Business – Page 5 – Connie Terwilliger

I Love My SEO – and My Production Partners

OK, I’ve been on the Internet with a website since before Al Gore had anything to do with his infamous statement about moving forward initiatives to blah, blah, blah – invent the internet. See the Snopes info here >>>

This is a good thing. A real good thing.

I don’t have to buy key words. I come up in searches. A lot. Just a fact of having a web presence since 1996.

Lately it seems that people have been doing searches for voice talent in San Diego. Which makes my website come up even higher on the search results because of the addition of the city. This has led to more VO projects, but also much more than voiceover work.

As I have mentioned before, my background is as a producer/writer/on and off-camera talent since – well, since a long time ago. I stopped producing a couple of years into […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:07+00:00July 11th, 2014|Categories: Business|Tags: producing, production, scriptwriting, SEO, the business of voiceover, voice talent|

June Came and June Went…

What the heck just happened? The month of June just sort of disappeared in a vortex of VO work. Which is a good thing, but makes it hard to find the time to compose something interesting, relevant or amusing as a blog post.

And that is the goal of keeping a blog – at least as I understand it.

My class blog is easier to keep up to date, but can become a tad boring and even repetitive for people who are not active students in the class. If there was a way to filter OUT the homework assignments, and only keep the interesting videos and articles that would be different, but I haven’t figured out a way to do that yet.

One of the things I talk to my introduction to voice acting students is that just because you are hired to record […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:07+00:00July 7th, 2014|Categories: Business, Marketing, Musings|Tags: Connie Terwilliger, narration, voice actor, voice talent, voiceover business, white board narrator, YouTube|

Who will decide who comes in first in the ISDN Alternative Race – talent or studio?

There has been a LOT of buzz lately about the death of ISDN as a connection method for solid distance recording between talent and studio. New lines are impossible to get in certain parts of the United States (primarily on the East Coast at the moment) and the cost for the lines is skyrocketing in other parts of the country. The cost for my lines has remained steady for the past several years, but each month when the pre-paid bill arrives, I open the envelope with trepidation.

There are now several potential replacements for ISDN, which will at some point no longer be an option: SoundStreak, ipDTL, and Source-Connect NOW.

So far, I have “invested” in ipTDL and Source-Connect. Should I add SoundStreak too? Yes, I probably should. Will another technology come along that blows them […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:07+00:00May 25th, 2014|Categories: Business, Technology|Tags: ipDTL, ISDN, SoundStreak, source-connect NOW|

A Plan for the Future

I think I have mentioned it before, but I have never really planned anything significant in my life. It has been one foot in front of the other with common sense, curiosity and initiative forging a steady yet unexpected path.

Last year, my new year’s resolution was to start to plan. By that I didn’t mean a business plan or a marketing plan, though I am constantly reminded by my compadres, blogs, experts that I should probably do that – especially a marketing plan.

No, it meant planning to meet people for dinner, or the movies, or a dinner party. Yes, that basic people kind of planning. My usual MOO (method of operation) is to be hard a work doing whatever I do all day and suddenly look up at the clock and realize that it is about 4 PM and wouldn’t it be nice to go out to dinner with someone? […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:08+00:00December 29th, 2013|Categories: Business, Marketing, Musings|

Never Assume – and you know why…

I don’t know about you, but when I get busy, and I start to tackle a new project that – on the surface – resembles so many of my other projects, I tend to slip into auto-pilot mode. I just KNOW what the producer wants. Well, maybe. Maybe not. Remember that old adage – “never assume – because it makes an ass out of you and me?” Slipping into what has been called Stage Four Learning can sometimes mean getting a project off on the wrong foot. Sometimes it can mean losing a client.

Here is a quick refresher on the Four Stages of Learning…

Unconsciously incompetent

You don’t understand how to do something – and probably don’t even realize that you don’t know how to do it. Relating this to voiceover work – you have been told you should be doing voiceover work, but you don’t know anything about the business, or […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:08+00:00December 8th, 2013|Categories: Business, Musings|

I Have 3 Lawn Mowers and 5 Mics

Scattered in the storage area behind the garage are three (yes, I said 3) lawn mowers. Two gas mowers and an electric mower. None of them work. Well, one can be coaxed into mowing, if you know the secret sequence of events that involves lots of starter fluid sprayed in the spark plug socket and the carburetor in just the right order. Only one person knows how to do that.

I should probably get rid of all three of them and get one that works right the first time you yank on the starter.

I have two weed whackers. One is gas powered and I don’t think that one works. The battery operated whacker works, but not for very long on a charge. That one I got on Craig’s List.

I had a couple of loppers to cut the branches off the fig tree every year in August when the figs have turned […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:08+00:00December 1st, 2013|Categories: Business, Marketing, Musings, Negotiating, Recording, Technology|

Give it away, give it away now

The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give It Away” has a couple of lyrics that make me think about the way I live my life and do business. I’m pretty lucky to be doing what I am doing and make a living at it. Still looking to spend more time on the dancin’ part of it, and better do that soon before my agility runs out.

“Lucky me swimmin’ in my ability. Dancin’ down on life with agility.”

At least I am interpreting these lyrics in this way. Not being the type of person who plans, but someone who has a bit of common sense and intuition, I ended up being able to carve out a living doing something that I enjoy. In fact, enjoy to the point where I don’t really consider it work. This gets to be an issue when I don’t take the time to dance.

Later on in the song, we […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:08+00:00November 22nd, 2013|Categories: Business, Negotiating|Tags: doing freebies, voiceover|

A Crisis of Confidence and Tree Trimming

The past 6 months or so have been great on many fronts. Business and personal. I had a great summer. The weather was wonderful and I became an Artlab groupie. Never ending concerts and art shows. There were parties and events and bike rides and sunsets at the beach.

And business was booming. I switched my invoicing to Freshbooks in May and have been watching the columns grow steadily. Until this month.

It has been a fairly dismal month so far compared to the last 5 months. I have some projects yet to be billed, so they don’t show up on the columns yet, and by the end of the month, it will look better, but still, looking at it now makes me wonder what the heck I am doing.

I’ve been making my living doing only voiceover work for more than 10 years – after many years working as […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:08+00:00October 21st, 2013|Categories: Business, Musings|Tags: Artlab, Celia Siegel, FaffCon, female voice talent, ISDN voice talent, VO Peeps, voiceover work|

I’m Confused. Just What Constitutes a Business These Days?

I wasn’t always a full-time voiceover talent. I am first and foremost a video producer and writer – and wore those hats during the first 20+ years of my career. After finding myself working at a television station in the mid-70’s as a graphic artist (art degree), I moved into production and decided that this was perhaps an industry where I could find a career. So I went to graduate school and learned more about it.

It being the 70’s (by now the late 70’s) and being that I am a woman with a Masters Degree, I was hired immediately at a TV station as a director. That didn’t last long. I decided that I really didn’t want to be a news director, I wanted to produce and write. But I found myself in a tiny booth as a live booth announcer for the station – part-time. This was because I […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:08+00:00October 11th, 2013|Categories: Business|

East Coast – Left Coast – and Other Times Around the World

I live in California. Pacific Time Zone. 3 hours later than many of my agents and clients. 9 or so hours different from several other agents and clients scattered across Europe.

This means that my operating hours are not 9-5 Pacific time. They are 9 AM to 9 AM anytime. Over, the years, as more of my clients are in far flung parts of the globe, I find that I do a lot of work very early in the morning. I get up fairly early anyway, but more and more it seems as though I must be “in voice” for a 7 AM session.

Just part of the customer service.

It used to be – when I was working in the local studios, I could ask my agent to arrange for sessions between 10 and 2 so that I didn’t have to mess with the traffic. This usually worked. Not for any on-camera […]

Connie Terwilliger2018-02-06T06:48:08+00:00September 28th, 2013|Categories: Business, Musings|