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Tommy Griffiths: Debi, let’s talk to a little bit about any philosophies or credos that you live by, Debi Derryberry, when it comes to providing your voice over service? Is there a theme that you live by?
Debi Derryberry: Well I’m a big believer in never burning any bridges. I mean in an actor’s career you may move from one agent to another. It’s business. It’s – I love all my agents current and past. It’s just what can represent you best at the time. When you ‘re reaching out – I reach out to a lot of, you know, post production coordinators to see what loop group they’re using or looping coordinators to see who’s in their roster at the time. And like someone said a moment ago, you don’t want to contact them too frequently, and you don’t want to be too loquacious. Keep things short and to the point.
I think … being able to get your bullet points out quickly and not waste anyone’s time. I always feel like you get probably seven to 10 seconds of someone’s time before they tune out. So you want to be … you know, concise in your communications, and I guess kind to everybody, even if they’re jerks. Because people don’t mean to be jerks, but sometimes tech send emails can come off that way. So I try to look at the positive side on it. Maybe they were really busy. Maybe it wasn’t the best day to contact them. I just put my book in a bookstore and the first time I spoke – emailed to this fellow, it sounded very curt and I was like, why is he being like that? Well it turned out that’s not what he meant at all. He just meant call next Monday. And then they carried my book and it was good.
So I just try to keep a positive spin on everything.
Tommy Griffiths: That’s an excellent philosophy to live by.
Bryant Falk. Tell us from a voice over talent perspective, what would be a good philosophy to live by? A customer service philosophy.
Bryant Falk: Customer service philosophy. I’d say the first thing is, I know everyone in the beginning is how much – how many times do you contact people after you’ve reached out to them? It’s an interesting balance because I work with – you know, with so much marketing and business people, and what’s interesting is, you do need as a talent to stay top of mind for the producers, and the people, even in studio. And there is a certain way to handle it.
My thing is if you book something or you’ve done something, then you do have a right to let people know that you’ve done something. Really for the focus. I call it the closet analogy. Something’s in your closet for three years. You don’t even think about it. You clean out your closet, you throw it away, the next day you go, oh, if I just had that tennis racquet it would have been perfect. And it was only because you saw it again, and then you realized what the value was.
So for VO talent, try to think that way. A nice way to just get to me so that I put you top of mind as I’m moving through production projects and things.
That’s one. The other, from a producer’s standpoint, because I’ve been there and I’ve had producers right at my side and I’ve got teams of lawyers who are yelling at us about copy changes and all this stuff. And the VO talent for some reason couldn’t make it, and I know someone else that would be perfect, and I go onto Google and I type your name in and I pray there’s some Google site where you’ve got your email and your phone number and even just a sample. And I know it’s silly, but I’m right there and the pressure’s on, I’ve got an ad agency with me. So my other little advice is please make sure you have something I can get to you fast because Google is really the new Yellow Pages for us sitting there in the studio.
Tommy Griffiths: Absolutely.
Jordan Wiberg – well, let’s go to Mindy. Mindy Williamson. One customer service philosophy that I think is really important, and it doesn’t matter what business you’re in, voice over or construction, I think is to under promise and over deliver. If you – and by under promise I don’t mean tell they you can only do half the job, what you’re going to provide, but then you give them a little bit more.
Mindy Williamson: Right.
Tommy Griffiths: Tell us a little bit about that philosophy and how that works.
Mindy Williamson: Yeah, so I think being able to – say what you’re going to give them and modesty kind of goes a long way, especially here in Canada where we always say thank you and whatever, but just to give that little extra. There’s a client that was – had posted for a job on the – project details, and they weren’t sure whether they wanted a North American accent or a British accent, but they were pretty sure they wanted North American, and a couple of little descriptive words about what they wanted. So I gave them their – the audition, but then at the end, I gave them a little piece of a British accent, which they were kind of hemming and hawing about, and I ended up landing the job and I ended up going with the British accent.
So sometimes if you can kind of read into what they’re maybe thinking about or … give them an alternative to what they had been asking for – and this is where as a voice artist we kind of have a little bit of an edge as an artist. You can kind of read people and – you know, give your interpretation of what you think their scripts should be and I’ve found that’s been very effective in getting repeat work and in landing positions as well.
Tommy Griffiths: I had a similar experience for a German client. I did a voice over project for him. It was some industrial thing, and they were happy with it and he was kind enough to send the video with the voice over, and sometimes when you see the voice matched up with the images it’s not what you thought it would be and I just felt like I could do a better job. So I told him, you know, I just feel like I owe it to you to record this again. You know, no charge, I’m just going to do it, and just send it to him. They actually went with that take and ever since then, I’ve been the go-to guy.
So sometimes you just make that one little gesture, just that one little over-delivery, you know, the under promise, over deliver philosophy.
Mindy Williamson: Having that picture – having that picture and somebody’s doing a white board video or having the idea of the character if they’ve got a drawing or something in it, a lot of times the client will send, you know, here’s a little voice sample of what we’re looking for or here’s a picture of what the character you’re going to be playing is looking like. That kind of helps to put you into that character and that’s where the acting comes through. And that’s the fun part for me. But it’s also – you can get wrapped up sometimes when, you know, there’s a lot of auditions coming through, especially the Monday after a long weekend. There’s all kinds of auditions that come through, and you want to get through them and you want to get them all done.
But actually slowing down just a little bit and taking that time to kind of read between the lines of what they’re – what the client is looking for and also the extras that they add on – can really go a long way in giving more than what’s being asked.
Tommy Griffiths: Jordan Wiberg, what’s another way that a voice talent in the voice over business can over deliver in distributing their product to a client? What are some things that you’ve done that have nicely surprised your clients?
Jordan Wiberg: I – as much as I can I always try and tell the client, okay, I can have the to you first thing tomorrow morning, or at the end of the day, and you know, if I say, I’ll have it to you tomorrow morning, I’ll get it done that evening and send it, or get it done, you know, a day before and kind of surprise them. Oh, I wasn’t expecting this until tomorrow morning. Thanks so much. And often times that will give them that extra time if there’s a tight deadline to say, okay, well we weren’t going to have this until tomorrow morning but now we have it tonight. We heard one line that we would like different. Whereas if you did send it to them that morning they might not have time to make those changes, and they might be like, okay, we’re 95 percent happy with this.
So if you … yeah, I always try and say – give myself lots of time to deliver the files before they’re necessarily expecting them.
Tommy Griffiths: Because a deadline is a deadline and it doesn’t mean that’s when you’re supposed to turn in your first take and have that in by. They need it by Monday at 9 AM, finished, done, complete and perfect.
Jordan Wiberg: Exactly.
Tommy Griffiths: You give yourself that little cushion of time.
Kim Handysides. Tell us what you do to over deliver for your clients?
Kim Handysides: I promise 100 percent satisfaction guarantee. I am limited in Canada, I’m union in Canada, I’m non-union in the States, so in Canada I can’t necessarily – I have certain rules I have to abide by ACTRA. But for anyone that I work for outside of this country I say, you know, I’ll work with you until you’re happy. I also say, pickups, for me, it’s my policy, I say pickups are free for the first 48 hours, and then I have a price, you know, schedule that I have on what they would be after that.
I also have, for repeat business I have certain discounts that I’ll offer. Okay, repeat client, more than three jobs in a month, that’s one set. More than three jobs in a year, that’s another discount. So I try to – and I’m very upfront with all of this information so that they can take advantage of it if they want.
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