0036: Liz Atherton On Her New VO Casting Site: CastVoices.com

you know what i like to shoot from the hip and give people something they haven’t heard before honestly and it can be a little bit about cast voices but honestly i’d like to just venture out into other things and it’s not that i don’t want to promote my company and it’s not that i don’t want to talk about vo but i think people need could get inspiration from other aspects of me does that kind of make sense i mean hell i’m a 60 almost a 61 year old entrepreneur stepping into a tech space

liz atherton everybody she’s set and ready to go uh just yesterday i was inundated with social media messages on every channel saying hey cast voices is launched it’s it’s up and running i know and there was all these emojis of oh my god so uh that’s awesome i i met liz a long long time ago online when i was working on heroes she had at one time repped one of my co-stars bria grant because bria is a texas girl as well right okay and you you have had an amazing we’re going to talk about cast voices but you have had an amazing life in the world of of show biz i mean from from the classic days of showbiz right you know that might make me cry um well i don’t know i mean i don’t think of it that way um but thank you thank you i’m very honored that you said that um you know i did i moved from high tech to purchasing a talent agency to quitting high tech taking over the agency having one of the first or second in the world talent agency websites true story and that was in the 90s to laying out a plan to i mean running the agency moving the agency online making our resumes and this is the the tech side of stuff but the other side of stuff you know what i got to be real fair and honest i worked with the agents in my office were freaking awesome just awesome and they get credit for a lot of that work i mean i’ll i’ll take credit for you know starting the agency and driving it with a branding and a presence that was important to me and to my clients and you know taking on the big dudes when they thought they could push us little dudes around you know that [ _ ] never pardon me that stuff never never bothered me um yeah this is a not safe for work podcast so you can swear all you want okay good so um you know i really enjoyed the back of all that process and i was very fortunate you know when i finally uh sold tag i sold it to jorge elizondo and and tony watson for the on camera and george had been running on camera for years and then jimmy kabul took over the voice the tag voices which he had been running that for years so you know taking me out of that image and that thing was i was ready they had it running and gunning and i got to go back to my my other passion which was creating a software a casting software okay and so what was the i think i know the answer to this but i want to hear from you what was the momentous event that made you think okay i need to fix this problem i need to create a casting site for voice talent that makes sense well i the answer you’re gonna i think you’re looking for is the tsunami a couple of years ago but the reality is is that it had been created i’ll come back to that and what we started as cat’s voices started in 95. it was that long ago that i have specs and ideas and all this other kind of stuff and it was at that time i was going to start in the on camera world and then uh you know by hook or crook about oh 10 years ago nick and i started working together with an idea maybe five years ago and then i feel like we had this fabulous idea and yes it was from the point of view of the actor you know and yes it was intended to be you know fair and transparent and work well and become a a workspace for the voiceover community eventually you know right now we’re trying to get the casting vertical out because people really want projects and you know um but but the thing that really kicked it into high gear was when the the um voices bought voice bank and that was such a an interesting event in the world of voiceover aside from what people think about that business transaction the voiceover community melded into one very cohesive um tribe and i think tribe’s the right word you know people can choose to not participate but i tell you what you get in with that you know thousand or so 10 000 or so 100 000 or so people that are out there really rooting for each other there is nothing like it and i love it and i love being a part of it i mean i i love it so yeah you mentioned voice bank and voice bank was the you know sort of the breakdown services of voice over for the longest time and it was going just fine and then you know the guys there decided cashing out was a good idea and what happened after that when voices.com kind of submarined that and folded it into voices.com and the attendant lack of transparency that came from that um i’m wondering if the model that voice bank used which was only agents can put their clients on the service and clients don’t pay for that agents pay for that and the people that create projects pay for that and i noticed when i signed up for cast voices that the model is a little bit different it’s a subscription model for talent and it’s free as far as i can tell because i created a an account for project management as well it’s free for project managers is that to get it going or is that the model you’re going to stick with that’s the model we’re going to stick with because the casting is only going to be in in the future i mean we got we just rolled out our minimal viable product and we are still working through getting that squeaky clean and you know that it’s it’s brand new code it’s millions it’s millions of not to knows right um so we’re doing that but no the model was always for it to be a work tool platform for the actors and yes you can be on as a free actor um and and you know you can be platform invited you can be directly invited and you can be invited through your agent okay so you can all go create one of those and i highly encourage it especially if you don’t have budget but when you upgrade to standard or you upgrade to pro you get things like reminders about your buys you get things like a sound bite you can put on your profile that goes with you wherever your profile goes for a quick listen um you get it you get what is arguably a pretty nice web presence you know you do that for especially if you can’t afford a very you know awesome website that you know some of these other website developers do it’s a nice relatively inexpensive way to have a very robust customizable it’s at your fingertips web presence so that’s where we started and then we have all these other tools we’re building in connections and work groups and you know that’s expensive stuff so we need to get that in you know i’m hoping people see the value of upgrading now because that’s our that’s our only chain of revenue we don’t have revenue from the projects and no i’m not going to charge you to put a project on my system are you kidding bring it well that’s that’s the big difference that that i’ve seen is that when i would put projects i used to cast for video games as well and when i would put a project on voice bank it cost me like 400 bucks or whatever to be able to get everything so um so i just wanted to kind of clarify everything and by the way could you slide a little message to nick that this site feels awesome oh i mean i still will you should interview him sometime just as that he’s such an incredible human but i will because you know there’s a lot of times i argued with him and sometimes very strongly and he won me over and my goodness if he wasn’t right and i’m so proud and a little embarrassed at my my strength with him sometimes but i’m so proud of this body of work he has put out and i i mean i’m so proud and like i said i mean it’s going to have a little you know hooks and crates here and there’s some ux and ui that really didn’t lay out like i want and you know those are things for future fixes um so it’s there are a couple of places i feel like for the project person and we call them project managers because yes they’re casting but they come from all over the place you can’t really call them casting directors so they’re project managers um it was a huge task by the way because nowhere to my knowledge is there a standardized way to post a project when i was an agent you know i can’t tell you if one project matched another ever and trying to code that in a way that is automatic and with the right words and since the right has been a task that i’m sorry i’m talking with my hands here but incredibly daunting and you know nick took that took that [ _ ] on yeah and you know he’s brilliant it feels it feels like he it’s really well thought out it feels like it’s a web 3-0 direct descendant of how easy it was to do things on voicebank and how easy it is to do things on much bigger sites like imdb and and so on and when i was filling out my talent profile the section on professional experiences gave me the opportunity to do something that i couldn’t do on other sites which was to include on camera and other experiences that are often ignored by voiceover sites even though the vast preponderance of people that do voiceover also do on camera unless they’re only in radio or unless they’re you know silos yeah exactly don’t they should let me tell you a quick side story on that just as a just a little point of different interest so nick did a movie called the descendants and he starred in it i got 12 years ago and it was the most incredible experience we were all there in watching the oscars at one of the houses that they had rented and so the whole cast and crew of the descendants to see i mean you know i’m sitting i’m sitting in freaking royalty i happen to be sitting next to alexander payne and he was talking and he you know he was the director and he was talking about um the casting process and he said you know of course he’s he’s a natural addict he says but i’m really drawn to the voice and that is something that i mean i think if you have the ability propensity talent skill set whatever to parlay your and listen listen my dearest tribe of misfits and we are all misfits we work in closets you know i love us um do not be afraid if you’re not tall live and beautiful that is not what’s necessary you know you just need to be good at what you do and i do think that would translate over but yes our next big vertical is cast actors which is our own camera yeah it feels like you’re creating pardon me um it feels like you’re creating kind of uh an ecosystem for talent and agents where they are appropriately part of the process but talent’s working directly or working through an agent with casting but it doesn’t feel the same way as okay we’re cutting out the middleman you’re making it possible for it to happen however it happens however it organically happens and um i just i just when i when i first looked at everything that you were offering on cash voices i’m like oh this could be it this could be the one and i think both so i hope every i think every time somebody comes out with a new voice casting site people look at it as scans because the industry is kind of burned you know i understood let me tell you when voice bank was purchased voice bank was my huge part of my income we booked we were sending out 10 12 projects a day when that went away so did you know 100 grand in my revenue stream i mean it kicked my arse and there were other things that happened around that time um but i want to go back and just kind of make a point and then thank you for all the kudos for cast voices but imagine if you will eventually having a voiceover imdb-ish presence where you go and you realize oh look there’s folgers and look at all my co-workers that have worked on a folger’s campaign you know imagine moving to that you know of course we will for on camera but in in a voice over community world i mean you know we have lofty goals but um actually they’re not so lofty because nick is brilliant but we do need you know we need some money to go run into that direction but we’ll go for that soon enough um but that’s kind of the community we’re hoping to build i mean that’s where we’re going with this and in in so it may be a little cumbersome or you know doesn’t make sense why it’s laid out this way but i assure you in the long run it does you know and i can only default to nick for the explanation that but i trust this human being with the process with everything so you know it feels like uh all of a sudden in the world of social media audio is getting uh the respect that it really hasn’t had that you know you can easily upload a picture text video emojis animated gifs you can you can upload those all day long on facebook and twitter but try to upload an mp3 and they’re like what what yeah it’s not there and it feels like with clubhouse and with racket and with uh the copycat stuff that facebook is developing and and twitter is developing with the with with what clubhouse has kind of uh pushed forward in terms of audio um when you say you are kind of creating a like almost an i spot tv but for radio or for video games or for whatever it’s like yeah yes we’ve been missing that i haven’t seen it either either i mean a lot of people were using facebook for that to some degree and maybe linkedin for that to some degree but it’s you know it’s muddled with a lot of other things you know but imagine being able to realize oh you’ve done work with that ad agency you were there last week oh i was there last week how cool is that or imagine at some point being able to find out where the vo are in a five mile radius pop an email saying let’s have a beer you know those kinds of things are kind of where we’re headed with this but you know on the front end you know our goal is to provide a service to talent and connecting them with potential work is our way of you know in stepping in and the uh uh you know the casting piece we get there people have a lot of expectations i’m just saying but you know we’re we’re taking it on well it’s kind of like you have a double job i mean if it if the voices.com voicebank thing hadn’t happened it still would have been a challenge in general to create a casting site and now you have that to kind of say okay you know just want to make sure you’re aware we’re working on this to correct some things that oh i tried a listen for years before that whole debacle happened um i call that the tsunami um i was already trying to get funding for this i had this was already in the works i just could never one i think i was pitching it completely wrong but i could never get the funding you know i had i would have funding lined up and then it would go away or enough and i you know i’m so passionate about it and but you know i had a lot to learn in that and how to pitch and then i ended up figuring out how to pitch and start a winning pitch contest which were great but none of that’s where i got my funding i happened to be at a a in um the jay michael euro retreat i was one of his speakers in barcelona and i met bobby and elizabeth and we didn’t even like talk about investing until bobby was in the class with us we were just kind of shooting bull about you know where do you want to be and at that point i brought up cast voices because i hadn’t you know that was not my purpose for being here then he and elizabeth approached me later and boom here we are so and he’s a voice-over and she’s you know a marketeer she’s worked with the big guys as a marketer so it just was a marriage made in in wonderful entrepreneurial heaven so it’s castvoices.com it’s really easy to sign up for you just go there you choose talent as the role that you want to sign up for you can create your free account uh the most amount of time that you’ll spend is bragging on yourself when you’re filling out the the you know the uh the professional experience areas and they give you as i mentioned all kinds of opportunities to not only highlight your audio work and they get which categories you’re working in like you see things in those drop-down menus that you don’t see on the sites that were created by dot-com entrepreneurs who wanted an exit strategy you know you’re you’re seeing things that make sense because liz’s experience is representing talent and being part of our ecosystem for decades and and you know being 28 as she is you know it’s amazing how she pushed all that into that little time period so so uh it’s 150 bucks a year if people want a paid account but you can create a free account immediately it gives you one demo and so what i found myself doing was trying to put myself in the position of somebody who wanted to see what the platform would be like and had been burned before so didn’t want to commit just yet how would i make the choice of which demo to put up because you know if i if i blow it on you know say a a historical novel audio book demo then i can’t show them what i can do with commercials i can’t show them what i can do with animation and so um i’m wondering if you are open to adjusting some of these numbers a little bit to give people a little bit more um opportunity to show what they can do probably not you know we thought i mean we’ve just launched and giving somebody a full resume you know you can put your links in there you can get around there and one demo for free i think it’s pretty fair you know and because because you’re fully engaged on the platform you know if you match you get invited you know so there’s there’s no pecking order that says oh well these paid accounts are going to get precedence over you on any kind of you know casting out so that’s an interesting point you’re not gonna be coming back in the search results any higher if you have a paid account versus a free account is that what you’re saying yeah and the reality is is that there’s it’s not search results it’s you get invited it’s just you know they’re not that casting director when they do a platform match they’re not going out there and getting a whole bevy and saying oh i want to listen to these you’re going to get an invite and they might say i only want a hundred files and first hundred people that send in their audition are the first hundred that they get to listen to so that kind of falls in the pattern that that voice one two three uses where they have a time limit and a and uh i’m just i’m just kind of trying to figure out i’m trying to put myself back in those planning meetings that you had with nick where you said okay here’s what we’re going to do to serve the the tribe and here’s what we’re going to do to make money and it’s always that balance and you have to have that balance i mean i feel like when people go why don’t you just give us everything why are you why are you trying to make money they don’t understand the basics of business because if liz can’t survive then cast voices goes away and so yeah and and the reality is is there was a lot of money spent getting here it didn’t just you know you know a lot of money spent and you know while you know it’s it’s equity in the company there’s a huge obligation to me to make that right but uh no i told you we’re our goal is to provide service to the talent so you know if if casting is really primarily the only service you want you want just a little bit of presence and you want to match whenever they’re looking for whatever specs you’re can put on i’ll power to you man you know um we hope that that the other features will entice you for a year you know to try you know what’s equivalent of a cup of coffee a month or two or three depending if you go standard or pro but whatever you know i mean like one of the things on pro that is freaking awesome is that a casting director can give you direct feedback they don’t have to check you know they can say hey i thought you sucked or they can say hey you’re fabulous you know and you get that so i don’t know it’s just um it’s it’s it’s a service to the talent if we can provide a service to the talent that makes us really really happy and yeah so making a talent-centric service like this uh making it talent-centric is awesome and so the three entities that are served by cast voices is the talent so you have a talent database that you’re building then an agent database as well where agents can tell their talent come on board they can come on board there’s a fee for them to be part of the service and then there’s the people that create projects that really is you know as i looked at others that have created these kinds of services that always seems to be the big hole in that you know nobody comes and creates projects in fact in some cases when you look at for example iactor on the sag after site the reason that never took off is that no one could create projects there it was just like basically a profile service so your draw of those three entities to work together looks perfect and for 150 bucks a year which is the year price for the first paid level uh that’s you know a third of what your your uh some of your uh competitors are charging for less service and for a little bit harder to use service i mean when i again when i when i went on the site and i started playing with it it was just so smooth it was like frictionless and that’s what you want to do and and i get how important that is because as people use a service like this as they use a site they’re making judgments 100 of the time from the moment they start on it and they’re like is this going to work am i going to am i going to waste my money so many people i have their hands out but to know that liz is behind this and to know that the experience that she has in the business both on camera and on mike how involved in talent representation are you these days not at all not at all no when i 100 when i sold tag at the end of 2018 i was done i would find it to be a conflict of interest especially i mean potentially i mean i have to remind people we’re running software but i think people could perhaps think i might i have zero talent representation i know i’m very familiar with how the business runs and i get asked as an agent an ex agent to speak often because i did it for 25 plus years i got it down on you know that that world doesn’t really change in terms of how talent should approach that world in my opinion um there’s always improvements but yeah so as you come away from that that level of experience uh i’m imagining you miss it a little bit but you’re also optimal what was that no i don’t you don’t miss it at all you know the i shouldn’t say that i really miss um the people you know i love the guys i worked with i loved being able to hang out at events with you know like-minded individuals and i’m you know that was you know really wonderful um i loved helping talent i’m pretty good at it um you know with things i think they need to do but i’m so technically oriented honestly at the end of the day and being a hermit in my little house yeah delightful i uh so what’s your what’s your your your process these days when you come across somebody who’s really good but is unrepresented do you give them advice do you pass them on as a referral what do how do you do i mean i i can’t imagine you saying oh i used to do that i don’t i don’t do that well people ask me to i just they people private message me all the time say what do you think and i answer them this is what i think yeah you know that’s that’s what i do um on occasion i have uh they’ve wanted to reach out to someone and i’m like um can i tell them you like my stuff sure you know because i did um but i i don’t take compensation for that i don’t advertise that i’ll do that you know it’s i just think people want validation that their work is yummy and that’s you know and i’m pretty much a straight shooter on that i i don’t i don’t i mean i pretty much am i’ll tell you what i think now what i think and what anybody else thinks are two different things you can take my advice or not it’s not it’s not incumbent upon me to do that with you but usually the biggest question i get is um how to get into vo you know i have a great voice i’ve been told i have a great voice what do you think you know how do i get into vo and uh i used to try to answer and then bridgette reel i don’t know if you know bridget she’s this great gal and she i don’t know several months back did this uh incredible write-up of that and so i kind of send them to her now um you know anyway that’s kind of the reason i mean i’ll answer anybody huh yeah we have a we have a getting started course in vo heroes that basically gives away all of our best stuff because i got this

i’m just saying you know having that kind of resource uh i wrote it with the intention of scaring the crap out of people i wrote it with the intention of saying if anybody’s telling you you can make uh millions of dollars a year from home in your underwear doing voice over please run leave skid marks get away from that person you know there’s one that just popped up recently that is like buying facebook ads all over the place and the posting in all these groups joining all these voiceover groups and posting and i’m like that’s what’s giving our business a bad name and so well as you look go ahead well i would say that’s what gives the business of joining your business a bad name because let’s think about it now not to be contradictory but i’m good at it um you know what i mean your business you getting hired you all that all that stuff is not going to change because that’s based on your effort as that guy the community and how it gets saturated and how it can have an effect because if it’s saturated somebody’s going to the wrong place to go find talent and everybody thinks they can be a talent you know that’s kind of a separate entity um which does roll over into your work um yeah but it’s not going to stop you know voiceover is a booming industry it is right um one of the very few silver linings of this past year and a half everything got redone and everything was talking to you from home and everybody was learning from home everybody was zooming from home chatting from her the voiceover community in terms of how opportunities just went haywire and it’s going to continue that way because now that we’re going back to to real world all that information has to be redone again and it’s a lot in video i remember when yeah i remember when it first started uh people were like how are you doing are you okay and i’m like i’ve been sheltering in place since the mid-90s this is like nothing new for me you know and i think a lot of voice talent felt that as well like oh this is kind of cool we have an opportunity i was on the the sag after a safety committee for voiceover and a lot of what was being proposed by people that were in the union but not necessarily doing voice over sort of uh trending over from covid restrictions from on camera it’s like yeah we got that we’re we’re good we we we’re we’re doing it um what would a home run look like for you with cast voices if it in five years what would that scenario look like a beach in maui no um a home run for me would be that it is running itself and i mean that in a way that the reputation is solid the ethics are solid the uh website does what it’s supposed to do and i’m not out there trying to bring people to platform instead i get to spend my time improving platform that that would be golden to me you know um but we’re you know we’re growing like i said earlier we’re gonna here pretty quick as soon as we get make sure this is humming not me but well part of me our team is gonna take some of our effort to go pitch for our next you know our actual really first series of funding and it’s big but we our numbers are impressive so i feel like we will uh certainly make a case but you know short term that’s pressure and you know getting casting to use it is huge pressure right now and i mean that is that is my where i’m at so um so you’ve been you’ve been up and running for like hours you’ve been up and running for a couple of days and uh it was kind of quiet i i noticed a post on facebook it’s like cast voices up and running yay as opposed to a big huge you know launch with with all kinds of events and things like that and i’m wondering i’m sure you and nick and the team have thought about what kind of first impression you want to make on the user when they land at cashvoices.com what is the first impression you hope they come away with well right now my intent for not doing a big splash is it’s a brand new huge piece software platform and i want it eased into and i think that is absolutely reasonable and i know man we’ve had a couple of people that are like where are my projects where my projects and i’m like i’m easing into it i don’t get a second first impression with casting i know casting directors we’re offering incentives financial incentives for casting directors to post paid projects paid fairly projects you know we’re out there because why why would i do that because i’m using their time to learn my system and if i’m going to use their time to learn my system their time is worth something just like your time is worth something and my time is worth something you know i don’t see it as anything else other than hey i know it’s going to be a new thing and we may pick up here and there but thank you and here’s here’s some money for your time anyway um what do i want people to land once we get through and i’m really ready to splash of everywhere um i wanted i’m really what i’m really interested in is what you want their first impression to be when they see the cast voices logo when they see uh join our you know create a free account um like what is that feeling that you want them to have when they first open your site because you go to other sites what’s that come on in we ain’t scary okay great because when you go to other sites you’re you’re kind of overwhelmed by how much information is on the page that your your page is very direct you have one job to do and that’s create a free account which is awesome um clearly you have uh had so like i don’t think voice talent realizes what kind of experience ui ux designers have what kind of experience tech people have i mean you know i have rehearsal pro and i have audio cupcake and i have our websites and i’m not sure if we had coincidental experience i used to work at america online i used to work at google and it feels like you either consulted with or already had the experience to know to just give that visitor that first-time visitor one thing to do as opposed to throwing everything at them at once right so is that part of your planning well inadvertently but yes you know because here’s the thing i loathe going any place on the internet and being sold and sold and sold and sold and sold and if you get any email from us i we don’t sell and sell and sell and sell you we just don’t that’s a pet peeve of mine but in terms of our landing page we worked with a brilliant team at code particle and that’s a software house we hired to help us and uh their ux ui guy was just brilliant and you know we knew we wanted those particular entities we knew we didn’t want any ad space there um right now you can’t go see who all’s on it that’s by design it’s an invite-only casting site it’s not anything else other than that right now um you know so it is uh i just i just really don’t like being told look how yummy i am in such a way that you’ll want to buy me i don’t know it’s just that sounds wrong because of voice talent you do you want to say hey look how cool i am you know i’ve got you want to work with me you know and there’s a difference between there’s a difference between uh how a talent looks at things and how you as a purveyor of service to things in serving that talent and i think you’ve dialed it in just perfectly and i gotta tell you i’m really i’m really excited about this i am also at the same time on behalf of my students and clients concerned about any new entry into this space but only because some people have come and gone in the last few years since the tsunami i love that you call it the tsunami i’m going to call it from it’s all yours and and you know people have this sort of like dip their toe in the water kind of thing because everybody else has asked for money too and i think that when i heard you say our impetus right now our whole goal right now is to show our value to people who are creating projects that’s going to be that’s going to be the litmus test is can you attract people that will create projects to serve the agents and talent that are signing up for the service now and so i sure hope so you know i’ve worked with most of them one way or another because through the talent agency um we uh i sure hope so you know i i being if you’ve cast projects typically you run that stuff on your machine now there’s dropbox so sometimes you can run it through drops box but it’s still this really third party thing and we’re hoping that aside from all that you have a history you have all the auditions that ever came to everything that ever was there it’s archived forever you can go see what your specs were it eventually will have a collaboration room where you can invite people that aren’t on platform they’re your your buyer your client or whatever to listen through you can sort you know we’re going to give them a really yummy work space um i mean it’s a yummy workspace now it’s pretty you know we may rearrange a little bit that’s one of the areas my ux ui it feels a little off to me but you know so far no complaints um but we’ll see you love the word yummy you are you are a lover of the word yummy have i said it a bunch i love it i love it no it’s one of my favorite words um what advice would you give to somebody showing up at cast voices as a talent what advice would you give to them not to avoid not to ignore when filling out their profile and conversely what mistakes would you like to see them not make i see people overwriting their descriptions all the time throwing the kitchen sink at people um i see people putting up stuff you know from when they were in uh you know fantastics in high school you know i see i see a lot of things happening what what do you think is the best practices when people are filling out their profiles on cast voices and what should they avoid as well okay as a user i say put your entire resume back to the beginning of time just don’t show it you know but why because it’s a nice place to have your world archived that’s online so just to just to clarify you have the option to put this information up and then there’s a little eye icon that you can click or unclick to publicly show that item in your profile on the site so when you’re putting your stuff up what i’m not speaking for you but what i’m hearing liz say is put it all up but then choose which things to show and not show and maybe down the line you might want to change that a little bit and show some things that you weren’t showing before and hide some things that you were is that what i’m hearing yes and the reason i say this is that eventually uh one of our tools we’re building in is a reminder tool so um right now uh i believe it’s in place for things but through cast voices but it eventually will be part of the tool system for upgraded of course but where uh if you have a buy that runs through december 2022 you may or may not remember to hey give me a release or a rebuy as i get 45 days out of 2022 but our system will prompt you and say hey you got a rebuy and eventually that will filter through all resume entries so why not have all that on there i want people i want people not to miss what just happened what just happened was liz displayed that she has worked in the professional world of high paid union ongoing residual based voice over and that is so different from the other jamocks that have come along to create sites like this she just used the words buy and re-up and reminder and buy out and all of these things that you don’t hear from people who are looking to create a site like this to get a great exit strategy and make some money you’re hearing this from somebody who has been on the phone with casting directors producers agencies brands talent and knows that the workflow is different than what you see on voice 123 or when you see on voices.com it had there’s this whole bolus of experience in the world of professional voiceover that has a different language and liz just used it and you’ve got to understand that’s a big big big friggin deal i just want to make sure people didn’t miss that because you know you kind of just like said well you know you got this and we’re going to do this reminder thing and it was very calm and you have your lovely southern accent gone and you’re nice and cool about it but the truth of the matter is there was a lot of potency in there that makes a difference to people like me who have been in the business for a lot longer than i like to admit and so i was always looking for that in all of the other people that created sites like this and i saw that in the project development area the project management area i saw the words buys and rebuys and you know expirations and and you know it just it makes all the difference in the world and i want people to make sure that that doesn’t fly right by so there you go well thank you i’m again you you i’m humbled thank you it’s uh uh thank you um yeah we uh but that’s the only way like i was telling at the very beginning how else do you standardize and make sure things are put in so as to avoid confusion or misunderstanding you know and we need that data because we’re also working with the gvaa in a later release whereby we validate rates we prompt casting to say hey hey you want to pay 200 standards kind of 450. if you go to 450 i promise you you’re going to get a whole lot more skilled talent playing you know so we have saying this to project developers project managers yes project managers right yeah yes because i work with developers too that’s just want to make sure where your question is right yeah yeah and and i think that also that plays into what talent think about how they price their own services um i didn’t see anywhere on the site where you have talent setting their own prices and there’s i’m sure there’s a reason for that and i’m thrilled that there is because that doesn’t open up the door for talent to compete with each other and race to the bottom well and yes but what we are doing on our upgraded one and it’s it’s in a future release man we have a lot of features for an mvp again minimal viable product but we have we have what we call the tv full of stuff that just requires us to be up and running and you know generating revenue and stuff like that because it’s expensive to develop but that said uh we have a rate generator that will also use the same guide as a basis so you can put in your specs if you’re i mean you’re going to be upgraded it’s a pro feature but you can put in what your specs are and it’ll tell you what you ought to be charging you know so um again that’s a feature and because i you were asking earlier if i get asked questions and i get asked great questions all the time and i don’t mind man because i know what event i know pretty much i’m sure they’re going to change me sooner than later but pretty much what a rate should be but again i’m going to give kudos to gva because when i was an agent they would call me and say hey what rates do you think are fair and i know that they were calling lots of agents and i’m like oh man you know you’re really trying to give this the attention it deserves so i’m i’m real proud to be working with that organization yeah that’s great well liz i i so appreciate the time that you’ve spent with us today and i hope that people uh pop over to castvoices.com right now open open a profile watch the growth of the site you’re not going to see any projects right now but they just opened as we record this yesterday so it’s it’s only been and i so appreciate you i’m sure people have been asking to have you on events like this and i i so appreciate you giving me a little bit of your time and and yeah uh so again cast voices c-a-s-t-v-o-i-c-e-s dot com cast voices dot com go create your profile we’re going to be building cast voices.com into our uh mastering vo casting sites course we’ll do that over the next month uh we’ll also be linking to whatever pricing you end up doing in our pricing class uh we’ll support you any way we can liz oh yeah thank you so much thank you sure i’m just honored and grateful thank you and if people have questions uh how can they get in touch with you is it is it your the email address that you gave me or would you rather they go through the site or what are you looking for if you have questions feel free to reach out and pm me on facebook people that’s a really good way um because right now my work uh email really needs to be very focused um and uh there’s another question in there what was the other thing you said how do they reach through the website oh if you have a website question yes thank you please hit sos castvoices.com you know we’ve got charlie she is delightful and we’re on those questions so great great all right so let’s let’s all gather around in a circle and send great vibes to liz and her team and let’s support her team and and see uh if we can’t fix what’s ailing the voiceover business these days there’s a lot that’s really good about it there’s a lot that’s really great about it and there are some great big holes that i think cast voices.com is trying to fill so let’s give her support thank you liz i appreciate it you are so awesome thank you.