To you I present yet another “square peg” story from a fellow voice talent…
She has been working for a particular client for over three years. The client is very “corporate” but hands off with her projects. One day, she got an email stating that all of their suppliers needed to be current with their “Certificate of Insurance” along with workman’s comp and auto insurance. She initially thought it didn’t pertain to her because the wording seemed geared to their suppliers, who are big companies. After speaking with her contact, he said she indeed did need it.
She spoke with a number of insurance agents who had a heck of a time understanding what she does for a living and had no category for voice talents. Finally, she spoke to a nice guy at State Farm who asked her a ton of questions so he could explain the situation to his underwriters. Again, they didn’t have a category that she fit into, but they chose one that was the closest to what she did: transcription services. They created a reasonably priced policy that fulfilled her client’s specific needs.
TIP OF THE WEEK
The votes are in: nobody know who the hell who we are or what we do for a living. In some ways not fitting in is kinda cool, like we’re a secret society or something. And then stuff happens like with our friend who needed an insurance policy to continue doing business with a long-standing client.
How can we better deal with situations like this when they come our way? Frankly, it’s hard to prepare for something like this, but you may want to have some kind of stock rhetoric in place if you don’t already. Something like:
“I’m a voice actor. I’m the person you can hear but can’t see in commercials, cartoons, or when you’re on hold.”
With that in mind, here’s part of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a friend and her five-year-old daughter…
Friend: Tom is a voice actor.
Daughter: What’s that?
Me: I talk for a living.
Daughter: You just stand there and talk and people give you money?
Me: Yup.
Daughter: That’s silly.
Me: I know.
NEWS AND NOTES!
If you are hitting WoVOCon III April 15-17 in Las Vegas, be sure to sign up for my seminar “Turn Your WoVOCon Knowledge Into Action”. Here’s the description: ‘Learned a ton at WoVOCon but don’t know what to do next? In this final session of the conference, I will help you organize the wealth of information you’ve acquired this weekend. Together we will set goals and build an Action Plan so when you get home, you can hit the ground running.’
My next Edge Studio Business and Money 201 webinar will be Thursday April 21 @8PM EST. The subject: “Paperwork”. We’re gonna talk about, well, paperwork! Click here to sign up.
Agent 1.22 is hitting the road! We will be at Denver Comic Con June 17-19 at the Colorado Convention Center. Out artist Doug Shuler will be there along with myself and co-creator Angelo Panetta. If you’re going, stop by our booth!
HAPPY HAPPYS!
Happy Straw Hat Month and Sibling Day!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
From my village to yours; this is Tom Dheere, GKN News…
Tom Dheere is a 20-year veteran of the voice over industry who has narrated thousands of projects for clients in over a dozen countries. He is also a coach at Edge Studio, voiceover business consultant known as the Voice Over Strategist, and is currently writing & producing the comic book “Agent 1.22”.