Business – Page 4 – Connie Terwilliger

Social Media (read – Facebook) Time Management

Managing our time online is taking more and more time. Facebook especially. I know I am missing some posts – and getting posts that I would rather not see. Combine that with all of the designed to grab you Suggested Posts, and I am overwhelmed.

No one really knows the answers, but there are a few “experts” who may be able to help. One of them was just “introduced” to me through a post thread by my friend J.S. Gilbert. His name is Robert Scoble and is touted as a Tech Evangelist. He has a regular blog (not a “regular” blog, but a social media blog to which he posts regularly) called Scobleizer – so if you are not on Facebook, Twitter or Google+, then you are out of luck. (This position raises another issue that I need to contemplate […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:05+00:00August 6th, 2015|Categories: Business, Marketing|Tags: Facebook, social media, time management|

Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…HA!

Connie Recording at MediaPiu in Italy in 2010

It feels like summer this summer. As adults, sometimes – maybe most of the time – summer is just another 3 months – just a little warmer. Our schedules stay the same. Maybe we plan a short vacation. If you are in the US, and you work a regular job, you may get some vacation time, you may not.

Apparently we are the only advanced economy that does not guarantee any paid vacation time or even paid holidays. Most employers do give their employees some paid time off – a typical U.S. worker at a private company gets about 10 days of paid vacation and six or so paid holidays per year. If you are in France, bump that up to 30 paid days off per year. Viva […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:05+00:00July 31st, 2015|Categories: Business, Life, Musings|

Common Sense Communication…What Not to Say…

Dan Lenard saying something socially acceptable at a VO Peeps gathering last year.

I was thinking about something someone said to me last night at a networking meeting. The person thought they were being complimentary, and I knew that, but it just felt awkward. I’ve been working out a bit more in the past 6 months or so, but no drastic changes really. Anyway, the intended compliment came out as a comparison to some impression of me in the distant past (many many months earlier) and forced me to find some kind of a response, rather than just a thank you.

We have all been guilty of saying things to friends, acquaintances and strangers that should have been better left unsaid – or phrased differently. I would have been very happy with a “You look great!” rather than a “Your face looks […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:06+00:00July 15th, 2015|Categories: Business, Communication, Musings|Tags: conversation, social awareness, Travis Bradberry|

There is no math in Voiceover…Ha!

At many a gathering either virtually or face-to-face, voice talent has been known to utter this phrase – “There is no math in voiceover.” It has various meanings for each of us, but usually means that we are grateful that we don’t have to tackle calculus or quantum physics in order to do our jobs.

I wanted to be a bio major in college (loved my high school bio classes), but kept flunking chemistry. And one semester I withdrew from calculus before the teacher had to give me the inevitable “F.” OK, so I really didn’t study very hard in school and there may have been some drinking involved (Iowa was an 18 state at the time), but my brain just didn’t want to remember formulas and add and subtract large numbers – much less fractions.

This goes back to […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:06+00:00July 11th, 2015|Categories: Business, Negotiating|

Wait, I left my phone in the house…

Modern telephone communication is a wonder – a boon – a time-waster and at times – a nightmare. It can also be an addiction, especially when it comes to our smart phones. In fact, it is a named anxiety disorder – Nomophobia (“no mobile phone phobia”).

From Psychology Today – July 25, 2013

Two years ago Psychology Today said that “Nomophobia- fear of being without your smartphone- affects 40% of the population.” Today, the figure is 64%, according to Pew Research Center.

I know that I feel panicked when I can’t find my phone. But it allows me to leave my office during traditional business hours and still stay connected to my clients. This is a good thing.

Years ago, before cell phones and their predecessor car phones, we all had pagers. Before that, we had no stress. OK, so we still had stress. […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:06+00:00July 1st, 2015|Categories: Business, Communication, Musings, Technology|

Usage has Value

One of the lessons free lancers – independent contractors – need to learn in this Internet age is to negotiate a fair price for their work. We see it day after day – people wanting the free lancer to work – well, to work not necessarily for free, but close to it. And in fact, in some cases – people DO expect it for free. It is happening in all creative areas.

Oh, for the good old days…

You wouldn’t ask the plumber to cut rates by half or more. The dry cleaner. The tailor. The electrician. But on the creative side of things – the graphic artist, the writer, or the voice talent – it seems like a “name that tune” experience nearly every day.

Part of it is educating the people doing the hiring. But the people […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:06+00:00June 22nd, 2015|Categories: Business, Communication, Musings, Negotiating|

Alphabet Soup

When a normal person hears the words “alphabet soup” they probably think of the kind you eat with the little noodles shaped like letters. When a voiceover person hear the words “alphabet soup” it means that their mouth is going to be filled with lots of acronyms.

One of the things that endears a voice talent to clients is a talent’s ability to see past the noodles in this word soup and find the broth. This doesn’t necessarily mean understanding every word that is spoken, but it does mean understanding the context and how the words relate to each other.

It helps to have a little bit of understanding about a LOT of stuff. For voice talent who do marketing pieces, informational and corporate communications work – we see scripts for IT, healthcare, the financial business, the military or the government and many other […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:06+00:00June 10th, 2015|Categories: Business, Musings, Techniques|

Getting Your House In Order

I am a bad homeowner. About 10 years ago, I had a major remodel done that included replacing all of my windows with new wood dual pane windows. Of course I was told that wood windows needed to be maintained. A coat of paint every few years was part of my responsibility as the homeowner.

Did I do it? No, so the result is going to about $1000 worth of repair and then new paint everywhere – which I will probably hire out because the idea of painting 14 windows and all the trim around the top of front of the house seems like a daunting time suck – plus I don’t have a ladder tall enough to get up to the roof line.

The list of things to do around the house after living here nearly 30 years is starting […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:06+00:00June 8th, 2015|Categories: Business, Musings|

Curiosity Creates Opportunity

I was thinking about the phrase “curiosity killed the cat” today as one of my cats climbed up on a pile of empty cardboard boxes that were piled high on a work table to see what was going on and everything came down in a huge, yet rather quiet crash – except for the startled yelp of the cat as he was propelled into the air.

Most of us know what curiosity killed the cat “means.” Poking around can have dire consequences. But I was curious as to it’s origin, so I did some Googling and found this info on Wikipedia. It started out as “care killed the cat.”

Ben Johnson, an English playwright in 1598 used something like it one of his plays – followed by Shakespeare in 1599. It evolved into the […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:06+00:00May 23rd, 2015|Categories: Auditioning, Business, Musings|Tags: curiosity, Wikipedia|

Marketing. It’s part of the job.

Most small businesses struggle with balancing time. How much time you spend working vs. how much time you spend seeking the work. There is no magic formula, but you have to be aware of the fact that no matter how talented you are, if no one knows about it, you won’t have a business very long.

That means marketing what you have to sell to the people who want to buy it.

Putting up a website and just hoping people find you is simply not going to happen. My business is global and as each day passes and more and more people buy domain names and throw up websites, it becomes harder and harder to get the right eyes on you and what you offer. Even if you throw a lot of money into SEO, there are larger companies out there using the […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:07+00:00May 17th, 2015|Categories: Business, Marketing|Tags: Marketing, referrals|