Tag: Christmas

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Is Your Voice Over Business Ready For The Holidays? [Video]

Nobody is going to make you put your Christmas Tree up yet. You don’t have to decorate or start baking or begin shopping. It’s too early for that, I think we can all agree.

However, if you haven’t started thinking about the holiday season from a voice over perspective, you could be missing out on a lot of opportunities to connect with clients and find new work.

You may not be ready for the holidays yet, and nobody is going to make you put up your #Christmas Tree. However, it’s…

Posted by Marc Scott Voice Over on Tuesday, November 3, 2015

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Christmas Vacation

The holiday season is upon us and Christmas is just a couple weeks away now.

Got your shopping done yet? Yeah, me neither.

Taking a look at the calendar this year perhaps you’ve noticed, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Eve and New Year’s Day all fall right smack dab in the middle of the week.

When the holidays fall like that many companies offer extended holidays to their employees.

Christmas Vacation

christmas-2014Have you asked your boss about their plans for you yet?

Yes, that means, have you considered what you’re doing for Christmas holidays?

I know some VO’s who are shutting down on December 23rd and not opening up again until January 6th. If you’re in a position with your business to be able to take the extended leave, more power to you! I hope you enjoy it as you’ve certainly earned it. 🙂

I know some other VO’s who will work straight through.

If you haven’t thought about it yet, now would be a good time to determine exactly when your studio will be opened and closed over the holiday season and offer a courtesy heads up to your regular clients that may come calling.

On a related note, if you’ve got ongoing projects that will extend through Christmas, it might be a good idea to confirm now with your clients when they’ll be open and closed over the holiday season so there’s no confusion.

Whatever your plans are for the Christmas season, it’s my prayer that you are surrounded by the ones you love.

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Top 5 Signs The Summer Voice Over Season Has Arrived

Now that the Victoria Day (Canada) and Memorial Day (U.S.) weekends have come and gone, I suppose that means summer is officially here. But, it’s not just the longed for holiday weekends in May that remind us summer has come. There are a few other tell-tale signs…

Top 5 Signs The Summer Voice Over Season Has Arrived

working-vacationConstruction: You’re intentionally looking for commercials for home improvement stores and contractors so there’s no need to edit out all the summer construction noise that’s in the background of your recordings.

To The Beach: Wait… who’s kidding who? There’s no time to take off work to hit the beach. That explains why you’re in the studio recording in your bathing suit. Living the dream… if only in your mind.

Extra Blankets: You know summer is upon us when you’re heading out for family vacation and in the “Special Instructions” section of your online hotel booking you request extra blankets in your room. You know… for sound-proofing those recordings from the road.

Child Labor: If the kids are going to be out of school and running and screaming around the house while you’re trying to work you may as well pitch them to your clients. Who needs a child voice over?!

Back To School: Because the retail universe is entirely opposed to letting you enjoy any kind of summer holiday at all, your clients, agents and such are already sending you Back to School voice over scripts. Oh… and while you’re at it… why not hang the Christmas lights?!

The top 5 signs the summer #voiceover season has arrived. msvo.me/1krQFwc Click to Tweet

Wishing you a safe, happy and blessed summer holiday season. Here’s to cold drinks, working from the patio, dips in the pool between sessions and everything… yes… everything… being cooked on a BBQ!

FOR COMMENT: Got any fun items to add to the list?

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5 Things To Do Before The End Of The Year

December 23. Can you believe it? A couple more sleeps until Santa arrives, and just a few more after that until we ring in an entirely new year.

New beginnings. New possibilities. New opportunities.

Here’s 5 things you might want to do this week to tie up loose ends in your voice over business and get yourself set up to start the new year off right.

5 Things To Do Before Year End

year-end-checklist1) Say Thank You – If you don’t send Christmas cards, consider a quick note to each and every client you’ve worked with this year. Just a simple thank you for the opportunities type note. A kind and friendly gesture that lets them know you appreciate them.

2) Goal Planning – Business will likely be slow from now until New Year’s. What better opportunity to take advantage of some down time to start setting (and writing down) your goals for the coming year? Big goals. Small goals.  Business goals. Personal goals. Don’t be afraid to dream big!

3) Invoice Reminders – Is it tactless to send out payment reminders over the holidays? It could be argued either way, I supposed. But before the end of the year, I’d recommend going over your outstanding invoices (if you have any) and sending a friendly reminder that you’d like to get them cleared up.

4) Give A Little – Christmas is a season of giving. How can you give back this year? A financial donation? A bag of food to a local food bank? A new unwrapped toy for an organizations toy drive? The gift of time to invest in a fellow talent? Donating your services to a charity in need of voice over work? Find a way to give a little back this holiday season and enjoy the gift of joy you’ll receive from doing so.

5) Reflect – I keep a list of my “Greatest Hits.” These are accomplishments both personal and professional that I achieved over the course of the year. The best things that I did or that happened to me. I plan on spending some time reflecting back on those moments of joy and success and really taking time to appreciate all the good that’s come my way in 2013.

Finish the year out strong. Heading into 2014 on a positive note is a great way to set yourself up for continued success. Keep the momentum alive!

Wish you a VERY blessed holiday season. Merry Christmas to you and yours!

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An Epic iPhone Syncing Fail

Stop me if you’ve done this before.

You plug your iPhone into your computer. You click the sync button. You leave the phone to sync. You come back later to see if the sync is complete. It is. You unplug your phone. You open the contacts on your computer. THEY’RE ALL GONE!!!

How To Make Me Cry

sync-in-progressI keep all of my voice over clients in my address book on my laptop. All of their names, email addresses, phone numbers and mailing addresses. Information I’ve gleaned from email signatures, contracts, non disclosure agreements and company websites, to name a few.

This information comes in handy for sending out postcards or, in a case like today, writing Christmas cards for all my clients from 2013.

Here’s the problem, when I went to start addressing all of those Christmas cards, all of my mailing addresses were gone from my contacts list.

That’s when I nearly started to cry.

Syncing Mistakes 101

It would seem the last time I set my iPhone to sync with iTunes on my Macbook, I had the setting checked to have the iPhone contacts overwrite the computer contacts. How I did this, why I did this… I’ll never know. But trust me, I’ll spend a few sleepless nights thinking about it!

What should have been a festive few hours writing out Christmas cards turned into an all afternoon and all night long affair, just to finish around 30 of them!!! Yes… 30! Because instead of grabbing the mailing info from my contacts, I had to find every last mailing address for every last client ALL OVER AGAIN!

You Can’t Fix Stupid

This would normally be the sort of story I’d never share because, let’s be honest, it’s pretty humiliating. An honest enough mistake, sure. But humiliating none the less.

After I got over my overwhelming desire to curl up in the fetal position and cry, I could only laugh instead. I mean, it’s pretty funny when you think about it. Or at least, it might be funny if it happened to someone else!!!

That’s why I share.

So you can laugh.

And check your sync settings!!!

QUESTION: Have you ever had a sync fail?