Social Media and the Voice Over Industry

We're less than a month away from Voice 2012 at Disneyland! For the second time in four years, I am joined by Dave Courvoisier and Trish Basanyi on stage to present another seminar on social media and voice over industry. This is a subject I am passionate about because it has helped the growth of my voiceover business. I usually book a couple dozen jobs a year from Facebook and Twitter alone. I consider both to be powerful marketing tools. My girlfriend, Tracy's photography business has benefited from Facebook as well. When she posts photos on her brand page entitled Universal Soul Photography, she usually gets a couple of leads right away. Social media works!

Our presentation at Voice 2012 will be educating yet entertaining. We don't take ourselves too seriously and we aim to have fun! At Voice 2010, we started with a silly parody song to the tune of "Drive My Car" by The Beatles. It was a great way to start the presentation and loosen people up. This year, I am considering flying through the air on a wire like David Lee Roth did in the "Panama" video many years ago.  Ha!

Our presentation is Thursday, June 14th at 8:30am at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, California. It is one of many presentations at Voice 2012. I'll be discussing Facebook and how it can help your business. Dave will be talking about Google+ and LinkedIn and Trish will cover Twitter. John Florian of Voice Over Xtra describes us as "The Super Socials" and even created the logo above when the three of us did a webinar for his site a few months back.

Special thanks to James Alburger and Penny Abshire for inviting us back for another presentation this year.  This is going to be a blast!

Losing the Nah!

Nah, I don't have a chance at getting that gig. Or nah, not for me. Is it really not for you or is there a wall up in your brain preventing you from believing that you are qualified? This is true in any kind of business. We get so locked into the notion that a certain job just isn't for us or there's a skill that we just can't do. I said "nah" to Sushi for decades and now I absolutely love it! What didn't work ten years ago, might work for you today.

A friend of mine recently got his black-belt in karate. He used to always whine that he would never get there. "Nah, that takes like 50 years to get your black-belt." The more he procrastinated, the bigger the burden it became. It felt as big as building a 200 floor skyscraper after a while. Now that he has it, he thinks it was no big deal! Lol! Sure, it took time and a lot of work but he finally got rid of the "nah".

In the voiceover business, there are many talents including myself that have often looked at an audition and went, "Nah, this one isn't for me." Sometimes that might be the case but most of the time, it's us believing that we have no shot. I want to take a flamethrower to this kind of attitude. My brain used to be locked into this frame of mind at one point but then I got headaches from shaking my head and saying, "nah". Now, every time I audition for a commercial or narration, I always believe that I am going to get the gig. Even if it doesn't happen, it trains my brain into believing that I have just as much of a chance as the next talent.

So the next time you say, "Nah, not for me", take a minute and think about what you are saying. More times than not, it IS for you!