Voiceover conferences have been around for almost 15 years (I believe VOICE 2007 was the first one) and just like every other aspect of the voiceover industry, there are widely varying opinions. I LOVE voiceover conferences! I'm new to the industry and I learn so much there! I can't afford to go. I hate crowds. I'm afraid to talk to people. Those parasites are preying on newbs by selling their books, booths, mics, coaching sessions, and demo packages. Ugh, it's the same presenters & content over and over again. I know this stuff already! In short, many new voice actors love voiceover conferences or are afraid of them and many veterans hate them or feel they're not worth attending anymore. DISCLAIMER As a voiceover coach and demo producer, I do speak at conferences and yes a part of my motivation for attending is to market my services. I also go because it's fun, I get to meet great new people & hang out with old friends, and I'm still learning & growing as a voice actor, coach, and human being so I still learn stuff, 25+ conferences later. TIP OF THE WEEK If you are new to the voiceover industry, I encourage your to attend the voiceover conferences that are right for you and aren't just a platform for coaches to troll for students. If you have questions about specific conferences, message me and I'll be happy to share my thoughts. If you are a veteran voice actor, some voiceover conferences may still have value for you. networking opportunities exploring new genres renewal of purpose I have noticed that regardless of the conference session I'm sitting in on, often I take a page of notes and frequently it's not about the subject at hand. Sometimes the subject gets me thinking about other areas of my voiceover business in a good way. Also, I may have sat in on a similar session years ago but I wasn't ready to hear it for whatever reason. Maybe it's a genre I wasn't interested in then but I'm interested in now. I'm also listening to the same content with a different pair of ears. I'm hopefully a wiser person now so I may process the information more effectively. If you have saved your notes from previous conferences, read them again. It’s fascinating not only what you’ve forgotten, but how notes from a few years ago can hit you now in a completely different way. NEWS AND NOTES Thursday, June 10th @8PM ET: The Edge Studio Business and Money webinar "Managing Your Money". This class will give students an understanding of how to best manage the money you make as a voice talent and how to balance that with your personal life. Sign up here! THIS WEEKEND!!! June 11-13: eVOcation - our virtual conference devoted to the business of voiceover! I will be presenting a webinar about how to build your client list. Sign up here! Thursday, June 17th @8PM ET: The Edge Studio Marketing 201 webinar "Thriving in a Smaller Market City". In this class, students will see the advantages of living in a smaller voice over market and how to tap into their local resources. Sign up here! SOLD OUT!!! Saturday, June 19th @5PM ET: The Voice Actors Studio webinar “eLearning Performance Workshop“. Learn about the world of eLearning and get some live coaching, too. Wednesday, June 23rd @8PM ET: The VO How-To Webinar "Online Casting Sites". In this 90-minute webinar, we will explore the world of online voiceover casting sites, the “Pay-to-Play” business model, and how to use Online Casting Sites effectively. This webinar will be recorded so if you can't make it you will get the video! Sign up here! HAPPY HAPPYS Happy Bomb Pop Day and VCR Day! QUOTE OF THE WEEK Tom Dheere is the VO Strategist, a voice over business & marketing coach and demo producer since 2011. He is also a voice actor with over 20 years of experience narrating just about every type of voiceover you can think of. When not voicing or talking about voicing, he produces the sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22.

Welcome to the new VO Strategist Blog! Well, it's not exactly new. The content is exactly the same as it's always been but instead of it being parked at www.TomDheere.com/blog, now it's parked at www.VOStrategist.com/blog. If you've subscribed to the monthly VO Strategist Learnin' Stuff Notice, from now on it will be posted here. Considering this is the first blog post of June and all of my VOS appearances for the month are listed below, consider this the June newsletter. :) I will also be posting all of my "VO How-To" webinar announcements here, too. TIP OF THE WEEK If you're reading this blog entry because you're already subscribed to the blog, you're good to go! If you're reading this blog entry because you clicked on a social media link, it's easy-peasy to subscribe. Just go to www.vostrategist.com, scroll to the bottom of the page, enter your email address, and click the SUBSCRIBE button. Thanks for your 13+ years of supporting my blog ramblings and here's to 13 more! NEWS AND NOTES Tuesday, June 1st @1PM ET: The 7th Annual Johnny Heller Splendiferous Audiobook Workshop. I’ll be on the panel “WORK BETTER NOT HARDER/WORK SMARTER“. Sign up here! June 4-6: Garden State Comic Fest. I and my business partner will be promoting our comic book Agent 1.22. Learn more about Agent 1.22 here and buy tickets for the con here! Thursday, June 10th @8PM ET: The Edge Studio Business and Money webinar "Managing Your Money". This class will give students an understanding of how to best manage the money you make as a voice talent and how to balance that with your personal life. Sign up here! June 11-13: eVOcation - our virtual conference devoted to the business of voiceover! I will be presenting a webinar about how to build your client list. Sign up here! Thursday, June 17th @8PM ET: The Edge Studio Marketing 201 webinar "Thriving in a Smaller Market City". In this class, students will see the advantages of living in a smaller voice over market and how to tap into their local resources. Sign up here! SOLD OUT!!! Saturday, June 19th @5PM ET: The Voice Actors Studio webinar “eLearning Performance Workshop“. Learn about the world of eLearning and get some live coaching, too. Wednesday, June 23rd @8PM ET: The VO How-To Webinar "Online Casting Sites". In this 90-minute webinar, we will explore the world of online voiceover casting sites, the “Pay-to-Play” business model, and how to use Online Casting Sites effectively. This webinar will be recorded so if you can't make it you will get the video! Sign up here! HAPPY HAPPYS Happy Macaroon Day, Say Something Nice Day, and Audiobook Month! QUOTE OF THE WEEK Tom Dheere is the VO Strategist, a voice over business & marketing coach and demo producer since 2011. He is also a voice actor with over 20 years of experience narrating just about every type of voiceover you can think of. When not voicing or talking about voicing, he produces the sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22.

I have a new voice over website! www.TomDheere.com This has been a long time coming (and why I've been quiet for the past few weeks) and I'm thrilled that it's live. Just for fun, here's a is a brief history of my website: 9/13/2002 (my birthday): built TomDheere.com via Yahoo. Here's the oldest version I could find on the Internet Archive. 2006: a new look 2007: another new look 2008: yet another new look (I don't even remember this one) 2010: oh look, another new look 2011: I think this is when I started working with an actual webmaster 2016: Switched from Yahoo to Wordpress hosted by HostGator and a fabulous new webmaster Nikki Saco of Saco Media 2020: switched from Hostgator to Upper Level Hosting 2021-p: switched to WIX TIP OF THE WEEK Why did I switch to WIX? VOStrategist.com was already on WIX and it can do almost everything I need to run both my voiceover and coaching businesses. From event hosting to demo playing to invoicing and everything in between. If you're looking to consolidate Wordpress, your domain manager, your website host, and your invoicing, you may wanna give WIX a sniff... NEWS AND NOTES Thursday, May 27th @8PM EST: Edge Studio Marketing 201 “Keeping Clients Coming Back”. In this webinar, you’ll learn the REAL secret to client retention. Sign up here! Tuesday, June 1st @1PM EST: The 7th Annual Johnny Heller Splendiferous Audiobook Workshop. I’ll be on the panel “WORK BETTER NOT HARDER/WORK SMARTER“. Sign up here! HAPPY HAPPYS Happy Hamburger Day and Paper Airplane Day! QUOTE OF THE WEEK Irony is really only hypocrisy with style. - Barbara Everett, from the film 'Looking for Richard' Tom Dheere is the VO Strategist, a voice over business & marketing coach and demo producer since 2011. He is also a voice actor with over 20 years of experience narrating just about every type of voiceover you can think of. When not voicing or talking about voicing, he produces the sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22.

Direct Marketing is a challenge for most voice actors. We’ve talked about it before in this here blog right here, but since I last blogged about and the fact that I taught the subject just last week, my thoughts have evolved a bit. (FYI Direct Marketing is all the stuff you do to get a voice seeker’s attention and stay top-of-mind) It lines up with how my thoughts about branding have evolved, too. For years I said you MUST brand yourself and you MUST use Direct Marketing. I realized that I always recommended them because I was able to use them effectively to help me realize MY definition of voiceover success. My definition of voiceover success is not necessarily yours. :) TIP OF THE WEEK If you’re considering using Direct Marketing, the first question you should ask yourself is: why? Will using Direct Marketing tactics bring you closer to your definition of success? Have you taken the time to come up with a specific definition of success for your specific business model? Is it possible that your specific business model doesn’t require you to use Direct Marketing? Answer those questions, then decide if Direct Marketing is right for you. If you do decide that Direct Marketing is right for you, use the coupon code DIRECT25 to get 25% off my “VO How-To: Direct Marketing” video at the VO Strategist Shop. Click here to get it. This offer expires Friday night so get it ASAP! NEWS AND NOTES I’m taking a two-week break from blogging. Why? Because my blog is moving AND I’m getting a brand-new website! Wanna keep getting updates? Go to the VO Strategist website, wait for the pop-up window to appear, and enter your email address. Oh, and hit the subscribe button. That might help. See you in two weeks! (REGISTRATION CLOSED) Wednesday, May 12th @12:30 PM EST: APAC Business Diagnostics. I will be chatting with some Audio Publisher Association Conference attendees about the business side of the audio book industry. Thursday, May 13th @8PM EST: The VO How-To Webinar “Learning to do eLearning”. Curious about eLearning narration? In this 90-minute workshop you will learn what eLearning narration is, it’s sub-genres, narration tips, how much to charge, demo specs, and there will be live coaching! If you can’t attend, the webinar will be recorded so you will receive a copy of the video and a PDF of the slides. Sign up here! Thursday, May 20th @8PM EST: Edge Studio Business and Money 201 “Workflow”. In Workflow, you’ll learn how to grease the wheels that make up your voice over business. Sign up here! Thursday, May 27th @8PM EST: Edge Studio Marketing 201 “Keeping Clients Coming Back”. In this webinar, you’ll learn the REAL secret to client retention. Sign up here! Tuesday, June 1st @1PM EST: The 7th Annual Johnny Heller Splendiferous Audiobook Workshop. I’ll be on the panel “WORK BETTER NOT HARDER/WORK SMARTER“. Sign up here! HAPPY HAPPYS Happy Star Wars Day and Hoagie Day! QUOTE OF THE WEEK Tom Dheere is a voice actor with over 20 years of experience narrating just about every type of voiceover you can think of. He also helps other voice talents navigate the voiceover industry as the VO Strategist. When not voicing or talking about voicing, he produces the sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22.

Updated: September 16, 2026 It's been five years since we lost Brad Venable. Brad was a highly skilled and prolific voice actor. Here is his IMDB page to see how many amazing projects he was a part of. Here is the announcement of his passing on IGN. Brad was VERY active in the voiceover community as a proud member of SAG-AFTRA, The World Voices Organization, The Gardner Collective, a speaker at VO Atlanta & FaffCon, and an active participant in many other organizations & causes. Here is an interview with him from Inside the Voice Actors Booth. Brad Venable was a Friend I knew him for ten years and put him in the “dead body in a hotel room” category of friends who would drop everything and be there for you no matter what. He was passionate about everything, a loyal friend, and the best damn hugger in the voice over industry. Brad and me with fellow voice actors staying up WAY past our bedtime at a voiceover conference. I’m friends with hundreds of voice actors and most of the time when we hang out, yes we talk shop, but usually not about our credits. I had NO idea how talented and successful Brad was as a voice actor until his passing. To me he was just a fellow goofy bastard that I had the pleasure of hanging out with a few times a year. Brad Venable was brave. He took the plunge and moved to California in 2017 and crushed it. He’s a lesson to all aspiring voice actors who want to narrate animated characters and be in video games. Good job, bro. Brad, you are still and always will be missed. TIP OF THE WEEK Brad passing at the way-too-young age of 43 was a huge wake-up call for the voice over industry. Life is way too short. Please take care of yourself! Tom Dheere is a voice actor with over 30 years of experience narrating just about every type of voiceover you can think of. He also helps voice talents navigate the voiceover industry as the VO Strategist. When not voicing or talking about voicing, he produces the epic sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22. The VO Strategist Blog is engineered specifically for voice actors seeking concrete business diagnostics, customized career roadmaps, and professional mentorship.