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Anthony Pica
Hello. Hello, and welcome to Avio's Journey Podcast. My name is Anthony Pica. This show is all about helping the new and upcoming voiceover artists grow their business and sidestep all the crazy things that I seem to step on. This is episode number 219, and, boy, do I have a doozy for you. I'm so excited to be giving you this information. Today. I. I'm going to be talking about the new veo's Journey Elite Academy and everything that we are offering and changing and adding and the people who are joining and just all that exciting stuff. I'm excited to just tell you about it, and it's so cool because, you know, this whole journey that I've been on and we've been on together is continuing to grow and move forward, and I'm so thrilled to be sharing it with you on today's podcast. All right, so let's do it. This is vo's Journey with your host, the incomparable Anthony Pika. All right, so I'm super excited. I've got this goofy big smile on my face because I'm thrilled to share with you something that I think it really is the culmination of years of work and support from the community, as well as some really, I think, different things that have fallen into place over the last couple of months that have really just sparked this move forward with Avio's Journey Elite. So let me dive into this. So basically, if you don't know what a VO's journey elite is, this is a group that we meet. I started this about almost three years ago now, and it was a group that we'd meet every Saturday mornings. And, you know, I wanted to first create a mastermind group where voiceover actors could get together, you know, once a week and go over ideas, share thoughts, things like that, and also give me an opportunity to help, you know, educate or share with what I was learning and all the crazy stuff I was screwing up on and try to help people. So, you know, that grew a little. And then as we. As time marched on, the group got bigger and bigger, and I felt it was necessary to add another session in the week. So then I added a Wednesday session. So then we were starting to meet Wednesdays and Saturdays, and that was fantastic. And the group grew and grew. Then I switched the meetings to Mondays because Saturdays became very difficult for me, because as my kids, you know, we're growing up, and there was sports and there was all this stuff, so that changed. And so then we went to Monday and Wednesday, and I was doing Monday and Wednesdays, and it was absolutely wonderful. And we've grown and. But as time went on, it really became very evident to me that there was nothing out there that really gave voice actors a weekly look at the four different pillars that I think voiceover falls under, says voiceover actors and voiceover business. And those are voice acting, marketing, the technical production side of things, and then the business system sides, the accountability part for those business systems as well, and our business. And I think those four different sections. Now, I'm not saying other people don't teach them out there, but what I noticed was, is that there wasn't any place that was really offering multiple live sessions a week. I always learn better myself, personally, through, you know, listening to someone talk, you know, being able to interact with them, ask questions, be a part of a community and a live community, not, you know, always. Now, don't get me wrong, I love classes. I love courses. I make them, I take them. You know, I do that, and I really enjoy them. But there's something about working live with someone, being able to get instant feedback, you know what I'm saying? Be able to see someone, too, even if it is over like a zoom meeting, it's still. And be able to be a part of a group and to do breakout sessions together and not be an island to our own, as most of us are in our booths. So I was like, gosh, there's just not. There's not a lot of this going on. And besides workshops, everybody offers workshops. Somebody could do a workshop here or there, and there's a workshop on this special topic, and, you know, there's a workshop on this topic. But, you know, there's not a lot of academies or schools going on, really. And, you know, where there's weekly, there's every single day or four or five days a week. So, you know, recently there was some. I went through a few different things where I was going to speak at a conference, and, you know, that didn't pan out. So, you know, I think that for me, I realized that, listen, you know, I wanted to take aveo's Journey Elite, and I wanted to create something that was a lot bigger and a lot more inclusive. You know, that would bring everybody. Whether you wanted to learn about production, whether you wanted to learn about voice acting, whether you wanted to learn about marketing, whether you wanted to learn the business side, a voiceover. I wanted to create something that would give people all of those avenues. And I realized that as I was thinking about this, I've had the Fortune to meet some incredible people in voiceover. Intelligent people, people way smarter than me. It's been amazing so far. And built friendships and relationships with them. And I thought, hey, listen, I've done a lot of work myself on coaching and teaching, and I to do so, but there's so many of us learn in different ways, and it's great to get other people's viewpoints too, when we're learning. So I had the idea, why don't I build out four nights a week where we actually do four live sessions a week? One session a week would be on voice acting. One session a week would be in marketing. One section a week. One session a week would be on production and technical. Then the other section, or I keep saying section session, would be on business systems and accountability. And this would be four sessions a week, every single week, every month, every year. And this would be something that we would have multiple teachers be a part of every night. You'd have. And these teachers specialize in these particular areas. And we as also a group, have curriculum and put that together and build that out to reinforce the idea that the VO's journey stands for and it's always stood for. And you guys know that I've always stood for trying to help people, you know, make a livable wage on their own, representing yourself. And you can do it in voiceover, right? We've done like, a lot of us have done it. I've again had the fortune of helping a lot of people do it. And I've seen a lot of people do it. There's so many different ways to do whether you. And you know what, whether you're represented by someone or not, or whether you're doing it all on your own or not. That's fine. It doesn't matter. You're doing both. That's fantastic. But I wanted to create something where people could come and learn weekly and multiple times a night. I also thought that it would be a fantastic idea to create our own voiceover conference. And I know I spoke about this before, but, you know, I'm going to be building or building. I'm going to be creating or starting a VO's Journey Elite voiceover conference in 2022. We're going to be holding it in Williamsburg, Virginia. I'm very excited about that. It's a great location in the sense that we are by the beach. We're also by. There's a lot of stuff to do around here besides just that, because I've got a family. So many of us have a family. It's going to be in the summer. I know for me, all the voiceover conferences I looked, there was never anything for the rest of the people and you always had to go by yourself. I wanted to try something out. It's our first one. I wanted to try something where maybe if you wanted to come, you can also bring your family. Busch Gardens is here. The Richmond, Virginia is real close. There's so much, there's so much historical stuff here in Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown. So anyways, Virginia beach is real nice. So we're going to be adding that conference to Avio's Journey. And the exciting thing is, and I talked about that as well, the third part about that is going to be the voiceover agency. All right. Avio's Journey Elite agency, Talent agency. And the idea is it's three pillars that hold up avo's Journey Elite, the Academy, the conference and the agency. And the idea is that we can have a group, a wonderful group of voice actors who get to train on almost a daily basis four times a week. And then we go and have our own talent agency. The people who work with us, they get a guarantee that they are going to get top notch voice talent because we're training. And I don't know of anybody who is doing anything like this. I'm not saying someone isn't. I've not heard of it. And you know, and that's okay. That's okay. I like not copying people. I like doing our own thing. And I think this is our opportunity to, you know, get to the next level. You know, so many, I think there's so many clients out there, there's so much business out there who wants to, you know, work online and get business through platforms, but they are still concerned with certain platforms because of whatever past hype. Now we know that it's not to be true. Okay. With a lot of these platforms that other people claim it is. But, you know, it's nice to be able to have a place where you can be a part of a talent agency that also is going to train the snot out of you. All right? I think that, you know what I mean? And also at a like ridiculously reasonable price because like, to me it doesn't have to be thousands of dollars when we have our own small army of people. When we have our own small army of people, right. Then we can do so much more together. And I've said in the past, you know, about the union and how I felt about the union, I thought, you know, sag, aftra, which was SAG and then there's also the Stage Equity, all right, Or Stage Actors Equity for the stage. You know, that the theater that. You know, unions really were started for an amazing reason. You know, I mean, because there was a need for people to come together and look out for each other, to fight back against greed or a couple of people trying to rule everyone. And I think that unions played such an important role. But as time goes on, you know what I mean, there's always a need to shake things up. And I think that the union is what it is today. I have nothing against it. I wish them the very best. But, you know, just because there's one union doesn't mean there can't be another group of people that band together and look out for each other as well. And I think it's time that we have a group of voiceover actors who get together and look out for each other. Because there are things happening everywhere, right? There's AI. There's other groups of voice actors who don't like you. There's other groups that say you're doing something wrong. There's agencies that say you're not doing things right. There's robots that are coming after our jobs. There's all of this stuff. But in the end, in the end, I firmly believe that you, as an individual are incredible. The story, the life that you've lived, being able to harness that, take that experience that you have and turn that into a story. We get to do that every single day, right? We get to create something amazing. We get to create art. And at the same time, we get to mix art with business. I mean, it really is the best of both worlds. And today's age, this is what life can be for us. And I think together we can make it happen. You know, together as a group, we can get to more people, we can find more people. We can, you know, market to more people. We can create so much more. And on top of that, we have a choice on whether or not we have to listen to what's come before us. And I really believe that. I want this group, this academy, to be inclusive. I want people, whether you want to be on platforms or not be on platforms, that's okay. That's totally okay. There's so many different ways for us to make a living. Whether you like Fiverr or you don't like Fiverr, that's okay. You know what I mean? Whether you want to work with an agent or you don't wanna work with an agent, that's okay. Whether you wanna be in the union or you don't wanna be in the union, that's okay. The whole point is we're all voice actors. We're all voice actors. And there's always a price discussion. This has always been a big thing. This has reared its ugly head again this year. There's always a price discussion that a lot of us who are in the A while inevitably come head to head with. And I understand being worried about our livelihoods and what is supporting. I mean, my business supports my family, right? Without the money from the business now, my family doesn't eat. And there's a lot of people out there who are the same way. This business, their business supports their family. So the idea that something could come around and take that or really hurt that is very scary. But that's where I think we together as a group can change that mindset and that fear and that worry. Not by putting people down, but by raising people up, by helping people, by educating people. Most of us in the price debate, I think we're concerned about prices. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter whether you go onto Fiverr or Upwork or wherever and you start selling voiceovers for $5 or you go on there and you sell it for $500. It doesn't matter. We're all worried and thinking about price because that is a aspect of that. It's an aspect of our business and we have to think about it. We're all doing it. So, you know, that needs to be put out on the table. Everybody's thinking about price. No one is not thinking about price. But I think what happens is, and I've said this a couple times and, you know, I probably haven't said it enough, but I don't know if you guys remember, it was a while ago, I have to admit, but I remember talking about. It was an episode, I think, on the podcast or it might have been a video where I talked about the idea that. I wonder what I would have thought if when I started in voiceover, someone from SAG Aftra had contacted me or a Facebook group who did not agree with the freelance idea or online websites had contacted me, me and taken me in and wanted to help me succeed and was showing me the ropes and giving me advice and got me into a community that was accepting and friendly and kind and was trying to help me and teach me and raise me up and not put me down if I had questions about things that like opportunities. And I think that I wonder if I would have taken a different path and possibly I would have, but I want to change that. I want to help. I was hoping over the past, this. Over the past month, I was hoping this month I was going to get a chance to talk to some people about working together as a group, as a team of voice actors, to educate and to raise us all up together. But I wasn't given that chance, and that's okay. All right. What we're going to do now, though, is I want to give that chance to everyone. And this group, this academy, this conference, that's what this place is going to be about. It's going to be about that opportunity. It's going to be about that chance. It's going to focus on the individual and how we educate each other in order to be able to. Yes. Charge more money. Yes. Grow our businesses, learn how to build something sustainable. All right, A livable wage, whatever that livable wage means to you. Not a livable wage, you know, in one place and not another place. Okay? Because remember, livable wage in, like, New York and California, that's different than a livable wage in Texas or Wyoming. Okay? Not that they should be different, but they are. And I think we don't talk about that enough. Not from the standpoint of one person's right and one person's wrong, but more from the standpoint of we're all different. We're in different places, we have different needs, we have different things going on. We have different bills. I mean, you know, we have different. We have different, you know, different. Different mortgages, different cars. We. I mean, there's children. Some of us might not have children. Some of us may have a lot of children, okay? All of these things matter. So when you approach the idea of price and finances, you have to look at it, at least in my opinion. You have to take a step back and look at it from the idea that, listen, we all have needs, and what fits for one person might not fit for another person. So it would be just as silly for me to go out and say, hey, Everybody should charge $5 for a voiceover. It shouldn't be more than that. It's just not right. That's ridiculous. That's absolutely ludicrous. Why would I ever do that? Okay. Even though it seems like some people feel that way, but then why would someone else go around and say you could never charge less than $1,000 for a 15 second voiceover? Because it's not right. Because no one can live. That's silly. Why would someone go around and say that? It doesn't make Any sense, because one size does not fit all. We all know this. We know that my needs are different than your needs. Your needs are different than someone else's needs. We all have different needs. So it's really important to offer something, educate in order to grow. I always think the smarter we are, the more education we have, the more able we are to make our own decisions. You know what I mean? I want to empower people to be able to make their own decisions, to think on their own and be able to say, yeah, I agree with that, or, no, I don't. I disagree with that. And that's okay. It's okay to agree. And you know what? It's okay to disagree. Now, I do think that we. Some people can be very angry when they disagree or they can be very mean when they disagree. Because it's one thing to say, I disagree, and another thing to say, like, you know, beep you and all kinds of stuff like that. Those are different things. Even though you. In essence, you disagree, all right? You're just angry and mean about it. That's one thing. That's not disagreeing. That's just you being mean. Okay? But being dis. You know, disagreeing is. Is. Is. But that. But also being able to take constructive criticism is important. It's not easy, and it's not easy. I need to take constructive criticism. You need to take constructive criticism. All of us need to be able to take constructive criticism. And I think along the way, that can get harder, especially as we get older. Right? Because, you know, who wants to give? I don't want to listen to, you know, people telling me what not to do. You don't want? No. Who does? Okay. Or tell me what I can and cannot do. You know what I mean? And I think that the idea here is that through education, through the community, we can help that and we can look after each other, okay? And we can be a place that accepts everyone. Now, I always think a place that won't accept everyone. Okay? That is not. And then if they preach about trying to help everyone, but yet they won't accept everyone, that doesn't make sense to me. It's never made sense to me, okay? How can you say you're here to help everyone if you won't accept everyone? That doesn't make any sense. So let's flip that. You know, let's create something where we do accept people. And yes, that means challenges as well. But I want to be clear about what I won't ever be a party to is people who just want to bring others down. And then I think that's a big. And I would say, as we look at, you know, when you look at groups and you look at things that you're being involved with, I'm getting off topic, but I always say, you know, try to do your best to judge a situation on whether or not people are willing to accept what you have to say. All right? Not necessarily agree with you. Okay. But at least accept and listen to what you're trying to say. You know what I mean? I think that's important. I don't always succeed. I fail a lot, but I keep trying to live by that. And that's what this VEO Journey Elite Academy is all about, is accepting everyone, educating, offering something four days a week of information that I don't think has ever really been done before on this scale. And I'm very excited to have in the academy the conference and to build this agency. And I think we together could just do something incredible. Absolutely incredible. I'm so excited, you guys, to be working with you. If you haven't signed up, please do. I know there's so much information or so much more questions you might have. Like, you know what nights we're doing? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Mondays are at 5, Tuesdays are at 6, Wednesdays and Thursdays are at 5. And this is Eastern PM. This is Eastern PM time. And, you know, we have Susan Fouche doing acting. We've got Don and Donnie Barnes doing the production technical stuff. I'm doing marketing. We've got Angela Clark who's working on business systems and accountability, which I'm really excited about that one, too. And, you know, all of these are recorded, archived. We also have the discounts and everything for. For all the stuff that goes into it, as well as Don and Donnie Barnes courses. And so it's very exciting. And then the conference is next summer and the agency should be up and running in the next couple of months. We've already done a couple jobs through that, but, you know, it's not as formal as I'd like it to be at the moment, but I'm very excited about this and hopefully the opportunities it's going to give all of us and in the end, the opportunities of us to come together as a community and not be apart. I'm tired of all of us being apart. I'm tired of all of us, or not all of us, but many of us fighting with each other about something that honestly, we shouldn't be fighting about. We should be trying to help each other. I Always thought, can you imagine if everybody on Fiverr came together and said, hey, we're all going to raise our prices? Well, then that argument would be nil. It wouldn't matter anymore. But you have to do it in a way in which you educate people, you empower people to feel like they can charge more, they are worth more. And you know me, I hate that idea of saying how much a person is worth, because I believe we're all worth more than any could ever pay. I think your worth is incalculable. All right. But, you know, a lot of people like to say that, and I always think it's more, what is your business worth at this moment? You know what I mean? But in the end, if you think about it, if we all were educated more, we all were a part of that community where we felt like we could ask and talk and discuss and to choose, things would be different. Things could be different, but we have to build something where everyone can be a part of it, whether they choose to do it one way or choose to do another way. If we don't, then there is just going to be constant fighting and disagreement, and there will never be a time where we can come together as a group and be one. That doesn't mean we agree on everything, but it means we at least agree on the main thing, which is that we are together as voice actors and we are a community that, in the end, wants to make the community better. But you can't do that by shunning people and making people feel bad. So that's an important thing. And I'm really looking forward to this. I can't wait to meet you. If you're interested, there'll be a link below to avo's Journey Elite, and there'll also be one on, of course, aveo'sjourney.com. i'm still working out on the. I probably should have waited till I changed the landing page, but I didn't. So I'm excited to finish this, you know, and get the landing page all clicked. So if you go over on the landing page, you're like, well, all this stuff isn't on landing pages, because I haven't done that yet. But and one more thing real too. The price. The price is staying the same for now in September. We're going to have to change it because, like I said, I've added teachers. Uh, we're adding a conference. There's a lot changing. But right now the price is gonna be the same. And if you do join, of course you get I. I'm not. I'm not that person. I'm not gonna change. You get grandfathered in. So everybody who joins now, you know, like, I have people who joined back to almost three years ago, and they still have the price that they joined it then I keep that same price. You will stay the same as well. So, listen, if you've got any questions, email me. I've had a bunch of emails over the last couple days, people asking me about it and everything, and I love it. I love talking to you. I love answering your questions and meeting you. So please give me, you know, message me. You know, send me an email. Remember, you can find it, Anthony or vo'sjourney.com and I'd love to chat. All right, you guys, thank you so much for listening tonight. I know I kind of went off on the rails there and wanted to talk to you about some things on my mind, but mainly about this exciting news about the Elite Academy and how we're moving forward. And so interesting to look back in episode 219 and look back at episode one and the difference of where we are, all of us together, whether you just started listening to this or whether you started listening to me, you know, back in February of 2019. We've come a long way, and I'm excited to go just as far into the future again with you, too. So thank you guys so much. You have a wonderful, wonderful night. I'll talk to you later. All right, peace.