Yeah! Vacation!!!

I'm taking a few days off this week. Gonna head out to Colorado before the snow melts.

Is it vacation or unemployment? I mean in a practical sense, taking vacation time is being unemployed for a voice talent.

So you gotta choose your vacation time carefully! You have to second-guess your clients. You have to play the odds: When are your clients most likely to not need you? When is a slow time for your clients...and their clients?

See what I mean?

I used to dread vacation time. It seemed that invariably, after I'd thought it all through, someone would call with a significant job that I was "just perfect for!"

I used to just take the work and run with it. I figured I didn't have the luxury of turning down work.

But through the years I've had the privilege of developing some GREAT relationships with my clients, and when I need to take time off, they are the first to grant me that time and run interference for me with their clients! Ya gotta love that!

It was my wife, Marcia, that convinced me that I needed time off; that WE needed time off. And to be honest, I was more afraid to turn her down than I was of turning a client down!

So now, I've learned that I really do need down time. And while I have some great portable equipment that I could take on the road with me, I seldom do.

Now I just let clients know a week ahead of time that I'll be out of the studio. Usually a week's notice is enough for clients to plan accordingly.

And if a client has a problem with me taking some vacation time, I ask them if they would like to discuss that with my wife. That settles it.

Speaking Spanish Fast

Did a bunch of Spanish voiceovers today.

The Spanish language is such a beautiful language...and fun to speak. Where else do you get to roll your r's and say some of your d's like a th sound? It's just fun!

Where it gets un-fun is when the client doesn't allow for the 25 to 30% additional time it takes to say something translated from English to Spanish!

Let me explain it this way: Most people who speak well in English speak at about 130 to 150 words per minute. Well, when that gets translated to Spanish, because of the syllables in Spanish, that works out to what would be about 190 words per minute. So obviously to keep the copy within a :60 commercial framework YOU HAVE TO TALK FASTER!!!

So today one of my clients asked, "Could you make it sound slower?"

HUH????

Weekend Work

Ahhhhh! Friday!!!!

God bless whoever invented Friday!!!

Fridays are GREAT days for Voiceover guys. It's on Fridays that producers realize they have that last little project that HAS to be done and it's P-A-N-I-C time for them. So, you get this frantic call saying that they need the job done ASAP, can you help?

I've just learned that my Fridays usually don't start until late in the afternoon. No big deal. On the other hand, Monday's are usually pretty slow although clients start booking the week that day.

It took my wife some time to get used to this sort of schedule. It irritated her that a client would call last minute and ask for a voicer and I would jump.

Hey, that's what we do! We're on call!

I very seldom have to work through the weekend, but it does happen occasionally. That's just the nature of the beast. And I love that it happens. There's something very satisfying knowing that you're working on a deadline and if you don't hold your end up of the bargain, the whole project is trash. Not to mention your relationship with your client!

I remember a friend that had a pool cleaning business. He once remarked that he never got called to work on the weekend. But, he said, he would give his left arm (he didn't really say his left "arm") if a customer would call him for a weekend job. Why? Because the way he figured it, if I client felt he could call him for a weekend job, it meant the customer felt he could count on him to get the job done.

Yup, it's all about customer confidence!

Meet my Dad!

BLOGGING???

Why?

I have nothing significant to say at this point. My job is to say what other people want to say.

That's what a voiceover guy does.

Need a voiceover done? Holler. Or check out my website at www.DanHurst.com

Expect me to offer brilliant insight to life? You're screwed.

Now that we understand each other, how can I help you?

On a personal note, my parents live in Richmond, VA - in a retirement center my Dad calls The Morgue (yeah, he's a little demented!). Anyway, the other day he went to the grocery store and tripped and fell in one of the aisles. He has had hip surgery on both hips, so he's not as flexible as he used to be.

Well, he couldn't get back up and no one was around to help. So...he shouted out at the top of his lungs, "Clean up in aisle 8!"

Within seconds someone from the store came rushing down the aisle.

Ya gotta love an 83 year old man with a sense of humor!!!

The Old Man's Recliner

Boy! There's just something awesome about having your studio in your home!!!

It's so great to just run upstairs and do a voice job or run a translation to a client, and then settle back in to my old man's recliner and look out over the lake while working on my laptop. My wife makes fun of me for this little indulgence. By the way, God bless whoever invented the laptop!!!

...and the recliner!!!

But it's my dream! I've thought for a long time, "wouldn't it be great to just sit here in a recliner...watch the geese on the lake...do my translations and handle my business on my laptop...take care of my clients...and just relax!!!"

So, I finally went out and bought the perfect recliner! A leather, Lane "Hancock" swivel, rocker recliner!!! My wife is mortified.

And I've turned into my father!!!

God Bless My Clients!

God bless clients who get it!!!



I just finished a session today with a voiceover client who had 6 scripts to do. Each of them had some grammatical errors and some rather awkward wording. I changed the wording and submitted the work. The client was happy...HAPPY I made the changes!!!



It's a pretty interesting deal.



I have clients that are very sensitive and threatened by copy suggestions. So, I've learned to keep my mouth shut and just do it the way they want it done. No problem. I don't resent it. That's my job!



On the other hand, I have clients who welcome suggestions for alternative ways of saying something and/or want you to correct the grammatical errors.



Hey...it's my job to make the client look good, right?



One thing I've noticed is that the clients that welcome you into the team, and welcome your input, are clients that stay with you. Their clients love them...and they love their clients and are happy to do everything they can to do the best job possible for them.



Ya gotta love those clients!!!



Check out my demos at http://www.danhurst.com/. You'll hear some clients that "get it". And I'm happy to count them also as my friends!



dan

Welcome To My World

No clue what I'm doing here! None!!!

I'm a voice guy, not a genius. I depend on other people to tell me what to say!!! You write it, I'll say it. That's the way I roll.

But as long as I'm here...welcome to my world!

I get up every morning at 3am and head to KUDL (Kansas City) to do my morning show from 5:3o to 9am. Check it out at www.kudl.com. Then it's into the boss's office to apologize for something I shouldn't have said (whatever!). Then it's on to preparing for the next day's show.

After that it's on to La Casa de Hurst to take care of my client's demands for voice work.

There isn't a day that goes by where I don't thank the good Lord and my parents for raising me in Honduras to speak fluent English and Spanish. I never thought I would ever be able to make a living by just talking English or Spanish!!!

But each day clients email me scripts, some to be translated, and I spend the rest of my day in a recording studio in my home recording their commercials and video copy.

It's a charmed life. And I'm grateful to God for it every day!

Wanna know more? Check out my website at www.DanHurst.com

There are jillions of voice talents out there. JILLIONS!!! I haven't met one of them that I didn't absolutely fall in love with. They're the best people in the world - creative, talented, spontaneous, smart, and very good at what they do. From that standpoint, I chose the wrong business!!!

More, later.