To Brand or Not to Brand

VO BOSS

In this episode, Anne Ganguzza and Tom Dheere dissect the key components of building a robust online presence. From identifying customer pain points to harnessing the power of color psychology in your website design, The BOSSES explore what it takes to convey competence and reliability. We also delve into the subtle yet vital aspects of maintaining an easy-to-navigate, professional website that establishes credibility and trust. Learn how consistent visual cues and coherent storytelling can make or break your brand's effectiveness in today's competitive market. Finally, The BOSSES tackle the nuances of maintaining a consistent brand across social media platforms. We underscore the importance of professionalism and how off-brand or controversial content can jeopardize client relationships.

00:01 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.

00:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast and the Real Boss Series. I'm here with my special guest co-host Tom Dheere. Hey, Tom Dheere, how are you?

00:30 - Tom Dheere (Host) Hey Anne, I'm good. How are you? I'm awesome.

00:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Thank you very much.

00:34 - Tom Dheere (Host) You look fabulous today.

00:35 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Why thank you? So do you. I love your coloring.

00:39 - Tom Dheere (Host) Thank you, it's one of my Hawaii shirts because my wife's from Hawaii, so we go to Hawaii all the time.

00:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) There you go. It's very boss.

00:45 - Tom Dheere (Host) Thank you. I love your blue because it kind of matches the coloring in the background. You look very branded today.

00:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Why, thank you. You know I have multiple brands and multiple colors for my brands, and so it's interesting because red is typically my boss brand. But I thought, you know, let's work a little A&G and Guza brand in here as well, which is my blue, my signature blue. So I'm kind of combining them right now. And, yeah, I've been branded for a while yet, but I don't know, tom, what are your thoughts? I think we should talk about branding, because it is a big discussion among voice actors and it's like everybody makes a big deal like oh my God, I have to like figure out my brand, and they and it's like everybody makes a big deal Like, oh my God, I have to like figure out my brand and they stress out over it. And so let's talk about brands. I mean, how important is it for voice actors to brand these days?

01:33 - Tom Dheere (Host) Well, my thoughts have evolved on this quite a bit over the past 15, 20 years or so. I used to be of the mind that every voice actor absolutely must brand themselves. They should design a logo, they should pick a font, they should pick a color scheme and then their demos, their business cards, their website, their social media content, all of their outbound marketing content newsletters and things like that should be 100% branded. It should be 100% aligned.

02:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well then, I fit the bill there for you. You're perfect. Okay, you're perfect.

02:08 - Tom Dheere (Host) But over the years when I had that perspective, I was focusing primarily on direct and indirect marketing strategies to get the bulk of my voiceover revenue.

02:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I agree, myself included.

02:21 - Tom Dheere (Host) I have representation. I'm on casting sites, but for me, direct and indirect marketing was the place and it's like the old mentality. It's like Anne, why aren't you wearing my glasses? Because they help me see better. So obviously they should help you see better. But gotten a little older, hopefully gotten a little wiser, and just looking at myself and looking at all the students I've had over the years and watching what other successful voice actors do, I don't know if everybody needs to brand themselves.

02:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Well, gosh Tom, for many years there was no branding, right, there was no internet. Well, I shouldn't say there was no branding, but it wasn't as visible. And so how did voice actors in the 80s stand out?

03:02 - Tom Dheere (Host) They didn't, they just auditioned and booked.

03:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) They were managed by their agents, right or managers. And so they didn't have to necessarily brand their businesses. They became known for their voice and their agents were out there kind of branding for them, right.

03:20 - Tom Dheere (Host) Yeah, their reputation was built solely on the quality of their auditions and the quality of the experience when they were in the recording studio working with the clients. And that was it. The value promise was the audition Sure, the value delivery was the recording session. Yeah, platforms on top of that. Most voice actors feel obligated in a way that they have to brand themselves because they have to be on all of these social media platforms and they have to be spewing out content all the time in the hopes that they will catch somebody's attention to stay top of mind to get them into and through the sales funnel and all of that stuff.

04:01 But to your point, if representation was the only casting portal in the industry, no, we wouldn't need to brand. There are online casting sites too pay-to-play sites, voice123, voicescom, vidalgo, what have you? You don't need to brand yourself on there either, because all it's about is the value promise of the audition and the value delivery of the recording session or delivering the files properly formatted, with the proper amount of takes, and you took the direction on the casting notice or whatever. You know what I mean.

04:28 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) What about Fiverr? Just out of curiosity. I know we've had this, I know that's a bad F word but I think it depends on how the platform is marketing you right, or how are people finding out about you right On the platform?

04:38 - Tom Dheere (Host) Yeah, and it's interesting because Fiverr and Upwork, which are technically online casting sites, they weren't designed as voiceover casting sites like Voice123 and Voicescom, but they seem to be conducive for voiceover casting. There's very little auditioning happening on Fiverr and Upwork.

04:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) People come and look and listen.

04:55 - Tom Dheere (Host) It's direct bookings. So, with that in mind, yeah, your branding actually is very important.

05:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Your headshot's very important, I agree.

05:05 - Tom Dheere (Host) Your tagline, the verbiage, how you package and present yourself. Yeah, branding is important.

05:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So then, if you're direct marketing, right, I feel that a brand is very, very important. If you're direct marketing and if people are finding you online, let's say at your website, like for me, tom, and we have different businesses, right, you and I I have multiple brands. I don't have a ton of time to audition, except for my agents, right, which that's a whole different way that I obtain my job, and I don't have any time literally these days to audition on pay-to-plays. However, I do exist on pay-to-plays because I want to make sure that I know the platform so that I can recommend to my students. So for me, my branding is still relevant, I would say, because that's how I get a lot of people that say, oh, the Ann Ganguza brand or Ann, I see you everywhere, and that's good, because that's kind of my purpose.

05:53 - Tom Dheere (Host) Yeah, I have two brands. I have the Tom Dheere the H is silent, but I'm not voice actor brand and then I have the VO strategist brand, and both of them serve different needs. Well, obviously, one for me as a voice actor and then one for me as a voiceover business and marketing consultant and coach and mentor. What's interesting, and tell me, if you have this experience, is that your branding as Ann Gangu's a voice actor greatly informs your reputation and branding as Ann Gangu's a voiceover coach. Because, with a very precious few exceptions, like a Maurice Tobias or a Mary Lynn Wisner, you need to be a boots on the ground, successful, consistently working actor to be taken seriously as a voiceover coach. Absolutely, absolutely.

06:39 So a part of my branding as a VO strategist is go check me out at tomdeercom, listen to my demos, look at my YouTube channel, see all the work that I've done, because the fact that I've done a bunch of e-learning modules is one thing, but the fact that I was the voice of Inspector Gadget in the Inspector Gadget video game last year gives you a lot of street cred. So that attracts certain types of voice actors who want to do that sort of business. And even if they don't. They grew up on Inspector Gadget, so I'm writing the coattails of the brand of Inspector Gadget when I brand myself as Tom Dheere voice actor, because I was Inspector Gadget, which also then feeds into well, if he's able to book work like that, he's competent as a voiceover business and marketing coach. So they all feed into each other.

07:23 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that. You said that you branded on the coattails of another brand and I think that's definitely a strategy. I mean he used to talk about that all the time is that to get credibility? If you are the voice of a brand that is out there and that is heard and seen, then that is your brand right, gaining credibility from another brand, and so it's kind of a strategic partnership. However, I think you can get that strategic partnership. It doesn't necessarily mean like oh, I'm Ann Ganguzza, I have to have blue. That's only a visual part of my brand, that is one part of the encompassing brand when people come to my website. But people if they don't see anything right. So there's a visual part of your brand, there's an audio part of your brand and then there is, I would say, an in-person, physical part of your brand as well that all contributes to who you are and if people decide if they want to work with you or not.

08:20 Right, there's that personality, part of your brand that says I'm reliable, I'm fast, I am accurate. I have the voice that can work with your brand and make it come alive. So there's so many aspects to branding besides, let's say, a website, which is what I think most people think. When they talk about branding, they think, oh, I've got to have that tagline Gosh. I gave up my tagline years ago because it just wasn't pertinent for my particular brand. It just wasn't, and I was out there showing my photograph a long time ago because for me it worked. I felt like people wanted to connect with a person and not necessarily an image of a microphone.

08:59 - Tom Dheere (Host) Sure, it's funny that you say that, because I've been teaching branding for well over 10 years and I've always told my students that branding is telling a story what is the story of you? But also there's usually two ways that you can tell your story as a voice actor from a branding perspective. You can brand your sound or you can brand your personality. So the more distinctive your sound is or the genres that you can do, the easier it is to brand in that direction. If you've got a particularly young voice or particularly deep voice, or if you do movie trailers primarily, or if you do military fiction, audio books exclusively or almost exclusively, it's a lot easier to brand. But the branding of your personality is what is the experience of working with you? So for years I used you as one of my examples of, yes, branding your personality using your tagline are you ready for awesome?

09:54 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's true. Are you ready for awesome? I like that. I did use that and I haven't used that in a while, so let's talk about that. Tom, tell me, what was it that attracted you to that particular aspect of my brand?

10:06 - Tom Dheere (Host) What attracted me to that is that you were setting expectations of what the experience of working with you was is like. So there's the value promise. Like I said, value promise and value delivery. This is about the value delivery. If you work with me, you're going to have a great experience. You're going to be working with a professional, intelligent, excited, ethical, prepared voice actor. That's what are you ready for. Awesome means to me.

10:33 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Geez, maybe I'll bring that back, Tom.

10:36 - Tom Dheere (Host) I mean, why not?

10:36 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I love that, I like that it meant something to you and yeah, absolutely, and it's not that I actually got rid of it, tom. Before that one, I had Dream Out Loud. That was my tagline, and I thought Dream Out Loud didn't do anything for me, necessarily because Dream Out Loud was kind of more focused on me rather than my client. Right, in terms of like, are they dreaming out loud? No, they need somebody that's not dreaming, they need somebody that can speak. Their brand, right, and so therefore, are you Ready for Awesome, kind of helps out their predicament in a much better way. So, yeah, actually I think that that's a great brand. I'll have to talk to my web person.

11:15 Your webmaster, business coach my webmaster to maybe bring that back. And it doesn't have to be all over my page, right it can be in certain parts of my page or in, let's say, in my signature file. It could be in a lot of different places, but I like that. You're right. It basically tells people this is what you're going to be working with.

11:32 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right, and one of the key aspects of any successful brand, regardless of whatever sector that you're in healthcare, automotive, beverages or whatever is that an effective company is able to identify the pain points of the customer. What do you need, what are you struggling with? And then your branding helps you tell the story of how you can solve their problems, how you can address those pain points, how you can cure what ails them, so to speak. Are you ready for awesome is a great way of letting them know that if you work with me, everything's going to be okay, Everything's going to be taken care of, you're going to have an awesome experience and you're going to get what you need, which are quality audio files delivered on time, properly formatted and that help you tell the story of your company's brand most of the time right.

12:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Now I do believe that people visually see that text, they read it, they comprehend it. There's also something to be said for your website in general, and we can have a whole other podcast on websites. But I do believe that, like when I go to purchase something from a website, I have to see that website and feel that I trust it and that the people behind that website have a valuable product and I can purchase that without fear that I'm not going to get that product delivered in a timely and quality manner. And so I assess a lot visually the product by looking at a website. If the website is not constructed in a professional manner, of what standards are today, I hesitate to click and buy. And so I do feel that if you are a voice actor that has a website out there and people happen upon your website, at least have it functionally and visually professional enough so that it instills trust in your potential client, so that they can say oh, okay, this looks safe, right For me.

13:31 I mean, gosh, it's like oh, I buy online all the time. I mean this is like the 21st century, right? We buy online all the time. So again, that place where I buy needs to instill trust in me. And now a quick word from our sponsor, which could be me. Hey bosses, are you looking for even more voiceover resources? Head on over to vopeepscom and take a look at our special Vopeeps VIP VIPs membership. You get access to over 350 hours of on-demand video workshops in addition to free live monthly workouts. Plus, you'll get 15% off each monthly VO Peeps workshop in the future. Sign up now at vopeepscom.

14:12 - Speaker 4 (Host) Hi, this is Debra Elaine Fowler sending a huge shout out to Anne for her VO Boss podcast. I've been listening now since the very first episode six years ago, and I always learn something new. The guests are interesting and Anne brings up topics that maybe I haven't thought about. I find myself researching new topics almost every week. Anne, keep it up, I love what you're doing. And now back to the show.

14:38 - Tom Dheere (Host) The website tells the story of you and of the experience they're going to have as a result of working with you, Because they're immediately. Obviously the first thing that happens as they go to the website is they see the website. Yeah, you know what are the colors that?

14:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) come out?

14:51 - Tom Dheere (Host) What are the fonts Right? How is it organized or laid out? What are the colors? What are the fonts? Is it easy to find your demos?

14:58 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Can I contact this person that's like so important to me?

15:01 - Tom Dheere (Host) Can I contact this person in the way that I want to contact them? Do I want to pick up the phone? Do I want to email them? Do I want to message them on Instagram, or do I want to use their contact form or any of a number of ways? So this tells the story of your competency as a voice actor, and it needs to be consistent. That's why you should be looking up the psychology of color when it comes to establishing a brand. It's like what is the type of voiceover work that you do? How does that reconcile with your personality? How does that reconcile with the needs of the customers that you want to attract? A lot of this stuff is very subconscious or unconscious on the part of voice seekers when they go to your website, but what's there and what isn't there speaks to your brand.

15:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely. And there's something to be said, like there's something almost intangible. When I go to a website and I say oh, oh, I like that, Like it's like pretty packaging, right, I mean.

15:52 I like that package, and so that makes me interested to want to find out more, and if the verbiage on the website helps me to find out more and gets me to where I need to be quickly. Because, again, I don't know. I mean, how many people go around just looking at websites to say, oh, that's a pretty website or, oh, I don't like that website. I mean, really there's a purpose, right, people are shopping around going to a website either finding information.

16:18 Maybe you somehow attracted them to get to your website to find out more about you and your brand and your voice. And if they can get that information easily and it seems to speak to you as being a credible, professional, trustworthy business, product right that they can purchase, then I think that really all has a handle on. It's like a part of the sales funnel, right? I feel like your brand is part of the sales funnel.

16:41 - Tom Dheere (Host) It absolutely is, and that also extends onto your social media platforms and the content that you're creating on the social media platform. If you're trying to brand yourself effectively and consistently, the branding on your social media platforms should line up perfectly with what's going on on your website the font, the logo, the color schemes, the banners, the verbiage and the content that comes out. All of this needs to be consistent Verbiage.

17:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Tom verbiage, and that means if you're on a social media platform and verbiage is coming out of your mouth that isn't necessarily conducive to promoting your brand in a positive way. You might want to think about that. That means if you're going to be controversial or you're going to be spewing verbiage in your social platforms that may be off brand. You might want to consider maybe not doing that or having a completely different brand. I feel like personal brands and voice actor brands are very close.

17:40 It used to be, where, okay, I have a business brand and I'm going to only talk about business on that and I have a personal brand, but I feel like those two brands have really melded together over the years, tom.

17:51 - Tom Dheere (Host) Oh, yes, no, they've completely blurred for a number of reasons. I mean, one reason right now is that if, through your marketing strategies, you've been able to get a voice seeker to go to your social media platforms or to your website, one thing they're trying to determine is are you human?

18:04 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah or are you an AI? That is slowly becoming more of a consideration for voice seekers, and if you're human, are you a good human.

18:12 - Tom Dheere (Host) And are you a good human there?

18:13 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) can be human actions that are controversial that would potentially harm their brand if they were to align right Strategically. We talked about strategic alignment with brands If they were to align with your brand right, it could hurt their brand.

18:27 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right. That leads me to a great point, Anne, is when it comes to your branding. To be perfectly honest, the vast majority of voice seekers aren't paying any attention to anything we're doing on social media, and they're not paying attention to much that's going on on our website. However, they will vet you. They will check out your brand for the aforementioned AI reason and for exactly what you said because nobody wants to work with a voice actor who is an NDA violator.

18:52 Sure sure, absolutely. And starts talking about auditions that they did for projects that haven't been cast yet.

18:57 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Or negatively about companies that they've worked with.

19:00 - Tom Dheere (Host) Or client questions, whether it's warranted or not.

19:02 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Oh my gosh, whether it's warranted or not, guys, just don't do that.

19:05 - Tom Dheere (Host) I see, specifically audiobook narrators regularly complaining about the publishers because, oh, I didn't get enough of a pronunciation guide or there were too many spelling errors on this manuscript, and I'm just as they're doing it. I'm like, what are you?

19:16 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) doing yeah yeah, why Because?

19:18 - Tom Dheere (Host) audiobook publishers are the ones that are the most likely to pay attention to your branding and pay attention to your website and pay attention to your social media platform and if you're kvetching about your client like that's a great way to lose a client.

19:32 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's like anybody complaining about their employer. Right, hr is continually going out online to see if you're making complaints and then that's the first line of fire to get fired if you're speaking negatively. And so even if you think it's private, like in a Facebook group, and it's marked a private group, it's not. Screenshot is like literally a couple of keystrokes away, and even if it says it's private, it's not. We all know things are not private.

20:00 I mean yesterday I happened to be on a family outing at Disney and everything I talked about came up on my Facebook feed just saying so nothing is private. And so really just for your brand's sake, and so I do want to. I know now we've got into the whole what's good for your brand, but let's go back to Tom. If someone is just doing jobs through their agent, is it required that they have a website now and a brand specifically, or maybe not?

20:28 - Tom Dheere (Host) Website yes, brand maybe.

20:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Okay. Maybe, what's on the website then?

20:33 - Tom Dheere (Host) Okay, well, from a branding perspective logo consistency of font on the logo itself and the tagline and with the verbiage on the website the color scheme that you have established on this logo needs to align with the color scheme that is on the homepage and all the other pages, unless there's a possibility you've branded yourself based on genre or subgenre.

20:55 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Is this for voice actors who are managed or who have talent, agents only, or is this?

21:00 - Tom Dheere (Host) It's a great question. I can't speak to what voice seekers that work through managers and agents are doing. How much are they vetting the voice actors that are represented by the agents and managers that they're working with? Most of the time they're probably not. It's usually just send me these auditions. We'll pick the person that we think is the best who vocally represents this company brand message.

21:19 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Unless you're well-known, I would say right as a video game, character or an animation, character and then I think, your brand is important online. Right your actions in your social media. I'm thinking Daniel Ross, who recently, you know, is now the voice of Donald Duck. Bob Bergen has the voice of Porky. Pig, I mean and Christina Milizia, who I just interviewed as well on this podcast, and Christina Milizia who?

21:41 I just interviewed as well on this podcast the characters that they represent. She has to be careful. They have to be careful what they do online and also their actions, because a lot of them might go to cons and do autograph signing, and so that's an in-person branding as well, so they have to be very careful about their brand.

21:58 - Tom Dheere (Host) Okay, there are two groups of voice actors. There's public figures and private figures. Public figures in voiceover are those who do cartoons, video games and audiobooks. Okay, because if you're an audiobook narrator, you're being followed by authors, rights holders and listeners of the audiobooks. Okay, and it's a very public thing because these are very front-facing products audiobooks, cartoon and video game voice actors are also public figures, also just because of the fan base. The fan base really wants to know and loves to adore and follow the voice actors who are the voices of their favorite cartoon and video game characters. Everybody else is kind of clumped into the private voice actors. With the exception of, for me, inspector Gadget, red Dead Redemption and a handful of other things. I'm primarily a private voice actor. So me talking about my e-learning and her explainer experience online, nobody cares, nobody cares that?

22:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Tom Dheere. I'll tell you what his e-learning module.

23:03 - Tom Dheere (Host) That HR video he narrated oh for God's sakes. Like nobody does that. Nobody does that, nobody cares, nobody cares about that. And yes, that, nobody does that, nobody cares, nobody cares about that. And yes, your branding should be influenced by that Absolutely. So you want to be careful. So if you're a private voice actor, yeah, don't be an NDA violator. Don't be a client basher. Don't be some religious political whack job.

23:24 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's all you have to worry about. And even if you're a public figure in a way that you don't think like because I know there are people who are out there that troll. I've been trolled. If you're out there as a coach, as a demo producer, I guess you can say if you've been trolled, you've made it.

23:39 - Tom Dheere (Host) Right, because then, so you actually matter. I matter in a way, but yes, I've been trolled and that's very upsetting, but Tom, I'm sure you've been trolled too, Maybe.

23:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I don't know if Inspector Gadget has, but I mean Inspector Gadget.

23:51 - Tom Dheere (Host) I only got trolled in that. I'll just put it to you this way. There was one person who hated my performance so much that they took the trailer for the Inspector Gadget video game and replaced my voice with Don Adams, who was the original Inspector Gadget. So You've made it Tom, congratulations actually I'll take that as a proper trolling. There you go.

24:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So I guess then, in essence, tom, I know you've evolved over the years with your views on branding. You don't know if it's as necessary, or maybe just branding in general has evolved. I still feel like, in this sea of voice actors, if somebody is going to see you online, then brand is important.

24:29 If you're not necessarily online, if maybe you're part-time and hey, there's a lot of amazing talent that we hear every single day on national spots that don't have websites that I don't even know. We don't even know who they are, right, Because they don't need to have that brand. So I tend to agree with you and I think that we have to continually be educated about what's important for your business when it comes to being recognized. Now, what about voice actors that are new to the industry? Is it important that they have a branded website, that they have a tagline? Is it important that they have a headshot?

25:07 - Tom Dheere (Host) Okay, I think at first it's a terrible idea. I think it's a terrible, terrible idea because what drew them to the voiceover industry may not necessarily be what keeps them in the voiceover industry. In other words, they may not be any good at what they want to do and they may turn out to be really good at something that they don't want to do. So from a branding perspective-.

25:27 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) They don't know their brand yet.

25:28 - Tom Dheere (Host) They don't know their branding because they don't know what they can book. So if you're early in your voiceover journey, us bosses are taking a little pressure off. You Don't worry about branding yet Book gigs.

25:38 See what the voiceover industry tells you are the types of genres and subgenres in the markets that you can book Then you can build a brand around that because if that's something that's bankable, if people are willing to give you money to say this kind of voiceover work, then you can build a reputation on that because, like we said, branding, storytelling, reputation all of these things are intertwined. So just to have a basic, nondescript website with your contact information, basic information about you and downloadable demos which is the most important thing to have on a website- yes, absolutely.

26:12 Then let the branding come about you and downloadable demos, which is the most important thing to have on a website. Yes, absolutely. Then let the branding come to you and then you can and you're talking visual branding. Visual branding.

26:17 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yes, I'm going to say vocal branding. I'm very much into vocal branding, depending on what genre you study with me, right. So vocally branding, that's something that you can have a good coach help you with, because they're going to help and you will discover that vocal branding in the beginning.

26:34 For whatever genre you're studying Now, that doesn't mean that you won't evolve over time right To have more vocal brands. I think you can have multiple brands that are related, but you cannot, like, if you're a young person and you sound young right, for the entirety of the time that you are younger, for a few years at least, you're going to be more of that youthful sound, probably if that's how you've been vocally branded. So I think if you're new it helps to have a good coach to help vocally brand you. But visual branding and you're right, tom, as you go you'll find out. What do you get hired for? Right, I never thought about medical and all of a sudden I started getting hired for medical and now, oh well, that makes sense now because I used to work in the medical field. So you know something I didn't know before.

27:21 - Tom Dheere (Host) Yeah, what a great coach like you can help people with is what celebrities do you sound like? What sectors of the voiceover industry can you get work in? You know there's commercials in general, but then there's automotive in particular, or home and family products, or alcohol, or boots you know what I mean or cowboy boots or whatever that sort of thing. Anne can definitely help you with that. And then when you are positioning yourself, and then when Anne helps you make your demo, it can help with that vocal positional branding. So the spots that you would do on a demo with Anne would align with the celebrities that you can sound like. Not imitations, but just like reminiscent of.

27:58 You know what I mean. I'll give you an example For me right now. For the past year or so it's been Ryan Reynolds. I've been booking spots because I have a Ryan Reynolds sound.

28:07 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, you do.

28:08 - Tom Dheere (Host) A voice actor just connected with me on LinkedIn and said do you know that you sound like Ryan Reynolds and I don't have that branding anywhere on my website. I'm seriously considering doing it because these casting notices that tend to have the Ryan Reynolds celebrity reference I'm booking. So that may be something I would need to consider. But again, that's the industry. At this point in my journey, that's the industry telling me, because Ryan Reynolds wasn't a factor when I started in the 90s. But if I was starting now and working with Anne, she's got a good enough ear to know that like, yeah, you got kind of a Ryan Reynolds sound. Maybe we should get kind of these kind of quirky, fun, cute little spots on your demo to showcase that particular sound.

28:50 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely Well. That was a very involved branding conversation but I love it, I love it. I feel like we still could go on, and, on, and on. But, thank you, tom. So much for that. Guys, I'm going to give a big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too, can network and connect like bosses like Tom and myself. Find out more at IPdtlcom. Have an amazing week, guys, and we will see you next week. Thanks so much.

29:20 - Intro (Announcement) Bye. Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry-rev, revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution, with permission. Coast-to-coast connectivity via IPDTL.