The class was very practical and useful in that you didn’t ‘glamorize’ or try to hype us for our precious money. Many other voiceover sites, etc. seem to make lots of promises and require lots of money to get started but my reluctance emerged when I analyzed the cost of producing a brief single (1-3 min) demo. Why are the costs so outrageous? As a point of reference, I just recorded my first 11-song CD with a band of seven musicians from Nashville. We did all of the recording there in Nashville in a private studio in April 09. We should have a finished product by the end of June and will have spent about $10,000.00 for the entire project (my travel/lodging, musicians, bgv’s, engineer, studio time, mixing, mastering, graphic design, press of 1000).

Certainly many of us have procrastinated in doing the “work of voiceover work”, namely contacting people and putting it all out there. Now that we know a lot more than we did four weeks ago, our confidence is improved and we’ll begin setting the voiceover world on fire!

During the class I personally discovered that I definitely need to brush up and play around more with the technical aspect of recording. I don’t think any of us can get away with remaining unfamliar with our home studio equipment. Since much of the work is no longer done at a proper recording studio, we all need to become more tech savvy to obtain projects and to do more work with an increased number of clients.

It was very helpful to have the recording critiqued, just as it will be helpful to find out how our websites stack up to our competition. I gained excellent tips during the class and the experience and knowledge you both bring to the table (in a humorous and irreverent way) will be extremely valuable as we build our businesses.

The weekly worksheets were detailed and full of information which can be retained and used along our voiceover journey. This is my second business and it is a division of my first company, so much of my company accounting and legal aspects are already in place, however, during the last session I picked up two accounting ideas that I will begin using immediately. Anyone just starting out surely will have their business run much more smoothly because of the information they received in module 4.

Your willingness to begin the Facebook group, to be available to the students and to continue to create future courses shows your dedication to the business. We are very fortunate to have found you and I’m sure each of us also wants to make you proud. We’ll look forward to giving you some good news about our progress in a few weeks.

What’s left to say? Only a great big Thank you!

One sometimes thinks of the great couples of yore namely:

Robin and Maid Marian
Martin and Lewis
Mickey and Minnie
Abbott and Costello
Comdon and Green
Kander and Ebb
Lucy and Desi

Based on their recent teleclass series, Starting Your Voiceover Business, a superbly deft combination of comedy and instruction, for aspiring and working voiceover artists, Harlan Hogan and Dan O’Day will shortly be elected to the Famous Couples Hall of Fame.

First of all, this was a high class series of great monetary value, important in these times. Harlan Hogan provided the meat and potatoes of the curriculum, carefully explaining a whole range of marketing and business practices with the skill of an experienced VO performer, adman and accountant. Dan O’Day was no slouch either and provided motivational thoughts, insightful questions and at times some humor. They both alternated as straight men and provided numerous hours of instruction, question and answer feedback and bonus sessions with industry experts totaling, by my count, at least 25 hours for the total cost of $495, or less than $20 per hour, a rare bargain. Second, they utilized advanced teleclass and downloading technology, where astonishingly, they were able to control class outbursts, silly questions, self aggrandizement and the general wasting of time, often unavoidable with this venue of instruction. Third and most important, their instruction was relevant, valuable, practical and doable as long as students were willing to get up off their chairs and take action, even if in small steps. Fourth, in addition to the foregoing, Dan O’Day established a face book page for student’s continuing and future questions and advice. The Duo even managed to have their friend and colleague, Jeffrey P. Fisher, review for voice quality and recording technique, over three hours worth of audio submitted by students. This exemplary team (mostly Dan) will complete their comprehensive services by finishing a web site review (shortly?) for those who already had one and answered three questions. I’d say kudos and “props” to these two for meticulous planning, having fun with their material and some dumb luck!