VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Mike Paul]

A couple years ago, I signed up for a newly launched startup called 50 Pros. Their idea: 50 vetted professionals across different categories, including voiceover. Year 1 cost about $750 or so. They did minimal vetting by asking questions (i.e. I filled out a form) but they never asked for proof of anything, so... I could have said anything. The hope was that it'd generate some leads.

After a year of no leads -- but the ability to say with a cute little digital badge that I was a Top Firm for 2023, they asked me to renew at the regular rate (now in the low thousands), to which I responded no thanks. They capitulated and gave me another year for the same intro rate, and bent over backwards to give me a bunch of freebies like a dedicated SDR a feature in their newsletter, other stuff designed to get me some ink/leads.

Another year went by with no leads. They asked for the third and final payment which was again in the mid-thousands of dollars, to which I politely told them to pound sand, and I wished them well because it seemed Voiceover wasn't a good category for them. I never heard from them again.

This week, I got an email: I've been named a Top 10 Firm. A couple days later, two leads came in--but both were leads for... website development/software stuff, not voiceover.

Confused, I wrote back asking if they'd extended a free membership to me or what, because I thought I cut the line loose when it snagged in the weeds. They replied that yes, free membership. Hmm, OK. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Cheers, I guess.

This is where it gets more interesting...

This morning, I get a text from my buddy who asks me "Hey, I meant to mention to you that I got some email from that 50 pros that I’ve been named a top agency for 2026. What’s the deal with them? It seems kind of junk maily"

Now... this guy's not a pro, wouldn't call himself a pro, and has, like, a handful of bookings to his name including one big one... but he, too, is supposedly a Top 10 Firm. His Spidey Sense was right.

Word to the wise: don't give these guys a penny.

Amazingly, they list CESD and other agencies on their Top 50 page, where I still appear, and I just have to wonder what they're up to because to my eye, it seems like they're trying to show their investors a growth trajectory that doesn't exist. It's a house of cards.
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Mike Paul
speakingofmike.com

[Moosevoice]

more like '50 doh's'
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www.moosevoice.com