As many of you know, in addition to being a full-time voiceover talent, I teach a Voice Acting Class at San Diego City College – one class in the Fall and one in the Spring – usually in the day from 9:30 to noon. Given my regular voice work, it has been getting harder and harder to carve out the time to actually get to the class.

This semester the class is in the evening and I am noticing a couple of things.

  • The students seem more attentive
  • Homework is complete and has been turned in on time
  • And I am able to make it to class without flying out the door at the last second (OK, I did that once this week.)

It is still early, but I am looking forward to the rest of the semester – and then seriously comparing it to the Spring class which will be in the daytime again.

But the main point of my post, is to wonder out loud about the increase in people asking me to do private coaching. I am not hanging out a VO Coach sign, and in fact, after my recent website redesign, I don’t think I even have the paragraph that talks about coaching (I’ll have to look for it). But somehow, the calls keep coming in.

Perhaps what started this increase in calls was VOICE 2007, where I was a featured speaker – 3 hours on Self-Evaluation. Then I did a couple of podcasts for Voices.com Voiceover Experts. About year later I marketed my VOICE 2007 talk for a few weeks before coming to the conclusion that I really didn’t want to market myself as a coach. I wanted to do voiceover work (and have some time to play!).

When the call for presenters came out for VOICE 2010, I got the idea that I could do a shorter version of my VOICE 2007 presentation and let Jim and Penny know. They thought that was a great idea and the contract came in with all of the valuable considerations that a presenter would receive. After reading through the material, it sunk in that I really didn’t want to market myself as a coach, that I didn’t have a book to sell, or a seminar to fill.

But giving the presentation is such wonderful fun! We voiceover people these days spend so much time in a vacuum that the feedback from a live presentation is an energy boost. Talk about a catch 22. I want to do it, but I don’t want the phone to start ringing with people asking for private coaching. So, for the time being, it looks like I am a back up presenter if someone falls through.

Bottom-line for me. I enjoy teaching my class at City College – I learn so much each semester and get better at my real job – that of a voiceover talent.