0073: Sarah Beth Goer: Be The Kind of Performer/Entrepreneur She’s Become

Raw transcript:

every so often a student or a client
comes along
who embraces wholeheartedly
what i have to offer and
nobody exemplifies this more than our
guest today
and that’s sarah beth goer who has
driven down that entrepreneurial
uh pathway with with uh with gleeful
abandon we’re gonna talk to her about
her journey where she started where
she’s going and how you can take
advantage of what she’s learned
in this episode of the vo heroes podcast
[Music]
sarah beth goer everybody uh it is it is
always so nice to see you not
for any other reason then you’re awesome
but also because
you insist on having a world-class
installation
of the mic sock i know
it’s just so awesome that’s the original
red
mike sock from the vo to go go days you
were a vo to go go pro what year 2015 is
that right 2015. that’s right
and since then one of the things that
i’ve been really excited for you for and
uh or excited for you for yes uh and
also really uh i admire about your
journey is that you have embraced
the notion that we as performers
are freelancers we’re entrepreneurs
we’re walking around with our little
suitcase full of stuff that we offer
people to help them with their projects
and not only that it’s not just the work
for hire thing that most performers do
but you’ve taken it one step further and
i think the first time that i recognized
that you were doing that is i had just
heard about gumroad and had mentioned it
in uh one of the live classes that we
taught back then
and you just like made a beeline for it
tell tell me about
why
entrepreneurship is
i guess it comes easy for you or it’s
something that you like
why
when some people
uh
push back on it and say no no i’m an
artist
i’m not a salesperson
why do you embrace that
well i didn’t embrace it consciously i
thought that i i was similar to many
artists who were like oh i don’t have to
deal with the business end i just want
to be an artist but
i was in la things weren’t happening for
me the way i wanted them to happen and
like what am i going to do twiddle my
thumbs or take on things that at the
time i thought i didn’t want to do so i
produced my first film and i tried out
you know
in your class when you mentioned like oh
you could sell audio directly from your
site i was like
heck why not give it a shot right um
because i was desperate that’s how i
began right
but as i continued i and
just to back up i think that
you’re a wonderful teacher in that
regard because you are a true artist and
entrepreneur and you’re really able to
communicate
technical skills entrepreneurial skills
and you know the performance skills and
so
you know studying with you was part of
me go like what i mean even just how you
set up vo to go go i could look at that
and go oh that was smart that was
interesting huh that’s entrepreneurial
that’s david with an income stream in
addition to his voiceover work
interesting right so you were a model
for me
um and as i started this thing that i
was like kicking and screaming and
didn’t want to do
i learned a couple things one is that
i’m so much i actually
prefer it and a big part of why i was
kicking and screaming is because i
didn’t really know
what it entailed
and that was scary to be like i don’t
know what i’m doing
how do i figure it out
but when i leapt into the mess and was
just like well i guess i gotta figure it
out somehow and i started to figure it
out i learned two things one is it is
not as scary or complicated as i thought
it was and it’s okay to learn as you go
right like sometimes if you’re if you’re
reading sources about entrepreneurialism
there’s all these like buzz terms and
and the people you’re listening to seem
like they have every eye dotted and t
cross and what i learned is like
part of that is just the ego of using
fancy language and it’s not as scary and
complicated as some people are making it
seem like it is
and part of it is just it’s okay to
learn as you go like like that’s
actually the best way to learn you know
it reminds me of um there are filmmakers
who talk about how
uh
they
purposely they don’t actually like some
filmmakers find film school to be a
great fit for them but other filmmakers
go this is a waste of time because i’m
gonna learn to make movies by making
movies and i think it’s similar in
entrepreneurialism you know if you spend
all that time stressing and trying to do
it right you’re gonna miss out on the
learning path of just jump in make a
mess make mistakes clean up the mistakes
you won’t die
um
it’ll be and and that’s that’s a part of
the skill set too is just you know maybe
for some people
they don’t mind if they make mistakes
and that isn’t hard for them that wasn’t
true for me for me i freaked out if i
accidentally made a mistake especially
if it cost me money and it was so scary
and so that was part of the journey too
is
okay well could i get better at making
mistakes and just like cleaning them up
and problem solving and by choosing to
walk that path i’ve become a more
empowered confident person and now weird
like problems that i never predicted
will come up and i’ll be like well
i have dealt with weird problems before
not this weird problem but i’ve dealt
with weird problems so i’m a capable
person so i’ll get this one figured out
too
um
so that’s one thing that i figured out
is like oh it’s not as scary it’s okay
just learn just fall on your face and
get back up again and then you’ll have
all these skills that other people will
look at you and go how do you do that
and you’re like by falling on my face 30
times like just just go um and then the
other thing i learned is that i actually
love entrepreneurialism which i had no
idea about myself but i love
that i have so much control over my own
destiny i have control over if i want to
make more money i can brainstorm how to
get to make more money if i want to get
to do a more creatively fulfilling
project i get to brainstorm how to do a
more creatively fulfilling project so i
like
being the leader i have a vision and i
have strong perspectives about what i
want to do and why i want to do it and
as an entrepreneur
i’m the one in charge
i remember one of the first projects
that you attempted was cinderella yeah
that’s what i did the gumroad project on
yes yeah because the movie the live
action movie was coming out and it was
kind of like parallel to what i did with
war of the worlds
and
i think it’s really interesting you said
it’s okay to learn as you go i would
counter with it’s impossible not
right learn as you go and make mistakes
and all that and what i love is that
you’ve embraced this so it sounds like
you started with little sort of
exploratory things
and recently a union which shall go
unnamed i was in a meeting and your name
came up and your company came up your
new company so what do you have in the
pipeline that is uh
is awesome and we won’t talk about
uh you know any of the things that are
still being negotiated and all that but
i just wanted to kind of give people a
clue
as to where your journey has been you
made a movie you did you did all kinds
of things what are you doing now
oh goodness well um
just to
sort of put a framing on it that maybe
is of service to everyone listening like
this whole path that i’m about to
describe
all began i wanted to be an actress and
i was in la trying to get to
act for a living
and what i learned is
hey
notice what doors are open and walk
through them and then discover what
other doors are open and walk through
those and so that’s
why i even
learned about audiobook narration is
because that’s the door that was open
you know i was driving around la
um you know working at my tutoring
business at the time trying to you know
make it in film and television and i
would listen to
the inside actors podcast and your ads
would come on and eventually i was like
well listen he has a free course in
voiceover why don’t i just go learn and
then when i took your free course you
mentioned audiobooks and i was like oh
how intriguing so then i took your
audiobook courses and i was like wow
this is so interesting right and so
these are not like doors i could have
foreseen when i began at the beginning
saying i want to act for a living but as
i kept walking through the doors not
only did i get to find how i get to act
for a living but i also
got to find um
that wow these doors are actually
opening for me because they’re the best
suited for my personality and who i am
like it’s even better than i thought it
would be
um and so
the way and so now i have a producing
business where you know in addition to
narrating projects that i’m working on i
also hire other narrators to
um
record books for authors
and i have just started a publishing
company
and i’ll be publishing my first title in
august and i’m also writing my own first
book that i will be publishing under my
publishing company’s
label
and all of those pathways just were like
walking through the next door you know
like i became a producer because i was
working with indie authors to narrate
and then i was meeting other indie
authors but i wasn’t right for their
books or they needed multiple narrators
on the book and so just by you know
communicating in the community i was
already in it just made natural sense to
also
produce and then as i started producing
more and therefore i was interacting
even more directly with authors i was
like oh you know who’s really making the
money
authors because they have the property
and they own it and um i also got really
fascinated about like how they were
doing it like how they’re running their
businesses and why they were making more
money often
most of the time than they would if they
were traditionally published and so i
like delved deep into that world and um
started my own publishing company
did that answer the question i feel like
that’s that’s what i’m up to right now
yeah i actually did and uh you know i i
you know very much the ivy league method
thing i just like to note that i wrote
down uh notice what doors are open
and then walk through them yes that i
think is something that you do very very
well you’re an og in our community uh
you’re a vo to go go pro
before we rebranded to vo heroes and
what i love is that you’ve been walking
the walk
ever since it’s now eight almost eight
years seven or eight years
and um
i just hope that
uh for you who
are listening or watching that you look
at sarah and you go
the possibilities are there if you’re
open to accepting them
and
you’re not going to know everything all
at once
you’re just not
and it pays to install your mic sock
beautifully
listen to how good she sounds everybody
listen sarah thank you so much i want to
circle back in uh august you said was
when your first book is going to come
out
yes the first book i’m publishing but
it’s going to be another one or two
years before i get to publish the book
i’m writing which is a book about
self-esteem for actors and i’d love this
is your this is when you’re narrating
for somebody else
no it’s when i’m publishing i know the
one that’s coming out in august the one
that’s coming out in august i am
publishing but i’m not the author got it
okay great so uh listen where can people
find you if they want to you know hit
you up and and and say hey i want to do
what you’re doing
i’m at sarahbethgoer.com
that’s s-a-r-a-h
beth like the name beth goer g-o-e-r
and by the way you can watch my feature
film there for free so if you want to
see my feature film that would be great
because it was made with all the love in
my heart and i’d like to share it
i love it sarah beth goer with an h uh i
so appreciate you uh sharing your time
with us and uh we will come back and
find out what’s going on with you and
we’ll watch your journey as well um i
want to thank you guys if you have
questions about this sort of thing
please pop them in the comments below
and by pop them in the comments below i
mean on voheros.com where this podcast
lives where the conversation is nice and
sane
and uh you know uh respectful as opposed
to most of social media um and uh if you
think that another actor might benefit
from this might like to hear what sarah
has to say please forward the link uh
subscribe and really crush the like
button in honor of sarah’s h
and we will talk to you soon i’m david h
lawrence the 17th i thank you so much
for watching and for listening this
episode of the vo heroes podcast
[Music]

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