SPI 415: How to Make Money Through Voice-Over Work, with Mike Russell

SPI 415: How to Use Your Voice to Make Money, The World of Voice Over Work with Mike Russell

Pat Flynn:
I recently published a YouTube video, one about how to make money just using your voice only. I shared a number of different ways that you could use just your voice, not having to put your face on camera, not having to write anything in order to generate an income. In that video, I mentioned things like podcasting, I mentioned creating online courses and those kinds of things. It actually encouraged a lot of people. You could even create YouTube videos without having to show your face and just using your voice only, which is exactly how I personally got started on YouTube as well. This video got a lot of great feedback. It actually went semi tiny little bit viral. Meaning, I found that YouTube was feeding it to a lot of people who didn’t know me, which was fantastic. That’s a great sign. However, there was one specific kind of way to generate an income using your voice that I personally don’t have experience with, and I mentioned that in the video. A number of people said, “Hey Pat, you should explore that a little bit more.” Which is why I am excited to introduce to you, this particular episode today, because we dive deep into the world of voiceover work.

Pat:
If you have a voice and you can get in front of a microphone, you could potentially generate an income. A lot of people love doing voiceover work, because they get to come out of their shell a little bit because they don’t have to be seen. You just have to be heard. All different kinds of voices, as you’ll hear today, are needed. Even if you don’t think you have a great voice, there is always a demand for all kinds of different voices.

Pat:
Today, to help me help you discover this world, I have a great friend on the show with me today. Somebody who is very influential in my career as a podcaster. And that is Mike Russell, who is one of the co-founders along with his wife, Isabella, over at musicradiocreative.com.

Pat:
When you hear this person’s voice, you’re going to hear just a brilliant DJ-sounding voice. He’s going to share a little bit about his story about how he got into voiceover work. And now he’s built this amazing agency that allows any one of us, like a podcaster or a person who has a show of any kind, even on YouTube, to hire his service to create intros… to create music, to create royalty free music, obviously, so that you can put them in your podcast. You can have and select from all different kinds of voices to have on your show. Very similar to how I have John Melley, who introduces the top of my show with this sort of movie guy voice, although John has many number of different voices under his belt. He also, by the way, does the Australian voice in the social media marketing podcast intro, and many others that you might have heard on the interwebs.

Pat:
Anyway, this whole voiceover space is really interesting. There’s a whole sub-niche of people who are generating an income using just their voice only. Whether it’s character voices, voiceovers for commercials, voiceovers for radios and podcasts and that sort of thing. There’s so much stuff here. I just wanted to bring an expert on, because I don’t know any of this world in particular. I wanted to share it with you as a potential solution for how you might be able to generate additional income in the comfort of your own home, or wherever you might have access to a studio. You don’t need expensive equipment. You just need the right stuff, and we’re going to talk about that stuff today, again, Mike Russell from musicradiocreative.com.

Pat:
But first, let me introduce to you, John Melley, who is my voiceover guy in my intro for Smart Passive Income. Here he is.

John Melley:
Welcome to the Smart Passive Income podcast, where it’s all about working hard now so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your host, he’s flaked on getting his next tattoo at least three times, Pat Flynn.

Pat:
What’s up everybody? Welcome to episode 415 of the Smart Passive Income podcast. My name is Pat Flynn here to help you make more money, save more time, and help more people too. You know, when it comes to voiceovers, it just reminds me of my first experience with voiceover work. I actually hired somebody to read my architectural exam book. I actually bought a really cheap microphone back in the day. So here’s the story. I created a study guide. This is what helped me create my own business. It was a study guide to help people pass the architectural exam. My second product was the audio version of that. I knew that I could potentially read this off myself. I was like, I don’t want to spend $800 to $1,000 to have somebody read hours and hours of content for me, when I could do it myself. So I bought a Logitech microphone. It was one of those gaming ones, because that’s all I could afford at the time. Even though I had business money coming in, I didn’t want to spend money on stuff I knew I could do myself. This was my first lesson in outsourcing, by the way too, at the same time.

Pat:
So I recorded the whole book. It took a couple weeks to get through, and it was terrible. The audio quality was bad. I couldn’t with good conscience, post it up and have people buy it, so I scrapped it. I looked at a place called Elance, which is where you can go and hire people online that recently changed to upwork.com, which you may have heard of. And I hired a voiceover person there for $1200, but it was delivered within a week, and it was the best audio quality I could have imagined. This woman’s voice was so perfect. I made up the cost of the $1200 in half-a-day, after selling it. That was another lesson in investing in my own business. So anyway, that was my first experience with a voiceover person. Then it was John Melley with my podcast, and all those kinds of things. Again, I’m rambling here. Let’s get to the interview with Mike Russell, because he’s got a great story. He has got an amazing voice, and some really fantastic tips for how to break into this industry if you’d like to, and how to get started and get out there. So here he is, Mike Russell from musicradiocreative.com. Hey, Mike. Welcome to the Smart Passive Income podcast.

Mike Russell:
Hey, Pat. It’s great to be here.

Pat:
We’re actually in the studio here at… We work in San Diego. You’re on a little world tour, as you go around and go to these different events. We just recently saw each other at VidSummit. You are known in the space of voice and radio and podcasting, the founder of Music Radio Creative, along with Isabella. She’s not here today, but you guys have helped me out so much. You helped create the jingle for Ask Pat, for All of Your Beeswax. I mean, just amazing. I’d love to dig into your story a little bit. But first of all, how is the trip going?

Mike:
Thank you. Well yeah, it’s going great. It’s kind of like the grand tour of the West Coast of the U.S. at the moment. So I’ve been in Vegas for an event there, we met in LA for VidSummit, now I’m here in San Diego looking at your awesome podcast studio. Then I’m back up to LA for more bits and bobs. And eventually, Adobe Max as well.

Pat:
Adobe Max, what is that?

Mike:
That is Adobe’s big conference every year. So every single year, they get up on a big stage in the convention center in downtown LA. This time, they have done it in other locations previously. They announce all their big product updates. So everything that’s new in Photoshop, everything that’s new in Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro… and of course, my favorite thing that I always wished for more air time, Adobe Audition.

Pat:
Adobe Audition, yes. That’s what I use to edit my podcasts now.

Mike:
Nice.

Pat:
I’ve been using it for a couple of years. Love it. Not even scratching the surface of really what’s possible, I think. Adobe Audition to me initially, was like every other Adobe product which is a little overwhelming at the start, but obviously, very powerful. So Adobe Max is sort of like the keynote that Apple gives every year, right?

Mike:
Exactly. Yes.

Pat:
With all their new stuff. So any big news coming this year that you know about?

Mike:
Down the line, absolutely nothing that I know about until it’s announced.

Pat:
Okay. They keep it pretty secret. Because you work with Adobe, right?

Mike:
Yeah.

Pat:
You do some work for them?

Mike:
I am in a prerelease group, but nothing that I can say I know.

Pat:
Okay. I got you. You can tell me later offline then, I guess. Very cool. Okay. Music Radio Creative, for those of you who don’t know, that’s where you can go to get some really cool audio jingles. You can find a voiceover person to help you with your podcast intro, outro, transitions, those kinds of things. You also help with podcast editing as well.

Mike:
Absolutely.

Pat:
How long have you been in this industry?

Mike:
Wow. In the podcast industry, I think my first introduction to podcasts was back in 2011. And actually, it was listening to you. You were one of my first podcasts.

Pat:
Really?

Mike:
Yeah, back in 2011. Because before that, I was a radio guy since about 1995. I worked in commercial radio, worked in voiceover. Always wanted to be on the air. It was my dream to be hosting a slot on Capital Radio in London. That was my favorite radio station and the epitome of making it for me. But I soon discovered when I started getting into radio studios, that I preferred the behind-the-scenes work, the audio production work, the making jingles and bits like that. Then listening to podcasts eventually got me into producing podcasts and eventually making my own. And here I am now. How bizarre is this, sitting in your studio talking to you many years later after first discovering Smart Passive Income back in the day?

Pat:
That’s so crazy.

Mike:
Yeah, it really is.

Pat:
So what were your first moves when you started building businesses for yourself?

Mike:
Ah, that’s a great question. I think I listened to a lot of what you said, and I started building an email list, which was absolutely amazing. I actually created… One of the pivotal moments for building my list was when I created a website giving away something for free. It was a free jingle site, essentially. And I was giving away voiceovers that I’d created. Eventually later down the line, I actually produced a few of those voiceovers. I was blown away to see that hundreds and in some cases, thousands of people, would download those samples when I put them up there. Initially when I first set the website up, because I set it up initially in 2005, I didn’t even collect emails. I know you are going to cringe at that.

Pat:
I am cringing right now.

Mike:
I put the samples there and just allowed people to download them. I think it was on Bluehost, because that was a recommendation at the time. Yeah, so I was probably using up all the shared bandwidth there. Then eventually, you said in a podcast episode, you should really start an email list. So I started an email list, and I was blown away when I actually got stats back on how many downloads were coming in. I was like, this is cool.

Pat:
Cool. So what did you do with that email list?

Mike:
I started emailing them all the time with updates. I wasn’t really very consistent in the early days. Now thankfully, Isabella does it, and she does it regularly. She does it every week. She updates everyone on what’s going on at Music Radio Creative. Weekly live streams, everything there. New products and bits like that. But it really wasn’t organized back in the day. It was probably like… Hey, I’ve got this thing. Actually, I took a tip from you. A leaf from your book, Pat. When you said actually, rather than sending these big emails with templates and graphics, just send them from you with plain text. That was amazing. That was one of the tips that really got me going, because I got so many replies to those emails. Just as you’ve said in the past, it’s like people think you’re emailing them. So I would ask questions. I would be… What events are you attending, or what kind of jingle do you like? I don’t know. You know, stuff like that. It was amazing.

Pat:
You were just offering jingles and voiceover work. Were you doing this for individuals at this point, getting custom work done for people? What was the business? You built the email, sure. But where was this going in your mind?

Mike:
Back in the day, up until about 2011, this was just my side hustle. This was my extra money thing, as I was working in radio. It was just me on the website. I was the only voice at Music Radio Creative. I would do the customer service, I would do the voiceovers. I would produce the jingles, I would send them out. I would do the followups and everything like that. Mainly, I was working with individual radio hosts. So hosts that worked maybe on community stations or local radio stations… as we have in the U.K., hospital radio stations, which I know they don’t exist around the world. They are radio stations that broadcast at hospitals. Also, DJs. I’ve worked with a lot of DJs. We still do. Podcasters, not until later on. That all came later on. That was the big shift in everything. The acceleration, if you like, the hockey stick.

Mike:
When I started discovering podcasts, it started something in my life that could not be undone. It’s totally changed my life for the better. I mean, I really enjoyed working in radio, but it was a job. So I was getting up early. I was hosting a breakfast show. I was waking up at 4:00, sometimes 3:30 in the morning. It’s all right. I’m sure every radio host that’s listening to this can relate to the fact you have the three or four-minute songs or sometimes, “Hotel California.” And you’d be clicking around on Amazon or on CNN, or just checking out what’s going on. You’re like… Am I into this, this morning? I don’t know. I just thought there must be something more. That’s when the total freedom and everything that you talk about, and other business podcasts talk about. It’s just it was a dream, and then it’s become reality now. It’s kind of crazy.

Pat:
That’s amazing. Well, congrats to you and Isabella for your success. Now, the business. Tell me about Music Radio Creative and what that business looks like to you as a founder of that company.

Mike:
Today?

Pat:
Yeah.

Mike:
Sure. Today, we are working with over 100 voice artists from around the world. They speak many different languages, so we don’t just produce in English. We get a lot of orders in Spanish, German, Italian, as we work with a lot of DJs in those countries, in European countries. We also work with many audio producers. Not just now jingle producers, but we also have a subdivision if you like, of podcast producers as well. Because this is something that is fantastic, we really enjoy doing it. A lot of podcasters don’t want the hassle of producing their own shows. So this is a fantastic thing that we do. We work with musicians, jingle singers, everything. My kind of ethos, or our ethos, is if it’s audio… If you can hear it, if you can think about hearing it, then we can make it for you.

Pat:
I’m really interested in the business model that you have, and the fact that it’s not just you creating these jingles anymore. You have talent that’s onboard. I’m just curious, because there’s a lot of people who don’t want to do it themselves anymore too, and they could potentially hire. You have essentially an agency, if you will, that people can hire to get voiceover work done on jingles and whatnot. How do you find those people? How do you work with them? What is that business structure like? I’m curious.

Mike:
That’s a really good question. In the early days, and still today, we do recruit quite a bit through industry websites. So we’ll go through radio websites, media websites. Another great place that we’ve had a lot of success is Facebook Groups. And just asking around in Facebook Groups, posting jobs and bits like that.

Pat:
Voiceover groups?

Mike:
Yeah. Definitely, voiceover groups. Although now, after we built our initial base of voiceovers back in 2011, 2012, we work a lot from recommendation. The voiceover industry is huge and dynamic. From people who are just getting started on websites where they are testing selling their voice, right the way up to people who are using the top-of-the-range microphones, and voicing movie trailers and TV, and bits like that.

Mike:
So there are always people wanting to get into voiceover. We receive so many demos every day.

Pat:
Because they want to work with you? They know that you can give them leads, essentially, or business?

Mike:
Absolutely, that’s right. We work a lot off recommendation, which is really helpful. Particularly, as we get clients in saying, “Can you do this?” Then we’ll go to our group of now 100 plus voiceovers, and we’ll say, “Okay. We’re looking for a Greek voiceover. We don’t have that. Is there anyone you can recommend?” And almost always, our group will come back and say, “Yeah, you should definitely try this person.” Or we get character impersonations quite a lot. “I need a really good Donald Trump. Can you do a Donald Trump?” We’ll post that in the group, and they’ll be like, “Oh, you’re going to need to talk to this person, because they’re really good at that.” So bits like that.

Mike:
But also my advice to you listening now, if you’re interested in voiceover and getting started with this, you need to do something to stand out from all the other demos that come in. It’s like… Hi, here’s my demo. Hope we can work together. It needs to be a bit more than that. You’re the master or the king, Pat, of standing out in the space and doing things different. So you really need to listen to a lot of what Pat says. Employ a lot of his tactics, and try and get noticed. Simple way would be, just dropping something personal into the email. A little bit more than like… Hi, Mike. Hi, Isabella. I know you live on the Isle of Wight, here’s my demo. But if you actually record into your demo… Here is my sample in 2019, or this is my 2020 sample that I’m sending you. And, Hi Mike and Isabella. It’d be lovely to work with you. Just something like that would be awesome. I know other voice artists have sent tea bags through the post, but that’s the old traditional way.

Pat:
Sure. Sure.

Mike:
Now, we can do this online.

Pat:
Something that’s not just generic and probably sent out to the world to everybody, but something personal to you as somebody making a decision, as far as whether that person should work with you or not. How else might a person stand out? Do you have any specific examples, perhaps?

Mike:
That’s a really good question. I would say, attend events in the space, definitely. And not just voiceover events. There are a lot of good voiceover conferences. There’s one in the U.K. Two or three I think, in the U.S. right now that I know of. But don’t just attend conferences in your niche, or is it niche?

Pat:
We can argue about that for hours.

Mike:
So go to events outside your comfort zone. That is how the whole business grew for me with Music Radio Creative. It was attending early events about blogging, about podcasting, video creation, where I met people like yourself and others, and connected, and we created that personal connection. You can do that. If you’re a voice artist, go and attend a podcasting event or a video event. Like we mentioned earlier in the show, VidSummit. Go and attend that and see maybe, how your voiceovers could be used for video creators who are putting stuff out on YouTube. Make those connections. Yeah. Obviously, meet and chat to someone like myself and make the personal connection, because that really helps. But anyone, anyone who you’d like to work with. If you want to work in medical voiceovers, maybe go and attend a medical conference. Go and meet people there and say, how could you use my voice for explainers? That kind of thing.

Pat:
Can anybody be a voiceover artist?

Mike:
I believe it, yeah. Yeah. Everyone’s unique. Everyone’s got unique voice. You know, there’s this stereotype of you have to have the deep gravelly voice of… In a world… All of that. Donald LaFontaine. Pretty much, there’s a need for any voice in any situation. Yes, some voices are more popular than others, and that’s very apparent seeing the statistics from my side. But also, there’s always a requirement for different voices, different languages, if you’ve got something unique. If you don’t think your voice is the best… If you think, oh no, my voice would never work out for voiceovers, think of something like maybe character impersonations is your thing or something like that. That’s something that I believe can be learned. So, yeah.

Pat:
Do you do character impersonation?

Mike:
No. I’m terrible.

Pat:
What are you talking about? You could be that big giant character with the deep voice.

Mike:
The only thing I think I can do is an American voice, and now I’m going to get lots of hate on that because it’s terrible.

Pat:
Well, there’s a lot of different kinds of American voices. No, I love that. Okay. Let’s say for example, I wanted to get started in voiceover work. How do I even get started? I want to do it. Where do I even begin?

Mike:
Okay. So you need to get a microphone, and that’s probably the single most important thing you can spend your money on up front. Obviously, there’s the demo and bits like that.

Pat:
Yeah. We’ll get to that, the demo. But on the microphone, will my podcast mic do justice or should I invest in something, or can I go to somewhere to get in front of a mic and create something?

Mike:
This is a really good question. Your podcast mic… If you’re demoing the individuals or you’re just throwing a demo online to see who likes it, it’s a good start. It’s better than nothing. Some podcasts mics are very, very good. But if you’re sending to the company that does this and works with voiceovers on a daily basis, you definitely don’t want to be using a podcast mic, 100% not.

Pat:
They have an ear for that?

Mike:
Yeah, absolutely. There is a difference. Yeah, you want to get a pro mic. My advice would be if you’re serious about voiceover, spend no less than $1,000 on a microphone. Condenser microphone, that would be it if you’re serious about it. But if you want to test the waters, by all means, if you’ve got a dynamic mic or any other mic, go ahead and record on that. It’ll still sound okay. You can do a lot with EQ as well. Yeah. But also, you’re going to get asked… If you have a great voice, maybe the best voice in the world, one of the first questions will be… Okay, we’re really interested. What gear are you using? If you come back and say, I’m using-

Pat:
The Blue Yeti or a Snowball or something.

Mike:
Yeah, the Snowball or whatever. Which are great mics for their purpose. But yeah, for voiceover, absolutely not.

Pat:
Okay. Then obviously, the demo is important, because that’s going to give people a sample of what you have to offer. What tips you have for a demo? How long should that be? What should be included in it?

Mike:
Okay. I’d say, no more than three minutes for a voiceover demo. Put your best stuff up front. It depends what kind of stuff you’re going for. So if you’re going for radio imaging or like that, something that I specialize quite heavily in, then you definitely want your big powerful stuff up front with lots of sound effects. But if you’re going for commercial reads or narration or audiobooks, you just want a really good taste of what you can do. And also, variety. If you can do different voices, do different voices. Different situations, as well. Maybe one is a clip of you doing a jingle, one is an audio button aeration. Another one could be narration or talking to camera for a video. Why not make it into a video demo, where you have lots of graphics and maybe a motion image of you on the screen or something like that, because a YouTube link is really easy to share.

Pat:
I actually have stumbled upon a number of voiceover people in the YouTube world, where they just are building this giant following and building a personal brand behind their voice. I think that’s really smart. That’s a great way to stand out. Whether you’re doing voiceover work or not, sharing your skills in a public forum like that and gathering a following and just trying new things, is really neat. There’s this one woman, I can’t remember her name off the top of my head, but she does a lot of… One of her big videos that got very popular was voicing every single Pokemon character. She would do that, “Pica. Pica.” I can’t do it. But she does it, and it’s really cute. Then she does, “Charmander.” Then she’s making these facial expressions, and you can’t help but connect with her because she’s just so expressive and the voices are really good. She pops a picture of the character up at the same time. Is that something that can help a person who’s trying to get into that space, is building a following like that on YouTube, and how might that help?

Mike:
Absolutely. Well, the way it will help I think is you will get leads yourself. You may not have to sign up to an agency or an online company like ours. You might find that people are contacting you for inquiries. If you build a YouTube channel, there’s no limit to where you can go. You’ve seen it with your channel, Pat.

Pat:
Yeah.

Mike:
You’ve way crossed over 100,000 subscribers now. I’m sure you’re starting to see the benefits of people reaching out and saying, “Hey, I found you on YouTube.” And, “Let’s do this collaboration.” Or, whatever. That can come about via YouTube. If you are starting to build a following on YouTube, definitely find some way of getting them over to your site and getting people to… Just a simple inquiry form or something like that is a great way to start. But yeah, I think that’s a fantastic idea.

Mike:
We actually worked with a voiceover artist who made the semifinals on Britain’s Got Talent, which was really cool. Yeah, he’s an excellent voice artist. He’s actually done really well for his profile from what I understand, because of that appearance. So again, think outside the box. Appearing on a reality show, appearing on a talent show. Something that’s going to give you exposure. If that’s going to work for you, it can really help, I think. In addition to marketing, sending out demos and all the rest of it.

Pat:
How much can I expect to make as a voice artist?

Mike:
Oh. There’s no limit, really. I mean-

Pat:
Billions of dollars.

Mike:
Billions and billions. Yeah. I think some of the best voiceover artists live very comfy lives. I wouldn’t be sure of the exact statistics of how much the top earners are making, but I certainly know that yeah, you can make a very comfortable living in voiceover if you’re good, and if you’re persistent as well. Persistence really pays off. As you always hear, consistency of constantly producing new materials and reaching out to people. One of the things I do, Pat, is I wake up every day and I think there is literally no limit to where we can go with this business. It’s just how much time and also energy have I got to make that happen? It’s like, okay, I could reach out to every single radio station in the U.S., but where do I start? Well, let’s go through the states in order. Let’s start with Alaska, and reaching out to the radio stations there kind of thing, and we’ll get all the way through to the end. Then there’s Australia.

Mike:
Then there’s theme park audio, which we’ve just started doing, which is a really cool niche. Then there are voicemail messages. Every single government organization and County Council in the U.K. needs a voicemail message. It’s just like there is no limit to the amount of work that’s required. Yeah. I only see it as a good thing, the more people that get into voiceover, because there’s so much demand for it as there are so many people who want to get into it as well.

Pat:
When I get hired… I’m just curious, I just want to get some perspective. Just starting out. I have a demo. It’s okay. I did record it on a good mic. And I put it out there. Let’s just use the radio industry, for example. They are interested in having me film or record a commercial or something. What are the payment terms? What’s that like? I have no idea how many dollars are being exchanged, and for what. I know there’s a range, but typically, what is normal?

Mike:
Okay. I can give you a little look into how it works in the U.K., and I’m pretty sure it works in a similar fashion to the U.S. But there’s something in radio in particular, called a rate card. There are organizations. Now the name slips my mind for the U.S. But in the U.K., there’s an organization called Equity, and there’s an equivalent organization in the U.S. They essentially set rates depending on the size of the radio stations. The size, not of the amount of people who listen, but the potential amount of people who can listen.

Mike:
If it’s a radio station with a quarter of a million listeners potential, then you’re going to be paid a lot less than you would for nine million potential station say, for London, for instance. So those vary. You can get anything from… Let me just throw out some rates. But I’m probably thinking a couple of years back, but maybe between 40 to 60 pounds. That’s just shy of $100 for a commercial read for a very local radio station, right the way up to thousands of dollars for a city radio station. Or if you work with a big brand like a car company, you can get tens of thousands of dollars just for one read.

Pat:
Just for one read. When I am hired, and let’s say it’s a few hundred bucks which I’m excited about, what are they expecting? What’s the deliverable like? Is it 20 different versions of one sentence, or what’s the work required now that I am hired?

Mike:
Sure. If you are talking about working in a traditional radio environment, it’s moving away from the fact that you need to turn up somewhere and be produced. But still, there’s a lot of that going on in the industry. So they’ll want you to appear somewhere or at the very least, connect over ISDN. Now that’s a bit antiquated. So now we’re going to ipDTL which is essentially ISDN, or studio quality down in an internet connection. So really good quality connection.

Mike:
But you’ll expect to be on the line to a producer maybe for up to an hour, or maybe more for one read, just until for as long until the producer is happy that they’ve got the right read. So they’re like, “Oh, that was good. But can you just say this like that? Can you say… ” In the industry, that’s how it would be expected. Now for instance with Music Radio Creative, because we work with pros, we work completely differently. We’ll say give us at least three takes with different styles and that’ll be enough, because we trust and know that it’s going to be exactly what we want. But yes, you can expect to be either online produced, or maybe in your home studio recording. A lot of the clients these days will just say, “send me enough takes. Send me four, five, six different takes that I can use.” And then yeah, they can be edited later on.

Pat:
They just take it from there? Cool. Is this something that can be done on the side for people, or is it something that would require a person going full time with it?

Mike:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s the way you’d build it up, is you can start with it on the side. You can start sending demos and working with people. Then eventually, go full time. Yeah, a lot of people do this as a side hustle to supplement their income. Some people actually, particularly when I was working radio, they don’t even have a pro voiceover studio in their home or in an office. They actually just use the radio station, set up the microphones, and they’ll just bang out a few voiceovers and make some money that way.

Pat:
Wow. Cool. Okay, so give me something to read. And I want you to teach me how to read it in the proper way, that I could then submit it to somewhere as a demo. Maybe we could pull out a book or something. I don’t know if you have any tips. Whatever book is interesting to you there on that shelf. You could give me some tips of how I can do it in different ways, or how I might be able to better position myself so that I would get hired. I didn’t tell you we were going to do this, by the way.

Mike:
That’s okay.

Pat:
Hopefully, this is okay. You picked up Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, one of my favorite books.

Mike:
Okay, fantastic.

Pat:
So reading is a requirement. That’s requirement number one. You have to know how to read.

Mike:
You have to know how to read. So do you want to start? Do you want to give it a go, the first paragraph?

Pat:
Okay, I’ll read the first paragraph.

Mike:
Okay.

Pat:
Then you give me some tips, okay? Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest. I was sitting in my hideout watching cartoons when the news bulletin broke in on my video feed, announcing that James Halladay had died during the night.

Mike:
Okay, that’s great. So already as you’ve… I know you’ve narrated audiobooks before, so you kind of know what you are doing. The first thing I would say is, if you are reading it… A lot of people will start and they’ll read very monotone. They’ll say, this is an audiobook.

Pat:
Like they were reading in their head. Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest.

Mike:
Exactly. But you’re throwing life into it. Everyone remembers, like that. That’s a good thing. The one thing I would say with your read there, is just slow down a little bit.

Pat:
Okay. I do tend to talk fast.

Mike:
Yeah, you do. Especially when you feel like you’re being recorded. But yeah, breathe, take a breath.

Pat:
I am a little bit nervous now. Why did I do this?

Mike:
And also, the other thing I would advise you to do and I think we can do this in this setup, is actually to stand up, because that changes the whole dynamic. It opens your diaphragm up.

Pat:
Standing?

Mike:
You’ll sound better.

Pat:
I’m moving to a standing position. Here I am again.

Mike:
Let’s do it again.

Pat:
Okay. You want me to do it again?

Mike:
Yes.

Pat:
People are walking by like, what are these guys doing? Okay, here we go. Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they… Oh, too fast. Sorry. Okay. Everyone my age remembers where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the contest. I was sitting in my hideout watching cartoons when the news bulletin broke in on my video feed, announcing that James Halladay had died during the night.

Mike:
There you go. That sounds a million times better to me. Just because you’re open.

Pat:
Yeah.

Mike:
It just feels good. So always, most voiceover artists as a matter of course, will actually stand up when they’re talking. Even I feel more energetic now, standing up. The other thing is just to be a little more natural. With audiobook narration, often this is a tip I hear when you are doing a commercial read or something like that, is try not to put it on too much. Try not to be everyone remembers, kind of thing. Just imagine you’re standing across from a mate and you’re just like, everyone remembers that… You know. And just keep it really natural, as if you’re just reading it to a friend or to your kids or something like that.

Pat:
Cool. That’s an audiobook reading. There is an industry of audiobooks out there.

Mike:
Yes, big one.

Pat:
You could probably do a business. There’s a lot of people publishing books on Amazon. That would be where I would start to reach out. Hey, would you like me to read your audiobook? You can get a couple hundred dollars for that, if not more.

Mike:
Absolutely. There is a program on Amazon, ACX, that you can join up to and you can join either as a publisher or as a talent. If you join that, I think it’s available in some countries, maybe not all. Definitely in the U.S. and U.K. You can join and you can see all the audiobooks that need narration. Then just click in and submit little samples. You could be doing that all day, really.

Pat:
Wow. That’s cool. So that’s a good money making opportunity, for example. Then of course, you could do different voices. Let’s say somebody is listening to this and they’re like, you know what? I do voices. I do voices with my kids, and that sounds like fun. So doing a little demo of you doing different voices would make sense. How might that demo work or feel?

Mike:
Yeah. That would be a great idea. I quite like the idea that you mentioned earlier about the Pokemon characters. Of having yourself with a camera and the microphone onscreen, and then popping up the character onscreen as you are doing that character.

Pat:
It’s a video demo.

Mike:
A video demo is a great idea. Another thing you can do, there are programs, I can’t think of one off the top of my head, where you can… kind of like Snapchat where it puts a filter over your face, but you can filter yourself to look like a celebrity. I’m sure there’s something like that out there.

Pat:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike:
But I can’t remember the name of what it might be. So you could actually put that celebrity over your face. Say it’s Gordon Ramsay. You could superimpose Gordon Ramsay.

Pat:
Can you do a Gordon Ramsay?

Mike:
No. No. Anyway.

Pat:
Get out of my kitchen.

Mike:
It would definitely not be for this podcast.

Pat:
Yeah, that’s true. We have kids who listen in the audience, so we don’t want that. Okay, fantastic. This is great. I think a lot of people might get inspired to start trying something. I think that’s the big lesson there. What can you say to those who are like… You know, this sounds interesting. I have a voice. Who knows? Let’s see what happens. But now, the demons are starting to talk to them in their heads. They’re starting to get a little scared. In voiceover work, you have to get out of your comfort zone a little bit and be open. What advice might you have for somebody just starting out in this industry to just try it out and be comfortable?

Mike:
Yeah, just get started. Get a microphone and start recording. Even if it’s just for you to listen to or to play to one friend or a trusted family member who’s going to give you some feedback. Because if it’s family, they’re generally always going to tell you that you’re great. So you can probably start with a little bit of-

Pat:
It depends on the family member. But yeah, okay.

Mike:
That’s it. And start young. There’s never too early a time to get started in voiceover. You might think, I’m really young. I’m in single digits and I’ve got a high voice that hasn’t even broken yet. But there’s a big demand for child voiceovers. Then when your voice does break, there’s a whole new voice for you to start doing. So start early, start fast, and just get it going. Because it’s a great industry and there’s a bright future for it, unless AI takes over. Those generated computer voices are sounding really good now.

Pat:
Yeah. What do you, what’s your take on that in terms of how can we… And this is just for anybody in a position where AI might take over. How do we protect ourselves from that and keep a career, when that stuff’s happening?

Mike:
That’s a good question. Just be really passionate about your voiceover, put a lot of emotion in. Because that’s something that is getting better, but it’s still hard for AI to do. Otherwise, it’s about relationship building, I think. Because you as a human, you can build a relationship with another human. Whereas an AI can’t really build a relationship, although it is easier. But it’s not there yet. So, yeah. It’s always going to be there, but I think we should be looking about ways that we can integrate AI into our businesses, whatever it is. I think every business in the future will have the threat, if you want to call it threat, or maybe help of AI in the future. We just need to think about how can we use that in our business to our advantage to make things better and easier for people.

Pat:
Fantastic. Mike from musicradiocreative.com, check it out. What can people expect when they get there? What should they look at, and how can you help them?

Mike:
Absolutely. Thanks, Pat. Yeah, you can go to the website. It’s musicradiocreative.com. You can click in, click around, play some of the demos. You can type in a script, order online, or get in touch with us. There’s a podcast page there with production and everything like that. And I have a YouTube channel where I do my best to help people with audio production techniques, ideas, making your voice sound better. So if you’re just getting started in voiceover, want some tips, it’s all there on YouTube.

Pat:
Fantastic. Thanks for joining me in the studio today.

Mike:
Cool. Thanks, Pat. It’s a pleasure.

Pat:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview with Mike Russell. You can find him and his team and his crew there to help you at musicradiocreative.com. We’ve got a great relationship with him. They often really, really well serve our podcasting students for voiceovers and royalty free music. But as you can see on musicradiocreative.com, they have a lot of services there. Mike, thank you so much for listening to the show. And Isabella, I know you’re listening to this as well. I appreciate you and what you guys do over there at MRC, and I recommend everybody check them out.

Pat:
If you’d like to get the links and the resources mentioned in this episode all in one spot, just head on over to smartpassiveincome.com/session415. Again, that’s smartpassiveincome.com/session415. Team Flynn, you’re amazing. Thank you so much. Make sure you hit subscribe if you haven’t already done so, because we have a lot of great content coming your way to help you in your business and give you some ideas and inspiration and Flynn-spiration… And education on growing and scaling and building your business, and overcoming all those demons that you have in your head that are trying to stop you. We here at team Flynn are here for you. That’s not just me, that’s not just my team, but it’s the entire community. We are all in this for each other. Thank you so much. Yeah, hit subscribe.

Pat:
I look forward to serving you next Wednesday when the episodes come out, so look out for that episode. Then if not, or if you’re just hungry for the rest of the content that’s in the archive, go ahead and listen to the next episode. Whatever’s available to you or whatever is of interest to you, just hit play. I promise you, it’s going to be helpful. Cheers. Thanks so much. I appreciate you. And as always, team Flynn for the win. Peace.

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