← Everyday VOpreneur® with Marc Scott
Everyday VOpreneur® with Marc Scott
Which Voice Over Pay-to-Play Site Is Right for You with Fred North
00:19:41
Loading summary
Transcript48 lines
- [00:00]
A
All summer long, I am giving everyday veopreneurs the opportunity to come onto the podcast and ask me one of their most pressing business and marketing questions. And we call it the summer series. And these episodes will run through June, July and August. And today my guest is Fred North. Welcome to the show. Fred. What is your question for the summer series?
- [00:20]
B
Well, it's great to be here. I've been in full time voiceover for a little over 20 years.
- [00:25]
A
Okay.
- [00:25]
B
I just part time seven years before that while I was doing some other stuff.
- [00:28]
A
Okay.
- [00:30]
B
I've built my entire business on direct marketing myself, primarily to radio and TV stations, mostly radio, where I'm their primary commercial voice. It's retainer based, it's comfortable, money flows.
- [00:43]
A
Yep.
- [00:44]
B
But after all these years, I've decided I want to be on a P2P. But I don't know where I fit, why I would choose this one over that one, or what the Benefits are of VDC 123 Budalgo or any of them would be to me.
- [01:02]
A
Why you gotta take me there, Fred? Why you gotta play me like that? There's only two subjects that I have ever covered in 300 plus episodes of this podcast. Two subjects that I've ever covered that create controversy for me. One is AI and the other is Peter Peas. Every time, every time I do an episode on one of those, inevitably I'm gonna upset some people and they're going to like the things that I say and they're, they're going to say mean things and well, that's what I'm here for.
- [01:30]
B
To make your life a little more comfortable.
- [01:32]
A
That's right. So the pay to play question is actually a really interesting question and I think it's one that I have been revisiting myself in the last probably six or eight months, partly just because I had been off the pay to play sites for a decade, like legitimately for a decade. I think my last activity on 1 2, 3 and voices.com was like 2015 or maybe early 2016 or something like that. So, you know, 10 years that I've been off the sites and a lot has changed, a lot has changed in how some of the sites work. And so I've been exploring a little bit myself. You know, where are we at? What's going on? What is happening in the pay to play space today? So you're looking for what ease of use, volume, particular types of jobs. What do you think you're looking for?
- [02:28]
B
I'm primarily used as a commercial voice. I do some other stuff I do some TV promo, but very little. People usually choose me because they want a big voice that is versatile and I can do announcer stuff, but I can also be the, you know, the. The gruff guy selling tractors. I. The voice of a tractor company. Sure. So I'm looking mainly for commercial work out of this and for big, big boy stuff.
- [02:52]
A
Okay. So I would say at this point there are probably four players.
- [03:00]
B
Do I need to write this down?
- [03:02]
A
Well, I mean, you can always go back and watch the episode. I think, I think there's probably four players. Voice 1, 2, 3 and voices.com are probably the two biggest, most recognized. They've been around the longest. I think the third player is Budalgo. The fourth player would be. Now I'm having a brain fart. I'm gonna say voice realm, but it's not voice realm. We don't want to talk.
- [03:27]
B
You're not even gray haired yet.
- [03:28]
A
Yeah, we don't want to talk about VO planets. VO planets. We don't want to go down the voice realm route.
- [03:35]
B
Yeah.
- [03:36]
A
So I would say those are probably the four players that I would. If I was going to consider anything, those are the four players that I would consider. If you're strictly speaking, what is the easiest site to use with the fewest hoops to jump through, I would say that that is Bugo. I think Budalgo has been designed to find that balance between serving the voice buyer but also serving the voiceover talent and recognizing that, you know, like we're paying for a membership and we should have a little bit of, say, a little bit of feedback in how the system works and whatnot because, you know, take us away and there's. There's nothing there. And so Armen has done an incredible job of walking that line, making sure that the site is still user friendly and really accessible for the people who are seeking voices, but still very fair and balanced for the voice actor.
- [04:34]
B
Now, I've heard that's largely European work.
- [04:37]
A
It is largely European work. He's based in Germany. Lots of English work that's being posted there. Budgets are very fair. Armen's very particular about budgets. You may be getting paid in euros, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Depending on exchange on any given day, the challenge with Bidalgo is you are not going to see the quantity of auditions that you would see from some of these other sites. You're going to see great quality projects at fair rates. You're also going to have a pretty stiff competition pool on Bidalgo because Armin has Been very intentional about. You don't just get a credit card and sign up for Bidalgo. You've got to send in demos, they've got to be approved. Like there's a process, there's a vetting process to getting on that site. So overall, what is the most talent friendly, what is the easiest to use, what has the fewest hoops to jump through? I would say 100% it's bulgo, but you are going to see fewer projects there.
- [05:40]
B
All right.
- [05:41]
A
I think the next one, this is the one that's going to get me in trouble. So thanks for this. Number two on the list now. Yeah, yeah, you are. Number two on the list, I think is actually going to be voices.com and that's going to be a really controversial take. But the reason why I say voices.com is because again, if you're talking strictly, I want something that is easy to use and it's just going to get me access to a ton of auditions. I think you're going to get that. With voices.com is there an algorithm? Yes. Are there certain hoops that you need to jump through as far as filling out your profile and having matching samples and all of that sort of stuff? Yes, there are some behind the scenes things that you need to do in order to maximize your experience on the site. But by and large, it's just here are the auditions every day. They do not do membership tiers. Everybody pays the same price, everybody has the same potential access to opportunities, again based on filling out your profile, uploading all the required samples, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Are there downsides to voices.com, no question, on managed projects or professional services projects, whatever they're calling them now. I got kicked off the site 10 years ago for calling them out for taking a 92 and a half percent commission. I caught them taking a 92 and a half percent hidden commission.
- [07:06]
B
That seems high.
- [07:07]
A
It seems a little high. It seems a little high. They claim that they don't do stuff like that anymore. Whether or not that's true, I'm not entirely sure. So if you ever see the professional or managed service projects, just know that there is a distinct possibility that they are taking a hidden commission that neither you nor the client is aware of. For the everyday projects that are just posted straight to the platform and you just have the opportunity to audition for, if I understand it correctly, you will pay 20% commission for them collecting the payment, which, you know, you can debate or argue the merits of, but I mean Most of us with agents pay 20% to our agents when our agents bring us work. And we don't complain about it when our agents are bringing us work, but we do complain about it when an online casting site does it. That's fine. If you don't like it, you don't have to sign up. Right? But those are the rules of the site. Definitely a higher volume of work as far as the number of auditions that are posted on a daily basis. And no punishments that I understand. If you submit too much, which does happen on Voice123, we'll get there in a second. So I would say with voices.com, it's a level playing field because there's only one tier of membership. You can tilt the scales a little bit in your favor simply by how you fill out your profile. If you just go on to voices.com and upload a couple of full length demos, you're not going to have as good of an experience as somebody who goes on and uploads 50 or 60 different clips. And each one of those clips represents a different type of read. Right? This is my, this is my blue collar read. This is my big voice read. This is my announcer read. This is my monster truck read. You know, whatever the reads are that you've got, right, you, you want to have a sample for all the reads that you can do. And that is going to tilt the scale somewhat in your favor as far as getting access to the auditions.
- [09:07]
B
I feel like I'm getting a free consulting session here when I'm asking.
- [09:10]
A
Well, I mean, hey, that's what this is. That's what this is all about, right? And don't worry if I'm wrong, somebody will let me know in the comments.
- [09:16]
B
Loop me in, will you?
- [09:17]
A
Yeah. So that's, that's voices.com uh, definitely some controversy around the site. There's, there's questions about what they're doing with. There seems to be a lot of question about whether or not they're using your samples for AI training purposes. My understanding is that that is not actually the case. Uh, it's just a misunderstanding in, in the, the terms of service agreement. Um, but they do offer AI and AI voices and, and whatnot as, as an option, as does Voice 123. Voice 123 is the one that I'm currently on. You know, one of the OGs. Voice 123 can get you access to a large quantity of projects, but you are going to have to pay for that access. They have Multiple membership tiers. When I first signed up for the site in October, having not been on it for a decade, I signed up at the 888 tier. So $888 for the year, which is their third highest tier. And I saw almost nothing to audition for. It wasn't great. You start out in the lower percentiles, and the idea is when you audition on that platform, you want to get likes or you want to get bookings. And if you get those likes and you get those bookings, you can improve your ranking in the system. And so then the higher tier, you go the 50th percentile to the 40th to the 30th to the 20th to the top 10 percentile. The higher percentile tier that you are in, the better your auditions are, the more access that you get. The challenge is when you start out in the bottom 50, it's really hard to work your way up because you're already seeing such a limited number of auditions. Some people are under the mistaken impression that you just. Well, then just buy a higher tier. Well, the next tier up is 2,200 for the year. And yes, you can pay 2,200 for the year, but it doesn't necessarily correspond with getting access to more auditions, because if you're still in a lower percentile, you're still not going to see great auditions. So Voice123's argument, I think, is that it encourages you to be really strategic about what you're submitting for. Right. Don't just go in and submit for everything. You've got to really choose the projects that you're submitting for and try to choose the things that you're the best match for. And there's definitely validity to that argument. What I've discovered in the time that I've been on the site here for the last few months is that most of the clients have no idea that the like system or the booking system has any impact whatsoever on the talent, and so most of them don't use it. So I had an experience recently where I booked a job that was originally cast on Voice 123. They posted the audition on Voice 123, but I booked the job off the platform. Well, that actually has a negative impact on my score on voice123 because I did not get credit for the booking on the system. So I actually got punished for booking a job.
- [12:27]
B
Well, you're just a problem child.
- [12:28]
A
Yes, really. But these are the hoops right now. The other thing with Voice123, you absolutely have to have a properly filled out and optimized profile. And there are a couple of different people who have built courses and kind of side hustles around doing that for voice actors. Because it's a lot of work. I wasn't interested in doing it. I hired someone to do it for me. So the v1, 2, 3 pros, I think they know more about the voice1, 2, 3 algorithm than possibly voice123 does. Uh, and so they are a training organization that will help you get your profile set up, optimize, do all the keywording, all that sort of stuff. And then Nikki Schwartz, who I've also had on the podcast, the Voice 123 Optimizer, she runs a system, same thing, help you get your profile set up and ready to go. Voice123 Very much has moved to clips, right? I mean, if you can have a hundred samples on Voice123 for everything that you could possibly think of and every keyword that you could possibly think of, that's gonna swing the odds in your favor to get better access to auditions. But what you have to be really cautious of on that site is if you audition too much and you don't generate enough likes or bookings, it can hurt you long term in your ability to get access to auditions. And that's why I think, for that reason alone, I think voices.com is just, it's an easier platform to use regardless of how people feel about certain things. And, you know, some of the business practices that took place a decade ago that we've never really gotten over or whatever. If you just want to say, look, I just want to pay 500 bucks and get access to a crap ton of auditions every day, that's voices.com I don't do metrics.
- [14:14]
B
Crap ton is how much in American
- [14:16]
A
crap ton of auditions every day. I would say probably between 20 and 30 a day is what I've gathered. So there you go. You get access to about 20, 20 or 30, which may or may not be a crap ton, depending on what you're currently already having access to.
- [14:28]
B
But for most, I don't do auditions now. I'm totally on retainer. So it's a whole new world for me.
- [14:33]
A
Yep. With voice 1, 2, 3, and with voices.com, the other thing that you have potential for is the more optimized that your profile is, the better that you have it filled out, the more samples that you have, et cetera. You can also find yourself in a In a situation where you're getting direct invitations, so you may not have to go through the general casting, they may just come to you directly, or they may just invite you directly to audition for projects. But there may be fewer people who are auditioning because they may just go out and invite 10 of their chosen favorite voice actors or whatever. And I have had a couple of those experiences as well.
- [15:10]
B
That's cool.
- [15:11]
A
And then the other one that I mentioned before was VO Planet, similar to Bidalgo. Great site. Top tier talent, top tier bookings, top tier rates, but very limited quantities in comparison to a 1, 2, 3, or a voices dot com. So I would say those are probably the four that you're going to look at. The other one that I mentioned inadvertently because I got my names mixed up was Voice Realm. Voice Realm had a really, really, really bad reputation a bunch of years ago, and a lot of people abandoned because of some really nasty, really inappropriate, unethical things that they were doing. I've heard in the last couple of months that maybe they're under new ownership now and maybe they've started to clean up their actual a little bit. But until I have greater confirmation of that, I would be hesitant to send anyone to Voice Realm.
- [16:21]
B
All right, well, I really appreciate your insight on this because like I said, I've lived my way outside of the world of most VOs, and it's really been good.
- [16:29]
A
Yeah, 100%.
- [16:31]
B
I'd just like to move it another direction. Not leave behind what I'm doing, but just, I got to get that pool put in.
- [16:38]
A
So that was. I mean, I left online casting 10 years ago because I was building my business on direct marketing, and that was where the vast majority of my opportunities were coming from. And I wasn't in the rat race of, you know, the thing that online casting. The problem that I had with online casting was I go to the grocery store, and while I was at the grocery store, three or four auditions would come in. And by the time I got home from the grocery store, all of those auditions were filled. And then I was like, crap, I can never go to the grocery store again. Or I can only go buy milk at 2 o' clock in the morning or whatever. And I'm like, this is probably not a good way to live.
- [17:10]
B
There's probably baby.
- [17:11]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, 10 years ago, we didn't even have that luxury, so. But that was. It was like messing with my head. And so I've. That was part of the reason why I left. But then part of it was just I was doing so well with the direct marketing, and I preferred to work that way. Direct relationships with clients, you know, not competing with 100 other voice actors for every audition and all of that sort of stuff. And so that was. That was totally the way that I built my business as well. But people always are asking about online casting and wanting to know more about it. And I just. I got to a point where I didn't feel like I could talk about it intelligently anymore because I had been off of it for so long. So that's been part of what this has been for me is, is let's get back on Voice 1, 2, 3, and see what's going on there and, you know, try to get a sense of what's happening again. And I've talked to a few different people about voices.com and got their insights. People who are doing incredibly well on the platform and just got a sense of what they feel about it. And so I think there's, you know, I'm thinking about, I might give it a shot again. And, you know, I did get them to unlock my profile after 10 years of being blackballed, so they did unlock my profile. So maybe. Maybe there's an opportunity there. But, yeah, those are the ones that I would be taking a look at if I was in your shoes. I think any of those. Any of those four are worth investigating a little more for yourself and seeing if you think. Think one might be a better fit or whatever. But those are the ones that are probably the only ones that I would say at this point that are really worth looking at.
- [18:39]
B
I really appreciate it. I enjoy your videos, the regular podcasts and all the stuff you do, and I thank you for it. You've been a big help, and there's been so many people along the way that do things that are helpful, like George and Dan years ago and ewabs and vobs and stuff like that. So I appreciate what you do and I. I'll continue to refer people to you because, you know, when you do this, four people a week come and say, hey, how do I get in voiceover? And your name is on the list that I hand to them.
- [19:09]
A
Right. Well, man, I hope this is helpful and I look forward to hearing if you ultimately decide to go with one, which one you decide to go with. And I'd love to hear about your experience as you navigate through it. Are you looking to register a new domain to set up your voiceover website on, or are you looking for a reliable place where you can host your voiceover? Website, itrustupperlevelhosting.
- [19:32]
B
Com.
- [19:32]
A
It's where I get my domains. It's where I get my hosting, because it works. Check it out for yourself and get signed up at upperlevelhosting.
- [19:40]
B
Com.