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Tommy Griffiths: Performance development and self-improvement. We all – I think as Bryant mentioned – we’re on a treadmill and there really is no finish line. We’re constantly working, trying to improve ourselves, trying to get better.
What do you do, Kim, to stay sharp? I know you do some coaching, do you also take coaching?
Kim Handysides: I sure do. I do. And I advocate to anyone that I coach that this is a craft, so this is – it means there’s no end. You can continually get better. And I try … I try to make sure that I’m either taking an online course once a month or that I’ve got a goal for myself. One of my goals this year was to perfect every – a new accent every month. You know, just – that’s my own goal.
But I also will then go and take animation coaching courses, or … all kinds of different things. That was the one I did most recently. This stand-up comedy course that I just completed, which was fantastic and really brought a lot of finesse to some of the character work that I do.
Yeah, keep taking those courses.
Tommy Griffiths: And acting classes as well.
Kim Handysides: A hundred percent. Yeah.
Tommy Griffiths: Exactly. And Mindy, how do you stay sharp?
Mindy Williamson: Yes. I do the same thing as Kim. I just started taking an improv classes, and that kind of keeps things going. I’ll peek around and have a listen to what some other voice over artists are doing on – and hearing … hearing the amount of talent that’s out there is maybe in a little bit of a competitive way, but it’s also inspiring. Raises the bar, absolutely. And I do take on other courses as well. I’m a coach, but I truly believe in coaching, and that’s partly why I coach is because it’s useful and it’s unofficial and it helps everybody. So I will take online courses as well. Probably every six months or so.
Tommy Griffiths: Couldn’t agree more. I’ve been doing this for a long time, since I’ve been 17 years old, and still take coaching. There’s never a ceiling. You can always get better. And as soon as you think it’s good enough, then you should probably quit, because it can never be good enough.
Gosh, there’s just so much more to talk about. The demo maintenance, accounting and bookkeeping and invoice processing, and all of this stuff has everything to do with maintaining a voice over business. There’s just so much, and really, an hour isn’t enough to talk about it. But unfortunately we are running out of time.
But let’s just – let’s go to each one of our panelists. We’ll start with – Debi’s gone, so we’ll start with Bryant and just talk about any other factors that you think are important for a successful voice over business. For people who are just getting into it or anybody who’s been in it for a while. Maybe they’ll learn something new.
Bryant Falk: Well, let me just bring up an interesting issue that I ran into recently that I think as VO talent you may want to start looking at, especially here in New York, because we have a lot of corporate clients here. Considering taking your business up to the level of an LLC or S Corp, is what they call it. Usually it’s an LLC.
The reason being, I have, for example, a client that will only work with VO talent that has some sort of LLC setup, the reason being, of course, that if they hire them as sole proprietorships – this is all techy and kind of a little number crunchy – but they can’t hire you, because they don’t want to, during the audit, get proofed that you should have been an employee.
So this is a unique thing that’s popped up here. And I’m an LLC, so I’m out of the mess. But it’s very interesting that I’m seeing – especially non-union – I’m seeing this issue popping up and kind of warning new talent, you know, you may have to take that one extra step if you really want to head more interest that kind of work.
So unique thing, kind of new. So I thought it would be an interesting heads up, and you know, very account-y – accounting and heads-you, sorry.
Tommy Griffiths: It’s important. Part of the business as well. Very legalese as well.
And Mindy, departing words. Parting words.
Mindy Williamson: As a voice artist, I talk for a living. I don’t do math, so I’m – one piece of advice I would give is hire somebody to do your accounting, your bookkeeping and all of that number stuff. It helps – my accountant, my bookkeeper helps to keep me on track and say, okay Mindy we haven’t booked as much this month, or you know, you’re way above budget or you’re way above schedule right now. And being able to stay on top of all of that stuff every day and every week and every month, helps me anyway to keep my business moving along and being successful.
Tommy Griffiths: Jordan Wiberg.
Jordan Wiberg: I would say try and stay as organized as you possibly can. Organization includes labelling and organizing your sessions into maybe different subcategories, this is my animation, this is my promo stuff, this is my commercial stuff, accounting, banking, emails. Just as much as you can, try and stay as organized as you possibly can, because it makes like so much easier, especially at tax time.
Yeah, I was not well-organized for a year or two and it’s made such a difference in my life just to be very clean and neat and have everything categorized.
Tommy Griffiths: And Kim Handysides.
Kim Handysides: Everything that everybody else said, and then also setting aside some time. I try to do two hours twice a week where I will have goals for myself that are outside of just this part of the – you know, voice industry. So it will be like, I will dedicate time toward marketing, or toward learning a new software, or toward setting up a campaign. Definitely taking care of invoices and that sort of thing. That’s a part of it, aside from that.
Just, I think it’s valuable to make sure you include time to take care of the business-y parts of your business.
Tommy Griffiths: And I’d like to just throw in and to wrap it, and have fun. Enjoy yourself. And don’t immerse yourself in it 100 percent. You’ve got to take a break. It can’t all be just work, work, work. Because you’re going to get better the more you interact with other people. You can hear different voices. You can experience different things, and that’s just going to make you a better actor overall.
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