Thanks for posting the topic of the perfect voice-over website as it’s one the team at Voices.com discusses on a frequent basis. In reality, this is our core mission — to create a place where industry people can conduct business.

To that end, I found Bob’s remarks particularly useful. But before I comment on those, one must consider the following:

* Voices.com generates more gross revenue from clients (who hire voice talent) than we do from memberships. Accomplishing this balance keeps us equally aware of the needs of the client and voice talent.

* There are extremely high costs to operate a world-class business, most notably an investment in qualified staff members to service and support the millions of visitors and tens of thousands of customers. Scaling a business to this size is no easy feat and one that requires a secure technological infrastructure (web servers for hosting terabytes of data, high bandwidth capacity, merchant accounts, telecommunication systems) as well as a culture of innovation where our staff and supporting personnel strive to improve all aspects of the business.

Now, regarding the characteristics suggested by Bob, I’d like to highlight what it takes to build and operate a dream site. Many of the recommendations made are already in place at Voices.com.

1. Outstanding customer service. While we’re available for 10 business hours per day, we also offer a wide variety of resources and tutorials online where many common questions can be answered. Our toll-free number is a popular means to connect with Voices.com staff.

2. Escrow Payment Service. SurePay has been one of the best investments in technology and financial resources we’ve made to date. The legal requirements by financial institutions in order to operate an escrow service guarantee that all transactions are accounted for, payments are distributed promptly and that significant minimum balances are held in the bank accounts. We have several patents pending with respect to SurePay.

3. Highly optimized website using SEO. Search engine optimization is an art and a science. We’ve been engaging in this strategy for over five years, which means, that we have a 5-year “first mover advantage.” Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing have ever-changing algorithms, meaning that the rules constantly change and you need to be razor sharp to keep top placements.

4. An online audition process. Not only do useful and relevant job details need to be captured by the system, those same details need to be presented in a meaningful way so that voice talent can quickly evaluate if a specific job is an opportunity they are interested in.

After recently completing the 2010 Report on the Voice Over Industry, which we will be publishing and sending to Premium members shortly, I’m more confident than ever about the opportunities available for voice talent and the promise of Voices.com in the years to come.

Thanks for your consideration.

** You are welcome to email me personally if you have comments you’d like to make privately. My email is dav…@voices.com

David Ciccarelli
CEO
Voices.com
http://www.voices.com

As far as rates go, you don’t get what you don’t ask for. We’re just good at asking because we can back it up with our excellent talent. Thanks to all of you for all you do to keep the professionalism in our industry.

Abundanza! OK, got it!

Thanks for taking the time to explain, Donna.

I know you’re busy, and you’ve been very transparent, here, with the inner-workings of your two businesses.

Just one clarification: This is what I see from your first comment on this blog:”…our operations are completely transparent and we report what job was won by whom and how much they made on our site and in our promotional material…”

In your second response, you say: “…we have no way of knowing who wins VOplanet jobs unless a talent decides to share with us. Most don’t…”

I’m assuming then it’s the VoiceCasting jobs you’re transparent with, and the VOPlanet jobs you don’t know about?

Perhaps a moot point.

I actually understand your suggestion about talent not needing to hear the winning audition, but I think there is something to be gleaned from knowing how the pros tackle copy that you’ve also submitted. That is undoubtedly another layer of complication for the p2p site, though.

Audition it…and forget it!

The one comment I consistently hear from my VO peers is that they like VOPlanet, ’cause the quality of the opportunities is high, and commensurate with the level of pay. Bravo for toeing the line on that with clients!

Thanks, too, for explaining how you yourself reserve the information about which lead is agency and which is P2P. That clears up a lot for me, and I’m glad to know I’m in the mix.

Thanks!

Dave Courvoisierr

Here are answers to Dave’s questions. It’s been a busy day and I’ve just now had time to slow down enough to answer. Please let me know if any of you have further questions or suggestions. I love what I’m hearing on this blog!

Dave stated that the line between VoiceCasting and VOPlant gets blurred. If VoiceCasting is an agency, then are talent at VOPlanet vying for the same jobs of agency talent?

Here is how it works: When a client goes directly with a talent at VOplanet, it’s just like any other P2P site. Agents do not tread on that territory. We don’t ask folks to audition, we don’t suggest folks to clients, we don’t negotiate or collect rates. It’s all between you and your client.

When a client comes to us as agents for an audition through VoiceCasting, we can send the audition out to our select few VoiceCasting talent or to everyone, depending on what the client wants to hear. Michelle and I then listen to every single audition that comes in. If you are a VoiceCasting talent, you get first billing if the client wants to limit his audition numbers. There is a numbering system we use when we send auditions to clients, so we make sure to put the best talent first. That is usually the talent we have listed at VoiceCasting. The client can renumber with his own choices and that is when you see sometimes that you are in the top 5 or 10 for an audition. We also list VoiceCasting talent on VideoVoicebank. VOplanet talent are not found there. We are working on some advertising that will give further distinctions to the two sites.

Dave says that as a VOPlanet subscriber, he does not see who wins auditions and for how much. Dave, we have no way of knowing who wins VOplanet jobs unless a talent decides to share with us. Most don’t. They want to keep their clients as far away from the agency as possible, for obvious reasons!

At VoiceCasting we can tell you exactly who got the job IF one of our talent booked it and we show how much each job pays on the audition sheet. We publish these jobs in a newsletter that goes out once or twice a month. If you want to subscribe, just shoot me an e-mail at dsum…@voplanet.com. As far as allowing talent to hear the winning audition, we used to do it that way and we feel it is counter-productive. Talent should spend their time developing their own unique style, not worrying about copying the style of the guy who “won”. We spent countless hours listening to talent say, “I could have done it better,” when we let the winning audition be posted. It’s not healthy or helpful, in my opinion.

I hope I have explained the relationship and differences between the two entities. We have two offices. Michelle is in Atlanta and Robert and I are in Orange Beach, AL. If you get close to Atlanta or Orange Beach, come for a visit and I’ll give you a boat ride in Orange Beach if it’s warm!

Dave also asked if one is more lucrative than the other. No, Dave,they are separate yet complementary entities and we need the revenues of both to successfully run our businesses. If we didn’t have great talent, we couldn’t get great auditions. If we didn’t have great auditions, we couldn’t have great talent. And Dave, you do get agency leads all the time. No one is ever barred from auditioning. We just don’t advertise which leads are private and which leads are public. What does it matter, as long as you get the leads!

Humbly,

Donna Summers

If you and I are going to go into business together, we should start by stealing all the good ideas from the current sites!

First off, we need a definite social media presence on all the current popular sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube: We need to keep our finger on the pulse of our demographics.

All of our status updates, podcasts, blogs and vlogs need to be pithy, fun and informative, with a few interviews sprinkled here and there with experts, clients and talent.

As for the site, the Job page should have all the info the talent needs, including the deadline, the budget, the script (NOT as a downloadable file, but right there – on the page) and how many people have already auditioned.

I like letting the talent have their own “page” on a site – and to make it even more homey, let’s allow them to use their page as their own blog, if they wish. This way, the talent will be more likely to drive traffic to their page, creating more potential for us to have clients!

Maybe limiting the talent on the site would be a good idea – we could audition the folks who want to be listed and ensure that our clients are going to get auditions from quality people.

How’s that for a start?