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Bruce Kronenberg: This leads me to my next question. Do you, any of you post your rates publically? I mean do you post ahead of time or on your website?
Toby Ricketts: I have indicative rates, which means this is the ballpark and then let’s talk. And usually if they want it cheaper, I’ll try and add value instead of discounting. So I’ll say, you know, it’s going to take less time for me to do this, I’ll give you extra takes, I’ll give you raw and process files, we’ll do sync, you know. I’ll give you a two hour turnaround as opposed to 24 hour or something like that. So you can actually, you know, give people a lot more and satisfy them that they’ve got it priced rather than do the discounting model for me and I –
Kabir Singh: – That’s a great ploy.
Bruce Kronenberg: Anybody else want to add to that?
Tommy Griffiths: I think again it depends on the project, it depends on who the client is. So you really need to respect some wiggle room with a rate. So if you put a – maybe a minimum, you know, starting at rate or, you know, a range. Like the last panelist said, I think it might be more in your interest to do so than sticking to one rate because –
Bruce Kronenberg: – So putting a range meaning like –
Tommy Griffiths: – maybe it’s too high but maybe it’s too low. You could be losing out if you stick to something.
Bruce Kronenberg: So starting maybe – like I’ll start at three – I go from 300 to like, you know, two grand –
Tommy Griffiths: – Yes. And if –
Bruce Kronenberg: – Is that too wide a range? Naomi Mercer: It’s pretty wide.
Tommy Griffiths: That’s a wide one, but you need to put in exactly what you’re providing for different rates, different levels of the rates.
Naomi Mercer: And I also would never feel comfortable having my rates be posted publically or like what the job ended up being because sometimes I accept a job because I ask myself all those other questions like yeah, I did do it for a lower rate but they have a fan base of this many millions of viewers and they’re going to be focusing on the voice talent to, you know, give us some fan – you know, whatever the reason is. I don’t want future clients to ever know a rate that I settled for or to know that I ever go for that rate. So I never post my rates. People like post rates –
Kabir Singh: That’s like trade secrets.
Naomi Mercer: – forever and I’ve been talking about putting it up and looking at all the things that you were talking about, Kabir, but I have not gotten around to doing it and I think the reason why is just that, you know, it’s so case by case, client by client.
Kabir Singh: It is.
Naomi Mercer: Some people have been my client for so many years that they’re just – they are the rate that they’ve always been, you know.
Kabir Singh: I think that’s very business savvy because you have to be, right? And now you have small companies like start ups and people creating apps and you have big companies. So rates have to be negotiable. They have to be and I don’t think it’s very business smart to post your rates, but I do think you should always be willing to take their client’s perspective and ask those questions such as how many fan base, what type of opportunity, what is my life circumstances right now and that’s why I don’t publically post them also, but I’m happy to discuss them publically.
Bruce Kronenberg: Have you ever – have any of you ever received any feedback about your rates?
Naomi Mercer: Yes. As you know, it’s just like what everyone has been saying as far as where people all land on the scale of their bidding. I have heard back. They’re like oh, yeah, that’s way out of our price range. And you know what? At the end of the day I’m like okay, well, great. I can now concentrate on looking at jobs that I do fit within their price range and you guys can go look for people who you’re a better fit with.
Bruce Kronenberg: Well, that was going to be my next question which is how do you manage that which you just kind of answered, Naomi.
Naomi Mercer: Yeah. It doesn’t happen very often, but it has happened before. Sometimes it does make me think and adjust but not usually.
Toby Ricketts: I’ve taken the liberty of conducting some market research of my own because there’s sites like, you know, Survey Monkey or there’s lots of, you know, survey sites out there. So you take a month and all the clients you’ve worked for in that month you send them a survey which is asking things like, you know, were you happy with the service, was it fast enough? And then I got them to list what was most important to them, whether it was the voice quality, the recording studio quality, the time of turnaround, a thing called the price and the price was – I think 99 percent of them said the price was the least consideration. It was all about, you know, I want the right voice for my product and I want a good performance, you know. That’s the most important thing.
So I encourage people to ask your clients. You know, you’ve got them, the end people that are using your product right there so ask them whether they were satisfied with the service, whether they were satisfied with the price and, you know, you’ll glean some really interesting answers from it.
Bruce Kronenberg: That’s very interesting, yes. Jim, do you have anything to add to that?
Jim Kennelly: Yeah. I was going to say as a producer actually we produce and cast and hire talent globally all the time. This is with my experience and our experience is that you have to be flexible along the lines of what Naomi said. We have agencies and branding companies that only do union work. We have ones that do union and non union work. We have clients who contact us directly. And we build relationships with people and that’s what’s made us successful. That’s why we’ve been in business for 30 years. It’s the relationship and the ability to flow back and forth.
The Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation is very important to us. There are other charitable opportunities in voice-overs that are important to us. So we act on them in the easiest way we can. And then sometimes a client will come along and will have a big day and you just really just have to flow with it if you want to really make it in this business and succeed over a long term, grow your client base and enjoy the success of being in this business.
Bruce Kronenberg: Well said. Absolutely.
Naomi Mercer: If I could just add a little button onto that. You should look at it like … It used to be that we were just the talent. You were just the talent that –
Bruce Kronenberg: – I remember that. I remember that.
Naomi Mercer: Yeah. And you just showed up and you just, you know, showed everybody your talents and then you leave and you get your cheque. But now we’re a small business and if we approach everything like a small business then it all falls in line with everything that Jim is saying. You adapt. I mean, I know of a man who runs – he does insulation on boats and he has one client that is Holland America, but then he has all these other clients that’s like little nibblers and it all comes in and it all keeps the business running around the year. And then, I also have my mentor. She’s the voice of several voices on “South Park” but then she also goes down the rest of the week to do IVR for
– or what is it called? The one – EDR, ADR for all the anime around the world. I mean you just – you fill in the blanks.
Bruce Kronenberg: You know, it’s like my agent, Chaz [Cowling] once told me. It’s like you roll up your sleeves at a voice over booking and you make yourself part of the team.
Carrie Olsen: Yeah. And to that point, I just wanted to add that we’re not trying to put our clients out of business, you know, with rates. Like we want it to be a win-win. We’re a company, they’re a company. So I think, you know, if you do get feedback on your rates then I think that it’s our responsibility to take that into consideration –
Kabir Singh: – Absolutely.
Naomi Mercer: – Mm-hmm.
Carrie Olsen: – and have a – you know, a flowing movement so that, you know, the next time you can try to find that sweet spot with your client so that it’s still fair for you and fair for them and it’s a win-win for everybody.
Kabir Singh: And that’s a great perspective because it is fun and like you are a business and like a business you have to take everything into consideration, right? And you have to reflect on your business. You have to honour and respect industry guidelines where you get those and that information everywhere. It’s all out there. You got to honour your own life circumstances and you have to be able to equally respect clients’ budgets, you know. And you will grow that value and those rates and take all that feedback as you grow your business. It’s right next to each other; rates and business, rates and business. It goes up together.
Tommy Griffiths: True. And as Naomi said too, in the old days when we used to just walk into studios and they’d record us and there were three or four people behind the glass and, you know, somebody keeping track of the script and then, you know, a director; you know, all these people there. Well, now all those people are just – are us, just one person in a room and that’s got to be part of the rates as well. You’re an engineer, you’re keeping track of the copy, you’re your own director, you’re your own technician. Everything that is needed is – centres around you and you’re the one responsible for it.
Bruce Kronenberg: Absolutely. It seems like what the theme here is is being more than just talent and that’s how you determine rates, how you determine how you do the job. All of you seem to be much more than talent which is so inspiring. It’s so great to see that. It really is.
Tommy Griffiths: And let people know what you’re doing too. You can’t just take into consideration or just assume that they know.
Naomi Mercer: Yeah, good point. Yes.
Tommy Griffiths: Let people know that you’re going to take care of them in every aspect of what it takes to deliver a good product.
Naomi Mercer: Mm-hmm. Actually, you should – I should mention that when I’m talking to someone about my rate I let them know, you know. And that includes the studio session and a buyout for unlimited usage and all of the editing and rendering out these files for you, etcetera, etcetera, just like you’re –
Toby Ricketts: – And just saving them huge amounts on hiring a studio, right? Bruce Kronenberg: That’s right. Ben, you were going to say something.
Ben Jackson: Yeah. So we’re – I mean, we definitely see a gap in knowledge from clients coming in. So some of them really understand kind of all that goes into a voice over recording to get it to the final stages but then others don’t. So I do think it is really valid to go through and don’t be afraid to let them know all the work and effort that is going into it because I find that we spend a lot of time trying to educate clients on, you know, why the rates are the way they are and what goes into voice-overs and some companies that have been, you know, hiring voice talent for years understand it, some people it could be their first time hiring a voice talent because, you know, like Kabir said that it could be a new start up and, you know, they have this concept for this app that they need a voice over for it. So you really do have to kind of let them know and it goes back to the whole value thing, you know. Make them understand kind of, you know, what is going into this to make it the final product.
Kabir Singh: Yeah, that’s a great point, man. And that’s a great perspective to have is to respect that some people just don’t have that knowledge. Some businesses are new to this. They’ve never made an explainer video. They’ve never made any of this. So you have to be able to provide them that information because you’re in the business.
Ben Jackson: And how you’re willing to negotiate. We find that companies are willing to negotiate as well.
Kabir Singh: Absolutely.
Ben Jackson: So as a voice over artist you have to, you know, pay attention and figure out okay, is it worth walking away or is it worth negotiation and you got to make that decision and be comfortable with the decision that you make. So sometimes it is worth negotiating and trying to get the client up and standing your ground and sometimes clients will – you know, they’ll dig deep and find the money somewhere.
Kevin McDonald: Here’s a question. DoesVoices allow for that type of negotiation? Because from my point of view, I only get to enter a number once. So is there a back and forth that can happen? Is that what you’re suggesting?
Bruce Kronenberg: Ben, you want to answer that?
Ben Jackson: Yeah, sure. So I mean if it’s kind of like a self serve job. I mean you can put your price up there and it is kind of more of a one to one, but in your proposal I would definitely recommend saying something if it is negotiable or trying to add that value prop. But anybody who’s worked with our professional service department knows that, you know, we will reach out to talents, voice talent if, you know, there’s a job or a project on the go and we’re in that negotiation phase. So it does happen a lot of times where, you know, a voice talent will get a call from us internally or it might be helping out a job through the website as well and you’ll get a call and okay, well, you know, here’s what the client is asking for, are you okay with this, and then we kind of go back and forth and negotiate with you.
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