 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop. How's everybody doing tonight? We got a great guest tonight, George It's a guy who just knows a lot about Marketing for voiceover and that's mark Scott mark. How you doing? It's not so much that I know a lot It's just that I sound like I do and then people believe me, but that's half a voice over It's the acting and you convince them you tell a good story All right. Well, hopefully we'll convince lots of people and George you've got lots of stuff tonight, too And we're gonna have a great time, right? Yeah, I've got the tech talk later. You guys can tune in for that. All right, excellent All right time for voiceover body shop right now From the outer reaches they came Bearing the knowledge of what it takes to properly record your voice over audio and Together from the center of the VO universe, they bring it to you now George Wittem the engineer to the VO stars a Virginia Tech grad with the skills to build set up and maintain The professional VO studios of the biggest names in VO today and you Dan Leonard the voiceover home studio master a professional voice down with the knowledge and experience to help you create a professional-sounding home VO studio and Each week they allow you into their world bringing you talks with the biggest names in the voice over world today Letting you ask your questions and giving you the latest information to make the most of your voice over business Welcome to voiceover body shop voiceover body shop is brought to you by voiceover essentials comm home of Harlin Hogan signature products source elements remote studio connections for everyone voice actor websites.com where your VO website isn't a pain in the butt VO heroes.com become a hero to your clients with a word-winning voiceover training JMC demos when quality matters and voiceover extra your daily resource for VO success and now Live to drive from their super secret clubhouse and studio in Sherman Oaks, California Here are the guys Well, hello everybody out there and all the points in between and outside of those I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Whitton and this is voiceover body shop or VO BS Alrighty well, welcome to the show. We got a great show for you tonight Lots of important information, you know, we could just sit here and you know and chew the fat for a while about all sorts of stuff And we got a lot of stuff to talk about about marketing and stuff, but at least, you know George and I did not hurt ourselves too much over the last couple of weeks, you know I mean, you know, you go for your bike rides and you didn't fall off your bike Although while reaching over to kiss my wife Good morning a couple weeks ago. She jabbed her glasses right into my eye It was a lot worse Physically taking her head with her glasses and jamming it in your eye. It was like that. That's exactly what happened Right. It's nothing like blood coming out of your eye to go. This is not good But yeah, it looked a lot worse than it really was but you know didn't affect my vision missed my cornea by that much We all have those stories. Yes Corneas by that much right and and the older you get the more you have of them Sure Anyway, we we're we're gonna talk about voiceover marketing tonight And so if you've got a question again throw it in the chat room whether you're on Facebook or whether you're watching on YouTube Or wherever it is that you are watching the show if you're watching it live, which is the advantage of watching it live you you can you can do that and so let's introduce our guest tonight and So you can understand exactly who he is and why it's so important that we have him on tonight Mark Scott is a business and marketing coach for voice actors His objective is very simple to give you the tools resources and coaching you need to help grow your voice over business and his website is The Viopreneur, which is a great title mark. Welcome to a voiceover body shop I gotta tell you guys when I saw the opening to the show and all of these people that you've had on I suddenly felt very Intimidated and a little bit unworthy. So now I'm all nervous and self-conscious and whatever, but that's okay We'll still talk marketing. I find that hard to believe but it's like a list after a list after a list And then some guy in plaid from Canada You you're you're not far from where I'm from and was it Port DeLuzzi, Ontario I am I'm near Port Dover, Ontario. Oh Port Dover. Yes Because nobody can pronounce Port DeLuzzi. It's like how does that set anyway? So you got a lot of snow, which is why you're dressed like, you know, you're going hunting or something and You've got like a foot of snow overnight there Yes, I was doing the very Canadian thing today two and a half hours of snow blowing as opposed to you know Being in the studio recording voiceovers or whatever. So yeah, we got we got a foot overnight and it was very unexpected You know, it's coming. They said look, they're gonna get lake effects. No, you know, you know But it always happens when you're asleep and you wake up you open the window like oh crap It's like I woke up this morning I checked the security cameras on my phone and I was like nope going back to bed. That's enough Snow day. Yep anyway, so You know, I've been following your stuff for a long time. You've you know, you've got the Viopreneur site You know, you're doing what are some of the things you do you've got a wet a podcast You've got the web page What is what is all the stuff that you do and tell us a little bit about what you do? I mean it all started out as a blog and I remember long for many many years and then I decided to blogging was hard work So I thought it would be easier to do YouTube videos And so I then I started doing YouTube videos and then YouTube videos were like wow, this is really hard work They became really hard work like I'm gonna do podcast because you know, I'm a radio guy How hard can it be to do a podcast? Let me tell you I should have just stuck to blogging guess what that's hard Even harder than YouTube videos and so now I actually do the podcast and the YouTube videos at the same time Which just you know like double the pleasure there double the fun But there's there's always some sort of new content going out somewhere into the interwebs That's our that's our gameplay to we we'd simulcast all this stuff then put it out on podcast Cuz just know there's little time to produce a separate show for each anytime somebody comes to me It says mark. I'm thinking about starting a podcast. What's your advice? My advice is don't Yeah, as we always say, you know, everybody can do a podcast. It doesn't mean everybody should Agreed. Yeah, but if you know how I mean if it came out of radio doing a podcast is just like, you know Like you were the public service director opening body clothes out of there And just having technical issues live on the air, right? Exactly Everybody else thinks you're my jisher. I just really thought it was gonna be so much I So grossly underestimated how much work goes into doing something like that. So I very much appreciate what you guys are doing right now Well, we appreciate you coming on tonight. So let's talk a little bit about you know marketing I mean and not marketing in general. We're gonna talk about voiceover marketing specifically and you know and to me marketing has always been intimidating because I took one class in marketing in college and I didn't fail it But I also don't recall paying attention a whole lot, you know, and you remember little things like Packaging research, you know, like they were all just words But why are people so afraid of marginal hole? You know, and you're Okay, okay, George. All right, that's one edit. Okay. So What's it all Dan what's it all? Why are people so intimidated by marketing? I mean, I know why I am but what are you finding with new Talking to you know your clients about it. I think the biggest thing is a misperception of of what it is and I think that Somewhere along the way it got associated with The telemarketer The used car salesman, you know all of the dirty aspects of marketing the robo calls that we get at, you know Eight o'clock at night when we're trying to just relax on the couch or whatever we've we've got this real negative image this negative Narrative around what marketing actually is and so I think that part of it because I can tell you hands down The number one thing that I hear from voice actors when I ask them about why they are or aren't I don't want to be annoying. I am afraid of being annoying. That's that's it. And so it's it comes back to that whole Used car salesman, you know the dirty feeling of I just sold somebody something and now I've got to go take a shower Because I feel bad about it. It's it's that that side of marketing Which so much of it is just narrative based and it's a narrative that's not Based on any actual reality And so I think that's honestly where where a lot of it stems from is is just learning that we need to Flip the narrative on what marketing actually is and and stop making it to be such a A dirty thing because it's not because at the end of the day the way I like to look at it is I know That I offer something of value to my clients I you know the example that I love to give because I've been there and done it and I think most people can identify with it At some point if you've had a job outside of voiceover You've probably sat through some form of employee training And if it was recorded you probably wanted to smash your face off the brick wall Because it just couldn't wait for it to end because you know bob from accounting No offense to bob but bob recorded it because the the boss asked him to and you had to sit and suffer through that I know I can make that better I know that I bring something of value to every project that i'm Going to work on with my clients and so when I think about it from that way I get excited To work with them. I get excited to tell them But I get excited to have the opportunity to partner with them because I know that we're going to create a great Product in the end So I try to encourage people to think about that side of things as opposed to the dirty used car salesman side of things Right. Well, yeah, I mean and you don't want to go out there and say hey, you got to hire me because I got a great voice It's not that at all. It's you know, there's so many different pieces to it But people have to understand it's not about getting into this business and getting an agent and they're going to find you All this work The people who really succeed in this business Are the ones that go out there and make the cold calls and send out the emails and Do what it takes to get their own work You get an agent when you're making money because of all the work you've done and and that's really what it's about So, you know, we're going through this pandemic now. I think I think most people are aware of it now Um, you know something about it in the news has the covet pandemic created a need for Perhaps a different marketing approach for the time being I think in the beginning You know, so we're talking like spring of of 2020 there was definitely a different approach that had to be taken because Everybody at that point was impacted in some way Right. I had businesses that I've worked with for years that don't exist anymore I had clients that I used to work with multiple times a month who couldn't get a video to save their lives because All of the clients that they worked with were closed, right? So it did take a different kind of nuanced approach to to Reach out to people and you don't want to run the risk of Sounding like you're asking for work from somebody who just got laid off or just lost their job or their company just went under or whatever I think that that went on for the the first part of 2020. I think last year Like look nobody thought we were still gonna be here at this point. I don't think anyway Nobody thought we were still gonna be here in this pandemic at this point 2021 there was There was waves of a lot of optimism and then there'd be a wave of covid and then the optimism would fade away And then that wave would fade down and optimism would come back again And so there was a lot of back and forth. I think the biggest thing now is people are over it and it has become incredibly political and divisive And so it's something that i'm trying not to talk a lot about anymore And so I still see emails from everybody once in a while I still see emails from voice actors and even from clients every once in a while that are like, you know Talking about these unprecedented times. Yeah, we we stopped wanting to hear that in you know, april of 2020 We were over that that phrase. It happened last year in the year before. Yeah, I'd say it's been president Yeah, there's a precedent for it now, but but I do think that it's I do think as much as possible Just moving on from that not talking about what's going on, you know, not talking about People start to feel sorry for them. So, I mean, we're locked down here again in in ontario. It's incredibly frustrating I'm I'm totally over that again too, right? But nobody wants to hear me whine and gripe and complain about that either and so I really think that Now it's I mean what I say that it's a full return to status quo and how I'm marketing. I mean probably for the most part Trying to be sensitive to recognizing that there may be certain regions certain countries certain areas where things are a little bit different But by and large it's like just kind of move on past that message and and let's kind of focus on What's going to happen on the other side of this thing? Yeah, yeah I've sort of noticed that you know, we a lot of people are aware of this when we started the read was We're going to through this together And then it became more forward thinking and then I was watching tv last night and there was a new commercial Because of you know, amicron. It's like we're going to go through this and I turned to my wife and I go together She knew what I knew it was coming We want to get out of it. I mean everybody everybody wants to get out of it I know that the reads and again, it's it's just because nobody thought we were going to be here, right? If you asked anybody in what october november in most parts of the world We thought we were pretty much on the other side of this and then all of a sudden this new variant comes and boom Here we are cases spiking all over the world and Vaccinated not vaccinated. You're gonna get it whatever. I mean it It is still a factor maybe in in reads and in the types of voices and all that sort of stuff But strictly speaking from a marketing standpoint at this point It's not something that i'm really talking a lot about anymore I've just kind of accepted that people are Pretty much over it regardless of how they feel about it. They're just over it. It's not like it's insensitive to ignore It's not like we're we all know it's going on. It's not insensitive to To not acknowledge it anymore Right, you totally different now from if you had ignored it in the beginning, right? Right, and that's the thing right we're two years in it's just it's kind of I mean I would To say it's run its course obviously it hasn't but From a new norm up to be honest from a public standpoint from a marketing standpoint all that sort of stuff for most of it's it's kind of It's like yeah, it's run its course. Let's talk about something different now. Yeah, yeah But I I would think though that it's probably changed some things forever and how we communicate Because it's opened up opportunities certainly stopped some things But I think it's probably opened up more opportunities because you know a lot of people lost their jobs and decided to go into voice over um It's like there's no other things you could be doing but on the flip side of that too There's a lot of people that lost their jobs and have gone into Animation that have gone into video production that have gone into some of these other trades that we might And so where where some of the clients that I've worked with some of the production houses that I've worked with Some of them went under in the beginning, you know in march and april and may of 2020 Now there's a whole new batch of people who you know the great resignation is what everybody's talking about now, right? It's it's one thing that cova did was it caused a lot of people to reevaluate Reevaluate their priorities and where they want to be in life and what they want to do in life And so I think that there's a whole new crop of Of opportunity that is going to come out of that because hey the other thing that I think that cova proved is the absolute utter importance of video in every capacity And so I think that you will see video used I mean it's always been used for websites and social media and youtube channels and all that I think that's we're going to see an exponential Growth in that because I think that people are finally starting to recognize Companies that maybe before wouldn't have done it are going to do it Companies that before maybe only did one or two videos. Maybe they do 12 So I think that's where there's a potential upswing in this too. And that's just because simply we're not sitting physically face to face With each other anymore Well, you know one of the things that did it for me and I think a lot of people think this way too is We go back to 2020 to early 2020 when the whole world was locked down and you couldn't go anywhere, right? I'm used to going into a store and when I want to buy something I go into the store I pick it up. I look at it. I touch it. I read the packaging all of that sort of stuff, right? I couldn't do that for months And so I found myself in a place where I was on Amazon or on youtube or on vimeo watching videos on products that I never would have watched a video on before Because how else was I going to know if this is actually what I'm looking for this actually does what I want it to do And so, you know, I've got some friends that do uh amazon e-commerce and there's like, yeah You get you pretty much have to have a video for everything that you throw up on amazon because people have come to expect it we know that we needed that when we couldn't go to the store and Look stores are going to open up eventually. I mean in a lot of places they already have But do you think that people's buying habits are going to change drastically or have we gotten accustomed to the convenience of just watching a video? Yep, that's what I want one click online delivered to your door the next day Absolutely. Once again, we're talking with mark scott and we're talking about voiceover marketing Which I guess marketing for all sorts of other things probably applies to depending on what type of type of business you're in But specifically to voice over so How do you go about finding leads now? I used to sell life insurance So finding leads was everything, you know, you get the done in brad street to catalog of every business that you you know That that could be listed in your town or whatever But voice over leads are kind of specific. How do you how what's the best way to go about and find leads? I think we think voice over leads are specific But I think that the category is actually much broader than we give Credit to because of the fact that voice over can be used in so many ways now And so we think about traditional things like You know radio and television stations that are creating commercials or Maybe we think about, you know the video production company that this is what they do is they create video But maybe we're not thinking about the doctor's office down the street that has a phone system Or anybody that works in radio, you're going to understand this once upon a time There used to be eight announcers in the building and those eight announcers spread all the commercial work across all eight of them Now there's two announcers running a radio station 24 7 and there's seven car dealerships in town And one of those car dealerships is going to want a voice That isn't one of the two announcers at the building And so you could go and potentially have a direct relationship with that car dealership and pick up their monthly automotive ads It's there's so many different ways that it can be used over over the last two years I picked up a couple of universities that I've never worked with before but when they started going into Uh Lockdown mode and they were moving classes online They started creating e-learning content in a way that they had never done before So I had the opportunity to do a a lot of narration for college or college and university classes And so I mean the one question that I always say is who needs a voice over And if you really ask yourself that and allow you to brainstorm it out You realize that just about anybody in some capacity could probably use one whether it's a A commercial that they're creating for broadcast a video that they're creating for their website or their youtube channel their social media platforms Uh a training course that they've got to deliver to their employees IVR phone systems I mean there's a thousand different ways and so when you allow yourself to think about it from that perspective You realize that there's a lot more places to find work than maybe you realized But when all else fails if you go into google right now and do a search for corporate video production I did this the other day. I think it's like 1.4 billion results So, you know contact to start contact 20 of them a day and you know talk to me in 570 years when you've run out of leads Once again, we're talking with mark scott We're talking about voice over marketing if you've got a question a specific question for mark about your voice over marketing stuff Or some ideas perhaps you have or you want, you know, maybe a little bit more information about What's the best way to do it throw it in the chat room and the amazing jeff holman will get that question to us um Now the thing I remember from college was the different forms of marketing, I mean you've got email cold call social media And everybody's like and some people try to master one of those or try to master all of them Is one more effective than another I I guess it sort of depends on what it is your type of work you're looking for I think the the one that is the most effective is the one that you will actually do Find me probably and I say that in all seriousness because One of the one of the things that voice actors are absolutely amazing at is finding barriers for why they can't do this And so they can come up with a hundred excuses why I can't do email Why I can't do tiktok why I can't do twitter why I can't do instagram whatever And so my whole thing is I don't care what you do as long as you do something You will never get me to make a cold call like you could Pin me down and shove the phone down my throat And I would choke on it before I would ever make a cold call like i'm not gonna do it And so that's not my thing, but I know other voice actors whose entire business has been built on cold calling, right So my whole thing is do what you enjoy doing because then you're so much more likely to do it So if you're somebody who is very Visually creative and loves photography and all of that sort of stuff You know use a platform like instagram as a way to express yourself or Flip it and do like pulse recorded does and he's turned instagram into a microblogging platform And that's working out tremendously well for him If you are okay doing video if you're comfortable being on camera Take advantage of a platform like tiktok. I interviewed staphon johnson on my podcast recently That's a voice actor with over six million followers on tiktok. That's a guy who has found A comfortable place to market himself and he's doing it incredibly effectively if email is your thing do email I will never tell you that one is better than the other that one is more effective than the other only to the extent of Whatever you will do is what is going to produce results for you Yeah, that makes total sense. I mean I hate cold calling because you know, I went like I said when I was selling life insurance. I broke several phones It's awful. Oh, it's the thing is as voice actors You would hope that we would have a little bit more Wouldn't be quite as shy about it But you know, it's about rejection and as voice actors That's our way of life is rejection. You know audition audition audition nothing nothing nothing nothing You know, we used to go by the rule of 25 Uh, you know, if you made 25 or 21 it was if you made 21 calls, you might get one. Yes But and then there's the other thing of every no is one no closer to a yes So it you know Or and as my father-in-law used to say the harder you work the luckier you get Yes That's awesome Yeah, so my father my stepfather had a lot of good ones too and and you know and and then of course there was the other one You know my my other stepfather larry who always had this great expression when you really don't want to do something One excuse is as good as another I deal with that every day. That's that's that's my whole entire coaching business right there is dealing with people's excuses So i'm very felt very well familiar with that side. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and then it's always like, why don't you do this? Uh, you know, either they're intimidated or you know, they just don't really know or they don't want you to know that They don't know and that's why they don't do it. Here's the thing I have worked with hundreds maybe thousands of voice actors and Whether it's through courses that i've taught or through one-on-one coaching or speaking at conferences, you know Wovalcon, Veo Atlanta, whatever I know thousands of voice actors that have done marketing and at this point And I've asked I do not know of one voice actor Who has ever been called out publicly and shamed for sending a marketing email Or sending a linkedin request or following a potential lead on instagram or whatever Like I don't know what we think is going to happen But nobody is going to take out a billboard on the side of the freeway And slap your picture on it and say this lunatic sent me a marketing email Can you believe the audacity of this person like I don't we I don't know what we think is going to happen But like they're already not hiring you you have nothing to lose send the dang email Make the connection request post the video on tiktok. I mean, what's the worst that happens? Somebody laughs at you. Yeah, but maybe they laugh at you and then they tell your friends and then Or they tell their friends and then their friends watch the video and then one of their friends happens to be a video producer Who then reaches out to you and hired like you don't know right? We always assume the worst-case scenario The worst-case scenario never happens, right? No, that's true and and chances are you're not going to hear anything And if you do hear anything It's probably something positive because somebody saw what you said It's a complete stranger If they don't respond to my email. It is not going to hurt my feelings. I didn't know them anyway, right? So get over yourself and send the dang email Wow, that There's a there's a cold nugget right there. People got to follow that one So after you've done all this And you've made some cold calls and you've set out some emails and you've made a few tiktok videos And perhaps you've targeted them to certain areas or two specific people How important is follow-up? I think anybody who's ever looked for a job and they applied and they following up is very important How important is it when you know in doing a voiceover work? Follow-up is probably the next most important thing and I guarantee you that it is where most voice actors are leaving money on the table I I did a coaching session with somebody this week And we talked about he was you know, I'm a very gifted voice actor very talented Has worked with some big name clients, but was just going through a drought and I said, all right Well, let's look at your database of of your prospects and your clients When's the last time that you reached out to any of these clients that you've previously worked with and he'd never done it And I said, all right. Well, here's your homework assignment I want you to reach out to every single person that has ever hired you before And just remind them that you're here Remind them that you are still alive that you are still available And then the next day he sends me a message. He says mark. I need to talk to you. I got a problem Like what's your problem? He's like, what do you do when you have too much work? That's all it took he went from having nothing on monday To having more jobs lined up than he can handle on tuesday just because he followed up We assume that if we send one email Or we send one connection request on linkedin that that's all it's going to take or We send the email we we have the interaction on social media. We get a positive response Dan your demos sound great. We love you We definitely know that we've got some projects that we would love to work with you on some time And then what do you do? You just do nothing and you sit back and you wait for the projects to come and then they forget about you And then a couple of weeks later George reaches out and they're like, oh, hey, there's George. We like George We're gonna hire George because George is who we're thinking about right now, right? So the whole thing is just don't let them forget you don't let them forget that you're available So whether that is reaching out to them directly Email social media different things like that maintaining your presence on social media so that people don't forget about you I mean the only reason why people hire me for coaching is because I'm in their stinking face every single day And they have no choice but to remember me, right? They're gonna see me on youtube or they're gonna see me on instagram or linkedin or they're watching right now Right, like they're they're remembering me. This is part. Why do you think we're here right now mark? Why do you think you've been doing this for a long time? This is the follow-up strategy right people don't forget you and that's why when they need tech They come to you guys because you're who they're thinking of because you're there in front of them all the time The follow-up strategy is so key You cannot let them forget you because they will go with the person who they're thinking about at the time And if that's not you you just lost the job Absolutely once again, we're talking with mark scott about marketing for your vio business Again, want to remind you voiceover is an entrepreneurial business It's not show business unless you're in show business and those people are already in show business It's it's a totally different thing the successful people are the ones that are doing this kind of stuff Now once you start doing all these things and you have perhaps a couple of different irons in the fire when you're doing your marketing You you you talk about you know cold methods of doing this. How do you keep track of How you're doing with these sort of things. I think you call it, you know cold marketing metrics What's that all about? I think that when you're doing any of these strategies I do think that it's important to track the data to a certain degree because if you send 100 emails to Cold leads so you know you did that search for corporate video production on on google And you got your 1.4 billion results and you reached out to the first 100 companies that came up in the google results If you don't get a single response There's a problem and that problem could be your email It could be the person that you sent the email to It could be a problem with your website. It could be a problem with your demos It's hard to say but if we know that you got zero responses We know that there's a problem and we can try to fix it So I will sit down and I will look at it and say, okay, you know what? Here's what I think let's try wording your email this way And so then we change up the email now go send another 100 Well now this time you write me back and you say, okay, well out of the 100 I got about a 15 percent response rate. I'm like, all right. That's a lot better. So we've we've improved We got 15 responses where before we got zero So I do think that it's important to track some of those metrics to a degree Just to figure out whether or not what you're doing is working because the last thing you want to do is sit down and Send a thousand emails and never get a response because the email was bad, right? We want to fix it before it gets to that point And so that's where I think don't obsess over the data But I do think that if you're doing cold email marketing I always say that you want to see at least a 15 to 20 response rate Now that's not specifically a 15 to 20 higher rate That's a 15 to 20 response rate. So on 100 emails 15 to 20 people are going to write back to you if you're around there You're probably doing okay And if you are really targeted with your messaging and if you're sending a really great email and you've got really killer demos You know, maybe you get that number up to 25 or 30 percent Absolutely Once again, we're talking with mark scott if you've got a question throw it in the chat room a couple people thrown them in there And uh, we're going to continue our conversation talk a little bit maybe about some content strategies for social media But right now we're going to take a break and we'll be right back on voiceover body shop with mark scott This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv Well, hello there I bet you weren't expecting to hear some big voice announcer guy on your new orientation training for snapchat. Were you This is virgin radio Well, okay. We're not that innocent. 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Voice over essentials by harlon hogan has the answer. It's their exclusive multicolor led voice over recording sign with remote control Not just a stock on air or recording sign It's their exclusive voice over recording sign with 20 different colors and included remote control You can let everybody know. Hey, I'm recording in here and a few moments of relative quiet would be appreciated With the way for thin remote control You can choose a multitude of options from color to brightness and flashing to fade in and out You can even set up personal codes like red means i'm recording blue playing back green It's a wrap and gold when it's cocktail time Get your harlon hogan multicolor led voice over recording sign with remote control only at voiceover essentials dot com So when you hear the word accents, right? You see a piece of copy with it Or there's an audition that says accents required or maybe an audiobook you want to take a stab at What happens in your head? 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That's vo heroes dot com slash accents Before time began there was vobs dot tv watch or else All right, we're back talking with mark scott, you know harlon hogan wanted me to mention something So if uh, you know, if you like the sign the the voiceover, uh Sign that he has the special multicolor vo Voiceover sign If you want one, he's running a contest right now And because we you know in that commercial we talked about the different codes you could use for you know, you know, I'm recording I'm doing this All I can remember is yellow. It's cocktail time And that's always the one that makes sense to me But if you if you write to uh to terry who's uh terry lee who is you know works with him They're having a contest if you would like to win A voiceover sign from voiceover essentials write to terry at terry dot lee at voiceover essentials dot com and tell them what your code is What depending on the color that you would use on your sign? And They're looking for the most creative one And the most creative one will win a free sign. So harlon just wanted me to tell you that All right. All right back with mark scott right now We got a bunch of questions and uh, we'll get to those right now. So uh, george from the top First one in the queue is from jim mcnicholas and youtube chat Um, he says mark, where would you prospect to get a bunch of new clients? Any interesting places to prospect? I mean, we already talked about cold calling, but uh, What are your places of favor? I think part of it depends on what you're looking for. So if i'm looking for e-learning For example, i'm probably going to spend a lot of time on linkedin I've had very good success on linkedin in that genre Uh, if you're looking for something in the character space, maybe you want to do Video games or animation or something like that I would probably spend some time in twitter because that's a spot where there's a very active community in that genre And so I think that's part of it is it depends a lot on the the type of work that you're looking for I do think I mean for me linkedin is probably one of my favorite places to go And and build relationships with people because ultimately that's what marketing is is building relationships But I think there's a lot of good opportunities to be found in that platform. So it's definitely my favorite I would say All righty. Yeah now from the one and only rhymes with orange fred north. What's that one george? Fred north says question 99% of my work is retainer based with radio and tv stations Build on email marketing. I really audition or market to anyone else It's a good living, but I'd like to expand my horizons. What are your top five areas to market? And what is the proper approach? So Kind of dovetailing a wide question I think it's important your fault the floor is yours I think it's an important question because one of the things that I will say when you've got 99% of your work coming from one specific genre is that you run the risk that if anything ever happens in that space I mean, look what is more volatile than radio? I mean anybody that's been I mean I always say that you have not had a successful radio career until you've been downsized by a conglomerate At least once I think that's the way that it has to work, right? So You got all your business wrapped up in radio And all it takes is for one company to sell out to another and there goes half your client base, right? So it's expanding out to having a couple of different areas to work and I think is really key I mean, I love e-learning. I think there's a lot of money to be made in e-learning. I think that it is a growing genre I think a lot of people are worried that the robots are going to take over e-learning And I think to a degree that will happen on the lower scale of e-learning But I still think that there's going to be a place for a lot of years going forward for a really professional voice actor to To narrate and do a lot of courses. So that's a genre that I think is really good I think corporate narration is another area We you know, we talked earlier in the show about video is exploding, right? And so all of these companies that Are have used video in the past that are only going to use it more and companies who haven't tried it are Going to be more willing to try it And so I think there's plenty of opportunities in that space and the nice thing about that is that it's really easy To go out and get on your own, right? I mean, I could tell you go get the national commercials There's big paydays there But there's also gatekeepers around a lot of that stuff So if you're looking specifically for what can I go get on my own a lot of non-broadcast stuff Corporates explainers e-learnings all of those types of things. I think are really good areas And I think there's going to be opportunity in automotive I know that that's a sector that was just crushed hard From from covet and you know the chip shortages and all of that sort of stuff But I think it's an area where it's going to start to bounce back. I think advertising is going to start to happen there I think you're seeing now Ford has just announced its suite of electric vehicles gm has announced a bunch of electric vehicles Like that's an area where I think there's going to be a lot of new advertising opportunities So, you know dealerships might be a place that you could go and look for So I think there's a lot of spaces where you can go and find voiceover work on your own for sure Absolutely Jim McNichol is Watching on youtube mark talk about how to use social stuff like Twitter linkedin facebook and instagram and those are all very different platforms and I I imagine they probably require different strategies We mentioned a second ago that you you use them you fragment how what you market where depending on where the best platform for the genre, right? I think each one of those platforms offers different opportunities I mean linkedin so far Dear lord, please keep it that way It has still remained a professional network for professionals looking to connect with other professionals every every once in a while It feels like somebody starts to try to degrade it into facebook territory, but it usually bounces itself back, right? Yeah, so, you know linkedin is still very much a professional network So i'm very cognizant of that audience when i'm posting content on linkedin and making sure that it's more professional business oriented Business orient and entrepreneurial stuff like that, right? Instagram is a place where people get to know me on a more personal level I mean if you ask a hundred voice actors who are familiar with me They're going to tell you something about the red socks dr. Pepper or barbeque, right? And then they know that because they've probably seen me share that stuff on my instagram platform So do I talk about voiceover on instagram? Of course I do Do I share some of my coaching stuff on instagram? Absolutely, but do I sprinkle in my life throughout? Absolutely, I do because again, you know, I said earlier marketing is about building relationships How do you build relationships? You give people a chance to get to know you to get to know the authentic you? I mean, I can't tell you one of my best e-learning clients Like i'm talking like a healthy five figure e-learning client is from the new england area And we connected because of our love of the red socks like I didn't have to sell the guy Voiceover we just started talking baseball and then the opportunity presented itself, right? So using some of these platforms to give people a chance to get to know you a little bit better You know twitter we talked earlier twitter's a really got a really really active community in the in the Character animation gaming, you know that whole space and so Building out your network accordingly to to get connected to those people and find those opportunities would be a really smart way to Use a platform like that. So it's just trying to a big part of it is figuring out Who's the audience that you're trying to reach and what platform are you most likely to be able to reach them on? Well, this one came from jackie lin. I already know the answer and you because you've been giving it to us the last 10 minutes But she asked how important is linked in clearly? It's uh for e-learning. It's extremely important Yeah, I do think for e-learning for corporate for explainers I mean even commercial you can find those opportunities there. I just again because it's a professional network The nice thing about it is that people aren't surprised when you connect with them to talk about business Business to business. Yeah to be to be a place, right? Yep 100% And she also asked do you do do you do demos? Is that in your bailiwick at all? Absolutely not There are people that are so much smarter and more qualified than me for for demos. Actually, you know, it's funny You want to talk about good marketing? The j michael spot that ran in this episode here this last break He said you probably think i'm going to try to sell you a demo, but they really sell themselves That's marketing right there. And that's what I tell voice actors Your job is to get people to your website to listen to your demos. And if your demos are good You won't have to sell them anything You'll just have to work out the finer points of the contract, right? I'm counting on the quality of my demos to do all of the selling for me So I don't have to be a sales guy. I just need to be a marketing guy that gets people to listen to those demos Absolutely Jim Mcnicholas asks and this this is really important too because we were talking about metrics before Um, and this this is probably where you get it from Which of the thousands of CRMs do you recommend for voiceover? I mean, what's your favorite clearly what you like might not be what somebody else likes This kind of goes back to what's the marketing tactic that works and my answer was the one that you will use My favorite CRM for voice actors is the one that you will use For me, I'm a nimble guy and that was I I'm one of those people that I could have literally flushed a year of my life down the toilet deep diving into the top 25 CRMs and looking through every feature and benefit of every one of them comparing them back and forth Trying to decide here. Yeah, right trying to just and then at the end of the year I'd been like I still don't know And so literally This was at a woevo con actually Uh, somebody was teaching a class on nimble at that point in time and I was like, all right, that looks good I'm just gonna pick that one and I'm just gonna make it work for me or get to a point where I decide it doesn't And I saved myself a year of anxiety and stress and and you know researching and deep diving into everyone And so I've been using nimble now for probably Five or six years maybe and it does everything that I need it to do I mean, there's a lot of really good CRMs that are out there. Most of them do basically the same stuff But you know, we talked about the importance of follow-up strategy earlier You can't I don't think you can have an effective follow-up strategy without a CRM system in place because Unless you're I mean genius level I can't remember all of the people and I can't remember when I talked to them last and when I need to talk to them again And so I need my CRM system to do that for me Yeah, does that generates, you know reminders for you and that sort of thing? Yeah, absolutely Most CRMs will give you the ability to build in reminders or Some of them like nimble has an automated reminder cycle that you can set people I want to contact them every 30 days or you know every Every quarter or every year or whatever and so you can build in a lot of those reminders Automatically then you sign into your CRM in the morning and you're like, oh Here's a list of people I need to contact today and then you reach out to them Do they do a good job of the emails making it into people's inboxes versus getting spam filtered or showing up in You know, I've had I've had a great right I've definitely had pretty high success rate with it because it does use my email address So the email shows up as being from market mark scott voice over dot com I'm also very careful though Like a lot of CRMs will give you the ability to send group messages And if you're sending a group message through a system like MailChimp You can email 2000 people at one time and there are protections that are built in place To to allow you to kind of drip those 2000 emails out If you're doing it at a CRM some of them aren't set up for that the same way And so if you do a big group message you run a lot higher risk of maybe getting triggered to spam And so I just limit the number, you know rather than sending out a group message to 100 people at one time I might do 25 monday 25 tuesday 25 wednesday 25 thursday, right? So I still get 100 out, but I save myself the potential of trip and spam filters and stuff And do you use any other third party tools for social media stuff or just the native platforms themselves? I have played with a whole bunch of different platforms for social media. Uh, I have tried Zoho has a social media manager. I've tried post planner. I've tried hoot sweet Um, oh man canva. I've used a bunch of different ones. The one thing that I found consistently across the board was When I would post to my social networks from a third party I would not get nearly as much organic reach As if I posted directly in the platform itself So if I go into canva and I create a graphic in canva and I have canva Send that graphic to facebook I will get this much organic reach But if I download that graphic from canva go into facebook myself and then post it natively in the platform I might get this much organic reach And so that's the one thing that I seem to find Over and over regardless of which one of those tools that I used and so I'm at a point now where I just I'd rather just take the couple minutes and post it natively to each one Just to know that i'm getting better reach All right great. Yeah All of this is is golden. I'll tell you right now Uh question from marybeth scriven george What has to do with what we were just talking about and sending out emails. What's that one? Are there templates out there for appropriate wording for effective emails? So how can you get some help and what's really funny is The last name scriven scriven. There's a app called scrivener for better writing. Yes So I know that's a weird coincidence, but it's just what I saw that missing an ER there Yeah, yeah, I've heard of that before if you want to write your book. That's the app that your screenplay or something, right? Yeah Um, I mean there are lots of different places you can get templates from I sell templates as well I think the biggest thing is Keeping them short. That's that's a big part of it I think that email marketing is so much better when it is done on an individual basis Which I know seems counter-intuitive most people would rather just write a generic message blitz it out to 100 people And see what sticks My whole thing is if I take the time to write the email for each individual with a certain portion of it being a template I know that I'm going to get my open rates a lot higher, right? We talked about tracking the data earlier If you send a generic message to 100 people you might get one or two responses But if you send a more personalized email to 100 people, that's where you might get that 20 or 25 responses And so I obviously want to get my numbers up. So I think making sure that the email is is short Is a big part of it. I think making sure that there's an element of personalization is a big part of it and I think the other thing is We tend to talk about ourselves I'm a voice actor. I can do this. I can do that. I have this microphone I have this studio. I have source connect blah, blah, blah, blah What you need to do is you need to write All of those how do you write those things in a benefit for the recipient? So If I tell somebody I'm a full-time voice actor, they're like big deal But if I write in an email that I'm available for quick turnaround and can provide scripts in Four hours or less. I just that speaks to the client Full-time doesn't mean anything but quick turnaround that means something, right? If I say I've got a u87 and I've got a this and a that most people are like What the crap does that mean? But if I say I can deliver you clean audio that you can instantly drop into your project That speaks to somebody and so it's learning how to take those things that you have that Make your business good, but writing them in a way that shows the benefit to the recipient Yeah, they went on the solutions. Yeah, I don't know how you got to the solution I use the strongest ca glue. Yes Interesting question here from Peggy at wood. What about using a stage name? Does that impact building a network? I would prefer people not know my personal information I always find that one kind of weird, but what do you think about that? Mark scott's not my real name Okay, well there you go There you go No, that's I mean for me that was that was that was a radio thing actually actually was this television When I went into television, I went into the booth. I went into the voiceover booth to record my first tv show And it was going out national across canada in the united states and my producer comes walking and he's like By the way, did you want to use your name and I was like, oh, I never even thought about that We should probably change that up because I don't want everybody in you know national audience So I mark we like literally on the spot. I was like mark scott. Yeah, that sounds good. Let's go with that So I used it like that's literally it happened in like 12 seconds in the booth as we were about to record And I've stuck with it ever since and I don't think it ultimately makes any difference I mean my real name is on my invoices so that my clients, you know, if they write me a check They can put my real name on it. But I mean for me, I don't know. It's never been an issue I just burst the bubble and everybody knows it's not my real now everybody's gonna be googling trying to figure out What is mark scott's real name? We're having a little contest on that so right to us and my real name is a secret. I'm not telling you Yeah, that's Yeah, it's a good question because I totally understand that from a privacy standpoint. It's like I get that 100% Yeah, yeah, I remember once I was at a rival radio station while I was still working with the other one And I went with my middle name and went by dan roberts And you know, did I keep that job? No, but that's a whole other story Um Nobody in radio gets to keep their job. Dan come on No, that's true. They as you as I like to say we're going in another direction. Yes One of my favorites george. What's this last question from joe voice over from joe voice over When emailing what type of job titles are we looking to send to avoid the middle man? So who who who do we want to approach? In our I guess assuming cold emails. It's a great person that does this That's a great question and I think it's going to depend again on the genre that you're going after And so if you're looking at contacting advertising agencies in the commercial space, you might be looking for a creative director If you're looking at contacting people in the e-learning space You might be looking for an instructional designer or an e-learning developer If you're looking to contact somebody in the video production You could be looking for a video producer. You could be looking for an executive producer You could be looking for a production manager possibly, you know If you're in the radio imaging you're probably looking for a program director So a lot of it depends entirely on the the type of work that you're going after the one thing that I always hope for is Don't ever let not knowing who to send it to keep you from sending the email because best case scenario If you pick that what feels like the most obvious choice and you get it wrong You can always hope that they're going to either forward it to the correct person Or they're going to respond to you and say, you know, I don't do this But so and so does and now you know, it's better to get a reply saying that's not the right guy Then just nothing into the void and then you're never hearing anything. Yep Exactly. Well mark, this has been Amazing how fast it goes by when you got lots of great information to to give out there We really appreciate you coming on if people want to go to your website. Where do they go? Oh, there it is Right there. Or calm. That's the that's the podcast the podcast comes out every week All business and marketing related and I mean my whole thing is just giving you Really actionable practical advice. None of the fluff and crap that you don't need but you know Here's actual strategies to try things to do things to experiment with Covering a broad range of business and marketing topics So that's the that's the podcast is view open or calm wherever fine podcasts are given away for free All right, we'll probably find ours there too mark. Thanks again for being with us and stay warm stay healthy And keep that snow blower lubricated and ready to roll I'm hoping I'm done with it now for the rest of the year like one good snow storm. Okay, that's enough You know it runs put it away. Yeah All right. Take care mark. All right. We're gonna take it We're gonna take a break here and we're gonna finish up this particular segment right after this So don't go away. We'll be right back Yeah, hi, this is Carlos Ellis Rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voiceover body shop In these modern times every business needs a website when you need a website for your voice acting business There's only one place to go like the name says voice actor websites dot com Their experience in this niche webmaster market gives them the ability to quickly and easily get you from concept to live online In a much shorter time when you contact voice actor websites dot com Their team of experts and designers really get to know you and what your needs are They work with you to highlight what you do Then they create an easily navigable website for your potential clients to get the big picture of who you are And how your voice is the one for them plus voice actor websites dot com has other great resources Like their practice script library and other resources to help your voiceover career flourish Don't try it yourself. Go with the pros voice actor websites dot com Where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what? It's that time in the show where we talk about our long time sponsors and friends source elements the creators of source connect and a lot of other tools One of the things you want to keep in mind when using tools like source connect is There's a lot going on behind the scenes to make it work It's not like a typical app that you just install and run and send files Like we're used to things that have been much more simple to use like twisted wave It's an application that has an entire back end behind it a server Network and a support team to keep it running And keep that in mind It's a it's a challenge at times to keep everything running tip top shape and it requires Some patience to get it running. So if you're interested in getting source connect I highly highly recommend either working with their team or You can also get support directly from you know what you that's me George the tech if you need a little extra helping to get yourself over the hump of using Source connect, but that all said they've got tons of training and really great support staff to deal with all your technical issues and help you through The hurdles of getting it running and optimized You know, we don't have ISD anymore. We don't have a phone company to call and support it We have to rely on these new technologies and source elements is there to help you source connect get a trial Go to source dash elements calm get a 15 day free trial and get used to how it works Anyway, thanks for listening. We'll be right back to sum it up This is ariana rattner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv In case you forgot all righty. Well Uh Next week on this very show and by the way mark scott was great That was I knew he would be a great guest and give us the right information that people all need Next week on this show we'll be doing and if you stick around live you get to watch it live tech talk number 71 Believe it or don't it just keeps going on and on who are our donors of the week How to scroll down and read some of these names. Yeah, they're a tag team like we have before sure I'll start with rob rider patty gibbons. Greg thomas Shanna pentington baird. Yes icon productions. That's samartha con don griffith steven chandler sandra man willer robert ledham ant land productions. Shelly avaleno Thomas pinto brian page george widham sort of senior. Yeah, uh, nathan carlson george grand spicer And the one and only lee penny Hey join our mailing list because I think a lot of you probably are watching the show because I sent out the Email right before the show. Oh, that's on tonight. Famous to help. It really does. Um Let's say you're blogging again if you know, I am So chances are if you post something on a facebook group and I have something the same that's more than a phrase or a sentence Probably gonna answer it in blog form. So I'll be blogging about it on my website and then posting it back on facebook because Well, it helps everybody including myself, you know seo and all right the more you blog on your own domain The more your own website the better it helps people find you Yeah, I recommend you do the same spend less time proselytizing on facebook And spend more time blogging and creating useful content and letting people know where to find it right good marketing strategy Uh, we need to thank our sponsors like harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra saras elements Vio heroes voice comm dot com. Yes, uh voice actor websites dot com and jmc demos Alrighty thanks to jeff holman for doing a great job in the chat room tonight lots of the chatter in there lots of people in there Uh, sumer lino for getting it done and pressing all the right buttons and making sure that you know We can actually see us and hear us And of course lee pinney for being lee pinney and for being a donor. We really appreciate that Well, stick around don't go anywhere quite yet Because george and i are gonna do our tech talk segment next and if you've got a tech question Throw it in the chat room. That's the that's the advantage of watching the show live tell all your friends Hey, watch the show live. It's more fun that way. Anyway, uh We're here to help you out with your home voiceover studio and your voiceover business So join us here every week for voiceover body shop because you know if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan lennard and i'm george wittem and this is voiceover body shop or vo b s Stay tuned for tech talk. We'll be right back