Dave Courvoisier's Blog

You'll be glad you came back for Part-3 of my interview with Michael Minetree.

Part-1 (Doing it Right) was a chance for MM to introduce himself.

Part-2 (Minewurx Part Deux) delved into some of the realities of voice acting for newbies as well as the more seasoned.

In this last segment, you'll see Michael really tear into the challenges of subscription service, or pay-to-play, or whatever-you-want-to-call-them sites.  Minetree is not big on the moniker "voice-seeker". 

But read on, and see how Michael is working on a casting site that will differ in important ways for YOU the voice talent.

What sort of hands-on
support do you expect to be able to provide to those who sign-on to your new
service?

Very hands on. Almost all
of it. There is a real conundrum when it comes to how much of your system you
automate versus how much of it is manual. Automation might lead to greater
efficiency by volume, but assembly lines only work if they are constantly fed the
same parts. Add one poorly cut item to the line and the whole operation either
grinds to a halt, or begins to churn out sub-par products. Voice over talent
don't fit into a cookie cutter mold and they shouldn't be treated as such.

The flip side of this is
the "Mom-and-Pop" voice over shop, where the store is fine on a back
country road, but if you put it on a highway they would either collapse beneath
the weight of their consumer's needs, or they would gradually adjust to them
and flourish. With automation you lose the good, down home feel of the old
country store. Conversely, the old country store cannot compete with a
Mega-Store that opens next door if they stick too closely to their old ways of
thinking. In order to survive they must create new ideas and change with the
times. Though in doing so, they run a risk of alienating their core base of
customers by changing too much too fast and appearing to abandon what made them
successful in the first place due to their desire for growth.

Trying to answer a thousand
emails by hand each day isn't practical, even if it rests at the very heart of
your desire to do so. And even if you did answer them personally, what good
would it do you if the people answering the emails didn't know what they were
talking about?   Do you automate those
email responses to lighten the load? In some instances you might. But that
temptation leads to a separation between you and your customers.  Will it be the separation that drives them
elsewhere? Will your desire to answer them personally take you away from other
core areas of focus and stymie innovation?

People are creatures of
habit, and if you always serve them a good burger, they will most likely always
come back until they a) Find a better burger in a more comfortable place to eat
or, b) get the feeling they're not wanted anymore because the business they
once knew and patronized, seemed to forget the original relationship they once
had with their customers.

Our intention is to avoid
the pitfalls of both of these examples. We don't intend to create a gala, voice
over super-store where everything is marked down to try to make a sale and
drive our competitors out of business. We also don't intend to be a Mom and Pop
that takes 15 minutes to ring up someone's coffee because they're too busy to
get to anyone on time and in a personal manner. Our desire is to remain
innovative, yet not attempt to force unproven innovations on our customers when
they don't ask for them.

We want to build a system
designed around growth, but not so large that we have to spread the merchandise
out to make the shelves seem full. We want to attract people to the service,
and maybe have a door greeter, but we don't want a polyester clad salesman
swinging in from the rafters to try to fit them into a vehicle they don't want
to buy.

Because we aren't targeting
people who need their hands held every step of the way, it allows us to hold
the hands of people who may not even know they need it or want it. We'll be
more accessible when people do need attention because we won't be tied up with
people who lack the simple understanding needed to function on the site. We'll
also be able to stay out of the way of talent who don't need or want any help
at all. We'll be there when we're needed and not when we aren't.

This approach leaves us
free to offer deeper, more talent-centric services that the other sites haven't
even considered. I'd love to tell you what they are, but that will come in due
time. Just know that being VO people we can do things the other guys can't or
won't. There are still many things left to question, even with our current
clarity of forward motion.

Those are the issues and
questions that have to be answered and very carefully balanced. There is that
word again, balance. I don't think you can be too extreme in any one area. You
have to innovate and find ways to strike a balance between the flood of needs
and desires of your customers and the reality of fully serving and satiating
them.

How do you propose to
invite the interest of voice-seekers to your site?

First and foremost we have
to be willing to do whatever it takes to win the hearts and minds of the type
of "seekers" we seek. Many of whom were early adopters of the
original online casting model that headed for higher ground upon being inundated
with auditions from inferior talent. Though the term "voice seeker"
has become a convenient way of describing someone who is looking to hire voice
talent, the term was coined by someone else with whom we "seek" no
relationship to or with, so our policy will be not to use it, but for the
purpose of this question it can live a while longer.

Some of our methods of
attraction will be quite overt, others will be somewhat covert in nature. We
have formed direct relationships with a lot of people over the years and we
still have a lot of relationships to build. Many of the people we are targeting
will have to be brought back into the fold slowly, as they still have a bitter
taste in their mouth after the first go-around.

We will market to them
directly, and through word of mouth. We will contact them directly and invite
them to take the system for a ride. We will present them with a roster of
quality talent. We'll protect their privacy while at the same time protecting
the interests of the talent. We'll take our time to win them back slowly,
rather than try to bonk them over the head and drag them in.

We have all the time in the
world to do it right. And we're willing to take our time to make sure it is
done correctly. What we can't do, is do it at the expense of the talent's
trust. But it will be very hard to do without some expense from the talent. The
adoption of our pricing model will determine how fast we can move on that front
to some degree.

What is the main source of
return (money or other) for this service? 
The voice-seeker, or the voice-talent?

Some people have proposed
that we charge people who want to hire voice talent for using the service. If
you want to see this site quickly added to the scrap basket, we'll follow that
model. I don't think you will ever be able to charge people to find talent.
Voice over people are like crickets in early summer or car alarms in Manhattan.
You will never have to look far to find them, and I don't think you could
charge anyone to listen to them. That idea seems much akin to charging people
for the sunrise. It's just going to be there in the morning. Why bother paying
for it. If someone else wants to give that a try I'll be happy to pull up a
lawn chair and warm my feet by the fire surrounding the foundation of their
business shortly after opening day. It's like Mandarin to me. I know it exists,
but I don't understand it.

The real onus is always
going to rest on the backs of the talent as far as we can see it. What really
has to be better defined is the how much, where and why of it all. How much do
you charge the talent, how much do you supply to them for paying into the
system, and what do you do with what they give you? Where do you invest their
money so it works more for them than it does for you while not leaving yourself
broke and busted in the process.

Where do you focus your
efforts? In self promotion or the promotion of your members?  Why are you doing this in the first place?
Fame? Glory? Riches? Or to serve some deeper, inner desire less linked to
projects of vanity and greed… It's one thing to want to be successful in
business, so long as your path to success isn't littered with the bodies of
people you burned along the way.

Do you propose to
“hand-pick” those who would want to appear on your site?  If so, what is your criteria for selection?

The many discussions we
have had with talent in recent months, as well as some of the information
supplied to us by talents who have joined the database so far, has revealed to
us that a "lick-em and stick-em, one size fits all" approach to this
is probably the worst approach we could take, if not the most redundant. We
never had plans for this type of design anyway, but it was definitely a
reinforcing observation. The world is full of voice talent with many different
skill sets and at different and ever-evolving levels of professionalism in
their career. Should a brand new talent be offered the same opportunities as
you when it comes to jobs you may be cast for?   Not right away. It would be inappropriate to
enter you both into contention for the same job because a brand new talent is
not going to be able to deliver the same product as you, if you were both cast
for the same project tomorrow. If a project came in and it was perfect for you
and say, our good friend Bob Souer, isn't it more appropriate to have the two
of you competing for that work? (Which by the way I wouldn't want to go into a
head-to-head with Bob, he'd kick my tail every time.)

Should a brand new talent
be left to bottom feed on all of the jobs nobody else wants?  No. This in itself is a patently unfair
approach as well. What you have to do is correctly assess what it is that makes
one talent a true contemporary of another. Is it their membership fee which
brings them onto a level playing field?  Hardly.
Left with this equation we'd be right back where we started with everyone
fighting over the same scrap of meat. Even when that meat was above some people’s
standards and below those of many others.

Should voice talent be
forced to pay the same fee and then be treated differently from one another?
Once again, we have a living, choking version of this model already in
existence. Who on earth wants to repeat it.

When it comes to
"hand-picking" talent, it is something that is being given a great
deal of consideration and thought, but as with everything, it is being balanced
with the realities of the business model as we see it and we are in no rush to
try out experimental attempts at its implementation. Our interest, though
tempered by our goals, has to remain focused on the overall equity and
integrity of the service, as it applies to the members.

I'll go so far as to
acknowledge that there are definitely some plans on the table that further
clarify this particular issue, and some of you have been very keen when it
comes to reading between the lines when we discuss it. But we aren't at a point
where we're going to come out right now and say exactly what we're going to do.
There was actually some forward motion in this area today as I was writing
this. Some motion that I'm very excited about, and will reveal to the
appropriate people when the time comes… I can hear it now… "Gee,
thanks Houdini…"

What would be your
definition of success for this project in the short term?…in the long-term?

I think some of the short
term goals for success have already been met. People are joining the database
at a great pace. Talents are becoming energized about some of the issues we
feel so strongly about. Some great design ideas are being developed. The future
of the database seems solid and strong. We have momentum headed into the new
year and a reason to keep moving forward.

The long term goals are
pretty easy to define as well. I think we have attempted to categorize them and
compartmentalize many of them throughout the course of this interview, which I
must say thank you for taking the time to conduct and to put it together.

In the
long run, we want a high quality online voice over casting system and database
that our members and we can be proud to be a part of. We want it to be
functional, thoughtful, fair and profitable for everyone involved. Our
commitment is to see it through to its success, and hopefully with very little
variance along the way, be able to come out on the other side still feeling
good about ourselves and having everyone feel good about us.

It's a
very big undertaking, but hey, I'm married now. Where am I going anytime
soon…

Thanks
Dave,

I really
appreciate your time and effort.

Michael
Minetree

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CourVO