Trevor Jones Voice Over

Balance.

My wife Leila and I just celebrated 15 years of marriage, and escaped to Ventura for the weekend. Right now I'm looking out a huge bay window at a sea of sailboats in the harbor. It's been beautiful, peaceful and relaxing.

However, we have a couple hours of down time this morning, just hanging out in the hotel, and I'm having a hard time not thinking about my voice over business. I'm thinking "wow, I have a couple hours where nothing is competing for my attention, what's the best use of my time?"

During the week, I'm going pretty much non-stop. I almost never watch TV. In fact, the TiVo broke, and it made me giddy. I have zero desire to replace it. I'll break out the X-Box for a brief stint once in awhile, but I find that horribly unfulfilling. It's almost always gym, work, family or church. Oh, ya, and my dog Jonesie. I feel one of those pulling at me all the time - and I do enjoy all of them - but I have a hard time stopping completely.

The question is, should I? I think so. I think I should take a break, relax, chill out - but I just don't seem to be able to. I wouldn't even know what to do. Even as I type this, I have a business book sitting next to me - the only book I brought with me. Some of the other tabs I have open are for voice over work, invoicing and VO marketing ideas.

I don't know. Maybe it's OK to always be on the go. I can rest when I'm dead.

Choose a Color!

When I first started out in voice over, I was under the very erroneous impression that I always had to sound "professional" and, you know, sort of flat. So I'd do a read for my coach, Nancy Wolfson, thinking I sounded amazing, and she'd basically yell at me: "Trevor! Choose a color! You need to choose a color - and you're clear, no color at all!"

I got it. I still hear her during my reads.

I've been reading Teri Apple's book, Voiceovers: Everything You Need to Know About How to Make Money With Your Voice, and she says the same thing: Choose an emotion.

When you're reading a script, don't just read, feel what you're saying. Read it first a few times, decide on an emotion and go with it. Don't worry about every little word - if you're feeling it - and just saying it naturally, you won't have to think about it.

Try it.

Trevor Jones Voice Over

Purple Cow

My wife has been pushing Seth Godin on me for awhile. I finally caved and started watching his YouTube videos. Really good stuff. I wanted more. So I purchased his audio book, Purple Cow. Audio book you say? Heck yes! I LOVE audio books. I read while I run. I read while I drive. I read myself to sleep. But that's off topic.

In the dark ages before the interwebs, marketing went like this: Huge companies spent millions of dollars on national TV campaigns, sold a ton of product, and reinvested the money in, yep, more TV time. They forced ads down our throats, we watched, and bought. This worked fabulously. Then. But this was before TiVo, Hulu, Netfix and an epidemic of ADD.

Now, if we don't want to watch an ad, we don't, so more effective marketing has evolved. Certainly, some companies have not evolved and they're still using the 1970 model. It doesn't work anymore.

Now, you've got to do things differently. You've got to target your marketing - get your product or service in front of people who WANT to see it. That's the genius of a Google search - you type "widget", and you see ads for just what you're looking for.

The main point of the book however, is that marketing should start with the creation of the product. You need to create a product that will market itself. You can no longer create something, and then think, "hmm, how will I market this?" The product or service has to be the marketing. And how will it do that? It must be a purple cow. It's gotta stand out. Be different. Make people take notice.

If your product IS the purple cow, you'll have the early adapters (sneezers) gobble it up. It will be so cool, that they'll "sneeze" it out into the world, and then the rest of the world will start to adopt it.

So here's the question: How are you going to make YOUR voice over business, your widget or other product stand out?

Check out Seth's book and get the full scoop.

Your Brand - Take 63 Episode 2

In this episode, I show you how the look and feel of my brand has evolved and give you a few tips that may help you with your marketing and web presence.

http://www.trevorjonesvo.com

My New Video Series! Take 63 - Breaking Into Voice Over

I love voice over. I love doing auditions, being chosen, and recording the finished audio. I love some other stuff too, so I thought I'd put together a video series where I talk about voiceover, and, well, "other stuff" - which leaves me open to talk about whatever I'm excited about at the moment.

Here's episode 1: