Double Dutch

Imagine an international marketplace where suppliers and buyers meet. This business environment offers the broadest and most colorful selection from all over the globe. A fast and furious bidding process determines which supplier will sell to which buyer at what price.

Can you guess the name of this marketplace? Could it be eBay? Is it uBid? Voice123, perhaps?

TEAMWORK
Let me tell you what’s unique about this particular auction. It’s actually a cooperative, owned by about 5000 members who have united to organize their sales. Their aim is to achieve the best possible market position for its members at the lowest possible cost.

The auction I’m writing about offers a transparent market and an objective operation of the price mechanism. A fair minimum price is set for each product, based on normalized averages. If that price isn’t met, there’s simply no sale.

THE PLAYING FIELD
Here are a few other clues. The items that are auctioned off, are of some 20 thousand different varieties. And all of this takes place on the largest trading floor in the world – a conjoined complex of cavernous warehouses as large as 200 soccer fields. That’s roughly the size of Monaco! Inside, 22 million separate items are sold and distributed to buyers every weekday, mostly in Europe and North America.

The “Dutch auction method” is used for price determination. This process uses a clock, where the clock hand starts at a high price and drops until a buyer stops the clock to bid and accept (part of) the lot. The clock was invented in the 1870s by a cauliflower grower from Holland .

As a voice-over pro, fighting my own daily bidding wars, I’ll tell you what I like about this type of auction:

1. The element of collaboration. Although the members of the cooperative are competing against each other, they are working together. What a concept!
2. Vigorous quality control, based on the highest professional standards, is part and parcel of this business.
3. Set minimum prices (based on weighted averages of goods or services in a particular region during a given time period).
4. Products or services are sold to the highest bidder. Imagine that in our industry!
5. Transparency. Everyone involved knows immediately what the winning bid was and who won. Only if the quality is not as told, the buyer can complain. The products have to be paid directly.

BACK TO YOU
Of course you know where this is going, don’t you? I am going to ask you about the market place you do business in. But here’s the twist: you’re auctioning off your vocal versatility on sites like voices.com. You spot a project that might be a good fit. You record a free custom demo, and you put in a bid. Then you wait… To quote Dr. Phill: “How’s that working for you?”

Let’s go down my list again, and contrast and compare.

OWNERSHIP
1. As a member of the cooperative, you would be one of the co-owners of the business. You would elect representatives and a board that manages the daily affairs on your behalf. In other words: you could directly influence how your business is run. The board answers to its members, and every year it must give those members a detailed account of the state of the cooperative.

Compare that to the marketplace where you auction off your services. You are a member of that marketplace, are you not? Let me ask you this: do you have any say in how this business is run and by whom? And by “say” I don’t mean filling out a survey, or posting your praises on their website. There is a difference between giving feedback, having influence or actual power.

Do you get to see the balance sheet, at least once a year? And if an executive is underperforming, can you vote him or her off?

Do you work together with your colleagues to maximize results, or is it every man and women for him- or herself and against each other?

QUALITY
2. Can anyone offer their services on this voice-over marketplace you belong to, or is there a screening process based on professional standards? And once accepted, is there any type of quality control in place, to ensure that voice-seekers won’t be bombarded with third-rate ‘talent’?

PRICE
3. What does your marketplace do to promote fair trade, if anything? Are buyers (and sellers) educated about what rates are reasonable for different types of projects? Does your site set minimum prices, or is everything left to a market that has no bottom, no ethics and people who have no clue?

4. What if our on-line marketplace would operate like a Sotheby’s, where goods (or in this case services) would actually go to the highest bidder?

ACCOUNTABILITY
5. I saved the big one for last: Does your on-line auction site ever notify you of the winning bid? Let’s say a voice-seeker posts a project with a budget range of $100-$250. Wouldn’t it be interesting to know how much or little he eventually ended up paying? Don’t you want to know if the job ultimately went to an undercutting ‘underbidder’ or a habitual ‘lowballer’? Aren’t you curious to find out how successful this site really is in securing fair and reasonable deals for its members? Or is that too much to ask?

I recently read a comment from someone who regularly uses P2P’s to hire talent. He said (and I’m paraphrasing): 

“You should realize that when a job is posted with a $100 – $250 range, that over half the people who audition will offer to do it for $100. Another quarter will offer to do it for less.”

Mmm, any idea why you’re not having much luck, lately? Of course the voice-over dot coms could hit back and say: “That’s nonsense. Some people get paid even more than what the job was posted for.” My response would be: prove it! And don’t give me anecdotal evidence. I want numbers.

Am I wrong, or do you have a right to learn how many posted projects materialized into something concrete, and how many disappeared into thin air? And wouldn’t that information help you determine whether or not it would be worthwhile for you to join such a site? Why aren’t these facts available to the members who are paying for these services? What is it that these sites don’t want you to know? What are they hiding and why?

GOING DUTCH
My favorite auction is an open book. The FloraHolland flower auction is the international market leader in floricultural sales. Their auction building  in Aalsmeer is the second largest building in the world. With six locations situated close to the most important production areas in the Netherlands, 9 thousand growers sell just over one-third of all flowers sold in the world, which adds up to about 2 billion Euros each year. There are 125 thousand auction transactions every day. In other words, 12 billion cut flowers and over half a million plants a year. Business is blooming for this cooperative.

I wonder… is there anything we can possibly learn from this model? Isn’t it about time we add a touch of Dutch to our auctions? You tell me!

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

PS don’t miss the next installment: is it okay to endorse a voice-over website and criticize it too? Find out why I’ve been asked that “articles deliberately questioning the integrity of services such as Voices.com not be posted in the Voices.com LinkedIn Group in the future.”

Technorati Tags: auction, FloraHolland, flower auction, Nethervoice, Paul Strikwerda, Pay-to-Play, voice, voice-over, voice123, voiceover, voiceovers, voices.com

Ontario’s London Free Press called them “voice-over matchmakers”. Back in 2003, David and Stephanie Ciccarelli created Voices.com out of their condo. At the time this blog was published,  they had eight full-time staff and four computer developers on contract. David estimated about $11 million of business goes through the site annually.

If you’ve ever used their services, you know that Voices.com makes money from your subscription fees and from an optional 10% SurePay escrow fee on top of whatever the talent’s fee is, paid by the voice-seeker. According to the site:

“this Escrow fee is kept by Voices.com to cover the charges that we incur from holding the deposit for a period of time in a secure third party account”.

Stephanie Ciccarelli summarized my unease regarding audition submissions as follows:

“You’ve noted that many people are concerned to see that some of the past jobs they’ve auditioned for months ago have not yet progressed to awarding a talent, leaving them to wonder if a client is merely window-shopping or kicking tires, possibly also wondering if auditioning online is a waste of time.”

“According to a snapshot of statistics from the last four months (April 2009 through July 2009) tracking the completion rate of jobs posted at Voices.com, we can confirm that at any given stage, half of the open jobs are still being reviewed by their client and the other half are completed (that means a talent has been chosen), with over 2/3 of those completed jobs being verified and processed via SurePay.

Although this information is reassuring, we are aware that there is still room to improve and to grow.”

Stephanie cites a number of reasons as to why it appears that many voice-seekers on her site never seem to select a candidate. Allow me to paraphrase:

1. Some clients, regardless of their deadlines for finding talent, may not have a pressing need to have their voice over recorded instantly. In other words: they file away the auditions until they are ready to hire. Sometimes this could take many months, but eventually, someone gets the job.
2. Some clients use sites like voices.com, to find talent and they prefer to work with them off-site, leaving their job in an “Open” status (see the story of the Taylor family in my last blog). This explains why there are fewer “completed” jobs than there truly are.
3. Some voice talents and/or voice seekers don’t want to use the SurePay system. If that’s the case, the job won’t be registered as completed.

VOICE-SEEKERS’ PERSPECTIVE
So far we’ve heard the story from the perspective of a voice talent and from representatives of several pay-to-play sites. Be sure to check out Voice123 Steven Lowell’s comments on my previous blog. What do voice-seekers make of all this?

A former casting director for a nationally known ad agency gave me permission to share his (or her) thoughts as long as he/she would remain anonymous.

“Agencies will do a lot of casting for projects they “hope” will become a client. They will hold auditions and actors will hold their breath (after creatives fawn all over them), expect a hold or booking….alas: no call! Of course it happens that another is booked, but it does also happen that no one is booked as the agency did not get the account or budget was cut.

It also happens that an audition is used as a demo in pitch for the account and the performer never knows about it. Top brass may not even know this practice is going on at his or her agency. The Head of production is calling the shots without others in chain of command knowing anything about you (performer) being screwed. You may have been instrumental in getting an account. When time came to cast for account, you may be forgotten for a more high profile talent.

I protested this practice (to the shock of the production chief), but it was an uphill battle to have any effect on this practice I did make some headway. In short: we don’t have many options in regard to this practice. Many agencies or agents don’t participate in this practice, but it does happen.”

ISSUE RESOLVED?
There you have it. Were these answers satisfying to you? Were my initial concerns justified or were they a tempest in a teapot? Do you feel that the major pay-to-play sites offer enough accountability and transparency? Even though they’re not our personal agents, we are paying them to provide a service, so we should have some say in how our money is spent. What suggestions do you have regarding this issue?

Please keep in mind that I am looking for constructive ideas. It’s always easy to blame someone or something else for our own lack of success. However, there are so many things we can do to increase our chances of being spotted and hired. We should never completely rely on these sites to bring in all the work.

As you have noticed, sites like voice123, voplanet and voices.com are listening to us, and they don’t shy away from controversial topics. They are following up with job seekers, and they too have to work with ad agencies that are only using their service to test the waters.

And finally: as every matchmaker knows, no matter how carefully you select two interested parties, not every match ends in matrimony!

Paul Strikwerda © 2009

www.nethervoice.com

Don’t miss the next installment: “Why no one’s coming to your site“.

Technorati Tags: auditions, Nethervoice, Paul Strikwerda, Pay-to-Play, success, voice, voice-over, voice123, voiceover, voices.com, voplanet

What’s the link between a rice beverage and voice-over work?

In a recent “Taste the dream” contest, Rice Dream offered prize winners the chance to experience their dream job for 3 days. As you can see, the ad agency that came up with this campaign thought that our line of work qualified as a ‘dream job’, because they put a picture of a voice-over person on the milk carton.*

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love what I do for a living, but since launching my business  nethervoice, I have received several emails, asking me for a reality check. Most of them go like this:

Dear Mr. Nethervoice:I am James Kumbatani, the grandson of the late Mr. Oshia Bumbayashi, grand chief of the Olali tribe. Mr. Bumbayashi left me in charge of his personal fortune valued at seven million….

Sorry, wrong email. Here’s the one I was looking for:

Dear Mr. Strikwerda:

I am an aspiring voice over artist and my dream is to break into the business. People have told me that it’s not as easy as it sounds. Do you agree? What did you bring to the table that -in your opinion- gave you an edge over other voice-over professionals? Thank you for your time.

Penny Whistle

This is what I wrote back:

Dear Penny:

Great voice-over talents make what they do sound so natural and easy, no wonder why so many people believe anyone could pull that off in a heartbeat. In reality, voice-over artists are no different from other performers or athletes. When people hear a great pianist play or watch a well-know sports star at the top of her game, they usually don’t think of all the years these pros had to put in, in order to get where they are now. Long before I became a full-time voice over pro, I learned some things that -as you put it- gave me an edge.

1. Sight Reading: thanks to the never-ending encouragement of my mother, I’ve always been an avid reader. During my days as a news anchor for Dutch International Radio, I got used to reading last-minute news flashes and intros without skipping a beat. Today, I can print out a script, glance it over and take it into my sound booth and press ‘record’. A few minutes later, my demo is on its way to the client. If I’m working on an actual job, however, I apply a different strategy (see 3 & 4).

2. Foreign languages: growing up in Holland, I was exposed to many different languages and accents. I speak Dutch, English, German and some French & Portuguese. I also know some Latin and Hebrew. Unlike many Europeans, Americans usually aren’t polyglots, and I do my very best to take full advantage of that. Knowing how to pronounce unfamiliar names of people and places has been a great help in my career. Some clients like working with me, because I’m able to record the same commercial in four different languages.

3. Translating & Proofreading: I also work as a proofreader/translator, and I’m a professional nitpicker when it comes to scripts. Last-minute submissions often contain slips of the pen, and my clients are always grateful when I spot those mistakes and correct them. It shows them that I’m not just reading anything people put in front of me. It’s a great opportunity to show my clients that I care as much about their reputation as they do.

The other day, I was recording a Dutch commercial and the director asked me to translate some last-minute additions right there and then. No problem! I regularly receive international copy that was translated with the help of translation software. That’s usually a BIG red flag! I often end up correcting the work of a robot before I start recording a script that was supposedly ‘translated’.

4. Journalism: as a former newscaster, checking my sources has become second nature. Sloppy copywriters have handed me scripts with incorrect website addresses, wrong phone numbers and even company names that were misspelled. I always verify the information provided, no matter how reliable the source. Another thing I do is research the company I’m dealing with. Not only does it give me a feel for the corporate culture, I also check in with the Better Business Bureau and research the reputation of a particular business.

A word of warning: even though a company might have a good BBB rating, things could still be fishy.

A few months ago, I was approached by “European Immigration and Translation Consultants” in Florida. This company asked me to translate a birth and a marriage certificate. They received my work the very same day and they thanked me by writing out a bad check. Of course I ended up paying a fee to my bank. I asked for a money order instead, with the penalty added to the bill, but the agency refused.

After some more research, I found out that the con-sulting company was run by a con artist who was wanted by the Canadian authorities. Of course I filed a complaint with the BBB, but the company never responded. All the bureau could do was giving them an “F” rating and close the case.

5. Here’s the last thing that I believe gives me a bit of an edge: my love of music. As an amateur musician, I developed a sense of rhythm, diction and melodic lines that is very helpful when it comes to getting into the groove of the music in a commercial or a narration. As a cornet-player and  singer, I’m blessed with increased lung capacity and breathing support. Singing is great gymnastics for your voice. It’s a fun vocal cord workout that not only gives you the stamina to complete a long recording session; it also enhances voice projection, diction and flexibility.

Penny, if you’d like to learn more about this business, I suggest you read Harlan Hogan’s “Tales and Techniques of a Voice-Over Actor”. In it, Harlan quotes Dick Moore of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, AFTRA.

Moore says that of the eighty thousand AFTRA members the union represents, no more than a hundred people do most of the voice work.

So, in order to stand out, not only do you need to be outstanding at what you do; you also need to bring something special to the table. There are thousands of hopefuls out there, and all of them believe they have a fantastic voice.

Ultimately, it’s what you can do with that voice that makes all the difference.

Best of luck to you.

Now I’m off to have a cold rice beverage.

Cheers!

Paul Strikwerda © 2009
www.nethervoice.com

* this contest has expired

Technorati Tags: Better Business Bureau, dream job, Dutch, Dutch voiceover, European voice, German voice talent, making it in voiceovers, Nethervoice, newbie voiceover advice, Paul Strikwerda, voice, voice-overs, voiceovers