741 – Put your voice to good use: Tom talks Audio Skills

Episode 741 – Audio Skills
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 741 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today, I'm going to talk about a skill that pays off in three different ways, and it's a skill that's going to serve you way into the future, I guess, until they start embedding chips into your customers. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe they're doing that with the vaccines. All right. I'll tell you about that skill in a minute. Hope you didn't miss Episode 740. That's where I got attacked by a bird. And there was an important business lesson in that episode. That was 740. Anytime you want to listen to it back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com / and then the episode number. That was 740. And make sure you follow me on TikTok at tiktok.com/@digitalmultimillionaire. All right. Now I got a shout out to Vrushali, who is a lady from India. And I have a very loyal listener, and she's responding to Episode 738 on using anachronisms in your marketing. On that episode, I said, Hey, I'll give you a shout out if you come up with some anachronisms. And these are things that mix old and new as a marketing thing for your products and services. So I'm going to give you a couple of hers now. Some of the ones she did now, they were too long and the references to the old were not mainstream enough that everybody would know what she was talking about. But anyway, she's doing a good job here. So she did one for my school.

[00:02:02] She she said Eliza Doolittle from the movie The Fair Lady would still be selling flowers just very successfully and with better marketing if she had just enrolled in Tom's Internet Marketing training Center. Okay, so. So that's old and new. Then she did one for Disney lovers. If only Mr. Banks installed an escalator. Mary Poppins needn't startle the children every time she slid up and down the banister. I don't I don't know. I don't know. Mary might have been getting a little excited, sliding up and down that banister. I'm not sure the way Disney's going nowadays. I wouldn't put it past him. Now, let's see. For geeks like in the Big Bang Theory show, Dr. Koothrappali should have used Chatgpt and wouldn't be so tongue tied around the ladies. That's really good. See, it's more short, concise, to the point. And of course, you have to know the Big Bang theory to know what that's about. And let's see. She's got one. She's got an animal communication mentorship or else she's in one. I'm not sure if only the forest animals used Alexa to alert Snow White. The story would have a much different plot. Okay. Good job, Rushali. That's coach with Rushali. So good job. And we have other ones that people responded to that I'll mention on future episodes and I'm always happy to give you a shout out when you respond to an episode of how it helped you and and what it's doing for your business.

[00:03:39] All right. Let's get into the main event. What kind of skill am I talking about that pays off in at least three ways? And I'm going to tell you how important I think it is in that I've done at least six previous episodes on this skill and they're all different, and I'm going to just read them off here, but they'll be in the show notes. 304, 535, 536, 537, 543 and 687. All right. So this is an important topic. It's been massive in my life for now. Oh, geez. 25 years probably. And also when I was a kid. I'll tell you about something I did as a kid that was audio related. Oops, I skipped. I accidentally told you what this is about. Well, here it is. It's audio recording. See if you can put out a decent audio recording. There's three different ways you can make money with it, and one should be obvious since you're listening to this podcast. And to the number two way would be and then not in any particular order. But you can create your own audio products, including audio books. And three, you can do voiceover work for others for sometimes really large amounts of money. And let me throw in an extra thing related to podcasts. See if you do well on audio. You can be a podcast guest and be in front of many thousands of new prospects for your business with a warm introduction from the host. Now I have a brand new one on one course teaching you how to be a great podcast guest.

[00:05:22] And when I say great, I'm not saying an okay podcast guest or a pretty good podcast guest. I'm saying great podcast guest. So a great podcast guest gets invited back over and over because of everything they did before, during and after the podcast, that that makes you look like a super exceptional because most podcast guests do little or nothing to impress the podcast host. They just suck off the, the, the teat of the, the, the show and try to grab as many people, but they don't do anything for the host that impresses the host makes it easy on the host and promotes the host. And if you do that for a host they're going to refer you to other podcasts and like I said, invite you back over and over. All right. So anyway, you're getting into audio pays back big time, especially since the cost of admission is so low. Literally one decent microphone, a USB microphone costs 100 bucks or less can get you going. Now, some people try to get away with just using the microphone in their laptop or those darn apple earbud crap things, microphones where the microphone is hanging on a wire, rubbing against your shirt. That's really pitiful. Anyway, the potential returns are enormous for just getting your voice and ideas on audio. Now, since I've covered audio products and podcasting in other episodes. Today I'm going to concentrate on voiceover. Now there are tons of places that use voiceover from radio ads for your local bank to video games to voicemail recordings to audiobooks and and really hundreds of other uses.

[00:07:17] Now I have one student that has a podcast, and he gets an occasional voiceover job, a little extra money on the side. I have another student that's regularly doing entire audio books for a publishing company, makes a lot of money, and I'm an acquaintance of a lady that I know from the speaking business. That's the voice of AT&T. Her name is Susan Berkley. And I took some advanced training from a lady who was selling cars for most of her career, and she quit to become a voiceover artist. And she's got tons of free training. She's a full time voiceover artist and she does lots of audio books. Look her up on YouTube. She's called voiceover. Angela Love her. Just wonderful, nice lady and doing big things in voiceover Oh, and don't forget the recent outing of the voice of Siri, and her name is Susan Bennett. And but here's a warning. You would have thought she would have made millions for that gig being the voice of Siri. Wouldn't you? Nope. According to Wikipedia, Apple took her voice and used it from some other project. And of course, Apple has never admitted this, and I don't know if it's true or whatever, but it's it's all over the Web. And she'll tell you that. And that's why you have to be careful with your contracts when it comes to your intellectual property. But anyway, what happened to her doesn't mean you shouldn't consider this.

[00:08:51] I mean, I was amazed when I heard Susan Berkeley on a podcast telling of all the kinds of places. Voiceover is used. I remember when I was 16, a guy who had me doing commercial voice overs in his studio. I even remember one. I don't know how I remember this, but I must have practiced it so many times. So here, here's a voiceover commercial I did back when I was 16. Pre way, the wood burning fireplace that also uses electric logs so easy to install. Built in or freestanding. That was it. I remember that from 16 years old. And just for the fun of it, I looked up the company Pre-wwi and they're out of business. But vintage pre-war fireplaces are going for more than 3000 bucks. I wonder if they're using my old commercials to sell them. That would be a hoot. Now, here's the thing I hear all the time from people saying they couldn't do this. They listened to voiceover Angela's silky smooth voice and they say, Oh, how beautiful her voice is. My voice. Isn't that nice? Well, it doesn't matter. One of my students uses a gruff old voice. Sometimes the client will want you to sound like an old grandma or grandpa. Sometimes they want you to sound like a little kid or a millennial. I guess that's the same thing. Now, like I said, there's tens of thousands of TV ads, books, video games, radio commercials that are produced every single day.

[00:10:35] Now, if the creative team likes your voice, you get the job. It's as simple as that. And keep in mind, this episode is all about audio skills. Even if voiceover doesn't interest you that much. Making your own audio products, including audio books and producing and or being on podcasts should interest you. That's a lot of money there, folks. If the occasional voiceover job comes in, well, that's just gravy. And keep in mind the reason. One of the reasons I'm so excited about audio is it's the only medium that people can learn or be entertained while they're doing something else. That's why it's been lasting so long. As they said, until they put the chips in your brain. So if this topic interests you, make sure you listen to the other audio lessons listed in the show notes. There's a whole bunch of them on audio and they're all different. And if podcast guesting interest you, you got to take one of the remaining discounted seven slots in my new how to be a great podcast guest one on one course. There's four sessions with me one on one. You learn how to be a great podcast guest and get yourself in front of tens of thousands of warm prospects. And and also one of the sessions is you get a feature on this podcast, Screw the Commute. So more thousands of people will hear from you. So check it out at screwthecommute.com/greatpodcastguest and I will catch you on the next episode. See you later.