 Hey, it's time for voiceover body shop and tonight We've got a great guest as we always do But we needed some bubbliness and effervescence and we want to talk about the trends in voiceover today So we have our good friend Laura Schreiber who's a Someone who keeps up with the trends. Hey Laura. How you doing? Hi? I'm so glad to be here We're so glad to have you George. Are you ready to roll with this? Let's do it I'm I'm I'm all oiled up. I got my tea. Let's make it up. Jeez. All right time voiceover body shop right now It's time for voiceover body shop Brought to you by voiceover essentials calm the home of Harlan Hogan signature products Source elements the makers of source connect voiceover heroes become a hero to your clients with award-winning voiceover training Voice actor websites calm where your voice actor website doesn't have to be a pain in the butt voiceover extra your daily resource for voiceover success and World Voices the Industry Association of freelance voice talent and Now here's your hosts Dan and George Well, hello there. I'm Dan Leonard and I'm George Wynnum and this is voiceover body shop or VO B Yes, well, I'm glad we're all lubed up to get this show on the road here tonight Can anyway, why am I wearing a fez? You've seen me wear the fez before but We've been gone for a while. I mean last show we did with with well We did we did tech talk we had Scott parking on like a month ago Some month ago, right? Oh, and I was on an 18-day seven-flight odyssey From LA to Florida to Madrid to Marrakech not to Casablanca and a bus tour to fez robot Marrakesh and all these places and then from Marrakesh To Madrid to the Canary Islands to visit our good friend remesh are are one fan in the Canary Islands and And and then to Barcelona had some tapas and flew 13 hours back to LA from Barcelona 18 days not one flight was late and our baggage was everywhere. It was like Everybody having trouble other people on our trip. They all got their flights out of Lisbon all got canceled So did you put a flare gun in your bag? I hear that if you have a flare gun in your luggage They keep extra good care of it really I Did not know that anyway. I wanted to show you a couple of quick pictures not a huge amount of stuff But show us the good ones right all right, so which there are many all right. We'll start with this one This is Toledo in Spain. So I wrote a paper on it in college So I'm like okay We're gonna be in Madrid for a couple of days got to go see Toledo gun on the train went to Toledo This is the Alcazar up there the King old Kings Palace which has been rebuilt about five times So much stuff was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War and then we went to Casablanca and It's nothing like the movie well sort of it's as you can see it's a big Humongous city, but the biggest thing there is the King Muhammad the sixth mosque it just dominates The whole massive that tower is humongous. That is a big tower and it's a big mosque I mean that that's like bigger than Madison Square Garden. It's it's huge Wow, and then from there We were on our way to Fez and we stopped at this place place called the Zubalus a Roman city from 2,000 years ago You know it's been disturbed by a couple of earthquakes and stuff But look at the floors in this place. It was amazing and you could like literally stand in front of the shop stalls that were Right there you could tell they were shop stalls and it was a buzzer Yeah, and you could literally hear some you know one of the shopkeepers going hey Octavius come here I got to show you something, you know, it's like and Then we went to to Marrakesh and Of course in the shook you tend to buy stuff So I bought a Moroccan shirt Marcy. They shook you down. No No, we shook them down. It's like a haggle central Yeah, of course. Yeah, and of course, so I bought a Moroccan shirt and Martin I see bought a Moroccan dress which she put on and immediately saw that it was basically Transparent so she Under that and then I found out that according to the waiter in this restaurant where we had our this goodbye dinner It was that this is not a Moroccan Fez. It is a Tunisian Fez No, I got this Fez and Fez. Why would a fez from Fez in Morocco be a Tunisian Fez? And they don't even wear Fez's in Tunisia. They wear berets. So You know figure our guides it adds baloney and then and then we went to the Canary Islands division Ramesh Who knew there was a 12,000 foot volcano out in the Atlantic Ocean? But there it is the whole island is a big it's like the Maui of The the Atlantic very similar idea and look at these rocks. It was like if you were there at night You would thought you were on the moon just an amazing thing, but Ramesh lives in paradise He says come visit me in paradise if you're in the neighborhood. Well, I'm in Morocco. Okay. We're gonna be in the neighborhood We fly to Tenerife Beautiful if you want to go somewhere that's unexpectedly fabulous go to the go to the Canary Islands. It's really cool So anyway, I can I'm glad it all went smoothly and it looks amazing. Yeah, I mean to the bucket list Right, there was a lot more to it than that but now I can take off my Fez You should go wear it and there we go. It didn't make a Sucking sound as you pulled it off your head expected to exactly so and what did you do while we were gone? You know, I mostly I was Trying to convince my girlfriend to come back from Iran, which sounds weird I take it you finally succeeded at that. I did I picked her up on Sunday. She's home safe and sound back from Iran and Sleeping right now, which is normal after a 12-hour change of time zone It's pretty but and just Stayed active cycling doing some adventure riding had a really fun Halloween Weekend so much going on Saying karaoke on the back of a trailer being pulled by a tandem electric bike I you know all kinds of wackadoodle stuff and had a good old friend from Portland Who's relocating to Southern California stay with me a few days and it was a lot of it was a great time So great back to regular life and domestic life and right cleaning up after myself again Remember that like 30 years ago. Anyway We have a great guest tonight and we're going to introduce her now This is a young lady who I've known for a while She is a very successful voice artist and she knows about the trends in the voice over business So, why don't we welcome to the show Laura Schreiber? How you doing, babe? I'm so excited to be here with you guys tonight What a delight. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's our pleasure We've been looking forward to having you on for some time and the time was right And of course we got to hang out this weekend at mavo in In Washington and that was do you have a good time meet lots of cool people? I had the best time between connecting with old friends like you and meeting new ones I left feeling so inspired and then I was really tired this morning That's like me too, you know that feeling of like being so charged and I was like running on adrenaline driving home I had a really long drive back and then this morning. I kind of crashed. I was like, oh my god I'm inspired to tired you have been inspired. Yes, you know You know and after you've been on a really long trip and you wake up and you start petting the dog And it's like what is the dog doing with us in Morocco? I Well, actually that hotel is dog friendly it turns out and I had this thought of like Do I bring one or both of the dogs next year? And then I was like no because I don't have to go back to the room to walk my dogs, but I but there were other dogs there They were running through the lobby and and they were cute But better than the dogs were the people. Oh my god. What a nice group And I was amazed people from the UK people from Tokyo besides all the like I thought it was impressive that West coasters were coming And then when there was a lady from Tokyo in my sessions. Oh my god, my mind was from Tokyo I thought she was a local no what there there were two Japanese women who were authentically Japanese like like from Japan But one flew in from Tokyo for me though my mind was blown and she was in both my breakout session and my general session and I was like I Couldn't believe it. I thought that was so cool because I mean, I've never considered going to Tokyo for a voiceover conference I don't even know what voiceover conferences. They have they must It's cool. We know there's a lot of you know English expats expats there. Yeah teaching English, you know Yes, that are that have been doing this kind of stuff. Yeah, you know Anyway, let's get into the meat of the matter if you have a question for Laura because we're gonna talk about the trends in the voiceover business And I think that's going to create lots of questions on all of your parts So if you have a question and you're in Facebook or you're on YouTube live You can go into the chat rooms in either of those and write your question in and I know Jeff Holman is back with us Not sure what movie he's working on today, but apparently not at the moment So he's taking down the questions in the the social chat So if you have a question throw it in there and we will get to those in just a little bit But let's get underway with really what we wanted to talk about No, I know you're a very successful voice artist But what's unique about your background that makes you stand out when booking because I think most people wonder How can I stand out and not like a sore thumb? So it's interesting. I actually talked about standing out when booking less in my trend session and more in my branding session That was something we talked about So much and we talked about this concept from Malcolm Gladwell's book of being an outlier Which is actually not about voiceover at all if you've read that book. He talks about everybody from Professional hockey players in both the US and Canada studies and research that have been done on them to lawyers in New York City and he talks about What makes people successful in their field what makes them stand out? He uses this concept of an outlier and he talks about having Superior and unique skill set and I said you kind of have to establish yourself as an outlier because There are a lot of people who do what we do and there are a lot of people who do what we do well So it's not about your voice and voice over what makes you do well in voice over is not your voice It's your story. It's what you did before today that you bring into the booth with you So for me personally, I came into voice over from a back from being a history teacher I taught middle and upper school history at an all-girls school in Manhattan and I have a unique educational background I went to Columbia for college and for graduate school. I have an advanced degree in history I studied modern European history and was specifically interested in Social history of France in the 1890s and women's position and status as it changed when the city was modernized And I'm proficient in other languages So I have a very different academic background compared to other people in our field But when you're trying to build your voice over career It's how you can connect with clients and show them why you stand out and that's how you can really make yourself shine because a lot of people Might submit a similar read. So what does the client see in you? That's different And for me, it's not just my academic background That's what not when I'm trying to pitch for me It's the service that I provide the relatability the fact that I have this great booth that George helped me set up That I can provide excellent audio with a quick turnaround within budget. These are all the things that I try to connect with Once again, we're talking with Laura Schreiber if you got a question for throw it in the chat room We would be thrilled to hear from you So why does it matter if you understand the current trends? I mean I'm an old fogey and I you know, and I'm like I Don't find this Instagram stuff and I you know, I don't I don't follow it all I mean, I should take it you talk clock. What is that thing called again trick-truck? Why does it under why does it matter if you to understand all these trends so trends are super important So I started my session on commercial trends with a visual So this is the visual can everyone see this This photo there you go. Okay, so this is a photo from 1990 from my bat mitzvah So now everyone knows how old I am but and these outfits were the epitome of fashion in 1990 My dress my hot pink dress was custom ordered from a trunk show. It had a high neck It had puff sleeves. It had rhinestones everywhere What you can't see is that there were rosettes on my hip the point of this image that I want you to have in your mind Is that in 1990? This was it. This is what like the bat mitzvah dresses were all about and When you don't know what's on trend when you're submitting an audition. It's like showing up in this dress today It's like is if I had shown up in this outfit to present at mavo That's what it seems like to the ears of the people casting you when you don't understand the trend whether it's a video production agency or a casting director or Your talent agent if you can't keep up with the trends What that does to your eyes? That's what it's doing to their ears So you really have to have a system or a strategy to understand what today's trends are Absolutely How can understanding the current trends help you big book more work though? so if you have a strategy to Follow the trends and to do brand research Then when an audition comes your way and you know how to look at what's going on a in the industry as a whole like with commercials and be with that brand specifically is this a Shift in their campaign. Are they doing a campaign? Are they doing a one-off? Is this going on social media? Is it going on TV? Is it going on the radio? What market is this spot being placed in? Then when you submit it it shows an understanding of what they're looking for and and also where your voice fits in with the brand and And something else that we touched on in my session That's really important is making sure you understand the specs and what's being asked of you So for example if they ask for a voice with gravitas, I never submit listen to this voice No gravitas if they ask for an African-American female and you're a white female You should not be submitting that would not be a trend Right for you. I'd have a very old trend and it but it's it's like highly offensive If you don't meet the specs and you're specifically not in the right category to submit So for example if they're doing an LGBTQ plus casting and you're not an LGBTQ plus person You should not submit and I had referred someone to an agent a student that I coached and The job was for an African-American female and he was a white male and this agent had sent the casting out to everyone On their roster assuming that the people who didn't meet the specs would know not to submit and This talent not only submitted but this is a straight male and he attempted to make his voice sound like a woman's voice That is not what is being asked of you and you have to understand that so now I just don't assume anything and I tell everyone Yeah Yes, that's pretty much what you do not assume that people have a common sense Yeah, yeah after after a bunch of years in this business that's actually more the fact Okay, no, I wasn't referring to anyone specific out there who doesn't he casting them Once again, if you've got a question for Laura Schreiber about Trends and branding and stuff like that throw it in the chat room Okay, so let's get to the meat of the matter here. What are some of the trends that we should be mindful of? When submitting auditions, what's going on today, so there's a lot and and when I covered them I went about it in two ways a I made Well, the scripts that we looked at this week And we're really fun and I made a packet of like 25 different scripts that we're running and we I made a montage of commercials that are presently airing on TV when I talk about trends Trends tend to shift now It depends on if a brand is in the middle of a campaign and a campaign could run for three months It could run for six months So you kind of have to do brand research and see how often that brand changes So for example, Scott Parkins tied spot has been running for quite a while tide hasn't changed their spot But some brands like Audi might change their spot every six months every three months So you don't know and you have to see kind of like where that shift is coming. But In terms of what trends we're seeing right now in this specs conversational Authentic a real person someone who doesn't sound polished or salesy. This is very common right now There's a lot of they don't want you to sound they want you to sound real They don't want you to sound they want you to sound like the girl next door the guy next door They want you to sound relatable There is actually For both men and women still a call for the announcer read, but it's very specific not just an automotive in Retail not just in black Friday spots In brands like Target Coles Raymore and Flanagan's you still see those announcer reads Macy's There that that does still happen, but it's not the The trend in terms of like every read they will specifically say we want the the announcer read or if you if it says retail That's what they're looking for. That's the buzzword The other thing that is a big trend is Celebrity touchstones and they might say they want a Reese Witherspoon a Sigourney Weaver Samuel L Jackson and the funny thing that I've been noticing in some agent auditions is that they'll ask for some touchstones of people who have passed So I did go over a big list this weekend of celebrity touchstones that have been asked for in the past three months And it was quite a long list and and you can make yourself more marketable by putting your sound to likes both on your website And your pay-to-play is and tagging them I actually am not skilled at doing celebrity Sound to likes but I have some friends who really work on it and put an effort into it and can do a great job That is not one of my strengths, but it is something that's highly sought after right and of course the pandemic had trends within the pandemic You know, yeah, it was it was very different. I mean it was like, you know from hyper to all of a sudden everybody's Stuck in their house and it's like we're all together Well, and at the beginning of the pandemic you had that shift where a lot of the commercials that had video footage were all animation Right because nobody could get video footage. So the reference that was happening at the Beginning of the pandemic every spot. They wanted to be like the chase spot They wanted to be like your bank could be here or your bank could be here Or your bank could be here and they had would have like the bubble of the bank and it was at this animated spot and like I Did old-age home spots like that. I did hotel spots like that I mean it was like and they all had this one chase spot for like an 18-month period as the reference You were like, oh my god if one more person asks me for the chase. Yeah Yeah, there was a lot of that and it's and then it slowly shifted back to what you're talking about now Yes, and then the other thing is like really being able to dissect the conversational read like Because they say they want the conversational read so you're talking about varied pace and intonation different inflection Keeping it and like not being sing songy keeping it natural, but at the same time Your diction being good, but not being too over pronounced So having contractions even if the script isn't written with contractions Maybe being a little more conversational saying like I'm talking to you and not like I'm not being like overly forced with it So really understanding what it means to be conversational when you've had training, right? Once again, if you're just joining us. Well, you've missed it all already, but there's still more to come with Laura Schreiber and she is Talking to us about trends What are trends in the voiceover business? So again, if you have a question throw them in the chat room because I know everybody's like, oh, well What about this? What about that? So now would be a good time to throw those in there Okay, so once I know all these trends once I'm aware of what it is that we're supposed to be doing in our auditions and stuff like that Are y'all set? Can you like stop following them? No because they change so you kind of every time that you audition It's your responsibility to do market research when these auditions come your way Whether it's direct from a client or from an agent or if you're submitting on a pay-to-play It's your job to do constant ongoing market research so For example, I'm on a veil for a spot for a pretty big brand and before I submitted I Did a lot of market research to see what their other spots were like what their preferred tone is like What do they look for when they cast and I think this is why It's your responsibility to do ongoing market research because The more research you do the more likely you are to book a spot So I'm not with one of the top five agencies even though of course like everyone I would love to be but I'm not with an atlas or a cest or a dpn But I do have wonderful regional representation. That's gotten me access to some great work And I think the reason I've had success booking national spots and booking with brands like disney smirnoff gap dove um brands that we all know and love Is because I'm consistent with my strategy and I have follow through And it does work. There's not like I think it's a combination of hard work and consistency and if you Follow through when you are strategic it's possible to book A commercial with any of these brands you just have to stay on top of it Yeah, what's a good way to stay on top of it watch the commercials Yeah, I I but I I don't just look for commercials on iSpot I go on their youtube I go on their social media and I don't just try to go back One year I look at like where they were and what they booked last and how many they have running to see like You know because you don't know whether it's going to be a one-off or a campaign And if they're doing a major trend so for example Look at chewy chewy is a fascinating brand and I've never actually done work for chewy But I love chewy and I order my dog food on chewy So I love to work with chewy chewy tends to book multiple spots at a time And they tend to book like these they don't tend to hire women with my vocal range thus far But maybe they would pivot and they would do that they tend to book women with a Mid-range voice and they tend to be very conversational Although they have been doing some that are like characters where the voiceover is actually the voice of an animal and they tend to be like Kind of flat and subtle in their read and they tend to have like sarcasm and humor and humor And they they're really well written scripts Um the one consistent thing about all of chewy scripts is that they're really well written But they tend not to pick people with my vocal range. They tend to always be like a mid-range woman Or maybe someone with a little rasp to her voice. It's really interesting. Yeah, usually talking as a dog Well, they just had one that was talking as a cat, which was fascinating And but they tend to to have several spots running at a time that are all similar So you can learn a lot about a brand if you research it Yeah, so speaking of brands because it's sort of jumping a little bit ahead You know a little off the thing of of the trends, but why does having a brand matter for voice actors? We've been hearing this for years like you got to have your brand Is that strictly for commercial or does that really go across the board? It goes across the board It doesn't matter if you want to work in corporate narration or e-learning or IVR or character When you're a voice actor, you're a small business owner And you want the people who hire you whether it's a law firm who needs a phone message Or it's a creative director whose casting is going to come back to you again and again To have a reason to connect with you and the reason is your brand and your brand Is your story? It's who you are and it's what we started talking about in the beginning. It's why you were different It's what you bring to the table that makes you stand out from everyone else It's what do you have it's why am I different than george? It's why is my skill set different than george's skill set and it's why is Working with me uniquely different than the next gal because I guarantee you that there's 10 gals who can do a read Similar to me and have a similar high range voice to me. So why me? And that's what establishing a strong brand has It gives them a sense of why you it's the answer to that Right give us an example of like what do you how do you brand yourself? so for me My brand is that In terms of like the way I describe my there's there's so there's multiple layers to the brand, right? There's like the way you describe your voice and the way you describe your personality So what do I want people to think of when they think of my voice? I want them to think Young happy millennial conversational. Those are like the main words when they think of me as a person I want them to think of like warm relatable. I'll bend over backwards for them to get them what they need Savvy and helpful Mm-hmm. All right. Now can somebody Brand you I mean, I'm sure there's some people who think kinky things about that. Yeah, just right here, but So that's so interesting because that was how I started my session um I talked about how when I first started in the industry and yanguza was my very first coach That's actually how I found george and she was Amazing and I did then and still do look up to her so much and One of the things that drew me to working with ann was her brand And if you've ever met ann or worked with ann, you know that she has an incredibly strong brand And from like even before I started coaching with her. I was so tense like I have to have a brand I need to get branded and I thought like I need someone to brand me. I just want to pay someone to brand me I have to be branded But the problem with that and the flaw in that thinking is that if you think that you can pay someone who's known you for five minutes to brand you They're gonna miss a lot because no one knows you better than you know you and no one can tell your story better than you tell your story And we're getting hired for what is that that you're consistent consistently getting hired for and if you pay someone to Brand you as opposed to you writing your story in your words in your voice That will be missing and that's why a brand is kind of a fluid thing that needs to change and evolve And we talked about and it's really important because I've read multiple books on the subject But a brand needs to be expandable So I don't know if you want to touch on this But there's lots of ways in which a voice actor can talk about how they're A strong brand is a brand that can expand over the years But um in terms of being branded you can work with a coach to help you develop your brand But when you develop your brand collateral and your brand collateral are things like your logo your colors your business card Your banner your email signature And those all help support and help people get a sense of sense of the brand that you're promoting You need it to be somebody who's actually working on creating your brands and The graphics that help promote your brand and not someone who's imposing their idea of what your brand should be and their vision Of your brand and they're two very different things Right and and they and yeah, and they may have a totally different idea of who you are as opposed to what you think you are And and somebody else who might have a totally different idea from that and I did uh I don't know if it was four years in or five years in rebrand and update My brand collateral and I stuck with my colors because they were me But everything else was not a reflection of Where my business was at the moment and where I saw myself and there has to be a marriage between The way you see yourself the way other people see you and the way you want your clients to perceive you Those three things have to match and then all of your correspondence has to be on brand And when I say that I don't just mean like your e-signature I mean like the way you interact with people So if I want to be seen as warm and helpful And and upbeat and bubbly and I get all bent out of shape with a client I can't send an angry outraged email right because that's not on brand. I have to kind of take a moment And get it out of my system and then think about like How I want to communicate this because Communications are very much a part of your brand right all righty. Well, it's time to take a break We're talking with laura schreiber if you have a question for throw it in the chat room I know jeff holman is sitting back there with baited pen Uh to take all that stuff down and we'll get to those questions in just a minute And we'll be right back with laura schreiber here on voiceover body shop. So don't go away This is the latin lover narrator from jane the virgin anthony mendez and you're enjoying dan and george on the voiceover body shop Headphones for voiceover. Why not get the headphones made for voiceover? That's why I use harlin hogan's signature series voice optimized headphones 2.0 from voiceover essentials dot com Harlins cans are incredibly strong and lightweight at only 8.4 ounces the combination straight coiled audio cable stretches from 5 to 10 feet It comes with two gold plated mini plugs and a studio standard quarter inch screw on adapter And includes the new mini jack on the left headphone for easy cord replacement The studio monitoring headphones are optimized for voice work now even better the harlin hogan signature series voiceover headphones 2.0 And for a limited time when you buy the headphones You'll also get a free autograph copy of harlin's best-selling book vo tails and techniques of a voiceover actor second edition It's full of stories from the trenches and insights about making the most of your voiceover career Go on over to voiceover essentials right now and order yours Hey everybody, it's the time on the show where we talk about source elements the creators of source connect And so many other tools. So I'll tell you a quick story about source live They've done a retooling of this tool called source source live. And what's amazing now is studios can send A mix of the audio and the video that's being used Let's say you're doing commercial And all the clients can see instant playback within like a quarter of a second delay Of what is being recorded and played back so they all can see and hear the way it would be if they were just sitting there In the control room at the studio and this is becoming a much bigger part Of the way remote productions are being done This is used in conjunction with source connect and source connect is the tool that the actor is using That might be you if you want to be available to to be connected into source connect style sessions Which are definitely the types of sessions that tend to pay the best because they have the budget to hire studios and the whole Kitten Kaboodle that comes with producing A commercial at the highest level You definitely want to get set up go over to source dash elements dot com Get yourself a free trial if that's where you feel like starting or I recommend subscribing So that you have support right out of the gate. They have really good support They will walk you through the whole setup process port mapping whatever it need whatever you need on your network To make it work reliably. It's fantastic. Thank you source connect Thank you source elements and we'll be right back after this Hey there, I'm david h. Lawrence the 17th and with my company vio heroes and my team of coaches and my community of voiceover talent We guide voiceover Actors along their journey and you may be watching v obs here And not nearly as far along as many of the other people who are watching you may not even have Started yet And we actually specialize in helping you do just that so if you're watching all the stuff going on here on v obs I'm going I have no idea what they're talking about. I don't know, but I really want to do this I'd really like to help you Please go to vio heroes.com slash start That's vio heroes.com slash start and you can take our getting started in voiceover class Which tells you everything you need to get started as a voice talent And I'd love to hold your hand along the way and help you with that journey Again, vio heroes.com slash start That's vio heroes.com slash start This is bill radner and you're enjoying voiceover body shop with dan lennard and george widham v obs dot tv And we are back with laura schreiber And and her william weggman's dogs William weggman Because you've got a wymer reiner. Yeah, no photographer guy. It's not a wymer reiner. It's a silver lab It's the recessive of a chocolate lab So she's all kinds of crazy colors, right? My friend had one of them And she's sweetest can be super smart to be in your house. I think she would have to be So by the way george that was really cool. I didn't know that they could send video with the source connect Well, yeah, that's source live, you know, that's the thing about source elements They have a lot of different products and source live is something that's not really used by talent It's used by production in the studio But it's just another way that they can make the sessions run seamlessly for the client So they want to experience it like they're sitting there alive and because they've got the latency down so low Used to be you would hit play on a on a spot There could be five to ten second buffering before the client sees it. So it kind of drags down the playback process Now it's like about a third of a second latency when they hit play and so the session flows You know how expensive it is you got directors and writers and the clients and the studio engineer and the actor You want it to be smooth? So no, I have so not to go off topic But because because most of my work A large percentage of it is commercial work. I have source connect sessions every single week And for me having source connect is essential. I actually do have ipd tl2 just because um I had a few clients who didn't have source connect I don't love to use zoom and I'm happy to use zoom because some people want to see you and it's nice Because you connect and it's good for relationship building. But if if I will use ipd tl before I'll use zoom if they will So anyway, but with source connect, I love connecting on source connect It's fantastic. And you know how many people can be on these calls Sometimes there's six seven people on a call and I didn't know they could do that. That's really cool Yeah, well, there they go. There's the big endorsement. We didn't even need to need to do your spot there Yeah, I could have done it. I could have been like I love source connect So continuing on we and again if you've got a question You still got time to get your question in to talk to uh to laura schreiber about branding and Trends and stuff like that. But one last question for me. What happens if someone else's brand Is like you're a brand So that's interesting because um, this happens all the time, right? Look at coke and Pepsi There's competition people imitate each other But I think the general consensus is that imitation is the biggest form of flattery and it will happen And yes, you could get your brand copyrighted and people do that but According to all of the research that I did and I've been researching this topic for months in preparation for mavo The advice is be the best you you could be when my twins graduated from preschool They were given a book that had like little fishies all over the cover and it was called there's only one you There's only one you you're the only person who can tell your story your way You're the only person who can connect with clients the way they do So for example, my brand is very pink Diana bird sol is one of my best friends and voiceover and her brand's very pink We are in no way copying each other. We just both like pink They're gonna be other people coming down the line who also like pink They're allowed to have pink I don't own pink There will be lots of gals who like the color Is what it is But you have to be confident in who you are and what you're offering And if you are and if you know yourself and have a strong sense of self That's all you can do Um, there was a quote that I read and I don't remember if it was in bob miller's book Or if it was in michael levin's book that said that starbucks and bmw are selling more than coffee and cars So it comes down to when you have a sense of your brand What are you offering your clients? What service are you providing? And the service as voice actors that we're providing has to go so far beyond voiceover because it's such a competitive industry And yes, it's a huge industry with lots of opportunity But it's also highly competitive and now having training with top coaches and having expensive gear Is not enough to be the distinguishing factor It has to be about so much more so it comes down to your brand Mm-hmm Once again, laura schreiber is our guest and you still have time to get a question or two in there So why don't you do that right now? But let's start off with the questions from our massive worldwide audience george take it away And I will say also that having a good internet connection is key and you clearly have a good connection Your picture has been flawless. Oh, I have a gig Sharpest attack. I have horizon files and I have a gig. Yeah. No, it's it's flawless. It looks like a local studio feed Yeah, um maple j from youtube says i'm just getting started. I have my demos But what should be the next marketing step for me? So i'm more of a generalized marketing question here Well, maple, I don't know if you have a website or not, but it's really important that you have a website You don't want to ever send your clients to a place where there are other voice actors Like you don't want to be sending them to soundcloud or to youtube only you should have your stuff on youtube Or just to a pay-to-play you want to have Your website as your virtual storefront. So if you have demos the next step would be a really solid website Absolutely, I agree. Yeah, I mean that's part of your branding too, right? So that assumes then you've already worked on a branding Before you launched the new website, right? It's it's all um There's somebody asked me this question yesterday in fact about like if they're doing their website When do they start their branding and getting the timing right is essential because it kind of like you have to Invest in the website and in yourself and if you've already spent the money on the demos It's like, where are you putting them? So it's kind of like getting the timing just right is tricky and For those of us who have these massive websites when you've been in the business for a long time You're always working on it. This is the answer once you start It's something that you work on and work on and work on Yeah, when I I'm getting very close to having a new website launched that actually is available for everybody and part of that Getting the new website design from the ground up was the branding and this is my new branding It's this color scheme and this font and that all was established in the beginning of the process Long before we wire framed and figured out what this site should look like We had to get the colors and the fonts and the branding of it Um, right, you know, so that yeah that had to happen first really because I don't was it'd be much harder to go back And patch it all in later. You want to get that up front? Yeah Alrighty a question from Jim McNicholas also watching on youtube Other than Conversational which we hear constantly. It's conversational read What is your best tip to book? Um, my best tip is to always give more than one take. So sometimes, um, they will say Not to slate so don't slate unless you're asked to slate So if you don't know what slating is it's when you say like Laura schreiber for stars don't do that unless they specifically say to do that. Um, and then Give at least two takes if not three if you can but don't say two takes at the front because you're wasting like that Two to three seconds. So your first take should be the closest one to the specs Your second one should be like it should be like an a a b and a c It shouldn't be like an a and a and an a don't give them three takes that are the same But they want to hear that you have range and versatility because if you're not exactly in the pocket But they see that you might be able to give them something different and take direction well And they like your voice. It'll give you much more of a chance. So besides conversational They're typically looking for authentic and relatable. That's very much on trend right now as well But also Just give them versatility give them something different and give them something that stands out for your second one or Second and third if you can Excellent to give a grace You get the grace's question. All right. Um, grace newton asks you have an impressive educational background What is your acting background and what drew you to voice acting? Oh, okay, so um in terms of my Acting background um When I decided to go into voiceover. I started working with coaches one genre at a time So I've worked with coaches from From anganguza to j. Michael Collins nancy wolfson Eric romanowski for my imaging I'm working with shon prat right now for audiobooks in voiceover if you don't know this already your coaching never ends It's like ongoing professional development forever and ever and everybody should be going to conferences all the time And you should be working on your craft daily and always doing something you should be working on your reading You should always be doing something. Um, so right now I'm working with shon and it's amazing. Um, I've worked with So many coaches. So I've worked with um Okay, I'm not going to name them all because there's like a gillian I've also taken acting and improv at our local theater, which is the paper mill playhouse Which is like a theater that broadway shows often go to either before they're on broadway or when they leave broadway So I've had like broadway actors as my acting and improv coaches, which has been fantastic for me And what was the rest of the question? Um, and just yeah, what drew you to voice acting in general? Okay, so my journey was really long to voiceover it started. I don't know how much time we have So I'll give you the abridged version. We got 20 at least 10 15 minutes. Yeah Okay, so in the I went to school in New York City And if you haven't spent a lot of time in manhattan, then you might not know that the waiters and waitresses at the Restaurants are typically actors and actresses and my sister also went to college with me as to my husband and his brother Anyway, so when my sister and I are asked questions We often respond in unison and my voice was even higher when I was young than it is now So you can imagine what I sounded like is a teenager, right? So people would ask us questions and we would respond and the waiters and waitresses would be like, you should go into voiceover So in like the mid 90s I went to this bookstore in Times Square that was like just for theater And I started looking into doing voiceover and at the time To go into voiceover you had to have a demo that was like on cassette And you had to show up in person to casting calls because there was like hardly any internet when I was in college So nothing was online yet And it seemed like being a student at Columbia and being a voice actor were mutually exclusive because I Worked really long hours in school But my husband who I started dating in 1996 would always joke like well when you're in voiceover and it was like literally the standing joke Um, and then years later. I was at uh bot mixva in new jersey And I was sitting next to a woman named Marie Hoffman who um, she does a lot of things but mostly e-learning and audiobooks She was telling me about her voiceover career And I sort of had this and I knew her from the carpool line at school from drop-off And I'd stopped working for a time and was at home with my children. I twins that are now in college and um I had this moment of like She can do it. I could do it like what am I waiting for so Um, I asked her if I could call her and ask her questions And she was kind enough to say yes And we literally had a four-hour phone conversation Which led to like a six Month period of research and writing a business plan and I come from an academic background So for me nothing happens without like excessive research And like making charts and like if this voice actor is doing this now What are they booking and where will they be and that was sort of my path to see like is this really what I want to do And then I started researching what it was like To make a booth and looking into how you build a studio and who do I want to coach with and then My husband and I decided that it did make financial sense that like I was either going to go back to teaching in the city We're going to voice over so I decided that I was going to go into voice over and I literally started coaching And when I started studying voice over I did it all day every day So when I tell you that I started studying I was doing it like eight hours a day So I went into it as if the studying of voice over was my full-time job And that's how I got into it. Wow so well, yeah, yeah, but grace had a uh A follow-up to that she says what was your biggest challenge in your first couple of years in your transition from Teaching to voice acting and what was your work around for that? um I think that there were a few challenges um So now my biggest support is that I have my people that I have my tribe So I'm in an accountability group with um kim handy sides durva trainer michelle blankard diana birdsall and shelly avalino Oh, you name dropper Yeah, and these women are like my closest friends and I talk to them every single day And when you have your people life is easier because you can You know, if you have a great client you can fell and if you have a horrible client You can fetch and talk to them about how horrible everything is and they get you through it, right? When you need to negotiate rates they get you through it Well, when you start you don't have that support system like I had marie for one day But i'm not going to call marie every time I have an issue or she'll like never speak to me again So until you have your tribe and you don't have a tribe right away or most of us don't or I didn't So the biggest challenge was you know trying to figure out how to like Balance everything and I think for a lot of working moms not just in voice over the home life balance is very hard So I think until I found my people and I will tell you that going to conferences is a great way to find your people And being active in the facebook and instagram communities You actually do make connections and then when you show up at the conferences and you meet the people that you've been on Social media with they're like really there and they're like real humans And it's a very bonding experience, but um, you have to find your people So Until you have your people. It's a little hard. You're working alone in a padded phone booth. So this padded phone booth um, I had a contractor who had been doing work on my house build and he worked with um with uncle roy who's local to me and with george to like learn the specs and put everything together and like So I built the the booth from scratch and then I was lucky that I had like my own custom booth That's been great and I've as I've booked more and more work and had more steady clients I've upgraded my gear over the years But I didn't start out with such expensive gear that I have now um But it's all about like finding your people and building your network and that's the hardest part And and I think the second thing that's hardest is knowing who to take advice from and who to tune out because Not every like I'm blessed to now say that I've surrounded myself with positive people and with good people But um, it's hard to know who to filter out and who to listen to at the beginning So you have to be a little bit careful Have find people who have your back Right. Yeah, I ask for references Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, who are who are your people? Yeah, I get to ask your question george Okay, good. Yeah, please. Yeah, you were talking about auditions and how often are you asked to send auditions which are raw? And do you process them anyway? Okay, so this is an interesting thing first of all I'm on a lot of rosters where I don't have to audition and work just comes to me So for example in the last like 12 weeks, I had three national spots running that I didn't audition for To talk through demo booked They're like we have these are you available on this day? And they were I did a disney promo this summer and I didn't audition for it so um Now in terms of raw audio, I'm on pandora's roster and that's all raw But I will tell you something and george can explain this more in detail my Preamp is a uad apollo mock 2 thunderbolt, which means That it's never actually totally raw right because it's always processing it like right now The audio that you're hearing has and I use them the manly box box So that means that like as I'm speaking It's being processed somewhat because it has settings that are going through it So you're not really actually hearing me totally raw right george Yeah, I mean it sounds if there is processing It sounds very transparent. I mean I can show you what it is. Do you want to see what I? Not necessary. Well, we could talk about it on tech talk next week. Okay. All right. Yeah. Well, well, it's it's a matter of You know if the client doesn't know you're processing then you're doing it, right? Yeah, and so if they so and and I will tell you just as an aside What I typically do when I submit work is that I send them two folders I send them a raw folder and I always save my raw wave files always whether they want it or not in my dropbox But I send them the raw and I send them and it's marked edited with eq and compression And then I also always send them stuff. They don't ask for like wilds of the Entag and I'll send them extra versions and that's my like little work around to never having to do pickups Fabulous. Well, Laura schreiber. It has been Wonderful having you with us tonight. We've been looking forward to this for 11 and a half years. Well, I don't know if I've known you that long but almost not quite but almost all right If people want to get in touch with you, where do they go? What's your website? So my website is www.LauraSchreibervoice.com and my email is laura at v o laura.com All righty. Thanks for being with us. It has been great Thank you so much for having me. It was so nice to spend time with you guys. I'm hugging you again All right. Yeah, all right. All right. George and I'll be right back after these messages. So don't go away You're still watching v lbs 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.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.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.com has other great resources like their practice script library and other resources To help your voice over career flourish. They'll try it yourself Go with the pros voice actor websites.com where your via website shouldn't be a pain in the you know what Your dynamic voice over career requires extra resources to keep moving ahead There's one place where you can explore everything the voice over industry has to offer That place is voiceover extra.com whether you're just exploring a voice over career Or a seasoned veteran ready to reach that next professional level Stay in touch with market trends coaching products and services while avoiding scams and other pitfalls Voice over extra has hundreds of articles free resources and training that will save you time and help you succeed Learn from the most respected talents coaches and industry insiders when you join the online sessions Bringing you the most current information on topics like audio books auditioning home studio setup and equipment Marketing performance techniques and much more. It's time to hit your one-stop daily resource for voice over success Sign up for a free subscription to newsletters and reports. It's all here at voiceover extra.com That's voiceover x t r a dot com Yeah, hi, this is carlo cellars rocky the voice of rocko and you're watching voice over body shop And we have more to do we've got tech talk coming up in a little bit if you're watching live hang out If you're not watching live Then you're not hearing me say this. Uh, anyway At this particular moment, uh, so we love your questions for for tech talk, uh It'll be tech talk number 90 by the way that we're gonna do next week. So It just I don't know how we do it. I don't know Uh You you got any webinars coming up? Uh, yeah, yeah, I'm trying to keep the webinar Pipes open and the next one coming up is adobe audition advanced and this one is going to be on november 30th 30th If you want to double check just go to george the dot tech slash webinars That's where the info is and that's where you can sign up and you can get a 10 discount Remember, we have that discount code. I mention it every week and it's v obs fan 10 You can use that to get a cheaper webinar. Yeah, and we got a clubhouse coming up again with uh, with jody krangel I think in a couple weeks, you know, they just crawl up on us. Oh, we got to do our thing this morning Okay, that's cool. It's kind of become a monthly tradition, but we always have a great time over there We um, it's a great platform. I know it's kind of created its own little sub commit sub Not committee but community community. Yeah, but it's a passionate one and it's kind of neat because it's an audio only format Right zero video just talking right You know and because we both have a face for radio at that's really important Anyway, who are our donors of the week? We have robert leadham We have steven chandler kacy clack jonathan grant tom pinto greg thomas a dr. Voice antlain productions martha con 949 designs jonathan grant Christopher apperson still we got him in here again. Christopher apperson sir, you know the guy's so great He gets to be said twice phillips appear frying page patty gibbons rob rider shawna pennington baird don griffith tree mosley diana birdsall and Sandra miller already. We need to thank our amazing sponsors harlan hogan's voiceover essentials voiceover extra Yeah, he's been with us in state one voiceover extra Source elements vo heroes dot com voice actor websites dot com and world voices dot org the industry association of free lance voice talent Go join. Uh, thanks. I just renewed what oh good boy We now have our whole tech committee back. Uh, jeff holman in the chat room. Thanks for doing a great job on that tonight sumer lino Doing it great from far away. Well, no, she's all the way across the valley. Yeah all the way just up burbank And of course the leap any for being leap any well, we got uh tech talk coming up So don't go away. Uh, you've got questions for us throw them in the chat room We will be very happy to answer but we got some great stuff to talk about Anyway, that's going to do it for us this week. Our thanks again to laura schreiber for joining us And remember if it sounds good It is good. I'm dan lennard and i'm george widham and this is voiceover body shop or vo BS Have a good one. Bye. Bye