Moment of Truth…One Year Later

January 1st, 2008, when my blog was just a few months young, I posted a bold list of voice-acting resolutions for the new year. It was actually two blogs with about 18 goals.

Honestly, I barely re-read the list once or twice in the last 365…now it's time to come clean. Did I live up to my own lofty principles?

I tackle the first 10 on the list in this blog. More tomorrow.

I'm re-printing each one here, with my reaction underneath.

BLUE = YES, GOALS MET.
RED = FELL WAAAAAY SHORT
PURPLE = MIXED OUTCOME

1. Invoice all clients
who haven't paid for work I did in 2007. Whether I did it in December or
August, a new year is always recognized as a milepost in settling
accounts.

Yup, and I've already done the same for 2008, before the year was done.

2. Post at least one,
if not two entries EACH DAY in this blog.

Absolutely. I can honestly say, not ONE 24-hour period went by without my posting a blog. It was my most consistent priority and follow-through by far.

3. Post along with each Blog
entry, the Podcast .mp3 OF the
entry.

I started out doing this in January '08, then switched from GoDaddy as my blog host to WordPress, then finally Typepad. The practice of voicing my blogs went permanently by the wayside. I still hope to, but now I read in some places that blogs are passe'… 'not sure about that, but regardless, this was a hard one for me to live up to.

4. Do a new Commercial Demo.
This may take a good bit of time and effort, but by the end of '08, it's GOTTA
be done….that's all there is to it.

Wow. Strong language. Total failure here, although I did make some changes to the order of the elements of my demo, it's essentlally the same. This remains high on my '09 priority list, but only when Nancy Wolfson says I'm ready. Apparently, in her eyes, I'm not yet.

5. Launch an entirely new AudioBook demo from
scratch.

Done. Not just one, but 3. Pat Fraley's AudioBook workshop did the trick with that. Not only did I learn a bunch, but I came away with three professionally-mastered audiobook demo's. Now I gotta get busy and use 'em!

6. Market more
aggressively the following two segments of this industry: AudioBooks and
E-Learning.

Half 'n' half on this one. I've done a lot of E-learning work, and marketing efforts have been ramped-up, especially in the area of on-line presence and social networking, but I did virtually NO audiobook marketing or cold-calling in '08 whatsoever. This will be a high priority in the new year.

7. Re-vamp my website,
embedding all my demo's INTO the site with Flash Players.

Done and done. With the incredibly helpful feedback of my VO-BB friends, and the providential hand of a most serendipitous and unexpected stroke of luck, my new website was done for me at essentially no cost, and I still think it's hot…6 months later. Click HERE to see it. Contact me if you'd like the name, number or e-mail address of the company that did it. Click HERE to see the story behind it on the VO-BB.

8. Re-vamp my
website some
more. It's a work in progress…never done, really.

OK, I've done that, too. Not wanting to bother my benefactor/website designer too much, I've dabbled with Adobe DreamWeaver enough to do some touch-ups on the site myself. And what I couldn't do, the House of Hancock has graciously done in a timely manner. But I was right. It's always a work in progress.

9. De-code and
actually try to understand what my Google Ad-Clicks
are doing, with the goal of tweaking them to better use. I'm getting cold-calls
from people searching for VO talent…but I'm sure it could be
better.

Nope. I still use Google Ad-Clicks, and continue to believe in it as a marketing tool, but I still have done very little to better understand how it works, or how to better optimize this service.

10. Learn Pro-Tools better.
Despite what Frank Frederick says, I believe there are features within that
program that can benefit my VO product. I just upgraded to M-audio Pro-Tools
7.4, and I hope to learn new features each week.

Yes and no. I wrestled with Pro-Tools mightily this last year. Mostly in configuring Source-Connect, and trying to get to the bottom of system crashes and some software conflicts. Although my colleague Kitzie Stern seems jubilant about her new PT V8.0 install, I find myself falling away from this…my first audio-editing software purchase. It's just too steep a learning curve for the return it offers. I still stand in awe of the potential, status, and depth of this software package, though.

BLUE = 5 goals met
RED = 3 failed goals
PURPLE = 2 mixed results

I'm calling this a win.

At least 70% of my goals had some degree of success, with half of the top-10 being a total success. Not perfect by any means, but probably the best adherence to a New Year's Resolution list in my life. I'm encouraged.

Tomorrow, goals 11-18.

CourVO