Selling Your Voice Online and Creating Projects with Anthony Pica

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

Hi there and welcome to Vox Talk, your weekly review from the world of voiceover. I'm your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli. From Voices. Today, Anthony Pica from A VO's Journey joins me to discuss the gig economy and how you can take advantage of opportunities to sell your services on demand. With Voices Project Marketplace and full swing, Anthony will share tips on how you can get your voice out there and create projects that will attract the attention of clients. Welcome to the show, Anthony.

Anthony Pica:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Wonderful. So we're going to get right to it. I first saw you do a great video on YouTube that actually explained how people could use Project Marketplace, and that's one of the reasons why we're talking today. But you highlighted in that video that Voices had joined the gig economy.

Anthony Pica:
Yes.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
So I would like to take a moment now, if you could, to give a brief definition of what the gig economy is.

Anthony Pica:
Yeah, absolutely. And again, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor to be on your show. I like to think of the gig economy as an entire new way of taking services and creating a more product like approach. So as we as voice actors know, we are in a very service heavy type of business, which means that we have to do a lot of back and forth communication, a lot of work finding people a lot of work with costs, a lot of work with taking meeting times and doing XYZ. There's so much work and service work that goes into that. But the gig economy takes a service and basically transforms it into a product that someone can come and purchase. And that MP3 file, that WAV file that we create now becomes more of a tangible thing as opposed to we as the individual. It being more so the file itself becomes the more tangible thing, as opposed to just the individual. Now, this can be scary for some people, I think, because it does bring us more to a more futuristic way, I think, of looking at things, but I think it opens the door of opportunity for so many people because now you have that opportunity in the gig economy to get yourself out there in a way that you didn't have before, that's it in a nutshell. It's taking our services, Voiceover and any other service, really, and turning it into more of like a product.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Thank you for that definition. And you've experienced a lot of success on other platforms where you can create products or projects or gigs, as they're called. And I know that just recently, of course, as we said earlier, you've been creating projects on Voices. So tell me, Anthony, why would a voice actor want to create projects and what kind of potential is there?

Anthony Pica:
Absolutely. And I love Voices.com very much. But I can guarantee you that no voice actor or actor because I was an actor for about 20 years before I started the voiceover business, really loves getting up and going to audition. I really think that is not the thing you wake up in the morning and say, I can't wait to do today. And as working actors and voice actors, we know that your job really does become about auditioning. So I always thought the dream would be to wake up and you have jobs sitting in a queue somewhere that you can grab your cup of coffee and stroll over in your pyjamas and go to your booth and record and you're done for the day. Now, of course, life isn't always that easy, but that's the dream. And these projects, gigs, these offerings allow people, the clients themselves, to have more of a choice and more so the opportunity to make decisions on their own time. And it allows for voice actors to not have to spend so much time and effort going after one specific job. And here's another thing I think is vital to this. If you do an audition, depending on a bunch of different things. But let's say you do an audition for a piece and you've got maybe let's just say out of fairness, 50% to 60% chance, somebody will listen to it. We'll just say 60%. All right, so now one person. So you've done 100 auditions. You've got 60 people have heard your auditions. So 40 auditions that you spent time with are gone. Now, out of that 60 auditions, what order did they hear you in? Were you the 10th? The 20th, the 30th, maybe. All right. As a previous casting director that I was as well. I can tell you after about ten or 15 auditions, you're pretty much brain dead. Things start to sound the same. It is a part of just the way it is. However, when you create, for example, a project on Voices or any other place, what you're doing is you're taking back your time and allowing marketing, allowing advertising, allowing a lot of different factors to draw clients and people in. So that now you've created something once like a project, but you could have tens of thousands of people view that project in a single month or maybe even more. Do you know what I mean? So it is very beneficial, and I love the word leverage because to me, it really leverages what you're putting out there. So instead of a one to one like an audition now, you could do one to thousands and thousands of people. So you can see where this could really benefit anybody and take a lot of that extra time that you spend waiting for auditions, auditioning, doing other things to someone, literally coming and purchasing a voiceover from you. And you didn't even have to go through all of that stuff. So it's a really wonderful thing, I think.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yes, a lot of talent would agree with that sentiment. I know one of the perks when Julianna and I were talking about this was that if you don't want to audition nearly as much as you are now, then you can go create a project. But of course, audition if you enjoy it. And if that's the way you find you book most of your work. But I hear you also on the ability to scale. That's something that you cannot do, make more time. We're only given 24 hours a day. That's it. But with this, a whole other door of opportunity is opened. I love that. And really, all of that, they've got to be good marketers, though. I think it isn't as simple as putting a project up. It's got to be appealing to somebody. All right, so all that said, Anthony, can you walk us through your process for creating a project?

Anthony Pica:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is a good time to mention that one thing I see a lot, and it's going to be the same with this project as we go through this. But with any platform, especially invoices too, it is so paramount that you always fill out every possible thing that a platform asks you or gives you the opportunity to fill out. And I see a lot of people oftentimes don't fully fill out their profile or fill out any extra questions or any extra little corners of their specific projects. And what happens in turn is that you lose out on that professionalism. But let me go ahead and walk you through. I like to think of things in three ways. Okay. So the first way is that people have to find you, period. Whether it's on Voices.com, whether it's on the Internet, people have to find you first. What does that entail? That entails a title. All right. Tags, description. It entails people finding you. They have to find you. The first thing is they find you. The second thing is once they find you, you have to be enticing enough for them to click on you. All right? So that usually boils down to your thumbnails. Thumbnails are vital to success in this idea of projects and gig economy, because trust building. Trust is hard. And I always say, even though the end product, the individuals who listen to our voiceovers while we're actually in the commercial or whatever will never see us, we'll never know our name, will never know anything about us. But the people who hire us, they want to know our name. They want to know our face, because in their mind, they are picturing us explaining their message, us being their brand ambassadors. All right. And so our thumbnails, they are key for people clicking on you. So remember, when you have a set up, you want people to stop and say, oh, that person looks really professional. Now, of course, we know as actors, Voices.com. And the people on voice actors on there do a really good job with headshots. But it's not just about your headshot. It's also about your headshot and putting a relevant title there with your thumbnail. So something like I could put Male Voiceover, American Male Voiceover. If I'm doing something like maybe I'm doing a meditation, you know what I mean? Meditation, voiceover podcast, intro and outro voicemail and IVR right next to your picture. You want your picture to be a good portion of it. At least 50% to 60% should be your picture, and then it should be a title that is clear, nicely sized, formatted correctly using the formatting process that Voices gives you so that it all fits correctly and that it's easy to read. Don't be sucked into wanting to do some really fancy calligraphy and things like that. That is beautiful. But remember, we want people to see. And the stats are you get one to 3 seconds of time when somebody gets to click on you, all right? And by the time they click on you and they listen to you, you get one to 3 seconds. And if you don't hook them by then, they're onto the next person. So this is a different type of style and approach to us as voice actors and getting online business before, so much about networking. Now we are doing things based on online traffic, time, people scrolling on their phone. So many more people are doing and purchasing from their phone. So you've got to make it good. So that's the second thing, your thumbnails and your pricing, of course. All right. I like how Voices have set pricing standards and things like that. So they have that on there. That's great. All right. But you set your prices. So those two things are vital for you getting clicked on. And then the third thing is once you get clicked on, you have to be inspiring enough for them to purchase from you. And this comes down to your demos. This comes down to you filling out your copy. All right? Your copy needs to be relevant to the point of what your particular offering is. I always say it's really good to say a little bit about yourself, but it should be about what the client is going to get from you in this particular offering project that you have. Why it's relevant to them. Okay. I see a lot of people put so much stuff about themselves, which is fine because we think people want to know about us. But in the end, everything that you have to offer, okay, should be wrapped up in how all of that could help the client. Because I always say, remember, like you're Yoda, they're Luke Skywalker. Your job is to make them the star. Even though you are the star of your story, they're the star. And that's our job to make them the star. So we need to make sure everything we do paint them a picture. And through your gig or your project, that's what you need to do, starting with your copy copy is paramount. Also, make sure you give a call to action in your copy. I apologize if I'm going really fast. I'm going to make sure I get this in everybody, but make sure you get a call to action in your copy. Meaning, like you need to say, hey, I'm excited to work with you. Purchase now. Let's get started. Order now. Right. I see a lot of people say contact me. There's no problem with contacting you. But again, the whole point of projects is so that you are not sitting there spending hours going back and forth with contacting people. Projects and this type of work switch from what we do in services to more of a bulk scenario where we can do bulk work and you can make a lot of money doing this, even though a lot of voice actors are nervous about it. And I understand completely why, but it's because this is different. The process is different here. So we're spending one 10th of time. We have to make sure that with our project set up, which I'm going to get into a little more in a second that it's set up in a way that we don't have to answer 20,000 questions, like, for example, FAQs or the projects or Voices does a really good job of having some extras that people can offer that you can offer on your stuff, any questions. Plus they add your normal profile on there that you've already set up invoices. So you also have that, which I really like because it gives you even more chance of being seen. All of these things you need to fill out, you need to fill out to the fullest. Okay. And you need, of course, have your best demo. And remember, your demo, all right, of course, is key to this. But I have to say, and this is something that I don't want to upset anybody. But your demo is so vital, but your demo becomes just one part of the picture now. Not the most important part. Okay. Because now all of these other things play such a vital role. So in this type of gig economy world and projects, if you are not found and you are not clicked on, it doesn't matter how good your demo is because no one will be able to find you or see you.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yes. Okay. Geoff and I were just talking about that right before we started the show. So. Yeah. Because you can search for text, but you cannot search for images or audio or video in the same way, right?

Anthony Pica:
No, exactly. Maybe one day, but definitely not now. And I've not heard of anybody doing anything like that. So I think that is so important. And I mentioned three things. So that means people have to do two things. First, they got to find you, then they got to click on you before they listen to you. Right. So that means that most people. And this is what makes difference with projects is they focus on the third thing, because that's what we've been brought up as waste, actors and actors in general to focus on. But with this, it's new. With this, you need to focus on those first things too, all right? You need to focus on making sure your title, your descriptions, you've got relevant keywords, you've got tags, whatever is available that Voices gives you, and then that your thumbnail is enticing. It's professional looking. It doesn't look like you found the picture from 15 years ago on your computer and you're like, that's the best I got. I'm going to put we all done that. We all know we're searching around for a picture that'll work. I was 30 pounds lighter. We've all done that. Okay? But we want take that. I know it costs money, all right? But try hard to get professional headshots, because I always say too, like if you want to come on Voices, then you want to make $100,000 a year. All right? It's possible. However, you have to treat it like you're making $100,000, like you're going to make $100,000 a year on that platform. We can't just jump on any old platform and say we're going to put up a couple of things and this place doesn't work. You have to always see if you're going to go to an interview for a six figure job, are you going to dress nice? Are you going to make sure your resume is spotless and everything is amazing and your answers are right on? Of course you are. Well, the same thing with these platforms, but because they're a little more accessible, right. Nowadays, it's easier for anybody just to throw anything up. But you set yourself apart by doing all the things I just mentioned. Okay? That's how you look professional. So I hope that was a good overview look of how to get things set up. I think it's so important in the end to just make sure you fill everything out to the best of your ability. Oh, and one more thing. Just say one more thing. I love this television show. It was an old show. It's called Hotel Impossible. I don't know if anybody has ever seen it. Anyways, in this show, this guy goes around and he fixes hotels that are broken down and stuff. And there was this one episode where he was at a hotel and everywhere he went in the hotel, there was these signs that said, no swimming after 06:00 p.m.. No children allowed, no ice buckets beyond this point. No this, no that, don't do this, don't do that. And it made the point that it made you feel very unwelcome to be there, almost like they did not want customers, like the customers were bothering them. And we've all been to those drive-thrus where it looks like they don't want us there, okay? And it's the same thing with these gigs, too, in your project. So when you go in there, for example, you might say, and this is important, don't be afraid to put in there things that, hey, listen, I'm not interested in doing XYZ. Please don't do this or hire me to do that. But whatever you do, make sure we say it in a way that is friendly, kind and still inviting. Currently, I'm not offering these services. Do you know what I mean? But I'm open to speak to you. You know what I mean? We have to make sure we're not I don't do this. I don't do that. Don't contact me for that. It makes it sound like, Jeez, I'm not in contact them at all. They're going to bite my head off. Right. So you have to make sure too, even though it is text. Just like that old email thing where the emails sound a lot worse than what it really is. You got to try to sound inviting with your copy, too, right?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah. There you go. Oh, my goodness. Everyone had better go and listen back because there's so much richness in there and don't want anyone to miss that. Now, something I know is tricky for a lot of people is getting a good headshot and some talent are apprehensive about a headshot. But you've just made the case for why they need to, because people will trust another person they want to work with. You. And I happen to know of a website not used it myself, but I know the people who created the company, Flytographer.com. So if anyone is looking to either have gone a family vacation, have all your pictures taken by somebody local to the area. But you can also do headshots. So they do a modern headshot, make you look amazing, all that sort of thing. But it's as simple as that, really. Like you can find professional photographers in your area or maybe even do something fun like go somewhere to a city an hour or so away and have some neat lifestyle shots done.

Anthony Pica:
No, absolutely. Listen. And this is why it's even so more important now with projects like this. Is that again, like I was saying earlier, you have to how is like, here's a perfect example. When we go, we all shop on Amazon, these places. I mean, this is the world we are living in, the world that Amazon has created. All right. When you go on Amazon, think about it. What do you look at? You definitely look at the picture. They've got all these different things. You look at all the different views, then what do you do? You look at the description. All right, of course you've looked at the price, but then what do you do? You look at reviews, you look at all of these things. And this is what people are expecting. But without that picture, without a great picture, I don't know about you guys. I don't buy anything off Amazon or anything unless I can see the picture. And it better be a really good picture. If they see your picture and it looks very professional, what are they going to think? Well, if the picture looks that professional, probably going to get a professional product. And whether that's true or not, it's what we feel when we see something. And by the way, all this happens in a split second. All this is happening right when they see you right away. So that's why you can't waste any time. And also remember, it's a different thing, too, because you're trying to entice them to click on you. You've got to get that click before they even listen to you.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah, well, you've got to be trusted, I suppose, which is one of the other questions I had for you. And I think we've answered that quite a bit throughout our conversation is just being professional, saying very clearly what it is that you can do, having a great headshot and also just making yourself approachable and nice. You don't want to be someone who again, is like, don't stay in my hotel, even though it's like turning away business, that sort of thing. But just another question. You did mention ratings and reviews. And I know that this is huge. And one of the only ways, in fact, the only way you can get a rating or review on Voices is if you complete your work on Voices. And I believe that would be the same on any platform because that's how you do build trust. So do you have anything that you can say about that?

Anthony Pica:
Oh, yeah, there's lots to say about that. And this is something that I do want to speak to a lot of the people who are apprehensive because I know that when you're just starting out, you don't have a portfolio, you don't have clients, you're new. So things, the way they're presented to you aren't very intimidating. But when you've done something for a while and then you're trying to grow your business and you go to a place where it almost feels like you have to start over again with reviews, that can be very difficult. But the reality is reviews are the only way I'd say. But reviews become just as or even a little more important than your demo because that's how people judge whether or not they can work with you. So it's very important that we are putting not only our best service out there, but making sure that we are doing everything we can to make the customer feel great, do what we need to do, but also that we get that review. Here's another thing, too. I think this is important. I've worked with a lot of voice actors and I've worked with a lot of people, a lot of clients and Voiceover, out of the thousands and thousands of people you work with, you're going to come across some not so nice clients and they're going to leave. Not so nice reviews Sometimes even when you try to do everything in your power to do. But remember, when you read that review and you have an opportunity to possibly respond, whatever you do or even message the client, whatever you do, stay above board in kind. Do not engage in anger and frustration with the client and the review. Because remember, other people will see what you post, right? Other people will see what you post. If it's a message scenario where you want to message the client, you know what I mean? A lot of times when something happens like that, it's also an opportunity. I wanted to point that out because a lot of times there's a lot of situations where you can kind of screw things up more when someone leaves a not so nice review. If you respond in a not so nice way, all people will see is what they can expect from you if you screw up. Because remember, we all make mistakes. Even if it's not our fault, we're all going to mess up. It's what we do after we mess up. That makes all the difference, right?

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
We always want our customers to be gracious to one another and to follow our community guidelines for content. And that extends to reviews. You want to be kind, courteous, and just sensitive to the fact that you're talking to another person, even though there's a screen in between you and there's maybe no moving images. That doesn't change the fact that it's still a very real human being that you are interacting with. So far as when people have the reviews happen. I know in the auditioning process, obviously, when you're hired and you're paid and the work is approved, then the client is prompted to then review you, and then the talent can review back. With projects, I would expect it to be similar. Don't quote me on that. But again, they're being prompted to do something so you don't have to ask. And I know that can sometimes be an awkward thing, but with our system, there's already a little nudge, a soft little nudge to go and do the next step.

Anthony Pica:
Sure. No, I understand. I'll be honest with you. I find that you still need to ask. But if you're not supposed to ask, that's okay as well too, because we won't follow the guidelines. But I do know because people are busy. Usually you'll get about a 60% to 70%. If you're good, you'll get a 70 70%. But a lot of times multiple platforms that I've been on, it's usually about 60% of people will leave and other people will grab their stuff and go. And they're not mad. They don't dislike you. They're just busy. That's the whole point. Why? They just grabbed it and went and there's nothing wrong with what you've done. It's just they're just grabbing their stuff and going. And it's exactly the point of why, for example, Voices is putting projects out there to help people get what they need quickly. And everybody hopefully can benefit from it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
If it's an idea or there's some other way of getting those without the talent having to ask later down the road when you feel it's been like a month. Come on, guys. Where's my review? I can totally see how that would be because you know that reviews are what are building the trust. It's literally the mechanism by which other people begin to trust you. So I think that any platform that's offering this kind of way of getting hired or being hired at all should definitely make it as easy as possible to leave that review. But, Anthony, we all know human nature. We can't make someone do something they're not going to do.

Anthony Pica:
No.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah. But we do absolutely want people to know about the great experiences they've had. And if it's been a not so great experience, then they should communicate that. I think that it's a venue for honesty, and that also might help someone grow in what they're doing. And it's so long as you say, don't take it too personally, don't get emotions involved. It's a customer service opportunity, really, for you to possibly respond and get back in touch with that person. Just be like, "You know what? Thank you so much. I will be sure to work on that for future."

Anthony Pica:
Oh, absolutely. And trust me, it is hard, though. It can be very difficult. But you're right, because sometimes people will say things that are not true and again, use the opportunity to be the bigger person and to thank them for their job, for the work. And you hope you get a chance to work with them next time, because remember, it's not just them, it's everyone else that is looking at that.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
That's right. Reviews are powerful.

Anthony Pica:
Yes, they are. And how you react to them are very powerful.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
You're absolutely right. Goes so much further than we know. So before we go, I have one more question to ask you about the projects. So let's assume someone's made a bunch of projects and they're really excited about them. What are the best strategies that you know of for promoting those to other people and what's worked for you in the past?

Anthony Pica:
Yeah. There are so many ways to promote online. That's why I love working on the Internet, because it's become the equalizer, I think. So first off, of course, you're going to want to make sure that everything is just completely optimized on Voices, so that the enormous amount of traffic that Voices is sending to the site for you people are being able to find you by everything we talked about earlier. So that's the first thing you need to do. And also for all the people that you might end up sending there yourself, you want to make sure when they go there, they get a feeling that we talked about being professional. You do that and trust by building trust. You can build trust by making sure everything is filled out because it shows you care. All right. So that's the first part. The second part is there's social media. And it's become almost, some people love it, some people can't stand it, some people refuse to get on it. But there is such an ability for us to drive traffic where we want it to go. Okay. And you know, what I do is you can maybe let's say you come up with a schedule and say, you know what, three times a week, I'm going to post something on, we'll just pick one platform. All right. So maybe I'm just going to post something on Twitter and maybe I'll post something on exciting job today. I got to be an M & M in a commercial or something. Whatever. Some post. Now what you want to do, all right, is you want to in your profile, all of these places, these social media sites, they allow you to put a link. You can put a link to your website or you can put a link, for example, to your project. Now, this is for people just starting out. It's, of course, really great. If you complete a project with your stuff, you could say something. You want to be careful, of course, when you're posting things, if there's an NDA, of course. But once something goes public, you can always promote that once it's in the public eye. But you can drive traffic via these sites by posting and having links. This is how I've built the entire VOs Journey, by simply sharing information, sharing the things that I've done, and having links to the places where I would like people to go. If they want to learn more about how to work with me and you can put them in your memory. You're not asking people here's a little key. Social media is not about selling, even though a lot of us, especially us older people, we're so used to the old it's just bread in us like TV commercials, like buy now. So we think that we've got to post these for sale type things everywhere we go. You know what I mean? And that's not what social media is. That's not what things are. And we don't need to do that. I mean, think about yourself. If you need something, we will go find it. It's very rare that we are just and something pops up and you're like, I need that. That does happen. But it's getting more and more rare because we're so overloaded. But what you do is you want to drive traffic by simply posting. That's a way that you can do on social media. What do you post is the answer I get a lot. I mentioned one thing I always look at. You can do three things, right? You can entertain, you can educate, or you can inspire, or you can do those together. All right. That's something that you can offer on social media, educate, entertain and inspire and drive traffic to your projects. For example, by putting a link that's another way. Can you pay for ads? Of course. But here's my take on it. Voices is paying for ads. These companies like Voice.com, is paying for ads. So for you to pay for ads, you got to make sure you're all in because it costs money. All right. But you can pay for ads. You can start a YouTube channel where, again, you're driving traffic. I feel like we as voice actors have so much potential to do so much with what we are good at, which we have. Not only are we able to work online like we're doing here, but we have some of the most powerful way of communication, which we do it. We are the best communicators via voice. That's what we do. And that's what everyone uses for communication. Okay. Yes, imagery is powerful. You want to use imagery, but voice and the way we deliver messages is so we have so much power. So what I'm trying to say is that don't be afraid for you to start a YouTube show. Right. Don't be afraid for you to start something to where then you're driving traffic through the people you're reaching to your project. Okay. Even if you have your own website. All right? Now, websites are tough. And that's why, for example, we're working on Voices because they're spending a lot of money and a lot of work making that site good. All right. And a marketplace. But all of these places online, the people who are the most successful, it always boils down to the ones that are the most successful are the ones who are the best at directing and driving the most traffic where they want them to go hands down. If you can do that, if you can get more eyeballs than anybody else, you win. People will pay you gobs of money. People will find your projects and order from you. It is the hands down voices doesn't matter who it is. We're all fighting for eyeballs. And the more you can drive those eyeballs, the more successful you can be. And that's why I love projects, because projects gives you the opportunity to focus on driving those eyeballs and not just auditioning 24/7.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Right. And you can create as many projects as you'd like. You can make packages, all different ways of being found. And of course, that translates to more real estate, too. So thank you for sharing how people can get the good word out about what they're doing and just get more business. That's the whole point of all of this. So, Anthony, a wealth of knowledge. We will have to have you back some time. I want to thank you for joining us.

Anthony Pica:
Thank you for for having me.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Of course. Yeah. So you've mentioned A VO's journey now I know that you have a website. Is there somewhere you'd like to direct us to?

Anthony Pica:
Well, sure. Absolutely. Thank you. So, you know, AVOsjourney.com is the website and please feel free to head over there. We offer a lot of training and education for voice actors and it's all right there on the page.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Anthony. And yeah, we're going to wrap up the show now.

That's the way we saw the world through the lens of voiceover this week. Thank you for listening. Thank you also to our special guest Anthony Pika for sharing his experiences and tips for selling your voice online. Now if you have any questions about Project Marketplace, be sure to visit the links in our show notes. There's all kinds of resources there you can take advantage of, including webinar videos and tutorials and articles. All kinds of good stuff. You can also reach out to our friendly support team at Voices with your question by emailing. [email protected] I'm your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli Vox Talk is produced by Geoff Bremner. Thank you again for listening and we'll see you next next week.