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How was your Friday?

 
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audio'connell
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Joined: 02 Feb 2005
Posts: 1949
Location: in a dark studio with a single bulb light...day after day after....

PostPosted: Fri May 20, 2005 7:03 pm    Post subject: How was your Friday? Reply with quote

I may be guilty of prospecting without thinking.

Or…

I may have gone after one job that was, unbeknownst to me, really for a job a didn’t want.

In either case the outcome seemed humorous to me and, hey, if I can’t poke fun at myself, well…what’s the point.

(BTW...let’s make the fun here interactive: YOU pick the red flag on this company’s operation as I tell the story…it can be lots of yellow flags or a couple red flags…but lets see if you and I agree on when the alarm bells for the BS detector should sound. OK? And it’s fine to point at me and laugh thru the story, I want you to enjoy it…that’s part of the fun. Let’s begin.)

It started last this afternoon when I opened an e-mail that said:

“We realize it's taken quite a bit of time, but after due consideration, we would like to offer you a contract to be included in our stable of voices. Please read, fill out, and sign the attached, then fax it back…”

Now there was more to the e-mail but I don’t want to get in to too public a battle with this “company”.

Anyway, so naturally I looked at the e-mail address…it wasn’t William Morris Agency (they’ll find me soon enough) but it was a voice related company. So I open the attachment and it was a contract for voice services, which noted in part:

1. Duties. Independent Contractor shall participate in as many recording sessions as necessary to produce Projects for Company’s clients….

2. Term This Agreement shall be for a term of one (1) year….

3. Compensation. For all of the services rendered by Independent Contractor to Company, Independent Contractor shall receive Twenty Dollars ($20) per Project…

Hmmmmm (oh wait, that’s kind of a giveaway in red flag game….forget I said that)

I send an e-mail to the company asking them for more information about what this project/contract is about. I don’t know if it involves imaging, on-hold, broadcast, Internet. I ask them to call me so we can chat about it. They send back an e-mail that says, “Please detail your questions in an email. We will be able to answer them much faster that way.”

I have no recollection of the company name but I work with a lot of anonymous prospects. However, being the old sales and marketing dog I am, I’m also pretty thorough. So, assuming I may have accidently missed something or forgotten (we all make mistakes) I take the e-mail’s extension and type in a web site…web site’s under severe construction.

Well this old dog knows how to chase and catch a squirrel so I go into my bag of tricks and find the holding company….contact name, address the works. Fine I think to myself, I’ll call them and get some more details on this whole deal. I don’t mind saying I don’t recall the job request and I’ll have the chance to develop a business relationship….that’s always a good thing.

So I dial.

The gentleman who answers the phone gives a completely different company name and I ask for the individual who’s listed as the President. I get shuffled to a couple of extensions and then disconnected.

I’m a voice over…I laugh in the face of rejection.

So I re-dial.

This time I get through to the President of the company who knows nothing of this contract I’ve been offered (specifically or in general) but gives me the name of a person to contact who might. That person, I am told, is in a recording session. I leave my information and ask him to call me.

Boy do I get a call back. The guy on the phone is pissed (can I say that? Well it’s a statement of fact so I think its ok to say "phone".) Anyway, this guy is short and curt in tone and word. He didn’t want to deal with people on the phone and how stupid (maybe not his exact word but pretty close in content and inference) was I not to have remembered his many e-mails about this contract (hint…if he sent even one e-mail previous to today, by virtue of his first e-mail to me today it was a while ago…does he think I’ve been pining away next to my computer ever since waiting for his follow up/grand offer?! I really don't think there were other e-mails.)

His inferred bottom line..take his exciting opportunity, sign the contract or have a nice life and good luck working in this town (or galaxy) again, pal.

Now in spite of the treatment I’ve received thus far, I’m still trying to be professional and I’m not clear why this guy is going ballistic is he’s legiti…

Um.

I thanked him and told him I was going to pass on his offer.

And that was my Friday.
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- Peter
audioconnell Voice Over Talent
Your friendly, neighborhood voice over talent
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billelder
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PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2005 2:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I love your line:
Quote:
I’m a voice over…I laugh in the face of rejection.
Laugh

I'm sure this unnamed company has lots of VO artists given their "charming" personality. My experience is that the more successful someone or a company is, the nicer they are. They must be really hurting.
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Andy
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PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2005 7:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My Friday was pretty mellow. Thursday was hardly a walk in the park.

The day before I'd motored a spot (Ya know, stuff 90 seconds of shit in a 60 second bag) for a client in California. I got a reply early Thurs. morning saying it was great and thanks for all the different reads.

Just after lunch the client calls and says he needed a different read on just one line. "No prob," I says. "Let's fire up the studio and phone patch and you can direct it if you have something special in mind."

Well, dang. I'm not sure what happened. Not sure if it was me or the client, but after 30 minutes, he still wasn't happy with, "Call in the next 10 minutes and get a pair of (product name) FREE with your purchase." I stayed cool and then suggested that I record him saying it just the way he wanted and I would work on it alone for a spell. That's when my cool hitched a ride with the next passing vehicle. At that point it was more of a time crunch thing. My arse was due back at the TV station...and a 1 hour lunch break was turning into a 2 hour nooner without anybody having good sex whatsoever. That's when my wife came into the studio with some chilled herbal tea and forced me into the den to take a break. Ten minutes later I'm back at it with her directing. Thanks to her I nailed three takes and sent 'em on.

I head back to work thinking, "Well, I've blown that account." The guy surely thinks I'm a hack." An hour goes by and I think maybe I should try to save the account. They pay good money. So I call. "Did the last three I sent ya, work?" I asked. "Sure. We just finished the spot. It looks good." I then apologized for brain farting that one line. "Hey, no probem," he said. "I'm just glad to have a VO like you willing to be available when I have odd requests."

I got off the phone thinking that was just happy wind he was blowing up me kilt. They're done with me. Then an hour later I get another email from him. He's got another job for me, but I gotta get it done in the next 40 minutes. If not, he'll get an inside voice to do it. This time I'm stuck at work. It's too close to news time and I can't steal away to my studio.
So I call him. "Hey, besides 'Luke, I'm your father.' James Earl Jones once said, 'Never say no to work.' Let me try this. We gotta an audio booth here at work. It's noisy but I think I can clean up the wave. Give me 20 minutes." So I dash up to the audio booth, tinker with the 40 year old McMartin console and Radio Shack PA amp, cut the copy to a Mac, transfer it to a Zip disk, dash down to my office load the Zip into my PC, and transfer it to Cool Edit Pro. God it was noisy! But thanks to CEP's noise reduction capabilities and a little dynamics processing and hard limiting I got four takes emailed to him within 15 minutes. Then, tick, tick, tick. "You got mail." It was from the client. "We got two we could use. Be sure to invoice us for each spot individually." "Yes!" I shouted.

That night, Dr. Johnny Walker dropped by to administer medication.
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mcm
Smart Kitteh


Joined: 10 Dec 2004
Posts: 2600
Location: w. MA, USA

PostPosted: Sat May 21, 2005 7:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Anyway, this guy is short


Peter, I just have one question for you... how did you know just from talking to him on the phone that the guy was short? :wink:

Maybe you should have just sent him an mp3 of you saying "Twenty dollars per project?" and then a nice medley of howling laughter.
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