13172: Know Your Brand, But Don’t Let It Limit You

Raw transcript:

we’re often given the advice to know
your
brand understand your brand it will make
it so much easier for you to move
forward in your career it will help you
uh enjoy the right things not the wrong
things well I want you to be careful
about misusing your brand and I’ve got
one particular situation where it might
not be the best to worry about your
brand and I’ll share that with you in
this episode of the vo Heroes
podcast your brand is important
understanding who you are what the
audience perceives you as what casting
perceives you as what people who hear
you as an audiobook narrator or as a
voice talent in other categories hear
when they hear you use your voice to
bring a character to life it’s really
important it’s something that can change
over time a brand that you have as a
17-year-old isn’t going to be the same
brand that you have as a
60-year-old uh the brand that you have
when your personal beliefs change when
your abilities change those are all
going to be very different so knowing
your brand is important and
understanding that archetype that or a
series of archetypes that you can create
is important
but don’t use your brand to refuse
things that are presented to
you whereas you should use your brand
when you go
searching for opportunities now let me
let me just let me just uh diagram that
sentence for you so when you’re on uh
Actors Access or you’re on one of the
casting sites for voice over and you’re
looking for
things the first search you should do is
around your brand if you know your vocal
age if you know your
uh your your archetypes in terms of on
camera acting go looking for those
things first searching using your brand
at least for the initial search is a
great way to speed up the process of
finding things that are possibly right
for you right then make sure you expand
your notion of a search uh a set of
search parameters think outside the box
think things that yeah maybe you didn’t
think of would be your brand just look
at other things
expand your vocal age a little bit
expand your categories a little bit your
your um genres when it comes to
audiobook narration uh the things that
you look for on uh on camera sites
expand a little bit use your brand but
then expand now that’s if you’re going
and actively searching for something
what if somebody is presenting you in
other words they looked for you and they
found you and they thought something
that they saw or they heard was on brand
for them you don’t really need to worry
about whether or not it’s on brand for
you unless you disagree with the content
if there’s something political or or uh
you know behavior-wise or beliefs wise
that you just don’t like it that that’s
that’s fine but I’ve seen people I’ve
seen actors I’ve seen voice Talent go oh
why why would they want me that’s not
me really
seriously why not let it go a little bit
longer let it extend a little bit longer
and see if maybe there’s something there
that you didn’t recognize before so
again use your brand for searching at
least the initial
search and then don’t use your brand
when somebody approaches you about
offering you a part offering you a role
offering you a job offering you
something just let it let it percolate a
little bit don’t let your brand be the
limit the filter when somebody is
offering you an opportunity it all comes
back to that listening thing you know if
you immediately listen with closed ears
because it’s not your brand you may be
turning down opportunities that you
didn’t expect I mean that’s what
happened with me on Heroes I I didn’t
think that was my brand creepy evil
villain I didn’t I had no clue that it
would work for me but it did
yeah so don’t use your brand to judge
what’s presented do use your brand when
you go searching for opportunities tell
me if this makes sense to you use the
comments below let me know what your
thoughts are on this hit the like button
or the love button or the cradling love
button I don’t know whichever love
button you want uh you can subscribe to
the channel you can hit the notification
Bell to find out when the next episode
comes out you have all those things
available to you as a possibility I’m
David H Lawrence the 17th I thank you so
much for watching and for listening
and I will see you in the next episode
of the vo Heroes
podcast

(from YouTube)