like always, either that client you've been dying to nag or an ongoing campaign or something that just is on fire. It always happens when you go on the road. Anne: When you go on vacation. It's so true. I want to go on the road every other day now because this guarantees me a job. So, but going on the road, going on the road does require, you know, a special travel rig. It requires a -- a special mentality because when you go on the road, I mean vacation, are you really on vacation if you're working? That's the question. Laya: Yeah, yes. It is true. And it kind of, you know, you have to strike a balance. My family is like, oh you know, mom, you're going to bring your rig. Yes. Because mom's going to pay for vacation this way. Anne: This is going to pay for your next meal. No. Laya: Exactly. So there's so many nuances about it, and yeah, there's different schools of thought. I think I'm still green enough in my career in cultivating my client list and my reputation and my partnerships with management and agents, I know that I want to be available. Now, I also put boundaries in place that I'm not available. So it's not like every vacation all the time. Anne: Right. Laya: So let's talk about it. Yeah? Anne: Well I think, yeah, I think absolutely, number one, it depends on what genre, right, you specialize in. Laya: Sure. Anne: Exactly how changed you might be, right, to being available 24/7. I think obviously if you do promos, I mean, you actually sign contracts so that you can be available on a day-to-day basis and you. Laya: Yes, like golden handcuffs, right, right? Anne: Like golden handcuffs. Also, if you're, you know, commercial work, a lot of times, it's like we needed it yesterday. Anything that's broadcast. I know for myself, I do a lot of the long format narration, which I can build in a little bit of time with that. So I think that -- Laya: Sure. Anne: -- all of that contributes to whether or not I bring my microphone on the road with me, and I will be honest, for the past, you know, years, I always have, because I never wanted to give up that opportunity. And I also have agents who, you know, when they send me an audition, I better be able to get them that audition back because I don't want to, number one, jeopardize that relationship with the agent, nor do I want to pass up an opportunity that might work for me. Laya: Sure. Anne: So even if I'm doing an audition on the phone, you know, in my car, although I, I have to say, I try to not do that. I try to, well, let me bring my microphone. I really want it to sound good. Laya: Yeah, yeah. Anne: And so thus begins well, what does my travel rig look like? And we can talk about that in a little bit, but what about you? Laya: I feel the same way. You know, like I said, to me, I've gotten my rig down so small and compact, and you know, I use a Sennheiser 416. It gives a premium sound in most situations. Anne: You know, I'm gonna stop you there and agree with you wholeheartedly. Laya: Okay, good. Anne: Just, and I'm gonna let you continue in just a minute, but I do want to say, I don't know why it took me so long to realize that I really should take a 416 with me because most spaces are not optimal. Laya: Yeah. Anne: And the 416 helps me to create a

What if you could perform beyond the limitations of your own voice? Anne is joined by special guest Alex Serdiuk for a bonus Voice and Ai episode. They discuss Respeecher's speech-to-speech technology, the limitations of your natural voice, and how a synthesized voice is similar to a printing press. The future isn't just on its way - the future is here - and creative possibilities are endless when human voices and technology work together...

Do you have the courage to invest in yourself? In this episode, Anne and Laya share how they built their dream booths and how you can too! From soundproofing to equipment, they cover picking the right recording space, investing in quality materials & technology, and taking that financial leap of faith to up your bookability + professionalism like a #VOBOSS! Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today, and for the last few sessions, I have been so happy to be co-hosting with special guest Laya Hoffman. Laya! How are you? Laya: Hi. I'm so good, Anne. Loving this, and we've got more cool stuff to talk about. I feel like I could talk to you for hours and hours. Anne: I know. Right? Well, speaking of which, you know, I met you, Laya, when I first met you, I actually didn't meet you. I saw an amazing booth tour of your new booth. Laya: Oh yeah. Anne: Now I think you had just moved, and you built a booth -- is it downstairs? Laya: Yes, I would -- I would like to say it's an entire studio, if I may, because -- Anne: Yes, you built an entire studio. Yes, you did. Laya: It was a dream come true. Let me tell you, and it's because I came out of a booth, but we can go even further back then. Anne: I was so impressed. Laya: Thank you. Anne: I was so impressed with your booth tour that I thought, oh my gosh, that is like the coolest video booth tour I've ever seen. Laya: Thank you. Anne: And I absolutely loved your space. And you were sharing that space also with your daughter doing your podcast. And I just, I reached out to you, and that's basically how we met. And I'm so glad that we did, because now here we are doing a podcast series, so I'm absolutely loving it. And I thought let's talk about our booths because we've had some really wonderful experiences in building our booths. And I'll tell you what, my booth experiences, they've just been an evolution of my business, and coming from, you know, being in the closet -- and there's nothing wrong with recording in your closet. It's all about, you know, the sound that you're getting, but I'll tell you what, there's something to be said for graduating to a booth that's kind of like a custom beautiful place that you can sit -- Laya: It's a big girl booth. Anne: Yeah, a big girl booth, I love it -- when you can sit and just do what you love. And I just absolutely love my new booth. Let's talk about our booths 'cause we're booth babes. Let's do it. Laya: Booth babes. I love it. Yes. The modern mindset is to create space that you feel good in. Anne: Yeah. Laya: And so to be, whether it is your closet or your you've created a new studio, or you've got a custom booth or a Whisper Room or any one of those things, a Studio Bricks, there's so many beautiful options out there. No matter what space you're working in, I think it's important to just feel good in this space. So like you said. Anne: Agreed. Laya: You know, no matter where you are in the stage of your career or your journey, as long as you feel good there, and there's something that connects you to your surroundings and your atmosphere, that's when you're going to feel your best and to deliver your best. Exactly. Anne: And you know what's so interesting is I've been through a few booths. I don't mean that to like, oh, I got one booth after the next, after the next, but one of my first actual booth-booths instead of being in my closet was built by my dad. And there's something to be said -- Laya: That's awesome. Anne: -- about being in a space that you feel good about. My dad built me that booth out of love. Laya: Yes! Anne: I mean, my dad has always supported me, never once asked me a question about what I was doing. He didn't necessarily understand voiceover, but when I said, Dad, I need to build a booth. That gives me some good sound. And so my dad was like, okay, let's do it. And my dad bought me this booth. And every time I stepped in that booth, and I'm going to get a little bit like probably teary because I just felt his love every single time. Laya: Yes. Anne: And I, I used that for years. Laya: That's so beautiful. Anne: I used that booth for years and every time I stepped in there, I felt my dad's love and confidence in me and just his support. And it was a wonderful, wonderful thing. And I'll tell you about -- Laya: What a beautiful experience for you. Anne: Yeah. And with my new booth, I also made sure because now he's older, I also made sure that he was involved in the booth, and he was here for the building of this booth too, which I'm so, so proud of. Laya: I bet he took great pride in that, you know, so doing something with his hands that he could create to give his daughter this gif

Whether you're working a zero-inbox system or have thousands of unread emails, we're going to teach you how to manage your email marketing like a #VOBOSS. In this episode, Anne and Laya discuss strategies for running successful email campaigns and teach you how to manage your mass communications like a total pro. From concise content creation to developing better reading and writing skills, it's all about strengthening your marketing muscle! >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with my amazing special guest co-host Laya Hoffman. Laya: Hey Anne, hey BOSSes. It's great to be back. I've enjoyed our conversations, this entire sequence of modern mindset. I really appreciate being here and all you shared with me. So thanks for having me back. Anne: Yeah, so let's continue, shall we, on our modern mindset? Because our last few episodes we've talked about marketing, social media, and I think an important one to cover as well, in order to evolve, our businesses is email marketing. Laya: Yes. Anne: Like, do you do email marketing? How do you do email marketing well, in a modern way? How do you not become a spam annoying -- Laya: Yeah. Anne: -- person out there? So, yeah, it's very, again, with all the chaos that is out there today, everything digital flying at us, it's hard to know sometimes. Laya: It's a lot of noise. Yeah. Anne: Yeah. How do you cut through the noise? Laya: Exactly. And stay relevant, stay top of mind with your clients without kind of brow beating and being a bit of a nag and being the thing that clogs up their inbox. Because the last thing you want is them to roll their eyes when they see, you know, oh gosh, another Monday morning email from Laya Hoffman that's about her, and not anything I need. You know? I mean, that's where I'm very cognizant of. I think there was a big push maybe a couple of years ago when email marketing was at its height. And it seemed like there's still a lot of talent that subscribe to that train of thought that is like, oh, I must get content out. I must get a direct email to my list. Anne: A newsletter. Laya: I need to cultivate my newsletter. Anne: It was a thing, a newsletter to the list. Laya: And maybe it's still a thing, if you really have important quality content and information to share, that's rich for your client or your audience, like a podcast or a new episode. And you've got buy-in from the people that, that are really connected to that. Anne: Backing up. Buy-in. Laya: Okay. Buy-In. How do you even know? Anne: Let's start there. 'Cause I think, right, before we send email, we have to have a list. And before we have a list, we really honestly should get permission -- Laya: You should. Anne: -- for people to be on that. Laya: It's the law. Anne: It is the law. Laya: That's the thing. Anne: It is to be spam compliant. And I want this to be so important. If you guys get anything out of this episode, let it be that if you have permission for your clients to be on your list, that is really the optimum way of being able to communicate with your clients and your potential clients. And there's so many people out there with cold emails, and it's a lot of discussions going on in the groups and everything. And cold emailing is certainly way. However, I'm going to tell you, how do you feel -- first of all, actually, I won't tell you, I'll ask you. How do you feel when you get an uninvited email from somebody -- Laya: Gross, icky. Anne: -- that's trying to sell SEO or trying to sell, uh, you know, we can develop your web page. I get it. And I look at it and I go, hmm, I didn't ask for that. Laya: You automatically -- yeah. You automatically have a bad taste in your mouth, right? Anne: Yeah, I don't like it. Laya: That's the last thing you want from your clients, for sure. Anne: So cold emailing anything, it's just, it's a tricky, tricky business. So I want to warn people to please just be very, very cognizant of what it is that you're writing in those emails and how you're sending those emails. I tend to get people's permission before I email to them. And there's lots of different ways to do it. It's a little bit more, I would say than an advanced kind of a method to do that instead of just mining Google for production companies or owners of companies. I think that with a little bit of work and a little bit of innovative marketing of yourself, you can get people on your mailing list, and then they're not going to be angry when you email them. Laya: I tell you what I did when I first started my email list. And I dunno, there's a couple of hundred emails on there, and sure, I'm able to get that. You can sign up on my email list on my website, 'cause there's

Your instagram feed isn't really your diary, even if you treat it like one. In this episode, Anne & Laya discuss how to set social media boundaries, talk about the power of engagement, and teach you ways to leverage your money-maker across platforms in ways that keep you (and your voice) top of mind. Stay up to date and plugged in like a #VOBOSS! In this episode, Anne and Laya discuss social media boundaries, engagement, and boosting your voice across platforms… More at https://voboss.com/modern-social-media-with-laya-hoffman Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I'm here with very special guest co-host Laya Hoffman. Yay, Laya! Laya: Hey BOSSes. Hey Anne. How's it going? Anne: I'm doing great. How about yourself? Laya: Rocking and rolling. Super excited to be back on the show talking to you today. I think we're doing a new modern mindset about new media and social media. Anne: Absolutely. Yeah, we are talking about coming into the new times and having a modern mindset when it comes to your business. So we spoke in the last few episodes about modern marketing, kind of just to get the ball rolling. Let's focus in more, I think, on social media for sure. Laya: Yeah, yeah. Anne: And talk about a modern take on social media, because boy, in the last couple of years, since this pandemic, things have really changed -- Laya: Yes. Anne: -- in social media, and I have a much different mindset today than I did even last year about it. Laya: Yeah, you do. We all do because it has evolved, but at the same time it's evolved, I think everyone's approach or level of interest and engagement has evolved as well, because we've probably all been isolated in some capacity in a -- Anne: Yeah. Laya: -- and found ourselves drawn to either losing ourselves or being inspired or comparing ourselves on various social media platforms. And whichever one you toggle between in a day, I know for myself, I've actually had to create some boundaries on social media. Anne: Oh yeah, absolutely. Laya: Just for my own health and wellness and perception and productivity, in my day, you kind of have to, whoa, take a step back and how much of your time, energy and effort is being put into that. So, you know, I think that's a modern mindset in itself, put up your walls, people. Anne: You know, what's so interesting is that a few years back, I mean, I remember I was the social media maven, and I think just because I'm a very tech girl, and I was always into making sure that my online business presence was there, and I always eagerly embraced social media as it would become available and new platforms. And I was just all into it, and lately I have been, wow, I need to step back a little bit because there, it has evolved in such a way. And we've all I think, it's become just so easy to type at that prompt all types of emotions, all types of everything comes out. Laya: Yeah. Anne: And sometimes it's not healthy. Laya: Yes, this is true. Anne: And so I have had to step back -- in terms of what you're consuming, hopefully what you're typing is healthy, right? What you're consuming may or may not be healthy mentally for you. And so I, myself person who always embraced social media, have kind of taken a step back and thought, wow, I think possibly I need to step away for a moment, make sure that I, like you said, set boundaries for the day. And I never thought I would say that for Anne Ganguzza, 'cause I'm just, you know, I'm all about the tech. But there are times when I need to absolutely step back away from it in order to regain a sense of balance in myself -- Laya: Yes. Anne: -- and in my business. Laya: I totally agree with you, Anne, and I echo that sentiment and have had to do the same. As a former marketer, I felt like I was dead set on consistency, posting every day, keeping your engagement up, being relevant, you know, sharing the most modern content, being and living authentically yet, you know, putting your best face -- Anne: Yeah. Laya: -- and your brand forward -- Anne: Yeah. Laya: -- but still being able to connect and having a touch point throughout the day. Now, after what, 19, 20 months of a pandemic -- Anne: Yeah. Laya: -- I have definitely compartmentalized and created more healthy boundaries. And I think that in itself is a modern mindset. You do not need to share. Anne: Yeah. Laya: It's not "dear diary." Anne: Yeah. Laya: You don't need to overshare and over-consume and over-engage because it in itself is a energetic vampire, you know, just -- Anne: Oh, for sure. Laya: -- sucking the energy out of you and really not contributing to the betterment and the health and wellness from a mindset place in a healthy holis

You may be busy carving the turkey and making holiday shopping lists, but have you really spent time considering what makes you grateful? In this episode, Anne and Laya reflect on gratitude during the holiday season, covering how to tastefully thank clients during the holidays + how the concept of gratitude can help you reframe negative experiences, elevate your business, and improve your relationships like a #VOBOSS!. Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, along with my very special guest cohost Laya Hoffman. Hey girl. How are you? Laya: Yay. And Hey, BOSSes. It is so good to be back chatting with you, of loving our conversations and just let's keep it flowing. We got so much to talk about. Anne: Well you know, my calendar has reminded me, for some people, there's a holiday here that is Thanksgiving. Laya: Oh yes. Anne: And I thought to myself, you know what? It may just be one day on the calendar, but for me every day needs to be Thanksgiving. And I thought it would be a great opportunity to start talking about attitude of gratitude and how that can help our modern mindset and our businesses on a day-to-day basis. Laya: And I'm so glad we are, because it seems like such a small thing, or maybe even, I don't know, cliche in a way -- Anne: Yeah. Laya: -- to like act from a place of gratitude, but it is really the core of my business. And I believe helps center myself and my whole family to keep us on track and keep us grounded every day. So I'm glad you -- we're talking about it today. Anne: Totally agreed. And so I think that I have some things that I do that, that help me express my gratitude and make sure that I'm thinking about that on a day-to-day basis. And I'm asking, what do you do to express your gratitude or to think gratitude? I know what I do when I wake up in the morning. I really try every day to think about what I'm grateful for. And I just take a moment, take a deep breath and give thanks. And usually I have my loving husband around, my family of cats, and I always, whenever I see them, I just smile and I'm very grateful. And that just helps me to just be grateful for everything that I am fortunate to have in my lifetime. What about you? Laya: Yeah. You know, that's great. It's really just about being present and looking around, even if that's the simplest act of gratitude you can incorporate in your day. For us, we've taken it to a family level and a way to try to cultivate more gratitude and appreciation from the core for our daughter. So at dinner every night, we say, what are your gratefuls? You know, we're not a religious family for all intents and purposes. I'm Jewish. My husband, we're, we're a little loose in the religious space, and that's okay because our spirituality is really gratitude based. And so we say at night, while we're just sitting around having conversation, we say, let's do our gratefuls tonight. And we go around the table, and we say what we're grateful for. Anne: I love that. Laya: And sometimes it's the small things -- Anne: Yup. Laya: -- like how beautiful the weather was today, or this breeze you felt, or it's the big stuff, you know, a big win or the opportunity to use our voice for good every day. Anne: Yeah, absolutely. Laya: That's something we often talk about. My husband has another cool tip. I love that you say your family is included in this too, whether it's your cats or your partner -- Anne: Yup. Laya: -- but my husband actually has an alarm on his phone that is a gratitude check-in every day. I think his is two times a day. And it's just -- Anne: I love that. Laya: -- something that a beep that goes off. Yeah, right? And sometimes when it's just him, I guess he just envisions it in his mind. But if we're around he's like, all right guys, gratitude check-in, and we just rattle off three quick things. It helps you get focused. Anne: Oh, I love that. Laya: Like really remember what's important, especially if you're having kind of an off day, right? Anne: Absolutely. And like you said, even just the simple things like this morning, right before, right before getting on ipDTL with you, bacon. I am grateful for bacon and my husband who cooks it for me. Laya: I'm grateful for that too. Anne: Something, something is as small as that, but I think -- Laya: Sure. Anne: -- you know, it really helps to translate it to the larger picture, and it helps to really translate it into your business as well. And I think sometimes, I've been doing this for so long, you know, you tend to forget sometimes that it is a privilege to be able to literally roll out of bed, and, you know, walk over to my studio, and -- Laya: Yes. Anne: -- do this job that I love o

You know your favorite brands stand out, but do you know yourself well enough to blend your business & creative persona into cohesive fonts, colors, and branding? If not, Anne & Laya are here to help! In this episode, they'll explain how to put your best virtual foot forward through introspection,crowdsourcing, and (most importantly) acting like the #VOBOSS you already are. More at https://voboss.com/modern-marketing-101-with-laya-hoffman Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am here with my very special guest cohost, Laya Hoffman. Laya, thanks for joining me again in this new series on modern mindset. I'm so excited to have you. Laya: Yeah, thanks, Anne. It's been great so far, love being back, and I'm super grateful for the opportunity. Thanks for having me. Anne: Yeah. So we've been talking about modern mindset, and our last few episodes, we're talking about just in general, having a modern mindset towards your business, as well as towards your health. Laya: That's right. Anne: I'm thinking we have to touch upon everyone's Achilles heel. Maybe not everyone's. I mean, I happen to like marketing, but we should talk about a modern marketing mindset because you have a background in marketing. Laya: Yeah, that's right, Anne, I sure do. I'm a former creative marketing agency partner. And, uh, after that I was the vice president of marketing for a major beauty brand that was a global brand and in the professional hair care line. So it's definitely a different field, but a lot of similarities as it pertains to branding identity, marketing, SEO, outreach, and just overall good client engagement in this new modern world. Right? And when we talked about that earlier, it's just, how do you approach that differently? It's a lot different than we were taught in college or in textbooks and things. Anne: Oh, for sure. Laya: You gotta adapt. Anne: And also I think it's important. I think it's great that you have real-world marketing experience from before -- Laya: Sure. Anne: -- and even leading up until modern times, because I think as creatives, if you did not come from that environment, it's hard to know even where to begin for marketing. I mean, that's -- most students that are just starting out when they're talking to me, they're like, oh my God, can you please just tell me, like, how do I even start to market myself? Laya: Sure, sure. Anne: So let's kind of start there. I think that for people just entering into the industry, as well as let's say, industry veterans, we still have to spend a considerable amount of time marketing ourselves because I'm always trying to find that next great client, because today's client is never promised. Laya: Absolutely. And you got to stay fresh and stay current. And a lot of that comes down to knowing who you are as a person, as a creative and what that means as a brand. Right? And so how can you package all your skills and your specialties in this brand? And I got scared by that too, even as an ex-marketer coming into the entrepreneurial space and being a one person show. Anne: Yeah. Laya: It's really hard to talk about yourself, and I can do it for everybody else. I can package everything else in a boat. Talking about yourself feels totally bonkers. Anne: Right? Yeah. Big difference. Laya: And then you figure out your brand, which is a very scary place to sit. And there's a lot of great experts, even in our industry, that focus on that, creating a brand for your voiceover, but you certainly have a great one. And you know, you know, you've got colors, you've got the BOSS vibe, you know, you know what your specialties are. You know what Anne Ganguzza means in the industry because you've done an excellent job branding. And I think -- Anne: Well, thank you. Laya: -- for a lot of us that -- you're welcome -- that's the starting point. And it's kind of a scary place to start, but if you don't know your brand, how you gonna know the next step to market, right? Anne: Yeah. That makes sense. So then the very first step then before you can market something, right, is to really have something to market and to really be fully aware of your brand. And I know that that makes sense, when people come to me also for coaching, whatnot, you have to have a demo, right? You have to have something that you can market and then applying that brand to that product. Laya: Yeah. Anne: And so what are your first steps in branding yourself? It's a tough one, right? Laya: Yeah, it is. It's takes a lot of looking inward. Right? And figuring out if you just sat down with yourself and thought, what do I really like in life? What do I get excited about? What brands do I identify with be

Is your yoga instructor on your business expense list? How about an ENT? If not, perhaps they should be. In this episode, Anne & Laya explore the role diet + exercise play in their businesses, how to take a break, and why you should try face yoga (really, it's a thing!). If you're feeling a sense of business burnout , listen for tips and ideas to help overcome the overwhelming. More at https://voboss.com/modern-wellness-with-laya-hoffman Transcript ​​>> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host Anne Ganguzza, and I am pleased to welcome back to the show special guest cohost, Laya Hoffman. Hey Laya, how are you today? Laya: Awesome. Thanks, Anne, it's so good to be back. I've been loving our conversations so far. You've given so much to the voiceover community. Anne: Thank you. Laya: I have received from you before. So it's just an honor and a pleasure to join you on the show again and continue to share some knowledge of a modern mindset and this business we have. Anne: Absolutely, for sure. So we got into some really amazing conversation in our last episodes about how to prepare ourselves and get ourselves into a modern mindset. And I want to get a little bit deeper into that focus, in regards to vocal health or our actual physical health. Because, you know, with the seasons changing, I know that I need to be able to do a few things to get my voice prepped and ready for being able to perform at my very best. And I know that I have a certain ritual of things that I do to prepare my voice, to be able to have the very best voice that I can. And I was hoping we could have a discussion about that today. Laya: Of course, of course, I totally believe that full body wellness is key to creating a, you know, a sustainable voiceover business, but also to come from the right mindset holistically all, all the way. It's a 360 approach to your wellness, you know. While our vocal chords and our voice is our tool on our instrument, it doesn't happen naturally with flow and with the essence that you need to deliver, if your full body isn't in tune and it really takes a proactive approach -- Anne: Sure. Laya: -- and not a reactive approach to doing that. Anne: So very important. Laya: I have learned the hard way. I'm sure we all have, especially during this high anxiety time that we're living in right now, whether, you know, you're on edge from everything that is the pandemic, or the political space, or whatever it is, we need to keep all those things in check so that we can deliver from the right emotional point, and do it in a healthy way, body, mind, soul, emotionally, and all of those things. So I definitely have incorporated some techniques that I keep in my ritual, in my toolkit to continue to, you know, work effectively and keep that balance. Anne: You know what's interesting is that when I'm working with students who are just entering into the business, I give homework, you know, 'cause I'm a teacher. Laya: Sure. Anne: And I love to give homework and I find it -- Laya: I hate giving homework. Anne: -- so interesting because people will tend to -- there's two types of people, right? There's people who will just be very diligent and good about doing their homework. And then there's those people who will wait until the night before and then do all their homework at once. And I'm constantly telling my students that it's important for you to get to know your body, to get to know your performance level and how you are at different times of the day. How do you feel in the morning? How do you feel in the afternoon, or how do you feel in the evening when you're performing in the booth after you've had a full day of stress, because I think it's super important that you get to know your body and how it reacts to stress to, if you're tired, whatever. And it's important for you to get to know that so that when you are a full-time working voice actor, that you can understand, this is a great time, if I can get in the booth now. I'm feeling good, mentally healthy, physically healthy, and I'm in great performance, that you can take advantage of that, and really try to keep yourself in that tip-top shape for whenever you step into the booth. So I think it would be great to talk about what sort of things do you do to get yourself ready for that, Laya? Laya: Yeah. Well, thanks. I feel like I'm a generally healthy person. I'm, uh, in my early forties, I've always been active, always tried to eat fairly clean, be aware. Of course I love to indulge just like everybody else. And I'm not always on my best, but going the distance with voice work in the last few years and being a working mom as well, having a young daughter to tend to, and all the stresses

Worried about Ai? Your emotions are your job security, and working with technology will be key to future success in voice over. In this bonus Voice & Ai episode, Anne chats with Ryan Hicks and Adam Fritz of Pozotron - an audiobook proofing service. Listen as they dive deep into the future of audiobook production, and discuss how the connections between human emotion & AI is a voice actor's greatest ally… More at https://voboss.com/voice-and-ai-pozotron-with-ryan-hicks-and-adam-fritz

What are you grateful for today? In Part Two of our Modern Mindset series premiere, Anne & Laya connect the conversation between industry and self. They cover forming accountability groups during the pandemic, abundance vs. scarcity mindsets, and the double-edged sword that is social media. More at https://voboss.com/introducing-modern-mindset-part-2-with-laya-hoffman Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and I am thrilled to have back with me guest co-host Laya Hoffman. Laya is an Atlanta-based voice actor and podcaster. She's got over 20 years on the mic. She specializes in commercial, corporate, promos, and has worked for brands such as BMW, Google, Amazon, all the things. She's a former marketing exec, nightclub DJ, and creative agency lead. So she brings us so much value to this podcast. And I am so excited to bring her back to talk to us on our Modern Mindset Series. Laya, so glad to have you back. Laya: Oh, thank you so much, Anne. I'm loving our conversation. It's been an honor to listen to your show over the last few years and on to be a guest, how cool, super grateful for the opportunity to share. Anne: Oh, absolutely. Wow -- Laya: Thank you. Anne: -- we had a great episode where we started to talk about what is a modern mindset and how to get yourself into a modern mindset. And we really kind of delved deep, and I think we can go even further on that. So let's review a little bit for our listeners about what a modern mindset entails and maybe dig deep into the modern mindset for being ready to be the best entrepreneur you can for your voiceover business. Laya: Absolutely. And it's so important to continue to share this information, because as so many talented voice actors who have shared their trials and tribulations with me over the years, I've kind of run that through a modern lens, as I've grown my business full-time in the last three years and taken that experience and shifted it in how we can meet our buyers, our agents, our managers, our clients, where they are because they're hiring differently. Anne: Oh yes. Laya: They are listening for different things, and to be our best selves when we approach the mic every day, it takes starting at the ground up to make sure that you are confident, that you are committed and clear, and you are grounded in your intention, and how you present your work every day. And, um, and that will continue to help you stabilize your industry, but also, you know, keep the balance, because there is a lot of anxiety out there in the world as it is, much less when you talk to yourself in a box all day for a living. So, you know, there's a lot of steps to that. And we did touch on that a little bit on our last episode of health and wellness, and then also having and approaching your business with the right intention. But I'm looking forward to talking more about that today. Anne: Well, you know, I think it's very important before you begin, or while you're in the middle of creating your business, that you are open to educating, educating yourself. Laya: Oh yeah, oh yeah. Anne: I think that that is so important. And -- and if you're used to doing things a certain way, I think it's really important that, number one, if you're going to be successful in an industry such as voiceover and any industry, that you spend a certain amount of time each day, educating yourself on that industry. What does it take for you to be successful in that industry? And also not just in the industry, but to research and educate yourself on your potential clients. Laya: Absolutely. Anne: I think that that is absolutely very important. And if you don't have that going into it, it's going to be hard for you to really understand or even perform, to be successful in getting gigs. And then once you have the gig, in order to be able to serve your client in the way that they would want to have their brand elevated by your voice. Laya: Absolutely. I think that you look at, you can look at any other industry in the world, and you know that you've got a certain amount of education, whether it's vocational -- Anne: Oh yeah! Laya: -- or a long lead of college tuition ahead of you, but in voiceover, for some reason, a lot of people approach it like it's just a quick fix -- Anne: Yeah. Laya: -- or it's a quick money maker -- Anne: It's simple. Laya: When in -- Anne: I'm home. I can make money. Laya: -- when the reality is -- I can talk, right? Everybody talks -- Anne: I can talk. Laya: Right? When the reality is, if you don't come to the table with a true understanding of the investment and what you're going to fill and educate yourself with, fill your cup with every day, and come from a p

VO is a marathon, not a sprint. Anne and series co-host Laya Hoffman kick off the Modern Mindset series with an honest look at the voice business from a fresh perspective. They discuss learning from industry trailblazers, mental and physical health in the booth, and the financial reality of VO. More at https://voboss.com/introducing-modern-mindset-part-1-with-laya-hoffman Transcript >> It's time to take your business to the next level, the BOSS level! These are the premiere Business Owner Strategies and Successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a BOSS, a VO BOSS! Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. Anne: Hey everyone. Welcome to the VO BOSS podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I am thrilled to welcome special guest cohost Laya Hoffman to the show. Laya is an Atlanta-based voice, actor and podcaster with over 20 years on the mic. She specializes in commercial, corporate, promos and others short form audio projects for amazing brands like BMW, Google, Amazon, AAA, Kind snacks, and much, much more. She's a former marketing exec -- woo-hoo, we love marketing -- nightclub DJ and creative agency lead. She brings a modern minded approach to business. So Laya, thank you so much for joining me on this special guest series on modern mindset. Laya: Thank you, Anne. It is such a pleasure to be here. I am a huge fan, always have been since we met years ago at, uh, VO Atlanta, and I've loved your show and all the quality content and the information you've provided to the industry. So it's an honor to be here. It's really nice to be able to continue our conversations on the mic. Anne: Well, thank you. And I'm excited because this is going to be a really cool series. We're not just here for one shot. So BOSS listeners, you're in for a treat while we explore all things modern mindset in our voiceover business and our entrepreneurship. So with that being said, Laya, you've been in the industry a long time. So I think having a modern mindset, especially when you have so much experience in the industry, it takes some effort, and it takes like a really good, focused mindset in order to remain successful in the industry. So tell us a little bit about your experience and how it's led you into this modern mindset for your voiceover business. Laya: Yeah, sure things. You know, I always say I've been on the mic for 20 years because I went to school for radio broadcasting at Columbia in Chicago. And I was on the air for many years. And then because of that, you know, 20 years ago, voiceover looked a lot different. It was us radio jocks, just doing the ads that were given to us by, you know, clients in the sales team for the radio. I didn't even realize that's what I was doing was voice work, right, voiceover, and I loved it because I loved storytelling. I love delivering somebody else's message and also being able to play with different tones and textures and deliveries and things like that. It also came at a time when I was on the radio, I came out of a very dramatic situation that took my voice away from me. So it was a self-healing revelation when I could use my voice in a quiet room, and I could find the strength again, and that to me was equal parts, healing and empowering, and part of my growth journey and my own personal work in therapy coming out of that situation. So to me, voice work always meant something different maybe because it was taken from me. So I never took it for granted until it was taken away from me, and then to come back and realize that power in our voice and that people were listening meant something kind of different. And so I think maybe I had a unique introduction to voiceover and then also not realizing that there was a job in that. And of course, if you're not on top of your game in radio, there's not a whole lot of stability in that. Anne: Yeah, yeah. Laya: At least there wasn't in my media market station. Anne: Sure. Laya: And so after radio, I continued to voice projects for clients just by word of mouth for about the next 17 years off and on throughout my career, throughout all my travel. A few years back, of course, I owned a creative agency with a partner of mine that had to do very forward-thinking ideas for big brands in order to get the engagement, and get people listening, and get people to interact with their brand on many different levels. So it was experimental marketing at its best. And so with that forward-thinking approach to brand work, I had to get very creative and pay attention to what brands needed and what their consumers needed to get the traction that those brands needed to see their ROI. And so that was a unique perspective. Fast forward a few years, I became the vice president of global marketing for a haircare company and for many years traveled the world is seeing what consumers and brands alike needed to really buy into loyalty and brand identity. And that gave me another unique perspective. When it came to soci

What is a virtual being? Anne welcomes educator and entrepreneur Abran Maldonado to the show. They discuss diversifying the Ai landscape, cutting edge technology in schools, and working alongside Ai like a #VOBOSS. Plus, Virtual Being CLAiRA chimes in on what she thinks about robots taking voice actors' jobs. More at https://voboss.com/create-labs-ventures-with-abran-maldonado

If you can dream it, it can happen! Jay LeBoeuf from Descript joins Anne to discuss the benefits of having a voice clone and how Descript can improve work-from-home potential for talent. Remove filler words with one click, adjust your audio via transcript, fix errors using an Overdub voice clone, and so much more. Use your voice beyond its in-person potential with tools that bring the power of AI editing directly to talent. More at https://voboss.com/voice-and-ai-descript-jay-leboeuf/