Are you ready?
This is going to be one of those harsh critiques you’re not going to like. You’ve been warned!
So, the other day, someone on some voice over Facebook group posted the following question. I literally copied it unedited. Here it goes:
“When your just starting out your VO Business, most ppl will also have full time job, how do you beat post day job fatigue???, Energy levels are very low when I get home, I really have to push through to get something done, what are your Soloutions fir giving your side hustle (fir now), as much energy as your day job?”
Let me tell you in advance that I don’t know who wrote this. I am using this post NOT to single him or her out, but to make a few general points I believe are worthwhile making.
Like pretty much anyone else on social media, I only know (and judge) what I see in front of me. In other words, I know as much as a client, or an agent, or a fellow voice over talent who would read this question on Facebook.
Why is this important? Because before you read what I have to say, I want you to know that my opinion is colored by my perception. It’s subjective, biased, and based on personal experiences and assumptions.
The same can be said about the way you’re about to judge my words. Many psychologists believe that perception is projection. Or, as one of my teachers once said:
“You can’t see anything in the world that is not you.”
SENDING A MESSAGE
As a VO Pro, I believe that ANY communication I send into the world is telling the world something about me. The way I dress is communication, my haircut is communication, and especially the way I hold my body tells you something important.
Whether you like it or not, people will have opinions based on the way you look and the way you conduct yourself. Of course this includes the things you say and the things you write. Everything I write on these pages for instance, comes from the perspective of a very white, very male, very heterosexual, and very privileged Dutch/American human being.
These are things I cannot change about myself. What I CAN change fortunately, are the words I choose to use, as well as my actions.
THE UNFORGIVING INTERNET
The things we say and do online have a shelf life of… forever. As long as we don’t own the platform we’re using, we do not control who gets to see our content and for how long.
My first tip for the person asking the question above is to always write with that in mind. This does not mean you can’t ask beginner questions. It does mean that we should make every effort to come across as professional as possible.
If you deliberately use a professional group, whether on Facebook, LinkedIn, or any other platform, you have to – what I call – “dress for success.” You’d never go into an office meeting dressed like a total slob, would you? EVERYTHING about the way you present and conduct yourself sends a MESSAGE.
Speaking for my subjective self, I want that message to be that I am a person people can TRUST. No matter how good you are, professionally speaking, if for some stupid reason the client believes you cannot be trusted, you’ll never get the job.
And that’s the sad thing. The person asking the question above might be tremendously talented, but after the first “your” instead of “you’re,” followed by the many other grammatical and spelling errors, I don’t see how someone could trust this person with a $$$ voice over project that requires extreme accuracy, a level of literacy, and attention to detail.
I know the question was not a job sollicitation, but please hear me out.
YOU WILL BE JUDGED
I’m not saying that you need an academic education to land every VO job, but whether you like it or not, you will be judged on your level of communication every single day.
I happen to voice a lot of eLearning courses and medical narrations where I have to come across as an educated person. The people who write these courses and who hire the voices are all educated. When I am able to communicate at their level, they feel acknowledged and understood.
Because of my weird last name, every English speaker immediately knows there’s something different about me. Unconsciously people may think:
“His name looks foreign. Strick weirdo… English is probably not his first language. This might be a potential problem.”
This is not something I made up for argument’s sake. It’s something clients have told me. It does mean that I have to be extra mindful and do everything I can to convince them that my English is good enough to handle the job. One slip of the pen or thumb, and their bias is confirmed.
By the way, I think most people don’t discriminate on purpose. They’re just super busy and are making superficial judgments without giving it much thought. That’s not an excuse, but it is part of the problem.
BEING CREDIBLE
Back to your communication with your clients and your community.
If you come across as unprofessional, that’s what the world will believe, even if you perceive the platform you’re using to be as casual as Facebook. You must realize that some big name voice over agents are members of these Facebook groups too, don’t you? And you also are aware that some of your colleagues on the same platform might one day send you referrals?
As someone for whom English is a second language, I am not the grammar police, but I strongly believe in the link between content and packaging, AND in the power of first impressions. It all has to do with CREDIBILITY.
Credibility comes from the latin word CREDO which means “I believe.” If you wish to be taken seriously, you have to be believable as a professional communicator. Only when you come across as believable, people who don’t know you (like potential clients and agents) will trust you with their work and with their money.
DYSLEXIA
One more thing before I wrap this up. When I wrote about this on Instagram, someone called me “elitist” to “jump on a Facebook question that could have been written by someone suffering from dyslexia.”
Let’s call her Debby (not her real name) She wrote:
“Lots of folks with dyslexia don’t have time to triple check every single post they put on Facebook, especially when it’s in a forum with supposedly helpful peers.”
For starters, I am not the expert on dyslexia, but this FB post does not have the characteristics you would expect from someone suffering from it. I do think it is extremely considerate of Debby to think of people with dyslexia.
I suffer from dyscalculia myself, so I have some idea of what it’s like to function in a world that does not understand the weakness you were born with. I also know that you often have to work twice as hard as other people, to play the game as best as you can. This means using all the tools available to make a professional impression.
Thankfully there are spelling checkers and online tools such as Grammarly to help those who are linguistically challenged. No blog post of mine will ever be published without my American wife proofreading every single word (thank you Pam. You are amazing!).
One word about spell checkers. You do need to double-check them. The public market in my town once sent out a press release calling itself the “Easton Pubic Market.” Nothing wrong with the spelling, right?
ASSUMPTIONS
Secondly, call me “elitist” but we have no way of knowing if the person asking the FB question is actually dyslexic. It’s an unfounded assumption.
Thirdly, the way I want to help newcomers is to make them aware of the professional standards that have served me well over many, many years. People always ask to pick my brain, and when they hear things they don’t like, they call me “mean” and “inconsiderate.” What can I say?
What Debby didn’t know was that I did try to help this person who felt his full-time job left him with no energy to work on his voice over career. Most of us VO Pros have been there and done that.
PAID PRETENDERS
One of the best compliments you will ever get as an actor, is that people are buying what you’re saying, even when you use someone else’s words, and you couldn’t care less about what you’re selling.
And that, by the way, is how I would answer the question the person asked on Facebook. What do you do when you come home from your full-time job, feeling depleted and without energy to tackle a whole bunch of auditions?
You start ACTING AS IF you’re full of energy!
The client doesn’t care about your day job. Voice actors are paid pretenders.
Professional performers put on a show no matter what. My wife is a professional flutist/pianist who teaches during the day and who performs at night. She also has multiple sclerosis which makes her tired even before her day has begun.
Do you think the audience cares if she feels exhausted? Of course not. They paid for their concert tickets, and they want their money’s worth!
Successful people are ordinary people driven by extraordinary goals.
They give everything they have, and then some!
If you feel that’s too much for you, perhaps it’s time to pursue another dream.
#sheerglee I remember not finding out until my 30’s there was really something other than “dyslexia with numbers”. Barely graduating high school and struggling with other tasks and then one day the clouds parted and a word was revealed. The bad news, I finally was tested many years later and the specialist said I clearly *Had* some math issues but it was borderline enough to not *qualify* for a diagnosis. i.e. no accommodation for work or such. But at least I knew, my wife knows and is more forgiving. It’s good to see someone reach your success and I wish you more of it, sir.
I look at it this way: some people were born to be great at tennis. Others were born to become a great chef. You and I were never born to be amazing mathematicians, but we have other qualities.
I am only able to run a successful business because of my wife who is a genius with numbers. She’s my office manager and does all the books.
Sorry “Debby”, but Paul is right. Your audience needs to know they can trust you, and you always need to put your best foot forward. That includes social media, and that includes your best grammar on your best foot. Just speaking fir myself, I no most ppl r looking for soloutions, not side hustle.
I couldn’t have said it any better, bro!
A baby-boomer, here. During my childhood in the post-WWII era is when American business was also booming. Everything you see of how business people and offices are portrayed in some of the classic 1950s-60s TV shows and movies is completely true. Many of today’s biggest (and now global) corporations began back then. When someone uses the cliché, “He/she means business,” it conveys that the person in question is very, VERY serious. A high level of professionalism was simply expected from everyone.
But, a CAUTION about spell-checkers. While some of today’s spell-checkers are more advanced than the earlier versions, we still need to proofread with a very critical eye. TRUE STORY: In the late 90s, while I was working for a small advertising agency, our account executive one day came into the office, excitedly showing the first letter to a prospective client he had composed and spell-checked on his computer. The last line in the letter read, “If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ball me.” The word “ball” was spelled correctly. Many spell-checkers don’t account for context.
We are the final check of how we present ourselves.
I totally agree with you on using spell checkers. Someone once sent out a press release for the Easton Public Market. It said: “Easton Pubic Market.”
One mistake or typo can be excused or laughed at. A pattern of them makes you realize the person producing them has no self-awareness.
I drilled it into my kids that, given two equivalent candidates, the one who won’t embarrass the company is the one who will be hired, and that you will have to be very good to get away with not following conventions (and even then, they will be looking for someone to replace you with who does!).
I don’t use chatspeak – I don’t know if my kids do – but they know better than to use it with me. Because they DO know better.
Unfortunately (or appropriately), customers judge a company by its chosen representatives.
“But I’m not good at spelling.” Good. At least you know that. Then don’t send out a resume or letter without finding someone to vet it for you. Many executives make that happen with a brilliant secretary.
It IS judgmental, but that’s the point: people judge you by what they know of you – and it’s why making your work (I’m a writer) as typo-free as possible IS important. Most of my readers will never meet me. If I want them to read my fiction, and buy the next I produce, what they get from me has to be as good as I can possibly make it, with or without assistance.
I couldn’t have stated it more clearly, Alicia. And I agree one hundred percent!
Paul, thank you for this article regarding spelling and grammar. I must admit that if there are spelling errors in anything I’m reading, I rarely finish to the end. I agree with Alicia about finding one spelling error; it happens. On the other hand, communication with multiple errors doesn’t leave me with a very good impression. There are definitely tools out there to help people with spelling and grammar; so there is no excuse for it.
Some have argued that this is perhaps a generational thing. Language is alive and changing as we speak (pun intended). Since the introduction of texting, shorthand like UR 4 ME seems to be more accepted. But is it acceptable in professional communication? I think not. Different context. Different rules.
Lowest common denominator, largest common factor – math terms work well here.
If both groups – youngsters and older folk (who often control businesses and the money) can both recognize and read what you write, what’s the harm? Possibly, with the first group, you might appear a bit less ‘with it.’ But they will still understand what you wrote.
Whereas the hiring personnel is usually skewed toward older and more traditional – and they are not eager to be overrun by those who throw in their faces their age and conventionality.
When you’re the CEO, you may have the whole company use nothing but chatspeak – if you never have to interact with suppliers. Or customers who are older. Go ahead.
I would hazard a guess that the last to upgrade themselves will be the lawyers, for whom ‘UR’ is not a legal term.
I could not agree more, and I feel it is the same for anyone in any business. If I receive a plumbing quote full of spelling errors, I will be quite reticent to hire that plumber since I question his/her care and attention to detail. Which could be very unfortunate, for both of us, as they may be the best plumber.
In the past, I have offered to proof and edit the webpages of a few business friends and associates – if I have noted several existing errors. They never take me up on it. Instead, they often say it is just who they are, and they are okay with it. Or, worse, they don’t even recognise there are errors!
Many people seem to resent what they see as the “grammar police” and feel people need to lighten up and accept their “style”. Interestingly, it is usually the ones with the poorest grammar and spelling who think it is not important to be correct. And then blame those who point them out as being too picky or snobbish. In contrast, those of us who do care are usually appalled when we discover we made even the slightest error!
(So, FYI – I have to point out – “sollicitation” (double “l”) is the French spelling. English is “solicitation”. 🙂)
Hi Skye, thanks for the unsolicited proofing of my article (see what I did there!). I will have to have a word with my designated proofreader about that. You are the first one to point this out, which shows how easy it is for all of us to miss more subtle mistakes like this. I also believe that authors should never proof their own work, because they are far from objective.
Too true!
Too true, Paul!
Hooray, Paul!
I don’t know how I’ve been unaware of your blog until now – it just showed up on my Facebook timeline – but you’re spot on with this post. Thanks!
I’ll have to send a thank you note to Marc Zuckerberg for putting me on your timeline!
You did it again Paul. You hit the nail spot on with your hammer, crafted from years of acute observation.
You brought back a memory from when I was a teenager. My grandmother was reading her mail and suddenly began to crumple up a letter with disgust. I asked her who it was from, and why was she so annoyed? She said it was from a bank who wanted her business. She said it had a typo in the letter, and she refused to trust anyone with her money who would send out correspondence without proofreading it first. Her actions made quite an impression on me.
Thank you Paul, for bringing our attention back to the details that do matter in our lives, and in our business.
Thank you for sharing that story with us, Monique. As Stephen Sondheim likes to say: “God is in the details.”
I completely agree with you Paul. Your article is very timely in this world of chatspeaking. Thank you for writing it and sharing your views. Someone once called me a boring pedant when I picked up on a grammar error they made but I realised they just simply didn’t like being caught out. If people want to sound professional they need to act professionally!
Amen, Marina!