Usage Tip: Leave Myopia For Web Utopia

This type of website usage tip is part 6 in an on-going series of tips to help Voice123 talent work online. It covers the methods to working online that I have seen NOT get voice talent work. Try to follow me...'Deep thoughts' warning.

Where is 'Myopia'?
I consider ‘Myopia’ to be ‘The Land of Believing That Everything We Feel Must Be What The World Feels’, when all we truly have done is created our own world. Anyone who travels a great deal has experienced this. For example:

• You leave the hustle and bustle of your daily life, and go to some far away country where their main concerns are completely different. Then, you return home to realize that friends and neighbors, who never took a break from the daily grind, still believe their grind is ‘what is happening in the world’.
  

When it comes to professional relationships and voice over work, the scope of 'how' talent get work these days has changed so dramatically, that if one person says to another, ‘Do this and your career is over.’, or ‘Do this and everyone will love it.’, this person probably is living in Myopia. Myopia is also the 'Land of Simple Solutions', which never work online, and making judgments before knowing the entire story i.e. Making a decision on how one personally feels. Do people in Myopia get work? Of course they do! But do they limit their opportunities based on the opinions of other members of Myopia, hurting their abilities to work in the future? They will never know.

Web Utopia...and the Website Usage Tip
Regardless of what anyone says, you can create your own world within Web Utopia. Myopians may not understand you, but then again, that is the way of their land, so it becomes a matter of, ‘Who do you wish to surround yourself with?’. Web Utopians think in a manner that is grand, and worldly. They listen, yet rarely care what people have to say when it is negative. They do not label what they do because to label is to set limitations. They also know to sit in one place and condemn another Web Utopian’s method is wasteful energy because they are focusing on building their land.

Not to long ago, I spoke to people from the voice over industry in Canada, Europe, and the USA, and most of them had no idea online casting existed:

• The ‘Myopian’ may respond: “You don’t know? What is wrong with you?"
• ’The ‘Web Utopian’ would respond: “Let me tell you about it. I think you will like it.”

Strange Words...
Yes, I made words up for this blog. There is no need to share Webster’s Dictionary links to correct me. I was illustrating one simple point:

• ‘If you believe you can do voice overs, or believe you cannot do voice overs because of what someone else says; either way you are correct.’

Remember this the next time you get behind the mic!

Steven Lowell
Community Development Manager
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Usage Tip: Webinar Tomorrow Night

Voice123 is holding a webinar on ‘Working in Voiceovers Online! Voice123 and Online Street Smarts!’, tomorrow night at 8pm EST.

This is the registration link.

We can be no more direct than this:

• If you want to audition on Voice123, and get behind the mic each time with a fearless and creative mindset, you have to know what the business-side of the online industry expects, from the online perspective.

This webinar will be perfect for any voice talent, regardless of their experience.

It is two hours of free information that you may spend years trying to discover through trial and error; all about getting you back to basics of being a voice talent, and doing so, online.

These are done once a month, but this is the busiest time of year!

We consider this a 'usage tip' because Voice123 has been doing free system webinars for the past three years, and we do not see enough voice talent taking advantage!

Don't miss out! It is two hours of your time to solve months of frustration you may be having!

Steven Lowell
Community Development Manager
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Does Your Book Need A Little Audio?

Voice123 is the #1 place for finding voice talent to be the next voice of your book! Audiobooks are a great way to emphasize text, and make your book accessible for listeners whether they are sitting on a beach relaxing and listening, or perhaps, driving a car when there is no time to stop and flip through pages! In addition, audiobooks are paperless; perfect for a changing world that is environmental awareness!

If you would like, hear some samples of great voice talent for your next audiobook!

The shared inbox is part of Voice123 technology that puts the hiring process on the fast-track for you, so finding voice talent is easier than ever before!

Steven Lowell
Community Development Manager
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

A Voice for Every Need: Voice Overs for IVR, Phone Systems, and More!

Being placed 'on-hold' is unpleasant for everyone, so if people are calling your company you may want to have a nice voice message to welcome them. Let them know more about your company, and make your voicemail unique. Most importantly...Make a great first impression!

When presenting your company and greeting your customers, image is what it is all about. If you want your company to look good, you want it to sound good as well. Find the greatest voice over artists for IVR, Phone Systems, On Hold Messages and Voice Mails at Voice123!

Listen to our voice overs ready to give your company
the sound it deserves!

Steven Lowell
Community Development Manager
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Community News: Meetup News Galore!

Voice123 Meetups are taking place throughout the voice over industry! Whether it be big or small, there is nothing more important than meeting people who work in an industry that you have a passion for, yourself.

We want to take this day to promote Voice123 Meetups!
Voice123 coach, Bettye Zoller, holds meetups every month in Dallas, Texas! The next two meetings are on October 14th and November 9th. She gave her Meetups a theme:

• "Setting Goals and Achieving Dreams"

Bettye states, “We are "The Official Voice123 Meetup Group in Dallas! We have 48 members now, and it is growing all the time!"

Coming up tonight!
Bill Brewer has 28 members in his Oklahoma City MeetUp and Voice123 Meetup group.
The owner of RK One studios will be a guest speaker.

Speaking of Themes...
Voice123 Meetups can be held anywhere, but if you are looking for some ideas, why not try the following:

• Meetup in a voice studio to discuss reading copy!
• Meetup to discuss how your studio was built!
• Meetup to practice some copy with other voice talent and get some feedback!
• Meetup and talk about how you, as a voice talent, use Voice123.

Please organize a Voice123 Meetup for yourself!

If you are in and around the New York City area, we would love to attend one of your Voice123 Meetups!

Thanks for reading!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Trends: What's in a Name? Plenty.

Since starting at Voice123 back in 2007, I have held the job titles:

• QA Associate - July 2007
• QA Manager - December 2007
• PR Manager - December 2008
• CS Manager - September 2009
• Community Manager - March 2010

Now it is changing again:

• “Community Development Manager” aka "CDM"

You may wonder why a business would change a job title several times. This trend is something every voice talent, or brand, should consider: There are ways that your name can appear online that can impact the way another business will think of you, positively or negatively, before they think to work with you. Consider this video on the ‘Baloney Detection Kit’:




What you may be doing by the way you describe yourself to buyers, is creating a pattern of belief or claim about you that may be negative; a pattern that requires overcoming a ‘hurdle of proof’. The end result: You will make buyers skeptical before they know you, and when they do hire you, if the smallest thing goes wrong, you will have validated their fear. Titles also need to change because sometimes you discover that the job title appears to be a ‘claim of status’, that leaves one feeling you have exaggerated.

Finally, web trends change very quickly, so you need to keep a sense of humor about it. Your title does not determine what you are, but your quality as a business will. Below, I would like to share some descriptions/titles that have been described to Voice123 customer service as 'exaggerated'. Keep in mind this applies to working online:

• expert
• seasoned professional
• big time

Alternatives I have seen that use humor to open the door:

• "ninja"
• "lightly marinated"
• "has the voice"

Thanks for reading!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager (oops! wait...) Community Development Manager

Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Video by RDF TV

Usage Tip: Best Day To Modify Profiles & Demos

This is part 4 in the series of usage tips for better usage of Voice123.com! I am bringing you information that I know will assist you in ways you may never have the chance to research on your own!

Usage tip #4: Best Day to Modify Demos and Profiles
The best day to modify your voice over profile and demo when using Voice123 is Friday!

Why?
When you modify anything with your profile it comes out of the search feature because it has to go through Quality Assurance. This is common for websites to screen content. When it is passed through, it takes 24 hours for the Internet cache to update for the website. If you did not know, we work weekends, too!

This way, every Monday at the start of the busy work week, your profile is in the search feature when voice seekers do most of their searching!

It may seem like something small, but it is always the little things that make a big difference!

Please stayed tuned for more usage tips in the future! Follow us on Facebook and Twitter because we post small tips everyday for using Voice123!

Thanks for reading!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Image by WTNK

Website Usage: Voice Over Job QA

This is long, but worth it. The online world is a much safer place to find work. There is a growing responsibility each day in all websites, not just Voice123, to pay attention to the 'small things' that take place in the voice over community.

There are two types of Quality Assurance at Voice123 when one has posted a voice over job:

• Proactive: Using proven experience to stop things before they happen.
• Reactive: Fixing issues when something new has happened and must be corrected.

Quality Assurance is done for several areas:

• Profile content
• Voice over demos on the profile
• Voice over auditions
• Voice seekers and voice talent website problems
• Voice over projects
• Customer service

How it works:

• Profile content is screened for typical things like spam, or damaging content that could affect our ranking on search engines. Profiles are also screened to make sure that the person's profile belongs to them, only, and no one else. The reason for this comes from past experiences with profiles that lacked truth or integrity, which is something that is costly to all members of the Voice123 community.

• Voice over demos are screened to make sure that the audio quality is good. We do not screen the copy read. We also watch for problems that affect the professionalism of Voice123. This may seem somewhat 'harsh', but we have over 125,000 users, and not all understand the importance of online professional behavior.

• Voice over auditions are screened for spam and audio quality. Spam is considered the 'junk mail' of the Internet; basically the 'I did not ask for this. Why are you sending it?' type of file. If a demo cannot be heard, or there is significant background noise, it is sent back to the voice talent, and the voice talent is emailed that there was a problem, and to send it again. As a rule, if an audition is not sent to the client, for any reason, the voice talent will be notified immediately to fix any issues. We do not do 'creative QA' for copy reading, as we play no role in the hiring process.

• Voice seeker and voice talent quality assurance is both proactive and reactive. There have been isolated cases of payment disputes, undelivered work, website abuse, dropped communication between parties, and poor online behavior. This has to be attended to at all times. Most of these QA issues are reported to me personally, but our entire team can be reached through Customer Service.

• Voice over projects require quality assurance because, even though the voice seeker interface offers a wide variety of explanations as to how to help a voice seeker request voice talent, not all understand the process, or know how to fill things out to get the best results. We do our best to help in such situations.

• Customer Service QA has a technical end to it that many seekers may not know. When your project is maybe being ignore, or someone is not listening, our CRM tool (Live Person) tells us! That is when we reach out to you and try to help! It helps us manage many accounts at once, and is one of the most challenging part of this job!

Yet, if your ever find something is not right, please grab hold of us on Live Chat!

Oddly, QA has been made a great deal easier because of social media. Someone is always talking about something, and we can always see it! Almost all businesses using Voice123 have a social media profile on Twitter, Linkedin, or Facebook. Given that one-sixth of the world uses the Internet, all you have to do is talk to someone online, or search Google, and you will find out who you are working with.

Post a project and find out what makes us so special!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Community News: Voice Over Happenings!

We want to bring you some community happenings from this week, last week, and the end of the month that you can use to improve your voice over career, by learning from members of the voice over community!


Succeed Using Voice123!
If you ever wanted to know how to succeed using Voice123, this is the webinar you will need! This webinar will discuss business tips behind using Voice123 to get voice over work, and also pivotal online business skills that will allow voice talent the freedom to be creative and fearless!



Voice Over Coach Event with Don Morrow!
Voice over coach, Don Morrow and “Everything you wanted to know about voice overs, but did not know who to ask.” being held in Danbury, CT! Email VoicesofDM@aol.com for more information! During the event, you will be able to create your own voice over demo for Voice123!



Congrats to Amy Snively and FAFFCON!
Congratulations to Amy Snively as well, for her successful FaffCon event out in Portland, Oregon! Voice123 was happy to offer two free subscriptions for the event. We heard it went great, and we look forward to more! September certainly has been living up to its National Voice Over Month title!



Voice123 Meetups
Remember you can meet great members of the voice over industry when you organize a Voice123 Meetup in your area! Voice123 will be looking to organize meetups, too, with helpful info for the voice over community.

We hope you will follow us on twitter, facebook, and youtube, by using the links below!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Facebook
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Trends: Top 10 Voice123 Deleted Tags

Fear not!
These are not used! Where ‘demo tagging’ stands today at Voice123; it is a powerful informational tool to see if ‘what you think’ matches ‘what they think...the anonymous talent community’. Note: It has absolutely NOTHING to do with SmartCast.

You see...A couple of years ago, Voice123 set up something called ‘demo tagging’, which you can find in your Voice123 profile. The process includes listening to demos anonymously, and then tagging it with a 'description'. After, a voice talent would be emailed that they were tagged. If he/she wanted to, they could delete it.

Why it helps to know!
Knowing if your ‘brand’ is ‘on the pulse’ takes place when strangers hear your voice, and you find many agree with you on how it should be marketed. It is also called ‘knowing your type.’ It means you and the buyer are on the same page before you even make contact. Some people spend years and thousands of dollars to find out. This result is pure on Voice123, because no one knows who is tagging who. You get straight opinions from the entire Voice123 community. Myself, I was tagged, ‘boy next door’ and ‘conversational’, which made me smile because that has always been my A-game. I also, like I said, do not know who did it.

So, this week, I felt it would be interesting to find out what demo tags voice talent have deleted. Before looking at the chart, keep in mind we have had over 30,000 demo tags on Voice123, out of which only 1315 were deleted by voice talent. It is great to see a voice over talent community help each other this way!

Tag and Amount of Times Deleted:

1. Nope - 78
2. Great - 57
3. poor - 54
4. NPR - 51
5. wannabe - 51
6. blah - 41
7. bland - 32
8. bad - 29
9. muffled - 28
10. loud - 21

Conclusions to draw from this:
This is a free, educational resource at your fingertips! Given that opinions and trends drive websites, it helps to know how other colleagues describe your voice!

Thanks so much!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Image by Vector 4 Free

Usage Tip: Say What You Want Know What to Believe

This is part three of our series of usage tips for better success while working online in voice overs! This week’s Usage Tip?

Understanding what really happens, regardless of what is said, and making it work for You!

Some thoughts...

• Do you know that section of the profile called My Demos?
• Did you know studies show it takes only 3 to 20 seconds before someone completely gives up on a website?
• If that mouse click did not turn out to be what you said it would be, regardless of ability, what do you think will happen?

How To Make This Work For You:

• Take your compilation demo, or your regular demo, and edit it down to 20-second spots.
• If the recording category is audiobooks for your demo, when that mouse-click happens, and they hear something other than the stated category, they will pass.
• SO...That 60-second demo you created offline...upload three :20 targeted spots to that category.

Why do this?

• Online, you simply need to be found in Voice123’s search feature, and Google, but you cannot compromise integrity, or be dishonest.
• The more you are found in searches, and your demos are what they say they are, the better.
• Funny...not much different from offline casting; just a different business tool .
  

Things about Voice123 you may not know:

• The SmartCast software and job posting process was indeed set up to be very user-friendly for Union jobs and agents, in order to connect them to the right voice talent.
  
• They do use it; we just wished a little more, if not always.
• What this means for you: Profile integrity and demo quality are of great importance.

The software is set up to build a more professional voice marketplace. Stay true to what you want, and over the course of a year, you will find people reaching out to you, that you may have been told did not use online casting.

Why does no one talk about it online?
Well...best kept secrets usually work that way in a competitive industry.

All the best to you!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Usage Tip For Voice Job Posting: Enough Already

At Voice123, we do our best to make sure that all business transactions occur without the possible issue of someone saying, "Oh, I must have missed that email.” As a person posting a job you may get several follow-up emails, making sure you have reached the talent.

Unfortunately, given the importance of each voice project to everyone involved in the community, and the quirky nature of Internet spam filters, we take such measures as a safety net to keep everyone communicating. We do hope you understand that it has helped more times than it has led to one saying, ‘Enough already!’. SO...

"Yes. I had enough."
If you have had enough of our email system looking out for you, you can:

• Click the link in that reminder email, which asks if the message was answered
  
• Write us and let us know you would like to "Opt-out of mailing lists"

For some more fun! Brand of the Week!
For those who love to study branding, we bring you a new brand created by a Voice123 community member this week, Paul J. Rose; also found here!




Thanks for using Voice123! If you ever have any questions, please stop by our Live Chat!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Voice of Speed Racer Passes at age 83

Peter Fernandez (seen here) was one of the first voice over talent/celebs/heroes of mine that I met in a New York City voice over class back in 1996. He truly did light up when asked for autographs. Several years later, I saw him at the 2002 Auto Show in Los Angeles, signing autographs by a Speed Racer car. The fact he remembered me reminded me how special it feels to be remembered for doing something positive. I hope you will read more below.

"Peter Fernandez, who provided the rat-a-tat voice of Speed Racer when that animated Japanese television series came to the United States — and who wrote the American lyrics for the show’s theme song — died Thursday at his home in Pomona, N.Y. He was 83. The cause was cancer, his wife, Noel, said."

Read the entire NY Times article by Dennis Hevesi.

- photo by Librado Romero/New York Times

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Trend: The Happiest Country In The World?

In my position, I talk to a voice over talent community from around the world. Today I spoke with people from Egypt, England, Canada, Germany, Colombia, South Africa, the U.S., Thailand, Japan, and China. I hear things from different cultures that I never could have learned by reading books.

I often wonder, ‘What country has a culture that leads them to be happier than other cultures’?

Voice talent work on a global schedule. It is a career that requires almost a surreal business schedule of ‘Anytime, anywhere, name it’. In fact, those at Voice123 do the same! You are reading this on September 10th, but I wrote this at 9pm last Friday night before Labor Day Weekend, because we were open, and love the industry. Labor Day is a holiday in my culture, but other countries may not know this. Most people I know left for vacation hours ago. Yet, I often wonder why we are the last to leave the office, work longer, we are happier, while those who live scheduled, structured lives work less hours and complain more. Personally, I do not like to see people unhappy. So...I searched for the happiest country.

In my search for the ‘Happiest Country’, I came across several different surveys, all with very different results. Most were geared towards building tourism, but there were two that appeared to be removed of selling plane tickets:

Forbes.com used a ‘life evaluation score’.

Huffingtonpost displays a study done based on positive and negative emotions.

Interesting point...Denmark:
Denmark is repeatedly in the top 3 of all surveys researched as being the 'Happiest Country' in the world. Yet, did you notice this fact?

• “Denmark is a Nordic welfare state with most of its services free to the citizens. Denmark has the worlds’ highest taxes. When buying a car for $20 000, you have to pay an additional $45 000 as taxes for the government (total of $65 000). That’s why people in Denmark ride bikes or use one of the best public transport systems in the world.”

Now, that statement, would make many I know unhappy, so I guess it boils down to, 'Happiness' is a choice determined by the individual, and how you decide to deal with things in life that do not satisfy you!

Keep smiling!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Usage Tips: Making Sure They Hear You

As part of the series of blogs for 'Usage Tips', this week I am bringing you a Voice123 website usage tip for all those out there who believe 'not being heard' is an uncontrollable symptom of working online!



Usage Tip #2: Making sure you are ‘heard’!

This is a simple one. Go to the bottom of every project details page, and you will see a link, ‘Click here to learn more about this seeker’.

It will take you to this page.

Inside that link, you will see a number that displays their listening behavior from the last six months of project posting, and even better...you can see older projects they posted.

Getting to the point!

• If the seeker is typically listening to 80% or more of their auditions received, this is someone who will give you comfort that your audition will be heard.
  
• If the project is constantly being re-posted, and you are constantly invited, DO NOT audition unless the description of the project has somehow changed dramatically.
• Why? They heard you, or someone else, and realized, 'My client did not want to go in this direction.'
  
• They also may wonder if you are aware your name repeatedly shows up in the same project.

Last set of variables...

• If the person is posting a job for the first time, of course there is no listening behavior on record.
• When that is the case, look at the project description and script.
• See if you can find info about the company using your web browser.
• Try to spot common industry lingo. (e.g. Need a VO for a :30 and :60)

Let all of the data on project details page convince you:

• ‘This is a voice over job I want to be a part of, now and for the future.’
  

If it is not convincing:

• Remember being picky determines future traffic on the site, and pass on it.
  

I will be sharing more in the coming weeks, and my goal is to get everyone back behind the mic, focused on being creative and fearless! I know it makes a difference.

Keep an eye/ear out for it!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Business Tips: Using Voice Talent To Create a Brand

Not too long ago, we sent out a survey asking voice talent to let us know what they considered to be their ‘brand’. We did this, so that we may share their skills with you.

The most interesting thing about the creative industry is that their is no ‘absolute right’, but everyone sees when something is just ‘absolutely wrong’. So, what sets the two apart? Usually, it is a great marketing strategy, knowing what rules you can bend a bit, and hiring great voice talent to help you! The beauty of hiring voice talent is that there is no danger of the voice over becoming a ‘mascot’; bigger than the brand itself.

Post a job today and find the special voice to make your business standout!

Here is just one of the thousands of brands from around our
Voice123 Community!

Scott Pollak and his business card

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Trend: The Copy'left' Movement?

For decades, a ‘copyright’ tradition existed, and it seemed somewhat basic:

• ‘You own a license to copyrighted work you have created, and no one can touch/alter it unless you give permission.’

For the common good?
So, what would you do, if you had a chance to obtain a license that seemed somewhat ‘copyleft’, and it seemed as if only some rights are reserved? Creative Commons is a non-profit organization working to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in “the commons”. This refers to the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, re-purposing, and remixing. In 2008, there were an estimated 130 million works licensed under Creative Commons.

At play here is an example of the ‘Copyleft’ psychology of the Internet, and how it has drastically changed the way voice talent should evaluate their possible revenue stream. Take an example from my experience. Someone took my demo from my Voice123 profile, and turned into a ring-tone on a website. What should I do next?

1. Track down who did it and have it removed from the website because I did not allow this.
2. Send him a thank you note.

Choice #2 is what I went with. Why? Whomever this was helped get my profile on page 1 of a Google search, which helps me, and not only that, the demo is a promo I did for Voice123....the company I now work in. He did a great deal of work for me, and it will help us be found more online. That exposure can lead to work. My coach is on it, too, so I am fine with it!

Forget me...this is about you! We want to know what the voice over community thinks on this topic!

Have a great weekend!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!

Usage Tips: SmartCast ‘Generally Speaking’

After doing a webinar recently for Voice123, I began to see that what this blog may be missing are some direct explanations and unspoken secrets of working on Voice123. As I like to say it, 'Fast food maybe fast food, but you cannot expect onion rings at Wendy's.'

The truth is that what you read in web content regarding experiences in online casting, actually represents just a fraction of what is ‘really happening’. Making business decisions based on 140 words of a micro-blog, leaves so much to be discovered, and to study others failures only makes one experienced in knowing how to fail. In the coming weeks, every Wednesday, I will be giving usage tips shared every week in our Voice123 system training. My first usage tip will cover a general overview of the way SmartCast works best. I will get into the details of Voice123 in the coming weeks! But first....

Website Usage Tip #1: Using SmartCast in general!
The thing about websites is that you can never force anyone to use them. It goes against web culture. They have to be friendly, inviting, and allow for transparent sharing of information to make for better website usage. So, why would a software for a job placement site for voice overs knowingly decide to not invite people for jobs at certain times, which is seemingly an 'unfriendly' thing to do, and counter-intuitive to the offline ideal, 'I see, therefore I audition.'? .......The ‘bigger picture’.

What was never discussed when SmartCast was released is the trend it has created:

• Make for a healthier online voice over community by creating a software that allows for professional talent to decide the future of what jobs will be posted on the website and will be invited to, through their professional decision-making.
  

Wow! Blurry line warning!
Well, not exactly. By deciding what and what not to audition for, and building relationships with great voice seekers (repeat customers), while those who used the site in the past with lesser integrity learn this is not the website to grab a cattle call of cheap talent. In fact...SmartCast, with its software technology, actually is a 'tier system' for voice talent; created by talent. Why?

• You decide what tier you are on by the jobs you audition for, and the results will direct you as to how that is working on Voice123.
• 'Results' meaning - Return of investment, relationships built, and repeat business.
• SmartCast is web technology that erases the 'I am in a black hole, talking to no one', feeling.
  

"Huh? How is this a usage tip?"
Think about this before auditioning online:

• The first job I was ever awarded in voice overs was for $50 to do an answering machine message for a dating service.
  
• The last job I booked before working here was for Adidas, which occurred 11 years later.
  
• If a system is set up to allow voice talent to set their preference for jobs they would like to see in the future, each decision to audition for something is like deciding what you wish to see more of in the future i.e. The tier of talent you will go up against.
  

So, are you competitive in that tier of competition you are deciding to go up against, and the trend you are creating for yourself? You may be amazing, but over-priced for that tier, and vice versa. Answering this question is a great place to start before working online, where you must be your own agent, businessman, marketing team, and creative team. Is the software perfect? No, but to understand its rules and the theories behind it will allow one to take more advantage of it!

More to come next week!

Steven Lowell
Community Manager
Voice123 Premium Forums
Voice123 Youtube Channel
Twitter: @voice123
Voice123 Meetups!